Honey, we need to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Honey We Need to Chat. I'm Blair, it's my wife Amy, and this podcast is all about the importance of communication in a relationship. And by you being here today and listening to this episode, it actually tells us a lot about you. It tells us that you're intentional about your relationship and that's huge. That's awesome and amazing. So thank you so much for joining in because we don't want to just
be cruising through this. You know, we invest into so many other areas of our lives, our career, our schooling, our hobbies, and how much time do we actually invest in our own relationship and our own growth in that relationship. So thank you so much for joining in today. If you're new, welcome. If you're a regular welcome back before we move on. This podcast is just one element of what Amy and I are working on.
So don't forget to like, share, subscribe, all those things is going to help us out, but also make sure that you don't miss out on all the other contents that we're coming out with as well. So welcome back and we're going to dive into an episode that is pretty important and it kind of summarises a lot of what we've spoken about on the podcast and a lot of the reason behind why we have these conversations on the podcast. It's about the resilience of
relationships. And many couples don't think about resilience, unfortunately, until they realise that it's not there, until it's too late and something comes up and rocks them and they realise all those foundations weren't actually in place. And now we're really struggling.
So we're going to talk about what happens when life hits you really hard, what happens when stresses are added to your relationship, how we can identify where the weak points might be and what we can do to strengthen those.
So stick around till the end because we've got some really practical points to help start these conversations to build the foundations of your relationship so that when stress comes, and I say when, not if, when stress comes, your relationship is in a good position to stand through those stressors. And as I mentioned before, like we, this podcast is one element. So we don't wanna just be more noise out there. We don't wanna just be saying words and that be the end of it.
On our website are a lot of great resources for use for you and your partner or for you to work through yourself to help give you the tools that you need to work through these different topics that we discuss. Another area that we focus on is Amy does coaching with women. So you can reach out there onto the website too. All information is on there. It's just working with those more detailed practical things
and personal things. So one on one or group sessions, there's a bunch of options there to go. Check that out too. Another exciting thing that we've started, which we've done one so far, next one, it's coming out next week, is we've started a vlogging which has been very, very fun. We've actually really, really enjoyed it. We did one episode on our 10 year anniversary. That was our first episode released last week I believe 2. Months after filming.
But it was just a time thing and we've really wanted to bring quality to you guys, not just quantity. So which want to make sure that we do that well. But this was a good experience for us to go through and capture our thoughts and and see how we come across outside of the podcast too. And we want you guys to know a little bit more about us as well.
We talk a lot about specific things, but there's a bit of a disconnect in who we actually are and what we're like outside of these interviews and in these in these conversations. Head over to YouTube, check those out. They're a lot of fun. It's just it's just a little bit of glimpse into our lives and what it looks like. And yeah, we're really excited to keep going and doing.
Yeah, it's it's been really fun to be able to share more of the real stuff that we're tackling during the week and just the real life implementation of the stuff we talk about on the podcast and just real life in a family and in a relationship. So we've enjoyed it, we've enjoyed documenting it for ourselves, and we hope that it's beneficial to you guys too. So make sure you check out the first one and the second one will be out very soon after. This episode is live.
And we also want to be capturing the journeys that we're on. So our own personal challenges and how we're navigating and working through that. We're not just these people that sit here and tell everyone on the podcast, all right, these are all the things that you need to do. We're growing too and we're being intentional with our growth and we want to journey with you and for you to be able
to see that as well. All righty well, we're going to dive into this topic of future proofing your relationship. And there is a little bit of a myth that strong couples don't have hard things that they're working through or strong couples don't have difficulties in their relationship. And I actually really deeply believe it's the opposite way
around. The couples that you often look at and you think are really strong and the type of couple that you wish that you guys could be are, are usually the people that have gone through the most stuff. They've worked through that stuff, they've had the most difficulties and they've come out the other side strong. Strong couples are not just randomly stumbled upon. It's not something that just happens.
They are that way because they've gone through it and they've gone through it constructively. And so there's this myth that if you're having difficulties, you've got stresses. There's little cracks in a relationship that has not going well, but actually that process is part of strengthening your relationship.
I think social media is a big part of that, you know, and again, another part, while we wanted to show the vlog too, to, to get a bit more behind the scenes of our lives as well, because if you're just following on on on our social media, if you're just listening to these podcasts, you're only going to
get a tiny thing. And we even get the question of like, you know, I remember you, you had a conversation with one of your friends one time that's been listening to the podcasts and and you and she said, like, you guys struggle with stuff too. Of course we do what we do this right. And so, yeah, it's so it's, that's the trap of just being on social media. Yeah, absolutely. And the, and the truth is that it's not stress that breaks couples, like it's not hard
things that breaks couples. It's actually whether that foundation is there underneath the makes or breaks, how a couple will navigate those things. And every single couple that's strong has gone through those, they've built that foundation. That's how they're, they're at the point that they are. And so you can kind of, there's a picture you can kind of paint which you can just picture this really like modern fancy shiny bridge and it looks awesome.
But if the foundation is not solid, if the bolts are rusted, if the underneath is not strong, doesn't matter how shiny and beautiful it looks. If something comes up and causes an issue, it's going to crumble. If there's if there's a big flood, if there's there's an earthquake, if there's heavy trucks or traffic jam, that's going to crumble. And so it doesn't matter how shiny and beautiful the bridge looks. It actually matters what the
foundations are like. And the only way those foundations are built is through knowledge of what things causes structural damage to a bridge. And it's the same with a relationship. You could look beautiful, shiny, modern, progressive fun on the outside, but if those foundations are not solid, it doesn't matter how nice you look on the surface level, that will crumble when real life happens. Yeah. And so today we want to kind of dive into what is that real life?
