In Episode 314 of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we tackle the common but often overlooked habit of taking things personally in marriage. This conversation explores the psychological concept of personalization—interpreting your partner’s words or actions as direct reflections on you—and how it can lead to unnecessary conflict and emotional distance. Through thoughtful reflection questions, practical strategies, and insights from past episodes and key book chapters, the hosts guide listeners toward emotional balance, intentional trust, and deeper communication. Learn how to pause before reacting, seek clarity instead of assuming, and build self-awareness to shift from defensiveness to curiosity. Whether you’re navigating everyday disagreements or deeper relational struggles, this episode offers tools to strengthen your marriage by staying grounded in your own identity and understanding your partner with compassion.
Tune in to see why you Don’t Take Things Personally in a Marriage Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- How do you typically react when your partner offers criticism or feedback?
- Can you identify specific triggers that lead you to take things personally in your relationship?
- What strategies have you found effective in maintaining emotional balance during conflicts?
Links referenced during the show:
books.google.com+2noon.com+2netflix.com+2
How to Overcome. Resiliency with Zay Grastley
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/marriageandfamily
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #314 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: most therapists [00:04:00] probably get this, but when you’re doing individual counseling, you’re really doing marital counseling as well, which always makes me laugh at therapists that are kind of like, not at you, but
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: laugh in the concept of like.
Yeah, I don’t do marriage counseling.
Victoria Pendergrass: I haven’t heard that
Chris Gazdik: for a long time. Do people still carry that mentality, do you think?
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Because you’re
Chris Gazdik: doing couples counseling when you’re doing individual counseling, to your point,
Victoria Pendergrass: Victoria? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I, I, I think people, I think, I think therapists, if they did that, this was something that might have been a a paradigm that they might have or a template that they may have done 15, 20 years ago.
But I hadn’t seen too much of that. Heard, heard too much of it. Mm-hmm. Since then.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I, I, I, I just realized that honestly, in real time, I don’t, I don’t feel like people in therapy are as intimidated is probably a good word. ’cause couples counseling is difficult. It’s different. It takes a different knack of skill.
It, it takes some development and style to, to really, to really get at it. I mean, [00:05:00] Victoria, I know you’ve had people, you know, that we’ve talked about. You know, it’s, it’s like a battle royale sometimes. Okay. You know,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s like playing playing ping pong and you’re on one side and there’s two other people on the, and there’s two people on the other side of the table.
And so it’s very fast.
Chris Gazdik: It can be, yeah. So many dynamics flowing all at once. And so you gotta kind of get into a space where you begin realizing, wait a minute, this is happening in real time. And that takes some, some experience and some skill to be able to identify that one person takes res, takes account of what somebody else says, and ultimately takes it personally.
And that, that’s what we mean by personalization in the relationship. Interpreting your partner’s actions and words as direct reflections on you when in actual reality, they’re probably not doing that. Mm-hmm. Right. You know, they’re, they’re probably in their own head, in their own space and, you know, but it appears like they’re attacking you.
Mm-hmm.
[00:06:00] Did you have a thought or just a breath?
Victoria Pendergrass: Just a breath. Just a breath. Just thinking.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. It’s, it’s behaviors. Mm-hmm. Right? Like you see in close attachments the behaviors of your partner and you begin to take cues from that and you begin to kind of identify like, you know what they’re meaning with all of their nonverbal through a long time of seeing the same things.
Mm-hmm. And that’s how it can be super fast, you know, triggers. Mm-hmm. Right, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think one thing that I talk a lot with my. Couples and individuals that I work with is that that crap takes time. Like I have people who come to me and y’all might disagree, but I have people who come to me who, you know, have been together for like 16, 20 years or something and they’re still kind of like, they’re still things about their partner that they don’t like fully understand or they’re assuming, and I was trying to talk with them of like, [00:07:00] we change like sometimes.
Yeah. I mean maybe once you’ve been married, like 50 plus years, you can assume things about your partner that you don’t necessarily have to ask about or whatever, but like.
John-Nelson Pope: I just found out something about my wife in her childhood that I didn’t know about, and she just brought it up and, and that was, y’all been
Victoria Pendergrass: together how long now?
John-Nelson Pope: 43 years. Right. And I’ve known her for 47
Chris Gazdik: years.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So it’s possible if you’re paying attention that you miss things and learn new things, particularly even if you’ve been together for 27 years or, you know, 20 years, whatever. Yeah. Plus or whatever, because people are realizing new things about themselves all the time as well.
It’s not like they’re hiding things, but relevant.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s a great example. Yeah. It’s like it’s atory. I mean, it actually, it’s that. Aha. You may have actually, she may have, or I may have [00:08:00] said something or she said something before, but I didn’t pick up on it. Mm-hmm. And didn’t dig. And and so that. It comes to you and it’s a fresh revelation, a fresh thought, and a perspective.
And I say, oh. And what’s
Chris Gazdik: interesting about that, John, to to, to get at how this works, maybe even you, you’ve seen this where, you know, that happens. It’s a new revelation. Mm-hmm. You just described it as a wonderful moment, but you know when people are struggling mm-hmm. Even during that wonderful moment where you have a vulnerable sharing.
Going on or a new revelation. The other person’s like, well, why didn’t you know this? I told you this before. You didn’t pick up on it. You don’t care about me. Right. And she takes, oh yeah. I turn it. So he takes it or she takes it. You don’t
Victoria Pendergrass: listen to me. You never listen to me. There you
Chris Gazdik: go. You can turn it.
We hear that statement all the time. Right? All the
Victoria Pendergrass: time. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s, and it’s because you’re taking it personally, you’re personalizing something [00:09:00] about yourself even in potentially mm-hmm. A wonderful moment where you’re getting a new share or new information or realizing it for the first time. Mm-hmm.
Even so far along in a, in a relationship, like that’s normal. Mm-hmm. It’s just, it’s just when you’re in a good disposition, you could turn things good. You’re in a good disposition.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: But when you’re in a bad disposition. Man, you could just turn all sorts of things.
John-Nelson Pope: And how do you, how do you do that so it doesn’t get to you, so you don’t fall into that trap where you get enmeshed, right.
And you get conflicted. How do you step back from that? How, what does, what does your text say? We got a whole
Chris Gazdik: segment. And we need to kind of get into like, really what do you do to avoid mm-hmm. This very natural and painful trap that you get into. Very chronic, very natural, very painful trap when you begin to take things personally.
John-Nelson Pope: Because all you’re gonna do is you’re inevitably gonna repeat and do the same thing [00:10:00] over and over again. Same because same what happens, your emotions, your, your your set behaviors start to kick back in. And so you’re not actually, you’re not actually experiencing the moment of this growth moment.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I mean, I’m, I’m sure I’m not gonna be able to hold myself back. I’m gonna have to mention Gottman and EFT and whatnot. Yeah. Oh, of course. You know, but these, these processes go along those lines a lot of times. The abandonment and the engulfment. And we have episode 11, 1 0 1, 2 0 1, 3 0 1, and guess what?
