Marriage 2.0: How To Rebuild A Marriage in Crisis | Naomi Light | #174

We welcome UK marriage therapist Naomi Light, who shares how her relationship nearly ended and how couples therapy helped her and her husband rebuild a stronger “marriage 2.0.” We dig into the science and skills behind her Rewiring Love method so you can shift patterns, lower conflict, and create real safety with your partner.

• Naomi’s story of slow-building toxic conflict and the turning point that brought them into couples therapy 
• The first therapy question that changed everything: how your partner fits your “script” 
• Why relationship pain feels isolating and why we believe you should not carry it alone 
• Chronic ambivalence and the cost of staying stuck in limbo 
• The Zeigarnik effect and how unresolved conflict keeps “tabs” open in your brain 
• Attachment styles made simple with anchor, wave, and island 
• The Rewiring Love method: perspective shift, physiological shift, behavioral shift 
• Two-person psychology and building a “couple bubble” for secure functioning 
• Overt vs covert contempt and how both erode trust 
• Research on conflict, stress, immunity, and why it can affect women even more 

Naomi's Links:
https://naomilight.com/
https://www.instagram.com/naomilightcouplestherapist/

Happy Hacks: 101 Science-Backed Ways to Boost Happiness, Reduce Stress, and Build a More Meaningful Life.

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Written by Dr. Dave Schramm, this practical and uplifting new book offers simple, research-based strategies to help you build greater happiness, strengthen resilience, reduce

The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.

Visit our site for FREE relationship resources and regular giveaways: 

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Podcast.stongermarriage.org

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StrongerMarriageLife

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Dr. Dave Schramm: 

http://drdaveschramm.com

http://drdavespeaks.com

Dr. Liz Hale: 

http://www.drlizhale.com/ 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_06 0:03

On today's episode, Dr. Liz and I welcomed Naomi Light to the show, all the way from the UK. Years ago, Naomi and her husband were on the brink of divorce until they turned their marriage around with help from a wonderful therapist. Then Naomi decided to go back to school and become a marriage therapist herself, where she helps countless couples learn to rewire love. Naomi Light is a UK-based relationship expert and founder of the Rewiring Love method. She has worked with more than 100 couples, helping them move beyond surface level conflict to transform the neurological and emotional foundations of their relationships. Blending clinical insight with practical tools, Naomi empowers couples to break old patterns and build lasting, meaningful partnerships. She believes our relationships are one of the primary vehicles for personal growth and healing. Naomi also co-hosts the podcast Couples Talk with her husband, Nick, where they offer an honest and deeply human look at modern partnership. She's on a mission to help couples navigate love with clarity, compassion, and lasting change. We hope you enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Welcome to Stronger Marriage Connection. I'm Dr. Liz Hale, a psychologist, along with the beloved professor Dr. Dave Schram. Together, we have dedicated our life's work to bringing you the best we have in valid marital research and a few tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. You know, I think, Dave, if you were to maybe take a poll of some of my couples I work with, they would know something about my marriage mistakes. I'm pretty transparent. Trying not to be too transparent. There's a fine line, isn't there? Is that have you found that in teaching and testing?

SPEAKER_06 1:50

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

In your presentations, you want to be real and inspiring without like, oh my gosh, I've heard enough from her. You know, my past mentors who shared openly about the foibbles and their successes, I think were some of the most instrumental in my professional development. And I want couples to know that I get it, that they're not alone and that there is a science behind what blesses my own marriage as well as others. Well, today's guest is truly an open book. Um, and so interesting. Guess what inspired her to go back to school and become a marriage therapist? Months of sitting with her husband about eight years ago in their own marital therapy as they humbly faced the end of their marriage. They were in major crisis as they slowly began to come to terms with how dysfunctional, she says, their relationship had become. So, through that hard work and effort and the support of this great therapist they found, they rebuilt their marriage from the ground up and have now married twice, just to the same person. They affectionately say they're on marriage 2.0, and they have now been married for over 20 years.

