The Loving Truth

Ask Sharon: The Hidden Stories That Keep Us Stuck

• Sharon Pope • Episode 141

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Many of us wrestle with that uneasy feeling in a “good enough” marriage, stable and secure but missing real connection and wonder if the problem lies within ourselves or the relationship.

The truth is, it takes two people growing and learning together to make love work, and often we simply haven’t been equipped with the right tools.

At the same time, it’s common to struggle with people-pleasing and chronic worry that drain our energy and joy.

Healing means recognizing these patterns, setting healthy boundaries without guilt, and learning to ride the waves of uncertainty with courage.

“Worrying is like praying for what you don’t want. When you focus on what could go wrong, you make it bigger—and rob yourself of the joy right in front of you.”

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:

Today, on the Loving Truth, I'm giving you a behind-the-scenes look at my signature program, the Decision, which is the only place where I offer direct coaching. You'll hear real questions from members navigating the uncertainty of their relationship, along with my coaching and insights to help them move toward clarity. If you've ever felt stuck, unsure whether to stay or go, these conversations may give you the answers you've been searching for. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

When you are in a good enough marriage. How do you know when the problem lies within yourself and you need to appreciate what you have, or the issue lies in your compatibility and the marriage just isn't going to work for you. No matter what, I've been waiting for a deal breaker moment for years, but nothing has happened so far. Also, there is more than a relationship to think about in my life. So how do you balance your desires for a connected relationship when your marriage is good enough, with financial security, stable home, secure children? I have heard more than once people say at least he doesn't beat you. That was where I wrote OMG, anyone ever heard that before? Like, why are you so unhappy? He's not beating you. This is the standard by which we judge good marriages. Think about that. That's so messed up. But that is not us. That is just our culture and our society and our conditioning. But it's indicative of how people think about what constitutes a good marriage or a bad marriage, or what would make it worthwhile to leave versus not leave right. So it's built on a premise of what you came into the relationship wanting. I want someone who I can build a family with. I want someone who I share values with. I want someone who comes from a good upbringing or has a sense of family or wants children all those things right, because that's what you want in, call it, your 20s, 30s kind of zone, most women. It's not what I wanted, but that's what many people want, right? And then you end up in your 40s and 50s once you have those things and now you're like oh, I want something more, those things are lovely and I don't want to get rid of them. She calls you're like oh, I want something more, those things are lovely and I don't want to get rid of them. She calls it security, stable home, children that are thriving and doing well, okay, it's okay to want more. The idea that we go into our marriage is thinking what you want when you get married and you're I mean, I don't know whatever it is, call it 25, call it 27, call it 32, 38, whatever To think that what you want at that age is the same thing that you are going to want for the eternity of your life. That's one of the things that screws us up, because no one is expecting you to go through any massive change, no one is expecting you to grow, no one is expecting you to want anything different or more or whatever, and so, as long as he's not beating you like, can't you just make it fine? So that whole comment is just telling you about where they're at. Whoever says that to you is telling you about where they're at.

Speaker 2:

And, by the way, when you are considering leaving your marriage or ending your marriage, you will trigger the shit out of other people, right? Because I remember people who I was friends with for years and when I decided to end the marriage, now all of a sudden they just ghosted me like nowhere to be found, and I was very confused by that. And the more I got into this work like now, hindsight is 2020. And I can look back and go oh, they just looked at that and said, if that can happen to Sharon and Jason, maybe that could happen to me. It automatically causes you to think about your marriage. And is it healthy? It's like when someone stops drinking and then they still hang out with their friends that are drinking, those friends that are still drinking automatically have to go wait a minute, why am I drinking? It automatically puts up a mirror and says is that what you want? She made a choice. Is that what you want. So anytime you do something different than the norm, you're going to get challenged by that because you're triggering things in other people. That doesn't mean you don't have to do those things. It doesn't mean you don't have to stop drinking. It doesn't mean you don't have to end your marriage. It just means you have to put it in the context of which it is meant, which it is their stuff and it's not your stuff.

