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207: Stay or Go? With Sharon Pope

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this episode, we’re talking all things divorce with Sharon Pope. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

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The Couples Therapist Couch 207: Stay or Go? With Sharon Pope

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Learn more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

In this episode, Shane talks with Sharon Pope about all things divorce. Sharon is a Marriage & Relationship Coach and several-time Bestselling Author on love and relationships, including Stay or Go? Hear how to approach divorce, where people get stuck, how women and men differ in divorce, how therapists can guide people towards a decision, and why divorce should always be an option.

This episode covers everything from divorce to marriage coaching. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • What creates stuckness for people?
  • Do women and men differ in how they approach divorce?
  • How long into a marriage do people start to question it?
  • Why should divorce always be an option?
  • How can therapists help couples make a decision on divorce?
  • What is Stay or Go? about?
  • How do individual feelings impact relationship health?
  • What is stonewalling?

To learn more about Sharon, visit SharonPope.com

Check out Stay or Go? at StayOrGoBook.com

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below: 

 

 

 Show Notes

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Sharon Pope 0:00
Let's just say that your partner was making a decision that was going to impact you and your life forever. Would you want to be involved in that decision at all? Would you want to be clued into that? Or would you like to, for them to just come to that decision on their own? And then surprise you with that decision once they've made it? Of course, the answer is no, I want to be involved in that. But yeah, they're over here doing that very thing, which is I have to come to this decision all on my own, because I'm so afraid to have the difficult conversation with my spouse that I feel so disconnected from you, and I don't know what to do.

Intro VO 0:38
Welcome to The Couples Therapist couch, the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy, and now your host, Shane Birkel.

Shane Birkel 0:52
Everyone welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel. And this is the podcast, it's all about the practice of couples therapy. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And today, I was able to catch up with Sharon Pope. She's an author of a book called Stay or Go? And there are a lot of people who are in this situation where they feel stuck, they're not sure if they should work on their relationship, they're not sure if they should leave their relationship. So we go deep into that topic. Before I share the interview with you, I'd really appreciate if you could leave a rating or a review or subscribe. Or even just share the podcast with a friend. My goal is to get this free resource in front of as many people as possible, so that they can take advantage of listening to the couples therapist couch. So thank you so much. I'm really grateful for all of you listeners out there. But if you could leave a rating a review or subscribe to the show, I'd really appreciate that. Without further adduction here's the interview with Sharon Pope. Everyone welcome back to the couples therapist couch. This is Shane Birkel, and today I'm speaking with Sharon Pope, relationship coach and author of the the best selling book stay or go. Hey, Sharon, welcome to the show.

Sharon Pope 2:05
Hi, how are you shaking?

Shane Birkel 2:07
Good. I'm really excited to talk about this today. I know a lot of people are struggling to figure out should I stay in this relationship? Or not? Or, you know, should I put in the huge amount of work that's going to be required to save this thing? Or is it even worth it? So I'm excited to talk about that. But why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself?

Sharon Pope 2:25
Yeah, so I tend to help women who are in midlife, and they're struggling in what feels like a lonely and disconnected marriage. And I help them get the confidence and clarity that they need to be able to figure out, can I evolve this relationship to a place that feels really good for me? Or is the only answer to end it? And how in the world do I do that? Without the big one is regret? The fear of regret is the one that keeps people stuck in indecision for a long time.

Shane Birkel 2:54
Yeah, because once you make that decision, you can't really go back.

Sharon Pope 2:58
Right now I tell people like there's a, you know, if you decide to stay, there's an impermanence to that decision. Right? Because even though we tried to lock it down with till death do us part, my favorite five words, we try to lock it down to give ourselves some security. But the reality of relationships is that the minute one person chooses, or stops choosing the relationship, I should say, the relationship itself is in trouble. And so this is like there's an impermanence to like, you might say, I'm staying for today, I'm staying for this, I'm choosing to stay and then that helps you feel empowered in your decision, as opposed to if I say I'm staying today, that means I have to stay forever, and that people's resistance, they'll come up against that, and they'll resist wanting to make the state decision. So they'll stay in this perpetual indecision, where when it comes to ending the marriage, there is a permanence to that now, we all know someone, what is it 10% of the people who divorce and remarry I actually have a friend who did that. But it is not common. So there's sort of a permanence to the decision to end it. But there's an impermanence to the decision to stay. But if you're going to be in it, then why wouldn't you want to keep working towards making it feel good? Yeah,

Shane Birkel 4:21
absolutely. I love that. I heard someone say recently, you know, if, if you want to get divorced in three months from now, that's totally fine. But in the meantime, why don't you work hard on these things if you're gonna choose to stay and, and I love the way you said it. As far as like every day when you wake up. It's an empowered decision that you're making to be in this relationship. You know, it's your

