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217: Stop Trying to Be Right in Your Relationship with Shane Birkel

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 solo episode, Shane shares why you should stop trying to be right all the time in your relationship. 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.

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • The Couples Therapist Couch Summary
  • Transcript

The Couples Therapist Couch 217: Stop Trying to Be Right in Your Relationship with Shane Birkel

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 solo episode, Shane shares why you should stop trying to be right all the time in your relationship. Hear why this creates a stuck situation for both the couple and the therapist, the reason people get defensive, how to have good boundaries, when it’s healthy to feel guilty, and the problem with perfectionism.

This episode covers everything from couples therapy to boundaries. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • What's the problem with being right?
  • Why do partners feel the need to be right?
  • What's one of the most important skills for couples to learn?
  • How does perfectionism create conflict?
  • Why do people get defensive?
  • How do you transform your relationship?
  • Is it normal to feel guilty?
  • How do you get unstuck in your relationship?

Join The Couples Therapist Couch Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/295562197518469/

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.

00:00
We're not just talking about a communication skill here. We're talking about the ability to be authentic.

00:13
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.

00:28
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Couples Therapist Couch. This is your host, Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. I'm a licensed therapist and I love sharing the latest, most updated information about the practice of couples therapy with all of you. If you haven't joined the free Facebook group, this would be a really good time to do it because over the next month, I'm going to be opening up a few more spots for the couples therapist inner circle.

00:55
and that's where I teach couples therapists how to become better couples therapists, how to work with couples. You can find out a lot more details in the link below or join the couples therapist couch Facebook group, which is free, and I'll be posting a lot more updates over the next month. A lot of fun stuff that will give you information about whether that's a good fit for you or not. So like I said, you can click the link below or join the Facebook group.

01:24
I'm really excited for the episode today. I'm not going to share an interview. I'm just going to teach about something that has been coming up a lot with the couples I work with. And it's about being right. And you might say, what's the problem with being right? If my partner just realized I was right, everything would be fine and we wouldn't have any problems. Well, that's true. But unfortunately, I see a lot of couples where people can't...

01:52
agree on what is right, which is why we have to approach it in a different way. And what I'm talking about is really how people are showing up emotionally and how they are communicating with each other. And let me start with an example of what I'm talking about, just to give you a little illustration of the concept. Let's say my wife and I had a situation

02:22
It's a few hours later and my wife comes to me and said, I was really hurt by what you said earlier. And I respond by saying, well, I didn't even, that's not what I said. Right. And we could easily go back and forth where she says, yes, you did. And I say, no, I didn't. Yes, you did. No, I didn't. And we're not going to get anywhere. And no one's feeling heard and seen and understood. And I'm not taking the opportunity to be accountable and communicate in a different way.

02:53
When we get stuck on being right, oftentimes this is where the people I work with in couples therapy will come into the session and it feels like I have to choose one person's perspective or the other. And it creates a stuck feeling, one for the couple who probably experiences this at home all the time and has a hard time getting through conversations.

03:21
and neither person is feeling like they're getting what they need. And two, for the therapist who's sitting there feeling like, well, if I, if I really validate this person's perspective, I'm going to make the other person feel left out. If I really validate the other person's perspective, I'm going to make this person feel like I don't understand them. And, uh, it can, it can feel like the, the bind that the, the stuckness that the couple is feeling is also sort of, uh, going over into a stuckness that the therapist feels.

03:51
So one of the important things about this is the reality that each person has the right to their own perspective, that each person has the right to their own truth. That even if I didn't say what my partner says that I said, that there's something at the heart of what they're saying that's important for me to understand.

04:21
One of the most important skills for couples to learn, anybody who's in a relationship, is the ability to, I would say, have good boundaries. So that when my partner is bringing something to me, I'm not going into a place of defensiveness and minimizing and trying to sweep it under the rug or fixing. That's a big one. That my partner is trying to communicate something that's really important to them.

04:50
it's something that I did that was hurtful to them, that they need to know that I understand what I did. If they don't know that I understand it on a deep level, they're going to be lacking in emotional trust going forward. They're not gonna be able to trust that I am going to avoid hurting them in the same way again. So it's in my best interest in the relationship to move into curiosity.

