Hey Julia Woods
Join me, Julia Woods, a couples coach and wife of over 3 decades, as I share some of my client's stories and my own so that you can be encouraged, inspired, and gain new results in your marriage.
Hey Julia Woods
75% Less Stress. Here Is What Changed
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Ten years into marriage and two kids deep, Arthur and Melissa found their relationship reduced to logistics — schedules, dishes, and diapers, with no room left for connection. In this episode, Julia sits down with the Boston couple to unpack how "good intentions" quietly built a wall between them, and the practical shifts — naming real needs, asking "what else could be true?", and leading with vulnerability instead of demands — that brought intimacy back. It's a real look at how connection isn't a personality trait, but a practice.
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Welcome And What This Show Is
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Hey Julia Woods Podcast. I'm your host, Julia Woods, founder of Beautiful Outcome, a coaching company focused on helping couples learn to see and understand each other, even in the most difficult conversations. On my podcast, I will share with you the real and raw of the messiness and amazingness of marriage. I'll share with you aspects of my relationship and the couples I coach in a way that you can see yourself and find the tools that you need to build the marriage you long for. Welcome to another episode of Hey Julia Woods. I am really looking forward to talking with this couple today, Arthur and Melissa. They are from Boston, Massachusetts, and have two little ones, one and five, and they've been married for 10 years. Melissa has been working with me in the marriage growth community for a while. And then Arthur and Melissa both came to breakthrough this year. And I'm so excited to hear about the results that they are experiencing. So welcome, guys.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So
Meet Arthur And Melissa
SPEAKER_01Melissa, uh, I said it's been a couple of years. Is that how long you've been working in marriage growth community?
SPEAKER_02Or yeah, that sounds, that sounds about right. I think it was the beginning of this year that I recognized I really wasn't putting much into it. And so I decided to say, hey, I want to be more consistent about investing in our marriage and and having couples connections where we're we're meeting regularly, twice a week for chatting with each other and playing with each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love it. And Arthur, how did she get you to come into this world of personal responsibility to produce the marriage that you long for?
SPEAKER_00Well, we have undergone a lot of changes over the past five years. As you mentioned, we have we have a five-year-old. For some people, I guess birth and starting to be parents is just like, oh, whatever, you know, it's no problem. But for us, it was there were a lot of changes involved. And I think there were a lot of expectations that we should have talked about, but didn't. So it was a little bit rocky. And I really, really appreciated Melissa wanting to sort of not just get into blame and just frustration. And we we both were probably overcommitted. So she was just always working on trying to make sure that we would stay connected. And then as an outgrowth of that, she said, Oh, hey, there's this marriage growth community. So I guess that sounds great. I want to support that. I thought that we had made you know progress in harmonizing better, particularly with now we have two kids. So yeah, it was very timely. And yeah, I think it's time well spent.
SPEAKER_01Great. Yeah, and I want to slow down what you said a minute ago, Melissa, in that you wanted
Building Weekly Chat And Play
SPEAKER_01some accountability in the connection. And a part of the marriage growth community is you commit to each lead a couple's connection every week. Couples connections are made up of what we call chat time and play time. And so say a little bit more about that, Melissa. How is how did joining the community help you in consistent consistently focusing on prioritizing connection?
SPEAKER_02The first thing was there was a group call, and that was one of the things that I had missed, I guess, the when I first entered was that expectation. And I think just hearing that expectation to me, wow, there's a lot of people with a lot of experience who are saying, you need this. And so it was initially just on trust of like, wow, if this is working for other people, I I want to try it out. And what it revealed was we had a lot of logistical conversations, but we were not having like heart-to-heart conversations, getting to the crux of like kind of was undergirding the tensions we were experiencing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. So let's start from the beginning, right? The kids came along, and as both of you have alluded, there was some tension that that produced in the relationship. Can you say more about that? What was what did that disconnection look like? How did it show up in the relationship?
SPEAKER_02On my end, I would take on a lot and not realize how much it was grinding me down. And I'd be overwhelmed, over functioning, just I would have nothing left. And then I would lash out at Arthur and either blame him for things or you're not giving me enough time or you're not taking enough on. But I didn't realize, oh, that was actually I'm doing too much. I just had no awareness that there was so much on my own side that I was contributing. And so just that complete blindness and then kind of what I now know was was rage was taking over. And I really didn't like that feeling of being hijacked and not knowing what's going on, how to manage it, and seeing the distance it was placing between me and Arthur. It was like honestly scary in that way to just feel so out of control. And so that's what I realized like this is this is costing too much. There has to be another way forward here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What about you, Arthur?
