Latest / Toxic Girls Zone / You're Not Holding Him Together. You're Holding Yourself Back

Transcript

You're Not Holding Him Together. You're Holding Yourself Back · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Alright, we are back. Iced coffee in hand, status meaning survived,
0:07
Speaker 1: and I have something to say to you today, right?
0:08
Speaker 1: Something I genuinely wish someone had pulled me aside and
0:11
Speaker 1: said about five years before I figured it out on
0:12
Speaker 1: my own. So let's get into it. Today we're talking
0:15
Speaker 1: about the steady hand. That's the pattern. The woman who organizes, soothes, preempts,
0:20
Speaker 1: and backstops a grown man until she genuinely cannot remember
0:22
Speaker 1: what she actually wants anymore. This is the episode I
0:25
Speaker 1: needed years ago, before I lost two years of my
0:27
Speaker 1: own life keeping a man emotionally functional, and I'm saying
0:30
Speaker 1: that with my whole chest. Fair warning, This one is
0:33
Speaker 1: going to land somewhere tender. Let it. Here's what we're
0:36
Speaker 1: doing today. We're looking at what it costs you to
0:38
Speaker 1: be the woman who holds everything together, where that role
0:41
Speaker 1: came from, and what's actually waiting on the other side
0:43
Speaker 1: when you put it down. You are not holding him together.
0:45
Speaker 1: You are holding yourself back. That's the thesis. Say it
0:48
Speaker 1: with me or don't, but it's going to come back around.
0:50
Speaker 1: This episode is for the woman who is exhausted and
0:52
Speaker 1: calling it partnership, the one who is competent and giving,
0:55
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the middle of all that giving, she
0:57
Speaker 1: went missing. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Okay, I
1:02
Speaker 1: do have to say this because it came to me
1:03
Speaker 1: this morning when my rescue dog sprinted past me with
1:05
Speaker 1: an entire sock in his mouth, just fully committed, no shame,
1:09
Speaker 1: tail going. He has more emotional independence than several men
1:12
Speaker 1: I dated in my 20s, right? He steals the sock.
1:14
Speaker 1: He owns the sock. He does not need me to
1:16
Speaker 1: emotionally process the sock situation with him. Honestly, iconic behavior.
1:20
Speaker 1: I'm not okay. Anyway, let's talk about you. So here's
1:25
Speaker 1: the thing I want you to sit with first, okay?
1:27
Speaker 1: You are good at this. Reading the room, knowing when
1:29
Speaker 1: to step in, knowing what he needs before he even
1:31
Speaker 1: clocks it himself. That is a real skill. I'm not
1:34
Speaker 1: going to pretend it isn't. You are competent and caring
1:36
Speaker 1: and it shows in everything you do. I get it.
1:39
Speaker 1: I do. And you should actually be proud of how
1:40
Speaker 1: attuned you are. Yeah. And now here's the flip because
1:44
Speaker 1: you knew it was coming. He forgot to text back
1:46
Speaker 1: and you drafted three different opening lines in your head
1:48
Speaker 1: before he did. Makes sense? He got quiet at dinner
1:51
Speaker 1: and you ran through every possible cause, landed on a
1:53
Speaker 1: fix and implemented it before dessert arrived. You made a
1:56
Speaker 1: decision about your entire weekend based on what mood he
1:58
Speaker 1: might be in on Saturday morning. And here's the part
2:00
Speaker 1: that gets me. You did not even notice you did it.
2:02
Speaker 1: That is not partnership. That is project management, right? You
2:07
Speaker 1: are not holding him together. You are holding yourself back.
2:09
Speaker 1: Because every single minute you spend tracking his emotional weather
2:12
Speaker 1: is a minute you are not living inside your own life.
