Every area of your life as a couple will probably have a potential for conflict and disagreement and Angst and give-and-take you said flourish.
I was thinking growth.
I think our relationship grew during Yeah, for sure that during that time as we were kind of reinventing ourself because for 18 years We had been this I said it so clearly how could they not how could they misinterpret that?
Welcome to Penned in Ink a podcast where we discuss marriage and long-lasting love Today, we are gonna talk about navigating young love We're gonna go back 30 plus years into our relationship and Dig up some memories about early conflict and how we work to resolve and learn and grow in our communication skills and all sorts of things related to young love So how you doing today great?
I'm excited.
We have a packed packed packed episode So we probably shouldn't spend too much time at all gabbing at the front because we got a lot to cover today We do today.
We're gonna cover basically three things.
We're gonna talk about early conflict How did we learn to deal with conflicts and disagreements because let's be honest all relationships have those areas where you're gonna have conflict We're gonna talk about how our communication skills have changed over the years.
We're gonna do something.
I think it's kind of cool We're gonna look at how do we communicate in our 20s 30s 40s?
It's not better for these And then we're gonna give you guys a little look into some common mistakes that people make in Relationships that we absolutely have made in ours and we bet money you're making in yours All right, that sound good.
Sounds great Okay, when we were planning this episode, one of the first things we did is we just brainstormed on What are all the areas where you have conflict in your life?
Now if you harken back Melissa is a mental health therapist you work with lots of people in their relationships So you have a lot of experience on this?
So we dug up and we created a list of a whole bunch of things Then we wanted to go ahead and pressure test that a little bit So we went and we did all the typical things you do we went and did an internet search We did some AI research.
We went on social media as we talked to some friends and family and Sure enough The list we came up with was a pretty darn solid list of things that go wrong in areas of conflict So we distilled that down into ten areas that we think you are gonna encounter in your relationship now We're not gonna talk about all ten of those today as you'll see here in a second Those ten cover a lot of things in life and to dig into each of those Would be an episode probably each of those topics and we'll probably do that down the road But to give you guys an overview We wanted to show you the ten areas and then we're gonna spend some time digging down into a few of those areas I'm good.
Perfect.
All right.
So this is just really quick here.
This is not All comprehensive dig into these things and we actually are gonna put these on screen for those of you guys who are watching on video These are the ten areas that we thought would be would focus on We'll give you a list of these on screen, but we'll also put it in the show notes We create a PDF for you guys to download if you like old-school paper or heck you can load that on your phone But I'm gonna hit the first five really quick and I'm gonna let Melissa hit the next five and then we'll Tell you which ones we're gonna dig into a little more today Areas we came up with and these are not in any order.
This is not a top-ten list or anything These are just ten areas first was communication styles and emotional expression How do you learn how to read body language and those sort of things with your partner?
What is your communication style?
Do you like to adjust things head-on or do you need time to pause?
Think about second one was conflict resolution.
Do you like to confront it?
Do you like to avoid it?
Do you like to compromise?
Do you have to have your way?
How do you come to agreement finances and spending?
I'm not gonna dig into this at all because we will do multiple episodes on this.
This is a huge topic It's a huge pain point and friction area for relationships time management and prioritization.
How do you allocate your time?
Do you work a lot?
Do you spend time with friends?
Do you spend time quality time with your spouse or your your significant other where you spend your time is really important And if it's unbalanced uneven that can lead to conflict and the last one I'm going to talk about here real quick is just career Goals and ambition.
We've already had an episode we talked about dual careers Sometimes you are wildly unbalanced in your development of your career Sometimes you have different ambitions one partner might be gung-ho and ready to attack careers The others might be in a family growing mode.
So those are areas of conflict.
So that's the first five.
That was a lot It was all that Melissa hit the next five on the list.
Okay, the next five family boundaries and in law Involvement.
What are the parental expectations or is your family trying to tell you how to raise your kids or when to buy a home or What job you should have values and long-term life goals beliefs about what your beliefs are about marriage having kids and sometimes people get together and they just assume that Their significant other will come around I put that in quotes To their way of thinking the next one is lifestyle and living habits can be area of conflict What are your sleep schedules is one person a night owl and the other ones a morning person?
And then we have emotional labor and relationship maintenance And this is where does one partner feel like they are carrying the weight doing all the work to make the relationship work and finally to round out the top 10 is boundaries around technology and privacy access to each other's phones Differing expectations about that access like should I have your passwords and should I be able to at any time say?
Hey, will you text him?
