Trust me when I tell you there is a difference between taking care of someone and caring for someone, especially in a marriage. "Taking care of" implies managing someone. "Caring for" implies loving and cherishing someone. If you want a more intimate, healthy, strong marriage, it's good to get clear on which you do more of; "taking care of" or "caring for".
https://jamelynstephan.com
https://jamelynstephan.com/meet-with-me/
https://www.instagram.com/jamelyn_stephan_coaching/
jamelyn@jamelynstpehan.com
Trust me when I tell you there is a difference between taking care of someone and caring for someone, especially in a marriage. "Taking care of" implies managing someone. "Caring for" implies loving and cherishing someone. If you want a more intimate, healthy, strong marriage, it's good to get clear on which you do more of; "taking care of" or "caring for".
https://jamelynstephan.com
https://jamelynstephan.com/meet-with-me/
https://www.instagram.com/jamelyn_stephan_coaching/
jamelyn@jamelynstpehan.com
I'm jamielynn Stephan and this is what to wanted. Episode number 110. Take care of versus care for. Welcome to want to want it a podcast for women of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints who are ready to ignite not only their sexual desire, but all of their desires to create a more fulfilling life and marriage. I'm jamielynn Stephan. I'm a certified life coach, a wife, and a mother of seven children. I'm excited to share my personal journey to desire with you and teach you how to desire more as well Hi, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today and welcome to spring. If you are listening to this on the day of its release on March 19th, 2024. Today is the first day of spring. And I don't feel like it's often on the 19th of March now. Maybe it has been, I don't actually know. I feel like usually it's on the 20th or 21st, but this feels like an early spring. So welcome to spring everyone.'cause I'm prerecording this, I don't know what the weather's like outside for me or for you. So hopefully you're having some spring-like weather. I don't know that I will be here in Alberta. But maybe you are where you are. And for those of you in the Southern hemisphere. You're getting close to fall, or maybe you're in your fall. Now with March 1st, your fall, it might be so, or your autumn, as I was told it's autumn. We don't call it fall. Anyways today. I want to talk about the difference between taking care of someone versus caring for them. Now, these obviously can be interchanged in a lot of different situations, but I want to talk about this specifically in our marriage relationships, because especially for women who are working to develop more sexual desire. This distinction between taking care of someone versus caring for someone can be so powerful. So here's something that I think we all hear a lot of in the world. And it's this idea of taking care of your spouse's needs. And I will coach women who say I'm supposed to take care of my husband's sexual needs, or they'll say. I thought my husband would be better at taking care of my needs, especially if I do a good job of taking care of his needs. But the truth is I have yet to meet someone out there who feels good when they say to themselves, I have to take care of my spouse's needs. Just say that sentence in your mind. I have to take care of my spouse's needs. Does that feel good in your body? Now possibly for some of you, it does. And if that is the case fantastic. But for most people, they tell me that when they say that sentence to themselves, or think that thought they just feel a lot of pressure. And of course they do because taking care of someone's needs is serious business. But when it comes to what we more perceive as emotional needs, we just can't be sure that we're actually going to be able to take care of those needs adequately when it's all said and done. And when it's all on us, And we aren't totally sure how to do it all the time, or if what we do is going to be effective, or if we're going to do enough of whatever needs to be done. And so we feel this pressure when it feels like it's all on us to meet the needs of our spouse. And the pressure is antithetical to romance or intimacy or sexual desire. Now I know there are a lot of therapies out there and a lot of therapists who focus on teaching couples, how to meet one another's needs. And if that has been effective in your marriage, that's awesome. Keep going, but I actually think that it is a system. That really set some couples up to fail because it sets them up to get resentful and to be more of just kind of going through the motions of a good marriage, more than actually creating a good marriage. What I mean is, or I guess maybe what an example of what I mean is, and there's lots of couples that could attest to this. So I'm going to use a very generalized example. So I know this doesn't apply to every couple, but you have a man who feels like if I have sex every day, that's going to meet my needs, not just hormonally, but also so that I can feel like I'm wanted and chosen and desired by my wife. So he can come to the therapy session or maybe one-on-one with his wife and say, listen, we've been taught to take care of each other's needs and I need sex every day. Now the wife can decide to have sex with her husband every day to take care of his quote unquote needs. But it doesn't follow that. Now they're going to have this very connected, intimate, strong marriage, or even really a fantastic love life. It just doesn't because in that moment, unless the wife is totally bought into wanting sex every day. That wife is caretaking her husband. She is taking care of his needs. She's not sharing a deeply emotional sexual, intimate moment. She's taking care of him. Just like she does when she changes the baby's messy diaper. Now, maybe there's more pleasure overall in that sexual relationship that sexual taking care of, then changing the diaper. But if she's approaching it as taking care of him and is therefore caretaking his feelings all the time. She's not going to be seeing it as romantic or connecting or intimate. She's going to be thinking of it like a job to do, or a chore or something to check off her to do list. So that's just one example of how it can actually go sideways in our marriage. When we get taking care of each other's needs. Instead of building something stronger and better and more intimate and with more cherishing, we're just going through the motions and there can