2:14
Speaker 1: And here is the question the steady hand never stops
2:16
Speaker 1: to ask herself. Who is tracking mine? That one just
2:20
Speaker 1: sits there. Nobody's answering it because she's too busy managing
2:23
Speaker 1: the forecast. You know? Picture this. You're at dinner. He
2:27
Speaker 1: goes quiet somewhere between the appetizer and the main. You
2:30
Speaker 1: scan his face. You adjust your voice. You pivot the
2:33
Speaker 1: conversation to a topic you know is safe territory. The
2:35
Speaker 1: thing you actually wanted to talk about, the thing you've
2:37
Speaker 1: been carrying around for three days, you set it aside.
2:40
Speaker 1: He says later, you seem off and you say, oh,
2:42
Speaker 1: I'm fine, right? And you are so not fine. But
2:45
Speaker 1: fine is the thing that fits the moment. So fine
2:47
Speaker 1: is what he gets. And he believes you because you've
2:49
Speaker 1: always been fine because you made sure of it. I've
2:52
Speaker 1: said it and I mean it. You have a full
2:54
Speaker 1: crisis management system running in your brain for a man
2:56
Speaker 1: who cannot remember where he put his keys, right? Like
2:59
Speaker 1: a full emotional operation center, contingency planning, scenario modeling. And
3:03
Speaker 1: he's somewhere in the other room, just genuinely surprised that
3:05
Speaker 1: it's Tuesday and And you call this love, which babe,
3:08
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that because I need you
3:10
Speaker 1: to ask yourself something real. Is this love or is
3:13
Speaker 1: this a job you are very, very good at? Can
3:15
Speaker 1: we see this? The real question is not why he
3:18
Speaker 1: needs managing. The real question is why you signed up
3:20
Speaker 1: for the role in the first place, right? Because nobody
3:23
Speaker 1: handed you the clipboard and said, here, be his emotional
3:25
Speaker 1: operations center, full-time, no pay, no PTO. You picked it up.
3:30
Speaker 1: You picked it up because it felt like something. It
3:32
Speaker 1: felt like being necessary. Like love with a proof of
3:34
Speaker 1: purchase attached. but necessary is not the same as loved.
3:38
Speaker 1: Those are two completely different feelings, and they can wear
3:40
Speaker 1: the same outfit for years before you notice the difference.
3:44
Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to sit with. If you
3:45
Speaker 1: stop managing tomorrow, not in a punishing way, not a
3:48
Speaker 1: big dramatic exit, just stopped, what would you feel first? Relief? Terror?
3:53
Speaker 1: Both at the same time, which is its own specific
3:55
Speaker 1: kind of dizzy? Yeah, because that answer tells you everything
3:58
Speaker 1: about why you started, and it tells you something about
4:00
Speaker 1: what you've been getting out of it too. The steady
4:02
Speaker 1: hand has a full inbox, zero vacation days, and somehow
4:05
Speaker 1: no benefits package. Right? Not even a performance review. Nothing.
4:09
Speaker 1: Just the vague feeling of having gotten it right, which
4:11
Speaker 1: we will absolutely be coming back to. Now picture this
4:14
Speaker 1: specific Tuesday. He has something at work, a presentation, a meeting,
4:17
Speaker 1: something with stakes you can tell because you learn to
4:19
Speaker 1: read the tension in his shoulders about three months into
4:21
Speaker 1: knowing him. So you clear your evening, even though you
4:23
Speaker 1: had a call you actually wanted to make. You make
4:25
Speaker 1: sure the apartment is calm. You do not bring up
4:27
Speaker 1: the thing you've been sitting on for a week. The
4:29
Speaker 1: thing about needing more of something because tonight is not
4:31
Speaker 1: the right time. He comes home barely talking. You don't push.
4:34
Speaker 1: You make tea even though you wanted the iced coffee. Yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: you wanted the iced coffee. You made tea. Later, he
4:39
Speaker 1: exhales and says, I really needed this. Thanks. And you
4:42
Speaker 1: feel it. That warm, specific feeling of having gotten it right.
4:45
Speaker 1: That feeling is real and it matters. Write that down.