So I think we just described a life in general like every area of your life as a couple Will probably have a potential for conflict and disagreement and angst and give-and-take Yeah, so can't possibly talk about all of those topics today Nor nor should we if we think back what our focus for today is young love?
Let's talk about how we're going to find young love for today's sake young love does not necessarily mean you're in your 20s And you're in love and all blissful.
It can mean early days of relationships young love Compared to ours, which is a little bit more mature than that.
We've been doing this really.
Yeah, I didn't go old love.
That's rude What are areas what are some of those core areas that are relevant when you're early on in life so we're gonna pick three of these today, and we're gonna dig a little deeper and give you some examples of things you might be dealing with examples of when we dealt with some of these things and yeah, maybe you're still dealing with some of these things cuz Old love as you put it still has these same areas of potential conflict So the first one we really want to dig into is communication styles and misinterpretations If you harken back to the episode, we talked about your profession mental health therapist.
We dug a lot into Conflicts around communication and miscommunication.
So let's just talk a little bit about that But let's put this on the lens of when we were going through this 30 years ago So what did communication in our early days look like?
well Like today there is the face-to-face when you're with somebody you talk but we didn't there was no texting there Phones were on a cord.
You had to be at home to talk on the phone And so it's either you're listening to somebody via audio or you're in their presence And so I feel that leaves a little bit less room for miscommunication, but Do you really believe that I just saw the look on your face you really believe No, I do believe that it doesn't take away all of it But the stories I have heard about people texting and the way it's read into I don't know We didn't have those kind.
Yeah, so let's let's harken back a little bit.
So Face-to-face communication brings difference than then on your phone communication so some of the things you get when you are in in a room with somebody is I can catch the look on your face that You just had when you said that and and question you did you actually believe what you just said because the look on your face Gave me a signal that said you might not have been confident in what you just said.
So picking up on tonal cues. Picking up on facial expressions. Picking up on body language when you meet in person is is something. Now, were we good at it early on?
No, we weren't good at picking up each other's tones and everything So over time in a face-to-face relationship you learn those things in a modern texting digital world You might not get those tonal things right many times.
We've talked over the years about don't read tone into that email Don't read tone into that text.
Don't read too much into the one-word response.
Maybe that person is just busy at the moment Don't read too much into the fact that they didn't immediately respond the immediacy which leads to another point about Communication when we were really in our early young love phase It wasn't as quick as it is now So if we had a phone call we get off the phone call, maybe we had a little bit of a disagreement We couldn't continue that conversation again until we were in person or on the phone again So they gave us a little bit of a cooling off time To maybe reflect and think on it a little bit and we talked earlier about or in a previous episode We talked about different styles for conflict and how you want to deal with those Some people might need a beat to take a moment to collect their thoughts Well in our early days you had more time to do that now in this rapid-fire technology You might not have as much time to to collect But what's the side effect of having that extra time?
But what did it do to our feelings and and stuff, you know, I'm going with this, right?
Not exactly Well somebody in this relationship, not me Might have stewed on things bottled things up.
Okay, and then they would all come flowing out in either frustration or Anger or disappointment or whatever rather than dealing with it in real time.
Is that a fair?
yes, and in our young love I Was extremely emotional sometimes I didn't want to have those conversations because I knew I'd cry and I didn't want crying to be that I was not weak per se but that I was like overly emotional and so I kept stuff to myself and The hope that it would just kind of go away now obviously as an adult and in my training I know that does not work that it's a very rare occurrence if Things just go away on their own So yes I definitely bottled until it got to be too much or you pressured me on it and then it all came out so I think the point here around communication and misinterpretation is that Modern technology has really changed how we communicate Some for the better some for the worse the ease of communication and the rapid-fire nature is very nice But you have to be careful with it and you have to learn to respect Communication styles of your partner They might simply not have the capacity or the desire or the emotional stability to respond in real time so you have to respect that the second thing I would say is that some of the old-school mechanisms of Important conversation should be face-to-face you should be willing to take a beat even in face-to-face conversations and give yourselves time to collect and revisit a topic or Maybe things we need to harken back to and remember right because that's I mean humans weren't necessarily designed to communicate as fast as we do Now so our focus here is to look at from the that list of core areas of confidential conflict To look at what those that are relevant for young love early on in relationship So a huge one in our perspective is time management priorities life balance Now if we think back to when we were in our early dating days, this was college time.
We were super busy I was playing collegiate sports.
I was going to school.
I had work-study jobs.
I had a social circle I was in a fraternity So my time was pulled in many many different directions as was yours.
You were a student as well.
You were working You probably had friends.
I don't know.
