¶ Intro / Opening
How to be able to see that your relationship has emotional detachment , absence in your relationship . One of you is perhaps just completely silent , completely gone , not interested at all . I've got ways to be able to detect that and then things that we can do to be able to prevent that from happening , that we can do to be able to prevent that from happening .
Here's a question for you Is marriage overrated ?
Why aren't people getting married anymore ?
A new Pew Research poll found that two in five young adults think marriage is an outdated tradition .
Marriage rates are at their lowest right now , is marriage really even worth it ? More than half of marriages end in divorce .
If you get married , you have to be stuck with this person for the rest of your life , right ? That's why you get married , so that's why it's declining . Why would you get married if you don't ? If you want to have just one partner when you can have multiple Marriage is stupid .
Welcome to the Married AF podcast podcast , the self-proclaimed greatest marriage and relationship podcast in the world . We are your host , matthew and monica powers baby yep we're here today .
Okay , how to be able to see that your relationship has emotional detachment , absence in your relationship has emotional detachment , absence in your relationship , one of you is perhaps just completely silent , completely gone , not interested at all . I've got ways to be able to detect that and then things that we can do to be able to prevent that from happening .
And it all stems from a story that I read a while ago that I'm going to read first , and this is like a whole nother next level of it all .
But it led me to think okay , this happened and this is an extreme , but this happens in people's relationships where one person is just completely detached , they're not interested and it seems like they're completely absent from the relationship .
Okay , I'm going to need to hear the story , because what I'm hearing is not a relationship .
Well , one would think , and this is going to take it to another level . So here's the story . Six weeks ago , my husband of almost three years took off . I came home from work to find him standing in the kitchen with a suitcase , saying that it was nothing personal , but he needed to get away for a while , and then he left .
I didn't hear from him or see him for five weeks . I was hurt because I was also frantic with worry . I thought we were very happy and this came completely out of the blue . He didn't go to work . They said he had taken a leave of absence , hadn't spoken to any of our friends about this , and his parents claimed he wasn't in touch with them .
He came back last Thursday . He refuses to answer any questions about where he was and what he was doing . He is also a little angry with me for involving our friends and family in his personal business . I am torn between thinking that he was having some kind of crisis and thinking that he spent the last five and a half weeks with another woman .
Now that he's home , he seems to want me to forget that this ever happened and pick up right where we left off . I've told him that he needs to tell me where he's been , what he's done , or he can leave again . He says he's not talking about it anymore and he's not going anywhere . What are your thoughts on that story ?
You disappear for five weeks . You better be dead .
Without wanting to say a word about it .
Now Does it say what kind of job he has ?
No , no , it does not .
Because I do know that If you are in some kind of military service type of situation , if you are in that type of job where you just they make you drop everything you're doing , you're doing some kind of secret job or something you can't talk about it .
But that would be for me , that would be a if that were us .
I gotta go to work .
Let's hypothetically say that were us and I'm standing in the kitchen with a bag , I'm not gonna say , hey , I need to take off for a little while . It's gonna be a . I have to go to work and I'm gonna be gone for a little while and that's .
You would know at that point like okay , but this leads nothing to believe that True , I'm going to say not this dude to me . Let's hypothetically say this guy going to work a finance job and he's just miserable . And the reason I finance , why not ? finance miserable I don't know , but why not ?
There's some sort of finance job , okay , and he goes to work in an office every day and he hates his job , which has caused him to hate his life and hate his wife , and he just needs to get away and do his own thing for a little while . That's what I picture .
I picture some business guy coming home saying I've had it , I deserve better , the grass is greener , I'm going to get me some hot , young 20-something and we're going to do whatever we want , however we want . That's what I picture out of this . No doubt he was with another woman for five and a half weeks . Are you kidding me right now ?
You're telling me that there was no paper trail to finding this dude .
Supposedly she called friends family .
I'm not talking about friends , I'm talking about bank accounts . Credit card statement .
I say , that's where I would go .
Where's your location on his phone or something else ?
To me how can you go away for six weeks and just disappear and nobody have a clue where you are , what's going on , what it's about ? How can you leave your wife for this amount of time and then just show back up at home Like , hey , I'm back .
What's for dinner right when we left off . But he's pissed off because she got family and friends involved .
In his personal business . You selfish piece of crap . That's not my initial response . Now we don't know the whole story . This is all that the article said and neither here nor there . This is stupid .
Does it give an ?
age for no .
Because , you know well , they've only been married for three years . But that doesn't mean .
They could be 21 years old , they could be in their 40s , I don't know .
It doesn't say anything about having children .
No , no .
