4 Relationship Struggles We Go Through and 6 Steps to Connect More Deeply

that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now. I am so excited for today's episode because it's been something that I've been thinking about a lot, and as you know, I've been focusing so much on our relationships, romantic friendships, family community this year and my new book Eight Rules of Love, which is releasing on the thirty first of January, that you can preorder right now, and when you preorder, you get my free workshop on the

eight Cliches of Love. This free workshop is only for those who pre order the book before the thirty feet of January, and I walk you through some of the cliches that we've been told about love and whether science shows them to be true or false. So whether you think about love at first sight or whether you think about waiting for the one. I actually debunk a lot

of those myths. As you can tell, I've been obsessed with love and relationships because I feel the pandemic led us to being less connected, less closer, and less able to form deep bonds. Also because I keep talking to people who find that they're winning in so many areas of their life but losing in relationships. How many people do you know that feel like they're winning in their passion, on their business, but feel like they're struggling in their

love life. How many people do you know that are successful at being great friends but are struggling to find that partner. In this episode, I'm going to break down the four key challenges that every relationship will go through and how to have a new perspective to think about it differently. You're going to find that these four key

issues we talk about are universal. You're going to be listening and thinking, jay I broke up with my ex because of that, I'm struggling with my present partner because of that. I'm scared of getting into another relationship because of that. Right, the themes and the insights in this episode are going to help you, whether you're single, whether you're in a committed relationship, or whether you just broke up.

I want this to be an episode that you'll also pass on to your friends because I find that, as I always say, we haven't been educated on how to have healthy relationships. We haven't gone to a class or learned how to build real connection, and so we keep waiting for the right person. We keep looking for the one, We keep hoping that this person is going to miraculously appear, that we don't realize that it's something we have to learn, understand,

break down, and create. So I'm going to walk you through these four key challenges and issues that every relationship will go through. I'm going to share with you the insights and the takeaways, and I want you to make notes if you can on this one. If you are walking, or you are moving around, or you're driving, that's absolutely fine. Make sure you take a screenshot and come back to this one. And I want to say thank you to

everyone who's been leaving reviews recently. I have been reading them and truly brown away by your love and your commitment to on purpose. I appreciate you. I'm grateful to you. And I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode. So I want to dive in with the first one. So the first challenge is something that I know everyone's going to be able to relate to. I recently shared a section of a Q and A session I did on my Instagram page. It went absolutely viral Instagram and TikTok.

I could see that a lot of you resonated with it. And I was talking about a friend of mine who just got back from a vacation with her partner. She was telling me that she didn't fell she spent any time with him. And I was like, well, you just went away. What do you mean And she said, well, he was on his laptop, and then he was on his tablet, and then he was reading his book, and I didn't really spend any time with him. And I said, well,

the challenges you're not really asking for time. You're asking for presents. You're asking for energy. But the word you're using his time. So in his eyes, spent the weekend with you, he spent time with you. But really what we're looking for his energy, what we're looking for his presence. And what we find is that even when we're in the same space. Even when we're in the same room as our partners, if they are distracted while watching a show on their phone, on their laptop doing some work,

we know that their attention isn't with us. And therefore, even if someone sits with us for an hour or two hours or three hours, it feels like less than three minutes. And even more than this, it feels worse. If you don't see someone. It's different than when you see them but you don't feel seen. How many times have you sat with someone you can see them in front of you, but you don't feel seen. It's worse

than if you didn't see them that week. And this term is such a common experience that it's called techno ferens. And one study found that techno ferens, where computers, phones, tablets, or TVs interrupt couples everyday. Interactions occurred in around seventy percent of relationships. Now, I don't know a relationship that doesn't have this challenge, so I'm sure that's more like

one hundred percent. But in another study, thirty eight percent of partners said they even sent texts or emails during

conversations with their partners. Right, how many of you know that you're constantly dealing with this where you're trying to talk to your partner but they're checking the results of the game, or you're trying to communicate with your partner but they're distracted because they're thinking about something at work, or how many of you have noticed your partners say yes, yes, yes, I'm with you, but then their phone rings and they immediately go to grab it. This can be okay in

the beginning. You can tolerate it, you can understand it. But it starts to wear on us. It starts to create challenges, it starts to create stress. And I know many many of you can relate to this. So how do we navigate this? The first thing I want you to do is I want you to set a rule that when you want your partners undivided attention, you communicate that. I think instead of saying I hope we can spend time together or I hope we can hang tonight together.

