Breaking Free: Unraveling Relationship Spirals for Healthier Dynamics

In today’s episode, we delve into the concept of "relationship spirals," where partners get trapped in unhealthy behavioral patterns. Through societal conditioning, women often feel pressured to support their partners' success, leading to self-identification based on their partner's behavior. Conversely, men may internalize beliefs that tie their worth to their ability to make their partners happy. These conflicting expectations create tension and a sense of helplessness in relationships. By becoming aware of these patterns and untangling codependent behaviors, partners can cultivate a healthier, more interdependent dynamic. Join us as we explore how to break free from relationship knots and foster a more balanced exchange of energy and support.

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Your host, certified life coach Lindsay Poelman started her journey of intentional healing started when she learned that her husband had been lying to her about pornography use for a greater part of their marriage. After processing and accepting her circumstance more fully, she found coaching—which propelled her into a forward focused state of ...

Transcript

 Hello, hello, Hello, everybody. It's so good to be back. I took a little break these past couple weeks. I thought about starting a new season or doing something like that, but just decided, you know what, it's okay to give yourself a gift of a little bit of a podcast break. And now I'm back doing well over here. 

 I'm so enjoying the work that I'm doing with my certification clients. It has been hugely rewarding, hugely fulfilling. They are just so committed to,  to love, really to love and to loving the people that they're planning on serving and Loving themselves. And it's just,  ah, it just feels so good.

Feels so good. And if this is something you've been on the fence with respect to, , my next full coaching certification program or my next advanced training, and you're like, not sure how you want to make it work, reach out to me. You can reach out to me,  via DM on Instagram. I'll have my assistant put the show notes here.

But,  What if there's more possibility than, as far as making something like this happen? I do for people who signed up earlier. I don't know if this will always be the case, but for right now, for people who signed up earlier, there's usually early bird pricing. There's also more flexibility with payment plans as well.

So if you know, you want it, don't be afraid to reach out , and see if there's, , a way for us make it happen for you. Okay.  All right, today I'm going to talk about a little concept that I use sometimes, primarily when I was doing a lot of one on one coaching, but I'm also teaching this concept to my current certification group.

So I wanted to also teach it to you as well. Cause I think it's really helpful and really impactful and,  can really make a difference if you're struggling in a certain relationship. Okay. So the concept  That I'll be speaking to today is  called,  relationship spirals. I'm like, what do these dynamics look like?

 The idea of a relationship spiral is where a pair of people in a partnership loop together on a particular behavioral spiral that is not serving either of them. Hey, and , anytime people are together, there's always an energy exchange, energy shared and that impacts each other.

And when a lot of that is happening unconsciously, we're not always quite aware of. What is impacting us? So we're not meant to be callous robotic humans who aren't impacted by our partners or people that we spend the most time around. It makes sense that there might be patterns that we, , go down together and , what I refer to as like a relationship spiral.

Okay. So an example might be, sometimes I, it's easy for me to use examples from  a lot of the work that I've done with women and, With respect to betrayal trauma, but  a lot of times  as women, we are conditioned to be, a support system around our spouse. And I think To almost be, it's almost like we, the wives, our planets revolving around the sun, following him around his career, his church callings, whatever it is that he's doing whatever he's able to create for his family.

It makes sense that we're socialized or conditioned to be more of an object to support his success or almost an ornament to his success while accepting our role, our place. And again, when you think about this, being limited to His success.  when things are going great, we may not even notice that this is happening, especially if our status is based off our husband's status, right?

But a lot of times, because of our socialization, we subconsciously identify ourselves based on our husband's behavior or our husband's status. And  when things are going really well, it's like, It feels easy to do this because we are able to access a higher level of privilege and feel pretty good about ourselves in our social circles.

Now, a problem with this, which again could be a whole other conversation is the blindness that we sometimes have to the experiences of others. Who experienced life differently but for purposes of today, a big problem is that  with this idea as women is when we're in this supportive role, this, planet revolving around the sun it's a more reactive space to be. 

And we're self identifying by another person's behavior.  I remember when I first found out about my partner's porn use eight, nine years ago, when he told me about it. And one of the first things I thought was,  Oh no, now I'm like  a porn user's wife,  like that is how I was identifying. And it wasn't even me.

His behavior wasn't even based off me, but because of my socialization, that's where I went.  Oh,  it did not feel good. Trust me. And not only did it not feel good believing that and living in this reactive space and having no control over whether they stop can be akin to  being on a roller coaster ride.

But not knowing if when what's going to drop and not really having control over whether things do drop it so it might not feel safe.  Think that's an interesting thing to consider as well.  What does safety look like if we, are attaching our status or identity to someone else's behavior.

Then if things are going well, it's easy to identify there. But when things don't go well, that's where it doesn't always feel very good. And, for me, that's what caused me to start questioning some of this stuff, too.

