Muse

From Estero, Florida, this is the One Extraordinary Marriage Show, where being busy is overdone, romancing is fun, and scheduling sex has taken the guesswork out of wondering when you're going to get some. Creators of the Six Pillars of Intimacy, I'm Tony DeLorenzo, your co-host, along with my beautiful wife, Elisa. From coast to coast and around the world, thank you for joining us. It's time to talk sex, love, and commitment. Give us a call or text us on the HUG hotline at 858-876-5663 or send us an email to hugs at oneextraordinarymarriage.com. In today's episode, we're talking about what may be happening under the surface when a small comment, correction, or disagreement turns into something much, much

bigger. There's an anonymous quote that says, connection is not built on perfection, but on presence. And I think as we're talking about when those little comments turn into something bigger, a lot of this has to do with how present we are with one another. And we'll be talking about that in today's episode. But first, we love to start every episode with a hug. And a hug is really an opportunity to celebrate you, the one family, what you're doing in your marriage, the transformation that you're experiencing. And this hug comes from an email that we received that said, I can't even express just how much my husband and I are learning from your podcast. We've never felt so excited about our marriage, which is amazing since we've been married for 24 years and counting. Our teenagers are even noticing and making comments.

Love it. I love it. We've heard it so many times before when we make ourselves a priority, the marriage, husband and wife, it trickles down and it impacts others. They see it and we've heard it. And so go do it. So congratulations, you two. And just as a side note, it's always nice when

teenagers notice something like, good job. Good job. If you can get them to notice something that's not themselves, you're doing something incredible. And so that's amazing. And like Tony said at the top of this episode, we're talking about what's happening under the surface when those comments that we make back to one another that maybe on any other day might not be a big deal, but you know what happens when they become something bigger. And the truth of the matter is that as couples, especially just knowing the longevity that is in the one family, we have a lot of you that have been married a long time. We know we have our newlyweds, our, you know, one to five years, but there are a lot of listeners, a lot of members of the one family that are 15 years plus. And, you know, every marriage has those practical responsibilities that require a conversation, right? You have to talk about the kids and the house and the bills and the calendar and the family and the plans and all of the things that, like I told clients, gosh I guess it was just yesterday the day before I'm like we have to be adults and it's really a big bummer sometimes because there's a whole lot of responsibilities yeah there are that come with being adults you know we have two 20 somethings in our house and I'm like I I would love to to be a 20 something living I don't know that I want to like go back to living in my parents house but

like I look at what they've got going on I'm like I think we're cool parents to live with though I don't think either of us could handle living with our parents love them both yeah you're right I

think that would have been a different thing. Here's to being a cool parent. We're giving ourselves a pat on the back, by the way. You have to when you have 20 somethings. But coming back to this is that a lot of times, all of those responsibilities, all of those adulting, the tasks, the conversations around how things are getting done, there can be these, the slip into where those conversations don't feel like we're having a conversation, but it starts to feel more like an evaluation a a performance review a critique a you know like how how am i measuring up where it might be a comment that says something like i need help with the kids and the internal dialogue says you're not doing enough or somebody says i'm exhausted the other one hears well you're the reason i'm so tired right and there's this stuff that's happening under the surface that it's not about whatever whatever's out there whatever's put forth but there's really a this underneath and we don't spend enough time talking about the underneath because it can be so easy just to fight about what's on the surface well and I

always think about this and when we were even discussing this episode a rip current now we used to live in San Diego and now we live on the west side of Florida but on the east side of florida it's very well known there are rip currents you don't see them from the top they're under the surface and if you get caught in one of those rip currents you're taught to just let it take you because eventually you'll come out of it you don't want to fight against it and i just feel like sometimes in our marriages we're in a rip current and what we're doing is we're fighting and we don't understand there's something going on underneath and we're getting tired we're getting beat down. We're getting like, not left.

lethargic, but we're getting, what's the word I'm looking for? Exhausting. Weary. And if we just let it go, if we just flow with this thing. And when I think of flow here with us, I think of, all right, if we just look at our six pillars of intimacy, where could we be instead of fighting against it?

Well, I love it. I actually used a rip current analogy with one of my clients a few weeks ago. So it's super fun to hear where your rip current analogy went. And I love that because I think, you know, for so many of us, those word pictures, right? Of being able to say, okay, well, what's happening at the surface, but also what's happening underneath. And I think a lot of times when we get into these conversations, you know, there's this tug of war of, of one spouse is, is trying to, trying to connect, trying to talk about something, the other, because there's this, maybe a disconnect or something else is going on. There is this tug of war. There's this unknown tension and couples are missing each other.