When you want their undivided attention because you have something important to share or something important to communicate, say to them, when can we have some undivided attention time? When can I sit with you? When you will have the opportunity to fully listen. I know you have a lot going on. I know that there are a lot of demands on your time. When is the right time the challenges? We

often want now to be the right time. We want whenever we want to be the right time to be the right time for them, And often out of fear or pressure, our partner can say, shure, so sure, I'm with you, I'm totally focused, And they're doing that just to make us feel better. And then they're not focused because they were distracted. And now you notice they're distracted,

So now you're even more upset with them. Now they're upset because they actually tried to make you happy, But now you're not happy because they tried even though they weren't ready. And now they're upset because they haven't focused on what they needed to. Notice how your intentions can be beautiful, your perspective can be wonderful, your desire to be there for each other can be totally right. But

you can make a complete mess. I want you to avoid this, and the way to avoid this is to ask your partner, when can I have your undivided attention? Have something really important to share with you? Sometimes we just go straight in and we say, oh my gosh, I have to tell you this, and we're demanding. We're expecting complete focus from our partners, and at best they

give us their attention, but we're not satisfied. And at worst they can't give us their attention, and we feel they don't love us, or they don't care about us, or they don't value what we've just told them. What I've found is that when you're communicating big news with someone, when you're communicating important things with someone, you've had time to process that thought and idea, and when you're ready to share it with them, you want to make sure

they're ready to right. It's almost like when you get if you got asked to a pop quiz at school, or you get asked a really tough question that you weren't expecting in an interview. You don't want to put your partner in that position, and you don't want to be in that position. So set the expectation of when you're going to do it, what you're going to talk about, clarifying their ability. The second thing is as much as you can when you are having meals together, put your

devices away, but make a commitment. Again, we expect that if we're putting our devices away. Our partner is going to put our devices away instead of checking in and saying when can we have dinner? When we can be truly present with each other. Again, you're not asking the question in a sarcastic tone. You're not asking it in a condescending tone. You're asking it in a collaborative way. You're asking it in a way that inspires you and the other person to be fully present with each other.

Presence creates intimacy. Intimacy creates connection, Connection creates longevity. I want each and every one of you to feel connected, to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel understood. And I find that in order to be that way, in order to feel that way, we can take some responsibility to share that. The next thing I'm going to add to that is, in order to truly feel present, there's

an incredible technique called mirroring that was popularized by Chris Voss. Now, Chris Voss was a negotiated for the FBI, so he knew how to have difficult conversations and he knew how to get people to talk. When he would listen to people, he would say that the skill we have to use is mirroring. So if someone was answering a question, you would repeat the last one to three words they said.

So if you said to someone, how's your day to day and they said, yeah, it went great, you would say it went great as a question for them to then say, yeah, you know, I had a really good conversation with my friend and at work and we really connected. Or they'd say I had a really bad day, and you'd say a bad day and they'd say, yeah, you know what, I was late for this meeting and I haven't got this work done on time, and you know, my boss isn't really happy with me. And you'd say, oh,

your boss isn't really happy with you. And so you're repeating those last few words, which creates the truth of presence. There is no better way of showing your present than the repeating of the words your partner has said. In any circumstance, noddingming, whatever else you do isn't the same as actually repeating what someone has said. How many times does your partner say to you, well, you're not really listening. You don't really know what I'm trying to say. What

did I say? Tell me what I said? Right? How many times do we hear that in an argument, and we hear it because people don't feel heard. When you're repeating what someone's saying, it's saying I hear you, it's saying, hey, is this what you're aiming at? Is this what your thing thinking about? The second key challenge in a relationship is us bringing our work stress home or today when we're working from home, we're is constantly stressed. So now

