Transcript for Potholes & Productive Conflict in Relationships with Abby & Glennon

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Yeah, I relate to Morgan. Do you? I do. I do. I remember a long time ago we were doing an interview on here with Esther Pearl and she said something that I did not resonate with in the moment, but over time I have come to resonate with and she said in many relationships there is one person who is afraid of losing the other person and there is one person who is afraid of losing herself and at the time it seemed like too much of an oversimplification for me to except, but I have noticed it since then. I can see it in couples. I can see it in us. And I recently was talking to a friend who is an artist. And she is in the first happy relationship of her life and it is a beautiful, healthy relationship. And it's to women. And she is afraid. She's made it through the first few months of just complete loss of identity, where you just get totally soaked into the other person. You just don't, you forget you have a self, which is such a beautiful relief.

Oh, I've been when we first fell in love. I felt like I disappeared. But I loved it at the time. It was like, I wrote a poem about it and tamed actually. It was like, I've always felt like I'm midnight blue. And you were like this pearl color. And when we fell in love, I was no longer midnight blue. We just like mixed together. And we were like this light blue. And suddenly I was just gone. And it was the most beautiful disintegration of self ever. Like that's what I think is so addictive about falling in love and why it's like drugs. It's your drugs. I also loved drugs for the same reason that I loved being in love in the beginning because I was gone.

Yeah. And then after being beautifully and you forkligh gone for a while, you start to settle into existing again. That's why they call it falling in love. It's like you just a free fall of and then there's a landing again, right? Which is so hard.

Yeah, you kept saying, I remember having a conversation where I said, I'm annoyed you keep talking about this. It's like you were warning me. You're like, it's not gonna always be like this. And I felt, I said, I feel like you're saying it's gonna get worse. And you said, no, it's going to change. It's going to get better. Yeah. And that part is better like that landing part where the drugs are gone from your brain. Yeah. And you are two people again. Yeah. And then that's where the actual relationship starts exactly falling in love.

Yeah. And that is the relationship. The beginning part is magic, wild, leisure mind, and then a relationship has to be between two solid people. Right. So I love you. I mean, there's an eye and there's a you, right? And so I think that this part is hard. Did she say, yes, she's a woman with a woman. I find the landing part is excruciating that difficult for lesbians. Yeah. So we really like and measurement as a generalization. I have a friend getting back to her who felt afraid. She remembered her illness. The phase is moved from falling to landing. She felt the landing coming on in the relationship. And it wasn't that she was loving her person any less. It was just that she was remembering that she was a person with needs and creativity and an eye that also needed to be tended to and needed to have time. And I think that that well can feel like a betrayal like what Morgan is saying is she feels like remembering that she's also an individual. And maybe even having to remind her girlfriend that she is an individual who needs time and he also needs to pursue her own stuff is a betrayal of the relationship. But it's actually the only way to keep it helping.

Well, I think what she's saying is it's the only good thing she's making room for. That's right.

It's scary. And the friend who I'm talking about was so scared, I think she was like Morgan. I think she was so scared to hurt her girlfriend's feelings. Yeah. Because it's terrifying to like interrupt, enmeshment with a reminder that you're an individual can feel so mean. It can feel like a betrayal of the relationship.

Yeah. I feel like for us, we didn't fully un-and-mash. I don't think it's like a thing that you at least for us that you do. You're in mesh beginning and then you're not codependent and you're healthy to individuals like we're so codependent when you I'm just thinking right now about how when we go to bed and I say do you want tea and you say no it upsets me so much I feel like what are you doing this is what we do we have tea And we're going to get in bed and we're going to drink our tea and I know if you have tea that you're going to be drinking it for at least 20 minutes. So that means you're going to be awake for 20 minutes. You're going to abandon me and sleep without our agreed upon tea transition time.

So we get that. I think allowing yourself moments every day for healthy individuation and for codependent investment. Yeah. You could have it all more again is what we're saying, but you do have to have it.

Tell me how that was. Or sometimes you just go workout or do a sauna and you come back and only do anything happen.

