Reviving Connection: Dr. Lee Balcom's Guide to Transforming Relationships

In this insightful episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we welcome Dr. Lee Baucom, a renowned relationship coach and the creator of the globally recognized Save the Marriage system. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Baucom has dedicated his career to helping couples navigate the complexities of marriage and relationship success. He shares his journey from therapist to coach, highlighting the importance of connection in relationships and the detrimental effects of the "pause button" phenomenon that many couples experience. Dr. Baucom discusses his three dimensions of connection—physical, emotional, and spiritual—and offers practical strategies for couples to reconnect and thrive together. He also addresses common misconceptions about marriage problems, the impact of individual fears on relationships, and how one person can initiate positive change within a partnership. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that emphasizes the power of teamwork in marriage and the vital role of communication and connection. Discover more about Dr. Baucom’s work at savethemarriage.com, and learn how to revive your relationship today.
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Transcript

>> Curtis Jackson: 0:01

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a, ah, show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by Dr. Lee Balcom. He is a relationship coach and an author, and he is the creator of the globally recognized Save the Marriage system. This system has been helping couples all around the world for two decades, and Lee has written four books on marriage recovery and relationship success. He is also the host of the Save the Marriage podcast, which he launched in 2013. So we're going to be talking to him about everything that he's doing to help save marriages and help with relationship success. So, Lee, Dr. Baucom, thank you for joining me.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 1:07

I'm glad to be here.

>> Curtis Jackson: 1:09

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 1:13

Oh, gosh. Where do we start? I actually was originally trained as a therapist and transitioned to being a coach a, number of years back. And, part, part of the reason for that is because I saw, how ineffective a lot of therapy was for couples and realized that coaching was the way to go. That led to me looking around for what does work for couples. And you talked about the Save the Marriage system. That's what came out of that. That was the beginning point. And, since then, for those last, Well, for 25 years since I started this system, but now for over three decades of working, I've been working with people really around the world to improve their marriage. part of that included starting podcast writing, the other books. and, my goal is to just make sure that if people want to improve their relationship, they know how to do it. And then I also, I'm a. I can. I call myself a thrive ologist. I study the science of thriving, and that's that my other kind of side pursuit. And so I've written a number of books on how do you thrive in life and how do you mess yourself up when you're trying to thrive in life. so all of that kind of fits together in me believing that, having a thriving life and a thriving relationship are both so important.

>> Curtis Jackson: 2:26

So what first inspired you to start, your work and research on saving marriages and, relationship success?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 2:34

So I wouldn't have named it when I, started when, when I was in grad, school training as a therapist, I actually studied both individual approaches to therapy and marriage and family, the, therapy approaches, and was more drawn to working with relationships even though now I work with individuals who are trying to address their relationships. But then it was in the focus how these relationships, are act as a system. Right. There's a dance that happens in a marriage that I think is, interesting to watch and help. But the reason I feel the passion about it is because, growing up I watched the destruction that happened, when people did not deal, with their relationships. Well. I had an uncle who had, multiple marriages and divorces, and a couple of aunts that had multiple marriages and divorces. And so much damage was done in that. Just. I have cousins, I don't even have con. I don't even know where they live anymore. I lost contact long ago when they left the family. but I also watched the fact that those divorces caused multiple generations of pain. My grandparents were watching their kids be in pain and they felt the pain. obviously the people going through divorce were in pain, as were their siblings. My parents watching them go through that, and their kids were too. And I know now, after working with couples that it even extends to that fourth generation where people make choices about what they're going to do about having kids or not having kids or delaying having kids based on the family they came out of. And so, a divorce can have multiple generation effect. And given that, and given the fact that that's such a cornerstone relationship in families and in culture, I just wanted to figure out how to, how to help that, how to move that to a better place whenever that's possible.

