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E70: Respect or Resentment - Rebuild Your Marriage, Protect Your Children · The Junto Podcast

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Hello, America. Welcome to the Juneto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Hey, America. Thanks for sticking with me. So today we're talking about some
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hard topics here, hard stuff. Troubled marriage.
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Kids stuck in the middle. Alcohol struggles. Sexual dalliances. Emotional emptiness.
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Relationship that started under less than solid conditions.
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Minimal shared values. Mutual selfishness.
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Neither one fully owning your part while busy hammering the other.
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If any of that sounds familiar, well, please put your critical thinking cap
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on and take a short journey with me because this episode is for you.
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Now, look, I'm not here to judge.
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Let's get that out straight away. I'm not here to judge.
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I'm not here to hand out easy anecdotal answers that magically fix everything.
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Or some quick exit strategy.
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None of that either. I'm here to talk about work and respect.
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That's what I'm talking about today. So we're going to look at troubled marriage
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issues through lenses of psychology, modern doctrine, faith, and then even hedonism.
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Yeah. And see how that shakes out.
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And we're going to dig into some, well, selfishness. and maybe even narcissism.
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And then we're going to look at some documented relationship recoveries.
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And then the opposite of that is the horrible consequences of some documented failures.
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And I think ultimately, if you put your critical thinking cap on and you're open-minded,
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that we're going to come to the same conclusions that most of these hard conversations come to, that,
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the only workable path forward starts with the individual, you,
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working on yourself first and taking individual accountability for your actions.
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I'm not making that up. That's not my opinion. That's documented study,
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a wealth of documented study.
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So first, let's start with respect. What about respect?
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In a marriage, respect, it's not just superficial politeness or just being kind
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enough to keep the peace.
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In healthy couples, it means that you actually admire your spouse.
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That you value, or maybe what they've been through in the past,
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or maybe what they've accomplished personally or professionally, maybe.
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Or maybe even just the kind of person they are.
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Or in some cases for very tough customers like me, maybe you just admire some
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small piece of their, some small personality trait that they have.
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But there's something, there's got to be something there. You got married.
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So you have respect and you treat them as an autonomous equal whose boundaries
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and feelings and differences and everything else all deserve, well,
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sincere consideration on your part, whichever part that is.
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Psychology research is crystal clear on this.
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Mutual respect is one of the strongest predictors of marital satisfaction,
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stability, the ability to solve problems, and longevity.
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Without everything turning into a screaming match or one storming off,
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maybe with ill intent, every time there's a disagreement.
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When partners, when spouses respect each other,
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disagreements, even if they're slightly heated, disagreements stay about the
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issue at hand and not about little character assassinations and little jabs.
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Because those little assassinations and jabs, they're just deflection.
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You're just avoiding the real conversation, the hard conversation.
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And if you actually have respect for one another, your differences become tolerable.
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They become something that you navigate and you can live with.
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You can work around them. They're workable.
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And then with that respect and with the sort of diversity of thought there,
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your relationship actually gains resilience with every problem solved together. Excuse me.
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Every problem solved without a fight is like a little victory,
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a little learning point, and you can build on that.
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And without respect, even if you have residual affection from some initial raw
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sexual attraction, whatever drew you to each other,
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without respect, that stuff eventually transforms into something else.
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And you start to look ugly to each other. You need respect in a relationship. You need it.
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John Gottman. of the Gottman Institute, couples therapy, marital psychology, the whole works.
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Decades and decades of research says that respect goes alongside fondness,
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admiration, and it's the core, well, of a long-term marriage,
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marital longevity, marital success.
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Respect along with fondness and admiration that's the nuclear that's the core
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of the marriage respect has to exist contempt.
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Contempt is the absolute opposite of respect.
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And contempt is the single strongest predictor of divorce.
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Basic human dignity, especially among couples, I'm talking about everybody, it's non-negotiable.
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Basic human dignity is non-negotiable. Basic baseline level respect.