From Divorce Brink To Marriage 2.0

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Welcome to Stronger Marriage Connection, marriage therapist Naomi Light, all the way from the UK.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

It's great to be here, Liz and Dave. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Really, really great to have you. Thank you, first of all, for your transparency, Naomi. Um, when you can share with your couples, you can relate to being on the brink of divorce yourself. I can only just I can just hear the sighs in the room, right? When they think, oh thank gosh, you get what a breath of fresh air you bring to your work. And that's intentional, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, I think I got into this work because I believe that change is possible. And it's not just as a concept, a good idea, something I guess now I believe in my bones to be true. And I think because we've changed and therapy turned our lives around, turned our marriage around. I think, you know, if it could work for us, then it must be able to work for other people. So it was one day in my marriage therapist's office thinking, you know what, if I could sit in her seat, if I could do for other people what she's doing for us, I think I could be happy doing that for the rest of my life. That was about eight years ago. And so far, it's proved pretty reliable.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, I I bet so. How long was that marriage therapy? Do you mind me asking?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, we did eight months of work with our therapist at that point. This was 2018.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Good for you. Do you mind sharing just a bit about marriage 1.0, Naomi? Was there a final straw, like the lowest of lows when you felt that we just may not make it?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, um, absolutely I will share. I think um, you know, marriages dissolve in lots of different ways. There isn't like there's one thing that breaks people up. It's different for every couple. And for us, it wasn't, it wasn't there wasn't a big infidelity, there wasn't, you know, the love went cold. Um, it wasn't even that, you know, we stopped romancing each other or desiring each other, or you know, it it wasn't something terrible happened and then it all fell apart. For us, it was a slow creep of conflict that got increasingly more toxic. And the harder that conflict was, the less we were able to repair. And so our repairs became more conflict, and then you have this build-up. It's like this, you know, you start drowning under the weight of all the things that seem to go wrong. And um, I've studied with John Gottman, and he probably know this. One of his uh phrases that one of his research is about the negative perspective, which is the accumulation of difficult things because of our brain's negativity bias, we start to see the whole relationship through the lens of the things that have gone wrong. And we start to believe that our partner is the problem, that there's a fundamental incompatibility between us, the marriage is doomed. And that was me. That was me where slowly, even the good things, because we were still a great team, we still loved each other, we still wanted each other, you know, but even the good things were being overridden by a sense of disconnection, aloneness, disrespect, not being seen, not being understood. And I spent a whole year being convinced today could be the day we break up, the next bad fight, that will be it. I all but had my bag packed. I knew where I was going when I left the marriage. Um, and then we got into couples therapy.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Good for you. So, in those eight months of this intensive marriage therapy with you and your husband, Nick, would you say there was something that stood out that may have been like the most impactful? If you had to choose something, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Oh, so many things. I think I what I wanted to maybe want to tell you about is the very first

The Hidden Script Behind Conflict

SPEAKER_00 7:15

question that Jenny, our couples therapist, asked us. And I did not understand what she meant. But this was like paradigm shift moment. So it's pretty much we our first session, we arrived and she said to us, in what way is your partner a fit for your script? That's nice. I mean, you guys will know you will know what I'm talking about straight away, but I didn't have a clue what she meant. Like, script? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a really independent female. My life is not scripted out for me. I make all my own decisions. You know, I I take full responsibility for my life, but of course, she's right. We live according to a script when it comes to um the psychodynamic patterns of behavior in our families, our attachment history, even our you know, genetics and biology. And it turns out that we had picked each other because we were a match for each other's script in the best and the worst way. And it was uncovering that, it was going, oh no, you are just the kind of person that brings out all of my worst attributes. And of course, you are just the kind of person that gives me the possibility to have as as I love the work of Brandy Brown, and she says, if we own our own stories, we get to write a brave new ending. And for me, that quote summed up those eight months of work we did. We had to own our stories. And only in doing that, only in facing the script, the crappy script we were handed by our parents, and facing the script fit, could we write a brave new ending? And for us, that brave new ending, well, it's not really an ending, it's it's a continuation, and it's marriage 2.0 and maybe marriage 3.0 one day.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Yeah, I get it. It's beautiful. Thank you, Naomi.

