The Loving Truth

Ask Sharon | What if we’re too different?

• Sharon Pope • Episode 127

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“I don’t want to let go of something that’s so important to me. But it’s not working anymore.”

This is an emotional episode (because this is an emotional topic). Welcome to a recorded coaching session* with one of the members inside The Decision.

This client has been married to her partner for more than a decade. They have two children together. Right now, they’re struggling with a circular argument that envelops deep criticism and hurt feelings.

In this coaching session, we explore some very important questions as she grapples with her decision to stay or leave: 

  • What if we’re too different? How to work with your partner who has a completely different perspective from you
  • Have we tried enough? How to create a practice to identify your intuition and inner wisdom
  • Have you shown him your fear? How to soften into vulnerability when you’re hurting

Listen in for an emotional conversation with a client who’s ready to make a change.

*Shared with permission.

Struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you’re serious about finding that answer?

Book a Truth & Clarity Session with a member of my team. We’ll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there’s a fit for you and I to work together so you can make - and execute - the RIGHT decision for YOU and your marriage.

Speaker 1:

Making a decision about your relationship is never easy, but you don't have to do it alone Inside the Decision, the only place where I offer direct coaching. I help women just like you navigate the uncertainty of their marriage. Today, I'm opening the doors and sharing a behind-the-scenes look at a real Q&A session. In this episode you'll hear real questions, real coaching and real breakthroughs. Whether you're facing a tough decision or just seeking clarity, I hope this gives you exactly what you need to take your next step.

Speaker 2:

So there was a lot of, there was just anger and there was a lot of frustration and defensiveness with your husband. And so, about two and a half months ago, you said I'm going to try to work on the marriage. And your husband was in a very open position and also wanted to work on it as well, and you said, okay, we can work on it, but here's what that needs to look like. That was good, by the way, that was really good. We're going to do this. We're going to do a marriage workshop and we're going to do couples therapy. And so they did the workshop. They went to couples therapy and in therapy, there was where she started sharing things.

Speaker 2:

What he heard caused him to shut down and get angry for a few days and he didn't want to talk about it. This is what you wrote. That I wrote down in my notes. He didn't realize that you felt so bad for so long and he felt ashamed and frustrated that it took you so long to tell him. You didn't tell him because you felt like you didn't get your feelings validated when you tried before and instead felt criticized. And so there's a criticism I'm going to say like criticism from you. He feels I'm treated badly, and then we end up back in the same sort of circular arguments yes, you feel unheard, probably All right, so let me finish off with this thing. So this is what you sent yesterday or today. It says I was able to move off the anger and I started to use the tools to stop the suffering.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we should call this program Stop the Suffering. Yes, but in the bottom, I keep despising his efforts. Even though I was trying to remind myself of all the changes he's trying to do, I wasn't suffering anymore, so my mind started to say well, now you have reason to get a part. I don't know if you meant no reason or reason to get a part. No reason, sorry, no reason. Now he's trying and so therefore, I don't have any reason to leave. I don't have any good, justifiable reason to leave. So now, what am I going to do? So then, to create a reason, she didn't say that. I said that we have a fight on Sunday and because I couldn't stay in my business.

Speaker 2:

Regarding how he addressed my son, he can be very harsh, even though he is making big efforts to change that pattern. So she got in his business and told him he should be parenting like her. We know how that went. So we came back on the wrong way of talking about it and he came to repair things. He came to apologize and I started to accuse him of acting the same way as before. So he let me know he felt nothing. It's enough for me. I think it's enough for him. You treat him bad frequently with noticing because I'm criticizing everything he does, and now we're back in the same spot again. To stop this same dynamic from repeating is very difficult, and then possibly separation can solve it. So fill in the blanks there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good resume what I meant when saying that separation could be a way of resolving this because, as you were saying in the last Q&A, separation or when you were explaining your concept of separation is giving a different dynamic to the relationship, because not being together will break all the normal routines and normal way of doing things, and I am in the feeling that something like that need to happen, because we have been acting this way for many years and, even though I don't suffer, it doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2:

So tell me if I'm wrong here. My hunch is the reason you're not suffering is because you're starting to become indifferent, not indifferent.

Speaker 3:

I try to accept that is his way, but it doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2:

So give me a specific here. Give me a. He's doing something his way and that doesn't work for me. Give me an example.

Speaker 3:

Well, I have three bigs. First is his way of addressing lifestyle. I'm a very healthy person and I want to teach that to my kids, but he is completely opposite. So he brings a lot of discussions and I try to respect him and I have accept that is his body and he does whatever he wants with his body, but make me angry that I can't address my kids because they have two models at home.