we don't have that distinction between work and home. It's all at home, right, So many of us are working multiple days a week at home. People are overworking, people are overstressing, people are working insane amounts of hours, and we don't get time to decompress. We have to go from being connected at work to being connected at home. And now you don't even get the train ride back or the car journey back. And if you do, then

you still have a bit of time. But most of us just switch off our laptop screen or look off our phone and you're right there at home. Without that natural divide. You don't have that decompression, you don't have that distressing, you don't have that disconnection. Now, one of the things that Rad's done unbelievably in our space is that when it hits around six pm, she'll put on a diffuser with a calming scent, and she'll turn on some relaxing music. And this really sets the tone of

how we want the evening to go. And I find having these physical cues, having these physical responses to how we're feeling, really sets us up to relax and rest and sets us both up to connect. An American Psychological Association survey found that sixty five percent of people named their job as their top source of stress, and just thirty seven percent felt they were doing a good job managing it. Now, think about that for a second. Not only is workplace stress the number one cause for stress,

it's also something that we are worried about. And so when we don't feel we're performing well at work and we don't we're managing our workload well, when we then feel like failures at home as well, you go home and your partner makes you feel like you're not really delivering at home either. It's no wonder that so many

of us have so much self doubt. It's no wonder that so many of us are dealing with so many high levels of stress because we feel like failures at work and failures at home, and the home is meant to be an environment that protects us. The home is meant to be an environment that rejuvenates us and refuels us. And I want us all to think about that. How can we create our home to be a sanctuary, a place where we feel refueled and rejuvenated to deal with

the challenges that will come outside of our home. So, if you're in a position, if you're in a place where your home life is feeling like a place where you're constantly being questioned, constantly being demanded upon, constantly feeling like you don't gain, or if you're creating that environment for your partner, I want you to be aware of

that as well. The use someone who as soon as your partner's home is expecting so much for them, or expecting them to fill your carp or expecting them to build you up, and suggest you do is take a moment to just breathe. When they come back, when you come back, when you both switch off your computers, just take a moment to breathe. Don't expect anything from each other, don't expect anything right away. Just give each other that

time to breathe, to disconnect to switch off. Just as our computers and our devices take time to power down, so do we. And before we start putting pressure on our partners when they're at three percent battery life, let's just be aware. Think about that for a second. At the end of a work day, we're all on like three percent battery life, and instead of charging up again, we expect more from that three percent, only for people to shut down on us. And we often say that, hey,

why do you always shut down? Or you work so hard at work, but you shut down when you're with me, We shut down because we're already depleted. Find a way to create habits for both of you, separately collectively to regenerate. For me and Radi, we found that doing something exercise based or health and wellness based really helped for me. I can't work out in the evening, It doesn't work

for me. Rady can often get a workout in the evening too, and so if she's going to work out in the evening to refuel and regenerate, I may stay at home and catch up with a friend or spend some time on my own. Now, if we're together, we may go to a cold plants together or go to an infrared sauna together, because that's something I do like doing in the evening and that makes me feel not depleted,

that recharges me. And so find out what are your individual recharging exercise and find out whether your collective recharging exercises. Figure out which nights are individual recharges or collective recharges. The other thing I wanted to share was I was speaking to a client recently who's a CEO of a company, and they've been going through some mental health challenges and stress and we've been working through them and they've been

feeling a lot better. And they were saying to me that they've been struggling with this and they don't know how to communicate it. So we were working through how they could communicate it to their team at the off site. Now my client said to me, they said, Jay, I'm scared of telling my team. When I was suggesting that they should open up to their team about what they've been through, I said, why are you scared? They said, well, I'm the strong one, I'm the leader, I'm the brave one.