>> Curtis Jackson: 4:24

Well, you talk about the idea of a pause button marriage. So talk to the listeners about what that means and why that is so dangerous for couples.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 4:33

Yeah. so this is, to me, this is a core trait. This is where marriages, most marriages, when they get into trouble, get into trouble from this single fact. everything else, ends up being a symptom of that. So let's, let's kind of track back to when people are, dating, falling in love. You put a lot of energy into that. I mean that's. You want this person to love you, to make it permanent. And so you pledge this little. Let's do this for life. Right? And that's a short little ceremony. I remember it well myself after, you know, 40, 45 minutes of a service. I remember walking out with my wife on my arm. We went, we went in as, you know, girlfriend, boyfriend, and I walked out with a wife on my arm and I went, that's it. That's all it took. And off we Go into the world. And so then you go back to life. Now, I want to be clear. I don't believe this happens right after you get married. But sometime after you get married, you realize that you have to do some other things. So maybe it's, you know, it's time to have kids, or maybe it's time to get further in your career, or maybe it's time to deal with aging parents or hobbies or friends or travel or whatever it is. And you say, you know, we'll get back to us down the road when, when we've got whatever accomplished, we'll get back to us. And the problem is that's a rolling, we'll get back to us time frame. So when people say, well, you know, we got to do the parent thing, they say, yeah, when the kids are out of diapers, when they're in school, when they're out of school, when they're out of college, on and on it goes. And same with the job. When I get to here. No, when I get to here. And they always intend to get back to the relationship, but the problem is they're creating hab of disconnection while that's all happening. And those habits of disconnection keep, them from getting back to the relationship. They just get out of the habit of being in that connection that they built while they were, in the, in the midst of forming their relationship. So now we have a disconnected relationship. And relationships are doing one of two things. They're either growing and expanding or they're shrinking and dying. And they don't know it, but when they hit the pause button, they're the doing the shrinking and dying. and if it goes too long, the damage can be too extensive. But if they realize it, then all they're trying to do is restore the connection that is the heart blood of a relationship. That's what keeps a relationship going, that sense of connection. So pause, button causes the disconnection, and from there the damage starts coming out.

>> Curtis Jackson: 7:06

Well, speaking of connection, one of your core teachings is the three dimension. Three dimensions of connection. So walk us through those dimensions and how couples can use those to reconnect.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 7:18

Yeah, so if you know these three levels, you have some, targets to go for. And when I say levels, I don't mean you go from 1 to 2 to 2 to 3, but that all three are important at the same time. They're just three different types or dimensions, as you mentioned, of connection. And this is, this is also where we bring in the fact that we humans have this capacity of, of talking, and of remembering. And, and so that's going to come into these. But let's start with the basic one. And that is touch. Now whenever I say physical connection, that's touch, physical connection. people always go, oh, you mean sex? And my response is no, but yes, that is a type of physical connection. But there are many other types. Like any loving touch, when I hug someone, when I kiss somebody, when I hold their hand, when I pat them on the of those are physical connection. This is the part of connection that we share with pretty much any warm blooded creature. my dog, loves to be up against me because she understands physical connection. She wants to be petted and be up against me. I can talk to her all I want. She doesn't, I don't think she understands the words and she doesn't talk back. But that's physical connection. And so it's non verbal, right? It doesn't matter what the words are if it's loving connection. So that's physical connection. The second level is emotional connection. Now emotional connection is and when I say that a lot of times I go, oh, that's the talking part. Well, yes and no. there is a non verbal component to that. So when somebody is nodding along in agreement with somebody, who's talking or shaking their head in disagreement, they're giving non verbal cues about how they're paying attention. The, the nodding their head or shaking their head doesn't mean that they're disconnected. That's, it's part of the connection. Right? I'm paying attention to you. And in agreement or disagreement, I'm paying attention to you. And so, that's a non verbal level. On the verbal level, that's how we let somebody know that we get them or they get us and that we support them or they support us. And in a loving relationship, getting each other and supporting each other are key parts of this emotional. So my wife laughs at my jokes. For whatever reason, I feel like she gets me, right? And if I'm talking about what's good about my day or bad about my day, and she's supportive about that, that lets me know she supports me and the same back. So that's emotional connection. It's both verbal and non verbal. And then we get to spiritual connection. When I say that, people say oh, you mean religion. And my answer is no, but yes, that religion carries with it a lot of our core values. And so if we're talking about what we believe in we're sharing something that's very core to us. But that's not the only way we do. Spiritual connection. When we talk about what we want out of life, where we want to go in life, what's important to us in life, all of that fits into this. This place of connection, of spiritual connection. And because of that, because of that level of connection, we can either be on the same path or if we're disconnected there, find that our paths are moving further and further apart, until we talk about it again. The interesting thing about the spiritual connection is it's often where people would tell me when I was doing premarital work with couples that that's where they fell in love. Yeah, they had the physical connection, and, yeah, they were emotionally, connected. But the spiritual connection, when that happened, that conversation, that was about the family they grew up in, the values they dreams they have, the hopes for the future. All of those things are revealed in this most primitive. This. This very vulnerable spot. Not, so primitive, but vulnerable spot. and when somebody takes that in and accepts that and. And we're connected on that level, that's just a whole nother level. And a lot of times people have kind of grouped that into emotional connection. I put it as a separate thing because what I've noticed is lots of couples just stop doing that. That's one of the big places. They disconnect. They stop having the conversations about their big dreams, their hopes, what's important to them. And, so they become disconnected there often before anything else disconnects.

