#263 My Spouse Doesn't Respect Me, I Crave Intimacy & Feel LONELY in My Marriage

Rachel Denning (00:10.286)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the...

in your mouth. Clear out your mouth. I'm eating my chocolate and enjoying it. Stop eating your chocolate while we're podcasting. You gotta stop with this. This is a bad habit. You eating chocolate while you're trying to speak. It's a fantastic habit. I love it. I have neuro -associative conditioning. Bad habit. You can move that, move your chair in, move it around so you get cozy and comfortable. Here, okay. Ready?

Now I have your approval. I drink some of your tea. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. Today. Recording in Lagos, Portugal. In our studio. In our home recording studio at the World School Family Resort. And life is good.

Okay, we gotta share, we gotta share this cool thing. We got a bunch of farm animals recently and it's just been so fun. I love having animals. And of course our little kids love having animals. And our big kids love having animals. And then one of our hens started setting and she had some baby chicks yesterday and they're so adorable. It's so fun. So, and it's been...

I've just been contemplating the miracle of life, man. It's just so amazing. And that like our, our berry plants produce berries and trees produce fruit and I don't know. I've just, I've just been geeking out on this, the miracle of life and food and awesome things. And life is so good and working out, getting up early and exercising with my kids in our gym. And then.

Rachel Denning (02:12.814)
Working in the sunshine. There are simple things that I think too few of us too infrequently, we just, we don't enjoy it enough. We don't pause to just really be at peace and enjoy the little things we get. We get so busy and so worried and caught up in all the stuff and things and we miss out on simple. Simple pleasures. Pleasures that.

grounding and they fill you with gratitude and then you just feel good and why not feel good if if your options are to feel like crap or to feel good why would you choose to feel like crap I never got that but some people just perpetually keep doing things that make them feel like crap I don't know how to feel good great gosh you don't know what it's like to love my life and and I guess you know maybe I learned this habit when when things were hardest when I was out on my own

No family, no friends, sometimes no place to stay, definitely not enough food. I still, cause it would either be just miserable suffering or I had to find things to be grateful for. And so I found things to be grateful for. Well, you had plenty of miserable suffering. It's not like you were all happy. no, yeah. Gratitude didn't remove the suffering, but man, it sure helped to still practice gratitude. And it was a mental, it was a mental habit I developed and cultivated.

Mm -hmm to stay Grounded this simple thing. So I I'm an excitable guy. I get all fired up and happy about little things like We have this little cactus plant that has a awesome flower on it. I'm like that is so rad So anyways slow down enough to enjoy the little things Today and our roses smell amazing you're saying I I stop frequently to smell our roses because they're incredible

Today we're going to continue from last time. There was, we were trying to do two questions in one. There's no way that was going to happen because there's just so much good stuff to talk about. So many tools and tactics and tips to live an extraordinary life. But now we're going to the second question, which another kind of continuation about marriage. Well, it's, we viewed them as being connected.

Rachel Denning (04:38.574)
Although here we are doing separate podcasts about them, that's fine. But ultimately the idea behind them is improving the vague generic answer of course is improving your marriage to make it better. But the real answer is like feeling more intimate, feeling more connected. Being able to tell your, like last time, being able to tell your spouse something like, hey, when you look at me like that or say something like that, it, it.

It hurts me, it makes me feel a certain way. And is that okay? Or do I need to change? Or is it okay if I share that? The whole dynamics involved in these relationships, which ultimately, like, that's what makes or breaks a marriage, you know? I mean, there's all kinds of statistics about what couples fight over and what they get divorced about. But really, I think when it comes down to it, it's simply just a matter of inability to communicate.

And I think that that's caused generally by a misunderstanding of the differences between men and women. A lot of people, not all people admit that there are differences between men and women, but there are. And the people that do admit there are differences still, as we talked about in the last episode, still don't behave as though there are differences. So when you and I get in a disagreement, if we forget to remember that...

we're different and so if I'm not seeing it the way you're seeing it or vice versa, that's because of our underlying differences as men and women, then we tend to have this conversation that's a lot more confusing. Some of the words used was going around in circles. You're not even sure what you're talking about, what you're arguing about. We have to figure out the nuances of those. It is, it's so frustrating. And an outside observer would be like, hey guys, men and women are different. And you're like,

Yeah, duh. Thank you Captain Obvious. Why'd you interrupt our argument? And then we get back into the argument, not realizing that how relevant the differences are when we're discussing ideas, principles. Discussing things we disagree on, especially. Right. When we're trying to wrap around something we forget, like, wait a minute. And I guess to emphasize or maybe add clarity, what we're talking about in this particular instance when there's the difference between men and women is the difference on how their brains operate.

Rachel Denning (07:04.878)
how we think about things. The difference in what's important to them. Like, you know, one of the things we'll talk about today is how important respect is for a man. For a man to be respected, that's more important than being loved. And if we don't understand that, plus we don't understand what it is that makes our spouse, our man, feel respected, then...

we can cause all sorts of problems inadvertently where he feels disrespected, which makes him distance himself, which then makes us as a wife feel unloved, uncherished, which is the most important thing for us to be cherished. Massive, massive importance there to that proximity. Yeah, and then there's this gap in our intimacy. And so it's this cycle that's destructive to the marriage as a whole, but we can.

be causing our own problems. And with the couples that you work with to help them, I mean, essentially that's what you do. You're helping them to identify, hey, look, you're actually doing the things that are causing the results that you don't want. So you have to learn how to put a stop to that cycle so that you can do the things that get the results you do want. Okay, so I'm gonna just go ahead and read from the question. We'll dive right in. It's a long question.

We'll try to not make it too long today, but you know how we are. So no promises. Okay. I read the book, the untethered soul. And I understood that the main idea is letting go of our thoughts and just feeling the emotions and letting it be. This is a book that we've recommended. It's on our recommended reading list, my list and your list. Probably. realize I'll stop right there. I want to expound a little bit. It's not just like, okay, the feeling comes in. So I'm just going to sit with it and let it be.

