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Hey. This is Lee Welcome. Welcome to the
save the Marriage podcast. This is crazy for
me to think.
We are well on the 3 hundreds
episodes now.
I've been doing this for quite a while
putting out an episode a week for what,
over 300
weeks now. 320 some weeks.
We've been downloaded now over 3000000
times from around the world. Just kinda blows
my mind about the cup capacity we have
now of getting information in so many different
ways.
I listened to podcast on a regular basis
when I'm walking in the morning, I always
tune into a couple of podcasts. And I'm
always looking for those places that help me
change. And that's why I bring you the
episodes the way I do.
I tried to time the episodes so that
they're about 18 to 25 minutes unless they're
an interview, and sometimes the interviews go longer
just so we can make sure we get
in that information.
But what I'm trying to do is give
you a nugget. Get you a piece of
information that's gonna help you. Now sometimes you're
gonna tune in and say, well, that didn't
quite apply to me, and then other times,
it's gonna be dead on. 1 of the
things I've noticed though is sometimes people don't
think it lost to them,
and then it suddenly does.
Because this is an ever changing process as
you're working to save your marriage.
Really doesn't matter where you are in that
process. There are some underlying dynamics.
Some pieces of information that are gonna apply
across the board.
And that's the thing I try to cover.
How do we understand what's going on and
how do I give you a kind of
a coherent
piece by piece way of moving through that.
Now to tell you, the save the marriage
system is kind of the place where I
put a whole system together step by step.
Right through the process.
It's kind of why I started this podcast
because I wanted to make sure people understood
what I'm saying
So they can decide what they think about
the system. So if you interested in the
system, go to save the marriage dot com
that save the marriage dot com, But today,
we're gonna be talking a little bit about
space. I'm answering questions.
And today, I'm answering a question about space.
So as you know, we've been talking about
questions
that people have.
Questions that listeners have. And that's where we're
coming in today when we're talking about this
issue of space. So I hear it very
often. A lot of people kind of
misunderstand what space is. And and yet they
hear that. You know, a spouse says, hey,
give me some space.
So the first thing I want you to
understand about space is when you can't manage
the space,
The other person is going to manage it
for you. Your spouse is going to manage
it for you. And the way they manage
it is by creating more distance.
So often what happens is people progress from
wanting emotional space to demanding physical space,
and that physical space can continue you to
be pushed until the person actually is out
the door, and that's what we're trying to
avoid.
So I had a couple questions, and it
says our giving space and trying to make
a connection again,
opposites.
So let's just talk about
the potentials here. So first of all, Understand
that space
feels safe
when you feel safe with that other person.
But space begins to feel unsafe when there's
a level of disconnection.
You can probably think about it yourself.
When you feel close to someone you want
to be closer.
But let's say that somebody doesn't feel close,
maybe even feels like there's something of a
threat.
Whatever level of threat that that may be.
I mean, certainly, if somebody feels physically threatening,
we keep our distance, but sometimes we feel
some need for emotional space, emotional distance. And
you can think about that in the rest
of your life.
If you've got somebody
that you know and acquaintance at work that
maybe
trust too hard, pushes too hard,
maybe makes you a bit uncomfortable.
You probably keep your distance,
whether physically
or
relational.
So physically, you may just avoid the other
person.
Relational, you may decide that you're not going
to engage too much in a conversation, and
maybe you're not gonna share too much. Maybe
you're going to avoid going too deep.
Well, that's the same kind of thing that
happens. The same thing. The same wiring is
there. You understand that our wiring as humans
is
across the board and how we manage ourselves.
A, we all need some level
of connection. And b, we all need some
level of safety and security.
Our level of connection and our level of
safety and security have a certain rhythm to
them.
When we feel more safe, we can connect
more.
When we connect more, we feel more safe.
Conversely,
When we feel unsafe, we disconnect. And when
we disconnect,
we feel unsafe.
So that brings us to this whole question
about space. So if you just imagine for
a amendment, this idea of space. Just imagine...
There's like a a fish bowl. Right? If
you go in and look, you've got a
fish bowl... Let's say you have 1 at
your house and You know, maybe it's your
your child's and they have a goldfish in
it. Right? The fish bowl is solid. The
fish bowl is made of glass or plastic
or whatever. It's solid and rigid. It's not
going anywhere.
