Speaker 1: I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Speaker 1: Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
Speaker 1: column for the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 2: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
Speaker 2: And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: Each week we invite you into a real session where
Speaker 1: we help people confront their biggest problems and then give
Speaker 1: them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made
Speaker 1: in their lives.
Speaker 2: So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
Speaker 2: we're in session with Anna and Chris, a young married
Speaker 2: couple who came to us after Anna, who is pregnant
Speaker 2: with their first child, discovered that Chris had been lying
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 3: The thing that hurt me about it was when I
Speaker 3: see tons and tons of messages to his younal co
Speaker 3: worker and asking things like hollis your day. That was
Speaker 3: really hurtful to me, because that's something he should be
Speaker 3: asking his wife first.
Speaker 1: A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
Speaker 1: It is not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is
Speaker 1: not a substitute for professional healthcare. Advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Speaker 1: By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia
Speaker 1: use it in partworn ful, and we may edit it
Speaker 1: for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear. All
Speaker 1: names have been changed for the privacy of our guests.
Speaker 1: Hi Laurie, Hi guy. So what's in our mailbox today?
Speaker 2: Today we have a letter about secrets in a marriage,
Speaker 2: and here it is deotherapists. I am five months pregnant
Speaker 2: with my first child, a time that should be flooded
Speaker 2: with warm and bubbly emotions, junk food cravings, and trips
Speaker 2: to the local baby clothing store. However, the past several
Speaker 2: days have been filled with crippling anxiety and an emotional
Speaker 2: pain I didn't know existed. You see, I recently found
Speaker 2: out that Chris, my husband of one year, is a
Speaker 2: pathological liar and, in my mind, an adulterer. Unbeknownst to me,
Speaker 2: Chris had been meticulously hiding over twenty thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: credit card debt. How he did this I still haven't
Speaker 2: a clue, since we had multiple in depth conversations around
Speaker 2: finances before and during our marriage. To make matters worse,
Speaker 2: several charges to these credit cards were for an online
Speaker 2: adult subscription website, the deepest cut of all. While he
Speaker 2: claims he considered this to be only porn, in my
Speaker 2: mind he had an affair. These charges were dated during
Speaker 2: the months in which we were trying to conceive our child.
Speaker 2: Despite everything, I love him deeply and desperately want this
Speaker 2: to work. However, the emotional pain and betrayal I feel
Speaker 2: is unbearable. I recently set strict boundaries with accountability and
Speaker 2: set up our first couple's therapy appointment. But what if
Speaker 2: this isn't enough? How on earth do I survive this? Sincerely, Anna, I.
Speaker 1: Really feel for Anna because pregnancy is a time when
Speaker 1: people often feel a heightened sense of wanting to feel
Speaker 1: safe and protected, and there were things going on that
Speaker 1: she didn't know about, and now she is feeling very unsafe,
Speaker 1: and so I think this is really less about whether
Speaker 1: it's money or infidelity and more about deception and honesty
Speaker 1: in the marriage.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I'm really glad that today both of
Speaker 2: them will be on the show because this is not
Speaker 2: something that she can repair alone. They need to repair
Speaker 2: it together, and they have a time concern because once
Speaker 2: that baby comes, their hands are going to be full.
Speaker 2: It's going to demand so much of their attention. They
Speaker 2: really want to try and get in a better place
Speaker 2: than they are right now, certainly, so it's really important
Speaker 2: that they're both here today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's go talk to them and find out
Speaker 1: what's going on. You're listening to Dear Therapists for my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
Speaker 2: I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is
Speaker 2: Dear Therapist.
Speaker 1: Hi Anna, Hi Chris, Well, thank you.
Speaker 2: For coming on our show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for helping us.
Speaker 1: We wanted to start by hearing a little bit about
Speaker 1: how long you've been together, how you met a little
Speaker 1: bit of the history of the marriage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've been married just over one year. We
Speaker 3: have been together for I would say over three years now.
Speaker 3: We actually met online, and up.
Speaker 5: Until marriage, our relationship was very good, very positive.
Speaker 3: I feel like it was very healthy. And then once
Speaker 3: we got married, certain things kind of happened gradually that
Speaker 3: started to affect our relationship.
Speaker 1: What kind of things started to happen.
Speaker 3: So I noticed that I would catch Chris in white
Speaker 3: wise every now and then, and at first I just
Speaker 3: disregarded that. I know that everyone tells a why at
Speaker 3: some point and there why.
Speaker 2: What's an example of a white lie, what you call
Speaker 2: a white line.
Speaker 3: Just talking about social media? It'd be like, oh, who
Speaker 3: are you talking to? And he would say someone that
Speaker 3: he was not talking to and I would be like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's not what you said. Little things like that that
Speaker 3: just kind of broke down trust very gradually.
Speaker 1: Can I ask why you were asking him who he
Speaker 1: was talking to? Did you suspect that maybe he was
Speaker 1: talking to someone that he shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: Yes and no. At that point I trusted him, But
Speaker 3: I feel like I have trust issues in general, and
Speaker 3: so that voice in the back of my head was
Speaker 3: always just wanting to get that confirmation.
Speaker 1: Why was it that you only started asking once you
Speaker 1: were married, but for the first three years of the
Speaker 1: relationship those trust issues didn't really come up for you
Speaker 1: in the same way, I.
Speaker 3: Think, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think once we
Speaker 3: were married, we were more comfortable with each other, and
Speaker 3: that pressure of keeping the peace, I guess was gone,
Speaker 3: and so I felt like I was more able to
Speaker 3: ask those questions and put a little bit more pressure
Speaker 3: on him in that way.
Speaker 2: Chris, can you tell us about your perspective just about
Speaker 2: the dating and the relationship, how it proceeded, and then
Speaker 2: we can get to these exchanges at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the marriage about the white lives.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dating started off long distance, and it was good.
Speaker 4: Like with my company, I was able to travel on weekends,
Speaker 4: and if I couldn't travel that weekend, then she would
Speaker 4: come down and see me. And it worked really well.
Speaker 4: And then I think just kind of as we got married,
Speaker 4: I kind of lost a little bit of that I
Speaker 4: wouldn't say spark, but it just lost a little bit
Speaker 4: of the excitement of seeing each other on the weekends
Speaker 4: or something to look forward to. And I got pretty
Speaker 4: engrossed with work because COVID hit, and then it just
Speaker 4: kind of seemed like a little bit of a downward
Speaker 4: spiral around then.
Speaker 2: In what sense a downward spiral.
Speaker 4: I was working extra, so I was tired. Anna was
Speaker 4: working extra, she was tired when we came home. It
Speaker 4: wasn't like the fun, let's go on dates. It was
Speaker 4: the hey, let's watch a TV show. And it kind
Speaker 4: of a little bit got I would say, to the
Speaker 4: point of like a daily regimen that was pretty repetitive.
Speaker 2: Were you voicing any of that is that something you
Speaker 2: brought up in conversation to Anna, saying, Hey, we're falling
Speaker 2: into a bit of a rout here, let's shake things up.
Speaker 4: Not really. I've always been kind of a to myself
Speaker 4: kind of person, like I had never sought therapy or
Speaker 4: anything like that until just a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 4: and we started doing all of our healing. I was
Speaker 4: a pretty self internalized person, and I would go through
Speaker 4: ebbs and flows of emotions of being frustrated and not
Speaker 4: wanting to talk to her about it, but not really
Speaker 4: talking to anybody about it.
Speaker 2: Why not wanted to talk to Anna about it?
Speaker 4: I've kind of been a lone wolf for a pretty
Speaker 4: majority of my life, and so talking to other people
Speaker 4: about my problems was never really anything that I did.
Speaker 4: My parents really don't talk to each other about their
Speaker 4: problems either. They just kind of do their own thing.
Speaker 4: So I guess a lot of it would be learned,
Speaker 4: but just kind of what I was comfortable with.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that both of you were having these thoughts
Speaker 1: and feelings that you weren't voicing to each other even
Speaker 1: before the marriage. For you, Anna, you have this history
Speaker 1: which would like to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: about not trusting the person that you're with, And I
Speaker 1: don't know, Chris, did you know that about her?
Speaker 4: I know that she's had some pretty rough relationships in
Speaker 4: the past, Like there were passing conversations or comments that
Speaker 4: kind of led to the understanding that there were a
Speaker 4: little bit of trust issues, but I didn't think anything
Speaker 4: really significant.