What it is is like you're, you're recognizing it and then, then evaluating, like, do I want to keep this? Is this serving me? Is this helpful? And then you can let it go. We often will try to ignore them and push on the rug. We'll stuff our emotions. And I would say a great many people are walking around with stuffed emotions. They're just stuffed full stacked emotions or they just have it all bottled up. They keep ignoring it and then it explodes like a volcano and implodes one of, or implodes. And so you have these super reactive people.

Rachel Denning (09:26.126)
And so one of the practices is like, okay, well, what am I feeling here? Just acknowledge it, be aware of it. Like, what am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? Which we talked about in the last episode. Right. And so then if it's not serving you, you just, you process it and you move it along. Right. And so she continues saying, realizing some kind of detachment to them in a way. Yes, but.

But I think in some ways, if we simply detach ourselves from our emotions, we're also not processing them, which is what we like to call it. Because it's another way of almost ignoring your emotions, I think, if you just simply detach from them. Now there is an approach of detaching from your emotions, which can be very helpful. But I think with intense emotions, traumatic emotions,

really passionate strong emotions simply detaching is not sufficient enough. I think there's value in processing those emotions and figuring out where are they coming from? Why are they coming up? Which we did talk about a lot in the last episode, so that's important to go listen to that. Excuse me. I found it really difficult to do that. I've realized that I'm stuck in some thoughts in my head.

Regarding my husband. I have arguments in my mind with him. I've tried to not Who's done that? Can you guys relate to that? arguments in your head? Okay, hold on. I gotta play that cuz sometimes well if we don't control and manage our thinking well We can start an argument like I could I could start an argument in my head with you That didn't even actually happen. It's not real and I'm imagining it. I'm playing this out. I

And by the time you come home, I'm all fired up and upset and like worked up. I literally get myself all worked up when you walk in like, yeah. And like, what is, what is like, what's going on? What did I do? And it was all the imaginary. Exactly. And I just got myself all fired up because, well she always says this and always says that. man, it's so irritating. And then you walk through the door feeling great and lovey and like, Hey, let's, let's go do something like, yeah, but you still whatever. Right. And so we've got to.

Rachel Denning (11:48.014)
manage our thinking and our emotions better. Right, and I think that totally happens. I know it's happened to us. So we have to be aware that we're not doing that. It also makes me think of like, I've had dreams, we're in the dream, I got upset at you about something or you did something and woke up feeling that way. Fired up. And so it's kind of a similar thing, I think, that we have to be careful that we're not creating something out of nothing. Now that also doesn't mean, yeah, stuff have happened, because she says here, I think because they're...

no, I tried to, I've tried to not engage in my thoughts and let them go, but haven't succeeded. I think because they're not assumptions or things she's making up, but they're based on previous experiences. And this is also a very important principle we have to learn, which is hard to do, especially with our spouses, because we live with our spouses. We see them all the time and we tend to view them in the same light. But Greg and I realized this analogy once that has worked a lot.

worked really well for us. And Greg has this family cabin that we've gone to sometimes and that you used to go through as a child. And when we, I remember showing up at the cabin and we had been to the cabin years before when we were newly married. And then I think we'd been out traveling the world and had done a whole bunch of things. And I remember that I had changed a lot. Like I'd grown so much. And then we came back and we came back to this cabin and we came back to the river.

And I remember looking at the river and thinking, it's the same river, but it's not because the river is constantly flowing and has changed. It looks exactly the same as when I was a kid. I'm like, 40 years ago I was here. It looked exactly the same. And so it's easy to walk home and be like, this is the exact same river. The same river. But the reality is it's not the same because it's constantly changing. The water there is not the same water that has been there from 40 years ago. And it's the same with people.

We can look at people and we can think, and I remember thinking that of our, obviously relating it to ourselves, like, you know, your family or my family, they look at us and they're like, well, you're the same people. Like, I've known you since you were a child. But the reality is... We know who you are and what you believe and what you say and what you do, and you're the same. But the truth is, nobody can be exactly the same. We're constantly, just like a river, changing. We're having different thoughts, different experiences.

Rachel Denning (14:12.622)
For some people that's massive, they're experiencing lots of growth and lots of change, but even in people who we think are not changing, it's really not possible. Like you're always changing in small ways. And so we have to remember that when we look at people or when we think about them, especially our spouses, that they're not the same people. They're a river that's changing. So we look at them and think they're the same. Hopefully your spouse is not a stagnant pool. Yeah. A puddle. The dead sea. The stagnant puddle that's not going anywhere. Right.

And sometimes people do get like that, legitimately, they don't move much. But let's try to give people the benefit of the doubt and not hold on to old things. If it happened in the past, like learn to process it, let it go, unless it keeps happening, if it is chronic and it's repeating, then it needs to be addressed. Right. And so the other side of this here is, cause she's saying she's having these arguments in her head.

My question is, is this because of recent events, recent things that are happening, or is it stuff that's just seriously been unprocessed, it hasn't been dealt with, and so it continues to resurface? And I found that that's true. As long as there's something that I haven't dealt with, or we haven't dealt with together, yes, it continues to resurface. And it will literally get stuck in my head. It will get stuck in my emotions.

And until I process it and deal with it, or we come to some sort of resolution about it, it doesn't go away. So I could, I could not physically be doing the thing anymore, whether it was like putting the toilet seat down or taking out the garbage or whatever it is. Right. So I stopped doing that. Abusing me. But if, yeah, maybe I said something. I said something maybe in the mirror. There are a few times I said, I'm just making up this stuff. Hypothetically, you guys, I don't talk to Rachel like this.

