131 Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Relationship Dilemmas

All right,

Jeff,

Thanks for taking the time today.

Yeah,

It's my pleasure.

It's always good to talk to you.

Yeah,

For sure.

Yeah,

And you know,

Last time we spoke,

You kind of went through a process that I think a lot of people can relate to.

And I'll let you share the details.

But in general,

It was like,

Actually our first session,

You asked me about your relationship.

And I think you just flat out asked me if I thought it was worth it to invest longer to see if it becomes more ideal or not.

I forget what words you said.

And my answer was,

I don't know yet.

Right?

It was a question that we were looking to answer.

But you did answer that.

It seems like things were resolved.

So I think it'd be great if you could just share your experience with that.

Sure,

Absolutely.

You know,

I've been in a long term relationship approaching four years,

And it's had a lot of ups and downs.

You know,

A lot of personal growth has occurred over that time.

And I'm definitely not the same person that I was when I first entered into the relationship.

And I really needed some clarity around,

You know,

Whether or not the relationship had taken course.

And I had gained all the,

You know,

The lessons that I was supposed to learn from it.

And was it time to move on?

Or is there something more that can be done to,

You know,

Reconcile the relationship?

So I was kind of at a middle ground when we first started talking.

Yeah.

And just to maybe put it into general points,

Some things weren't ideal in the relationship anymore.

Things didn't feel the way you wanted them to feel.

And you weren't sure if it was worth to put in the work to try to see if it would happen or if it was just a complete,

If it was just complete,

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Do you mind sharing what you felt like you wanted that you weren't having or what was making you feel this way?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Just you know,

Kind of through my own personal growth journey,

You know,

I just started auditing the relationship.

And I just kind of noticed,

You know,

Through,

You know,

Reading about other healthy relationships,

You know,

That there wasn't a lot of ease and fun that was kind of taking place in the relationship.

Not that relationships are necessarily supposed to be easy or fun,

But I noticed that my partner really,

She wasn't in her feminine energy a lot.

And I just really needed to audit that.

And I needed,

I have my own blind spots and I have my own biases and I really needed to engage,

You know,

Someone with a high level of expertise like yourself,

Ruwan,

Because I mean,

I just was kind of out of answers and I was doing a lot of soul searching.

And you know,

I just had,

You know,

Just a lot of unanswered questions.

Yeah,

And I think,

You know,

I mean,

I think that's probably a thing that everyone in every long term relationship thinks at some point,

Like,

You know,

I've changed a little bit for better for worse,

Like,

Is this really,

You know,

It's a natural thing to think,

I mean,

To put in more basic terms,

Like,

Can I do better?

Is there a better way to be?

Do we fit anymore?

And we just mentioned,

You know,

Like this polarity thing,

I guess,

You know,

If you correct me if it's the wrong way to put it,

But it seems like you stepped more into your masculine or let go of certain blind spots and then what you felt matched you ideally was different,

Right?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I just,

You know,

Started,

You know,

Through our working together,

You know,

Stepping more into the light side of the king archetype.

So I had a lot of father wounds around,

You know,

Just kind of that shadow side of the king archetype.

And I just needed to have the space to audit my own behavior,

How I was showing up in the relationship,

Because I think a younger version of myself would have looked to blame my partner or whatever it was that was happening or the behaviors that I was experiencing through her.

But in my own experience,

I think it's kind of a farce to believe that,

You know,

Waiting for someone else to change,

I know that's not going to serve me.

So I had to show up as a changed man to see if that would make a difference in my external reality.

And that's what you helped me do.

Cool.

Yeah,

I remember,

I mean,

I don't know if this is the first or second time we spoke,

It was like,

The jury's out of whether or not,

You know,

She's your ideal partner.

But at that point,

At least the first time we spoke,

You hadn't really done everything on your end yet.

So we hadn't even seen,

You know,

Is she going to match you?

Is she reacting to the fact that you're still acting like a,

You know,

Shadow side stuff or like you're acting as your less mature self still?

Do you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Because that was actually something I didn't know how it's going to turn out.

Like,

What did you do to find out?

Yeah.

So my partner and I,

We live apart right now.