SPEAKER_00Well, always wanted to have kids. This is actually my second marriage. For the first one, we weren't able to. My wife had passed on. And so this was sort of a second opportunity. I'm like, great, you know, would love to have kids. Um Melissa was very, very much on board. And my vision was always as much as possible. I mean, we live in Boston, it's expensive. So if we if we could swing it, I would love for her just to stay at home, particularly for the first, I don't know, five, eight, ten years or something. That just from a value perspective, that's something that I think she and I both shared a lot. So I'm like, okay, cool. So you know, I'm swinging work. Melissa's gonna be a full-time stay-at-home mom. And just the reality of that, really, like no one, we just weren't prepared for that. Like things just didn't seem to really add up. And we we also don't have family who lives here in the uh in the immediate area. But you know, we didn't want to put our kids in daycare, that was just our choice. And there's just just, you know, food, daily life, taking care of the kids, sleeping schedule, all of it left less than no time for sort of, you know, us. And you know, it's like you make an investment, this is a newborn. Of course, we had expected that that there was going to be a lot of upfront um, you know, sacrifice, and you want what's best for your children. But there's just sort of this growing distance between us. And I don't think that Melissa really knew what to expect on the be a mom track. I mean, I'm still working, so it doesn't necessarily change that much for me. I I commute about an hour each way. So when I come home, you know, I try to be on, I try to do what I can in terms of dishes and stuff, but I'm just figuring out how to do everything that you need to, but also there's gonna be tensions and frustrations, and there is just no time to talk about that. I think you alluded, uh, maybe it was Melissa alluded earlier about like the logistics. There's just so many things that get put off in terms of, oh, this really upsets me, but we're gonna have to talk about later because so-and-so has a poofy diaper that's exploding all over the or you know, this food, your food problems, or we have to go grocery shopping, shopping. So logistics always come first. And so there's this backlog that you never kind of realize that starts to then build. And I didn't understand where a lot of Melissa's expectations came from. I I think, and correct me,
How Kids Expanded The Distance
SPEAKER_00Melissa, but I I think he was like, if anything is going wrong, Arthur's not doing enough. I'm kind of like, whoa, it's like like, well, what should I be doing more of or differently? Anyway, so that's just kind of a summary of how I went into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, makes a lot of sense. So as you guys have come to breakthrough and are working through the community, what are you discovering about yourself and what was driving what this disconnection and you know, wedge that was pulling the two of you apart? What have you discovered about you and what was going on for you in that?
SPEAKER_02I'll start for me. I realized that I would stay in my head a lot and in order to avoid feeling emotions that seemed like they were way too big to handle. And so I would focus, my background is in financial analysis, and so I'm very good at going into the past to predict the future, or I'll go into the future and think about possible outcomes and iterate on those, but I was avoiding being in the present. And so I went from probably like 5% awareness of what I was feeling in the present. And then through using the different tools, which we can come back to and talk about, like I'm I'm much more at like probably 85% in the present where I catch myself, oh, I'm starting to go into management mode and go into the details of past and future. That means there's something here that I'm trying to avoid. Okay, what is it? What am I feeling? And oftentimes it was fear. I just had no realization that there was so much fear about what could happen, or am I going to be cared for, or my kids going to be cared for? And just getting really honest about I have this fear and being willing to share it with Arthur and not have a solution because I my expectation of myself was I need to have solutions for all of the issues that I have, and instead just say, hey, here's what I'm feeling.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And that that's enough.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of gold in that. Can you do you have a specific example of a moment where you would have lashed out at Arthur not recognizing what was going on in you, having no awareness of what was going on in you and what it actually looks like to be present. And I know we can you're thinking, I can see you thinking. So I can jump over to Arthur if you want a few minutes to think about that, unless something's coming to mind right now.
SPEAKER_02I think so.
