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Question: I struggle knowing how to best motivate my husband to exercise. I find him attractive, but I'm concerned for his future health and I admit I also want to be attracted physically to him as we grow older. He has been willing to work out occasionally throughout our marriage, he even trained for and ran a marathon, but his body doesn't seem to change a whole lot. I've encouraged him to try different workouts and push himself, but he just gets mad at me for saying anything. I wish he would catch fire with diet and exercise, just because he wants me to be more attracted to him. Your advice would be very appreciated. I know I’m probably shallow and need to change myself, but is there anyway to motivate someone else to change too? Answer: There are a couple ways you can motivate your spouse to lose weight, but before you try them, you must first step back and look at the story you are telling yourself about his weight. There is definitely a lesson here for you. (Whenever something about someone else is bugging you, it's a sign you have some changing to do too.) It sounds like you have created a story that says “I will only be happy if my spouse loses weight,” meaning you will be unhappy if he doesn’t. You have created a story, which attaches your happiness to an outcome. This is a problem. One of the most powerful things Buddha said is, “It is your resistance to what is that causes your suffering.” This means when you wish things were different than they are, you are creating optional misery that doesn’t have to be there. This is truth because everything you experience is nothing more than perspective. No situation means anything (nor has any power to affect how you feel in any way) until you give it that power. Reality is objective. It is what it is and it means nothing and does nothing. Your husband has genes that make him a larger person. That is the objective reality. This situation cannot make you unhappy now or in the future. It’s the story you have created around the situation that determines how you feel. You’ve created a story that says you can only be attracted to a thinner person and if your spouse doesn’t work out and get thinner you won’t be attracted and therefore happy, but that isn’t necessarily true. Whether you are happy or unhappy (in any moment) is a matter of choice and focus in that moment. It has little to do with your situation. We know this because in every single moment of your life you will have reasons to be unhappy and reasons to be happy. You will have things you don’t like and you will have things you are grateful for. There will be people who have it worse than you and others who have it better. These conditions will always exist in every moment. It is the nature of life. The question is, what story are you telling yourself right now? Are you telling yourself a victim story about how bad you have it? Are you telling yourself a fear story about how bad the future might be? Are you telling yourself a shame story about how inadequate you are? You will be a lot happier if you live in the objective present, stop creating misery stories and focus on what is right in your life. Stop worrying about how you are going to feel about your husband in the future. Choose to feel good about your life right now. Look at all the things that are right in your life and marriage, and focus on those. Create a story about how wonderful it is to be married to a person who has your spouse’s good qualities. Fill out the Nature of Life worksheet on my website, it will help you focus on what’s right instead of what’s wrong. If you are still struggling with control over your mindset, I strongly encourage you to find a coach or counselor who can help you. If you want to have a better marriage and better intimacy, I can tell you exactly how to create that right now. Build your spouse up and tell him constantly how amazing and wonderful he is. Never make him feel he disappoints you on any level. The more admired, respected, appreciated and wanted you make him feel, the more he will love and adore you. This kind of loving behavior is what will create real happiness, connection and great intimacy — much more than weight loss will. If you are really worried about your spouse's health and you feel you must talk to him about his weight, make sure it is a love-motivated conversation, not a fear-motivated one. If you approach him because you are afraid you aren’t going to be attracted to him when he’s older, that’s fear. Fear is selfishness (it’s about you) and your spouse will feel this and will immediately feel the need to protect himself. Fear breeds fear and selfishness. You can't approach your spouse from this place and expect a good outcome. If you approach him because you want him to be healthy, strong and happy, and you are coming from nothing but love, he will feel this and the conversation will go better. Spend a lot of time validating him and telling him how wonderful he is first, though. These kinds of conversations trigger anyone’s deepest fear — the fear of failure that they might not be good enough. They will need a great deal of validation to go with your advice. Follow the Mutually Validating Conversations Worksheet on my website to have this conversations in a validating way. Do more asking questions and listening than talking. Find out what he wants, what his fears and concerns are and what kind of support he wants. No matter what he says, don’t let your fears come into this. You have nothing to fear. Ask how you could support him to get healthier so you can have an amazing life together. Be his support and cheerleader, not his critic or coach. Then, make sure if he tries to make changes you mention everything he is doing right and give him lots of positive encouragement along the way. Especially compliment who he is, his dedication and strength — not just what he looks like. Most importantly, choose to be happy and grateful for what’s right in your life in every moment. It is the real secret to happiness. You can do this.