And let me say this, when you get caught in a rip current, it's scary as heck. And the reason being is you've lost control. You don't know what's happening. And that is happening in your marriage too. Something is on the surface and yet you're losing control. And we need to release that sometimes in our marriages. Like that's one of the big prayers I have for myself is release control. Allow God to move. But that's what it feels like when you're in a rip current. And you want to fight so badly against it because you think if you gain control, you're going to win. More times than not, we hear of the stories of somebody who died because they fought so long in the rip current. And instead of allowing yourself to release control, allow God to move, and you're going to get back up on shore. Maybe half a mile down the beach, but you're going to end up on the shore.

Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's thinking about what that looks like and what it looks like in your marriage because so often, you know, you get the, you get these tension points that maybe don't even seem like they're anything significant. Like we could have a conversation about this on any other given day. Like, why is this such a big deal today? And it's because what's happening under the surface that day isn't being discussed. And what's being discussed isn't what the real problem is, right? You have this place where it's like, well, we're going to fight about, you know, I mean, I had some clients the other day talking about the fact that it actually started with a haircut, started with their son's haircut. And, you know, just a situation, middle school boys, high school boys, you know, haircuts are like a kind of thing. And, you know, if you haven't raised a son, okay. At some point in time, they just like don't want to get a haircut or they do want to get a haircut, like haircuts, right? And so, you know, situation was mom has always been cutting the hair and dad walks in because this has been a source of tension for so long. It's just like hey maybe we should have somebody else cut his hair and what she heard in that moment was I'm not good enough but as we unpacked in what's been going on in the marriage there's been some disconnect but it became about the haircut and as they were telling me about this I was like hey just just so we're all clear and they had already figured it out by the time they had the session we just unpacked it as part of just coaching and working with them but I just kept saying throughout the session it was never about the haircut and i think a lot of times in our marriages that's that's what happens because you can get so fixated on what what the presenting problem is like what's allowed in your marriage and you know stop stop actually connecting with one another you start to both of you pull back in different ways the the one that feels like maybe they're they're criticized will start being like well i'm just not even going to try and the one that's you know like trying to throw this out like hey I'm just trying to communicate to you but when that doesn't work likely there's something going on under the surface when your normal conversation just doesn't flow when it's like hey maybe we should have somebody else you know cut his hair when that's not met with just kind of the flow of conversation like the two of you do and it does become something bigger I would say there's probably something going on under the surface it's an opportunity for the two of you to step into this and go hey let's let's call a time out here because if you don't check it and you allow that to spiral into an argument into maybe the silent treatment into all of these different types of things it will impact virtually every six every one of the six pillars of intimacy you won't want to spend time together in your recreational intimacy because you're going to feel like well you know what we don't have fun when we talk how are we possibly going to have fun when we're out together right your physical and sexual intimacy may start to suffer because if we're in this place of tension I don't want you to touch me and I'm sure as heck not having sex with you when you feel out

of alignment because of the tension that's going on in your house your spiritual intimacy could suffer

right? We all already know the emotional intimacy suffering. So, and potentially financial, right? If you're just in this tug of war around things. And, you know, what's interesting is it wasn't just the haircut, right? Like I said, I've seen this show up in other areas with coaching clients. I mean, it's happened to us, right? Like there have been times when it's like, hey, you know what? You're not making time for me. You're too busy. And, you know, the comeback is always like, do you know what i have to get done but you've said that to me oh yeah many a times i mean 30

years almost 30 years of marriage we've had our moments where things are on the surface that catch our attention and then it's like whoa whoa whoa what's really going on here it's it's the little thing that shouldn't have any it shouldn't have any bearing or any impact on our marriage and yet it's that little thing that finally cracks and all heck starts to break loose and as you're even sharing I got this this imaging in in my head of we we talk about our six pillars of intimacy and we talk about the cracks in them and I think what I saw was when we're strong those pillars are on solid ground they're they're on rock when they begin to crack the surface has now changed from rock to sand and they're moving and they're shifting and with that moving and that shifting they begin to crack and so underneath we think we're okay but now they're sitting on and standing on sand i'm just processing that yeah i mean it was just it was just an image that came to my mind in us thinking always that here's here's here's the the thing that came to my mind is we think we're they're always standing on solid ground rock and yet underneath that possibly has been eroded away or whatever may have happened which then creates