Speaker 1: So you were both afraid to show up for each other. Anna,
Speaker 1: you didn't tell him that this is a big issue
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, for three years, and if you had suspicions,
Speaker 1: you kind of said, well, I don't want to rock
Speaker 1: the boat. And you, Chris, when things started to feel
Speaker 1: a little bit repetitive or mundane and you missed the
Speaker 1: excitement of earlier in the relationship, you didn't say to her, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is how I'm feeling. What can we do? So
Speaker 1: when you got married, was that the first time that
Speaker 1: you were in the same city together or did you
Speaker 1: have any time in the same city before you got married.
Speaker 4: We, at my request, moved in together right around when
Speaker 4: we got engaged, which is about a year earlier. But
Speaker 4: it was still kind of new and exciting, and we
Speaker 4: hadn't really formed any of those patterns on the day
Speaker 4: to day.
Speaker 2: And Chris, you said that you are a lone wolf.
Speaker 2: But have you been in relationships before and is this
Speaker 2: something that has happened in previous relationships where you feel
Speaker 2: a certain either frustration or something's not going the way
Speaker 2: you want, but you have trouble working with the person
Speaker 2: you're with to figure it out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I've had one serious relationship outside of Anna. It
Speaker 4: lasts just over one year, and it was a pretty
Speaker 4: unhealthy last six or seven months. It was constant arguments.
Speaker 4: She would just find little things to argue about and
Speaker 4: then just try to blow them up to see what
Speaker 4: I would do.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what those sounded like? Those arguments?
Speaker 4: I mean anything from like a comment that I'd said,
Speaker 4: or you know, if I missed a turn going somewhere.
Speaker 4: I mean, you name it. We've argued about it all.
Speaker 1: Did you end that relationship or did she?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Did you try to talk to her about how criticized
Speaker 1: you felt in the relationship?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that was it was a constant conversation.
Speaker 4: I pushed that relationship probably a little further than I
Speaker 4: ought to have because it was my first serious relationship.
Speaker 4: I wanted to grow the most that I could in
Speaker 4: a relationship, so I would be ready for something serious
Speaker 4: again after that relationship. And so I took it upon
Speaker 4: myself to just try to be patient and understanding and
Speaker 4: listen and just kind of grow some of those even
Speaker 4: though it was in an unhealthy environment.
Speaker 2: So in that relationship, would you bring up that you
Speaker 2: felt criticized and that you were concerned about the volume
Speaker 2: of the criticism, or would you just respond when you
Speaker 2: were criticized.
Speaker 4: I would bring it up outside of it on occasion,
Speaker 4: but more often than not, it would end up leading
Speaker 4: to another argument of some sort, and so I just
Speaker 4: kind of stopped.
Speaker 1: Was there anything that happened in your relationship with Anna,
Speaker 1: even early on when things were exciting that you didn't
Speaker 1: bring up because you were sort of trained not to,
Speaker 1: or that if you did, it would lead to an argument.
Speaker 4: I would get upset at like stupid little things. But
Speaker 4: I kind of just kept it to myself because I
Speaker 4: figured it was more advantageous to learn how to live
Speaker 4: with certain things. And that's something I still do that
Speaker 4: I need to work on.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious about how you observed that when you
Speaker 1: were growing up, You said that your parents never talked
Speaker 1: about things, So what would you do with that as
Speaker 1: a kid, and what was going on that you felt
Speaker 1: they should be talking about.
Speaker 4: Oh, I feel like they should have talked about everything.
Speaker 4: My dad was a construction worker, so he'd be gone
Speaker 4: from five o'clock in the morning till seven or eight
Speaker 4: o'clock at night every day, and then he'd come home
Speaker 4: and it was basically the dad show. It's, you know,
Speaker 4: do what he wants to do when he wants to
Speaker 4: do it. My mom has used me as like a
Speaker 4: crutch for complaining about things that she's unhappy with. I
Speaker 4: feel like that those frustrations, for example, could have been
Speaker 4: brought up to.
Speaker 1: My dad, so instead of talking directly to your dad,
Speaker 1: she would talk to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you ever say to her, Hey, I wish you'd
Speaker 1: talk to dad about this instead of me.
Speaker 4: Sometimes? Definitely more, I'd say in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: You were saying earlier that the instinct was not to
Speaker 2: talk to Anna if there was something that was frustrating.
Speaker 2: Did you notice that that was the same strategy your
Speaker 2: mom had of just like deal with the frustrations or
Speaker 2: find someone to vent them too, but not actually direct
Speaker 2: them to the person that's causing them.
Speaker 4: A little bit like early on, I would talk to
Speaker 4: my mom about it just to vent it out, because
Speaker 4: that's you know, she used me I could. I felt
Speaker 4: like I could talk to her and she would generally
Speaker 4: give me some pretty decent wisdom, I would say, But
Speaker 4: I felt like it was kind of like a do
Speaker 4: as I say, not as I do type of thing.
Speaker 2: And I had mentioned these white lies that were going
Speaker 2: on at the beginning of the marriage, and I was
Speaker 2: curious about your take on that. What was going on
Speaker 2: for you? What was that about for you?
Speaker 4: At least on our social media we it had kind
Speaker 4: of like you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing,
Speaker 4: and it would just be like, you know who you
Speaker 4: talked to you about, nobody or coworker or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yes, they were co workers, a lot of them were female.
Speaker 3: And there were a couple of times where I went
Speaker 3: through his messages and discovered a ton of messages with
Speaker 3: a particular coworker, and so that was obviously not something
Speaker 3: that was disclosed to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I didn't really think anything of it in
Speaker 4: the moment as being inappropriate because it's just platonic conversation
Speaker 4: with coworkers.
Speaker 1: Ka He's saying. It was all platonic conversations. So is
Speaker 1: there something that came up for you where you didn't
Speaker 1: believe that, or do you have some philosophy that he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be friends with women, which is something different from
Speaker 1: him lying or deceiving you.
Speaker 3: I would say the thing that hurt me about it
Speaker 3: was at this time, he was in training for his
Speaker 3: new job and I barely heard from him, which is
Speaker 3: understandable because they're very busy. However, when I see tons
Speaker 3: and tons of messages to a female co worker who
Speaker 3: he's in training with and asking things like house your day,
Speaker 3: that was really hurtful to me because that's something he
Speaker 3: should be asking his wife, you know, how's your day,
Speaker 3: what's going on? And instead of asking me those things,
Speaker 3: he was reaching out to his female co worker. And so,
Speaker 3: while yes it was platonic technically for me, it was
Speaker 3: still hurtful because it felt like there was some sort
Speaker 3: of emotional void being filled by talking to her.
Speaker 1: And can you tell us a little bit about your
Speaker 1: history with trust issues and when those first started coming
Speaker 1: up in your life?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say it definitely started with my childhood
Speaker 3: and in particular my mother. She had a very troubled
Speaker 3: past of her own and didn't really have the tools
Speaker 3: to be like a good mother. And she is very
Speaker 3: dishonest and manipulative in a lot of ways. And there
Speaker 3: was one particular instance where about ten years ago, she
Speaker 3: basically spent my dad's retirement for one k and didn't
Speaker 3: tell him, and he found out about it and they
Speaker 3: were separated for a while because of it. And it's
Speaker 3: just the fact that she wouldn't come forward and admit
Speaker 3: it even after being caught. She just really has a
Speaker 3: very big issue with being honest. And that's something that's
Speaker 3: really really affected me.
Speaker 1: So both your mom and your husband spent money in
Speaker 1: secret it? Yeah, can I ask cow old you are?
Speaker 3: I'm thirty two.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this happened in your early twenties. Growing up,
Speaker 1: you had a sense that she wasn't honest. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a lot that she hid from my dad.
Speaker 3: For example, she would take us to the store and
Speaker 3: you know, buy us ice cream or something, and she'd
Speaker 3: be like, Okay, don't tell dad. There was one particular
Speaker 3: instance where I got into trouble with my dad and
Speaker 3: she said that she disagreed with him and that she
Speaker 3: would have my back and talk to him, and when
Speaker 3: it came down to it, she said nothing, and so
Speaker 3: I was punished for it. Little things like that that
Speaker 3: broke my trust even as a little kid.
Speaker 1: And then you also experienced some dishonesty in other relationships.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was one other relationship that was very toxic,
Speaker 3: lasted on and off for about four and a half years.
Speaker 2: He was just.
Speaker 3: Very dishonest. He would just constantly lie about everything. He
Speaker 3: lied about being on the basketball team at school, he
Speaker 3: ed about his family, He lighted about just how much
Speaker 3: money he made, just everything he think of. He ed
Speaker 3: about What.
Speaker 1: Would you do when you discovered these lies? Would you
Speaker 1: confront him?
