Latest / Toxic Girls Zone / You're Not In Love. You're In Project Management

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You're Not In Love. You're In Project Management · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back. I'm glad you're here. And I mean
0:06
Speaker 1: that in the very specific way of someone who has
0:08
Speaker 1: been thinking about this episode for a long time and
0:10
Speaker 1: finally gets to say the thing out loud. No aside today,
0:12
Speaker 1: we're going straight in because this one is too important
0:14
Speaker 1: to delay. Here's your warning in one sentence. This is
0:18
Speaker 1: the episode I needed years ago. And if you recognize
0:20
Speaker 1: yourself in the next hour, I need you to know
0:22
Speaker 1: that recognition is the whole point. Today, we're talking about
0:25
Speaker 1: the woman who dates a man. and also somehow becomes
0:27
Speaker 1: his scheduling assistant, his therapist, his hype coach, and his
0:30
Speaker 1: project lead. Right? She's good at it. She's exhausted. She
0:33
Speaker 1: doesn't see the connection. And I want to be really
0:35
Speaker 1: clear before we go further. This isn't about being a
0:37
Speaker 1: helpful partner. This is about what happens when managing him
0:40
Speaker 1: is the only way you know how to feel safe
0:41
Speaker 1: with him. By the end of this episode, you're going
0:43
Speaker 1: to know exactly which text in your sent folder gave
0:45
Speaker 1: it away. Yeah, that one. The one you rewrote four
0:48
Speaker 1: times and sent anyway. I want to say something funny
0:51
Speaker 1: right now because I need you to stay with me.
0:53
Speaker 1: I was prepping for my weekly status meeting at work
0:55
Speaker 1: this morning. The one I genuinely hate. And I realize
0:58
Speaker 1: that prepping for that meeting and the emotional labor I
1:00
Speaker 1: used to do for a grown man feel completely identical.
1:03
Speaker 1: Same spreadsheet energy. Same anticipating what everyone needs before they ask.
1:07
Speaker 1: Same leaving the meeting feeling like I handled everything and
1:09
Speaker 1: no one asked how I was doing. Make sense? Okay,
1:12
Speaker 1: let's go. So let me paint you a picture right
1:16
Speaker 1: now and I want you to really be in this
1:17
Speaker 1: with me. It's late. You've got your phone in your hand.
1:20
Speaker 1: You're in bed or on the couch and you have
1:22
Speaker 1: a text drafted to him. Not the original text. The
1:25
Speaker 1: fourth version of the text. the one where you took
1:26
Speaker 1: out the part that said what you actually needed because
1:28
Speaker 1: it seemed like too much, the one where you soften
1:30
Speaker 1: the ask into almost nothing because you didn't want to
1:32
Speaker 1: seem demanding, you send it. He replies, one word, okay.
1:37
Speaker 1: And your inner voice goes, at least he responded, right?
1:41
Speaker 1: You screenshot nothing. You tell no one. You put your
1:44
Speaker 1: phone face down and you call it a good night.
1:46
Speaker 1: That is where we're starting today. You are organized. You're competent.
1:50
Speaker 1: You have what people call high empathy, which is a
1:53
Speaker 1: lovely way of saying your nervous system has been reading
1:55
Speaker 1: rooms since before you were old enough to understand why.
1:58
Speaker 1: You notice things. You remember his dentist appointment and his
2:01
Speaker 1: weird dynamic with his co-worker and exactly what he needs
2:04
Speaker 1: to hear before a hard week. And you tell yourself
2:06
Speaker 1: this is just how you love. You're a good partner.
2:09
Speaker 1: You pay attention. Sound familiar? Yeah, I get that. I
2:13
Speaker 1: genuinely do. And I'm going to validate that for exactly
2:16
Speaker 1: one second before I hand you the mirror, because you
2:18
Speaker 1: should be proud of how much you care. And then
2:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you what that care has been covering.
2:23
Speaker 1: Here is the mirror. You rewrote three texts this week
2:26
Speaker 1: to protect his feelings. You RSVP'd into something for both
2:29
Speaker 1: of you because waiting for him to handle it felt unbearable.
2:32
Speaker 1: You explained his behavior to your best friend in full sentences,
2:35
Speaker 1: defending him before she even finished her question. And she
2:37
Speaker 1: wasn't even being mean. She was just asking. He's not
2:40
Speaker 1: a bad person. I know that. That's actually what makes
2:43
Speaker 1: this so hard, right? If he were terrible, it would
2:45
Speaker 1: be easier to see. But he's not terrible. He's just
2:47
Speaker 1: someone you've decided is a project without either of you
2:50
Speaker 1: signing off on that agreement. You've been so busy managing
2:52
Speaker 1: his life that you forgot you were allowed to just
2:54
Speaker 1: be in this relationship. Love is not a project and
2:57
Speaker 1: he's not a renovation. Okay, but I need you to
3:00
Speaker 1: picture something with me. Your partner, not this guy. I mean,
3:03
Speaker 1: the steady one you're going to find or the steady
3:04
Speaker 1: one you already have leaves a sticky note on the
3:06
Speaker 1: coffee maker. My partner does this. The note says I
3:09
Speaker 1: got this. And you stand in the kitchen with nothing
3:11
Speaker 1: to manage and you genuinely don't know what to do
3:12
Speaker 1: with your hands. Because there's no problem. Nothing needs solving.