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You should have that for everyone but especially in a marriage especially in
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a relationship with somebody you're with every single day no no name calling,
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petty shit no deliberate little humiliations one up in each other no treating
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the other as invalid or worthless,
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no passive aggressive little pokes and prods a deeper respect.
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And and that felt sense that your partner is competent and trustworthy,
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someone worth following someone someone that that's admirable somebody worth
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submitting to that's that's hard-earned
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stuff and it's hard-earned through consistent, admirable action.
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Because in a split second, it can all be lost to one little outburst of anger,
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or one little harsh word.
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It can all be erased and you're back to square one.
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You don't have to tiptoe around egos. You just have to have a baseline consideration for each other.
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Well, respect goes hand in hand with trust. Yeah, trust.
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And, well, infidelity, broken promises around alcohol, constant criticism, selfishness,
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physical or emotional neglect.
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They all, all those things tear down trust and respect. They tear it away.
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Those are all ugly things. And here's a kind of a simple analogy,
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and I like it. I think it fits.
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Your marriage, think of your marriage like a bank account. Yeah.
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Every day, your comments or your behaviors, they either deposit money or they withdraw money.
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So in five years from now, do you have a little nest egg, a little comfort zone?
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Or are you in the red struggling to pay the bills?
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So Gottman talks about soft startups, just easing the tone, man, ease the tone.
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Come at each other with a soft tone and a soft start-up.
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Don't start out accusing. Start out, well, hey, I feel a little overwhelmed
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when you say this or you do that.
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I feel a little attacked. And say it in a soft tone.
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And that's a little deposit into the account there.
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That's conversational. We can work with that.
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But on the other hand, rolling your eyes, deep cutting sarcasm,
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coming at each other with absolutes, you always do this. You never do that.
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Those things nickel and dime your account. Keep you broke.
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Relationships started under sort of dubious conditions, say alcohol-fueled frivolity,
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or you're just trying to get a quick shot of leg.
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Well, true mutual respect was probably very lean in the beginning anyway.
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If it was ever present, it probably wasn't.
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And superficial mutual attraction, physical attraction is great. Good sex is great.
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Emotional convenience is great.
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But that shit masquerades itself as respect. There's no real respect in there.
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There's no real respect in there.
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And all that superficial stuff, as great as it is.
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It don't last. Those things aren't foundational.
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So in your post-orgasm clarity, and you find that it's kind of empty, well, what do you do?
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Well, how do we build genuine respect from this place?
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Well, you have to, through demonstrated character over time,
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demonstrated character over time.
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You have to act and behave and speak honestly you have to show some level of
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responsibility adult responsibility,
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you two have to come to some sort of mutual shared purpose why are we doing what we're doing,
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and then you have to have consistency in words and in deeds good people words
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and deeds you can't say one thing and do another and you can't expect the opposite,
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of of your spouse from what you're actually doing yourself and if you as a couple
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never built the respect the incompatibilities just become magnified painfully obvious,
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and what follows is the harsh criticism.
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Any ownership you criticize each other without any self-reflection without any,
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any ownership and this kind of stuff keeps that that that bank account empty overdrawn even,
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and every accusation that ignores your own culpability,
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and it causes a respect deficit you go in the hole,
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that respect is turning into resentment,
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when you don't own your own part of the problem.
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But in contrast, every moment of genuine accountability earns a little back.
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And so the cycle continues.
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The first perspective we're going to examine here is the hedonistic perspective.
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This is, by definition, somewhat selfish.
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I do what I want because it feels good to me, without regard for anyone else.
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This is the antithesis of relationship.
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And from this perspective, it treats the partner, well, as a source of physical pleasure, sure,
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or an emotional punching bag, somebody for you to come home and just dump on,
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instead of somebody who's a co-equal, loved, and respected partner.
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Alcohol and sexual indiscretions become understandable to you in your mind.
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Even justifiable in your own selfishness. Because you look at it as short-term
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relief from all the stress and emptiness that you're feeling.
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So you justify these things.
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You justify it because it's what I want.