4 0 1 will be the only content that we repeat regularly. Yes. And at rhymes. I didn’t intend that, but Yeah, because it’s such a key, pivotal thing in my work that I, I, you know, so I like to, it’s part of your
Victoria Pendergrass: triangle.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a nasty, nasty cycle that you just highlighted, John. ’cause that’s, that’s where a lot of times these things come from, you know?
Yeah. Taking it personally. You just get into your fear state, your insecurity state, and it becomes about you and you know, but
Victoria Pendergrass: ultimately, yeah. It wasn’t actually about you.
Chris Gazdik: It isn’t. Yeah. Right. So in [00:11:00] episode 2 87, we talked a lot about resentments. That’s the landing space. Like that’s the landing zone when you’re doing this
Victoria Pendergrass: that most people end up in,
Chris Gazdik: you build, you foster, you coddle, you stay stuck.
With resentment states. Mm-hmm. I mean, how can we expound on that and do it justice in five minutes? Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: You can’t go listen to 2, 2 82 87. Honestly. Drop pause here if you need to. Oh, you have good memory. Pause here if you need to, and go to 2 87 and listen to that episode and then come back.
Chris Gazdik: Resentments. But then they have to listen to 2 86, which was a theme evidently because 2 86 led into 2 87. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. Scratch that. Go listen to 2 86 and that’s resiliency. And then come back here. Hi, welcome back. We really do build on content. We
Chris Gazdik: don’t repeat a lot of content, be honest with you. Rarely 300 episodes we’ve done, but we, but we build on p pieces and themes that we’ve talked about before.
Yeah. You know, and I’m trying to do a, a, a better job and our website does a better job by the way of kind of clicking [00:12:00] into those themes. But you know, how to overcome resiliency with Za Grassley. Mm-hmm. I don’t know who participated. John and Neil, I think that was just you, me and Neil. Or you mean? Yeah, I wasn’t
John-Nelson Pope: involved in it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. It wasn’t either Adam Us. That was Adam. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, it was that, that’s right. The, the, the month in Review guy. If you listen to our show regularly, you’ll know Adam Cloninger as the guy and he did join us with that show. Man, his story is amazing. You know, the resiliency that he had to develop
Victoria Pendergrass: right. Is
Chris Gazdik: kind of what it is that we’re talking about.
To kind of answer your, your question, John, what do we do to get out of this to, to, to avoid getting into this, I guess is a better way mm-hmm. Of actually, of actually putting it. Can we go to the theme of, through a therapist size, we understanding your emotions and becoming your best self take away?
Or should we do the marriage book re-understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse? I actually said all those correctly. That’s wonderful about myself. That’s a tough time. How about
Victoria Pendergrass: you, you pick,
Chris Gazdik: so the Golden Circle is a, not even a therapy moment. [00:13:00] That’s actually one of the only like opening chapters of.
You know, content that I kind of wrote out with all of that. And it’s emphasizing really the why behind the actions. It’s, it’s, it’s a, I could have developed a better name for it. I think the golden egg is kind of a weird phrase. I’ve gotten so much feedback about that. But, you know, it’s, it, it’s, it’s really trying to foster empathy fo you know, reduce misinterpretations and, you know, ultimately avoiding the resentment states that we can land in.
So the idea is a golden eggs is the space mm-hmm. Between two people where you’re trying to develop as close to the standard where you can say anything. And I don’t usually like permanent words, absolutes and such, but. Anything means everything that’s in your heart that you want to say or need to say.
And that is a standard that would submit. That’s a safe space. It’s a total safe space. Sacred
John-Nelson Pope: and safe place.
Chris Gazdik: Sacred is not a inappropriate word there, right? [00:14:00] Not from a religious perspective. Mm-hmm Of course. But like that’s really coveted, that’s really desired. That’s really wanted, and I wanna make the point that’s so difficult to get, and even if you get in a zone where you can say it’s a safe space to maintain it over any significant period of time is mm-hmm.
The challenge.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I mean, I think it’s because when we pick a person in life and we stand up in front of, you know, whatever, God, we believe in our friends and family and whoever else. Right. The state of North Carolina or wherever you live
Chris Gazdik: shaking in your boots.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Like. We’re also hoping that this is going to be someone who is that safe space.
Like, I don’t know if I wanna be in a long-term relationship with someone who I don’t feel safe with, who I don’t feel like understands me when I talk or, you know, all those types of things. Like I want to, I want this to feel like a safe space. ’cause I picked this person to like, [00:15:00] hopefully spend my life with
Chris Gazdik: and, and I guess Victoria.
Yeah, absolutely. How, how, I mean, you could think of it personally or professionally. Like how, how do you develop that? How do you get that really going? How do you, how do you create and foster. I mean, it’s, it’s almost too simple to say. It’s a just a safe space. ’cause there’s so much more in that. Oh yeah.
It’s a trusting space. A safe space. It’s a golden space. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: sacred space. It’s a space of depth, A depthy space. Absolutely. Yeah. In other words, there’s a richness in, in to it. There’s yet there’s also simplicity. And yet it’s, it’s like Dr. Who referenced the tardis, right? It doesn’t look really big, but you go in there and it’s infinite.
It’s huge. Infinite space. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And that’s what we are trying to create together. And to your point, Victoria, like right from the get go, isn’t that what people are desiring? Yeah. Isn’t that what is stabilizing? This is why it is a pillar of most all human civilizations, some form of permanent [00:16:00] committed relationship that you engage in, like, you know, to stabilize your.
Life and it’s, it’s serving your partner and your partner serving you. And it’s, it’s just awesome when you see people, it almost emanates from their, from their spirit when, when you’re in that. But the opposite is true when you’re not in that and you’re in something that hurts. Yeah, that emanates just as much.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Hundred percent.
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think that’s one of the, the, the things working with couples that I’ve, I’ve observed is or doing individual marriage counseling, so to speak, like you mentioned, is that the, one of the spouse would say, I’m, I, I, I’m not feeling this intimacy that I, that we, that we had or we hoped that we had that I had in this.
And so I’m so lonely. I don’t have any, it’s like just being a roommate with someone and I could be roommates with anyone. I [00:17:00] want to have that intimacy. Right. Yeah. It’s so,
Chris Gazdik: I love how we say the word intimacy and people immediately go to sex, which has just always tripped me out. Mm-hmm. Like, why do we do that?
Victoria Pendergrass: Because it’s so much more.
Chris Gazdik: It is so much more than, I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, sex is a part of it, don’t get me wrong. I mean, yeah. But it’s not the only part of it,
Chris Gazdik: and it’s actually such a small part of mm-hmm. Yeah. Like really what you just described, the depth that the depth
John-Nelson Pope: goes there. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So much deeper than that.
I’m gonna do a rare thing that I don’t usually do, but I’m actually gonna read, give you an idea of the actual chapter if I may. Yes. Chapter three. Yes, you may. Of course you may. And you’re
John-Nelson Pope: not compelling people to buy your book, but you’re asking them to listen.
Chris Gazdik: I absolutely. Okay. And buying would be okay too.
