It looks like something else, so it looks like we're fighting about money, but in actual fact, what we're fighting about a lot of the time is we've lost our way with each other.
So we just don't know how to connect.
And I think as you go through marriage, the challenge is how do you stay connected by continually getting to know who your partner is as they continue to grow, change and evolve.
Welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we records podcast, the Gadigel people of the EU nation. We pay our respects to elders past and presence. Welcome to separate bathroom. Tim cam Dado, this is my wife Ali Dado, and we've got a great start to the year.
We do, we do, We've We're excited to have this couple on. It's slightly unusual in a sense. These two they work together their relationship therapists, they're psychologists, they've built a business together. So that's going to be really interesting to talk to them about how they work together in that sense and where their work takes them, you know, do they take it home with them and is there of a conflict within their space of their work.
Yes, and I'm actually looking forward to some I don't know, I want to say hacks, but I don't like that term. But you know, some advice and some tips on how to better navigate the relationship. Yeah. Absolutely, and I think this is a perfect way to begin. Twenty twenty three.
Kerry and Adrian Lumbiu. They run a business called Motivating Marriages, and it exists to see couples not just survive their relationships, but to thrive in it and be all the more better for haven for having chosen love. Isn't that sweet?
It's great of that. Let's bring them into the bathroom. Kerry an Adrian. Welcome Adrian and Kerrie to the bathroom.
Thanks guys, look.
At you You're a vision, you two. How are you.
Well? Thank you?
Are you are the both of you talking to us from your home or from your business home office home office? Very good. Obviously you two work together. This is what we're curious about and to hear all about the work that both of you actually do. But we whenever we get couples on, we always love to get their love story first, of course, because it's our favorite thing. So how did you two actually meet.
Do you want me to go, Well, it depends which part of the story, So we want their truth.
The truth.
We actually officially met in prison, so that's how we met, and that's always a really great story to tell people who don't know that we're actually psychologists. It's nice to see their faces. Yeah.
The real story, well that is the real The real story is that we actually well I saw Kerry three times actually, and one was when we were both at the same UNI, but we're in different courses. But we had I guess a crossover in one of the subjects there, and I saw her sort of sitting outside one of the electure holes. She grabbed my attention. You know, I don't think she saw me though, So that was the first thing. Then second, we met at the same job
interview in one of the prisons. We're going for the same position in one of the prisons there, So we met in the do you want to tell the story?
Yeah, we met in the interview process. And so I was sitting there preparing for my interview and this very polite gentleman comes up to offer me a glass of water while he was getting himself one, and I flatly refused because he was the competition.
I'm getting that I thought it was nice, was something that was something diabolical in the water.
And I can assure you there was not just good intentions there. So she refused. But anyway, so I ended up getting the job. Though. I'll just tell you.
Guys that say, I just have to say that is no indication if it's a better psychologist, that too, no competition.
But then officially, yeah, we met in one of the prisons that we both worked at, were colleagues, they're both psychologists in one of those Sydney prisons, and yeah, we just sort of met there and the rest is history, as they say.
We met.
Really, yeah, we worked close together, and probably one of the things that attracted us opposed to each other about each other was just how we both really loved justice, not just justice for the clients that we were working with, but the injustice of the system that we were working in was something that was really challenging for both of us, and our hearts and our minds met over that, really, and that's been something that has been just a bit
of a solid rock throughout our life. We're pretty big justice seekers, and we like to do things right, and we like people to be honored and respected and valued, and when we see that not happening, that's something that we always come back to in a line on So it's nice to have that.
That's a really powerful connection to have. Actually, Yes, when your values match on such a deep level like that, that's a that's a great connection to have. So, yeah, I can understand why you were both so attracted to each other from from that perspective alone, so not to as a very good looking So.
So, als do you want to ask? Do you want to ask? So? I thought I thought you might have answered this question already. But so when you did see each other, was it love at first sight?
I definitely noticed Carrie it's a uni because she had jet black hair, if you could believe that looking at it now, and jet black hair, and so I really caught my attention. I thought she looks very nice. But I didn't approach her or anything like that, but she definitely sort of stuck in my mind. And then when we met at the prison, the prior actual prison, Yeah,
we like the stuff we were talking about before. It was very quick attraction because we found that we could just talk to each other, we could talk about meaningful things connect emotionally on certain topics that carry has just talked about. So it was quite easy, wasn't that.
Yeah?
It was yeah. Yeah.
Do you think that's an actual thing? Love at first sight? About asking you to relationship experts, Well.
There's definitely components.
I mean, science has shown us like the importance of the Limerens effect, so things like that chemical attraction lust is what people call it generally, and that's very real. So like we instinctively like the smells of certain types of people, and we instinctively feel opposed to the smells of certain.
Types of people as well, And similarly.
Like we like the look of and types of people and other people we don't like the look of. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to lead to really long lasting, healthy love relationships, but definitely we I would agree that attraction at first sight is official and absolutely often say to my clients, you know, the limeerates is what brings us together, attracts us first, but love is what actually keeps us together.
Yeah, So when you say love it first time, maybe it's limerates at first time. Maybe I don't know. But after the limits effectsor of dies down, then you can actually really work out whether are you really connected emotionally?
Yeah? Right, what is that work? I've never heard that limerates limerates effect. I like that word. It's kind of sounds like angelic, you know what I mean. It's got kind of this ethereal quality to it.
I like, is it the E n C part of it, like phosphorescence or.
Yeah? I think that might be it classier version of lust.
Most about last year okay, yeah, a lot to try.
So you dated for how long before the proposals?
I think we're only dating about eleven months, but then we were friends probably about seven months.