Speaker 2:

Now, the first part was about being in a good enough marriage. And what if the problem lies within me, like I should just be grateful he's not beating me, or it's just incompatible? So that's a hard question to answer without knowing your specific situation. But in a general context, what I can tell you is that it is never one person's issue. So I don't love the idea of how do you know when the problem lies with them or me, because the problem, the way you're describing it, I don't view it as a problem. I just view it as not informed, never equipped. The problem, as you say, it is always both of you, and you can call it 20, 80%, you can call it 60, 40. You can call it 50, 50. I don't care what you call it, but it always takes two people to get here. It is never 100% and zero. I'm perfect, he sucks. That is not a thing. That's not actually a thing. Now there might be super bad behavior on one side of the fence and that's why I say it might be 60-40. It might be 70-30. But even if that's the case, let's say he's super controlling. I'm going to use he just because I don't see any men on this call, but there might be a few men watching. Let's say he is super controlling.

Speaker 2:

You co-signed on it, you allowed it, you overlooked it for some period of time to allow him to think that it was okay, because you didn't shut it down the minute it showed up, so that you could be loved, so that you could stay in your secure, happy, whatever marriage. It's fear, it's needing to be loved, it's all those things right, but you played a role in the creation of that experience. So almost everyone, when they're finding their way to my work, they're thinking like they're not saying I'm blameless, but they're saying like he's for sure. The problem here, and what I want to offer, is, first of all, neither of you are problems. You just have never been equipped to be successful at this, and so you're struggling and you're screwing it up more than you would like. Maybe you realize that, maybe he doesn't, I don't know, but it's not a problem. Maybe you realize that Maybe he doesn't, I don't know, but it's not a problem. It's just, no one has any tools here, so we're just playing out our traumas over and over again and your only side of the street is what you can do about it. What's my lane, what's my side of the street?

Speaker 2:

And so, fiona, I don't know what you've done to say to answer your question of how do you know when enough is enough? I don't know how much change you've gone through in terms of learning how to love differently. I had a client in the 12th program this week. Tell me she goes. You have just dismantled every idea I have ever carried about love and marriage, and now I don't know what the new definition is, and I was like that just pretty much said it all, because that's kind of what we need to do Culturally.

Speaker 2:

What we think of of what love means or what it should look like, or what it should feel like, what relationships and marriage should look like and feel like, is so far left of center that it's like at some point we do have to blow it up and just start anew. So this is a personal question and there's no wrong answer. Okay, so if you feel like you have done a lot of personal growth and you are really showing up as the woman that you want to be in that relationship and it still just doesn't fit and it's never going to evolve to a place that feels good for you, then of course you can walk away and go. You know what? This is just not a good fit for us. Or let's say, you've changed so dramatically over the course of I don't know the last 20 years that now what felt like puzzle pieces fitting together really well 20 years ago now feels like these don't fit at all. That's okay, that's completely okay.

Speaker 2:

But only you can know that I don't know the ins and outs of your personal situation to be able to tell you like now's the time.

Speaker 2:

But what I will tell you is, if you are new to the program and you're like, yeah, how long do I have to do this? Like I really just wanted to come in here and you tell me how to change my husband or give me a permission slip to leave, like do it now. I don't. It's your life. It's your life. I'm here to be of help and support to you so that you can call it two years down the road, look yourself in the mirror and go. That was a hard time and I'm proud of how I handled it. But I think if you sit back and you never try and you just blame those around you, you're going to recreate the exact same experience and a few years from now you'll be blaming the new guy. He's the problem. You'll say things like I said my man picker's broken, which is hilarious to me now because I'm like, oh it's just my man picker, my man picker's broken.

Speaker 2:

No, it's what I bring to the relationship, it's what I attract to myself. The only other thing I'll say is you know, we're always growing closer together or further apart. In general, we're never. Just. A lot of people think, oh, we're just the same as we were five years ago. I don't think so. I think we are always in motion to have two people being completely stagnant, never learning anything new or identifying any new desire or dream or wish for themselves over the course of 5, 10, 20 years. Okay, I just don't actually believe that. That's true.

Speaker 2:

Most people, no matter what they create, there's more, and that's why what we created in our 20s, it's like oh, that's what I wanted and that felt really good, and now I have that. And now I'm like oh, that's what I wanted and that felt really good, and now I have that. And now I'm like now what, now what, and now I want more. Where our partners tend to get really surprised by that, because they're like wait a minute, this isn't the deal. The deal was this other thing. Like I go to work or I provide security and we have kids and we both show up for them, but we don't actually talk about anything besides the weather and the kids. That's the agreement we made and now you're wanting more, like one person is reaching for more, which that's the desire dreaming part of you, the creating part of you.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I'm having a hard time figuring out what my trauma is. I know some people know it was their mother or father or something they can pinpoint in their past. That is the trauma they need to heal. I'm having a hard time figuring out what triggered me to be a people pleaser and worry all the time about what might happen. I can't relax and just live life. Any recommendations or thoughts on how we can dig deeper to figure it out, to get real healing, to move forward and be our best self? Okay, great question.

