Tanya Hale 00:00

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 243, "Having More Honest Communication." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living.

Tanya Hale 00:20

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. Guess who I have with me today? My husband, Sione.

Sione 00:30

Hey, everyone, thanks for having me back.

Tanya Hale 00:33

Okay, so he's here for a very special reason. We had an experience this last week. Do you want to kind of preface it?

Sione 00:41

Sure. So last week we had an experience that actually Tanya wanted me to share with you all. It created more trust and really built some emotional intimacy in our relationship. But to do that, it required some vulnerability and some courage and it really demonstrates the circling back around concept that was on the podcast you heard last week that I have not heard yet because it's not released yet. But will be a week before this one comes out.

Tanya Hale 01:17

Yeah, okay. So I'm going to start off this story because this all started with a story that I was creating in my head and I know it's been a while since we've talked about our stories but I just to preface this, the idea that my brain will have a thought and then my brain wants to create a whole story around that thought and our brain's really like a beginning, a middle, and an end to a story. So if there are pieces in my story I don't have, my brain's going to start looking for evidence, it's going to start looking to feel in those spots and this is really what happened and it created an opportunity for us to have a courageous discussion and both of us got to look at how we were showing up and how it wasn't in the best possible way. And it just incorporates so many of these tools that we talk about. And I want you to see that these really work. They're not just things that I talk about on here, but they're things that Sione and I are really working to incorporate into our marriage and making a huge difference. What are your thoughts on that?

Sione 02:26

Yeah, I think it becomes so natural when we don't use these tools and behaviors that it fills out of place to not be using them.

Tanya Hale 02:37

Yeah. And I know for, we've talked about this as well, that both of us, there's 53 years of bad marriage pretty much between the two of us. And we struggled a lot, both of us pretty much from the beginning. And so we didn't have these tools. We didn't communicate well. We didn't understand ourselves well. We didn't know how to have these kinds of conversations and so moving into a relationship where we are doing this kind of stuff is is completely a different experience.

Sione 03:10

It's nice to have a do-over.

Tanya Hale 03:12

It is nice to have a do-over isn't it? And I like having the do-over with some tools that are really helping. Okay, let's jump in. So here's the backstory: last week, about 10 days ago, I had knee surgery to fix my ACL and with that the doctor said, "okay, I just want you in bed for four days. You can get up and go to the bathroom. But then you need to be in bed with your leg up resting for four days straight." And I will tell you that Sione was at my beck and call and because I couldn't go down, the bedroom is upstairs and the kitchen's downstairs, and so I couldn't do stairs to go down and get my own water. I couldn't get more ice for my knee, I couldn't get my own food. I mean, I was really just stuck in bed for four days, and I will say that he was very happy to help me and he did everything that needed to be done. He was really sweet, but I will tell you that I started feeling insecure. So I have an old thought from my years of marriage that I need to be an easy person to be married to. I need to be very low maintenance. That if I'm going to be loved, I have to be really kind of like a superb spouse and really easy to get along with. And I will tell you that I thought I dealt with this a couple of years ago, and I hadn't really noticed it thus far in our almost 11 months of marriage. But it really came up here where I was not self-sufficient, where I needed a lot of help and I was having this thought that "I'm just so needy and he has to do all this work and this is hard." Anyway, so there's my thought, right? So realize that now my brain is going to start looking for evidence. Whether that thought is true or not, my brain's gonna look for evidence to try and flesh out the story. So I didn't notice the thought at first, but I started to see what was happening and as my brain looked for evidence for this story, I started looking for a sigh that he would give or when he would be talking and he would glance at his phone or if he would go down to get dinner and be on the phone with somebody and dinner would be late coming up, right? I was just looking at all this and I started thinking that you know what, he doesn't enjoy doing this. This is too hard for him and even though he was very clear that it wasn't, my brain was looking for evidence otherwise. Anyway, so one night he brought up dinner and we were eating and he was glancing at his phone and he was doing some stuff on his phone and I was filling with all the insecurity that was coming from this thought that I was having. I said something to him about being on the phone and I think it was a little sharper than I intended it to be, because I don't ever intend to be sharp, but I was, I was feeling hurt and I was feeling scared from my insecurity and I said something about, "I thought we had a rule that we weren't going to be on the phone while we were eating dinner."

Sione 06:33

Well, normally we have a basket on the dinner table to put our phones in so that it's not a temptation to pull out the phone, but since we were eating up in the bedroom, there was no basket.

Tanya Hale 06:46

No basket.