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And whatever shared values you may have, or any responsibility you may feel to your spouse,
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It doesn't matter to you because the immediate hit is strong enough that it
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takes precedence over your spouse. Yeah.
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Alcohol is powerful. Drugs are powerful. Sex is powerful.
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And it can get you off azimuth easily.
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And this just reeks. It carries the stench of selfishness. And that's what it is. selfishness.
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And I know these things, folks, from study, sure, from living it, too.
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And from here, in this hedonistic me, me, me, every interaction is scored against personal gain.
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And if you see no personal gain, then you cut away from it.
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And this creates, in the other person, the exact harsh criticism and avoidance
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of responsibility that we're talking about.
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Because accountability to you feels like a cost that you're not willing to pay,
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because you don't see an immediate payoff, an immediate result.
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So you're just simply not willing to pay the cost, the time and the humility.
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Is this the right way? Well, I don't know.
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It is, you're at least 50% of the problem, if not more.
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This is not the way, folks. This is not the way. Now, the next perspective we're
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going to examine here a little bit is the faith-based perspective.
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Now, I happen to be a Christian.
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You can probably apply this to any faith in any way. But even from a faith perspective,
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we have free will to do what we choose to do.
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And that is exactly the Christian way, is that you're meant to have free will
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so that you can then choose...
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Christ. You're not compelled to. No, no. St. Sharia law. You can choose to or not to.
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So in our free will, keep that in mind. We have the free will.
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And the institution of marriage is meant to be one of mutual self-giving,
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mutual sacrifice that sort of mirrors the love of Christ, right?
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That's what the institution of marriage is meant to be from a Christian perspective.
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And Ephesians 5 lays it all out for us in the Bible. Ephesians 5 lays it all
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out for us very clearly, very unambiguously.
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But again, God gave us free will.
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And that means that one spouse cannot compel another spouse to change or even
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to love or even to give a shit about the relationship.
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You can't compel another to do this.
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You can try, but they have the free will that has to be chosen for themselves.
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Because with this free will, like I said, God doesn't override our bad choices.
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God does provide choice-driven consequences, though.
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Yeah, we will feel the consequences of our choices, good or bad.
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So from the faith perspective, the call is to die to yourself.
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Not to demand that the other person meet every unreasonable urge or whim or
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whatever you think, right, to stroke your emotions or ego.
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Because pride, yeah, pride and selfish ambition for whatever your ambitions are chasing,
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they're little, well, they're big internal barriers that you have to want to overcome.
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There's your free will part. I can tell you how bad it is. You have to want
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and make your mind up to overcome those yourself.
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The goal is humility value your spouse above yourself,
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genuinely look at their interests that's the way that's the path folks,
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and and you'll find that the cost is really not nearly as much as you thought,
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you'll find that the return on that that investment is exponential,
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I'm going to read a Bible passage to you, but it relates.
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In Philippians 2, verse 3 and 4, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
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but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
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Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests
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of others. Let each of you look not only to his own interests.
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You can apply this to any part of your life, any relationship,
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whether you're at work or out in a social setting or in your house.
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In fact, more of you apply this out in the wild than you do in your house.
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You don't have to be a Christian or religious to read these passages and go,
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yeah, of course, help people be selfish or selfless.
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They apply. Those probably apply across religions.
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They apply secularly. Yeah. Working on yourself means repentance. That's what that means.
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And whether if it's in a religious context or not, you can repent your ways
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and the way that you deal with your spouse.
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If you have the will, if you chose the will to course correct by putting off
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your old habits and your old patterns and renewing your mind,
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with maybe new information here, maybe new information,
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and strive for just better behavior.
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Yes, more Christ-like behavior.
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And then allow yourself to rely a little more on grace and a little less on your own willpower.
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Because if we try to go it alone, folks, we're not going to make it.
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You can be the hardest operator of operators. There is still at some point in
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time where you think, dear Lord, this might be it. Please help me.
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You work on your own flaws first. You correct your own flaws first,
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because that's the only sphere of influence God has bestowed upon us.
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You can't control anyone else.