Speaker 3: I did, and it did not go all. He would
Speaker 3: essentially gaslight me and make me feel like it is crazy,
Speaker 3: and you know, come up with some excuse and somehow
Speaker 3: ended up putting the blame onto me, and it just
Speaker 3: kind of made me go further into my shell a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 1: When you first got together with Chris, what made you
Speaker 1: feel like you could or could not trust him? How
Speaker 1: did you feel going into that when it came to trust.
Speaker 3: Originally I felt really good about it. I know he's
Speaker 3: a good person. Even now, he's just a good guy.
Speaker 3: He has a good book ethic, he has good morals,
Speaker 3: he has a stronalogy with his family. You know, he
Speaker 3: showed up and he using to show up. He called
Speaker 3: and said he was going to call. All the things
Speaker 3: said I've been looking for. He was it. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: in the beginning, it is really good.
Speaker 2: Did he know about this history that you've had with
Speaker 2: trust and especially the history with your mom and the
Speaker 2: money of the four oh one K that she was spending.
Speaker 3: Probably not in detail, but I feel like I definitely
Speaker 3: mentioned it at least.
Speaker 2: You know, a couple of times you said you had
Speaker 2: conversations even before the marriage about finances and such. Tell
Speaker 2: me about those conversations.
Speaker 3: We did premarital counseling. We just did of course that
Speaker 3: was online, and we learned that it's really important to
Speaker 3: talk our finances beforehand, and so we did. We talked
Speaker 3: about what that looked like for us, and at that
Speaker 3: time we decided to have one joint account and have
Speaker 3: our separate bank accounts as well. And as time were
Speaker 3: on throughout the marriage, I realized so that was probably
Speaker 3: not the best decision.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the best decision because I.
Speaker 3: Think it allows for a lack of accountability, and I
Speaker 3: think it in Chris's case where he has a problem
Speaker 3: with spending, it's just enabling him.
Speaker 1: You say he has a problem with spending. Was that
Speaker 1: something you knew about when you were dating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit. We always talked about, oh, I
Speaker 3: need this, I need this, especially when it comes to
Speaker 3: anything techie. He needs un speaker or something for his computer.
Speaker 3: I would come over and see, Oh, like, I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that you had this. Oh, I just thought it,
Speaker 3: and so I knew that it was definitely different from
Speaker 3: the way that I was, but I didn't see it
Speaker 3: being a major issue.
Speaker 4: At that point.
Speaker 1: You say you noticed that he got something new, but
Speaker 1: were you guys looking at the bills together every month?
Speaker 3: Basically we hated bills and through our joint account, and
Speaker 3: then we each had our individual bank account separate. And
Speaker 3: so his spending, which I found out later, was on
Speaker 3: his individual account and his credit cards.
Speaker 2: How did you discover the credit card debt?
Speaker 3: So in the months prior to me finding out about
Speaker 3: his finances, I felt that it was really important that
Speaker 3: we merged finances completely. I just felt like we were
Speaker 3: married and it was time to work together versus being
Speaker 3: separate all the time, and I noticed more and more
Speaker 3: hesitancy from him, and each time I would bring it
Speaker 3: up and there was hesitancy. I felt like something was off.
Speaker 3: So about a month ago, it was the week of
Speaker 3: our one year anniversary, I said to him, Okay, if
Speaker 3: you don't want to merge finances right now.
Speaker 4: It's okay.
Speaker 3: Just let me at least see your individual account so
Speaker 3: I can help you budget because we were a little
Speaker 3: bit tight and on the trinity we've currently and so
Speaker 3: you know, we truly need to budget. And then he
Speaker 3: completely rejects that.
Speaker 1: Did you ever say to him, why are you not
Speaker 1: wanting to merge our finances?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely asked that question. We don't need to
Speaker 3: do it right now, we can wait until later.
Speaker 1: That's not an answer to why, that's an answer to
Speaker 1: what he wants. It's perfectly legitimate if somebody wants to wait,
Speaker 1: but he's not explaining to you why he wants to wait.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you didn't follow up and say
Speaker 1: I'm not understanding why this is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I've been in training with my new job,
Speaker 4: I've been on a reduced pay, so it was nerve
Speaker 4: wracking for me. One to get found and have my
Speaker 4: financials exposed. But at the other side, it's like I
Speaker 4: was nervous with our type budget as it was, because
Speaker 4: I'm paying you a credit card off as well to
Speaker 4: migrate everything from one bank account to another because I
Speaker 4: didn't want something that it missed. And then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, We've got late fees on top of credit
Speaker 4: card fees on top of bills. To me, it was
Speaker 4: just very daunting. So my excuse was wait until I
Speaker 4: get off my training pay and everything kind of settles out,
Speaker 4: because it was just kind of like a financial rocky place.
Speaker 1: That was the reason you gave to her. Let me
Speaker 1: get off the training pay. You didn't tell her the truth.
Speaker 1: You told her a partial truth exactly.
Speaker 2: Chris. When did the spending start on your end with
Speaker 2: this credit card that? What was your thinking about it,
Speaker 2: given that you had had these conversations with Anna about
Speaker 2: finances and she conveyed that she was concerned about it.
Speaker 4: Shortly after we got married, we bought a house, and
Speaker 4: then I just kind of started buying things for the house,
Speaker 4: buying things to go camping gas. I mean, you name it.
Speaker 4: Some stuff I would tell her about, some stuff I
Speaker 4: wouldn't hope she doesn't notice because they're maybe a little
Speaker 4: more expensive.
Speaker 2: But what was your thinking that? Okay, I have this
Speaker 2: deal with her about being responsible financially, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to get these things anyway and hope she doesn't notice,
Speaker 2: and then I'll cover them at some point.
Speaker 4: I really didn't give it a whole lot of thought.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was covering my bills. I was covering
Speaker 4: my portion of our utilities and mortgage and whatnot. So
Speaker 4: I didn't really, in my mind presume it was much
Speaker 4: of a problem other than you know, I'm on reduced pay,
Speaker 4: so hey, things are getting tight. But I was still
Speaker 4: covering my half of everything, So I just figured that,
Speaker 4: you know, it's okay, I'll pay it off eventually.
Speaker 2: But you're aware that this has heard that as well, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: In the time, my brain really wasn't thinking that way.
Speaker 4: It was pretty selfish. It really wasn't putting her into
Speaker 4: consideration at all.
Speaker 1: It seems like you've had this habit of overspending for
Speaker 1: a long time, even before you met Anna.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been on and off over my adult life.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when that started and do you have
Speaker 1: any sense of what that's about.
Speaker 4: Oh, as soon as I moved out of my parents' house,
Speaker 4: it was, hey, I can get things that my parents
Speaker 4: maybe wouldn't let me get, or I can do whatever
Speaker 4: I want, and there was really no accountability. And then
Speaker 4: after the first time, I was probably eighteen or nineteen,
Speaker 4: when my parents found out that I had spent two
Speaker 4: or three thousand dollars, they bailed me out and I
Speaker 4: paid them back basically just to get away from the
Speaker 4: interest rates. And then, you know, six or seven years later,
Speaker 4: same situation.
Speaker 1: When this happened twice, When your parents bailed you out
Speaker 1: the first time and then they bailed you out a
Speaker 1: second time, what were you thinking about in terms of
Speaker 1: maybe I have a problem with this, or maybe this
Speaker 1: is compensating for something that I don't have in my life.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think I need to figure this out?
Speaker 1: Did it wear you at all?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a thought in my mind, just you know, hey,
Speaker 4: is this really a problem? Why am I reverting to
Speaker 4: these kind of spinning habits? But I honestly just kind
Speaker 4: of shrugged it off as just being young and impulsive
Speaker 4: and there was something that was going to need to
Speaker 4: grow out of.
Speaker 1: Did your parents talk to you about it. Did they say,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? This is the second time we
Speaker 1: bailed you out.
Speaker 4: There was a little bit of a conversation there. It
Speaker 4: was more of a disappointment and hey, what the heck
Speaker 4: are you doing? Pull your head out and figure it out.
Speaker 4: And that was pretty much the extent of it. It
Speaker 4: was more of a hey, you screwed up, not a
Speaker 4: why are you doing this? Can we help you?
Speaker 1: Anna? Did you know about these two incidents before you
Speaker 1: got married?
Speaker 3: He had mentioned before that he had gotten into some
Speaker 3: credit card debt at one point, and he didn't go
Speaker 3: into detail about it.