What is it that causes those foundations to be a little bit weak? And we're going to kind of explore that a little bit. So most couples will say that they're fine until they're not. And I actually, I remember when we were in the dating era of life and everybody just seemed to be in that stage of life. I had different friends approach things differently. So it was kind of like this, yeah, we're fine. Like we don't have problems or we don't, we don't fight. And that was kind of the badge
of honour or something. And then, you know, other friends that they could never agree on anything. And it was, it looks quite troublesome. There wasn't like harmony there either. So there's two extremes. But the reality is couples that don't fight doesn't make them better. Like, it doesn't mean that they're stronger because they never fight disagreement. And how you navigate that is actually really, really important because everybody is
different. And when you're navigating life, you're gonna have moments where disagreement comes up. And so having that disagreement is not an issue. It's how you navigate it That is the important factor. The flip side too is if you're stuck in these really toxic communication patterns and you cannot communicate through conflict because you have these toxic reactions like the four
horsemen and that kind of thing. That also is not strong because then you're not able to get through to the other side where the constructive rebuilding happens. It's you're just stuck in the argument about the conflict. And we've talked about this in our in our clumsy communication episodes have done over the last few weeks.
You can fall into that pattern. And so it's interesting how different people will rate, I guess a relationship and what kind of what kind of criteria they put for that. Because you, you don't know the strength of a relationship until you've got those foundations in place. And a lot of people will say they're fine until they're not.
And so you really don't know until unless you're being intentional and, and looking inwards and building those foundations before they become an issue, like trying to identify these things. And that's why we do this podcast. We want to have these conversations and work on these things so that there's a conversation already happening about almost like the what ifs in relationships so that those foundations have already started to be built before you stumble onto that issue or that that
stressor comes out. And, and inflames it all for you. And so I find it fascinating how people kind of, yeah, how they rate or how they score the health of a relationship. And I think as you, you know, go into longer and longer term relationships, you start to see the reality of what plays out when you've got 2 individual people with two very different backgrounds trying to build a life together. There's going to be stuff that comes out of that and that's normal.
So we want to be really clear about that. It is normal. It's also normal that you're going to have stress, and stress doesn't always look like really horrible things happening. You might be listening to this being like, oh, so you're just telling us that, like, life is going to fall apart. Like, stress doesn't always mean huge, big crises that are happening. Stress actually comes from a huge range of things.
So you can have things like grief or you can have things like, you know, losing a job, financial issues, those sorts of more obvious stressors. And there's also positives that cause stress. So having a baby like that is a huge stressor on a relationship in the best way possible. It will shift up the dynamics of a relationship, moving house, buying, selling a house, amazing. It's an amazing thing, Huge stressor on relationships because it shifts up what's going on.
And so when we say stress, I'm not trying to be like doom and gloom, like, oh, you're going to have a really hard life. Life is hard. There are things that are hard. There's also things that are amazing, but stress comes from like a huge range of things. It's inevitable that a relationship will be put under stress. And so if you don't have these foundations, doesn't matter, you will face stress. So you will, they will be made
clear to you. We're just trying to get it to the point where you're working on it before it's made clear to you in that way. So there's a reason when you're a lot of the time when people are getting married, there's a recommendation to do premarital counselling and we love premarital counselling. And This is why because there's a lot of stuff that gets brought up.
I mean, it's how it gets done is so different for everybody and whatever context the premarital counselling looks like is super different. But from our experience, they explore a range of common relationship topics and start that conversation. It's not like you're fixing it. It's not like they're scoring your relationship saying you're
going to fail. It's just to highlight the common things people will have highlighted to them once they're in a long term committed relationship and start that conversation before you're getting that outside of your control. So things like your family background, things like how you'll navigate finances, how you navigate parenting jobs, all those sorts of things.
They get raised not to make you stressed and upset or like concerned about the future, but just to start that conversation, be like, yeah, how would you navigate work when we have kids? Like what are we going to, what's that going to look like for us? Or how would we navigate the finances? How would we save? What are we saving for those kinds of things? That's why that's often a recommended thing when you're moving into a relationship this long term.
It's funny because a lot of times, like I might share to someone about, you know, premarital counselling or counselling or even what we do and some, some people are just like, why, why do you why would you do that? Like I think it's not that not that they're these bad people and wrong people or whatever, but I just, it just highlights to me how this could be such a little deal for us.
You know, we don't we don't understand or we don't value our relationship, but we don't value the investment into our relationship because we might be in a honeymoon period, right? We might be just dating someone or we might have just got married. It's just beautiful, amazing moment and time together. It's like exactly what you've said. It's not about, it's not about like you're going to have this bad relationship if you don't do
these things. It's the same like when you guys go through those hard times, which everyone does, how equipped are you for that and how, how will you come through that? And but you do have those extreme circumstances as well. We've had family members and friends around us that we, we see, we've spoken to and approach to investing in their relationship in a deep and meaningful way. It just hasn't been prioritised because of the the, the knowledge of the need of it.
Does that make sense? Yeah, Yeah. It's like it's not, they're not when you're not aware of something's. And that's why this is such an important conversation. You're not aware of the depth of something. Yeah. You don't think it's important because you don't, you're not aware of it. It's like a blind spot. It's not saying like, yeah, it's not saying like, are these guys are bad at relationships. Or they're naive.
No, no, no. No, it's just that we have seen again, through our experience, through experience of those around us, the importance of the investment in your relationship. And it's not even just a matter of how to invest. Like now we're going to have a good relationship or we're going to strengthen that relationship. It actually strengthens us
individually as well. The impact of that feeds through, you know, there's that saying of happy wife, happy life, you know, and that's that's true in a sense of like if your home is stronger, if your relationship is stronger, you tackling work stuff is easier. You tackling friendship stuff is easier. You tackling parenthood is easier because your number one partner is just there with you and you guys are just stronger and more capable together which is awesome.
