Join doctor Lee Baucom as he explores ways
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Hey. This is Lee Balchem, and, part of
what
I find interesting is when I hear the
same questions over and over again. So
today, we wanna talk about
this path that I've talked about. So let
me just kind of dive in here because
this came out of a question from an
email, and the question was simply, you talk
about this path and I don't know what
you mean by that path, and
that's a core part of my material. And
so I responded to this person. I said,
well, that's exactly what I talk about, you
know, in the 3 c's that path. So
let me very quickly cover these 3 c's
because they are your control center for your
efforts to save your marriage. So the first
one is connection.
Talk about connection as being so important. You
have to connect with your spouse.
The reason you have to connect with your
spouse is because you become disconnected in your
spouse. That's the pause button marriage that I've
talked about, and it's one of,
the main
issues in a marriage. In fact, it's the
core issue of why marriages get into trouble.
You didn't stay in connection
and you got stagnant. So the connection is
a big piece of of connecting with your
spouse as a way of reconnecting
where you wanna get to. That's the first
c. The second c is about changing yourself.
So
first,
let me just say, many people say, hey,
how do you why do you think something's
wrong with me? It's not that. It's that
I know that you and me and everybody
else has the tendency and the capacity
of stagnating in life. And when we stagnate,
we stop bringing our best self into all
of life, but
including in our marriage. And so part of
what we have to do is change ourselves
to get back on the path of where
we need to be. It's not about becoming
a different person. It's about getting on the
path of natural
of the changes and growth that we all
need to have. We need to reestablish how
we get to the place where we're showing
up as our best self. That is the
big thing is how do we show up
as our best self to
our spouse who we're connecting with. So we're
bringing our best self into that,
and that brings us to this other, the
3rd c
of creating a new path,
creating
the path.
So I've been doing a lot of,
traveling and driving this summer. Some I meant
to, others I didn't. So when we were
in Iceland recently, my family's in Iceland,
and, we were lucky that, Google Maps works
there just fine, and it took us on
the path to where we needed to get
to.
So we had an idea of where we
needed to get to, and we plug it
in, and it would plot us the path
to get there.
And part of what was helpful about that
is since we'd never been there, we needed
something to show us how to get there,
and that's pretty much why I've been laying
out all of these pieces because
most people fail to get to the point
in the marriage where we're working on. That
being a we. That's the whole path. And
so when I respond to this person, I
said, that's this is it. This is the
path to we. That's what we're talking about
here. We need to create a path to
we,
which raises the question of, what is that?
Right?
The whole task of marriage
is about building
a we.
And sadly,
most people
miss that. Most most people don't recognize,
a, that that's the path or the the
task,
and b, what that's about.
Partly because we don't talk about this, partly
because many people don't have very good models
of that, partly because people misunderstand that, and
they've put it into the context of, oh,
you're talking about
codependence,
or you're talking about losing yourself to this
other person. I don't want that.
That is not
what I mean. In fact, it's almost the
opposite
of what I mean.
So let's talk a little bit about what
I mean by that building a we of
creating this path. Okay? So, first of all,
let's go back. Let's
rewind to the beginning
of every relationship.
One step before that.
Before you met your now spouse,
before you did anything,
it was your spouse and you,
or to put it more succinctly,
you,
me.
You, me. Right? 2 people.
And, so, if it's like most
relationships that develop,
something
put you in each other's vicinities.
Really doesn't matter what that was, and and
there are lots of ways that could happen.
You met at,
an event, you met at,
you know, an organization.
You met online. You met at a bar.
You met through friends. You
pumped in bumped in each other, shot, whatever
it is. It doesn't matter. Right?
Suddenly, you go, oh, wait. There's something interesting
about this person. And maybe it took 1
or 2 or 3 or 4 times, but
there's something interesting to drive you a little
bit more and more, so that you decide
to explore what the possibilities are of a
deepening relationship here.
