Breaking the Script | Session 2 with Brian and Kristen

How are you guys doing?

I think good. I think we're doing all right.

The goal last week was. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

How do you know? How do you know if you're doing good? We're doing.

Well. We haven't had any.

I don't think we've had any misunderstandings since we talked to Zach last.

And we've had more laughter and play. I think.

I mean, not a lot more, but just that reminder that, like to be lighthearted. And I think making the steps was great because now they're on paper and we see them and know them. And like we agreed on, you know, I made my own set and he made his own set. And then we together put a new set out there. So it's it's like we agreed to what is the pattern? Yeah. Which, which made it easier to see.

Yeah. Those are the homework assignment.

The homework assignment?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to get to that in a second. But, you know, I always have this question people talk about, like, we had a good week or we had a good, you know, like why what did you what what made it good. Like, what is what do you what do you know. And did you do something on purpose? Did you do something? Did you just get lucky? Did the sun come out? Like, how do you know? How do you know that you had a good week? Or how do you know that? Or what do you know about why you had a good week? I guess.

The on purpose part is that we did do the homework and were aware of each other's goals that that we had made with you, even if they might have been soft goals. But the other part is that we're on the you know, it's it's us against the, the thing us against the injury. It's us against the kid that's making too much noise. It's us against the hectic schedule. And that feels good. It feels good to be us against something. You know, there's a comfort there.

Yeah, we've done that before. Separately and together. I think. What us versus them type of mentality.

Well it's comforting being in us with you. I mean it's it's comforting knowing that the thing the hectic schedule, the noisy kid like bothers you as much as it bothers me, you know.

Yeah. There was like I think I don't know, I think part of it is that maybe we did just get lucky in terms of our timeline, because we do seem to go on like time cycles where it tends to crop up. Would you say that's true.

What conflict.

Yeah, conflict.

Where are we going? You know.

About this anyway? I don't know.

Well, I don't think we fight that often. No. So here, this is something, you know, obviously we chatted after we talked to you last, and I don't think we're a couple that fights all that often. You know, when we were first dating at 20 and 21, I don't think we had a fight that entire first year. I remember that first year of dating being like, wow, who knew it could be this much fun, you know? But.

You know, go ahead. Sorry.

Well, it seems to be the more that we get to know each other and the more comfortable we are with each other, like that ugly side can come out or that, you know. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's pretty normal. I always say that when you, you know, you've heard me say that when you get married, you get these two privileges that you don't really have with anybody else. You get to. Yeah. You get to be naked, basically. You get to be naked and solicit sex. You get to be naked and vulnerable in your pain, in your fear. And like, can you do that in ways that are mature in both cases, in both cases, in theory, that leads to intimacy. And so I like playing around with that. If people think about conflict as a way to end to Missy, it can be really groundbreaking, really kind of paradigm shifting. Do you happen to remember what your first fight was? You didn't fight for a year and a half. What was your first fight?

We didn't live together. It must have been something where I wanted to do something. And you weren't into it. Or vice versa.

Probably something silly like that. I mean.

It's been 20 years, man. Yeah.

The reason I ask is, I remember recognize first fight very clearly. We were. And it's actually like we're still having the same fight. We were fighting over whether or not O.J. Simpson was a guilty or innocent. That's right. And it it was it was well, after the verdict. And you know, all that noise and, you know, I'm a person who really keys in on justice. And I was certain that he was guilty. And Rebecca is a person who's very keyed in on like, Grace. And so since he was acquitted, like, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. And so he, you know, I believe it. And so we went, you know, we just went at it and we were kind of like, surprised how each of us, neither of us felt super strongly about the issue, but we did feel strongly about the themes we were protecting.

You know, that I was protecting this idea that there's a right and wrong and a good and a bad, and you got to be on the right side or you're going to be in trouble. And she was trusting the system and believing in, you know, human nature. And, you know, we still we still argue about that thing, almost every argument that we have. So that's why I wondered if you knew what it was and if you had any remembrances about the themes.