I did have friends Not as organized as like a fraternity because I was criticizing I was just saying I don't remember what other things you were doing at That time right, right.
Yeah, I was I was hanging out with friends and writing things with them So when you enter into relationships, how do you start to balance?
The time you're spending nurturing that relationship with all the other things that are going on in your early days of relationship So most of what happens when that imbalance is wrong Yeah One of the partners could start to feel neglected or like they're not as important that they're not a priority And so it comes down to discussion discussing it again And you know what and maybe acknowledging that there are some times in our life that aren't going to be they're a bit imbalanced where You know during soccer season for instance when you were when you were playing in college I'm gonna get less your time to practice every night.
You had games you were traveling so kind of Being accepting of that and not getting upset about that It's not that I'm lower on the priority But I could see how some people would feel and I've heard do feel that you know Oh, it's always about this or this is never about me and that can cause a rift we strive for balance over the long haul but in any given moment you're probably gonna have some imbalance right and It feels like almost every one of these areas of potential conflict come back to a few easy ways to resolve them Communication being top of that list, right?
clear communication about What are your time requirements because sometimes?
It might be perceived that you don't want to be together But reality is you have these other demands that are more timely or they're more pressing or they're time-sensitive or they're Core issues I got to make my money.
I got to go to work.
I have to do schooling I can't graduate if I don't like there's some that have deadlines or timelines to them.
I couldn't necessarily Skip training.
I couldn't skip Games like that was getting paid to be an athlete.
That was part of my right my thing, but I could communicate better around Why certain things couldn't happen at certain times and the other thing I would I would say on this is that?
early in love or early in relationships, I Think it's reasonable to expect that there's more priority spent in some areas I'm still very much an individual at that point.
I have my my collegiate career.
I have my schooling I have my work you are just one piece of what was going on in my life But as we got more and more serious you became a larger piece of what was going on in my life So I had to deprioritize some of the other things.
Is that a fair statement of young love as it progresses?
Yeah, definitely and it makes sense if you think about it It does here, but I don't know that it does here for some people right they want if you're in early infatuation You might want more time than a person can give you and and if you read too much into that as being Well, they just don't want to spend time with me.
They're prioritizing other things It does speak to different levels of commitment and you got to use that to assess Where are you in your relationship?
But I think some people run too hot too quick and others are probably a slow burn that takes too long, right?
So like finding that balance right and I think we had a little bit of that I mean We definitely tested boundaries and stuff more so than me than you in college of like no I need more personal time and more space and whatever whereas I think you were much Much closer to being set to be serious than I was I took a little bit longer to sort of do more of that social and partying and and Disconnected time then you did that a fair statement yeah, and I think I did feel the things that we were talking about earlier, which is I didn't feel as a priority and you know how much time should I spend on somebody that doesn't make me a priority and Thinking through that and I think that's pretty common in a relationship Well, and I think that's the there comes a time in every relationship where you're gonna have those pressure tests, right?
And I think a natural arc and I was reading something the other day That was that was this like five phases that all relationships go through and I know it's ironic We're giving a top ten or a time ten list and I was like, I don't really believe in these five phases But the psychologist sitting next to me or the therapist sitting next to me go Oh, yeah, there's definitely five phases or three phases or whatever But one of those was you're inevitably gonna go through a point where your relationship gets pressure tested And and you have to figure out is this the time to lean in and really make something of this or is this a time?
to step away and sometimes You temporarily step away, which clearly happened with us.
We stepped away for a little while and it gave me the space I needed to realize.
Oh, no, wait a minute when these things are out of my life My priorities are really all messed up and it doesn't work and I think that helped me come back to be much more Prioritizing this in my relationship.
So that sort of was it absence makes the heart grow fonder Yeah, but you're right.
You don't know sometimes you don't know what you're missing till it's gone kind of thing and I think that's what happened and It at the time.
I wasn't appreciative of you taking that time.
But then when we did get back together It it felt right and I knew okay He's making this choice because he gave us some thought and he's back So yay, and so hindsight was that was good for us.
Yeah, exactly So I guess I think that's a pretty good exploration of that we'll probably dig into in a future episode more details around that because there's lots of stories around how that happened and Some I might not want to share but I guess that's the part of transparency and authenticity is we'll share some of those stories, right?
I probably don't look too good in many of those stories.
So we'll see how it goes I'm gonna try to paint them all against you somehow, but probably won't work Well, I can honestly say you've redeemed yourself since then.
I mean, I got 30 plus years Yeah You know what?
Some people keep making the same mistakes over and over again fair enough people stay in relationships because It's easier to do.