SPEAKER_06 9:16

I love these experiences. You bring this real uh raw, right, experience, this vulnerability that that uh now you and your husband have and helping so many others. Naomi, after you graduated from marriage therapy, let's say, you then proceeded to graduate again, this time in school, becoming a marriage therapist. And you didn't just stop there. Uh, you know, we appreciate your additional studies with Dr. John Gottman, whom we admire, Dr. Stan Tack, and we have great respect for their individual work as well. And so your enthusiasm, it's honestly captivating as you discuss how much research, you know, attachment theory, neuroscience enriches our relationships and helps us fulfill our potential as partners. So, in your work with couples, what would you say is the most, I don't know, fundamental concept you want every couple to know?

The Loneliness Of Relationship Struggles

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Um it's a it's a hard question. I think if if you're gonna push me, and I know you are pushing me for one thing, if you're gonna push me, the one thing I want would want every every person in a relationship to know is that you are not alone. Start talking, find a trusted friend, find a professional, start telling your truth, and you will find you are not alone. Because what's so devastating about having relationship problems, and I mean I'm sure you guys can can relate to this, it certainly is true for me, is that on top of the stress, the difficulty, the uncertainty, the worry about the future, there's a chronic isolation that happens. We're separated from the very person that we would want to go to, and everyone around us, you know, knows us both. And so suddenly there is a real loneliness and uh and an isolation that happens, and it doesn't have to be that way. And if there was just one thing, I would say it's please know you're not alone. Find someone you can trust, find someone you can open up to, let somebody in. It's the hardest thing, especially the first time you say it. It's really the hardest thing. Can be so many barriers to get to that point. Be brave, be courageous, start talking, tell your truth.

SPEAKER_06 11:39

I love that. Love that. Because I think even you know, we're we're in other couples, we see other couples. So if we may be struggling, yet we see the appearance of everybody else is doing fine, and I'm a mess, and I have to fake it, and I yeah, this loneliness, I can't talk with my partner. Oh, so that must be just so um discouraging, devastating. That yeah, that isolation, that loneliness of feeling like I'm the only one. Yeah, everyone else, I just look at a grocery store, my faith community, or neighborhood, everyone is happy except for me. And now, what's wrong with me? Yeah, oh, that's gotta be tough, really challenging.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

So find a wise person, like you said friend, mentor, therapist, priest. Nah, I like that.

SPEAKER_05 12:24

We'll be right back after this brief message.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

Chronic Ambivalence And Getting Unstuck

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Good. Excellent. You've also mentioned that there's a cost to pay for doing nothing to move the needle. And uh we typically regret our inactions far more than our actions. And being stuck in relationship limbo is exactly that inaction, I imagine. Tell us more about the chronic ambivalence and the secret to getting out from underneath it.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah. Yeah, I like to talk about this phenomena of chronic ambivalence. It's the state of he or she is too good to leave, yet too bad to stay with. And it again, it relates to my own experience in relationship. And it's a kind of cognitive dissonance where we've got these two things that are both true inside of us and they're kind of at war. And we where you get into a chronic ambivalence trap is because you're trying to prevent yourself from the difficult consequences of either decision. You know, I don't want to walk away in case I regret that, but I don't want to stay in case I look back and regret that. And it can really, you know, it can really hold people stuck, which is its own kind of tragedy. Because love does involve heartbreak. I think it comes to all of us. If we're serious about loving someone, then we are gonna get our heartbroken at some point. And this this state of being stuck, a a chronic ambivalence, you know, ambivalence being pulled in two different directions, and chronic just meaning it goes on and on and on, is pretending to protect you from heartbreak, but in actual fact is a trap. It's keeping you stuck because research shows that we regret our inaction far more than the choices we made in good faith when we look back in the future. And so um, yeah, part of my work is is helping people gently to do something. You know, talking to someone would be breaking that inaction, would be making a choice, would be getting moving, um, but to to really engage yourself and see that being stuck as an opportunity. How do you resolve two opposing things inside you that don't seem to fit together? Well, you've got to become bigger on the inside. You've got to grow, in other words. And you know, it may be that it's not because often people think, well, maybe I've made the wrong choice. Um, and I think sometimes the invitation is not that it's the wrong person, but you're at the doorway of the right kind of change. Can you see it as an invitation and not as a life sentence?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Oh, beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 15:30

