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251. 8 Signs You Are In A "Transactional" Marriage · The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: It's the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It's the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Today's episode is 8 Signs you Are In a Transactional Marriage.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Now you're thinking what did I just hear?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Because Nick and Amy talked about transactions being okay sometimes and how the whole everything we do in life is transactional.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, we have.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: But today we're going to talk about, obviously, if you've gone over that way too much, like if your whole marriage is just based upon transactions and I think there are a lot of people that feel this way.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of people that are like, oh, I just feel like my relationship's a business relationship, which, if they're saying that, they're obviously saying I feel like my relationship's just a transactional relationship, which, if they're saying that, they're obviously saying I feel like my relationship is just a transactional relationship, most likely.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about the eight signs and, of course, what you can do to get out of that type of relationship.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So let's let's dive in.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: This is a.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: This is quite a balanced we're going to have to talk about, because I'm just going to be 100 honest right now well, I always am, but like be 99 I am totally guilty of this well, we all are.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: We all do transactions in our relationship, and that's not a bad thing I think that there's healthy transactions and they're super unhealthy transactions.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: agreed, this one's going to be more focused on the unhealthy aspect of transactions.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I'm admitting I have completely been guilty of unhealthy transactions in the marriage.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: There's been plenty of days in our marriage that I'm like, well, he hasn't done this and this and this.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Like I've been a total skiller keeper in our marriage.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I have been self-centered, focused, many, many times I have had really high expectations in our marriage.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Like I'm guilty.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: I think we can all probably say Well.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So let me ask this question when you had those feelings, was our marriage good or did it suck?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: When I am mentally in that zone, my marriage is not good.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, even if you don't even notice it and you're zone, my marriage is not good.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Even if you don't even notice it, and you're like our marriage is great.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: There has been times where you're like our marriage is so wonderful and I've looked at you and I've thought our marriage sucks right now and it's all because I'm in my own head.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I'm either scorekeeping in my head I'm either being self-centered, focused in our head, or you're not meeting expectations that I have in my head that I haven't even talked to you about, which is totally unfair and unhealthy.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying I think that we can be in different places in our marriages, depending on where our mind's at right.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the eight signs.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You are in a transactional marriage and I think for some of you maybe a lot of you you'll see where we're going with this.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You'll see, oh yeah, that's totally what we're doing.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: It's totally unhealthy.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Or maybe you're not doing these things, and if you're not, that's great.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: But I think for most of us, we've either are either doing some of these things or we have done some of these things.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Then we'll talk about you know how to, how to not.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I think most of us could probably admit how many are on this.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Eight.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Probably most of us 99 percent of us could admit that we've done a few of these things in our marriage, or we are guilty of doing them right now.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: For sure All right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So let's dive in one constant expectations I have expectations, I'm not gonna lie well, I think we, I think we all have expectations, but I think when your expectations are unhealthy and it's more of like entitlement, like oh, you should do these things for me.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Again, I think expectations are okay, but when it's constant expectations and it gets to an unhealthy thing, I think that can be a bad thing.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I was told by a therapist that no expectations are okay in a marriage and I'm going to 100% disagree with that.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I think it's okay to expect your spouse to work.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's healthy to expect your spouse to do their share in the house.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's healthy to expect your spouse to be a parent, like those kind of things, like we do kind of expect things right and there is a fine balance to that I mean I expect that there's going to be certain emotional and sexual intimacy in the relationship, to hold our relationship together, like those.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Those things are important, absolutely important.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: But I think, when it's constant expectations that are expectations so high that your spouse is always, well, I should say, never reaching those, expectations.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: They're unobtainable, yeah, unobtainable right.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Like no matter what you do, it's not going to meet your expectations.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: You're always complaining about something.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And I have been guilty of that one.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to be honest.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I have high expectations.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Where it gets really negative is when you have an expectation and a lot of women are guilty of this expect their husbands to read their mind.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Like, well, you should know that I need that, you should know that I need that.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Why can't you just look around and see what needs to be done?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Like that hurts so many marriages and I we've all done it and there's such an easy solution to that.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: It's called hey.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I would really appreciate or maybe even word it different.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate when you come home and look around and just start doing stuff that you see needs to get done.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate when you do that Instead of like why can't you ever this this?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Like like we always talk about right, it's how you come across it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Like don't expect your spouse, husbands or wives to read your mind.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: If something needs to get done or if you're feeling like you're not getting your love language spoken or or something's missing in your emotional connection, just talk to them about it yeah right exactly expectations could just if even if you have them, and that's okay talk about them like this is.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Is this healthy for me to expect this?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: What do you expect of me?