4:50
Speaker 1: He comes in tight and distracted. You are already three
4:52
Speaker 1: steps ahead adjusting and he never once asks if you're
4:54
Speaker 1: okay first. You say, I made tea. He says, you
4:57
Speaker 1: always know. Which is flattering, right? And also, I need
5:00
Speaker 1: you to hear this. He says you always know because
5:02
Speaker 1: you have trained him to believe that you do not
5:03
Speaker 1: have a need of your own that could possibly compete
5:05
Speaker 1: with his tonight. You know? And the next morning, he's fine.
5:08
Speaker 1: He's great, actually. And you were still holding the thing
5:10
Speaker 1: you didn't say. That thing is still there the week after.
5:13
Speaker 1: And the week after that, the steady hand collects those
5:15
Speaker 1: unsaid things the way the plants on my balcony collect
5:17
Speaker 1: dead leaves. Quietly. Until there's too much to ignore. I
5:22
Speaker 1: dated a man at 24 who needed me to manage
5:24
Speaker 1: his friendships, his calendar, his entire complicated situation with his mother.
5:28
Speaker 1: All of it. I thought I was indispensable. I was
5:31
Speaker 1: absolutely indispensable. I was also not in love. I was
5:34
Speaker 1: in charge. There's a difference. And here's the thing I
5:36
Speaker 1: didn't know then. You can be completely essential to someone's
5:39
Speaker 1: daily functioning and still be genuinely lonely inside the relationship.
5:42
Speaker 1: He said you always know. I said thank you. I
5:45
Speaker 1: never once said I'm exhausted. Right? He said you always know,
5:49
Speaker 1: which is flattering until you realize you also always sacrifice
5:52
Speaker 1: something to make the knowing possible. Okay? I need that
5:55
Speaker 1: to land. Because we are so good at accepting gratitude
5:57
Speaker 1: in place of reciprocity, and they are not the same currency.
6:00
Speaker 1: And I am absolutely someone who spent years at that
6:02
Speaker 1: exchange rate, so I'm not judging. I'm just saying I
6:05
Speaker 1: know what the math looks like on the other side.
6:07
Speaker 1: Make sense? Good. Because coming up, we're going to go
6:10
Speaker 1: a layer deeper into where this pattern comes from. Who
6:12
Speaker 1: actually gave you that job first? And why saying yes
6:15
Speaker 1: to it felt, for a really long time, like finally
6:17
Speaker 1: being loved? So who gave you that job first? Not
6:21
Speaker 1: your partner. Not the man you're currently rearranging your entire
6:24
Speaker 1: evening around. I mean, the first room you ever managed.
6:27
Speaker 1: Think about the adult in your life who needed you
6:29
Speaker 1: to be very careful around their moods. The one you
6:31
Speaker 1: watched for signals. The one you adjusted for. The one
6:34
Speaker 1: you could not quite get through to no matter how
6:36
Speaker 1: perfectly you got it right. For me, it was my dad.
6:39
Speaker 1: Not a bad man. I want to be clear about that.
6:41
Speaker 1: Genuinely one of the kindest people I have ever known.
6:43
Speaker 1: But he worked long hours and came home somewhere else
6:45
Speaker 1: in his head. And I never felt like I did
6:47
Speaker 1: anything wrong around him. I just felt like I never
6:50
Speaker 1: quite landed. So I got very good at trying. Right?
6:53
Speaker 1: I learned to be low-maintenance. I learned to anticipate. I
6:56
Speaker 1: learned to fill the silence with something useful so the
6:58
Speaker 1: distance between us would shrink. It didn't, but I kept
7:01
Speaker 1: the skill. And then I walked into adulthood and found
7:04
Speaker 1: men who felt like that same locked door and called
7:06
Speaker 1: it attraction. Yeah, I did that over and over and over.
7:11
Speaker 1: My mom called me on a Sunday, which she does
7:13
Speaker 1: every week without fail, and she said something totally offhand.
7:16
Speaker 1: She goes, your dad always needed a lot of quiet.