Beforehand yep, yep, and Adrian had that proposal go.
So we it was very clear that we were going to I was going to pop the question, so to speak. And we'd gone and designed the ring together. So we've done all that stuff.
Together, okay.
And Carrie's Carrie's various stuarts. She can read she can read you just by looking at you, to put it that way. And I had to try my real best how to support well, to think about how to surprise her.
Uh.
And so we're going on this drive holiday up to Brisbane I think it was Brisbane And at the beginning of the troop, I sort of said to look, Darla, know that you really wanted, you know, to get engaged on this trip, but the ring's not ready. And I called the guy and it's just not ready. Lo and behold. However, however, I'd already organized with the guy I haven't done before
we left, so I actually had it. I called her and then when I ended up proposing on a you know, were caravan just by the water, you know, this dingy caravan park one night, and I surprised hers, so she thought it was a joke at first, but that.
Wasn't It was a very good trick.
We liked to joke with each other quite a lot, so it was quite quite well done. And when I got the ring, it was dark when he proposed, so I didn't know if it was real, and.
I'm like, did you get this out on one of those bubble gum machines?
Like is it really?
So?
Yeah, And then I was pretty horrified because I saw the size of the ring and I'm not a jewelry person, and it's actually not that big.
But when I saw it, I was like, oh, cheer, I don't know.
It was lovely, lovely I'm sorry because it was too big or too small, too big.
But it's not actually that big, like it's actually I'm just not a fl That was a.
Bit sparkly, but I've got it now. That's fine.
You've been you've been working together for how many years?
Well, we've worked together for probably about eighteen maybe not even eighteen months, so we didn't actually stay in the prison system.
For too much longer.
So there was a lot going on there and we decided, for circumstances there, decided to leave the prison system. So we went off into different jobs for a short period of time. I went off to the Independent Commission against Corruption to do some investigations work, and Adrian went off to the New South Wales on Budsman and did some investigations.
So we had probably about maybe six probably about twelve months working separately before we then came back and started working together in private practice after we got married.
And how has that been? Are they highs and lows to it? And how do you sort of navigate your world doing that working together?
We went very well together. Yeah, I'm really happy to say, yeah, very well. We've got we've got the same types of goals business wise, and Carrie carry's She comes up with a lot of ideas and she's the ideas person.
The executioner.
So you have yours.
Clearly defined.
Yeah, And that's actually one of the things that we know about happy couples is they have really clearly defined roles in their relationship, not specifically gender roles, but just this is what I'm this is what you're good at. Let's work towards our strengths. And that's something that we do, both personally and professionally quite a lot.
Do we do that?
Well, you are really good at taking out the rubbish.
And barbecuing, and I'm really.
Good at cleaning the stove top. That's yeah, it's little things. Sometimes I think we still get a bit stuck with thinking is he going to do it? Is she going to do it? We probably have a bit of that, but I think that we're fairly defined.
In our role defined.
I think fairly well we have been. I think it's changed in the last couple of years though, since I've been so much busier. You had to sort of do more than you normally would.
We started writing a script together a couple of years ago, and that was an interesting flipping and flopping of like how do we do that? Do you guys share an office? I mean, do you actually share a physical space or in different rooms?
We're in different rooms.
Yeah, And I think that's one of the things people think, like how do you work together? And we spend a lot of time together personally as well, like two peas in a pod. And I said, well, actually, we don't really spend a lot of time together at work, Like the role of us, like ologists, is actually really quite autonomous. You're in your room with your door closed with your clients for like eight hours a day.
So it's actually nice to have lunch together. I quite enjoyed.
So yeah, it's we don't actually spend heaps of time together. I think the biggest challenge we had have had running businesses together, because we've got a couple of businesses, was very early on in our marriage were quite perfectionistic. So we decided we were going to do everything, so book the clientcy and do the accounts, do the clinical work. And at one point, I'm sure our neighbors.
Would have thought to you, their marriage is we're going to last very long.
When we were sitting downstairs trying to do the accounts because I think we could have killed each other.
And it came to a blow.
We're Adrian just looked at me and said, Kerry, one of two things has got to happen. You've either got to do this by yourself or I've got to do it by myself. But we can't do it together anymore. And I said, yep, you're right. You take it, and so from that point on.
We divide and conquer a lot of things.
Are you able to turn off this sort of psychologist's mind when you meet people or have dinner with friends, or is your minds always kind of analyzing, you know, the relationship because you're sitting there.
It's hard. It's hard to switch off.
Lucky you're psychoanalyzing us right now, that's off.
Now. We I have a very very strict rule that you know, when we're driving home from the office and we're about to yeah home, so we drive home and car and we're allowed to speak about anything about work and that drive home. As soon as we pull into our eyes that's it. Stop.
Yeah.
I like that, but it is sometimes hard.
Yeah, switch you try to keep it switched off everywhere. But I think when you've been doing the job for like twenty odd years. As is the case for anybody, it's hard to sort of separate. And I think we're so immersed in our work as well, both personally and professionally.
Like it was a big step from going just into from being individual psychologists into being a couple, a couple that is a couple of therapists, you know, So that was quite a big step and for us, so I think, you know, honesty and transparency and living truth is very important. So we weren't going to go and become couples therapists if we couldn't live that out ourselves. So we live out what we teach and what we do in therapy
in our life. So it does sometimes feel like the lines are a little bit hard to manage, but we do really try. We have no interest in analyzing our friends and family.
What about what about celebrities though? Do you ever kind of read about a couple and then just look at each other and go it?
We just don't.
We don't and we don't watch any reality TV and.
