Heart Versus Head
A podcast that helps couples fight better and connect again.
Heart Versus Head
Stop Making Me Happy
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One of the biggest challenges in relationship communication is when you try to make your partner happy and they're trying to make you happy. It can end up with frustration and NOBODY being happy. In this episode, Randy and Beverly take on why focusing on your partner's happiness only works if you actually know what they want and need - and most partners get that wildly wrong. #HeartVersusHead #relationships #relationshippodcast
Heart Versus Head is a podcast about relationship styles and how those relationship styles influence communication in the most important relationships. The hosts - Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock - are a married couple who are sought-after relationship coaches, award-winning authors and regular people who (like everyone in relationships) are just trying to stay connected through all the noise of life in the modern world. You can learn more about the couple and their work at HeartAndHeadCoaching.com, where you'll learn to fight better and connect again.
Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randi Hampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, it's Randy and Beverly. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Heart versus head. Today, we're going to talk about something that sounds completely counterintuitive. It just doesn't sound like it's the way you're supposed to live your life. But we want to talk about why Beverly and I get into arguments. It seems like almost every argument Beverly and I ever end up in as a married couple, and you will have arguments. You're two different people. We've talked about that. But every argument we end up in seems to be because I'm trying to make her happy or she's trying to make me happy. It's like when we're thinking about what the other person needs and wants and trying to guess and trying to figure it out, we just screw it up. Does that sound correct? correct?
SPEAKER_01:It's true. That is our number one problem. When we hit a bump in the road and it's not very frequent, but when we do, it's always because we use our own skills, and that's why we promote them to you and to couples. It's that breaking down of, wait, what did I just say? What did you hear? That wasn't my intent. It wasn't what I was going for. And the other person ends up stopping, thinking and saying, well, I was actually doing that because I was trying to make you happy. I thought that you would enjoy that. And so I was kind of putting you first. And we always just laugh at that at that point because we always find the problems when we're putting each other first.
SPEAKER_02:Let's give some examples. I recently had a birthday. Happy birthday! Yay, thank you. I'm old. For my birthday, I got an email as any good Starbucks customer gets. You get a free drink on your birthday. And I thought, oh, how nice. And so I mentioned it to Beverly a couple of days before my birthday when I got the email and she said, oh, we haven't been to Starbucks in a minute. Let's do that. So I put it kind of in my mind is that's something we're going to do on birthday day. I said, okay, well, we'll go in the morning and we were planning to get a massage. And so I just said to Beverly, hey, let's go to Starbucks before we go to the massage.
SPEAKER_01:I already had coffee. I really didn't want more coffee. But because it's his birthday, especially, I'm working really hard to make sure Randy's happy. I should know better. This is where we're going to hit the wall.
SPEAKER_02:We're the experts, damn it. We should know better, but we still do it. We know exactly the reasons and we know exactly where the trouble comes from. And yet we keep doing it. And I get that it's a good idea. You want to try to make your partner happy. It seems like it's what we're supposed to do when we're a good partner. But I say coffee before the massage and Beverly says, oh, well, I'll have to stop drinking coffee now.
SPEAKER_01:And I should have said that in my head and not out loud. Where's that filter?
SPEAKER_02:It went to a whole bunch of other stuff about in her head trying to plan and back time the day, I guess, and be like, okay, we have to be at the massage at this time and that time. Are we coming back here?
SPEAKER_01:I'll have to pee during the massage. And now I've had coffee.
SPEAKER_02:After the massage, we're going to go out and have a nice lunch somewhere, sit on a beach, whatever. And so we just started having this back and forth.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. He says, oh, well, if you don't want coffee, just say so. And I was like, well, no, it's not that I don't want it. I guess it's the timing of it. And I start realizing, oh, dear, I shouldn't have said that. And then I want to reset. I want to do And I feel really bad because it's your birthday.