>> Curtis Jackson: 11:39

Well, a lot of people think that marriage problems happen slowly and silently. So talk about some of the early warning signs that people can, notice or check into. That the relationship is starting to fail.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 11:53

Yeah. So let's talk about why it's slowly and silently. The silent part is because you're not connecting. or if you are, you're connecting peripherally. You're talking about maybe what's happened in the day of the kids. You know, you're given a report, and a report is not very connecting. Rapport building, where you're talking about what's important to you about the day, what's gone well or, what's not gone well, or what's big in your day or what's big in your mind or, you know, sitting close together. That's. That's not quiet. Right. That's the connection piece. And so, so it is quiet and slow is not necessarily true. the connection we bring into a marriage has momentum to us, and it Will carry us a while. There are plenty of times when couples do fine. If, let's say they go, oh, I've got to put some attention, on the kids. But then we'll. We'll make sure that we're also connecting with each other. Maybe just not right now. You know, once the kids are in bed, let's reconnect. That's a different thing than if they're like, the kids are in bed. Let's just sit down and look at our phones or look at the TV or whatever it is. That is not very connecting. But the momentum that they built up in their relationship will carry them a while, which is why they don't first notice that the connection is. Has fallen apart. so a, a couple of warning signs. One is when you realize that you really don't know what's going on in your spouse's mind. What' going on that's important to them. If you just ask that question, you know, are we updating each other on what's really important to us? If you're not, that's the beginning signs that. That tells you that the connection is not there. when you find that you are, irritating each other, constantly, that's often a sign that there's no connection or there's a lot of disconnection, just because we're more raw from that disconnection. So the scientists have done some research where they look at what part of your brain lights up when you're feeling that disconnection. And it's the same part of the brain that feels physical pain when you injure yourself. There's a part of the brain that lights up to say, this hurts. And what it's trying to do is let you know you need some attention on that spot. Well, it's the same part of the brain because we also need that connection. And so we feel hurt by that. And so because we're hurt and we feel like our spouse is not paying attention, not noticing the fact that we're not paying attention to our spouse, likely at the same time, we're only aware of the hurt, which makes us a, little more raw, which is where the irritability comes in. You know, a lot of irritability, with a spouse on a regular basis will tell you that things aren't connected. when couples are constantly having the same fight, and this is a very clear sign for me that they are not working through their issues. when they're having the same fight over and over again, the same issue is Coming up over and over again, they have a problem. so just kind of anecdotally, I used to always ask couples, tell me about your first fight, the very first fight that you had. Not like, I don't want to go to have Chinese for dinner. I want Mexican, or I don't want to go to that movie. I want to go to this movie. It's not those kind of fights. I mean, the, the fights where you're like, I don't know what to do here. And so they would tell me that fight. And it, almost always was the exact same reason they were currently in my office. It had maybe a different topic that they were fighting about, but the, the reason for it, the underlying dynamic of that was still going on. And so if you have unresolved fights over and over, that is a clear sign that you're not working through the core problems in the relationship.

