Minding My P’s and Q’s

Hey everybody, welcome and thank you for listening to this episode of Marriage Therapy Radio. My name is Zach Brittle and I am by myself today. I have been in the habit of interviewing couples, and I've got a bunch of interviews lined up, but today I'm just sort of in a mood to talk about whatever I want. It's my podcast, and I'm allowed to do that. You know, one of the things I miss about not doing this with Laura is just catching people up on kind of what's going on and the day to day rhythm. And I've got plenty of people who have invited me to say, hey, what's going on with this, that or the other thing. So today I'm just going to talk about that for a little while, and I've decided to because I love alliteration.

Organize it in this way. I'm going to talk about my P's and q's, minding my p's and q's. I got a bunch of topics that I'll start with P because I'm clever, and that's the way I like to think about things. And I'm going to start with pets. As you know, I don't have the pet gene. People get mad at me, sometimes because I'm not a fan of dogs. I might even be talking about posts, posts, posts. Woke up my blog. It's called stuff I write. And I'm over there just writing stuff that's on my mind. The most recent post, as of today, which is September 1st, is about pets and dogs specifically.

And just some random thoughts I have about that. I would be grateful if you would go over to stuff I write.com, become a subscriber. I also had a woman who became a paid subscriber. I haven't actually even turned on the payment part of, that blog, which is on Substack. And I guess you can get paid to write on Substack, but I think I think I'm going to I think I'm going to turn it on and invite you to become a, paid subscriber. But I have a plan for what to do with that money. I'm very interested in supporting nonprofits. And while I haven't found the one I want to support, here's what it does. It supports young, aspiring female writers and artists. I want to support that endeavor. I just believe that art is important. And I want to get behind art, and I want to get behind women.

Because I am probably a feminist. I got a wife and two daughters, and one of them is a young aspiring artist director, writer. And I want to make sure that she has access to, opportunities. So, of course, I'm going to give her money and help support her. But I also want to support people broadly. And, maybe what I'm going to do is turn on the payment part of my blog and then do something like match any gifts, or any subscription payments, toward that effort. But, I'm not doing that yet. Probably take me a little bit to get that organized. But if you do know of a nonprofit that is worthy of my attention, please send it my way. I want to hear from you. Because, like, hearing from you. So that's me talking about pets and posts. The second thing I want to talk about is parenting also starts with the P.

Like I said, I've got two girls that you know about. And we we're back at her in the middle of empty nesting kind of. Mary, my younger daughter is about to go abroad, initially for 12 weeks. She's just going to go see Europe and Australia and Asia. Going to visit lots of different parts of the world and kind of understand how it is bigger and broader than we think. Mary and I went away this last weekend. We have kind of a mini tradition. It's actually maybe even a micro tradition of getting away for an overnight together on, Labor Day weekend. We went up to San Juan Island, which is, one of the. Well, it's one of the San Juan Islands. And my buddy Greg owns the moped business there.

It's called Susie's Mopeds. So we got some mopeds and drove around the island. We looked at, you know, the ocean, and we tried to visit some alpacas. And we, went and hung out, at a hotel and just goofed off and eat good food and caught up, and, you know, I'm ready for her to go. It's time. It's time for her to leave. And, I'm excited about what's next for her. And, you know, she's going to go to London and Paris first, and then Rebecca and I have actually plans to go to London in Paris in October. So I told her, I said, I need you to go, like, hide something for me in some cafe somewhere or at the Louvre, and I'll find it.

It'll be like a little secret code or something. And then Abby's home. She just graduate from college, as you might remember. She's got a degree in theater studies. She is. She's just spent the summer directing Shakespeare, in Virginia at a summer camp there for theater kids. And now she's back. She's looking for more opportunities to do theater work. Probably going to work at a restaurant. I'm just really happy for her. I'm really happy and proud of her. And again, mostly because, well, not mostly, but I'm proud of her that she's doing art. I think the world needs art. I think, particularly as we are grappling with stuff that is challenging, which I'll get to in just a second.

Allowing beauty to expand and thrive. Allowing creativity to expand and thrive is really critical. I mean, that's true in our relationships, I think is true in the world. But anyway, I've said for a while that I think parenting young adults is harder than parenting young kids. And, it's also just maybe more rewarding to actually see them become people. There's another P word, by the way. People. So I'm excited. And I think I found a new version of my parenting philosophy. Philosophy also starts with the P, by the way, that, that I've been telling people, which is your kids need two things. They need to know that they're loved, and they need to know that boundaries are real.