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This article was first published on ksl.com
Question 1: My wife seems unwilling or unable to find mutually acceptable solutions when we disagree over doing something. She insists she deserves to have things her way and expects me to buy in to her view, and give up any desire for how I would like things done. What is going on here and how do I respond? Question 2: When my spouse asks for my opinion or input on things he doesn't seem to really want it. Unless I am totally gung-ho for his idea or plan, he gets upset and says I never listen to him, even when he has specifically asked what I think. Then, he pulls away and acts like I've done something horrible, that I need to apologize or make up for something. When he acts this way, I feel completely discounted, ignored and un-valued. I also feel betrayed when he asks what I think and then gets angry at me for telling him. My choices seem to be to go along with what he thinks and act excited and don't offer my own opinion, which seems like selling myself out and ensuring that my input/ideas are never part of our plans. Or, continue to answer honestly and get blamed and punished for doing so. I feel trapped and uncertain of how to do things so that there is a better outcome. Answer: Both of you are having what looks like communication problems in your marriage, but the underlying reason you can’t communicate with your spouses is that there are fear of failure issues (the fear of not being good enough) in the way. Let me explain this by giving you a couple of principles of human behavior. When you understand these principles, your spouse's behavior will make more sense. Principle 1: Most of us attach our value as a person to our thoughts, ideas and opinions. This means if people value our thoughts, ideas and opinions and agree with us, we feel validated and valued. If someone disagrees with us, we mistakenly feel they don’t value us as a person. This causes us pain because it triggers our fear of failure. Principle 2: When someone is experiencing fear of failure on the conscious or subconscious level, they become completely focused on themselves and on getting validation and reassurance to quiet their fear. In this place they feel threatened, which will make them selfish, defensive and unable to listen to or show up for you. Principle 3: Everyone on the planet suffers from the fear of failure to some degree on a daily basis. This fear is the root cause of most bad behavior. Whenever someone is behaving in a defensive way, you should step back and see them accurately as scared. You must recognize that what they need is validation and reassurance. You can use these principles to help you handle conversations with your spouse in a better way. The next time your spouse gets defensive because you don’t agree with them, try the following steps:
We also expect our spouse to sacrifice themselves for us, and when they aren’t willing to do that (because their needs are important, too) we cast them as the bad guy, which makes us feel like the good guy temporarily, helping our own fear of failure. But you must understand that expecting your spouse to sacrifice for you and making them responsible for your self-esteem is not love. Continual sacrifice is about scarcity, lack and deprivation, and it breeds resentment and guilt. Instead, we must allow our spouse to have a healthy balance between honoring their own needs and giving gifts of love to us (which are no sacrifice because they are happily given as gifts). If my spouse cannot give me a gift of love in this moment and give me my way, that has to be immediately forgiven, because I understand I will do the same thing at times. If you want to have a happy marriage, you both must work on your self-esteem and fear issues so you can be less needy and more giving. I have many free resources on my website to help you do this, including a "Repair your Marriage" E-book that would really help, and my book "Choosing Clarity" can guide you through eliminating the fear of failure and teach you how to have mutually validating conversations. Remember, your value is not in question because life is a classroom, not a test. This means you need no validation from your spouse. God is the author of your value and because of this, you have nothing to fear. You need nothing from your spouse because God meets all your needs. This attitude will create a healthy relationship based in real love. You can do this. Coach Kim is speaking at the LDS Know our Religion Lecture Series on Jan 6th on "How the Gospel Can Fix Your Self-Esteem Problems (Instead of Adding to Them)" click here and call for tickets. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular life coach, speaker and people skills expert. This was first published on ksl.com
Question: My spouse and I fight all the time because he takes everything I say as an insult and gets offended too easy. I keep trying to show him he is filtering what I say and making it negative. He is projecting his issues and fears onto me. The problem is that he cannot see this. He thinks what he sees is real and I’m the problem. I honestly don’t know if I can keep doing this, if I can’t get him to see things more accurately. Do you have any advice? Answer: Ask your spouse if he would be willing to read this article and understand your motivation in writing me was only a desire for him to be happier and for your marriage to work. I will explain in simple terms how we all, at times, create unnecessary and even self-inflicted suffering through projection and how to stop. Basically we suffer, get upset and behave badly quite often, because we are not seeing the world accurately. We see and experience life through a thought-created filter made of our past beliefs, fears and stories. We subconsciously project these beliefs, fears and stories onto everything and everyone around us, and we all do this at times. We project our faults and weaknesses onto others too, which is why a bully who is scared at home likes to make other kids scared at school. It’s why the husband who doesn’t trust his wife is also disloyal to her on some level. It is why controlling people tend to hate controlling people and when you are afraid you aren’t good enough, you will see rejection and insults in others, even when they aren't there. If you see offenses, bad behavior and mean people everywhere you look, it is probably because you are coming to every situation already feeling inadequate, walked on or threatened. This is just a universal law: You see the world as you are. Whatever conflict, fear or pain you have inside you, it will filter and distort what you see. Rory Mackay, an fabulous English writer, said, “The problem is when our thoughts, interpretations and projections cause us to suffer. This happens when we interpret reality in painful, self-limiting, dysfunctional and destructive ways. When we have a limiting self-image and think of ourselves as being worthless and inadequate little worms, or have a distorted view of the world and the nature reality, we suffer immensely.” He says there are two realities we experience. 