Hey Julia Woods
Join me, Julia Woods, a couples coach and wife of over 3 decades, as I share some of my client's stories and my own so that you can be encouraged, inspired, and gain new results in your marriage.
Hey Julia Woods
Our Arguments Deepen Connection.
Behn and Katie transformed their five-year marriage from emotional roommates to genuine partners in just two months by learning to communicate through their different emotional styles. They share their powerful journey of overcoming disconnection, victimhood patterns, and the fear of vulnerability.
• Behn struggled with recognizing and expressing his emotions
• Katie felt emotionally abandoned by Ben
• Their communication styles created conflict – Katie's was explosive and emotional, Behn logical and fact-based
• Their breakthrough moment came from focusing on themselves rather than trying to fix each other
• Learning to identify emotions daily created new patterns of connection
• They now view arguments as beneficial rather than destructive
• Community support from other couples normalized their challenges and provided motivation
• Traditional counseling focused on past baggage, while coaching helped them craft a different future
Now, through intentional work, they're building a relationship where conflict brings them closer together rather than pushing them apart.
Create the connection you long for by attending the next Breakthrough event
https://beautifuloutcome.com/retreat-sept-25
💥💥Everything you need to grow the marriage you long for is waiting for you in the Marriage Growth Community:
https://beautifuloutcome.com/mgc-one-time-offer
🎁 FREE GIFT: Turn Defensiveness into Connection!
https://beautifuloutcome.com/e-guide
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💥💥Everything you need to grow the marriage you long for is waiting for you in the Marriage Growth Community:
https://beautifuloutcome.com/mgc-one-time-offer
🎁 Free Gift for you! 100 Prompts and Ideas to Connect with your Spouse!
🎁 FREE GIFT: Turn Defensiveness into Connection! https://beautifuloutcome.com/e-guide
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👉 Take the free communication quiz! What’s YOUR communication type?! https://beautifuloutcome.com/communication-quiz
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Where you can find me:
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Welcome to hey Julia Woods podcast. I'm your host, Julia Woods, founder of Beautiful Outcome, a coaching company focused on helping couples learn to see and understand each other, even in the most difficult conversations. On my podcast, I will share with you the real and raw of the messiness and amazingness of marriage. I'll share with you aspects of my relationship and the couples I coach in a way that you can see yourself and find the tools that you need to build the marriage you long for.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of hey Julia Woods. I am so excited to bring to you another powerful testimony. Today we are connecting with Ben and Katie and they are extremely relatable. They came to the last breakthrough and the people attending just loved them. They had such a way of expressing the reality of what life looks like and the challenges that we face in marriage. And so Ben and Katie have been married five years. They have two girls, three and one and a half, and Ben owns his own company and Katie stays with the girls, and it is a busy, busy life like all of us have. So thank you, ben and Katie, for taking time out of your lives to join us today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, we're excited. Thank you for letting us hop on here.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so you guys have gained some pretty significant results in the last four months. You came to well, it's actually been two and a half months so you came to the April breakthrough. This is being recorded in June of 2025. So you came two months ago to April breakthrough and a lot has opened up for you. And would you just share with the listeners starting to, for them to have context, like what was the challenges that you were facing in your relationship when you came into Breakthrough?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, I think we were at a place where we both just felt drained in different ways. We both were dealing with a lot of emotional distance from each other. Um, I'm very, very emotional, but I'm very, um, I'm anxious and avoidant. That's like the worst combo to have. Um and it felt like with Ben. He wasn't as emotional and over the course of five years I think we just felt like we really lost that spark. We felt like we just got so wrapped in being parents and Ben's work life and me being a stay at home mom. We weren't pouring into each other and we just we were very complacent with each other and not having that emotional connection was what really drove us to feeling just very at a loss.
Speaker 2:How would you describe it, Ben?
Speaker 4:Very similarly. Yeah, just, I think ever since, especially since having kids, it's been hard to emotionally connect, and I think me as a guy, it's always been harder for me to be emotionally available and to even emotionally connect. It's not something that I've ever really been great at, and it only got worse after having kids. But realizing that that's not how it has to be and, if anything, it should be quite the opposite, and that Caitlin needs, needs that and I need that also from her, even though I probably didn't really realize it, but after breakthrough I think I kind of realized that that's from her, even though I probably didn't really realize it, but after breakthrough I think I kind of realized that that's something that I also want for myself and not just for her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think this is very. This is rather a norm, right, Like a norm in our society. Oh, the wife is emotional and the husband is not emotional, right? So it's a common generality. What did that look like Like for listeners that are like okay, that sounds like us, but is that really us Like? What was it like? How did that show up in conversations or in conflicts?
