Understanding What Creates Disconnection in your Marriage

In this episode, Kate & Eric dive deep into understanding the window of tolerance and how it affects our relationships.

Topics:
➡️Different tolerance levels in various situations
➡️Communicating tolerance levels to support each other better and grow together.
➡️ Emphasizing empathy and mutual support in relationships.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Eric MacDougall
Today, we're talking about something that I think is going to be really helpful. 

Kate MacDougall
So it like came up in our therapy session. A while back, and we were like, when I heard it, it was it's a concept I had heard before. But when it came back in the moment when we were talking about something and it kind of came up and I was like, oh, everything makes sense. And right. Those moments? Yeah.

Eric MacDougall
You know, and it's funny. I remember years ago, when I first started coaching, this is something that I talked about, I remember having this kind of visual for it, which we're gonna talk about today. And for a long time, I forgot it. And I remember sometimes I would like sit around and I'd be like, Man, what was that thing that I taught? Because it was so cool. And then when our therapists kind of started talking about it, and then we had a conversation, I was like, Oh, my God, that is what it was. I remember reading about that. And like you said, you know, it became like, Thanks for the reminder. And I really do appreciate that. And we talk about this a lot in in the work that we do, but like the work is really never done. Right. And a lot of the things that we are learning, we're also relearning, and it's like a Thanks for the reminder, right? We kind of laugh all the time. But like, the reality is, is that we are still practicing skills that we learned eight years ago, right? And we're still trying to master them, we're still because we're emotional beings, it's never going to be perfect. And we're always going to take on new challenges, because that's part of growth. And so what we're talking about today, this idea of the window of tolerance, right is going to be impacted, the more you step out of your comfort zone, yes, right. And so the visual that I want to give everybody, if you kind of close your eyes, if you're driving, don't close your eyes, that's not a good idea. But if you kind of imagine, for me, I imagine this kind of almost like a one long thermometer, right, like top to bottom. And at the top of the thermometer is like the red zone. And at the bottom of the thermometer is the like the cold frozen zone, right. And so if you imagine top is red, bottom is blue. And in the middle, there's green. And that's like the visual I like to give people now your window of tolerance is the green. That's the center. Now for some people. And again, depends on situations, right? Because it's also situational. Your window of tolerance of dealing with your kids might be very big. But dealing with strangers might be very small, right? So again, the window of tolerance based on the context changes. But you imagine is the green, when you're in the green, you're feeling okay? Right? So you're not feeling uncomfortable, and you're not feeling challenged, you're kind of like in your zone, like this is great. I'm, you know, my I'm not panicking, my body's not starting to go nuts. My breathing is normal, right? So that's the green. Now, what typically happens is when we end up outside of our window of tolerance, we have two options. And it's different for everybody, right? And this is where the red and the blue come in. Now, some of us, when we are no longer comfortable in our window of tolerance as in the panic button goes on. Something's happening in our life that drives us outside of our window of tolerance. By default, we go one up, which is we go to the red. So you can imagine that's like anger, rage, we get big in our relationship we call Maximizer. Right in between the two of us. I'm the Maximizer I'm the one that when something's uncomfortable, I get loud I get big I get intense. I ask questions I get

Kate MacDougall
in your face kind of like the fight and flight response right you're you're either fighting or you're fighting like you're running away from it or you're you're doing something that is that is big that is it's like an action. You're like, yep, outside of yourself and you're reacting strongly. Yeah, Eric, it reacts outside. And what I realized is I also go into the red, but I react inside. So at first I thought and you'll understand little more later I thought I was more in the Lu, because I'm so quiet when I come out of my window of tolerance. However, what I realized is inside of me, I have this huge chaos going on, like, what do I do? Oh my gosh, ah, like all of those things are going on inside my head. I'm struggling inside. And so yes, I go quiet on the outside. Yes, it looks like I'm freezing. But really, I am in a very chaotic state of mind, which is in the red. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
exactly. And so when you imagine the red, what we're talking about here is any sort of like friction or intensity that's happening. And again, for some people, it's external. For some people, it's internal. If you're sitting there and you're kind of being around your kids, and you're just like vibrating, and your teeth are clenched, and you're like losing your mind inside, but you're totally quiet. That means you're still in the red, you're outside of your window tolerance. And that means you need to like come down. Yeah, right. So you need to chill. Now, the other side of the window of tolerance is the blue. And this is like, essentially kind of like flatline. Yeah. Right? And, again, everyone's different in the way they deal with things. Some people go quickly to red. And then eventually, if they can't deal with this, they flatline. Right? They go, they go to Blue very quickly, because they're like, Okay, well, freaking out about this is not helping. It's still, you know, I can't regulate myself internally. I'm not gonna yell and scream at my partner. And so what do I What do I do? I essentially just go numb to like an a possum, right? And you just kind of like freeze your head. Right? And this is the idea of ladies. Yeah, exactly. Now, some people, they look like they're freezing. But like you said inside, it's like vibrating a really high frequency. Yeah. Oftentimes what happens is resentment goes up in those situations, right? Because you get really pissed off, etc. But if you step outside of your window tolerance into the blue, that feels like numbness that feels like nothing is happening, no connection. Sometimes you see this in kids, right? If something really traumatic has happened to you as a kid, or even as an adult, you're essentially essentially your body shuts down. Right? It just says, you know, I'm sure we've seen this, you know, for me, sometimes I see it in Francis where, like, I'm talking to him, and he won't even look at me, he just looks down and just shuts down. And he kind of freezes as like, Okay, I need to stop here. Because I'm losing him. Yeah, I need to kind of step back and allow him to kind of come back up. And so as you're thinking about this, this whole idea of your own window of tolerance, the first question is, ask yourself, when you feel dysregulated, when you feel like things are getting into panic mode, uncomfortable, you feel like you're walking on eggshells, etc. Where do you go? Do you typically try to like numb out shut down, ignore push everything away? Or do you essentially go into high vibrations? Right? So that's the first thing that's happening internally. Then you want to recognize from that place, what's happening externally? What do I look like in those? Exactly. And we've all seen both sides, right? Sometimes we see somebody who, they're not doing anything, not saying anything, but it's clear that like, they're panicked, right? It's like, ooh, something's up with this person, their