3:16
Speaker 1: Nothing is on fire. And your nervous system goes, wait,
3:18
Speaker 1: is this bad? Is this nothing? Is this fine? And
3:21
Speaker 1: you stand there holding your iced coffee wondering why calm
3:24
Speaker 1: feels like absence. That moment right there, that's what we're
3:26
Speaker 1: unpacking today. Make sense? And listen, I say all of
3:31
Speaker 1: this with love because I have been her. I have
3:33
Speaker 1: been the woman with an iced coffee in one hand.
3:36
Speaker 1: and a five-point improvement plan for a man and the other.
3:38
Speaker 1: And I thought that was love. I thought that was partnership.
3:41
Speaker 1: I thought being the person who sees his potential and
3:43
Speaker 1: works toward it with him was the most devoted thing
3:45
Speaker 1: I could do. And it was devoted. It was also
3:48
Speaker 1: a strategy. And strategies, no matter how loving, are not
3:51
Speaker 1: the same as intimacy. Right? So let's talk about the
3:54
Speaker 1: real question underneath all of it, because it is not
3:56
Speaker 1: the one you think it is. The real question isn't,
3:59
Speaker 1: why is he like this? That question, while understandable, is
4:02
Speaker 1: also a little bit of a trap because it keeps
4:04
Speaker 1: the focus on him and his patterns and his growth arc.
4:07
Speaker 1: The real question, the one this episode is actually here
4:09
Speaker 1: to answer, is why does fixing him feel like love
4:12
Speaker 1: to you? What does the managing actually do for you
4:14
Speaker 1: on the inside? Because it does something. It isn't random, right?
4:18
Speaker 1: It keeps you busy enough that you never have to
4:20
Speaker 1: sit with the discomfort of just being chosen or not.
4:23
Speaker 1: When your hands are full of someone else's chaos, you
4:24
Speaker 1: don't have to feel how still and uncertain closeness actually is.
4:28
Speaker 1: You don't have to feel the weird quiet of being
4:30
Speaker 1: with someone who isn't a problem to solve, you know?
4:34
Speaker 1: And just so we're all clear on what this episode
4:36
Speaker 1: is and isn't, spoiler, it's not that you're just really
4:39
Speaker 1: good at logistics. It's not that you happen to fall
4:41
Speaker 1: in love with someone who needed a lot of help
4:42
Speaker 1: and you're just being kind. Those are the stories we
4:45
Speaker 1: tell ourselves. And they're not wrong. They're just not complete.
4:47
Speaker 1: What's underneath them is what we're going after today. And
4:50
Speaker 1: I promise by the end, you're going to have language
4:51
Speaker 1: for something you've been feeling but couldn't name. And you're
4:54
Speaker 1: going to have actual things to do with that language. Yeah? Okay.
4:57
Speaker 1: Let's keep going. So picture this. You meet him and
5:01
Speaker 1: something clicks. Not fireworks, exactly. More like a puzzle you recognize.
5:05
Speaker 1: He's charming, a little scattered, and your brain goes immediately
5:08
Speaker 1: into solution mode. Like you see him and some part
5:10
Speaker 1: of you goes, oh, I know what this is. I
5:12
Speaker 1: know how to do this. And so you start showing up.
5:15
Speaker 1: You send the article that's relevant to his situation. You
5:17
Speaker 1: suggest the better plan when his first one has obvious holes.
5:20
Speaker 1: You help him prep. You think about his problems when
5:22
Speaker 1: he's not even in the room. And you tell yourself
5:25
Speaker 1: you're being supportive, which, yeah, you are. But six months in,
5:29
Speaker 1: you're the reason his inbox is in a catastrophe. And
5:31
Speaker 1: you've had maybe one conversation about what you actually need,
5:34
Speaker 1: and it dissolves somewhere before you even finish the sentence
5:36
Speaker 1: because it felt selfish to bring up, right? Kay, stay
5:39
Speaker 1: with me. Your best friend at some point says something
5:43
Speaker 1: quiet and careful. She goes, he just seems like a
5:46
Speaker 1: lot of work. And you say, he just needs someone
5:48
Speaker 1: who really gets him, right? And you're not wrong. He
5:51
Speaker 1: probably does. But you are also very clearly not answering
5:54
Speaker 1: the question she was actually asking. The question was whether
5:56
Speaker 1: this is working for you. whether you're happy or just busy,
5:59
Speaker 1: and those are genuinely not the same thing. Can we
6:02
Speaker 1: see this? Because you've been using busy to avoid noticing
6:04
Speaker 1: the absence of happy, and you've gotten so good at
6:06
Speaker 1: it that some days you can't even tell the difference.
