Latest / Morrow Marriage | Disrupting Divorce / Boundaries Or Ultimatums? Why Yours Aren't Working | The 'NEW' Marriage | Ep500

Transcript

Boundaries Or Ultimatums? Why Yours Aren't Working | The 'NEW' Marriage | Ep500 · Morrow Marriage | Disrupting Divorce

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: When to use boundaries, getting your partner on board.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: The impact that impacts trust.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: The erectile dysfunction.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sexless marriage versus a lack of intimacy.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Manipulation, boundaries, and covert contracts.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Why closure is a myth in modern relationships.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: When to use boundaries, welcome to the Morrow Marriage Podcast, guys.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And if I move a little bit funny, it's because I am in so much nerve pain right now.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to figure this all out.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um when to use boundaries.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, we've had to make a lot of changes within our company with how we coach.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We are listening when you start to use boundaries, it's because you feel very proud of who you are, and something happens.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: You typically start to victimize yourself again.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't stand this for my partner.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: The way that they do this is wrong.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: I can't believe this is happening to me.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna give you a super easy example.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: She can understand.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: A woman, her husband is now going to get, and this is a real story.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Her husband's now going to get a bankruptcy.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: He's been struggling with debt.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what he's spending his money on, it doesn't fucking matter to me, but he's struggling with debt, and he's now gonna do the bankruptcy thing.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: By the time I'm done asking my questions, it's we're up to$300,000 in debt.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not just one thing, like I mean, I I I think I can't remember if I'm mixing this story up or not, but it's something stupid like tarot cards.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's just pretend it's video games, let's pretend it's gambling, let's pretend it's uh anything you can think of that's just stupid.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's racked up to$300,000.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Cass, I need your help.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do boundaries.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm gonna have to do it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: I can't handle anymore.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm afraid I'm gonna lose my house.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: All these remember I said in the last episode, the emotion can't drive your decision, okay?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Afraid she's gonna lose her house.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking about divorce and thinking about putting a boundary in.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, oh hold on.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: How did we get to$300 fucking thousand dollars?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: You don't think you were involved in that?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, he spent the money.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, he spent the money and you also allowed it to get that bad and that far for so long that now you want to divorce to figure out how to stop this so you can get a shit together?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is no different than that episode we talked not long ago about swinging.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm divorcing you.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: But you were involved in that decision.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now, is she involved in the$300,000?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't sound like, in fact, sounds like he goes against her with her sugg she makes ten times the money he makes all of the like I get it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: I get you're mad.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: You're very responsible.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: You've made a productive life, you make a lot of money.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: But if you don't think over the last, I don't even know how long, let's pretend it's a decade, that you weren't involved in that by what you enable.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she that I think that that's why we have these conversations, because I know who you're talking about, and she recognizes, she recently recognized that she needed to stop enabling it and stop rescuing his financial turmoil.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so recently she started doing that, and so now that she's done that and she doesn't she's not rescuing him, he can't pay any of his debts of his debts, and so now he's looking at bankruptcy, and now she's realizing the the gravity of the last however many years where she rescued him and rescued him and rescued him and rescued him and rescued him.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you rescue someone, when they continue to make the same mistake, are they ever gonna correct that mistake?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, they're not.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So is it her fault that she spent the money?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did she have a part in it?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the boundary really, guys, the boundary should have come a long time ago.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna be able to do it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: And nothing is divorced, it's over money's not.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The conversation should have happened a long time ago.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem though, because people don't have the tools,$200,000 ago, she wouldn't have had the tools or the skills to do it, and so that's why she kept making the same mistake.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you guys can't keep making the same mistake.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at the boundary that you want to set, there needs to be a boundary about money.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there also has to be mercy and grace over the first$300,000 that he screwed up on because you're a part of it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't, I'm not speaking to her specifically.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is a general concept that I want you guys to understand.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: By the time you get fed up and you're ready for the boundary, you're like, I can't take this anymore.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Look at yourself in the mirror and see that you were part of this problem all along.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So how dare you say that you want to divorce when you had a part in the problem?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do let's do you guys a solid right now.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go in a different direction here.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just give you some examples so that no one's excused from this.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say the overarching is I want to use a boundary because I can't stand this anymore.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: This hurts me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we talked about the woman who's divorcing her husband, and in Texas, it happens very fucking fast.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so he is pretty much done.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think we got one more week to go.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: And she was involved in this decision to swing in the community.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, come on, give me a fucking break.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: You made the choice together.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's an obvious.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's not like the money, they made the choice together.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then there's more that are not like that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's more like the money.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like we have one who wants to put a boundary in, and she says, if you use porn, I'm leaving.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, listen, like, I mean, by the way, you've been enabling that for as long as you can remember too.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Here's how I know.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you talk about how life is good, you talk about having sex with him and he's using porn.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's a different boundary besides leaving.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's a different boundary there.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if you actually like we do this with kids all the time.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you guys have to learn to put the consequence to the crime.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't say punishment, by the way.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: I said consequence.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: What did you say, babe?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said logical.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you call a logical consequence.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you have to put the consequence to the crime.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If the consequence happens naturally, it's called a natural consequence.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you go outside in winter without a jacket, you're gonna get cold.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to impose that consequence.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the consequence that happens.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: A logical consequence could be if you're if your child goes out without a jacket in winter, then you fill in the blank.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be connected to what that child did.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I can't think of anything at that time.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Think about it like this.