But I just I can't imagine you just show back up like , hey , honeysys , what's for dinner what person with any type of real functioning brain can think that that's okay , but that's , she's obviously not okay with it ?
clearly not . She doesn't need to be but she's still there get your rear end out of this house right now .
You tell me everything that happened or you go and never see me , ever again if you showed , if this , if this were something that happened to me , where you just disappeared and came back five weeks later , you would come home to an empty house .
Or I would come home and no one would ever see or hear from me ever again . I'd be a dead man .
You were gone for five weeks and nobody knew where you were . We're going to challenge that for the rest of your life so .
But that article led me to believe now this is an extreme , crazy situation that I think is hopefully extremely rare . But it led me to believe that he apparently was so unhappy that he just , instead of creating distance that we normally see in a relationship where a little standoff is , you feel like you're growing apart . You feel like you're roommates .
We see that all the time . Dude just picked up and he's just gone and just left . So it made me think okay , when you have absence in the relationship , most of the time people are going to say it just kind of happened out of nowhere .
But I believe that there are usually going to be signs that were all along the way that we were just blind to , we didn't want to see them to prevent this from happening . So I've got several things , several signs for you to be able to see . Are we becoming distanced in our relationship ?
Now you're going to have good days and bad days and and some days just feel like man , but for real absence and distancing relationship , for you to feel that that should be something that you you see , um . So here here's some things to be able to recognize that your spouse no longer will share his or her problems with you , and I totally agree with that .
I could see that . Because we're , they don't care to talk to you about it .
You're supposed to be for each other , yeah , and like you're the first person I'm going to come to with anything , and vice versa . And that's how most relationships need to work when you and your spouse , you can openly talk about things .
When there are problems , whether it's personal or it's in your relationship with the kids , at work , family , whatever you come to your spouse , you talk about it and they help you work through it .
I agree , I think the moment that you start noticing where you can tell your spouse is bothered by something and they begin to kind of draw back and they're not sharing their problems with you and they give you just the fine answer . I think that is a red flag and it's saying maybe there's something going on here now that happens always with the female fine .
Most of the time they just want you to dig in a little deeper and ask more questions I mean good lord .
That is a whole nother topic for another day which is . I have thoughts on that and we do not have the time to be able to discuss that . In the end , that's not even a word . How furious I get when that happens .
But I think if it's something you begin to see as a pattern that happens over time and over time , that's a red flag that pops up to say okay , what's going on .
Not just once , but multiple times .
It could be once where you know , like how's everything , fine , you can tell now there's something going on , a one-off thing's going to happen . That's just human nature . We kind of shut off and do that .
But when it's consistently , and you consistently see your spouses no longer sharing their problems with you and seeking advice from you , I think that that is a red flag that , hey , there's some distance that's being created and a wedge that's being driven in your relationship . The second one that you find that your spouse is unmoved by any show of emotions .
That if your spouse like if you came to me and you're visibly upset about something and something has hurt you , you know you're , you're crying , you're , you're angry , you're frustrated , whatever there's , there's some a real emotional thing going on .
And if I'm just deadpan like , yeah , well , that that stinks that has happened to me before with you mm-hmm , it's not a good thing .
It was very recent .
What was it ? Maybe I don't .
We got live on air I lit you up the next morning because of it . What was it ? I was having a very bad dream . It was so real and I woke up crying , to the point where I went to check on our children , that they were still here . And my dream did not come true . I get back in bed sobbing , you remember now ?
I remember .
But I get in bed and I'm always , you're always like baby , wake me up if you have a bad dream , and you usually console me . I mean , it's very rare , oh I totally remember .
I completely blew you off .
You . Just I tried to snuggle and get you to pay attention . You pushed me to the other side of the bed . And I just turned over listen , my emotions went from sad to pissed off in less than 0.2 seconds listen in my defense .
I was dead asleep when this was going on . A freaking tornado could have come through the bedroom I'd had I'd been unbothered , had paid no attention whatsoever . But so , yeah , I didn't show you any type of emotion when you were going to . That's when I was completely unmoved and you in my defense .
I was exhausted , I was passed out , I was in my deep , deep sleep yeah , because the next morning when I lit into you , you had no idea that it happened . You were like oh , baby , I'm so sorry . I was like get away from me .
Now listen . This isn't as bad , but this is almost as bad as when your wife gets mad at you for something you did in her dreams that you got nothing to do with .
I've done that .
Every woman's done that at some point in time , Like how dare you do that to me in ?
my dream .
It's like what are you talking about ? Well , I I always say let me tell you what your dream guy did .
Last night I got no control over him , but I'm looking at the guy that looks just like the dream guy not my fault .