Sione 06:47

So you couldn't say like, "oh, the basket's right over here, sweetie." There's something like that so that I would be reminded in a more gentle and less direct way of the rule.

Tanya Hale 06:57

Yeah. And I was a little direct and I was on narcotics. Let's be, let's be clear here. I'm going to blame the narcotics, which it wasn't, it was more that I was creating this story and I was feeling really insecure and really scared. And, the story that I was telling myself beyond that was that he was starting to get resentful of me because he responded with a little bit of defensiveness about how he said, you remember what you said?

Sione 07:31

I don't remember exactly, but I remember thinking, instead of saying, "it's 7:30 at night, dinner's late, and I have things I have to arrange for tomorrow for work and other things that are scheduled. And normally we would be done with dinner by now, but we're not. And so this is bumped into my 'planning for tomorrow' time."

Tanya Hale 07:53

Yeah. So he had things that he needed to do and so he was feeling a little antsy to get those done and I was feeling a little resentful and scared and woe is me, pity kind of stuff going on because anyway. So I kind of held on to that and he did get off his phone, by the way. I mean, look how sweet that is. He told me, he was like after he's got a little bit defensive and then he put it down and then we just finished, whatever. Anyway, so the next day after I had a good cry and a nice little bit of time feeling sorry for myself. I went to the doctor and I was cleared to move around again. And then even though I was still supposed to take it easy quite a bit, I found myself wanting to be extra independent so that I wasn't making him feel resentful. Isn't that fascinating how I was trained to control his emotions and to encourage him to feel resentful, to control what was going on?

Tanya Hale 08:51

But the next day at lunch, he happened to be home. And I was sitting on one end of the counter and the napkins were clear on the other end. And so I was in my, you know, my knees all swollen and hurt and I'm reaching, reaching, reaching across me, clear to the other end of the counter. And it was right down by Sione is where he was. And I'm reaching to get these napkins. And he says something like, "you know, I can help you. I can get that for you." And I, um, and this is when I decided to bring it up. And I said...we sat here for a good little while before trying to remember the specifics as much as we could, but we'll give you when we couldn't, but we'll give you the basic just. So I basically just told him, "you know what, I just feel like I'm asking you to do too much, like you're, you're helping me out way too much. And I don't want you to get resentful." Because remember resentful was the story I was creating in my head.

Sione 09:53

Well, you didn't want me to get more resentful than I already was.

Tanya Hale 09:56

That's what I said?

Sione 09:57

Yeah. "I don't want you to get more resentful."

Tanya Hale 09:59

Oh, that's horrible.

Sione 10:01

Yeah. And I responded somewhat sarcastically that, "well, I'm not resentful," or "of course you need some help," or something like that. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I definitely said it sarcastically, but really basically, you know, didn't want to admit that doing all this was hard and was creating extra work for me because of course you needed help. And, and I didn't want you to think that any of this was actually bothering me because now is this chance for me to show up as this great husband and do all this great stuff that I did not do in my first marriage, but the opportunity presents itself now. And so I get to show up better this time around. And though, so I didn't want you to think that that this was even a little bit challenging. And of course I was so happy to do this and what a great man I was gonna be and all this other stuff that I wasn't feeling, but I wanted to be thinking at the time. So I really didn't validate your thoughts at all and kind of just blew you off as like, "well, that's ridiculous. Why would I be resentful towards helping you" in a very sarcastic manner? So of course you were thinking, and then we use the F-word, which is, can I say the F-word on the air?

Tanya Hale 11:33

Yes.

Sione 11:34

Okay, "everything's fine, it's just fine," instead of validating what she was perceiving from me. So I really wanted to move in this protection, which is my natural wiring just to say like, "no, I got this, I can make you dinner and, you know, do the laundry and make the bed," and all this stuff and of course I don't feel resentful and of course I don't feel like it's an extra work because I'm just doing what a real man does right.

Tanya Hale 12:03

And you know, I think that this is fascinating because your natural wiring as a man to be the protector put you in a place where you wanted to deny what I was perceiving. But and I do the exact same thing as a woman; like my natural wiring is to be more of a nurturer and this also works against women showing up honestly because we just want to take care of people and put ourselves last and say, "no it's fine. I've got this, I can do it, you just sit there," and we kind of do the same thing. But I think these natural tendencies work against us in having these honest communications. So just to be clear, there really wasn't any harshness of voice going on here. I just think there was some underlying tension, because of the story I was creating in my head and how you were you were feeling a little bit stressed out. Anyway, so he kind of like blew off my emotions at first, and then literally within seven to ten seconds he said, "you know what, I didn't show up the way that I want to," kind of circle back around.