05:19
to try to move into understanding, to try to get to the bottom of why this felt the way it did for them, even if I don't get it, even if I don't see it the same way. And the reason that people might go into defensiveness and minimizing is because they're ashamed of what they did. They don't want their partner, and it's coming from a good place. It's coming from a nice place. I don't want my partner to

05:48
think that I have bad intentions. I don't want my partner to think that I'm intending to be hurtful to them. And on some level too, if I really look into that, I feel guilty that I did something hurtful to my partner. So I want to convince them that I didn't really do that. So it might be coming from a good place, right? That I want them to know that I don't want to be a hurtful person in their life. That I want...

06:16
them to feel connected to me. I want them to feel supported by me. So I'm going to to try to fix their problem to make them feel better or I'm going to try to explain it away or I'm going to try to be defensive about it. But what happens is instead of them feeling better, they feel dismissed and minimized and invalidated about their experience and what they're trying to bring up.

06:42
And so the skill that is so important for people is to have the good boundaries that that when I say boundaries, I mean, my partner is an individual human being who's separate from me. And I am an individual human being with my own boundaries who separate from them. And when they are coming to me talking about their perspective and their experience and what's going on for them. The more I

07:11
feel codependent and go into my own guilt and shame, the more that my boundaries are not functioning in that moment, the more that I am getting wrapped up in the story. And if I start getting angry and argumentative and trying to convince them that what they're saying isn't true, I'm definitely operating without a lot of boundaries. Now

07:38
It's healthy for me to feel guilty. If I said something hurtful to my partner and they come to me and said it hurt them, it's healthy for me to feel that guilt. That guilt is me being a good person who cares, who doesn't want them to be hurt and certainly doesn't wanna be the person who's hurtful to them. So if I feel guilty, that means you're doing the right thing. Let yourself feel the guilt. I would encourage you

08:08
to sit with the discomfort, lean in to the discomfort in that moment. And that energy of the guilt is what will motivate you to do the right thing in the situation, to be accountable, to make amends, to apologize, and to move into that understanding of your partner so that they know that you get it and that they can trust you in the future.

08:38
The way to avoid right and wrong conversations and right and wrong thinking is, first of all, if a partner is coming to the other partner saying, I feel hurt by what you did, that they are speaking from the first person. They're saying, this is my perspective. This is how I see it. A couple hours ago, we were talking and you said something that felt really hurtful to me. What I made up about that was...

09:05
that you don't care about me and you aren't making me a priority. And I would really appreciate if you could give me a hug and let me know that you understand that that's never going to be helpful to me with you if you're talking like that. Something like that. I'm just making it up in the moment, but that I'm speaking from the first person. I'm letting my partner know that this is my experience. This is how I felt. This is what I made up about it.

09:33
That's a really good phrase to remember. What I made up about this situation is this, right? Because I want to avoid going into blame and criticism and judgment of my partner. I want to stick to speaking from the first person. That is going to help my partner have a much better chance of listening to me, taking in what I'm saying, validating what I'm saying. And now I'm talking about...

10:01
I'm talking about the responsibilities of the listener in the situation, that you are trying to tune in to the reality or to the reality of the speaker. You're trying to be understanding, be compassionate, be validating of their experience, be accountable when it's necessary. And so a lot of times I tell couples that you got to set it up ahead of time, right? The speaker,

10:28
It's really helpful when the speaker can approach the listener and say, is this a good time for you to listen? Because the listener, again, like I said before, really has to be strong in their boundaries in that moment. And in order to be strong in our boundaries, we have to be in a, in our authentic functional adult self. We have to be feeling the sense of the self-esteem that we are good enough that

10:57
It's okay to make mistakes, but that we are willing to be present for our partner. One of the things that creates a lot of problems for people is the idea of perfectionism. Where, you know, we feel like either we feel like we have to be perfect all the time, or we feel like our partner or other people in our life have to be perfect all the time.

11:23
So if I feel like I have to be perfect and my partner says that I did something hurtful, then it's almost like I go to that place of I'm a bad person and I'm going to fight to convince you why that didn't even really happen. And I'm not really that bad of a person. So you can see how that's connected to the perfectionism, that black and white thinking, right? If my partner is hurt, you know, I'm going to battle them.

11:52
to convince them that I didn't do the thing that they're saying I did because if I did that that would mean that I'm a bad person and a bad partner and not deserving of their love. So it goes to a really deep, really primal place really quickly. And what I want to change that to is something like maybe I did do something that was hurtful to my partner. I am a good person. I am a good partner.