those pillars so it's not necessarily that they're on sand but that that what we think of as the foundation of our marriages and and of our pillars has has become weakened it's because i guess so this is just this is just a little yes where i'm like i can't just take them from like being on solid ground to being on sam that's really hard for my brain to do that but i can i can understand the erosion and i think for a lot of couples it is that erosion right it's the erosion of connection it's the erosion of closeness intimacy for those of you that you know don't remember that the definition is closeness and connection, that when we aren't actually supporting our marriage, literally from the ground up, that there can be these conversations that start to highlight the fact that we have eroded our strength. Yeah. I mean, think about the leaning

tower of Pisa, right? The reason it's leaning is because foundationally it's on soft ground. Is that true? Yes. At one point in time, the leaning tower was straight. Alisa's looking it up.

Oh, yeah. Because it was built on unstable soft ground that could not properly support its immense weight. Yes. Okay. And so now it's leaning. I mean, I didn't think it was built that way. I just didn't know what the cause was.

What I am saying, though, is we look at our pillars. And I think, and this is just new for me, and I'm just processing myself, but I think we see our pillars, they have cracks. And we think it's something from outside, external, that's creating those cracks. age storms whatever may happen right something hits it you know and yet we and i think i like your picture better there's an erosion underneath that we are not seeing or paying attention to and so what was stable and what was on solid ground is now sandy and like the leading tower of Pisa. It wasn't meant to hold. That ground wasn't meant to hold. So now it's leaning, which for us creates that tension, that closeness and connection. There's disconnect.

Wow. Rip currents, the leading tower of Pisa. You guys are getting everything in today's episode, but more importantly, we want to, we want to actually spend some time on what to do when there's stuff going on under the surface that maybe you, the two of you aren't dealing with. And we're going to talk about that after this break.

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We're back. And we've been talking about the disconnect that happens when the two of you aren't dealing with what's under the surface, or as we have so eloquently said, eroding your six pillars of intuition, eroding the foundation.

What I'm trying to do is help people see it from a different perspective, because some people can understand something like a rip current because they live by the water or they vacation by the water a lot there are other people who don't and so but they can understand on a creek bed when a big old storm happens there's erosion on the sides of those

i love i love it is like tony tony is on fire i am like struggling to keep up with all of his different images today i'm like okay at least clearly we've got water and like well it brings

me back it just brings me back to thinking of like our great outdoors it really does we're going next we're going next no i'm just i mean just glaciers think about just think about glaciers need to do a nature episode you know like glaciers are like pulling all the rock off the the mountain walls and everything i mean it's bring it back bring it back all right bring it

First things first, what's going on in your, like in your ask, in your conversation, like the person that's saying it first, like when that first interaction happens, like, hey, what about the haircut? Or I don't feel like a priority, like pause for a second, because let me tell you, we as human beings, and I've seen this as a coach and as a wife and as a mom and people in relationship, um we are super fast to act before we think to speak before we think and we don't actually get into this place of saying hold up why is this a bigger deal today why did this get a reaction what like i can talk about haircuts i can talk about bedtime i can talk about you know spending time together you know 300 days out of the year what happened or 364 what happened on this day why is my spouse reacting like this what's going on am i is it like i mean a little self-reflection here please tone of voice think about how you present yourself sometimes and i am saying this

as someone who can get an edge to her voice can i just share though as soon as you said it james 119 and i'm going to read from the esv know this my beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger and I think as soon as you said that it just hit me it's like quick to hear here take a pause because in the pause that's the slow to speak which allows us to not get angry we can slowly get angry now if there's something more there may be more tension but it's in that slow to speak that when you said the pause it really just struck me what James says in 119 there is quick to hear like I want to hear and yet too often and I catch myself and I shared this last week the reason I began to walk into Elisa's area be it her office or somewhere else because it gave me time to pause I'm slow to speak I'm not yelling from across the room or the house or wherever from her. I have to physically walk to her and I have to keep my mouth shut. So I'm slow to speak and it gives me time to pause before I see her, which has decreased the anger. So it's, it's thinking about, you know,

like what is this interaction from the get go? Right. And again, like I said, the reflection on why is my spouse responding this way and then getting into this place of hey what's going on with us leading with you know let's get away from the you never and the you always and the you know this performance review type thing and I feel you know all of this and go hey what why why are we having such a conversation around this why is this a bigger deal today not why are you blowing up that. Why are you so emotional? Because again, those conversations and those statements will get you nowhere. But hey.

