speaker-0 (00:00.238)
That's you thinking, God, he's 15 minutes like it's you think he 15 minutes. He's just driving slowly the long term. That's the momentum of years of experience. Instead of it being 15 minutes of frustration, of unspoken upset, it's like it's 15 years. He's driving like a damn slot. For those of you at home, the slot common comes up quite often.

That is sort of part of the joke, yes.

This light is my spirit animal. It is.

speaker-0 (00:43.598)
So welcome in to the He Wants She Wants Marriage podcast. In this episode, we're talking about one simple tip to help end fighting in your relationship. This tip makes all the difference. Have you experienced yourself stopping talking about things that are upsetting you in marriage because you just don't see the point in bringing it up anymore? Have you experienced

explosive arguments where you end up saying things that you regret afterwards.

and

Do you get frustrated quite often with your partner because they just immediately go into defensive mode when you do speak what's on your mind?

In this episode, we're gonna be introducing one key tip and we call it the shorten the upset gap.

speaker-1 (01:45.58)
Shorten the upset gap. Yes. We had an example actually in our own experience literally last week when we were driving to the dance class. So the setting of it, just to give you a little bit of an idea, it was like raining a lot. was like super wet night, dark. We have to go on this kind of country road because that's where we live.

and we meet a big tractor that goes very, very slow. So this is the setting. So we left the house like just on time, just on time. And then heavy rain, big tractor, Mark's driving. Important piece of information, Mark is driving. And I start getting very frustrated.

because I'm seeing that the clock is ticking and that we're going to be there late. And we hit the town where the dance class is supposed to be. And I'm thinking, well, now that, you know, street lamps, there's no more tractor. The tractor's gone. Mark is going to put the boot down and he doesn't. And so the frustration builds. And so at that point I just express and I express sort of like

I can't even remember exactly what I said, but it was kind of like, would you just, you know, drive? you know, and there is a lot of frustration that's obviously coming up. So that's how does that link to the upset gap? The upset gap is that point in between the point of upset, upset, happened like 15 minutes previous while we were driving behind the tractor. And I felt that first jolt.

in my system of, want to strangle him. And then to the point where I actually expressed. So the gap between the point of upset and the point of verbal expression, because we clarified that throwing stuff at each other is not expressing the upset. So verbal expression, is the gap. And the longer that gap is, the more the conflict.

speaker-1 (04:14.016)
the more we're going to go into conflict. And we're going to explain to you why and the workings of that, but that's the key point. So when we shorten that gap, we reduce the intensity and even the occurrence of conflict.

Yeah, there's one elephant in the room on this topic, which is there are three key reasons why the vast majority of people, why we don't speak up to the upset in the moment. The first one that is almost all pervasive, would hazard even say it's universal to some degree. It's a fear of upsetting our partner. The second one is this idea of

I should be able to deal with this myself. There's a lot of shoulds in that second part. It's like, I shouldn't be getting upset about this small thing. We take it on ourselves and it's from that belief we try to start digesting in ourselves. I won't speak to it because I should. And then the third point, and it's highly relevant in married life is life is busy. You're in the flow of things. You know, your kids are present.

Something happens. The upset happens during a family dinner and there's relatives there and life is busy. You can't express it in the moment. Then you're tidying up afterwards. Then you're in the way home. Things are happening and then you just go, you know, whatever. I'm not going to bring it up now, but it remains there. The upset remains percolating in the background. And I just want to flush bring you in on that point.

When you, how was your experience of that? You know, why didn't you say that immediately?

speaker-1 (06:02.934)
Yeah, actually, when you were saying the three reasons, the first two applied immediately because it's like, well, in our history, there's been a little bit of a long standing experience of when we have to go to places where we know we're pressed for time, I drive. And it's not because you can't drive, it's because of that tension that builds in my system. So we've had this little bit of a thing going on and there was an element of, if I now tell you that you're going slow,

in my experience I'm feeling that you're going slow, this could potentially upset you. We were also that star evening where we have a little bit of a coffee date together when the girls are at dance. So I'm like, I don't want to upset the date. So I'm going to be quiet on this. And then the element of, well...

God, I mean, I should be able to relax. Have I not done 20 years of yoga, meditation and all of this? And here I am in the car going like a knot, you know, just because there is a tractor. Who cares? The girls are going to be late five minutes. No one dies. I should be able to regulate my system, breathe deeper, practice all these incredible tools that I always share and, you know, and get over myself. So I think those elements.

were very present for me in that moment that made that gap become 15-20 minutes rather than just tell you straight away and that's it.