7:18
Speaker 1: We all just learned to work around it. And I'm
7:20
Speaker 1: sitting on my balcony, genuinely killing a plant by overwatering it,
7:23
Speaker 1: which is its own metaphor. And something just clicks. Like
7:25
Speaker 1: I heard that sentence and felt it rearrange something in
7:27
Speaker 1: my chest. Because she said we all learned to work
7:29
Speaker 1: around it like it was just the weather. Like it
7:31
Speaker 1: was just a fact of the household. And I realized
7:33
Speaker 1: I had been treating it like a fact of every
7:35
Speaker 1: household I'd ever lived in since. Sound familiar? I hope not,
7:39
Speaker 1: but I think maybe yes. Picture this. You stop for
7:42
Speaker 1: a second and you think about the parent who was
7:44
Speaker 1: somewhere else in their head even when they were physically
7:46
Speaker 1: in the room. And you remember, specifically, the way you
7:49
Speaker 1: changed your behavior so they would seem more present. The
7:52
Speaker 1: things you didn't say. The volume you turned yourself down to.
7:55
Speaker 1: The very particular performance of being easy. And then you
7:58
Speaker 1: look at your current situation and you feel the overlap
8:00
Speaker 1: land in your chest like a dropped book. That's it.
8:03
Speaker 1: That's the whole thing right there. You didn't choose a
8:05
Speaker 1: difficult man because something is wrong with you. You chose
8:08
Speaker 1: a difficult man because he felt like home. And home
8:10
Speaker 1: was the place where you earned connection by being useful.
8:13
Speaker 1: Make sense? My dad needed a lot of quiet and
8:16
Speaker 1: I became the woman who reorganizes closets at midnight to
8:19
Speaker 1: avoid disturbing a sleeping partner. It's fine. We're fine. Completely fine.
8:23
Speaker 1: I'm not fine, obviously. But at the time, I would
8:25
Speaker 1: have told you I was absolutely fine and meant it.
8:28
Speaker 1: Can we see this? Because I need you to see
8:29
Speaker 1: this before we go to the next layer. Because the
8:31
Speaker 1: next layer is actually the one that changes things. And
8:33
Speaker 1: it only works if you've already located the room this
8:35
Speaker 1: started in. You know the room. You know it. Right? Okay,
8:40
Speaker 1: so here's the layer under the managing. And I want
8:42
Speaker 1: you to stay with me on this because it sounds
8:44
Speaker 1: counterintuitive at first. The steady hand has a need she
8:47
Speaker 1: buried so long ago, she actually forgot it was there.
8:50
Speaker 1: She wants to be taken care of. Not managed, not handled,
8:53
Speaker 1: not told what to do. Just genuinely held. But needing
8:56
Speaker 1: once felt dangerous. Needing meant waiting for someone who was
8:59
Speaker 1: somewhere else. So she flipped it. She decided, if I'm
9:02
Speaker 1: the one who gives, I control the outcome. I don't
9:05
Speaker 1: have to wait. I don't have to feel that old
9:06
Speaker 1: particular helplessness of wanting something from someone who isn't quite there.
9:10
Speaker 1: There's a name for this, and it's called shadow work.
9:12
Speaker 1: The disowned need. The part of you that genuinely wants
9:15
Speaker 1: to be cared for that gets buried under the role
9:17
Speaker 1: of caretaker because needing once felt unsafe. The shadow isn't
9:20
Speaker 1: the bad part of you. It's the part you decided
9:22
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed. Right? And so the managing isn't really about him.
9:27
Speaker 1: It's about her. It's a shadow form of a need
9:29
Speaker 1: she decided she was not allowed to have. And here's
9:32
Speaker 1: where it gets specific and a little bit uncomfortable. She
9:34
Speaker 1: picks men who need managing because a man who doesn't
9:36
Speaker 1: need it would just love her back. And being loved
9:39
Speaker 1: back with nothing to fix, nothing to earn, nothing to manage,
9:42
Speaker 1: that terrifies her more than almost anything else. Because then
9:44
Speaker 1: all she has to do is receive it. And she
9:46
Speaker 1: has never, not once, practiced receiving without earning first. Yeah,
9:50
Speaker 1: that one sat with me for a long time in therapy.