6:08
Speaker 1: My partner came home the other day, left a note
6:10
Speaker 1: on the coffee maker saying dinner's on the stove, and
6:12
Speaker 1: I stood there for a full minute because nothing needed managing.
6:15
Speaker 1: Just dinner. Just a note. Just someone who showed up
6:18
Speaker 1: without being project managed into it. I didn't know what
6:20
Speaker 1: to do with that for a long time. You know
6:23
Speaker 1: what's also true? You have two project management methodologies running simultaneously.
6:27
Speaker 1: One for work, which has deliverables and timelines and stakeholders,
6:30
Speaker 1: and one for this man, which honestly has more moving parts,
6:33
Speaker 1: a less clear ROI, and absolutely no performance reviews except
6:37
Speaker 1: the ones you run on yourself at two in the morning. Right?
6:40
Speaker 1: And neither system is asking how you're doing. Neither one
6:42
Speaker 1: has a column for what you need. So that's where
6:44
Speaker 1: we are. And now I'm going to tell you something
6:46
Speaker 1: I've not been proud of because I think you deserve
6:48
Speaker 1: to hear it from someone who has actually been inside
6:50
Speaker 1: this pattern and not just someone explaining it from the outside.
6:54
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest with you in a way
6:56
Speaker 1: that's a little embarrassing. In my mid-twenties, at the worst
6:58
Speaker 1: of it, I was dating a man who was barely
7:00
Speaker 1: functional in the practical sense and I thrived. I mean,
7:03
Speaker 1: I was exhausted and I was shrinking and I was
7:05
Speaker 1: pretending none of that was happening, but I thrived in
7:07
Speaker 1: the specific way a person thrives when they finally feel necessary. Like, oh,
7:11
Speaker 1: there's a role for me here. There's a thing I
7:13
Speaker 1: can do to make this person stay. My dad was kind.
7:16
Speaker 1: I want to say that clearly. Good man, worked long hours,
7:19
Speaker 1: came home tired. But you couldn't reach him, not really.
7:21
Speaker 1: He came in, went quiet, needed to decompress. And I
7:24
Speaker 1: learned early that love was something you worked for. Something
7:27
Speaker 1: you demonstrated with effort and usefulness and not needing too
7:29
Speaker 1: much yourself. So when I met a man who needed
7:31
Speaker 1: a lot from me, I did not see a warning sign.
7:33
Speaker 1: I saw an opening. Right? I thought, this is how
7:37
Speaker 1: I make someone stay. This is where I'm valuable. Here's
7:41
Speaker 1: a story I don't love telling. In my mid-twenties, I
7:44
Speaker 1: drove 40 minutes to help him prep for a job
7:46
Speaker 1: interview he hadn't even told me was happening. He mentioned
7:48
Speaker 1: it in passing, practically by accident, and I immediately organized
7:51
Speaker 1: his whole approach. I rehearsed his answers with him. We
7:54
Speaker 1: went through it twice. He got the job. He did
7:56
Speaker 1: not call me that night. I told myself he was
7:58
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by the good news and needed time to process.
8:01
Speaker 1: My best friend texted me just checking in and I said, oh,
8:03
Speaker 1: everything is great. He got the job. I'm so proud
8:05
Speaker 1: of him. She said, that's great. How are you? I said,
8:08
Speaker 1: I'm great. The dog wasn't in my life yet, but
8:10
Speaker 1: I want you to know I 100% would have sat
8:12
Speaker 1: on the floor and talked through the whole situation with
8:14
Speaker 1: him if he had been. Because dogs are the only
8:16
Speaker 1: ones who don't give you the look when you're clearly
8:18
Speaker 1: not telling the truth. Yeah, I know. And here's the
8:22
Speaker 1: thing I'm only recently able to laugh about. I had
8:24
Speaker 1: a self-help shelf by then. Three books on boundaries, all unread.
8:28
Speaker 1: Spines cracked nowhere, covers pristine, completely untouched, living on my
8:32
Speaker 1: shelf like very expensive decorations. I understood boundaries as a
8:35
Speaker 1: concept the same way I understand advanced physics, like theoretically real,
8:39
Speaker 1: not applicable to my actual life, right? It took my
8:42
Speaker 1: therapist a year of me describing various situations before she
8:44
Speaker 1: finally asked me what I actually wanted from this person
8:46
Speaker 1: I kept describing. And I said, I want him to
8:49
Speaker 1: do better. She waited. I said, I want to help
8:51
Speaker 1: him get there. She said, that's his job, not yours.