The consequences are real. I think I learned that in graduate school, actually, as part of a lecture that I got from my, you know, marriage and family class. But now I think I understand it for real that my kids, whether or not they agree with me about stuff, whether or not they get mad at me, whether or not I approve of their choices, they know that they are loved and they know that boundaries are real, and I'm grateful for that. And I'm glad for them and proud of them to go out into the world. You know, we've always said that our goal for parenting has been to be in, healthy friendship with our adult children. We're kind of right there at the cusp. I think we're getting it mostly right, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens for both of them as they lean into the next version of being adults in this world.

That is crazy and weird. And I want to take a minute to talk about politics, which is a touchy area. And people may listen to marriage therapy, radio, and go stay in your lane or something like that. But actually somebody asked me, they actually asked me on stuff I write. They sent me an email and said, hey, I would really like you to write about the current state of political discourse. And I think I'm not going to do that. I don't really have anything to say about political discourse, particularly when there isn't really any discourse. We live in a world right now that is crazy and messed up, and I have a lot of problems with policies, p problems, p policies coming out of the current administration. I think it is an absolute disaster.

Some of you disagree with me. That's fine. I got canceled by a lady about a year ago who is mad that I suggest that I might vote for Kamala Harris. I don't I don't regret that suggestion. I don't regret that bias. I actually don't even regret getting canceled. But, you know, it's terrible. It's absolutely terrible what's happening right now. Across the spectrum, whether it's the environment, economics, basic humanity, the Supreme Court is actively trying to, slant their ability to do whatever they want. And it's and it's that, by the way, it's happening behind the scenes. You know, every third headline is something new. And it's all a distraction from what, right now, it's the distraction of the Epstein files, which is itself a distraction from the fact that, if you're not, playing the game with the rule makers, then you're losing.

I think that's a terrible way to be on the planet. And I think it's a terrible way to be in relationship. Anything that I might suggest, though, about politics and then you dismiss or anyone dismiss because I am not a politician or it's not my lane. That's fine. I was struck by relationships. I think the entire system right now is not relational. I think it is designed to, keep certain people in power. Which is maybe that's true across the generations or whatever, but it is, it's not relational. There's no opportunity for discourse, for rational discussion about, compromise or nuance. Or even just, I don't know, dude, this is coming up a lot for me because I'm doing a lot of Terry Reals work.

I'm getting people come into my practice who are, you know, struggling with the patriarchy also starts with P, and I think we have to continue to keep our foot on the gas of helping people choose relationality. And that is really hard when, we've got this really binary way of thinking. And, you know, I'm probably probably subject to that. I have a pretty binary way of thinking when it comes to politics at the moment. And I'm sad. Denied. I'm saddened by some of my friends who I love and respect, who aren't, capable of having meaningful conversations about some of their choices. Hey, that's, that's a little mini rant. I caught myself several times trying not to curse and say crass things, because I really want to stay on message, and the message is, the number one thing we can do is choose how we show up at home and in our relationships.

I think there are steps that you can take to show your support and advocacy. Around certain causes. But best thing you can do is love your neighbor, love your kids. Try and make sure that they have, access to health and wellness and wisdom. And I think, you know, for those of you who are listening and may be on the more masculine side of the equation, I think it starts with us. I think it starts with you, trying to show up in ways that are designed to empower the less fortunate, the the more marginalized, the less empowered. I think that's our job. I think that's what being relational is really about. Okay. I pause that for a second. All pause starts with P. I love this game. I've been thinking a lot about sex.

It's come up in my practice quite a bit. It's that time maybe of year, where people are trying to figure out how to, improve that part of their relationship. And so, I haven't gotten to say this in a while, but I think when it comes to sex, there are two questions that people don't ask a lot that need to be asked. And the the first one is, what's it for? I think sex is a is a wild one because it's it can be for a lot of things. It can be for fun. It can be for, reproduction. It can be for, well, for some people, it can be for violence. For some people, it can be for their job. For some people, sex is for, actual exercise. I think when it comes to understanding what it's for, you have a lot of, you have a lot of opportunity to make it better, if you're clear about that. So if sex is for pregnancy, let's start to the P, by the way. Then you have to have it at a certain time a month.

You might need to have it in a certain position or put your legs in a certain place after sex is over. You may need to make sure that you are, you know, eating right or that you're, you know, that you've you've scheduled it appropriately. If sex is for passion, it's a little bit of different thing. It's not the stakes aren't quite as high as certainly is. When it comes to pregnancy, you get to kind of make up the rules. I recently found a book called Sex is Fun. It's. It's by a guy named Keter Cooper. It's just really made me think a lot about what's it for? And how do we make sure that it's, it does what it's supposed to do.

