EP 4: Conflict in Relationships & The Importance of Repair

In this episode of Over Dinner we discuss how to embrace & change your expectation around perfection and the importance of the language you use with yourself, your partner, and your kids. We dive deep into 3 types of repair and how important it is to cultivate strong relationships.

EP 4 Transcript

Welcome to the Over Dinner Podcast.

I'm Nikki Samet, and to my, is it my right?

My left?

I'm actually to your right.

I tried doing the little L thing to like figure it out, and I messed it up right away.

Yeah, to your right is your husband and co-host Jared Samet.

I promise I know the difference between left and right.

Our kid knows the difference between left and right.

More than we do, probably.

Yeah, he really knows that.

Well, anyways, speaking of kids, I had a really interesting experience that I thought I would share with you.

Okay.

I don't even know what she's gonna say.

This is not planned.

This is not planned.

It just came to me, and I thought I haven't shared it with you yet, but I thought it was really interesting.

So, Jared was gone the last couple days.

He was at, what, traveling for work.

I think that's what it was called, yeah.

No, I kind of lost my dress out there.

Well, it was whatever you were doing.

We were traveling for work, and these can be tough weeks for me when he's gone, because Jared is an active participant in parenting, in our marriage, he does a lot of things in the house, and really is my emotional support.

So when he's gone, it can be tough goings.

But this time, I did pretty well.

So a big thing that I have been working on is managing my guilt in motherhood.

And it's something that I actually really wanted to walk into 36, releasing, and not being so hard on myself about not being this perfect mom.

And I'm hard on myself if I'm not doing enough for them, I'm not looking up enough for them, I'm not taking them enough places, I'm not getting them enough vitamin D, they're eating too many bagels.

I'm just thinking I'm the worst.

When reality is, is I'm not.

And I know that.

Wait, can you say that one more time?

Yes, I'm not.

I am not the worst mom.

Great.

So, over the last couple days, I would say this probably started, you left Tuesday?

Tuesday.

So when we got home from picking up Jake, TV was on, and Nemo was on, and I was just eating up those couple hours before bed.

And normally I'm like kicking my ass.

The TV's on again, the TV's on again, the TV's on again, you're not doing enough.

But instead of like, I was doing things around the house, getting dinner ready and so forth, but instead of thinking that I wasn't doing anything, and just letting them watch TV, I actually just joined them and watched TV with them.

And like Sydney was like crawling on me, and we were watching the movie, and I was an active participant within that time with my kids.

And so it felt different watching the movie with them in comparison to just turning the TV on to buy time, right?

So I did that the last couple days.

The TV has been on, and I've also just chosen, it wasn't like a big push or anything, but I've chosen to just be in there with them and spend time with them.

And if I'm on my phone, I'm on my phone, they're watching a movie, it's okay.

But if they're coming up to me, my phone goes down immediately, and I'm engaging with them, and I'm playing with them, and I'm doing the best I can.

And so the whole point of this is what I realized is, is that I'm not a crafty mom.

I'm not a let's go to the park mom.

That's very overwhelming for me.

We can talk about that in a whole other episode.

I'm not a mom that does all these extracurriculars, because that's not my love language.

My love language is quality time.

That's my love language with you.

That's with my friends.

That's with anybody that I care about, is how I like to spend my time and build relationships.

And I've been trying so hard to use and be a different love language than I actually am.

But I've had so much enjoyment over the last several days, solo parenting, but just going with the flow of what my natural tendencies have been, and I was able to enjoy my time with my kids, not beat myself up, all because I aligned with my core instincts.

And the thing is, is that the TV, when I really think about it, wasn't on for five hours.

It was one movie, and then it was over.

They're engaging, they're not always just glued into the TV, especially when you're present with them.

Right.

Yeah, and Jake's running around, and he's singing, and like Sydney.

I mean, it was like I was present to that experience.

And you're participating with them.

Yeah.

Versus using it as a way to distract them so you could sit on your phone or just.

But I want to normalize something, too, because I want to continue talking about what I was just sharing with the love language, but in regards to what you just said, because I think that can come off a little judgmental, and I want to normalize that it's okay to be a human and to also be on your phone.

The line is that when your child is choosing to engage with you and you're on your phone and you're saying, I need a minute, that to me is where the line, because I truly believe these moments get imprinted, and what it's telling them is I'm not important enough.

But I also just, the thought that just came into my mind is what does that also teach them?

Does that teach them that I get what I want immediately when I come to my parent?

I'm interested what your thoughts are.

And the phone, if Sydney comes up to you and you're on your phone, do you feel like I need to be present or I need to answer this email?

How do you rank the priority?

Well, I try to, if I'm home, I should not be working unless it's like I'm home during a work day.

So I personally don't want to be engaged in my phone and doing those things when I'm just home naturally.

Sometimes I do.

I used to be really deliberate, and it went down at seven, and I never looked at it again.

I think that was my previous role.

It's the role I'm in now, which I like a lot, and there's still stuff going on that, or maybe I missed, I need to respond to.

But yeah, when I'm home, I think it's different in our situations where I am at work all day and getting to do those things.

And when I come home, I really, if they want to engage me, I want to engage with them.

So I'm very aware when those moments happen.

I try to, tonight I was really trying to not be on my phone or look at it, and try sitting on the floor with her and do as much as I can.