1) The unbiased objective reality — what is actually happening around you. This reality is shared with others and is the same for everyone. 2) The thought-created reality — a reality you see because of the thoughts and beliefs you have projected onto the unbiased reality, creating a private reality only you experience. This thought-created reality is made of faulty scripts, stories and fear-based programming, much of which was created when you were a child. All of us see the world as a thought-created reality, to some degree every day. To make matters worse, we believe this thought-created reality is the unbiased reality. We believe what we think we are experiencing is real. When your spouse says something about your behavior at a party, your mind will instantly filter what she said through all your subconscious programming, beliefs, fears and stories you have previously created about yourself and her. The way you experience the comment could also be affected by your mood, which creates yet another filter that affects how you experience this comment. Hence, you are not really experiencing what she said, you are experiencing your thought-created version of what she said. It is highly likely what she really said, if seen through the unbiased reality, was neutral and didn’t mean what you thought it meant. Your thinking (or what you thought about what she said) is causing your suffering — not what she said. The comment itself didn’t mean anything, because nothing means anything until your thinking applies meaning to it. (This doesn’t let your spouse off the hook for actual rude comments, of course. Sometimes your spouse says something unbiasedly offensive, but even then you will still add meaning to it and determine the amount of pain you experience around it, because words can’t diminish you without your approval.) Whenever a comment hurts you, step back and write what happened on paper in a completely non-biased way, being objective and unemotional about it. Strip away the meaning and emotion and just write what happened as factually and accurate as possible. This means "He insulted my cooking and doesn't appreciate anything I do" might become "His taste buds didn't like this one meal, which has nothing to do with my value as a person or his love for me." If you feel a real insult happened, then maybe a conversation needs to happen about this issue so it won’t happen again. Just make sure you have that conversation from a place of equality (seeing the other person as the same as you). In other words, don't talk down to them. There are two worksheets on my website which would help you with this. The Mutually Validating Conversations Worksheet would help you handle feedback conversations with your spouse the right way, and the To Be or Not to Be Upset Worksheet would help you step back and avoid projection. I recommend you get both. You also need to do some work on your self-esteem and the subconscious fears you have about failure and not being good enough. The Course in Miracles states, “Every response you make, is determined by what you think you are.” Each of us has a deep subconscious fear we might not be good enough. This fear of failure or inadequacy gets projected onto everything we experience. We may even subconsciously project this fear onto God and believe he doesn’t think we're good enough either. When you feel deprived, vulnerable, cheated, unworthy or rejected, you project those feelings onto others and believe they are taking from you or insulting you. If you feel this way often, you must understand this problem is an internal one, not an external one, and your attacking others will not fix it. The truth is you are perfect, totally forgiven, good enough and loved (even though you are a struggling student in the classroom of life with much more to learn). Life is a classroom not a test, so you have nothing to fear. When you don’t own this idea as truth though, you become a bundle of fear, which causes you to attack others and feel attacked all the time. As a life coach, I believe the first and most important thing you have to do, to create better results in your life, is to correct this core fundamental belief that your value is in question, which creates the fear you might not be good enough. When you change what you think you are, it will change all your subconscious reactions and projections, which will change your behavior. If you struggle with low self-esteem, fear of failure, or you just have tremendous stress and worry about life, you need to get some professional help immediately to correct your fundamental beliefs about yourself. You must find an expert who knows how to do this specifically. This is the most powerful, life changing thing you can do for yourself and your family. Nothing would make a bigger difference. I also explain how to make this fundamental change in your thinking, in my book "Choosing Clarity." It would help you to see your world and your value more accurately and suffer less. You might want to get one for your spouse. You can do this. This was first published on ksl.com