And you're like, what would have happened? I just was in a box. I don't know. It's something might have new come up. Then now we get to share with each other. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, Rilky said, the highest form of love is protecting each other's solitude. And I do feel like at the end of the day, we are individual creatures. Nobody can ever escape that as much as we might try and love and booze in whatever we do have a self, which means that every and any truly healthy relationship honors that there are two different selves in it who might have different needs and different joys and who need to nurture each other's.

Everybody has a theory about introverts and extroverts, right? I think that what I've noticed about us is don't know if there's a true, if it's a spectrum, if there's anyone who is only an introvert and anyone who is only an extrovert, like it feels to me that there are two different ways of being that some people are more, their comfort zone is more introverted and the other person's comfort zone is more extroverted and the beauty of having a marriage where there's one of each. is that the other person's preference helps you eliminate a part of yourself that you didn't know you actually need to swim in sometimes. Like, Abby's social side, her, you know, getting some life or energy or connection out of being with other people has made me, giving to that sometimes as we must do for each other. has made me discover that it's actually quite important to me, too. I mean, I am probably pretty far in the introvert side, right? But the older I get, the more I realize that we had to dinner the other night, and there were three other couples there. And we talked for five hours at a table. And it was absolutely life-giving and magical for me. Yep. It was the right kind of social for me because it was people that I felt very safe with. It was people who were being very vulnerable and deep and not just staying on the surface of things and getting to the meat of life and sharing their pain and their joy and it was that sort of thing. But I do need connection with other human beings and Abby does need alone time. And Abby does need to sit with herself. Would you agree that my way, you being forced to, I've been forced to adopt some of your way, because as a couple, I need to honor your need for social interaction. And that has helped me. Would you say that because I abandoned you all of the time, so I could have flown time that you have discovered the importance of introverted time for yourself?

Can I ask you a question about what you just said? Is it just maybe think of something? It's so interesting that you said so I won't feel as scared. I think it's so interesting that I wonder if this is true about introverts and extroverts. I tend to feel more scared when we're surrounded by people. And you tend to feel more scared when you're alone. Yeah. And that is an interesting way to think about introversion and extroversion.

I'd hate for D to frame it with her partner. They're moving in together. They're starting a life. I would hate for the framing to be ID need to be alone. You my partner need to be with other people. So let's find some kind of compromise there because that's polarizing and actually not true at the core of things. The truth is that D in her partner are both full human beings, each of whom needs time alone and time with other people. So how is that going to be navigated? Right?

to be able to work within. Tell me what she meant. She meant one person is looking closely to the ground and the other person is up high and can see the whole landscape. Yeah, both are covering ground in different ways.

No, meeting in the middle is nobody gets what they need. Exactly. It's both. So it's like if we could just add on to that real key quote, because you know, I'm just always trying to improve upon real key. That's a smart endeavor. Yeah. It's like, is the greatest form of love just to protect each other's solitude or is it to protect each other's need for solitude and each other's need for connection?

It's so smart of D and her boyfriend to be thinking about this stuff. Now, but because when you're moving in together, you talk through how you're going to share space, but you don't talk about how you're going to share time. And so wouldn't it be cool for D in her partner to sit down and be like, OK, we both need just like you're going to be like, all right, I'm messing the bathroom and you're not whatever we are going to need time. for ourselves and we're going to need social time. So how are we going to work that? You're not even frame it as it's one thing you need another thing that he needs. But we both need these things. How are we going to make them both real? Totally. So good. We should be marriage counselors. This is fun. I know. Good times.

And if she knows more about our marriage. Also, there's that little detail. We have no training or credentials or degrees.

Check our work is all we're saying. Check our work. We don't know what the hell we're talking about. When my book, when my first book, Karen Warrior was allowed to be in Christian book source. It would all had a big sticker on it that would say, read with discernment. Oh my God. I always thought, so all the other books in here, you don't have to read with discernment isn't that what you're supposed to do with a book. Anyway, what we're saying is listen with discernment.

Let's hear from Steve.