9:52
Speaker 1: It might be sitting with you right now. Good, let
9:55
Speaker 1: it sit. Picture this. You're three months into something new
9:58
Speaker 1: and he's consistently warm, There's no crisis, no emotional labor required.
10:03
Speaker 1: He just shows up, asks how your day was, actually
10:05
Speaker 1: listens to the answer. And you find yourself manufacturing a problem,
10:09
Speaker 1: inventing a need he has, looking for the task. You go,
10:12
Speaker 1: something must be wrong with this. He's too calm, too available.
10:15
Speaker 1: And you're not wrong that it feels unfamiliar. But you're
10:17
Speaker 1: calling unfamiliar dangerous, and those are not the same thing. Okay?
10:20
Speaker 1: You're not broken. You're just trained. And the training can change.
10:24
Speaker 1: Make sense? Nothing panics the steady hand like a man
10:28
Speaker 1: who is simply okay. She will find a symptom. She
10:31
Speaker 1: will check his forehead when there's no fever. She will ask,
10:33
Speaker 1: are you sure you're fine, three different ways, and then
10:35
Speaker 1: interpret his yes as suspicious. I have done this. I've
10:38
Speaker 1: done this eight times. It's embarrassing. And it's also completely
10:42
Speaker 1: understandable because a man who just loves you and doesn't
10:44
Speaker 1: need saving gives you nothing to do. And the steady
10:46
Speaker 1: hand has built her entire sense of worth around having
10:48
Speaker 1: something to do. So when there's no emergency, she creates
10:51
Speaker 1: one quietly in her own head. And then she manages that.
10:55
Speaker 1: And now we're managing a problem we invented and calling
10:57
Speaker 1: it love. Right? Yeah. Here we are. Here's the invoice
11:01
Speaker 1: the steady hand never reads. She loses her opinion. Not dramatically.
11:05
Speaker 1: Not all at once. Just gradually. The way a balcony
11:08
Speaker 1: plant loses leaves in a dry month. She stops saying
11:11
Speaker 1: what she actually wants because she's learned that her wants
11:13
Speaker 1: are secondary to the management task. She loses her time.
11:16
Speaker 1: The emotional maintenance of a man who needs it is
11:19
Speaker 1: a part-time job and she is doing it unpaid on
11:20
Speaker 1: top of her actual life, on top of the status
11:23
Speaker 1: meetings and the commute and the one call she wanted
11:25
Speaker 1: to make. She loses her body. She stops noticing her
11:28
Speaker 1: own signals because she's always tuned to his frequency. And
11:30
Speaker 1: she loses the relationship too, eventually, because he never actually
11:34
Speaker 1: knows her. He knows the managed version of her, the
11:36
Speaker 1: one who never has a bad day, never needs anything inconvenient,
11:39
Speaker 1: never surfaces the unsaid thing. And when he finally says,
11:42
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know you, she's devastated. And
11:46
Speaker 1: she should be. She hid. She hid so thoroughly that
11:50
Speaker 1: even she forgot what she looked like without the role.
11:52
Speaker 1: Can we see this? She also loses her ability to
11:56
Speaker 1: order off a menu without asking what he's getting first,
11:58
Speaker 1: which sounds small and is genuinely not small. It sounds small.
12:02
Speaker 1: It is the exact same mechanism playing out on a
12:04
Speaker 1: Tuesday night at a restaurant. She's not picking pasta. She's
12:07
Speaker 1: tracking his preference and building her choice around it. And
12:10
Speaker 1: she doesn't even clock it as a thing she's doing anymore.
12:13
Speaker 1: That's how deep the groove runs. That's how automatic it gets. Right?