But hypothetically, if I had said something and said it again and said it over a couple of times, but then I realized, you know, I'm stopped, I'm done with that. But like you're pointing out so well, if it never got processed, if it never got taken care of, I may not say it anymore, but you keep replaying it. Yeah, because it doesn't go away until it has been addressed and dealt with. And that's what we're referring to when we talk about stacked emotions and unprocessed emotions. You have to address and deal with these things.

Rachel Denning (16:41.486)
or they do just stay, they stay stuck, they stay within you. Okay. And I'll just throw this in here because I see it all the time that stuck emotions often lead to being overweight and being obese. There's a connection to putting on extra weight and stuck emotions. Yeah, and they also are connected to.

disease in general. In fact, people use the phrase dis -ease because your body and your emotions are not at peace in that. I mean, if we want to get kind of metaphysical here, that trapped energy, those trapped emotions can contribute to disease and even aches and pains and all sorts of issues. So I mean, it's a real thing. Okay. So she continues here. I don't talk to anybody about this, but I hope by sharing it, you can help me let it go.

I have small children, I'm trying to homeschool while needing to do everything else in the home. My husband works full time and doesn't help much in the home. This would be fine but because I struggle and he's not happy with me, he says he feels I disrespect him because I don't keep the house tidy when in reality it's because it's hard for me. I want to be more capable of doing everything in the home and I've been trying so hard yet it's not enough.

The thing is, the mess is a daily thing, so it's become a source of stress and anxiety now for me, and I don't want to live like this. It's affecting how I am with the kids too. I've become more cold and resentful towards my husband because he doesn't want to be more intimate because he doesn't feel respected. And I can't get this out of my mind, and it affects me because I crave intimacy. This is the hardest part. I feel so lonely.

even though I'm married. I realize it's not helpful. I know he's stressed from work. I just feel that nothing I do is good enough for him. He blames me for things. He's also a very anxious person. When he gets angry, he brings up stuff from 10 years ago. I don't speak much or bring things up because I don't want to say the wrong thing. I just feel stuck. I feel like I don't know how to let the thoughts flow, but I really want to because it's all I can think about.

Rachel Denning (19:05.038)
I realize I'm not enjoying life, but because the lack of intimacy is so difficult, I find it hard to let it go. I've never said this to anyone, but I really just want to change and live without being stuck and being able to live more at peace and happy because it affects how I behave towards my kids. Also, being stuck in these emotions, these thoughts won't make my situation any better. It's only making it worse. Wow. Yeah. sorry. It's been...

It's been something I've struggled with for years and I've had enough I know now that there is a way out and I'm reaching out for help Wow Wow Wow Wow Thank you for sharing that Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for Because it says a couple times like I haven't shared this or I don't sure there's people thank you for sharing it with us and And reaching out for help. That's that's the right thing to share it to get it out in the open and share it with somebody who hopefully can help you with some

possible solutions. So thank you. And ha, my heart just, just hurts. Like that's, it makes me so sad when couples who could be so close and so in love are so distant because they just haven't figured out how to understand each other and work with each other. Which I think ultimately is something very important to understand. And

Again, coming back to the couples you've worked with.

That's really what it's about. It's not necessarily that there's a defect with you or with your spouse or there's something like you made the wrong choice or it's a bad marriage. Yes, that happens sometimes, but for the majority of the cases, it's simply a lack of tools, a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding. And once you give people the tools and they're like, my gosh, our marriage is, this is what people literally say to you, our marriage is the best it's ever been.

Rachel Denning (21:06.126)
because you've given them the tools to be able to resolve these sorts of issues. And then they don't have to be married and lonely. They can have that intimacy they crave. They can feel happy and joyful. So it's totally possible. And I think that's also great. She's saying, okay, I know it's possible. And so I'm reaching out like how, how do we do this? The other thing I want to say too is,

I totally relate to this. I feel that this is, at least from a woman's perspective, this is a very normal thing to have these sorts of emotions, to feel stuck, to feel almost obsessed about it. I know if there's anything off in our relationship ever, I absolutely obsess about it. Like I cannot think of anything else or do anything else. I can't interact with the children as well. I can't focus on my business. I can't focus on any other projects. For me,

Fixing that rift in our relationship becomes the most important thing. Now we're able to do that because we've gained the skills, but I know for those of you who don't, I understand how it can be completely all consuming and like obsessive and using the word stuck makes total sense to me that you do, you get stuck essentially in those emotions and it's difficult to move forward.

And so it is important to address this. We have to choose vehicles that don't serve us, like pulling back, withdrawing, attacking. We pick these, we're trying, we're trying to resolve the problem, but we choose a vehicle that doesn't always work out so great. Well, and it's fascinating because, I have noticed in myself as we have learned more about men and women, learn more about each other, learn more about ourselves. That.

Going back to one of the things that women want and need, a woman wants and needs to be cherished. And within that, I think, is this element of pursuing. If you think about all the old stories, it's about men pursuing women. And I think that that's important. That's a critical understanding to have. One of the reasons, in my mind, that I do, it's almost involuntary.

Rachel Denning (23:25.646)
One of the reasons I pull away is because I do want to be pursued, right? And I know as a man you're thinking, well, that doesn't make any sense. You want to be closer to me and so you keep. And you run off and you say, leave me alone. What you're really saying is, will you pursue me? Yes, exactly. What it makes this situation from the person who wrote in so painful is because he feels disrespected, he doesn't want as much intimacy.