Okay Steve, we are laughing because I feel like Steve and I are similar in this. Okay Steve, hear me out. I really like conflict because it makes me feel like like we're all oh we're traveling down this road together. We have come across something that is an opportunity to Know each other better to like do life better together to serve each other better. We've come across a snag that we can untangle and that's exciting to me. Yeah, right.

Right, and I feel like you only have a conflict when you already have a flat tire. That's what's happening. If you didn't already have a flat tire, you wouldn't be having a conflict. The conflict is proof of flat tire and the conversation is repairing the wheel. So that you can roll or whatever.

Yeah. And then that's Just then we're just going to crash eventually, right?

Yeah, but what Steve is saying is he would like. He's open to healthy conflict, but he just wants to make sure that there's progress at the end of the conflict that you're both learning from. Okay, so we have this thing that drives Abby batshit. Okay. When I feel a conflict. Ending. when I feel like we're coming to some kind of resolution. What is the thing that I always say?

So where we're moving on from here. It's basically that means let's figure out what we have learned from this conflict. Yeah. And what we're both agreeing we're going to do differently. Like, in other words, what's the gift of it that we now will move into? Yes. the next part of it to make the conflict worth it. Yes. Okay. That requires figuring out what the conflict is really about.

Let's go through an example. Oh, okay. I'm gonna say a sentence. And it's just get through the first sentence of it, okay, because this is truly our life, but okay. Last month, we grabbed our kombucha and we jumped into our golf cart to drive to our yoga knee drill class.

We are lesbians who now live near LA. That is just our life. It's just okay. What we do. Here's what happened. For some reason, I was driving the golf cart. Now, we have decided a long time ago, silently, that I was not going to drive anymore. We never discussed it. I decided by myself, because, well, it's glad you decide why. We don't know if I am a bad driver or if Abby is just so nervous that I'm going to be a bad driver, that her anxiety makes me a bad driver. So we get into the golf cart and immediately Abby just makes some noises that I feel like she's panicking already that I'm gonna hit something, that I'm gonna back into something now. In her defense, I do often back into things or hit things, okay?

But what comes first, I ask. Is it the mistake or does the anxiety of the other person kind of make the mistake happen because I feel so nervous and rigid by your intensity or your fear that I'm going to do something wrong. Yeah. So here's what happens. That's quite. So she's already making these noises. And so I'm already heightened before you go on.

Do not think so. I mean, I didn't hit anything, right? No, but you were going to hit the curb. Well, curbs. I mean, so what? That's a curbs are four.

Okay, but I just feel like curbs are generous suggestion to not keep going and hit anybody on the side of the road. Okay.

Yeah. I know we're not supposed to hit people. I am clear, which is what made the next moment. Yeah, but you're so unfortunate. Oh, God.

Hmm. Do you think about it? Is that true? I don't think it's ideal to hit things. I do not. Okay. I'm that order to accept myself as a human being who can't stop hitting things. I have made a hierarchy. That are better to hit. Listen, can we just go back to the story or make a nervous again?

I think maybe there's two types of people and those two types of people feel differently about curves. Okay. Okay. So we're driving in the golf cart and I'm a little bit nervous because of all the noises. And what happens next? Is that suddenly? What I would describe as coming to, I come to and there is a man and he is screaming at me. That's all I see is a man and a dog and the man is screaming at me in a very scary aggressive man voice and because he's only like a foot from my face. Okay. So what has happened is that I have driven into a crosswalk. This is completely my fault. I've driven into a crosswalk that I was supposed to stop at and the man and the dog are there and he is screaming at me. So what do I do when someone yells at me? Start laughing. Right. So I just start laughing at the man which makes me look like I don't care about this situation. I do. I'm just very scared.

So the whole situation is very upsetting. So then I keep driving and I can't stop laughing. I can't stop laughing at me as furious.

Right. So then we park the cart and then I get out of the cart and start walking and then I almost get hit by a car. Yeah. I just walk into the street and then tell them what happened. when we walk into the yoga studio.

I have a nemesis at my yoga studio.

He's always talking when people are trying to be quiet. He's always just taking up all of the audible space in the room. And of course, he's the only man in the rest of people are women. And just I have a very layered response to this man.

