Sept. 3, 2025

From Stuck to Strong: Help Your Spouse Want to Change

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Want to influence your spouse without nagging or power plays? This episode shows how to create safety, earn respect, and use pattern interrupts to spark real growth. Greg & Rachel outline the Bucket Test to plug motivation leaks, the importance of a shared vision, and how tough conversations—done right—become catalysts for lasting change. Stop tolerating non-improvement and build a marriage where both of you keep leveling up.

Do you feel like your spouse won’t change—no matter what you try?Have you been tolerating non-improvement and calling it “keeping the peace”?

In this episode, Greg & Rachel Denning share a practical blueprint for creating real change in marriage—without nagging, power struggles, or giving ultimatums. You’ll learn how to earn influence (instead of demanding it), build psychological safety so growth is possible, and use pattern interrupts to break the same old fights.

They unpack why couples stall out—no shared vision, unresolved wounds, holes in the relationship “bucket,” and mixed signals that make one spouse armor up. You’ll get specific tools to create safety, raise standards, and stop tolerating non-improvement—so your marriage actually gets better month by month.

What we cover:

- Why “it’s okay to be wounded—but not to stay wounded.”

- How to earn your spouse’s attention & respect (and keep it).

- Pattern interrupts that disarm conflict and reset connection.

- The Bucket Test: plug the leaks killing motivation & desire.

- Strategic praise (what to amplify so it multiplies).

- The Shared Vision your marriage needs to stay motivated.

- When one spouse levels up—and what to do if the other resists.

- Tough talks done right: letters, timing, tone, and follow-through.

Bottom line: In life, you get what you tolerate. Don’t accept non-improvement. Use these tools to create safety, raise the standard, and build a marriage where both partners keep growing.

📌 Key Takeaways

✅ Influence is earned, not demanded—become the person your spouse wants to follow.

✅ Safety first: no one grows while armored—reduce criticism, increase sincere praise.

✅ Pattern interrupts break the drama triangle and open space for change.

✅ Shared vision fuels motivation; without it, marriages drift.

✅ Stop tolerating non-improvement—lovingly raise the standard and keep it.

Memorable Quotes

🗣 “Do not accept non-improvement. In life, you get what you tolerate.”
🗣 “It’s **okay to be wounded—**it’s not okay to stay wounded.”
🗣 “Earn the right to be heard; influence follows respect.”
🗣 “Our most difficult conversations led to our biggest positive changes.”
🗣 “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working? Do the opposite—create a pattern interrupt.”

Chapters:

02:24 Creating a Safe Space for Your Spouse to Improve

04:39 Using Pattern Interrupters to Break Negative Cycles

07:49 The Power of Reciprocity in Influencing Your Spouse

11:23 The Importance of Self-Improvement in Helping Your Spouse

17:04 The Power of Daily Affection and Verbal Expressions of Love

18:27 The Significance of a Shared Vision

22:45 The Role of Difficult Conversations in Positive Change

27:43 Embracing Difficult Conversations for Personal Growth

RESOURCES:

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0:00

Do not accept non improvement.

They don't have a shared vision of what it is they're trying to create as a couple.

It's OK that you were wounded.

It's not OK to stay wounded.

It's our most difficult conversations that often led to the biggest positive changes.

0:18

As you start getting better yourself, it becomes a form of a threat.

Hey there, this is Greg Denny.

We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations.

And we want to keep this podcast ad free forever.

0:35

You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen your favorite platform and on YouTube and leave a quick review and share your favorite episodes with friends and family.

It makes a big difference.

Thank you for being a part of this very important movement.

0:52

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast.

We're your host, Greg and Rachel Denning.

We are so excited.

You're just excitable.

I'm a very excitable person and just about every topic that has to do with personal development, family development or business development excites me.

1:11

We're going to talk about, I would say, one of the most difficult, challenging and rewarding.

Jobs.

Yes, responsibilities, opportunities that that is in life.

Marriage, hands down, is one of the most important relationships, one of the most difficult relationships one.

1:34

Of the most potentially rewarding relationships.

Yes, it's so so so important, but the only way it works is if you work.

Work.

Yeah, the only way it works is if you work.

If you do the work.

If you do the work, then your spouse will start to do the work.

The the ideal marriage is where both individuals inside the marriage are willing to work on themselves.

1:54

That's the ideal.

Now that is facilitated and encouraged in a lot of different ways.