Question: I don't know why but I don’t trust my husband. I love him, but this is a recurring battle between us. He swears that he loves me and isn’t cheating on me. He never hides his phone. I have all his passwords to everything, yet I constantly have a gut feeling he's cheating on me. I'm not sure if it's in my mind or real. How can I trust him if this nagging feeling keeps coming up? Answer: I think your real question is, “Is this your intuition telling you something true, or are you projecting your fear and trust issues onto your spouse unfairly?” Most of the time gut feelings are reliable and worth paying attention to, but your subconscious fears can also get in the way and muddle these messages. I had a client who had quietly known her husband wasn’t faithful for years, but didn’t act on it because she lacked confidence. She recently found out he’d been cheating on her the entire time. Having said that, I have another client who let her fear of abandonment create a suspicion of cheating in her marriage that was completely off base. After years of being questioned and second-guessed, her poor husband finally asked for a divorce. This woman didn’t believe she was worthy of love and in the end she created that. You must make sure your subconscious fears aren't clouding your perception of your husband. Ask yourself how often you suffer with insecurity or a fear of not being good enough or fear of loss? If these are big issues for you, or if you have felt unloved, unwanted or unappreciated in the past, there is a good chance you are projecting your subconscious fears onto your spouse. If this is the case, you must do some work on your self-esteem. Once you can see yourself as amazing, lovable and valued, you will be better able to hear your intuition and know what's true about your husband. I strongly encourage anyone with trust issues to get some professional help. A good coach or counselor can help you get clarity on what's happening fast. Also, understand the difference between an intuition message and a fear feeling. An intuition message from your gut is usually a peaceful one that prompts action, while fear tends to come with feelings of anxiety and stress that can paralyze you (like a deer in the headlights) and stop you from action. Intuition is also more unemotional and focused in the moment, while fear feels emotionally charged and is usually tied to experiences from the past. If you were cheated on before or were raised to distrust men, you might bring those experiences with you into the future. If you have some of these experiences in your past it makes fear a more likely suspect. Most people who get an intuition feeling describe it as a quiet knowing, while people who are experiencing fear are more bothered and grouchy. This is not the case 100 percent of the time, but it's a pretty good tell. Another strong possibility, in your situation, is that you are just picking up on a detached energy coming from your spouse, because he is not fully invested in the relationship. He may not be cheating, but he may not be fully engaged in the marriage either. If this is the case you must ask yourself if you are fully engaged. Are you fully invested in making him feel appreciated, admired, respected and wanted daily? Are you loyal to him (meaning do you give him the benefit of the doubt, have his back and create a safe place for him to be accepted as he is)? Very few marriage problems can be blamed all on one partner. Most of the time it takes two to create a broken marriage, so you must take a look at your investment level too. Also be aware your distrust alone could be making him pull back and feel detached. If you are bringing fear energy into the relationship, you will always get fear energy back. Fear can't create love. At the end of the day, you are going to have two choices.
He won’t trust you either. Distrust is a selfish place, where your focus is on protecting you. When people feel your distrust they subconsciously sense that you are only worried about yourself, and therefore, are not worried about them and makes them feel unsafe with you. He will sense your fear and will lose respect for you. Fear in any form is perceived as weakness and weakness is not respected. Real strength (that comes from a place of trust and love) is what earns respect. You will create antagonism in your relationships. When you are focused on protecting yourself all the time, it triggers the other person to focus on protecting their self. In this state, no one is giving any love and the relationship will fall apart. You may want to try the following test and see if it brings clarity: Make the decision that you are going to trust your husband from now on. Assume your distrustful feelings are based in your fears of inadequacy or abandonment. Then, spend the next few days fully committed to trust, work on your self-esteem, read some books on the subject or talk to a counselor or coach about overcoming your fears. During this time, see how you feel about your decision. If you feel peaceful and calm, you are on the right track and there was nothing to fear. But if the feeling of warning won’t go away and continues to nag at you, you probably need to pay attention to it. Most of the time (if you are still not sure what is true) it is better to choose love and trust. If you choose to trust your spouse and make him feel appreciated, admired, respected and wanted every day, and he ends up cheating, it will be his bad and his loss. He will carry the responsibility for wrecking the relationship. But if you choose to assume the worst of him and live with distrust, fear and suspicion and he doesn’t cheat, it will be you who wrecks the relationship. I believe trust and love are the best answer. Besides, seeing the absolute best in someone can often push him or her in that direction. If your husband thinks you think he is wonderful, kind, honest and loving, he will often try to live up to that. But if you think he is dishonest and sleazy, he might as well be that. Tell your husband how wonderful he is and make sure he feels loved and wanted every day. People who feel adored, wanted and cherished usually don’t cheat. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. There are some situations where loving people who are fully invested in their relationship are still rejected or cheated on, but they are the exception, not the rule. Some of us marry people who are incapable of being honest and committed. If you are in one of those relationships, getting out is your best course of action. I recommend you choose to be fully engaged in giving love, support, appreciation and affection to your spouse; work to improve your self-esteem; and fully commit to seeing the absolute best in your partner instead of the worst. If you try this for a while and something still feels off, listen to your gut and follow it. You can do this. Question:
I just read your article on KSL about having a victim mentality. What would you recommend to someone who has a spouse with this victim mindset? The problem is that it terrifies our young kids, and the older ones have seen the behavior so often that they are jaded against it. This probably is making things worse because it makes her believe that truly nobody cares when, in fact, they just realize that there is nothing they can say or do to make things right. My wife stonewalls any effort to communicate about this. I have suggested counseling in the past, but she refuses to acknowledge that she has a problem. How do you help someone break this cycle? Answer: This is tricky because it’s impossible to change or fix other individuals until they decide they are ready (and want) to change, and she really does need some professional help to change how she is feeling, seeing things and behaving. Here are a few things you can do to get her ready and open to changing:
This was first published on ksl.com
Question: I support gay marriage but my spouse is very against it. Every time the topic comes up, which is often, we end up in an argument. At first we agreed to just never talk about it, but that is proving hard to do. We both feel strongly about our position and we get emotional and angry. We really wish we were on the same page on this. It’s driving a wedge in our marriage. I hate that he sees me as wrong and he hates that I see him as homophobic and mean. Do you have any advice on this? What do you do when you fundamentally disagree at a core level with the person you love most? Answer: This question may benefit all of us, because your marriage is just a microcosm of our society right now. Both sides of this issue have strong opinions and emotions are running high. Maybe it would help if we all learned how to appreciate each other, honor our differences, and respect those who disagree with us. I believe life is a classroom (you hear me say that often) but I believe this classroom was specifically designed to teach us how to love ourselves and other people at a higher level. In order for us to stretch and learn to love at a higher level, God made us all different. God could have made us all the same race, color, size and sexual orientation, but that would have made accepting each other way too easy. What’s the challenge in that? Instead people come in many different sizes, shapes, colors, races and sexual orientation. I believe these differences were intentional, they are here for a reason — so we get the opportunity to learn to love those who are different, which is more difficult to do. Differences give us all kinds of challenges to overcome and grow from. Every experience, issue, difference and disagreement is a lesson to teach you love, though. I believe this is especially true in your marriage. This unique relationship can teach you things you can’t learn anywhere else, because your spouse can push your buttons better than anyone else. Your marriage is your perfect classroom. On top of that, sexual orientation is a tough difference to process for many people, because they just can’t get their head around it or understand it. These types of differences can also cause us to lump whole groups of people into “them” groups opposed to “us” groups and subconsciously see them as the bad guys or the wrong ones. We literally see “these people” and everyone on “their side” as the enemy at the subconscious level. They are the enemy because either they are wrong or I am. Both can’t be right. So your question is really, "How do I genuinely love my enemies and those who strongly disagree with me and see me as wrong?" Here are some things you can do (and we all can do) to stop the fighting and increase our compassion and tolerance for others:
You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach and speaker. This was first published on KSL.COM
Question: We have been married about 15 years and the last 10 have been really tough. I honestly just don’t feel loved. My spouse is often unkind and seems too busy, too tired and too interested in other things to have time or energy to give to me. I’ve tried talking to him, pleading with him and yelling at him, and things get better for a week and then go back to the same thing again with him snapping at me. I really want my marriage to be good. Is there a way to fix it when it’s this broken? I can’t handle a lifetime of this. If it doesn’t improve, I will throw in the towel. I’d love some advice. Answer: You can turn your relationship around and repair what’s broken, if both of you are willing to get some help and work on it. I see relationships this bad get better every day. (Even if your spouse is not willing to work on it or get help but you are it might be enough.) If you make some real changes in the way you show up in the marriage, one of two things will happen: Your spouse will respond and become more loving, or it will become apparent that he isn’t really invested in this and you will know it’s time to leave. Just don’t decide to throw in the towel until you have tried these things first. Here are the things I recommend you do to turn your relationship around. First, understand the real reason your spouse is behaving selfishly and not lovingly. In the book "Real Love" by Dr. Greg Baer (a book I highly recommend.) Baer asks us to imagine being in the middle of the ocean when a man grabs you from behind and pushes you under water. You are struggling to get free, but he keeps pushing you under. Right before you pass and drown, someone arrives and pulls you loose and into a boat. After you catch your breath, you turn and see the man who pushed you under. He is also drowning. He only pushed you under in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Once you see this accurately, you would quickly help him into the boat with you. This is what I think is happening in your relationship: Your spouse is drowning from a lack of love for himself and an ocean of fear (of failure and loss). The self-absorbed, grouchy and sometimes mean behavior is coming from his deep fears of inadequacy and pain. This is the real reason he has nothing to give you. His fears are so painful they keep him focused on one thing — getting or doing whatever he can to stop the pain. Unfortunately, other human beings often project their pain onto you. They blame you and lash out at you, because if they stay focused on seeing you as the bad guy, they won’t have to deal with their pain and fear. Don’t ever mistakenly assume that your spouse isn’t loving you, because you aren’t worthy of love. Or that his unkind behavior means he doesn't love you. I promise, this isn’t about you. You are lovable and good enough. You must not take his inability to give love to you right now, personally. His unkind behavior is a cry for help. It is hurt people, who hurt people. Baer would say the real problem in your relationship is you both entered into it broken and scared; you had fears of inadequacy and failure from the start. You never had a solid sense of your infinite value and this made you incapable