Why Heads are So Hard to Love

Have you ever felt like your Head partner was hard to love? Not because they didn't deserve it but because they couldn't seem to accept it... no matter how hard you try? In this episode, Beverly and Randy examine the critical inner voice that Heads have and how it impacts relationships. If you love a Head... but they suck at letting you love them, this one is for you... and them... (and all your friends). 

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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randi Hampton and Beverly Craddock.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hey everybody, it's Randy and Beverly. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Beverly. Hi. We're going to talk about something cool today, but before we get there... We should mention some kind of administrative stuff. First of all, thank you to everybody out there that listens along. We would ask a small favor as the podcast continues to grow, if you're enjoying what you're hearing, if it's helped you, if it's given you things to talk about with your partner, helped your relationship, whatever, please tell your friends. We would love some extra help on this journey. We are Randy Hampton, Beverly Craddock. We are relationship coaches out of Honolulu, Hawaii. We work with with couples to get them to darn it, fight better. We base a lot of our work on heart and head. Hearts are the partner in a relationship who is making their decisions based on how people feel about things. Heads are the partners in the relationship that are kind of making decisions based on logic and fact. So we talk a lot about heart and head, and that's where heart versus head comes from. In our relationship, I am a big giant head, totally Totally logic, totally emotionless most of the time, darn it. And Beverly is a big, giant heart, always concerned for everybody and how everybody's feeling about things. And so that's our relationship. We're going to talk a little bit, dive a little bit into heart and head today. Beverly, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Why are heads so difficult to love? What? We're

SPEAKER_01 1:59

difficult. Difficult to love. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

This came up actually a few weeks ago, and one of the things that Randy always says to me is, if I could love him more. You just need to love me more. Love me more. And that is the most irritating sentence in the world. I know. Because I'm a heart, and I love fully and unconditionally, and I don't know how to love more. A completely pointless statement. It

SPEAKER_01 2:30

is kind of a pointless statement. I think, you know, I say love me more because what I'm looking for, it's not a question of how much you love me. It's a show me some. So it's really more a love me more meaning, well, give me a hug or say something nice to me or those kinds of things. So I think that's what I mean by love me more, which isn't actually love. It's more affirmation or physical touch or those things. But maybe I'm just asking for for, oh, I need you to show me. We talk about heads being hard to love, and this is really kind of universal. We are. We are hard to love because heads really, the reason that we are heads is we don't love ourselves all that much. And so I think we spend so much time in our heads, so much time doubting and questioning and thinking, you know, all this time doing all this stuff in our head, we become pretty self-critical. My brain will generally go to the reasons why it'll get screwed up or the reasons why I don't deserve to be as happy as I am or don't deserve to have somebody as wonderful as you. My head goes to quite a bit of the time why you don't deserve to have somebody like me. You don't deserve the physical stuff that I go through, the pain and the chest pain. that I have physically. You deserve somebody that's a great adventurer to keep up with your wonderful spirit. Why are heads so hard to love? Because we can't figure out why we should be loved or that we're good enough. And that's just my theory on it. I don't know. Maybe some of the other heads out there can help with that, but that's my take on it is we just beat ourselves up so much that we make it hard to love us because we We question everything. We doubt everything. We doubt that we can be good enough.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

That makes a lot of sense because there are times where if I say something and don't word it really in the right way, Randy will view it as criticism, which was not the intent and really the last thing from my mind, and I'm always surprised when it happens. But there are times where that is something that is frustrating, right? Because if a person had more of that good enough, I'm good enough, right? Then perhaps they wouldn't hear that in such a critical way. I know that it takes two in communication, and we talk about that all the time with communication. And I think, you know, you and I have worked on this quite a bit over the years, talking about how we hear things. I Another aspect of this would be times where we're, for example, sitting on the couch and you're on your computer. And I remember the classic moment where you were looking at lake houses because I had said that a lake house sounded amazing, still think it would be amazing. And Randy's over there looking, searching for lake houses. And this is literally 5, 10, 20 years away, yet he's over there doing that. And I'm Over there, bored, looking at him, wondering, what is he doing on the computer? Why is he so

SPEAKER_01 6:05

involved? How do I get this done? How do I do this in the future? And hearts are very much in the present, in the moment. We heads are bad at that. In some ways for me, and I can't speak for all heads, though I may be an authority on them and can speak for a lot of them. You've worked with a lot of heads. It's weird, but the only way that kind of calms all the noise is to try to find all these distractors, our screens, our addictions, our bad habits. We will dive oftentimes into them very deeply because it actually kind of quiets or distracts us from the noise and the worry.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