There's so many things we can do to help each other be better.

So many we, we can like pave the way.

2:11

We can make it super easy.

So there's things I can do to make it super easy for you or.

At least easier.

Easier, make it easier for you to want to improve and then actually take the steps to improve.

Same for me.

Just slight adjustments from you will often feel like gigantic swings in the burden I'm carrying.

2:35

I either feel like it'll lift the weight or it'll just the weight.

Just a little adjustment for you and I'm like wow, what felt impossible now feels totally doable.

So essentially we're talking about whether or not you can help your spouse improve.

2:51

And yes, we believe it is absolutely possible that you, whoever you are listening, can have a positive influence over your spouse in order to help them first of all want to improve and then to actually make improvements.

3:11

I think that's important distinction the first.

Step is wanting.

The second step is actually doing it.

I know there's plenty of times in my life where I'm like, I don't even want to do that.

I know I should.

I know exercise one of was one of those things like I didn't even want to want to exercise.

3:28

Like I had to get to that point of like wanting.

I knew logically it made sense that I should do it, but I didn't want to do it, so I had to want to want it.

That was the first step.

So is it possible for us to be able to influence our spouse to be able to make those positive improvements in their life, to get where they want to want to do the things that make them better?

3:53

We're not just talking about making life improvements, which is a part of it and important, but helping them to want to improve themselves just for the sake of improving, just for the sake of being a better person, which then of course contributes to everything else.

Like it's, it's a process and it's a journey, but one that we do feel is possible.

4:12

Absolutely, 100%.

So we the the first step is to get desire, yeah.

And the second step implementation.

One of the reasons people don't want to change is because first of all, that requires that who you are at the moment is not, quote UN quote, good enough.

4:31

That's the first step of growth and improvement.

You have to make some sort of admission that I could be better, which means I'm not as good as I could be.

Your psychology is literally fighting and defending itself like.

It's like telling.

Everything and everyone, I'm OK.

4:47

I'm OK.

I want you to love me for who I am so.

If I'm struggling to do that personally to myself and I have to say it to you or hear it from you.

Yeah, doesn't go over really.

I know a bulk of people, maybe perhaps most people, if not all people, need to feel safe in their attempt to improve.

5:11

And that's hard.

That is so, so hard for people.

Take off the armor, that protective armor of the EGO and I take it off.

I have to know you're not going to just pick up a dagger and.

Stab me.

Yeah, exactly, which sometimes is what happens and and we need to realize that we may inadvertently or maybe purposefully on purpose, yeah be doing that to our spouse.

5:33

So no wonder they're not going to let down their guard.

They're not going to be they're not going to allow that vulnerability because they don't feel safe from you, which is hard to hear.

That's painful.

That might like you may be the reason your spouse isn't changing and.

5:50

You're like, no, but I want them to.

I keep telling them.

I keep pointing out all the ways I keep offering all these resources and they improve and they're like.

They just keep putting on more armor.

That's what's that's their response to that approach because it's not providing a space of safety where I feel like I can be vulnerable with you because you're constantly pointing out how weak I am and where I where I'm lacking and where I'm failing.

6:14

So it has that inadvertent opposite effect that we're actually causing or contributing the very thing we don't want.

Which I'm sure it happens both ways, but I think it's maybe particularly pronounced because part of the feminine nature is to correct.

6:32

The findings?

The masculine nature.

So yeah, your job is like noticing and and bringing it to my attention.

So and I, I tell my, the men I coach, I'm like, look, your wife, one of her roles is to test you.

She will test you conscious or unconscious, she will test you.

6:48

She will push your limits.

It she will point out what's not right and it it'll easily come across as nagging.

It can get manipulative.

You got to put down the weapons of war.

We're not saying set aside standards.

7:05

We're not saying don't you know, be the helper and point things out.

But if, if every time you notice something, you did it with claws, what am I going to do?

Well, I'm going to put up.

I'm going to wear armor all the time.

I'm going.

7:20

To keep my first thought was the hedgehog you're going to roll up in a ball.

Exactly.

I'm the head.

I'm going to roll with the ball and hold my spikes out and you're just like.

Pretend I'm dead.

Pretend I'm dead, make sure all my spikes are out and and just try to protect my soft spots right?

7:36

Exactly.

Since this is talking about what we can do to help our spouse, we have to be more intentional about creating that space for ourselves for our spouse, which means we're going to have to obviously do something different.