So we have a long distance relationship.

And I had a lot of self doubts about,

You know,

What was going on.

You know,

I,

Because we all have our biases,

I have,

You know,

My biases where,

You know,

The human mind can focus on anything and try and make that reality.

So I was just focused on what recently had happened where,

You know,

I showed up a certain way and there was some negative outcomes.

So as an example,

You know,

I got reactive unnecessarily to during one interaction with my partner.

And,

You know,

I just was really,

I needed some to really audit,

You know,

Why I was doing that,

Where that came from,

Why and how I could show up differently.

And we talked about some different archetypes,

Like the Joker archetype,

And,

You know,

How would the Joker react?

How would the seven year old version of myself react to that?

Kind of what came,

You know,

What triggered those things?

And those are all wounds that I had to work on,

To be able to step into the version of myself I wanted to be.

Yeah,

Because I remember back then,

At least,

There's some tendency,

You mentioned like the fun and ease,

Like there was a tendency,

It seemed that you had to approach these issues like very seriously.

Which perhaps,

You know,

Yeah,

I don't know what exactly had you not bring that,

But it seemed like that playfulness had to return.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I mean,

Just one thing that really came through to me was that just being more present in what was going on and noticing how my partner,

How she was reacting to me.

So when she became light and playful and more at ease,

That reflected back to me what I was doing was working.

And before I was never really aware of those things.

I was more in my own head and just kind of,

You know,

Not really present or aware of what was going on.

And I know that it sounds so simple,

Just being present.

Everyone talks about being present.

I mean,

It's just like a cliche almost,

You know,

And it's almost annoying in some ways.

But it really does work in my experience.

Yeah,

Because like last time we spoke,

You asked me about intuition.

And I think we just spoke about how it's not such a magical thing.

It is just reacting to feedback or like calibrating to feedback.

And probably in the past,

I think it's true for everyone,

Especially people who think a lot,

Maybe men who think a lot,

Like you don't notice the feedback of your actions directly,

Especially in the emotional realm,

Which is where relationships are.

They don't follow like a necessary logical or expect,

You know,

Yeah,

A logical cause and effect,

But there is a cause and effect.

And I think my general answer to that is just like you build intuition by really paying attention to the moment to moment feedback of your actions,

Micro actions,

Feelings,

Even sometimes your thoughts,

Which maybe somehow affect your micro expressions.

And it seems like you got like pretty clear confirmation of how much you can affect her state,

Right?

Like you made some really subtle shifts that maybe we can't even identify in terms of you did something different,

But you felt differently.

And then she reacted very differently to you.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

These are all things that I've read about,

But I didn't really put into action.

And it really started with just really small steps,

To be honest with you.

And simple things such as saying,

Hey,

I noticed,

You know,

Your your energy changed,

Or are you sure you're okay with this,

You know,

Just little checking in things.

And even if I was incorrect,

That most humans want to correct other humans.

And just by doing that,

I noticed a huge change in,

In just how she appreciated that and started reacting to me in a positive way.

And it just really created an upward spiral where the energy just became light and easy,

And it was fun.

And that was one of the things I really wanted to learn from you that you had gone through a similar experience in your journey,

You know,

With many of your different chapters.

So yeah,

Yeah.

Because I remember one thing you mentioned that you were,

You know,

Maybe a little frustrated with,

You said that it seemed like she was acting resentfully at you from things that you felt like you had resolved,

Like old behaviors,

Which is a frustrating thing,

Right?

It's frustrating,

You know,

When you've changed,

And she's still blaming you for an old thing.

It's extra frustrating,

Maybe similar idea,

Like she's blaming you for past things that other men have done.

Like,

That's also really frustrating.

You know,

And this is an ideal that I don't always know if it's true,

It turned out to be great for you,

But like,

If you can really give her the feedback that that is an old version of men or an old reality,

It's not something she has to react to anymore.

Once she feels safe,

She drops the defensive actions.

I don't think it's always true though,

With other people,

You know,

And I think actually,

If you did everything on your side,

And she still had that kind of trauma response,

Maybe,

You know,

In that case,

Maybe it wouldn't have been a relationship worth sticking around.