I bet our first arguments were just silly. Petty. I can't remember them. I can remember some weird ones, but not from those super early days. Like one weird one is like, we were engaged and we took this drive in the car and we had pretty much the whole car ride. Fight about the cake. Like planning the cake.

Okay.

And what a what a way to ruin a car ride. Like, I look back now and I'm like. And a cake. Yeah, like, what a waste. And, you know, I don't think in the end, we didn't do any of the cake ideas that we had talked about on the car ride. It ended up morphing into something so much better.

Yeah. We had 12 cakes.

We had a lot of cakes.

Oh that's awesome.

We had 12 different cakes because we couldn't decide on which one we wanted, and so we just got 12 small.

Well, I think it was like 2 or 3 flavors, but many of them are on the table. Yeah. But anyway, what a waste of time. Yeah. What a waste of a car ride. And the reason I can still remember it is because that kind of fight that we had. You remember that?

No.

You don't remember that?

Don't remember that at all?

No, the first one. The first one that I can really remember is, I think it was like the birth control arguments when nothing I did was right.

We did fight a lot when I was on hormonal birth control. That's true. The only time we really came close to ending the relationship.

That was the.

And instead we just ended that birth control. And and then the two of us saw it on.

Yes.

And now we have 17 children. No no no no.

Everybody out of the pool.

Yeah. How many children do you have?

Two.

Yeah. Right on. And how old are they?

13 and eight. Yep. And the 13 year old is so clued in and so, empathically sensitive, like. Like his old man that he now knows our steps. We may have mentioned that in the email. You know, our steps. And so he'll, like, come and try to intercede and like, so we're having a discussion or like, you know, we're going through our steps. Doing the things, doing the thing.

He'll literally walk over and to one of us be like, need a hug or or even like from the sidelines, be like, guys, it doesn't sound like that big a deal.

Yeah.

I know this isn't a parenting podcast, but how do you keep your kids opinions out of your marriage?

I don't know, I think I think the best thing for kids is for them to see the whole life cycle of an argument, like if it's going to happen no matter what. Like, fine. And giving them language is key, but you know, as long as they can see that the end result, the, the repair kind of the come back together, then they finally have a whole thing they can work with, not just the way it starts or the way it goes, but like, how does it end? That's actually really critical piece of the occasion. How do you keep their opinions out of your relationship? Man, I don't know. Particularly when they start start really having them, you know, like mine might have fully formed opinions about how the world works and how politics work, and how weather systems work and how art, what art means. And, you know, sometimes you just have to, like, kind of go.

Thank you for your opinion. Appreciate it. Right, right. Yes. Please pass the butter. The another part of the pattern though that we fit to that, and I wonder if you're aware of is when do you argue like, do you argue more in the winter. Do you argue more when you're on your period? Do you argue more on Thursdays? Do you argue more when one or both of you feels especially lonely or sad or hungry? Like, do you know when you tend to go through these phases? Hungary and Greenland. Do you know when these things pop up for you?

That's a big piece of it. Holt. Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired. I don't know that we get to the hungry or lonely part as much, but, you know, if you're unwell or sick or in pain. Brian's had chronic pain as part of his adult life. On and off. And that's. That's a good way to, like, get on. Someone's last nerve is to just talk to them when they're in chronic pain.

One of the things that's kind of come up lately is, I've been on. Psychotropic meds for almost as long as we've been in relationship, and over the past eight or. Six months. Six months? Yeah, maybe six months. I've been tight trading down with one of them. And it's weird when you're on a med. The same met for 20 years. Yeah. You're like. And it's kind of, you know, for lack of a better word. It's kind of a mindfuck because you don't know. Like what? What will it be? Yeah. Who's the who's the dude behind the curtain? And, so one of the things I found was that the. Amount of cognitive energy that I've had to spend on not saying the unhelpful thing has vastly increased,

Because it's easier for you not to say the unhelpful thing on the meds that you were taking in the way that you were taking them.