8:54
Speaker 1: And I cried for reasons I was not able to
8:56
Speaker 1: explain in that moment because I'd never considered that his
8:58
Speaker 1: becoming was not my responsibility. Make sense? So now we're
9:03
Speaker 1: going to go one layer deeper because the why matters
9:05
Speaker 1: if you're going to actually change anything. And I need
9:07
Speaker 1: you to hear this next part, not as a criticism,
9:09
Speaker 1: but as an explanation of something that is very logical, actually.
9:12
Speaker 1: Your nervous system was trained on a specific signal. Effort
9:15
Speaker 1: equaling closeness. That's what love felt like when you were small.
9:18
Speaker 1: A parent who was there but not quite reachable, so
9:20
Speaker 1: you learned to earn your way toward them. You got useful.
9:23
Speaker 1: You got good at reading the room. You got very
9:25
Speaker 1: skilled at making yourself necessary so that the distance would close.
9:28
Speaker 1: And now, decades later, your nervous system is running the
9:30
Speaker 1: exact same calculation. A man who needs you is a
9:33
Speaker 1: man you can work toward. A man who is already there, steady,
9:35
Speaker 1: already choosing you, already putting sticky notes on the coffee maker,
9:39
Speaker 1: makes your body go a little quiet and confused. Right?
9:41
Speaker 1: Because where's the work? Where's the signal? This feels flat.
9:46
Speaker 1: This feels like nothing's happening. But nothing happening is actually
9:49
Speaker 1: just safety and your system doesn't recognize safety yet. It
9:52
Speaker 1: only recognizes effort. The managing isn't cruelty to yourself. I
9:56
Speaker 1: want you to hear that. It's an old survival move.
9:58
Speaker 1: It's the only kind of closeness you're recognizes as real,
10:01
Speaker 1: but here's what it costs you. And this is the
10:03
Speaker 1: part I need you to sit with. You never find
10:05
Speaker 1: out if he actually loves you because you never stopped performing.
10:08
Speaker 1: You are always the architect and never the person being loved.
10:10
Speaker 1: He never has a chance to show up because you've
10:12
Speaker 1: already handled everything before he could try. Your nervous system
10:15
Speaker 1: is basically running a compatibility algorithm from 1994 to And
10:18
Speaker 1: it's time, with love and compassion and maybe a good therapist,
10:21
Speaker 1: to update the software. Right? Because you deserve to actually
10:23
Speaker 1: feel loved, not just needed. And that feels different. And
10:27
Speaker 1: it starts on the other side of the managing. So
10:30
Speaker 1: here's where we're going next. We're about to get into
10:32
Speaker 1: where this whole thing actually started. Not just the nervous
10:34
Speaker 1: system mechanics, but the specific shadow underneath the managing that
10:37
Speaker 1: nobody talks about. The part that lives in the dark.
10:40
Speaker 1: The part that explains not just what you're doing, but
10:42
Speaker 1: why some part of you is still invested in keeping
10:44
Speaker 1: it going. Yeah, we're going there. Stay with me. I
10:48
Speaker 1: want you to think about the first person whose moods
10:49
Speaker 1: you learned to manage. Not romantically, right? I mean, ever.
10:53
Speaker 1: The first person whose face you scanned when they walked
10:55
Speaker 1: through the door to figure out what kind of night
10:57
Speaker 1: it was going to be. For most project managers in relationships,
11:00
Speaker 1: there's a parent in that story. Not a villain, just
11:03
Speaker 1: someone who was a little far away or a little
11:05
Speaker 1: unpredictable and a child who got good at reading the
11:08
Speaker 1: room because reading the room was how she stayed safe.
11:11
Speaker 1: Make sense? For me, it was my dad. Good man.
11:16
Speaker 1: Worked long hours. Came home tired and went quiet in
11:19
Speaker 1: a way that filled the whole house. The way to
11:21
Speaker 1: get close to him was to be useful. To hand
11:23
Speaker 1: him something. To already have the answer. To not need
11:26
Speaker 1: too much yourself because needing too much took up air
11:28
Speaker 1: he didn't have. I got very good at needing nothing
11:30
Speaker 1: and offering everything. And that looked like maturity in a child, right?
11:34
Speaker 1: It looked like she's so responsible, so easy, so good.
11:36
Speaker 1: It looks like self-erasure in a 32-year-old in a relationship
11:39
Speaker 1: and nobody throws you a parade for that one. I
11:42
Speaker 1: noticed it for real the first time my therapist asked
11:44
Speaker 1: me what I actually wanted from the man I was describing.
