Married Roommates with Allen & Talia Wagner
In This Episode…
Married Roommates (the book and concept) 1:25
How marriage changes you 10:09
What are things couples can do to be proactive and keep the connection alive 16:31
Where to seek advice/counsel on your relationship 18:10
What to do when you see signs of, or lose connection with your partner 20:38
Success 24:12
Closing advice 25:55
Key Points
When we don't function as a team, when it feels like a situation is kind of lopsided if one person feels or has the perception that they carry more of the duties and tasks in the relationship.
In this new world we live in, everybody can find their self care in different ways like get addicted to podcasts, audiobooks and social media, or watch TV shows or they become news junkies. And so these are very independent actions that lead to people just co-existing but doing things in a parallel way, so each person is just present but not emotionally present in any way.
And there's a lot of passive aggressiveness when people are not getting their needs met, they, they unconsciously or consciously punish their partner. There can be a lot of resentment that goes on because of lack of communication. One person thinks that the other person should know.
If our mindset is one that sees other people taking from us or sees us having to defend ourselves and not give emotionally or otherwise, it's very easy to go to those places where our interpretation leads us in the wrong direction.
Sometimes conflict is brutal. It can leave you both walking away from that really hurt and upset, and over a couple of days, it just goes away. And we kind of start talking again and everything's fine and we are so fearful that will bring that conflict back up that we just ignore it. But the issue will come up again in the next argument or the next escalation. So, you know, communication is very important.
What You Can Do
We need to make a distinction between seeking out solutions and just cycling around the problem with other people. It's that idea of just complaining or, venting to our friends doesn't actually lead us to better solutions.
If you see the corner turning, make sure you talk to a professional therapist, especially if it's been repeated from a previous relationship. It's a red flag of something that's unresolved in yourself or in your history.
There's a lot of people out there that just feel all alone, so they don't talk about it with anybody they're embarrassed and they feel that it's just their marriage or just their relationship. But two people working together are way more powerful than one. And that's two different people looking at blind spots of each other, giving encouragement, identifying shared goals and then working twice as fast to get there. When they're collaborating, it's such a strength. Nobody should lose their identity and every week. So I don't think being in a relationship necessarily has to mean that you lose yourself. You just have to be able to invest time into both the relationship and yourself (self-care).
Connect
Allen and Talia Wagner, LMFT (Marriage and Family Therapists)
Allen and Talia work with individuals, couples and families, focusing on developing better coping skills, and a more positive perspective. They are both graduates of Pepperdine University and live in Los Angeles, CA.
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