I get maybe an hour and a half, two hours once I get home, and I haven't seen them in essentially two days.

So even more so that I want to be present with them.

But yeah, I think, especially on the weekends, and then when I get home from work, yeah, I'm gonna have a look at my phone, but if they're coming up to me and wanting to engage, I'm gonna put my phone down or, you know.

It's like a trigger for me to be like, hey, what you're doing is not as important as her coming up to you and giving you a toy, a ball, wanting you to throw it.

I'm gonna do that.

But I think it's different for someone who's with them all day and finally gets a break towards the end of the day.

I think we've discussed this before, especially when you're home with your kids all day, and if I'm not here and that's the time I'm traveling, like the end of the day is the hardest.

That time from when you get Jake till bedtime because there's just been, it's just exhausting.

You've been either with both of them or just her majority of the day.

And that's just like, it got it.

It's more than a full-time job.

It's a lot, right?

There's a lot going on.

So, but I do think even in saying it from, obviously it's a different saying from my perspective, but I think in general, if your kid wants to engage with you, I think something we've made decision on and talked about a lot is that if I get technology, they get technology.

And I think that's a great role.

But we choose on the weekends, on the mornings, that there's no technology before nine o'clock, right?

For any of us, like we leave our phones upstairs, we come down, right?

And we'll play.

And then sometimes I'll let it go.

It's going like, if we're engaging and we're having a good time, I'm just gonna let it go until maybe he asked for his iPad or something like that.

So I just think it's a good rule of thumb that, yes, we're adults and we should make adult decisions, but I do think it's a great rule.

Like if we get technology, they get technology.

And that's not always gonna be the case.

But if that can be majority of the time, the rule, I think it's a good rule.

Because then it's like, hey, you get your iPad or you get TV and we can sit on our phones and whatever we want to do on our phone.

So yeah, that's how I see it.

But if they want to engage me and I'm on my phone, I think it is sending a signal.

Like whatever I'm doing right now, it's more important.

I'm on a phone call, it's different, right?

But if I'm just like looking at email or looking at a social media thing or anything like that, right?

I think it's, you are telling them that, right?

I think something that you said, and that was really important to pull out is that you said, when I get home, I have like an hour and a half, two hours before they go to bed.

And I really want to be present during that time.

I think it's misconstrued what being present can mean.

I believe in what I've read is that it's actually about small deposits, these quality moments over quantity.

And so instead of us feeling like I have you present all day long, it's that I'm choosing to be intentional for these five minutes.

It's not an hour, it's five minutes.

And like you said, if I'm present and it's continuing to expand, stay in it.

But I know, especially the way my brain works, if I don't have a lot of stimulation happening in my brain, I am diverted in nine different directions.

And so I feel sometimes, I feel bored a lot and it takes me to my phone.

And so it's been helpful to have Sydney in with the grandparents for a bit because I'm able to recharge my brain.

But just to come back to this point is like, if you can make it a point to be present a few times a day, right?

Or if your kid's like showing you something, even like the pickle that Sydney was walking around with tonight, right?

It's acknowledging those, that's it.

Those little moments.

And like you said, I think it's the chunks, like it is, it's hard.

It's really hard to stay present, especially like when they're doing something and you're like, this isn't that fun.

Or like, you know, I'm not in, not even that engaged with it, but there's also like, even coming from work, I'm tired, you're tired, we're both tired from a day.

But it's like, hey, like I can sit down for the next 10 minutes and just hang out there.

And eventually she's gonna get done with me.

And she'll walk away and go, dude, like she did tonight, like she was playing with me, and then she's like, oh, ball pit.

And then she went and hung out by herself and played with the balls and throwing them out.

So I gave her that time, and then I could get up and go do something else.

It's all short lived, right?

It's like nothing is forever, but it can feel like, well, you know, I just thought about before I said anything was it's all about your mindset going into it, right?

At the end of the day, it is.

So if you're thinking that, oh my God, I'm stuck in this for nine hours, you're gonna be stuck in this for nine hours, right?

You're gonna feel stuck for nine hours.

So I try to change my perspective of when I'm with her that it's really short time, and not to be judgmental about that time either, right?

Not to be hard on myself.

If I do go to my phone while I'm with her for during that 20-minute stint, the biggest thing that I am trying to embrace is imperfection.

And so I thought something that we could actually talk about tonight is what to do and how to repair when imperfections happen.

So what I mean by that is you and I have disagreements.

Our kids, we don't do everything right, right?

I literally screamed at our one and a half year old to take a nap, like I did that.

And it's still something that I think about, like how did you yell at an 18 month old?

Like it just, I don't know.

Because I obviously wasn't regulated, wasn't taking care of myself.

Maybe we could talk about how anger is just the top of the iceberg of so many other things.

But specifically, I thought it's a series of imperfections in our lives.

And so often we try to cover things up to be perfect.

We don't want to feel, we don't want to touch, we don't want to deal with the imperfections within our relationships, within our parenting, within our jobs, within goals that we're trying to meet.

Failure is not always looked at as just a part of life.

It's looked at as a dark spot on your resume kind of thing.

So I was wondering if that'd be something you'd be interested in talking about tonight, is about repair.

Yeah, first thing I would say, I had to call out, the second you call it an imperfection, why label it that?

Because that's also a shift in mindset.

Like, I'm not being imperfect.