Sione 13:13

And so yeah, so then I stepped really tried to step into honesty and resisted the gaslighting of everything being fine, because I didn't want her to think that I was resentful, because I wasn't feeling resentful. I was tired but not resentful, and so what she was perceiving as me being resentful was me just being tired from carrying the extra load that I was carrying. But I didn't resent carrying that load. I was happy to carry that load. But my tiredness came out to her as resentfulness. And I didn't want that to be the final thought in the story. And by saying everything was fine, when it was clearly apparent that everything was not fine, then it became kind of a gaslighting moment to say, "no, everything is fine," when it was clearly not fine. And so then your perceptions of my thoughts and feelings are distorted because you're like, "well, I know everything's not fine. That is clear. And so if he's saying that he's not feeling that everything is fine, then he must be really resentful because he can't even tell me exactly what he's feeling about it."

Tanya Hale 14:46

Yeah, so this term that we used called gaslighting is kind of a fascinating term that we use and it's exactly what Sione is describing. You have the definition for that.

Sione 14:57

Yeah, so it's a psychological manipulation of a person that causes the other person to question the validity of their own thoughts or their perception of reality or their memories. And it really leads to a loss of self-confidence, a loss of self-esteem and uncertainty in the other individual's emotional or mental well-being. And it can be very effective, especially in one-up, one-down relationships.

Tanya Hale 15:25

Yeah, and the reason that we're putting this under the, you know, using the term gaslighting for Sione, that even though he was happy to do this, there was something going on that was not normal. And so when I brought that up to him, my brain was saying that you were resentful. That's the story that my brain created. And his first reaction was to say, "no, nothing's wrong at all."

Sione 15:55

Right, because I didn't want to be vulnerable. I didn't want to show you my weakness, that I do get tired. And so I just wanted to be like, "no, everything's fine."

Tanya Hale 16:03

But what that would do for me is it would make me either, one, question my ability to perceive when something is off, or two, it would make me completely just start not trusting him. Because I trusted myself enough to say, "no, something's off. I know something's off, and he's denying it, so maybe I can't trust him." But the gaslighting piece would be where you say, "no, everything's fine." And then I start to question my own ability to perceive and to understand what's going on. And I will tell you that I've done this over the years. In my previous marriage, I did it a lot. Like, no, everything's fine. Everything's good. No, I got this. Like these kinds of thoughts where it's just like, I'm not being honest about my experience. So we ended up having this great discussion about it and we kind of really cleared it up. Um, so long term, I mean, it's only been a week out. It's only been, but in this week, how has that impacted our relationship?

Sione 17:14

Well, I think it's shown, at least for me, it's shown that, uh, I can be honest with you and I can be vulnerable with you and I can tell you that I'm tired and, uh, I'm not going to get, um, judged by you. Um, also it, it's just a safe space to, be able to be open and honest. Um, and even when, because of course as the man I want to come home and say, "work was great. Everything went perfect. I'm the best ever." And you know, all rainbows and butterflies, but that's not how the day goes all the time. And so making that being able to say, "yeah, I'm really tired from today's work," or or "something happened to work today that was really difficult for me to process emotionally." I now know that I can bring those home to you. And it's important for me to share those with you because you're going to notice that something's off anyway. And then for me to be able to validate your thoughts and feelings by sharing what's happening in my brain is going to allow us to have that deeper closer intimacy that we both want.

Tanya Hale 18:24

Yeah. I love that as well because you are sharing with me what your thoughts are rather than making me depend on my perceived thoughts. Like in this situation, I was perceiving that you were resentful when you weren't resentful at all. You were a little bit tired and dare I say maybe even a little bit stressed about not having all the time that you usually have to to get the things done that you needed to because you were spending so much extra time catering to me and bringing me bonbons and stuff.

Sione 18:57

Yes, bonbons. I don't think they've ever crossed the threshold of this house before. But yeah, it allows me to bring that stuff up so that you don't have to so you don't put on yourself what that story is. "Oh, he looks tired. He's tired of taking care of me," or "he's tired of..." and then the other person can fill in their own insecurity and that void that's created instead of me saying, "you know, today was a really tiring day. Here's what happened." And that allows you not to have to fill in those gaps with your insecurities. You can fill them in with with reality.