You got it.

So pulling that off has made it a little bit harder.

Yes. And interesting, like there was a really steep learning curve for me because I didn't know what I was going to find. Yeah. You know, and so what I found was that like the unhelpful thing, instead of being like, you know, kind of at the back of my mind, you know, it would really feel good to put in like a well-placed barb here, but I don't know what it is. You know, it's fully formed and like, on the tip of my tongue. And I really have to dial it back to be like, don't do it, don't do it, baby. Don't you do it. And, I said this the Christian and she's like, you just described PMS. I'm like, oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah. So like all the things that like, yeah, that's that's really interesting because it, you know, I think that with, with us, we do have a harder time historically when you're about to get your period.

It's just it's exactly what Brian PMS is, exactly what Brian just described. The problem is always there all month long. I can kind of roll with it or deal with it or say, let them or whatever. And there's just like a day and a half there where the filter, that filter.

You have to work that much harder.

Yeah. But that's been like kind of not a.

That's a recent thing.

That's a recent thing. I think,

I think for us it's, it's stress. Like the things it's, it's that baseline stress. You know, a hectic schedule, two working parents, you know, kids that want something all the time.

Kids that need food and water and roof and. Yeah, yeah.

They're not like hard kids. They're not. We've done the work. We've we've like, laid a really solid foundation for them.

It's just a lot of.

Giving a loss. Yeah.

Give yourself to your job. Give of yourself, you know, and then you come home and you've got this person and you're just. Yeah. That that tired piece lays in there.

Well, I think, you know, if nothing else, we'd want to draw attention just to that. Like a big part of when and how conflict occurs is about our physiology, you know, I mean, like you, if you're physiologically not well either because you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or because your body is decided that it's time, it's that time of the month, or your brain is having to work that much harder to connect synapses and make meaning out of things, then we have to respect that. Honor that. Because sometimes the kindest thing you can do in an argument is go. You know what? I'm happy to have this conversation, but probably after I have a sandwich, you know, or you know, what? Can we talk about this after the weekend? Because I, I have a period I'm going to get my period and I'll be in much better headspace than a couple of days.

And I never want to denigrate or blame a woman's period for her, like bad mood or something. But the reality is that it's just, you know, we, our bodies are communicating with us in lots of different kinds of ways. And some of those ways don't don't mean we have access to our best emotional skills. You know, Brian, before, but I want to get into the I want to get into your list here, your steps. But do I wonder if you have any let's just call it advice for folks out there who might say, I don't want to take medication like I'm not interested in in meds. That doesn't seem like the way I want to solve this problem, because it's the one thing I hear a lot when people are talking about their depression or their ADHD or whatever else, they're like, yeah, but I don't want to rely on medicine. What what how how have you come to terms with that for yourself?

I, I have a major mental health diagnosis, which I acquired after I was put on a psychotropic med in my teens. There was a kindling effect where I had a manic episode because of the. Because of the meds that I was on. And then that's it. Like, that's your diagnosis. Like, even if you only have one or maybe one more episode, that's your diagnosis. It's not like you grow out of it.

You med since then.

And I've been on meds since then. So like for me, the the answer is so obvious because I know how hard it was to be in that skin. Like, yeah, I could go off meds and like write music nonstop that I think is great and everybody else thinks is kind of mediocre.

Or.

Or I and I could like, write a ton of a ton of, like, science fiction.

And all this stuff and a.

Wellspring of creativity. And I would never run out of ideas and all this stuff, and I.

Would be.

And you weren't a great son.

I wasn't a great friend. I wasn't a great son. I would have a lousy father. I don't know that any like, I don't know that I would have gotten together with Kristen if I hadn't been stable. And I think that, like, that is just so much more valuable to me than being able to say I don't. I don't feel like being on meds. That being said, I can say because I've been in psych, I because I have had a provider, a psychiatric med provider, for as long as I have. I know that it's not a quick fix. My diagnosis I have like, I guess you could say I have high functioning bipolar. And what that means is that it responds to meds well, and it responds to a couple meds, it doesn't need a med, and then you have to have a med to manage this huge.