Sharon Pope 4:43
choice. It's a very different come from, if you will, to say I'm choosing to stay here to keep working on this relationship to see if it can evolve to something that can feel good for me, or I'm trapped. I'm stuck, right? I can't possibly Because of my because of all the fears of what it would take, or if I left what I would have to face if I left. And so all those fears just keep you stuck in this place of indecision. And then I say like, then you just become comfortable with a pain that you come to know. Right? If you think about most women, and I primarily deal with women, but most women will stay in a place of indecision of should I stay? Or should I go for years? asking themselves this question like day, every single day if they're in that place, and it almost becomes like a wimpy blanket. Like, a little comfort that feels it feels comfortable, because it's familiar. They know how to wake up in that everyday. It's not that it feels comfortable, and it's not what they want. Being in. Indecision is a really difficult place to be. But the thought of taking action one way or the other, is terrifying. Because I don't know what that looks like, I don't know how it's gonna turn out. It feels scary. What if it doesn't work? All the things right, and then two people just stay right here in this middle place. But that, but if you never take any action in a new direction, you never learn anything new. And I often just tell people, like if you don't have if you're in indecision, it means you need more information. It might be I need more information about what can this relationship evolve to or can't it? But you don't know, if you never start pressing those buttons and pushing those elements of your relationship to see what is possible? Well,

Shane Birkel 6:33
yeah, and gathering that information or pushing those buttons is scary, because that could lead to eventually lead to the end of the relationship, taking them out of that familiarity that you're talking about. And

Sharon Pope 6:47
this is really why you and I exist, right? Is that like to have a guide through a scary journey. Yeah, totally. is incredibly helpful. Yeah, supposed to just go in it alone and think and I'll just figure it out. I should know this, except how should you know it? How should you? What classes have you taken? What training have you had? Like? How are you supposed to know we come into marriage with love and hope? That maybe a prayer?

Shane Birkel 7:13
Right? Well, yeah, unfortunately, in our society, that's especially true, because we don't have a lot of background and how to have a good relationship, or something you were talking about, that I thought was important, too, it made me think of, you know, this idea that people feel like, I'm going to be a bad person, if I leave this relationship, or I have to stay because of the kid, I can't do this to my kids, or, you know, I should, this is what I should be doing. And I think that's part of what creates that stuckness that you were talking about for people. For

Sharon Pope 7:45
sure. I mean, everyone's got their, their list of fears, that that's what keeps them stuck, because they don't know how, like, I often when I start teaching about fears, and how to navigate your fears and stuff, I often say I should be teaching this stuff to third graders, because I wish we would know some of this basic stuff about how to manage your mind and how to move through fears and what's really happening at a very young age. But we don't learn that either, you know, and we bring that into our relationships. But the fear of I'm going to be judged, is a very common one. And sometimes by myself, because he's a good man, or She's a good woman, she's the mother of my children, you know, so that that's a fear. And the kids is always a fear. Now, when I'm dealing with a more mature woman, kids seem to be less of a fear. But it's still there. I mean, I have clients who their kids are in their 30s. And the kids, they have an opinion about Mom and Dad who'd been married for almost 40 years. And now mom and dad are getting a divorce. Wait, what was it all a lie? So this idea that I'm going to wait till the kids are 18 and then they'll never be hurt? Like, what they turn 18 And they have no emotions anymore? No, that just means they're not gonna have to move between houses, probably. That's all, but they're still going to have feelings about it, they're still going to have questions about it. So that's

Shane Birkel 9:06
a good point. I wanted to because you've mentioned you work with primarily with women, I wanted to ask what your take is on? Do you feel like there are differences in why women might seek a divorce versus men? Obviously, this is a generalization. But I think there's something about that, oftentimes.