Perfect is impossible.

So you're saying that if I'm imperfect, then the expectation is perfection, right?

So you're labeling imperfect.

I had to say as we talk about what our podcast is about, you're just being a human being, right?

There's no way to be present all the time.

If you were, you would be a Buddha, you'd be a guru, that you could just live in the present state at all times.

So if you're saying you're being imperfect, then you're claiming that you have your expectation, the goal you're reaching is perfection.

So I think actually to that, I think it'd be really a good exercise to identify what kind of parent, what kind of spouse, what kind of person, because if I think about the kind of mother that I wanna be, I wanna be a mother who is joyful and flexible and understanding that life is chaotic and messy, and to be really okay with all of that, right?

And to be warm and engaging, and I want that because I want my kids to have that same sort of outlook on life.

So if I am wanting to do that, right, that's helpful when I'm thinking about this idea of imperfection because I'm already giving myself grace, walking into it because my identity has that built into it.

Yeah, well, my thought there is just that if perfection is your goal, you can, what you've dealt with a long time is always feel like you're failing.

I'm never reaching my goal.

I never reach it.

It'll never happen.

And so it's easy to every day, even if you had some good moments, you don't even give yourself credit for those moments because you still weren't perfect at the other times of the day.

So I think we've talked about this before, but it's more like, who do you want to be?

Identity, not my goal of being perfect and present all the time.

But I want to be joyful more.

I want to enjoy the time I'm spending with them.

I want to give myself these moments of five to 10 minutes, right?

And we talked about this, instead of aiming for your goal for being present for an hour or sitting down and I'm going to engage them for an hour, it's like, start with five minutes, give yourself credit.

And I think as we said, over time, that time will start to extend because you'll actually, if you are truly presently a kid, you kind of lose track of time.

Yeah, but you kind of lose track of time and it extends.

So I think, but my whole thought here is don't set the expectation of, and it's hard, what is perfection?

Like you can't even define that.

So what I think perfection is, personally, being a person that's impacted by all of this, I don't think you're impacted by it in the same way.

My idea of perfection is definitely what I'm viewing.

So social media has a big imprint on the way that I see motherhood.

I see women who are working, clothing, your body image, what I'm supposed to look like.

Because I am still a work in progress, because I mean, we all are, but because I am still doing a lot of repair work from all of my conditioning, I think, I'm just gonna also pause here for a second, for women in general, this is a much deeper, challenging topic.

I know that men are gonna be faced with other things.

I mean, what do we see online?

Guys are supposed to be in shape.

Guys are supposed to be taking ice baths.

Yes, I get it.

But being a white male, a fluent, educated man in this world, you just don't have as much room.

You don't experience the same sort of shit that I do.

For example, you're supposed to look a certain way, then you find your person, then you get quote unquote, like let go of that, and then you get pregnant, and then six weeks postpartum, you're supposed to look exactly like you did before you had a baby.

Even though you had a baby, you grew a human being, but in our society, that is not acknowledged at all.

If you're not skinny, then you're out.

Like bye, like it's not...

You're canceled.

You are canceled.

Like you are fat.

But I want to go back to something you said earlier.

So I totally get what you're saying, but let's bring back what you said to these moments.

And that's what you're seeing online are moments, not this person's doing this all the time, even though it might seem like that.

Yes, but the brain does not know the difference between real and fake.

And so what we are viewing is creating a pathway in the brain that is telling us this is what it's like.

And furthermore on that is that Instagram likes and comments.

These nowadays are what is social acceptance.

And so if one person who is saying this one thing and looks this certain way, and it has millions of likes, that tells somebody, oh, this must be right.

This is the expectation.

This is the expectation.

Yeah, well, let's get back to the parenting.

Well, but I'm thinking now as repair is a much bigger topic.

Like we can look at it as repair with your kid when you yell at them.

We can look at it as repair when you have a disagreement with your spouse.

But we also can look at repair with yourself.

Oh yeah, the most important repair you can do.

So the forgiveness to yourself, to the reprinting of the language that you speak to yourself with, rewiring so many faulty beliefs, that is also repair.

Or even in the moment when you're saying the negative comment and being able to change that.

So language is, and I'll say that's why I called it the imperfection thing, because language is really important.

The language we use with ourself, the language we use with our spouse, the language we use with our kid, because the language becomes our thoughts.

And so that's why I think language, that's why I just wanted to call, by saying imperfection, then you're claiming I have to be perfect.

And I get that, and that's stemming from what you're seeing and what the world is telling you as a woman and a mother and who you're supposed to be, right?

So how do we change that language that I'm not imperfect?

You know, what you said, I'm doing my best.

I'm human.

I'm human.

I'm going to make mistakes.

I'm not a mistake, I'm going to make mistakes.

You know Sarah Blakely?

Okay, so her dad, I think I told you about this.

Yeah, every night.

Every night, like he would ask like, what did you fail at today?

Right, so I think some of this in regards to the imperfection thing, there probably are some people that have less of a tie to it where they're like, duh, like that's just, is what, that's life.

Where other people are like a B on a perfectly straight aid report card, like that's failure.

That was me.

That was you.

So then how are you, so like how did you repair your mindset about imperfection?

Or failure, I guess.

Once I was able to learn, realize that my failures were actually my greatest teachers, then I embraced it.

When I was like, man, the biggest things I've learned in life are from my failures.