I think if sex is work or sex is for, you know, obligation or sex is only for him or only for her. It's very problematic. But if sex is, particularly the conversations I'm having with clients of sex is for fun, or if we can learn how to have sex for fun, maybe it's a whole different thing. You know, who hates having sex is people who are trying to get pregnant. It can't. It's a real challenge to stay optimistic and stay hopeful. Sex is kind of a drag sometimes for those folks. Rebecca and I went through a whole phase where we were trying to get pregnant for about two years, and it was not fun.

And so I think learning how to, embrace the nuance of it and just kind of the playfulness also start to the P is is a big deal. So that's my, I don't know. It's just some things I'm thinking about probably also because I'm spending some time, thinking a little bit more about polyamory, which also starts with P. There it is. Polyamory is, you know, used to be this thing that I thought was something people who were unhappy did in order to have more sex. And so that because they didn't like how the world was organized and the rules didn't help them get what they wanted, they just changed the rules, and decided, oh, let's invent this thing, or let's have this thing called polyamory, which means that we can sleep with other people anytime we want.

That's what I used to think about polyamory, but I'm coming around on it. Not personally. I don't think it's for me and Rebecca. It's not a thing that we will entertain or try, but, having conversations with some clients and some friends and realizing that there is a whole other aspect that has way more to do with love is kind of interesting to me. I mean, I think if you think about what love is, being expansive, love is broad and love has a lot of different kinds of applications. And sex is one of the ways that you can, express love for another person. I think if you're I think I'm coming around to that if you're, if you're thoughtful and if you're loyal and if you're intentional and you are open in your communication, and you are interested in being someone who is trying to put more love in the world versus, say, someone who is trying just to get more sex.

I think I think it's got some intriguing, applications. Obviously here in the West, we think about love and sex a lot different than folks who are more European or more eastern in their approaches. You know, and then also this idea that monogamy itself is not really biologically consistent. It's it's, it's a biological anomaly. I think if you are a person who is listening to this podcast and you're like, I am very clear what I think about polyamory, that's okay. You can be. But also I'm here to tell you that maybe it's worth just thinking about it a little bit more. And if it's not for you, that's fine. But it's, just something that's been on my mind as I've been thinking about. Words start with P. I was in the pool. Starts with P, but I just finished my third marathon of the summer.

If you are tracking, historically through the podcast, you know that every summer I attempt to swim 26.2 miles each month in the pool. So I track my yardage with my Apple Watch. And, and then I let people know, that I finished my marathon. I finished it yesterday, my third marathon. My August marathon. Now I'm in September, and, I'm excited about it. I'm excited about setting and achieving personal goals. I'm not actually sure what's next. Next. Although I, I am going to start a new flossing streak today. I went to the dentist the other day, and Megan, my hygienist, was like, how are you doing on flossing? And I was like, not that great. So I'm going to start flossing again today on the 1st of September.

See how long I can go. I think my records like 117 consecutive days, which is a little more than three months. So September, October, November, December, if I get to the end of the year, that's a new record, but I can't miss any days. So talk about things that start with PE. And I got to the pool, which is nice. I want to talk a little bit about, oh, some of you asked about the reason, I started writing again. It's stuff I write is that I am, maybe this close, like microscopically close to, getting a securing a book deal, a book project. Which just is requiring me to write more and to be a better writer.

And so I'm practicing at, at the blog. And I'm intentionally practicing around things that are not relationship oriented. The book itself, of course, will be about relationships, and it will, in fact be a lot about practice starts with a p a this is this, more than anything else, is what I'm leaning into with clients. Lately, it's about just how you need to, not be okay with not being good at stuff. Particularly relationally. Like, there are things that we just don't know how to do until we practice. And in fact, every single thing that you know how to do right now, you were once bad at, that includes walking and talking. Includes playing guitar or speaking Spanish. It includes cooking. You didn't. You had to learn how to do that.

You had to learn by being clumsy and awkward and halting and also being bad. And so I'm spending a lot of time with clients talking about practice. And there's this one metaphor that keeps rising to the top. And it's this idea that, you know, when you do practice playing guitar. And by the way, when I first started to try and learn how to play guitar, I was a freshman in college. I might have been a sophomore. I was a freshman or sophomore in college. I had just gotten a guitar and I had a bunch of, Dave Matthews Band tablature. So like, pieces of paper with all of these different chord progressions and fingerings for Dave Matthews songs, and I tried that's how I try to learn how to play guitar.

