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Who are you texting so much? · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, let's talk about who you should be texting and who you shouldn't be texting.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to your ancestor life, relationships, and daily living.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, happy holidays, happy whatever, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, whatever.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever holiday you celebrate, happy that.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: As I'm sitting here in my office, the smell of a molasses cookie is wafting through my nostrils.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mmm, smells delicious.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I will forego taking a bite of that cookie so I can get through this podcast because that's how I suffer for you, the listener.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't eat cookies while I record a podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you can thank me now.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can thank me by sending me money.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can thank me by sending me gifts.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: However, you want to thank me, I am appreciative of those thanks.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, here we go.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is Doc David.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Head Shrink Inc.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Show.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is the holiday season.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is a Friday.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully whatever you do this weekend is going to be great and memorable with you and your family, or you and your friends, or you and whoever.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I get emails occasionally from people asking me questions.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to send me an email, please do.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can send me an email with comments or you can send me an email with questions at headshrinkinc at gmail.com.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's head shrink.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then the INC, it's INC like incorporated, not INK like Inc for tattoos.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's headshrinkinc at gmail.com.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so people will occasionally send me an email question because it's easier to send somebody that has experience with relationships and has worked with relationships for 20 years, just a quick email to get an opinion versus setting an appointment, and then maybe you'd get that appointment three weeks later and then asking the question.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just easier to write an email asking the question.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's why you have help or advice columns, right?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so much easier.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free to email me a question.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: But this a question came in, um, and I did it over on my I answered it over on my YouTube channel.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I do have a YouTube channel as well, if you want to go over and find me.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um just I don't know what you search for.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think you just search for Dr.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: David Simonson or Head Shrink Inc., one of those two.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the question is um a woman wrote and said that her husband was um texting a co-worker of the opposite sex in what she thought was too too much.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: She thought it was too much.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And she had asked her husband to stop this, what she called inappropriate texting.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm paraphrasing this because it was a longer letter.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and basically her husband said he wasn't going to and that uh she wasn't control going to control uh his life, and so she was asking me what I thought about that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did I think it was inappropriate to be texting um someone of the opposite sex um a lot?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely have an answer.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I tell people that um I have an answer for every question that someone poses to me, um, and my answer is usually right, in my opinion.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: There may be some that disagree with that, but I do have a pretty strong opinion about this.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: So let me tell you a little story.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I was first married and first kind of doing therapy, I worked for an agency, and in my um practice or in my field, um a majority of the people that do what I do are females, and so I had several female co-workers, and um I'd been married probably about three or four years.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I went out to lunch with a female coworker, no big deal.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember the place too, it's uh a Greek restaurant that we went to.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it wasn't anything nefarious, it was just like, hey, I'm hungry, I'm gonna get lunch.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: You want to go?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, let's go.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so we went to this Greek place.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I came home, was talking to my wife about it, and she was really upset about it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I and then it led to a fight between us because she said she didn't want me um going and having lunches with female coworkers.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, being an immature, newly married, newish married person, I uh got into an argument and um talked about how she can't control me.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Who does she think she is?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Blah, blah, blah.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we we split up.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we didn't divorce, but we went our separate into our separate corners, and then I started thinking about this interaction that was happening uh with my wife, and I thought, what am I?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I I thought this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a great moment of uh maturity for me in into my three year, three or four years of marriage.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, what am I doing?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I am fighting to be able to um have the ability to go out to lunch with someone of the opposite sex, and it's damaging my marriage and it's damaging the relationship.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And why am I doing that?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: What is the point of that?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized um the point of it, why I was doing this because I'm I'm a selfish guy.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized I didn't at that moment in time I didn't have the best interest of my wife in mind, and best interest of my marriage in mind, I had the best interest of myself in mind.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so I tell you that story to kind of answer this question that um was given to me by a listener.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um so in my 20 years of practice, there is a story that has become so cliche um about affairs.