You don't even watch maths. I'm sure there would be like a circus for you guys, wouldn't it, You be right?
Accuse me, I just look at people what's happening to their hearts. It just it kills me.
Yeah, so I actually I'm in the same place where you are. I look at that show and just go, oh my god, just that person's really out there looking for love. And you've got some dude who's coming from some other country and he's just ready a role, you know, and move on, get a little famous or something. And at the same time.
When you when you're when you consider the pain and suffering people have gone through in the in their childhoods and maybe even traumas and everything like that, you sort of understand why they are the way they are, and the vulnerabil has come out relationships and they you know, if you if you're already vulnerable inside, you can become hurt.
You can get hurt. So you just trying to protect yourself, and you know, you can you can see that being played out in relationships and even on TV and reality to TV and you know, and everything like that. You can see it and it is painful to see that and that people are suffering. But so that's why we try to try not to do that.
Is that usually the case that people where that today's problems come from it is usually from a childhood wound.
It's really interesting, Like I think it's definitely the word attachment now this their big buzzword on social media, and it's really exciting that people are starting to learn about
attachment theory. But attachment theory underpins most of what we do in psychology, and in a nutshell, it is about how when we come into the world do we attach to our primary care gives, so mum and dad, and how are not only our physical needs met but also our emotional needs to connection and understanding and support and
compassion and love and safety. And so the research really tells us that what happens to us in early childhood, particularly the first three years of our life, which most of us don't remember, will begin to replicate itself in
our adult romantic relationships. So if we have unfortunately an insecure attachment with our primary caregivers for one reason or another, through neglect, abuse, or various other things, then we're likely to then develop an insecure attachment style in our adult relationships and even parenting our own children.
And so I think as psychologists we.
Just understand that the childhood stuff just underpins a hell of a lot of what we go through as adults, and in turn, in response to your question, Cam, it would definitely be affecting the way that we have relationships, the marital relationships.
Now, what do you find in your practice is the biggest relationship Not so much red flag, but what tares couples apart the most.
If you boil it all down, it's emotional disconnection.
Right.
If you even say, for example, you know there's been distrust or a breach of confidence, affairs, whatever it is, and if you track it back often most often it's about the couple is emotionally disconnected somewhere down the track. And then there's what John Gotman says. I know, you guys sort of follow John Gotmin. It's like starts a cascade towards separation, breakdown, divorce, et cetera, et cetera. So in a nutshell, it's emotional.
Disconnection, really yeah, And I think it probably sort of extending on that. It looks like something else. So it looks like we're fighting about in waws, it looks like we're fighting about sex, it looks like we're fighting about money. But in actual fact, what we're fighting about a lot of the time is we've lost our way with each other. So we just don't know how to connect. We don't
know how to have like vulnerable conversations. And I think you know, as you go through marriage, the challenge is how do you stay connected by continually getting to know who your partner is as they continue to grow, change and evolve. But I think that's what we forget sometimes when we get married. We think, oh, I like this person right here, right now, and I like who they are and the way they look and the way they think.
But we're forgetting they're.
Actually marrying person who is in a constant state of evolution, change and growth. And so if we don't continue, as doctor Godman says, to date one another and get to know one another, we're actually just.
Going to lose our way.
And it's not at all uncommon when we see people coming into couples therapy that they just they don't know who their partner is. They talk about men like chips in the night, We don't know each other. Send them out on a date night, they look at you and like, what are we going to talk about? Because they've got nothing to talk about, you know. So, yeah, it looks like a lot of other things.
But underneath it.
I'd say the primary is should I agree with you as emotional disconnection and distance.
It's full on, isn't it. And I mean, Alie and I have been married for thirty one years now and we I feel like we've been through a lot of variations of what you're talking about. And I know that as you're talking about that, my my belly just flips, you know, because we are dynamic and we do change and and and and it flips because of the fear
of like that. It comes back to fear, I think, fear of I don't know, I'm not quite sure yet, but but that stays with me and I and for me and hearing things like emotional detachment or you know, a lot of a lot of sort of therapized labels. They can, they can they throw me off, And I've used them, you know, guilty, but I've always used them, maybe to keep distance with something or try and understand
something better. But actually the hard part for me is always getting back to what's the what's the actual the truth of it without putting a flashy label on it, but to get that to the real heart of the feeling, and to me, it often comes back down to fear of not being seen or just feeling alone.
Yeah, alone, absolutely, Jamie. What you're talking about there is what we call attachment fears. Attachment fears one hundred percent agree with that. It is about fear. It's about fear of not belonging. It's not the feel about not feeling approved of or accepted by one another. Right, and when we don't feel that we are accepted and we fear that stuff happening, then we go into our you know, that sort of very primal self protective mode that we taught ourselves when we were you know, as a child.
We taught ourselves how to survive right in through the so called traumas of childhood. And we just go back to that. And when that happens and we don't effectively work through those things, such as those attachment fears, that it can tear the relationship apart. And there's a really good sort of model of therapy that I'm not sure if you guys have heard it, called e f T or emotionally focused therapy by Foodson. She's another clinical psychologist.
Moment the station, I think, and basically the premise of that is is helping couples or individuals to actually identify what their fears are from childhood, because that is actually what gets triggered off when we have dysfunctional conflict in our relationships. We just or we all go back, we revert back to our childhood state where we felt safest and how we protected ourselves as children. And that's yeah, that's right. So I totally agree about that fire.
Yeah, So how can we be better at noticing when Because it's, like I said, it's a dynamic thing, and you've noticed we're always changing and moving. How do you get better at noticing when things are sliding not in the grass?