Sharon Pope 9:26
Wow. So all right, I'm gonna do my best to not get on a whole soapbox here. But there are huge differences. And I think that we're also in a really interesting time right now. So if you go back, like I think about my mother's generation, so I'm 52 my mom, let's see, I was born in 71. So she got she married my dad, late 60s. And it was in the 70s when there was the ability to divorce without cause. Before that women really couldn't Divorce not unless you can prove that you were being abused, or that he cheated or something like that. But like proving that in the 60s Like there were no self when you found out about something, or you had to prove something like it just wasn't like it is today. And then in the 70s, was when the government said, and this is in the US, obviously, but the government said, banks, you can loan money to women. But that didn't mean that banks wanted to loan money to women, because they weren't a good credit risk. Right. So like, I have a, I have a really good friend, she's turning 64 This year, and she tells me the store, I love the story. It's not a great, like, it's not a happy thing, but it's a realistic thing. She said, Look, I was in my late 20s, I was killing it in the real estate game. I was making $70,000 a year, back in the early 70s. And I was and that's a lot of money for anyone, but especially for a woman, right. And she found this cute little bungalow that she wanted to buy. And it was $64,000. And she went to her banker who she had sent a ton of business to in the real estate side and said, I'm gonna need a loan, I'm gonna need a mortgage for this house I want to buy. And he said, What does your dad think about that? And she said, Well, he, he's excited for me. Why do you ask? And he said, Well, you know, you're, you're a single woman. We're going to need you know, Amanda cosign for you, would your dad cosign on the loan for you, oh, my gosh, and be in the snarky one that she is. She's like, What about my mom? Could my mom cosign good? And the banker said, Well, this, she's still married to your dad. So, one generation ago, women did not have many options they had, they had a great degree of clarity around what they brought to the marriage and what they expected from it. Like they knew their role, right? You took care of the home, you took care of the kids. And my mother, she did work when I went off to kindergarten, she went back to work. But she didn't give up any of the other responsibilities. Were men did have options. So now today, women have a lot of options. And we don't need the providing necessarily, because we know how to earn a living. And protecting, you know, way back when, when we were I don't know hunting for our own food protection for men was really important that we are they literally weaker sex in that regard. And so we needed men for that. And then protection, I would say in my mother's generation was more social protection. Right? Because if you weren't married, there must be something wrong with you. And if you are divorced, you're ostracized. Because there weren't a lot of people divorce. Well, now everyone knows someone who's divorced at least once. Yeah, so there's not a stigma. So now, we are redefining our relationships. And I'm talking heterosexual relationships, obviously. But we're redefining what are our roles inside this? And if I'm here, why am I choosing to be here. And so now women are saying, I want this connection with this other human being women are built. We're built for nurturing and connection with other human beings, and in our pyramid, or hierarchy of what is important to us relationships, and the quality of them is at the top of the food chain for us. So that's why I see more women that are in the stair go decision, and really struggling with that question. And still scared of the outcome? Whereas I would think, so again, my experience working with men directly is less so than with women, of course, but I'm fascinated by the male experience. So I just study it. Because I think it's super interesting. I think men are in a really interesting time right now, where they're trying to figure it out. Like, well, if I learned what it means, and what it looks like to be a man, from my dad, except what my dad would it meant for him to be a husband and father. That was very different. I joke with my dad, because I'm like you were across the street getting a sandwich when I was born. Like, you didn't even change a diaper. And now in marriages, think about that difference of what we expect in terms of equality and equal workload and how you show up. And then by the way, I want to know your whole inner world, I want to know your heart. And we have not equipped like, men are supposed to show feelings. We teach them that from when they're little boys don't cry. Right? So even to have language to be able to express that emotional inner world is a difficult thing, I think for a lot of men, but not exclusively to men because women will struggle with it too, especially if they're in a lot of masculine energy. So it's an interesting time. Yeah.

Shane Birkel 14:58
And so yeah, it's Such a good point that so much has changed in just one generation. I mean, it's such a short period of time, that this is all changed. And now, people are in these relationships. And the rules aren't the same, you know, that their parents grew up with our parents, you know, what we saw growing up in our families? doesn't hold true in a lot of ways. I'm curious how long? In your experience, maybe this is just a guess, or just from what you see, you know, how long being in a relationship? Are there different phases that happen? Before someone starts to feel like, oh, my gosh, what am I doing? Why am I so unhappy in this relationship?