So Steve, let's get back to Steve. Oh, yeah. What we are saying Steve is we got home. We did a yoga class after that. We got back home, Abby drove the golf cart. Yeah. And we sat down in the couch to try to talk about this thing that had happened. Nope. We waited till the next day. We waited till the next day. because we just couldn't even unpack it. Here are some rules I have learned about arguing with Abby. Arguing with Abby is very frustrating because Abby is always on the high road during an argument. When Abby starts, she avoids conflict, she doesn't like it. I'm getting better at that though. Right, but once she is inevitably having it, She is truly committed to her main goal is to actually figure out how I'm feeling, to express how she's feeling and to come to some sort of solution that works for our relationship. This is crazy. Okay. I come into a conflict with virtual armor guns of weapons I am a lawyer who is protecting her life that is how I feel I go into it like I have to prove why I'm not crazy. I have to make a case for why the way I feel is okay, included in that case has to be many things that she has done wrong, that she will have to face so that she can understand. And I don't think it's about being right and wrong. I think it's about me proving that I'm not crazy.

Well, yeah, right now has to do with not being crazy. Not being crazy. Yeah. So I have over time had to begin to understand that, so Abby sat me down one time and she said, I need you to understand that if you continue to have your goal be to be right, you're going to win forever. We don't even need to have these arguments. You're the lawyer. You're going to win. So you win forever. Is that good enough for you? And I was like, oh my God, I have to actually do conflict. I have to come into conflict and actually stay soft and open and have the goal not be that everyone here agrees at the end that my position was legitimate and correct and that they were wrong and we move on from there that I actually have to be soft and open. and have the goal of understanding Abby and seeing things from her point of view instead of mine, but like, we're a team. Oh, that was it. When you said we're on the same team, she looked at me during an argument interrupting me and said, you do understand that we're on the same team here. And that sounds very simple, but I did not understand that. I did not. I know.

I thought we were showing up at the soccer game and there was your team and there was my team and whoever was better. Yeah. Was going to win. And that is why we always lost. Everybody lost all the time. Yeah. Because even when I won, logistically, I walked away feeling like a big asshole, like complete shit. You walked away feeling like shit because you weren't hurt. So figuring out what the fight is actually about. is part of that and we discovered that what that fight was about is the fact that when I feel criticized or I am in a situation that makes me anxious, I completely dissociate. I am not able to stay present. Yeah. I'm working on that in therapy and you Maybe what would you say would be your, I want to say is your part. What would you say was your part? What was that argument about for you?

All right, Steve. Maybe that wasn't the best.

So that's a good tip then as I feel when I'm thinking you're talking, I'm thinking we've never really had a very healthy conflict when we do it when we're both in the heat of the moment. No. Which is why the whole don't go to bed angry is the worst advice ever. Yeah. Really saying this was a bad moment. This was a hard moment or conflict we need to talk about and do you think we should talk about it tomorrow? We recently had a hard time and we just decided we're too heightened to even talk about this tonight. Yeah. Let's come together and talk about this tomorrow morning. Yep. And that was so helpful because it's like half of the work in a conflict between two people is the work that each individual does in themselves before they get together to discuss the conflict. Totally. So you can trust each other to do the regulation stuff that you need to do to come back with a problem, yes, but with the right goal.

That's what it is. It's the relationship as the priority. And that was new to me. Yeah. For me, if you're separating into different corners, see, even that language. Yeah, even that language is so everyone's going to their corner space before you fight. No, if you're taking space, it is clearly so each person can develop the best case possible to win, right? And that's probably one of the reasons you're afraid to give me space, too. It's like, oh, God, her arguments getting getting even better and more vicious. But if you separate with the trust that each person is going there to bring their best self, because you have this common shared goal, which is how are we going to use this conflict to understand each other better to get closer. But Steve, I love that you're thinking this way. And I think it would be very smart to sit down and before you have the conflict, not when you're in the conflict, talk about conflict. Yeah. Talk about what are your guidelines? Are you going to be the type of couple that doesn't bring it in generalizations? You always this, you never this. That doesn't bring in the past every single argument that really tries to decide, okay, we're arguing about the toothpaste. What is this really about? It's about boundaries, it's about respect, this is about acknowledgement. Maybe that's something that you guys do, you say. Each time we have a conflict, let's try to figure out what it's really about, Let's stick to a few ground rules and at the end, let's decide where we're moving on from here together. If anything, conflict ending in a new shared understanding is everything. Otherwise, what's the point?

