And then we go into Chris in Minnesota. Uh,
well at least I thought it was going to Chris. Let me try that button again,
Chris in Minnesota. Uh, Chris, I think it connected.
Are you there?
Can you hear me? Yes.
I can now. And maybe we help you my friend.
Awesome. Okay. Thanks for taking my call. Dr. Beam. Okay.
Um, I'm from Michigan too, so.
Oh. He said Minnesota, my screen here. So therefore you have to move my screen.
Can't be wrong, so, okay. Alright,
Michigan and we way Chris. Okay.
Let me, let me explain, I guess, a little backstory here.
I've been married for 13 years.
We've been together for 20 high school sweethearts and about four months
ago, uh,
kind of blindsided where my wife's always been kind of a bottler of emotions.
And I suppose as she was going through some stuff in our marriage that, uh,
just kind of overbearing this and this and that little things that I think could
have been worked out with talking, but like I say,
she's kind of buried her emotion.
Doesn't like conflict and kind of blindsided me with, uh,
basically waking up one day and saying she's not in love with me anymore.
And she doesn't want to be with me and gotta make a decision of, you know,
we have two young kids,
two young boys want to try to make it work for them.
And it's been a process for the last four months of, um,
basically trying to live together, coexist co-parent in, uh, in our house.
And it seems like through this whole process, of course, you know,
I'm heartbroken and not there more I've told her, you know, I'm here for you.
I support you. You know, I'm always here for you.
So let's just try to work this out.
And after looking at some of your courses in the staff, I got the beginning,
it didn't start out too well where I, you know,
probably try to talk to her more than maybe what I should have about this
and seemed to push a little bit, uh, you know,
I think her away and from not wanting to talk about it.
And there was a, uh,
an emotional affair that I found out about a month into this.
And ever since that is, um,
been physically and emotionally kind of cut off between me and her,
where she's on separate floors, living on a separate floor,
we don't sleep together. Um, you know, like I say,
she was my best friend doing everything together and now we have no
outside life together. We don't really do stuff basic co-parenting,
I mean, it seems like over the course of the last few months,
whenever we try to talk and you know, I kind of live by the golden rule,
treat others as you want to be treated. And this, and there's a lot of,
a lot of hate, I think a lot of guilt in her heart, you know, I mean,
I don't know this a hundred percent how she,
how she talks and how she treats me, lot of disrespect and, you know, I mean,
it's set up,
it's 180 degrees different from the person I knew it's hard to live with that.
And I've been very positive and been trying to do that. And this seems like, um,
recently it just keeps getting worse and worse. And I'm just wondering,
I don't want, I walked in. I want to be with my wife.
I want to keep my family whole,
just trying to see what are good ways to do that when
seems like, Oh, you get his negativity every day and that's gotta be tough.
Yeah, it is.
Here's the question. My friend, when people want out of a relationship,
it's either because of the fact that that things are happening within the
relationship that we call pushes, every marriage has some push,
so we're not talking about minor inconveniences. And I don't like this at all.
I would look, we look for things like,
is there something going on that's so big that I just really want to get away
from this. And that typically becomes things like,
I feel like I'm being dominated or controlled,
or I feel like I'm completely being ignored or taking a hit for taken advantage
of, or it can even be abused. Like I'm feeling I'm being verbally, mentally,
emotionally, or even physically abused. But we look for things like,
is there a big enough push here,
a really big push inside the relationship where the person wants out of it?
Because they're thinking being out of it,
I'd be happier than being in it because this, this is miserable for me.
They don't. The other thing we're looking at is are there pools out there? Okay.
Now you said she had an emotional affair. You heard about that.
That's definitely a pool that she'll pull that will pull a person out of a
relationship. That kind of thing will,
the stronger the push there is within the relationship,
the less power the pool has to have the better,
the relationship is the stronger and better. It is.
The more powerful that pool has to be to pull them out.
Now she was in the emotional affair.
My understanding from you is that that's ended at this point.
Is that your understanding that it's over?
Yes.
There was with someone that we knew and it was more on her part
than that than his, and he didn't want it. And luckily he knew us and,
you know, that was kind of never went anywhere.
My worry is of course in my head that that happened once she tried it,
luckily it was the stone we knew, but you know, and she's,
she's had a big transformation though, you know,
her change in appearance and everything.
So it's just play in your head, I guess.
Pretty powerful thing. As far as you know,
is there some big push if I were to talk to her,
if she and I were sitting over coffee somewhere and I were asking her, okay,
tell me about things with Chris.
Is there anything in the relationship with Chris that you just feel is,
is a big push pushing away from him?
It would there be one which he tells me something. If so, what would she say.
Currently? It's a, you know,
maybe once every couple of weeks or every three weeks,
I try to kind of get a feeling of where she's at. How are things going?
It seems like things are going great, you know? And she,
she does not want to talk about it.
I'm talking about two or three months ago before you found out all this stuff
was going on. What was she upset then?
Um, I guess you could say that a little overbearing or controlling that's,
that's how it kind of started that she should.
Okay. And is that correct? Are you sometimes,
are you sometimes overbearing and controlling? Right?
I don't really, I don't really see it, but I guess, you know,
certain incidences, maybe a little bit. I mean, like with, uh,
where were the group of friends and we'd go out and want to go out to dinner or
something. I might want to voice my opinion more than, you know,
I guess it's one of those. Yeah. I try to get my way more than more than others,
but I change up.
If that's the case, my friend, here's my strong recommendation to you.
If she feels controlled and nominated, even if you don't intend it, you see,
we often look at how does it affecting the other person,
no matter what my motivation is, how is it affecting the other person?
Now I'm not talking about a false expectation and where a person's pretending,
Oh, he's overbearing. And that, that is an excuse.
They used to get away from you. I'm not talking about that.
But if a person really feels that way really feels that way.
Then what we strongly recommend is if that's how you're coming across to him or
to her, we're talking to her,
to the whole big audience here that I'm being controlling,
I'm being dominated or whatever else it might be.
If that's how they're perceiving it,
rather than defending yourself rather than saying, well,
I only did that a little or she shouldn't react that strongly.
Our recommendation is the first step that you do is to examine yourself and go,
is there something there I really need to change?
Is there something I need to be less intense about?
Is there something I need to understand about the other person?
So rather than defending ourselves that's I started this program back up
40 minutes ago. As I started this program, 40 minutes ago,
I was talking about the three different couples.
I talked about two recently and they weren't really hearing what the other
person was feeling.
And so if a person's feeling that they're being dominated or that you're being
overbearing, they may manifest that in different ways.
They might argue about you just talked too much when we're out with other people
or you'd seem to always want to get your way. And you said, well,
it gives me everything in a nutshell, right? No.
What you really want to get to is what they feel. And if you can say, you know,
sometimes I think I probably do that. If you think I do, then surely I do.
What kind of emotions are you feeling when that happens?
If they say things like, I feel disrespected now, he said he felt disrespected.
I get it. But if he were to say, I feel disrespected,
or I feel as if I'm not important, or I feel as if I'm being treated as a child,
if you can get down to those things and understand those emotions,
you're beginning to understand why somebody would want to be out of the
relationship. Now that understanding doesn't automatically fix it.
But that understanding is the first thing that has to happen.
If you're going to figure out how to fix it,
because if that's the effect I'm having on person,
then I'm going to have to do something different.
You sold one of those and the other person change.
The only person I can control is me. That's the only person. And that's the one.
[Inaudible].