Lindsay (00:00)
I heard from three different men this week inside the Loving with Intention community that when they go online looking for help in their marriage, the most common advice they get is to leave your wife and find someone new. And absolutely, there's a time and place where that's going to be the very best advice for men or women. And the huge problem is for many people, they don't want to do that. They're not looking for a way out. They're looking for a way back, back to how things used to feel.
Or maybe even better. I am Lindsay, this is Loving With Intention. Let's dive in so you can see why things might not be hopeless for you and the truth about why this message is often so much more harmful than it is helpful. And I always say I don't believe that everyone should stay together and I also believe that so many people break up, they separate, they get divorced because they think things are hopeless, but they actually can turn around. I'm one of those people. My husband and I broke up years ago after.
year and half of dating because it really did feel hopeless and I am so freaking grateful forever grateful that we got back together because our relationship looks so different now. It did change. There actually was hope but I really couldn't see it back then. I really really couldn't see it. I was also getting the message just leave him like it was the only answer. I wasn't seeing things change and whenever I asked him to work on things he said no.
and there's more than meets the eye to that story, but that is a different story for a different day, which I've told before. So the truth is when you are already feeling like things are hopeless and then you start looking on YouTube or Instagram for relationship tips and advice and all you hear is things are never going to change if your spouse doesn't want to work on things, so just save yourself and leave them. Seeing that message over and over amplifies your hopeless feeling.
It feels like confirmation of the thing that you believed or worried or feared is true. It almost feels the deal like, yep, I knew it. There is no hope.
Maybe in your marriage there's been years of disconnection, there's a lack of touch and intimacy, emotional and physical. You feel unappreciated, disrespected, not seen, not heard. When these Instagram tips or YouTube videos highlight the very things that you're experiencing, that drives the message home even deeper that you shouldn't have to feel that way and it's time to go.
And that puts you in a really crappy position if you're one of these people who doesn't want to go because then it really feels like you're stuck and it's going to feel this way forever if you stay. I'm getting very passionate about this because I know how hurtful this message can be. And you know what it does when you feel like nothing's going to change, like feeling stuck with no hope in sight? It literally changes you. It changes how you show up in your marriage, how you show up in your life. And I do want to quickly say, as always, none of my content is for abusive or unsafe relationships. So this podcast applies to that.
important to note and also important to highlight, believing things are hopeless that will wildly wildly wildly decrease the possibility of anything improving. If you are thinking there's no hope nothing's gonna change because my spouse is interested in working on things, this doesn't stay as just a thought. There's a massive negative ripple effect and I really want to paint that picture. This thought it's actually a belief. It isn't a fact because there's no way
that you can positively, absolutely show me the evidence that this is 100 % true. So, this is where you get to ask yourself, who am I when I have this belief? What happens when I believe this? I know for me, I felt really sad, I felt frustrated, unmotivated, worried, lonely, confused, stuck. I was pulled between the thoughts of, I want this to work and this isn't working and can't work, which is a lot for your brain to make sense of. It's like this constant tug of war inside your head that just brings you down.
And let's be super real, believing that your spouse won't change, it might make you feel angry like I did and overwhelmed. So many hard feelings. So after naming those, you get to ask yourself, when I'm feeling all of that, how do I show up in my marriage? I will share that when I was feeling all of that, it affected my energy. I was more irritable. I was snappy. I took things personally. I was annoyed. There were a lot of times where I actually dreaded being together.
because it felt like I was just waiting for the next argument. So of course I was on edge tiptoeing around conversations. I was clearly not showing up as my best self at all.
And the next thing you get to do is ask yourself, what other thoughts do I have when I believe things are hopeless, when I'm feeling those big feelings, when I'm showing up guarded and in all these unhealthy ways? For me and for most of us, when things are super challenging and feeling hopeless, we are thinking about all the crappy things that our spouse is doing. So maybe you're thinking about how critical they are, always pointing out what you do wrong or how you could get things better, or you're thinking about how they pull away from your touch and how every conversation just goes off the rails and you never get anywhere.
or you're thinking about your spouse's cold attitude towards you after you see them laughing with kids or co-workers or friends
and we get to meet it with so much compassion that we look for what's not working because when you have a belief, your brain's job is to go to work to confirm it for you. It is on the hunt to find proof. So it's actually going to amplify the hurtful things your spouse does and make them stand out really, really big. And your brain, bless it, it's also going to turn down the noise on the positive kind things that your spouse does. It makes those things not a big deal at all because they don't confirm your belief that things are hopeless.