12:16
Speaker 1: And I know you know exactly what I mean because
12:18
Speaker 1: I know you've done the menu thing. We've all done
12:20
Speaker 1: the menu thing. Okay? Here it is with love. You
12:23
Speaker 1: chose him because managing him was something you knew how
12:25
Speaker 1: to do. It was not fate. It wasn't chemistry. Or
12:28
Speaker 1: not only chemistry. It was familiarity. The feeling of a
12:31
Speaker 1: problem you've already been trained to solve. And he let you,
12:34
Speaker 1: maybe welcomed it, because it is genuinely comfortable to be
12:36
Speaker 1: managed by someone who's excellent at it. No one is
12:39
Speaker 1: the villain here. I mean that. But the thesis, and
12:42
Speaker 1: I need to say it one more time because it
12:43
Speaker 1: is the whole point of this entire conversation, you are
12:46
Speaker 1: not holding him together. You are holding yourself back. Every
12:49
Speaker 1: minute of his emotional labor you take on is a
12:51
Speaker 1: minute you are not building the life you actually came
12:53
Speaker 1: here to build. This isn't about leaving. It's about honesty.
12:56
Speaker 1: Is he actually incapable or have you never let him try?
12:59
Speaker 1: Have you given him the chance to handle himself because
13:02
Speaker 1: you stepped in before the moment could even arrive? Sometimes
13:05
Speaker 1: a steady hand doesn't have a helpless partner. She has
13:08
Speaker 1: a partner who has never been asked to show up
13:09
Speaker 1: because she already showed up for him before he had
13:11
Speaker 1: the chance. Yeah, that one's a little rough, I know.
13:16
Speaker 1: And she is usually extremely efficient in the status meeting
13:18
Speaker 1: at work too. Another unpaid leadership role. Another room she
13:21
Speaker 1: reads before anyone asks her to. Which means this is
13:24
Speaker 1: a pattern, not a personality. And patterns, unlike personalities, can
13:28
Speaker 1: actually change. That is the whole point. That is why
13:31
Speaker 1: we're here, right? The deepest cost of all of this
13:34
Speaker 1: is that she never finds out who she is when
13:35
Speaker 1: she is not useful. She never gets to meet the
13:37
Speaker 1: version of herself that exists outside the function. And that woman,
13:40
Speaker 1: the one waiting on the other side of the clipboard,
13:42
Speaker 1: she has opinions. She has wants. She has a full
13:46
Speaker 1: life she keeps putting on hold. And she has been
13:48
Speaker 1: waiting a long time. Coming up, what it actually looks
13:51
Speaker 1: like when you stop. Not when you leave, not when
13:54
Speaker 1: you blow everything up, just when you stop. And what
13:56
Speaker 1: you might find when your hands are finally empty and
13:59
Speaker 1: actually yours again. So here's what it actually looks like
14:02
Speaker 1: when you stop. Not when you pack a bag, not
14:05
Speaker 1: when you send the paragraph text, just when you put
14:07
Speaker 1: the clipboard down and stand there with your hands open, right?
14:10
Speaker 1: Because that moment, that specific moment is the one nobody
14:13
Speaker 1: talks about. Everyone talks about the dramatic version, the leaving,
14:16
Speaker 1: the confrontation, the big speech. Nobody talks about the Tuesday
14:19
Speaker 1: where you just don't step in, where you let the
14:23
Speaker 1: silence exist, where you feel the pull to fix something
14:26
Speaker 1: and you choose very quietly not to. Here's what happened
14:30
Speaker 1: when I started doing that. My partner does this thing,
14:33
Speaker 1: leaves little sticky notes on the coffee maker, a tiny observation,
14:36
Speaker 1: something funny about the dog, a thought from overnight. I
14:39
Speaker 1: used to walk right past them because I was already
14:40
Speaker 1: solving the morning, making sure everything was calm, everything was set,
14:44
Speaker 1: everything was ready before anyone needed it. That is the
14:46
Speaker 1: steady hands default setting. Anticipate, arrange, execute. I was so
14:51
Speaker 1: busy managing the morning that I was missing the morning.