I said, you said I can do that. Says the Yes you can,
John-Nelson Pope: but you can’t say you have to buy this book.
Chris Gazdik: Here’s, it’s just a good example and it’s a shorter one. And I like the title of like, what happens in this where, you know, these are real therapy moments and it’s a quote, thought I’d [00:18:00] do a do and don’t with each chapter.
And then a short expose on like, what’s the depth of the meaning of that. So what do you think about this title Victoria? A person who says, I’m sorry, is not a sorry person or worthless person. In contrast, they are a cra courageous person. Mm-hmm. Cool. Title, not sorry. Person, they’re actually sorry. So it’s clever.
Do apologize when wrong, don’t defensively avoid responsibility. Alright. Apology and forgiveness cycles happen with great regularity in a long-term relationship. This is what I call an emotional fact. Unfortunately, human beings tend to screw up with regularity. If you’re human, then this applies to you.
Let’s face it, we’re all affected by many emotional challenges inside us, which have been referred to by others as the battle within. Well within these battles, insecurities fits of anger, confusion, pride, and many other difficulties mess up our ability to break free from doing wrong Sometimes the true difference is knowing when you have screwed up, but when you do see something that needs to be corrected, [00:19:00] then take action to do so.
This may be once a day, folks, give yourself permission to make mistakes. Giving yourself permission happens either directly or indirectly, non-verbally. It simply means there is an acknowledgement that mistakes have been made, and we agree to work through them when they happen. If you become humbled in this way, you give your spouse permission to screw up too suddenly.
Life is so much easier to live as a pair without the pressure to get things right all the time. It’s natural to feel like a lesser person shameful or worthless when we mess up. But living a life trying to be perfect is draining. Perfection is impossible. When we fall into this trap, we set ourselves up for trouble.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a hard thing to try to do good, but when we fail, that needs to be okay. Defensiveness, though, normal can debilitate your relationship to move forward or through a hard time. Your spouse will confront you about something. Listen to their complaint or concern, and remember that you have to set up permission in the relationship to mess up.
Hopefully, you’ve made it for each other, not just for yourself. [00:20:00] Depending defending your action inadvertently blames your spouse or your behavior and has a tendency to shut them down. Defensiveness is dangerous because it debilitates growth. When listening to what your spouse has to say and considering their experience, you should immediately encourage more discussion.
Often within the ensuing discussion, you may find they just took something the wrong way and neither of you knew taking things personally, right? Or you may find that more relational and emotional intimacy as you become honest with each other. To your point, John, and offering an apology seems simple, but often we don’t know how to do it correctly or perfectly.
I believe there are many ways to offer an apology, and in any form, I would suggest this is a win. The most important fact of an apology, which I want to highlight to be genuine is in your offering. I wanna refer you to another resource that will help you understand how you find your spouse. Interpret an apology about being legitimate.
Gary Chapman’s, known for the Five Love Languages, also wrote a book, the Five Languages of Apology, how to Experience Healing in Your [00:21:00] Relationships. This book will give you guidance on how you and your spouse Conti communicate an apology saying the words, I am sorry, might be all your spouse needs, but it might also be productive and beneficial to use some other languages because those three words might mean very little to your spouse.
Your spouse might be looking for an action step to make the wrong right in some way. Mr. Chapman give five different ways to communicate. I screwed up and I wanna make it right from, I am sorry at times when I have really screwed up, which again has been often I’ve attempted to communicate my regret with all five apology languages leaving no options unused.
I wanna point out that an apology, if you’re given a cycle, are not necessarily connected, nor do they have to operate in any order. When you are letting go of anger towards your spouse, forgiveness defined, you don’t need to wait for an apology. It’s also true that just because you apologize, your spouse may not be in an emotional place to forgive just yet.
Don’t wait around for your spouse to take action first. Just take the action. You should take and restore trust [00:22:00] and discuss the matter. It takes courage to do this. I know courage is facing something you might be afraid to engage in. Courageous people. Acknowledge their faults and take responsibility for them.
So do courageously apologize often, and don’t let feelings, especially defensiveness get in the way of this process. You know, I guess it’s not as short as I often think I get. No,
John-Nelson Pope: no. It’s wonder. No, I thinkful it was
Victoria Pendergrass: very enlightening.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, exactly. And it gave us a break. I’m joking. You know, one of, one of the things I was, I was thinking of you, you, you spurred a lot of of imagery in my brain.
And I think Oh, and so I was thinking about, the, the readiness and willingness to apologize and and really mean it. Yeah. And genuine, genuine, authentic. And there was this, this movie, there was a book, a novel by Eric Siegel, I think it was called Love Story Back in 1970. And one of the sayings was, [00:23:00] love is Never Having to Say You’re Sorry, boo.
Yes, yes. That’s terrible. Yeah. That was very much a, that was a, and I think Al Gore said that it was based on him ’cause he was at har Harvard or Yale or wherever during that time. But that’s neither here nor there. But that was what his philosophy was. Not, not Al Gore’s, but Eric Siegel’s philosophy.
And, you know, that that doesn’t sustain you. It doesn’t. It sure doesn’t. It doesn’t,
Chris Gazdik: it also doesn’t sustain with a silly little statement. Never go to bed angry. Mm-hmm. I, I always found that to be a little bit unrealistic as well. Like, there’s so much depth in our experiences. Mm-hmm. I, I, I didn’t hope I didn’t interrupt you.
No,
John-Nelson Pope: no, no. You’re, you’re, you’re doing fine on that with me. I was just it, it just seems to me that we, we tend to be very self-centered when it comes to demanding apologies.
Chris Gazdik: That’s the point. Yeah. [00:24:00] That’s how powerful. A point and, and valuable to understand in something as simple as an apology forgiveness cycle that I went in and described.
You, we end up taking it personally, right. We, we and,
John-Nelson Pope: and, and expecting it to be perfect because we’re, we’re work, we’re progress, we’re works in progress. Yeah. So we, we do our best. And so you have that, that yolk, that egg, the golden egg, golden egg, where you can actually develop that, that abundance of forgiveness and good goodwill.
Grace. Grace is also a part of that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Right. Be graceful. And that doesn’t mean, again, we take it personally. Oh my God, that means I need to be graceful and, and fluid with my process. And no, it means you offer an acceptance of the other person. Mm-hmm. Regardless of how messy this is, regardless how much they’re floundering.
And you know, God, like when I’m in that, I can feel the emotions just tight in my chest and just [00:25:00] scrambling my frontal cortex, my executive function to be horrible with it. It gets all tottered and tattered and I mean, I’m trying, but dang man. You know how many times you hear in couples counseling, Victoria, I don’t know what to say.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yesterday.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Earlier today. Yeah. You know, probably tomorrow. Yeah. Like, and that’s the thing is like what, at least what I see in a lot of couples or individuals that I see for like, relationship issues is like, I’m not sure how to communicate it. I’m not sure how to, you know, put into words what I’m feeling.