Speaker 2: Chris, you mentioned earlier when you were getting into credit
Speaker 2: card debt after the first year of marriage, that you're
Speaker 2: thinking about it was, well, you know, it's my stuff
Speaker 2: and I'll deal with it. And you weren't thinking. You
Speaker 2: said about the fact that actually you're creating that that's
Speaker 2: shared equally with Anna, and that she doesn't even know
Speaker 2: about this step that you're creating. And so you were
Speaker 2: really in solo thinking rather than in partnership kind of thinking.
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering in what other ways in early phases
Speaker 2: of the marriage or even the relationship, were you too
Speaker 2: much on a solo track rather than a true conship.
Speaker 2: Whether that's something that characterized your thinking in other aspects
Speaker 2: of the relationship, it.
Speaker 4: Seems like, yeah, it was more like and I'm dating
Speaker 4: this person, not a we are one type of thing.
Speaker 1: You've said. The two options are we are separate people
Speaker 1: or we are one. And I think that that's a
Speaker 1: way of thinking about this that might make you feel
Speaker 1: a little bit trapped because you are not one. Even
Speaker 1: when you are married, you are still going to be
Speaker 1: two separate people who happen to have a commitment to
Speaker 1: each other, and part of that commitment is honesty, accountability.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that you're one person. And I
Speaker 1: don't know where you got that message that somehow, when
Speaker 1: you get married you are one. Do you have any
Speaker 1: sense of that?
Speaker 4: Again, my representation of marriage, which are two completely separate
Speaker 4: people that don't really talk to each other, really don't
Speaker 4: express frustrations and feeling towards each other. It's just kind
Speaker 4: of two people that cohabitate and raise kids. I don't
Speaker 4: necessarily think it's we are one, but I definitely think
Speaker 4: it's we are together.
Speaker 1: On everything, we're a team.
Speaker 4: In the last few months, i've really formed an understanding
Speaker 4: of the team of marriage versus the representation that I've
Speaker 4: grown up with.
Speaker 2: When I asked Chris whether the other aspects in the
Speaker 2: relationship in which he was thinking as an individual rather
Speaker 2: than as a member of a partnership you were not
Speaker 2: in your head? What did you see in terms of
Speaker 2: other aspects in which you weren't forming a full partnership,
Speaker 2: but that Chris was still operating as a solo player.
Speaker 3: The sciences were a big one. Also, just little things
Speaker 3: like he would have conversations with his mom about our
Speaker 3: relationship that I felt wasn't appropriate. He would share things
Speaker 3: like that that shouldn't be shared in my.
Speaker 1: Opinion, What kind of things was he sharing with her?
Speaker 3: There was one instance where he talked about my health
Speaker 3: issues and those are very personal to me, and I
Speaker 3: asked him not to share any with anyone, and he
Speaker 3: shared with his mom.
Speaker 1: Chris, that sounds so much like what your mom did
Speaker 1: by talking to you instead of your father, knowing that
Speaker 1: Anna didn't want that shared. Did you at the time
Speaker 1: that you were talking to your mom think I really
Speaker 1: shouldn't be telling my mom this, but I'm doing it
Speaker 1: anyway because I need to.
Speaker 4: Or what was the thinking, So my mom is a nurse,
Speaker 4: and so it kind of crossed my mom, like, Hey,
Speaker 4: she doesn't want me to talk about this, but I'm concerned.
Speaker 4: And this is the person that I go to to
Speaker 4: talk about things i'm worried or concerned about who Growing up,
Speaker 4: I've always been able to talk to her about medical
Speaker 4: things on a very professional style level, and so when
Speaker 4: she had issues medically, that's the person that I felt
Speaker 4: like I could go talk to.
Speaker 1: I think the conversation that didn't happen was Anna, I
Speaker 1: really love you and I care about you, and I'm
Speaker 1: really anxious about this medical stuff that's going on with you,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I don't have enough information for
Speaker 1: me to know if I should be worried or not worried,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to get a straight answer from someone
Speaker 1: I trust. She might still have said no, but I
Speaker 1: think what was missing was the emotional piece, was the
Speaker 1: I'm so worried about you. I care about you. But
Speaker 1: at least then Anna could know that you're worried and
Speaker 1: could maybe find a way to get the information that
Speaker 1: in a way that makes her comfort. Maybe it's not
Speaker 1: from your mom, maybe it's a different person, but you
Speaker 1: still get the information, So you see what happens when
Speaker 1: you're not communicating what you're feeling with each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think another part that you learned from your
Speaker 2: parents growing up was that even if you do talk
Speaker 2: about something, if you disagree, I can't push back and say, actually,
Speaker 2: this is something that's really troubling me. So this idea
Speaker 2: that Laurie's saying, you can have that kind of discussion.
Speaker 2: Is it clear to you even today that you can
Speaker 2: have that kind of discussion that when you talk with Anna,
Speaker 2: it's not just to hear her opinion and then okay,
Speaker 2: I have to do that, but you get to push
Speaker 2: back if something's important, to voice your side of things
Speaker 2: in a very clear way.
Speaker 4: I would say that I'm clear about it and working
Speaker 4: on expressing that when I feel it.
Speaker 1: So right now, Anna's pregnant and I'm wondering what that
Speaker 1: has been like for both of you. Is this when
Speaker 1: the spending on the porn sites all started or was
Speaker 1: this going on before that?
Speaker 4: It was going on before.
Speaker 1: Before you got married.
Speaker 4: It was kind of when we got married and we
Speaker 4: moved in together, and our work takes us away, both
Speaker 4: of us for a couple of days at a time,
Speaker 4: I was feeling disconnected from our relationship when she's traveling
Speaker 4: or when I'm traveling. When we come back from work,
Speaker 4: it's we're both tired, we don't really want to talk
Speaker 4: right away, And so I think that I was very
Speaker 4: internalizing a lot of that in unhealthy ways.
Speaker 1: So again, this was something where you didn't say to her,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling really disconnected when we're both away from each other.
Speaker 1: Exactly did you both decide that you wanted to go
Speaker 1: ahead and try to get pregnant at the same time
Speaker 1: or how was this talked about.
Speaker 4: It was a conversation, quite a few conversations. We both
Speaker 4: kind of decided like, hey, like we're ready to start
Speaker 4: taking the next step and building a family.
Speaker 2: And what was it like finding out that you're pregnant?
Speaker 4: Well, first I thought there was something seriously wrong and happened.
Speaker 4: She came outside yelling Chris, Chris, Chris and crying, and
Speaker 4: then she showed me a pregnancy stick when she found out,
Speaker 4: and we both just kind of sat there. I was
Speaker 4: elated and excited. She was balling her eyes out.
Speaker 1: Balling your eyes out because you were excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had been trying for at that point about
Speaker 3: six or seven months, there have been a lot of disappointment,
Speaker 3: all of anxiety, and so to have that positive pregnancy
Speaker 3: test was just very very special.
Speaker 1: How did you both deal with that period when you
Speaker 1: were trying to get pregnant and it wasn't happening. That
Speaker 1: can be incredibly stressful both talking about how you felt.
Speaker 4: No, not really.
Speaker 3: I was showing how emotional I was about it, and
Speaker 3: Chris was just kind of internal these saying things, and
Speaker 3: to me, it felt like he maybe didn't care about
Speaker 3: it as much as I did, or it wasn't hurting
Speaker 3: as much as I was. But I think he just
Speaker 3: kept it inside.
Speaker 2: When you were feeling very strongly and you saw him
Speaker 2: you thought not feeling as strongly. Did you ask him
Speaker 2: how he's feeling? Did you express that you were feeling
Speaker 2: very disappointed?
Speaker 3: I expressed how I was feeling. I don't think I
Speaker 3: asked him how he was feeling, and that's something that
Speaker 3: I should have done. I think I was just so
Speaker 3: overwhelmed with emotions that I feel like I was being
Speaker 3: selfish in that respect. I didn't ask him how he
Speaker 3: was feeling.
Speaker 2: And Chris, was that the time that you were starting
Speaker 2: to use porn? Because as it might have been related
Speaker 2: to the stress that you were feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to reassure Anna that, you know,
Speaker 4: God has a plan and it's kind of how I've
Speaker 4: always lived my life is God's got a plan for us,
Speaker 4: and things happen when they're meant to happen. I may
Speaker 4: not understand why things are the way they are, but
Speaker 4: I feel like in retrospect down the road, they tend
Speaker 4: to make more sense. I was trying to let her know, Hey,
Speaker 4: you know, it didn't happen this month, but you know
Speaker 4: God's got a plan and it's going to happen when
Speaker 4: it's meant to happen for us. And then I felt
Speaker 4: like that wasn't received. You know, she'd be very frustrated
Speaker 4: looking back, understandably, but I felt like I was just
Speaker 4: pushed off emotionally.