14:53
Speaker 1: It took a solid year of unlearning to actually stop
14:55
Speaker 1: and read the note. And yeah, okay, it's a small thing.
14:58
Speaker 1: But the small things are where you disappeared. They're where
15:01
Speaker 1: you come back to, right? Here's the thing about the
15:04
Speaker 1: other side of this. The woman who stopped managing did
15:06
Speaker 1: not find a worse relationship. She found more of one.
15:09
Speaker 1: She put down the clipboard and yes, the first few
15:11
Speaker 1: weeks were genuinely awkward. He had to sit with things
15:14
Speaker 1: he had been escorted around for two years. He had
15:16
Speaker 1: to figure out what he needed without her already having
15:18
Speaker 1: provided it. And she had to feel what it felt
15:20
Speaker 1: like to have an actual need and say it out
15:22
Speaker 1: loud instead of immediately pivoting to his. Can we see this?
15:25
Speaker 1: Because that's the real skill she had to learn. Not managing.
15:28
Speaker 1: receiving which sounds simple and is one of the hardest
15:31
Speaker 1: things the steady hand will ever do and what she
15:34
Speaker 1: found on the other side was this he was more
15:36
Speaker 1: capable than she had ever let him prove not perfect
15:39
Speaker 1: not a different person just more capable than the role
15:41
Speaker 1: she had cast him in allowed him to be and
15:43
Speaker 1: she had so much more to say than she had
15:45
Speaker 1: said in months the relationship had room in it that
15:47
Speaker 1: hadn't been there before room for both of them room
15:50
Speaker 1: for her bad days her opinions her weird specific wants
15:53
Speaker 1: her actual voice that space felt terrifying for about three
15:56
Speaker 1: weeks and then it felt like air and like genuinely
15:59
Speaker 1: being able to breathe inside the thing you built. And
16:01
Speaker 1: the other side also has room for both of your
16:03
Speaker 1: bad days at the same time, which sounds obvious and
16:05
Speaker 1: is honestly kind of a scandal when you first experience it, right? Okay,
16:09
Speaker 1: here's what secure partnership actually looks like. And I want
16:12
Speaker 1: to say this plainly so it lands. It is not
16:14
Speaker 1: the absence of tension. It is not a perfect frictionless
16:17
Speaker 1: arrangement where no one ever needs anything. It is two
16:20
Speaker 1: people who are each responsible for their own interior, each
16:22
Speaker 1: holding their own emotional weight, choosing closeness from a place
16:25
Speaker 1: of actual want, not from a need to be needed
16:27
Speaker 1: or a need to be managed. That's it. That's the
16:30
Speaker 1: whole model. You choose each other because you want to,
16:33
Speaker 1: not because the function requires you. And you show up
16:35
Speaker 1: as yourself because there's someone there who actually wants to
16:37
Speaker 1: know who that is. Make sense? Yeah, I knew you'd
16:40
Speaker 1: feel that one. All right, three moves. Not a revolution,
16:45
Speaker 1: not a big confrontation, just three things you can start
16:47
Speaker 1: this week, right? First, take one thing back. Today, one
16:50
Speaker 1: moment where you would normally step in and manage, you pause.
16:53
Speaker 1: You let the silence exist. You do not fill it.
16:55
Speaker 1: You notice what happens in your body when you hold still.
16:58
Speaker 1: That body feeling is data. It's telling you something about
17:01
Speaker 1: how long you've been running the system. Second, surface one
17:04
Speaker 1: unsaid thing. Not the biggest one. Just one. Something you've
17:07
Speaker 1: been holding because the timing was never right. Because he
17:09
Speaker 1: was stressed. Because you didn't want to rock it. There
17:12
Speaker 1: is no perfect time. Say it in one simple sentence.
17:15
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to talk about something. Not an accusation.
17:18
Speaker 1: Just a sentence. Just yours. Third, every morning for one week,
17:22
Speaker 1: ask yourself this before you ask yourself anything else. What
17:25
Speaker 1: do I actually want today? Not what does he need?