My response was, what's more brave? What's more strong? Then to tell them the truth of how you feel isn't that the sign of the greatest strength and bravery that you're willing to be open with them at the offsite, they went and shared this insight. They went and shared how they felt, and all their colleagues, all their peers, had one response, us two. They were feeling the same way. Often we feel alone at work and we expect our home to make us feel connected. But we also have

to reconnect at work by creating safe spaces. If you're a leader, lead from the top and create safe spaces. If you're not a leader, create safe spaces within your peers. This will help you feel connected at work so you don't disproportionately expect more from home, and home can be a place of refruel and rejuvenation. Now, the third key

area that causes stress in relationships is finances. Money. A lot of the research from the Gottman Institute shows that there are a lot of arguments that happen around money, around financial planning, around budgeting, and so on and so forth. Now, one study from Pew Research shows that twenty nine percent

of millennials aren't financially ready for marriage. According to Pew Research Center findings, millennials are three times more likely to stay unmarried than the Silent generation born between nineteen twenty five to nineteen forty two, and seventy percent of millennials

want to get married, according to the Millennial Relationship Statistics. Now, when it comes to this idea of commitment and finances, I want to talk about something that only hit me a lot later too, and it was this idea of how much money is spent on a wedding versus how

much is spent on a marriage. Now, I did some research into this, and I was reading this article on CNN which talks about some of the research around this, and it said that on a detailed survey completed by over three thousand adults in the United States, they found that women whose wedding cost more than twenty thousand dollars divorced at a rate roughly one point six times higher than women whose weddings cost between five thousand to ten

thousand dollars, and couples who spent a thousand dollars or less on their big day had a lower than average rate of divorce. Now, it's incredible, isn't it that studies are showing that the more we spend on our wedding days, the less likely our marriages to last. Now, I'm not saying don't have a big wedding. I'm not saying don't have an expensive wedding. You should have the wedding you want to have. What I am saying is, please invest

in your relationship, whether you get married or not. You can invest in your travel, you can invest in your wedding day, but please invest in your actual relationship. Do you spend quality time together? Do you go to a couple's therapy if you need that or want that. Do you spend time talking about your relationship and the life you want. Do you communicate about your needs, your desires, your interests, and your concerns. These are the things that

make a relationship last. You can have the most beautiful wedding in the world and have the most painful marriage, and I don't think it gets talked about enough because, of course everyone wants to have an amazing party, but the party won't ensure that you don't part ways, and so don't rely on a party to make sure that you will stay together and won't fall apart. I want you to be really conscious of this idea as to what are you doing that is benefiting you as a

couple as a commitment to each other. That's the real investment you want to make. The final thing that the Gottman Institute says causes challenges in relationships is chores. And the big thing around chores is that we usually label our partners as lazy, as people who are slacking, as someone who doesn't want to help or doesn't want to support. And chances are, in the beginning we were happy to do a lot of it, but we didn't really divide and conquer. I think it's so important that we come

up with schedules, expectations, breakdowns of who's doing what. When I remember when I lived as a monk, we had a cleaning rotor and everyone could see it every week. It was up there for everyone to visualize who was meant to do what. And I think that in couples we often say, oh, I'll take care of it, I'll do it, and then as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to live up to that. Please have conversations about this, Please set expectations and responsibilities around this.

And for those of us who keep letting our partner down by not showing up, by having excuses, maybe you genuinely have too much on but then communicate that it's unfair to expect the other person to pick up our slack. A lot of the time, our relationship with chores and housework is based on what we saw in our families. If we saw our mom doing everything, a lot of people may expect the women in the relationship to do everything.

Or if you saw your mom do everything, you want to help out because you saw how tired she was. If you grew up in a family where your dad helped out, you may expect your partner to help out more, but they may not have grown up in that way. So having an expectation based on our parenting and our home isn't healthy and doesn't help. What helps is creating a new standard together, and I think this is at

the core of all relationship issues. We bring our own expectations, our own projections from our own experiences, and expect that, of course the other person will want to do it that way, not realizing that we have to reset a new standard and we have to review and reassess these standards as life changes. Maybe your partner picked up an extra job, maybe you're spending more time at home, maybe you've started a new side hustle, whatever it may be.

These expectations need to be reset and reassessed regularly. I really hope you enjoyed this episode today. I hope that your relationship doesn't fall apart because of some of these smaller things that just pile up. I know so many people's relationships that end based on small things. When they started based on big things. They started based on big points of connection, but they ended based on small points

of disconnection. I don't want that to happen for you, and I want you to be prepared for a future relationship. Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope this helps you now the gates some of these common challenges and relationships, and I can't wait for you to listen to another episode of On Purpose. Thank you so much.