Speaker 1: This is why I pointed out that phrase that you
Speaker 1: used we are one, because you're not one. And here's
Speaker 1: an example of Anna feeling a certain way. She's feeling disappointment,
Speaker 1: she's feeling anxiety. She's worried what if I never get pregnant?
Speaker 1: What does this mean? She's futurizing the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: she needs some support, and you're saying to her, God
Speaker 1: has a plan, It'll all work out, which is very
Speaker 1: different from how she was feeling. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: she wasn't really inquiring about how you were feeling and
Speaker 1: what was going on with you. So both of you
Speaker 1: were in your own silos and feeling very isolated and
Speaker 1: very alone and very disconnected as you're going through this
Speaker 1: experience together. And that's layered on top of all of
Speaker 1: the other stuff that we've been talking about that you're
Speaker 1: bringing with you around your own histories, and so I
Speaker 1: can see how you guys got further away from each
Speaker 1: other instead of closer during this time that you weren't
Speaker 1: able to offer the other person any kind of support
Speaker 1: that you attempted to, but instead she heard that as
Speaker 1: I am so alone here, my husband has no idea
Speaker 1: what I am experiencing, and you're feeling like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to reassure her, but she's rejecting this.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And on top of that, when she was feeling
Speaker 4: upset and her and alone, I was even pushed off
Speaker 4: further because she would have a very short temper. She
Speaker 4: obviously is hurting, and I could figure out how or
Speaker 4: what I can do to help. I just felt like
Speaker 4: I was kind of the problem.
Speaker 2: But Chris, do you see the connection between how your
Speaker 2: reassurance to Anna, God has a plan and all work out.
Speaker 2: It didn't land well with her, but it wasn't sufficient
Speaker 2: for you either, because it didn't resolve your tension and
Speaker 2: your distance that you felt. And do you see the
Speaker 2: connection between those times and you turning to porn for
Speaker 2: comfort or for distraction, because that happened at the same time.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you can see your use of POM
Speaker 2: as a way to manage emotions and manage frustrations and
Speaker 2: manage distance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was like a kind of barrier from real life,
Speaker 4: just kind of removing myself from a situation and you
Speaker 4: being distracted.
Speaker 2: And that is much more likely to happen when you
Speaker 2: don't know how else to deal with the situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you tell Anna now how you were feeling during
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 4: I felt like I was being pushed away by the
Speaker 4: way that she was being frustrated. And the best way
Speaker 4: I can describe it is very snappy and short, because
Speaker 4: at the time we were also dealing with some of
Speaker 4: other issues as far as our relationship with talking to
Speaker 4: other people still.
Speaker 1: Talking to other people still meaning what.
Speaker 4: Coworker from my old job, just talking to people online,
Speaker 4: and I would turn into video games as well as
Speaker 4: as finding some sort of like way to just kind
Speaker 4: of get away from everything, and ended up snapchatting once. Right, rather,
Speaker 4: I gave my snapchat out online and somebody had messaged
Speaker 4: me back the next day. I just snapped them back
Speaker 4: and said, Hey, I screwed up. I'm married. No, but
Speaker 4: that definitely drove a big wedge in between us and
Speaker 4: kind of really really kicked off the shortness with me.
Speaker 1: How did Anna find out about that? And then how
Speaker 1: did you too try to repair the trust after that?
Speaker 4: We were camping and it was just on my phone
Speaker 4: on Snapchat, She's like, hey, who is this person? And
Speaker 4: we talked about it, but I didn't feel like she
Speaker 4: was ever really able or willing to try and rebuild trust.
Speaker 1: You said you were just trying to move on. What
Speaker 1: did that mean to you to move on when the
Speaker 1: trust had been broken? And how did you imagine it
Speaker 1: would get repaired? What did move on look like to you?
Speaker 4: Move on to me looked like, you know, understanding what
Speaker 4: I had done wrong and removing that temptation and us
Speaker 4: being able to kind of how we are now being
Speaker 4: able to talk to each other about Hey, this is
Speaker 4: why I'm frustrated you did this. Okay, well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Much healthier conversations, and I never felt like any of
Speaker 4: those conversations were really willing to be had at the time.
Speaker 1: And when that happened, what did you need in order
Speaker 1: to start to rebuild some trust with Chris?
Speaker 3: I think I needed the full truth, And at that
Speaker 3: point it was hard to tell if I was getting
Speaker 3: the full truth.
Speaker 1: Why did you think you weren't getting the full truth?
Speaker 1: Was he telling part of the story and you had
Speaker 1: to keep asking follow up questions?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kept having to kind of dig deeper
Speaker 3: and like, okay, you know, explain this a little bit
Speaker 3: more because it's not making sense. Also paired with the
Speaker 3: fact that in previous times it's been the same thing
Speaker 3: where I feel like I have to pull it out
Speaker 3: of him in order to get the full truth.
Speaker 1: Tell Chris right now what you would have needed at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: I needed you to come forward before getting caught and
Speaker 3: let me know, Hey, I messed up and this is
Speaker 3: what happened. Since that was not the case after the fact,
Speaker 3: I needed to do to fully own what you did
Speaker 3: and ask me how it made me feel, because it
Speaker 3: was incredibly hurtful, and at that point we had just
Speaker 3: gotten married, and you know, it was devastating for me.
Speaker 2: So when Chris is saying I tried to book about
Speaker 2: it and see how she felt, but she didn't want
Speaker 2: to have the conversation, I'm confused about how that played out.
Speaker 3: I wanted to have the conversation, but I don't feel
Speaker 3: like he was going about it the right way. In
Speaker 3: my mind, it didn't seem like he really wanted to
Speaker 3: take accountability for what had happened. I think he wanted
Speaker 3: to just move on and for me to forgive him
Speaker 3: and everything to go back to normal.
Speaker 2: So the subtext that you heard when he's asking you
Speaker 2: what's going on and how you're feeling is let's just
Speaker 2: check the box here and just get they okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: things are fine, so I can take myself out of
Speaker 2: the doghouse. You didn't feel that it was since enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also needed him to just be patient with me,
Speaker 3: because it's a process to move on from something like
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen overnight. When I needed time, I needed
Speaker 3: time to heal from it well.
Speaker 2: You voicing that that you needed more time.
Speaker 3: Probably not in a great way. I was very angry,
Speaker 3: and I probably was very short tempered and didn't ask
Speaker 3: it in the right way.
Speaker 1: I imagined that finding this out when you're newly married
Speaker 1: must have brought up all kinds of questions for you,
Speaker 1: specially given your history around trust. And then there had
Speaker 1: been that earlier incident as well, And it sounds like
Speaker 1: Chris wasn't asking about what this was like for you,
Speaker 1: or wasn't very curious about it, probably because he was
Speaker 1: scared and knew he had messed up and didn't want
Speaker 1: it to have any catastrophic consequences for your marriage. Is
Speaker 1: that right, Chris? And yet what happened was in order
Speaker 1: to kind of protect the marriage, Chris, in your mind,
Speaker 1: you ended up weakening the marriage because now Anna's walking
Speaker 1: around feeling like you're not interested in my experience of this.
Speaker 1: I am alone in all of these questions that I have.
Speaker 1: Is our marriage going to make it? How do I
Speaker 1: protect myself from this happening again? Can I ever trust
Speaker 1: you again? What does this mean for us? We just
Speaker 1: got married, and I have a feeling that until this
Speaker 1: was discovered again with the debt and the porn that
Speaker 1: it just kind of got swept under the rug that
Speaker 1: this hasn't really been discussed. So what we want to
Speaker 1: help you with today is how not to do that now.
Speaker 1: And I think one conversation that we haven't had yet
Speaker 1: today is this idea that you both might have different ideas.
Speaker 1: So you don't have different ideas about honesty, Chris, you
Speaker 1: haven't been able to uphold your own value around honesty, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think you might have different ideas about what
Speaker 1: constitutes cheating or betrayal, for example, talking to that coworker
Speaker 1: and saying, how is your day? If it truly was platonic?
Speaker 1: And Chris, You'll have to be honest with us about this.
Speaker 1: Was it truly platonic or was there maybe something going
Speaker 1: on there?
Speaker 4: Looking backwards, I could have been using it as an
Speaker 4: emotional crutch to feel validated because we weren't effectively communicating.
Speaker 1: And in terms of porn, Anna, you said, I consider
Speaker 1: that infidelity not everybody does, and what matters is what
Speaker 1: it means to the two of you. Can you both
Speaker 1: talk about your feelings about what it means to be
Speaker 1: in this relationship where you're not betraying the other person.