SPEAKER_00It was actually just last last night we were sorting through hot off the press.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we were sorting through meal times and meal times and cleaning up the dishes. And I was seeing that there was an opportunity the kids were happy and fed, and like, hey, we're doing dishes, we could do that in the same room and actually have some connection time. But I came up against Arthur being very direct of like, I'm trying to do the dishes, why are you in my space? And in before, I think I would be like, just go right for what's this tone, what's your problem? Like, go right at him. And instead, I recognize, like, oh, okay, I'm feeling some loneliness here. I feel lonely because I talked to an adult for two minutes today, and I see you and I want to be with you, and then and just being able to name name that emotion and also recognize, hey, I think there's something going on for you, because that seemed like a really intense, like get out of my space. And I want to, I want to know more. There's something I'm not understanding now. I would not have had any of that curiosity beforehand. I would not have had curiosity for myself and understanding of that there are more emotions than sad and angry. No, I would not, I didn't have, I just had no clue. And then on the Arthur side, like, oh, there's probably something else going on for him. And I love him and I want to be there in it with him, which means that there's some balancing here.
SPEAKER_01So powerful because so often our natural automatic reaction is hey, that reaction hurt and I feel lonely, and you're the problem. How dare you, you know, reject me in my loneliness? And instead, what I hear is connection. You realized, oh, I'm lonely. I want to connect. And connecting means I gotta, I get the opportunity to go into this place that seems scary to connect with where he's at, what's bringing that reaction, what's going on for him? How can I connect with him right where he's at, even if it feels scary? Like, you know, Joseph Campbell says, the cave we fear to enter lies the treasure that we seek. When our spouse reacts like that, it's like, oh, I gotta go away, I'm running away. But no, connecting right in there, like, hey, can you help me understand what's going on for you? That's the key to connection and interrupting the loneliness. So that's a great example. Thank you for sharing that. Arthur, what are you discovering about yourself and what you were contributing to the disconnection that you weren't aware of?
SPEAKER_00Sure, and happy to continue along that example. Just again to emphasize trying to bring curiosity to these stressful situations. And just to paint the picture of, you know, our contestants here at the dinner table. We've got our five-year-old and we have our one-year-old. Also, our one-year-old now has discovered his voice. And he knows, ah, I mean, that could mean he's happy, it could mean that he's upset, it could mean that he's hungry, and it just gets louder and louder and louder. So, you know, it's a pretty stressful situation. And when we're coming to the end of the meal prep, generally I finish first. So Melissa will say, Okay, I think Arthur's ready, you know, so we need to get him out of his seat so he doesn't just stop kind of screeching like a banshee.
Melissa Shifts From Rage To Presence
SPEAKER_00And I'll take him and clean him up. And what I am used to, what I've learned about myself, is I am very pattern-oriented. I talk about like, you know, slots and roles and delegation, and there's my lane. That's kind of, I think Melissa's much more, hey, we're gonna adapt here, we're gonna adapt there. And you know, there's advantages to that, of course, in terms of adjusting to reality, but I just I love a groove. I love a groove. And I'm also a morning person. I sit up in bed between four and five a.m. So in addition to the screaming, you know, it's now getting, I don't know, six, six o'clock is to seven. I'm gonna like pass out by like 8:30 or nine. So I am not at my best by any stretch. And anyway, so I wash baby Arthur up, I clean him up, I put him down, he starts to play. And for me, it's like, okay, finish the dishes. This is finish the dishes, put the put the kids down, finish the dishes, put put the kids down. This is my slot, this is my lane, and all of a sudden Melissa's like next to me, kind of in my way. And she's also Melissa loves to take every dish in the house and put it on the counter because she likes to see. And to me, that drives me crazy. I also have long arms and I just I knock things over. So please don't. So I'm just like, why are you doing this? I've told you, why are you putting everything on the counter? So I'm like, my there's some somebody crashing into my lane. What are you doing? We're trying to divide and conquer. Oh my gosh, I want to get all this done by the time I have to take the kids. So, so yeah, so to me, I've recognized and learned a lot about that. That's how I work best. Now, in retrospect, what I should have done is, hey, this isn't the list is doing something different. I should have expressed curiosity instead of lashing out. I mean, lashing out sounds pretty strong. I I mean, I had a lot of tone. I don't think I was, you know, what do you think you're doing, you fool? Or why are you killing me or sort of naiving, or why are you? But it was it it's just I I tend to get tone. And what I've learned, uh, what what's nice about the marriage growth community and breakthrough in particular is it gives you sort of like a framework of, oh, okay, like there's something happening. First, you want to recognize what's what's happening. And then they have all these great tools, like, hey, I think you've probably said this a billion times, Julia. Like, what else could be true? So it's like, you know, Melissa is in my lane. I feel like we're playing bumper cars right now in the kitchen. She's