Speaker 4:I think for me at least it would be when Caitlin was showing emotions over certain things, or trying to express emotions to me, or trying to talk to me about certain things. I wouldn't necessarily know how to handle that and I wouldn't know what to do with those emotions, what to do with those emotions, and so I would kind of like brush them under the rug, I guess, and kind of like ignore them and try to like figure out how to deal with it without having to deal with those emotions, just because it's not wasn't something that I understood, I guess, or or just wasn't something that I was used to.
Speaker 3:So we try to just avoid it, I guess something that I was used to, so we try to just avoid it, I guess. Yeah, to get a better idea of how he and I operate. I'm very explosive, I am a drama queen, I'm a first born daughter, I'm very much gun ho, hear me and I'm very loud, and for him he is very logical. I'm not much of the thinker here. I speak from the heart, I speak from my emotions, but I'm very dysregulated when I do it.
Speaker 3:So when we have like a conflict, or not even a conflict a little quip, I'll present it in a way that is just full on hurt. You hurt me. This needs fixed. Why did you do this? You know? And for him I feel like he's very frank with how he communicates and to me that translated as apathetic and like oh, he doesn't hear what hurt me, even though what he's saying makes sense, I still feel hurt and so he's just very, he's very. He'd be a very good lawyer because he's very good at like handling things like a court case. He's just so factual. But to me it like missed the mark of what I was actually looking for, which was the emotional connection, whereas he's like we got to. I want to fix the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So all of that makes a lot of sense and I think will resonate for a lot of people. Like was there a breaking point where you were like, okay, like this just doesn't work for us? Or you know, where did you get to the point where you were like we can't, something's got to got to give, something's got to change.
Speaker 4:I think that was probably over the over the last winter think I wasn't at a super good spot mentally. It was winter, so landscaping wasn't happening. That was my off season. I was trying to start another sort of business and it was kind of like draining everything out of me. It was taking all of my time and energy and it wasn't working, wasn't paying off and that's the only thing I could think about. And it took basically all of my attention and I think it really put a strain on our relationship, because I'm already not very good at, or wasn't very good at, emotionally connecting and being emotionally vulnerable. But that, on top of it, going through the winter and me just like I don't want to say I was like depressed, but I was definitely not like I definitely wasn't very happy and I think it just like really made that a whole lot worse. And I think that was like the breaking point of okay, we something needs to change, we need to like, we need help and we need to work on this.
Speaker 3:It's. It's funny you say that that because I think for me it started, because it doesn't just come out of nowhere. You know where spouses are like I'm ready to be done. It doesn't just happen, it does grow. But it's interesting. So for him it happened that way. For me I started to feel it after our first daughter was born, because I got jealous. This sounds hilarious to say, but I got jealous of my newborn daughter because my husband was wrapped around her and it started the resentment. And I think the jealousy just started to really grow when I saw him emotionally connecting with our daughters and I thought, well, what am I doing to not get that? And that's what I want. And so for me it probably started shortly after our first daughter was born.
Speaker 4:I would say I think it's different, like for a newborn baby versus like an adult. It's like I don't know. There's something different about it. It's like a baby.
Speaker 3:I mean they smell nicer. They definitely look a little bit cuter. You know you don't wake up with bad breath next to them. You know that's very true.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's powerful, because I don't know if I've really put that into words, but I recognize what you're saying, katie. In my own relationship, like there was a tenderness and a connection that seemed so beautiful that I was like I want that. And while it's different, because that's his daughters, I resonate with there being a sense of jealousy that I hadn't really put into words. And so, and also for you, ben, like it makes a lot of sense that when you were, you know you were not exerting yourself in the day-to-day workload and you were trying to create something new. And when you're trying to create something new, that creates a lot of emotions. It creates a lot of emotions of fear, a lot of emotions of. It can create emotions of shame, like a sense of inadequacy and self-doubt, and so that's generating a lot of emotions.
