Married and Connected

Ep 149: Consideration- One Word and 10 Seconds To Completely Change Your Marriage

• Kameran Al-Areqi • Season 11 • Episode 8

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 27:54

If you pay the bills, don’t cheat, coach little league, and rarely yell, society tells you that you are a great spouse. So why does your marriage still feel cold? Why is there still tension walking into your own living room?

In this episode of the Married and Connected Podcast, Kameran Alareqi exposes the hidden friction tearing high-achieving marriages apart: a lack of consideration.

It’s not malice that ruins most relationships; it’s apathy. It’s living on autopilot as the sole main character of your house. When you coast on the big things but fail in the micro-moments—like leaving a toilet paper roll on top of the dispenser, hijacking the calendar without checking in, or burying your face in a phone when your spouse walks in—you send a subconscious message that your time, comfort, and convenience matter more than theirs.

Kameran breaks down the critical difference between selfishness and self-centeredness, shares the shocking data behind John Gottman’s "bids for connection," and delivers an honest, no-nonsense challenge to both men and women to step up, build a true friendship, and treat their partner as an equal stakeholder.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • The Definition of True Consideration: What it actually means to hold your spouse in mind when they aren’t even in the room.
  • Passive Selfishness vs. Self-Centeredness: Why a lack of consideration is actually a quiet form of entitlement.
  • The Danger of the "Autopilot Main Character" Syndrome: How microscopic daily actions breed massive, long-term resentment.
  • 4 Common Household Culprits: A deep dive into Last Bite Syndrome, the Calendar Hijack, the Digital Snub, and the message behind unfinished chores.
  • The Statistics of Staying Together: Why happy couples turn toward 86% of connection bids, while divorcing couples only hit 33%.
  • Gender-Specific Leadership Challenges: Practical shifts for men regarding spatial awareness and women regarding verbal respect.
  • The 10-Second Pause: A simple daily tool to immediately interrupt emotional negligence.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Connect with Kameran:

Support the show

SPEAKER_00

We've all seen it. The messy social media messages, the public tea spilling, and the absolute embarrassment of finding out that your life is a lie through a Facebook post or an Instagram message that your spouse thought was hidden. What if it didn't have to be like that though? What if you could find out before their affair got too deep? Statistics show that over 20% of marriages deal with infidelity. And most affairs last for years because they thrive in the dark. It's time to turn the lights on. Verified.com is the world's first searchable relationship registry. It's not just an app, it's a digital boundary for your marriage. When you register your spouse on verified, you are claiming your relationship on a global scale, whether you're talking, you're dating, or you're married. If another man or woman is being told your spouse is single or divorced and they search for your spouse on the registry, they find you instead. Now here's the game changer. Verified allows you to speak one-on-one and directly with that other person. No gaslighting from your spouse. No, he said, she said, no, oh my God, you went through my phone. How could you betray my trust like that? And zero social media drama. Just the truth, person to person, before things go too far. Don't wait for that gut feeling to become a nightmare. Because even if you think your spouse would never, there's an even better chance that you just never know. Register your spouse today using the link in the show notes and lock in your legacy to protect your peace. Marriage isn't supposed to feel like roommates, but it doesn't have to feel like a war either. Hi, I'm Cameron Alaricki, certified marriage coach and a relationship expert. Every week on Married and Connected, I bring you real talk, hard truths, and practical tools you can start using right away. Whether you've been married two years or 42, this is where you'll find hope, encouragement, and steps that actually work. So let's make your marriage feel good again, starting right now. Hey friend, welcome back to another episode of the Married and Connected Podcast. I'm your host, Kim and Alricki. Super excited to be here with you today because I wrote a book. You can purchase it on Amazon. It is called Connected to Me. It is a blueprint for self-awareness. I was telling a couple that I was working with last night about this, and they said, Why did you write this book? Like, why self-awareness? And I said, Because as I'm coaching couples, it is one of the things that is missing the most in the couples that I coach. And they were like, Yeah, that that was us too. So I can completely see where that would be a thing. One of the other things, though, that is missing in a lot of marriages and just relationships in general. And I'm not sure why is this all of a sudden such an issue? And that's consideration. So, like, if you're thinking about this, you know, it's so easy to justify. You don't cheat, you pay the bills, you coach the little league team, you don't yell, you make sure all the laundry's done most of the time. So, by societal standards, you're a good spouse, but your marriage still feels like garbage. Your marriage still feels cold. You're still, you know, your spouse is still mad at you. Why? Because, and I think this is happening because you're coasting on the big things, but you're failing in those micro moments, those little moments that you blow off as like, eh, it's not that big of a deal. But it's the little moments that truly make everything in your marriage. And so you think you're a considerate partner, but this is why I want to do this podcast episode. Because true consideration is not just holding a door open. It's these daily microscopic self-awareness points of your reality, but also of your spouse's reality. And a lot of times you're completely blind to it. Completely. You don't think about what your partner is thinking about. I mean, we talk about emotional sobriety on here all the time, right? And I want to talk today about the fact that lack of consideration is really just a passive form of selfishness. It's self-centeredness. And no, those are not the same. Selfishness is believing that most things are for you. Self-centeredness is believing that most things are about you. But I feel like the lack of consideration is kind of that passive form of both the selfishness and the self-centeredness. So I want to dive in because, as always on the podcast, I give you definitions because I think it's really important to define what words really mean. There's so many times where couples will come to me and they'll say, Well, we have communication problems. I don't think you really do have communication problems. I think you both have a different perception of what a word means, and you haven't really defined it for each other. So you're assuming that that word means the same to your spouse as it does to you. And that's not true. Those assumptions truly do make an ass out of you and me. So for this, for all intents and purposes of this podcast, consideration is the intentional practice of holding your spouse in mind when they aren't with you, when they aren't in the room. It's anticipating how your actions or inactions are going to impact their physical space, their mental load, their emotional state, their financial stability, all of it. All of all of their life. Now, the opposite of consideration isn't malice, it's apathy. For you to justify the fact that you're not a bad spouse because you didn't do it intentionally. I didn't mean to. That wasn't my intent. But as we talked about, I don't know, several weeks ago, if I still run over your foot in the airport with my suitcase, I didn't mean to, but your foot still hurts. And in this case, it's not malice, it's apathy. You just simply don't think about them. You don't care enough. I think even more than the lack of consideration in relationships, it falls under a category of lack of care. But you can't just say lack of care because that means so much to so many people, and it's all so different. So breaking it down helps you understand what care really is. The apathy is the autopilot that we live 95% of our life on, living where we're the only main character in our house. So when you are inconsiderate, it's because you truly have this entitled idea that you're the only one that matters. And maybe on a broad scale, you do believe that, like, well, no, I understand that my family matters. Well, yeah. But at the same time, if you understand that your family matters and you care and you're considerate, you're going to think about them and how the fact that you scheduled a 9 a.m. tea time on Saturday is going to affect your wife and your kids who haven't seen you all week. Is going to affect your