I’m not, you know, all those types of variations and ’cause a lot of times that’s why they’re sitting on our couches in the first place, right? Or in our chairs and our offices and yeah, like, it’s definitely something that pops up a lot of like, okay, but like, this is kind of what I wanna say, or this is the point I wanna make, but then how do I do that appropriately in the, [00:26:00] you know, in the right way, blah, blah, blah.
Chris Gazdik: So it’s, another chapter is 17, learn a concept called intentional trust. Do understand intentional trust. Don’t win the argument. There’s so many intricate ways that we’re interacting, you know, in a, in such a close relationship that these are the day-to-day applications. How do you take things personally?
You might actually be listening thinking, well, I, I’m good about that. I don’t, I don’t care. I don’t have feelings. I don’t take things personally. Whatever she wants to do. Oh yeah, right. Oh yeah. A bs. You should see John’s facial expression on the YouTube live there, man.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh man. Oh man. Yeah. But people will say that.
People will say that for that too, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think that a lot of times in relationships, people think it has to be a tit for tat like this happened at like. That’s ’cause we take it personally. We’re like, oh, they meant to do this to me, so I need to do, so like, [00:27:00] well, you did this to me, so I’m gonna do it back to you.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh. And I’m gonna have an affair because my spouse had an affair. Oh gosh. And my partner had an affair, and now I’m gonna have an affair. And Oh, the carnage, John. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Carnage that comes from that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s sort of a, it, it, it’s, again, I use the word self-centered. It’s self worship. It’s self, it, it’s not being able to, you can, if you could be secure enough in yourself to be able to say.
I don’t have to make it about me. It’s not always about me. And my feelings, I, my feelings were hurt. I need to be able to, to talk that out and work that out, but I’m not going to take it so personally that I’m gonna let it interfere with my relationship.
Chris Gazdik: And, and to, to, to go back a little bit in time 15 minutes ago, realize what you’re talking about is internal.
Mm-hmm. Resiliency, right? Internal processing. [00:28:00] And, and we so much like to externalize that, and here’s a big word, Victoria, blame. Blame the other. Such a big word. Yeah. Blame the other.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, because most of the time we feel like we have to have someone or something to blame for something.
Like, for something that we, you made
John-Nelson Pope: me feel this way.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I a bore that state, like Right. You a bore it. Yeah. Anyone that’s my
Victoria Pendergrass: client right now probably is rolling their eyes. ’cause I drill into the ground. I statements,
Chris Gazdik: uhhuh, they’re huge. Uhhuh. They’re like, I
Victoria Pendergrass: feel, I feel alone when you don’t answer my calls instead of, you make me feel so alone because you don’t da da.
The whole
Chris Gazdik: message is, is turned on its head. That’s why it’s a classic, you know, counseling 1 0 1. When
John-Nelson Pope: you say, I feel or I think I’m alone, or when you’re not interacting with me, you’re actually inviting them to come in and you say, well, yeah, I mean, you’re also taking
Victoria Pendergrass: ownership of the feelings that you’re having and
John-Nelson Pope: when you Yeah.
And when you say you don’t. [00:29:00] Do you make me feel this way that says you’re pushing them out, you’re pushing them away, right?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You really are. And, and this goes to the heart of where the emotionally focused cycles operate because you are operating in the way of withdrawing, pulling back, shutting down.
Mm-hmm. Creating space or pushing in, pursuing forcing, probably mm-hmm. Is a better way of saying, you know, into another person’s space. ’cause you want to be close. The engulfment people withdraw, the pursuing, people are operating from abandonment. Mm-hmm. Engulfment, if you think of the insecurity engulfed by flames, engulfed by water, I always throw that in because it’s a weirder one.
People know what abandonment is, but when you’re in that space that is quintessentially taking it personally.
John-Nelson Pope: Right,
Chris Gazdik: right. To the core. Mm-hmm. You are triggering my terror for being disrespected or being alone, and I’m interpreting your behavior in all sorts of ways. [00:30:00] When I’m in my abandonment stance or I’m interpreting your behavior as running me over, trying to control me, suffocating me, what to do and suffocating me, it’s.
And it, it almost doesn’t matter what the other person does at that point.
John-Nelson Pope: No. And you know, you, you’re, you’re, I wasn’t trained in Gottman. I, but you have taught me so much. Oh, wow. That’s humbling. Yeah. Well, it’s true. Okay. It’s true. Fair enough. Okay. And we’ve gone together. Yeah, we have, we have. But one of the things that I don’t, I don’t quite understand is is the control issue in the sense of how do you make yourself, because I, I watched a video of Dr.
Mrs. Gottman, what’s her name? Julie, you said that. Yeah. Julie Gottman. Yeah. Yeah. And she talked about that to a certain extent. And that is, how do you do that? How do you make that space available so that you’re, you know, you’re letting your partner know that you’ve been hurt. I. [00:31:00] Or that you have and that, that you want to have a more sense of an openness and communication and, and without control.
Was she asking or teaching or talking about that she was teaching and, and talking about it? I, I’m asking because I’m, I’m kind of wanting, because let’s say you have someone that has a disability and they have due to age, for example, they have a cognitive issue or they can’t do things, and yet they’re reacting very angrily.
And how do you do this? And yet you also want to be able to protect that person. And so you end up doing things, let’s say the the spouse or the partner is missing appointments and, and how do you allow them to, to act and, and, and without controlling them.
Chris Gazdik: So I have a really good and personal example of this.
Mm-hmm. What you’re made my journey go into. Yeah. Yeah. And well, [00:32:00] thank you. It’s, it’s really painful for me because I’m watching my mom currently go through dementia to the point of not able to independently live. Now. My stepdad and mom have been married for quite a long time. Hey Vic. Dude, I’m so proud of him and honored and grateful for what he has done because I have watched him in such a.
Such a painstaking way. Live out what you just described, John. You know, I mean, she’s literally in a dementia state and getting violent and, and, and delusional and not realizing who he is, feeling like he’s a strange man and kind of making him leave the house. And dude, I, I don’t know how he has gotten into a space where he hasn’t taken it personally, and I don’t, I don’t, almost don’t think it’s possible, John, because you’re literally being hit or, you know, criticized and, and, and in a, with somebody who’s got a major medical change.
[00:33:00] But, and
John-Nelson Pope: even if you know that and you
Chris Gazdik: understand it, you still gets to, yeah, it’s impossible almost because you’re human, because you’re. Your emotional system kicks in. It is an automatic process for therapists. Look at polyvagal theory. Mm-hmm. And you’ll, you’ll understand the, the, the endocrine and the, the nerve system.
The, the, the parasympathetic and sympathetic system is a fancy ways of saying, like, your freaking body reacts. Mm-hmm. You, it’s automatic.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think that a lot of times when something happens over and over again. At first, it might be easy for us not to take it personally, you know, oh, they were just having a bad day.
Mm-hmm. You know, maybe this is like an off day for their Alzheimer’s or their dementia or their, you know, whatever else their A DHD is acting, whatever. But then I think, yeah, when we get to the point where then it happens day after day after time, after time, yeah. That wears on your body and you’re gonna eventually, [00:34:00] like, it’s not gonna be as easy to be like, well, you know, maybe it is, like, maybe it is something that I’m doing or not doing.