Think, I think the thing that's most important to understand is that and it's very hard to do in the modern days that relationships take time, Like we don't actually afford enough time to just sit and get to know one another and talk to one another, whether.
It's as couples or even with our own children.
You know. And so to give people, I suppose, something to strive for, Like the Gotman Institute talks about there's a difference between happy couples and unhappy couples of about six hours a week, which is less than an hour a day. And if you check your social media usage. I reckon you can find the time, but it's time that you actually have to dedicate to your relationships. So that means like chatting with each other each day about like how's your day been going? Like what have you
been stressed about? How can I support you? How can I comfort you in the day to day stresses, making sure we share like fondness and admiration and affection with one another every day, but most importantly late, let's sit down once a week. The Gotman Institute talks about having a state of the Union conversation, which is like having a meeting about your relationship, like what have we done well this week?
How have we managed you know, challenging things this week?
And then it also provides a really safe space for us to say and this is what hasn't been working for me or this is my complaint for the week, and then gives each other the opportunity to say, like what what can I do to make you feel loved and supported this week? So like, beautiful conversations like that really prevent the slide that you were talking about.
Cam.
If you just are very intentional about, you know, making sure you connect regularly, that can prevent the slide I think from occurring.
That's great, and it's it's simple like that. That's what I love. Okay, could you just you know, I know it's hard to sort of put it in a nutshell, but could you just explain to the listeners what the Gotman Institute is. I know both of you are trained. What would you say, Gotman Institute, got therapist, there you go. So if you could explain a little bit more about what that actually means.
So the Gotman Institution has been operating for over four decades now. Prior to their work and the work of doctor su Johnson we reference before. In the study of relationships, what we found was that couples, no matter where they went to go and get help, their relationships would get worse, not better. So even if they went to a therapist
or their family, their relationships wouldn't get any better. The Gotman Institute is fantastic insofar as it's the first bunch of people that have actually stopped and paused and looked at what it takes to make a relationship work. So they've been instrumental in studying couples and doing what we call longitudinal research following them up for decades after their initial study, and they've looked at couples in their environments. So they've actually looked at what it is that they
do that makes their relationship work. And this has been described in their work the seven Principles that make Marriage Work. So what we do as Gotman therapists using the Gotman Men method is we're teaching couples or unhappy couples, what happy couples naturally do. Because we know that there are couples that are unhappy. We're staring down the barrel of around about a fifty percent of all straight but all those ones that are unhappy, there's also a bunch of
people not quite another fifty percent. I don't think there's a whole bunch of people that just innately know how to make relationships work. And you would know those people when you come across them. They're just those couples that everybody actually wants to be. They still hold hands when they're like eighty and still look into each other's eyes.
And so the Gotmin Institute, their method of therapy is all about teaching couples what happy couples are doing day in day out that make their relationship go.
The distance.
Probably not the neatest nutshell, but.
No, that was great. And can you, Adrian, tell us, what are some of the things that a happy couple does every day?
Yeah, so this is what godin calls the masters of relationship versus the unfortunate name of the disasters says, masters versus disasters relationships.
You falls that line, right, that's right.
But they so masters. They first of all, they do a lot of what what Gotman calls small things often. So it's it's not it's not good enough to go through life together not connecting on a daily basis, and then having those one or two really big gestures, you know, once or twice a year, because they mean nothing if you're not connecting constantly. So what Gotman suggests is small things often, and these are very very simple things that anyone can do in your listeners could start doing the
right away. One of them is what he calls the sixth second kiss. And so that meaning that when you are greeting each other, you know, when when you finished work or you're saying goodbye in the morning, that you actually make physical contact. You kiss bought six seconds. If you've ever timed out six second, that's quite a longside of that, it's a kiss for But anyway, that's what they've sort of found and that creates again an emotional connection.
Kerry mentioned the state of the Union conversation, So that's weakly having this conversation about how our relationship is going, what are the pitfalls, what's going well, etc. What are your needs and are they being mets and everything like that.
It's also having and I think this is probably really important for it for all of us, is having extremely functional conflicts because in relationships, obviously we're not going to agree on everything with different people, and in couples therapy we don't say you have to agree with each other on everything. It's still individuals. But so if conflict is inevitable,
we need to be able to have conflict that is functional. Right, So this is what the masters do, and just in a Nutch of how they do it, they when they're having conflict, they take care of each other. It's not me against you, it's us against the issue. Right. We are gentle with each other and soft with each other when we're working through the problem. I don't shut you down.
I listen when you're talking. If you're in pain. Gotlin, one of Gotlin sayings is when you're in pain, my whole world stops and you're the only one in it. Type of thing I seek to understand you. I demonstrate compassion, empathy, and validation even if I disagree with you. You know, these are the things that anyone can do. Yeah, to be difficult, difficult in the heat at the moment, but these are some of the things that the Masters are doing naturally.
I remember from reading some of their work, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but it really hit me. Is one of the things I loved them talking about is look for the signs of when someone's making a bid for connection. And it might not look like, as you say, the big grand gestures, but it might just be are you hungry? Yeah, do you want a cup of tea? You know, it's those little gestures that say
also saying I love you mean something to me. And I just I loved that because it just brings me an awareness of of how many times you know you're thinking of me, you know, when you give me a call or a text or do you know what I mean, And it's just like an emoji or an emoji.
I got mad at her once because she didn't wasn't she wasn't re emojiing me when I was like, and I'm like, I'm sending you, Yeah, I'm sending all these emojis of love, arts and kisses and stuff, and she's just sending me these straight words and I'm just going what Finally, I said, you got it reaching out by a text, you know what, I'm emojis.
