Lindsay (00:00)
Since you are here listening to this podcast, I know you are somebody who wants your marriage to be better, which means that you've been trying. Maybe it's the date nights, maybe speaking love languages, maybe showing appreciation. Somewhere along the way, you might have found yourself thinking, it doesn't matter what I do, my spouse never changes. Today, I have a super important question that you can ask yourself that will actually create the change you want to see.
I am Lindsay, this is Loving With Intention, let's dive in. Because without this question, so many people give up on their marriage before they even have a chance to see what's possible. And if you've been here before, you know that I'm always saying one person can change the dance in a marriage. And if you start changing your patterns, you will see your person's patterns change too. I know if you hear that and then you don't see change from your spouse, it would be pretty understandable to tell yourself, this won't work in my marriage.
and then it can be super easy to throw in the towel. Like, screw it, what's the point?
This moment right here is a powerful moment to ask yourself the question that makes it so much more likely that you will see change. Most people ask themselves, is my spouse changing yet? But the question I suggest you start asking is, what am I proud of this week when it comes to my marriage? And if you hear that and you're like, seriously, that's it, stick with me because I work with a lot of individuals, both men and women, and it is so common that we look at our spouse to gauge whether or not our efforts are working.
which makes so much sense because we want to see things change and I'm saying we here because I was once trying to make my relationship better solo and that was definitely the gauge that I was using. The problem here is if you are gauging your success or the probability that things will change based on how quickly you start seeing positive change from your spouse, you're actually not set up for real success.
If you are only looking to them for proof that things are working, you've got some serious factors working against you. For one thing, their nervous system needs to experience repeated evidence that your positive change is real before it can relax into it. So just imagine you have a bunch of credit card debt, your credit score tanks, you can't just make one on time payment and expect the bank to hand you a loan. They need to see a long track record of consistent behavior before they trust that this new pattern is actually here to stay.
Your spouse's nervous system works in the very same way. Its job is to scan for threats, so it's not being stubborn, it's being smart. It's waiting to see if the new pattern is real before it trusts. Another factor that you're working against is when things are challenging in our relationships, we, men and women, tend to focus mostly on those challenges. And then our brains really zone in on just the challenges.
which means that your spouse is subconsciously probably looking for what's not working in your marriage. So those things are going to continue to stand out to them. So it would make sense if they were missing the changes that you make in the beginning or those changes that they might not appear as big to your spouse as you know that they are. Their brain needs to adjust to your new way of being to start seeing the good. And another thing working against you, the third thing is
that past experience of short-lived change can make it really hard to trust. So maybe there's been some good runs in the past and now consciously or subconsciously your spouse is like, I've seen this before, I know it's not gonna last. It's like a sports team that has a really good preseason and then they fall apart when they get into the regular season. You've seen it before, so you're not gonna go bet all your money that it's gonna be different this time around, right? The truth is those are just a few things that you're up against and they're mostly subconscious.
So this isn't your wife being difficult for the sake of being difficult. These are just real factors to consider in the beginning. And I know that all of this can sound really daunting, but it's actually not impossible for change to happen. And that brings us back to that powerful question.
Instead of asking yourself, is my spouse starting to change in response to my changes? When you ask yourself, what am I proud of this week? You start realizing things like, whoa, I know I would have totally lost it months ago when we got in an argument like that. Or I used to completely shut down when they were complaining about work, but now I find myself listening and validating Or maybe you're like, I've been so much more appreciative of things that they do around the house and I actually feel it.
This right here, this is your evidence that things are changing because you are changing
And you're changing with the kind of consistency that will actually speak to your spouse's nervous system over time. This matters so much. And if you remove your spouse entirely from the equation for just a sec and focus solely on the kind of husband or wife that you want to be,
you can let yourself feel motivated by your own changes. Regardless of what my spouse is doing, am I showing up as the spouse and maybe the mother or father that I really want to be? And you might be thinking like, yeah, I do wanna show up loving and attentive, but does this just mean that I have to like put up with them constantly on their phone when I'm talking or pulling away from my touch or pointing out how I left everything a mess?
no, thank goodness, it doesn't mean that you just blindly accept all of that. You are, of course, allowed to have boundaries and express your needs. The key is learning to do that in a healthy way. And to be totally honest, those things, if you express them, are gonna land so much better when you've been showing up consistently in healthier ways all around. Imagine that your spouse is regularly telling you what they appreciate, their initiating loving touch.
They're so focused on what you're getting right versus what you're not doing well in their eyes. If they then brought up a concern to you, you're gonna be way more likely to hear it and wanna do something about it than if they brought up a concern amongst days, weeks, or months of criticizing you or pulling away from touch or shutting down on you. When we pour in love, we start to create an environment where we can actually talk about the hard things. You get to create this shift.
use your own growth as the gauge. Because if you do ask yourself, what am I proud of this week? And you come up with nothing, that's where you get to recommit and keep going. And trust me, all of this doesn't mean that you can't see quick positive changes from your spouse. When you really dive into working on things with intention, because you absolutely can, the men and women that I work with do all the time. This just means that when things do get hard or you don't see quick changes, there's a question that you can come back to.
Believe me. I wanted to throw in the towel a lot when things were really bad in our relationship But I finally got that relationship coach and I kept bringing it back to how I was showing up and that's when things really started to change and if you want to know what to change you can always grab my free love journey roadmap in the show notes,
I will guide you through my love journey process and give you actionable steps that are personalized to you. And if you have been loving the podcast, I would so appreciate a five star rating and review.
It really helps the podcast reach other people and it lets me know that you are enjoying things. If you ever have a topic that you want me to discuss, please shoot me an email. That's in the show notes too. I am sending so much love into your day. Remember that nothing changes if nothing changes. So grab that roadmap in the show notes. I've said show notes so many times and let's have a super intentional week. Bye.