SPEAKER_02:And dear Lord, I'm just trying to plan the day. This is so common. We see it with couples where we're thinking for the other person. I was excited because I thought the other day, previously when I got the email and I said, oh, we should go to Starbucks on my birthday, get the free drink. I'm trying to think, oh, she was excited when I mentioned the email. Therefore, she will be excited and happy. when I planned the visit. And I said, let's go to Starbucks before the massage. And all of a sudden, I was not greeted with, oh, Randy, you're the most wonderful husband ever. I was greeted with, oh, well, now I'll have to stop drinking coffee now. And then lots of other discussions about, well, if we walk there, it's not really on the way, kind of, and it's time and all these other things. And then I was like, well, screw it. And so I go, oh, well, We just won't do that. And now all of a sudden we're in this, not really an argument. We're pretty good at working through our crap because we do this stuff so often, but we're in this, this moment that has a great potential for conflict because I had expectations that I was going to make her happy and she was going to best husband ever. And, and I didn't get that reaction. So then I felt disappointed. And then I thought, well, okay, maybe, you know, this stuff, our heads do to my, to my heads out there. We just start thinking, oh, well, maybe I made her mad about something or whatever, and we're trying to fix and hearts are spinning and trying to fix. And it just turns into a mess. And maybe you've had these discussions in your own relationship for things like picking a restaurant. We had an entire podcast we did about pick a restaurant earlier this season. And it's these kinds of things where we're trying to please the other person. And I guess maybe it's just that we have an expectation that by pleasing the other person, they're going to be happy with us. And then we let them down. And I don't get how it gets hung up, but it always seems to get hung up.
SPEAKER_01:I think, you know, if we break that down, we have to analyze it. That's what we do as relationship coaches. So I think our audience is as it builds and grows and the feedback we're getting is they love when we can kind of explain these things because most people don't give it much thought and they're just kind of stuck in it. So let's break it down a little bit. So when we want to make our partner happy, there are issues probably behind that. And I'm not going to say that I know your exact motive or intent, but let me throw out some possibilities. One might be, you know, trust issues. Sometimes if we have insecurities from past relationships, could be all the way back to childhood. We might then try to make our partner happy because maybe, you is we tried to make mom happy. And then we bring that all the way forward into our current relationship without even thinking about it. So that's something to tuck away. Maybe it's just the ego where maybe I just feel important because it's that happy wife, happy life kind of thing where, oh, my partner loves me and is happy. I'm a good husband or a good partner. And maybe that gives you some power, some dominance. Another idea is maybe we just have bad communication skills Maybe we're actually not trying to make them happy. We're just having a hard time expressing the needs that we have. And then lastly, which is probably the most common best for last reason why we might do this would be control. And we all love control because it helps us to manage our anxiety, our fears. So when we feel maybe insecure in the relationship, so we know, well, if my partner's happy, they'll stay with me. Or maybe we have a desperate need need to feel needed by our partner, or maybe we're afraid of abandonment. At any level, sometimes that control... Okay, hang on. Wait, I'm preaching. Sometimes that control is really just us, and we need to do a better job of managing ourself and even possibly our unrealistic expectation. Okay, go.
SPEAKER_02:You're dying over there. I'm dying over here because I hear the five, I don't know, seven... Four. Okay. Four psychological reasons why I might. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychologist. We're just crazy people. Sociologists. Sociologists. So I hear all that and I go, wow, I feel judged. But I go, wow, I feel judged because all of them probably apply.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I said both of us do it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, sure. I think we all do.