But it did seem for you,

You made these shifts of like,

Really signaling to her everything is safe here,

There's no reason why you need defensive actions.

And she reacted pretty quickly,

It seemed.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

It's almost kind of an alchemy,

Or it seemed like magic in a way where,

You know,

The attachment to,

You know,

Negative experiences just vanished,

You know,

The way that you described and I was prepared,

You know,

If those issues kept resurfacing,

You know,

That may be beyond what,

How I could show up or what I could help with.

And I've gotten to a point where I had let go of outcome.

So I was really very calm,

Detached from outcome,

Centered in myself,

And ready to just accept whatever happened,

Whatever was going to happen,

And I was going to be good with it.

And I think that was another thing.

I think she really,

She mentioned my energy had just changed in that way.

And I think,

At least in my experience,

You know,

Some women can really relate to that or really feel that energy.

So yeah,

I think,

You know,

Women are just more in touch with their emotions,

Typically,

Or it affects their perception of reality more than I guess,

The typical guy in his head.

And yeah,

You know,

Because like,

A lot of times with my partner now,

When she's emotional,

It does seem like the end of the world,

Even now with all the things that I'm even saying,

I know,

I forget in the moment,

It's just like,

Shit,

Is this gonna be forever?

Like,

She's just in a good mood,

Why is she in a bad mood?

But then I just remember that she'll switch back into the good mood pretty quickly,

Way faster than I would drop a good mood,

Or a bad mood rather,

If I just give her the right conditions,

Right?

It is just a volatility thing,

Which from a typical male perspective,

Isn't how we think.

So yeah,

You know,

If a guy friends in a bad mood,

I expect him to be in a bad mood for a while,

You know?

Yeah,

Exactly.

That's very similar to that,

Where,

You know,

My range of emotions tighter,

The band is the highs and the lows,

But I tend to stay in the lower bands longer or the upper band longer and yeah,

It's less volatile.

So yeah,

Definitely what you're saying,

I've definitely experienced that.

And just showing up and just even saying,

Acknowledging,

You know,

Your partner's perceived mood in those moments or just taking some ownership of something.

I mean,

It can really just be a game changer.

But an old version of myself had a lot of ego involved.

I wasn't willing to just admit things so quickly or readily.

And yeah,

Those are just a few things I noticed.

Yeah,

I know.

Even now,

I still forget this.

And sometimes I want to fix the problem because I just want to fix it if there's something that seems to be wrong.

But kind of what you're describing is just like you're just signaling that you still care.

Even the question you just mentioned,

Because that's really what the test,

If you will,

Of it.

Maybe she has this range to just see if you're going to stick around with her when she's in a vulnerable state,

As is what happens with an intimate connection.

And passing it is actually a lot simpler than most people think.

Or it's simpler than like a typical thoughtful reaction,

Which is to fix a problem.

Exactly.

And I mean,

Most relationship books that I've read tend to,

You know,

They all emphasize,

They all seem to emphasize that most women don't want men to fix their problems.

They just want to be witnessed,

Given some space and just some time to kind of sit these,

You know,

Let that energy just pass.

It's kind of like watching a cloud in the sky.

I just think of it.

It's going to pass.

The sun will be back out.

Just got to be cool with it.

And yeah,

I wasn't always emotionally centered enough to just let that go.

Have you ever seen the video It's Not About the Nail?

I have not.

No,

No.

Okay.

It's a comedic sketch where like a boyfriend or girlfriend are speaking and she's got a nail in her forehead and she's like,

I just I feel this throbbing.

It's like in here.

And he's just like,

What?

Let's just take it.

Like,

It's not about the nail.

And he's like,

Well,

That sounds really hard.

And she's like,

Thank you.

You know?

Yeah,

It's funny.

Yeah.

So I'm curious about like,

Because this idea of polarity was a thing that has come up and I think,

You know,

Obviously comes up in every intimate relationship.

Is there anything you've noticed or like that you can identify in your own behavior that has switched you into like this,

Call it a more grounded masculine state or more in touch with your whatever it was in you that affected her being in her feminine?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

One thing that comes to mind is tracking my moods more and being more aware of my own state.