So even if it's a hard relationship, you know, alright Let's hit one more and then we'll move on to our next segment So the last one we want to hit emotional labor and unequal effort This comes down to who is quote-unquote doing more in the relationship So does one of you make all the plans remember all the important details?
Start all the and again air quote city today deep conversations, whatever the heck that means 30 years ago Well, let's talk about how was that viewed 30 years ago who was responsible for that?
And and how did that work?
Women.
Women were the feelers.
That's gonna get me in trouble.
I shouldn't say stuff like that.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's just a little bit of your personality.
It's a joke -- the part of your personality that is very humorous. So, women, women were the feelers were the ones that were supposed to if there was anything going on. They were supposed to broach the topic.
They were supposed to bring it up.
Give me some examples of in a relationship Okay again early relationship, but as it progresses and becomes not so early What are the things that you're talking about that they would take that?
Historically the female in the relationship would take ownership of yeah That's a good.
That's a good question Oftentimes the first one to say they love the other I Think that's I've said it once.
Why do I need to say it again?
There's always been oh, we'll have to tell that story later about where we heard that and how that has become a part of because it's a little laughing part of our but it's also unique and I'll tell you why at when we discuss that that I find that's That's very unique So what was the question again?
It was it was what are some examples that women historically have taken the lead on in relationships?
I mean I can pop through some of them if you want me to It's you know taking like you said remembering the dates.
So like what's what's our wedding anniversary date Michael?
I hate this question Right.
I I know it It's in June and I always and I only reason I know this is because we had this conversation recently I always want to say June 20th.
I have no idea why but it is stuck in my head and that's wrong It's June 21st.
Thank you.
July.
Oh, July.
Dang it.
I even said the wrong month this time Dang it.
I was so focused on I know it's 21.
I'm 22.
I missed the month Remembering that remembering family birthdays and oh, hey Michael, it's your dad's birthday next week.
Oh do you want me to get him a gift and kind of taking the The things that I don't want to say they're not important they are important but in a different way than getting the bills paid or Going along or right and I think it expands beyond that.
It's also the Who is who is planning date night or who is saying?
Hey, we haven't connected in a while let's go hang out and do this or who is Willing to have the hard conversations or start the hard conversations Those are all the emotional things that it takes to run a relationship and 30 years ago And even we started off very early a lot of those things spelled to you maybe not the starting conversations part of it, but definitely the nurturing the couples Commitments part of it like hey, my dad's birthday is coming up or hey so and so is getting buried or any of those sort of things that I Might not have found of Immediate importance, but they're good for nurturing and being part of a community and being part of a family.
That's good.
And I think the Focus today is much more and there's a good reason for this which will maybe you won't talk to in a second If one person is carrying all that load it it becomes how does it how does it impact relationship?
Resentful I always Fill in the blank, there's so many different things, you know, and which is different from we have different Strengths and or I think we discussed in an earlier episode about how I'm allergic to grass So you do that so it's different than that That's that's we've identified that these are the things that you do and these are the things that I do and I think that's normal I like typical better than normal because what's normal but some of the other things are If it comes down to you always doing Those things you start to get resentful and want to know why do I have to do all this?
Why why can't he or why can't she take some responsibility for this or some ownership of this?
I'm the one that always does whatever that thing is initiate conversations Or I think it's safe to say that early on our relationship.
There was a big imbalance in there today It's much less of an imbalance.
I handle a lot more of the the the things these are simple examples but you know, I I deal with gift-giving and acknowledgement of birthdays and Celebrations on my family's side you chip in but you're not I don't depend on you to do that stuff.
I keep track of that stuff There's lots of other examples on there But it is one of those things where you have to evolve over time and the expectation is a lot different now than it was 30 years ago Well, I think that's that's more than a good dive into core areas So that moves us on to one of our recurring segments and this one is we refer to as Inked Moments, and this is when we take today's topic and we Want to go back in the vault into the memory banks and we want to tell a little something or story That is relevant to today's topic and just share a memory from our past So we've been a little heavy on some of these topics at this point like these have been serious core areas of disagreement So we're gonna go a little lighter.
Hopefully on this segment.
We'll see if this is actually a little lighter But we thought today we would just share thinking back 30 years just when we started living together What was a pet peeve you had about?
living together and living with the Living with your man for the first time or living with your woman for the first time So you want to share one and I say one because I know you have a ton of them Well before I start I just want to say you're pretty easy to look.
No, I'm not but go on Yeah, and you were then as well.
