The Loving Truth

Us, Unfiltered part 3: Power Dynamics & Partnership

• Sharon Pope

Share episode

In part three of Us Unfiltered, I explore how power dynamics quietly shape a marriage: who leads, who decides, who sets the tone.

These patterns usually come from what we saw growing up, and without realizing it, they create a one-up/one-down dynamic that erodes trust and connection.

Too much independence can turn partners into high-functioning roommates instead of a true team.

I talk about why every contribution counts, why control blocks intimacy, and how “keeping the boardroom out of the bedroom” matters more than most couples realize.

I share a moment in my own marriage where choosing presence over defensiveness shifted everything.

You’ll learn simple ways to restore balance: notice without blame, make space for your partner to lead, value emotional work, step out of the one-up stance, and reconnect around a shared vision.

If you’re serious about healing the disconnect in your marriage, there is a path forward.

Apply for a Private Couples Weekend. We’ll talk about what’s happening between you, what you want to rebuild, and whether this private, two-day experience is the right container to help you create lasting change—together. 

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_01:

Welcome to the Loving Truth podcast, where it's all about finding clarity, confidence, and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host, relationship expert, and certified Master Life coach, Sharon Pope.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, loves. This is Sharon Pope, and this is a special episode of The Loving Truth because we are in the middle of a series of five episodes for couples specifically. And this series is called Us Unfiltered, Behind the Beautiful Life. And today we're going to be talking about power dynamics and partnership, where we're going to talk about how success, control, and equality show up inside of a marriage and how to get back to a place of true partnership again. So power is not usually a word that we use when we start talking about marriage, but it's certainly there. It shows up in terms of who leads and who follows, who decides and who bends to the other. That's where power shows up. And for high-achieving couples, those dynamics can quietly shape or strain their relationship. Now, I want to begin with this basic understanding. Every single person on the planet wants to feel powerful in their own lives. And so when someone tries to control them, it's always going to feel like a pillow over the face. And if I came to your home tonight and I put a pillow over your face, what would you do? You would either submit and therefore you would die, or you would fight me off. Most people would fight me off. So when someone is trying to be controlling, or someone you feel like your partner is trying to be controlling of you, don't be surprised if you either shut down or you come back sort of swinging. But it creates a lot of dysfunction, it creates a lot of strain inside the relationship. So every single person wants to feel powerful in their lives. But when I say that, sometimes people get confused. Because many times when we talk about power, it implies that you have power over someone else. And what I'm referring to is feeling empowered in your life, like that you have some control in terms of creating the life that you really want to create for yourself. That's what I'm talking about. But inside of our marriages, when we think about power dynamics in the relationship, it automatically leads to a conversation about one person being higher and one person being lower. It creates this unintentional hierarchy inside of a relationship. And from that place, you can't connect with one another. When one is higher and one is lower, you can't connect because you're not connecting from a place of equals. And so ultimately, what we want and what we need is to come together from a place of equality. Right? If you think about how marriage was one generation ago, like my parents' generation. So call it 50 years ago, back in the 50s and 60s, men held all the power in the relationship and women didn't have any power. Now that pendulum has swung quite a bit where women have a lot more power in the relationship. But the point is not for one person to have a lot of power because you can't connect from that place. The reality is that we are going to rise together or we are going to fall together as a couple. And so we have to be able to come together as a place of being equals. So let's begin with just talking about how power shows up inside the relationship. In most relationships, power isn't loud and overt. Like sometimes it is, right? Sometimes you can see where one person is bossy and demanding and all of that. But many times it's just really subtle, right? It's who initiates the difficult conversations. It's who gets the final say on big decisions. It's who manages the money or who sets the emotional tone in their relationship. And the thing is, these patterns are not typically intentional. We don't sit down and go, I want to be the one in control or I want to be powerful in this. It's what we learned by watching our parents when we were growing up. Right? So if your mother was really controlling, you might find yourself being that way. If they were really demanding, you might find yourself being that way, or you might find yourself married to someone who is also very demanding of you because it feels familiar to you. Likewise, if your dad sort of, you know, underperformed or underfunctioned in the relationship, you might find yourself married to someone who is also underfunctioning in the relationship. And so we come by these things very, very naturally. But when one partner feels dismissed or excluded or sort of just pushed down, that erodes trust because now I don't trust that you're going to have my back or that you want what's best for me. What you want is to make sure that you come out on top or that you're always right. And that doesn't create the groundwork. It doesn't lay the groundwork for having a loving, connected, trusting relationship. And so it might look like one of you getting smaller, getting quieter, sort of losing your voice. Right? Sometimes that's what it looks like. When one person tries to have more power, it makes the other sort of cower and get smaller and lose their voice. But sometimes it's not always