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Have those conversations?
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: yep.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: The next one is self-centered focus um, where you're just constantly, you know, focusing on yourself, what your desires are.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: You're forgetting about serving your spouse, nurturing your relationship.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, just becomes all about you and I think we're all guilty of that I think we all could sometimes be guilty of that, um, but obviously that's going to, you know, breed, to a transactional relationship.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: For sure A negative one.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, Yep.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: But it's hard to make the natural man, woman not have self-centered focus once in a while, right, like I think we're all self-centered people and that's why marriage is such an amazing and huge test for us is because marriage literally takes two opposite people and says learn how to serve each other learn how to serve each other, and you cannot be a self-centered person when you're stuck with someone else, and your whole entire mission in life now is to serve each other and keep that love growing Right.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yep For sure, yep For sure.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Lack of teamwork is the next one, I think, when couples aren't working together as a team and they're kind of just pursuing their own goals, their own interests, and completely ignoring what those are as a couple, but just pursuing them individually.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And I have been totally guilty of this.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, as you've listened to the podcast in the past, you obviously know what we've been through and that was a big thing for me.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Do you want me to add to that?
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Sure add to that Lack of teamwork.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess this is.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Is this where scorekeeping would come in, or is that different?
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Is that a different one?
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: I think that's different, but lack of teamwork would be like you know.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I felt like, okay, I need to get us out of this issue.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Therefore, I'm just going to deal with it myself, right, right, and I hid.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I hid things.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I just made decisions on my own because it was my problem to solve, and so, instead of it being a two-man team, it was a one-man team and that did not work well.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't work well and it kills intimacy.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Real quick right absolutely kills intimacy yep, yeah, a lot to say on that one, I think it's pretty self-explanatory.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Um, emotional disconnection.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Obviously, if you aren't connected emotionally, that leads leads to I mean it's a breakdown of teamwork.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: You're then going to be more self-centered and self-focused.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it just kind of encompasses the opposite of everything.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: So, um, I can honestly say when we were going through what we were going through, there was definitely a lack of emotional disconnection.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Conversations became we're just more like what are we gonna have to eat and this and that, instead of having like real deep, meaningful conversations.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Everything was like more just kind of surface level, you know nothing real deep.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, is that kind of the way you feel or felt?
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not feel, but feel about that subject.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Well, it's lack of teamwork creates emotional disconnection which is caused by like, if you really think about it, transactions in a marriage is kind of opposite of teamwork, right, like you're giving something for something but you're not really you're doing it for selfish reasons, which kind of like hits on all those things we've talked about.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: But the first way to get disconnected emotionally is to only be doing something because you want something.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: That's the epitome of like self.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And again, I think there are certain times where that's okay, you got again.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: You got to find that balance.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I mean because again, naturally we are going to be doing something.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: We get married because there are certain benefits we know we're going to get from being married.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: We go to work because of the benefits.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So again, I'm just saying we have to be careful and find that balance.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: But there's obviously the flip side of that, where things become too transactional, which is what we're talking about.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: But when we talked about that healthy transactions in our in our transaction podcasts previously, we talked about already having a healthy relationship for the transactions to be okay.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: So to have a healthy relationship first you have to have that emotional intimacy, right exactly that is standard to be able to have healthy transactions.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: So if you're not at a place where there's healthy emotional intimacy or there's this what we're talking about emotional disconnection, transactions cannot be a good thing right they're going to be very.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: The motive behind those are going to be very selfish yeah very, very selfish exactly I love, I love the next three.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I think the next three are perfect.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Um, in a transactional marriage, you're going to have rewards and punishments.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Um spouses may withhold we see this a lot spouses may withhold sexual intimacy or emotional intimacy, like we've talked about in previous podcasts, the toxic games couples play.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: There's going to be rewards and punishments for doing things or not doing things for sure and and how could that not like destroy your intimacy and connection where it's all based upon, you know, rewards and punishments for how good you are, how bad you are like almost like treating your relationship like you're a little child or something.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: So this is where the whole um, I guess withholding or using sex as a weapon, weaponizing, uh, we hear from a lot of husbands that are like my wife.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say honeydew list, because I don't think honeydew lists are bad, I don't look at them that way.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: I more or less like if I don't accomplish all these things, she's gonna withhold sex or sex is off the table tonight yep and I saw a reel the other day from somebody who said am I going to let my dirty house, my laundry pile up and this keep me from being intimate with my spouse?