So imagine that you put 2 puffer fishes
into that tank. If you know about puffer
fish, they'll puff up.
When they feel threatened they'll puff up, and
they take up space when they puff up.
So imagine a couple of combinations that could
happen with that. Puffer fish. 1 with the
2 in there, 1 of them can puff
up and the other has to move away.
And it's possible that the 1 who puffs
up always stays puff always is needing more
space because they feel unsafe or they feel
like they need more attention or or something
they're they're puff up. Right? And so The
other fish has to kind of stay away
and stay un puff.
And that's 1 rhythm that often happens with
couple where 1 person takes up more emotional
space. They need more attention or they need
to express themselves more or
they need more energy.
And so they take up more emotional space
in that bowl. But remember, the bowl is
only a certain size.
And then the other 1 has to therefore
take up less space.
Another pattern is that neither 1 take up
any space, neither 1 puff up.
And
there has to be some level of puff
to all of us. All of us need
some level of connection. And so when both
puffer fishers are completely
deflate and staying away from each other. That's
just
disconnection where there's so much disconnection. They don't
even
get close to each other. There are some
marriages like that, and they are disconnected
relationships.
I've had people coming in my the office
and say, you know, we're we're married, but
really in name only. We really don't have
anything to do each other We have our
separate lives.
We don't interact. Interestingly enough, I've had several
of those who started at that position who
ended up with very loving satisfying
relationships. Once they realized that there was actually
a way to go about the connection that
both of them could feel safe about. Both
of them could find some way through their
disconnection.
And maybe puff a bit, be closer to
each other.
But that's another pattern as possible.
There's also a pattern where both people
are constantly puff up, and they're poking into
each other. That's the puffer of fish part.
They poke into each other because they're so
puff up that their spawns are out and
they just keep pushing into each other.
In that case, it's a fairly volatile
relationship. Lots of energy, but not much love
there. It's just a lot of energy trying
to kinda make your point or demand things.
And so it ends up looking often like
a very energized angry
relationship. That's another option.
Then there are the times when
there is some puff that happens on each
side when
1 needs more attention, they puff up a
little bit to get closer to the other
1. Not so much of the spines come
out, but they just take turns taken up
that space.
In healthy relationships, we kind of take turns
taking up that space.
And there are sometimes in relationships where they
go to such extremes that 1 can take
up huge amounts of space, alternating with the
other, and they go back and forth, and
that's okay until suddenly both try to take
up space and they spike each other.
So I need space is basically saying you
need to move away. You need to move
away from me.
That could be emotional, could be verbal, could
be physical.
But that is a place of trying to
find
some difference, some some distance between you that
feels safe to the person. Now here's the
thing.
Some people
respond to disconnection
by creating an extreme level of distance from
trying to maintain it. Others
want to recapture that connection.
If you're a part of this process. If
you're living listening to this podcast,
You're probably not the 1 trying to distance.
You're trying to be the 1 to draw
closer.
But you may be doing that with someone
who wants. Some distance,
and that's where we have this struggle.
So the fact is there are ways we
can try to connect that can feel very
needy and very desperate.
And there are actually ways that we can
connect that don't feel quite so needy, and
that's what we're trying to manage.
So they are not opposites to answer the
question giving space and trying to make a
connection again are not opposites.
It's how you go about trying to reestablish
the connection. If you go at it from
an needy perspective where you're grabbing trying to
get the connection from the other person,
it's gonna feel like you're crowding the space.
If you make offers for connection,
If you try to give
connection, give support,
that can feel less like an invasion of
space.
And we do it in subtle ways.
I can walk up to someone and say,
hey, I love you.
And it be... All I'm trying to do
is is tell them a statement.
But I could also walked up to to
someone and say, hey, I love you.
And you'll notice a little question on the
end.
Or think about when we hug somebody,
not because we want to give them a
hug, but because we want to get a
hug from them. Many times, I watch people
say, hey, will you give me a hug.
Hey, will you give me a kiss.
I want something from you. They're looking for
reassurance. We all look for reassurance. The question
is whether it's the time to look for
reassurance or whether it becomes invasive.
So sometimes even in our physical actions, we
try to draw the connection from somebody else
which feels needy.
As opposed to if I just went up
to someone and gave him kind of a
little hug and said, hey, Just 1 wanna
let you know, Love. And walk off. Right?
