Moving beyond Roommates to Deeper EMOTIONAL Connection

In this week's episode, Kate & Eric discuss key strategies to deepen your connection with your spouse and move past the "roommate phase"

Topics:
➡️ Managing conflicts in marriage through vulnerability and openness
➡️ Techniques for giving and receiving feedback in relationships without conflict.
➡️ Ideas to break daily routines and rekindle romance and emotional intimacy in your marriage.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Today, we're diving into a listener question. And so this one here is from a listener, and kind of the title is, how do we stop feeling like roommates and reconnect on a deeper level? And this is what I wrote lately. So Eric, lately, my marriage has felt more like a co parenting and CO living situation than a real partnership. We handle all the logistics, kids, bills, schedules. Etc, but we don't really see each other anymore. I miss the emotional connection we used to have. How do we move beyond just doing life together and actually feel connected again?

I actually sent that question. They might go

relate, and then he goes on to a little more detail and stuff, but I'll keep that under wraps, but yeah, so essentially, this person seems to be in a relationship where, kind of the business of marriage, the business of family, is going well. A lot of the conversations are about co parenting. It's how do we take care of our life together, transactional, and they mentioned specifically they're missing that, like, emotional bond, right? That the depth, the intimacy, or closeness, and so how do we help this listener, or listeners like that, re engage with each other in a way that prioritizes that connection again?

Well, I think this is so common. I think so many people go through this and it's so easy to get lost in it, because we're so busy and we're so tired, and there's a lot of expectations on husbands and wives and dads and moms and women and men in this world, and we feel like we need to be at 1000 different places. But I do think that to protect our marriage, to protect our connection, I think the first step is obviously talking about it and mentioning it like, Hey, I miss you, and doing it in a way that's genuine and talks about your heart, not about the anger behind it, or the blame, or you're always this and you're always that, but really talking about your heart and what's going on. You know, I miss connecting with you emotionally. I miss talking about your feelings, and I miss talking about our life and dreaming with you and whatever, right? So definitely talking about it.

Can I just jump in there, put a pin in it? Yes, or do you have an idea?

Stream? No, you go. I might forget. But cool. Okay, awesome.

Because, but this is really important, because communicating about this can be more challenging than just like opening up and talking about it. I talk to a lot of individuals, men, women, couples, and they are very clear about what's not working. They are very clear about what they don't want, but what's sucking, what's not working for them needs to be improved, essentially, and then to talk about what it is they want is much more challenging, because typically, we're very specific about the thing we don't want. Don't want you to be on your phone all the time. I don't want to just be sitting for the TV. I don't want to. I don't want, I don't want this here, and here's all the examples. But then when we talk about, hey, what I want, it's like these ambiguous terms. I want better connection, I want more communication. I want the spark back. I want to feel close to you. And that's like, very ambiguous, right? Because that could be different for everyone. Right. Feel like having better connection means literally anything to anyone, right? If you really think about it, that could be, I want to talk to each other more. That could be some things, yeah, that means I want to sit near you on the couch. That means I want to go through our finances together, whatever it is. So I highly encourage all of you listening instead of thinking about what you don't want or what's not working, or what you're missing. If you had, like, an awesome day with your partner, and it was like, Hey, this is like, there's a video camera following us around, and we just had an amazing experience together. What would the video camera be filming throughout that day? Right? So you wake up, you get out of bed, maybe you wake up, you turn over, you kiss your partner, you look each other in the eyes, you say, Good morning, right? And literally flesh this out, because once you create an idea of what you want to move towards, your brain is a meaning making and problem solving machine. And so if you're clear about what you want to create, it's going to be very easy to move towards it, because then the only thing that's going to prevent you from creating that is your own fear that's going on in your mind, your own stories that you make up, right? Does that make sense? Yeah,

it does make sense. And I like where you're going with this. I think that it reminds me of an exercise that I just did. Like where you think of your perfect day, think of your perfect marriage, you know, really close your eyes and really imagine it, and then you think about how you can create that for yourself or for your marriage, so not necessarily having the expectation that your spouse needs to be on board for this to happen, but just, you know, hey, I'm tired of the day in day out. I'm tired of just having conversations about finance. I'm tired of all these things I want to talk about fun things. I want to have light hearted conversations. So once you know what you want and you know what that looks like, Well, start making it happen. You don't even need your spouse to be on board. Just when your spouse is sitting at the table, scrolling on their phone, just be like, Hey, can I ask you a fun question? Yeah, if you had $10,000 tomorrow, where would you go? Yeah,

if you could own a train, what color would it be? And why

you could own

fly on a bird? What bird

would you rather be a pirate, or would you rather be a astronaut? I'm trying to think of the word

like literally, you could ask anything silly, like, if we had to decide in our marriage who was a cat and who was a dog, which one, right? That's like, we just ask questions all the time, definitely, yeah. And listen, it sounds silly at first, and good, because your relationship needs a little bit of shaking up. Yeah. And I think that's what we fear, right? It's like, Hey, I don't want this transactional relationship. I don't want this monotony of, like, business of marriage. And that's actually very familiar and comfortable to me, right? Because the reality is a lot of couples are very good at that, yeah.