Well, and besides the fact that unless you have that understanding, you understand that about me, but you had to learn that. I had to learn that about myself. I didn't always know why I was doing what I was doing. You're able to pursue me, but if you didn't know that, you wouldn't be actively pursuing me in order to heal the rift that's occurred because you would just think you're being silly. If you want to talk to me about it,

come talk to me about it, don't run away and expect me to pursue you type thing. It's required us to gain a lot of self -awareness and couple awareness to be able to play out that dynamic. Now, before I knew that, I did have to consciously take more of an active role of trying to fix that rift rather than just withdrawing and being cold and distant, right? And so I think,

those are some of the things we'll talk through, but one of them is that I would write you emails or I would write you texts. So I would withdraw physically, but I would take some time to think about why I was upset, what I was feeling, what I wanted instead, and then I would write to you about it, especially if I could reference podcasts or books that we had read together or talked about together.

That's always very helpful. So that's a huge thing. If you can make that a part of your relationship, that will make all the difference in the world. Because then we have this shared vocabulary of like, it's like this, or it's like that, or it's, I feel like this. And you would understand what I'm talking about because of these experiences or these books that we had read. So that was one action step I would take is I would write about it. And I would write about it for my own benefit as well. And then I would send you.

Rachel Denning (25:43.758)
Edited version of what I thought was important for you to understand because you have to we have to go through this Processing to know what it is. We're thinking and feeling and why yeah So I mean this is one reason why it's even important and healthy for people to send us questions because they're actually going through this process of Writing about what it is that they're dealing with that right there is huge. It's so massive, right? It's email. That's just that process is helpful and it would be so helpful for this gentleman

to write down if he could articulate well why he somehow feels disrespected if the house isn't clean. To me that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But my guess is it came from somewhere in his childhood, maybe in his home. He was at home and his mom was like, I just respect your dad, he's worked so hard, I'm gonna clean the house, I'm gonna clean the house, I'm gonna clean. And so maybe he picked that up there or his dad demanded or.

or he picked it up somewhere, somewhere he has this rule and it may not even have been communicated very well. I mean, it'd be very realistic. He just says, if you respect me, the house will be clean. In my mind that, that doesn't always work out so well because mama's dealing with little mess makers a lot. And as much as she tries to clean up, they make another mess. And so she could,

wear herself out and drive herself crazy in this fear of disrespecting you when you have these little mess makers. I'm like, dude, why don't you stay home, bro? You stay home a couple of days with them, spend a week with the kids at home and keep that house clean to respect yourself and see how much that self -respect holds up. Again, we have to look at our definitions. And why did you choose that one? If you respect me, you'll have the house clean. That's so...

So random, so arbitrary, it doesn't make sense to me. There's a history there, I'm sure. And so this might be a part of the conversation and from what she said, she doesn't feel comfortable saying these things in person because she's worried about saying the wrong thing or saying it the wrong way. Okay, well, okay, I gotta dig in there. As soon as I, when you read that, I was like, ooh, there's something there. Why would she be afraid to say things the wrong way? My guess is he gets reaction.

Rachel Denning (28:09.582)
And so he gets reactive explosive fights, whatever, and kind of acts like a barbarian. And so she's like, I'm going to not talk anymore, because if I say something the wrong way, there's going to be a negative response. So there's some kind of pain there that she's withdrawing from pain. So she's like, I don't say it anymore because I don't want to say things wrong way. Well, if somebody, if your spouse or your children are afraid to say things to you, who has made them afraid? And you're right there. But.

once that fear is in place, we have to find other ways of moving forward. Which, this is why I'm going back to this whole idea of writing emails or writing texts. I know that I even used to think, well, that's kind of a cop out because we're trying to learn how to communicate and that means in person. And I do get that and that is definitely a skill that we should develop. But I think it's especially. But you could write and then go talk.

Here's what I want to emphasize. I think especially in situations, first of all, it's in a relationship with someone where...

There's a lot of potential passion and emotion, right? It's in a marriage relationship. It's in a love relationship. There's more emotion there than in most relationships. So you might be able to have a great conversation with your boss or with coworkers or whoever. You're great communicating with the neighbor. But when it comes to your spouse, there is gonna be more, there's more on the line. There's more at stake. And so sometimes, well, I would say all the time, that makes it more challenging.

especially when we're trying to deal with all of these things we already talked about, the differences between men and women and all these dynamics. I feel that writing each other emails can be very helpful. It can be one of the tools we use that help us, especially to get through a period of time. If you're in this situation where you can't talk to him or you feel like you can't say something or whatever, writing it out and sharing it that way can diffuse a lot of that emotion.

Rachel Denning (30:14.638)
And it gives both of you the chance, one, it gives you the chance to think about what you really want to say and to say it in the way that is the most polite as possible. And to be able to ask hard questions that you might feel uncomfortable asking a person. And it gives him the space or her the space, if it's the other way around, to think about it and to experience some of that emotion without being right there and being reactive and explosive to you.

And so it can be a very powerful tool, I think, when you're dealing with highly charged topics, to be able to help you work through them, because it gives you that chance of articulating it in a way that sometimes we just really suck at in person, or we just, because of the emotion, can't get the right words out, you know? So that's one thing that I highly recommend doing. Yep. And...

And then I would invite, so do it yourself and then in kind of talk to your spouse, invite your spouse to think about it and say, Hey, it seems, this seems so, you seem so passionate about this. It seems so important to you. It seems to be this, this point of contention or a sensitive topic. Yeah. It's sensitive. Why could you maybe spend some time thinking about it? Right. About, I don't want to fight.

But I want to understand why do we fight? Why do we keep fighting over this topic? Like, what's going on here? Let's understand it. Let's put it out on the table so we can go into it with curiosity and understanding. And that process is going to be very therapeutic for both of you just to walk through this. And there's going to be some things. If you're trying to be conscious people and deliberate and thoughtful and have mindfulness, there's

there's going to be some things that come up and be like, man, okay, that's, that's the real issue. And it may not even be the clean house might not even be the issue. Maybe something totally different. Well, cause he mentioned, she mentioned that he is an anxious person and he gets, he's stressed to work a lot. Well, those, those two issues right there are separate issues that are just adding fuel to the fire. Both of those need to be addressed. Like he needs, he needs to be.