Speaker 1: What are the boundaries? Have you ever had a real
Speaker 1: specific conversation about that.
Speaker 3: We did recently, and we agreed that for right now,
Speaker 3: porn would have to go completely.
Speaker 1: You say we agreed, and that's sort of an action,
Speaker 1: But in terms of just how you both view what
Speaker 1: it means to not betray your partner, what it means
Speaker 1: to be loyal to your partner, it sounds like, Anna,
Speaker 1: you have this idea that using porn is infidelity, and
Speaker 1: Chris might not have that idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think for me, the point where it reached infidelity
Speaker 3: in my mind was the only fans piece you do
Speaker 3: subscribe to these women, and that felt more personal to me.
Speaker 3: Maybe it wasn't completely being unfaithful, but I certainly don't
Speaker 3: feel like it was being faithful in our marriage.
Speaker 2: It makes you uncomfortable, Yeah, and Chris, I have a
Speaker 2: question fore you when and it says, yeah, we agreed
Speaker 2: that the porn has to go. I just want to
Speaker 2: check in with you. If you truly agree the poorn
Speaker 2: has to go, that's one thing. If you don't truly agree,
Speaker 2: but you just agreed to it, then that's when you're
Speaker 2: still going to have the impulse to do it, and
Speaker 2: you're going to have the impulst to do it when
Speaker 2: you're feeling disconnected or when you're feeling a distance. So
Speaker 2: I just want to get a sense of how much
Speaker 2: you're on board with that.
Speaker 4: I'm full on board with it. I really don't actually
Speaker 4: need this. I can talk to her if I'm frustrated.
Speaker 4: There's so many other ways to go about it rather
Speaker 4: than trying to fill some sort of void with porn.
Speaker 1: When you were on social media with that coworker and
Speaker 1: you were saying, how's your and Anna said, I just
Speaker 1: wanted him to ask me that. Do you know why
Speaker 1: you weren't asking that?
Speaker 4: I think that I would every once in a while,
Speaker 4: but I feel like at the time there was a
Speaker 4: lot of disconnect between us that that had just built
Speaker 4: up over time.
Speaker 1: And so when you feel disconnected, instead of coming closer,
Speaker 1: you retreat, Yeah, instead of saying that we're disconnected. So
Speaker 1: I want to see Anna, how are you? Let's reconnect
Speaker 1: you go somewhere else.
Speaker 4: I agree, And I think that we both kind of
Speaker 4: do the same thing because it's like, I know when
Speaker 4: she's feeling disconnected, I feel like she's very much pushing
Speaker 4: me off, or like trying to push me away.
Speaker 2: That's not when she saydn't disconnected, that's when she's feeding hood. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those are very different. Yeah, you are correct.
Speaker 1: When she's feeling disconnected, it sounds like she tries to
Speaker 1: come toward you and then she doesn't get that and
Speaker 1: then she feels hurt and then she retreats. And when
Speaker 1: you are feeling disconnected, do you feel rejected? Do you
Speaker 1: feel hurt? What do you feel?
Speaker 4: I feel rejected for sure, and just lonely.
Speaker 2: So you each are able to love one another because
Speaker 2: we do get the sense that you love one another,
Speaker 2: and yet you can each really hurt one another, and
Speaker 2: you have not yet developed adequate tools to come to
Speaker 2: would one another in those moments, to have discussions that
Speaker 2: bring you closer, that breach the gap, and instead what
Speaker 2: happens is something that typically makes you feel worse, each
Speaker 2: of you in your own way.
Speaker 4: Today, I have no problems with it at all. I
Speaker 4: feel like since I've been ousted for financial spending in
Speaker 4: my debt, that kind of broke down all of the
Speaker 4: barriers that I have as far as constly trying to
Speaker 4: hide things. It's miserable. We've saw a marriage counselor that
Speaker 4: has been very good. I've also saw personal counseling that
Speaker 4: helps me kind of deal with that. But I feel
Speaker 4: like where we're at today, I have absolutely no problem
Speaker 4: telling Anna, hey, you know, I'm feeling disconnected today, or hey,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just in an off mood and i'm
Speaker 4: quiet today.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good to hear. Anna. For you, though, since
Speaker 2: you're dealing with mistrust at this time still, it might
Speaker 2: feel even scarier than to be truly vulnerable and to
Speaker 2: open up, because that's a trusting act to say to someone,
Speaker 2: here's what I'm feeling, and here's where I'm hurting. So
Speaker 2: where are you with that today?
Speaker 3: I always say I'm trying really hard to be vulnerable
Speaker 3: and to you know, be open and trust that he
Speaker 3: is working on things and that he is willing to change.
Speaker 3: It's still is hard. I'm still very hurt and it's
Speaker 3: still raw, and you know, I'm also pregnant, and so
Speaker 3: I have all these emotions and they get the best
Speaker 3: of me, you know, every time and then, but I
Speaker 3: would say I am trying to overcome that.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that this time, as opposed to the
Speaker 1: other times, that Chris is being fully accountable for deceiving
Speaker 1: you and for the dishonesty I do.
Speaker 3: We have merched finances and so we both have access
Speaker 3: to seeing everything that's going on. I have all of
Speaker 3: his passwords. We are bringing a baby into the world,
Speaker 3: and that has impacted him as well, and he knows
Speaker 3: if I'm very serious, if the pattern of dishonesty and
Speaker 3: deception continues, he will lose me as his wife and
Speaker 3: that will change the time he gets to spend with
Speaker 3: his daughter as well. So yeah, I mean, at this
Speaker 3: point I do trust that he is serious about it,
Speaker 3: but it's still hard.
Speaker 1: What do you think you need from him in order
Speaker 1: to rebuild the trust in a way that eventually, because
Speaker 1: it's going to take time, eventually feels solid to you.
Speaker 3: I think the most important thing for me is when
Speaker 3: he messes up, because you will, because no one is perfect.
Speaker 1: What does that mean he messed us up? How do
Speaker 1: you imagine if he looks up worn, or if he
Speaker 1: spends you know more than he knows that he should
Speaker 1: without talking to me first something like that.
Speaker 3: It would be very helpful if he came to me
Speaker 3: first before me finding out and saying, hey, I messed up.
Speaker 3: This is what happened. Because that to me is so
Speaker 3: so crucial. It's not waiting to get caught, to be
Speaker 3: honest and do the right thing.
Speaker 1: Thinking about is that Dynamica happens with his parents where
Speaker 1: he went to them and said twice I messed up
Speaker 1: to the tune of several thousand dollars and they said,
Speaker 1: we will bail you out. And I wonder, Chris, if
Speaker 1: you imagine that if you go to Anna and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I messed up, that she's going to be like your
Speaker 1: parents and say, okay, well you know, I'll let it slide.
Speaker 1: I'll be mad at you and it'll be unpleasant, but
Speaker 1: nothing's really fundamentally going to change. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: you really understand what the differences between what you've done
Speaker 1: in the past when you've messed up, and what you
Speaker 1: might do now in this adult marriage.
Speaker 4: I think I do. I mean, there's a lot writing on.
Speaker 1: My honesty right. But what I'm talking about is that
Speaker 1: when you were honest with your parents, they bailed you out,
Speaker 1: and so far Anna's bailed you out to her or
Speaker 1: she's discovered things. But either way, what she's saying is
Speaker 1: I need you to come to me. But I think
Speaker 1: she's saying something more, which is not just I need
Speaker 1: you to come to me, but that I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to bail you out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know she hasn't really necessarily bailed me out.
Speaker 4: Well she's here, Yeah, you know, I don't expect her
Speaker 4: to ever stay if any of this stuff continues, because
Speaker 4: that's a lot to deal with from her perspective.
Speaker 1: So what are you going to do to find healthier
Speaker 1: ways to deal with these feelings of disconnection or loneliness
Speaker 1: that won't be so harmful to your marriage.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to be more present in my actions right now,
Speaker 4: not so passive and just like reacting how I react,
Speaker 4: but like being conscious of how I'm reacting to things
Speaker 4: and how I'm feeling in the moments, trying to hold
Speaker 4: myself accountable.
Speaker 1: How do you both feel at this point in the
Speaker 1: conversation about where you are with trust and all of
Speaker 1: the changes that are about to happen, and being able
Speaker 1: to come closer together as opposed to farther apart.
Speaker 3: I feel hopeful. It does concern me that in a
Speaker 3: few months where going to be having a baby, and
Speaker 3: there are a lot of stressors that come with that,
Speaker 3: but I am hopeful we just need to keep reminding
Speaker 3: each other to have those conversations.