Or even
Chris Gazdik: if there’s a medical diagnosis involved, including mental health diagnoses. Mm-hmm. But I would say even more so honestly, if there is a mental health or medical diagnosis, because there’s so much more opportunity.
John-Nelson Pope: I have a right. I have a couple. And she has a very serious mental illness. She’s bipolar one, and he is grew up in a very strict Protestant religious background.
Thinks that, and part of their, their stress after 20 some years of marriage is that he’s still kind of in that rigid state of not being able, well, she should be better. She should not have this. Yeah. Right, right. We don’t want to do the, where’s the growth, John? Yeah. Why [00:35:00] do I
Chris Gazdik: have to put up with this longer?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Now
Chris Gazdik: egocentric.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Right. And so he’s having to struggle with that. So he’s been on a, on a growth edge Yeah. As well. And she has on her own way of being able to accept herself because this, she didn’t wanna be this way. It’s not her.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not her choice.
John-Nelson Pope: And so they’re in this marriage where there is, they’re both having to kind of be in a crucible.
So the golden egg is also the crucible where there’s, you need a catalyst. And the catalyst was hospitalization on, on her part being hospitalized and him having to come to terms and saying, this is not the, what, the perfect world that I had en engaged. And I, and I wanted control. He’s having to, renegotiate. He’s having to change,
Victoria Pendergrass: but like renegotiate with himself.
John-Nelson Pope: Right, right, right. Again, about the
Victoria Pendergrass: thoughts that he was having. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Internal. It’s [00:36:00] internal. It’s not, you
John-Nelson Pope: went internal before. It’s exactly right. It’s an internal dialogue, monologue or whatever.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I know it sounds cliche, and I say this, all my clients know, I say it all the time.
I know it sounds cliche, but that’s where like communication really is key. Mm-hmm. Like we have to talk about things and I use my, the like simple example that I use all the time in therapy is like, okay, if I am going to Chick-fil-A for dinner after picking my kid up from school, like yes, usually I know what my husband is gonna want.
He’s probably gonna want a spicy chicken sandwich combo with fries and a Coke or something. But like
Chris Gazdik: Josh, but I’m still
Victoria Pendergrass: gonna probably text him. And be like, Hey, I’m stopping by Chick-fil-A. Do you want your usual or do you want something else? Oh, like, you know, it’s even something small, but like I’m not
John-Nelson Pope: Well, you’re actually showing affection and caring and wanting his input.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah. And so like
John-Nelson Pope: you’re communicating, we really
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:37:00] have like. I know it just sounds so repetitive and it sounds so cliche and so like, but communication I think is really key. Like you have to talk to each other.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I think, and I think honestly Victoria, what I like to do with that, ’cause everyone comes into couples counseling, like saying we don’t communicate well and that’s absolutely true.
But how, how do we on a deeper level, kind of to your point with Julie Gottman’s mm-hmm. Processing there facilitate ourselves to get into a space
Victoria Pendergrass: to have effective communication because
Chris Gazdik: we know how to communicate. Yeah. And we know we need to do that. And again, we want that right from the get go. But we lose that.
I would submit because we’re not internally coping.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Alright. This is where CBT comes in a little bit here. And that is you do you always say, you always do this. This is how it’s gonna turn out. It always will turn out this way. This you won’t change. Or, and the issue, you’ve
Chris Gazdik: never changed yet.
You’ve never changed yet. In black and white thinking,
John-Nelson Pope: black and white [00:38:00] thinking either or, and gotta get away from that. It’s, it’s debilitating. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Listen to this list. I, I just wanna read this list and then, and then get, then let’s slow down and, and look at, like, really answering your question, John, like how do we get out of this process?
How do we avoid it? Pause before reacting
Victoria Pendergrass: AKA, stop and think,
Chris Gazdik: seek clarification. Reframe the feedback
John-Nelson Pope: that you get. Yeah. Do that in a, in a non hostile way. When you seek clarification, build self-awareness.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Again, pay attention. To the internal process that this is develop curiosity rather than defensiveness and critical accusations.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. In other words, have it and maybe even approach it with playfulness.
Chris Gazdik: I love humor. Humor. That’s
Victoria Pendergrass: what I was gonna say. Trust
Chris Gazdik: is something built, not just given.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: Build yourself. Avoid relying on someone else, your spouse to build [00:39:00] yourself. Have other outlets of support with friends and family. I don’t know where I’d be without one.
Why
John-Nelson Pope: don’t you
Victoria Pendergrass: build me up Buttercup, baby.
Chris Gazdik: Alright. Or your, or your own
Victoria Pendergrass: therapy. Your support system can also be therapy. Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: Develop internal resiliency, we said. The Serenity Prayer. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom, and know the difference.
Know the difference from the article in the podcast below that’s in the show notes. Things to avoid. Assume someone is out to get you, you label the other person, or quietly continue your sense of insecurity in isolation.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay? When you assume something, you make an ass of you and me.
Chris Gazdik: I saw it on the Brady Bunch, John.
Yeah. Right. Understand your family culture with possible mean people or events that have built into your own development deal effectively with your own distress or stress, especially with kids. Let feelings come, [00:40:00] let feelings go. They can actually lie to us. That’s just a, a brainstorming list that I went with, right?
Mm-hmm. There’s a lot in there, I think, and so let’s just, let’s slow down and see like. What do you see from that? How do you experience that? I mean, how does that go in answering some of the point, John, of what do we do to avoid this nasty, painful space?
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think part of it is, is one of which is false illusions.
When people get, get together or he’ll change or she’ll change if if I work hard enough and, and then reflect on family culture people don’t take time to think about their family of origin. I think that’s one reason why people should have premarital or preco. You know, partner counseling.
Counseling. Yeah. And not
Chris Gazdik: just three sessions.
John-Nelson Pope: Not just three sessions. Not just three. No. Maybe a year. A year. What it worked. Yes. And it’s not so that you build our portfolio. I mean, I think, [00:41:00] I think that’s one of the most costly things. It’s the people when they, they break up. I mean, that’s, it’s costly economically.
It’s costly. Socially, it’s costly for children. I’m sorry.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, you’re fine. I don’t wanna interrupt you. Keep going.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m done.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh. It makes me think of how I met your mother episode. Where Ted Mosby goes on this date with this girl? With what show? How I Met Your Mother? Oh, that’s his name. So sorry.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, that’s Doo Who was it?
Doogie Hauser was on that. Mm-hmm. The guy that played him. Neil Patrick Harris. Yeah. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: So Ted Mosby, one of the main characters. He goes out on the date with this girl halfway through the date. They realize that they’ve already been on this exact same date with each other in the past, and so then they spend the rest of the date going through it, pointing out why they never went on another date with them.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow. That sounds Dr. Huish, if I can quote the prior Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so like, it just makes [00:42:00] me think of like, so that that way we’re not like, sorry. It just connected into like why we have to like, like they learned things about the other, about themselves to improve their future. Selves, selves and dating experience, like, yeah.