Mm-hmm. Wow, that really is. Naomi, in your work, you refer to

Why Unresolved Fights Stay In Mind

SPEAKER_06 15:35

the the zygaric. I may maybe that I'm mispronouncing that zygaric effect where the brain remembers uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than finished ones. So can you describe how this was discovered, please, and what these unfinished loops mean to our relationships as we go about trying to heal our disconnections?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah, um, Dave, I absolutely love this. Is perhaps my favorite piece of um research. It's so cool. So, Zygernik, I think that's how I say it as well, um, is uh named after Bulmer Zygernik, who was a researcher in the 1960s who lived in Vienna, and she was observing the waiters in the restaurants around Vienna, and she noticed something interesting that they could remember eight, nine, ten different items on an order whilst they were delivering the order to their customers. But the moment those orders were fulfilled, they would forget the detail that they'd remembered, maybe only a few minutes before. And she saw this as like a really fascinating feature of the brains. It's become known as the zygonic effect, which is that unresolved, like kind of like tabs open on your browser, unresolved tasks in your brain stay in your short-term memory until they're resolved, in which time they they go, they get they get lost. And if we think about kind of unresolved tasks like the accruing of conflict, we've kind of already talked about the negative perspective. This this research really backs up Gottman's understanding of the way this works. If we see conflict like tabs that are open, the more unresolved conflict we have, and this can be really tiny things, you know, really small incidental moments that just feel like, ooh, I didn't like that, that was a pinprick. If these are allowed to accrue, then they really weigh in on our consciousness because we've got all these tabs open and our systems are worrying away, trying to resolve them so we can move on. And this would be exactly, you know, years later, uh Gottman comes along and says, Yeah, we've got a name for that. That's the negative perspective, the accruing of unresolved conflict in relationships.

unknown 17:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Yeah, that's powerful.

Attachment Styles Anchor Wave Island

SPEAKER_02 18:00

We also love that you've studied um and value attachment theory. So we got the three attachment theories, I think that you look at, is that right, Naomi? Yeah. What what are they? Secure, insecure.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, two types of insecure, which would be avoidant and anxious. Um, I know you've you've looked a lot on this podcast at attachment theory, so we can we can kind of talk about those and and what they are and how you might spot them in your relationship.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Um without that would be lovely. But yeah, it's just a quick reference, if you don't mind, of how how might I respond in that insecure way?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, okay. Um, I actually am gonna borrow from from Stan Tatkins um the way that he labels these three because he uses the images of an anchor for secure. I don't know if he talked about this when he came on your podcast. No. Um he uses the idea of an anchor for a secure attachment, an anxious attachment being a bit like a wave, kind of going out, coming in, quite quite intense, and then avoidant attachment a bit like an island. And it just works for me. So we talked about this, my husband and I on our podcast, and we tend to favor one or more, or you know, sometimes we can be in have a foot in both camps. Um, and and often we can have pairings in relationships where you know, classically, this would describe Nick and I, my husband, you can have an avoidant uh an island with an anxious wave partner, and they they sort of draw each other into this dance of reinforcing each other's tendencies. Let me give you an example so you can kind of see how this works. Um, so if you have an anxious, insecure attachment, it means that you've probably at some point um been scared of being abandoned. Maybe abandonment or rejection or unavailable caregivers has might have been part of your childhood significant uh experiences. And so you might cling on a bit like a wave, kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, come back. You might cling on to your partner as a way to compensate for that. If you are conversely an insecure, avoidant partner, so like an island, then you retreat. Because you rather than fearing being abandoned, you're more afraid of being engulfed or smothered. Maybe you had experiences of somebody, a caregiver really depending on you. You were the emotional support for a parent, or a parent was kind of overbearing, a really strong personality in your life, and you experience, maybe even not consciously, you experience kind of being a bit smothered. And so the way you cope with that is to pull back and kind of go inside and make myself okay, and then I can come back again. And you can see how when you get this combination of the island partner and the wave partner kind of crashing on the shores of the island, they really don't understand each other and they kind of react to each other in just the most unhelpful ways. You know, the more the wave comes, the more the island pulls back, the more the island pulls back, yeah, the more the wave comes. So, and Nick and I are classic. I'm the island, I'm the pull the pullback, like whoa, whoa, whoa, you're coming on too strong. Um, and he's more of the wave. He's the uh the the clingy or even the can kind of start a fight to kind of to hook me in. But obviously, it just it tends to backfire. And I just think I mean it's been So powerful for me to understand, for us to work through, um, to be able to become more skilled as an island partner at staying present with him, at holding my boundaries, but in a way that says, it's not you that's the problem, it's just right now I feel overwhelmed. And for the uh wave partner, the anxious partner to learn to hold and wait, to learn to say, you will come back. I can trust you, especially when you tell me you are going to come back. Then that feels a little safer for me, and I can I can hold myself in. Um, I just think it's it's really time worth spending researching. There's so many fabulous resources and fabulous books out there on attachment theory. Um it's endless, actually.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

