Erin [0:20 – 0:23]: These jerks threw me right off. Rebecca had me taste her nut coffee.
Rebecca [0:23 – 0:26]: And it’s not nut coffee. This is protein coffee. You’re trying to.
Erin [0:26 – 0:33]: Stop talking about the freaking timer. Timer. That’s not working, y’ all. Come on. This is. At least you still played my song Friday night.
Rebecca [0:33 – 0:38]: I know, but I. You had mentioned you wanted more protein, so I got the protein coffee, and I thought you might like.
Erin [0:38 – 0:39]: I didn’t.
Rebecca [0:39 – 0:40]: Cause I don’t like it. I was gonna give it to you.
Erin [0:40 – 0:42]: I didn’t like it. It’s not great.
Rebecca [0:42 – 0:43]: Well, now I’m not gonna give you.
Erin [0:43 – 0:45]: Thank you, Scott. Thanks for turning that on.
Rebecca [0:47 – 0:51]: Well, it’s. Cause I love you, and I was gonna give it to you, but thank you.
Erin [0:51 – 1:04]: You handed me the nut coffee right at the very end of our intro that no one else hears except for me. That we only play for me. And then now we’re on a whole different episode here. So you know that narrator in your head.
Rebecca [1:04 – 1:06]: Oh, I’m very aware of mine.
Erin [1:07 – 1:07]: When I say that.
Rebecca [1:07 – 1:08]: Narrator.
Erin [1:08 – 1:12]: I mean those narrators in your head. You got a whole damn circus. And, you know, I just don’t have.
Rebecca [1:12 – 1:14]: The angel and the devil.
Erin [1:14 – 1:20]: No, yours is all. I’m telling you. It’s a whole circus. You got the freaking clown, the lion, the clown, the.
Rebecca [1:20 – 1:21]: I know.
Erin [1:21 – 1:22]: The fat lady.
Rebecca [1:22 – 1:24]: You got all the fat lady and.
Erin [1:24 – 1:26]: The bearded lady and the bearded lady. You got all the people.
Rebecca [1:26 – 1:30]: I do have a lot of them. That’s true.
Erin [1:30 – 1:39]: You got all the people. Yeah. Mine is just. Just one or two people. They show up consistently. They’re always on time, and they’re very clear what their messaging is. That’s right.
Rebecca [1:39 – 1:39]: And monotone.
Erin [1:39 – 1:43]: Yes, exactly. Oh, yeah, right. They don’t try to get me too excited.
Scott [1:43 – 1:46]: My narrator is either James Earl Jones or Gilbert Gottfried.
Rebecca [1:46 – 1:47]: Oh, okay.
Erin [1:47 – 2:16]: Both fits. What’s going on? Okay. They’re very different. Those are very different narrators. Yeah. So the narrator in your head, that’s what we’re gonna talk about today on the Moral Love Podcast. Narrator, my question for you is, is that narrator a victim? Is that narrator a hero? Are they a martyr? Are they romantic? Who is that narrator? And what story are they telling you in this case, about your relationship?
Rebecca [2:17 – 2:17]: I love that.
Erin [2:18 – 2:47]: So today on the More Love Podcast, we’re going to talk about our narrators. So we’re going to talk about what our narrators have to say, and we’re going to talk about whether or not the story that they’re telling us is accurate and on point or if it needs a little Revision, a little tweaking, little tweak, tweak. If you like today’s topic, if you like what we’re talking about, please, like, subscribe. Follow us on YouTube. Follow us on all of the places we want the world to hear our message and you can help us get there. So before, without any further ado, you got some hippie voo for us?
Rebecca [2:47 – 2:52]: I sure do. And, you know, we keep talking about this because I always do right before we start.
Erin [2:53 – 2:54]: I always do hippie voo.
Rebecca [2:54 – 3:03]: I always do. I always shuffle the cards and whatever falls out is what we. What we go with or whatever. I feel called to. And it’s so funny. I’m like, we should just do this live.
Erin [3:03 – 3:04]: I know.
Rebecca [3:04 – 3:12]: And this one falls out today. And this is the two of swords, and it’s shark behind the two swords. And I was like, aaron, oh my gosh. This.
Erin [3:12 – 3:16]: You’re like, you have to do this live. Because I’m telling you, this thing flew out right on point.
Rebecca [3:16 – 3:42]: And this is called the crossroads, and it’s so ironic. So it’s the two of swords and it’s called crossroads and it says, you are at a crossroads and there is a decision to be made. The two cross swords signify tension and indecision. Locked in conflict. Neither can win as their power appears to be equal. This situation may or may not be of your own making. Your perspective is blocked. Or there’s an obvious clue you are not seeing.
Erin [3:43 – 3:43]: Wow.
Rebecca [3:43 – 3:44]: Right?
Erin [3:44 – 3:45]: Come on.
Rebecca [3:45 – 3:56]: Is that crazy? So the advice is to look again. Take a fresh angle. Any action or decision is better than none. This is a great opportunity for breaking in your thinking. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Break up those clouds.
Erin [3:56 – 4:00]: Breaking in your thinking. Tell that narrator to go take a seat.