Side effect profile.

Med that you're on. So I, I have a lot of respect for people who say, I just can't do it. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. I have less respect for people who say, I'm not going to. I'm not even going.

To try.

Like, because it is it is very, very hard and it's it's hard to titrate up and it's hard to titrate down and you don't know what you're going to get, which is what I've reminded myself of recently. So I don't know if that's advice.

Strictly answered this question.

That's okay. I mean, I think people need more language than they have. And I'm I don't doesn't need to come from me if it can come from somebody who's actually doing it. Although I do have a second question, which is if you found a cocktail that works for you. What's the motivation to dial it down?

Yeah. Partially because, I guess mostly curiosity, but also I was. I've been living more mindfully.

And.

Like, taking on meditation and trying to be more active with my body and, like, knowing what I know about how the brain works and doesn't work. I wanted to see if I could decrease one of the two meds, one of the two meds that I'm on and still be okay.

This has been like years that we've talked about this, years we've sort of planned loosely and talked about if it was a possibility and tried to talk to providers to see, like, do you agree with us? Could we try something like lowering them down? And, you know, I think the bottom line is like when you first got on these meds, you were at a totally different place in life, 20 years old or probably younger and, you know, partying, being loose and wild and free, taking risks. And that's not how we live now. We have a nice, steady life. We like a slow, quiet weekend. We go to bed at the right time. You know, we write, yeah. So we're going to give it a try.

And another newly discovered answer to your question, which may muddy the waters of the advice bit, is I've had chronic pain for almost as long as I've been on the meds and.

Started therapy. Maybe they're.

Like, right. My occupational therapist was like, well, do you think that it's a side effect of one of the meds, Citroen? And I'm like, that's interesting. Yeah. So I found out that one of them, the one that I'm currently trading down on, is, has a has a muscle pain side effect. It's like, okay, well. So you don't have to be in chronic pain. That'd be amazing. Oh my God. Yeah.

That would be nice.

So this probably isn't what you were. What you were thinking about, you wanted to talk about today, so.

Well, it comes in two levels, right? One of them is this idea of, you know, preconditions. The reality is when people have s just, you know, psychological disorders or pathologies or diagnoses that make it harder, harder to do relationship. It's important to understand how that plays into the couple's dynamic. Right. And that could be an addiction. That could be diagnosis of some sort of mental health.

It could be it could be all kinds of things that basically that make couples therapy harder. And couples therapy is harder when those things are present, when some other things are present, it's harder when there's too much chaos. It's harder when there's an affair or a secret lover somewhere. So just part of doing good, responsible couples therapy is understanding what what are you dealing with on the on the diagnostic side or on the behavioral side that that if you don't deal with that, it's not going to make it's not going to be effective for couples work, you know.

So I'm actually just curious about it because so many people, particularly with depression and ADHD, are the two that I see the most are resistant to taking medication because they don't want to solve it pharmacologically. They want to solve it relationally, and sometimes you can't solve it relationally unless you do solve it pharmacologically. So it's kind of a strange I don't know, I just like hearing people talk about it because a lot of people's mythology about their the medications is based in just stuff that they've kind of collected or heard along the way. It's not actually, you know, well stewarded or well managed. Yeah.

Or it's, it's it's like you say with learning about relationships, you got one model for it, which was your parents or maybe your neighbor, if you had really close neighbors.

And or something.

My God, if, if you have if you don't have somebody in your family who takes their mental health seriously and manages it seriously, then of course your only model for it is like the afterschool specials that you see about that crazy person who didn't take their meds. Oh well, I'm not them, so I don't need to take meds. And there's that like cognitive dissonance that happens. Yeah. So like, I mean kind of trying to close the gap here. I when I said, you know, I'll work on it forever, but is it always me? This is coming from a very deep place of feeling like the one who has more problems. And, you know, that's. So I already, you know, it's a story I tell myself. Kristen has said that that's not what I'm working. That's not what I'm walking around with. Thinking you're the problem, Brian. I hope you know that I love you. And it's it's a curious thing about about depression and about.