I tried to learn how to play guitar by playing the most complex, you know, arrangements I could find. And never mind three chords and the truth that was too simple for me. I tried, I went straight for the thing. And suffice to say, I never learned how to play guitar. I can play 3 to 5 chords depending on the day, and I could probably string a song or two together. I can get, free falling out or the sound of free falling any way I used to able to play closer to fine the part of it. I can't play anything from start to finish unless I. Unless I'm looking at the actual thing. But, my point is, when you're trying to learn how to play something, and when I was trying to learn how to play guitar, the one of the things that kept me going is when I would get just a chord right, I would be trying to play a Dave Matthews Band song, for example.

And while I couldn't get the the fingering, my pants were too small, they weren't big enough. And of course, I didn't have any practice, but if I could just get the sound of one, it'd be like praying and it would ring out. I would be like, that's it. That's the one. I'm so excited about this. And so I would learn how to play that one and it would keep me going. And this is what I'm telling my clients about doing relational stuff when they're trying to practice making a relational move or getting better, with defensiveness or whatever it is that they're trying, just to celebrate even small success. It is really important that you not try to play or be, you know, emotionally or relationally. Excellent.

All the time. You have time to learn how to grow and be better. That is something I'm talking about to to my couples a lot. The idea that practice is important and that you should play, you know, I've been using, again, this metaphor that, you know, if relationships are work and nobody wants to do work, work, work. I mean, yes, you should work on your relationship, but it shouldn't be like Siberian labor camp work. It should be more like trying to win The Amazing Race. So you need to come up with different strategies, and you need to have fun, and you need to relax and you need to, you know, take time sometimes. So look at what's going on.

And, just kind of take in the environment around you. Rebecca and I intentionally try to build in play a lot, by the way, I think I forgot to mention this. One of the ways that we play is every year in the summer, we host an Iron Chef party where we have friends over. We have five total teams are here. And, throughout the night, we have five total dishes that are served, along the way. And those five dishes have a common ingredient. So we've done corn, we've done bacon. We did citrus one year. We did roots one year. This year we did nuts. And every year my neighbors, Tyler and Jeff, they win because they're amazing. And they plan ahead and they invest and they test stuff out and they buy like $200 worth of citrus just to make sure that they dial in the recipe.

And it's a fun night. It's a way that we play and we enjoy each other. And this year I was the winner. My dish won the Iron Chef dinner in my backyard. It was a massive upset. Tyler and Jeff actually finished fourth. And I won by 1/100 of a point over the second place person. And, the difference between first and fifth place was one third of a point is very, very close this year. And I did the math twice to make sure that I didn't cheat. But, because I was, I saw that I was the winner. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I hope I'm not cheating. And then I went and did the math again and sure enough, I was the winner. My dish was amazing. That's going to be on Instagram.

We're putting that up there at some point. So by the way, if you're not following us on Instagram, you can do that at Marriage Therapy Radio. I think we just went over 4500, followers, which I don't think is a lot, but is fun. I remember when we first got to 200 and I thought that was a I thought that was baller. So having Instagram followers is a cool thing. And it will help support, the book when it is ready to come out. But I also want to spend a little bit of time talking about Patreon. Patreon? You know, you've heard me talk about it on the intro and outro for the last few months. It is one of our very few sources of income, to the podcast.

And, you know, podcasting returns a lot of value for me. I have fun, I get to talk to really interesting people. I have this passion right now. Oh, passion. There it is again. Although I think I already said that one about sex, but I just passion to talk to couples about their relationship. I get to talk to couples all the time, and I realized that a lot of things that I'm learning, let's say, about polyamory, are because I have a much broader context than most people have.

So some people, they they the only couples they know about are their parents. Maybe they're friends or sister and brother, but they don't have a lot of exposure to a lot of different couples. Maybe you're in a small group at your church, or maybe you have, you know, some friends that you've known since college or something. But, you know, I spend time with couples in their 20s, in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s and their 60s and their 70s. I even have a couple in their 80s, and they're amazing. I love talking to them. Their first date, by the way, was, when they went to the house on the street that had the TV. So there was one house on their street that had a TV, and they met there at the event in front of the TV, which was watching the coverage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.

They're they're cool. They've lived a lot of life together. They've been married longer than I've been alive anyways. So that's why I'm interviewing couples, on the podcast, because I want other people to hear stories of people in their 20s and in their 30s. In their 40s. In fact, I just had a couple on in their teens, 18 year old couple. I've interviewed my parents recently. If you haven't heard that they they're in their second marriage. My mom and her husband, my stepdad. But here's the deal, man. Making and promoting a podcast is expensive. And, I, like I said, I love doing it. I get a lot of value return back to me personally and professionally because of the podcast, but we really do need your support, to continue to keep the lights on.