Speaker 2:

First of all, not everyone has trauma with a capital T, right? Hopefully you all know what I mean by that. Know what I mean by that. I grew up in a fairly normal house. There was no one beating me, there was no alcoholics, there was not overt neglect, there was not sexual abuse, right, there's not the capital T traumas and certainly there's been things that I can look back on and go. I can see how that played out.

Speaker 2:

But here's what I want you to realize. First of all, it doesn't have to be a capital T trauma. We all, just you know how I try to make light of it, because everyone feels that mama guilt, I'm screwing up my kids, like, yep, your parents screwed you up, you're going to screw up your kids, they're going to screw up their kids. It's what we do. We pass along what we know in our hurts and our traumas, because it's all we know and we're just doing the best we can. And they experience that and they learn from that, and then they're going to go through their life experience carrying some of that, trying to make sense of it. It just it gets passed down.

Speaker 2:

I'll give you a, for instance. It's so crazy to me, by the way. So this is Derek and I's second marriage, for both of us. As you might or might not know, his ex-wife lives nearby and our my stepdaughter, his daughter, lives with her and her husband right, and so she calls me this week. So his ex-wife is confiding in me about what's going on with her and the daughter, like she doesn't confide with me in her marriage thank God, that would be super weird but she confides in me about what's going on between her and her daughter and they had a big blow up fight and the daughter my stepdaughter kind of got in her face, was yelling and swearing and crying and drama, right, and part of the conversation I don't.

Speaker 2:

You know, I can't give all the truth at once because most people can't handle it, but in the midst of that conversation I'm like look, she learned that from somewhere and now she's going to teach that to her boys, and these are going to be boys. So when they're 13 years old and they're up in your face yelling, screaming, swearing, it's a whole different deal. But this is how it happens. This is generational dysfunction. Now, I didn't come out and say it, but she got quiet. So I know she knows what I meant and it's true, because her mother taught her that's how you deal with things. She taught her daughter that's how you deal with things. Her daughter, unless she learns differently, will teach that to her kids. This is how it happens, until someone gets conscious and says I'm not going to do it that way anymore. Then it's just going to keep playing out, because that's what we learn.

Speaker 2:

So that's what I mean. It's so subconscious and it's so subtle that it just happens Like, oh, I'm frustrated, I don't like how you're making me feel, so I'm going to get up in your face. That's what she learned and she's demonstrating it in front of her boys. She's not doing it to her boys, right. She's doing it to her mom in front of her boys. You can't tell me her boys aren't going to do that to her someday. If she keeps doing it that way, that is exactly what's going to happen, because words don't teach. Life experience teaches. They're learning how to deal with when I'm uncomfortable or I don't like what you're saying. You get up in someone's face, right. But it's that way with everything, you feel sad, eat Oreos, that's what mom did. It's all the same. It's just a different act of behavior. If you can look back and go, oh, I got that from mom or I got that from dad, whatever, I got that from that experience in my life, I mean it's helpful. But that's 10% of the equation. The 90% is now. What am I going to do with it Now? What am I going to do different going forward? That's the 90%. That's what you should be worried about.

Speaker 2:

I always say, like the whole, like there's a rear view mirror in your car that's this big and there's your windshield that's this big. There's a reason the rear view mirror is this big. Like, while it's helpful to spend some time navel gazing and going oh that was what happened or that's where I got like it's not unhelpful. But if you spend too much time there and you are not paying attention to where you're going, you're never going to get to wherever it is that you want to be. So if you don't know exactly where it came from, let that be okay. But then turn your focus to your front windshield and go what am I going to do with it? Because you said you're like I'm a people pleaser and I worry all the time. I can't relax and just live life. So you know what the wound is. We don't know where it came from. Call it some version of your past. But here we are, now what it's the greatest. Question Now what? So I'm a people pleaser and I worry. Question Now what? So I'm a people pleaser and I worry. So people pleaser.