Speaker 2:

So it is difficult they get to see that they have choices models at home. So it is difficult they get to see that they have choices in life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah well, but for me that's a way. It sounds very good when you say that.

Speaker 2:

The way they see it.

Speaker 3:

Already like you go to school and you see like oh yeah, of course, but I prefer them to learn that outside home and just because, like, for example, my son, has hdhd and concentration difficulties or whatever, and I know that he, if he will change some things in their eating that will impact those symptoms, reduce them. My daughter has already, for example, eczema and is itchy, and I know that that can be addressed with food too, but it's impossible to practice that at home, for example.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's use that as an example. That's a good one, because you're on polar opposites and you for sure think your way is the right way and he is for sure wrong.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And so here's I'm going to offer this and it's going to you're not going to like, want it, you're not going to want to eat it right away, but what I would offer is that you're. What you have is a perspective about lifestyle. This is what it should look like and it's healthy and it's good for you and it will make you feel better and it and it won't cause dis ease in the body. And he's like, yeah, and I love food and I enjoy I don't know making stuff up here, whatever it is. I'm thinking like, cause my, my in-laws have, like, I want to eat all the things I love.

Speaker 2:

Like my mother-in-law, she brings to my house my husband I won't go off on a tangent. She brings flaming Cheetos into our home. I won't go off on a tangent. She brings flaming Cheetos into our home. Like alarm bells should be going off, anything like that in our home. But she brings her own snacks because she knows that right and it drives my husband crazy. He suffers. She's not suffering, I'm not suffering. He suffers because he's thinking it should be different. So it's a perspective that you have.

Speaker 3:

I totally get that, but he has been in emergency removing blood overweight all day.

Speaker 2:

Are you talking about him? Yes, okay.

Speaker 3:

And so I don't want to see my son and my daughter suffer, and I suffer too, and it just I feel it's not aligned with what I believe and like I need to to let go something that is too important for me because yeah I was dealing with disease very young age and I was able to reverse all of that because of my efforts, yeah, in aligning my life, yeah, with health. So it just doesn't work anymore for me so, natalia, have you ever?

Speaker 2:

so? I'm gonna skip past him right just for a second, because if he's treating his body poorly, there's a reason for that, and sometimes the reason for that is numbing the sharp emotions in our lives, right, if we don't want to feel or that my wife doesn't love me, or that I'm overweight, or we don't want to feel bad about ourselves, you don't have to reach too far to find something to numb with, right, that can be Oreos, that can be alcohol, that can be porn that can be overworking. That can be throwing yourself. That can be porn that can be overworking. That can get yourself into your kids. Those are just socially acceptable ways to numb. But there's a million ways to numb. So let's put him aside. There's something going on with him, but we probably won't solve that today. Have you gone to him and instead of trying to let me say it this way, do you think he feels like you're trying to control him?

Speaker 3:

oh, yeah, okay, so this is the that I that I can see the the effort he makes and all the changes he has made, like, for example, instead of buying the worst cereal, he has changed to a cereal that doesn't have sugar but instead has whatever monk fruit you know, and that's an improvement, and that I need to be able to see those little improvements or things like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Okay, cool. So actually that says he is sort of willing to hear you and work with you, but no one wants a pillow over their face. No one, not your kids, certainly not your husband. If I put a pillow over your face, what are you going to do?

Speaker 3:

try, to move that and fight yes, yep.

Speaker 2:

So when he feels like you're trying to control him, he's going to fight. He's going to fight you with it right, and he's going to dig in and do the exact opposite of what you actually want him to do. So I'm going to propose that we give that up, since that's not going to work, and instead I. Has he ever seen this softer side of where I'm scared? I'm scared that you're going to die. I'm scared that our kids are going to pick up diseases, that they're going to have to go through what I went through. I'm scared because I feel like we're not supporting each other and just making sure our kids are healthy. Like, has he ever seen that part of you?

Speaker 3:

I think so I don't know if, in a softly way of I have cried and tell him what I feel, but I don't know if I I was like from describing my scariness instead of criticizing. I don't know if I explained myself, so I was like pointing out I have been already in the hospital with you in emergency. Yeah, I have it, but no talking about my own feelings maybe?

Speaker 2:

yeah, because underneath. So I just heard this on um uh from esther perrell. She did a thing with um glennon doyle, a podcast, and she said underneath of all, anger is hurt, but we talk, we rage about the anger, but we never get at the hurt. And that's what we got to start talking about. In your case, it's fear. It's I don't want my kids to get sick. I don't want my kids to go through what I went through, this is the well that one I have.