>> Curtis Jackson: 15:51

Well, one of your most fascinating topics is that one person can save a marriage. So how's that possible when only, only one person is trying to do so?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 16:01

Yeah. So let's talk about why people think you can't do it as one person. we often have been taught that it takes two to tango. And so I often have somebody say that to me. And my response is, but you're already dancing, right? You're just not dancing a very good dance together. You're already dancing. And what happens if one person, while they're dancing with another person, changes their steps? The other person has to adjust. And so part of what you're trying to do is adjust slowly. I mean, instead of taking a huge step and suddenly changing everything about it, can you change it a little at a time? So part of my strategy is for people to, find invitational ways of connection. You can't force connection. So we'll talk about a way that one person can mess up the process. And that is if they start insisting on things like date night, a romantic getaway, you know, a marriage intensive, those kinds of things, because the relationship doesn't have enough connection at that point to handle that level of. Of connection. So that's where it, it can, they can do it wrong. But the right way is to be invitational. So let's kind of step back. We've already established the fact that humans need connection, right? We share that with every other creature. Humans need more connection, as far as we can tell, than any other creature. I mean, proof is in the fact that it takes us 18 years to launch a kid into adulthood. Right? That's. That's that's more than. I mean, some animals come out ready to deal with the world. Humans, on the other hand, take a long time because they're learning in relationship. So that connection is so important to us. And because of that, if you haven't been getting that connection and suddenly a little bit comes your way. It's kind of like if you're parched and someone offers, you a little water, you want more water. And so that's the same thing. If you don't force it, but you invite it, they can decide how much they can sip, how much they can take, and then you build up from there.

>> Curtis Jackson: 18:06

Well, you say we all share two relationship fears. Talk about what those fears are and how they affect the way that we show up in our relationships.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 18:17

Yeah, I hear a lot of people think, that there's just, one. And they'll say, you know, my spouse has a fear of intimacy, and, and won't get close to me. Or another will say, you know, I, have a fear of abandonment. So that's why I'm having a problem with this. The fact is that those are human fears, and I think they're pretty rooted in, in our ancient psychology. So a fear of abandonment would certainly be a problem to our ancestors where they needed to be in a group to survive. And so thinking you're going to lose somebody who's important to you is where that fear of abandonment comes from. And in a marriage, fearing that you're going to lose this other person is that fear of abandonment. On the other end of that is the fear of intimacy, that you're going to lose your individuality, you're going to lose yourself to the relationship. and, and those are both core fears that everyone has. Sometimes one is triggered more readily for somebody than the other. But I've watched plenty of people who had a fear of intimacy. So they were saying staying a little, a little distant from their spouse or just kind of keeping their distance from the spouse. And then the spouse goes, okay, I'm tired of trying this. And suddenly their fear of intimacy flips to the fear of abandonment, and they start chasing after their spouse, afraid to lose them. So we have both of those within us. The problem is if one person has a fear triggered, it will trigger the opposite fear in their spouse. So if one person has a fear of abandonment, they're going to try to move closer, to hold on to this person, which can often trigger the fear of intimacy, leaving them to say, no, I need some distance. If somebody has a fear of intimacy. So they're pulling away because they're scared of losing themselves. That triggers the fear of abandonment in the other person. And so we're constantly in relationships trying to balance those two things, that we need somebody, but we don't want to lose ourselves to that. And those are the two, the two fears that often just kind of ricochet back and forth in the midst of a marriage crisis.