But then what happened was is that I went back through all the text messages and lo and behold there were emojis. And I was like, a mate, I'm like, well.
What's this?
This?
This, this this and this and this is this. It was like we were ships in the night on the emoji.
Train talking about there. Ali is turning towards bids connect. So that whole turning towards is that's essential. The other ways you can and they're not preferable. Of course, they're turning it away or turning against. So turning away is just ignoring the bid. Turning against is actually turning against your partner, braiding them or whatnot for making that bid. But we want to be turning towards and the masters, I think the statistic is the masters turn towards each
other eighty six percent of the time. That's pretty high, pretty high. But the disasters are only turning towards each other thirty three percent of the time, So it's a big difference. But that's actually what shows that your partner you, I'm aware of you on my world and I'm constantly seeking you out, and whenever you're making a bid, I'm looking to meet that emotionally. And so yeah, so the turning towards bids is extremely important.
It is challenging to do there, and I think again that can come back to early life experiences. So what we have experienced growing up as bids for connection in our own family of origin can result in us sometimes missing completely that our partner is actually making a bid for connection.
Perfect example is somebody.
Might have grown up in an environment where the way they connected was by being quite playful and joking all of the time, and they might not have been great at sitting down and having deep emotional conversations, but that playful, joking sort of approach was how they tried to connect with family, and so you can then miss that bid for connection and just feel irritated with your partners joking around but not realize that they're actually attempting to connect with you.
So yeah, it's hard, and I think what you were saying, Ali was good.
You need to sort of like look out for the bids for connection and in return and respond to them turn towards them.
So I guess that would be alleviated or brought to light through one of these States of the Union checks that you have. And you're going, you know, you don't give me what I'm needing or whatever, and then you go, yeah, but this is the way I do it. Question for you, Al did you get because Ali brought in the State of the Union thing to us, But I'm not sure
if you've actually pitched it like that. You just said we should we should actually sit down at a certain time, you know, so it was a weekend thing and we'll chat about where we're at. Was that from the Gotman Institute?
Yea, yeah, I didn't know. I actually didn't know it was called the State of the Union. I didn't Actually it's a very American thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was weird because we just kept it to three questions. It's like, what went really well this week with you and I? What do we what? What do you? And it was just the way it was phrase. It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like when were you a dickhead?
This week we changed it to that, we change it it was yeah, it was yeah, what what didn't what wasn't working? And what do you And then we finished with what do you want more of? What more do you want?
So?
And I really liked that finishing with that because then it's still finished on a still finished on a positive yeah. So yeah.
And then the other thing that is added in the State of the Union that's really important and grossly underestimated how important this is is sharing fondness and admiration and appreciations. Like actually, and this is one of the big things that we have to teach people is it's not enough to think nice thoughts about your partner, Like as we
are all inherently actually quite insecure. So if I'm not hearing from you that you approve of me, that you like me, that you appreciate me, that you value me, I start to doubt whether or not those things are true. And so that's something we do a lot of when we're dating. We tell each other what we like about each other a lot. But that's one of the things
that masters do when we encourage that. In the State of the Union as well, Like started off with not only what did we do well as a couple, but hey, I've been looking at you and here's a situation. I saw you get down and play with our little daughter when she fell over and hurt her knee, and I just looked at how comforted she was by your beautiful
hug and I'm so glad that you're her dad. Like, it's those sorts of things that you actually have to say out loud to people because that really really strengthens the relationship.
Yeah, what do you say to cynics? You must come up against people in therapy who come in like the husband or the partner's been dragged in by the other person, and they just going, I just don't that's not necessary. What do I have to say that? What you know? And are they like the hard the hard edge, the hard shell people? And then you bust through them and then they yeah, minutes they're crumbled. But how do you deal with those with those cynics? What what do you do?
Because I sometimes feel that myself. In fact, as we're talking, I'm going, I don't want to have a state of the union thing.
I don't want to have to.
I can think of a half my golf buddies up there on the hill would just be like, just relax, have a beer, you know, so what do you? What do you? How do you crack that egg?
Really good question, and then we do come up against that. It's not just males, right, it's but it comes look, I think I think it comes down to the concept of what we call meta emotions meta emotions, and really it just means that how well or it does does how is the person of the individual and the relationship, how much does it place on talking about how we
feel to each other. It's the importance that we place on how much or how we we're talking about how we feel about each other talking about how we feel to each other. Uh. And a lot of us have what we call low metal, meaning that we don't place importance on talking about how we feel because of the way we're going back to what we talked about, our attachment styles, about the way we were taught about or
not taught about our emotions. So some of us are, and your lisses might a lot of your listens will probably relate to this that we weren't raised to acknowledge that emotions are important. We weren't nurtured in our emotions. We were some of us might have even been told that our emotions, our emotions are wrong, we shouldn't have them, and what we shouldn't feel, that we should feel something else, or no, that's not okay, you're a big boy or girl,
you shouldn't cry, all that sort of stuff. I mean, this is this is quite common in people, and so when we got into adults and we have our adult relationships, we carry that with us. And we've never been able to understand what our emotions actually are, and so therefore we're uncomfortable we're talking about emotions, especially our negative emotions, so we shut them down, all right, And then we do we sort of say, well, why do I have to say that? Why can't we all just get along?
Why can't we just that's okay, don't worry, you're too sensitive, It's all right, Yeah, there's no problem here. But it comes down to how comfortable do we feel in ourselves
about talking about emotions. And if we assess an individual or a couple that are low in matter emotions, we do a lot of work to teach them how to talk about emotions and teach them about importance of feelings and when you actually are able to express your vulnerable feelings for each other, your vulnerable emotional needs to each other, and the other person actually hears that and validates that and says that makes a lot of sense, and I want that for you. Then that teaches them and reinforces
for them that's okay to have emotions. It's okay to tell my part. It's safe to tell my part that I feel this, even if it's a negative emotion. So yeah, so that's quite.