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So fix what you can fix. Yeah.
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Fix what you can fix.
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Approach your spouse.
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From a place of humility and not from a place of superiority,
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not from the high ground or not from a place of victimhood to where it's,
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oh, I've suffered so much because of you.
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Don't approach that way. Well-documented recoveries, and I mean in the tens
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of thousands of marriages, mostly included some elements. of faith,
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and individuals who stopped seeking out their own vindication and instead submitted
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their hearts to the relationship first.
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And what they found out was that the relationship, it's salvageable. Yeah.
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Fixed 50% of the problem, at least 50% of the problem.
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Excuse me.
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Yeah.
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And then the next perspective we're going to look at, and I saved this one for last,
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is modern, you know, couples therapy and psychology. And you can look at that
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as a secular path, if you will.
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But you can see that as we look at it we see that it's not purely secular but.
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But modern doctrine psychological doctors they view this as a classical a classic
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negative cycle and that and it's again been documented and studied for decades AIDS,
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hundreds of thousands of cases, good people, you are not special or unique when
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it comes to marital problems.
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It's all been done. It's all been said.
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So Gottman, who I mentioned earlier, he's got what's called the four horsemen.
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Now I added four horsemen of the apocalypse because that's what your marriage
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could be turning into is an apocalypse.
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Number one, criticism. Number two, defensiveness, always guarded.
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Number three is contempt.
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And number four is stonewalling.
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These things thrive when there's no respect or respect has eroded away or never fully established.
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And the criticism attacks character. That's where you get the name calling and the belittlement.
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You're not good enough. Why are you so fucked up?
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Defensiveness, well, that deflects partial ownership of the problem.
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You defend everything you do is correct.
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And contempt, well, I mean, that's fueled by a long brew and, you know, resentment.
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And that contempt,
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gives you a sense of superiority, a false sense, mind you, but still.
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And then stonewalling is just simply a withdrawal from the problem.
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Ignore it, whatever. It may go away, it may not, whatever.
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You don't share emotion.
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You don't ask for any. You don't, you know, whatever.
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If everybody's just sort of by default neutral, then good enough.
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You ain't going to give up any emotional weakness, and you ain't going to share stone cold.
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That just withdraws from participation in the relationship, participation in your own life.
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The resentment builds when we have needs that go unmet.
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And any weak ass or half-hearted attempt to sort of repair a problem piecemeal
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it falls flat because we're not acknowledging the deeper problems it's weak,
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just trying to smooth over the surface the foundation's weak,
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and eventually one or both of you go into a negative sentiment override and
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that's a filter that everything your partner does is filtered through the ugly filter,
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everything looks spiteful,
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or malicious,
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and and through this lens your spouse can do no right you see no goodness at
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all even on a good day they're still just look at this piece of shit and if
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you're there man that's that's bad.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the true, the real fix starts with personal responsibility.
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Take the responsibility and the soft startups, the way you address each other.
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Don't come in hot, come in warm. And take even a small piece of ownership.
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You don't have to come out into a full blown confession of all the things you've
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ever done in your entire life take a small piece of ownership and at least those things they will slowly.
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Start to build a culture of well appreciation right you appreciate a sincere
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apology or you appreciate a sincere,
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sort of capitulation or a sincere,
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acceptance of responsibility.
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Hey, look, I'm sorry, I messed this up.
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And then that appreciation starts for each other, right?
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And then you start addressing each other's grievances without any moral superiority,
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a moral high ground, or any scorekeeping.
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You can just do it objectively.
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Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you felt that way.
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Emotionally focused therapy adds that to this, that these patterns come from
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sort of insecure attachment wounds of the past.
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Tough work here, and this is tough, is that you make your emotions,
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the primary emotions, the fear, loneliness, emptiness, shame,
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is that you open those up to your spouse.
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And now you're vulnerable.
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Nobody wants to be, nobody likes to feel vulnerable.
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But in that vulnerability, your partner will see or can possibly see,
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that there's a level, because it takes a level of trust to be vulnerable with somebody.