start to become underlying resentment and problems that arise from this. Another example. Again, very generalized is when a wife says I need to be able to talk to you more. I need to have somewhere to put all my stress and overwhelm and these difficult emotions I'm feeling. And if you provide that for me, if you meet that need. You not only help meet that need of the processing of the emotion that I want, but then I also feel like I'm understood and loved by you. But if the husband has only bought into the idea of sure, I can sit here and listen and not really bought into investing in what his wife is sharing or really caring about what she's sharing. It's not necessarily creating a stronger marriage again, does he approach these daily or weekly sit downs together with some dread or resentment or? Okay. I just got to check this off my to-do list because I'm supposed to meet her needs and we're working on our marriage. I mean, maybe you've had the experience of a child telling you a long story and you're just like nodding and. But your brain is totally somewhere else. Right. How often does that happen? When a husband has to meet his wife's needs of conversation, when he really doesn't want to do that all the time. So, what I love is the idea of caring for someone instead of taking care of them or caretaking them because nobody actually wants to be caretaking. Even though a wife wants to talk to her husband. What she really actually wants is to feel like what she has to say matters to her husband, even if it only matters because it matters to her. And she wants to believe that her husband cares about her enough to want to be her sounding board. She doesn't want to talk to him knowing in her heart that he could actually care less about anything she's saying. And can't wait for this whole thing to be over. I mean, it's not because women won't take this kind of interaction. They will because their brain tells them it's better than nothing. But more often than not, it ends up hurting more than helping. Or maybe her husband is sitting there listening and thinking, this is worth it if I get sex after, but she doesn't want to feel like the interest he takes in her as simply transactional, because that actually feels terrible. And so really are you meeting your spouse's needs if you're doing it with. Uh, I have to take care of you type attitude. I just don't think so. And the same goes with a man who wants daily sex. Even if it's not daily sex, a lot of sex, many men will take that sex, even if they know in their heart of hearts, that their wife isn't really interested. They just won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but no man in his heart wants his wife to caretake him with sex. He wants his wife to choose him. He wants to feel like he is desirable. He wants her to want him and want to be with him. So if he gets a sex, his needs are. Quote unquote met, but in his heart he knows his wife hasn't chosen him. He knows it was something to take off of her to do list. And that is painful. That hurts. And so even though his needs are being met, is his marriage actually stronger for it? Does he actually feel better? Are he and his wife more connected with each other? Are they closer because they've had more sex, not. Not necessarily. And so instead of this story of I'm responsible to take care of your needs and you're responsible for taking care of mine. And we're what we're going to do is we're going to send our needs wishlist to one another and each of us has just going to get busy crossing stuff off the list, which, I mean, that brings up a whole other problem I have with going all in on. I'm going to meet your needs and you meet mine. It's putting way too much responsibility for your needs to be met for your happiness, for your peace of mind into someone else's hands. Babies need us to take care of their every single need. They do. They cannot survive if we don't, but as they grew up, they learn how to tie their own shoes and brush their own hair and they learn, you know, how to make their own lunch. They learn how to get a snack out of the pantry when they're pretty little, right. They learn how at school to manage their own hurt feelings. If it's in the middle of a school day or how to get that girl, they'd like to talk to them in class. The idea is that as we grow up, we learn how to better and better take care of our own needs. The job of mum and dad stops being so physically demanding. Because we get better and better at taking care of those things ourselves. Now I'm not proposing that we try to live like we're all islands and we don't meet anyone in our lives. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I am saying is that instead of taking responsibility for the needs of your spouse, And expecting him to do the same for you. What would happen if your main focus was on taking care of your own needs, the best that you could and letting your spouse do the same, right? And then you just both get to love each other along the way. Not a difference that would make. But it really is a grownup thing to do. It's a big emotional growing up that we have to volunteer for to take back the responsibility for our needs to be met. And give back the responsibility for our spouse's needs to be met to them. In some ways, it actually feels easier to just make someone else try and meet our needs. Right. You have to think about it. It's your problem. And if you do a bad job of it, I'm going to tell you so, and be really mad at you, but I'm not going to take responsibility for it because that's hard. And sometimes it feels easier to try and manage someone else's needs or emotions that are own. Right. I'll just try and make you feel good. And then I'll be able to feel good, but this is all just a lie. No one will ever know. How to take care of you better than you. And that doesn't mean you're not going to call in reinforcements to help, but you're always going to remain responsible for meeting your own needs and you will never be perfect at managing the needs of your spouse. And oftentimes what happens is when we mess up in meeting those needs, our spouse gets upset and then we get defensive because we're doing our best. And then things just fall apart and we're left thinking like, wow, you are such an ungrateful jerk. I try so hard to meet your needs. And this is what I get. This is the thanks. I get. Right. It just gets way too. Dramatic. And to add onto that if we do genuinely have needs. And I am such a stickler