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: And the answer was no.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: That's this once again comes down to mindset like is my spouse a priority or are all these other things priority?
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Am I expecting my husband or my wife to do this, this, this and this for intimacy to be a reward?
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: The minute we start thinking that being intimate is just a reward and not a benefit for both people in the marriage, this is where negative transactions come into play yeah, I love it.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: You said that perfectly yeah I mean the minute you think sex is for him.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: You've 100% trained your brain to think it's a reward and I'm going to treat it like a reward, and you only give rewards when someone deserves a reward.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Right, like when we talk about rewards, rewards is when you get something for doing something.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: You earned it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: And if sex has to be sexual intimacy or emotional intimacy in some cases has to be earned in your marriage.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: You have now turned that into transactional, maybe abusive or toxic.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Well, and I think too the thing about rewards and punishments.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: If you're the one offering rewards or punishments, naturally the rewards are going to get less and less and less, and the punishments are going to get more and more.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: You're going to increase and move up that scale to where, like we talked about, like your spouse will never make you happy and it's going to be more of like 99% are going to be the punishments and the very seldom are going to be the rewards.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And you see a lot of marriages like that where for both men and women, to where it becomes almost abusive, to where like that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: And so if you're seeing, if you're seeing that in your relationship with any rewards or punishments, like, get that out of you, get that out of your relationship.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And you have to retrain your mind Like what does intimacy mean in our where does intimacy really come from?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Like intimacy or I know that's different than being intimate being intimate is a gift to your marriage that God created.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Like to be on the same page emotionally so that you want to sexually connect.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: That is an amazing place to be.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: That's a gift, right.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: So we have to look at, instead of it being a reward, change our mindset Like it's a reward for both of us, for our marriage, for having amazing emotional connection.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: It's a reward to both of us, and just tweak that Right.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: So the next one is scorekeeping.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: And.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I have strong feelings about this as well.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Think about a sports game or sports analogy.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, what happens?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: How often number one does a score end in a tie, Virtually.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Not very often, very seldom.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And when it does end in a tie, what always happens?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: They go into overtime, they go into a playoff because it can't end in a tie.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: And what happens during the overtime?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: It gets tense.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah Right, it gets tense.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly so.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: If you compare it to a sports analogy, number one you're never going to end up with an equal score.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't happen that way.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Someone is always going to win and someone is always going to lose, and so when you're in that scorekeeping mentality, there's never an equal 50-50.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: There's never.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: There's never an equal 50 50 because you're always in that scorekeeping mentality.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: If you're trying to be ahead, then you're going to try to get ahead and the other spouse is going to feel like they're behind and it's just going to cause that constant imbalance.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Competition it's.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It's not going.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: It's going to breed resentment, um, an atmosphere of like, like I said, competition to where you're not okay with just your marriage.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: You're always competing.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Scorekeeping is the worst thing ever and I and we were guilty that I was too in our, in our marriage, and it sucks like that is like the worst thing you can do is have a score keeping 50-50 mentality.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: If you haven't read the book the 8080 marriage we have it in the app under books don't read it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's a great book that talks about why the 50-50 does not work and it's a great book.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Like we don't get anything from like pushing that book.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: It's just a great book it was one of the ones that like taught us, like score keeping does not work.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: But but, speaking's, it's easy to scorekeep, especially for women when they're doing a lot more around the house Like I'm super guilty of that, especially during our hard years.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: It's easy if the emotional intimacy is lacking to start scorekeeping.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I feel like it kind of breeds that when things aren't really like feeling really strong between the two of you.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: There's a difference between if your spouse is dropping the ball and just sucks at doing things.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: That's completely different than scorekeeping.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: At that point.