So I want to fail because that's the only time I'm gonna learn because we've talked about this before, but we don't really learn from our wins.

We don't sit there and go, oh, I did that extremely well.

How do I do that?

Again, our mindsets are very focused on, I think it's just evolution, right?

Let's get to it.

Like survival, right?

How do we survive?

So we find the mistakes more often than the wins.

We talk about the mistakes and the challenges more than the wins.

So if we're tendencies to do that, then we should expect to fail.

But what's the saying?

Fail fast.

Do it and then learn something from it, right?

And I always say there's not win or lose, there's win or learn.

There's not fail or succeed.

There's, you know, right?

Okay, I have a question for you.

Succeed or grow.

I have a question, I have a question.

So I already know what you're gonna say, but I want to make sure that it's in this.

Okay, so what is the, so as you said, fail fast.

Fail fast.

And you're gonna fail.

Yes.

So what is the difference?

And if you're not failing, you're not fricking trying hard enough.

So what is the difference between somebody who fails and does it again, and somebody who fails and stays stuck?

I think someone who identifies themselves as a failure, the identity.

When I fail, that's who I am.

It wasn't a moment.

It wasn't an experience.

It wasn't something I did.

But it's who I am.

I am failure.

I am a failure.

And if you identify yourself as that, you're just gonna keep going in that circle over and over because you're only gonna see, we talked about this, right?

Your reticular activating system.

If you believe you're a failure, you're only gonna see throughout the day where you failed.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that because as soon as you said this, it may not be completely in line with what you were saying, but I was thinking about, so we hit the top 25% of podcast this week, or episodes this week for that episode three.

And that's a huge celebration, right?

That's a cool win, okay?

So Jared and I went on a hunt to see if we could find it on iTunes.

And it's like, we're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

I'm like, Nikki, you gotta get down with the tens of thousands, bro.

And what I was thinking was, so this is still stuff I am working on.

I immediately was thinking, we have so far to go.

This doesn't even matter.

This is so minimal.

This is so no big deal.

And it took away my joy and celebration for what we did do.

And it's so easy, especially if you've been that way for so long, to look at the glass half empty.

What you don't have or what you aren't doing is fulfilling.

Because you can change that.

Like in language, you can go from, man, we're only in the top 25%.

Or, dude, we made the top 25%.

That's a choice of the words.

Like I say this to Stacey all the time.

Nikki will get a text, and she'll read it in a tone.

I go, why don't you read that in a happy voice?

Because we can put whatever spin we want on something, we create the meaning.

So you can either say, dude, we only made the top 25%.

Man, we suck.

Or, dude, our third episode made the top 25%.

That's insane.

That's a very different way to look at it.

And we get that choice at that moment.

And I think it's still, and hopefully we can learn, like, all right, what do we learn about that?

I hope we can learn from every experience.

But I think our failures are really important to look at because without failing, and we talked about this many times just in general, if the failure doesn't exist, then success doesn't exist.

So then let's bring that back around to repairing, right?

So language is super important on how you're repairing.

I'm gonna give an example of a time I'm thinking, we could talk about what happened between you and I just this past weekend, but even just like with our kids, I have specifically, I know two times, like on top of my head, where I've raised my voice, I was really angry with both of the kids for, they're probably doing nothing.

They're being probably kids.

And something I heard the other day that I thought was just so, so right, is it's not the kids, it's everything else that makes the kids challenging.

But it's like, if you didn't have all the other stresses in life, all of the other things, it probably maybe wouldn't feel as overwhelming sometimes.

What I was gonna say to that is, it's also where are you at when that moment happens from that child?

Yeah.

Right, like you, the last few days were in a better mood.

So even if things that maybe the same things.

Oh no, I still, I got upset about a couple things.

Yeah, for sure, but I'm saying, maybe it was a week ago, and you were just, you know, really, you were angry or whatever it was, and something the same moment happened this week as it did last week, your reaction could have been completely different because your state you're in is going to influence every experience you're in, right?

So I think that's important is like, and that's why you can't judge it because you're a fricking human being.

Like you have to, like you're gonna have hard days, and those hard days are gonna make everything feel hard, right?

And you're gonna have good days where those same things might be like, that's funny, I'm gonna laugh that off today.

So that's why the judgment has to go away when you're dealing with your kids because everything else, like you just said, that's happened, what's going around you, what's going on in the world.

It could be you're reading something that news and there's really tough things, and that's affecting you, right?

Or something happened at Jake's school or whatever it might be in your life that's going to impact every experience that you're in that day.

So it's this...

So what you're saying is first acknowledging that we're human and we have experiences.

And I think, did we talk about this?

I can't remember if it was on an episode or it was just between you and I, but I was really upset about Sydney not napping.

I yelled at her, and then a few minutes later, I got in the treadmill to work out.

And after I was on it for four minutes, my mood had completely shifted.

And so it's all temporary, but I think it's very important to know where you were feeling in that moment, because it can also give you keys to...

How do I not let this...

How can I...

I don't want to say erase it.

It's never not gonna happen again.

But how can I support myself better in these situations?

But so for me, it's the aftermath, right?

So there was a time in the car with Jake, I think he was asking for a letter A song 9 million times, and I got so annoyed.

Letter A song.

And I really can't remember.