11:46
Speaker 1: And I said, Without even pausing, I want him to
11:49
Speaker 1: do better. She waited. She's very good at waiting, which
11:52
Speaker 1: I find personally offensive. I said I want to help
11:54
Speaker 1: him get there. She goes, that is his job, not yours.
11:57
Speaker 1: And I cried in the specific way where you don't
11:58
Speaker 1: know why you're crying until three days later when you're
12:00
Speaker 1: in the shower and it hits you. Yeah, that kind
12:03
Speaker 1: of cry. My sister called it before anyone else did,
12:07
Speaker 1: which tracks, because my sister has no filter and a
12:09
Speaker 1: perfect record of being right. And I have accepted this
12:12
Speaker 1: as my personal curse. She was telling me about her engagement.
12:15
Speaker 1: We're talking weeks before the proposal. And she said something
12:17
Speaker 1: offhand that stopped me cold. She goes, you know, you
12:20
Speaker 1: literally project managed your last relationship. Not mean, just factual.
12:23
Speaker 1: And that way she has. I said you needed a
12:25
Speaker 1: lot of support. She said you need a lot of
12:27
Speaker 1: support too. And you never asked for any. I didn't
12:29
Speaker 1: have an answer. I just kind of held the phone
12:31
Speaker 1: and looked at my self-help shelf and thought about the
12:33
Speaker 1: three boundary books with the uncracked spines. Right? Now I
12:37
Speaker 1: want to talk about the shadow underneath all of this
12:39
Speaker 1: because the nervous system piece explains the mechanism, but the
12:41
Speaker 1: shadow explains the investment. And these are different things. The
12:44
Speaker 1: shadow is this. If you are not managing, you have
12:46
Speaker 1: to feel. And what you have to feel is terrifying.
12:49
Speaker 1: You have to feel the longing for closeness that you've
12:51
Speaker 1: never let yourself name out loud. You have to feel
12:53
Speaker 1: the fear that if you stop being useful, he would
12:55
Speaker 1: look up and not see a reason to stay. You
12:58
Speaker 1: have to feel how hungry you are to be taken
12:59
Speaker 1: care of and how impossible it seems to let that happen.
13:03
Speaker 1: Can we see this? Because this is the part nobody
13:05
Speaker 1: says at dinner. The managing is not actually about him.
13:09
Speaker 1: This is the concept I want you to hold on to.
13:11
Speaker 1: And it's called projection. When the project manager manages her partner,
13:15
Speaker 1: she is often avoiding her own unmet needs by focusing
13:17
Speaker 1: on his. His problems in the center mean her longing,
13:21
Speaker 1: her fear, her hunger never have to be. As long
13:24
Speaker 1: as his inbox is the project, she never has to
13:25
Speaker 1: sit with her own inbox. And her inbox is full, right?
13:29
Speaker 1: It's been full for years. She just keeps forwarding everything
13:31
Speaker 1: to someone else's name. Here's the shadow part, the part
13:35
Speaker 1: that lives in the dark, the part I'm telling you
13:37
Speaker 1: because someone told me and it changed things. Some part
13:39
Speaker 1: of you picks someone who needs managing because someone who
13:41
Speaker 1: needs managing will not leave while the project is still running.
13:44
Speaker 1: You're not done yet. There's still work to do. And
13:46
Speaker 1: if there's still work to do, he can't go anywhere.
13:49
Speaker 1: You do not trust love that is not earned. You
13:51
Speaker 1: do not trust a person who stays without being given
13:53
Speaker 1: a reason to stay every single day. That is not
13:55
Speaker 1: a character flaw, my love. It is a fear with
13:57
Speaker 1: a lot of practice. A lot of very convincing, very
14:00
Speaker 1: exhausting practice. Picture this. You're at a birthday dinner, a friend's,
14:05
Speaker 1: and she's asking you about him. And you're explaining his situation,
14:09
Speaker 1: the way he needs to find a better job, the
14:11
Speaker 1: way you've been helping him think through his options, the
14:13
Speaker 1: way you've practically mapped out his next six months. And
14:16
Speaker 1: your friend looks at you across the table and she goes,
14:18
Speaker 1: but what do you need right now? And you open
14:20
Speaker 1: your mouth and nothing comes out. Not because you're shy,
14:23
Speaker 1: because you genuinely don't know. You haven't asked yourself that
14:26
Speaker 1: question in so long. It feels like a language you
14:28
Speaker 1: used to speak. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Managing
14:32
Speaker 1: someone else's life is a full-time job and the pay
14:34
Speaker 1: is exactly zero and the severance is a situationship. And
14:37
Speaker 1: we have been calling it love. Here's what the project
14:40
Speaker 1: manager actually loses because I want to be specific. She
14:43
Speaker 1: loses herself first. She stops knowing what she wants because
14:46
Speaker 1: she is always calibrating toward what he needs. She stops
14:49
Speaker 1: having preferences. She says whatever you want or wherever you pick.