Yeah, I like that definition of it. Instead of the just appease the woman, make her happy at all costs and then you'll be happy, which is kind of the normal, normal interpretation of that. But yeah, if your family, if your family unit is strong, then everything else is easier to
navigate. It doesn't make it easy, it just makes it easier to navigate because your family unit is such a unique part of life and it's, it's there as a foundation, it's there as a, as a like core that you can fall back to when everything else feels hard. So if your family unit can be prioritised, everything else has that foundation in place, you
can tackle that as a team. And that's why the flip side of that is if your family unit is not strong, if you're struggling in that place, you'll often find that just like leaks into everything else, it makes everything else complicated. Yeah, it's not about people that don't find, don't, haven't thought about this before, are really stupid because they just
don't think it's important. We have a unfortunately unique view of this because we've navigated this in our family relationships as kids growing up, and we've also navigated in our relationship and it's something that we're very passionate about. So that's why we do this to help bring these conversations to people that may or may not have thought of it this way. So that's what this this purpose of this conversation today is about.
It's just a gentle but important reminder or check in for everybody listening, including us, about how the foundations are going, the things that we're not seeing every day, but the things that will be the most important when those stresses come up. I think another thing that is really hard and it's something I struggle with because of who I am just personality wise. It's really hard to rock the
boat when things feel fine. It's really hard to find a good time to bring up heavy things when things feel fine. So I, I fully understand and have lived that life of being like, I don't want to talk about this really horrible thing when it's not happening right now or even like if there's concerns.
We've talked about this a number of times on the podcast before, but like concerns I've had about you or about our relationship and like, I'll push it away because I just really don't want to just come out and be like, actually, it really frustrates me when you do this or this has really hurt me previously. And then that's caused more issues because then when it comes out, it's so much bigger and so much more complex.
And so avoided conversations for whatever reason, whether it's because you're trying to be kind and loving or gentle or it's just uncomfortable, you don't know how to do conflict. Whatever reason, those conversations are avoided. Avoided conversations actually cause cracks in relationships.
And so that's why if you can strengthen the muscle of having these conversations and navigating these topics, especially when you can strengthen that muscle of having them outside of the stressors, like even better then even though it's uncomfortable, it actually reinforces the cracks. It strengthens up those cracks in your relationship. It's, you know, things like money, the roles in your
relationship, mental load. That's why we talk about mental load a lot because it's a huge crack that runs under the surface for many, many couples. Long term expectations, family expectations, disappointments, all these things that are going, those things are really easy to avoid, but those avoided conversations actually cause cracks.
So if you're skipping those conversations because they're uncomfortable, because you're unpracticed in conflict, because you have past experience that make it difficult to navigate, because they feel unnecessary, because you've got built up resentment, it actually shows up down the track in more disconnection, in panic, more damage. So that's, that's the topic we're going into. I feel like we just like, it's a really big one. It's a, it's a really big one because it underpins all of the
stuff we talk about. So what does resilient love look like? And this I think also falls into there's a bit of a, maybe a myth around it. Resilient love or future proofed love or whatever you want to describe it as is not shiny and pretty imperfect. It doesn't look polished and perfect on the outside. Resilient love, a real example of resilient love is love that is flexible, adaptive and honest. So we talked about premarital counselling.
There's a side of the coin, which is you have something like premarital counselling or you have these conversations that you're beginning the beginning of your relationship and you, you decide we're going to be a couple that does this. We're going to navigate finances like this. We're going to navigate children like this. And you make your, you have those conversations. Awesome. But you then make rules and those are rigid rules and they become how your relationship is.
That is actually not an example of resilient love either. Resilient love is, is flexible because as we've talked about, life happens, stresses happen. Things that we don't ever expect will happen will happen reactions that we never thought we'd have to just normal things will happen. And so if you have a, a rigid rule based approach to these things, you're like, oh, back before we had children, we decided you were going to stay home with the kids and I was
going to work. And that's what we decided. So we're just going to do that forever more. It doesn't matter that your mental health has struggled, doesn't matter that our finances are out the window, doesn't matter that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you've stuck so strongly to those things that you, the one conversation you had and you decided on it and it hasn't been flexible. That's actually not resilient love. That's inflexibility.
So you have to be careful with how you define this as well, because it's not about look at us. We, we, we're on the same page about everything. We've had this, the conversation and we've decided how everything's going to look. And this is how we are and this is how we'll always be. And we're going to like, what is it? Tight knuckle or whatever white knuckle, white knuckle it through because this is what we decided we're going to do. Like that's not resilient
either. That's actually setting yourself up for the same exact issues because your foundation is rigid and fragile and it's going to crack under pressure. A resilient love is one that is constantly checking and it's constantly curious, is constantly flexible with how life happens. Understanding you will change. Understanding life's going to happen in a way you don't expect. We are so different now to who we were when we got married, so different.
Even personality wise were so different. Everything has changed. I remember you, you always make fun of in a, in a not a picking on way, but just a kind of maybe a shock way. So my brother got married before I met you and you've seen a video of me giving a speech. At the wedding. At the wedding and even just the way that I spoke was so different to the way that I
speak now. And that's The thing is like, you know that that growth, like understanding the journey is really important and giving yourself grace for that journey. So commitment to each other, commitment to the journey. So you mentioned before about avoided conversations caused cracks, right? And how you didn't want to bring stuff up because it would, you know, things are good now and we're while, while we're going to rock the boat.
But now over the time, over the years, now you bring stuff up, it's like, well, no, that's what we do. Like we do bring stuff up now. And it doesn't mean it's easy, but it's expected. We now navigate that through that so much better because of the investment we've had over the years. So now that we've worked on our stuff, I'm actually better equipped for my work. I'm better equipped for my family, my parenting, because we
work together. So that journey, the commitment to the journey, the commitment to the coming back together is is really important. And you need to journey like you need to change and grow because if you stay the same as you were whenever you got together, which a lot of people's in their 20s, if you stay the same for the rest of your life, something would be wrong. Like that's not how we're meant
to be as humans. And I want to say too, though, like we're talking about you just said then like people in our like usually get together in their 20s. Our parents are changing so much, right? It's not, it's not an age thing. So we, we know we've had writings actually from people that are older than us and that's awesome because like, you know, even then we, we have people in their, I think they were in their 60s wrote in as well and gave some positive feedback on the podcast.