Kate MacDougall
breath is changing. That's usually when you can tell the breath changes and things like that. If you're going in the blue, oftentimes your breath won't change it, you'll just do just go completely numb, disconnected, connect, yeah, you'll talk to the person they won't answer and I'll make an eye contact. Whereas if you're in the red and you're quiet, your, your breath will change. You'll see people like they'll get flushed in the face, maybe like, you know, actually, like more saliva produces like, think of like a raging dog, right? Like our body goes through that same response when we're in fight or flight mode. Yeah.

Eric MacDougall
And really, you know, the thing that we often talk about is like this idea of vigilance, right? Some of us who have not been in healthy relationships, right, or have had to fend for ourselves a lot. We're hyper vigilant. What that means is like, we're always on guard, we're always mind mapping everybody, we're always trying to make sure that we're in the right spot, trying to understand what his emotions all the time, that's you in the red, right? That's not the blue. And so if you feel like you're hyper vigilant all the time, you need to understand where everything's going, what everyone's doing all the time, you're always trying to remain in control. That means you're in the red. You're in the blue, if you like, essentially a situation happens. And you're talking about it. And it's like, yeah, that happened two weeks ago, remember? And you have like, no recollection of the fight. Yeah, that's like you numbing out blacking out. That's like you're getting into the blue as in like, your body and mind shut down. And you don't actually understand what's happening in that moment. You've completely disconnected. Yeah, and this is like, this happens, right? This is not your fault. This is a protective mechanism that's happened in your body. It was like when I get angry, and I start yelling. It's not like I take responsibility for it. Right. But sometimes it's not like a cognitive thing. Yeah. And so really important to say to my emotions in that moment, are driving the boat,

Kate MacDougall
right? The red and the blue aren't necessarily things you can control. You can control how much red you have, how much blue you have, you know, you can, you know, maybe be You're less quick to trigger or less quick to shut down. But that all happens with your window of tolerance. And that is what you can practice that is what you can learn to grow or diminish need be. Because what happens is in your window a window of tolerance is it when you're in a situation, you're either able to tolerate, and be in a situation for a long period of time. So for example, say you're sitting in a room with your in laws, some people can tolerate the boring, you know, conversation that might go on with the in laws and, and be able to have small talk and listen to you know, your your mother in law, talk about Betty Ann and Joanne and all those people you don't know, and you're just like, Oh, yes. Whereas other people might be like, I'm leaving, why are they talking about all these people, I don't know, I don't have time for this conversation. So that's where your the window of tolerance is. So you're either going to sit there and tolerated and be in it and not have any response would be quite calm and comfortable there. Or you're either going to leave the situation get angry, blow up, or completely shut down in those situations, because that green can either be large or very thin. And where this fits in, in our relationships, and I think this is why it was such an aha moment for can i is because we were disagreeing on something. During therapy, we had brought up that we had these frustrations towards a similar situation. And what our therapists made us see was, we were both in the same situation. But our window of tolerance is completely different. Mine was like, really big, I had a lot of green for the window where we were at. Whereas Eric, he was like, thin line of green, like very late any, it was like, No, this was not a situation for the situation that we were in. And what that did to our relationship, and having that discussion with our therapists was like, oh, like, so eye opening, because what happens is, by me understanding that Eric, has no tolerance for this type of situation, I can help either support him in those situations, it can help me understand why he flights why he leaves so quickly, in those situations, I can understand why his reactions are what they are in those situations. Because for me, when I was talking to a therapist, I was getting frustrated, because I was like, I can do it. Why can't he like pisses me off that I can do this. I sit there for hours and hours on end, putting up with it. And he's just leaps. And that makes me so angry. And she was like, yes. But are you understanding that that's because your window of tolerance for that you can tolerate that kind of behavior for much longer than Eric can. And so, after she said that, about this one very specific example, that happened one time in our relationship, it started really having me think about all the other situations and like, wow, Eric, when it comes to the kids fighting his window of tolerance is so much bigger than mine. When it comes to, you know, the dog barking, my window of tolerance is much bigger than his, you know. So it's, it's, you start to see your spouse in a completely different way and understand, you know, where the reactions are coming from. And it really helps you understand different to how to differentiate from them. Yeah, and