Sharon Pope 15:45
So this is imperfect, right to say like, at this specific time in place situations, it's so different, but for sure. Alright, so if you go back to what you were talking about, where and I think we were talking about this before, we got on the call, but we were saying how we learned what love and marriage looks like by watching our parents growing up. And so we come into relationship with love, hope, and what we saw our parents do, but they didn't have any tools and training either. So for instance, my mom and she would get mad at my dad to stonewalling you would, and she would hold out for days. She would not talk to that man for days. And she would never be the one to apologize, she would always wait for my dad to come and apologize to her, which he always inevitably did. So how did I learn to deal with conflict. But watching my mom, and I'm like, Oh, you're giving up my treatment, and eventually, they'll come groveling. Like, that's not healthy. Like, I know that now. But I didn't know that in my first marriage. So we come into relationships. So it's usually if you say, I'm going to say around 10 years, because the early years, you're building something together. And I feel like sometimes, and this is not all the time. But sometimes, you know, when you get married, it's a bit of a box, we want to check. Like, if you think about, you know, everyone gets married at different ages these days. But let's say in your 20s, I want to have a career, I want to have a marriage, I want to have a family, I want to have a house, like you have a you have a vision for what you want your life to have, and what you want to accomplish and achieve and stuff. And so then you get married, and we sort of check that box. And we put it over here on this little shelf. Because it's not a problem. So we pour our love our time, attention, energy into whatever we want to create next. And that might be a career, it might be a family might be a home, whatever it is. And so we pour our energy and attention into that. And we assume this is going to take care of itself, because we love them. But then, but then because we're not paying attention to it. It doesn't happen right away. It goes really, really slowly, and we get more and more disconnected. And certainly as kids come along, they get a lot of our attention and love and energy and focus as they should. But then the disconnection just keeps growing wider and wider. And then there's even some resentment, but we can't resent our babies that goes against we can't possibly resent our kids. But we can resent our partner. How come you're not making my life easier, maybe I wouldn't feel this overwhelmed if you were doing more for me, or how come you're not meeting my needs, and then it so it starts to around the 10 year mark, it starts to get tricky, and you're either going to pay attention to it there. I call it the rumble strip, you're on the rumble strip. You know, like when you're driving along the freeway. And if you get distracted, those bumps alert you like Get back in your lane. If you hit the rumble strip and you deal with some of the things then it's pretty manageable to work with someone or a couple and bring them back into their lane into a really loving lane. But if you ignore it, it doesn't get better with time. Problems don't age well when you ignore them. So they get worse and they get worse until you're finally ready to deal with it. That's it. We're just human beings. This is us human thing. Yeah.

Shane Birkel 19:23
Well, yeah. And I feel like you know, when you're giving the example of your mom dealing with conflict by stonewalling, you know, I feel like there's so many of those things that we're not even conscious of, you know, that I'm just my brain goes to Wyatt, why is it my wife, you know, doing the relationship the way she's supposed to? And it's not like I can make sense of what's going on in between us. You know, what are the things that I my expectations from looking at my parents growing up or the way she's doing things? And, you know, I feel like it's so easy. Once you have kids to get distracted by what's going on with them and put But all of your attention on that. And then all of a sudden, like you said, maybe 10 years later, or whatever time you're like, why am I so resentful and unhappy and all this?

Sharon Pope 20:09
Right? You know, our, our kids are thriving, because we pay a lot of attention to them. But then the relationship isn't, because we sort of put it on a shelf and said, Oh, that we'll get back to it someday. But that can be 25 years later, if you have two or three kids, that could be 30 years, like, right, and then you're staring at this person across from you like, they're very kind stranger to you, because life changes and involves us, but we didn't stay connected through the process. So, you know, and this is where we find ourselves in, in in some trouble. And then we start going, can this even be fixed? Or is it just too far gone? And then do I have to end it? And what the heck does that even look like?

Shane Birkel 20:53
Yeah, so great. So that brings us to, I feel like that's a good intro to bring us to sort of the topic at hand. You know, when couples are in that moment, no matter how long they've been together, they get to that moment, and they're like, Oh, we got to do something here. We got to make a decision. Or maybe it's, I need to make a decision

Sharon Pope 21:13
to say they're not doing.

Shane Birkel 21:18
Right, it might be a different picture, if that was the case. But um, yeah, it's usually an individual thing, right? Where it's like, I need to make a decision about what I'm going to do here. What are some things that people can think about in that moment? Or as a, as a therapist? Or Coach, what are things that we can think? How do we help guide people who are in that moment?