Speaker 2:So you were talking about how those emotions were coming up. Well, you didn't describe that as emotions coming up, but you were saying that was your breaking point. So does anything connect for you there? Or how would you describe that? You know, maybe there was emotions coming up for you there. Or how would you describe that? You know, maybe there was emotions coming up for you that you didn't know how to process or something, and that created strain in the relationship. Is any of that connect for you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. I mean looking back now. I mean I can look back and see all of the emotions that were coming up. But there I mean there are a lot of emotions of that, that that I wasn't good enough, because here I am trying to start a second business and it's not working. It keeps failing. No matter how much time I put into it, no matter how much effort I put into it, it keeps failing and it never works. And so it's like there's that and there's the feeling not good enough, feeling like a failure, and feeling like, no matter what I do, it was just like not going to work. And so I guess there's all those emotions just really played into my entire mental state which then I guess in turn made uh put strain on Caitlin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause then I'm carrying like the emotional weight for both of us because I was willing to work through and, um, recognize the emotions that he was going through. It was like he was suppressing them, but it need to be able to do this with me, and so I think that definitely is where it really started to make it super hard. It's like, okay, we're not emotionally connecting, but now we've got a bunch of weight that's getting dumped on us that we're not working through you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so what did that produce Like? Was that just weeks of silence? Was that weeks of months of fighting all the time Like? What did that produce Like?
Speaker 4:was that just weeks of silence? Was that weeks of months of fighting all the time? Like what did that produce? Putting up with a lack of me being present, a lack of me being emotionally present and a lack of communication? I think it was kind of me, me letting myself shut down and just sit in all those feelings and emotions that I was feeling and really not doing a whole lot about it, except for just keep pushing through what I thought was gonna be the answer.
Speaker 4:Uh, and so I think I think the biggest thing was just that was all just put on Caitlin and and she did like a as good of a job as she can of just putting up with that and bearing that burden, I guess, of me making her go through all that without me being emotionally present.
Speaker 1:But I don't.
Speaker 4:I don't think there's like. I don't think it produced a whole lot of fighting or argument arguing so much no but.
Speaker 3:But I definitely think, subconsciously I enjoyed it to some degree. Not enjoyed it, but it was safe in the sense that I could play the victim. That was something that we talked about in the breakthrough is. We had that conversation, you opened that up for us through the communication labs and you revealed to me that I'm victimizing myself, I'm making myself a victim, him not emotionally connecting and being very much just apathetic, fed into my victimization of myself.
Speaker 3:So, while I did not like it, I did not like that I wasn't getting to connect with my husband. I also realized that I needed to take ownership for the ways that I was contributing to to connect with my husband. I also realized that I needed to take ownership for the ways that I was contributing to that. And it was just feeding that and feeding you know like, oh, we're never going to get through this. And you know what, I just won't even bring it up to him if something bothers me. I just became avoidant because that was just quote unquote, you know easiest. So therefore, you know that was where I was, you know, not showing up for him as I was like, well, if something bothers me, I'm just going to let it eat it, eat me away.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so what I'm making up is that in the day-to-day life you guys were just existing, like talking about what needed to happen with the girls, talking about what needed to happen with dinner or whatever, like it was almost like roommates, or how would you describe it.
Speaker 4:Definitely I think we probably use that word several times is that we felt like roommates and not like not partners, not spouses and people that we're married to. It felt, it felt very much like roommates and I think we we use that word several times, I think.
Speaker 3:Yep yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Ben, you said that you would put it all on Caitlin and Katie. You said that you were grieving for him. So what does that like? What does that mean? Like, what were you putting on her, ben? And like, what was it? What were you grieving?
Speaker 4:I just meant like I wasn't, I wasn't really dealing with the emotions that I was feeling and the feelings that I was feeling like I was kind of just like suppressing it all and just keep on keeping on. Basically, I wasn't, I wasn't dealing with the, the emotions that I felt, that which were the, the feeling like a failure, feeling like I wasn't good enough and that I wasn't going to be able to succeed in what I was trying to do, and and I wasn't dealing with those. And that's that's mostly what I meant by putting it on her and making it, because it ended up making it so that there was really no connection between us, because I was closing myself off. So that's what I mean by just not being there for her men.