Rachel Denning (32:36.238)
In a spot where why, well, I would love to just coach him, man. Every time I get questioned, I'm like, let me coach that guy. We'd work through like, what are you anxious about and why? And it's mental management. Like he's, it all comes down to physical. Well, so in the, in the be the man masterclass at we have, I created what's called a triple trifecta. And the first one is mind, body and spirit. And if a man is not managing his mind, his body and his spirit,

then of course he's gonna have like anxiety and things stuff. And if he's not managing his mind, body and spirit, he's gonna have all the stress. It's not the outside stuff that causes the stress. Work doesn't cause stress. Stress is an inside job. It's an inner game. So whatever he's doing at work, somehow because he's not managing his mind, body and spirit,

It's allowing that distress, the stress is coming home and he's taking it out on her and the kids. It literally might be the case that he is not managing himself well. So work and anxiety are just coming out and the target happens to be a clean house when he gets home. And if you really get through that stuff and process it, like, Hey, is it really that big of a deal? And he might be like,

No, no, it's not that big of a deal. It's this thing and it might be something else or it might be the clean house, but you got to figure out why. Like we have to work through these issues so we know what in the world is going on.

Rachel Denning (34:23.79)
And it might even be something connected with work. Either one, he gets respect at work, including clean, organized space. And so he expects the same thing at home. And so he makes this direct connection or vice versa. He's got a full cleaning team and his office is spectacular and everything's nice. Maybe he's got the, I don't know, maybe he's got the big corner office or maybe he's a surgeon or whatever. And, and dude, he's the man.

At work, he's the man and people in the industry are coming to him for consulting people, paying big bucks to answer questions. He gets home. He has a clean, organized environment. And the little mess makers, they could care less about who he thinks he is. Yeah. Or vice versa. Maybe he doesn't get respect at work. Maybe it's chaotic and chaos. And he thinks in order to get that respect that I need, I want my home and my family to be orderly and neat. Maybe it's something about being, you know, comparing himself to others or...

worrying about being judged. There's so many factors that go into this, but helping, asking these questions. It's a co -worker, he's like, my house is always clean. My wife keeps my house spotless all the time. And so he likes being seen as that sort of person. So being able to write an email or a text and ask these questions so you help to get some clarification is going to help both of you immensely to understand what's going on here. Why?

Is this so such an important thing because it's not about whether or not he deserves respect You should respect your husband like well, okay You yes, this is that two -sided coin on one side. You're like, yes, men Need to respect they want to be respected and you respect and if you respect him then things go better But it's a huge but here

Respect is earned and deserved and a lot of men, a lot of husbands, they are not earning respect. And so, and I see this a lot where they're like, man, my wife, in case you just respect me, I'm like, whoa, what are you doing that's respectable, dude? Look at yourself. And this is where I get blunt and honest and real with people. I'm like, strip down, butt naked, stand in front of that mirror. What's respectable?

Rachel Denning (36:35.246)
You taking care of that crap? Stand there butt naked and look at yourself. It's your vehicle for life. Is that respectable? And you start right there. And then look at your mind. Look at your emotions. Are you mentally fit? Are you spiritually fit? Are you emotionally fit? Like a man? Are you jacked mentally and emotionally and spiritually? No? Then what's respectable? You're sitting there demanding respect and you look like a fat lazy slob mentally.

emotionally, spiritually or physically. man, I get so fired up because these men act like babies, 250 pound fat babies and like, respect me woman. Like look at yourself, man. You're an embarrassment. Gosh. Okay. You guys, this is, if you're new to the podcast, this is me getting fired up and ranting for a minute here, but it is all said with love and a hug. And I would say it to any man's face and give him a big old hug.

and then say it honestly. Look at yourself, man. Respect is earned. If respect is a big deal to you, earn it. And if your wife has little kids at home that are mess makers, then it's your dad gum responsibility to hire a cleaning service to come home and get it clean if you want it clean. It's on you, dude. We can't afford that. That's also on you.

That's so on you. And you better get your crap together and earn more.

Whoa, man, I am so saddened by this society of weak men demanding respect. What could be more pathetic than somebody who doesn't deserve respect to demand it? Talk about gross, distorted entitlement. Better respect me. What are you doing? I go to work and I work.

Rachel Denning (38:34.766)
hard all day. Waa waa. Call flipping Whammy on its big baby. You probably never worked a day in your life. Let's get your crap together. Gosh. I mean men, they think it's their lives so hard and they do all these hard things. Like dude, you don't even know what hard is. You've never even done hard. What are you talking about? It's like those memes on Instagram where like your great grandparents were hunting and farming and killing mammoths and yeah. You're

We have to go to cushy office and I have to sit in my corner office all day and talk on phone meetings and when, when, when, when, when, like, come on. And if, if we'll seriously level up as men, then it changes everything because you're like, yeah, that's not hard. That's not hard at all. And so what it does is it stops you from playing the baby and playing the victim and coming home.

and just flopping down. I heard a sad thing about a gentleman I know yesterday. He's working long days and so what does he do? He goes home, plops down by himself and plays video games. He's a grown man.

with a family and children and his little coping mechanism is he sits down by himself to play video games because he's tired. Give me a break. That is so pathetic. There's nothing manly about it. It's a little boy. It's a little boy escaping his little sad hard day. That's ridiculous. So nobody's going to respect that guy. How can his wife and kids respect him?

when he comes home and plops down and plays video games like a little boy. Men are acting like boys and then wanting respect. Give me a break. Be a man. And she can't help but respect you. Amen. It's true. But thank you for your rant. Going back to the other side of the equation, because we have to always focus on what we can do. And trust me,

Rachel Denning (40:48.014)
A wife giving her husband that speech will not go over. It will never ever go over. No. That's the speech that I give. You can let Greg give them that speech. If the wife gives that speech, it will only cause more problems. So when I say your husband needs to be respected, you have to find a way to respect the husband you have. You have to find a way to look for the good.

and to respect and praise the good that is there. Because every person has, despite your speech, you know that every one of those men have good qualities about them. Absolutely, 100%. And so the wife's job is to find those qualities and to praise them and to show respect for them so that you can get more of that. The one thing I've learned about men is they really do want to please women.