I wrote about it once, it's up somewhere, and I yelled, and then I said, Jakey, I'm sorry for yelling.

Mommy didn't sleep well last night, and she didn't mean to take that out on you.

She was just feeling frustrated.

We were running late.

And I don't know if he understood me or not, because he definitely at the end of it said, Taylor Swift.

And so I did.

But I think they do, it's obviously, we read each other's energy whether we're aware of it or not.

You can see someone's body language and know where they're at.

So I think it's also too, it's also letting them know it's okay to get upset, and that you're going to get upset.

Exactly, is that because that is what I meant earlier, right?

Is that, not just saying it's okay to be imperfect.

I'm gonna use the word just because, do you have another word that you want us to use?

Being human.

Okay, it's okay.

It's okay to feel your feelings.

Right, it's okay to feel your feelings.

And it's okay to feel your feelings.

Meaning, we're not gonna show up as these perfectly masked people, and it's important to teach our children, these future generations, to feel their feelings.

And how to then repair conflict after something happened.

Especially with themselves.

Yeah.

Like, we don't teach kids how to emotionally regulate.

Right, we tell them to stop, stop crying.

Like, it's something we're really aware of, is like, it's okay to be mad.

Right, it's okay, breathe.

Like, giving them techniques and letting them feel it, because.

It's hard, though.

In the moment.

Oh, it's super hard.

Like, when she's crying sometimes, like, in the moment, I'm like, stop crying.

And there are other times, based off what you just said, when I'm in a good state, I could be like, Sydney, I know you're upset.

Mommy sees you, and it's okay.

And I work on that, I'm not perfect.

No, and I'm not either.

I get frustrated and yell at them.

Because of the state I'm in, it has nothing to do with them.

They're fricking kids.

They're just.

So what would you say to wrap up the piece about repairing with kids?

What are your thoughts about that?

It's acknowledging that you were upset, and why you were upset, and then saying it wasn't about you.

Mommy was just frustrated, right?

And she's really sorry.

She's gonna get upset sometimes.

And just speaking to them like they're an adult.

And even when we think they don't understand, it's the energy you're coming to that with, if you're really meaning it, they're gonna feel that.

They're gonna feel that love and care.

And that's all that matters.

And then they are learning from you everything you do.

Right, can I just interrupt real quick?

You can.

Okay, so when you were saying that, what I was thinking about is that when we have a heated moment that comes up, and when we do not communicate about it, we sweep it under the rug, the actual impact that that makes for that person, the receiver, is going to be, could feel as inconsistent love, conditional love.

And then also, I'm bad.

Oh, I did something, right?

I did something bad.

You just yelled at him and then never came back.

Never talked about my kids.

Then I'm bad.

Right, right, I'm bad for feeling this way, I'm bad for doing X, Y, and Z.

So the best thing to do is to not feel these things and not express that I'm feeling this way.

That's what we're telling them.

Right.

And it's-

That's what you're telling your spouse.

Right.

So that's why all the things that you just said, along with coming back full circle and for the person who had expressed the whatever to communicate how they are feeling as well, to create a more like a fluid understanding of how emotions-

And normalize it.

Normalize it.

Mommy's gonna get upset sometimes.

And it's not because of you.

You didn't make mommy feel mad.

Mommy got mad because of how she was feeling and she really sorry.

And it's okay to get mad.

And sometimes you're gonna get mad too.

Like, and don't try to like, and I think it's easier with kids.

It's harder with your spouse or other people because you're essentially, I don't know, I feel like sometimes it's hard because you're admitting a mistake to somebody else.

Like, you know what I mean?

So it's really, I think it's way easier to do that with kids.

Okay, let's talk about it.

Let's talk about it with partner, spouse.

Yeah, because you obviously, I mean, I think.

Well, the first thing I thought about was that this was something that you did not do for years.

I sucked at this.

Jared did not always communicate like he's communicating right now.

Just an FYI, he evolved into this person, worked very hard.

Which, first point, you can change.

Yeah.

Okay, so Jared, when we used to have fights, we did not repair for a long time.

And even then, the repair probably wasn't.

It wasn't repair.

And it was nothing like it is today.

I'm just trying to get away from this conversation and just to be agreeable with you.

Agreeable.

I actually speak up more now, right?

Yeah, I would just get out of it or shut down, not say a word, walk away, but then never come back to it.

And you were always the one chasing to come back.

And then you got resentful because you were the only one that cared, right?

I also didn't have the words, the emotional intelligence.

I was heavily blocked and still feel blocked at times.

Just to be vulnerable, like in my childhood, two things that really wasn't taught to express my feelings.

Like we just didn't talk about those things when we were feeling.

It was kind of, I put it away and shut down.

And then I also did that because I had some things in my family where I wanted to show, I was the bright spot.

I had to hold it all together and be the, be the kid that made everyone feel better.

So me being happy and positive was my default protective mechanism.

And so what that turned into as I got older is I don't like conflict.

I see it, I immediately shut down, don't know what to say, block, put a wall up, protect myself as much as humanly possible.

And that entered into our relationship.

And especially when you're with someone like you, who communicates extremely well, highly emotional, intelligent, knows her feelings, and will articulate that, which I love, which I think that's why I was so intrigued by our relationship.

Even though it was hard, I always knew where I stood with you.

I always knew what you were feeling.

I never had to guess.

And for me, that was important in our relationship.