And that actually was so great to us. It's like even people in their 60s are still working on their communication in the relationship. And that's fantastic. That was so encouraging to us to be like, yeah, OK, this isn't just a phase for Amy and I. This is what we do. This is how we do relationship is through that commitment and growth and communication and and
we're going to do that forever. Yeah, I think if you like, if you think of it like this and you had a form and you had to fill out what type of relationship you are. A healthy relationship is not the kind of relationship that would fill out a form and say we are a couple that have two working parents and we're a couple that like to do walks every day. Like they wouldn't have
specifics like that. What they would have on it is we are curious about what's going on for our we are, we will always come back to communication. Those kinds of things that are Evergreen in terms of keeping a relationship healthy. Not the things, all those other things that make up who you are are awesome, but they're not the things that are going to get you through if you don't have the foundation in the right place and if you don't have the right
perspective. So you should be growing and changing. You are growing and changing. The reality is you are, regardless of if you, you want to or think you should be, you are. And, and so if you're, if you haven't set up how you interact as a couple to also grow and change in a healthy way, in a respectful way and in a, in a constructive way, then you're going to struggle because you need to have that flexibility for that. So a resilient love is flexible.
It's adaptive with the seasons because the seasons are going to bring different challenges. And it is honest because you need that honesty that that communication intentionality, the ability to be uncomfortable for the longer good of the relationship in order to adjust as you're going. It's not just something that is decided on at the beginning. And then it just stays rigid and disciplined with no change.
So some of the things that I think you that are fairly like obvious, I guess when you're thinking of what's a resilient or strong couple, what's a future proofed couple is things like having regular emotional check insurance. We talk about that all the time on the podcast, regular check insurance. So you're checking in with each other about how you're going as a relationship.
You're checking in with each other about how each other are going share decision making, Your team when you're now navigating life, you've got shared decision making and you're moving together forward, as we said, in an adaptive way to the different seasons and a willingness to grow, learn and change together. Those are three things I think most people are like, yeah, that makes sense. You're willing to learn together and like we said, be flexible
and be adaptive. The things that might not be quite as obvious about what might make up a resilient relationship is taking turns and being strong. And that's something we've absolutely navigated. And it wasn't that. I don't think we didn't think it was important before. We just hadn't had to have it
flip flop so much. But rotating the support or rotating who is strong at any different point, and we had that when you burned out like that was the biggest, I think example of this is we, we've been cruising along fairly chill like not much had been. It had been rocked in different ways, but that was the big rock to how the dynamic was. And it was not comfortable, but it's important.
And when you're committed to somebody, you commit to being with them in sickness and in health, you commit to being their support, regardless of how well they're doing. And so all of a sudden I had to step up big, big time and I had to support Blair so that he could pull back big time because he needed to heal. And then you've also had to be that for me 100% and so. Babies. Babies, that's a really good example. Like you have to be able to take turns in being strong.
That's something that. When Amy had babies, that's what I meant by babies. When I had babies, yeah. Yeah, you have that. That's part of life is there's going to be times where most hopefully most of the time it's not that way, but there will be times where things feel out of balance. Things are very much leaning one way or the other with one of the partners not being able to be as present or strong or as engaged. And that's part of a resilient
flexible. Like we talked about relationship curiosity over assumption. Huge. We talk about that all the time. That's our little tagline. And we we don't just say it on the podcast. We talk about it with our kids. We talk about it with each other. We talk about it when we're navigating conversations with friends or at work. Like curiosity over assuming, assuming. We say that because people keep bugging inside on how we say assume.
I literally was practising this earlier and I was like, assuming I can't do it, I'm not going to do it, so it's going to be assuming, yeah. It's assume. Anyway, curiosity over assumption, let's just say that keep learning each other. So curiosity will always set you up better, will always set you up better than trying to preempt or trying to assume or trying to fill in the gaps. Without that information, curiosity is always better.
We've actually done this with our kids, as Amy mentioned, briefly mentioned. So they've just been really dubbing on each other. It's like, oh, they're doing this thing. They're doing this thing and it's the most innocent thing. They're just looking for anything they can to DOB and they're assuming and they're doing bad, right? And what we're saying is like, look, they're not even doing anything bad. Before you get to that point of, you know, they're doing this
wrong, find out like what? Why are you doing that? Have have an attitude of curiosity. Like, yeah, we say that with our work. We say that with our kids. We say it everywhere. It just, it will, it will just be such a good approach to life in so many ways, even just in helping you learn, like, like learning, having that in your development as a professional
and that kind of thing is huge. So yeah, that's a good sign of a resilient relationship is curiosity over assumption, letting go of old rules, which is what we talked about as well, letting old rules expire. So things that don't work forever. And that's OK. And that's not to say it's a, it's a delicate balance because you don't want to be someone who's like, like super undisciplined and that's, you know, be like, we've decided to
be really healthy. And then we're just letting that go. And we but letting go of the things that you either verbally or like we spoke about unspoken contracts in one of our episodes. And that's actually really relevant to this. Like there might be patterns that you've fallen into in an unspoken contract that will not serve you anymore. And that is not the sign of something's fallen apart.
It's actually really healthy to be able to adjust as you need to in a constructive way when the season brings up different things. Pre forgiveness, So assuming imperfection and making space for it.