And you might think that that's not true about your husband, but trust me, it is. So if you can find a way to praise the things that you want, instead of nagging about the things you don't want, you're going to find a way to wake up that part of your husband that wants to please you. And then he'll, he'll move mountains. But interestingly, a lot of wives inadvertently without knowing it are causing this kind of misbehavior. I'm not caught.

Contributing to the misbehavior in their husbands because of let's say for example the nagging right and you think well That's well I'm just gonna keep nagging because if I don't nag him he won't do it And so I'm gonna keep nagging and it doesn't work so he retreats he gets resentful He starts acting out. Yep. He gets more and more angry and bitter and he starts doing stuff and he keeps doing more of what you don't want him to do and so you keep nagging more and the drama triangle goes on and on and It just keeps getting worse and worse

Where you realize, well, why is he behaving like this? Why is this going on? And you might stop and say, man, it's my behaviors contributing to his poor behavior. Exactly. So one of the first places we have to start is by simply, and in my 28 day challenge for moms, this is one of the pieces of the marriage. I have all different elements and marriage is one of them.

Rachel Denning (43:06.926)
one of the habits that they work on is making an admiration list. You're literally making a list of the things you admire and respect about your husband. And if that's what you have to do, that's what you do. You write it down and you try to pay attention to all of the things that you know and you like about your husband. And then the next level on that, of course, is verbally or in an email or text telling him those things.

Like I really admire that you do this. I really admire this about you. I really respect this about you. And that is going to like add fuel to the fire of him becoming the more respectable man you want and need him to be. Yep. And it goes both ways. It's so powerful. And you could tactfully and proactively say things like maybe he comes home one day and he's just in a good mood and you are all.

over that and you're like, man, that is the sexiest thing on the planet when you come home in a good mood. Boom. Right. And he'd be like, well, it's because the house is clean. And you know, you, you again, tact and diplomacy, you playfully, you playfully, man, you can do that as well. Clean up or you say, come on. You're, you're a bigger man than that. You, you know, you're not going to be this, are you really going to be the little boy there that you're?

Again, this has to be attacked and maybe by me. I must be like, really? Honestly, bro is like, you're going to let a few things, you know, kids toys on the ground determine how you feel. That's a little boyish. Why don't you get down there and play with those little toys? Little guy. It's like, come on, who's the adult here? Like, let's go. And you get to choose your emotions. But anyways, use.

use the good things they do or the good things you want them to do as a point of praise and admiration and just keep putting that in there and they'll, man, they will go out of their way to do those kinds of things to please, please a woman. Right. It's powerful. Super powerful. So as you're walking through this scenario, any scenario, I hope everybody who's listening, I hope you're thinking through your own situation. What are the things you guys struggle with? Is it?

Rachel Denning (45:25.582)
Is it money? Is it sex? Is it health? Is it private education? Is it how you're raising your kids? Is it religion? Like whatever it is, just get to the bottom of it and understand each other. Understand your own little individual values, hierarchies, and then understand your own little rule books. Like why are those things in place? And then when it gets down to it, right,

Rachel, I've done this so many times. When it gets down to it, maybe there's something that is really important to her and it's not important to me.

And it doesn't make sense to me. So now I understand. I understand that for her, it's extremely important. And I sit there and evaluate myself and I'm still like, yeah, for me, it's just not important. So now we understand each other. So we've gotten it clear. I understand why it's important to her. And I also understand why it's not important to me. So we've done the work to get to the understanding and there's still a discrepancy. So what do we do at that point? Well, I'm going to be a man.

and do it because it's important to you. And I think that when we have that understanding, I'm not going to be some demanding witch that says, well, you have to do it all the time. But when you do do it, I'm going to appreciate it even more because I'm going to realize you don't think it's that big of a deal. And so when you do it, I'm like, wow, that's awesome. I know he's doing it purely out of love because it's something that doesn't matter to him.

And we can walk through that and I'll be like, okay, now I get why it's so important to you. I'm like, it's still not that important to me, babe. But I mean, let's, we'll do it your way because I can tell it's important to you. And we come to that agreement. Now, if I get resentful, I literally heard a husband say this the other day. He was like, we always do it her way. And I was like, and I sat there and thought for a minute, I'm like, yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty par for the course.

Rachel Denning (47:30.478)
And this idea of men wanting to please women is like, we quite often do things more Rachel's way than mine because she has all this passion behind it, all this energy and it's important to her. And I guess for women, everything's important. Everything they do and think is important and there's tons of passion behind it. Duh, they wouldn't do it if it weren't important to them. And then you're like, well, is nothing important to me as a man?

And I get through this little pity party and like, we don't do things my way and I'm not being respected around here. All I do is spend my whole life doing things her way. Or I could be like, yeah, we're going to lean into the things she likes to do her way. But now am I a whipped little man here who's spineless and

castrated and like no, there's gonna be some things that are good things. I'm not gonna be ridiculous and this is my way or the high woman do this, whatever. There's gonna be some things I'm like, no, this is important to me and I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna figure out how to do it. But it's never gonna be detrimental to the marriage. It's never gonna be detrimental to me. Never gonna be detrimental to my kids or my family. It's gonna be things that I get, hey, this is important to me. I'm gonna do that. And we'll have some firm boundaries and places.