Speaker 3:

We have spoken about it and he said things like they are not you, I'm not you, we don't have to pass through that, and that's true.

Speaker 2:

They're not you, but you can just express the hurt, the fear, and he will be more open to receiving, and he will be more open to receiving. But what you will have to also do is give up this. This is the only way to be, and you got to like, hold it a little more lightly, like, you know what. This is what I'm choosing for my life. This is what feels good for me. I'm going to show my kids this perspective because I think that they would really enjoy it. I think that that's something that they would enjoy. They're going to see another perspective because, by the way, you can get rid of him, but he's not going to like when, when the kids go to his house, when you're divorced, they're going to eat whatever he has or whatever he's eating. So you're not going to think it's hard to control your husband now. Wait till you're divorced. They're going to eat whatever he has or whatever he's eating. So you're not going to think it's hard to control your husband now. Wait till you're an ex.

Speaker 3:

No, yeah, I'm not getting that too, but at least I'm not going to suffer myself.

Speaker 2:

No, it'll still be crazy. I promise it just won't be in your face, you won't see it. But they'll come home and they'll be like mom, I can eat this at dad's, how come I can't have it at yours? So that's why I'm like you've got to find your way through this, and I think it comes down to being able to communicate about what's underneath it and not just going for the criticisms and the anger and the righteousness that damn it. I'm right and you're wrong, and until you see that, I'm not going to acknowledge any of your effort.

Speaker 3:

that's what's getting in the way of the brain is weird, why you're sorry or how our system works. It doesn't. It's aligned with the other person. That's.

Speaker 2:

That's possible that no, not I mean if. I mean if you want. If you want to be in relationship with a woman, your physiology will be much closer to you, but if you want to be in relationship with a man, that will never happen. Have you seen any of my teachings on the differences between men and women? Yes, all of them. Yeah, like it's not. Not, you can be mad at like the way the male brain works, but that's not going to change anything. The male brain works the way it does. The female brain works the way it does.

Speaker 3:

No, no what I mean is we have, as a person, two things. One we can change always, because it's it's conduct, habits or. But there is something that come with us. It's like our box I don't know how to call it or that it has been wired when we grew up. When will everything and it's part of us sold, I don't know and when those things that can be changed in each person are not aligned, that one make things more harder, that if they are closed or similar.

Speaker 2:

OK, so give me an example, or make it real, because I can give you other examples, but then, as soon as I do, you're going to be like no, no, no, this is different. So just give me an example of what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:

Well, sometimes I feel that I am here to make him hurt Not hurt, but hearing the pain because I want to change him things that are very defined for him, like, and he want me to change things that are define me also. So we need to say, we need to say like, to let go things that define us so that doesn't make that is very difficult to be together, or it is possible to change that too.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. All right, so I'm going to go option C. So can someone change? Yes, they want to. No one will change because you want them to. Yeah, I know, just like you will not change who you are because he wants you to. That's just not how it works. And so then we just end up just suffering, fighting each other, trying to get the other. Like be an orange, I know you're an apple, but just be an orange. It's a fruit, just become an orange. I know you're an apple, but just be an orange, it's a fruit, just become an orange. Nope, he's an apple and you're a pineapple, whatever, making stuff up Right, but this idea that I need you to mirror me, to be like me, because then it's easier to love you.

Speaker 2:

There's a person in my life is very easy to love, your niece, very easy to love. There's one thing that we don't hold, and she's going to be listening to this. There's one thing that we don't talk. We don't talk politics, and I would love for her to be like me, because for sure I am right. For her to be like me, because for sure I am right.

Speaker 2:

I'm joking, of course it's lovely when people are easy to love. I wish everyone was easy to love. And it's easier to love someone who thinks just like us. It's much harder to love someone who doesn't think like us. And yet that is what love is. It's not love when it's easy, love when it's convenient, love when you think like me. It's love me as me, as who I really am. That's what like. That's the goal. That's unconditional love. That's a mountaintop that we may never quite reach, but that is the goal. If you love me, you have to love all of me, the total sum of me, not the pieces that agree with you and then hate the pieces that you don't agree with, because it's a package deal and you're a package deal for him. Love isn't change and love isn't become who I need you to be. Love is like let me see you and let me experience you, and then let me look away from the things that I can't quite look at and feel great about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and how do you know when you have tried enough and it already doesn't work?