However, you liked to fall asleep with the TV or some or even music and I Have a lot of pep wind chimes birds chirping.
I like it to be fingers tapping Whistling just go on whistling.
Oh boy.
Anyway, so For me, I need it very quiet I need a calm soothing environment to fall asleep and that was something we discussed for a while because for a while I think you said you needed To have some type of background noise because you had always done that your whole life.
Yeah for sure and And I do remember that we had multiple discussions on that it was that trying to adjust to what you needed and what I needed and That's a hard one to compromise because that's kind of a all or nothing.
Yeah, it took a lot It took a while to adjust to that Okay, my pet peeve we have different definitions on what clean is Not clean as in like cleaning stuff but more on the sense of straightening up if you were to look at my desk In my office about at the moment because we're recording so it's got a bunch of crap on it But my desk has like four things on it It's super clean and and everything has its place and when I say hey, I'm gonna clean up something I mean, I'm gonna put everything away where it goes Your definition of cleanup stuff is I'm gonna make organized piles all over the damn place And so I had to get used to the fact that that when you say you were gonna clean or straighten something up It didn't mean it was actually gonna be put away or gone.
It just meant it was gonna be somewhat minimized and organized and Neater neater.
Yeah, exactly And so that one still runs through today if you look at our counter downstairs where the mail goes about every week It gets straightened up and I think it got straightened up a couple days ago And I still would not be at all calling that straightened up, but it's like it's fine It's but that is a pet peeve that yeah was early on and still still prevalent So we're still present some things don't have a place and you don't know what to do with them Everything has a place and if it doesn't have a place you don't need it You don't need it in your life. Let's talk about how our approach to conflict and disagreement has grown over the years how our communication styles have changed and we thought it would be fun if we did sort of a decades approach to this because Although we're talking young love our young love happened to start in our teens in our 20s and so we have this this unique perspective of being able to look back and go as a Hot-headed 20 year old or an emotional 20 year old how did we communicate then as a less hot-headed and a less emotional 30 year old, how do we communicate in our 30s as mature 40s in and and all the things were going on there and maybe having learned a little bit how do we communicate in our 40s and Dare, I say how do we communicate now in our?
early 50s Now as an aside I say early 50s just holding on to that our daughter Alexa Listened to our first episode the other day and she is 25 She will be 26 in November and her takeaway from that first episode is when we referred to having daughters in their mid-20s Then she's like What I'm in my mid 20s and she mathematically and intellectually knew it but to hear it said out loud Was something that shook her to her core which was pretty dang funny So we are very comfortably in our early 50s.
Let's talk about our 20s What did disagreements look like in our 20s?
And how did we deal with them go go?
Well as we mentioned early I I Tend to keep things close to the chest at that time and it took me a while to to share things I'm more of a stew or that was my personality at the time is that in my 20s and so Didn't share a whole lot.
Yep.
What was what was what was a main?
Think of an example of conflict or disagreement in our 20s Ah, love you girls, but the decision to have them in when I was in my last year of grad school and I was starting to get the the baby itch and I brought it up to you if I'm remembering correctly and you're like, but you're almost done and Then you're gonna start your career I thought I thought Something to that effect.
Yeah, and it was upsetting to me because I had been thinking about for a while but hadn't shared it And probably should have shared it maybe a year before that to say hey, I'm thinking when I graduate We have kids and then I start my career yeah, I think that's a great example of Miscommunication miss expectations and how do we resolve through that because in my mind You had put all this time energy and money into grad school immediately out and I think we had talked Before you started grad school about timing on some of these things Okay so in my mind Path had been laid out to us if you were gonna complete grad school Work for a little while and then we're gonna have kids and I think in your mind either That was just a point of miscommunication or something changed during your three years in grad school because that's a long time when you're in your 20s and you started having more of a desire to Have children earlier and didn't early communicate that so now as you're reaching this this what I thought was The next phase was you working for a while us being a dual income financially Building couple started to pivot to so I think that's a good example.
How'd we get through that?
Beside just saying you won We just we you know many discussions and that's the thing with a lot of these topics it's not just one and done There is it's an ongoing dialogue about Each person's needs and wants so I I worked for a year.
We just discussed it and Many times and and got to a decision Yeah, so let's look into our 30s just to keep this sort of moving through the decades.
What was going on in our 30s?
Let's see kids were in full kid raising mode, right?
So that was a that was a time of stress around you got kids and activities But we were also we had sort of made the commitment to be very aggressive with clearing up consumer debt student debt and all that sort Of stuff so we had sort of dual pressures going on at that time family life was good family life was solid kids were healthy But finances were really a pressure and the desire that every parent has which is to give their kids Experiences and that sort of stuff.