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: it's like, hey, sweetie, I need help around the house, here's what I need.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling overwhelmed.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling overwhelmed.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Here's what I need.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: That is not scorekeeping, that is just serving each other the way it should be and working together as a team.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: And if you feel like that, that's valid right.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Think about it Scorekeeping.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: You are in competition, Working together as a team.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: You are working together on the same team.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: When you are on the same team, it's virtually impossible to be scorekeeping because you are on the same team, moving forward, and so I think that's the way you need to look at it is instead of scorekeeping and being on different teams, how do we be on the same team and say how do we do what we need to do?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: For example, if there's things that need to be done around the house and you're on the same team, you say what can we do to better get these things done together?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: What can I do to step it up Right, Rather than having the scorekeeping?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And this is a hard topic because if you really want a solution to this we love to give solutions I feel like that weekly marriage meeting is the greatest solution ever, like if you could sit down, like we always say, on Sunday night, and be like and you have to first be honest with yourself, do I feel like I'm scorekeeping?
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Is is my mentality of scorekeeping?
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Or like negatively looking at my spouse, like they're not doing enough and I'm doing more?
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Is that hindering our intimacy?
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: And if you can honestly answer yes, it's probably time to do this weekly meeting and think okay, I and just the way you approach it, once again, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling like I'm taking on more and it's stressing me out and I want our intimacy to be better in our relationship.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: I want to feel connected to you, I want to prioritize sex, but I feel like I have this mental load that you don't know about.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that if a woman would share that with her husband in a kind and respectful, loving way way and not like a you don't do enough, like step it up, I do everything.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: If you approach that, I guarantee, guarantee that the spouse will be like I didn't know you felt like that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you for sharing that with me and being so respectful about it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Would you just tell me how I can be more help to you?
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I think most spouses would approach it like that Right, and it could be changing for your marriage.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Totally agree.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Number seven conditional love.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: When you're in a transactional marriage, it's obviously going to be conditioned Um you're.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The love is going to be conditioned on how you're doing, so to speak.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Going back to scorekeeping, and every everything has to line up to get that conditional love, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: That's hard.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: That's a hard one because we have that natural man in us, because we are wired to be kind of selfish and because, like you said, in marriage there are transactions Like I I do, I got married for you to do certain things in this marriage and you got married for me to provide you with certain things in this marriage.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Right, like, like, absolutely.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: And that's where it gets tricky is because, like, we have to make sure that we're communicating and and being on the same page and, whether you do certain things or not, I love you 100%.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And if I love you 100%, I'm going to come to you when I'm frustrated or when I'm upset and talk to you about it in a loving way.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But I think okay to sum this up and I think it's real simple if you have good communication in your marriage, it's going to solve the issue of scorekeeping.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: It's going to solve the issue of score keeping.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It's going to solve the issue of conditional love.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It's going to resolve the issue of rewards and punishment.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: It's going to resolve the issue of emotional disconnect.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It's going to solve the issue of lack of teamwork.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: It's going to solve the issue of being self-centered and focused just on yourself.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: If you have good communication, yeah.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So that's why I totally agree If you're communicating well and talking about things, it's going to solve all the issues that we're talking about.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: But remember, communication is not.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying this to you, I'm saying this to everybody.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: You're human.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: There's times when you're upset, there's times where you're pissed off and frustrated at your spouse.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Right, Like I just want to right.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: It's hard and this takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of self-control to show that conditional love but to be able to have conversations when you're feeling like that.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: But of all people, like we used to get really mad.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I used to give silent treatment 10 years ago.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Like we used to play some of those toxic things.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Like he's not listening to me, anyways, I'm just not going to talk to him.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: It takes like once you decide and you set boundaries like I'm not going to, there's not going to be silent treatment in our house.