Speaker 2:

So it's such a personal decision. I mean, I can tell you my experience. I love that Love is an exercise in selective perception. How do you know? So here's the quickest path to doing that, to understanding that it's getting out of your head and into your heart. Most people can't get out of their head and it's like someone had asked in the group a question like how do you know the difference when it's my gut versus my head? The problem is, if you can't get out of your head, you can't hear your gut. That's why almost every spiritual teacher on the planet says sit your butt down and meditate, get quiet, because when you quiet the mind, you can feel truth. Truth feels different in the body, okay, truth. When we're all up here going yeah, but our nature is so different and he's never going to change and I'm never going to change. That's all intellectualizing it, it's all trying to figure it out up here, and you can spin in that for years. So the quickest path is to be able to create a practice where you get pretty quiet, pretty consistently, and you start checking in with what does truth really feel like? And then over time you can reach for am I done with this, am I done with this, or am I still in it? Not the pros and cons list, not asking all your friends and taking a poll and seeing what they think? Yeah, I know you have that inner wisdom and all I can tell you is that when I um you might've heard me say this before.

Speaker 2:

I say a lot of things the whole time but, um, when I was going through it was I was recently separated and my husband was living in our home and I had moved out to an apartment and periodically I would come back to the home like, say, you know, on a Sunday or something, just to like talk and touch base with him, and I'd be crying and whatever. Right, I wasn't a coach then. I didn't have any tools, you know, and all I remember thinking. I remember like I can literally picture myself walking through that front door and I thought the easiest thing in the world would be just to go back into the marriage, just go back into it. It'd be so easy. And there was some little tiny voice inside me that just said not this. I didn't know what that was. Now I know what that is. At the time I didn't know what that was and I just blindly followed it. I didn't have what was next. I didn't have number three lined up. I didn't know. I'm living in a freaking, probably 500 square foot little place. It was ridiculous. I did not know, but somehow I knew to follow that little voice. But you can't hear that voice when you're all in your head. So that's the quickest path to get to your answer.

Speaker 2:

But it's such a personalized thing and it's probably a question I get asked like one of the top questions how do you know when you're driving up? And I think it's like when can I look at myself in the mirror and go? Yeah, I genuinely gave it my very best, because you're the one that's got to look at yourself in the mirror for the rest of your life. And if you can do that and go, you know what. That was the right decision, or I gave it my very best. Then you can move forward, even when it's hard.

Speaker 2:

But whether it's communication or the way he eats or lives, all those things don't get easier just because we get rid of them. Right, and sure, it's easy to love people that look like us and think like us, but isn't that like? Isn't that the richness of life too? Is that like? We all get to choose. What you choose for your life is probably very different than what I choose for my life, and your only task, albeit a big one, is to try to love him, because you did, at one point, choose him and say let's make babies yeah, so he's going to be their dad forever and you're going to be your mom forever. So we got to find our way through this one way or the other. And if we use the tools now and we get good at them now, even if the marriage doesn't last, that investment in time will help your relationship and help your kids not have to navigate mom and dad not being able to be emotional adults, which is what most people do. Don't do that.

Speaker 3:

Oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm terrified about his reaction, he, but that's another story I'm telling you, like those buddhists I think they got it figured out because they're like their thing is like non-attachment, like when you have attachment to how someone else should be, you're suffering. When you have attachment to how someone else should be, you're suffering. When you have attachment to how the outcome should be and how people should eat and how they should vote and how they should raise their kids. All of that just causes suffering. Everyone gets to choose for themselves and they get to live with the consequences.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't mean you don't get to have feelings about it, especially when you're in relationship with them, but they do get to choose and anytime you try to take away their choice it doesn't matter if they're 14 year old or 40 year old they're going to react. Just leave it to a teenager to show you you try to control them. Like they're pretty easy to control when they're like six or seven kind of sort of, but it only lasts for a little while. Yeah right, but or have that magic pill, we for sure would use it instead. We just gotta work through it, you know yeah, you're right, it's, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's here to teach us something yep, it's here to help us grow. There's nothing like our closest relationships that will trigger all of our stuff, that will make us go. Oh, there's another thing for me to pay attention to. There's another thing for me to pay attention to.

Speaker 3:

It brings all of us. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2:

You're doing great. You're doing great. Hang in there, thank you. Keep asking the hard questions and try to where you can show up and soften a bit. Let him see your underbelly and not just your finger.

Speaker 3:

Okay, yeah, I will do that. Thank you, sharon. I really appreciate you and all your work. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

Finding clarity in your relationship is one of the most important journeys you'll ever take, and you don't have to do it alone. If you're ready for support and guidance, apply for a truth and Clarity session. You'll speak with a member of my team, who will help you explore your situation and see if working together is the right next step for you. Visit clarityformymarriagecom to apply now. We'd love to support you on this journey.