budget. Is going to affect the fact that your spouse doesn't now get a break on Saturday. Those kinds of things. And it's not, well, fine, I just won't do those things. No, it's having consideration for them and talking to them first. Hey, I'm thinking of doing this. Is that cool with you? Do you have any other ideas? That kind of thing. Before you just schedule it. When we lack consideration, we're emotionally intoxicated. We're emotionally drunk by our own needs, our own exhaustion, our own convenience, we make our comfort the priority over our partner's piece. And this isn't just partners. This is your kids. This is if you share a kid with your ex and you're having to co-parent. It's your boss. It's your coworkers. If you decide to sleep in and hit snooze an extra five minutes or 15 minutes, and then you're late to work, but your coworkers had to pick up your slack while you were gone. That's a lack of consideration. So it's just a lack of consideration in general, I think, in the world, not just in our marriages. I want to get into some examples because I love to give examples of what this looks like, feels like, sounds like, so that you can actually look at it and apply it to your marriage. So here's one that I see pretty often. And it's you leave the new toilet paper roll on top of the dispenser instead of putting it on the dispenser. It's putting the dishes in the sink instead of in the dishwasher. It's leaving your socks two inches away from the hamper. Or taking your clothes to the laundry when the washer is empty, but not actually starting a load of laundry. Now, I will say, I will say two things on that, on the laundry situation. Number one, ladies, expo marker on the top of your appliances does erase well, but it also stays good enough that it gives your spouse a really good message on do not dry my bras, do not dry my sweaters, there's a pair of jeans here, don't dry those, like that kind of thing. So your spouse doesn't feel like an imbecile when they throw everything in the dryer and you didn't want those things dried. On the other hand, if you are the spouse that has been told, don't touch my laundry, that doesn't mean you can't start yours or the kids. Just make sure that you pre-treat those stains. The idea here, though, is you're not just being messy. You are sending a subconscious message that your time is more valuable than your spouse, that you expect them to finish a job that you easily could have done. Why are you better or more important than they are? So you don't have to do that job, but they do. We gotta think about these things. Here's another one I see is the calendar hijack. You're volunteering your weekend, you're hosting a play date, you're inviting the in-laws over without checking with your spouse first. You're scheduling a tea time with the guys, you're booking a girl's night, you're booking a guy's night. It could even be scheduling a double date with another couple. The idea here is you're doing something on the calendar that's going to involve your spouse, but you're not actually checking with your spouse to see if they're cool with it or if they have an overlapping obligation or something like that. In this case, the meaning is that you are treating your spouse like a dependent who just goes along for the ride, not an equal stakeholder in your family's time or in your couple time together. Here's another one is, and I don't really see this one, I hear about it constantly. And that is the digital snub. When your spouse walks into the room, starts speaking to you, and you do not even break eye contact with your phone, the television, the laptop, whatever it is that you're working on. You are locked in. Now, there's two issues with this. First issue is spouse who walks in and is speaking needs to say, hey, is this a good time to talk about and then give like an overarching theme? The budget, the second child's behavior, never the first child. It's always the second child. Let's be honest. But you need to ask, is this a good time? Are you in the headspace? They may be super locked in on something that's super important and you don't know. That's information that they have that you don't, which is great. But you still need to ask because if you don't, then you're forcing them to stop what they're doing. And now you're not considering their time. See the hypocrisy there? At the same time, the spouse who is being spoken to, let's say your spouse does say, Hey, are you in the headspace? And you're like, Yeah, but you don't ever move your eyes off of the technology that you're staring at. The meaning there is, well, whatever I'm doing on the internet or email or what have you is more important than acknowledging your existence. Or even worse yet, I hear about this one a lot too, is your spouse walks into the room with you and you don't even acknowledge they're there. You don't even say, like, oh, hey, or how you doing? Need anything? What's going on? You don't even acknowledge their presence. And that hurts. That hurts. Another one is the last bite syndrome. If you have a teenager in your house, especially, you know, but some of you guys didn't ever actually grow out of this teenager face. Eating the last of the groceries that they bought for lunches or snacks, or drinking the last of the coffee without making a new pot. One of my absolute favorite movies is The Family Stone with Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker, man, Dermot Mulroney. There's a whole, I mean, like the cast in this movie is like phenomenal. Okay. But what happens is Diane Keaton loses her ever-loving marbles in this movie because she says, Who took the glass of the coffee? There's supposed to be a pot right there. And Sarah Jessica Parker is like, I was making more right now. That's what she's doing. But she gets mad because she's the mom. She's the matriarch of the house. And what happens? Nine times out of 10, it's mom that comes in and wants something, and then there's not. The last bite syndrome, it's inconsiderate. You get pissed because it's inconsiderate. Dr. John Gottman talks a lot about bids for connection. We've talked about this on the podcast multiple times. A bid is any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, any other positive connection. Okay. You can have over a hundred bids in one meal shared together, a text, any any type of thing of like, hey, how are you doing? How was your day? Those are all bids for connection. Now, here's the deal though. Research shows that couples who stay married happily turn towards each other 86% or more of the time. Couples who end up divorced turn toward each other's bids only 33% of the time. Now, there's a big jump there between 86% and 33%. And basically, all that means is you're living in a marriage