Tanya Hale 19:39

With honest, with truth, right? And I think that that's why this one's title, this podcast is titled, "Having More Honest Communication," because really being honest about what is going on cleans up so many issues that could go on. So had we not talked about this and I continued to just harbor this idea that he was resentful, it would have had me starting to build up some protective walls around my heart because I would have been like, "yeah, see, I can't be needy. I can't have needs. I can't, I have to always be easy and low maintenance. Otherwise he's not going to love me."

Sione 20:17

And it all started because you said, "I don't want you to get more resentful about taking care of me." Isn't that funny how that's the part of the conversation that triggered it?

Tanya Hale 20:26

Yeah. And I did, that was something that I didn't even really realize that I was saying at the time, right? But, but it's just fascinating. So being able to have these open conversations, I think is so, so important that we clean all of this up because I think so many of our marital problems come from just miscommunication and we never get honest enough to clean it up. Never get honest enough to really know what the truth is.

Tanya Hale 20:54

So here's a couple of fascinating things. That thought has plagued me. Most of my previous marriage, it was a part of my six and a half years being single where I brought it up with a coach multiple times and talked about it. And I thought that it wasn't really a big deal anymore. And yet this week that thought came out in force and it really took over for a bit. But here's the fascinating thing. In the last week, since we had that conversation, that thought has not even been a blip on my radar. Isn't that fascinating? Like, I've had this thought for so many years and all of a sudden with this discussion, it's like it rewired my brain that quickly to go, "oh wait, no, that's not true. That's not true here in this circumstance. It's not true for me. I don't have to be low maintenance. I don't have to be the easy wife. I don't have to be practically perfect to be loved." And so it rewired my brain, which I think is pretty fascinating.

Tanya Hale 22:03

So part of this, I want to just share a story. Years ago, Brooke Castillo, who's the owner of the Life Coach School where I got my certification, she shared a story about honesty a few years ago and it just resurfaced for me with this issue as well. She talked about this same thing, like really being honest. And she talked about her son asking, "would you like to give me a ride to the airport?" And she responded, "no, I would not like to give you a ride to the airport, but I will because I love you and I would like to give you a ride to the airport." The point that she was bringing up is like, let's be honest, and do I want to get in my car and drive to the airport and back? No, I'm really not that interested in doing that, but I am interested in spending time with you and I would like to serve you and help you in any way that I can. And maybe that's like a little bit of what was going on here, right? Like, did you want to have to bring me up dinner on trays and go get my ice and fill my water and get up early so you could bring me breakfast before, you know?

Sione 23:11

No, using a meal preparation service would have been great.

Tanya Hale 23:14

You didn't really want to do all of that stuff, but you were happy to do it for me. You wanted to serve me, you wanted to do that. So, but I think stepping into that honesty clears up a lot of the miscommunication.

Sione 23:28

It did for us.

Tanya Hale 23:29

It did for us, absolutely. Okay, do you have anything you want to bring up before we put this one to a close?

Sione 23:38

No, I think. I think we described the experience really well and how important it is to validate what the other person's perception is. Sorry for using the F-word on your podcast.

Tanya Hale 23:52

Alright, we can't use that word. We shouldn't use it in our marriages either. Just as we finish this up, I just want to just encourage you to look at what's going on for you, pay attention to your thoughts, see what's going on, pay attention to your feelings and step into some of this honesty. I think it has the potential to change the relationship and because it takes away the one-up the one-down and it created a space, I think of trust, for us that we, I mean, we've had a pretty good year of trust and all of that. But I think this kind of pushed us into another level of, of really feeling safe with each other and, um, and knowing that we can trust each other to be more honest. And I think it opened up a whole new avenue of communication for us as well, that now this will be more of our go to, you know.

Sione 24:55

Yeah, we've even been shopping together. So that's another podcast or another day.

Tanya Hale 25:02

Yes. Okay. So I guess that's going to do it for us, for me, for us, right? So thanks, Sione, for being here. I appreciate you putting in your two cents worth on this one.

Sione 25:14

Happy to help.

Tanya Hale 25:15

Alright. Um, if you would like to chat with me about coaching to see how it would, how it could help you and see if it's a good fit for you, please, you can go to tanyahale.com. You can go to the "free consultation" tab at the top and you can get on my calendar and find a time that we can sit down and chat and see if it's a good fit for you. And I love coaching and I thank you for being here. Thanks for letting me be maybe a part of your journey and part of your path and it's really humbling to me to be a part of your life and thanks for being here. So that's going to do it. Have a great week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.

Tanya Hale 26:03

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email, a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.