It's almost overwhelming, I would say. Even as a professional. This I can wrap my head around. I love the anchor wave and island. Dave, have you have you heard?

SPEAKER_06 23:00

I have not heard of that. Yeah, I love that. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Tangent. Thank you, Naomi.

SPEAKER_06 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Not my work. That's Stan. He is understand.

The Three Shifts Of Rewiring Love

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_06 23:12

Yeah. Naomi, you remind us that the most negative relational behaviors are driven by our automatic, this reflexive or these memory-based patterns. Is this why your mantra is to become an expert on the partner we picked? And where do we begin, right? To better understand our partner's vulnerabilities, the weaknesses, and and how they operate rather than how we wished they would operate.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, Dave. Um, I think a huge thing we can get our heads around and a big dose of humility that we all need, you know, if we want to be long-term romantic partners, um, is to understand that that we are flawed as humans. Our biology sometimes works against the very thing that we want, and our ego sometimes gets in the way. Um and and so I think appreciating how our biases, our automatic biases, can influence us and can blind us to the things that we need to do to make our relationship really great and fulfill its potential, I think is a really important shift. In fact, what I the work that I do is um I call it the rewiring love method, which is really kind of me taking from all the the work that I've done with the Gottmans and with Stan Hackin, and also just from the the work that I've done with my couples, I've seen that over the years there are three uh fundamental shifts that everybody needs to make for change to happen. If you miss out any one of these three shifts, then your change is just not gonna be sustainable for you. And so the three shifts are firstly a perspective shift, which I would, you know, call the humility that we need to see our own limitations. I would call that a perspective shift. Secondly, this is a physiological shift. So we actually need to rewire our nervous systems. This would be attachment patterns in order to find our partner safer and to create more safety for them. And then the third shift would be the behavioral shift. So we've got to skill up, you know, we've got to have um the ability to be able to de-escalate conflict with our partner. We've got to have the ability to be able to say, I am sorry, I was wrong, full stop, no but on that sentence. Like we've got to be able to do that. And any one of those three shifts, if you miss that, you haven't got the complete picture.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Perspective, physiology, and behavior makes sense. Makes sense. You um teach your couples that that both parties are 100% responsible for what they have co-created as a couple. Really love that perspective. What's the single biggest switch, Naomi, that um we can make to become a more securely functioning couple?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Um, I mean, I think I'd probably continue to answer the same way that I've been talking about perspective shift. And again, I probably borrow from Stan because his insights around we need a psychology of two people. And that really doesn't come very naturally to us as human beings, especially under threat. We're gonna revert to a one-person psychology. I need to look after me, I need to ensure that my opinion gets heard, my rights get understood and protected, I need you to keep me safe. This is a one-person psychology, and we've got to shift to creating that two-person psychology. He calls it a couple bubble. We've got to make this a safe place for us both to be, because otherwise we're gonna undermine our entire mission if we threaten each other's security and safety. And that that is just a fundamental shift under everything else. It's hard to achieve. I certainly am still working every day on translating my, you know, my way of showing up to being a two-person-friendly way of being in a relationship. And I just don't think we talk enough about it. We're really uneducated in in this area of understanding um the system that we're in and how we we massively can change the the game just by playing changing the way we play. We're not changing our partner necessarily, although we're going to be signaling them in new ways, which is gonna change the way they show up, but we're fundamentally changing ourselves to be able to play a new game, and that changes the game. And it's just so smart, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