making this more difficult for me. What else could be true? After our conversation later, you know, we had kind of come to we could talk more about that. But and again, this is something where we at this moment we couldn't really talk about it. After the kids were down, we then circled back. And uh, Melissa had expressed that, you know, oh, well, she was just feeling very, very lonely. And I'm like, oh wow, if I had known that she was feeling lonely, to me, that would have reframed my whole doing dishes thing. It's like, oh wow, I I know that she doesn't have a lot of human connection. I should say adult human connection, yes. Our children are not beasts. So she has human connection, but that's not a lot of adult connection through throughout the day. And it's like I'm her lifeline in many ways, and I totally want to be there for her. And that led into an even deeper conversation about expectations about connection and dinner and what I thought about that. So we actually had a lot that got peeled back. But what I've learned about myself is I can be very defensive. You know, you look at your kids and you want to do better for them, you kind of think about how your parents did things you wouldn't like. And it's easy to underestimate. I mean, my my situation was I I had a lot of pretty strong disciplinarian sort of fear about, you know, not not feeling perhaps safe or just bad things are gonna happen if stuff starts kind of getting out of control and expectations. And so I'm bringing, I think, some of that energy from the distant past in into the present, which you know, I I don't want to tag Melissa with that and make the situation even worse. But but I've just found that from my perspective, where I tend to get less constructive is I feel like I'm on a track and then something happens. It's kind of like I think about old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bugs Bunny's just doing his thing, and then you know, somebody comes and trying to try to bring in the disaster. So yeah, it's so like that's and it's hard because then I I feel put upon, so I feel justified in like pushing back, but pushing, pushing uh can also be very intense. So pushing back can translate into lashing out, which I don't want to do anyway. So this is a really long answer to your question. So uh it's great.
SPEAKER_01There's so many things in it. I want to slow down a couple of them. One, what I hear you saying is that, you know, unknowingly, and and you can edit whatever's not true for you, Arthur. What I hear is a very human perspective is I am in my world, setting up and controlling my world the way I like it. And then we get married, and it's no longer my world, it is our world. And that is really hard when we like our world of my world to look the way I want it to look. And now I got to make space for this is our world. Is that resonate with some of what happens for you?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it does. And particularly in my case, the way that I experience that is yes, I mean, I would love to have things my way, but then we
The Dishes Fight Turned Into Connection
SPEAKER_00get into a groove. So I think we have an agreement. I think we have an understanding. I don't think I'm just imposing my way and say, I have done the dishes since God knows when. So why are you changing it? Why are you changing it? And uh, you know, it's what what's also interesting is we we got into a much deeper conversation that evening. And Melissa, by the way, was awesome. I think she's at a point where she's faster to recognize when she's being triggered than I am. So that's something that I want to work to be able to, you know, stop at. And she'll say, you know, she's she's feeling lonely, she's feeling a bit afraid, she's feeling a bit upset, and then she's talking about why. And one of the interesting things that came out was I felt this real sense in that moment. And it took me a while to kind of go back and think that. But trying to think about to say this, it's like to me, meals are a place for family connection. Meals are for us to all sit down face to face. And yes, it's a one-year-old, but still, just the philosophy is we're raw face to face. That's when the connection should occur. Why does she want to have connection after that when we're all not at the table, running around, like, what are you doing? We are intentionally choosing to not have, you know, like I thought what Melissa was doing is saying during the meal, she needs to, you know, juggle baby Arthur and do all these different things, and we're not connecting there. So, why is she choosing the suboptimal moment later? That that seems ridiculous. Well, okay, ridiculous. Here I am pushing back. Here I am now reacting. And what came out of that was that I eat a lot faster than she does. Perhaps I should feed baby Arthur because I can get my whole meal in and it's less stressful for me, as opposed to her, where to her, it takes a lot more out of her. So I think we might be able to pull some of that connection forward. And which which all comes from, you know, what else could be true? You know, she's calling out for connection. I'm like, you're choosing not to have connection. What are you talking about? Like we are doing, but so yeah, that that was, I think, super, super helpful. And Melissa was touched that I felt that way about dinner. She felt that way, you know. So so perhaps if if I would lead more with I really want connection during dinner, and she would lead more, I just kind of need connection, period. Like if that's what you lead with, with what you need, there's a whole lot less sparks and fireworks. And as frustrating as all this was, it was so much better now with breakthrough with everything we've learned. Like that whole thing. I mean, it was kind of stressful to go through it last night, but what what percentage reduction would you put on stress, Melissa?