>> Curtis Jackson: 20:20

Well, for couples who feel like roommates instead of partners, what are, some small steps that you recommend they take to try to begin to reconnect again?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 20:30

And you know, the nice thing about being roommates is there is a relationship there. so you build on that. the bad thing about that is sometimes people are very wounded about the fact that they haven't had connection than that. And so, one of the things that I think is important for people is to not allow their own feelings to dominate that. it's easy to say, well, if you're going to treat me that way, I'm going to treat you this way. And you get into a very, back and forth kind of struggle, kind of a tug of war over that. So one is to not get pulled into that, to accept that right now you're at a disconnection. And so one of the reasons I bring up that whole pulse button marriage is for people to notice. Notice that both people enter into a pause button. It's not that you can say, my spouse decided to pause this, not me. It's that both people are part of a disconnected relationship. So given that they have the capacity of saying, you know, I want to re. Engage and I'm going to choose to do that. and so if you feel like you're a roommate, and not a partner, there are a couple of things I talk about the 3C ease. so there is connect, change and create. Connect is connection with your spouse, rebuilding the connection. and there's some specific ways you want to do that invitationally rather than trying to force it. Changing yourself. When I say that people are constantly asking if that means that I think there's something wrong with them and it's not. But I do know this fact about humans. We stagnate in adulthood. typically there are some that, that are more clear about that. But, I believe that we as humans. So part of my thriving thing is that we as humans are built to always be learning and growing. Ray, Kroc, who's the founder of McDonald's, said you're either green and growing or ripe and rotting and I believe that quote so strongly that we are here to be ripe, green and growing, not ripe and rotting. And so, so the change is to ask, how do I need to become m. More of who I need to be? How do I show up differently? How do I grow, more? Where are the places where I have allowed myself to stagnate and to work on undoing that? Now, here's the connection piece. If I am showing up differently, if I'm bringing more energy into it, my connection will be more, m. it'll be less forced, but it'll also be more healthy. I'm reaching out from a place of energy. I'm reaching out of a place of. I want to be my best self. I don't want to be, you know, reacting out of resentment, or anything else to my spouse. So that leaves us with that create. Creating is about creating a new path in your relationship. Another of my core beliefs is that marriages that are strong, marriages that work, have created a sense of being a we, being a team. We are in this together. We are a unit. And that doesn't mean that you lose yourself. It's kind of like on a sports team. A sports team requires everybody to show up and play their best game. they're having to work together as a team, as a unit, and the better they're able to do that, the more capable they are of, you know, winning the game. So how do you create the Wii? A lot of that thinking happens in your head. For instance, how do you think about money? money is a resource in the household. And so, it's one of my starting points of challenging couples when they. Before they got married, is how are you thinking about your money? There's only one answer to that that puts you towards we, and that is that everything we have is our resource. Anything else is what they call mental accounting, where we make divisions where there aren't any. So the household has resources coming in and resources going out. And if I think about it as our resource, that changes how I orient towards that money. And the same is true for lots of other areas. So, when somebody is trying to restore that, they can work on the connecting, the changing and creating. And even if their spouse is kind of dragging their feet, you can still be invitational in your connection. So that allows them to decide how they can step back into that.

>> Curtis Jackson: 24:49

That. Well, you've worked with couples worldwide for deck for decades. So how. What separates those who recover and thrive versus those who don't?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 25:05

Part of that is about hope. so, hope used to be in my mind a very ethereal. You either had it or you don't. And then I stumbled on research that was done back in the 80s and early 90s by Charles Snyder that said that there's actually a hope equation. Hope has three pieces to it. One is that you have to know where you want to get to. You have to have a clear idea of that. So many people aren't sure what that would look like. So we have to work on that. You know, what do you want your marriage to look like? How do you want it to feel? What do you, what do you want it to be about? That's the first piece. So you've got to go know where you want to go. The second piece is to know how to get there. That's an information piece. We, many people don't have a, clear idea of how to build a loving, ah, marriage. They've not seen one, they haven't, haven't been in one, or even if they have seen one, let's say their parents are, in a great relationship together. You still don't see the secret sauce of that that's hidden. And so many people don't know what the roadmap looks like. So they need a roadmap. They need a way to do that. That's part of what I've tried to create for my systems and in my books of systems, for people to do that. And the third thing they have to have is a willingness to do it.