Because you're walking around thinking you're the problem.

You know?

Yeah. Because your brain just easily lends that way.

Well, right. And it's like, I don't know if you've experienced this with your with your own journey, Zach, or with people that you work with is that compliments and well-wishes when you're in a depressive state or when you have a history of a depressive state ring. False. It feels like it feels like somebody blowing smoke or somebody like, you don't know that I'm not I'm not a good person. Why are you saying that? You know, there's like a really deep. Yeah. Like, no you're right. Yep. That's a lie.

Yeah. So it's a lie that you're that depression wants to tell you.

It's a lie that the depression is telling us.

Even though I know that it's still there. It's still there, you know, and I'm not like I'm not, like, depressed right now.

Well, that's why you have to learn how to pay attention to the voices that are telling you the truth. Yeah, that's the thing. That's that's the thing that's hard.

And so walking around thinking you're the problem, that's the truth. That's right. Now. Yeah. It's real.

Yep. So I remember you also say exact that when you feel defensive, it's because you feel you have something to defend.

Yeah.

And so that's something that I've and I don't know if you said that directly to us or if you've said that on the podcast. And I heard it and I was like, okay. So yeah. So over this past week I've been thinking a lot about that. What am I what am I trying to defend, and who am I trying to defend it from?

Yeah, it's a really cool question. And the other thing is, like people don't usually defend the silver, they defend the gold. So, you know, whatever you're defending is actually the thing that is most valuable to you. And we need to figure out what that is so that you can actually, you know, spend it appropriately, like steward, steward it, not just hoard it and protect it, you know, do you have any sense of it, what you're trying to defend? Because I want to I want to chuckle a little bit.

So I think so, but go on.

Well, step one of your problem is Kristin says something or asks a question, makes a request, or ask for more information. It's like it's about as benign as it can be, or it's about as neutrally flat as it can be. Kristin says something, or she asks a question or she makes.

We didn't agree on all those steps, but that step we were both like, yep.

That's.

Where it starts.

It starts with it starts to.

That's right. Right.

Well, it starts with Kristin having a need. And then it sounds like that means Brian's not enough.

Yep.

And that comes from the lie that depression is telling you.

Yep.

So what does why it's so important to make sure that you're stewarding the the part that you can steward to protect you from the thing that you want to do next, which it looks like you just want to either. Well, step two says Brian, response quickly or pauses and doesn't say anything. So Brian fights or fleece? Yeah, yeah. Brian goes straight to.

There, yet I'm not there at the fight or flight for step two. Fight or flight happens.

That's what we have. We gave it to him. He's reading.

Yes, yes.

B responds quickly or pauses and doesn't say anything. That's fight or flight.

Yeah.

But go ahead. I mean, that's okay. We're just wandering around. I'm not judging. I'm just saying, like, tell me about this pattern. What do you know about it already? Does it is it is it you're immediately in contest with not just Kristin, but with all of the other voices telling you that. That because the world isn't the way, exactly the way Kristin wants it, it's probably your fault.

I would say that step two for me is about. Work that I believe, I believe I've done, I think I've done, which is put some frickin space between what you just heard and what you think you heard. And actually, when I did my list, I did a list that because I was, you know, I don't know if ten is like a. A severe number or a, you know, a random number, but I was having a hell of a time trying to get to ten. So I was like, okay, well sometimes, sometimes it stops at step four because what I'll do is I'll pause on a good day, I'll pause in a good day. And she says something and then I say, yeah, you're right, X is X. And then that's it.

Yeah. We did have a couple versions of this list that read more like a choose your own adventure. Like, do you want to go this way or did you take it like this? Yeah, but the list we gave Zach a list, which was it doesn't.