So there are ways that we can connect
that aren't so invasive. Now, in my Vip
program, I actually have a whole training on
my tools of connection,
including how to text and how to
create some tabs to be together and and
some other ways of doing things that don't
feel needy that don't
pull at the other person.
So it's tools of connection designed specifically not
to invade space.
So those are lots of ways of do
that. But to answer the question,
it really isn't opposites. It's to make sure
you understand the connection that you're trying to
do is give connection while you're giving space,
not getting connection while you're invading space. That's
the danger point.
So the next question is, does it make
a difference if they are still actively having
an affair?
Well, it doesn't make any difference in the
fact that the other person gets to set
the parameters. The spouse gets to set the
parameters
of space.
You have to honor
what somebody says in terms of space. If
they say, hey, you can't call me
or maybe you can't call me at these
times,
you have no choice but to manage that,
but to allow that
because that's their boundary.
Maybe they say you can't come by the
house. You have to
you know, follow that because when people set
their level of space,
I'm not talking now practically.
If you push against that. I'm not saying
whether it's right or wrong, I'm just saying
if you push against that, they will take
the next step in taking more space. And
so when somebody asked for some space, yeah,
you have to give that space.
And affair is when somebody is getting their
connection from another person.
So, yes, there are some places that that
because they're already getting their kind of their
connection load somewhere else. They... May have substituted
before what they weren't getting in the marriage.
They're trying to now get it from outside.
So that's the danger,
and and pro also the threat of a
marriage.
Now I'll go into depth on this in
my book, recovering from the affair, which you
can find at the affair book dot com,
the affair book dot com. A talk about,
you know, kind of what fuels that, why
it's going on and and what difference it
makes and how do you move beyond that?
How do you confront that? How do you
heal from that?
But I just wanna be clear that it
really doesn't make a difference in terms of
the space
when they're in an affair because here is
an important thing to understand.
You're not competing
with the affair.
That's not what you're up against.
You're up against where the relationship has been.
The affair is a symptom of the disconnection
it's been in a relationship. There there is
an exception, and that has more to do
with addiction. But other than that, it has
more to do as a symptom of a
disconnected relationship where somebody
didn't hold the boundaries didn't set the boundaries
that are appropriate in a relationship.
In terms of space though, not a big
difference.
Okay. So then this says, how do you
reconnect while giving your spouse space?
And you say saying what would that look
like? Okay? So that's a very long conversation
because you need to understand the tools of
that.
That's an extended
process. Yeah. And it starts with an apology
that is not begging. It's not
trying to
invade that space accidentally.
It's also about how you interact with that
spouse and how you move towards them.
So the best thing to do
is if you
don't have my system is to grab the
system, the save the marriage system at save
the marriage dot com,
I'm gonna offer you a free week of
my Vip program.
Sign up for that, go straight to the
resource area and straight to the tools of
connection
and take all the training there to understand
how to do that. It is just lots
of training that there, more than I could
cover on a pot cast, but you do
want to understand how to do that very
specifically.
Now if you do have the save the
marriage system and you passed on
Vip. You can still
join Vip and learn all about space. I
have a whole set of training in there
an extended training session
on understanding what space is, why it's important,
how you manage it and what you do
about that plus those tools of connections. So
some great resources
specifically around space.
If you don't have
my system go to save the marriage dot
com, you do need to understand save the
marriage, in order to move into Vip,
that's a prerequisite for that. And then if
you still need to, you can join Vip,
by going to save the marriage dot com
slash vip.
If you want coaching on how to deal
with that. Go to save the marriage dot
com slash coaching,
and we can walk you through this and
help you understand that and coach you through
how to connect in your specific situation.
But don't let space, be a scary place
where you either get desperate to make connection
and therefore invade the space or you just
avoid it completely. There are ways to understand
both connection and space
that don't put them as opposites and you
need to do that. If you want to
save your marriage.
Okay. Again, starting point, save the marriage dot
com. That's where you grab my system, save
the marriage dot com.
Do grab my free week of Vip when
I offer it
and get busy with those tools of connection
and the extended training on understanding space.
This is Lee Wishing you the best. As
you work to save your marriage.
You've been listening to save the marriage podcast,
For more information and health, please visit us
and save the marriage dot com.