Speaker 2:

We all come by that very naturally, because we learn that's what you do in order to get love or acceptance from other people. I don't care if it's a parent or a teacher or whatever. You're not too long in this world before you learn. If you're doing the things that others want you to do, they'll be nice to you, they'll love you, they'll accept you, they'll say you're a good child and then when you're bad and acting out and doing all the crazy things, they're like go to your room. Or the teacher's like go to the principal's office. We learn that very, very quickly in this life. But at some point we do have to unlearn that when it gets to the point where it's such a practice thing, if you think about it, I remember my brother it was just my brother and I as the kids in the family.

Speaker 2:

My brother was always in trouble. He was the one getting expelled, he was the one going to the nuns and they would slap him on the hand with a ruler and all this. He was always the one in trouble. But I also think that there's an element of it was sort of expected he was going to be the troublemaker for a while, like until he was 25-ish and he had a child and then he had to grow up and I was like I don't want any part of that I'm going to be the good girl. So I learned to people please, like most girls. Learn to people please as a way to stay safe, as a way to stay loved, as a way to stay in good graces with the people that we want to be loved by and that we love and that keep us safe. So that's where it came from, okay, but when it goes to the extreme of, I'm going to completely subjugate myself, because I'm so practiced at this and I know how to do the dance to make everyone love me, whether it's the next door neighbor or the president of the PTA or my kid's teacher or my kids or my mother-in-law. Like I know how to do the dance for everybody, I lose myself in all that dancing. That's where it gets toxic for you and that's where we got to pull back on it and go.

Speaker 2:

Wait a minute. I'm not saying you have to be the troublemaker. I'm not saying you have to fly in the face of what everyone thinks you should do. Honestly, for those of you that are people pleasers, I couldn't beat it out of you, even if I wanted to. There's going to be some element of you wanting to seek that approval and love to some degree. But you can pump the brakes on that a little bit and pull it back and go wait a minute.

Speaker 2:

But what do I want? Just stopping and asking yourself what is it that I want? I know what everyone else wants, what do I want? Just that question alone. And you take 60 seconds to think about it. And it doesn't mean you have to do what you want, but at least consider it, at least get it on the table as something to think about. I asked her this in the Facebook group because she was like well, everyone wants to move from California to Minnesota and they want to do this. And I'm like, okay, what do you want? And she's like, huh, wouldn't have asked that a while ago. Normally I want to go where my kids want to go, and I still do. I want to be with my kids and I want to have a mortgage I can afford and I can work from anywhere. The end result was the same, but it gave her the opportunity to think about what is it that I want and why do I want it? I want to go move to Minnesota, which to me sounds like crazy town because it's super cold, but because I want to be with my kids and I'm just not willing to not be with my kids in their formative years. I'm just not. And she can like that reason and she can make peace with that and be happy moving from sunny California to cold Minnesota. Okay, so you're a people pleaser, you know how you got there.

Speaker 2:

The worrier part let's talk about any worriers here. You worry about stuff. Worrying is like praying for what you don't want, because whatever you place your focus upon will get bigger. So when you focus on all the bad things that could possibly happen, it's like praying for what you don't want to happen. But why do we do it? It makes us feel safe. If I worry enough, like there's some situation, let's say let's just just because it's top of mind, because I just said it.

Speaker 2:

So I'm moving to Minnesota and I've got a hundred different things that I'm worried about about that move.

Speaker 2:

Will my kids adjust in their school?

Speaker 2:

Will we find a place to live that we feel comfortable?

Speaker 2:

Will I feel comfortable?

Speaker 2:

Will my son feel comfortable?

Speaker 2:

Will my daughter get the education and training Because it's for sports?

Speaker 2:

Will she get the training that she thinks she's going to get there?

Speaker 2:

What will happen with my husband?

Speaker 2:

Will he move now?

Speaker 2:

Will he move late?