>> Curtis Jackson: 26:39

It.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 26:39

Okay, so that's the hope you have to have. Know where you're going, how to get there, and willingness to do it. If somebody doesn't have a willingness to do it, I'm not going to meet them. That's not who comes to me. The people who come to me have a willingness often have at least an idea of where they want to go. They just don't know how. So I'm filling in the blanks. So let's go with that. With a spouse who has no hope, they're just, I don't see how this marriage is going to work. But if you start, increasing the connection or restoring the connection would probably be a better usage of that. You're starting to restore the connection. They begin to have some hope in the relationship. If you're showing up differently, they begin to have some hope that things can be better. So as they build hope, then they start asking the question of how do I do that? How do we get there? The problem comes when a spouse is not hopeless. They have hope. It's just for something else. And I don't mean somebody else. It could be somebody else. Like they have their eyes on a different person, but it could be something else. Like, I just want to be single and left alone and doing my thing, or I want to travel the world, or I want to have a motorcycle and tour the country, whatever it is. Right. They have hope in that, that no longer in the marriage. They're hopeless in the marriage, but have hope somewhere else. That's a tough one because you have to turn, the hope away from something else, which is very difficult because hope is strong back towards the marriage. and, and here's the problem. The only way to figure out if it's possible to restore that connection is by trying to restore the connection. Many, times people have said, you know, if you can guarantee me, me that we can restore our relationship, I'll do anything you tell me to. And my response is, I can't guarantee that, but I can guarantee you what happens if you don't do anything, because you're already on that path. Right? You. So, if we can restore this, that, that would be your desired outcome. And the only way to test that is to try. And if at the end of that, you realize that you can't you at least feel good that you gave it everything you can, you. You don't walk away with regret, which is tough. People walking away with regret is something they often live with for the rest of their life. So we're trying to get around that and either say, I did everything I could or actually build a loving, restored relationship.

>> Curtis Jackson: 29:09

Well, I know you've written multiple books and you've hosted your podcast since 2013. So talk about how the conversation around marriage has changed over the years. Years.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 29:20

One of the things that really has changed for couples is what they, expect from the relationship. I don't think that people would have, certainly when I began my career, it was, it was maybe some transition, but I don't think they would have framed it this way. But now people expect that. In fact, it shows up as one of the most important elements of a successful marriage. Now when people do ratings is that they feel like their spouse supports them in what's called self expansion. now self expansion, is basically how am I, growing and, and how, how is my spouse letting me explore who I need to be, how, how I need to show up? So that might be like supporting my personal development, therapy, coaching, going, to seminars, whatever. They support that. It could be as simple as my spouse supports me trying out this new hobby that I'm interested in or my spouse is willing to go with me to this new restaurant that we've kind of food or go to a concert and the spouse doesn't even have to do it, but it's supportive of them doing that. so for instance, when I years ago, my wife said, you know, you can't just wait forever to learn to scuba dive. You've been putting it off and putting it off. And so she gave me lessons, to learn scuba diving for my birthday. And the, the piece that is important about that is my wife doesn't like water. she, she has some fear of water. And so it's not that she's ever going to go with me on a scuba div. Driving trip, but she is absolutely willing to support me doing that. Right. So that's self expansion. I'm growing into this part of me that I've always been interested in. And so when people rank that, that is one of the things they rank very high in their marital satisfaction of whether their spouse supports their self expansion or not. That was far less true when I started my career. That has been something that has grown over time. So that, that's probably the biggest shift. at the same time I was starting my care, people were choosing roles differently. They were no longer in the traditional roles. and still there was some struggle with what that meant. now they're more also clear that they want to be able to define how each of them are going to exist in the world, how they're going to take on roles, whether they're going to work or stay at home or what they were going to do. And that's, that's become more solidified. But the biggest one is that supporting my self expansion as being such an important part of a successful marriage.

>> Curtis Jackson: 31:53

Well, for someone who is listening right now, who is struggling in their relationship, what message would you want them to hear today?