Yeah, as you're saying that, so the first two were highly relevant for you, I feel in the beginning, in the lead up of that. But there is this phenomenon that happens that the longer you leave the gap, the more you want to avoid the gap because the tension is building. Because when we drop the girls and then we went to the the cafe to have our coffee date. There was a party going, come on, come on, we'll go in.

speaker-0 (07:59.778)
But there still was this thick fog of tension between us and I had to go, hey, I'm not going anywhere. Like, I'd rather not go into the date and get this, have this happen. And the connection came from there. was like getting real. But there is that element of you leaving the third one, busyness of life. Let's get into the date. That's more important. Come on, let's just push that behind. And it's a very real thing, these reasons. And what I wanted...

bring home for people, we've learned this slowly but surely the hard way as so many of the greatest lessons in life. You learn them the hard way. You learn them from you do it so often that at some point you just realize that just never works. That always like if it never ever works at some point you have to look at it. But let's take a look underneath the bonnet. Like what's the mechanism of that? In that moment, what we've found is

There's the upset. There's nobody listening in at home that does not get upset in married life. It's impossible. It just is impossible. I'm sorry. So upsets inevitably happen, but it's what we do in that moment. So the upset and for those three rational and deep and underneath irrational reasons, we avoid the expression of it. Once you avoid the expression of the upset in the moment, well then like think

at home, imagine that you avoid the upset, the expression of that upset in that first point. So the point of upset. When you avoid expressing that, it's like you put that upset into a filing cabinet. I call it the filing cabinet of frustration. And the filing cabinet of frustration is you don't say it in the moment, but then you start thinking it. And the upset

builds and the more that emotion builds, the more the frustration is there. Well, the more thinking, well, he should have. Matilda could very well is like, well, he should just be putting down the boot now. He should know that it's it's late. He should have let me in to drive in the first place. He should have. He could have. He never. He's always. And it builds all of this frustration builds.

speaker-0 (10:18.132)
At some point that filing cabinet starts shaking because there's a lot of energy in it and you've hundreds, it depends on the amount of time, but the more, again, the longer that the upset gap builds, the more you have filed more and more thoughts and more and more energy. it's building. Imagine inside that filing cabinet, you have a Jack in the box and it's your head and face that's the Jack in that box.

but it's your gnarly face, it's you super, super upset. There inevitably comes a point when the filing cabinet can't take the pressure buildup anymore. It flies out, the jack in the box comes, and now you're super pissed. And now when you speak in that moment, it's just inevitably going to bring upset. One important distinction here, I think for every couple to look at is

There is a short term upset gap, lengthening of the upset gap, and then there's a longer term. Like in the example of us going off to the class, the short term long upset gap, that's you thinking, God, he's 15 minutes. Like you think he's 15 minutes, he's just driving slowly. The long term...

That's the momentum of years of experience. Instead of it being 15 minutes of frustration, of unspoken upset, it's like, it's 15 years he's driving like a damn slot. For those of you at home, the slot comment comes up quite often.

That is sort of part of the joke, yes.

speaker-0 (12:04.11)
The sloth is my spirit animal. So you have the short term and the long term. The important thing here, I feel is to see that was humbling for me is to see how the dominoes all stack up.

You know, when you avoid speaking the upset, then your body takes on all of this tension and frustration. When your body takes on the frustration, then you the frustration in your body evokes a response of defensiveness because your partner is picking up on that. when your partner goes into defensiveness, then.

the conflict deepens and it goes into more disconnection. When I it just keeps going deeper. This is hilarious in a sick way, in a tragic way. When the conflict deepens into disconnection. Well, then the repair process gets super intense and super challenging. Nobody likes when the repair process takes that much time. When the repair process gets that intense and that challenging.

Well, then in future, we're way more likely to avoid expressing the upset because we don't want that to happen. And when you avoid expressing the upset, well, then you have just reestablished, recreated the same exact dysfunctional relating pattern. It's the long upset gap has been reformed, set down, and there's more conflict.

And we've seen that with the driving. That's a simple example, but actually me not speaking the times when I felt that frustration and then the next time going, I'm driving. And there's a load in that sentence and you're like, what? Why? And it starts becoming, there's this unspoken that lingers in there and keeps building. And then in that one time that you speak, like I...

speaker-1 (14:11.234)
pick the thing, becomes, there's a big load. That's like you call it the jumping jack. Is that what you call it? That's a big load. it makes.

Jack in the box. I said, yes, jumping jack. We're taking people to the gym. Jack in the box. We're taking them back to childhood. It is but it's really true. The you know, that part, the when you then you, the part of that that comes out for me is when you avoided the expression of it and your body, I could feel the tension. You're you're.