So when I grew up,

I grew up in a household where my parents really weren't present to what I was experiencing.

So I just learned to stuff down my emotions and just try to grind it out or be tough and,

You know,

And just bypass everything I was feeling or experiencing.

And so I got an app on my phone that I can track my moods and then makes me more self-aware of where I'm at.

And then she really appreciates it when I express that to her.

So I can let her know I'm really tired right now.

I'm not really present.

I mean,

I can talk for a little while,

But,

You know,

I just want to let you know that.

And she feels so much safer when I do that.

So that's one thing that really comes to mind.

Cool.

Yeah,

That's something that's been useful for us too.

Like,

Especially when like these irrational emotional states are like,

We need space,

Like trying to explain it,

Or like talk it out sometimes.

Sometimes you just need to let the other person know where you're feeling.

We've actually come up with like code words,

Just like,

You know,

404 error code.

And it's just like,

You know,

Don't take offense.

I just need to be by myself.

And like that,

You know,

That sometimes,

I mean,

It's literally what communication is,

But like we often forget when we're in our emotional brain.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And you know,

I'm an avoidant attachment type and she's a,

You know,

More of an insecure attachment.

So during those times of conflict,

I want space to be able to sort things out and she wants to,

You know,

Just experience those emotions.

So it's,

It's a real challenge for me to be centered in some of those times.

And I think that's where a lot of our conflicts and arguments escalated.

And,

You know,

Just working through those things.

And that's still a work in progress.

But yeah,

That definitely comes to mind too.

So I'm not sure how about yourself?

Do you know your style versus your partner's style?

I think historically,

I've definitely been avoidant.

I think,

And I,

You know,

I don't know if it's actually,

I don't need to gender it.

But I do think,

Yeah,

I mean,

She's been anxious at times,

But I think also avoidant at times.

I think,

You know,

One thing that's been cool is that we're kind of similar in our relationship history.

So we could kind of understand what the other person is doing.

It's harder in the moment,

Though.

But yeah,

I mean,

Like actually yesterday,

We had spent the day because we're moving again,

We're going on a road trip.

We had a bunch of like really boring tasks to do.

Neither one of us got to do what we wanted to do.

But we were like together,

Like doing stuff with fixing the car and like kind of boring,

Annoying things.

So by the afternoon,

We were both really stressed and kind of resenting each other's company because we hadn't,

You know,

We wanted to do our own thing.

And we both kind of snapped at each other at the same time about the same exact thing,

Which was kind of funny and perfect because we're in the same.

But you know,

It Yeah,

It just that's been our experience for that kind of thing.

It's much easier to talk about it after those emotions have passed up.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

It's when I for my own experience,

When,

You know,

I'm present,

And I'm not in my survival brain,

Of course,

You know,

Everything makes perfect sense.

But in my experience,

When I'm in that survival brain,

You know,

Fight or flight kind of mode,

I mean,

No,

There is no rational right answer,

You know,

At those times.

And that's just something that I've worked on to,

You know,

Be aware of and,

And work through.

So,

For sure.

Yeah.

And I think also,

A big piece of like the,

I mean,

Just the fact that men or women have different tendencies and want specifically those tendencies that come out around each other,

Right?

Otherwise,

It's not an interesting polarized relationship.

It's just roommates,

You know,

Is what we think about lately is like,

All of this comes down to interdependence,

Like,

Humans are supposed to be interdependent.

But in our modern consumer society,

Our worldview is that we're supposed to be independent and like not need anybody,

Which I think is probably actually harder for women,

Because women have to kind of act in their masculine side in life just to make money and do those things.

And then,

You know,

To be with a masculine person,

They kind of have to switch roles,

Which I could see is really challenging.

It's probably a little bit easier for men.

But aside for men is like,

Not just being your own self or your own head of your small self,

But like,

To be the head or take responsibility,

I think is the big thing on the other end.

And I think it is a challenge for both men and women if you're going to be in a polarized relationship.

Have you guys noticed anything in terms of this polarity interdependence thing?

Yeah,

I would say so.

You know,

As far as that was always my stated goal was to be in an interdependent relationship.