Wow. And so it just kinda made me think of that because like, yeah, I mean, we, but you have to put in the work. I mean, my husband and I, we only did three sessions of premarital counseling and we probably Well, you had like
John-Nelson Pope: three minutes. Yeah. I didn’t I asked my the minister to, to give us premarital counseling and he said, oh, you don’t need it.
And I did need it. Oh, gosh. So I did need it now. He was, we’re still married, obviously. But I think one of the things is that if a person’s, and it’s usually the guy that’s not up for it in, in my experience. Okay. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s changed though, John. Yeah. I, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: That’s really adjusted.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I mean, it had been my experience that.[00:43:00]
You know, that’s a big flag. That’s a red flag to me, is if they’re not
Victoria Pendergrass: open to, they’re
John-Nelson Pope: not open to it. Yeah. Because I would agree. They’re saying it’s my way or the highway. And so they’re not willing to compromise. They don’t want to change their comfort level. That’s fear. It’s fear. Yeah. That’s
Chris Gazdik: why, you know, women are, are just as fearful entering into a therapy experience mm-hmm.
Nowadays. And I think honestly it, it kind of amounts to just the, the, the being seen. Mm-hmm. You know, there’s a chapter in my book too. Another favorite title. You know, it’s easier to see your spouse than to be seen by your spouse. Mm-hmm. Oh, right. Yeah. Say think about it like it’s easier to see the other person.
’cause that’s our. That’s our focus. Mm-hmm. Blame and, you know, criticism. And I’ll tell you what I see, rather than to be seen,
John-Nelson Pope: you could, you can project your, your, your illusions onto the, there was a book that was written back in the seventies and it, and we had to, was assigned to us at, at seminary one of our first [00:44:00] pastoral care classes.
And I read it wrong for years. And because I only saw it on a syllabus, we never, we never talked about the title. Okay. And it was called. I called. I thought it was the Miracles of Marriage. The Miracles of marriage. And you said this before. Yeah. It was the Mirage’s, the Mirage, mage of Marriage, not
Chris Gazdik: The Miracles.
I remember that. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: That was way back when we were first started. That’s not a projection, is it? Yeah. That, yeah, I always, I always wanted to be so in love, you know? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think that a lot of times people are apprehensive about going to therapy or having the building self-awareness things, because sometimes it means that they’re gonna get caught out on their shit.
Chris Gazdik: Right. And like
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s the fear and yeah, I mean, again,
Chris Gazdik: to be seen, right? This is why it’s so much easier to externalize what’s going on. You know? How many times do you see in couples counseling, you know, the person comes in and you can just see [00:45:00] it written over their face and sometimes they’ll literally say it.
Like, especially if you’re in individual counseling with somebody and they come with somebody like, oh yeah, I just wanna get him in here. I just wanna get her in here so that, you know, she can get her stuff dealt with and then we’ll be okay. My ex cohost Craig said, and he went to the counseling experience.
That’s literally what he said. Like, we’re gonna get in there, the therapist is gonna show her what’s going on, then she’s gonna get, you know, kind of found out what all this crap I’ve been dealing with. And boy, he went to that therapy session and he went with a therapist that I know Jeff Shook. He talked about this on air.
John-Nelson Pope: He all shook up.
Chris Gazdik: He got all shook up, John, because John, Jeff was like, yo, bro. Like, he walked out the thinking, wow, I’ve got so many things that I’ve contributed here. We don’t even think. Think about that. Mm-hmm.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I, per sharing personally, like I, I think I’ve mentioned that I’m in my own therapy and one of the reasons that I really like my therapist is because even though it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes, but like, she’s not afraid [00:46:00] to put me in my place.
Like I’ll bring point outside that initially, like, but Victoria, you know, yeah, she’s, she’s like, da, da da. And I’m like, because. Like, that’s part I need that. I don’t need someone to be like, yeah, you’re right, he’s wrong. Well, you’re
John-Nelson Pope: in. Yeah. But you’re both sharing that sacred space. You’re right. That golden circle.
So you also have a special intimacy Yeah. There
Chris Gazdik: in the session.
John-Nelson Pope: In the session. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s a great point. Go a little further with that. What is that sacred space to develop? Because us therapists spend so much time cultivating that and trying to work with that, and there’s a natural process that develops.
It’s, that makes it unlike any other relationship you can have.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Because then you could, you can say something to your therapist and you’re not gonna be rejected. You’re going to be able to say without judgment or in a sense of, of guilt, or you’re willing to risk having the therapist say and gently confront you.
And again, the word gently [00:47:00] is, is important. I think. Underline that word, underline,
Chris Gazdik: unless you’re working with Victoria. And then we gotta, Victoria. Yeah. Just kidding. Victoria. But that I pretty much wrote a couple by the day
John-Nelson Pope: shut off. That’s just that anything that you say there, it’s not gonna go anywhere.
It’s gonna stay there. Right. And what I think in my own experience with therapy is that I’ve actually been able to enrich my own intimate moments with my wife. With that same type of, of, of, of, of confidentiality intimacy. The, the openness to be able to be willing to try a new way of doing something that I couldn’t do before.
Chris Gazdik: Exactly.
Victoria Pendergrass: Not being stuck in your ways
Chris Gazdik: because listen to some of these other Or sucked in your ways Yeah. Or that, yeah. Because some of these other things, like you talk about communication and Victoria, I added like, what do you facilitate in yourself so that you can use the I statements and do active listening?
Right. Is another staple therapy 1 0 1 active listening, you know? Mm-hmm. Like the apology forgiveness cycle [00:48:00] that my whole chapter is that I read and, and the patterns that we get into in EFT, like self-esteem. Yeah. Your own history, your own experiences. Unresolved trauma, held regret, unforgiveness states, these are all like internal things that you are bringing to the table that create this distance.
Unforgiveness
John-Nelson Pope: is one of the, and, and you know, that’s where I harp on a little bit and harp on. That’s not
Chris Gazdik: jump on work with Jump on. Yeah. Work with,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah. Is is that unforgiveness because of but where I, where I feel that there’s progress is when one, one of the pre people in the couples, couples counseling is, yeah.
Un I haven’t forgiven, I. I don’t know if I wanna forgive. Would you
Chris Gazdik: say interestingly, John,
John-Nelson Pope: but that’s the beginning of forgiveness.
Chris Gazdik: It it, it absolutely is. And so here’s a new thought that I’ve had just listening to you there, Uhhuh. Can we make the statement that’s a bold statement that says, in a hundred percent of [00:49:00] marriages there, super healthy marriages, there are elements of unforgiveness in them.
Yeah. Is that a, is that a true statement?
John-Nelson Pope: I think it’s a very true state
Victoria Pendergrass: elements of unforgiveness. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Because people think of even that in absolutes, Uhhuh, like, you’re not gonna apologize for something one and done and just be dumb. Uhhuh you, you, you, you process, it’s, it’s a
John-Nelson Pope: pro routine. It’s a pulling peeling the onion, the elements a little bit, elements of it.