It was a struggle for us in the beginning because I was the complete opposite.

Didn't know what I was feeling, how to express my feeling, and just completely blocked everything to protect myself.

And I'm still working on that.

It's still something we talk about in therapy and I'm still working on.

So yeah, I had to learn to evolve.

And then we do talk about this in another episode, but how we process is a really important piece of this where you can immediately know the way you're feeling.

Or for me, it takes time because the block goes up and it takes me time to remove that block and calm my nervous system down to go, all right, where, what the hell is happening with me?

And then I can articulate.

So it was also the skill of learning to understand that and then feeling safe enough to come back to you and being open and vulnerable about it and expressing how I felt.

But we're still working on it.

I mean, we had a moment of that this past weekend.

So-

Yeah, we can talk about it, yeah.

Sure, so there's a lot that plays into this.

We were sitting down, editing, getting ready for our podcast launch.

Thought we were having a great time.

I'm over here editing, listening to an episode.

Nikki's writing some show notes, getting some post ready.

And I look over her, and she has her hands on her face, and I can tell she's crying.

To be honest, the first thought was, is she just really excited that we're doing this together?

And she's feeling a lot of joy.

I was wrong.

I thought that was maybe an option.

She's like, man, this is amazing.

I'm doing this with my husband, but that was not the case.

She got on social media real quick and saw a post of a woman holding her baby and all these things about when will this end?

When will this time over?

This is so freaking hard.

I don't want to do this anymore.

And then it shows a lady sitting in a chair and then goes to the next video of her not there with her.

Her child has grown up and she doesn't have her child in her arms anymore.

And this is something Nikki battles with, is the fleeting time that I'm not present.

Like I'm missing all this.

She's talked about that before.

And she was getting really emotional about it.

So I said, hey, babe, what's going on?

She didn't want to tell me, right?

I said, what's up?

Like talk to me.

And I could tell she didn't want to tell me, but then she went through what she experienced.

And so two things in that moment when she's telling me happen.

First, I have a thing about social media.

I don't really go on social media because I know the impact.

And I've talked to her many times about how social media impacts her, especially Nikki.

So that was my first thing I was thinking in my mind, which is not going to settle well with her.

If I said, like, let's go on Instagram again, I didn't say that.

I didn't say that.

But I think I said, what got you so emotional in looking at that, right?

That was something that triggered her because what she said back to me immediately was, you'll just never understand.

You'll never get this.

You don't feel like this.

Like, you're not a mom.

Like, you know, kind of an attack in a little way.

And to me, that's my default shutdown mode based off my conditioning is shutdown mode, defensive, don't speak, don't have words.

I kind of like for 10 seconds didn't say anything because I don't know what to say in those moments.

And that infuriates Nikki more.

Let's just say the next 10 to 15 minutes or even probably less than that, it got big.

It got really big, and we've talked about this before how those emotions she was feeling, it wasn't just about this moment, it was all the times previous built up on this that I've maybe said the wrong thing or said, she's probably thinking, he's thinking about social media, me going on and again.

So all of this was built up and it came out to a point where she's like, just get out of here.

We're trying to finish, but she's like, go to bed, get out of here.

So I'm infuriated.

I go upstairs, get in bed.

I calm myself down, actually able to process a little bit.

But then I hear this yelling downstairs, thinking like, I'm not the only one who's gonna do this.

I can't do this.

There's so much to do.

You better get your ass down here.

And then my blood boils up again, come down.

Good battling again.

But then I sit down, and all she wanted was for me to be able to relate, right?

Because she doesn't think I relate.

That's the comment.

I mean, Jared can't relate to this.

But in my time upstairs, I was able to go, like, when do I feel like that, right?

And I told her, I was like, you know, actually, there was a moment this weekend, I had a moment where Jake was just laying on me.

I was kissing him and hugging him and loving him, and I was like, how much longer do I have with this?

I don't know how much longer I get that he's just gonna wanna lay on me and snuggle it down on the couch and let me kiss him all over.

And you could see her whole body length would just change.

The shoulders drop, the tone of her voice, because that's really all she needed, but she wants that the way she processes and when she's saying what she said, that's what she wants.

I don't have that available yet, and I've learned that, and we've learned that, and it's really hard in the moment to hear things like, hey Jared, I know you need to go process.

Because the first thing I always say, and then the other thing that we talked about as my therapist is, because of our past and the things that I've said that have triggered you, I get really anxious around what I'm gonna say.

Is it the right thing?

Because if it's happened in the past, if I don't say the right thing, that's when Nikki, her emotions can take over, if I say the wrong thing.

So I get really anxious about what I say, but because I'm anxious about what I'm saying, I'm not thinking in my body, I'm thinking in my head.

So the words are, I'm not gonna be accurate in how I'm feeling, and feeling words are probably not gonna come out.

So, but in the past, guys, that would have probably lasted days.

Like it would have been days, long time, where that whole thing happened probably within 45 minutes that we got to a good place and we were paired.

And I was able to explain, but more importantly explain to her what was happening for me when she does that, right?

That was important to say like, hey, when, you know, what she was explained to me that when I said this, this is what happened for her.

And then I could explain when she went there, this is what happened for me.

And we're continuing to learn more about each other and when those moments come up.

Because, yeah, we haven't had one of that like that in a while.

Like to that extreme.

I mean, the birthday.