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And then they can respond to these emotions in a thoughtful way versus an explosion
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of everything was fine and boom, everything's not fine.
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And then score keeping, blame, blame, blame.
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Give them an opportunity to think on a thing and respond to it in a thoughtful way.
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All the doctrine, all the medical, psychological doctrine, it's all crystal clear, people.
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Any sustained change, any permanent change in this negative dynamic that's going
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on requires both people to examine their own.
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Automatic default darkness and their exaggerated defense mechanisms.
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And their manipulations, using emotions in a manipulative way as a weapon.
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You have to examine that first. You have to.
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And then just accept that you do contribute to the problem with the way you
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do these things and that you need to recognize it and consider how you're going to change it.
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Respect while giving disrespect, folks. I say again, you cannot demand respect,
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while giving disrespect.
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Selfishness, selfishness.
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Selfishness is human, folks. We're all human. We're all flawed, every single one of us.
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And every single one of us are selfish to a degree. It's a survival mechanism.
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And I talk about rational self-interest all the time.
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I think rational self-interest is a positive force.
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Rational self-interest, it's a series of positive actions for yourself that
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by helping yourself helps those around you, not hurts.
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It's not rational self-interest to hurt other people. That's irrational.
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But selfishness and irrational self-interest, that prioritizes your own needs above all others.
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And then you downplay the negative impacts that you're having.
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Oh, it's not that bad. Oh, you're exaggerating.
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And then you defend your wrong negative actions as opposed to owning them.
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And then none of those selfish acts help anyone. They're negative. They don't help you.
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Yeah, that's right. Your selfishness does not help you.
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And look, these things can emerge to the surface for whatever many reasons.
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Selfishness can come from many reasons.
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You have some unresolved issue, hurt, pain that happened two weeks ago or 10 years ago. Yeah.
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You had poor examples of parenting skills. Your parents were all effed up.
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They did denial or blame. They did the same thing that you're doing now.
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Piss poor modeling. Or you simply lack any life skills to solve these kind of
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complex relational problems.
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Any of those things are reasons why you're selfish.
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But I'm going to tell you this right now. Reasons for doing wrong do not equate
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to excuses for doing wrong.
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You have no valid excuse.
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Reasons are not valid or invalid. They are just factors.
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An excuse is invalid.
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Selfishness. There's a very crucial distinction here. People capable,
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which we all are, of ordinary selfishness,
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we still possess, most likely, we possess the ability to have empathy and we
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possess a sense of right or wrong.
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We may be selfish, but we have these in us. And we can learn to change,
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and we can feel remorse, empathy, sympathy.
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And when we see the real emotional toll that we may be compelled to change,
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and we can fight through the selfishness, and we can shape ourselves, that's selfishness.
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Well, on the other hand, narcissism, especially the pathological variants of
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narcissism, that's far more rigid and unforgiving and.
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You're chronically self-absorbed and self-obsessed even.
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And you have a complete lack of empathy and probably an inability to show empathy.
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You don't, you don't, it does not compute.
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You have a sense of entitlement. You exploit other people's emotions for your own gain.
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You say things like, I deserve XYZ or you owe me XYZ.
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How dare you accuse me of XYZ? XYZ.
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Feels no, well, they don't feel your distress or your angst at their behavior.
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And furthermore, they want to use your emotions for a control mechanism because
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the narcissist seeks control rather than connection. There's no real connection.
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They just want to control.
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The dynamic.
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And in the scenario of mutual harsh criticism without any ownership,
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it's more likely that the mutual selfishness is amplified by our own pain, our own poor skill set.
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Rather than full-blown narcissism. Chances are there is no narcissistic personality disorder, most likely.
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One of you, one or both of you may lean that way.
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And I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm just saying most likely it's probably
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just selfish human nature, not narcissism.
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The distinction matters. Yeah, it does. The distinction matters.