Because if what you were doing created the results you wanted, you'd have the results and you wouldn't be listening, right?

7:57

So you have whatever you're doing is not working.

You have to do something different.

Whatever you think, think the opposite.

Whatever you do, do the opposite.

And it sounds a little extreme, but it it it actually is kind of effective for me at least, it is so.

8:14

You start questioning what you've been doing right.

Is this really working?

So when I came to find myself in a situation that I'd been in before where I'm responding the same way, I always respond.

I stopped.

And I would say whatever I think, think the opposite.

And, and so then I would say, well, I'm thinking this.

8:30

And then so I'm then I would repeat the opposite in my head and I would try that and wow, amazing.

It would actually work.

Create a different.

Result.

It created a different result.

Well, because it breaks the drama trying.

It breaks the drama trying.

And the other person's like what?

Just.

Happened.

Yeah, exactly.

8:46

This isn't your usual response.

This isn't your role.

So, OK, and maybe that's the first first thing we talked about.

It's like what can we do to help our spouses change?

Pattern interrupters are excellent.

Do something.

Different than what you've done.

9:03

They don't have to be huge things every single day.

We're living in patterns our entire life is that it's habitual, like we're operating off patterns.

Interject I was sitting here while I was listening to you.

The thought occurred to me.

I'm trying to get you to change in this hypothetical scenario, and it just occurred to me.

9:24

I'm like, why would you listen to me?

Yeah, that's a good point.

It's it's, it's a powerful question because then it circles back to me like I would like Rachel to do something differently hypothetically.

And I have to stop and say, well, why would she listen to me?

Why should she listen to me?

And if my ego jumps in, well, because blah blah blah, all this crap like now it's I have.

9:44

Authority over her I.

I go to work every day.

I provide.

So hard.

I'm like, yeah, OK, what do you do?

Da you want to she should be for doing what you should do anyways.

You want a trophy for taking care of your responsibilities down ego down like you're just doing it.

10:01

So then the follow up question for me at least is well, how can I, how can I earn her listening to me?

So why should she listen to me and think about that?

And I'm like, but how can I earn that?

What can I do better so that she wants to either join me and be better or or listen when I have to say something.

10:28

And I, my guess is pretty quickly, each spouse would come up with a list that they know they could do better in ways they could be better to have more influence and improve the relationship.

So in a very fundamental, real way, the best course for helping you change something is for me to become a better person.

10:52

And, and not, not hypothetical generalizations like, oh, I'll just be better.

That that'll never work.

I can't measure that.

I got, I'm going to go in my mind palace.

I'm going to think, what are the things that Rachel just does not like?

And I'm going to work on those things, right?

11:10

You are very intentional about noticing the things that I say or ask and then actually doing it, even though you don't care one way or the other.

And that does gain a lot of influence over me.

11:25

Like I, I'm willing to do a lot of things for you because you do a lot of things for me.

There it is.

Yeah.

Wow.

Did you guys just hear that it's this beautiful reciprocal thing.

11:42

Now, it's not always immediate, no, and definitely.

And I'm not holding it out as.

I did this for you.

I made the bed just how you wanted.

So you have to do this thing.

It doesn't, it doesn't work like that.

Some desires are so much more heavily weighted than others.

11:59

So I might want something from you.

It's it's, it means so much to me.

And you're like, and vice versa.

So maybe I like it doesn't come up on radar and you're like, this is so important to me.

And if that comes up, do it, man.

12:16

It's a short list of things that really, truly matter to you, and I can do those.

Things well, and I mean, I'm, I'm just thinking of this because you and I have not operated in that space for so long, but what a sad situation to be in if we actually purposefully do things that we know our spouse doesn't like.

12:34

That just seems now to me childish.

Why?

Why would we do that?

And if you want improvement, you have to improve, which means you have to be the first one to go out of your way to do the things for them that you know that they like so that you can begin that process of positive reciprocation.

12:51

And, and I, I think it's important to answer the question, why should I do this if they don't and, and you listener have to get to that place, you've got to answer that question, have a good answer.

It's because that's the kind of person you want to be independent of what your spouse does.

13:09

That's the caliber of person you want to be.

So that's why just do it.

The likelihood is you'll get a positive response from your spouse.

Yes.

Again, not immediate necessarily.

And it has to be like you have to be in it for the long game and people don't want to hear that like you've got to do this for years and decades.