14:52
Speaker 1: And she means it because she genuinely can't locate her
14:54
Speaker 1: preference anymore. She loses her voice in the specific way
14:56
Speaker 1: of someone who has been translating herself into a more convenient,
14:59
Speaker 1: more palatable, more helpful version for so long she can
15:02
Speaker 1: barely remember the original. Right? Like she knows she had opinions.
15:06
Speaker 1: She just can't find them right now. She loses the
15:09
Speaker 1: relationship second because he never has to grow. Why would he?
15:13
Speaker 1: Everything is handled. And she resents him for not growing,
15:15
Speaker 1: even though she has been quietly, lovingly, exhaustively preventing it.
15:19
Speaker 1: This is the part that's hard to say, but I'm
15:20
Speaker 1: going to say it. She is the reason nothing changes.
15:23
Speaker 1: And she is also the most frustrated person in the
15:25
Speaker 1: room about nothing changing. She also loses trust in love
15:28
Speaker 1: because she never finds out if she is loved or
15:30
Speaker 1: just depended on. And that uncertainty hollows a person out
15:33
Speaker 1: over time, quietly in the background, like a draft you
15:36
Speaker 1: can't find the source of. She also loses a shocking
15:39
Speaker 1: number of iced coffees to distracted stress drinking, and I'm
15:41
Speaker 1: saying this with zero judgment because I've done it eight times.
15:44
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing, but it's documented. Here's the hard truth, and
15:49
Speaker 1: I'm saying it with love, for real, because I'm saying
15:51
Speaker 1: it about myself too. You are not managing him because
15:54
Speaker 1: you are too good at caring. You are managing him
15:56
Speaker 1: because being needed feels safer than being chosen. Being chosen
16:00
Speaker 1: means he has a real option, a genuine free choice,
16:02
Speaker 1: and he still picks you. Being needed means the math
16:05
Speaker 1: is in your favor as long as you keep making
16:06
Speaker 1: yourself necessary. And that math, the math you've been running
16:09
Speaker 1: since you were small, is also exactly what keeps you
16:11
Speaker 1: from ever feeling actually loved. Right? Because how would you know?
16:15
Speaker 1: You've never stopped long enough to let him try. The
16:18
Speaker 1: woman who manages everything is often the most lonely person
16:21
Speaker 1: in the relationship. And I'm not saying that to be cruel.
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm saying it because I sat in that loneliness and
16:26
Speaker 1: called it a lot of other things for a very
16:27
Speaker 1: long time. I called it being driven. I called it
16:30
Speaker 1: being supportive. I called it just how I love. Picture
16:33
Speaker 1: yourself sitting across from him at dinner. running a quiet
16:36
Speaker 1: mental checklist of things he said he would do this week,
16:38
Speaker 1: tracking them, noticing what's undone. He's laughing at something, reaching
16:41
Speaker 1: for his drink. He's actually right there. And you are
16:44
Speaker 1: somewhere else entirely, running the project. Love is not a project,
16:47
Speaker 1: and he is not a renovation. And the version of
16:50
Speaker 1: you that keeps trying to build him into someone worthy
16:52
Speaker 1: of your effort is also the version that will never,
16:54
Speaker 1: ever let him simply love you back. It's giving unpaid
16:57
Speaker 1: general contractor, and we are calling it intimacy, and that's
17:00
Speaker 1: the one I'm not okay with for you anymore. So
17:03
Speaker 1: here's what I promise you. Act two showed you the cost,
17:05
Speaker 1: the mechanism, the shadow, the thing it's been taking from you. Next,
17:09
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what it actually looks like
17:11
Speaker 1: on the other side. Not some fantasy version, the real one,
17:14
Speaker 1: the slightly uncomfortable one that your nervous system is going
17:16
Speaker 1: to rate a two out of 10 at first. And
17:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you three or four actual moves
17:19
Speaker 1: you can start this week. Not concepts, actual things to
17:22
Speaker 1: do with your hands when you feel the urge to manage,
17:25
Speaker 1: because I know you're not going to stop just because
17:26
Speaker 1: you understand it. You're going to need something to do instead.
17:29
Speaker 1: Stay with me. Okay, so the other side. Let me
17:33
Speaker 1: actually paint this for you because I think when I
17:34
Speaker 1: say there's a healthier version, your brain immediately goes to
17:37
Speaker 1: something boring, something flat, a relationship with no spark, and
17:40
Speaker 1: a lot of beige furniture, right? That's not what I'm describing.