And so you have conversations, and you do
things together, and you try to explore what
your common values and beliefs and what that
all looks like and tell your story and
all of those pieces that happen in the
building of a relationship.
And along the way, you go from you,
me to
you and me.
And you and me begin to move forward
and you find closer points together. You and
me. You and me. You and me. And
along the way, lots of things are possible
there.
Some people decide to live together,
and I'm gonna tell you why it is
that statistics
show that you're less likely to survive a
marriage if you lived together before.
That's a shocker for people
because they don't understand exactly what we're talking
about.
It's a subtle
shift that most people miss.
In fact, I created
a whole training program a number of years
ago
about the secret to marriage, and the secret
to marriage was about being a we.
And I created a whole lot of training
on just what that looks like because it's
a subtle change that has to happen
for a successful marriage to make it.
And if you don't know what that looks
like, it's tough to see the nuance difference
here.
That's why I try to create this map,
so you can find your way there. That's
why my Save the Marriage system and my
books behind me are all about that, of
of how do you find your way forward
with that. Because
marriages get into trouble because people hit the
pause button, and they disconnect. And part of
that is because they didn't realize
the level of connection and the level of
being a we
that gets them through.
So there is an opportunity
that only happens
when you,
make the kind of pledge that's true in
a marriage.
People who live together
think that they have done that. But here's
the little secret.
If you're living together,
you know that there is an exit that's
pretty easy.
Wait for the lease to run out, break
the lease, sell the property.
There are ways that you can, you know,
change that pretty easily. There's nothing big about
that.
Divorce is big. It's a legal process of
disconnecting
what the state has said is, at least
in United States, we'll say the state, but
the state or the country has said you
are now one unit.
That is what happens
legally in a marriage. You become
1 unit,
Because legally, they know that is the process
that needs to happen.
Faith tradition have talked about this too of
becoming 1 unit. Right? Many faith traditions have
that idea that a married couple becomes this
one unit.
Except for many marriages don't make that shift.
They stay you and me.
They don't make the shift,
and that is why it's fragile.
So this path to we,
that's the whole basis for marriage.
It's a partnership path.
The deepest level of partnership.
Sometimes I've talked about the fact that,
a marriage is kind of like a a
business in a couple of ways.
One is the way you form a business
is to fill out some paperwork.
You
say to the state, this is now an
organization that we're gonna treat like a real
organization.
Then you do accounting, and you do other
ways of treating that that make it like
it's the unit. Right? You do that in
marriage too. Right?
You have a marriage license, and that license
is that you are now 1,
and you,
taxes and and lots of other things now
are about that. Property becomes our property,
our stuffs. Just like corporations is
ours. Now in business, you might have a
partnership and you go, you know, I don't
wanna be with my partner anymore. I'll just
sell out my part.
Sure. There's some
legal wranglings that have to happen, but even
that is different. And so that's where it
kinda breaks down.
When you divorce,
that is pulling apart this entity that the
state
and probably even you both have treated that
way in your property and everything else you
have to
split that apart and that's why it's so
difficult. That's why it's so painful.
And that's why we have to make sure
that you have the opportunity of forming that
we.
You become a team.
And that's the subtle thing that many people
miss is it's about being that team together
through whatever comes your way, and that is
what you have promised in the marriage, and
that's why you can make the shift.
You say through whatever happens,
you know, it it doesn't matter what days
come our way. We're gonna stick through this.
Through good days, bad days, sick days, poor
days,
rich days, or sick days, healthy days, rich
days, poor days. Right?
And and sticking together through that. Sticking together
through thick and thin.
That is the pledge.
Sometimes the people
don't know what that looks like,
and that's why they don't quite make the
shift.
So what happens?
What happens is you
and me, you and me,
at some point becomes you
versus me.
It becomes a competition.
You start competing with your spouse to ask
the question, what are you getting versus what
am I getting? You know, what's my benefit?
What's your benefit? Who's,
carrying more weight here? Who's I mean, all
those equations come in. Now, and let me
just say,
it is great to have discussions about how
do we share the load.
