August 2020 – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

FACT of Your Crisis: How to Face Your Crisis and Move Forward

https://savethemarriage.com/stmblog/wp-content/themes/corpus/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/669b7e375d93f77521ddaba08adb8063?s=96&d=blank&r=pg August 26, 2020 August 25, 2020

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 26, 2020

Sometimes, just a hint or trick will do it. Maybe you want a trick or hint for an online game. Or even a trick for a better pancake. A hint for a better pushup.

But hints and tricks won’t work for saving a marriage.

Which is what I try to explain when I get the daily emails and voicemails, just asking for a hint or trick. Nothing wrong with asking. But the answer is, “you need more than a hint or trick. You need an approach. You need a system.”

But you also need a starting point, a way to get beyond the stuck point. Most people just don’t know how to start, so they start with hints and tricks. And then they realize there is more to this, more to the crisis.

When people tell me that they had a great marriage “until a week/month/year/___ time period ago, when ___________ happened,” they are missing that the seeds of the crisis were planted long before.

And that is why we need to fix the underlying issues, address the underlying problems, and rebuild in a sustainable way… for a long-term marriage.

In this episode of the podcast, I use the acronym from Gay Hendricks of FACT. We will FACT out your marriage crisis and get you moving forward.

Pay attention to the choice of path (3 W’s), and your action plan (3 C’s) in order to make a real shift as you face the FACTs of your crisis.

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How Steep is the Climb?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 19, 2020

“How hard is it to save my marriage?” the email started. The writer wanted my opinion on whether my System would work. There was a problem, though. The problem was… I had no details about her marital problems. I didn’t know what she was facing.

When I was a kid, the rubik’s cube came out. There was this book that promised to solve the cube, no matter how bad the cube was arranged. I just kept trying to turn and twist the cube to find a solution. My neighbor friend got the book. My neighbor followed the guide. And that cube was, sure enough, solved. Mixed up cube, follow the solution, solved cube. Easy-peesy.

Let’s just say that your marriage is NOT like that rubik’s cube. There are some reasons why your efforts might be harder (or easier) than someone else’s. In fact, there are 3 major complicators to saving your marriage.

Before jumping in to save your marriage, you want to be clear about the complicators — the obstacles — on your path. They make a difference in what you do, how you do it, and how much effort is required.

Listen below to find out how steep your climb is, due to the 3 obstacles.

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Love and Respect: An Interview with Emerson Eggerichs

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 12, 2020

“What’s love got to do with it??” “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what that means to me!” Tina Turner calls for love, and Aretha Franklin calls out for respect. But what is the connection between love and respect?

Emerson Eggerichs is the author of the book, Love and Respect. As you can tell from the title, Emerson is addressing just that issue.

In his work with couples, Eggerichs kept noticing the cries for respect by men and the cries for love by women. He realized that while we all need love and respect, men tend to need respect more than love, and women need love more than respect (generally speaking).

Here is the problem: men show respect, which can feel unloving; and women show love, which can feel disrespectful. In the end, couples feel unloved and disrespected, creating what Emerson refers to as the Crazy Cycle. And in the process, the marriage keeps spiraling.

The good news is that the cycle can be changed. Love and respect can be restored. And intimacy can return. But only when you understand the dynamics that are fueling the Crazy Cycle.

A while back, I had the opportunity to sit down with Emerson Eggerichs and discuss his ideas about love and respect. While originally, it was for another program, this is important for you to hear. In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I let you in on this important interview.

Listen below.

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How Fear Hijacks Your Marriage: Poly Vagal Theory

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 5, 2020

Your ancestors, way, way back, survived because they were more fearful than their peers. Because of their fear, they survived, while the less fearful fell to threats. Over time, this means that we naturally inherited overly-developed fear responses.

It doesn’t take much to trigger fear and anxiety. Your heart races, your breathing quickens, your voice tightens, and your muscles flex, waiting for the fight or the flight. Waiting to take on the threat or get away from the threat.

That’s an important skill on the savannah or in the jungle. It even has some applicability for cities and in the woods. But it is less helpful in your workplace. And even less helpful in your love relationships.

We can quickly go from zero to 100, even when there really is no threat… just a trigger to your threat response.

How can you understand this? How would a deeper understanding of this fight/flight response help?

First, you can recognize when the threat response is triggered. Second, there are ways to more quickly de-threat your body, when you recognize it is not a necessary response.

In recent years, the Poly Vagal Theory has gained credibility and usefulness. And that is the topic for this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. I had the good fortune of interviewing Deb Dana, an expert on the theory (and a skilled clinician in applying it in therapy) for another program I created, but wanted to share it with you.

If you have experienced the fight/flight response with your spouse, finding yourself trapped in a quickly escalating and rapidly disintegrating communication pattern, pay attention.

If you feel the threat feelings when you know it shouldn’t feel threatening, you need to pay attention.

Listen below.

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