Speaker 2:One of the things you said at breakthrough often is I just don't feel right, and I think a lot of men feel that. A lot of men think that. And so you're recognizing that you were feeling because you're saying you were put it on, putting it on her right, but like if you could look back at the symptoms, that says, okay, I can see I was doing this to her, which shows I was actually suppressing my feelings because, you know, up until two months ago you didn't realize you had feelings. You can like help the listeners, especially the men I think I deal, I work with a lot of men who say I don't feel, I'm just not a feeling person and as we work with each other for a while, they're like oh, I actually am feeling, I just didn't know I was. How would you describe the way it looked when you were telling yourself that this was going on inside of you and you know what was? How was that showing up? What was the impact of the day-to-day interactions of those feelings that you weren't processing?
Speaker 4:I think for me it was. It was more so just like telling myself that I wasn't feeling and that and that was easier. That was easier than dealing with the whatever feelings that I was, the all of those emotions, me just accepting that I'm a guy, I'm fine, I'll deal with it, I'll figure it out and I don't have to, I don't have to feel those feelings that I clearly am feeling. It's easier for me to just choose not to feel them, choose to ignore them, and I think it. I think that's like probably what was the biggest thing is just choosing to ignore those things, even though they were clearly present.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. I feel like one way was like you were very fearful but you tried to suppress it by. You'd go out by yourself and you isolated yourself, like that's how you handled. Your emotions is this is for me, nobody else. Your emotions is this is for me, nobody else. I'm not going to put this on my wife, but you still were in a different sense by doing that, not opening up to me or someone else, and then you know, like that in turn probably turned more to complacency with me, which is, you know, like I'm fine, I'm not going to talk to you about this which broke the connection line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So that's, that's helpful. So so for you, katie, you could see something was going on. You knew he was bothered by something, but he wouldn't talk about it, he would just go off on his own. So then you were left. What? What did that? What was going on for you in that?
Speaker 3:Um, it might sound harsh, but I felt in a sense abandoned, because I felt like I was alone in all of my emotions and, um, growing up, I was never really shown what emotional regulation looks like. So that in turn was like a constant turmoil, like I'm already a spinning tornado, 24 seven with emotions, with emotions. And so then having his being suppressed just added to me and how you know that kind of looked was, um, just constant buildup of emotions. And I was a lot of times I remember asking him to open up to me. You know, um, and he'd be like I'm fine, it's okay, it was just, um, it was definitely a lot.
Speaker 3:So my grieving was like he made me aware of things that were going on, but I'd ask him how he was doing, and what I meant by that was how are you feeling, you know? And that was just something that I could never get past. It was like a brick wall and I was like I don't get it. It's so easy for me to tell anybody how I'm feeling. I could pass somebody on the street and I'm like I'm not feeling great today, and here's why, and that I couldn't get to with my own husband, and so I was like what? What's going on, you know, is this does this have to do with our marriage? And then I started questioning our marriage. I'm like are we right for each other? Is there something I'm?
Speaker 2:not doing, you know, and then pointing blame on him. It was a lot. So I'd say all those emotions impacted me negatively. But yeah, yeah, I don't know if this resonates for you guys, but for me there's a similarity, a lot of similarity, in the way you guys are describing like Jeff didn't think that he felt a lot and wasn't able to communicate his emotions. And I felt a lot but wasn't mature in how I communicated my emotions and really thought everybody else was the cause of my emotions. And so for me, when I could see Jeff was going through things, I would take it all on.
Speaker 2:As for me again, this may not be anything for you guys, but I felt like I was. It was me, I was doing something wrong. I was the problem as to why he was feeling all that he was feeling, or that I should be able to fix how he was feeling. And so I would carry all this emotions and then I would blow up, right. And so then I blow up and he's like okay, see, I'm not enough and I can't, I can't be around your emotions, because that only tells me even more I'm not enough. And so then he would recoil even more and then I would go after him even more. And it was this vicious cycle of both of us. Both of us were emotionally immature, but it was showing up in the opposite way, where it was a constant game of me trying to chase and force and drive him to open up. But the more I did that, the less he wanted to open up. Any of that resonate.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure, like she's too much, he's not enough. And there was like our entire like at the beginning of our marriage that's how we felt. We were like we'd look at each other and we're like we both want the same thing. But why do we feel like we're on opposite ends of the street wanting the same thing and can't get to each other? Why? What is this blockage Like? And after five, almost five years, we're still, you know, not able to figure this out. You know, just that's what, constantly. We didn't fight often, but when we did, it blew up because we were still on the opposite ends of the street, and when we weren't fighting we thought, oh, we're good, we're getting this figured out.