I didn't want to be in a codependent relationship.

And I didn't want to be independent,

You know,

Because I've experienced both.

And maybe you have as well.

So that was always my stated goal.

But when I really embrace the light side of the king,

And really took responsibility for everything in my kingdom,

And that sounds kind of funny,

But I know in Japanese culture,

They have kind of a philosophy like that,

Where basically,

Like,

If they see my understanding is if,

You know,

There's garbage,

You know,

Someone threw down at the park,

They pick it up,

And they throw it in the trash can,

You know,

It's like,

They take full responsibility for everything.

And I just embrace that.

And that really absolved me from being a victim.

It made me the creator.

And I really feel like that made,

Helped my partner feel a lot safer too,

When I really started acting that way.

And I came through with that energy of total responsibility.

Yeah,

Because then she has a really good incentive to let her guard down,

Like the security thing is taken care of.

And I think what you just said,

I mean,

I think is the key to like this dilemma of do I invest or not?

Like,

If you take,

If you haven't taken full responsibility yet,

One,

You haven't given your partner a chance to show her best side to you.

But also,

Like,

You're literally in a victim,

You can't take partial responsibility and not be a victim,

Like,

The responsibility you're not taking is like,

Oh,

I'm a victim to some circumstance,

As opposed to taking full responsibility,

Picking up the trash in the park,

And then seeing,

You know,

If you've taken full responsibility,

And she's still not what you want,

Then you have grounds to be like,

Okay,

Maybe I need to move on or change.

I mean,

Leaving the relationship is partly taking some responsibility too,

If you've done everything else already.

But a lot of people think of this question,

Should I stay or should I go before taking responsibility,

In which case you can never really find the answer then.

Absolutely.

And that was one of my main goals working with you was to know that I took every step I could,

That I showed up the way that I wanted to as the best version of myself in the relationship,

And that I wouldn't bypass my lessons and bring that same crap into the next relationship.

And that's what I had done historically is just different version of the same relationship.

And I did not want that.

So I made that decision that was not going to happen.

And I'm really grateful to work with you.

Yeah,

That's a really good point.

Because like,

I think the avoidance tendency because avoidance always seemed to have their stuff more together than the anxious person who looks like a mess when they're being anxious.

But the you know,

And especially when a relationship is difficult,

It's easy for the avoidant to be like,

Oh,

Let me just eject,

You know,

Let me go back to being myself,

Which I think every avoidant person,

Maybe every person thinks at times when the relationship is not ideal.

But the thing is,

If you don't deal with the issue,

Especially if you've been in more than one relationship,

And can see the same thing happened,

Well,

Then you haven't really fixed anything,

It's gonna,

That that thing is going to recreate itself in the next one,

Certainly if you don't deal with it,

So you might as well deal with it now before you move on,

You know?

Absolutely.

And yeah,

It's one of the things I really appreciate about working with you is,

You know,

You held that space for me to have that self awareness and to,

You know,

Give me some tools to be able to show up as the best version of myself and be an independent,

Non biased party,

Because I gave you full permission to tell me,

You know,

Your honest feedback.

And that's what you always gave me.

So I really am grateful for that.

Yeah,

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean,

You're,

You're an easy person to work with,

Because you've been so on the ball.

And yeah,

I guess willing to see the truth about everything.

Yeah,

It's,

I think what helped a lot was also just doing a lot of independent work,

Not just relying on a coach to be a mind reader,

Or try to,

You know,

You know,

Come up with a series of ways to try to interpret my experience.

So that really helps,

I think,

Move things along.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I think,

You know,

I have talked about this in other podcast episodes,

Like,

You know,

Even if you for a person with any issue,

Actually,

Not even a relationship thing,

Anything,

But some problem,

If you can be really interested in the problem,

You will eventually find their solution,

Whether it's by yourself,

Or you end up finding a person who helps you or a resource that helps you like,

Certainly,

When someone tries to not think about their issue,

If so,

Of course,

It's not going to change.

It's like there's something about this,

Like fascination,

Or curiosity,

Or even maybe obsession that always leads to some progression.