Great discussion.
But when we start making that personal attacks
about what am I getting versus what you're
getting,
it's rarely coming from a place of how
can we make this work.
And so, I'm I'm suggesting that we have
to change
that discussion to how do we make this
work
for us.
How can we make this work?
So some people have said, okay. So what
you're talking about is I have to lose
myself to this.
I'm gonna say that's the opposite of what
I'm saying.
You kinda bring your best self to this.
So let's go kind of with this mindset
of being a team. Right?
So what do you do if you show
up to a sporting event with your team?
Do you go, I'm gonna lose myself back
here. I'm just gonna kind of blend in
back here. Or do you want to bring
in your best self,
your best athletic self, your best skill set
into that?
If you wanna win, you're bringing your best
into that.
Maybe you have someone on your team that
is great at something, so you want them
to do that.
But you're probably good at something too or
great at something too, and so you need
to be able to blend that together. That's
how teams win.
And so part of what we're talking about
here is how do we bring our best
self here.
And that's why it's not about losing yourself.
It's about recognizing that you bring your best
self into a partnership
together
to take on life.
Now,
let me say something here that I hear
many times. People use the,
the analogy of it's you and me against
the world.
It is not you and you and your
spouse against the world. It's us moving through
the world
Because you and me against the world makes
it adversarial
in ways that just make it difficult. But
but that
you and me against the world is at
least that we're standing together against the world.
I'll take that over you versus me in
the world.
It's you against me. That's not gonna go
very far. It's us moving through the world
to find the best way forward.
That's what we're talking about.
So then some people will say, well, you're
talking about codependence, because that was another email
I got. My spouse doesn't wanna have anything
to do with this because you're talking about
codependence.
That is not what I'm talking about.
That's a misunderstanding
of my idea and and really in many
ways, it's a misunderstanding of codependence.
So codependence is one of those words. There
are lots of terms out there, lots of
ideas out there from psychology that maybe had
some good in the beginning.
But the way we've used them or misuse
them over time has taken away almost any
sense of what it's about.
Codependence
comes from the addictions treatment world that says
that a spouse or somebody is codependent on
the addictive substance.
Right? So let's say you have a spouse
who is an alcoholic,
and
the spouse of that person
is codependent
on the alcohol,
not on the person, on the alcohol.
That was the original intent. So let's say
that,
a spouse realizes that when their spouse has
a few drinks, they stop being so argumentative
and start being less insulting, and so then
they stop drinking, and they're tired of the
insults and arguments because they haven't actually gotten
sober, and so they,
offer some drinks to get them back onto
that. That's codependence.
Right? And it comes in lots of different
ways and lots of different subtleties to it,
but it was all about being codependent on
the substance.
So then it began to be anytime that
you relied on a spouse or anyone for
anything has been seen as codependent.
So let's talk about the truth of that.
We are all interdependent
on each other in this world.
That's also true in marriage.
In fact, it's way more true in marriage.
We have this concept, this myth that we
there's a such thing as, you know, pulling
yourself up out of the bootstraps and that,
you know, you gotta do it on your
own.
Nobody does that.
Nobody.
Well,
let me just say that this is something
that I have been aware of for a
long time that when we start looking at
I did this.
I am the reason for my success.
We've already denied the reality,
the true reality of that. So years years
ago,
I had a client who came in and
he said, you know, he he was not
happy with life, not happy with lots of
things. And he said, but you know, I'm
a I'm a self made man.
And I said, no. You're not.
I knew his story,
and he was a little irate that I
would challenge him on that. He said, yes.
I am. I am a self made man.
I built my business, and I said, no.
That's not entirely true, is it? And so
here is what I told him. I said,
first of all, your business, you bought from
a family member.
Correct? And he said, yes. And I said,
so that in and of itself, you had
the opportunity that many many other people didn't
have. Now you took advantage of it. You
did
step up and buy it. So you took
initiative.