So , yeah , all right , you saw , yeah , I did kind of I was unmoved by your emotions , but in my defense , I was in in a deep , deep sleep and anything could have happened and I would have had no clue that was going on . That is true .
But if your spouse is awake and they're aware that things are happening and you come to them with emotions , they're unmoved by . Yeah , that's something that's definitely going on .
The third one if they're indifferent to solving any type of conflict mutually , where if you're having a disagreement about something and they're completely indifferent , like I could care less if we get through this , like I know we're not on the same page about something and I don't care if we solve this or not , I'm going to go on and do my thing .
I think that is also a huge red flag where , if your spouse is just they don't care , they're indifferent , they're not worried about it , like okay , we would disagree , we'll agree to disagree , go on and let's do our own thing , doesn't matter , yikes . That's going to create some huge distance in your relationship .
No , we've been at that point , but it wasn't something that mattered . No , like you would want , you would think this is the right way , and I would think this is the right way , and it wouldn't be an argument to the point of it doesn't matter , move on that it would affect the relationship .
No .
And those are okay , because not everybody's going to agree on everything . Yes , but when it's something that is serious and it's a continued thing and it's not ever going to be solved and you can't just be okay with it , Like I'm okay with you not agreeing with me on certain things .
Yeah , I think you're not going to agree with every little thing . No , you're not going to be on the same page with your spouse about every little thing , and there will be times where it is okay to agree , to disagree on something .
But when it comes to big things , big ideas , big conflicts , life-type stuff , yeah , you need to come to some sort of resolution together and in those moments where your spouse is like I don't care , I'm indifferent about this , oh , I couldn't imagine that's . That's just another one where a wedge is being driven right there . Uh , the number number four .
There's a lack of interest in having sex . You have thoughts ?
I see that in a lot of relationships though .
Explain .
There's one that wants it more than the other .
I mean .
I think that's true . Most of the time , though I guess so , but in a way that it's affecting the relationship . Does that make sense ? It does Like , of course you want sex some more times than not , but when I want it you're always going to want it , kind of thing , and we're all . I mean , we just have a very healthy sex life .
That's not a secret , happy about it Very . But there are the people that , well , it's my birthday , I'm gonna get . I'm gonna get mine tonight my birthday booty . I'm gonna get valentine's day booty yeah , it's like I'm gonna get these yeah this amount of times , but there are some cases where maybe there's some trauma .
I'm sure .
And that causes some other issues where most let's be honest , it's most of the time the women who have some serious trauma that has happened and the men want sex . That's just a need for a man .
It is .
It's a basic need
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it just is , and not all women are okay with continuing to do it have sex because they start thinking about bad things . You can't let that , that's the past , you cannot let that interfere with the relationship that you have , especially if it's a healthy relationship .
Right and that's a very real past for a lot of people . I mean , there is trauma that people have to deal with and there's abuse that people go through and maybe went through when they were much younger and it's coming up now . Those are things where you need to get the help that you need to be able to get through that .
There are people you can talk to over the phone .
You don't need to hold that in all by yourself .
¶ (Cont.) How To Detect Absence In Your Relationship
Your spouse is someone you need to be able to talk to about that , openly talk to about that , and your spouse needs to be someone who is supportive of you through that . The street goes both ways on that . But if that is you , absolutely , you need professional help . You need to speak to someone about it . You can't hold it in . It's not going to work .
Things like that are going to make it happen Totally , but it can be just another sign of hey , there's distance being created , if , especially if you had a very healthy sex life at one point in time and things have been really good , and now all of a sudden she or he just seems no longer interested .
Well , I also see that women after having a baby , even year to two years after , might not be comfortable with their body Correct . We've seen a lot of that .
Yes , we have .
Where , no matter what , in his eyes she's absolutely gorgeous , doesn't matter if she's gained weight , doesn't matter if her body has changed . He still holds her on a pedestal . She can't get past her flaws . That causes issues because she's not going to want to let him see her . So that makes a distance in the one relationship and two .
Sex is not going to happen . And I've said this before If you don't want him to see have sex in the dark , Turn off the lights . Turn off the lights . He does not care as much as you care .
No , in fact I won't say he doesn't care , but he definitely is not thinking about yourself . What you think about yourself , he is definitely not thinking as negatively about you as you are thinking about yourself .
Not at all .
Not in the least bit . So that's definitely what I got , just a couple more here . Secretive behavior , I think , is maybe red flag , like number one yeah example , just being very secretive , being very non-informative , not going into any type of detail of course , hiding phones .