And I think a lot of us have this idea that, like, you kind of look over at your spouse and you're like, Oh, they're on their phone again. They obviously aren't interested in hanging out with me. They obviously don't want to be bothered right now. Oh, they had a tough day at work again, because they complained about it for three hours when they got home from work. But you know, we make up these ideas, and instead of giving our partner the benefit of the doubt, instead of allowing our partner to decide for themselves whether or not this is something they want to do, they actually, you make up, you decide for them. Oh, I'm not going to ask them a silly question, because it's probably going to bother

you're not actually engaging with your partner. You're engaging with the idea of what they might do. Yeah, yeah, that can be

so instead, be courageous. Ask them if they'd rather be a cat or a dog. Just do it. Just ask the question, and if they look up at you with leg up, well, oops, sorry, didn't mean to bother you. Yeah, you're obviously a bulldog.

That's right. Really think about this, right? Because I think we're being like, jovial, painful, which is important. But if you want to create deeper emotional connection, you have to think about the gateway to that. Because first of all, you being vulnerable and you opening up is a very like quick gateway to create emotional connection, right? So if you go in and you open up about the longing you have for your partner, what you miss, what you love about your marriage, what you don't experience more of, et cetera, right? In a way that's not like on them or their responsibility, or not in a way that there's anything wrong with your current marriage, just accepting the state and how maybe you've lost sight of these things that are important. Well, that's going to create a bridge for your partner to connect to that. Because, as you were saying earlier, it's, yeah, they're always on their phone and blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, maybe they need your help to get out of this monotony of being on their phone all the time, right? Sometimes when I'm like, in a season of life and I'm just exhausted and my brain's burnt out by whatever, I'm super stressed out, I carry around my iPad like it's glued to my hip, right? I never noticed, right? And it's like, I'm reading books, and I'm researching stuff, and sometimes I'm so entrenched in, like, my own little vacuum, but I need you to come in and help me.

Yeah, and like you said at the beginning, right? Like you said, you spend a lot of time complaining, complaining, complaining. It's like I'm just in this, like, negative mindset when it comes to certain parts of my life right now. And, yeah, that's where my brain is stuck. It's like me hitting against this is an image of me hitting a wall. And so instead of doing something about it, I'm just like, I'm playing complain. I'm playing complain, complain. Well, a nice way to get out of it would be for you to like, if you know, usually, oh, she tends to start doing this when she walks into the kitchen after work, like, maybe when I walk into the kitchen, have some silly music on and force me to dance, not force me to dance. But you know what I mean? Like, invite me today. You bring you in close in a forceful way.

Yeah. And so I do think first of all is about shaking loose the mononi. That's really the first step, right? This sounds really counterintuitive, and it's so funny, because a lot of the work that we do with the men in the group, most of the time, when we talk about the steps to them, that's that's the word they use all the time. This is so counterintuitive. It's like against everything they tell people to do, but literally, what I'm telling you do is, if your transactional relationship was two gears, and it was just working really well and functioning. To raise a family, you need to take a wrench and you just throw it in those gears so it literally, like, stops and cranks and like, kind of breaks apart. Because only from that broken part can you, like, stop and be like, Oh, wake up to the scenario. Because when you're in it, it's just like you're on a conveyor belt and you're just like, doing it without even realizing what's at that end or that end of the conveyor belt. Yeah, and

I love that you're saying that, because there's also this life will throw a wrench. If you don't throw the wrench, life will throw a wrench, and it will make those wheels stop. And then you're gonna be like, Whoa, and you won't know how to deal with it when you're in an unhealthy space of your life. And now. You have to deal with it. So better to do it while you're both in a healthy head space and you can figure it out. You have the time, you have the energy to figure it out, than to have life decide when it's going to throw that wrench, and then you have to figure it out in that scenario. So I think that, yeah, definitely shaking things up is so important, and stopping to look at what are we saying yes to? Because obviously when we get stuck in these routines, when we're like, go, go, go, go, wash, rinse, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat, and you're going through the motions and day in, day out is like Groundhog Day, if you really sat back and look, and maybe the kids are in a little bit too many extracurricular activities. Maybe we've committed to too many things during the week, or maybe we commit to too many things during the weekend. Do we actually have time to slow down and be together? Like, yes, I want my kids to get all the opportunities in the world, and we want them to be in every single sports and arts class and dance class and blah, blah, blah. But somewhere, if that's impacting your relationship with your spouse, it's definitely impacting your relationship with your kids, with your friends, etc, with yourself, yeah, and so maybe taking a step back with your spouse, looking at your calendars and seeing, is there something we can remove off of here to make time for us to be able to find time to breathe, whether it's finding time to breathe by yourself, finding time to breathe together, or maybe just finding time to catch your breath as a family? Is there one night a week that is available to do that? Or are we like going every single night of the week. And I know that's something we had to do, you know, coming back into school, coming back into the school routine, because we're kind of like, go with the flow in the summer, much slower pace, and then we get into school and it's like, whoa. Like, holy My gosh. Like, there is a lot going on all at once. And so we really need to take a step back and reassess. Okay, what are we saying yes to that is having a say no to our relationship, say no to taking a breath, say no to spending time with our kids. What are these things that are so important that we're saying yes to that are getting in the way of us having true connection together.