of giving "real love" to each other. You started this marriage with empty buckets, so you basically made a subconscious bargain that went something like this. “If you will validate me, make me feel safe, and give me imitation love in the form of flattery, sex, money, approval or appreciation, then I will do the same for you. As long as you fill my empty bucket, I’ll fill yours.” According to Baer, these immature bargains and imitation forms of love were all you had to give because when you don’t feel safe, loved and whole by yourself, you don’t have "real love" to give. At first, this deal probably worked but then life happened, things got hard, and you both inevitably disappointed each other. When we get disappointed, we start worrying about our own empty bucket, and this is where the getting behaviors start. Baer explains that “getting behaviors” are games we play to try to get imitation forms of love to fill our buckets. We may lie and conform to be something we aren’t to try to get validation and approval. We may get angry and attack the other trying to demand what we need. We may play the victim card and try to get sympathy love. Some of us get clingy and suck the life out of our partner with our neediness, trying to get the validation or reassurance we need. The problem is that if you are focused on getting love and you aren’t giving any. You can’t do them both. You are either showing up whole and giving love energy into your relationship or you are in fear about yourself and bringing scarcity, lack and needy energy into your relationship. You are either a getter or a giver. If you are showing up with fear energy, which you are unless you feel whole, safe and loved by yourself and by God or the universe, then you are bringing an energy that triggers selfish, protective energy in your spouse. As a matter of fact, it makes him focus on his needs. Your selfish energy basically makes him more selfish. In a marriage where both parties are worried about themselves being loved - no love happens. Take a minute and own if you are even capable of "real love." Do you feel whole, safe and loved in and by yourself? Do you have a full bucket and you don’t need anyone else to fill it? If you don’t, you must get some professional help to work on this. Working on your self-esteem is the best thing you can do for your marriage. Encourage and support your spouse to get help and work on his self-esteem also. Great marriages are made of two people who have confidence, strength and love for and in themselves first. Once you have this, you will be capable of giving real love — and will be ready for the real secret to fixing your marriage. Are you ready for it? Stop trying to "get" love from your spouse. Stop worrying about you and start giving "real love" to your spouse. That is in fact what real love is — more concern for the happiness of the other person than your own. You must become a giver, who gives with no strings attached. Don’t give so you can receive. Give because you genuinely want your spouse to feel appreciated, respected, admired and wanted. If you do this your spouse will feel that it is genuine love, and when he feels this real unconditional love you are giving, even though he isn’t perfect and sometimes doesn’t deserve it, it will really mean a lot to him. He will, most likely, respond and start truly loving and giving to you. I say "most likely" because there are some people who are not capable of giving to you, no matter what you give to them, though these are rare, and even these people might change with some time and professional help. Trust your gut and you will know if this is happening in your case and what you need to do about it. Just remember this rule: you get what you give. If you are bringing fear, lack, anger, protecting and getting energy into your marriage, your spouse will respond by worrying, protecting and getting for himself too. But if you give real love, concern, selfless service, kindness, forgiveness, understanding and compassion, you will get that back. If you strive every day to make your spouse feel appreciated, respected, admired and wanted, you will start feeling loved. If you aren’t getting enough love back, it means more work is needed to repair the fears and insecurities that are making this person incapable of love. So, I strongly urge you to get some professional help. Ask around and find someone with a proven track record of success with couples. It may take a few tries to find someone that is a good fit for both of you. Don’t give up if the first person you go to isn’t right, and don’t wait until you are on the verge of divorce to get help. Get help at the first sign that things aren’t right. You will save yourself years of heartache. A little help from an expert makes fixing anything easier. I also recommend meeting individually not together at first, so you can work on fixing your behavior and your self-esteem, not finger pointing at your spouse. I also have many resources for repairing relationships on my website that might help. You can do this! Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular life coach and speaker. This article was first published on KSL.COM
Question: My husband and I have been married about two years and we simply cannot talk about money without it ending in a fight. He gets very angry if I bring up my concerns about our spending habits, but we can't keep going like we are. How do I get him to talk to me about money without him getting angry and attacking me? Answer: Almost everyone fights about money on occasion, because it is a topic that brings out both the fear of loss (the fear of losing money or losing control) and the fear of failure (the fear of making mistakes or not being good enough) and when you or your spouse is functioning from fear, you will tend to be selfish, reactive and unkind. You must understand your spouse gets upset when you try to talk about money, because he's scared or feels threatened in some way. He may be afraid this conversation is going to end with him looking bad or feeling like a failure. Or he may feel you are trying to take from him at some level. In order to change the way you communicate about money, you must get clear about the specific fears money triggers in each of you. If you understand what he fears, you will also understand what he needs. Figure the answers to these questions first: What does money represent to you? And what does it represent to your spouse? Here are some ideas about what money represents. See if these are true for either of you.