That's different than being self made. Initiative,
great. Not about being self made.
2nd, that family member allowed you to acquire
the business by using the profits that you
were generating in the business by doing the
business to pay them. Very few people get
the sweetheart deal like that. So even there,
you're not self made.
You know, you're part of an opportunity that,
yes, you were able to capitalize on, but
many people would never even had that opportunity.
So again,
initiative. Yes. Self made. No.
2nd, you're not selling the product. You're not
servicing the product. You have people who are
selling it. You have people who are servicing
you. You have people who are helping to
run the business. They are helping you run
it.
They are contributing to
your process.
You hired them, made good hires, initiative,
not self made.
Finally, there are customers who are coming in
your door, who are giving you their money
for that product.
They're helping you along the path too.
And the fact is that that is true
for us as humans that we have people
with whom we rely on.
I don't grow my own food and create
my own power and do all those other
I didn't build my house. Right? I mean,
there are these places where I am reliant
on other people.
None of us are
independent. That's my point. And so if you
think of the continuum from dependence over here
and independence over here,
A baby is dependent.
And in many ways, we have dependencies
along the way as we're growing and developing.
The other side of that independence means I
don't need anyone else. I am on my
own.
Okay. So
now the truth is that we exist in
our lives somewhere in this midpoint of interdependence.
When I go to the store, the money
I've made in my job, I hand to
somebody else for things that they've created from
their job and we make an exchange.
That's interdependence. I am dependent interdependent on they're
dependent on me buying. I'm dependent on them
selling. That's interdependence.
It's everywhere.
But nowhere as strong as it is in
a marriage where you again have bound your
life together to walk down the path and
make take it take yourselves
through life in a successful way. You are
interdependent.
That is not
codependent.
Interdependence
means we rely on each other to make
it through
and make it through life.
That's what you're
doing. This is a partnership
of interdependence,
and it is the place where it happens
the strongest of anywhere in your life. That
is absolutely true. Because you have pledged your
futures together. You have bound your futures together.
So the path that you are building
is to see that, For instance, around resources,
money.
Right? We have our resources coming into our
home and our expenses going out. Right? Resources
coming in, resources going out to support us.
So when couples say, my money, your money,
that is a fictional accounting
Because
our household
has the resources. How you subdivide it, it's
all in your mind, for instance.
Our children, how are we going to parent
them?
That's another place.
Our love life. What does that look like?
How do we bring that together
which is different than what are you getting
and what am I getting?
You can always tell when somebody has stepped
into me, you thinking
when they're asking the question, what am I
getting out of this versus what are you
getting out of this? You can have a
conversation about what are we getting out of
this, and what do we want out of
this, and what would be,
most helpful. And and there are lots of
other conversations you might have coming from bringing
your your best self there.
But it's in the context of our life
together. How does our life join together to
get us where we want to get to?
That's a talking about negotiation.
Talking about finding what fits for both people
because you've bound your lives together.
The foundation
of that binding it together is the love
that you have.
The connection that you have.
Bringing your best self to that.
So it's a project.
It's a lifelong project. And that's the thing
about being a we. You're gonna find places
down the road that you go, oh gosh.
We're not doing that in this area and
I didn't notice it.
So then you figure out a way to
do that.
You're gonna find places where you say, I'm
really not stepping into this the way I
need to. So we step into that. You're
gonna find places where you're going, wow, we've
let the connection kind of wane. We gotta
work on that.
The 3 c's.
Connect. Change yourself. Create a new path. That
path is about partnership.
It's about being a team. About seeing yourself
as being a we.
We are in this together.
We move forward. We find a way.
That's
the path that I'm talking about.
If you need help with figuring out what
that path looks like and how to build
it,
come visit me at save the marriage dot
com. That's save the marriage.com.
This is Lee Balkam wishing you the best
as you work
to save your marriage.
You've been listening to save the marriage podcast.
For more information and help, please visit us
at save the marriage dot
com.