the person that's submitting. Like quiet, the quietness isn't necessarily indicative of the person who's not in power in that relationship. Because I will tell you, in my parents' relationship, what I observed was that my mom held all the power in that relationship, but she did it by stonewalling my dad. So what that looks like for those of you that are not familiar with stonewalling is it is the silent treatment. It's, I'm not gonna tell you exactly what you did wrong. You should just know. And you're gonna know that you're in trouble because I'm gonna stop talking to you and I'm gonna, you know, have a lot of sort of hateful energy coming your way, very walled off from you and disconnected from you. And that wall is not gonna come down until you come and apologize. And even then, once you apologize, I'm still gonna give you the silent treatment and be a little harsh towards you for another day or two as punishment. Right? So sometimes the person that holds the power is not the loudest. Sometimes they're the quietest. My mom was not loud. My mom was quiet, but she held all the power. And that's what I learned. Now I'm not suggesting that is healthy, but that's what I learned. And I'll be honest, in my first marriage, that's what I used a lot because I never got equipped with anything else. I was like most people, I came into that relationship just having the tools of what I learned, watching my parents do it, watching my parents be in relationship with one another. And I didn't know any different. And so that's what most of us come into a relationship with. And so that's why these patterns sort of play out through generations in our lives. Sometimes too much independence in a marriage can lead to isolation. So in your marriage, there is you as an individual, there is your partner as a separate individual, and there is the two of you as a couple. That is a third and separate entity, you as a couple. And it is only in our marriages or our most intimate relationship where we really have to consciously navigate balancing those two things because you don't want to lose your individuality, but you better not lose the sense that you are also part of a couple as well. And so it's like navigating the balance between those two things and having to, when we get too much in our individual space, we need to reconnect as a couple. And so successful people will often value independence. And I want you to know that, of course, it is a strength. But inside of marriage, sometimes too much independence is just going to lead you to a place of emotional isolation. This is where we start operating as roommates, where we are functioning together, we are living under the same roof. But we're not partners anymore. And we're certainly not lovers anymore. And so what works in business, right? That strength of individuality works really well in business. But sometimes the very things that work really well in business are the very things that don't work really well inside of our relationships. So I wrote about this when I wrote an article in the Modern Love column for the New York Times. It was called keeping the boardroom out of the bedroom. And it really explains how you can be this, you know, badass at work. But when you bring that same energy home, particularly as a woman, you start treating your husband like an employee or someone to boss around, or someone that's there to where you're making all the decisions and they're there to execute. Right. And that's that is not the way to create a loving, connected relationship. But again, I came into that relationship with no real relationship tools. So I just, I wasn't conscious of what I was doing. Now I can look back at it and go, oh my gosh, that's like it's such a kiss of death in a relationship. And particularly as a woman, we need to have a soft space to land. And if that is not in our marriage, where's it going to be? Because it's certainly not going to be out in corporate America, right? It's not going to be out in the working world. We have to, the reason why women have made the strides that we have is because we've gotten so far into our masculine there. And that benefits us. It's an asset for us to be able to do that, but we can't stay there 24-7. So it's in our marriages that we need to be able to navigate being a strong individual and also being able to soften into being part of a couple. Because when you stop depending on one another for comfort, for support, or for understanding, that's when you stop feeling like a team together. And that's when you start living just very parallel lives, very competent, capable, but disconnected lives from one another. So I don't want you to think that, you know, real partnership means that you lose your independence. This isn't an either or, it's a both and, but you have to be able to navigate that. It means being strong together as opposed to being strong apart, versus when one of you is strong, which means one of you has to be weak. That model for marriage is no longer really relevant today. Like maybe it was relevant a generation ago, the way marriage was, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, but that's not the way that it is today. And I think that, like I said, we will thrive together or we will sink together. So I think that we have to talk about the gender roles and the narratives that we have. Because even though we exist in a modern day, it doesn't mean we don't still have Stone Age brains. It doesn't mean we still don't have a lot of that programming, especially since many of us were raised by men and women who lived and existed in a very different time where what was required in marriage was where everyone knew their role. Like my mother knew that she was to take care of the kids and take care of the home, even though she worked too. My mom did go back to work when I was in kindergarten. And my dad knew that his job was to provide for the family and to be that stability. So even in modern marriages, those old stories still linger for us today. There's the provider and the nurturer, or there's the fixer versus the healer, or sorry, the feeler in the relationship. So we have these roles, and sometimes they still show up. And so these roles sneak in, particularly when we're talking about success and identity being tied to what we do. If who I am, so in my first marriage, I my identity very much was wrapped up in being a marketing executive. And so, of course, I