And responsible, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

And responsible, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:15

We'll be right back after this brief message.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

And we're back. Let's

Overt And Covert Contempt Explained

SPEAKER_03 28:30

dive right in.

SPEAKER_06 28:31

Naomi, in in revisiting Dr. John Gottman's work, he discovered the the four horsemen, pretty well known, uh, you know, these relationship killers. And of the four, contempt is the most corrosive behavior. You share that another researcher suggested that there are two categories of contempt: overt and covert. And I haven't, maybe you have, Liz, I haven't heard of these these distinctions. So this is new to me. Can you describe both, please, and what we need to be aware of as partners when we find ourselves being contemptuous?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Dave. And I and in this, I need to give credit to Carrie Lucignan from the Northampton Center for Couples. I don't know if you've come across her, um, but uh I love I stole this from her blatantly, but I just love it. I think it's so helpful. Um, that yeah, contempt is particularly corrosive because of the way it erodes self-esteem and self-respect and really undermines the foundation of a relationship. And she talks about, I mean, I don't think this is her unique an original work, but she talks about how we tend to see overt contempt, which would be things like blame, you know, criticism, blame, um, things like mockery, name-calling, you know, uh, you know, really aggressively looking down on our partner in an obvious way. This we see this in in relationships, and maybe we see it in ourselves or in our partner. Um, but what we tend to miss is what she calls oh um covert contempt, which is a lot more subtle and doesn't get expressed externally. You know, someone with with over covert contempt is gonna keep that, keep that into themselves. But what it might look like is resentment building, a sense of being the one with the moral high ground or the intellectual high ground, or even, you know, I know more couples research than you. I'm better than you, and I really subtly am looking down on you. There's the contempt piece, and I'm long-suffering, I'm a martyr, I'm passive with it, I'm understanding up for myself, I may be tending on codependency. I'm just uh I'm just so over this, but I never say that, and that's much harder to get our heads around, it's much harder to call it out when it's in the therapy room, as you can imagine. This person is kind of feeling like they are subtly, secretly much more superior and much better at all of this, but their behavior nonetheless is toxic for the relationship, it's their inaction, it's their refusal to really uh be declarative, to to show up, to make themselves available. And so there's nothing there for their partner to aim at, you know, and and this is just as toxic. And when I when I understood that, um, I was like, yeah, that's the complete picture there. Because I think we we've perhaps only just gone to the one level, and there are deeper levels there. There's there's different forms of contempt, and and that probably would probably match up with different maybe personality styles or temperaments or different even attachment styles.

SPEAKER_06 31:59

Um Yeah, I I I love that it goes, it feels like this is the flip. I haven't heard the covert um you know, and the over types of of contempt. But the opposite, it feels like is what we talked about earlier briefly, and that's humility, right? This humility. Whereas this one is like this pride, this looking down on, oh my goodness, if you only knew what I knew, type of thing, or you would change that that will just uh ruin a relationship about as fast as anything, is that yeah, contempt should that drip, that acid, right? On the on the relationship.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