where your nervous system is constantly on edge and anxious of are they gonna give me the connection that I want? Are they not? What's happening? What's not? Like you're just in this limbo all the time of inconsistency, which makes for a lot of conflict. It makes for a lot of uncertainty. It makes for your nervous system always being on edge. That's not what we want. That's not friendship. Consideration is friendship. Friendship, as we talked about so much, is one of the most important things that you can have in your marriage in order to keep it alive, in order to keep it spicy, in order to keep it something that you want to come home to. Friendship, it sets the bar. The better friendship you have, the better marriage you have. The lower friendship you have, the more crappy your marriage is. The more disconnected your friendship is, the more disconnected your marriage is. And that's why when you sit there and you wonder, what's going on with you? Why are we so disconnected? Why are we always arguing? This is why. Because you don't have a friendship. Because you don't consider each other the way that you should. Consideration is simply turning toward a bid before it's even asked. Now, does that mean you have to be a mind reader? No, that is absolutely not what I'm saying. What I am saying is things like this. You know that your wife has had a really crappy week and you know that she really loves yellow roses. So you bring home a bunch of yellow roses. She didn't ask for the flowers. You're doing it because you're considering her. It's putting money in the emotional bank account of your marriage so that when things do go wrong, because they're going to, when you do miss each other in your communication, there is grace available. There is money available. You're not taking out more than you're putting in. Here's another example that I see so often. And a little context for this: when people get divorced, if it's a best friend or, you know, a parent or something like that, of course you're gonna hear this. But when you, when it goes public, you're not seeing, yep, saw that coming. Totally had that on my bingo card. Because, you know, that spouse just really isn't very considerate. No, most of the time, it's wow, I had no idea your spouse was like that. Because to the public, they're really considerate. They're really kind. They're really generous, they're a really great person. And this is what I see when I'm coaching couples. One spouse will be the most incredible human being to the public. Society usually judges people off of how you treat the waiter, how you treat the checkout person at target, how you treat the male person. That's not who your character is. Your character is defined by how you treat the people within your four walls. Because it's harder to love someone and harder to be kind to someone who is throwing a massive tantrum because they just lost phone privileges, or because they wanted the red cup, not the blue cup, or because they've had a really hard day with the kids, and now you're home and you've had a really great day, and now you want to be super happy and go lucky and all the things, and they're just not really having it. The cognitive labor of that, anticipating needs, planning, noticing what's missing, is where the most resentment is bred. And one of the resentments that is bred the most is are you more considerate of their comfortability than you are of my uncomfortability? Because that is something that I see so frequently and have experienced myself many times. If one partner has to constantly ask the other to be considerate, it isn't consideration anymore, it's management. And this falls under the category of, I feel like I have another child versus a spouse. This is also why I wrote this book on self-awareness. If I asked your spouse right now, does your partner hold you in their mind when making decisions? What would they honestly say? And if you're not sure, go to your partner and say, Hey, do you feel like I hold you in mind when I'm making decisions? Do you feel like I'm considerate of you? The key here though is you can't get defensive if and when they say no. You can't like because you asked. But if you're afraid to ask, that's also a pretty good indication that you're not considerate. Here's the other thing. If you're sitting here and you just made 10 excuses in your head, well, but I work 50 hours a week. Well, but I I was buying a house. Well, I was doing this, well, I was putting together that. Well, I'm exhausted from the kids, your exhaustion does not give you a pass to be emotionally negligent to your best friend or to your kids. You still have to be considerate, even if you're on your period, even if you are super swamped at work, even if you have a lack of capacity. For a lot of people, especially if you are a dismissive avoidant, you have a very small amount of capacity. Guess what? That's not an excuse. That's a learned thing that you can increase your capacity by learning how to do that. One of the things that I do want to bring to this is, and I'm gonna do this without bashing either gender because both genders need help here. But the gender nuance is definitely a thing. So, men, I want to challenge you to look at your spatial awareness of the home. A lot of times when men walk into the house, they just see home. Where women see, okay, this needs picked up, that needs done, this needs, oh man, I still haven't painted that entryway, that kind of thing. Are you waiting to be told what to do, which by the way is very passive, or are you actively anticipating needs, which is leadership? Are you saying, well, I'd do it if you'd make me a list? No, no, sir. That is passive. She doesn't need to make you a list. You need to step up and see what needs to be done. You can look around and obviously see the socks don't go there, the shirt needs to be cleaned up, the clothes on the couch need to be folded, that kind of thing. Start leading instead of waiting and being passive. Ladies, I want you to look at your verbal consideration. Are you communicating with respect and grace? Or has the lack of consideration turned you into a harsh critical manager? Are you saying things like, are you even listening instead of, hey, I feel unheard right now? I I just want to make sure that you're that you're hearing me right now, that you're listening. I mean, those are two very wildly different ways to say things. So how are you saying things? How are you bringing it to your partner's attention? Are you walking in when they might be in the middle? I mean, yeah, it looks like they just have a laptop on their lap. So you assume that they're not doing anything important, but maybe they're doing something really important. So are you just launching into your