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: There's not going to be this.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: We're not going to.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: We're not going to yell anymore Like there's just, we're done.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: There's not going to be yelling anymore Like it's.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: It's changing, right.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Like you can absolutely, no matter what your personality is, learn with baby steps how to have conditional love during times of anger.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, I just think that's important, that sometimes we do have to give ourselves a little grace, because we are human and, like your marriage isn't gonna be perfect just because you learn how to communicate right, there's still gonna be times.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a constant battle.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: We're all trying to improve and we're all trying to do better, and there's gonna be times.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: We, like Amy said, we fall short, we make mistakes, we have things that we're struggling with, and it is a constant battle it is a constant battle, but that's what makes marriage so great is a learning thing.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: So even all these things that we're talking about.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: That's why amy and I have sat here and we're shaking our heads and like oh yeah, we've done this, we've done this, we've done this and it's still.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: We're still having constant communication and doing things in our marriage to not slide back into these things.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: We're not it's not at all like oh we're, we're coming across that we've solved all these issues and we're perfect, because we're not Like what we're saying is we've dealt with these things and we continue to deal with these things, just like most of you, or all of you do as well.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: But there are things that we can do to try not to fall back into those things.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: I want to add on a conditional love though.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Those things I want to add on to conditional love, though.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: When you, when you have a fight, when you have a disagreement or a major disconnect, maybe you go a date and then all the frustrations come out.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: You, you have those moments in marriage, right?
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Unconditional love is what after that, when you reconnect and you show your spouse like I'm still here for you, I still love you, that's conditional love like unconditional love, and that's you, I still love you.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: That's conditional love, like unconditional love, and that's what we want, right.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Like those times in our marriage that are really hard and then we embrace each other again, we're like we got this.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: That builds trust, like that's where this awesome thing comes from.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: It's from going through hard stuff and still having that conditional love.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, unconditional hard stuff and still having that conditional love.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unconditional love, sorry, totally unconditional love, totally agree.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Uh, the final one is lack of spontaneity and joy, and you know, when you're in transactional marriage, I think it totally takes away the spontaneous joy, appreciation, all those genuine moments away in life, because everything is pretty much more transactional um oh 100.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: I think that like kill.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Didn't you do a podcast on we, on being positive, uh-huh, I think that fixes everything.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: When I'm looking at nick during the day, like I can tell you okay night and day difference, like the days where I'm like, oh, dishes are still in the sink, I just did six loads of laundry and he's still just looking at his news.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: There's days that I'm guilty of that, that never happens Never.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: No, not anymore, hardly ever.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: But the days that I'm like okay, you know what, today I'm going to have a positive mindset.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not scorekeeping at all, I'm only going to look for the positives and then I start noticing all the little things he's doing.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: That yesterday he did too, but I just didn't notice them because my mind was in a bad place, like it's amazing what our mind can do right, like we just go into our day with like a positive attitude.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I think that you'll start seeing that your spouse is actually pretty awesome and you're going to notice things that you don't usually notice yeah, yeah, totally agree.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: we did a podcast poll a little while back and asked the question what things do you consider transactional in your marriage and are you for and against transactions?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: We had 63% say they were against transactions.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: So obviously this is something that a lot of couples deal with.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: It's something that is a negative that a lot of couples deal with.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It's something that is a negative, and that's why we wanted to do this podcast is talking about the signs.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You're in a transactional marriage, I guess.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: So now let's get in and we'll kind of briefly go over what couples can do to get out of the transactional state of marriage into a better place.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: And these are the things that you and I had to do in our relationship as well to get from that place of being in a transactional marriage and scorekeeping to being in a much better place.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And so Sorry, I kind of jumped the gun.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize you were doing this.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: No, no, you're totally good, you're totally good, I didn't see this.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So we kind of hit on the first one, which is communicate openly.