No. We

When Conflict Becomes A Health Risk

SPEAKER_02 32:35

we also love Naomi. Um, your insights insights regarding conflict and health. I think that came out of Ohio State University you mentioned. And there's something about these 15 cigarettes a day rule. What is that, please, my friend?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yeah, okay. This this is another one I love because it's so attention-grabbing. Um, so this research talks about the impact of interpersonal stress. So um, you have some people who've from the Ohio State University who've studied this and done experiments to show just how toxic for our allostatic load interpersonal stress can be. I don't know, I don't know where these people find the volunteers for their studies, because there was one really brutal one where um they were, they found newlyweds and they were taking blood samples before and after conflict uh with newlyweds. And at one time, one study, they actually inflicted um blisters using like a suction pump, they would put blisters onto the female participants' fingers, and then they would get the partners to have an argument. Like, who they paid their volunteers? Who signs up for this? But of course, um the fight would have a really big impact on both of their um allostatic lobes, you know, the amount of cortisol and noradrenaline in their system. And this in turn has a knockback on immunity. We know that stress suppresses immunity and it kills cells. Cortisol is actually harmful to our cells. And so what happened with these blisters is that they just didn't heal with the fighting. The more contemptuous and belligerent that fight was, the longer those blisters would stay. Yikes! And it's like such a visceral visual picture of how detrimental to our health fighting with our attachment partner is. And so then once people got hold of these studies, they then did comparisons and they say, okay, well, this is seriously bad for us, isn't it? And what would be the comparison with, say, physical health and you know, things like obesity and smoking 15 cigarettes a day has a comparable effect on your immunity, on your um cells, um, on your inflammation in your body as interpersonal stress in you know, in fights with your partner, which is just stunning to me because I mean just shows you, doesn't it, kind of the evolving consciousness of our society. We all know smoking is harmful. Smoking kills. You know how much of we had I don't think we're gonna argue that point, right? Yeah, but we don't think the same about conflict. But we could say conflict kills.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Oh, I've said it, yeah. It does kill our children, kills us as partners, right? Oh, it's painful.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

We'll be right back after this brief message.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

And we're back. Let's dive

Why Women Carry More Stress Load

SPEAKER_03 35:55

right in.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

You know, I didn't realize until learning more about you, Naomi, and and this wonderful program of we rewiring love, that method, that women uh are less resistant to the stress and the conflict in marriage. I just didn't know that. And I I'd love to know how that shows up for women or why that shows up for women. Do we have any more insight on that?

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yeah, that's that's what the research shows that that um it works both ways, but it's more pronounced in the female body, which to me makes sense because for women's bodies, they have a greater oxytocin production. So, so roughly kind of three times that of a man's. And and you know, oxytocin is the bonding hormone. So that's the the thing that you know promotes bonding of mother to infant or of partners. And and so that does make sense to me that if you've got a lot more oxytocin in your body, then you're gonna be more sensitive to to being able to bond, but also more sensitive to the disconnection. You're gonna, it's gonna have a more of a you know damaging load on your body. Um, so that it does, it kind of rings true with the science. You know, in terms of how how we deal with that, I mean it's it's nothing different from all of the stuff we say in in relational work, that you're in each other's care. You've got to take care of each other, and you've got to require your partner to take care of you, in as much as you're also going to commit to taking care of them. This has got to be a mutual venture.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

That's so true. And um uh receiving, right? Reception of that care. I think sometimes we love it. Being willing to receive love, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Sometimes that's the barrier. You know, it's that I'm refusing to let you love me more than I love myself.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Oh well, you mean you also have an impressive website, a podcast, like we said, with your husband Nick, and exceptional resources on the rewiring love method. Where can our friends here at Stronger Marriage Connection find out more about you and all the tremendous resources and the work, the therapy that you offer? We'll be certain to add that to our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yeah, the best way is to connect with me on social media. Um, so we'll put the Instagram handle down there, and the website is NaomiLite.com. So there's some resources you can download from that.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

And uh, you have really given a lot to social media. Thank you for that. Rich, rich sweet gems that you leave for us. I love I love them myself.