Sharon Pope 21:41
So there's lots of lots of things, but I'll tell you, a couple things that I think are really important. One is that, you know, as you said, it's usually one person that's thinking about it. And I think oftentimes, that person thinks they have to come to a decision in a vacuum. And so they keep all this. I'll call it work, although it's not all work. Usually, it's just mind, clutter. They're spinning around and indecision, they keep it all internal, they keep it all to themselves. Now, they might tell their best friend, they might tell their sister, they might confide in other people, but they're not confiding in their partner. And so what I will often do is challenge women that I work with and say we let's just say that your partner was making a decision that was going to impact you and your life forever. Would you want to be involved in that decision at all? Would you want to be clued into that? Or would you like to, for them to just come to that decision on their own? And then surprise you with that decision once they've made it? And of course, the answer is no, I want to be involved in that. But yet, they're over here doing that very thing, which is, I have to come to this decision all on my own. Because I'm so afraid to have the difficult conversation with my spouse, that's, I feel so disconnected from you. And I don't know what to do. And I don't know if it can be fixed. And I don't even know what it means. Because that feels vulnerable. And so we run away from vulnerability, but that's where the magic can happen. That's where the miracles can happen. That's where connection can happen. So that's the first piece. The second thing, and this is not the only path to coming to clarity about your marriage, but I would say it's the most direct path. And that is, if the options are, we think the options are stay or go stay and endure a bad marriage, or go and blow up my life. Those both are horrible options. So I tried to soften it a bit, which is, can I stay and evolve this relationship to a place that feels good for me. Because it's not about just staying and second it up and dealing with it as it is. That's what we've told ourselves. But it's never that's that's an option. But it's not a good option. You don't have to choose that option. If you're going to stay. Let's get equipped with some real tools that you can then begin applying to your relationships so that you can see, can we interrupt some of the patterns that have gotten us in trouble? Can we understand one another? In a new way? Can we show up differently to the relationship? And what kind of shift does that create between us as a couple. And so the most direct path is to see I call it the 2.0 version of your marriage just like Apple comes out with a new phone every six months or something. And then it has new functionality and new features and new things we didn't even know we needed. It's the same thing with our marriages that like once you came into it. 30 years old with love, hope and what you saw your parents that is not enough to sustain you for I don't know five or six decades. So let's evolve the relationship to what it would need to entail for you to feel really good about it today for both of you to feel really good about it. Where it is that you are today as a couple As an individual, and if it can't evolve, lovely. And if it can't, then you do have an answer that you can make peace with, if you've given it your very best shot, if you've gotten equipped with the tools, and you've really applied those tools repeatedly until they become more habitual. And if it really still doesn't work, then you can make peace with that decision. But if you just never try, and you just sit in indecision, and it just is an intellectual game that you play with yourself all day about, what are my odds about? Well, will it work? Should I try? I'm not going to try if it's not guaranteed, if you try your best at anything, you will never regret trying, especially when it comes to your marriage, the foundation of your family. So the most direct path is, yeah, really try. And um, you know, when people say like we're working on our marriage, and what they're doing is they're being nice to each other. That is not working. That is staples. That is, if you can't even like each other, you can't be kind to each other. You can't be patient with each other. What the hell are we doing? Like you're not even equipped to be in a relationship anyway, if you can't do that those basics, right? So get equipped with relationship tools that will help you like when I was giving my first husband the silent treatment. I didn't even have words for it. I didn't know that Gottman called it stonewalling and that it's a predictor of divorce and no idea. I'm just like, that's what I saw my mom do. This is what you do. Right? Right, because I wasn't a coach at the time. So I had no idea. Right?

Shane Birkel 26:30
And I feel like when you started talking about this, there was this sense that, you know, it's an individual who is struggling with this decision. And one of the first steps that needs to happen is for them to feel like they can have a voice about what's going on. And I think I feel like a lot of people want to avoid that conflict. And they feel like if I try to say that I'm not happy in this situation, then it's just going to lead to more fighting. And maybe they've tried and maybe it has led to more fighting. But that's one of the first things I feel like that needs to happen, you know, that they can understand that there's a way of doing that, perhaps that's different, because not telling their partner is just going to lead to more of the same.

Sharon Pope 27:16
Right? And that's not fair. You know, like, right, your partner deserves You haven't even

Shane Birkel 27:23
given them a chance to eat right on it. Yeah, right.

Sharon Pope 27:26
I don't even know that you're struggling with something, I just think you might be a little irritated today. So I'm just gonna stay out of your way. Like, I don't even know that you're feeling lonely, or disconnected or unloved or unappreciated, I have no idea. And a confused mind will always do nothing. So if your partner is confused by what they're getting from you, and then you just keep resenting that you're not getting your needs met. Like we're not, we're not getting any work good. When you were sharing that I was thinking about how sometimes I'll ask my clients, you know, well, what have you. Like, does your husband realize how much you're struggling? Well, I've been telling them, I'm not happy. I've told him several times. So I challenge people when they do this, because and this is the way that we try to communicate with our partners, and then it doesn't work or it turns into an argument and then we never do it again, is because we'll say I'm unhappy, like I'm handing this off to you, you should know what to do with it. Take good care of my happiness, do something, make me happy. My friends, most of us don't know how to make ourselves happy. But we hand off our happiness to our partner and say you're responsible for this, I'm not you are, figure it out. I'm not going to leave you any breadcrumbs, I'm not going to give you any clues. You just need to make me happy, do it. And so just saying I'm not happy and expecting your partner to know what to do with that is a little bit unrealistic. So this is where like when I say get equipped with real tools, get equipped with tools to know how to communicate very directly and specifically with your partner. So that you can have real conversations and come to conclusions with each other. And, and maybe even work through some of these challenges. But if we just say I'm not happy, and we toss it over to our partner like your turn,

Shane Birkel 29:25
that's such a good point. That sort of along the lines of something that I hear sometimes, which is like, you know, they ask their partner, they said I would feel a lot more loved if you started doing this and this and then their partner starts doing this and this and they're like, well, you're only doing that because I asked you to Well, yeah, of course. That's why they're doing it.