Speaker 4:We realized we hadn't done a darn thing yet I think we're on the same side of the street now now, we're on the same side of the street now, no, we're on the same side of the street.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're neighbors.
Speaker 4:Powerful, powerful, closer than neighbors, hopefully.
Speaker 3:With the whole backyard analogies. We're neighbors. Yeah, I got to stay out of your backyard.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's really powerful because you guys were sharing with me outside of this recording, that you're seeing a lot of significant results. Things like arguing less, listening to each other with respect, being open and vulnerable with each other, reaching out to community for support. Those are significant changes and it's not just like you went to camp and yep, we came home and for a week or two, this is what we've been doing. You guys have been at this for 10 weeks now, which is like that's the signs of new habits being formed. So what happened? What shifted for you guys? That took you from not being able to communicate through uncomfortable emotional challenges to what was just what you described you're experiencing now.
Speaker 4:I think it was just intentionality Mostly.
Speaker 4:I think like walking away, I mean, you know, walking away from breakthrough we.
Speaker 4:One of my things was I was gonna, I was gonna like identify and name an emotion that I felt every single day, and, and so I did that, and I and I was gonna, I was gonna like identify and name an emotion that I felt every single day, and and so I did that, and I and I was doing that consistently, constantly, and it like it kind of just made it easier to just like recognize certain emotions that I was feeling and to actually recognize that and talk to her about it, instead of just ignoring it and pushing it away because I'm a guy and I don't need to feel it like.
Speaker 4:It made it easier to recognize that. And then, even in arguments where where, uh, typically our arguments would have just been like court case arguments oh here's, here's the facts, here's where you're wrong, here's where you're wrong, here's where I'm right and instead like being able to identify emotions, not just my own but hers also and be able to like ask questions about those emotions, it's just made it much easier to have those arguments and not it doesn't feel so fake, I guess, those arguments like they feel almost more constructive, I guess, like like they're building blocks yeah, like they're almost beneficial, almost arguments.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I definitely walked away with it, having more empathy for him as a man and being like understanding where he's coming from and instead of looking at it as, oh, he doesn't, you know, like the victimization point of view was you know, he doesn't love me enough because it would be easier for him to emotionally connect to you know, give words of affirmation to do, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:It was easy to go. Now it's much easier for me to be like I can see where this isn't his strength, this isn't where it's his default past, and I have a little bit more empathy for him. And also, having gone to the breakthrough, I walked away focusing back on myself. And I think going to the breakthrough a lot is to go realize we went for you know, we thought we were going for each other or you know, I at least thought I was going for him. Um, and then walking away realizing it's really about me, I'm really here for me. I would say that's kind of the biggest one that I walked away with was, you know, a better empathy for him as a human and understanding you know I'm, you know I can make this what I want it to be, and I realized I've been making it about me.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, powerful. Can you explain more about that Katie, like how were you making it about you? Yeah, let's start there. How are you making it about you?
Speaker 3:Well, so, like one of the biggest things I've realized is how I used to handle conflict in a way that kept me from actually looking at myself, was like during arguments I would kind of like, without even realizing it, poke at Ben until he got frustrated or like reacted in a way that I could call out like like see, look how you just said that.
Speaker 3:Or you know, like that hurt my feelings, like even if it is true, and that gave me something to like latch onto so that I didn't have to face the truth, which was I'm being really unkind or emotionally out of control, or just like totally out of line in that moment. And so it was like I was almost looking for his faults to avoid my own, and that was like a hard it's a hard thing to see in myself. But his reactions, his discomfort, you know his, his pushback, um, they started to show me how out of touch I was with my own behavior, my own patterns, like my own default that I didn't even like realize was there. So you know, now I'm learning to like pause and ask okay, how am I showing up right now instead of focusing on his tone or his reaction, you know, actually trying to take responsibility for what I'm bringing into the room and you know that shift has changed so much and how we connect and repair after conflict.