17:43
Speaker 1: I'm describing something that your nervous system is going to
17:45
Speaker 1: resist at first because it doesn't match the signal it
17:47
Speaker 1: was trained on. It's going to feel too quiet, too easy.
17:50
Speaker 1: Your body is going to go, where's the project? Where's
17:52
Speaker 1: the chaos? Where's my job here? And that discomfort, that
17:55
Speaker 1: weird low hum of nothing needing to be fixed, that
17:57
Speaker 1: is exactly what earned security feels like when you're not
17:59
Speaker 1: used to it. It's unfamiliar, not broken. Can we see this?
18:04
Speaker 1: Earn security. Here's what it means in plain terms. It's
18:07
Speaker 1: not that love gets easier because everything is perfect. It
18:09
Speaker 1: means your nervous system slowly, slowly learns to recognize steadiness
18:12
Speaker 1: as safety instead of warning. It means your body stops bracing.
18:15
Speaker 1: It means you can sit next to someone and not
18:17
Speaker 1: be running a background program of what needs adjusting. My
18:20
Speaker 1: partner is genuinely the calmest person I've ever been around.
18:22
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to lie, the first year I
18:24
Speaker 1: kept finding things to optimize in our shared life because
18:26
Speaker 1: calm felt like absence to me. I'd walk into the
18:29
Speaker 1: kitchen and everything was already handled and I'd just stand
18:31
Speaker 1: there like, Okay, but what's my role in this scene?
18:34
Speaker 1: Make sense? My partner leaves sticky notes on the coffee maker.
18:38
Speaker 1: Little ones. I got this or eat something or your
18:41
Speaker 1: iced coffee's in the freezer so it doesn't get watered
18:43
Speaker 1: down because my partner knows I am extremely serious about
18:46
Speaker 1: my iced coffee and this is what devotion actually looks like, right?
18:49
Speaker 1: And for a long time, I'd see those notes and
18:51
Speaker 1: feel a little flutter of warmth and then immediately redirect
18:54
Speaker 1: to something that needed doing. I wasn't letting myself land
18:56
Speaker 1: in it. The notes were the love and I was
18:59
Speaker 1: too busy running the renovation to receive them. Now I stop.
19:02
Speaker 1: I read them twice. I started keeping a couple. Don't
19:05
Speaker 1: tell anyone. That's embarrassing. So let me give you the moves.
19:09
Speaker 1: Four of them, real ones. Things to do with your
19:11
Speaker 1: hands when you feel the urge to manage. You know?
19:15
Speaker 1: Move one. Notice where you're managing. For one week, I
19:18
Speaker 1: want you to write it down. Every time you rewrote
19:21
Speaker 1: a text. Every time you explained his behavior to someone else.
19:24
Speaker 1: Every time you solved a problem before he even knew
19:26
Speaker 1: it was a problem. Every time you swallowed what you
19:28
Speaker 1: actually wanted and rearranged it into something easier for him
19:30
Speaker 1: to receive. Not to shame yourself, to see the shape
19:33
Speaker 1: of it. You can't change a pattern you haven't looked
19:36
Speaker 1: at directly, right? It's going to be more than you think.
19:38
Speaker 1: And that's okay. That's the point. Move to let one
19:42
Speaker 1: thing be undone. Pick one thing you would normally handle
19:45
Speaker 1: that is genuinely his and do not touch it. Don't
19:47
Speaker 1: fix it. Don't hint about it. Don't send an article.
19:49
Speaker 1: that accidentally addresses it. Just leave the gap open and
19:52
Speaker 1: notice what happens in your body when you do. That sensation,
19:55
Speaker 1: the tightening, the itch, the low-grade anxiety, that's the pattern
19:59
Speaker 1: showing itself. That's not a sign to step in. That's
20:02
Speaker 1: the thing we're looking at. You know when you stop
20:04
Speaker 1: yourself mid-reach for your phone and you just breathe? That's
20:07
Speaker 1: the move. Yeah. Picture this. You're halfway through drafting a
20:11
Speaker 1: text to your friend explaining his situation, the job thing,
20:14
Speaker 1: the thing he said he'd handle, the timeline that's slipping,
20:17
Speaker 1: and you stop. You delete the whole thing and you
20:19
Speaker 1: type instead. What I'm actually worried about is you don't
20:22
Speaker 1: even finish the sentence. You just look at it. And
20:24
Speaker 1: it's the first honest thing you've said about yourself in
20:26
Speaker 1: three weeks. You don't send it. But you look at
20:28
Speaker 1: it for a long time. That's move three sneaking in
20:30
Speaker 1: before I even explained it. Sound familiar? Move three. Say
20:34
Speaker 1: one true thing about yourself. Not about him. Not about
20:37
Speaker 1: the dynamic. Not about what you've been navigating together. About you.