Then, figure out what each of you are afraid of when it comes to money. Here are some possibilities:
I recommend that you and your husband go over these questions in detail by yourself and then together as a couple. Get really honest about what triggers your fear and what kind of bad behavior you are prone to when these fears show up. Understand that men, especially, have a great deal of fear of failure and loss around money. If you handle money or conversations about money in a way that triggers these deep and painful fears, the resulting behavior is not going to be good. Scared people aren't very kind. They are focused on one thing only, feeling safer, and if this means lashing back at you, blaming you for the problems or shutting down the entire conversation, that is what they'll do. If you are going to talk about money you must learn to do it from a place of love and understanding about his fears. You must reassure him that he is admired, respected, appreciated and wanted (and you must do this all the time so the foundation is there long before the conversation about money comes up). Before you bring up your concerns about money, ask lots of questions about how he feels about it. What are his concerns, needs, wants and plans? Take the time to listen to his thoughts first and validate, honor and respect his right to those ideas even if you don't agree. After you have spent time listening to him, ask if you can share some of your ideas. Make sure you use 'I' statements and talk about yourself and your observations and fears. Avoid 'you' statements, which feel like an attack. You can download my formula for mutually validating conversations from my website. Then, together as a team, you must create some rules about spending, saving and debt that will lessen both your fears. Make sure both parties agree to following the rules and being honest and loyal to each other. Here are some other tips that may lessen the conflict: Never fight about money in the moment when your fear is first triggered. Make it your policy to step back, identify your fears, and make sure you can treat your spouse with respect and love before talking about money. Listen to and validate each other’s feelings. Having mutually validating conversations is the key to a good marriage. Honor and respect your spouse’s right to see the situation the way they see it. Respectfully ask permission to share your feelings and then do so in a kind, loving way. Focus more on future behavior than past behavior. Ask if they would be open to behaving differently in the future. Create compromises that put both your fears to rest. Set rules and limits you are both comfortable with. Create a budget and honor it. Make rules about how much you will spend per week on small things. Agree that on purchases (over a certain amount) you will talk to each other first. Rules like these make everyone feel safer. Keep the rules. This is the most important way you can honor your commitment to your spouse. You cannot have love without trust. Be honest. Never lie to your spouse. It’s better to tell them what they won’t want to hear, than to lie and destroy the trust in your relationship. Make a plan to get out of debt and start saving. This creates peace of mind and lessens fear in everyone. If you or your spouse have so much fear around money that you just can't get past it, I highly recommend you get some professional help with it. It's the best thing you can do for your family. You can do this. First published on KSL.COM
Question: I just read your article on Spouses Who Can’t Forgive, but when the same problem happens again after your spouse has promised that it has ended. What do you do? Trust is a huge issue, how do you ever gain trust back after the continued lies and deception? Each time, I get upset, we fight, I forgive and try to forget. But then it happens again. I'm really struggling with continuing to be a forgiving spouse, when he seems determined to repeat this pattern. How should I handle this? Continue forgiving? Answer: This is a tricky question to answer, because everyone’s situation is very different. Some marriages are struggling because of one spouse’s bad behavior, while the other spouse is doing their part to support and love. Others have an unsupportive or unaffectionate spouse, whose unloving behavior is part of the problem. I have no idea which situation you are in, but I believe that each person must check their own behavior first. Make sure that you have honestly asked what you can do different to help your spouse to change. Are you showing them they are wanted, appreciated, admired and respected by you? I know it is difficult when they are behaving badly, but your ability to see their intrinsic value, despite their challenges, makes a HUGE difference. You can make the process of changing much easier if you are encouraging and loving. Having said that, if you have done all these things and the bad behavior continues without much effort to change it, it may be time to get realistic. There is nothing heroic about staying with someone who is behaving badly and making no effort to change. Also remember, you are teaching your spouse how to behave by what you allow. If you continue to allow bad behavior with no real effort to change, you are going to get more of it. You are also teaching your children, by example, how to treat you and how to treat their future spouse. So if your relationship is setting a bad example and making everyone miserable, you may want to rethink staying in it. I strongly believe you alone, though, are the only one entitled to know if you should stay with your spouse and keep fighting to make the relationship work or get out. If you listen to your heart, you will know if your perfect classroom journey is in this marriage, or if your perfect journey is elsewhere. Listen to your heart and act on it. Don’t let me or anyone else tell you what you should do. You will know what is right for you. If you can’t tell what your heart is saying because there is too much fear is in the way, you may need some professional help to work through the issues. If you decide to keep working on your marriage, remember that trust is like a building, which can be completely destroyed in a minute, but takes a long time to rebuild. Rebuilding takes courage, perseverance and patience. There is no quick fix. Here are some Do’s and Don’ts for this process:
f you decide melted chocolate isn’t for you and your heart says it’s time to move on, don’t be afraid to make that decision. Sometimes it's better for everyone. Follow your heart and you will know what to do. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular life coach and speaker. First published on KSL.COM