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Okay, let's hear from Sydney.

It's interesting to hear this question from a 25 year old's perspective and think about how I think about it now as an almost 50 year old and I know that I I know that for much of my life, I really believed that I understood what people were doing that was harmful for them, or not harmful for them. And I think we don't really know that is how I think now. I don't know that that's right around. The only thing that we can know is what's hurting us, or what's harming us. You said me cannot actually know why your friend is doing what she's doing or what it's serving in her life or what kind of survival strategy she's employing or where she is in her spirituality or what she's has in her past or what part of her journey she's on. But what it seems like you do know is what is hurting you. The only clean way I know to confront, I'm saying that with air quotes, someone else's behavior. is to fully own that it's about you. For example, I can't be around you anymore because I am a person who when I see this happen, I feel upset, a lack of control. I am sensitive to Unkindness. I am a person who is threatened by drug and alcohol use, so I can't be around it. I, I, I, it is every time we're making a decision about someone else's behavior. I think it's very important that we frame it as this is about me because it is. No one's behavior is subjectively right or wrong or good or bad. I mean, it feels like that. No. But I think there's a double edge approach to, I mean, Abby knows that it is very important to me to not compromise my own mental health or comfort really by being around people who trigger me for certain reasons. So I actually end up doing this a lot, but I have learned that that is about me and that I need to take responsibility for. It is important to me when everyone's in a room that everyone has heard. When someone is taking up all the space in the room or being extremely loud or cutting people off, it is important to me to not be around that. But it is also important to me to express it in a way that is about me. I am a person who feels major anxiety when I feel like people aren't being heard. And so I have to remove myself. from this situation because of my own reactions. The other person gets to decide over time if that's something that isn't working for them. But I don't get to say to them, this isn't working for you, even if I secretly believe that. All I get to say is this isn't working for me.

And people will only change when the thing that they're doing hurts them more than helps them. And we actually don't know. I mean, I was starving myself for two decades. eating disorder, the amount of people who could have said to me, you are hurting yourself, you and had did over time. But what they didn't know was that that was a survival strategy for me. I was saving myself. And I was not going to stop, you know, I was taught for a very long time by my family, by culture, that getting bigger threatens my attachment, threatens my validity, threatens my attractiveness, my currency in the world. And so a million people saying you're hurting yourself I couldn't even understand that until I understood it and that was not because anybody else told me that it was so everybody's on a journey and the thing that they are doing that you think is hurting them be the way they're staying alive so all you get to do is decide what hurts you yeah So Sydney, if this person's behavior is hurting you, then number one, you get to decide whether you're going to be around it or not. That is your right, that is your power and you have to do that for the rest of your life. And it's yours. You get to say, I can't be around this anymore because it hurts my heart because I'm sensitive to this or that because I'm not want to. I don't want to. because it offends my integrity. Whatever is your reason, you could just say, I don't want to be around this. Yeah, that's good enough. And I love you so much. And it's hard for me and I can't do it anymore. All we can do, all of that A, shit. Like, all we can do is keep our side of the street clean. You cannot go on to other someone else's side of the street and clean up for them. It never has ended well one time. Okay, let's end with Lexi.

Oh, Lexi.

What is he? No, you're, you're millennial. You're millennial.

And pod squad, if you know, I mean, everyone's one, we get a message that says could Glennon, just please stop saying, right, right, and what they don't know is 58 rights have already been taken from that episode. I say right all the time because I'm trying to ask if I'm making a new sense. Right. I know. You say, well, because you're celebrating someone has just did it. So you.

So it's like, well, is a shout out to honey and honey.

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