13:29

And that's not what we're saying before you see a positive response, but that's kind of the mindset you have to have of like, I'm going to make be making the bed for the next 50 years and.

The spouse has to believe it.

Right.

Especially from the sight of women, I've seen this so many times, the people we work with, the couples, especially the the feminine nature is to be disbelieving and and testing.

13:52

And so a man makes a change and she's like.

Well, I, I think it's fascinating because, because I actually think that's part of like our evolutionary biology in a way, because those women are the reproducers.

We have to be more distrustful.

14:09

We can't just trust any man that comes along and believe that he's going to be the one that after he gets me in his bed, is actually going to be there to provide for me while I have a child.

Like you have to put men to the test because otherwise the tendency of men is to have a one night stand.

14:26

That would be their thing.

We've got my legs spread giving birth.

Not, you know, sexually, but in my ugliest moments.

Is he still going to be there?

And that sense of certainty and security, it shows up across the board of is this guy actually going to make a change or is he just saying what exactly he wants me to, what he thinks I want?

14:49

To hear exactly so that he can get lucky tonight, right?

And so that plays out in our daily interactions since that's why the women test because they want to know that you're not just making, you're not just doing the dishes right now because you want to get lucky tonight.

You're doing the dishes and you're going to do the dishes every single day and make the bed and help out and do all the things because you love me and you cherish me, not just for the sex.

15:12

Now this can get out of hand because women can come up with gigantic impossible.

Lists, never any.

If he loves me, he does all this right.

And at that point you don't have a husband or even a roommate.

You're expecting a servant.

15:29

And no, it is a reason why many husbands just stop.

Give up.

They stop participating, they stop pushing, they stop trying because it feels like no matter how hard I try, how many more things I do, it just never ends right.

15:46

And so they they just kind of, they give up.

Back to what you said in the beginning then, there are certain things I do that just make all the difference for you.

So I always love to start with like, well, are there holes in the bucket, right?

What what's causing if there's a leak and you're trying to because what can you do is like, how can we add water to the bucket?

16:05

But if there's big holes in the bucket.

You got to plug the.

Bucket, you got to plug the bucket first because you guy be like, babe, when you do this, this, this, this, this, and it's like, but there's no water in the bucket.

It's because there's a gigantic hole in the bucket.

So the first place is what are the things that are just like their motivation?

16:21

Killers.

OK, so for you, from me, from a man, for from a woman, what are some of those motivation killers besides the lack of sex?

I would also say a lack of.

I mean respect in some.

Time we'll get there.

I think I'll say a lack of attention.

16:37

OK, if you're just all in your stuff and you don't pay attention, you don't notice what I'm doing, especially if I feel like I'm working hard and I'm doing this for her.

If if the kids get all the attention, if the you know doing house or you doing your little things gets all the attention, that is a that is a major hole in the bucket for a man.

16:57

Yeah.

Well, and you and I have always been very intentional about, for one thing, greetings, you know, in the morning we always greet each other, like hug and kiss and everything.

And then every time we're apart, like there's always interaction with those transitions, a lot of.

17:15

Affection and a lot of verbal.

We were expressing love all the time.

Yeah, and expressing words of affirmation, words of praise, acknowledgements, gratitude.

Like that's a big deal.

If I know that you like to be greeted when you come home, will I'm going to make an effort to greet you and I do.

17:35

I try to make that effort to greet you when you get home from wherever you've been.

I get up and I go to you to greet you rather than just like, oh, hi, you're home.

And I know you had to make a conscious effort to do that.

Nature is to be very productive.

And so I've watched her be very deliberate in stopping her drive for productivity to be engaged with me or with the kids.

17:59

It's always 2 sided.

It always.

Is so I'm like, yeah, I want your attention and but I could think she just needs to give me more attention.

Well, that may be true, but I'm like, what can I do to earn more attention?

What can I do to level up so much that she can't not?

18:16

Notice me?

So attention is one of them.

Respect, of course, is a big one.

Men have a deep need to be respected, to be admired by the woman they love.

You know, they're, they're just chasing and pursuing a woman and they, they want deep down for her to respect him.

18:36

Again, two sided because respect is earned.

Yeah, that can be a tough one because so many women feel like they don't respect their husband because he's not respectable.

He's sitting around, he's playing video games, he's not providing, he's not helping out.

She's like, what is there to respect about this?