The birthday weekend, but I didn't get like that.

No.

Like that was pretty heated.

Did I describe that accurately?

You did great.

Was there anything about the therapy, that we had therapy like the next day?

Is there anything from that that you think is important for that?

What I love about Starr, is she puts you in the practice.

She's like, okay, let's practice this now.

So she's essentially setting you up for the next time that happens.

I love that she does it.

First, she validates both our experiences.

She does a great job of that.

So you both feel safe.

And then she makes you practice it.

You had to look at me and tell me, and then I had to look at you and say, hey, when this happens, I'm anxious about what I'm gonna say, and I don't wanna say the wrong thing, because I care about that.

The fact that I'm anxious about what I'm gonna say is because I love you and care about you.

We've got to actually, to this point, we're both anxious to say things we shouldn't.

Yeah, we both were actually feeling the same emotions in a different way, which is like, that connects us.

Jared judges me for going on social media.

Yeah, but no, but my, I was anxious and in fear.

You were anxious and in fear.

And we're like, we're not connected because you don't feel what I feel.

But actually, we were feeling the same emotions.

So that's actually what connects us.

And we were able to say that.

So what she suggested is, in that calm moment with her, when instead of going to attack or whatever did my default mode of shutting down is expressing what you're feeling, not about the situation, because it's not about the situation.

It's about what you're feeling.

That's what we learned.

It doesn't matter what happened to get you to that point, but being able to express how you feel in that moment.

Can you also say, it's not about what the other person did or said.

No, it's how you feel.

It's how that one person, how I feel, I feel anxious when this happens.

Yeah, when this happens.

Right, it's not that when you yell, like it's not an attack.

No, it's like during this moment, this is what I felt.

Right.

And this is how I was feeling, or how I'm feeling right now.

Okay, so you did a really great way of explaining this whole thing.

I think what would be really nice is if we could provide people like a repair toolkit.

Like we weren't always like this.

No.

Right, it's taken us, how long have we been together?

Almost 15 years now.

Right?

It's a long time.

Right, is it almost that?

2010 is when we met.

When did we start?

Oh yeah, we started dating in 11.

11, but met in 10.

Okay, anyways.

That's us, hi.

We weren't always like this.

No, guys, no.

For people who are in a relationship, who have these types of conflicts that come up, but then don't deal with them, and instead, days go by, and then things are under the rug, and then Friday night comes, and they go to dinner, and things aren't talked about.

But all this stuff is building, people have their own feelings, or just the way that it's repaired may not feel good for each person.

I'm not telling you, I'm saying that we need to solve this for people.

No, let me say something first.

I think we're both stubborn.

Early in our relationship, we were very selfish in that we wanted to win.

Right?

As individuals, we wanted to win.

And I think when we change that into, how do we both win at the end of this conversation?

How we both feel good, not that I won and Nikki feels bad.

It's compromising.

I wouldn't say compromising, it's like, it's not about, no, it's not.

I don't think we're either compromising because expressing how you feel and what you need is not a compromise.

But it's being able to articulate that, that we both understand each other, so we both win, because all we want to do is to more understand what the other person's experience is.

Clearly, right?

So.

So, what's your favorite phrase?

What's your favorite phrase, Jared?

What is it?

Curiosity.

Curiosity.

Curiosity versus judgment.

So, knowing why that, when I asked that question, I really wasn't trying to be curious.

What brought that up for you?

Because in the past.

I was saying, in terms of curiosity, in terms of like, you mentioned that we were both stubborn people.

Yes.

And we both wanted to win.

But now, if we're looking into what the other person may be experiencing, what was that all about?

Or what they may be feeling, or what are times that I feel like that, what does that do?

It creates more empathy, it creates more lanes to work from.

Yeah, because empathy is trying to put yourself in the other shoes.

Obviously, I'm not a mom.

I'm not conditioned like you are.

I'm not a woman.

I haven't had the same experience as you.

My brain doesn't work the way you do, so we're very different.

But what makes us all similar, not just me and you, everybody, is we feel these emotions, right?

Like, that's what connects us.

So, if we would have just said that, we both realize we're actually experiencing the exact same thing in our own way of experiencing, but feeling the same emotions.

So, yeah, I think once we wanted to get to know how the other person processed, communicated, right?

And I can't always give you what you need, and you can't always give me what I need, because, and I've said this to you before, this is gonna be a whole episode, but if you expect me to be everything that you need in everything of your life, that's a lot of expectation.

And vice versa, right?

There's certain people in your life that are gonna be able to handle different situations for you.

Like, you go to your mom for certain things, and you go to your dad for other things, because that's the person that's better in that moment.

Like, I need to be a lot of things for you, but I can't be everything.

It's like, that's the expectation of me knowing how to do it all and be all.

So, but if we just understand the other person more and what they're experiencing, I've probably felt those things before.

Okay, so what would be, like, as a guy, as a guy who, this is not your native tongue.

What, like, what is one question that a person listening to this can either ask themselves or they can share that question with their partner?

Well, what changed for me was more asking myself a question.

What am I feeling now?

Because the other thing we talked about with Star is that because I'm a people pleaser, instead of going, when we're having a disagreement, I don't look inward and go, how am I feeling right now?

I go, how do I make Nikki not feel that anymore?

How do I help her fix her, solve the problem?