An adult It's quite an adult thing, though, isn't it, Adrian, Because I know for me in my family, we were not brought up to be speaking emotions. And I know my mum and dad have have railed against me in the last twenty five thirty years, you know, God, dam you just you talk too much, or you know, it's you're you get too emotional or deep or just you
know that sort of stuff. So it's not really supported yet yet it is supported when the byproduct of it is comes out, you know, and it's been a better result. So though I find having that's been my training, that's almost like a default thing. So if I'm not in the adult mind, you know, in a grown up cam version of me, if I'm back, you know, I saw an image of actually I said, it's someone today of a grown man sucking on a dummy, and it's like this,
you know, this childish way of being. If I feel like that, I can easily drift back into that attitude of we don't need to talk, you know, I'd rather not. So that's what I mean. It takes a conscious mind and an adult intention to say I want to have I know, most of the time, I want to have a better relationship, I want to be seen, I want to have my needs mat So there's this constant push me, pull you. And I'm sure I'm sure there's going to
be a lot of our listeners. I would hope i'd think I'm an island here, but I think a lot of people would relate to that. Is that your experience too?
Absolutely? Yeah.
I think that we just really grossly underestimate how important our emotional world. And we live in a culture I think, you know, where it's easy to make fun of emotions, like I think that's a huge part of it as well. But I think that when you get people into couple's therapy and you can actually help them very much experience emotional connection with a therapist and then with their partner,
that is transformative. Like I call it magic. Like I'm on a high after sessions when I have a session of what we call an engaged emotional encounter where I talk about two hearts meeting. And often it's not even a lot of words that need to be said in those moments, but it's like the look in someone's eyes when they can look into their partner's eyes and actually
see and feel their pain. And when we receive that sort of care, like we're seen on a very deep level, we're known on a very deep level, and our pain and hurt makes sense to another person. There is nothing like that. The toughest man will crumble under that, the hardest woman will crumble under that, and not crumble in a bad way, but in a way of like, this is what I'm longing for. This is what all human beings are longing for, deep emotional connection, fully being seen,
known and cared for by another human. Yeah, and that transforms people.
And then you see.
People going, all right, what's the name of that book? You're telling me about how can we do this? What courses can we come to?
And they literally.
Turn turn a corner corner.
It's just it's magic, funny.
I love it and I and I just see that working across the board, you know, as a parent, to the child, as your girlfriend, you know, as your sisters, or wherever you're having relationship. As you said, everyone wants to be seen and heard. It's particularly in their vulnerable emotions and working with kids like I do. I've got a there's a there's one girl in my class particularly who I who I work with, and she's special needs.
But at the same time, she's so special because she will look at me and she'll she'll go, I am feeling really angry right now, and it is building in my body and I've got to scream. It's like, all right, we're going outside to scream. I'm like, imagine if we could all say things like that, so good, so good. I know, right she's been taught either by her mum or her therapist, god lover, but I just love that.
I'm like, Wow, if we could all just be that expressive from such a young age, you know, we'd be we'd be a lot more connected than probably you know, a lot of us are not. But yeah, I love it.
It's the innocence you know, children, isn't it. You know, we're corrupted by the world, the world type of thing, you know. But I just want to just sort of ad to go back to what you said came before
about that fear. You know, you're mentioning that fear. And because of that fear and the hurts from childhood, right, we build this shell around us, right, And that's and that shell tells us not to be vulnerable, because every time I was vulnerable as a child, I was not given by in fact, love was taken away from me, or I was punished for that, or I was abused things like that, right, And so what happens is that
shell stays with us. And when we get those types of people who've been so hurting in therapy, no way they're going to just at a whim just say, oh, okay, I'm going to be vulnerable now, right, a complete stranger in the worst time of my life. Yeah, in my relationship. So but what couples therapy is about, it's about showing that hurt individual that their partner is their source of safety and their source of comfort, right, and it might not be that way right at the start of therapy.
They might have hurt each other so much and there's so much distrust and betrayal there. But our job as therapist is to be able to create that what you know, they would cause we would call secure attachment right between the two the two individuals. And once we reach to secure attachment, then each party feels able to be vulnerable with each other and then meta emotions build and then
they can emotionally connect reconnect, and that's just blossoms. So it is coming right back to that fear stuff of childhood and undoing that I guess within the therapeutic situation, and.
It might if I can just add, because I think this would be something really helpful for your listeners to understand, is that the fear is really profound, like it's on a visceral level, Like it's like a phobia.
You know.
Like some people are just so distressed or uncomfortable with any feelings of vulnerability that they can actually become completely mute, like unable to speak when they get overwhelmed with emotion. And that obviously for the person that's trying to connect with them is really challenging. But we also really have to understand that the person who hasn't been really guided on how to get in touch with their emotions, like, they're in a lot of distress when they're shout down,
they're very, very overwhelmed, and they're very uncomfortable. And if you can think of your worse fear like mine would be walking to the edge of a cliff, like and just jumping off. Like that's what we're asking people to do when we're asking them to talk about their emotions, and we don't give that enough enough credit. How hard that is.
If you're in a relationship with someone who, Okay, you've recognized this person is completely shut down to having a vulnerable conversation about their feelings because okay, now I understand it's about fear. What would I do then? How do I support that person to have a conversation about their feelings.
You're asking the right person, because I'm married to the guys.