And there’s something sometimes my wife will bring up something from, from 30 years ago and then, oh, I don’t do that. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do too. Mm-hmm. And, and so we have to go through that process again and say, did we really forgive at that point? Yeah. But there was another element and there was another wound that we had to look at and explore and ask for forgiveness for.
Because if you’re with somebody for 40 years, like I’ve been, you know, there’s, we’ve had plenty wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time, three wonderful children, [00:50:00] grandchildren, all the, you know, all that. But at the same time, we’ve heard each other and there’s been other opportunities. And so you have to reexamine it and go, go back, not rehashing the same old, same old, but to find a different aspect of, of forgiveness that you can grow on.
And
Chris Gazdik: usually you’re going to be able to do that if you stay inside your own self. Yes. Keep, it’s been a bit of repetitive. A very No, no, you need to repeat that. I think you need to repeat it. Needs to repeat it. Yeah. Right. Because ’cause it’s so natural to not do that. It’s so natural to like look at, you know, my spouse over there and say like, my gosh, if you would just freaking do the basics, we’ll be better.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s just so blatant. Isn’t
John-Nelson Pope: it interesting. And I’m, I’m making a cultural comment. Okay. Okay. And is that we worship celebrity so much for sure. And a lot of times they’re actors and actresses and mm-hmm. Part of the problem, and I [00:51:00] love actors and actresses. I used to do theater and all of that, but there’s a sense sometimes they don’t know who they are.
That’s why they’re so good at what they’re doing. And sometimes, and so there’s a, they they become or they’re
Chris Gazdik: unsure about what, who they’re, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But we look at them as role models. Right, right. And. Maybe we ought to look at some people that aren’t so glamorous, but have very stable relationships.
Mm-hmm. And yeah, there was, you’re glamorous, but
Victoria Pendergrass: there’s a lot of like celebrities out there that are married to like average Joe, people that aren’t in the spotlight. Yeah. Like I
John-Nelson Pope: But you don’t hear about them. Yep.
Victoria Pendergrass: Huh.
John-Nelson Pope: You don’t hear about them as much. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Because they’re more like, because they’re keeping to themselves.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, Tom Hanks for example. Yeah. Yeah. And
Chris Gazdik: Rita Wilson, I think of like Dolly Parton and her husband at the same time though, there, there, there is inherent danger in it. I, I know you guys aren’t talking about this, but, but we live in [00:52:00] such, at least in the States, and I think that around the world that’s pretty common culturally where, where we compare ourselves to others and diminish ourselves in that, at leaving us feeling Yes, inadequate, not enough faulty failing.
Struggling because we don’t have that, that we’re, we’re looking towards even with a healthy model. Right? Right. So I think there’s, there’s a balance with that for sure. That you gotta be careful, but you still need models.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, you can do that even in, in very successful churches that have religious couples and where the pastor and the, and the wife or spouse usually is fe it’s the spouse.
And so that you wanna model yourself after them, but they have also issues.
Chris Gazdik: That’s the thing. John, I, I think it’s so hard to, ’cause you said that, and I’m thinking, dude, I know pastors have horrible relationships a lot of times.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: You know, therapists, we have horrible relationships. A lot of, please don’t put [00:53:00] me on a pedestal.
Mm-hmm. Don’t do that. Don’t do that because you don’t know the space that any other person is in. Yeah. Yeah. You, you really don’t know the struggles. And you, and, and I’m telling you, we all, that’s why I said earlier, I was listening to you, I was like, can we say a hundred percent of the time, there are elements of unforgiveness in a, in a relationship?
And you could say
John-Nelson Pope: that a hundred percent of the time, and yet you could also have a good marriage.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right, right. A successful, long lasting marriage. Yeah. Excellent.
John-Nelson Pope: Long lasting marriage. Right. Because it’s always a process. It’s always a yeah. You, you, you are working on a journey together. And that you all might even have different viewpoints of what that goal is, but you’re on that journey together, and it’s not as long as you both shall love it it’s as long as you both shall live.
And
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’s an interesting paradigm. Mm-hmm. And
John-Nelson Pope: the hopefulness, it’s that you live, that the love will continue to [00:54:00] grow as long as you both shall live. Mm. But if you, if you just say, there are times when I, I love my wife Joy, and I love her with all my heart and all my soul, but there’s sometimes where you don’t like her.
Yeah. When she doesn’t find me to be a very loving person.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm.
John-Nelson Pope: And and she’s not going anywhere. Right. And so. But there’s a grace. There’s a grace. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: There’s a grace that’s offered. Yeah. And you know, honestly, to stay with that theme, you know, when we say grace, I, you know, we also are, are referring to giving yourself the grace.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Mm-hmm. It isn’t, it isn’t just something that you offer somebody else, it’s just all of the imperfections, all of the patterns. Mm-hmm. All of the things that you, you realize you have to, to, to, to, it’s
John-Nelson Pope: what Yeah. And we kind of think, well, there’s a transaction, it’s gotta be a transaction. Grace isn’t like that.
Grace is unconditional.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: You know, it’s part of
Chris Gazdik: that golden egg.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s hard to, to build it.
John-Nelson Pope: And you can have [00:55:00] that in the therapeutic hour.
Chris Gazdik: Right. And a point needs to be made probably to a certain extent. This is really any close relationship to mm-hmm. That’s one of the things that I, I love about the EFT stuff, because you’re talking about a marriage, but you’re also talking about a.
In-law relationship? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, all the, or a family brother, sister. I have the best mother-in-law in the world. Yeah. I have the best
Victoria Pendergrass: mother. I have the best in-laws uhhuh. And if I’m being biased, my husband has the best in-laws as well.
Chris Gazdik: It it’s a whole unit. Yeah. And, and, and, and all of that feeds into like how you’re operating mm-hmm.
And how you’re building something together. Mm-hmm. And you’re teaching your kids, you know, as well. But that’s a, it, it’s so much more internal in, in how you’re in, how you’re operating. Mm-hmm. It’s been an energized conversation. Yeah. Have you noticed that? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Can I give you a fun fact?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay.
What is the number one thing that leads to divorces? Oh, yes. A hundred percent of couples. [00:56:00] Experience this.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, the, the big standards are parenting and finances and, you know, you battle over, you know, different factors and whatever. But she’s laughing, so I think she’s going in a different direction.
What is, this is a joke.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s marriage. It’s a hundred percent of people that were married. Hmm. And in divorce?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or divorced people. A hundred percent of people that got divorced. Married. I got it. It’s like
John-Nelson Pope: death and tax, but you know, that’s Well and people that live together, they, it’s very different being married.
Yeah. Than living. Than, than if you’re living together and not married. Yeah. Because there’s, there’s always that idea of backing, you know, there’s a backing. Okay. You’re gonna have
Chris Gazdik: to convince people of that. I, I, I totally agree with you, Uhhuh, but go a little further with that, because I have seen where people are in a common law relationship, cohabitating for double digit years, get married and it’s.