So I say in our 30s was maybe our most Decade of conflict just because we had all these different pressures on us.
We had career growth.
We had you were For most of that were stay at home, right?
It's for the later 30s that you went back into the career force mid Okay, mid 30s girls were six.
I had them.
Yeah, okay.
I was like 33.
Yeah Okay, so early to mid 30s, you started going back into work finances were a bit of a big conflict in there but I think this is when how I Dealt with some of these topics probably started to change quite a bit.
So I was less Reactive on these things and was much more I had learned more about how we were gonna resolve these conflicts and move through them.
I probably became you know, kids will either Take away all your patients or they'll make you more patient.
I think they made me more patient in many of these things For me.
I also think this was probably the period of the most stress where I would probably Not communicate stuff as much because I knew you had Strong desires to do things with the girls or to be stay at home or to do Activities and stuff that I couldn't quite relate to where I was feeling a lot of pressure of we got to get rid of this Debt or our kids are young.
They don't know anything right now.
They don't care about what we're doing our money Can we get ourselves into a position where we are financially better by the time they actually care about this stuff most kids Don't care if they're in gymnastics when they're four and five Moms and dads might care about it tremendously.
Most kids don't care about it.
They just wanted activities and fun, whatever I don't think it's a core memory for many kids that they were in gymnastics at four But we stress over those things and say can we put them in there for so I think for me that was a pretty Conflict filled decade.
I don't know what your perception of that is Yeah, I was just thinking toward the end of I think I started my private practice when I was 38 And that was that piece was definitely Stressful is starting the it was different when I worked for the agencies I didn't feel that it was as stressful, but I that played a role in In the stress that we experienced during that time, too.
We'll probably revisit some of those stories because I think that was a time when The focus of our podcast is much more our relationship but to have a long relationship where you've had and raised kids and not have Episodes to talk about parenting and how you approach those is unrealistic because that was a huge part of our our life But really particularly it consumed all of our 30s.
I mean our 30s were full-on kids and family life so we'll definitely revisit some of those areas and we'll get into some of the Real pressures we had in those times and we alluded to a couple of them But there was a lot more that sort of happened in there.
So let's jump into our 40s I always kind of knew our 40s was gonna be an awesome decade partially because we were spending so much conscious effort in our 20s and 30s to put ourselves in a good position that I knew our 40s was gonna be good and and one of those things that I knew was gonna happen in our 40s that I was super excited About was since we had our kids so early we were gonna become Younger empty nesters, which was gonna be great.
And so let's talk a little bit about our 40s.
It was exciting.
I Remember like it was yesterday the girls getting into college and the college that they wanted and it was exciting and a little bit sad, too Though for those of you that have twins they leave at the same time And if those are your only children, which they were for us, it was sad I cried for a whole weekend and then Gave them a whole 48 hours of emotion and then it was like We could do dinner when we wanted we could eat whatever we wanted didn't have to be kid friendly it could be you know and and to see them grow and change and they did great in college and watching it it just felt good and like You said we were Financially, we were in a good place.
I feel when you have fewer stressors.
There's less conflict and So that's what I remember from the past decade was less conflict, especially after the 30s being so yeah I would so so I'm gonna put a little bit of a Not a disagreement, but just a slightly different spin on there.
We define We have this default of saying disagreements and conflict is always negative and it's not always negative Sometimes disagreements are super healthy and and they help you Refine where your priorities are and stuff and I would say we had different conflict and we had different Disagreements in our 40s and they were much more positive because it was all of a sudden all the money We've been putting towards saving for college or paying down our mortgage or doing this other stuff.
Some of those dollars freed up Well how I wanted to spend them didn't always align to how you wanted to spend those dollars.
And so it's a new area of conflict as in we had different or We had varied ambitions with those things and I remember very intentionally on a few different topics specifically around money You know like blindly saying, okay.
Hey make a list of your top ten priorities right now financially I'm gonna make a list of my ten things like we got this extra thousand dollars.
What do you what would you do with it?
What would I do with it?
And then we would come back and we would sort of do very nerdy Mathematicals on that and look at and say well if we combine these scores like this is sort of what our top priority is does that make sense and those were areas of Conflict but they were positive conflicts because you're dealing with a little bit of abundance in life or conflicts around how does dinner prep change when it's just the two of us and now all of a sudden the world is your menu and We still have personal likes and dislikes and those sort of things and and just because you can't eat a different time There's someone's conditioned to eat at a certain time.
How do you shift those those eating times?