frustrations? Or are you saying, hey, are you in the headspace to talk about this right now? I really need some support. How are you showing up to? And again, same thing. Same thing as with the men. If you're not sure, ask your partner. Hey, do you feel like I wait to till you give me a list? Or do you feel like I lead in this area? Do you feel like I speak with disrespect and unkindness and lack of consideration? Or do you feel like I'm respectful and kind and have a lot of grace for you? Just ask. But also be ready to hear the hard truth. Here's a couple of things that might help if you are in this situation. Before you leave a room, before you make a decision, before you put something down, pause for 10 seconds and ask how does this impact my spouse? Am I considering myself only in this situation, or am I considering My spouse and myself. Number two, the just because. Do one thing every single day that is entirely out of consideration. Make their coffee. Fill their gas tank without being asked. Send a text that says, hey, I know you have a really big meeting this afternoon. I'm praying for you. I know you're going to kill it. That is consideration. And the caveat here is if you're doing these things, you can't expect accolades in return. You're not doing this for a pat on the back. You're doing it to consider your person. Another one is the apology. I was talking to one of my friends last night and he said, I got a question for you. Is it true that if a man screws up, he is expected to apologize? But if a woman screws up and she says things like, Oh, yeah, I didn't say what I thought I said. But there's no apology after that. Is that both wrong? Or is or is it like just accepted that men have to apologize and women don't? And I said, Is this a real question? He's like, Yeah. And I said, um, no, everybody needs to apologize. If you messed up, if you think you said something and you go back and look at the text messages and you didn't say that, then you need to apologize. Both sides of the street have to apologize and own their part. Now, your part may only be 1%, but you still need to own that 1%. You have to say, I realize today that I haven't been holding you in mind the way that you deserve. I've been on autopilot and I fully recognize that. So here's what I'm gonna do for the future. I'm gonna be more actively considerate of you. I'm gonna be more actively considerate of the house, of the kids, etc. Will you forgive me? And then make sure that you change that behavior. Here's the deal if you want a best friend, like my whole philosophy on marriage coaching is that I am teaching couples how to have the most fun sleepover with their best friend every single night because that's what I truly believe that marriage should feel like. If you want a best friend marriage, best friends consider each other. They consider their comfortability and their uncomfortability. They look out for each other, they stop acting like roommates who just split the bills, which is a whole nother podcast for a whole nother day. You have to build your friendship, and friendship relies heavily on consideration. Do you think about them? Are you just going to your job and compartmentalizing? And it's like, okay, I'm in job mode, and then I leave job mode and I'm in me mode, and then I leave me mode and I go to family mode. Or can you fluidly think about, okay, I need to make these decisions for my own health, but also my job is here. Oh, but my wife has this really important meeting today. Oh, my kid has basketball tryouts today. Are you thinking about all the things at once? Because if you're not, you're being self-centered. Everything is about you, your schedule, your needs, your capacity, your ability to process or inability to process. That is the deal. In order to create a great friendship, you have to be considerate. If you just realized in the last 45 minutes that you are struggling with this or that your marriage is struggling with this, I do have open spots available for one-on-one coaching. Reach out to me, coaching at recognizingpotential.com. You can email me or you can click the show notes for a consultation. Also, don't forget to share this with a friend and please leave a review. I don't have very many Apple reviews, and I would absolutely love it if you would go review the show. It definitely helps me as a creator and also helps me know what you guys are liking and what you don't. Do you like the solo episodes? Do you like the episodes with the guests? And always, I mean, even if you feel like you don't need help, don't ever hesitate to send me an email and say, I really like this or I really like that, or hey, can you do an episode on X, Y, and Z? I would absolutely love that. So that being said, until next week, stay married and connected. I want to ask you a serious question. What are you feeding your mind right now? If it's social media, are you tired of doom scrolling through the angry comment sections and political rants yet? What if you use that time to actually fix your marriage? Welcome to the free married and connected school community. It's like social media, but without the ads, without the judgment, and without the noise. Just real self-paced tools that get you out of that roommate phase starting today. Inside, you get an exact blueprint for a weekly State of the Union meeting with your spouse. We're cutting mental load, we're stopping miscommunications, and we're breaking that exhausting loop of doom argument once and for all. Plus, you get instant access to workshops on overcoming resentment and bringing the actual fun back into your marriage. We have a dedicated space just for guys jumping into forging fortitude. It's a 10-week intensive to help you step into your masculine leadership and become the husband and man that God called you to be. And for ladies joining Edifying Eden, we're stepping out of that controlling, nagging era into our soft, nurturing feminine era, even if your husband hasn't taken the reins yet. Either way, you can take responsibility for your side of the street. Stop scrolling the internet and start investing in your home. The community is 100% free with options to purchase certain courses. Click the link in the show notes and join the Married and Connected school community today. I'll see you inside. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional counseling or therapy. Every couple stories unique, so take what's helpful and leave the rest. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge that neither I, Cameron Thompson Al Ricky, Married and Connected, or Recognizing Potential Coaching are responsible for any outcomes related to what you apply from this show. Especially if you are not a client of mine.

Head Shot

Kameran Thompson Al-Areqi

Host