So when they want to have a conversation with you, when they laugh at something you said, when they show you something on their phone, they share a reel with you, when they look up at you and try to connect, you're going to miss those moments. Your brain's marking them as not important, which keeps you in the lane of everything is hopeless. It is a massive downward spiral.
And I hope with even those few questions, which are actually part of Byron Katie's work, you can see the impact of thinking things are hopeless and then having that belief confirmed by relationship content out there.
it changes you. So now what I like to do is play out the flip side. I want you to imagine for just a second who would I be without this thought. You get to ask yourself who would I be if I didn't believe that things would never change and that my spouse was never going to stop doing these unhealthy behaviors. If you didn't believe this I imagine you might have hope. You would see them differently. If your new belief was I'm open to the possibility that things could change
that my spouse could change,
you would start seeing the positive ways that they show up because your brain is now going to show those things to you. If you felt hope and saw the positive things they did, you would show up differently. You'd be able to show appreciation because you know that it mattered and that things could change. I know it is hard to show appreciation when it feels like it's not landing or it feels like it's not going to make a difference, but let's sink back into that new belief that maybe things can change. You would show your spouse more kindness.
give them the benefit of the doubt. You'd be able to use curiosity rather than judgment of their behavior. So many good things come from this. The truth is our beliefs and what we focus on change everything. Everything, literally everything. And of course, this isn't all on you.
I do direct a lot of my content towards the man or woman whose spouse doesn't want to work on things right now because I know how common that is and I know that it can feel even more hopeless than if your spouse did want to work on things with you. I want men and women just like you to search for advice and find loving with intention. I get to be somebody who pokes holes in that belief that things are hopeless until my spouse gets on board. I am so grateful that I lived the journey that I did because I can say from personal experience,
that even when things seem hopeless, they can turn around.
And it's not just me, of course, I am so blessed to work with so many individuals who can now echo that same thought that things can get better even with one person working on things because they've lived it now too. If there was one takeaway that I would love for you to have from this podcast, it is to really know things are hopeless because my spouse won't work on things is a belief. It's not a fact. And we get to choose our beliefs.
And of course, it's not as easy as being like, okay, I choose a new belief. It is active work. It's intentional work to keep choosing that new belief. And when we do, we start to create evidence that the new belief is true. One of the men in my man's group recently shared that his wife has started getting curious about his thoughts and his feelings underneath their arguments. This is massive. This is what is necessary to break through these patterns.
And this is the ripple effect of him doing the work. He said it is like night and day since he started the journey seven weeks ago. And that is freaking incredible. And it's what's possible. I literally cheer on our calls all the time. It fills my heart with so much happiness to see wins like this.
And I know that it's not all sunshine and rainbows. If you ask me, can I guarantee that in your marriage things will greatly improve and change for the better? Well, no, I can't guarantee anything. All I can do is give you plenty of advice that can help you test out this new belief if you choose to. Knowing that our beliefs have a massive ripple effect on how we show up and how we feel and that they are just beliefs. Wouldn't it make sense to try on the belief that can lead to a positive ripple effect? I think so.
So your intentional action for the day is to say in your mind or say out loud if you're feeling really stoked about it, I'm open to the possibility that things can get better. Your brain is always listening. Let it go to work to find the good and let you feel that good.
Thank you so much for being here and if you have been loving the podcast, I would so appreciate a five-star rating and review. It will help the podcast reach more hearts. I appreciate you so much. As always, you can grab my free Love Journey roadmap in the description box. It is a 17-page guide that allows you to dig into the love journey process that I use with my clients that helps them create the kind of change that I'm talking about. I'm sending so much love into your day. Remember, nothing changes if nothing changes.
So let's have a super intentional week. Bye.