SPEAKER_02I don't know, at least 75% reduction.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. It's it's it's like there's less, you know, whacking each other with you know the foam, you know, lightsabers or whatever. There, there's less of that.
SPEAKER_02And the number of days, too, that it would have stretched and the amount of sleep sacrificed before recovery having this framework that we learned at breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Again, there's so much in what you guys are saying. And Arthur, I just want to highlight one point is that it's easy in that situation, Melissa, when you know he has the tone and he's like, you've Recognize, I want to connect. This seems like a good opportunity. The baby's settled. And here we are. Look, we could have this lovely moment doing dishes together. And then he responds out of feeling like, wait, this isn't supposed to be happening right now. We don't realize that it's human beings. We have ways that we think things ought to be. And when our spouse invites something different, we can react without even realizing what we're doing. And that what I was hearing you say, Arthur, is that when she was willing to lead, not lead with, you're such, why do you have to get defensive? I'm just or be rigid or something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. She didn't lead that way. Instead, it was expressing honestly her own heart. Hey, I'm lonely. I want to connect with you. Man, that's a game changer.
SPEAKER_00I think she was she was surprised too, I think. If you correct me if I'm wrong, Melissa, like you were saying, oh, well, wait, so Arthur, if I had led with that, it would have gone differently. I mean, I would like to think so. Who knows? You know, we all think we're, you know, the hero, the hero of our story. You're mentioning Joseph Campbell. Uh you know, everyone's another hero's journey.
SPEAKER_02And that I think that's the beauty too of what we're discovering, having uh you've been in the marriage growth community, gone through breakthrough, is sure, would we have gotten to a stable place before taking many days, probably. But what was interesting with this situation is like swords down, we were able not only to get there faster, but also deeper. Like what I realized was I was assuming he was like me. And if somebody had come to me and say, hey, here's one more thing for you to manage right now. I want more connection, let's do it. I would have been like, I'm I'm I'm like, I can't do anything more. But for him, that's not at all how he saw it. And so I didn't realize that I was basically assuming he's like me, therefore, I'm not even gonna say, Hey, here's this extra thing I want you to do, because of my fear that, oh, it's gonna overwhelm him and therefore make a bigger mess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, powerful. And we've kind of gotten we've gotten to a lot of what you guys are experiencing. And what I hear you experiencing now is there's connection, there's awareness, there's discovery, there is new possibilities opening up. There is healing from what how things were growing up, that now you're actually
Arthur On Patterns Defensiveness And Curiosity
SPEAKER_01working with each other to heal some of that pain of people just don't want to connect with me, or you know, whatever. What do you recognize if we can go backwards a little bit? We've talked about what you're gaining in this new approach. What do you recognize in those earlier years you were missing out on?
SPEAKER_02I think teamwork. Just felt like I needed to solve my own problems, and so really missing out on teamwork and collaboration and the inspiration that the and the variety and diversity of solutions that comes from that. Intimacy being known, for sure. I mean, I didn't know myself, how could I expect Arthur to know me? I was a lot more insular and closed off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What about you, Arthur?
SPEAKER_00And are we talking about when we were first married or like back when we were grown up or both? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01No, mostly when you were married, like before you started doing the work on the marriage.