Why in the world would we fight over dumb things that are a difference of a few thousand dollars or whatever? Or some energy and effort. Yeah. Like, it's important to you for me to do this and I feel tired. my God, we're going to fight over it? We're going to have resentment and distance over that? Really? It's way more energy and effort to be resentful and grumpy and miserable and like...

we're not gonna spend time together. We're not gonna make love because I don't want to do this little thing you want me to do. Like that's so dumb. Well, I think you worded it well for some coaching clients the other day who are, you know, working on their marriage and similar situation. He was like, well, she always wants to do it like this. And then if we do this, it's going to cost a few hundred dollars. And, and you said, so what, so what if you had to spend a thousand dollars a year on things that she wanted done?

Rachel Denning (49:47.63)
but it prevented you from fighting. Wouldn't it be worth it? And he said, yeah, it would. And so when you put it in that sort of perspective, I'm like, when it comes right down to it, and we, you know, you love to use the example of the scale. If on a scale of one to 10, this is a 10 for me, even if you don't get it, but you're like, okay, it's a 10. Great, we'll do it. It's worth avoiding the conflict or the fight because ultimately,

For whatever reason, if something's important to you or it's important to me and the other one of us is willing to compromise on that, that's part of making a great relationship. Now you're right, that shouldn't become...

Manipulative that shouldn't become demanding controlling nor even entitlement. Yeah, exactly and and whenever that happens like, you know, I Fully appreciate that I fully respect that and vice versa. I you want to reciprocate like absolutely what I'm trying to meet your needs when you say something you're like I'm the king on this and this is how we're doing I'm like, okay, babe, and it's actually attractive too. It's like Because you know, I'm also going out of my way to do things that are important to you that I could care less about right?

And you're like, well, I know he doesn't care, but he's doing it. That's awesome. Well, I'm going to do some things for him. And it's this beautiful give. When you do really care about something, I'm like, OK, yeah, absolutely. We're doing it your way because I know that you're not that way all the time just to be controlling or whatever. Right. Yeah. So give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give. And when you make an ask, it's like, yeah.

No problem. All good. You've earned the ask, exactly. And you're like, well, it's not fair. Yeah, it's not fair. A fair is where little pigs win ribbons. And you're not a little pig, dude. Be a man. It's not fair. But whatever. If you sit around worrying about life being fair, you're in for a very long pity party. Well, and the reality is that it's like, what do you really want? Right.

Rachel Denning (52:00.846)
You could say, it's not fair. I do a lot of things for Rachel. I do more things than she does for me or whatever. But you do it because... It's true. It's not fair. Now you're making me cough. But I'm not interested in fair. You do it because you have learned, and I don't want to word this in the wrong way, but I'll just word it how it's coming to my mind. You've learned that that works.

That is what, and we talked about this in the last episode, that is what opens me up. That opens me mentally, it opens me emotionally, it opens me sexually. Like it works. When you do more and go out of your way to do things for me that I want done, that I ask for your help for, whether that's mentally, emotionally, physically, chores, tasks, to -do lists, whatever, that works for me.

And that opens me up. Now I can see how for some men, they might do all of that and it doesn't work because their wife has some weird idea about sex or some, you know, she, like I was there, people know my story, where I thought, well, if we never have sex, again, I'll be fine. But you can still keep doing all those things for me. That doesn't work. So if you're trying to be that woman where you want that husband who's doing that,

who's going out of his way to do all the things and then you wonder why he's not happy because you're not fulfilling your part of the duty, your duties. And again, I don't want this to be worded in the wrong way. This isn't like prostitution here, like hey, you do the work for me and I'll pay you with sex. But that is how the relationship works and it works in a healthy and beautiful way.

And I think when you don't understand that, it just seems weird or it seems wrong or there's something off there. And yet we have learned through experience, our own experience, and with all the couples we've worked with, that's a formula that works. And when you get it and it's done, not out of resentment, not out of obligation, but it's done out of love and commitment and sacrifice, like a willing sacrifice, it's beautiful. It's amazing.

Rachel Denning (54:23.566)
and it creates a relationship that's gorgeous where I feel completely cherished and adored and I know you would do anything for me and as a result I found you more attractive and more respectable and more desirable and I want to be open to you. Right? And so I think that that's the ideal, that's what we want. All of us want that ultimately, that's what we want.

Like she said in her thing, I'm craving that intimacy. That's the ultimate of the intimacy right there.

That to me is what it is. But it includes the pieces of me being willing to be open sexually for you. But you being willing to go out of your way to do things for me. Right, because ultimately when you sign up for marriage and you sign up for kids and you sign up for family, you're signing up for work. Mm -hmm. That's true. You are. So put in the work. Yeah.

It is work. Put in the work and guess what? You get the rewards. It's not easy. I think marriage...

Well, I don't know if those words are kind of too limited to say easy or difficult.

Rachel Denning (55:49.55)
It's demanding. Marriage is demanding. There's, there's work to be done. And if you do the work, it works. Yeah. Right. But that also requires what we were talking about earlier, doing all the inner work, all the processing to make sure that the values and the desires and the needs are in a good, healthy state.

They're not weird. They're not twisted or distorted or manipulative or neurotic. Like just way off. Like you get to the spot where you're like, okay, that's, yeah. It's a good, healthy value and need. I'm happy to meet that all day long. But if it's some strange thing, it doesn't make any sense. Like what is the point? And again, we touched on this in the last episode that we did.

because what I talked about was the extreme end of the negative side of men and women and their differences. And for men, it's aggression and anger very often. And for women, it's manipulation and narcissism. And so there is a danger there. Everything we've said is true and beautiful when it's in a healthy balance because you're right. If as a narcissist,

I become very manipulative and I require you to do all of those things for me. Well, you're twisting that beautiful relationship, especially if there's no reciprocation, right? You're twisting that beautiful relationship. So everything we've talked about and as weird as it might sound absolutely has an ugly side. It absolutely has a dangerous side. And so we have to be careful that that's not where we go, but that, but that we're acting from the heart.

in a beautiful way that's in line with who we're trying to become, our best self, and with the relationship that we want to create. And it is possible, but you're right, it's demanding and it is a lot of work. And so worth it. But it is very much worth it. So worth it. Like definitely worth it. An extraordinary marriage is worth whatever it costs. And...