Like in a video game or a movie,

Like,

Of course,

The scene has to progress,

However it progresses.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

That's,

You know,

How you get to different paradigms of our thinking or perception or consciousness is by,

You know,

Challenging ourselves and taking a hard look,

I had to take a hard look at my own shadows and my own,

You know,

Unresolved issues.

And that's,

I think,

One of the main purposes in my opinion of why we're in relationships,

Whether they're romantic or,

You know,

Friendships,

Platonic,

Whatever it is,

I think different versions of the same lessons resurface.

Yeah,

It is easy to think of yourself as confident and secure and high status when you're by yourself in your house or your bedroom,

You know,

It's like,

Yeah,

You don't really know until it's challenged,

Which only happens to people.

I'm remembering now something with like,

Anything,

This is also a challenging thing for anyone in a relationship where I don't remember exactly the details,

But like you knew that something wasn't right to do,

I think it was with,

You know,

The details,

I guess,

Don't matter,

But with Facebook and your partner and like,

You knew it wasn't right,

But you went along with it and ended up having a worse,

Worse result.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So yeah,

What it was is,

You know,

My partner,

You know,

She had a very strong opinion about,

You know,

Wearing masks to prevent COVID and she wanted me to defend her,

You know,

On Facebook and my initial,

You know,

Reaction was to,

You know,

Think about it.

If I mean,

When I talked to you about it,

It was if this was a friend,

Not a romantic partner,

Would I have acted the same way?

And my answer is definitely no.

And but I acted in contrary to my own truth to try to appease her and,

You know,

Show up the way my ego wanted me to show up as kind of like this,

Like hero and,

You know,

Trying to defend her and invariably,

It didn't work out.

And then that just created this resentment and arguments,

Because I wasn't really centered and grounded is one of the lessons that came through.

Yeah,

Because with a friend or,

You know,

I mean,

Your opinion,

Your gut reaction was actually valid of like,

Actually,

This is like,

Not good for either of us.

Let's not engage with an internet argument.

And,

You know,

The details don't matter.

But I think this is a challenging thing,

Maybe more for men,

Where like,

You actually know what's better for her even,

But that means saying no to her request.

And you know,

It could be,

You know,

Part of the ego stuff that you mentioned,

But also,

You know,

It's a genuinely nice impulse to want to do what your partner asked for,

Thinks she needs and stuff.

And it can be very challenging.

I think this is like,

Really the higher level test for most men,

Which is like,

Can you do the right thing,

Even when she maybe doesn't think it's the right thing?

And it is going to cause conflict or short term,

Her not feeling so good,

But it's actually the right thing.

And you know,

It's the right thing.

And if you don't stand by that,

Even if it causes a conflict,

And it's hard,

It's hard to discern.

That's absolutely,

Yeah,

I agree with you.

And you know,

My wanting to defender was more of a reaction than it was,

You know,

Something I would have thought out,

You know,

And again,

So instead of being present,

I was reactionary.

And that just kind of goes back to being present and centered,

And not in for my own self,

Not being quick to react.

And sometimes that's easier said than done,

You know,

Especially when I listen to,

You know,

The,

The episode about,

You know,

Going out on your shield and being honorable,

You know,

You know,

I have my own warrior,

You know,

Kind of egoic view of myself.

And,

You know,

Sometimes I have to check that.

It's,

Yeah,

You know,

It's hard because even,

You know,

I could see everything is context contextual and requires presence to discern ultimately,

Because that is a nice idea to go out on your shield.

We can't go out your shield and everything.

If we're like,

You know,

There's times to not or there's times where it's really not called for.

And it's just also,

It's a really nice thing to want to be supportive of people.

It's a really nice thing to a generally good thing to want me to people to feel good.

That's also what causes nice guy syndrome and codependence is like this,

This impulse that instead of being genuinely applied to the right circumstances,

It's become like a program,

Which is like,

Okay,

In every situation,

I make people feel good or every situation,

You know,

I defend the weak.

I mean,

You can see this in politics now,

Like some of the really terrible movements are caused by genuinely good impulses of something like that.

Exactly.

It was misguided is definitely how I would characterize it.

So yeah,

A lot of kind of generalizations are often misguided and that was a misguided idea with good intent behind it.