I have given myself until the end of the year. I'm I'm going to continue to recording episodes through the end of 2020, 2025. So that's, officially four more months. And just to see if, we can have that kind of moment, that viral moment, that helps, you know, maybe get advertisers or get high end guests. Still, my fingers crossed for John Krasinski and Emily Blunt or they're not going to ever come on. But it could be fun, to try. But I've got lots of interesting people I want to talk to, and, I'm not going to quit before the end of the year, but if we can't figure out how to get a little bit of wind at our back, a little bit more wind at our back, then I don't know, man.

We're gonna have to face some tough to tough choices. So I'm trying to make Patreon a place that is of value for you, kind of in a behind the scenes sort of way. I've got some of my greatest hits there where I am, sharing stories from my client office. And we're also starting a new feature called Ask Zach. So making the transition a little bit, this is like a little bit of a, like, hand off, like a handing off the baton, moving from piece to cuz, still talking about Patreon, but, one of the things that we're going to do is talk, is really try to answer listener questions behind the scenes at Patreon. So, I want to know what you want to hear about. I want to know how I can be a value to you, either personally or clinically. I can't do therapy behind the scenes, but I can directly answer questions that you send me. So, we're going to have you send email to, to the mayor city radio email?

That's info at Marriage therapy Radio.com. You just put ask Zach in the subject line, and when you do, I'm going to record a video and answer that question. I don't really get to do it on the podcast because, usually I've got couples that are, have their own story. And so that's going to be the place where we address, really what's on your mind. Many of you are already supporting marriage therapy video financially. Thank you so much. Like every single time I get a new, subscriber or, once a month, I get the kind of the report that says, here's your money coming from Patreon. I just feel so grateful and happy and proud. I feel a part of something. I feel, yeah.

I just feel really honored that you are supporting us. There are a lot of you who are in our Patreon as free members, and that is very cool. Helps us feel like there's some social proof if you're if you're there as a free member, it'd be super easy just to click on the, on the button and become a paid member. I think there's a couple of different tiers, where you can, you know, sort something like buy me coffee or buy me lunch or buy me dinner once a month. I think there's also an annual supporting option where you can just pay one time, kind of like for the year and get all the stuff. But, you know, honestly, it's it.

I'm not asking you to join Patreon, because of what you're going to get. I'm really hoping that you would join Patreon because of what you can provide or provide sort of the P to others. There are people who use marriage therapy radio as their only source of relational insight and input. I hear about it all the time. People who can't afford to go to therapy or who don't, want to, or whose partner won't, but who will listen to this or that episode. There are members of my team, who, are working very hard behind the scenes. They handle all my social media. They edit and produce this podcast. There's a guy right now who lives in Turkey who is soliciting guests for me.

And he's doing a great job finding folks to come on and tell their story. So again, it's just a way to reinvest back in this thing that ultimately for you, we know is free. So if you are even thinking about being a member of the Patreon community, please do that. And in return, kind of I want to answer your question. This is the Q's part of today's podcast. So, if you have questions for me or questions, that you want me to track down or just things you want me to talk about postulate on, I, I want to know. I want to know, and I want to talk to you directly, through the back end to the behind the scenes moment.

So, again, you can send an email to info at mer's. Therapy Radio.com I think if you're already on Patreon, you can submit questions through that platform. This is just my non casual, in the intro or outro plea. To take a minute, press pause, roll over to mayor, support Radio.com, click on the Patreon button, or you can go to Patreon.com slash Marriage Therapy radio and just become a paid member. It would mean a lot to me if you did that. I think that's it for now. I, love having this podcast. I love being able to talk to different couples. It is a nice break in the flow of my client week. And I hope it's valuable to you. I, you know, if you're listening to this sentence, that means that you have sat through about a half an hour of me rambling on things that are just on my mind, and I'm grateful that you would do that.

I, I just really appreciate that people care about what I have to say. And, as much as possible, I like to stay in dialog with you. So, please do stay in touch. Please, let me know how I can support you as I have. Just let you know how you can support marriage therapy radio. And if you think of anything else to start with, P that you want me to talk about, by all means, let me know. There are things that I left off this list. But mostly I just wanted to hop on to a little bit of a reset here as we all go back to school. Although this is the first time I'm not going back to school in, like, 40 years. 40, 45 years. That's insane. Even before I had kids, I worked in academics.

So there was always back to school. And now back to school is just kind of a commercial that I see on television. Anyway, really appreciate you guys. And, I think that's going to do it. So thank you for listening to this episode of Marriage Therapy Radio, and thank you for the time and attention you're putting into making the relationship better today than it was yesterday.