Eric MacDougall
one thing I want to add here, because I really don't want listeners get confused, because, you know, understanding your window of tolerance. And this case, right, we're talking about his kid has the ability to be in these situations, and she can kind of sit in them. And for me, I don't have any patience for them. So I'm kind of like, I'm not being here like that, to me, this is a waste of time. So I kind of step out it. I really want to say this clearly, because some people might be using this as ticks. Here's the behavior in that moment in our relationship. And we've talked about this. There's also another aspect where Kate feels the sense of abandonment of like, why are you just leaving in these situations? Right? So this does not excuse the behavior. And this is what I want to say right? Understanding somebody's window of tolerance does not mean like oh doesn't make it you have no tolerance for that. I guess you could just do what you want. Like, Oh, you don't have any tolerance to have conversations about our marriage. I guess you don't have to have them anymore. You don't

Kate MacDougall
have tolerance for listening to our kids yelling, that's fine that you yell at them, right. And

Eric MacDougall
so what we want to do here is just created understanding that the window of tolerance can be stretched and built right over time. It's like a muscle like anything else. And by understanding each other's window of tolerance And you can then have grace and work together. So in this example, right, it's important for Kate to have me be in these situations without her fear that I'm just gonna like, you know, I'm kind of tired of this piece, right and kind of leave, that doesn't feel secure to her. She's like, hey, I want to know that you have a commitment here and that we're going to arrive together and leave together.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, and the understanding of, oh, Eric just left, because I saw it as abandonment, I saw it as Eric's angry that I'm sitting here putting up with this situation. And he probably wants me to follow him. And so I was misunderstanding. Whereas Truly, it wasn't so much. He's not angry that I'm sitting there, he couldn't, he couldn't care less that I sit there. But he just doesn't have the patience to sit there as long as I do. So he says, I'm gonna leave. And so instead of me seeing it as abandonment, I can see it as like, oh, Eric is just less patient about this. And so I can choose, well, if I really want Eric to sit in this situation with me, I can talk to him, I can explain to him why it's important for me to have him by my side. In those situations, I can explain to him and ask him if he'd be willing to sit with me. And if there's anything I can do to help him be in those situations for a little bit longer. And help him build that tolerance a little bit more. We're not asking for miracles here. We're asking for maybe a little five minutes more every time. But yeah, and

Eric MacDougall
I think it's really important to understand, because I love what you're saying here. Kate, I want to add my part to it from the other perspective, but it is really important understand that your window of tolerance can be built, right? There was a time when my kids fighting and kind of be bickering, like drive me bananas, right. So she when I became a new dad, I was like, This is wrong, kids shouldn't Becker like whatever. And over time, I realized, like, Oh, they're expressing themselves. So through new knowledge, through new understanding and putting myself in those situations, with that new knowledge understanding, I was able to essentially extend my window of tolerance where my patients with the kids is, you know, I would say very good now. But when we go back, if we go back to that situation, you know, what's really important is, for me, also, from my perspective, who maybe is has a low window of tolerance to express, like, what's actually happening in those moments, not just to say, like, Oh, I was tired a bit. So I left Yeah, like no to explain, like, Hey, this is kind of what's actually happening inside my body in those moments. You know, to be honest, like, I have a lot of things to do. And it's hard for me to calm my mind. And when we get into small talk, and it's not like, directed, talk about a very specific thing that I can engage with, it's very hard for me to keep my attention. And in those moments, you know, I could stand there, but my fear is that people are going to look at me, and I'm just gonna be like stargazing, like looking. And I don't want to offend people just look like a dum dum. Right. And so, in that moment, you know, my solution has to be been to remove myself from the situation than to continue to engage because I don't want to offend you. I don't offend people. I don't want people to ask me a question. I'm like, Sorry, I wasn't listening to you. Yeah. Which I think you can attest. Yeah, right. Sometimes people Hey, so Eric, what do you think I'm like, I'm sorry, I wasn't listening to you. Can you repeat the question?