Yeah.

speaker-0 (14:48.748)
Your words, but more importantly, like your emotion, the charge when you finally said it, I think we were one minute from pulling into the car park and we were actually on time. It's like this volcano, the filing cabinet frustration just came out, the Jack in the box or the jumping Jack, the Jack in the box came out of me. It wasn't pretty and you're so beautiful. But hey, in that moment, it doesn't matter how pretty you are. When the filing

cabinet or for the filing. what the hell? The filing. Why don't we call it frustration.

The filing cabinet. Today we're struggling for words,

When it comes out, it evokes defensiveness. I remember feeling that like I was thumped in the chest with this all of a sudden experience that I had no idea was happening, because what was happening in my experience was I was actually keeping an eye on the time. I was driving at an inappropriately safe pace with the weather, the whole lot, but I was aware and I was like, hey, we're on time. We're four minutes.

in before, got the girls in, they were there before some other girls. So my experience of that was a tundris slap on my face, slap on my chest, and I was immediately into,

speaker-0 (16:14.734)
And for that reason, it took us 10, maybe 15 minutes to get back in and hey, we walked into the cafe, we were laughing and all was good, but it wasn't necessary.

And if we hadn't spoken it then and I let the cap get longer, it would have gone into the dinner, would have gone into the evening, it would have gone into the night, possibly into the next day. I would have something that is apparently quite simple.

Yeah, the important focus here is clearly it's one good thing to understand the mechanism of the dysfunction. How do we end up getting into the same problem again and again? Repeat.

What we want you guys focusing in going away from this episode is focus on the short term. Matilda is going to introduce a practice now that places all of your awareness on what you can do in the now. You can't go back to the past 20 years ago and you can have that long term momentum to be aware of. There can be a lot of energy stored in that filing cabinet because if you've had this cycle going on 10, 20, 30 years,

Even two, three years, you could be really fresh in marriage. There can be a lot of tension built up. You can't go back for that. But when you place your full awareness into here and now, well, that's where your full power of positive influence is. That's where in the now you can change things substantially. And it doesn't take a ton of time, especially with this practice.

speaker-1 (17:49.614)
Yeah, so the first thing is the awareness, is the point of awareness when you become aware of the upset, you actually realize, okay, there is a change and how do we do that? There's three things that you can notice change. And the more you do this, the better you get at noticing and you're going to catch it earlier and earlier. So please just remember to be kind with yourself and also remember that you're not aiming for perfection.

You can notice your thoughts are going to change. Like you're thinking about whatever. And then all of a sudden he's always driving that fucking slow. That was actually what came through my mind in that moment. But that's a real distinct change in thoughts. Something is coming. He shouldn't do that. She shouldn't do that. They always do this. They never do that. Whatever change in thought patterns.

Even I'm so alone in this, he's not gonna understand, whatever, that change. It can be noticing the emotions. So all of a sudden, you are actually having an okay enough day and all of a sudden there's an upset. You don't even have to label the emotion. It doesn't have to be, I'm feeling a wave of anger or I'm feeling sadness. Even if you don't know the name of the emotion, but there's something is changing, it's disturbing that.

your emotional state that you had up until that point. And then the third thing is in your body. There can be body sensations. All of a sudden you get a knot in the stomach. All of a sudden you were actually fine and you feel extremely tired. It just happens. You start feeling tension. You notice your clenching your fist. Things, so in your thoughts, in your emotion and in your body, and you don't have to notice the three of them. It can be one thing.

But that is like your first sign that's like, ooh, there is an upset.

speaker-1 (19:53.346)
And you mightn't even actually fully know what the upset is. And that's okay too, but there is an upset. From that point on, there is the communication of it. So the second part of this practice is to communicate it.

Can I just pop in there? Of course. It's wonderful the simplicity of that. So you notice the disturbance in thinking and then there's emotions and bodily sensations. I know from my experience firsthand, but having spoken with hundreds of men on this, lot of guys can actually feel an inadequacy with the whole emotion, a tuning to your body and emotions, because we've been so aggressively shamed out of our bodily connection. The classic thing.