And let's just say if we go along with that roller coaster analogy. Maybe for a time when it seemed secure and when things were going well, I say that in quotes, it felt safe. I was buckled in. There was an illusion of safety there for me because. In a way  I didn't know what true safety looked like, but then when I became aware of my partner's behavioral changes,  it, it can feel for a lot of people, like everything has come loose or unhinged or uncertain, unclear, unsafe.

Okay. And then again, as women, we were like in this space where we've been taught to be supportive and loving and orbit around him . And be their accountability partners and be this and almost to fix him to be of service to him and to put all our financial resources towards him. And  a lot of us were socialized in certain spheres of being that.

If we play our part, our partner will be happy, right? And then, but then  who hasn't played that part in some way?  And then it actually didn't work.  And I felt like that's where I was for a little while.  I was doing everything I could to support my husband after we found out about his porn use and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I was still doing what, everything I thought a supportive wife would do for my partner to be happy, but it didn't take away his mental illness or his anxiety. And I just felt so out of control and reactive and helpless.  It  was not a helpful place to be. And then for me, or for some people, , when we're socialized again, I know I'm like taking this to the nth degree but it's a real thing.

 Sometimes what we can do, too, is we might resort to more extreme means of trying to, quote, unquote, fix him or do something to do the trick so someone's, maybe so that someone would stop looking at porn. So we might. Start being a little helicoptery or hypervigilant or checking the phones or different things like that.

And I don't want to say that those things are wrong. Cause sometimes those can be, a little trauma responses and things like that.  But I just want you to know that if you can relate to any of that and your partnership, where you have felt like so much is up to you to keep him happy, but then it hasn't worked, I feel you.

And in my own way, I relate to it and I get it because I was there, but. Also, know that it's okay that you are where you are.  And it makes sense if you can relate to any of this, just know that it also makes sense based on how you were taught or what you internalize based on  what you're exposed to or what you inherited. And generally I would say if you're just becoming aware of this right now, this isn't a place to judge because transformation is already happening right now by becoming more aware and maybe that can be your win for today,  now I'm going to pull back to what I was speaking about at the beginning of the podcast episode.  If you think about your socialization to be a supporter or a fixer, think about that idea.  And then let's think about where, men have been conditioned or socialized. A lot of men have been conditioned to socialize with, other unhelpful things like, happy wife, happy life.

Be a good guy, make a lot of money, provide. A lot of times for men their worth is  based on how much they earn, right? They attain more status privilege certain church callings and things like that. And so, men might internalize some idea of I need to be this so that my wife can be happy.

If she's not happy, I've done something wrong and  I need to change something urgently to make her happy. If not, I'm a bad person or she won't think I love her. Okay. So can you see how contradictory or how the belief system of I need to be a supporter to fix him. And if there's something that a man might think where it's like,  if she's not happy, then I've done something wrong.

Some of these like belief ideas that have been imprinted on us can. Kind of spiral and loop together.  And then both partners just feel like at a loss. So what I just want to offer there is that's an example where  a partnership might exhibit two beliefs that they were socialized or conditioned to believe  that aren't helping them.

Cause she thinks that he needs to be blank for her to be doing a good job. , but if he can't do the blank let's say it's stopping looking at porn, then he feels guilty and he feels like it's her fault. And then they can just like  spiral down into a space where they're both feeling a little reactive and out of control.

Cause a lot of men who are looking at porn and who don't want to be looking at porn, they would give anything to not look at porn. To a degree they don't want it and they want tools to stop. 

And here's the thing too,  if a husband thinks his role is to make his wife happy and she's not for whatever reason,  then they might cope in some ways. And for some people, their coping mechanism might be looking at porn or something like that.

And to avoid the pain or idealistic myth that you can't make her happy. And so they might cope with that. 

So I think that's the thing is when you're both bending over backwards  in an impossible attempt to please the other or fix the other or make the other person happy, you can spiral in similar ways and get stuck in what I call relationship knots. And  once you become aware of that,  you can start.

Untangling and de-knotting yourself from any codependent or reactionary spaces that you might be in to feel more grounded and empowered in what you know. And this isn't callous. This isn't like this complete robotic callous independence. It actually supports us to come together interdependently in ways that we may want to ultimately overall, so that we can come together in a, in the way that.

I think that humans are meant to come together.  So , the energy exchange is one that's maybe a little bit more healthy because we're each grounded in our knowing and doing what we can to support and create as much safety as possible for each other. So that's just a little tool I wanted to teach today.

It's more of an awareness practice. But if you have a tough relationship or some relationship, sticky relationship with your partner or with somebody close to you,  I would say in some ways, maybe one of your more intimate relationships , you could just ask what have I been taught or what unconscious belief systems have I internalized that I'm exhibiting here that's taking me down this spiral?

 And what is it that he might be thinking to where we're both going down the spiral and we're both upset. We can't make each other happy. But what if.  That's not even quite possible anyway, of course, , there can be impact  when their energy exchanges, because we're humans, and of course of course, , there's impact there, but  📍 also what if we don't have to take complete and full responsibility for someone else's happiness.