Go right if I read step two like a like a, like a flowchart. It's either two a is you respond quickly where to be is the healthier choice, where you pause and you don't say anything. And that's the thing that you're describing where you are practicing, not just saying, the first thing that comes up to your, to your mouth is that the way?

Yep.

Two. Step two is meant to be.

And sometimes I think my pause is a little. It's a pregnant pause that's carried to turn, perhaps. And and that's when she says, don't read too much into this. I'm just I'm just. And then like, I go, and I must be reading too much into this if I pause for. Any more. That's right. Yeah.

Interesting.

And we're in it.

Let's do it.

Yeah. Now it's at the topic anymore. Now it's like. It's funny because then it number two happens because of number one. And number three happens because of number two. But then because number three happens because of number two. Number one is get gets lost. It's gone. Now we're not talking about the thing that you said or the question that you need or the way that you go.

Yeah. It's been.

Sounds like it sounds, Brian. Like you don't like the word. Just don't mean to mention into this. I'm just. And then you stopped. You're like, I'm just. And as soon as you hear just, it's almost like a, like you feel just dismissed or diminished.

No, it's not, it's not the just it's more that don't read too much into this. It's like you're telling me don't read too much into this. What am I supposed to not read too much? And I must be reading too much into this. All right, everybody, hold on. I'm going to overthink this, you know?

Yeah.

You. Are you reading too much into it?

Maybe. Probably perhaps.

Maybe. Probably perhaps. Do you know what that's from?

No. Is it from something?

Yeah. That's cool. Maybe. Probably. Perhaps it's, In my mind, it's the Ghost of Christmas present from the movie Scrooged with Bill Murray. In it. Carol Kane plays her. She's amazing. Anyway.

Oh, nice. Nice.

Yeah. It goes to like a you feel called out.

That's it.

You feel doubt. And then that kind of hijacks the original thing. And now we're we're dealing with a hurt feeling and not the something the request, the question.

Yep. So,

What did we have for step four?

Step four has Brian has overthought things, begins to mount a defensive response. Like internally, I think that you just modeled that for us, where you said, I must be reading too much into this.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're doing some storytelling. You climb up in your head and you immediately begin telling stories about how you're you're not enough and how you can't. You somehow, you somehow are responsible for the thing that Kristen is articulating. And that means that you are less than right.

And you know what's funny, Zach, is we talked to you maybe two weeks ago. And and this the potential for this list, this the potential for this conflict pattern to arise has come up a handful of times. And I think both of us knew it. And we both kind of were like, oh, like, are we going to go there? We did just put this down on paper. We know what this is now. There's no denying it. We told Zach about it.

Throughout the script.

And then we kind of moved away. Like we didn't even engage in in the steps. Yeah. And so it's totally possible. I think it helps to like, bring it out and put it on the table and say, hey, this is how this comes about.

Yeah. And I think literally.

On paper.

Yeah. And I think when you put them down, I mean, literally choosing to do anything else at any point is going to begin to facilitate change, you know. So even if it's number one, I don't know, you know, again, pretty benign. Kristen says something, but should you contract to say something and say, you know, is now I mean, I you know, my favorite contacting question is now a good time? But, hey, I want to ask a question about. This weekend. Is is now a good time or, can I get, or just tell me when is I get again? I think it's all mini contracting without, accusing or anticipating that Brian will be in this hungry, angry, lonely, tired headspace. You do want to check in and go, hey, can I make sure that I get the guy who's doing the work to make sure that he knows it's not his fault, because depression is lying in him? Can I talk to that guy?

Okay.

I like to talk to that guy. Yeah. And then, Brian, you'd have to call him up somehow, you know? Yeah. Hold on. Let me put on my big boy pants and and get ready for your question, you know, and then even if the question is about you, like, why did you think we could be in two places at once this weekend? Because there's baseball over here and there's soccer over there. And you didn't. You know, even if it is about you and maybe you dropping the ball, the the part of you that's tapped into your, like, truth telling, true story telling that you're just a guy trying to make it in the world, doing the best he can know how to love his wife and his family or whatever else.