SPEAKER_00Right. So I think it's what we were missing. I mean, I guess I I think of kind of procedurally. So like whenever you feel upset at your spouse or significant other, what I was missing is I was just feeling upset, period. Upset at them, who even knows if that's valid or not? So just stop with your upset, just stop there, and then think about that. Because and try try to experience it, try to you know open your heart and correctly gauge what's going on. And that's that then leads to you being very open with your partner, being very, very, very vulnerable. Something that that you had said, Julia, during one of the uh breakthrough sessions that talks about like being intentionally uh dependent on someone, and like that's that's that's the point. The point of marriage is you you are going to lean on them and lean into them for certain things. And it's it's it's a choice to face to to turn into each other more, as opposed to okay, the kids are upsetting me, life is upsetting me, these dishes, I can't stand doing dishes, and I'm also upsetting me. So there's just more I have to turn out from. No, no, no. That that's you need to turn. So again, I'm upset, perhaps not at her, I need to think about it, turn into her, and together you can really do amazing things by having this process I talked about kind of procedurally about, you know, let's let's let's talk about this. Let's let's let's have a discussion where we're going to discover some things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think you're speaking very familiar language to many of the male listeners in that, you know, I I there's upset because the kids aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. There's upset because I got to do the dishes. There's upset because my time is passing quickly. Now my wife is upset. Like, what did that feel like with all of those upsets and expectations coming before you had some structure to work through it differently?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it can it can be very, very overwhelming. And it can just make you more volatile in general. Like you don't want to have a backlog. I I when I was in college, one of one of my majors was Roman history. And one of the big things in Rome was stoicism. And stoicism does not tell anyone to repress anything. I mean, it's that's the common belief these days is that stoicism is all about just putting out a brave face and being strong and just stuff it all down. Stoicism, it never said that. It's a popular misconception. You you you need to process it. So men need to find out a way to process the emotion. You need to feel it, you need to feel it so that it's not this ticking time bomb inside of you where you have some choice between events and then what your responses you need to create that space so that you can be strong for your family, for yourself. You know, strength is um being in touch with your inner dashboard. You know, you need you need you need the feedback, you need to look at all the you know controls on the on the dashboard and just just ignoring it and kind of stuffing it down, that that doesn't help anyone. So, yes, being strong is important, and an important important part of that is having the experience and getting getting current with what's going on, what do you need to process, and not having that bleed over in into 10 things. Like you don't want things at work to suddenly lash out at your wife. You don't want things from home to suddenly affect you at work. So, you know, by by being more present, by being in the now, and by having a lot greater clarity around what you're feeling, just the ability to process that is just so incredibly important. Does that make sense? I was ranting a bit, but does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think one of the things that you had said earlier in as we were preparing for our conversation is that you're willing to have difficult conversations now because you have a shared goal of
Emotional Strength And Turning Toward
SPEAKER_01getting to the gift on the other end. And that's kind of what I hear in what you're saying is that there's now a purpose. And part of the purpose is for you to be able to expose your heart and work through some of the messy with another human being where it's not too much for them. You actually can be known and discover yourself in this willingness to see that the tension of you know, her getting in your lane in the kitchen is actually a gift. There's a gift in it of discovery and learning and knowing yourself and being known.
SPEAKER_00Is that yes, and being less reactive? Being less reactive. That's that to me is what strength is is not being reactive. Um, strength is not yelling at people. That's that's that's just ridiculous, you know. It's uh weakness, yeah. You know, it's it's that old saying, I forgot who it was. Maybe it was Bruce Lee talks about like, you know, a pebble, you throw a pebble into the pond and you you should get pebble-sized ripples. If you throw a pebble on the pond and you get a tidal wave, okay, yeah, yes. No, you you are not where you need to be, my friend.
SPEAKER_01So there's a lot going on underneath that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and when when when you have kids and when you have responsibilities, you know, uh, there's an old saying about you know, your your responsibilities always increase faster than than your power, right? So what what you can actually do doesn't quite keep up with everything that you're expected to then do. You really have to keep on top of, again, your emotional well-being, your your serenity, your center, like your sense of balance. Um, you can't just let life throw throw you out of balance. And that's one of the things Melissa was, I think, alluding to too, is that kind of conversation, if we had had that before breakthrough and before the marriage community, like we would have been really pissed off at each other. Neither of us would have slept well. Fast forward to the next day. Okay, now I don't know when we're gonna have a chance to then talk again. But when that happens, it's gonna be a testy conversation. And then probably by the third day, we we will get to constructive points. We're actually always very, very good at that. We're we're pretty good at working through things. It's just the journey just sucks. Now the journey sucks so much less and it's so much faster because we're not thrown completely off balance and it focuses more on, yeah. So anyway, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, doing the deeper work gives us an inner stability that just allows us to have a lot be a lot more grounded in the moment rather than being so reactive. So as we close out, I have an interesting question for you guys in that breakthrough is going into its sixth year. And one of the things that often surprises people is that couples tend to come back year after year after year. So here you guys are sharing these results that you have and this these connection and this knowing and being known. Like so many beautiful things are happening, and yet you signed up for breakthrough again. And what brings you to come back when you're getting the current results that you're getting?