Speaker 1: Do you see your role in holding back as well?
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I think I'm still struggling a little bit with all
Speaker 3: these emotions and feeling very hurt, and it's hard for
Speaker 3: me still to open up and be vulnerable. But I
Speaker 3: do feel like I can do that now.
Speaker 1: Can you tell him right now what all these emotions are.
Speaker 3: I feel very very hurt by you. I feel the trade.
Speaker 3: I feel like the vowels that Lee said on our
Speaker 3: loving day weren't as important to you as they were
Speaker 3: to me. I'm very anxious and sad.
Speaker 1: I think the main theme here that encapsulates all of
Speaker 1: that is I don't feel safe. Yeah, Chris, what was
Speaker 1: going on for you as she was saying this? What
Speaker 1: goes on in your body when you hear this from her?
Speaker 4: It was heartbreaking?
Speaker 1: Say more about that.
Speaker 4: I want to, you know, be able to lean into
Speaker 4: hers as she needs to be able to lean into me.
Speaker 4: It's hurtful to know that I'm not a person that
Speaker 4: she can feel comfortable talking to about things.
Speaker 2: And I expressed a lot of concerns for the future.
Speaker 2: Could you respond to hann now and some response to
Speaker 2: the wardies that she has to her.
Speaker 4: I think that your concerns are completely valid. I've completely
Speaker 4: broken your trust multiple times and retreated from you when
Speaker 4: I'm hurting. I'm trying very very hard to be present
Speaker 4: and take steps to rebuild the trust that I've broken
Speaker 4: because I want to build a safe place for you.
Speaker 1: Are you hurting right now? You said you retreat when
Speaker 1: you're hurting. Are you hurting right now a little bit?
Speaker 1: Can you tell Anna about how you're hurting?
Speaker 4: It's just hard to hear that I've hurt you.
Speaker 1: Are you hurting also because you feel lonely?
Speaker 4: Not right now?
Speaker 1: To talking about this makes you feel less lonely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really relieving being able to to talk to
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 1: Really tell me what the tears are about.
Speaker 4: It's just a release of emotion. It's just hard, you know,
Speaker 4: knowing that I've done these things to hurt her, and
Speaker 4: you know it hurts to hear it.
Speaker 1: I think the tears might also be related to what
Speaker 1: you said about It's a relief to be able to
Speaker 1: talk about this.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's a huge relief. When I told her about
Speaker 4: the fifteen thousand dollars in credit card debt. Being able
Speaker 4: to talk about it, like, I feel one hundred times
Speaker 4: better than I ever did trying to hide what I
Speaker 4: was doing, just because it's like it's out there, and
Speaker 4: that was like a huge pressure relief was taken off
Speaker 4: by expressing those things I was hiding.
Speaker 2: You know, Chris, it's so important to remember this because
Speaker 2: this is how you feel after you open up. This
Speaker 2: is how you feel after you're completely honest. You feel connected.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you feel hurt, but you feel connected. And
Speaker 2: the default that you have is to run away and
Speaker 2: increase the disconnection. And this feels very scary before you
Speaker 2: do it. This feels like this is going to make
Speaker 2: things worse. It's counterintuitive. It feels like owning what I
Speaker 2: really did and taking responsibility and really talking about that
Speaker 2: directly will just inflame. But this is what allows you
Speaker 2: to feel connected, and it's super important that you remember that.
Speaker 2: As painful as it is, it's the connection that you want. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this is what helps Chris feel connected. What helps
Speaker 2: you feel connected, what's the most connected that you feel
Speaker 2: when you're talking, has to happen that helps you feel
Speaker 2: what Chris is feeling right now.
Speaker 3: I think just coming to me and expressing how he
Speaker 3: feels saying, you know, I'm sad or I'm hurt because
Speaker 3: of so and so. Just hearing him express his emotions like.
Speaker 2: That right now, are you feeling more connected to him
Speaker 2: as he's expressing these emotions. Yeah, Chris Andnana, we have
Speaker 2: some advice for you. The first part is we'd like
Speaker 2: you to have a monthly finance meeting. Find that time,
Speaker 2: put it in the schedule every month. Shouldn't take that
Speaker 2: long just to go over the bills. You should discuss
Speaker 2: a dollar amount above which you consult with one another
Speaker 2: before spending it below which you have the autonomy to
Speaker 2: do that. You might consider creating a budget together in
Speaker 2: that meeting so that you have even more accountability on finances.
Speaker 2: But if you have a monthly touch point on finances,
Speaker 2: which has been a sore spot, then you know you'll
Speaker 2: spend in can't get two out of control, Chris and
Speaker 2: and you'll have more eyes on what's going on, and
Speaker 2: it'll just create a certain regularity. So we'd like you
Speaker 2: to put that into the schedule and have the first
Speaker 2: one of those.
Speaker 1: This week, and this way too. It becomes a partnership
Speaker 1: that you're working together on the finances. That it's not
Speaker 1: one or the other or doing things separately and without
Speaker 1: the other's knowledge. The second thing is, we would like
Speaker 1: you to schedule a weekly feelings meeting. And I know
Speaker 1: that does not sound necessarily appealing to people who don't
Speaker 1: like to talk about their feelings, but we want it
Speaker 1: to be really fun and there's a structure to it,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this. You have thirty minutes total,
Speaker 1: so it will not go over thirty minutes because you
Speaker 1: will be very busy and you won't have time, and
Speaker 1: we want this to be something that feels realistic. You
Speaker 1: set a timer for five minutes. You flip a coin
Speaker 1: to see who goes first, and what you do in
Speaker 1: those five minutes. The person who goes first is you
Speaker 1: share where anything about your inner experience from that week
Speaker 1: that you would like the other person to know. It
Speaker 1: could be about the relationship, like when you did that
Speaker 1: it made me feel this, or I really liked when
Speaker 1: you did that that made me feel so good, or
Speaker 1: this thing is happening at work and I'm really stressed
Speaker 1: about it, or this is my reaction to the baby
Speaker 1: and I'm having trouble with parenting. Could be anything that's
Speaker 1: your five minutes. During that five minutes, the other person
Speaker 1: is listening. They are not talking, they are taking in
Speaker 1: this is the other person's experience, even if it's different
Speaker 1: from mine. And then set a timer for five minutes.
Speaker 1: Person gets to respond. How can you support that person?
Speaker 1: How do you want to respond to that person in
Speaker 1: a loving way that feels connecting for both of you.
Speaker 1: Next five minutes the other person who didn't get to talk,
Speaker 1: it's to talk about their inner experience, and then you
Speaker 1: switch again. You can do this just the once where
Speaker 1: each person gets their chance. So that's five five five
Speaker 1: five talking, listening, talking, listen, or you might want to
Speaker 1: keep repeating it through the thirty minutes, but at thirty
Speaker 1: minutes it's over, and hopefully you're talking about your feelings
Speaker 1: during the week too. But this makes sure that things
Speaker 1: don't get swept under the rug. If someone's feeling disconnected,
Speaker 1: they're not like, oh well, we're so busy, or the
Speaker 1: other person's stressed and I don't want to bring it up,
Speaker 1: and you should do it over. If you like having
Speaker 1: a glass of wine, if you like having dessert, if
Speaker 1: you want to take a walk, it should be fun
Speaker 1: and something that you both look forward to like a
Speaker 1: relief from everything else that's going on during the week.
Speaker 1: We get to come together and get support from each
Speaker 1: other and be together as a couple.
Speaker 2: Try very hard, Chris, especially not thoughts feelings, So make
Speaker 2: sure you're talking about actual feelings, not thoughts, because those
Speaker 2: are different. And the last thing we'd like you to
Speaker 2: do is you'd like you to come up with a
Speaker 2: constitution of your marriage. And what that means is we'd
Speaker 2: like each of you to sit down and write a
Speaker 2: list of things. We have two parts. Number one, what
Speaker 2: I expect of you, Chris, you would write Anna as
Speaker 2: my husband, and then after that, what my expectation of
Speaker 2: myself is as your wife. And we want you to
Speaker 2: do each of those separately and then come together again
Speaker 2: this week and read them to one another. That's the constitution,
Speaker 2: and give real thought to it, because this is the
Speaker 2: bedrock on which you'll be building the foundation. So make
Speaker 2: sure it's a bedrock that really speaks to you and
Speaker 2: that you've covered what you need and it's foundational.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons we want you to do
Speaker 1: that is because many people come into marriage and they
Speaker 1: don't talk about what their expectations are for the marriage.