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it it has to match.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I said, well, I like you you still watching porn, that really hurts.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so as long as that's happening, then I I'm not able to be intimate with you.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm talking about sex.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that could be the same thing we tell a people all the time when their partner's having an affair.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to get them fucking riled up.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to have so much fun with them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's the conversation, it's the date, it's even the kiss, but wait, we stop at the kiss and we go, you single yet?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not gonna do that.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of core values do you have here?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have a guy, uh sorry, a woman who her husband, no, her man is is um married to someone else.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's a core value issue.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so like boundaries have to align.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are you giving this person?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care why he did it, why he got married, whatever the fuck the deal is.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because that wasn't an affair, by the way, just so you know.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: But story doesn't matter.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: The point is that what she was trying to do wasn't aligning with what's actually happening.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: It had it's cold, you're going to get cold if you don't bring a jacket.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's use a simple one like the phone.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: When do you boundary on a phone?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like divorce.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: My husband's checked out, he says all blah blah blah, all he does.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: What if you just say what Catherine always says, which is like, hey babe, I need you to put your phone down.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or I'm just gonna take the kids and we're gonna leave.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's a boundary.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a punishment.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning she doesn't want to be and she doesn't have to explain it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: She's not my mom.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: She just says, babe, if all you're gonna do is work on your phone, then we're gonna leave.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: But she doesn't say it like that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: She says, if you can't put your phone down and you're with your family, then we need to leave.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna go, we'll have a great time.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna miss you.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And boom, I hit it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Whoa, cool.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, this is real life.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: This just happened to us with the with the field trip.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: She said, Oh, yeah.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Catherine, Catherine, just last Friday, said, um, well, prior to Friday, because Friday.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Three weeks previous to Friday, yeah, I bought tickets for our kids' homeschool field trip.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I put it in a calendar three weeks in advance of the field trip.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so I saw that physio was in there, it was scheduled, and I didn't change it.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I got physio.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, well, go to physio if you want, okay?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, All right, so then a day comes and it's physio and Catherine.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now Catherine could have done this prior as well, but but Yeah, so so a couple days previous before the field trip and the physic physical therapist appointment that we had at the same time.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He sent me a screenshot saying there's a conflict in the calendar.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, you don't have you don't have to go to the on the field trip if you don't want to.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I said.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because normally I would be like, Well, call, give him, I've give him all the steps that I needed him to take.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Call the physiotherapist and rebook your appointment.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, No, I'm just telling him he can go, he can make the choice.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Friday rolls around, and I'm like, okay, we're leaving at 9.35.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, I have physio.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, We have a field trip.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I told you, and I was like, and I told you weeks in advance.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then she said, You can make the right decision, which is because we know enough of what we're doing, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a fight.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a fight.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And also I think I have my hands on my hips and I might have even snapped like this.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: But because of where we're at, that's the same as you saying, listen, I need you to cancel physio.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're coming with us, or we're gonna go without you.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if that this is a boundary, you're not gonna not go.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you do that?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or you complain?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, listen, here's the point about it though.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So when you speak My husband handled it like a champ.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, I should talk about that really.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you should.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: All all I did was uh Captain went inside and in a huff, actually, if I might add.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember if she did the whole thing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely was like, I because I I wanted him to make the right decision and he didn't, so I was upset with him.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, I didn't And then he was like, Okay, understood.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I got it.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't but I didn't say that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't apologize, I didn't talk a bunch of bullshit, I didn't get defensive.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I literally texted my physio and said, I can't come in today.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then I gave him the reason why.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went into Catherine and said, babe, I cleared my whole day.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like I got nothing but time.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, after the field trip, we're going for breakfast uh or brunch or whatever it is, and then you know I got my whole day.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's not even true.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, we both worked in the afternoon, but we did the field trip, we went for breakfast, we got back to work.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: But the way that I handled it, she just giggled and laughed and thought that was great and said, Yeah, it was did the right thing.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I thanked him.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: You need to get to this level.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: To do that, you need to put boundaries in place when it's time to put boundaries in place, not ultimatums, and not like the end.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's not everything doesn't have to be the fucking end.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like the amount of you that are so angry and you want to put a boundary in, you're not even in a position to lay a boundary if you're that angry.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Amount of people that are getting so much disrespect from your partner, you're not even in a position to put in a boundary.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: But you can put in a boundary no matter how it is, if it's something that affects you, like the porn is a good example, like the person spending all the money.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Here's one for the money.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you continue to spend money on Amazon when we don't have it, then I'm going to have to set up a separate bank account and I'm only gonna give you X amount of dollars.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to explain.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not our fucking father.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody knows the mortgage has to get paid.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Shut the fuck up.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: You talk too much.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you want a partner, be their partner, but be their leader if you're better at something like money.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: But don't you dare think you're better than them because they could be putting boundaries on your bullshit too.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not financial.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not financial abuse, guys.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you are actually abusing the money and your partner has to put some safeguards in place so that you don't bounce on your bill payments and, you know, not pay your mortgage, that's not financial abuse.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually showing you responsibility.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: A hundred percent.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't make your partner have to make that decision.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Money or anything else.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: All right, guys.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: See you next time.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.