Sharon Pope 29:47
Like it doesn't count if I had to tell you. Yeah, it only counts. If you've read my mind. We have to get out of this. This is I'm not gonna say a bad word on your podcast. That's fine. It's not helpful. Yeah. It's not helpful. So we should leave our partners breadcrumbs, because the truth of the matter is, you do need something different than I do. And, and my partner probably needs something different in the relationship than you do you know, so we all need something different, and we can't read each other's minds. And so when we don't know, we're either going to do nothing, we're going to guess, or we're going to give you what I would need, which is only going to be wrong about 90% of the time. Or instead of sending our partner into the minefield with no map, we could give them a map and say, this is, this is what I'm feeling. And when you do this, when you've done these things in the past, that really makes me feel loved. But I feel like we've gotten out of that, right. It's even a difference of when you do this, it makes me feel unloved. That's the negative, but show him when, when you've done this before, that's what makes me feel really loved. That's what makes me feel appreciated. Because what you're then telling your partners, they can do it, they've done it before. And they're and they want to please you, I promise you, your partner does not wake up every day going, how can I screw up her life today? How can I make her feel unloved? Like they're not thinking that they want to please you, they just, they may not know how. And so we've got to be able to have those mature conversations, if we're going to adult relationships, we need to adult the relationship.

Shane Birkel 31:21
I'm just thinking about when you said you know, as third graders, we should be teaching people, you know, let me add part of it, you can tell me if you agree or not, I think we should be teaching people how to value themselves and how to feel worthy for themselves and be able to say what they want in the world. And I think as a society, we're doing a terrible job with that. And so we grow up into adults. And we're hoping that we'll meet that one person who can make us feel worthy and loved and valued. Instead of realizing that that has to start within ourselves.

Sharon Pope 31:54
Yeah, it has to it has to begin there. And so we keep so then we show, let's just play this out, if I don't feel worthy of love. And let's say our partner has some insecurities, too, because we all do, we all have our bag of stuff that we carry around the wounds that we've picked up along the way. And if I come with this void of, I don't feel worthy of love. And then we get married. And then we place that responsibility at the feet of our partner, which by the way, we've never told them and they've never agreed to it. I always say we should walk down the aisle with our big book of written out expectations, because there are many, and we don't talk about them. But like, you're going to love me enough that I'm finally going to feel worthy of being loved. So you're responsible for that, but he has his own void that he hasn't told you about. And so maybe it's something similar like maybe it's it might not come out like loved it might come out as desired. I want to feel desirable. And so I need you to point your desire at me consistently so that I can feel desired and worthy of being desired. Right. And then so now we're here trying to fix each other's wounds, which is never our job like that. That's our job, our wounds to heal. That's our job. But what I will tell you is that you know how they say, when you get married, you marry the whole family.

Shane Birkel 33:20
Yes, what you do, right? I

Sharon Pope 33:24
think it's worse, it's worse, I think it is you marry every experience that person ever had. That created their entire inner world, and we bring our entire inner worlds to our marriages, we don't bring them to work. We don't even bring them to our friendships, necessarily. But we bring them inside our intimate relationships. And that's where they're going to show up. That's why I think our intimate relationships are our greatest teachers. You know, because they're gonna bring up all of our stuff that is unhealed. But the problem is we keep looking for our partner to do that work, because it's hard work. So it's so much easier to say, well, you should go do this. You should fix this, you should change so that I can feel the way I want to feel.

Shane Birkel 34:08
It's not working. Yeah. And I think it's perpetuated by the media, by movies by you know, the idea that of what romance should look like. And I think, you know, like you said something about, you know, as a mature adult, we should be able to ask for what we want. I mean, it's totally fine. If I want to ask my partner, you know, I love it when you do this, and this, it makes me feel desired. You know, I'm making a request as a mature adult, and I'm willing to accept yes or no that or that my partner could say, well, I can't do that that way, but I'll try it this way, you know, and that we can like work with each other. It's not that like, first of all, that she should read my mind and we should be on the same page about all of that and at this, you know, whatever. And also that if they're not doing that It means that they don't care about me