And so I think there were just different conflicts Different disagreements, but yeah, awesome Disagreements.
So yeah, the transition to empty nesters really was positive in many ways and Some of that was since we had laid the foundation on how to communicate in the what I would call the tougher times of our 30s and our 40s or 30s early 40s we were in a good position to To flourish in those things.
Yeah, you said flourish.
I was thinking growth.
I think our relationship grew during Yeah, for sure that during that time as we were kind of reinventing ourself because for 18 years We had been this and and so to I mean, obviously the girls soul came home a lot of it started They live with us for a while After that, or you know in general, I think it was a very positive growing time for our relationship Let's talk about our 50s and we're very early in our 50s.
So we only have some of us earlier.
Yeah Yeah, we only have a couple years of experience in our 50s.
But how do we sort of see?
This decade starting off and going.
Yeah, I think the focus has been a bit more on retirement talking about The finances around that, you know, how much do we want?
What what does that look like?
When do we want to retire?
Yeah, I think it's been more of a you know, what in there's the priority piece as well.
You love to travel I love to travel too.
I don't have quite the bug you do but quite a bit, you know, how much the resources as we Get older and have the ability you're set in your career you can do different things than when you're just you're trying to make it out there and Since we're so set we can take time off we can choose to do certain things.
And so I I do I feel we're more future focused I guess yeah, and I think we're in a Always get into fufu sort of sounding things, but I think we're in a very we're back again in a vision setting period We're trying to really map out.
Where do we want to see ourselves in five or ten years?
And we've always been pretty good about this.
I think in our 30s and 40s.
It was a little more survival mode.
Like life was really coming at you fast Now we're sort of in the mode of we have options.
We've done a lot of hard work.
We're in a good position what do we want it to look like and I think that comes with its own set of conflicts and what do you prioritize versus What I prioritize and what are the differences there and I'm having to deal with and learn and remind myself that We're gonna have differences and that's okay And and how do we compromise on those things and which things do we compromise and not because some of the things you value?
I just struggle with I don't see the value in them and vice versa some of the things that that that I value Just you don't have that affinity for and that's really that speaks back to that.
We are not the same person We're two individuals in a relationship.
We're gonna have differences Yeah, and it's not like your values are bad or minor, you know, right?
And I think now we're just way more clear on that sort of stuff.
Plus we've also learned back to the earlier we know when we're hitting an area of sensitivity with somebody and we're better at how to deal with that when it comes up and we know how to give each other space or Time or sometimes just to bite the bullet and go straight into it because it's time to do that So, yeah, we're getting better at that Alright, so before we get to our closing segment, we've got one more little segment We're gonna do this one is a little bit of a rapid-fire because as I mentioned this has been a heavy episode We've had lots of topics and lots of things, but we always like to give you Some things to just remind yourself remind you that you're not alone.
You're going through things that we've all gone through So in this segment, we're gonna talk about common mistakes Mistakes we've made that we would bet a lot of money that you are making as well because we all make these these same mistakes and this could be its own show and we've repeated this over and over and over again, we probably will do a mistakes show because who doesn't like to celebrate the mistakes we've made and and And live vicariously and feel like well, I've made mistakes, but man They really messed up because I think there's a little bit of that, but let's just hit through we're gonna go to four of them Okay.
So the first one is Thinking my partner understood what I was communicating Talk about that.
I said it so clearly how could they not how could they misinterpret that?
It does go back to an earlier episode of active versus reflective listening active is nodding and making eye contact Reflecting is saying so what I'm hearing you say is or it seems like you're having and it gives your partner the opportunity to correct anything or to expand on anything if you But a lot of people feel I was extremely clear that is that you know, that's they should just get it Yeah, and we already hit one of our big miscommunications that happened over multiple conversations, which was timing of kids So like it happens.
I thought I'd heard you you thought you had heard me.
We thought we were on the same page We clearly weren't and it had to to adjust.
So I think that is definitely something that We all do and struggle we have gotten much better about the reflective piece of it and clarifying and we've also gotten better with the the little tip of Don't just repeat the words like if I need you to Communicate it again to me.
You have to figure out a different way to say it You can't just repeat the same words because I understood your words, right?
I just don't understand the concept behind your words.
So try it again in a different way So if you're if you're hitting this you think you've communicated but you haven't make sure that you're really clear with it And then don't just keep saying the same thing again, because I understand your words Don't understand the meaning behind your words something.
I see all the time that I just want everybody to pause and think about that one You don't just keep saying the same thing over and over again, but if I say it louder and more aggressively Understand it.