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, if an affair starts this way: I was at work, I was having a hard time in my marriage, I started talking to a co-worker of the opposite sex, and then fast forward to we ended up sleeping together.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have heard that story so many times.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I say cliche because it I've just heard it so many times.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when someone tells me a story, I can almost plot it out where oh, you guys were fighting, then you went to work, and then you had good times with your male coworker, or you had good times with um your female coworker, and it was very innocent, and you didn't start out thinking I'm going to have sex with this person, but over time, because you didn't have boundaries and you didn't resolve things with your partner, um, this uh this opposite sex relationship or work um became more and more um intimate.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um now you maybe say, David, that's not me.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I should be able to text whoever I want.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna have my spouse control me.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, you you are more than welcome to not listen to me and and take that risk.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, um when you are texting somebody more than uh your partner would like you to, there's something going on that you need to like get a clear picture of and address.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um now I don't view it as your partner trying to be controlling, I view it as potentially your partner trying to protect the relationship they have with you.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so my wife and I have this agreement that we are not willing to be, or or we just aren't friends with an opposite sex uh part person um unless the unless our um unless my wife or unless I am friends with them, right?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um it just keeps things safe.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not like you know, oh, I'm gonna go cheat.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just I don't even want to have a hint of that in my life.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to be tempted to do that in my life.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I mean, so we just protect our relationship that way.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So is it reasonable for a person to be texting the opposite sex an opposite sex person?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, that's reasonable.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it reasonable to be doing it to the point where it bothers your partner?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is unreasonable.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're doing it that much, and if you then get into a fight over you can't control me and you shouldn't have a say in what I'm doing and who I'm texting, there's a deeper problem going on in your relationship.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you're willing to, if you're unwilling to um let go of this texting relationship, and it could be anything, right?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: It could be texting, Snapchatting, anything where you're engaging in a lot of communication with an opposite sex person that's that is um all hours of the day, that I I there's a there's a potential problem there.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can call me crazy, call me controlling, call me paranoid, whatever you want.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's fine.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can call me that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I again I have like 20 years of experience where I've seen these cliche relationships start out very innocently, and then they go they go off the rails because people think that's not gonna happen to me.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be fine.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just having some problems in the marriage, we'll get it figured out.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is a completely platonic relationship.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sure, it usually starts out that way, but then inevitably it ends up getting off the rails and going into an intimate type, emotionally intimate and physically intimate type relationship.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, my encouragement to you is if you find yourself doing this, if you know, if you know that you're doing it and you're trying to keep it secret from your partner, there's a problem.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing it and you're trying to tell your partner that it's not a big deal, um and your partner's having some serious issues with it, there's a problem.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's if there's a problem there, you should address it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't just try to tell your partner that or gaslight him and say, You're crazy, what's wrong with you?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're just friends.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's my work wife, blah, blah, blah, my work husband.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oftentimes there's more stuff going on if there's no boundaries and it's left unchecked.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, to the person that wrote me, I think it is unreasonable that your um partner is texting this opposite sex person a lot.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is a problem that they're not willing to address it with you well.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my encouragement would be for you to go seek out a therapist or someone that can give you some assistance and kind of give you some guidance and how to maybe work through more intimate things in your marriage.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's just a symptom, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the the issue in itself.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes things like this are symptoms of a deeper issue that's that are that's happening in your relationship.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not willing, if you're if you're willing to like tolerate that, um, then don't be surprised when you find out your partner is having an affair with this person several months later.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and again, you may be the exception to the rule, but I doubt it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you may be an exception to the rule.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um or if you're brave enough, maybe have a conversation with your partner and say, are you okay with me texting this person as much as I text them?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you're mature enough and emotionally mature enough in your relationship, you could have a good conversation around it, and maybe you'll find something out about yourself and you'll find something else about your spouse to help you know if it's something that you should keep doing or not.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so I expect to have people not agree with me, and that's fine.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm okay.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just giving you my opinion based on someone asking me a question.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I I'm always more than willing to have pushback.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to have some pushback on me, feel free to comment on this uh blog post, or you can write me an email at headshrinkinc at gmail.com and I will um probably talk about it in an upcoming podcast.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right, have a great weekend.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: The holidays are upon us.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you do some traditional stuff with family or friends and uh make things memorable.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great weekend.