SPEAKER_06 38:38

Yeah, thanks so much. We'll be sure to put those in our show notes, yeah, Naomi. So our listeners be sure to check those out for more information about Naomi Light and all that she has to offer. Naomi, as we wrap up, we'd like to ask

Co-Pilots And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_06 38:50

all of our guests a couple of questions. The first of which is what do you feel like is a key uh to a stronger marriage connection?

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question, Dave. Um, I would say the analogy, my favorite analogy I have for couples, I tell this to pretty much everyone I work with, is I want you to think of yourselves like co-pilots in a small aircraft. You two have both got the ability to press a big fat red button and abort the whole mission. And you've both got the ability to jointly keep this thing in the air. And I just love because it it gives us that humility, it gives us that that um in you know, little snapshot of our interdependence on one another as as couples and our responsibility to nurture the whole. And I just love how if we saw ourselves like that in our in the conversations with our spouse or our partner, if we approach those conversations as though I am talking right now to my co-pilot who is right now flying this plane with me, you know, I think that would change it. I know it does for me when I can keep that consciousness in my mind. I'm just gonna take more care. I'm just gonna be more sober, sensitive, and um, and attuned to my partner in those conversations. So if that helps at all, think of yourself like a co-pilot where your job is to keep them flying, keep them in the game.

SPEAKER_06 40:26

Ah, love that metaphor, Naomi. We love that word attunement too. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite, favorite words. Uh, last question for you is we call it a takeaway of the day. Is there a take-home message you want our listeners to remember from our discussion today?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Um, I think it would be you're not alone. You're not alone. Yeah, find someone to talk to and remember that you're not alone. However lonely it feels, however distant you get, um, remember you're not alone.

SPEAKER_06 40:58

Such an important message. Thank you. Liz, what about you? What's the take home?

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Oh my goodness, there's so many have copious notes here, Dave. Um I really love the just thank you for the gift. I I don't I've not heard it from Stan Tacton. And I love that we can Naomi share these great resources. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, right? You're we're you're just building um upon what you know from the other greats. But I will forevermore be grateful for you pointing out the anchor and and the secure attachment, the wave and the insecure, anxious attachment, and the island and the insecure avoidant attachment. I think that's just that's gonna stick with me. And the rewiring love method and your three concepts on that, which is I'll just say the perspective, which is probably our storytelling a little bit, right? Bringing the viewfinder back, the the um physiologic physic physiological. Did I get that right? Was it physiological? And the behavioral. I'm gonna be giving that some thought too. What about you, Dave? What resonated most with you from our time together with Naomi Light?

SPEAKER_06 42:02

Yeah, that's been really uh helpful, Naomi. I think that starting with that one, the perspective, for for some reason, I I uh totally resonate with that. Um, I I call it a new you starts with a new view, right? It's this a new view of oh, because when we get so entrenched in that whether emotions or there's pattern, conflict, whatever it is, it's hard to be humble and then take ourselves out and actually see it from either our partner's perspective. You know, people do things for reasons that make sense to them, or yeah, to kind of come out of that hole that we're we're in. And I love the airplane analogy, right? You can up there, you can actually, the view is so much better. You can see the big picture of things. So I love that whole idea of the perspective. That's uh yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna take that away for sure. So thank you. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, thanks for coming on, making time to come on all the way across the pond or the UK. Uh thanks so much for the good work that you do and for your time spent here with us.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Thank you for having me on the podcast. I've loved it.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

We did too.

SPEAKER_06 43:06

Yeah, for sure. All right, listeners, that's it for us. We'll see you next time on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection podcast.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

That's right. And remember, it's the small and simple things that create a stronger marriage connection.

Closing And Listener Call To Action

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Take good care now.

SPEAKER_06 43:24

Thanks for joining us today. Hey, do us a favor and take a second to subscribe to our podcast and the Utah Marriage Commission YouTube channel at Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment, and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at StrongerMarriage Live and Facebook at Stronger Marriage. So be sure to share with us which topics you loved or which guests we should have on show next. If you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit strongermarriage.com. Where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys, and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University, and you, our audience, you make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.