Rachel Denning (58:12.078)
And you can get there and you can get results so much faster than you think. When the couples I get to work with, like within a few weeks, they're like, we didn't even think this was possible, let alone this quick. And things are better than they've ever been or better than they've been in a very, very long time in just a matter of weeks because we start to shift the focus away from, I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this, this is annoying and frustrating to, hmm, what can I do to make this better? How can I?

How can I be better myself? How can I be more loving and kind and more thoughtful? How can I be more helpful? And with just a little, right? With a little extra effort, things can be so much better. I love this stuff. I love, love, love this stuff. I love working with couples. I love seeing happy marriages because they're so rare, increasingly rare. And it's sad.

Because they don't have to be there's so much unnecessary suffering, so much unnecessary distance and fighting and contention and lack of intimacy and love, which we can be madly in love with each other and living this joyful existence. Yeah. So I think just as we close here, I just want to emphasize on some of the things that specifically this woman can do, but I think all of us can do.

Because it's true, we are gonna feel stuck, we're gonna feel...

Rachel Denning (59:40.91)
trapped in these emotions, they're gonna go round and round, at least in my experience. And so we have to really focus on releasing them, processing them, getting them out. I think writing is one of the best ways to do that. So you can go ahead and there's multiple ways to approach it. One is, one we used to, we heard somewhere, someone calling it dragon slaying, where you basically would write on paper and it can be as ugly as you want. Like you can swear, you can.

badmouth your spouse, like whatever. Anything goes in this method. But when you're done, you destroy it. You burn it, you rip it up, you throw it away. It's just, it's a way of simply getting out stacked negative emotions. Especially if they've been building for years. Then you should do a lot of writing. Yeah. Repeatedly. Exactly. Here's what I would do. If we were in this point where I'm like, okay, I'm getting close to being done here, like this is, this is horribly painful.

I would literally write every single day. I would carve out time every single day to write and vent and vent and vent and vent. I'm just going to do everything I can to get it out. For me personally, I'm going to spend time on a boxing bag and with heavy weights and just screaming and yelling and punching and writing. I'm going to get it all out of me. Get all that poison out, all that toxicity. I'm going to do a total mental emotional detox.

and do it consistently until one day I sit down to write and I'm like, I don't, yeah, there's, there's no more fire. Right. One of the ways that you can tell that you effectively have processed emotion is when you can think or talk about that thing without, without the pain that used to be there. When you can talk about it without having tears or anger or whatever, that means it's been effectively processed. And so you want to do that until you.

reach that point essentially. And then a word of warning here. You might go through that process unless your spouse is willing to go through it too and hopefully you can encourage that and kind of walk through it. But if they don't and you go through the process and you're like, man, I feel so much better. And then you go to talk to your spouse about it because you're in a good space. Don't expect them to be in a good space. Like you've gotten, you've made some serious progress and you're in a good spot. Don't go with this expectation of like, this is going to go great now because I'm in such a good space. They're not. Right.

Rachel Denning (01:02:02.894)
So go into it saying, I'm in a good spot. They may not be, but we can talk through it now because I'm in a good place. And they can vent and I can handle it because I'm in a good place. So then the next step I would suggest is, because you want to get all of the venom out. You want to get all the, we love to say, vomit on paper, not people. Like you want to get the worst stuff out first. And then if it's, especially a scenario like this where you can't just go talk to your spouse, then you write to your spouse.

Write them an email, write them a text, I would suggest email because texts are too limiting and with your thumbs, you know. But write an email to them and talk through some of this stuff and encourage them to write back to you. Say, hey, go ahead and write back to me, especially if you feel like we can't talk about this in person. That's going to then help them to begin this process of processing, right, the process of processing. And be warned that they might potentially...

you know, not go through the dragon -slaying process and getting rid of some of that ugly stuff, maybe that ugly stuff will come back. And so don't be totally offended by it or totally broken by it. Just realize, they're processing, they're getting some ugly thoughts down in type that they haven't done before. This is a good thing. View it as a good thing. Say, this is good. They're getting out this stuff. That's good.

And, but then, you know, continue that process for as long as necessary via email until you can get to the point where you feel like you can talk about it in person without it exploding. Yep. Which is so important because at some point, and I think this is the best method to do that, what we just described, but some point you have to be able to sit down and be like, okay, let's, let's talk about this issue. And, and each spouse has to be able to say honestly and frankly, like this is what.

bothers me. This is what hurts. This is what's frustrating. This is what matters. And I have to be able to sit there calmly and hear that and be interested and curious and not defensive or irate or whatever. Just like, okay, I hear it. Thank you for sharing that with me. How can we work this out? And you can't get to this place of negotiation if you're both always so upset about it. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (01:04:26.094)
but it requires you to do that work of being able to process and analyze those emotions. So I think right there, if you took those steps that we just outlined and then you just repeated them again and again and again with each... Every issue? Every issue that comes up, like that right there is a formula that works. That will help you to get unstuck. Master. Move forward. Resolvers. Yeah, and it will.

help lead you to more intimacy, especially if you tie it to what we described before, something like an admiration list, where you just make a list focusing on the positive things you like about your spouse, or respect about yourself, spouse. And yourself. Do it, yeah, start there. It's a great place to start. Okay, you guys, keep asking great questions, keep working on your marriage, it's worth every effort. Keep working on yourself harder than you do on anything else.

Do what you have to do proactively, deliberately create and maintain a genuinely extraordinary family life. Love you guys, reach upward.