Is it something you guys go through?
Your friendly neighbor. Psychologists also have problems.
You're human.
And we all struggle, right, And no, I'm not comfortable with talking about emotions in my personal life. I'm great at you know, my therapy stuff because it's other people's emotions, but you know, I can guide them through that. But just to feel my own that that's that's difficult for me. And you know, with through all the stuff that we've learned, you know, as professionals, but also growing in our emotional
connection as a married couple. And Carrie carry is a natural at this stuff, right she she really is, and
she lives and breathes, breathes and stuff. I've learned a lot from her, you know, personally, and she's provided me with a secure base, you know, emotionally, so that you know when I when when when emotions come up for me, especially those difficult, painful emotions and negative emotions, when I start to feel that my natural interestinct is to withdraw into myself and that's because of my stuff, my baggage
that I'm carrying from childhood and everything like that. But what has helped me is that being married to Kerry, and she loves to talk about her own emotions in
a very articulate way. She will encourage me to do that, but she does it gentlely, and a gentleness comes this realization that oh, okay, well here's someone here's willing to see me, hear me, and understand me without judgment, right without without any sort of repercussions for feeling the way I feel, even if it's a negative emotion, and that provides me with a secure base to go okay. So emotions are actually okay, you know. And they're not these
things I should hide away and be ashamed of. They are things that are naturally occurring within me and are going to be encouraged by the one that I love and the one who loves me. And therefore I'm more willing to feel able. I feel empowered enough to be able to be open about those and to validation and
compassion and unconditional love. And that's how that works and what brings that type of person with their difficulties with emotions and difficulties with better emotions out to talk openly with people that you trust that you feel secure here.
I'm glad you said that, Adrian, with people you trust, because some of us tend to overshare with people that that and you kind of got, why are they telling me this? You know they don't know me from Adam. I also have that with with my charity, my Men's Team, and we have our we have our team, and you know will be and this is the this has been That tricky thing is to get men to come and share what's going on, share their life in that way. But I always encourage guys just just do as much
as you're comfortable with. And it's going to take a little time to learn to trust this group. They may be friends, but they also may be strangers. But I think it's really important to hold in you know, what is sacred to you. Until you have that that trust in yourself and that it's been it's reflected with the people that you're sharing are with.
Yeah. Absolutely, coming back to what you were saying, Ali about what do you do if you've got a partner who withdraws a lot. I think that's probably one of the biggest things that we actually see as a problem in couples therapy is something that is termed the distance
of pursuer dynamic. So that's a dynamic where we've got one party and in our relationship, that would be me who's in pursuit of Let's sit down, let's talk about our feelings, let's talk about this issue, let's try and sort this out, and then we've got one person who is the distancer or with the withdrawer. So any sign
of conflict, they just retreat and withdraw. And so the important thing is not to get caught up in the distance of pursuer dynamic, because the more the pursuer pursues, the more the distance a distances, and the more the distance are distances, the more it initiates or promotes the pursuer to get in pursuit. So we've just got to recognize that that the dynamic that might be happening in
our relationship. Adrian was very kind with some of the things that he has said about me, and I hope that most of it's true, but we've definitely had our distance to pursue a dynamic. There's really valid reasons why Adrian withdraws and shuts down in conflict that make a lot of sense to me. But likewise, there's very valid reasons from my early life why I pursue conflict and
why I don't want to leave things undone. And I think that's a very very important thing for people to understand, is that there's a reason why, there's a reason behind it. And the most beautiful thing that I see really come about that when we unpack the distance.
The pursuer dynamic is.
The pursuer is actually trying to restore connection, and the distance is actually trying to preserve the connection that's there without making it get any worse. So it's so beautiful when people actually and see we're after the same thing, we're just trying to do it in a different way. That's a really helpful thing for people to understand. Try not to get caught up in the dynamic that exists there, and remember that you're trying to go for the same goal, which is that connection.
I've never heard that described.
Like that, and I've never so just as a just as on a work level, do you use those terms like this? It's a pursuer dynamic with your clients, do you is that? And that doesn't that doesn't push them away going off this is too bloody weird.
But by the time you're introducing those terms, you know, you've got pretty good the poor with them, and the process in which we take them through is very gentle, you know. And it's it's not blaming you don't You don't point things at anyone.
Yeah, that's important.
Non it's confrontational in the sense that we do have to elicit emotions out of people and help them through those, but non confrontational so far as it's non blaming. So when we reach that time where we're talking about those types of terms, so for example, they already know what that means, the background about we've developed a very good before and whatnot, so they.
Usually and it's quite validating for them.
I think it's really so many people are like, oh, so this is a thing.
I'm like, yep, right.
The way I understand it now is exactly what I was sort of referring to with my mum and dad before, just going, here's me pursuing an emotional connection and then distancing, going we want to keep our connection, so don't rattle the cat.
Just nice, we don't want to have problems.
And what I what I was just going to say too, just as you were speaking, is that what I also love about the work that you both do and the therapy work, is you actually don't necessarily need to have two the partners in there together. You can actually change their relationship just by one person. And I think that's sometimes what people forget that they go, I can't get my partner to come with me to relationship therapy and while while it may fast track it and be better,
just you can actually make a difference in the relationship. Yeah, once you discover the needs of yourself and perhaps the needs of your partner through doing the work with you guys.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that. Yeah, we've got two businesses, so Motivating Minds we do a lot of individual therapy and they're Motivating Marriages, which is our sister company that grew out, and Motivating Minds is where we
do all our couple and parenting work. And so definitely, if people are aware that they're struggling into personally so with relationships, be it with their partner, their children, colleagues, friendships, they can definitely see an individual psychologist and do some phenomenal work and learning about themselves and relationships and develop the skills they need to become more interpersonally affective in their relationship.