So

SPEAKER_01 7:26

I do, I catch myself all the time stuck on my phone stuck on my computer watching crap and i'm aware of it and i'm watching the world go by and i'm watching the the relationship go by and we all i think do it i think our brains are in tune with our our our technology But it's a way, I think, for the head partners out there to quiet some of that self-criticism is to maybe focus on other stuff that draws our attention. And then my brain doesn't sit and beat me up, doesn't sit and do a lot of that internal dialogue. Some of these things are natural. And really, one of the places you have to arrive at in your world is being comfortable with that voice in your head that's completely wrong about you, completely wrong And that value, that critical voice in our head is going to be there. And we look for these ways to just tone it down, hoping that it's going to go away. And the only way it's going to go away is self-love. But man, that is hard. And it is hard for heads. It's hard for the human brain to like us. It's not designed to like us. It's designed to protect us. And those are two very different things. But when you're a head, it's really a struggle to say, oh, that's good enough. I did well. I'm okay. And that's hard, I think, for heads. But once again, that's me. Maybe I Maybe I'm a weirdo or a unicorn, or maybe there is something wrong with me and I've been right all along and I do it different than other people. Now, thousands of clients tell us that's not the case. You really have to begin to see yourself the way your partner sees you, which is tricky when you're in a tough spot in your relationship. You know, when it's reached the point of argument and disconnect and the heart partner feels so So disconnected and there's anger and there's anxiety and there's sadness and all of that hurt. It's hard to remember what that heart partner sees in us. It's hard to remember that, but maybe they're right. Maybe I am lovable as a head partner, which is just kind of inconceivable. In a lot of ways, heads, we motivate ourselves. The critical voice tells us, hey, you're not good enough. And we take that and we go, oh, yeah, I'll show you. And we kind of get some self motivation out of our own critical voice. And so we never really completely lose that critical voice because the parts of it that motivate us can be useful. It is negative motivation, but study after study after study will show you that negative motivation is actually very effective. So it's useful when I go, okay, I suck as a husband because it reminds me to be a husband. It reminds me that I am a husband and it reminds me I need to act like a husband. So when I go, oh, I'm a bad husband because I forgot to do this or that. for her, then it reminds me, hopefully, is the goal in the future that I should be a better husband. But the problem with that is my brain just sees all the ways that I screw it up. And many of the ways that I screw it up aren't even real. They are things that I believe that I have screwed up that you are focused on, and you're not actually focused on them at all. And so that self-criticism, we project it out then onto our partner and think that our partner sees And that becomes a trap too, because you just become more and more and more and more and more unlovable. There you go. There's my take. That's how I think heads are doing it. But I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I'd say also the emotional side of love. For hearts, we automatically really look for that connection, that attention from our partner. We're just seeking that connection. that love, so that emotion, we're very comfortable with it. And I think with heads, it's not comfortable. It's emotional, it's messy, and they don't always want to just jump into that. So I think there's a lot of distance created by heads when we're in a relationship and we're each kind of looking for some different things. And that distance seems like rejection for hearts, yet if we understood that heads are just not as comfortable with it, then maybe hearts could push through that a bit more. Certainly understanding each other better would be one of the ways to gapping that distance.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Absolutely. You've got to find a way to bring that back together. And I think the biggest way that you and I have been able to do that, at least from my perspective and the things that have changed in me, was just being able to say, wait a second, holy cow, the girl likes you and she doesn't see you that way. And I think we take a real proactive approach to making sure we're communicating and talking about these things in a non-hurtful, maybe scientific way where you're just able to step back and talk about these things in your relationship. These conversations bring you closer. We have to be able to see that the reason heads are hard to love is our damage and when a heart sees that the reason that their partner's hard to love is their damage the heart wants to heal that that's in their nature and that is exactly what as heads we've always looked for we've always sought we've always wanted the problem is most of our experiences in previous relationships and growing up for those of us that have been shaped into heads, most of our relationships let us down in that element. The person fails us that we think is going to rescue us. And so be open, be honest and communicate because each time you can openly, honestly communicate, Beverly, I feel like we I feel like we get closer, but I feel like we each kind of heal a chunk of us as we're

SPEAKER_02 14:27

going along. understand a head partner and how difficult it is for them. So I tell hearts, go first. It's what we do naturally and easily. The more that we can create a safe space and have that compassion and understanding, then the better it's going to go or we're both going to get those needs met. I think most clients that come in have no knowledge of this. They have no idea that their partner is struggling with a lot of And so they assume it has to be them. It has to be, you know, maybe they're cheating or they're just no longer interested and they make all of their partners problems about them. And that's kind of what humans do. But if we understand it and realize, take a step back, maybe your partner's going through something, then I think now the door's open and we can get somewhere, we can start to change. things in a much more satisfying way for each partner.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

I think as we kind of look at wrapping up, heads, work with your partner. Find a safe space. And maybe it's advice for hearts at this point. Create a safe space for your head partner to process some of their hurt, to process some of their pain, to process some of their stuff. And heads, when that door is open, when there's that opportunity, when that person's hearing you, recognize they're trying to help you. It's the first, maybe the first time in your life that somebody has or recognize that your partner's capable of loving you that much because it will change everything. Your partner's not there to hurt you. And I've never, you know, I've never felt that way with you. I know you are completely capable of loving me and loving me more than anyone ever has and wonderfully and perfectly well for me. It just took a lot of safety. space it took a lot of conversations it took a lot of oh Beverly's not looking at me that way to be comfortable enough with it and that's a that's a hard step to take so heads let let your heart partner love you for heaven's sakes don't don't be so darn unlovable and it's not that we're unlovable it's just that we act that way so much because we think we are right and it it's a it's a trap that your brain will will put you in.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Hearts and heads both really do love deeply. I think the takeaway that I want to leave hearts with is that we are similar, but we are also very different. Even when it comes to the definition of love, hearts will gravitate toward the feeling of love, heads gravitate toward the list of love, of, you know, I love you because this, this, this, right? And that's okay we can have both in a relationship. Relationships should be a dance. We're nicer to international guests that come to our house than we are to our own partner because we allow for that difference in communication, difference in culture and processing and values. But yet we should have that same patience and compassion, especially for our

SPEAKER_01 18:23

intimate partner. That is a great, great example. We'll leave you with that one because here in Here in Hawaii, it's so common that people walk into a home and they take their shoes off. But if they didn't take their shoes off, you're not going to yell at them. But we do it with our partner, man. Partner walks in the door and they forget one thing, do one thing wrong, and we are right on it. All right, everybody. Thank you very much for tuning in. Tell your friends. We'd appreciate it. We'll talk to you next time. Aloha.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

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 at heartandheadcoaching.com.