You walk into the room , they close their computer real quick , just kill all their apps real fast . For you and I we say it a lot our phones are always up like this . I mean , they're up , they can be seen by whoever . We have nothing to hide there .
When a couple especially is there and you see them face down , boom , that's just saying what's going on there . Now I can see if it's in a group setting or something like that . Maybe keep it in your pocket , keep it in your pocket , keep it in your purse , something like that . But just secretive type behavior .
If you're on opposite ends of the couch and typically it goes towards phones and they're just kind of shifted away from you because I don't want you to see what's going on here .
There's only one time where I think that that is perfectly okay and that is if you are trying to shop for your spouse , get them something for whatever and surprise them with something Absolutely Other than that . Absolutely not . I mean it should be an open book both ways .
But if you recognize secretive behavior where you can just tell they're not telling you or disclosing the full story about something . I think that's just another thing that your spouse is lacking some transparency there .
Yeah , if your spouse cannot go through all of your tech gadgets and see what emails have been sent or text messages , the hidden stuff , the private side of all that , there's definitely something going on that you don't want them to know about , and that is not healthy .
No , it's not healthy at all . Two more signs that you're seeing some absence or going that direction in your relationship Frequent escapes where your spouse is just constantly like I need to go for a walk , just something as simple as that . It's constant , I need to get out of the house .
Maybe they're sitting in their car for 10 , 15 minutes once they get home every single day . Stuff like that . Frequent potential trips where I need to have another guy's weekend . I need to have another girl's weekend . I need to have another this . I need some me time . I need some this . I need some me time . I need some this . I need some that .
Where they're just trying to completely escape reality and re-escape what they have going on right in front of them . Maybe it's even over committing at work , like I got another project to work and they're signing up for all these things to do at work so they do not have to come home to you is that what you think about me when I go on my girls trips ?
every single time . No , I'm more , I'm more jealous . So I'm like I want to go , not the girl's trip side , but I want to go where you're going , that's fun . The same place , every single exactly and it is a little , uh , infuriating , uh . The last one is an inability to share joy , and I think this one kind of goes back to unmoved by emotions .
Yeah .
But the inability to be able to share joy , Like when you go on your girls trips . I'm kind of funny , sometimes jealous and make jokes about it , but I'm extremely happy for you to be able to go do that .
They don't know that I'm on , like these people that are listening or watching . Don't understand that my girls trips are to Disney world . Yes , they are I guess that we're those , the people that they call Disney adult . Disney adults Listen is that is , that I don't even know what that really is . I've heard that thing where you like to go to Disney .
I'm sorry , I'm not going to apologize . I said I'm sorry .
I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I'm so sorry .
I'm sorry , I'm not going to apologize but I'm sorry yeah . What's that , demi Lovato ? Sorry , not sorry .
There you go .
That's it . I am not going to apologize for being able to one go on those kind of trips , but we love to go there and act like a kid .
Yes , it's fun .
We also take our kids to act like kids too . Yes , we do so . We're always acting like a kid when we're at disney world or disneyland , but we always go to disney world and florida for our girls trips . I'd say 80 of the time I'm either texting you or FaceTiming you because of whatever is happening in that moment . I have to share it with you .
You're sharing that experience with me , even though I'm 500 miles away , which is great , but I'm able to .
But you're jealous , but at the same time I'm jealous because I want to be there . I get to be .
I'm so happy that you get to be there , that you get to experience that , that you get to have fun and do that .
And I , if you're unable to share joy when something positive happens for your spouse and something as easy as that , or a promotion at work , or you know , something great happened with one of their friends and they're they're excited about it If you're unable to share the joy and not show enthusiasm like your spouse is and not kind of meet their same level and
meet their same energy with something that excites them , then yeah , that can be something . Now , again , one-off instances are going to happen with all of this stuff . One-off things are going to happen every step of the way . But it's when you notice a pattern and you see something consistently happening over and over and over again .
That's the moment where it says there's something going on . I don't know what it is , but there's something going on here now .
Some of the times when you might want to read the room on a situation , when you want to share some good news and your spouse is maybe feeling bad , had a really bad day . It's not something that you want to cheer them up with , in a sense , yeah let me tell you about the amazing thing that happened to me today .
I'm sorry , you had a terrible day but let me tell you what happened to me Exactly .
Don't do that . That's what's going to kill , that . You're going to be a joy kill .
Yes , you most certainly are .
So don't read the room . Know your audience on . Should I share this information of joy at this moment or wait because it can wait ?
Yes , it most certainly can wait . You'll read the room , find the right time . There's a time and place for everything and that's important to do that . So if you're experiencing that you've noticed some of these red flags , it's definitely time to take a look and just kind of dissect everything , take inventory of where you and your spouse are .