So assuming that your partner is going to make mistakes because they're going to make mistakes because they're a human and they're going to. And so when you can have an attitude of you are pre forgiving them within reason for being a human being, that's going to disappoint you at times instead of having your ex expectations set so high that every disappointment feels like a slap in the face. You're committed to a human being just like you are a human
being. And so having the attitude of there's going to be imperfection here is going to set you up better than having this attitude of there's imperfection here. And then it's like what? And we'll help you recognise as well. I think that we've spoken about this culture of cancel, the cancel culture in the world right now where imperfection is not viewed very well. There's a very intolerant culture for imperfection and
change in growth. And when you translate that to relationships, you set yourself up for a really tough time because there are some things that are obvious. They're really serious mistakes or really serious decisions and, and things that you have to navigate. And I'm not talking about those kinds of things. I'm not talking about infidelity or, or abuse or anything like
that. I'm talking about just being a human being that's going to disappoint another human being because we're people that make mistakes and having that kind of attitude of like we are working together as a team. I'm not expecting you to be Mr Perfect in order for you to be worthy of my love. And we'll work on those things and we will come become stronger because of them instead of me being like every little thing you do builds this picture that
we're getting weaker and weaker. And this is also something this last one is something we try to do quite a bit, which is micro repairs. So little repairs rather than having these huge big moments like we've talked about how I struggled to communicate things. So when I would then communicate them, they would usually come out like all this pent up frustration because of something I hadn't communicated about and it would become a big deal. And then it would require a big
repair. So slowly over the years, we've worked on micro repairs. So little moments like a tending to things in the moment as much as we can. And it's still a muscle that I'm trying to work or we're trying to work on so that it's a little micro repair rather than a massive big thing. So you're, you're using soft words when you could be harsh or you're doing check insurance when you think something's up. And we've spoken about that so much like how are you? What are you feeling?
How are you feeling? What's on your mind? Those kinds of things to to see when you're feeling like something's going on instead of adding to the story going on in your head, following up after your conversation, so, so important instead of having these disagreements and blowing up because you didn't communicate well. And then me like we can't communicate well. And that just builds into the story.
We have found the most constructive times is actually when we've come back after a disagreement. Most of the time the disagreement itself has not necessarily been the most constructive process. And I think that's normal and fine. It's the micro repair or the repair that happens afterwards coming back to whatever it was addressed so that you can find a constructive way to move forward and just working on your tone. That's part of micro repairs as well and a huge on.
So we've had sarcasm, passive aggressive tone that we have really had to be careful of when we're navigating disagreements. And just being aware of tone and navigating tone has made those conversations so much easier over the years rather than having that be our default to and just kind of doubling down in them. So that's what resilient Love Actually looks like. Something's obvious. You probably would have listed all of them.
Some of them maybe not so obvious to everybody and are also really important parts of what it takes to make a relationship resilient. So we're going to move on to signs. You might not be future proofed in a minute, but before we do, you might notice my get up here DDG. This is our the organisation, the nonprofit organisation that Amy and I work for called Dad's Group. Dad's Group also hosts A fundraiser called Men with a Pram.
The whole purpose behind this is to raise funds for programmes and research for for dads and families in the perinatal period. The perinatal is before birth and after birth. We've spoken a lot about communication and how you get these stresses in your life. The first month after baby is born is such a significant time and a significant stress for many, many families.
We hear of stats on how many mums can receive post Natal depression and there's a lot of research, there's a lot of support and there's a lot of awareness around that, but there's not much awareness around one in 10. Dads also suffer from personal depression. Our mission is to support dads so they are better equipped to be able to support their families. Remember the pram is a national walk around Australia. Actually it's not even in Australia now.
We are in the UK and we're expanding UK and New Zealand as well where we're just going. We catch up as families. So family events will be barbecues, there'll be games in some locations as well. And then we just go for a walk with our man with the pram shirts on, our hats on, just to bring bring that awareness for that need of support for dads in that perinatal period. It happens on the Father's Day
weekend every year. Also, if it sounds like something you would like to do with your family on Father's Day, feel free to hop onto the website which will link into the description of this episode and sign up for your own walk. You can make it a Father's Day activity and it's actually a really nice thing. If you've got nothing else planned yet to take your family to a park, go for a nice walk with some other families and then enjoy a BBQ afterwards. A really beautiful Father's Day thing.
So we'd love your financial support, but we would also love of any families that want to join to be doing their own walk in their own location. Fatherhood is a life changing experience and you don't have to do it alone. Yeah, all righty, so let's get back to the episode. We're going to dive into signs that you might not be future proofed. And I really want to be careful that this isn't just a bit like I don't want this to be look at us. We're in a horrible place.
As we've said on this episode, future proofing is future proofing so that you're becoming aware of things before they become an issue. So anything that gets raised in this segment and we've got things that will come up in this little part where we're talking about is actually a positive. It's it's a positive little noticing for you to address these areas. It's not a sign you're not in a
good place. It's just a sign that these might be conversations you might want to have because eventually things might rock that area of your life. So not something to be down about, something to be equipped through. So one thing is if you have one partner making all the long term sacrifices, that might be a sign that you're not future proofed at the moment. So that could be one partner, as we said at the beginning that you decided we'd stay home when you had kids.
And that hasn't been checked in on, it hasn't been addressed. It hasn't been something that you've been flexible about and seen how that's gone through the seasons. If one partner has been doing the long term sacrifices and it hasn't been checked in on, that's something you want to be checking in on. Could be the partner that's decided to work for the family and it could be someone who's put off a goal because they haven't been able to do that for
your life stage. Whatever that sacrifice might look like. If there's one partner that's got a long term sacrifice and you haven't addressed that, again, it's an area to be aware of. Not having a shared financial vision or values is really important. If you don't have the same approach to finances, finance is a really common relationship stressor. We don't have the same natural approach to finances. We've got very different natural approach. But it's a conversation we've
had to have a lot. And we've also had times where we've adjusted who is responsible for what to match strengths so that we're working towards the same goal. Because my approach is very different to Blair's approach and and my strengths are very different to Blair's strengths
in this area. And so we've had to, we set it up one way and then we've had to adjust as we've gone because we've figured out that the the roles we've fallen into in that or the responsibilities we've fallen into in that have not been helping us move to towards our shared financial goal. And it has not been leaning on our strengths. And so we've been flexible with that.