12:21
and I made a big mistake here that I need to be accountable for, and I need to listen to their perspective. But I can only be capable of doing that if I am feeling my own sense of worth and value as a human being. If I am feeling like a piece of garbage that just made a mistake and is a terrible person, that's where I'm much more likely to be defensive and protect. Those are my protector parts.

12:50
that are going to come up and feel like they have to convince the other person that I'm not that bad. For a lot of people, if you can understand what I'm saying and you can practice this and you can actually get on top of this, this can transform your relationship right here. Because I've seen relationships where this right and wrong thinking that I'm talking about exists all the time. And

13:16
What happens is partners never feel a sense of connection with each other. They can go for years and feel like, well, my partner never really hears me or understands me. And the, and they come to couples therapy. And at that point, they're just so distant and so stressed and so, uh, hopeless about the prospects of their relationship. Because we're not just talking about a communication skill here. We're talking about.

13:46
the ability to be authentic, right? The authentic truth is that nobody is capable of being perfect. A lot of us grow up in families, this is probably where it comes from if you're somebody who is a perfectionist, where that was the message to you, that you need to be perfect in order to have value and to be worthy in your life.

14:16
And it's not true. It's not authentic. So you're living, you're living by, with a belief system that people need to be perfect in their life, that I need to be perfect in my life if you're applying it to yourself and that I'm not worthy if I'm not, and I'm not enough, not good enough, and I'm not valuable as a person.

14:43
if I'm not perfect. And then you go through life with that black and white thinking. Either I'm a piece of shit or they're a piece of shit. And I certainly don't wanna be, so I'm gonna point that lens at the other person in the situation. It often feels like my worthiness is connected to my performance in the world. And I don't have a lot of ability to forgive myself for making mistakes or to forgive other people.

15:10
So we want to move away from this perfectionistic thinking into something that's more true, something that's authentic, something that sounds like I am a good person and I made a mistake. I did something hurtful to someone. And so I'm willing to be present with them. I'm willing to be receptive. I'm willing to listen and take in their reality and their perspective until they feel

15:39
heard and seen and understood. And oftentimes I tell people, you don't want it to feel like a performance where, you know, let's say I said something hurtful to my wife earlier today, and then she comes to me a couple hours later, she tells me that she felt hurt by that, that I don't want it to feel like a performance where I have to say the right thing and do the right thing and...

16:08
apologize, and then all of a sudden she forgives me and I move on and we move forward. I would like it for you in your life if that happens, that's great, but I want to leave it open. If she thinks of something else tomorrow and she wants to bring it up again, that's okay. It's about her reality. It would be right and wrong thinking to say, you know, once she

16:35
expresses herself as a speaker and I am accountable as a listener that she shouldn't have to ever talk about it again. It may be true for her, it may not, but you don't want to put that pressure on somebody that they have to get everything they need from this 10-minute conversation and I'm not willing to come back to it again. So I want to give the other person the sense that it's okay if we come back to this.

17:04
that there might be multiple times where we need to talk about this. And if you think about a huge hurt, something like an affair situation, obviously people need a year, two years, where maybe several times a week they need to talk about it and come back to it. And that might be an episode in and of itself. I hope that there are some things that you can take away from this episode that you can apply to your own life. You know, one of the things that I was talking about, these are deeply ingrained.

17:34
belief systems that these neural pathways that are formed during our childhood become part of who we are and how we see the world. So it may not be as easy as just a simple communication thing where you just need to change your communication and everything is going to be fine. You may need to work on some of that being present with your authentic self, some of that getting in tune with what is that protector part of you trying to protect?

18:03
trying to be more conscious of the parts of you that come up in these situations that aren't healthy for your relationship. And sometimes, obviously, therapy could be helpful with that. So I hope this is helpful. I hope all of you have a great rest of the week. As I said at the beginning of the episode, definitely stay tuned for more information over the next few weeks about...

18:29
the Couples Therapist Inner Circle. If that's something you've ever thought about joining right now is a really good time to stay tuned because there's going to be some really good opportunities to get some time, like a free trial and things like that. So stay tuned for that. Join the Couples Therapist Couch Facebook group if you haven't already, that's free.

18:54
Hope all of you have a great rest of the week. I'm Shane Birkel. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and this is the Couples Therapist Couch. Thanks everybody. Take care.

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