But again,

You know,

That was not my truth.

That was me trying to be a version of my ego that was not serving me.

So it's a lesson and that's part of being in the relationship.

For sure.

So yeah,

What's next for you guys or what's on the horizon?

So yeah,

Just we're planning on moving.

She's going to move back to,

I live in Arizona,

So she's going to move back to Arizona and then we're going to buy a property together and we want to generate some income through Airbnb and some other ideas we have.

So for businesses and try to restructure our lives so we can have more of our time back.

And it just really feels awesome because we're really planning these things as a team,

Which is really what I wanted.

And now I'm finally getting it.

So it's just awesome.

And I'm,

But the whole time I was kind of walled off,

Like my heart didn't want to fully commit to that idea.

So now it's just an upward spiral.

I saw the results I wanted to see.

I feel good about it.

My heart's open.

I want,

You know,

We want to create this future together.

We're finally doing those things.

So yeah,

That's,

It's going to have challenges on the way.

There's no doubt about it.

There's going to be setbacks,

But I think I'm a lot better suited to deal with this now.

Cool.

And especially just being able to drop that question,

Should I stay or should I go?

That takes so much energy and it's really,

It's so nice to have stability on the home front because then you can really think outwardly of like what you want to create.

I forget where I heard this,

But someone was saying like good relationships may make bad television or bad TV.

Right.

So like the,

There's always ups and downs,

But the downs aren't so down.

So there's not,

They're not that interesting.

Like no one wants to see a good relationship in a TV show or you know,

The movie,

But it's nice because there's other things to focus your attention on and get that drama or challenge from once the home front is gone.

So I do think one thing that maybe attracts people to dramatic relationships is that maybe yeah,

It's just on some level it's interesting even though it's not fun.

That's true.

Some people,

You know,

They have trauma bonds in common or you know,

Some shared experience or oppression or whatever it may be to kind of recreate.

But that energy in my experience just doesn't serve.

It just eventually it,

Both parties tend to turn on each other.

And it's my experience.

It's when you're in that creative,

Positive energy,

Is that really a chance for growth and for flourishing and getting to that next level of doing even greater things.

So that's what I'm excited about.

Yeah.

Because also you need to kind of take a little bit more responsibility when there's not a crisis.

Like when there's a crisis or there's an issue or a problem,

Obviously you focus on the problem.

It kind of takes away the,

What should I think about or what should I put my attention on?

But when there are no problems,

You kind of have to pick something.

You have to pick something to create or a challenge or something that requires you to be stimulated.

Otherwise you're going to recreate problems,

Which I think a lot of people do.

Absolutely.

No,

I definitely agree with that.

Some people are very skilled at creating problems where there are done.

And in my experience,

A lot of times they don't even know they're creating the problems.

And I've done this myself where it's in your subconscious where maybe you grew up in a chaotic household and that's just part of your normal,

Your homeostasis.

And if there's not chaotic energy,

Someone needs to create this.

And yeah,

That's something I had to work through as well.

So for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's,

I just really appreciate being able to work with you and we'll continue to work together because I know there's always other challenges,

But I think just challenging my own paradigm of thinking and also my own ego just to really be open to,

What am I missing?

Where are my blind spots?

What am I focused on?

And yeah,

It's hard to take a hard look at yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it also could be fun.

If I may poke at that part again.

Yeah.

And it's kind of like,

I think last time we spoke,

I think I might've said like,

Yeah,

When there's no problem.

It's the same thing we were just talking about.

Like when there's no problems,

Maybe there's seemingly less to talk about.

But it takes us to dig a little bit deeper and explore.

Yeah,

It's always fun to speak to you because of this awareness.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I appreciate all the content you put out and it's a lot of fun.

So I definitely value all that you've done here.

For sure,

Man.

Yeah.

And thanks for sharing your story.

Yeah,

Was there anything else you wanted to speak about or get into?

No,

I think that about does it for me.

Cool.

Awesome,

Man.

Yeah.

Well,

Thanks again for being on.

I think this is a very relatable topic for a lot of people in relationships.

So this is great.

All right.

Thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.