18:51

Which is true.

So it's difficult.

And boyish, yeah.

So if you find the little things, even if there's just one of them or a few of them, and you emphasize those and you express appreciation for those so that it's not fake, it's got to be real, they're going to start doing more of the things you appreciate and less of the things that you don't.

19:14

Absolutely.

So strategically praise the the behavior you want if you want your husband to play with the kids more, to be more engaged to the family.

Don't tell him to do it.

Just when you notice something and I told one of my clients sisters, yeah, I'm like, tell your husband how unbelievably sexy it is when he plays with the kids.

19:36

And she was like.

Totally worked.

I was like, of course it was exactly like, he's going to lean into that instead of why don't you ever play with the kids?

You never play with the kids.

I hate you don't play with the kids.

And it's a fight instead of a little soft praise.

And the results are vastly different.

19:53

One of the first things I have couples do is like just sit down and write down.

Make a list of all the things you honor, respect, admire or appreciate in your spouse and then make a an actual effort.

To point those things out.

20:08

To say it, to look for them, to watch for them, and then to mention them or say something about them that in that lets your spouse know you're noticing and that you appreciate it, admire them that that's huge like that.

I think right there, if we could summarize it, that is the key to helping your spouse improve.

20:28

That's really the major piece.

I I would say agreed.

It's noticing the positive things about your spouse and emphasizing them.

Yeah.

And that, that that will grow and grow and grow.

And it has to be done tactfully.

And it has to be done.

20:44

Sincerely, it can't be manipulative or you can't be like, OK, for the next two weeks I'm going to point out good things.

And if he doesn't change by then?

Right.

It just needs to be your way of being like how you operate with your.

Spouse you just change like that and they'll just start feeling good.

They'll start feeling safe.

20:59

They'll start feeling noticed and loved.

Appreciated.

Yeah, all this good stuff.

What are what are some other big negatives in the bucket?

Here's one.

It's an unresolved issue that a spouse refuses to address.

If you, for example, Rachel had some issue and it was, it was disrupting our marriage and our family, but you refuse to talk about it, you refuse to get help, you refuse to address it like it's this unapproachable thing that would be such a gigantic hole in our marriage bucket for me.

21:30

I'd be like, no, that's unacceptable.

It is an issue and I'm sorry it's an issue.

But what you know, and it's OK that it happened.

What's not OK is that it doesn't get processed and and addressed and healed.

And we've talked about some other approaches in one of our recent episodes about I think the one about being autonomous, having an autonomous spouse, being interdependent, that I think in a case like that, especially if it's something you've already tried to bring up and address and talk about and it doesn't work, that's when I would be writing letters.

22:03

Like I would sincerely be writing physical letters or emails to my spouse explaining all of that.

Because the writing, first of all, it helps you to get clarity on your thoughts.

And this might be a multi step process because the first level is of writing like a first draft that might be very ugly and attacking and and you want to edit that you want to get rid of the worst stuff and then make a version that's, you know, from with the heart of peace and emphasizing the positive vision.

22:35

But it allows you to then take this edited message without all of the anger and and negative emotion and to give it to your spouse so that they also then have time to process it to read through it to like without you there in their face, like, you know, trying to get some immediate response from them.

22:55

It's a process that really helps you to get some resolution here without all of the ugliness that can happen that leads to fighting when we try to address it face to face when neither of us are really clear about what exactly it is we're talking about and what to do about it.

23:15

And there's.

So there's so much.

Emotion around it, yeah.

And and so and make your spouse know like, hey, it's OK that you were wounded, right?

It's OK.

It's not OK to stay wounded.

Exactly.

And every one of us has had wounds, but wounds don't have to stay open.

23:35

In fact, they shouldn't heal because then they fester.

Right.

As a spouse in a marriage, at some point I have to kindly but firmly say we're drawing the line here.

You're not going to stay wounded any longer.

It's time to heal.

And, and the healing process is painful.

It's uncomfortable, but you got to heal.

23:52

You can't keep the wound open.

And that that's got to happen.

So that's a big one.

I think I think some of the the biggest deterrents are the very thing we're probably talking about the the reason we got this question for someone's like, hi, how do I help my spouse?

24:08

It's these, it's these bad habits and actions that are just infuriating behaviors that.

Well, in some ways, I'm going to throw this in here.

It's the nature of the time we live in.