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 32:00

Yeah, so there are a couple of pieces that we've talked about. One is to be aware of that pause button, and to be aware just the connection, how important that is. I think a lot of people get distracted by life. Again, again I don't think people choose a pause button because they mean to. they just, that's how they manage their life. So being aware of the disconnection is important. Being aware of the importance of connection important, being aware of those three, levels of connection. So physical, emotional and spiritual gives you three different targets, and I'm not saying you choose one over the other, but how can you in each of those areas be aiming for that? So that's an important, just kind of a blueprint for people. People. the other piece that I always want people to carry away is, that the more they can conceptualize their relationship as we are a team working together to, to make it through life. Right? That the, the game of life is what we're trying to win together, the more likely they are to make decisions that are good for the relationship versus trying to figure out how they can get the most they want out of it. When we start looking at it as, what am I getting out of this? This, we've already infected the system. We've created a mismatch. But when we can say, how do we do this together? You've got some fundamental pieces there. there are certainly more pieces to the puzzle. but those are some core starting points for couples.

>> Curtis Jackson: 33:25

Well, talk to the listeners about your book and your podcast. You know, let them know what they can expect when they check them out and where they can check them out.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 33:32

Out. Yeah. So, there are different parts. So let's say that a marriage is, ah, really in trouble. that's where the save the marriage system is. When you have to save a marriage, that's where you, you go. Save the marriage.com would be that place. there are a lot of people though, that realize that they just, they've been on pause. They're kind of chronically disconnected. But there's not a risk to the relationship as much as there is kind ah, of a risk that they just keep doing that. I've created the Unpause app for that and that's something you can look at it. Unpause your marriage dot com. Unpause your marriage dot com. that's a, it gives you a, a daily process through an app, that you'd have on your phone. and that app leads you through, to get away from, through educational, through exercises, to get away from that pause button. Marriage. if someone's looking for a book, that's savethemarriage.com books. That's a shortcut that will get you onto an Amazon page that has all my books. So savethemarriage.com/books. and, I guess the podcast would, the last one would be at Save the Marriage podcast dot com. That's Save the Marriage podcast dot com.

>> Curtis Jackson: 34:42

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on. That listeners need to be aware of.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 34:48

So I also regularly, writing, different articles, that I put on my substack. and some. So that's, that's always going, probably am m going to be, putting out another app. We're waiting a little bit to do that. But another app that's aimed more for, men who want to be the best husband they can be. that'll also be an app. And, other than that, you know, I do a lot of work just coaching people one on one, or two on one. earlier today I had a conversation with a couple. So I often do that, but many times it's just with one person who, wants to change their relationship and also have a team of coaches who do that. but, you know, again, the best place to jump in, if that's what you need, is at Save the marriage dot com.

>> Curtis Jackson: 35:33

All right, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if there was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 35:41

Yeah, the two things I always am driving home for people. And so we'll just reiterate. I've even mentioned it. But just to drive that home. Home connection is the way you keep a marriage alive. It is the way connection. and the reason you're connecting is so that you can be the best team. I always use that analogy. So, I play a lot of pickleball these days, and I'm constantly looking for what I can do to help my partner play their best. Where do I need to cover them? You know, what, what is their weaker area that I can step in and cover? I'm going to try to do my best best to cover for them. So I'm trying to play my best. And our overall goal is to win that game. We're going to do it together as a team. and if you can keep that in in mind, that will get you way down the field. And if people aren't in trouble yet, to remember, don't hit the pause button. And to work as a team.

>> Curtis Jackson: 36:33

All right, ladies and gentlemen, save the marriage dot com. If you know of anybody who might be struggling in their relationship, go to that website and follow rate. Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Marriage is supposed to be for life. To death. Do us part. And thank Lee Dr. Balcom for doing everything he can to try to make sure that is the case. So check out his books, his podcast, the app, and everything that he's up to and going to be up to. I also would like you to sign up for the Living the Dream newsletter and leave a review. Any comments follow the show. You can do that by visiting www.craveball337.com and please share that website as well. To everybody that you know, thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Dr. Balcom, thank you for all that you do to try to make the world a better place and more connected. And thank you for joining me.

>> Dr. Lee Balcom: 37:29

Thank you Curtis.

>> Curtis Jackson: 37:31

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.www.craveball337.com. Until next time, keep Living the Dream.