Sharon Pope 35:02
that they don't care that they don't love me that or that I'm not lovable. Like we give it all this meaning. I think that that's a really that's an important thing. I think one of the most important questions you can stop and ask yourself when you feel any of that sort of angst against your partner, is to stop and ask yourself, What am I making this mean? Because we give meaning to everything, our minds are just meaning makers of every situation. And we can make our partner saying, when you do this, it makes me feel loved, we can make that mean, oh, I'm not doing it, right, I can't do anything to please you. Or we can make it mean. She's giving me information here. He's giving me information here. I get to choose what I do with this. And I get to choose how I show up in this relationship. Like you, you get to choose what you're going to make that mean, but most often we give it meaning. That's fear based, or ego based. And that's the stuff that's getting in the way of us really being able to have direct conversations or more dialogue, like what you're talking about, you know, where it's not just, here's my need, you need to go meet it. Oh, it's a conversation. Here's what I'm feeling. Here's how I'm thinking about it. When you do this, it makes me feel loved. He or she is going to have insights or opinions or perspectives on that. Well, I'm scared to do that. Because it makes me feel really vulnerable. What if every time I, you know, want to be intimate, and then you decline me, then I feel rejected by that? Well, we've got to be able to talk about that. But we don't. We just feel rejected, and then we stop initiating. And then the sex life falls up, off. And then we make it mean that I'm not desirable, or my spouse doesn't love me. And it's all because we just can't quite communicate because by the way, no one ever taught us. Where was the class? On having interpersonal communication with your most intimate partner and doing it over the course of I don't know, four or five decades together, there was no class on this. Right. Right. And it's hard. Communication is hard.

Shane Birkel 37:11
Yeah. And that's really normalizing for people to hear, you know, it's not that there's anything wrong with no, it's that we just don't learn how to do this.

Sharon Pope 37:22
Honestly, I get kind of, I get a little more feisty about because I feel like we've been set up to fail. Yeah, right. And as human beings, we don't address a problem that doesn't exist, we don't go looking for hmm, I definitely don't want that problem in my life. So I'm not going to do this thing. We don't look for that. We wait till there's a problem. And then we deal with the problem. But early on, there's not this communication problem, right. And so our ability to communicate, even as unskilled as we may be, it's not that big of an issue. But the longer you go on inside of a marriage, communication goes down, not up. Because we think we know, I know everything there is to know about this person, which is never true. So we stopped being curious. One of the things I love to teach on is the differences between men and women. And nowhere does that show up more than inside of communication, because we communicate very, very differently, I can have a conversation with a woman. And she'll say things that are sort of like, their nuances, right? That we can read between the lines, like we can understand what's not being spoken. But if you try to do that with a man, they're not going to get, they're not going to understand what you're saying most of the time. And that's not because that's not because they're stupid, or that women are better. It's just, we communicate differently. Men are very direct. My husband is like, if he says he's doing this, this is what he's doing. He's not saying this, but meaning this, it's very direct and very specific. And so when we tried to do the between the lines stuff, and not say the thing that we really need to say, that's where we miss each other.

Shane Birkel 38:59
And I feel like the things that we're talking about, can bring so much hope for people, right? Even if it's the first time we're meeting with them, let's say as a couple or something like that. And you're introducing this idea that there's a whole different way of doing a relationship, there's a whole different way of communicating with each other, that you don't have to stay miserable in the same relationship that staying with this person doesn't mean it has to be the same. You can do things in a totally different way. I feel like all of a sudden, even though there's a lot more work to be done probably all of a sudden, this couple has much more hope and a different perspective about what's possible.

Sharon Pope 39:38
Yeah, and I would say to give them more hope is communication is a learned skill. So anyone can learn it. And by the way, every single person can get better at it. All of us can get better at communicating and when we do when we invest in becoming a better communicator, every single aspect of our lives improves, right? Great leaders are great communicators. Right? And, and if you get better at communication that's going to improve your relationship with your kids, your relationship with your friends, all people that you love and care about, it's going to improve every area of your life, it's gonna improve your relationship with your boss, and with the people who work for you, like communication can help us in every single area. It's worth learning more about and you can learn it. It's not like, oh, well, I'm only five, four. I'll never be five, seven, I guess I just have to deal with it. This is not DNA This is learned. And then when can learn it if you want to learn it, and it will help you in every way of your life.

Shane Birkel 40:41
Yeah, that's great. There's something that I came across when I was researching you leading up to this episode. And I wanted to maybe this will be the final question, because I know we're getting to the end of the time. Okay. Which is what why should divorce always be an option for people?