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Ordinary human selfishness is correctable. yeah it might be long hard fight but it's correctable,
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a little self-awareness a little a little thoughtful work and a will to to correct,
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but no shit narcissism is is way harder if nearly impossible to correct,
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and if one is a narcissist and the other isn't the other requires extremely strong boundaries,
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maybe even just divorce and cut away,
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as opposed to fruitless attempts to repair a thing that cannot be repaired.
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Relationships that have been saved, recovered, share a common process.
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And again, this is data from tens, even hundreds of thousands of humans,
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tens of thousands, scores of thousands of couples.
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From like infidelity, affairs, substance addiction, et cetera,
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they first achieve their own individual stability, sobriety, or ending the secrets.
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And then they take on individually the structured work that emphasizes individual accountability.
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And long-term data from specialized affair recovery programs,
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again, involving tens of thousands of participants,
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show exponential and long-lasting reductions in anxiety and depression and PTSD symptoms.
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And that the improvement.
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Is a two- and three-year span of just getting better and better.
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The improvement is amazing.
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This is documented stuff.
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And a couple of very specific anecdotal accounts, but one husband had an opioid
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addiction and it nearly cost a marriage. Right.
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And after treatment and 12 step program and he took some, he,
38:53
he, he swallowed a little bit of humility and he took ownership of it.
39:00
And ultimately the couple ended up renewing their vows and, and bringing a new
39:05
child into the world because regular life problems seemed easy breezy After
39:14
solving the big problems,
39:16
the regular life problems are easy.
39:18
Another couple that went through intensive
39:20
therapy after sex addiction and infidelity, years and years of it.
39:29
Years of this therapy, they're still being tracked and they have genuine,
39:35
they report back to these studies, genuine capacity,
39:41
for problem solving and relationship repair.
39:46
Because again, once you've had the big nasty problem that nearly destroyed it
39:51
all, the daily life problems are easy, easy breezy.
39:57
Even the tough problems are easy to solve.
40:01
And what else does the study show?
40:05
People who are dependent on alcohol or substance abuse who have supportive spouses,
40:13
they come out exponential, measurably better in couples cognitive behavioral
40:20
therapy than an individual therapy alone when you have a supportive spouse to
40:25
help you through that problem.
40:28
So all these common threads appear. The person with a bigger problem sought,
40:32
to correct it first individually, to take ownership of it.
40:39
And both partners practice humility with each other instead of scorekeeping.
40:46
And then going through some professional structured therapy,
40:50
it kept the old darkness from creeping in, from creeping into the process.
40:57
Therapy works, folks, in many, many, many cases if you're open to it.
41:01
I know you think I'm all anti-therapy. I'm not.
41:05
Failures follow the same trajectory except opposite.
41:11
And contempt persist without any ownership, that resentment eventually hardens into hate.
41:21
Ugly, bitter divorces leave children with extreme risks for emotional dysregulation,
41:32
internalizing or externalizing emotional problems,
41:37
and later on you get substance abuse.
41:42
Inability to form any healthy relationships whatsoever.
41:46
Toxic stress on the HPA axis, the body's main hormonal stress management system,
41:57
which when it's healthy is very adaptive. Humans are very adaptive, especially children.
42:04
But when it's chronically overworked, it breaks down. And they also just.
42:13
They live out the model that they saw. Long-term and broad meta-analytical work,
42:25
directly links parental chaos and conflict before, during, or after a divorce,
42:34
to, yeah, adolescent alcohol use.
42:38
Cigarette use Drug use Adult depression I'll,
42:47
denying any responsibility. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
42:53
Lower wage earning capacity as an adult.
42:56
Higher incarceration rates as adults. Well, kids too in that fact.
43:02
Exponentially higher teen births.
43:06
So you divorce your toxic spouse, let's say, all the while dodging and denying
43:12
any responsibility for the core problems.
43:16
Now you have young kids and no co-parent.
43:21
You're lonely and you have needs, right? So the same dubious circumstances under
43:27
which you two first met begin to emerge.