Get up, don't cry. Don't be a pussy. Don't be a little girl. So I'm not saying for all guys, some guys can have a real red hot emotional response and they will they will resonate with that. However, I do want to speak for probably the majority of men that is more going to be the thinking because thinking you can think thoughts give an arguable

evidence, anything that is against your Queen, anything in the same array of examples that Matilda said. So I just wanted to say that. And of course, there can be a small subsection of women. The wives listening in might more the majority be really in tune with their body and have that more attuned connection with the emotions. And yet it is also true

for any women out there that really feel shut off, trauma can do that. The thoughts is another more obvious entry point into recognizing the upset.

speaker-1 (21:46.144)
Yeah, and if you notice in one of the three different paths, that's fine because one drives the others. So you may not have noticed the emotions, but the thoughts are being driven by that. So you're going to have thoughts and that's going to give an indication. So wherever you're at, that's why I'm like, be kind with yourself. Don't aim for perfection wherever you're at and wherever you catch it. And one thing that I forgot to mention earlier is that this upset can actually be caused by your partner, but it can also be caused by external factors.

but that can still create the filing cabinet to fill up and then spill in your partner's face if you don't express it and you let that gap go long. So you may notice that upset at work, you may notice that upset because you've seen something on social media, because something has triggered you. It may not have been your partner, but then...

that load can actually come out because then your partner says something that seems to be fuel for that same topic maybe or something like that. So I wanted to bring that in whenever you're noticing that pattern shift in your either thoughts, emotions or your body.

I've had one experience of that and it's hilarious. I've come down before we had this practice. This happened relatively often because you dream quite a bit. I come down and your body's transmitting a message that I'm enemy number one. And guys, I'm sitting there just going, we went off to bed last night. Like we made love or we were cuddling. We were good. Things were good. I woke up this morning. She comes down. She hates me.

And then we started, well, I started noticing this pattern. It was your dreams.

speaker-1 (23:32.734)
Yes, something you did in a dream that really annoyed me. Yeah, we don't do that anymore. But we used to do that a lot.

Anyway, this is the second part of the practice is actually what you do now with dreams and a whole lot more.

Most of the time. So that's how you express it. And there is a little bit of a formula that's kind of proven to work. it starts with, love you. And a part of me feels upset, since, or upset about, or whatever, however you want to continue that. So we start with, I love you, because that makes it safe. There's a safety in that. You're not on the attack.

And then the other part, when we go, a part of me feels that lessens the load because it's a part of you, it's not the whole lot of you. And we are not gonna go into the full, there's tone of study and explanation as to why this works and we might be going through it in other episodes and stuff, but for now it's like if you say, I love you and a part of me feels.

angry because or upset since or that's a way to speak it in the moment as soon as after you've noticed that change in your thoughts, emotions or body that makes it safe.

speaker-0 (25:01.838)
I know one thing for me adding in the I love you. What I found in that is in that moment when I have the upset classically, the intensity of that, I'm not safe to speak it immediately. And it's more likely to come out. I'm upset with you. It's like it's I'm pissy and I'm just have to go to. By adding in.

I love you. That literally forces me to slow down in that moment and take a breath because I'm not yet ready to say I love you. So just take a breath. And in that moment, even there, I'm mimicking it, but I can feel the tension coming because I love you. Take a breath and it's calming my nervous system down. That I love you practice I know viscerally when I'm with you.

It reconnects me with the deepest reason why I'm even saying it. I love you. I don't want upset. I don't want to carry this upset that's going to skyrocket my filing cabinet of frustration and it's going to, it's like, I love you. And there's a part of me feeling upset. I find it very effective.

Yeah. shorten the upset gap. That's the thing. That's the most powerful tip that is going to reduce conflict in your relationship. Shorten the upset gap from the point of upset. The first moment you notice it to the point of verbal expression when you start saying it, shorten that gap as much as you can.

One part to add in, because it's to link in the depth for people that are really finding this, you will add to the effectiveness even more if you listen to, I believe it's episode number three, which is the episode where we give an introduction to the three agreements.

speaker-1 (27:05.334)
I think it's episode 2. But I will put the link in the description anyways.

I really encourage anybody to listen to episode 2 because when you can have two partners that are in agreement, one, the practice of stating this, that would be playing pretty well. And when you can have a partner there that knows, okay, well, they're part of the dances, they will play your port in the storm. Well, now you've got a foundation that is absolutely unshakable. This by itself is super powerful and will transform everything.

But hey, you always want to just maximize your chances of radical success in this.

Yes. And for the most, the luck, the most benefit is share these episodes with your partner. Absolutely. Cause like if you're listening, you don't have to listen together, together, but if you are both listening to this podcast, you have shared language. You are actually together working on this and it makes it a lot more powerful. So yeah, I think that's it for today. I think we said it all. So until next time.

go and enjoy the marriage you want.

speaker-0 (28:17.528)
Yeah. Bye guys!

Bye.