17:28
Speaker 1: Not what does the household need? What do I want?
17:30
Speaker 1: Write it down if that helps. Let it be small.
17:32
Speaker 1: Let it be boring. Let it be embarrassing in its smallness.
17:35
Speaker 1: I did this for a week, and on day three,
17:36
Speaker 1: I realized I'd wanted to eat dinner at a different
17:38
Speaker 1: time for basically my entire adult life and had never
17:41
Speaker 1: once said so out loud. Seven years of evidence, completely undramatic,
17:44
Speaker 1: absolutely revelatory. So yeah, pause before you step in. Say
17:48
Speaker 1: the unsaid thing. Ask what you want every morning for
17:50
Speaker 1: seven days. That's your dare, right? And here's the moment
17:55
Speaker 1: I want you to picture because this one's worth sitting in.
17:57
Speaker 1: You say the unsaid thing. Your voice is slightly unsteady
18:00
Speaker 1: because you've been holding it for a while and your
18:02
Speaker 1: body knows that. And he doesn't fall apart. He looks
18:04
Speaker 1: at you and he says, I didn't know you were
18:06
Speaker 1: holding that. And you feel two things at exactly the
18:08
Speaker 1: same time. Slightly stupid for having waited so long and
18:11
Speaker 1: enormously physically relieved. And that relief, that is what it
18:15
Speaker 1: feels like to actually be in a relationship, not managing one,
18:18
Speaker 1: being in one. Yeah, that's the difference. The woman on
18:22
Speaker 1: the other side of this is not less caring. I
18:24
Speaker 1: want to be really clear about that. She didn't become
18:27
Speaker 1: cold or unavailable or suddenly unbothered. She's just more herself.
18:30
Speaker 1: She has opinions that are genuinely her own. She has
18:33
Speaker 1: capacity left at the end of the day for something
18:35
Speaker 1: she actually wants. She lets him love her back without
18:37
Speaker 1: immediately looking for what's wrong with it. She's not the
18:39
Speaker 1: steady hand. She's a full person who happens to be
18:42
Speaker 1: in a relationship. And she got there not by fixing herself,
18:45
Speaker 1: but by noticing the loop, tracing it back to the
18:47
Speaker 1: room it started in, and deciding that the job description
18:49
Speaker 1: she picked up at nine years old does not have
18:51
Speaker 1: to be her identity at 32. She also finally orders
18:54
Speaker 1: exactly what she wants at dinner without doing any reconnaissance first,
18:58
Speaker 1: which I'm telling you is a genuine act of self-determination,
19:00
Speaker 1: and I will die on this hill. Now, I have
19:04
Speaker 1: to say this once, and I mean it with care.
19:06
Speaker 1: If the managing in your relationship has moved into something
19:08
Speaker 1: that feels like control or fear or cycles that feel
19:11
Speaker 1: genuinely impossible to break on your own, please talk to
19:14
Speaker 1: a therapist. That is a different and serious thing, and
19:17
Speaker 1: this episode is not the tool for it. A real person,
19:19
Speaker 1: a real room... A real conversation with someone trained for that.
19:23
Speaker 1: That is what that situation needs. You deserve that kind
19:25
Speaker 1: of support. Okay? Okay. So here's the whole thing in
19:30
Speaker 1: two sentences. You are not holding him together. You are
19:33
Speaker 1: holding yourself back. Put the clipboard down. Not forever, not dramatically,
19:36
Speaker 1: just long enough to see what your hands are actually
19:38
Speaker 1: capable of when they are empty and in your own life.
19:41
Speaker 1: That is the real question this episode was always asking.
19:43
Speaker 1: Are you his partner or his project manager? And when
19:45
Speaker 1: did you decide that counted as love? I want you
19:48
Speaker 1: to sit with that. And then I want you to
19:49
Speaker 1: answer it for This show is made by Oboe Media.