Sharon Pope 41:01
So, Dr. Harriet Lerner. I love her. Yeah. I got to about page six of her book of the dance of intimacy before I got really pissed off, because I was like, why is it this way. But there was there was a part. It was like in her very first chapter of that book, where she said, if you cannot navigate without your marriage, you cannot operate inside your marriage. When we say I call it the five dreaded words till death do us part. It's sort of like saying, We're gonna stay together, no matter what, no matter how miserable we make each other. And we stop trying. If divorce is not an option on the table, then you can cry about it. You can bemoan it, you can complain about it, you can rage against whatever's happening in the relationship. But if you will never ever play that card. Now, I'm not suggesting you should threaten it. But if you are unwilling to ever play that card, no matter what, then what is the motivation for the relationship to evolve for either of you to change, because we're gonna stay together, no matter what we said it, we made those vows. I mean, I had a client just recently who her husband had cheated on her 12 ways to Sunday. And she was just heartbroken. And she'd been struggling with it on our own for a year. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't do any work around it, like, not even explore his own motivations, you know what I mean, much less like sit with a therapist, or he just said it was basically a crude version of, you're the one that's hurting, it's your problem, I think you need to figure out how to deal with it. So she's been struggling and struggling and struggling to try to deal with it. But divorce for a very long time was off the table, for lots of reasons, lots of perfectly valid reasons. But it doesn't help her. It doesn't help her heal. It doesn't help them evolve the relationship, it doesn't establish new trust between them. So I know it gets a lot of conversation when I say that, because it's confronting that divorce should always be an option. Yeah, love it, it's never an option, then you have no ability to set boundaries that are healthy and loving for you in your relationship. And you are allowed to have healthy boundaries for yourself in your relationship. Absolutely.

Shane Birkel 43:25
And those are the things that are attractive, you know, if I'm willing to be confident in my boundaries and say, This doesn't work for me, or this is what works better for me. You know, it will make us feel more connected with each other. We'll know each other better if we're willing to tell each other the truth. Yes, out the things that we that we want or exist in our life, whatever they are. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. That's great. I love it. I love it. Good. Yeah.

Sharon Pope 43:58
Never use it as a threat. Sometimes people hear that they're like, No, cuz you don't play that card unless you're gonna play it. But. But it's actually a healthy thing. I remember when I was going through my divorce my, from my first husband, I was going to a therapist. And he said that he had been working with a couple of for years. And he said every year on their anniversary, they would ask each other do you want to do this for another year? And I thought, You know what, there is some health to that. Yeah. Because then you're you're consciously saying like, we have a choice in this? And are we going to choose one another for another year? And it's not guaranteed that just because we set it at 27 We're gonna mean it at 55 those are that's a very different place in your life. You have no idea 27 What 55 is going to look like and feel like

Shane Birkel 44:48
so yeah, and I think it just shifts your mindset. And you talked about that feeling of stuckness at the beginning, you know, and it moves you away from I'm not stuck in this relationships. This is a choice I'm making. And there's I have good reasons to keep making that choice for myself.

Sharon Pope 45:06
That's right. That's right. And when you're making it from an empowered place, it'll always feel better than like untrapped. Because you're never trapped. Yep,

Shane Birkel 45:15
that's great. Good. Well, how can people find out more about you?

Sharon Pope 45:21
If they want to go check out my book, they can go to StayOrGoBook.com. That's probably the best way. I've written a bunch of books. But honestly, this is my best one. And it's the one that has been sold more than any other book. By far. So and I, it's the most helpful one. So that's the one that I would point them to

Shane Birkel 45:41
StayOrGoBook.com. I'll put that in the show notes. Anything else you want to mention? No. All right.

Sharon Pope 45:47
I think I just wrote another book. So there'll be another one coming. Before like, when are you gonna stop writing books? And like, I don't know. I have a lot to say apparently.

Shane Birkel 45:59
That's great. What's it going to be about?

Sharon Pope 46:02
It's still the stereo decision, but it's very specific to women in midlife where the soul go book is more general, for anyone who's struggling with the decision.

Shane Birkel 46:11
Okay, great. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. Good. Well, maybe we'll have to get together again and talk about that in the future. Why not? Um, game. All right. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah. Thanks, Shane.

Sharon Pope 46:23
Appreciate it.

Shane Birkel 46:25
All right. Thank you so much, Sharon. And thank you, to all you listeners out there. I'm so grateful for all of you definitely go check out CouplesTherapistCouch.com. Also, if you could leave a rating, or review or subscribe to the show, I'd really appreciate it. My goal is just to get this free resource out in front of as many people as possible who can take advantage of it. And when you leave a rating, or review or subscribe to the show, it really helps to do that. Also, just feel free to share it with a friend. But I just want to get the word out. And if you have found this beneficial, I'm hoping that a lot of other people would find it to be helpful as well. If you are some therapists who's interested in learning more about the practice of therapy, or if you're someone who just wants to learn more about how to have a good relationship, definitely hit subscribe so you can get all the latest episodes. Thank you so much. Also, if you're interested in the Couples Therapist Inner Circle, you can click on the link in the show notes. But thank you so much for for watching. I'm Shane Birkel. This is The Couples therapist Couch

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