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Right, I kind of said that when you're talking about communicating and you're communicating openly, that's going to solve so many issues I I want to touch on this one, though.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: It's not about communicating openly.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: It's about communicating healthy health, healthily, healthy, healthily yeah, stop communicating in a healthy way in a healthy way, openly she's trying to invent some new words there.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Healthily, I love inventing words.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Don't make fun of me.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Um, you can tell people all day long, you just need to communicate.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: If you don't know how to communicate, if you don't communicate in a healthy way, if you don't do it in a respectful way, your communication does zero.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does zero.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Like, once again, it's about not being judgmental.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: It's about letting like really hearing them, letting them express their thoughts, listening to them and not jumping in and being like well, I didn't do that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Or being like.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: It's about not being blaming or it's just all those things like to have communicate.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: A good communication, which is the only way communication is going to work, is if you learn how to communicate in a healthy way yeah, totally agree.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Love it, practice empathy and generosity.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I think basically, to simplify, it's just showing that you care how they feel and empathizing with them, serving each other.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to just add be kind, yeah, be kind, right, be kind.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Focus on your shared goals together Rather than focusing on just your goals and your interests together.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Do that together as a couple.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Have shared goals, shared shared interests.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Really make it more of a team effort rather than an individual effort for sure prioritize the emotional connection.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I really feel like this is, you know, scheduled date nights, spending time really talking and and having meaningful conversations, versus just this surface level conversations, like I talked about earlier, um, just doing these things regularly to keep that emotional connection.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, the final one is you have to let go of the scorekeeping.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I think if, if you, if there's one massive thing you got to do on top of communications, let go of the score keeping, um, you just are not going to uh be able to connect and have a really good marriage with that score keeping going on.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: And I think the two solutions to that one, like I already said, was to have a weekly meeting and do respectful and talk about what needs to be done.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And number two is change your mind and only look for positive things for a few days.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I think that's marriage changing.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: So we hope that you can take these things, apply them in your relationship and they can be very beneficial for you, like they have for Amy and I.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: This is an area that where, like I said, we were really in a transactional place at one point.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Things were hard, difficult, they were not fun, and we had to get out of that and hopefully this can benefit you and your marriage and help you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Now getting into a more serious note.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, we're not done.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: We should have like thousands and thousands of reviews on our podcast.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: People are too lazy to leave a review, Nick.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: People are scared to leave a review.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: But to help our podcast grow, if you want to keep listening to our podcast and you like what we have, please leave us a review.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Yep a review.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Help us to continue to be able to do this, because reviews are going to help us be able to continue to grow and help other people want to listen to the podcast?
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: It'll only take you 20 seconds and you don't even have to leave your name.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have so many people listening to the podcast far more than I ever imagined we would, which is amazing, but the reviews don't equate to how many downloads?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: how?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: many downloads we're getting, and so, um, that could really help us out.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Please consider leaving us a review.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: In fact, I don't know if I should say this, but yeah, if you leave us a review, take a screenshot of it, send it to us and we'll give you a discount, uh, on a, on your next product you want to buy.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: So we want to help you too.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: That's literally why we're here.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: We're not trying to bribe you or anything, but if you help us out, we're doing this podcast to help you guys.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Hopefully it helps you guys.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: If it's not, let us know.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: We love all kinds of feedback.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: You can write us an email too if you want to get detailed right.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Take a screenshot, send the review, email it to us at amateultimateintimacycom.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: We'll send you a discount code to give you, uh some, some money off your next purchase yeah, we.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: We have some great products.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: We appreciate your support in every area.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: You're awesome yep, so thank you so much.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: So until next time, we hope each of you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.