Yeah. And I would love to unpack this a bit more, because I think immediately, when people start to think about this, they think about the tasks that are getting in the way. And I get that, and that's really important. I always laugh. Typically, when some of the men join the group, it's like, I actually don't tell me your priorities, show me your calendar, and let's follow you throughout a week and talk about what it is that you're doing, and then figure out, like, oh, it actually makes sense. You're not feeling connected. You spend six minutes a day interacting with your partner, yeah. And so that actually makes sense, that you're not really connected, right? And it's like, Oh, you don't feel close to your kids. It's like, well, yeah, actually, the quality interactions you have your kids are limited at 40 minutes for a week, right? For an entire week. So really thinking about that, right? And I think that's what you're you're alluding to, is like, exactly, Hey, what are the tasks that we're saying yes to that are preventing? So even flipping that right, like, in order to say yes to prioritizing our relationship, what is that we have to say no to? But there's actually something a little bit deeper here, which I think, especially if you want to connect emotionally with your partner, is the things that you need to start saying no to are the stories and the beliefs and the thoughts that you have about your partner, that you have about your marriage, that you have about yourself. And this is where a lot of people get caught up, right? It's they know what they have to do. Oh, like, in order to power our relationship, yes, we have to spend more time together. Yes, we have to open ourselves up. And then immediately, it's like thoughts come in their head and be like, my partner doesn't want that my partner doesn't want to spend time. And those insidious, insidious thoughts, those thoughts that you tell yourself that prevent you from taking action, those limiting beliefs, those stories that you tell yourself, you have to start saying no to those stories, because what's happening is you're listening to these stories, and then you are creating confirmation bias, and you are finding evidence in your life, because that's the way the brain is designed to find evidence. If I think that Kate is withholding love for me or prioritizing everything else, and I'm like, okay, just mate is making everything else priority and she puts me last, I will find evidence of that. And you know what I'm gonna miss, all the times you put me first, yeah, all the times you send me messages, all the times you write me notes, right? All that kind of stuff. And so really important understand is that the things you want to be saying no to yes, sometimes it's those things on the calendar that take up a lot of time, a lot of energy, that you think are urgent, but actually are not right. Yeah. But there's also the other thing, which is you have to start challenging yourself to think differently in order to open yourself up to connection with your partner, right? You have to be honest. You have to say you're right. I have not been prioritizing our connection, because that seems hard and awkward for me. And so I actually enjoy being successful in this lane where I can stay in control, where I don't have to worry about you or connection, etc. And I have to be honest about that, about my role in that. And so, yeah, I love that you. That in terms of what, what do you have to say no to in order to say yes to your partner? Because sometimes it is things on the calendar, but other times, it's actually your own thoughts, your own beliefs, that are preventing you, your own resentments that are building up, that are preventing you from creating that close connection with your partner. And

so I was just rereading the question, I'm like, hoping we answered this listener's question, and we did, I think we did. How do we move beyond just doing life together and actually feel connected again? Yeah? So I

think throwing a wrench in it is really important, just to draw things loose and again, a wrench doesn't have to be like, I'm gonna cause a fight, or sometimes a wrench is like, I'm gonna plan a date night for us next Friday, yeah? And I'm gonna tell my wife, like, what time we're going to the restaurant, and I'm gonna ask her if she'd like to join me to the restaurant.

Throwing a wrench just means doing something differently. Yeah, exactly, getting out of the rat race and maybe turning right, yeah, when you usually go straight, and sometimes even,

hey, if you're always taking our daughter to craft time, and I'm always taking our son to hockey time, we're gonna flip that next week, yeah, and see what happens. Yeah, right. And because you want to essentially engage the brain to start to get out of the comfort, let's just do the same thing all the time, and start to say, Oh, wow, this is different. Things are happening, right? And then that brings in new knowledge, new experience. And then from that place, your brain is going to be aware so you can introduce new information to start creating a change. And so throw a wrench in it. Think about what it is that you want to move towards that kind of ideal day, and then start thinking about, you know, in order to say yes to this, what do you have to say no to so you can invite your partner and create some of these open, fun, enjoyable conversations that you really want to be having.