Speaker 1: They use old models, they use fantasy, they use all
Speaker 1: kinds of things, and they never actually discuss with each
Speaker 1: other what do we want our marriage to look like,
Speaker 1: what do we expect from each other, and what do
Speaker 1: we expect from ourselves. And so when you have that,
Speaker 1: it provides both accountability and transparency.
Speaker 4: Sounds good, Yeah, and I kind of agree to you.
Speaker 4: It's like we didn't have those kind of talks and
Speaker 4: it was just kind of winging it in the marriage,
Speaker 4: and there was really no expectation of how this is
Speaker 4: going to go. And we've both been modeled to very
Speaker 4: different kinds of things for marriage, and.
Speaker 1: You're going to create your own unique experience of what
Speaker 1: you want your constitution to look like. And it should
Speaker 1: be a fun activity to really think about and do together. Exciting.
Speaker 1: It's looking toward the future. It's looking toward what we
Speaker 1: can be together, and this is what our expectations are
Speaker 1: in order to build that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we look forward to hearing how this goes
Speaker 2: for you guys this week. That's really good.
Speaker 4: Sure, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting with christ and Anna is that
Speaker 2: it's very clear that they care for each other, but
Speaker 2: there are some basic foundational aspects to their relationship that
Speaker 2: they never quite figured out, and that's what the task
Speaker 2: is before them now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that these issues that have come up,
Speaker 1: not only in this relationship but in earlier relationships are
Speaker 1: things that sometimes people don't talk about and that come
Speaker 1: out once they're married. And I think that even though
Speaker 1: this is so distressing and painful to go through, the
Speaker 1: silver lining here is that it is forcing them to
Speaker 1: really consider what is the stuff we're bringing from our
Speaker 1: history into this relationship and what can we do to
Speaker 1: create the kind of relationship that we didn't have before
Speaker 1: but that we want mutually. And I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: see what they do with the Constitution because I think
Speaker 1: that these are the conversations that many people need to
Speaker 1: have that they never do until something forces it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I ask so many couples whether they've had that
Speaker 2: conversation about setting expectations, What are the understandings they have
Speaker 2: about what their marriage should be and how it should
Speaker 2: be different from what they've seen around them. Very few
Speaker 2: couples have that conversation, and.
Speaker 1: I think it's important that they're doing that at the
Speaker 1: same time that they're repairing this rupture, because it will
Speaker 1: really make them sit down and think very deeply about
Speaker 1: what they want and how to move forward.
Speaker 2: You're listening to DA Therapists. We'll be back after a
Speaker 2: short break.
Speaker 1: So, guy, we heard back from Anna and Chris and
Speaker 1: let's hear how things went for them this week.
Speaker 4: Hey, Guan Laurie, we just wanted to check back in
Speaker 4: with you guys after working on our assignments. That's such
Speaker 4: you now everything's going.
Speaker 5: So we have been doing the weekly feelings check ins.
Speaker 5: We feel like they were going very well. So it's
Speaker 5: been really nice that we are both able to talk
Speaker 5: uninterrupted about how a situation made us feel. We can
Speaker 5: do like we've been heard and we can use that
Speaker 5: to spark positive in constructive conversations. We also have incorporated
Speaker 5: those feelings check in into our most recent couple therapy session.
Speaker 5: I had a really positive discussion about how an argument
Speaker 5: that we had earlier that morning affected both of us,
Speaker 5: and I feel like that went really well.
Speaker 4: It's also been nice because it's allowed us to both
Speaker 4: feel like we've been heard and it's just been sparking
Speaker 4: really good conversation. We've also been doing the monthly financial meetings.
Speaker 4: Those are going really well. We've continued to discuss our
Speaker 4: boundaries and reevaluate them on a weekly basis. We currently
Speaker 4: have a whiteboard that we've set up in our living
Speaker 4: room and that allows us to show our monthly obligations
Speaker 4: and allow us to visualize and discuss what we both
Speaker 4: have going on. So we were both a part of
Speaker 4: a single conversation instead of two separate parts, and so
Speaker 4: we're both on the same page about everything that's going
Speaker 4: on financially.
Speaker 5: As far as the constitutions for our marriage, so we've
Speaker 5: been working on those. We both do want the main
Speaker 5: theme of this to be better together and just really
Speaker 5: show how working as a team is just better in
Speaker 5: so many ways.
Speaker 4: We just want to let you guys know that we
Speaker 4: really appreciate everything you guys have done to help us,
Speaker 4: and we're going to incorporate a lot of that stuff
Speaker 4: into our everyday life and set up some really good
Speaker 4: foundational conversations that we're able to continue.
Speaker 2: What I really liked about that from an overview perspective
Speaker 2: is that these tasks were incorporated, as they said, into
Speaker 2: all kinds of aspects of their lives. They bought it
Speaker 2: into the couple's therapy. They have a whiteboard in the
Speaker 2: living room. They have these regular meetings set up, and
Speaker 2: so they're really trying to change their perspective on what
Speaker 2: their marriage is and what their couplehood is. And I
Speaker 2: love the theme they came up with Better Together as
Speaker 2: a guide for the constitution that they're working on.
Speaker 1: I think it's great that they're finally communicating because both
Speaker 1: of them had come into this relationship and this marriage
Speaker 1: with patterns around avoidance. So when he would get into
Speaker 1: debt when he was younger, things weren't really spoken about
Speaker 1: and he would try to self soothe in these other ways.
Speaker 1: And I think with her, she also didn't know how
Speaker 1: to have these conversations. So I think they did quite
Speaker 1: a bit. They really started opening up the lines of
Speaker 1: communication around finances, around their feelings, around what is our marriage.
Speaker 1: And I hope that when they continue to work on
Speaker 1: the constitution, that's going to take them even deeper with
Speaker 1: the communication and also with the accountability.
Speaker 2: Just one thing I want to highlight is sometimes we
Speaker 2: make points with couples that they really need to make
Speaker 2: a course correction, and we don't often say what the
Speaker 2: size of the correction needs to be, but sometimes it
Speaker 2: needs to be big and when I'm hearing that they
Speaker 2: went from having the secretive credit card debt where things
Speaker 2: are all handled in private and in secret, to whiteboard
Speaker 2: in living room. That's a big correction. So that also
Speaker 2: is very heartening to me because when you really get
Speaker 2: that you need to make a big change, and you
Speaker 2: both get it and you're both doing it, it's a
Speaker 2: positive sign.
Speaker 1: And putting it in the living room where you can't
Speaker 1: really avoid it, so it's not like, oh, it's this
Speaker 1: file somewhere and we're never going to look at it.
Speaker 1: They're really saying, we are putting this right down in
Speaker 1: the open, so we cannot be in denial about this.
Speaker 1: We are going to put everything there where we both
Speaker 1: can see it, and there are going to be no
Speaker 1: secrets anymore.
Speaker 2: And I agree with you about the constitution. It's a
Speaker 2: work in progress, and I really hope that the principle
Speaker 2: of these changes will stay with them, which is we
Speaker 2: have to be a partnership.
Speaker 1: And part of that too is how do we resolve conflicts.
Speaker 1: I loved hearing that they were able to use the
Speaker 1: feelings exercise to then bring that into the couple's therapy
Speaker 1: and then be able to talk about an argument that
Speaker 1: they had and both feel like that was a really
Speaker 1: productive conversation.
Speaker 2: For our listeners. That is something you can do as
Speaker 2: well when you find yourself getting into conflict. Pausing to
Speaker 2: express and listen without interruption to what the feelings are
Speaker 2: that are coming up for each person can be a
Speaker 2: very positive way to redirect the conversation into being more productive.
Speaker 1: When we think about what was going on here, there
Speaker 1: was this deceit, there was this betrayal, But really what
Speaker 1: it is is there are lots of unexpressed feelings that
Speaker 1: got people into a situation in the first place, and
Speaker 1: so I'm really glad they're dealing with what they actually
Speaker 1: need to deal with going forward.
Speaker 2: Next week, we're checking in with Lauren, who came to
Speaker 2: us feeling a lot of shame around her lack of
Speaker 2: sexual experience, to hear how she's doing. One year later,
Speaker 2: I actually met someone.
Speaker 6: I met a guy who I really really liked, and
Speaker 6: for the first time in my life, I was able
Speaker 6: to actually tell this guy what I like, to bottom
Speaker 6: what I didn't like. You know, if he did something
Speaker 6: I didn't like, I brought it to his attention in
Speaker 6: a gentle way, out like pointing the finger. He actually
Speaker 6: appreciated how I communicated with them.
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Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 2: email us at Lauri and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
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Speaker 4: Fish Food