Question: I read your article about not suffering more than you have to over and over again. I get and agree with everything in it except for the forgiveness part. I feel like I can absolutely NOT forgive my husband at this time, due to how severe the situation is and how hurt I still am. Do you have any advice? Answer: I get letters daily from heartbroken men whose wives are stuck like you are stuck and not ready to forgive. It breaks my heart because these husbands desperately want to change, have changed or are working on changing, but the wives can’t let go of the past and forgive. This is causing great suffering on both sides. (I realize in some marriages it is the husbands who can’t forgive — the same principles apply.) Forgiving your spouse can be very hard to do, especially if the offenses feel personal, but you must not make excuses and put off doing it any longer. Forgiving is the most important lesson you are here (in the classroom of life) to learn, and the consequences of putting it off are a great deal of pain and suffering for YOU and your family. I'm sorry, but I'm going to be blunt here, "I'm not ready" is an excuse you use when you can't articulate the real reason you don't want to forgive. You need to identify the real reason you don't want to forgive so you can work past it. Here are some possibilities: Do you think staying angry towards your spouse protects you from further mistreatment and that forgiving would allow more of it? Is staying mad (and casting them as the bad guy) allowing you to avoid looking at your own faults, mistakes or pain? I have had many spouses admit that if they put down their anger towards their spouse they would have to deal with their faults and that is just too painful. Are you using anger and hurt as an excuse to keep your spouse away from you, because you actually have issues around intimacy (discomfort or lack of desire) and you would rather avoid it? Is your anger justifying or giving you a reason not to have a healthy intimate relationship — but blame it on him? Are you waiting to see more shame and guilt before you can forgive? Do you feel like your spouse hasn’t been punished enough? The truth is it’s healthy for people to understand the wrong and then let it go and move forward without guilt. Drawing out the shame and guilt isn’t necessary for someone to change. Are you stuck in the need to be right? Have you cast your spouse as the bad one in the marriage and you must continue to see him this way in order to feel good about yourself? Be honest. Now, here is the truth about each of those:
Remember you aren’t perfect either. Get off your high horse. Your spouse did wrong and it sounds like this was an especially painful wrong, but you aren’t perfect either. You may not have made this mistake, but you have made others, and I guarantee there is a downside to being married to you too (there is for all of us). You must remember that you are both imperfect, struggling students in the classroom of life, with lots more to learn, who both deserve forgiveness. You alone are responsible for the pain you are experiencing. No situation can cause you pain without your participation in it, because your thoughts and feelings are in your control. No one can take away your pain or give you pain. You alone have that power. If you struggle to understand this principle, read my article about choosing to be upset. You must grasp the truth that you are in control of your thoughts and feelings. You don’t have to wait until you feel ready to forgive. You can choose to be ready. Your spouse is guilty of bad behavior, but he is not less of a person than you are, because you both have the same infinite and absolute value. You both have the same value no matter how many mistakes either of you make. This is true because life is a classroom, not a test, and your value isn't on the line. That does not mean you and your spouse don't have more to learn and need to improve your behavior, but your lack of knowledge and need for improvement does not affect your value. Forgiveness is about seeing yourself and others accurately — as innocent, completely forgiven, struggling, scared, messed up, but perfect students in the classroom of life, with lots still to learn. Most of us think forgiving is about seeing people as guilty and then trying to pardon them for those mistakes. If you try to forgive this way it will never happen. You will still be hung up on the fact they are guilty. Forgiveness will never work when it’s a gift undeserved. Real forgiveness means letting go of judgment completely and understanding that God has already forgiven all the wrongs, pain and hurt on both sides of this. The entire past has been wiped clean of all selfish, fear-based bad behavior. It is gone except for the resentment you are holding onto. It is time to let go and accept forgiveness for both of you. You must give each other permission to be a “work in progress” and not crucify each other for mistakes. Forgiveness is the key to happiness. It is the only way to peace, confidence and security. This is just universal law. The key to forgiveness lies in one very simple choice that you must make over and over every day. What energy do you want to live in — judgment, energy or forgiveness energy? Judgment energy means you stand in judgment of others, condemning and crucifying them for past mistakes. If you choose this, you must understand that it will also create low self-esteem in you. This happens because you are giving power to the idea that people can be "not good enough" and this will subconsciously feel true about you too. The energy you will live in that comes with a judgment mindset is also heavy, negative and unhappy. Your other option is a forgiveness mindset. Here you choose to forgive yourself and others and completely let go of every misconceived, stupid, selfish, fear-based mistake either of you has ever made. You choose to see these mistakes for what they really are — bad behavior born of confusion, self-doubt, lack of knowledge, low self-esteem and fear. In this place, you choose to see everyone as innocent and forgiven (by God) for all mistakes, and in doing so, let them and you start over with a clean slate every day. If you choose this mindset, you will feel safe, loved, whole and good about yourself all the time. This energy that comes with this state is light, peaceful and happy. The question is: How do you want to live? (This obviously does not mean you should put up with abuse. If your spouse is emotionally, verbally or physically abusive, you should seek professional help.) If you continue to struggle with forgiveness, I encourage you also to work with a counselor or coach who can help. I also have some forgiveness worksheets on my website that may help you work through specific offenses. You can do this! Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach and speaker. |
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AuthorKimberly Giles is the president and founder of Claritypoint Life Coaching and 12 SHAPES INC. She is an author and professional speaker. She was named one of the top 20 advice gurus in the country by Good Morning America in 2010. She appears regularly on local and national TV and Radio. Archives
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