Speaker 2:Wow wow yeah, powerful. So what does it look like day to day now? Like you guys were talking about what it looked like pre-breakthrough, what does it look like now?
Speaker 3:all sunshine and rainbows now it's not good to lie on a podcast, though I I mean obviously like nothing.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's ever going to be sunshine and rain goes 100% of the time, but it feels.
Speaker 4:It feels like there's genuine connection now it feels, like, yeah, it feels like we can have an argument, we can have conflict and it doesn't matter, kind of Like it's not a big deal, like it's just. It's almost like, yeah, we still fight, we still have arguments, but it doesn't feel like the end of the road anymore, like it doesn't like arguments before, they just like I don't know, they didn't, they didn't feel good, they definitely didn't look good from the outside, I would guarantee, but now they're just like. It's just like I don't know. Like, like I kind of mentioned earlier, it's almost beneficial. It feels like like it feels like it's almost growing us both closer together when we have an argument, instead of farther away, because it feels like we're getting to know the other person even more in a good way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now that we have a better understanding of where we're coming from, why, the way we react, certain ways or you know, like our, our bias, definitely it feels like we can walk into it, having tools. Or like when we left your breakthrough, we would joke with each other and say I propose you consider this to each other, on just the smallest things. Like I want this for dinner, well, I propose you consider Indian butter chicken. Like we were so excited. I think we just actually really liked having those tools and those. The verbiage definitely helps, because it helps set a different tone, and neutrality, which is a hard one, because I don't think we're hardwired for neutrality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, as you got, like, when you guys decided to come to Breakthrough, was that a really hard decision for you to decide to come to this conference that you really didn't know a lot about, and like it was hard for me.
Speaker 4:It was not hard for her. She wanted to go. She's talked about wanting to go to counseling, I mean ever since we got married, but I've always pushed it off. I've always been like, no, that's, we don't need to do that, like that's not. But I think I think I've always had like a a bad view of counseling and that she wants to go to fix me. She wants to go because I'm the problem, but kind of like what she just mentioned is like we're both, we both realize that we're there for ourselves and it's not so much about going there because we think the other person needs help and that they need to be fixed because they're broken it's. It's more so, more so figuring out how, where we're, where we're broken ourselves and where we need help. So I think I was the one who more so thought it. You wanted to go, you were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was excited. I was like this is vacation, I get time away from the girls, I get to be with my husband, and then I left kind of like an emotional mess of like oh man, this was revealing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and it's powerful because one of the first things I say at every breakthrough is this is not a workshop to fix broken people or broken relationships, because I don't think those exist. I don't think any of us, as human beings, are broken. We're making the best choice we see available to us according to how life occurs to us, and we don't realize that we develop these beliefs about emotions whether we believe that, you know, it's best to explode or it's best to repress. They're just the way we see the world and we don't really see another way until we're given a safe place where we can actually discover what it is that we do believe and question it.
Speaker 2:Is it true that emotions I don't feel Well? Why is there tears coming down my face? Or, you know, why do I feel so angry right now, right? Or is it true that I can't be emotionally mature? Well, it's a choice, right? You get to choose one conversation at a time. Do I want to mature how I'm showing up in this conversation? And so I think that's really powerful to hear that. And so, ben, when you think about if you could go back, if there are men listening, feeling the way you felt, like man, I don't want to go to this workshop, right, I don't. I don't like counseling. I'm going to look like more of the bad guy because that's what she wants. Like, what would you say to that?
Speaker 4:person.
Speaker 4:Um, I think I would say because we we tried, uh, actual like counseling before and we only went once and instantly we just knew it's like, it wasn't like, it didn't feel good, it it felt super weird, honestly, uh, and we didn't like that.