brought that home because it was part of my identity. It wasn't like a coat I put on that I took off when I came home. It wasn't that it couldn't have been. It just wasn't something that I was conscious of. And partnership asks for balance, both giving and receiving, leading and listening, being able to navigate and surf between both of those elements. It requires both of us to be able to do both. Now, it doesn't mean that there's equity every single moment, like moment to moment, but it's more like equity in the body of work as it relates to our marriage. That there's a rhythm in terms of how we operate in our marriage, and that we really see and value each other's strengths and what we bring to the marriage. You see, there's probably things that you bring to the marriage, and there are things that are probably things that come really naturally for you. Now that might be leading the relationship, right? Because maybe you're a better planner, you're a better communicator, whatever it is. Like there are certain strengths that you bring to the relationship. You know, maybe you're better at paying the bills, maybe you're more organized, maybe you're more financially inclined, whatever that is. And then there are things that your partner brings to the relationship. And here's where it gets sticky is that one of you feels like your contributions mean more than the other person's contributions. Like somewhere along the way, we said, whoever makes more money, they're there for contributing more because that's a quantifiable thing. Who's bringing in more money? But what if that's just a contribution? What if you're both bringing in income into the relationship, and of course it's not perfectly equal? But the other person, the person who makes more money, thinks, oh, well, my contribution is worth so much more, so I don't have to contribute in any other way. Well, then your partner, of course, is going to feel like they don't have a partner in doing life together. Because there's, you know, 800 other ways, other things that she or he has to do. So if you can come to it with the understanding that we both contribute and that our contributions are not better than or worse than. They are not more than, they are not less than. They are just contributions. They just are. They're not good or bad. They're not better or worse. They just are. These are the ways in which we contribute to the health and functioning of our marriage. If we can approach it from that place, then that is a great starting place for creating equity and equalness and equality inside of our marriage, which means it's going to be easier to connect with one another because there's not this hierarchy. Okay. Now, I want to talk about emotional leadership because this is something that doesn't get enough attention. Because no one ever told us, like, you know how when you start having kids, you go, okay, what are we going to do in terms of care for them? Is one of us going to stay home? Are they going to go to daycare? They, is my mother going to watch them? Like, what is this going to look like? We navigate that and we put people in charge of different things. Right? Even if you're both working outside the home, maybe, you know, one of you is going to drop the kids off at school, one of you is going to pick the kids up at school. You very much come down to the roles inside that structure, that family structure. And there are people on point for doing very specific things. But inside of our marriage, we never put anyone in charge of saying, hey, you're responsible for making sure that we remain connected. You're responsible for making sure that our connection remains strong. And so when we get busy and we get disconnected, you're going to be the one to notice and you're going to bring us back together. I call that emotional leadership. And because no one's really put in charge of that, that's why we both start functioning as individuals and we start getting more and more disconnected, and no one really takes the lead. We look for the other person to fix the problem. And no one is willing to step up and take the lead. So many times I hear women say, Why do I have to do the work? I already do so many things. But if had we gone into our marriage going, you know what, this is someone needs to own this role to make sure that you and I stay connected because we're going to get busy, we're going to get distracted, we're going to get triggered, all the things. Life is going to keep lifing around us. But just like someone is making sure that we have toilet paper in the cabinet, someone needs to make sure that we remain connected as a couple. Because when we fall apart, a lot of other things fall apart. So someone needs to be in the role of the emotional leader for the marriage. Now, true emotional leadership is not about control. This is about presence. And it's about a willingness to stay open and stay curious and even compassionate towards our partner when things get tense. I want to tell you about a story where this was about a year ago, where my now husband, who I call D, had some really tough feedback for me. Let's say it like that, where he was telling me about something that he was really upset about. And I needed to hear it. At the time, I did not want to hear it. It was very difficult for me to hear. And, you know, when he first started sharing this hard feedback with me, my first inclination was to minimize it. To go, oh, it's not that big of a deal. You're taking it out of context, blah, blah, blah. But almost on the heels of that, I had the presence of mind to just go, just listen, Sharon. Just listen. Just be here. Be present with this. He's upset about something. It's important to him because he's clearly upset about it. And so I just remained present. I didn't start going in my head about how I could debate it, how I could show him that he's got it all wrong, how I could make this go away. I just stayed right there with it. And I said, this is like, yep, this is hard to hear. And just hear it anyway. And in that moment, what I know I was able to do, even though it was really freaking hard, is that I was able to maintain my own sense of groundedness while receiving difficult feedback and stay right there with him because he's important to me and his feelings are important to me. And so I didn't want to run away from it and I didn't want to push it away. I wanted to just meet him in that moment. And that