about this, because I think most things we think we need. We actually just want an art needs at all, but we certainly have some deep ones that may verge on needs, but that's a different topic for a different day. So. If we do genuinely have needs, is it even reasonable to expect our spouse to meet all of those? I'm not proposing that men who think they have sexual needs, which is just really a needy way of saying they have high sexual desire. Aye. I am not proposing that a man who has high sexual desire should go elsewhere to take care of that so that he's not putting pressure on his wife. But if he feels like he needs someone to talk to, does it always have to be his wife? Could it be a brother or a friend sometimes. And same with women, if you feel like you need to be understood, is there a friend you could call once in a while? If you need a night away from your kids and your husband is too tired to go out. Don't pout and accuse them of not meeting your needs for a break from the house. Call a friend, or get a good book and go by yourself. Take it, order some food, spend some time by yourself, away from the kids. So it's good if your spouse is your go-to friend, but don't make them have to be your everything friend all the time for everything. It's just too much for one person. So instead of taking care of our spouse's needs and expecting him to take care of ours. What would change if we instead made our focus? I want to care for you. Now, maybe that sounds the same to you, but it doesn't to me. Taking care of someone feels like managing them. Caring for someone feels like loving them, cherishing them. I did a podcast just recently on cherishing, it's treasuring someone. How do we act when we cherish someone? What happens when we ask the question, how can I care for my spouse in this moment? Or what would happen if we asked ourselves, how do I see my spouse caring for me in this moment? When you stop taking care of your husband's sexual needs through sex and start instead to care for him with sex, that feels different. And vice versa, a woman who feels like her husband uses sex as a way to care for her to love her, to cherish her is going to feel completely different than a woman who feels like her husband is using her, is making her take care of him. And really more is kind of taking from her. That feels so different because instead of feeling like she's being taken from, she feels like she's being given to. And again, not because he's trying to take care of her needs, but because she matters to him. He uses their intimate relationship as a way to care for her as a way to show her she matters. And again, the same goes for a man. If his wife is fully present and thinking about caring for him through sex. He will certainly notice a difference compared to checklist sex. And this goes for everything we do in our marriages. When your spouse starts to talk to you and you feel like, I don't know how much of this I want to hear, or maybe I'm going to be expected to fix something here. And I really don't want to, or maybe they're actually coming here to tell me that I'm the problem. When you start to feel that way, what would change if you stopped your mind drama and reminded yourself that you really care about this person and that to care for them in this moment, really? And genuinely, you're going to hear them out and take an interest and listen. Well, When you get into the mindset that you want to care for your spouse, you will act in ways that tell them they are loved and cherished. And so guess what happens? You will start to just naturally meet your spouses. Quote unquote needs. Now you may not feel all of their wishlist all of the time. But in truth, I find that my needs. Diminish when I feel like I am genuinely loved and cared for by my husband, because suddenly it's not so personal. If he's too tired after work to go out on a date or he can't help me with something in the house or he can't have a certain conversation right now. Because I know he cares for me. I know his default is to do good by me. And so I can trust that he has my back and that he's always doing what he can for me. And sometimes that will be lots and other times it's going to be a lot less, but I trust that he is being genuine in what he gives me and that his intention is to bring his best to me, whatever it is in that moment. And I hope that as he and I both practice more and more to really cherish and care for each other. He will trust that. I also want to support him and meet his needs because that's the caring thing to do. Not because it's what I'm supposed to do. It becomes who I am, not who I think I have to be. Does that make sense? And by getting into that mindset of caring for each other, we stop looking at each other as objects that were put into our lives to fill our needs and make us feel good. We start to see each other as totally flawed humans who are doing their best to love and cherish each other. And to show it. This could be a game changer for you. Not because when you start to really care for your spouse, instead of caretaking them or feeling like you have to take care of their needs, you're going to suddenly have no more disagreements. And life's just going to be roses because it's still a marriage and it's still this purifying relationship that we're always having to grow up in more and more. But it will make things better. I promise. If not totally for your spouse. I mean, it will, it will change things for your spouse, but it will definitely change things for you. It has changed so much for me to think about caring for my husband instead of taking care of him. For women out there who feel like their libido is low. Is it because you feel like you have to take care of your husband sexually. What would shift for you if you looked at it as a way to care for him. And what would happen if you invited your husband to look at it that way too? It's just some questions to consider. But this isn't just for your sexual relationship. This goes for all aspects of your marriage. If you want to want it. If you want to feel more genuine desire to engage in your marriage, stop caretaking, stop taking care of and start to care for. Have a great week. Everybody happy spring. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening today. If you like what you hear on the podcast, and you'd like to learn more, feel free to head over to my website. Jamilin Stephan coaching.com or find me on Instagram or Facebook at Jamileh. step in coaching.