43:31
So now, and this is documented, a revolving door of partners that follows a
43:39
bitter divorce, it solidifies the model of instability, emotional chaos,
43:47
And in many, many documented cases, it exposes children to further emotional,
43:52
and physical risk, folks, and just generalized confusion.
43:58
So nothing is fixed. No problem has been solved. Only the faces and personalities have changed.
44:07
Now you're just waiting on a new set of problems. And so the cycle continues.
44:13
Correct yourself first, good people.
44:17
All medical and psychological doctrine is unambiguous on the process.
44:24
You cannot reliably change another person.
44:30
You can only change yourself and your contributions to the destructive cycles.
44:38
Cognitive behavioral therapy asks you to identify and test your automatic thoughts,
44:46
those dark default thoughts that trigger criticism or defensiveness,
44:53
and then attachment work tells us to examine our own working models right let's
44:59
look at what our parents were doing and let's look at,
45:04
are we modeling that to our children?
45:08
And then Gottman's methods tells us that we got to take responsibility,
45:13
even just a small piece, if we want to start rebuilding our appreciation of one another.
45:22
Teachings concur with these methods, folks. And I'll tell you,
45:27
here you go. Remove the log from your own eye first.
45:32
That jives with all this stuff. And approaching your spouse a little bit softer.
45:40
Hey, I see my part in what's happening here, and I'm going to do X, Y, Z to work on it.
45:47
That creates safety, folks. That creates safety.
45:52
If you approach from a moral superiority, well, I'm a bigger victim. You're worse than I am.
46:00
That leads to defense mode, and nothing's going to get done.
46:05
You have to accept responsibility. Now, this ain't self-blame theater.
46:10
I'm not telling you to ham it up to, and you have to do some genuine self-reflection and self-work.
46:19
That is the way. That is the path.
46:23
And this is the only empirically supported start point that breaks the resentment,
46:31
contempt, hatred chain.
46:35
The cycle of resentment leads to contempt. Contempt leads to hate.
46:41
And you can't live in a relationship like that.
46:46
Every critical comment, every blame without any self-ownership,
46:54
every refusal to own alcohol or sexual choices or inappropriate conversations
47:03
with quote unquote friends.
47:06
Every score settling, every blame game argument creates more resentment,
47:13
and it just depletes that relationship bank account.
47:17
Every time you come at somebody thinking that you give more and they take more,
47:23
well, both of you can't be right.
47:28
Positive interaction just gets discounted and any neutral interaction just is
47:34
seen as a subtle attack or a passive aggressive attack and then the contempt settles in,
47:42
and then you start to build a sense that the the other person your spouse is beneath you,
47:48
because what is hate anyway That's just contempt without any need or care for justification.
47:56
I did what I did. Deal with it. You don't give a shit. And every time you say,
48:01
well, I don't care anymore, that's what you're saying.
48:05
And at that point, well, the marriage
48:08
is functionally over, even if the paperwork hasn't been filed yet.
48:13
And so the cycle continues. So I'm going to draw you a bleak picture here real quick.
48:20
What if the cycle continues unchecked? I mean, yes, divorce inevitably arrives,
48:26
under high conflict and bitterness for sure.
48:29
Your children already exposed to years of harsh criticism and alcohol volatility,
48:37
and neglect just from parental selfishness.
48:43
Two households cursed with selfish hostilities.
48:49
Their emotional regulation never fully develops.
48:54
They learn that relationships equal chaos or withdrawal.
49:00
And they learn that love is transactional and conditional. And then as they
49:06
age a little into adolescence,
49:09
that brings with it some self-medication from my other alcohol or drugs so that
49:15
they can suppress that inner pain and that inner noise that you never bothered to address.
49:22
And that's the exact trajectory that researchers directly link to early toxic
49:29
stress from this parental conflict.
49:34
And then what happens? Well, unwanted pregnancies pop up.
49:39
And what are those? What is unwanted? Why? That's because it's a desperate attempt,
49:45
to feel a connection, even though it's just physical or it's out of outright
49:50
rebellion, one or the other.