We live in such a time of ease and convenience and luxury that it doesn't require a lot of effort for a human being to stay alive nowadays.

24:33

So, and it's not like that's something we are aware of or think of on a regular basis, but we live in a, we live these lifestyles of ease and comfort.

And so many men have found themselves in that cycle, that trap of ease, convenience, entertainment, where all they want to do, because all they have, they don't have to do anything to survive, is they want to play video games or scroll or watch.

25:01

TV, sports, that's that's what they do.

That is so unattractive.

Unattractive.

Any woman with any kind of self respect.

Well, look at a man.

Do him like.

Like what?

Value are you bringing to my life?

No woman respects that.

No self respecting woman respects that.

25:18

And the irony is, like you were saying, art we live in such easy, easy times that men have become lazy weaklings.

But they think they're working hard.

They put in a mediocre day at best and they're like, man, I'm working so hard because the scale has dropped so far.

25:40

Well, and.

Hard doesn't even show up and.

It's the drive that makes us want to be better.

And if men lose, well, specifically men, but women too, if you lose that drive, why?

Why would you go out and work hard on becoming a better person when you already have everything you want and need?

25:59

You've got your game, you've got your movies, you've got your food.

Why the others just hard and uncomfortable?

If if a man can get away with all that and have an OK life, I think maybe women.

Are a comfortable life.

Women are asking how do I get my husband to break out of that?

26:15

Yeah, the the real answer is you have, because of the role women play in testing men, you have to become that Chester.

You have to be the one who, and not in the nagging way that we've been talking about, but that is calling him out, like helping him to raise the standard.

26:36

And that definitely includes everything we've been talking about, includes improving yourself.

It includes noticing the positive things about him and, and emphasizing them.

But then at the same time, you are holding up the standard of like, hey, here's what we could do.

And it it needs to be a vision, a shared vision.

26:53

That's another problem that many couples don't have.

They don't have a shared vision of what it is they're trying to create as a couple, like the legacy they're trying to leave for their children and their grandchildren.

If you don't have that shared vision, then especially if once you get to your 40s and you've checked all the boxes on everything else you're supposed to do, you've got the career, you went to college, you got married, you had kids, you bought a house.

27:16

Now all you've got to look forward to is retirement.

That's not a compelling enough vision.

We have to have something else that's more motivating and more driving that helps us say, wow, yeah, that's worth working for together to help us create and accomplish so that we can have this impact for our children and our grandchildren.

27:36

If you can't get it with a spouse, create a vision as an individual for the family and that draws the spouse into the picture.

As you start rising and getting better yourself, it becomes a form of a threat to the spouse, and that's a good thing.

27:54

It is very uncomfortable.

It's.

Scary.

It's uncomfortable for both.

It's almost like an ultimatum.

Yeah, Without saying anything, you start driving like I don't do something.

I'm going to get left behind if if one spouse is downward, trending deliberately and intentionally and won't turn around.

28:13

In my case, in my mind, that's a case for divorce like it really is if the spouse is unwilling to make those changes and is continually threatened by you and won't do anything about it.

Yeah, at some point there's grounds for divorce.

28:29

We've worked with couples that one of them starts to level up and the other one starts to notice it, starts to feels threatened, it starts to feels uncomfortable, then then starts trying something, starts getting results.

And we've seen multiple times where eventually both of them are on absolute fire and they're leveling up together.

28:49

And they went from really a humdrum existence to now living deliberately life on their terms, madly in love, hitting goals that are way beyond their wildest dreams.

And it is the coolest thing to see and so rewarding.

29:08

So it's it is drawing a line in the sand and setting a standard.

It is taking ownership for your responsibility to really level up and then at some point it is just a really difficult, hard conversation that's done with lots of diplomacy.

29:28

Multiple hard conversations over over time.

So how, how would you approach that, Rach, if there was something that that you wanted me to change and it just, it needs to be said, it needs to be talked about, how would you approach?

29:44

It well I know for me I used when we early on when we were married, I used to avoid that I didn't want to have conflict.

I didn't want to have confrontation I didn't want to have difficult conversations.

I wanted us to always interact in ways that were pleasant and happy and pleasing and feel feel good.

30:02

But over time, I began to realize and I started to see the pattern that when we had our most difficult conversations, that often led to the biggest positive changes.

And so I learned to like, I guess, embrace it and almost welcome it.

30:19

Not that I.

Pavlov's dogs there.

Not that I wanted.