SPEAKER_01:There's the head feeling criticism.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's, it's, it's, but it's true. I think we do it for all of those things. Yeah. Making people around me happy gives me stability, which is a super strong need. We've talked on the podcast before about going to 14 different schools in 12 years and how moving so much impacted my anxiety as a human and dealt with it for many, many years and in some ways still do. Maybe it is that manage other people. Maybe it's that control other people maybe it's my own insecurities i i think i could attest to all of those things probably having some applicability in my own life if i'm being honest but i don't like being honest because honesty feels like criticism now so i i bet that we can move on but i just i had to stop all that because it just it seems it seems true and feels judgy
SPEAKER_01:no it's not meant to make you make any judgment here. Like I say, we both do it, hearts and heads. When we talk about more the solution or ways that we can do better in our relationship, one of the things that we do quite often is we really respect each other's differences and need for autonomy. So sometimes if Randy says, oh, I'm going to work on a podcast, edit that, put on the earphones won't be able to communicate for a couple hours. I can say, great, you do you. I'm going to find what I'm doing right now. And it's not about, oh, asking, you know, what did you have in mind right now? Or worrying about their happiness when we need to go do something for ourself. So underlying this need to please our partner would be, we need to say, what do I need? Because if I focus on my happiness and Randy focuses on his happiness, then we're going to ultimately be happy because our partner is happy and we didn't have to do anything. They just show up
SPEAKER_02:happy. And it allows us to feel successful in our relationship. Our partner's happy. We must be doing a good job. The problem is not that that's our goal. The problem is not that we want our partner to be happy. The problem is when it doesn't work out, we run all this noise in our head and feel criticized and blamed and frustrated and disappointed and all of those things. It's okay to have that goal that you want your partner to be happy. But if you want to really actually accomplish that goal, get your partner to tell you what they need in a moment, in a day. And Beverly and I have really worked on this a lot. We talk about having that second cup of coffee together in the morning and being able to plan the day and say, okay, what's on the agenda today? And maybe because it was my birthday and I was cooking big birthday breakfast, then we're having the conversation about planning the day out. And maybe it was just, we didn't sit down and go, okay, what's your vision for today? What do we need today? Because we generally do a very good job. Beverly used to sit and wait for me to go places with her, to take her to the beach or to take her to swim or those things. And instead, when Beverly says, today, I need to go to the pool and swim. Today, I need to go to the beach. My brain goes, oh, wow, I can accomplish that. And I can make her happy. I can help her. If she doesn't talk about it, then what happens is I'm sitting on the couch going, oh, I'm going to watch a ball game or I'm going to do this or I'm going to do watch cat video. I'm going to do these things. And she then eventually gets frustrated because she hasn't been able to get to the pool or the beach or whatever. And she'll say, oh, well, darn it. I should have gone to the beach that we should have gone that way. You know, I can't sit here any longer. And then it all feels like criticism where if we have that conversation up front. front, I actually want to get her where she wants to go. So you've got to understand what you need and communicate it.
SPEAKER_01:So part of what Randy's saying is the open, honest communication, and it is more serving of each partner, the more that we can communicate those things. When hearts rely on other people for happiness or try to include other people because we are so connected and it is our oxygen, then we are putting that other person in the middle. And we need to stop that. We need to be direct, honest. We need to say what we need or what we are doing. There are even times where Randy and I'll have a conversation and we just have a different value or a different way of looking at something. And I'll say to Randy, okay, that's fine. I agree to disagree. And we're both okay with that. We're two different people. We don't have to line up on everything. We can respect one another, have Have that autonomy. If I had a reset button, what I would do is go back and when Randy mentioned the coffee, I would have said, I love that idea. I'd love to get Starbucks with you. Is it possible to do that after the massage? Just so I'm not full from the coffee and caffeined up, but would love to do that after. And I believe because I would have started with a compliment and been very direct, I think Randy would have been on board and and we both would have been happy. So instead of happy wife, happy life, instead of trying to make each other happy, it's really about happy me, happy you, because each of us is really owning our own truth about what we need, what we expect, what those values are that are unique to each individual. So my last thing is when hearts are really that emotionally led partner, we do have that need for connection. And because we are the one that appears more crazy, crazy just means that we have that emotion, which heads love. And then it doesn't surprise me that when the heart is at peace, when the heart is happy and feeling connected, well, then of course, the head is going to feel more peace. It's not about changing Hearts are still going to be hearts. Heads are still going to be heads. If I can take care of my needs, if I can find my own happiness in my choices, it's going to end up in a happier relationship for all.
SPEAKER_02:And that's just true. I'm happy. I am happy that we have this conversation because it makes my life easier. Heads, your life will be easier if you can get your partner to tell you what they need instead of guessing and trying to just guess. it wrong all the time. Communicate. That's the bottom line for heads. A wonderful day. Thank you, Beverly. Let's go get a massage and then we'll get some Starbucks. Aloha,
SPEAKER_01:everyone.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to Heart vs. Head. You can learn more at heartandheadcoaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info Thank you.