49:56
Estrangement for one or both parents is common very common it's documented folks i'm not making it up,
50:03
and never mind as a spouse but even as a parent you are unwilling to take accountability,
50:10
and you live in this selfish victim mentality and your new relationships they
50:17
follow the same patterns anyway the revolving door of sexual partners,
50:23
they come into your house some of them are kind, some of them are not,
50:28
none of them are long-term, and they just create further instability in your
50:34
young, beautiful children.
50:36
And in the worst documented cases, they inflict emotional and or physical abuse on a child.
50:44
Young daughters particularly get sexually abused at many documented cases,
50:51
young boys, many documented cases of suffering physical abuse.
50:56
And by the time these young, beautiful children, these young,
51:00
innocent lives get to young adulthood, they have no relational skills whatsoever.
51:09
Exceedingly high rates of substance abuse, depression, inability to form any
51:15
kind of stable relationship or bonds with anyone.
51:21
And your unresolved hate passes on down. Now it becomes a permanent family pattern.
51:29
And so the cycle continues.
51:33
Inevitable. It is all well-documented. It's all deeply studied.
51:40
This high-risk path where bitterness and resentment and conflict is a dominant
51:47
emotional climate is not inevitable.
51:51
How do we reverse that bleakness? Well, the pattern can be stopped. It can be reversed.
51:58
One or both of you in this relationship, in this toxic relationship,
52:05
one or both of you stop waiting for the other to miraculously change and start
52:11
your own miraculous change.
52:14
Via deep self-examination, therapy, sobriety, honest inventory of your own selfishness.
52:27
And then you do the deliberate daily acts of soft communication.
52:34
And either with the help of Jesus Christ or through evidence-based tools or both.
52:40
You replace, you change your perceived high ground You swap that out for humility,
52:47
And your spouse will eventually respond And yeah, nothing's guaranteed,
52:53
But documented recoveries show that the responses are overwhelmingly positive,
52:59
When the honest effort has been given,
53:02
Even if cautious at first I.
53:08
But through consistent positive action, respect is earned.
53:14
And again, maybe even very slowly, but shared values become clearer and chosen
53:20
together rather than assumed.
53:24
You choose together. You prioritize your children's emotional well-being together.
53:32
And then your children witness this,
53:36
This positive repair And this positive.
53:45
Instead of the endless shouting matches and me, me, me.
53:51
They see parents who can disagree without fighting, without contempt.
53:57
They see parents who can take responsibility for their actions and who prioritize
54:06
the family unit's emotional safety.
54:09
And years later down the road that family dynamic looks vastly different yeah
54:15
maybe still imperfect and yes still requiring ongoing maintenance efforts,
54:22
but it's defined differently it's defined by mutual regard for one another,
54:29
by emotional regulation and these kids can absorb all that and a baseline of
54:36
safety, both physical and emotional,
54:40
exists.
54:43
And that keeps them away from these cliche, bleak outcomes, these statistical cliches.
54:53
Couples who have walked this path describe the rebuilt marriage that emerges
54:58
from all the madness as being stronger than the one that existed before the breaking point.
55:05
Exactly because it was rebuilt from the ground up on earned mutual respect and
55:13
not built on, you know, swiping right or some.
55:20
Superficial mutual attraction or casual sex or booze and drugs.
55:26
You have now built a full-fledged adult marriage with all the correct elements
55:32
in place and functioning correctly, and so the cycle is broken.
55:43
Good people, I beseech you, I beg you, I implore you, examine yourself,
55:50
take accountability, own what is yours, especially the bad.
55:57
Seek out help professional spiritual or both,
56:03
that guide you to become the kind of person capable of giving and receiving,
56:13
deeper respect and deeper love,
56:16
it is not too late the cycle can be broken that is the work,
56:23
i'll leave you with this,
56:26
As I quote this passage from W.B.
56:28
Yates Imagine your children Are appealing this to you,
56:35
But I, being poor Have only my dreams I've spread my dreams under your feet,
56:43
Tread softly Because you tread on my dreams,
56:49
Your children are watching you Your children are watching you.