20:41
Speaker 1: What you need. What scared you this week. What you're
20:44
Speaker 1: hungry for. Say it out loud to him or write
20:46
Speaker 1: it down, but it has to be about you. I
20:48
Speaker 1: know that sounds simple. It is not simple. The first
20:50
Speaker 1: time I tried it in the relationship I'm in now,
20:52
Speaker 1: I literally started the sentence with, I feel like you've
20:55
Speaker 1: been and I had to stop and start over three
20:57
Speaker 1: times before I got to something that was actually mine.
20:59
Speaker 1: My partner just waited. Didn't rush me. Didn't fix it.
21:02
Speaker 1: Just waited. That's the whole thing, right? Move for. Ask
21:07
Speaker 1: instead of arrange. The next time you feel the urge
21:09
Speaker 1: to manage an outcome for him, ask him a question instead.
21:12
Speaker 1: What do you want to do about that? And then wait.
21:14
Speaker 1: Do not fill the silence with a solution. Do not
21:16
Speaker 1: offer three options you already ranked. Just ask and then
21:19
Speaker 1: let him answer. And if the answer is I don't know,
21:21
Speaker 1: you go interesting and you let that sit too. Sit
21:24
Speaker 1: with the unmanaged thing for 10 minutes before stepping in.
21:26
Speaker 1: Set an actual timer. 10 minutes is the longest, shortest
21:29
Speaker 1: amount of time in the human experience. When you are
21:31
Speaker 1: a project manager in love, I will die on this hill.
21:33
Speaker 1: It is an eternity. It is a full emotional marathon
21:36
Speaker 1: in 600 seconds. Baby, I want you to hear this
21:40
Speaker 1: next part. The woman on the other side of this
21:42
Speaker 1: isn't less capable. She isn't smaller or quieter or somehow
21:45
Speaker 1: emptied out. She's someone who finally lets love come toward
21:47
Speaker 1: her instead of building it from scratch every single day.
21:50
Speaker 1: She asks for things. She leaves silences open. She lets
21:52
Speaker 1: him surprise her. She notices when he shows up, the
21:55
Speaker 1: sticky note, the dinner that's already on the table when
21:57
Speaker 1: she surfaces from a long workday, the question he asks
22:00
Speaker 1: when she seems off, and she actually lets those land.
22:02
Speaker 1: She's a little less comfortable at first and a lot
22:04
Speaker 1: more loved over time. She knows the difference between supporting
22:07
Speaker 1: a partner and carrying a partner. And she understands she's
22:09
Speaker 1: only responsible for one of those. She still has an
22:12
Speaker 1: iced coffee in her hand, obviously, but this time it
22:14
Speaker 1: is fully, completely, unapologetically for herself. So let's land this thing, right?
22:20
Speaker 1: Love is not a project and he is not a renovation.
22:22
Speaker 1: If you've been the project manager in your relationship, I'm
22:24
Speaker 1: not handing you a verdict. I'm handing you an explanation.
22:27
Speaker 1: A very smart, very exhausted, very loving strategy that your
22:30
Speaker 1: younger self built out of necessity. She was trying to
22:32
Speaker 1: make love feel certain because uncertain love was what she'd known.
22:35
Speaker 1: That's not a flaw. That's survival. And you carried it
22:38
Speaker 1: this far, which means you're resourceful and you're strong. And
22:40
Speaker 1: you are also, if you're honest, really tired. You don't
22:43
Speaker 1: have to make love feel certain anymore. You're allowed to
22:46
Speaker 1: let it just be. You're allowed to put your hands down.
22:48
Speaker 1: And if you absolutely need to manage something, may I
22:50
Speaker 1: gently suggest the balcony plants? They actually need it and
22:53
Speaker 1: they will never ghost you. The question I'm leaving you
22:56
Speaker 1: with is the one this whole episode has been building toward.
22:59
Speaker 1: Are you actually in love with him or are you
23:01
Speaker 1: attached to the version of him you're sure you could build?
23:03
Speaker 1: Sit with that. Write it in your notes app. Say
23:05
Speaker 1: it to your sister. Think about it on your commute.
23:08
Speaker 1: And if someone in your life is running this pattern
23:09
Speaker 1: right now, the one where she's working so hard she
23:11
Speaker 1: can't even see how lonely she is, send this episode
23:14
Speaker 1: to her. Not with a note that explains it. Just
23:16
Speaker 1: send it. She'll know. Follow along so you don't miss
23:18
Speaker 1: what's coming next. Because my loves, we're just getting started.
23:22
Speaker 1: Take care of yourself this week. I mean it. Bye.
23:26
Speaker 1: This show is made by Obu Media.