The more you can tap into that, you can go, you know what? That's a good question. I'm not really sure. I wonder if we can figure this out together. Because baseball and soccer, what do they have? What what kind of nerve do they have getting scheduled at the same time? Now again, we've done that thing that you already described, which is externalize it and made those guys the, the the third thing. Right. But I don't know. I mean, even again, if step one is simply Kristen opens her mouth there, maybe there's just a way to do that that comes with some kind of agreement sometimes of care, full agreement, agreement that's full of care so that you don't set yourself up for Mrs..

Yeah, 100%.

That's one of the.

It seems simple, but it's, you know, hungry, angry, lonely, tired is a real thing. And, it seems like a simple idea. Like I said, putting it out there is is a huge it levels the playing field a bit. Here's that thing. That thing we're working on.

Yeah.

Let me do this mini contract with you, because you already know that thing is out there on the table, and we're trying to work on that. You know, we're trying to be gentle around that or get better at that.

One of the one of the guests that you had on, I think it was Matthew Frey and his wife, because I like ten. Sorry. Yes. Has my commute has increased. So I have had some time to catch up on my my things that I need to catch up on. And she they talked about blind spots. Yeah. And, I feel like Kristen is just navigating a lot of my blind spots or a lot of blind spots where she's like, dude, I didn't I didn't know that. You know what?

Step number five is it that I like physically? Step back.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Because there's a lot I even I feel it even talking about it because there's so many times when we get to that point and I'm like, I really am. Like, what happened? Where'd you go? Is it me or are you mad at me now? So. Yeah, that's that's me trying to navigate a one spot. What'd you say? So what you describing?

And I think the unhelpful part of my unhealed child is looking for. This is the answer to the question that you gave earlier. Like, what's what's what's going on? Like what? What's what's behind that? And I think the answer is that. My part of me is looking for. Something to feel justified, like I feel I feel so jacked up right now. This is so unfair that I feel this way. I really want to blame someone, but it's nobody else's fault. So. You know. And so then I'll glom on to some little turn of phrase or some tone and I'll be like, oh, there it is. That's the thing. That's the thing that I was waiting for. And now I'm justified and watch out because I need to defend myself from that.

Yeah. And you. And it's easy now because you can just drop right into the script and you don't have to actually think or work or grow, you know? Yeah, yeah. I think you've heard me say many times, I think my favorite repair is this smack in my head and go, we're doing it again. That thing that we do, we're like, we're like, on step five. Like literally we're doing step five and you're about to do step six. Like, what if we did something else right now? Even if that was, well, how about we just get some ice cream? Or how about we just each of us go splashing water on our face? Or how about we just, you know, honor the fact that you're adaptation.

You're going to child is like, got something to say or you had to active child's got something to say. But then we go back to the top and say, can we talk about the thing that just the thing not the way we're treating, but like we're doing it again, let's not do the thing again, but let's go back to the thing because it's this inner voice that you got to quiet, Brian, you have to quiet this inner voice so that you don't get, you know, hijacked. And then Kristen needs to learn how to flip the script a little bit, too. I mean, again, the fact that you have some, just straight up lines and quotes that are tired and old and cliches of their own, you know, maybe we need to negotiate new language to help acknowledge, you know, that, in fact, no, you shouldn't read too much into this, but we know that that phrase is going to solicit the next thing almost because muscle memory dictates it.

So even just kind of going we're doing it again. Again. Oh. You know, any kind of signal or any kind of just new sentence. And it's fun to brainstorm them and figure out, like, that's not going to work anymore. So we need to we need a different one. That's where I would go with or begin to toy with. But you got two fronts that you're battling this on. One is like inside, at least in this case, Brian's brain. Another one is what are the actual words you're going to use in, say, to one another to help bring about something like not resolution but repair. You know, because repair is the goal here. It's not resolution unless there's a specific ask that you have.