Speaker 2:

Like all the there's? There's 300 questions behind that, and so our minds don't like not knowing the answers. So our minds are like, let me figure out all these. And so I spin around in it, I swim in it, I swim in the worry of it. Let me figure it all out. It's just your brain trying to keep you safe, but there's no end to that. Like I said, a hundred questions, but I promise you, if you answer all hundred of those questions, there'd be another hundred questions on the tail end of that. Like, well, what if my son gets into school and he doesn't immediately make friends and feel comfortable? Well then, what do we do? Do we backtrack? Do we find him another school? Do I homeschool now I'm a homeschooler Like there's, there's no end to it and the only reason we do it is because it helps us feel safe. So there's some part of you that feels like worrying keeps you safe. And I know you've heard this before and it sounds super practical but hard to implement. But it really is the truth, which is you have no idea of what the future holds, none.

Speaker 2:

We're all sitting here on a call. We can say like, oh, right now I'm on a call with Sharon Pope and she's rambling on about some crazy thing or something else. You know right now and you might think, okay, and after this I'm going to get a bite to eat or I'm going going to go pick up my kids or I'm going to go. But what if there's an accident on the freeway and you're stuck in traffic for three hours? What if tonight you get a call that something bad happened to your mother? What if you eat sushi and you get food poisoning? I don't know what if there's a million things and they're not all bad. Right, they could be good, like you could hit all the green lights and get there five minutes early, like there's also that, like there's a million.

Speaker 2:

But we we love to think, we want to know what's going to happen, because that makes us feel safe. But if you can get to a place and this could be a a whole membership program in and of itself for people it just won't be my membership program, maybe Eckhart Tolle, it would be his membership program. But if you can get to a place of where you realize you're not actually in control of freaking anything, if you told your heart to stop beating right now, just stop beating, it doesn't obey, it's still beating, lungs are still breathing, you Blood is still pumping, right. But we love to control, or worry, to try to control so that we can feel safe. And there's just nothing that's under control.

Speaker 2:

And if you can sit in that and go, that's the way of it. That is the universe I live in. There's not a blade of grass that isn't changing outside. There's nothing I can do about the weather or I don't know climate change or all the bad things, right, all the things that impact our lives. I'm not saying we can't contribute to it, but any one of us cannot solve it, and so we're not actually in control of everything that we think we're in control of. And so, if you can rest in that and go, but what I can do and this is a Martha Beck metaphor, but she's like look, you cannot control the waves of the ocean you can't go to an ocean and be like stop, just stop moving. But you can get your surfboard and you can learn how to surf, and that is your only path to sanity is learning how to surf and ride the waves of everything that you actually have zero control over, and then you trust yourself that you can have your own back and that you can navigate.

Speaker 2:

If something comes, I'm going to show up for it, I'm going to deal with it, but trying to spending my time now, my present moment now, worrying about all the random happenstance, shit, that most of which, almost all of which, will never actually happen. I am robbing myself of the joy in the moment, or the presence in the moment with the people that I love, because I'm so busy worrying about the joy in the moment or the presence in the moment with the people that I love because I'm so busy worrying about protecting myself in the future. So just remind yourself every time you start worrying. Interrupt that thought with. I am right now consciously praying for what I don't want to happen. I am making the very thing I don't want to get better. It's why, by the way, there's a bunch of studies on this that when people get a diagnosis, it's the bad diagnosis, because there's no good diagnosis. You are healthy. They worsen, they go like, let's say, they've had cancer for a year or two and they just didn't know it, and then, as soon as they find out they have cancer, it's like because you can't have cancer and not wake up thinking about it every moment of every day, and what you focus on gets bigger. So that's what I mean You're praying for what you don't want to happen, because it will get bigger. Whatever you focus on is going to become a bigger part of your experience. So just remind yourself, interrupt the thought.

Speaker 2:

How do you become? If you're a worrier, and you know it? How do you become a not worrier? Do it differently. Be conscious of it when it shows up, very intentionally. Do it differently. This is not DNA. This is learned behavior. If you can learn it, you can unlearn it. Unlearn it and force yourself to do it differently. Oh, look at me there I go, worrying again, trying to figure out the world. I'll be safe if I can figure out 300 unanswered questions tonight and then go on about your life, loving the people that are right there in front of you, waiting to be loved by you. That's how you do it.

Speaker 1:

If today's episode resonated with you and you're ready to find real clarity about your relationship, I'd love for you to take the next step Apply for a truth and clarity session where you'll speak with a member of my team about where you are in your marriage, what's keeping you stuck and whether my coaching is the right fit for you. You don't have to navigate this alone. Go to clarityformymarriagecom to apply now.