Another sign that you might not be future proofed is avoiding tough conversations like we spoke about before having conversations you're actively avoiding because they're too uncomfortable, because they're too difficult, because they don't feel like the right time can be really important
conversations. Everything's like sex, resentment, parenting, the roles you've got in your relationship, boundaries that are being pushed avoiding them because of the discomfort rather than finding a constructive way through them is not a great sign. Having a fragile reaction to stress. So finding yourself reinforcing fragile reactions to stressors that have come up, shutting down, snapping the four horsemen is a perfect example of this.
If you're finding a pattern of reaction to conflict that is not constructive and just doubling down on that, not addressing that, that can be a sign that it's a weak spot for when things do come up. Yeah. And this is definitely something that I've, I've had to really work on. We've we've both had to work on in different ways. But you know, the, the reactions to stress, like whether it's the kids or if it's at work and I leave work and come to the kids, kids or whatever else I'm
putting. And we've had to really learn. And so the Four Horsemen episodes have been huge for me to go check those out if you haven't already, where it's just giving you the tools to work through like, all right, this is my reaction. But that doesn't have to be my reaction. You know, this is how I normally react if I don't put these boundaries in place, if I don't put these healthy habits in place. Or I'm not aware of exactly, just do it out of default, yeah?
Because we don't like the answer of, oh, it's just who I am. Yeah, it's not, it's not true. This is just, this is just how you're reacting, you know, like that's not who you are. It's how you're reacting. Who you are is so much deeper and more complex than that. And we're just wanting to grow in who we. Are, yeah. And those are patterns that are built from your experiences. So we're all just a big mix of our experiences, every life.
So nothing, not much of us is static and doesn't change. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing too with this is everybody, everybody, everybody goes into fight or flight when danger is is on the horizon. That's just what our body does. So it makes sense that you have a bad reaction to stress. Stress is not a positive thing. So your body will go into fight or flight and your natural reaction often. And that is it shuts down your logic centre and makes it a lot harder to have clarity around
those things. And so it's just like you've said, it's about learning the techniques that help you regulate in those moments and recognising, oh, I really shut down when things get really hard. I really, really shut down. And so I need to you find a way to regulate before I shut down. And there are so many tactics you could like a quick Google search will help you with these things. But yeah, it's, it's normal to
react badly in stress. What you're responsible for is how you regulate yourself through that so that you can be constructive and keep moving because otherwise you're just like, I'm in danger and I'm just going to like crumple on the floor, which doesn't help when a lion is chasing you. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, this is a really good one. I love this one and I think this is really practical. If this alone is the only thing you take from this really helpful little check in for yourself.
If you cannot name your partner's current bigger biggest stressor or your partner's current biggest goal, that's a sign that you might not be future proofed. If you don't know what your partner's current biggest stress in life is, or your partner's biggest goal in life is, then you're probably not checking in with each other enough. There's something missing in that communication. Could you say, well mine are. Yeah, 100%. Well, your, your, your biggest stress is your work.
Yeah, 100%. And your biggest goal is our family business. Biggest goal? OK, you tell me. No, this is the thing. This is now our relationship is under stress. No, no, no, no, that's that's right. It's a big, it's a big thing for us to be able to do this job. But my biggest goal is our family dynamic, like just the, the, the culture in our relationship, you know, with our family that that's the biggest goal. This is a part of that goal, not the goal.
Yeah. We, we often know what is important to our partners as hopefully you know what's important to your partners. You want to know what's kind of coming up as we go like what's the relevant thing going on for them right now. So yes, that's that's good. And now next time I. Well, no, you're right. And I think this is just good and this is just part of the conversation. I wanted to ask that question so we can see again, assumptions. We don't want to assume.
And also like it's the conversation like you were right to a point, but like if you only thought my biggest goal was, was the the contents that we're creating, you've actually missed. The core, the. Core of it, and the core is what's so valuable to me, you know, so that's my biggest drive. What makes it important in the 1st place? Yeah, that's good. Yeah, Yeah, that's good. And biggest driver, that's a good one to add in there as well. Like what's the biggest value or
yet driver motivation? So if you don't know those things, ask, especially the stressor one, because our stress and it's tough because there's times where you're stressed about things that you it's just too hard to communicate about. And so it's not that you need to know every detail about the stress. That's not trying to be like you don't know everything about their work stress. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually just more like knowing what is going on for them. Yeah.
And it's a conversation starter. And after this episode, I'll ask Blair what mine is anyway, that I'm your biggest goal. No. I'm your biggest stress. Yeah, well, both. I'm just kidding. That's not true, all right? We're just different. Sorry, this is the next one. So if we're just different, and this is kind of what Blair just said before, if we're just different becomes an excuse to disengage instead of a reason to
explore. It becomes a reinforcement of difference rather than a point of curiosity and connection. And that's why I've popped that in there, because we are so different in so many ways. We, I actually think we need to adjust that. I don't know that we're so different anymore anymore. We're so different when we first got together and if we had just used the excuse of we're just
different and we didn't. We hear that and it frustrates us a little bit because of what we've worked through and you know when the people and you don't know the full details, right? But when people say like, we had to finish our relationship because we're just too different in our eyes, we're like, wow, you've missed out on this. Some amazing opportunities together. Like huge value in that. Huge, huge. I'm being Trump anyway. Keep going. OK, yeah, sweet. Then there you've thrown me.