was me showing emotional leadership in that moment. Like he doesn't know that. He doesn't know that I'm doing that. But when he had shared everything that he wanted to share and said everything he wanted to say, I was able to say, you know, is there anything else you want to share? Does that feel complete? Here's what I heard from you. And I want you to know that I really heard you. And I don't know exactly what I'm going to do about that right now. But you have my commitment that I'm going to give it some thought and I'm going to come back to you after I've had some time to think about it with a plan. And later that day, I came back to him and I said, okay, I've given it some thought. And here's what I'm willing to do. Does that work for you? That's showing emotional leadership. And someone's got to do it, particularly when the other person is upset. Because if you're both upset, then you're both off the rails and you're not really going to hear one another. You're not going to be able to get there. But if you have the awareness to be able to just be with it in the discomfort of it, in the moment, then you can take the role of an emotional leader in that moment and it benefits the relationship. It's not about me being the big man. It's not, it's not about that or getting it right. It was just, I had the presence of mind to stay present in that moment. And it benefited our marriage. It really, in a really big way. Now, a year later, I can look back on that and go, that was a really big moment and a big turning point in our marriage. And so you got to think about it like this. In the healthiest of marriages, no one is in charge. It's you both bring light to the relationship. You both bring value to the relationship and you're both fully engaged. Right? When we get tripped up in our thinking, is when we think it should be 50-50. You know, we should, in terms of what we do and what we bring, it should be 50-50. No, it should be 100% and 100%. And it doesn't mean you'll both be 100% all the time, but it means that's what you're reaching for. Sometimes your 100% looks like 80% because you're having a really rough day. But the next day you can go back to like giving it 100%. That's equality inside of a marriage. And that's how the healthiest marriages really thrive. So here's how you can begin restoring that partnership feeling inside your relationship. The first thing is noticing imbalance without blaming your partner. So if you are the overfunctioner in the relationship, you have a whole monologue in your head about how you do everything and your spouse does nothing. You're going to have to set that story down. And you're going to have to make room for your partner to show up. Because when you keep doing and doing and doing, they're like, oh, like she's got it. Why do I have to do it? Like, I she's clearly got this under control and she's doing a better job of it than I am. Or than I would do. You've got to make space for your partner. You know, and that might be giving them responsibilities and saying, like, all right, what do you want to be responsible for in our marriage? And then this is a hard part, ladies, and I only know because I do the same thing, is you have to let them do it their way. So when when we were remodeling our bathroom, you know, my husband was in charge of that. And then when the contractor showed up, I popped out of my office and went in there and started listening and started sharing my opinion, and he just looked at me. And I was like, I'm gonna go back to work. Because I have to let if I'm if he's gonna have the responsibility for something, I have to let him do it. And I have to let him do it his way and not jump in and try to control. And it might just also sound like, you know what, I realize that I've just been taking charge in this particular area, and I'd love to share it more. And how do you think this should be done? Do you want to lead this effort for us? I think that would be amazing. How do you feel about it? So that's the first thing. Another thing that you can do is you evalue emotional work just as much as practical work. So listening, empathy, emotional leadership, vulnerability, those are all assets for the marriage as well. Those are contributions. And so if you can start looking at each of your contributions as equal, none is better than the other. None is worse than the other. They all, we need all of it to make it function. If you have been in a one-up position, so that's what Terry Real refers to, this idea of grandiosity, where I'm better than my partner or I have more control in this relationship, which means they have to be in a one-down position. If you are in that one-up position, you need to acknowledge that and take a step back. Because it's not healthy. And it won't create a way for you two to win together and for you to be able to connect. Last thing I will say is recommit to a shared vision. You need a shared vision for your marriage of what are we building together? What are we working towards together? Partnership is a living practice. It's not this fixed agreement. So it's going to evolve as you evolve, both as individuals and as a couple. So this week, pay attention to where control or power over shows up inside your relationship. Look for where you're getting too independent and not balancing enough of being part of a we and only focusing on me. Look for those things because those are the things that might be keeping you apart. And ask yourself, where can I soften in this relationship? Where can I let my partner in a little bit more? That small shift can transform the entire tone of your marriage. So next week, we're going to explore desire in the distance. What happens when passion fades, and how to rekindle both emotional and physical connection. Until then, take good care. Love, if your marriage looks fine on the outside but feels disconnected on the inside, you're not alone. So many accomplished couples reach a point where conversations turn tense, intimacy fades, and you start wondering, can we find our way back? Or are we avoiding the truth? I host a private luxury couples retreat for relationships at a crossroads. No groups, no exposure, just the two of you and a master coach helping you see the real issues, repair what's broken, and get absolute clarity about your future together. If this speaks to you, explore the details and request a confidential consultation at couplesweekendretreat.com.