It hard conversations get real results.

Let's go.

Well, and actually at this point, I would say, yeah, I do want that we actually learn to embrace them and to to encourage them or to push for them or to say, hey, no, we got to have this talk.

30:38

And by doing that, it increased our ability and our skills to be able to have those talks and to have them faster.

And they are the catalyst for true, lasting change.

Like when you can have that difficult conversation about the proverbial elephant in the room, that's what actually creates change.

30:58

But as long as you keep avoiding it and you don't talk about it, it's the wound that doesn't heal.

That's what it becomes.

And then if it happens again and again and again, you're just covered with wounds and you can't talk about anything and no progress is made, no improvement is made.

31:14

And that's literally how people get stuck.

Yes, you're spot on.

You don't have to be mean, you don't have to be insulting, right?

There's no name calling.

It's not attacking, it's not attacking your character, it's not saying bad things about you.

It's it's presenting the issue in a way that convinces you to believe why my point of view may be correct.

31:37

Right, and where I have to, I don't have to abandon my principles, right?

We've we've covered so many things in this episode and they all matter.

And it's, you know, when you say, well, how do I, how do I help my spouse change?

We just gave.

31:52

It's going to be a multifaceted approach. 47 things that you have to do but.

Not all at once and you'll wisdom will help you know which one you need to use today right and then tomorrow the.

More you do, and the sooner you do them, the quicker you get.

The results so.

32:07

If it were me, I would do all of it, but that's just me.

I would go all in, everything.

I'm like, hey, this, this is really affecting my marriage.

Is this really affecting our life?

I'm going to go all in.

I'm going to become obsessed with this and I'm going to do everything I can.

32:25

I have influence and I'm going to do everything I can to make it easier for you to change if I wanted you to change something.

Well, and plus the more that you do and the sooner you do it, the sooner you get feedback.

And that's really what you want.

A lot of times too, people think, well, I tried this and it didn't work.

32:42

Well, great.

What you did receive was feedback.

That thing for your spouse in this situation doesn't work.

Try a different tool like we've given you a lot.

Try a different tool.

If that one didn't work instead of like that didn't work, I guess I'll just give up now.

No, keep going and keep applying and trying different tools until you get the ones that produce the response you want and you know it.

33:07

I mean, that's the easy thing.

It's easy to tell if something works because you actually get a positive response.

Or at least you don't get the normal response that you used to get, because that is a positive response right when you're making changes, and then you keep using more of that thing.

33:22

What works And, and, and some of you you guys might be sitting here listening and, and you hear the 47 things we mentioned.

You're like, how do I do each one of those more effective?

Yeah, which is?

Why?

Send us questions and we make more well.

Yeah, more episodes, but that's why I have the master class and live.

33:38

The 20 Challenge.

And Rachel has the 20 Challenge with live coaching.

Every week we're meeting and going over very specific things and how to get these things done, So it's almost like it's an expanded view on each of the 47.

It's an interactive podcast because we're doing this, but we're actually answering your specifics and.

33:55

You're probably like, well, how do you do that?

OK, what about this?

And what if a spouse does that or a child does that?

And then that's where you get it.

I want to end by emphasizing as strongly as I possibly can, whatever you do, do not accept non improvement.

34:12

Don't just acquiesce.

Don't just settle.

Don't just say, well, I can't change that or I can't change my spouse.

So I'll just, we'll just, I'll just tolerate it.

I'll just leave it as it is.

Do not do that, please.

34:30

In life, you get what you tolerate.

And if you just tolerate that, you're going to get it and it'll get, it'll get worse, it'll get uglier.

It's not going to stay the same.

It can't.

You'll just build a resentment.

So whatever you do, keep trying to figure out ways to create change.

And if you're saying to yourself right now, I've already tried everything.

34:45

No, you haven't.

If you've tried everything, you you'd.

Have the results.

Yeah, you.

Wouldn't be still struggling with it.

You'd have the results.

So keep trying until it works.

If you need coaching, get coaching.

Rachel does coaching.

I do coaching.

If if what you're doing is not working, do different things and do them better and maybe do them with more intensity or maybe with less intensity, whatever.

35:09

Like you got to figure this out until you get it to work.

But 100% it can work.

We've seen it work so many times.

I think one of the most rewarding things I get from the work you and I get to do is when we help one person and a couple months later they come back and they're like, my spouse is a totally different person.