But yeah, cool. It's huge. Yeah, you've missed out on huge value because. Yeah, well, I think This is why I like this so much. Is just so important. Just not the we're, we're just different or whatever. Just that attitude of curiosity is just just so there, you know, and, and I love this where it says instead of a reason to explore, exploring each other,
exploring what that means. Like I don't want a job where you're not a part of anymore because I know the value that it is, it brings because you fill the gaps in what would I do right? And and now it's like, I need you there in a good way, not in a like dependency way. And it's like, no, we're just Better Together. Yeah, there are some people that are more similar. So we do have friends that are that are married and they're
very similar personalities. Yeah. And so I don't know what that's like because we haven't walked that. I don't know what challenges or benefits that brings necessarily. But it doesn't really matter how similar or different you are. As long as you have the same attitude of curiosity and you want to explore those things, it's awesome.
It doesn't matter. The strength that I see if we were similar, is that the things that we want to work on, we're both working on it. Like that's the that's the big part there and you're doing it together. Like that's where that's I think the strength comes in. You understand the challenge of doing that. Yeah, more where you and I have had to spend a lot of time of the understanding side. Had to understand exactly. So that's probably it probably could go both ways.
It probably could be either we're just two different becoming an excuse or we're just two the same becoming an excuse. So whatever it is, if it becomes an excuse to disconnect rather than to explore each other and be curious, and that's that's a future proofing red flag. Serious things are joked about instead of spoken about and or or not even joked about Serious things are, you know, whatever you want to put in there held less importantly or communicated less seriously about.
That's fully up the clumsy conversations episodes we've been doing, the way you navigate serious conversations and the tone that you bring to it. That can be a sign of future proofing strengths or weakness. And it's it's because we're avoiding those conversations. Again, it's because of how there's important conversations that every couple needs to navigate may or may not be had in a constructive way.
So if serious things are just joked about, we've found this like we have found ourselves in that joking pattern, especially because humour is a big thing for both of us, but it can also be a defence mechanism. And it's easier to be jokey than it is to be upfront. And humour has its place. But yeah, if it's if the serious things are just joked about instead of communicated about, it's just another way of avoiding those conversations. This is my heart.
Take last one as well. That might be a sign. And I this has a disclaimer to it because obviously we always the disclaimer is a do some manipulation different topic. We're not talking about that. We're not going there. But if the hot take I have is if you're having a serious doubt creeping in about did I choose the wrong person? I feel like sometimes that's a future proof thing.
And, and I and I have talked to people that have had that thought in their head where they're like, I just don't know that I chose the right person. Hot take. I don't think there's one right person. I don't think Blair was the right person. There's a lot of stuff about how we ended up together that is actually funny because I don't actually think that that normally happens. Like it just, it did really seem
quite intentional. And I definitely think there are people that are easier to end up with than others, but I don't think there's one person that's right or wrong. And I think if you're sitting there like, I think I just chose the wrong person, I, my hot take is I think you're focusing on the wrong things. And my hot take is I think any two people that are both willing to learn to love each other can make a strong and beautiful relationship together outside of
we're not talking about abuse. That's why I'm setting that aside or horrible patterns that are outside of your control. I'm talking about any two people that are willing to put this work in can make a beautiful relationship. And we've just flagged all of that in the different signs like it doesn't matter how different you are or how similar you are. So if you've got a doubt creeping in, did I choose the wrong person? I think that is a future
proofing red flag. And I think that is an area to challenge because the grass is always greener and it's so easy to look at these relationships or other people and think they're so strong when they're so easy. It would be so much easier with this person. That's not true. The exact same things you're challenged with with one partner, you would be challenged
with another. You just would have more experience under your belt because you've gone through it and now you'd know, Oh, that's important. So that's my heart take. Last one on the list. If you're having that doubts creep in, question it. We're going to move on to how to strengthen your relationship in these things. We've just talked about things that might have flagged and been like, so that's actually maybe something we need to work on. How do you then strengthen those
so that you are future proofing? So if this feels confronting, that's a good sign. It means that you're caring about this. It means that you want to be intentional and it means that you're in the process of assessing. And that is you're already like leaps and bounds ahead because once you become aware of these things, awareness is the biggest thing. Like once you're aware of these things, you're already in the process of working on it. And that's amazing.
So being scared of this thing because you know, it's a factor is actually not, it's not something to be too scared of. It's actually something to be celebrating because you're aware and you can then put these things in place. So asking yourself, this is really important. What would expose our weak points? And it's something I actually want to do with Blair later. Like what is something that would expose our weak points right now? Just be a bit creative.
Is it time? Like time stresses, money stresses, parenting imbalance, emotional load. Be creative thinking. What is something that could expose the weak points in our relationship? And it can be think it can be a bit painful to think about, but I guarantee you that this forward thinking is a whole lot
less painful. Like this kind of creative forward thinking is a whole lot less painful than it would be and a whole lot more helpful than it would be avoiding thinking about this and then finding yourself actually having those weak points exposed down the track because of a stress. Then you're navigating the stress and you're navigating the weak point. Future focused check insurance that don't feel heavy. We love this. We've talked about this a lot and we have a resource on the
website for this. Having a check in night where there's and just like download the resource if you want this as as a structure, but something that's not super heavy, but you're not having a big moment of like sitting down and be like, this is the thing I need to talk about, which is has its time and place. But if you want to just start gently working on these, scheduling a check in night,
scheduling a fun, make it fun. We've talked about like putting board games, nice drinks, desserts, something like that doesn't have to be out of the house. It can be if that works for you can be in the house after the kids are down or something like that. Be creative with how it works. Do not let the practicalities of it stop you from doing it is essentially the point. And have a check. I just asked some of these fun questions, like make them light and fun.
So the question could be just for fun. Where do you imagine us living in five years? And then you can start to work on future goals. Or if we lost one of our incomes, what would we do? Creative thinking. The kind of questions Blair loves me asking right when he's about to fall asleep. What part of our life feels unsustainable right now? Is there anything you've been carrying that we haven't talked about? I know these aren't fun, fun questions, but you can do them in a light way.