that your reaction to my comment, your reaction to what I was saying feels different today. Just different. Different is not a better or worse word. It's just different. Am I missing something? Have we not connected lately? I want us to be on the same page and maybe that's not been happening. How do we approach that? Because we are so often to just kind of like be dealing with stuff whether it's relational between husband and wife whether it's you know external situations that might have us a little rattled and thinking through a lot of different things that maybe we haven't communicated to our spouse yeah right responsibilities that we have outside of our homes that that have weight on how we interact with one another and we don't always share those things because we might be going a million miles an hour and sometimes it's like hey you know what we haven't like one of the couples this last week you know we we haven't had a lot of time together lately. Our schedules have really just had us go in a lot of different directions. Another couple had, you know, a significant birthday, one of those milestone birthdays that, you know, you start getting emotional about because of what those numbers

mean when they tick upwards. Yeah, those are, or you could come back from a vacation and it was so amazing that you come back and sort of feel a little blue, a little out of it.

that was you after the cruise two years ago it was you know when you came or yeah last last year two cruises ago two cruises ago two cruises ago absolutely right you you get into we get into these emotional states and sometimes you know if we're the one being all emotional about it we haven't actually stopped to think about what's going on inside of us right like why am i reacting it's not just for our spouses to be like huh i wonder why he or she is reacting that way sometimes we have to be self-reflective and go, where is this coming from? Why am I angry or sad or frustrated or irritated or you stick in any other word? What's going on inside of me that maybe I haven't shared with my spouse? Sometimes we don't stop and then we're like, well, you fix it. You just like show up and do bedtime or you help around the house or you put the dishes away in the right way instead of being like, hold up. Why are the little things becoming big things in our marriage? And I will say, you know, when the two of you have a conversation around this, when you start digging through, you know, what might be under the surface or on the sandy foundation or in the rip current, or did I get them all? Glacier? I think Glacier was the other one. The Glacier was just the next one. Have those conversations when you're not in conflict. It's really hard to be super emotionally heightened and then try and have a calm conversation. And I would suggest

if this is a repeated cycle, you're, you're constantly in this conflict cycle where it happens and then you're unable to get to resolution. I'm going to encourage you to apply for marriage coaching. You, you need to break the cycle. And one of the things that Elisa has done so well with her couples over the years that she has had in coaching is help them to identify those cycles and break them. And so maybe you are looking for it, but are unable to. So apply for coaching, go to one extraordinary marriage.com slash coaching, no obligation, but start moving forward, start realizing it, understanding. Maybe it's just been the two of you trying to figure this out for way too long. And just having a third party in there to give you some tools, some, some insights can make a world of difference. And I will tell you here at one extraordinary marriage, we're not here with our coaching to have you on like this perpetual you're here for you know 10 years our goal is to see you get healthy our goal is to see you have pillars that are strong and are strengthening our goal is for you to walk away and go man we got some great insights now we got to take action we got to be intentional we got to take action but by doing so we're going to create and we are creating our extraordinary marriage. So if that's you and you're going like, this has been going on too long, it's time to stop it. It's time to get some insights. Oneextraordinarymarriage.com

slash coaching. Absolutely. And just remember, you're not going to fix everything in one conversation. The stuff that's happening underneath the surface, it's not just a one and done. Let's just fix this with one 15 minute conversation. There may be a lot of stuff going on under the surface. And that's where really fostering your emotional intimacy and stepping into a place of saying, you know what, we're not going to let the surface level stuff distract us. We're going to be extraordinary and we're going to go deeper so that we can create a marriage that just like the teenagers in that hug, people start to notice. Our spouses start to notice first. We start.

to notice that things are different and that the extraordinary is happening. Yeah. I love it. You guys, you know what, when you look at this, the goal is to move from performance review to connection. Your marriage does not need more grading. It needs more teamwork. And it's something that Elise and I have talked about forever and ever be on the same team. What are you going to do to uncover what's under the surface so the two of you can have that extraordinary marriage you desire go after it take some time this week if there's something that's just under there there's that rip current there's something else that's going on under there it's eroding right the banks of the river are are are coming down whatever that visual is for you understand that you can take steps. You can be intentional and you can take action to create change in your marriage. So you guys have yourselves a fantastic week. We're honored and blessed to have you part of the one family. We'll catch you next week. Love you guys.