SPEAKER_02I know accountability is one already or a month past when we went, and I can
Why They Return For Breakthrough
SPEAKER_02already tell I am numbing. I'm not really turning to anything, but just not even checking in with how I'm feeling, not getting curious about myself. And so already have only a month after seeing that really told me that that it was absolutely the right call because it's just so easy to slide right back into real life. Also, why it's such a great companion with the marriage growth community, because what helped me realize I was being numb was participating in that and and being on one of those calls and seeing how people, other other marriages are doing this work and going deep and and really turning into into each other made me realize, wow, I'm not doing that. Okay, I want to be. Let's let's reassess. So to me, like breakthrough then is the annual like reassessment and making sure the ship's going in the direction and looking at what's underneath in a very immersive way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, we are creatures of habit and we we can have these powerful breakthroughs and these powerful experiences, but we are like that rubber band that wants to go back. And the power of accountability is a big piece of what helps us stretch that rubber band bigger. What about you, Arthur? What brings you to want to come back?
SPEAKER_00Well, like Melissa said, this is very new for us. And you know, the amount of time that we have to practice this, you know, 30 minutes here, maybe an hour there, a couple times a week, it's actually not that much. So like we we we love this material, we are applying it and we're learning. But when it's something so radically new, like I just really, I really want to make sure that that we're grounded in this and that we're we're on that correct path. And something that's wonderful about the breakthrough conference is at least a third of it or more, it's you can think of it as just case studies. I mean, you have couples who are sitting there talking, like Melissa and I were just talking about doing the dishes and driving each other crazy. Everyone has unique stories. Don't just learn through you making mistakes and having to figure out how you guys, how the train came off the rails. You can sit there with very supporting other couples and see how their lives all of a sudden you know hit some kind of a wall or exploded suddenly. So it's just it's a huge amount of of sort of uh cases and examples just to add to your understanding. And the couples are also awesome. I mean, everyone who goes there, they're just super open, they're really committed to this. And it kind of makes you want that with your when you go back to your regular lives. It'd be great, I don't know, find more people who who who did this in this way because um you really just want to have that connection on an ongoing basis.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. We are wired for community, and it is so powerful because while you know, in my marriage, it might not be the dishes that comes up, but so much of what you said in what happened for you guys in the dishes applies to wherever it that kind of tension is showing up in my marriage. And so it is very powerful to get an opportunity to realize that story we often tell ourselves that we're the only ones, that nobody else is having these kind of challenges in their relationship. And everybody else is, you know, looking like the Instagram content that we see where dinner looks perfect. And it's like, no, that's not reality at all. And so we take off the highlight reels and we we get an opportunity to see what real life is like and and the honest work of marriage. And it it's very, very helpful. So I so appreciate the two of you being willing to share some of that with us and let us in to the beauty of the real work, of what drives connection when disconnection is often the easiest option. So thank you both so much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.
Closing Thanks And Marriage Growth Community
SPEAKER_01I want to talk to you about something super exciting. It's a game changer, really. To have the relationship you long for, you must take responsibility for yourself and who you are being moment by moment. It's not about what your spouse needs to change, it's about you taking control of the only thing you can control, which is you. That's the truth that nobody's talking about when they talk about marriage. But I am inside the marriage growth community where I will help you take responsibility for your ability to lead conversations with your spouse to love and connection so you can have the marriage you dreamed of when you first fell in love. At the very first link in the show notes, you can grab my marriage growth community, and that's really going to help. I know that because it's based on the same principles I've used to coach this couple and hundreds of other couples to marriage success over the last nine years. So grab marriage growth community at the top of the show notes.