All different. Yeah. So say, say more about that. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: the thing is, is that there’s something about, about stating in, like you said, stating in [00:57:00] front of the your God or your church or your or. Yeah. And your friends and family or the Elvis impersonator that, that it really, even in that circumstances, because you have witnesses, there’s something about it and it changes.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I think it’s accountability.
John-Nelson Pope: Mm-hmm.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like there are, it’s the ritual. Well, yeah, there’s the
Chris Gazdik: ritual locks in the reality.
John-Nelson Pope: The ritual is so important.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I do think the accountability piece is there because when you do it and front of your friends and family, those people that are involved in your life day to day, there is that added, well, like we did stand up in front of these people and agree to like.
You know, stick it out and do it. Yeah. Versus like if you’re just living together or like in a quote unquote common law type of marriage that like there isn’t that. Mm-hmm. So that you’re, other people aren’t necessarily because you don’t have that marriage certificate. People in your life are not usually not holding you to that standard of like, well you did stand in front of everybody and commit yourselves to each other.
Yeah. [00:58:00] It’s like a nonverbal commitment that you’ve made just by living together, but you haven’t necessarily. Signed a piece of paper and, you know, whatever. Let’s face
Chris Gazdik: it, that’s honestly due to your internal experience of fear. Mm-hmm. Again, it comes internal
John-Nelson Pope: uhhuh. You know, the, the, my experience has been the most fearful people in a marriage or a relationship partnership has been a person who says, well, she has to, I’m the man of the house and she has to do what I want her to do, and I can do what I want.
And and so that is, that is, again, controlling. That is a.
Victoria Pendergrass: Red flag.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, it’s a huge red flag. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It, it’s just, there’s, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of danger zones that we, I think we get into unforgiving. I mean, you know, we’re developing, you know, an understanding of all of the, the bad.
This is why it’s such a challenging type of a relationship. [00:59:00] Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, because it goes so depthy in so many different directions. We need to taxi in a little bit. Yep. Man, like I said, you know, I feel like an energized conversation because there’s so much kind of going on. That’s why I love marriage counseling, by the way.
Yeah. I just, it’s never, I mean, have you ever had a boring. You know, marriage counseling session.
John-Nelson Pope: I thought I was gonna get hit a couple of times.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Oh, not that there’s individual counseling. That’s boring, by the way. But I don’t
Victoria Pendergrass: know about you, Chris, but I know, I’m pretty sure John has, we’ve both had people walk out
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: of course.
In the middle of a therapy session. Absolutely. Yeah. I did have one that walked out, but then came back.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, I’ve had, I’ve had that too. I had one. Well see, that was, that was in, in that case, it was more the, the female that was having. The, the walking out as opposed to the male. I don’t know if
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ve ever had a female walk out.
Yeah. Well, my case, that’s a lie. I did have a same sex couple and they, one walk, walk I’ve come to where I try to
Chris Gazdik: deescalate things, you know, much more than I used to. Yeah. [01:00:00] You know, knowing and anticipating, like when the temperatures start riding, a deescalation went up. But I’ll never forget Victoria, early on in my career, I know I’ve told you about this before, I think, you know, where the dude just wanted to do therapy.
He wanted to get in there and he got his wife in there and he started doing something. She 15 minutes in, you know, and she just bolted. She was out there, he was like, this was really great. This was good, man. I’m, I’m really glad we’re here. Do you, do you think, you know, maybe next time you’ll be able to get her to stay in the room?
Is that what he said? It was just like, man,
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re like slapped to the face. Whoa. Wake up call there. It was
Chris Gazdik: one of those moments where I was speechless and y’all know that, that happen very often. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. What do we do in wrapping up, closing thoughts, comments? I mean, I think we have a good list that we developed and talked about it with for sure.
Internal characteristics, you know, in, in that process of facilitating. And so the show notes will
Victoria Pendergrass: be available so we other people can get this for sure. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: for sure. I’m gonna [01:01:00] wrap it up.
Victoria Pendergrass: You wanna go first?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Alright. We got the, we got the, the shrink wrap up where each panelist tries to summarize and engage a theme or a concept or, you know, a description on, you know, the show and, you know, kind of your takeaway moments.
John is first in our little friendly competition that Neil judges,
John-Nelson Pope: my, my concept of of Chris’s Golden Egg is a sacred space. And that’s that, and that’s not necessarily a religious or even a spiritual space per se, but it’s a place where there’s striving for honesty, transparency, authenticity, and that we’re two people, or three people in, in counseling for example, can absolutely know that there’s no judgment.
I. I
Chris Gazdik: love that. Can I go second?
Victoria Pendergrass: Fine.
Chris Gazdik: No. Okay. Go Victoria.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, I mean, I really dunno what I’m gonna say yet. So, yes, you can literally get giving you
Chris Gazdik: extra minutes. I, I’m gonna do the shrink wrap up by [01:02:00] saying, look, my hope is that what comes out of this conversation is hope. Hope is my theme. Hope is my idea.
Because the pain that people get into when you’re losing the primary relationship in your life is the greatest pain I think people get into in so many ways. But this is a hopeful conversation because the ability to influence the internal process of yourself and engaging in more healthy and productive and self resilient ways enables you to have what we all want, which is a stable functioning relationship that, that supports you and each other in that, that’s, that’s hopeful.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. I just wanna point out that y’all are going way longer than a couple sentences, but that’s okay. I was kind, evolved. I kind of wanna pick piggyback off of something that John said earlier, and that is that it is totally doable, impossible to have a, have a long term successful, happy marriage, but you don’t [01:03:00] have to be perfect in order to do that.
So focusing on like doing the self-awareness, doing your part to make sure that we’re not taking things too personally when in a marriage or in a longstanding relationship. And Yeah. And that there’s hope within that too. That like it can be done. You just have to be willing to put in the work to do it.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s more than a couple of sentences and I felt both were very good.
Neil Robinson: Thank you.
John-Nelson Pope: Very good. I
Neil Robinson: think
John-Nelson Pope: so. Yeah. She did it. She did it
Neil Robinson: really. All right. Hands down. It is Victoria. I honestly, because I was looking at it, listening to John’s, John Golden Egg, blah, blah, blah. Chris got closer because of this topic.
I mean, this is about you taking, you know, you taking things personal and I think Victoria hitting the head, it’s really about your control through whole situation. So honestly, Victoria, I think yours encompassed the, the show the best personally. John’s great. Chris great. But Victoria just hit on the head.
I think that you have to have, see, I set her up [01:04:00] for greatness. Thank you. You did.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, you really did. I don’t know if you, you saw on the YouTube live? I was pointing to Victoria. ’cause I was like, yeah, that’s, that’s the bomb. You banged it. That’s for, that’s for, can do it. Sure. I mean, it’s, it’s it’s a wonderful topic guys.
I hope that you’ve gotten some hope. Yeah, I enjoyed this one. I hope you’ve gotten some, some character inside development and avoiding, as Victoria said, using the title. You know, don’t take things personally, it gets to a bad, bad spot, usually about resentment. So stay well, be well. We will see you all next week.
Bye.