One more like redirect redirecting the pattern, you know, like, oh, we're on five now, but at least we're doing that. You don't want to get to six. Yeah. All right. When we get to five we walk in the opposite directions. Yeah. You know, and start redirecting the pattern altogether.

Yeah. Well, five is that you step back physically, and maybe there's something like you step in physically not to endanger yourself because you're not really in danger, but you literally just put your hands on your sweet boy's face and go, hey, we want the same thing here. We're the same, you know? Yeah. So, I don't know. I'm aware of two things. I'm aware that we're about to bump up against our time. I don't want to do a disservice to your pattern. The reality is that each number. If I were to read them stepwise, it's not really the point. For those of you who did it at home, it kind of doesn't even matter what you're what's what's on the list.

What matters is that as you look at the list, do you have the freedom and the creativity to think about? Like, what are my options here? What other thing could I do here, if only to avoid, just repeating the pattern and doing the simple thing, doing the same old, same old thing. Because you know what's our friend? Something new and different. What's our enemy? More the same. We just want to avoid more of the same. I've been telling people, I don't know if I mentioned this last week or not, but this last week. And so I've been asking people in the new Year if they have any idea what their partners number one complaint about their marriages. Did I ask you this last time?

No, but I feel like I heard you ask somebody.

Yeah that's.

Possible podcast.

I might have yeah, it might have just come out. But like what's your number one complaint? Oh my, her number one complaint is that I don't follow through. And I was like, okay, what about if at the end of this year you you're only goal is to make sure that was not her number one complaint. It could be any other thing, but just not that, you know. So at the end of this year, the only thing was that it's not this pattern. This pattern is boring and old, and we're retiring it because we're savvy enough to make different moves along the way. That's that's maturity. That's pretty exciting stuff.

That is pretty exciting. That is. Should we start in February or should we start today?

February, January?

February is the new January. By the time this episode comes out, it will be February. So I would say go ahead and just start now. You know?

Yeah, that's a good goal.

Well that's some cool stuff. Let's we're going to talk one more time and just see if we can't come up with some insights that help you change the direction or stay perhaps on the on the right trend line, but do it with some a little bit more inertia. So if you think of, you know, things that we ought to be addressing next week, even if we pick up here in the pattern, I'll be glad to dive in a little bit deeper. Also, if I need to pick on Kristen a little bit, I'm happy to do that.

I have one, yeah.

Go ahead.

You're going to pick on me right now. So quick. Know what?

One thing that overlays the ten steps is the over function or under function or dynamic okay. And we we use that language and it is triggering for Brian. And because it's it has to do with family of origin stuff where one parent was being called out for not doing anything, and of course correcting in the opposite direction, or I think I am. And so to be told that I'm missing the mark is a is a thing as well. But I know that the over function or under function or dynamic is useful to Kristen to help her understand how we work and don't work. I prefer the dynamic of change partner and accept partner. Okay, and guess which one of us is which?

Is this what we're talking about? Next time.

I would like.

Sounds like it needs some attention.

This would be great.

Is that is that. Does that sound good to you? Kristen.

That sounds fine. Yeah, I've loved to say. And I'm ready to listen.

Yeah.

All right. Well, we got to park it for today. I am thank you for doing your homework. I tell people all the time, I don't think therapy works. I don't think podcast work. I don't think 12 step groups work. Books don't work, people work, couples work or they don't. And, you know, one of the things that you guys have going on that is a strength in your relationship is you're actually doing the work. And so for people out there who are listening and trying to figure out, like, how do you make it work? It doesn't matter what you do, it matters that you do. And thank you for doing your homework. And yeah, let's talk about over function or under function next week and see if we can't find some way to honor that. It's actually a dynamic that exists for you, and that there may be a way to break it down so that it's not as painful.

Yeah, yeah.

Love that.

Yeah.

All right.

Cool insect.

Thank you sir.