Kate MacDougall
I'm sorry, I have ADHD. Yeah. And

Eric MacDougall
so it's important understand that like, if your window of tolerance is low, express that to your partner, and be proactive, say, Okay, we're gonna go in this situation. And I'm not really good with crowds, like when I moved around a lot of people and I have to make a lot of conversation. And like, my amygdala starts going nuts, right, my tolerance, my patient starts going crazy. So this is what I might need in order to Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
and in that situation, what I realized wasn't so much that I want you to stand in those situations and put up with it and be there forever. I just want to understand that I thought, it's silly, but it's almost like I just want your permission. I wanted to be okay, that I can stay in those conversations, even though they're like boring, and they make me uncomfortable and whatever, that I can see in those situations, and talk and listen and give people space to talk about whatever they want to talk about, because I think it makes them happy. But that you're not angry at me. When you're walking. We're going to come back later. Yeah. And be like, when you were sitting there listening to that person having that boring conversation with you what a waste of time, we could have been spending it together kind of thing, right? So it's almost like it's not that I want I even want you to build your window of tolerance there. It's I just want an understanding of what happens in your body. Why is it you're leaving? Is it because you're angry? That I'm sitting there just listening to some boring somebody's boring story? Or is it because you truly, you know, are just gonna go do something else because you couldn't care less to be there and you couldn't care less whether I was there or not. It was just you see what I mean? Yeah. 100%

Eric MacDougall
And also, I mean, the next level to that because I know Wrapping up here, but like the next level to that is then to be differentiated enough to be like, it's okay that Eric thinks, like this small talk is doesn't serve anything, and that I experienced a lot of joy from it.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. And I also don't want it just because this is something I experienced joy that it automatically needs to be something you need to work on. Yeah. And Eric, you should expect him to experience joy in these situations like, it doesn't mean that just because somebody's window of tolerance is small that you should be working on all of it. Every one of those windows of tolerances and trying to make them bigger, like, what is your why behind trying to get your spouse as window of tolerance bigger? Is it just because you want him to stand there and look in the oblivion of not listen, like? Yeah, what's the point of that really like?

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, and I love that point. Because there are other aspects where, like, you, again, I'm not saying you need to, but I highly recommend in some areas, you expand your window of tolerance, like, if you can't take your kids back talking to you, and you yell and scream in their face all the time, that's probably needs to extend your window of tolerance to prevent some long term damage on your kids, right? And so there is these examples of like, you know, if your window of tolerance to have like a vulnerable conversation with your partner about your thoughts and feelings in the relationship is like nil. So you're avoiding them all the time? Well, you kind of need to take ownership here that you're creating the system, where you're unavailable to your partner and long term, that's not going to help either of you. Yeah.

Kate MacDougall
And on the contrary, I think there's times to where somebody's window of tolerance can be too big, you know, such as mine. I'm a people pleaser, right? So I could sit there for hours and hours and hours and waste my entire day listening to somebody talk about themselves. And then the whole time not say anything about myself walk out of the conversation and be like, Well, that was stupid. I didn't talk about myself, all I heard about was this person stuff, like I'm so frustrated now. So that's a situation where maybe I need to work on shortening my window of tolerance, practicing, you know, being like, I'm going to walk away like this is it's a good time for me to leave now. Like, what

Eric MacDougall
would it look like in this moment for me to engage beyond?

Kate MacDougall
Like, Hey, I'd like to talk about something, then that puts you

Eric MacDougall
outside your way. This is uncomfortable, telling them to stop talking.

Kate MacDougall
Exactly. But I do think there's two instances, right, some, some people need to grow their window of tolerance, make make the thermometer look a little more green. And some people may even maybe need to make it look a little less green. So they're, you know, yeah. And

Eric MacDougall
maybe like not even less drinks, I do totally understand. Maybe it's like having clear boundaries of where their green is no longer. You know what I mean? Where it's like, okay, no, this is actually now no longer aligned. Yeah, that's what I want to do. Right? And I think that's a really great way to think about it. So yeah, window of tolerance. Think about your own, have some grace for your partner, right? And really bring this out, right? Maybe there's situations where you can ask your partner, hey, like, Are there times where you're putting the context or situation where you're just like, Man, this is totally uncomfortable for me? What happens in those moments? And what typically leads to happening, right, you kind of shut down, numb out, just kind of let things happen around you? Or do you kind of like vibrate at a really high frequency?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. And looking at your partner asking them you know, I noticed in these specific situations that you don't have much tolerance for it. Is there anything I can do to help you build that tolerance to help you feel like you can be more confident in the situations and tolerate them a little more? Love that.