Speaker 4:And then we went to your breakthrough and that was like it was like 100 different than what I expected it to be, and I personally, I guess, if I'm talking to like another guy, I would suggest like going to something where there's several other people there, several other couples, who are all there for the same reason. Because that was probably like one of my biggest takeaways is just like seeing how many other people other guys up there, women, other couples were going through the exact same things and like openly talking about those things. And then, all of a sudden, it doesn't feel weird anymore. It doesn't feel weird to talk about those things because you have a few dozen other people who are all there talking about the same thing and relating to the exact same thing, and that, I think, made it so much more helpful for me just seeing all the exact same thing, and that, I think, made it so much more helpful for me just seeing all the other people there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think is one of the things that people are most scared about is oh, I don't want any other couple. I don't want to. This is what people often say. I don't want to air my dirty laundry in front of other people and I'm like, well, you're not going to be airing your dirty laundry because that's not going to happen to you or anyone else there. But can you describe like what it is in regards to how did it help you to be with other couples?
Speaker 4:I think it was just really encouraging mostly. I mean it was just really encouraging mostly. I mean having there were so many couples who came up to me afterwards after I'm, after I shared what I shared. People came up to me and just like told me how much they related to that and like gave me encouragement and encouraged me to like dig into those emotions, not push them aside, and like actually actually explore that. And I don't know it was just encouraging seeing that many people come up and encourage me because I would have been, I would have been the same way Like I am.
Speaker 4:I would, 100% of the time, be the person to not want to go do something like that and talk about that kind of stuff in front of several other people, talk about that kind of stuff in front of several other people, but for some reason it just works and it I would say like I'd almost prefer it now, I think, like I think it's even more helpful.
Speaker 3:yeah, it feels like conversations yeah just conversation, doesn't feel forced, doesn't feel like an interrogation. It just feels like everybody talking about their story and you're not a unique case.
Speaker 4:It's encouraging too to see like all those people in one room all there for a specific reason to better their marriage, to better their relationship with their spouses and to see that many other people care about their relationship kind of encouraged encouraged me, I think, to like to want to work on my relationship that much harder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and just for context for listeners, when you're talking about the people were coming up to you, encouraging you and thanking you for what you shared and all that. You weren't sharing dirty laundry. You weren't sharing anything about you and Katie. You were sharing from a genuine, authentic place of what was coming up for you in that moment, as you were trying to apply the tool that we were working with at that time, which was about creating a new plan for how you wanted to start connecting with Katie, moving forward, right. And so often people think, oh, I'm going to have to get up there and I'm going to tell, have to tell, like this terrible thing, about which one? It's completely a choice for each person whether they decide to stand up because they want to get coached, um, but they often think, oh, I'm going to have to go back and tell you know all these terrible things that I've done, but that doesn't help anything.
Speaker 2:It's about what's happening right now, in this present moment, as you think about who you want to be in the future and what is the future you want to create. And that's a very different context than most people are used to. They're used to needing to pull up the past and look at that, which that's not the approach in coaching or in breakthrough. It's really about whatever needs to be worked on will show up right here in the present and let's just be with that. And what future is it that you want? And so, yeah, I appreciate that, yeah, definitely I think that's like one of the things.
Speaker 4:When we did try traditional marriage counseling, that was like almost more of the things when we, when we did try traditional marriage counseling, that was like almost more of the approach. It was like bringing up past baggage. It was like bringing up past things that have happened where it's like what, what is this doing? Versus at breakthrough. That's not what it was about. It wasn't about bringing up past things from each other like because, like you said, what, what good is that going to do?
Speaker 3:yeah, it was more so, more so about like, who are you presencing? In that moment, which was like a different kind of spiral for me, I was like, oh, because I have a whole list I could have brought out. Like had to let that go and see. Who are we being in this moment which actually really deep dive to the core of our arguments is who were we present, seeing, not, you know, clinging to the little things and the buildup of you know, the things said and done, who are we being that's causing those things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for you, ben, it was like who I'm being is. I don't think I know how to feel, or I'm just not one who feels. Well, that came from your past. We don't need to learn anything more than right now, in this moment. You believe you don't feel well, can we? Can we look at that? Can we explore that? And in exploring it, you realized, oh, that's not true, I do feel. And if I feel, then what else is possible in you know, in being able to connect with my wife and my girls? So, yeah, powerful. Thank you guys so much. I am really grateful and just so thankful for you guys's honesty and your willingness to to just show up and do the work, and I am so grateful for the difference it's making for you in your day-to-day life.
Speaker 4:Thank you, we're grateful for your support. Grateful to be here on the podcast as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Yes, thank you, guys so much, and I will look forward to hearing connecting with all of you listeners in the next episode. Thank you,