So that's where my mind going thinking brain to helping you feel better versus what is this bringing up for me that I can express to Nikki?

Because that actually is more relatable than me trying to fix the problem.

Right, we talked about this in the birthday episode.

Yeah, so it's like I need to go, like if we're in an argument, what's going on for me right now that I can express?

Because again, it's not about what we're arguing about.

It's the way each other's feeling in this moment.

That's the thing we can actually work on.

You know what I mean?

Because not every argument, we're gonna be like, you're right, and I'm like, there's no, if you're going, if you're trying to solve what the argument is, someone has to be right versus wrong.

But if we can both explain how we're feeling in this moment, that actually can bring us closer together than to look at the thing together and go, huh, what happened there?

Right, how do we do better with that next time?

So for me, it was because I never knew how to label my emotions, didn't know where it showed up for me in my body.

That's something I continually practice all the time, and I'm still really, I didn't know like, what anxiety was for me or what fear felt like, where it showed up for me.

And what moments triggered that for me, like, because I blocked all of it as fast as humanly possible.

So I think for me, it might be different for other people.

There's probably a lot of men that feel things a lot more deeply, but I think it's the expression of it, right?

Can you be vulnerable?

Because that's another thing, being masculine is do we share your emotions?

Are you holding it all in in your heart, and you don't share those emotions, right?

And that's scary.

It was scary for me for a long time, and still sometimes is scary to share that with you.

So for me, it was understanding my emotions first.

So that's the only way I can empathize with you, right?

Emotional intelligence starts with your own self-awareness.

You can't have the ability to understand someone's emotions or manage them and have those conversations with them if you don't even know what those emotions look like for you.

I think a really big piece of what you just said is really, really important to hear because our relationship got better when you started working on yourself.

Our relationship got better when I started working on myself.

And with that, we then were able to grow together.

And so relationships are about individual growth while also meeting at a middle point to grow together.

And I think when we first meet people, we're actually very much on that track because maybe we've been single for a while or we've been on our own individual tracks.

It really doesn't matter when you met these people.

You've been on your own track.

And then you get into a relationship, and you may get into kind of the nones of life.

No, but you more get into that person.

And you kind of lose sight of yourself.

Because I want to make sure this person continues to like me.

And it keeps going well.

So most of us probably become people-pleasurers and do things that maybe aren't connected to us.

So that's where we lean into.

And then eventually that gets to a point where we're like, dude, I've totally lost myself.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

And then you start to resent the other person.

So I think the important piece is getting into a relationship and making sure you're continuing to share who you are.

It's very challenging early on, right?

Because you try to put on this what you think that other person wants.

And it goes both ways.

But after a time, that's going to eventually get to a point where that's not sustainable anymore.

And then the resentment kicks in.

And that happened for us, for sure.

And then, you know, it took us deciding to start working on ourselves because we have to realize we're still individuals in a relationship.

And if we're not growing as individuals, there's no way the relationship can grow.

And there's no way that you can repair.

No.

So doing this individual work is not only important for you to continue growing in your relationship, but what that growth does is actually, in turn, teaches you a more emotional awareness and emotional intelligence and emotional communication.

So that way, you can have those dialogues, have those repaired moments, both with yourself, with your kids, and with your partners.

Yeah, because you're more clear on how you process who you are, what you're feeling, and so you can better articulate that.

And then I think as you grow as an individual, you become more comfortable with yourself, because I think there's a lot of fear of expressing these things in relationships, that this hurts me, or this is hard for me, or I feel this way when these moments happen, because we've lost ourselves a little bit, and we're continuing to think the other person.

So I think it gives you the confidence to know who you are to share that with your partner.

And then you have, to your point, then you have a better ability to repair in a conversation or in a conflict.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I feel repaired.

I'm repaired.

We have repaired.

And we're gonna, guys, we're gonna continue to...

Sounds like we gotta figure it out, but we don't, because this just happened this weekend.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's just happened.

But again, we come back to it every single time, right?

I mean, you heard us on the birthday episode.

We had to repair three times in a matter of two days.

But we did, right?

And again, don't judge these tough moments you have with your spouse or with your partner or even with your kids.

Like, no judgment.

This is gonna happen.

We're human beings, but it's the ability to understand that it's not what's happening.

It's more how you're feeling and how you're communicating those feelings with either your child or your spouse and being open to that.

And I think that's where repair comes from, is the sharing of your experience, not of trying to solve the problem or judging it.

Yeah, well said.

Thanks, Nick.

Well, I'm tired.

I'm tired too.

Thanks for listening, guys.

If you liked this episode, please share it with somebody that you think you could help.

Thank you so much for your reviews, the beautiful comments.

We are so, so, so thankful and grateful to have you, your support, and to have you part of our journey.

Yeah, put some more reviews out there.

Give us the five stars if you're liking what you're hearing.

If you're not, don't go less than five stars.

Just reach out to us and let us know, and we'll get better, we promise.

And also, I had a few people who reached out to me about just some different topics they'd like to hear.

So please feel free to email us at theoverdinnerpodcast at gmail.com, or you can find us on Instagram at Over Din Podcast.

Over Din.

Over Din Podcast.

To let us know if you have any thoughts or anything that you'd like to share, please remember to subscribe so you can be first in line to hear our amazing conversations.

Loved having conversations with you, babe.

And we'll see you next time.

See you guys.