But I've got a few things here that this is a way to kind of overcome that .
If you're recognizing that stuff , there's just small things we can do , because if these things are happening , if you're noticing these things in your spouse , I'd be willing to bet everything we got it's not all on them that there are probably some things internally that we're doing that is causing that to happen .
They're not completely off the hook , but it's so hard for us to look in the mirror and point to ourselves and say you know what I could have contributed to that , maybe just a little bit . So to find a good balance there , I think one thing that's important to do is express appreciation to each other , even in the smallest little things . Little things .
You know , oh , thanks for making me a sandwich . You know , thanks for grabbing this at the store for me . Oh , thanks for you know , whatever that looks like man . That can change someone's mood so fast , especially if someone's feeling distant , seems like they're distant , if they've had a bad few weeks .
Man , something so small is just feeling appreciated can change the game I agree completely change the game . So express , uh , express appreciation , uh . The next one engage in new activities together . Try something new with each other . It could be as simple as trying a different restaurant . Instead of going to applebee's , go somewhere else . You know what I mean ?
Okay , ricky , but try new things together and I mean that's always . That's something exciting , it's a , it's an experience that you get to have together . It's the first time . It's something you remember , you can build off of that , you talk about it .
It brings back a good memory , especially if it's something fun and exciting and I'm not saying we went through anything difficult for it to happen .
But I think back when we're in Hawaii and we did the shark diving together , I mean that was an unbelievable new experience , new activity , something kind of crazy , but it's something we'll always remember , something we cherish , that we did together and our kids got to do it as well .
I mean that's a great memory as a family that we can talk about , we can remember , we can have that experience , and I mean that's just a way that it builds closeness .
Or you can just go to Applebee's and dress up really fancy .
Or you can go to Applebee's and dress up really fancy .
You don't get it , it's okay . No , I don't get it , it's okay . No , I don't get it . It's a song Fancy . I think it's fancy , like Applebee's .
Applebee's is so far from fancy , but I love some Applebee's .
It's a country song , Matthew .
Makes sense . Okay , yeah , I don't know that song . I know , did Travis Tritt sing it ?
I honestly don't know who sings it .
See .
I just know her nephew sings it .
Well , if it's a country song , what I know about country Travis Tritt definitely sang that song . So engage in new activities , matthew .
Applebee's was our first date .
Applebee's is awesome .
The quesadilla burger they used to have we dressed fancy .
It was homecoming . That's what you did .
You went to Applebee's for homecoming .
Because Applebee's was fancy at that time for us . We didn't have any fancy restaurants around us at all . Are you kidding me ? What are you going to do ? Go to Applebee's or O'Charlie's ? Those are your two spots . You got no choice . So you engage in new activities together , because that will help you with the third one . It rebuilds trust .
Rebuild trust with each other . And how do you do that ? Eng , engage in new activities with each other . Try something new , take a risk .
I'm not telling you to go jump in a shark tank and go swimming with sharks .
That takes a little bit of trust .
Maybe just stress-facing at Applebee's , maybe just stress-facing at Applebee's and the last one .
practice empathy with each other .
Oh , that's tough , I know that's tough , other oh that's tough .
I know that's tough . We talked about that in our last episode , but practicing empathy is so important , especially when you see the crap that goes on today . People are dealing with a lot of stuff . Your spouse is dealing with a lot of stuff . Be empathetic to their situation and what's going on .
Listen to them , hear them out and we talked about it the last episode . If you don't want to talk about it , go back and listen to the last episode , because we need to practice empathy with each other so badly .
So those are things I think that can easily signs , you can easily see that could cause some absenteeism in your relationship , some emotional distance , emotional detachment with each other . That , frankly , is just not healthy for you . It's not good for you .
I agree .
So do you have anything you want to add ? Baby , as I shut my laptop real quick so you can't look at it- You're a nerd .
I love my nerd .
I'm so glad that you do . Shall we leave .
We live here .
Well , you know what I mean . Until next time married AF . Internet audience .
You're so funny .
God we love . I mean until next time . Married AF internet audience . God , we love you . We are so thankful for what you do . We're thankful for this platform that you provided us . We pray over every single episode .
Every single word spoke that it comes from you and it reaches the people that need to hear it , and God just take it to those who need it , and that's really the only thing that matters . We will keep doing this as long as you want it .
We trust you to do what it is that you can do and go further than we could ever even imagine , and it's only because of you . I pray that everything that we do , you get all the honor , you get all the glory , because it's only because of you . We love you so much and we are so thankful . In Jesus name .