That's like if I was a Caterpillar, would you still love me? If I murdered someone, would you help me hide the body? We had an argument about that one time. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to tell you who said what. Just so you know, I had the better answer. Anyway, look at the if you want more examples of this, Google has 500 different resources to. Even better, at our website we've got a free resource you can download for a check in night. These can be casual.
They can be in the car on a walk. They can meet a check in night. They can be while you're folding laundry. They can be when your partner is about to fall asleep. Don't recommend that. Just build the habit of thinking together and not reacting separately or not trying to process these separately. You're just having casual chats about future concepts and things where you're doing it in a low pressure time. You're not doing it when you're not doing it in the middle of a
crisis. You're doing it before in a nice easy time. Another thing too is sometimes having these conversations, depending on how the relationship is, it can feel a lot, especially if you haven't kind of done this. So another thing you could do is implement a rating scale to just check in very quickly at a glance at how each other are going. Can be about anything. It could be like out of five how you're feeling or out of 10 how you're feeling.
That's what we do with work. I've started doing something with someone in my life. Anymore with coaching. Oh, coaching. Yeah, I do with coaching. Yeah, yeah. And just like ask. The question like, well, how are you feeling about this situation? And they might say 4, Right. And then this is just the example that you shared with me. And then you ask that same question a few weeks later after you've been working with them. It's like, well, how do you feel about it now? And they're like 8.
Yeah. You know, so it's that's the sort of gauge of and you can bring that into your everyday life like it could be. You do it with your kids. Yeah, we do it. Exactly how do you feel? How, how are you feeling today after school out of 10? And they give us a number and it just helps you know how to gauge that conversation then. Because if you keep giving a four, well, I'm not going to drill them like the kids about all their details of homework and school and all this sort of
stuff. I'm going to be more actually curious about why they are 4, but also if they give you a 10, I'm going to be curious on why would they attend and let's celebrate that. That's awesome. And tracking it over time is good to be like oh you weren't so great last week but now you're doing better And it it releases them from having to explain it or like our kids hate answering what they did. I don't know why it's such an annoying question. The number was annoying when I
was in school. And so having this kind of easier check in point can be, can be really good. So implementing that if it feels too hard to have actual conversations, just implement a check in could be out of five, even if if out of 10 feels too complicated, make it easy and
sustainable for you. And then there's the other factor of this too, is if you're the one that's noticing that cracks first and your partner's not quite ready to be on board or not quite on the same page as you, you aren't without practical stuff you can do. So these are some things you can do in that situation. Your awareness matters. So like I said before, your awareness of the crack is already putting you ahead. So just be reassured by that.
Your awareness of a crack is really important. It even just gives you words to things when when things do come up, you can try some soft introductory phrases to your partner. So things like I heard this episode podcast and it made me think, or can we talk about this? Not because it's a big issue, but because I want to like work on this for the future, just like something that really sets them up knowing this is not a huge issue. I'm just curious about this
thing. Even if they don't respond right away, you're starting to plant these little seeds of conversation. You're starting to plant a seed of culture in your relationship where they're recognising. All of a sudden my partner is really curious about me and they're asking me things and they're trying to check in. And it might not be comfortable or natural feeling at first, but that little seed and your willingness to do that speaks like volumes and will be helpful down the track.
The other thing that's really important, we say, we say this in so many contexts, but people love to talk about themselves. If you don't have a culture in your relationship where it's super easy to have these deep conversations and you raise things that you're struggling with and your partner is really receptive to it because you haven't gotten to that point, don't be dismayed. Like that's a muscle that's
strengthened. Instead, why don't you start by just asking them about themselves, removing yourself from it, as hard as that can be sometimes, and just being really curious about your partner because people love to talk about themselves. So I've been thinking about how much pressure you're under lately. Is there anything that I can do to help with that or you've got so much going on, Is there one thing I could take off your plate? Something like that?
Being curious about them instead of trying to at the beginning make it about you or make it about this big heavy thing that if they're struggling or they're not used to, it is really hard to take on board to make the opening about them. It's not about you and it creates safety and it creates
space. It also that fight or flight reaction we talked about earlier, it relieves that so that their brain and their logic centre is still on instead of them being like, oh, they're bringing up a really heavy thing and then they just shut down and then they fall into their reactions and that sort of thing. There's still things you can do even if you're doing, you're navigating this on your own at the beginning and your partner is not quite on the same page and not really ready to do
conversations back and forth. These are some of the things you can do to introduce this new pattern of this new culture of exploring these things. So you're future proofing your relationship. Future proofing is so much harder to say than I thought it was. Future proof, yeah. You say it right now, see. Yeah. Everyone's like, no, I said it fine. Anyway, that's future proofing your relationship. Big one, Foundational one. Good one. Good one.
I think it's really important. Some little closing thoughts for us here is you don't have to fix everything overnight. These things that flagged for you in this episode are not. You're not like on Dire Straits. Sometimes I say things and I don't know what they mean, but Dire Straits, it's just a conversation to start. It's just something to be aware of. So don't feel overwhelmed because you've had things flagged for you.
Just allow them to be moments that you're like, yeah, and then you're aware you're already steps ahead. You can start to implement these things. Not everything needs to be fixed in one go. In fact, trying to do that would probably be counterproductive. These moments of honesty are strengthening. So these little moments of checking in, these little moments of curiosity changing how you approach your partner, all of those things are strengthening and are future
proofing in and of themselves. So be reassured with that. You can share this with your partner. You can implement a check in night if that's something that they're out for, you're up for. And if you're not sure where to start, just pick one of those checking questions we listed in the earlier things and just do it today. Just make it nice and easy in a moment where you're together.
I did joke about it, but don't do it in a moment just before they fall asleep because that will not be helpful and probably make you all frustrated. But just pick one of those if that's if that's what feels manageable to you, and start there. But this is something that I think is important for everyone to be aware of, so we're not just floating along until something comes up that's more difficult. Cool. Thanks guys. Thanks guys. That was a good one. Good chat.