Yeah. Great, Oh we could talk forever. This is so interesting, but we do need to get to that. We do need to get to the shower.
Honey, you're ready for the shower, you too, So we do we do something called a two minute shower, and this is where we just ask you a series of questions and so keep your answers short one word.
But if you need a few more words, we allow that as well. So we will ask the same question to both of you.
Who's funnier?
Oh, that's a hard one. We both think we're.
We're both equally.
It's a tie.
Okay, we're having a long a bit of a longer shower. How important is humor in a relationship?
Massively important?
Yeah, a great agreat. What is your partner's basic philosophy in life?
Carrie's is to love pretty much, love everyone, forgive people and see people for who they are, not just for good, but also they're not so great as well, and to exit accepting Yeah, and sums you want?
Yeah, agents I think would be if you're going to do something, do it right and do it well. Yeah.
What what what do you miss when you're not together?
I'm carry Carry is a very big presence, but you wouldn't know that outside of the home. But she's really big present in our in our marriage, and when she's not there, it's just I just miss you. He's just not there, And yeah, just missed a lot about her, actually, yeah.
Probably miss the comfort and safety of Adrian. He's very stable and very comfortable and safe. World feels safe with him.
Yes.
Nice. What the world needs more of is.
People really seeing and knowing one another on a deep empathic level.
That's pretty much.
Just ask another question just as on that, what what part does technology and do you see a part for phones and things like that in that getting to know each other really well?
It's definitely a distraction, huge distraction. And when one of the workshops we run the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and actually has a section on the to help couples to water against that because it is a problem.
Is that chapter call put a bloody phone down.
And I think it creates such a false illusion.
I think that's my heartache when it comes to anything social media, like, there's just such a false illusion. Even the stories you hear of people's heartaches usually has like this filter around it, whereas you know, at the end of the day, we're all just quite vulnerable and messy and we've got heartache, we've got pain, and it would be nice to just be real about that.
There's a song in that. I'm going to write that down.
I'll ask still ask the last question you can ask you, Okay, last question describe each other in one word, Oh, you can take more, It's okay.
Yeah, it's denacious is one that comes to mind really extremely care of go for So you want something, you'll just go for it. There's no stopping it. One word.
It has to be too beautiful heart Ah.
I love that. Thank you so much Adrian and Kerrie for your time. That was so so interesting and you've clearly got a lot of knowledge and clearly the kindness of who you both are come shining through and the way you talk, the way you talk about your clients and the work that you do. So thank you so much for this chat.
Thanks pleasure, Thank you for having it.
Thank you.
That was fantastic.
Did it sounded like you had a lot of personal a lot of personal things sort of get.
Well, you know, I'm back on the therapy train.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm actually diving into some things.
And okay, that's where some of those questions were coming from, right.
They're just things of things have sort of just a bit up for me in that way, and so it was just lovely to speak. And one of the things that's been I guess pointed out to me is after doing therapy for many years is how much I hide behind labels.
And oh, okay, that makes sense when you're asking those questions.
Yeah, and it's like, well, what does that actually mean? You know, I'm like, oh, well this and this, and therapist is like yeah, but that seems like a bit of gobbledy goop and I'm like, oh shit, right. So it's really been great for me to get to the true kernel of what it is that I'm feeling. And that's when I that's when I said, you know about fear, going wow, I still live with a whole lot of fear,
so I'm unraveling that for myself. So but when she talked when they mentioned the distance pursuer dynamic, oh god, need another I don't need another label to describe something, right though, what she was what they were actually describing, was quite brilliant in that, you know, chasing someone's running away from someone who's trying to actually pursue depth. And I think we can have a long chat about this afterwards, because I reckon we're prime candidates in our own way
for it, which is great. I'll do't mind opening up that that can of worms with you, because at the end of the day, what I do know from our work together and our therapy and our chats that we always are way closer as a result. It's worth it. It's worth it the pain of going I have to talk about this, Yes we do.
It's always worse afterwards. And I love the thing, you know, just those small things that they said about, you know, what difference can we make in our relationships?
Now?
It was small things often six second kiss.
Which we did the other day. Yes, I know, and I haven't spoken about it. Is my gotman, honey. It was so sweet and I.
Loved it and how are you? And functional conflict as well, all of those I know that's another label, but they did explain it. No, they explained it really well, just just the gentleness of understanding conflict and where it comes from. And so it's to me that was like I don't call names, you know what I mean, Like, it was just being able to have conflict but make it functional so you don't end up more torn apart than where you started. So that's the way I took it though.
They just there was just a simplicity to how they were talking about relationships and therapy and it was just really beautiful.
I agree, And the fact that they said that humor is a big part of it, and I often will lead into a joke to not feel what's actually going on though. The humor is a good thing. Yeah, you know, as long as it's not a power leak.
Yeah you know, or used to push away correct Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. What a great way to start the year. Yes, for those of us desiring relationship, for those dealing with the end of a relationship, what great information to have at the beginning of the year when you're setting goals.
Or and again if you're single or you know, wh where can you use it with yours at work, or your or your best friend or you just need to be a lover? Yeah yeah, so it fits in everywhere.
I hope you enjoyed it. Listener. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And because I certainly didn't, got lot out of it. I think that we are we listen and more six second kisses, more small things often, and more State of the Union speeches or not speeches conversations.
That's right, Barack Obama, here we come.
Yeah.
Yeah. So until next time on separate bathrooms, please please be kind to each other and be safe.
Thanks for listening.