Yeah.
No Rephrase it maybe even reframe it so that put it in a different and you might have to do that a couple times It doesn't always happen on your first rephrasing Second one thinking we define quality time the same.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely Watching TV together somebody thinks well, we're just doing that.
That's what we do over dinner We're one person might think that's quality time.
The other one might be well, we got to eat, you know That's not really setting some people feel that quality time is you're setting a date you're going out you spend the day to get through and sometimes they mistake quantity for quality So it's it's important once again to communicate about that What what is quality and if there is a difference between the partners on what they think quality time is That's where compromise comes in.
This next one is a big one for you.
So I'm gonna let you talk to this one Taking each other for granted not expressing appreciation Yeah, you know and I I will say that not everybody needs to be thanked but the vast majority Behaviorism was built on you know, BF Skinner He he based behavior on we want positive reinforcement.
It makes us repeat those behaviors more So if you never tell me thank you for making dinner I'm the cook in the family if you never said thank you maybe I wouldn't want to do it as much but without fail every single night you tell me thank you for dinner and To this day, even though you do it all the time.
It still makes me feel good Okay, he noticed that feel people want to hear that.
So even if it's their job, no way the lawn I still say Yard looks nice.
Thank you so much And and I mean it and you know or just appreciation for being you I think we might have mentioned that in earlier episode as well.
I hear a lot of relationships that are not healthy ones and It makes me appreciate what I have.
So sometimes I come in at the end of the day I say thanks for being such a good guy and for being such a good partner So yes expression and appreciation even if you don't think it's necessary because what's your job?
That's what you do.
Yeah is Important and then the last one This is a big one I actually heard a term on this the other day that made me laugh relying too much on your partner Expecting them to meet all of your needs.
So the term I heard the other day, which was great and it talked about women who in relationships become the the full social circle support circle Emotional physical everything for their husband and they referred to it as man keeping and I thought it was so offensive But so funny and and so speak a little bit about man keeping.
Yeah, and yeah, you know There are also some The opposite.
Oh, it's there.
Is there another sure there was there?
Is there a woman keeping?
I mean there probably is but in this case it was uh, it was that was not the Slant of this particular social account was I've been men.
I truly believe there is no way That there's anybody in this universe that can meet a hundred percent of our needs.
I Have certain friends that I go to if I need a shoulder to cry on certain friends that you know If I'm upset about something that I want to talk, you know so I have different people and you can't expect your significant other to be everything for you and Expecting that to be the case It doesn't mean you don't have a healthy relationship if you go to other people or have other ways to meet certain needs Because there is no way that one person can meet all of your needs It's just in that that's what we would call an unrealistic expectation.
Yeah, so there there are certain needs You should only get from your partner.
Absolutely.
Let's say that However to to yeah be the end-all doesn't there and this goes back to the concept of The best relationships are two individuals that come together and you if you lose your individuality You're you're no longer gonna be the strongest couple.
You can be cool.
Yep.
All right, so let's let's move to our closing segment Pen to Paper This is where we want to give you a tangible Takeaway of something related to today's topic that you can do in your own life today has all been all about young love and One of our guidance is for you is in in your young love when you're having conflict is to address issues early Can you talk a little bit about the importance of why do you need to address issues early?
If you don't address issues early, they build and they build and they become bigger than maybe they needed to Be it's it's important to share things.
Maybe not the instant you feel them, you know Give time to some thought but don't let things build up over days and weeks and for some people dare I say months where they're there's something that's bothering them and they're not say anything So, of course that thing's gonna continue to happen potentially Unless you say something and so if they get more resentful, they just start feeling it when I used to work with kids I told them I used the volcano metaphor strong feelings that you're not sharing It's like lava and it will just keep going and eventually it's gonna come out the top and it's gonna explode and then you're probably gonna Have an unhealthy discussion about that Probably an argument something that you might say thing It's it's just better that along the way and so I often encourage people to have check-ins relationship check-ins It's something you know, how are we doing this week or I feel we're kind of off.
Let's talk about it, right?
That's your Pen to Paper have those conversations.
Don't avoid.
Yes.
All right, absolutely.
I Think we've covered a ton about navigating young love anything else you want to add for today?
I don't think so because because like you said that was a lot in that episode in our next episode One of the things I keep forgetting to do is look at our next episode.
So this is growth I looked at what our next episode topic is and we're gonna talk about several defining moments in our relationship And we're gonna see how those milestones have helped strengthen our bond and shaped our long-lasting love Anything else you want to cover?
I think that was great.
All right.
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Thank you everyone