Rebecca [4:00 – 4:03]: Maybe you’re not seeing things right, but isn’t that interesting?
Erin [4:03 – 4:05]: That is. That is interesting.
Rebecca [4:05 – 4:21]: I mean, there you go. There you go. And also, side note, Erin calls me last week and she’s like, I got this problem. And so we talk about it for a good old hour and we come to zero conclusions. And then all of a sudden, I have this brilliant idea. I go, I know how to fix it. I go right down to my office and I pull out my deck of cards.
Erin [4:21 – 4:24]: I got the tarot. So was it spot on?
Rebecca [4:24 – 4:30]: Spot on. But not only was it spot on, I was only planning on pulling one card. And four cards fall out.
Erin [4:30 – 4:34]: Yep, fall out. You said, guess we’re doing a four card reading. And we sure did.
Rebecca [4:34 – 4:38]: Oh, my God. It was a freak of the freakest freaks.
Erin [4:38 – 4:38]: Yep.
Rebecca [4:38 – 4:41]: And I said to her. Now we have to do FaceTime because.
Erin [4:41 – 4:42]: I have to see your face.
Rebecca [4:42 – 4:50]: I go, I can’t. I know what your face is going to look like, but I have to know. So of course we get on the FaceTime and as I’m reading it, I’m like, I. I don’t even know what to say.
Erin [4:50 – 4:50]: I know.
Rebecca [4:50 – 4:52]: I can’t. It’s. It was so freaky.
Erin [4:53 – 4:59]: So that’s a nice little message that if your narrator is not telling you what you want to hear, go do a four card tarot and let that be.
Rebecca [4:59 – 5:09]: And then let it, let it inter. Let yourself interpret it and you can figure out, well, you can at least take. It’s for you, take some advice and figure out if it works and if it doesn’t, and then answer your questions.
Erin [5:09 – 5:15]: Rebecca will offer you a four card tarot for $400. She’s just trying to make some extra funds.
Rebecca [5:15 – 5:15]: Give me a call.
Erin [5:15 – 5:16]: Totally fine.
Rebecca [5:16 – 5:17]: Give me a call.
Erin [5:18 – 6:10]: All right, so we’re going to dive into today’s session by. This one is focused on relationships, whether that be a partnership, a marriage. Maybe it’s a really close friendship, maybe it’s someone that’s really close to you. But this narrator who shows up in our relationships is one that has a pretty big, an important purpose, and that is that what happens to us has a tendency to be seen through the eyes of this narrator who’s either going to frame that story or that experience in a victimized way. In a, I’m better than this person. In a, I’m resentful of this person, whatever that frame may be. And in my experience, I don’t know if this is true for you guys, Rebecca and Scott, but my narrator is pretty consistent in how she sees my relationship once she holds on tight.
Rebecca [6:10 – 6:12]: Specifically, your romantic relationship we’re talking about.
Erin [6:12 – 6:33]: Yes, yes. My relationship with Mark, my narrator for a very long time, many, many years, has sort of grabbed onto this one balloon and then has said, I will be flying with that balloon for the rest of our conversations, the rest of our arguments. Anything that happens, it’s me and my balloon that I will help you see this world through. Is that the same for the two of you?
Rebecca [6:35 – 6:37]: Not necessarily. What about you, Scott?
Scott [6:38 – 7:14]: My narrator has definitely changed in the last eight years because there was sort of like a breaking point in our marriage in 2017, and things kind of went. But it got repaired and both of us kind of were able to take a step back and realized that. And I think this is. I never thought of it this way, but both of our narrators were wrong. They were narrating incorrectly. They were narrating based on presumptions that we had because of a lack of communication we didn’t have. We didn’t know each other well enough.
Erin [7:14 – 7:14]: Yep.
Scott [7:15 – 8:16]: I think that’s often assumptions about each other that were so wrong. And when we finally, both of us. When we both finally figured out what the problems were, we were able to. I mean, my own narrator is, like I said, it’s one of two people. And I don’t know how correct they are, but that’s a different story when it comes to the relationship. I think my narration is, every once in a while, the Gilbert comes back in and says, hey, she’s acting this way. What are you doing? But it’s wrong. I have to stop and I have to think about it and go, no. That’s the old assumption. Like, sometimes I will still knee jerk reactions based on how I expect she’s gonna react to something. Now I’ve gotten really good with catching myself. And it happens rarely now. But for the. For a couple years into our new, you know, marriage 2.0, I guess I would do that. And she’d be like, no, that’s not fair. You’re making the assumption that we used to make, and that’s not me anymore. And I’m like, you’re right, that’s not you anymore.
Erin [8:16 – 8:17]: Yes. I love.
Rebecca [8:17 – 8:18]: That’s powerful.
Erin [8:18 – 8:20]: That’s really powerful.
Rebecca [8:20 – 8:21]: Yeah.
Erin [8:21 – 8:58]: So I’m hearing you say, scott, you used to have a narrator. She used to have a narrator. Something happened in 2017. You both basically sat your narrators down and said, I’m not positive you’re telling us the right story about our marriage. We either have two choices here. We either say, let your narrator win and we’re just not going to be a couple anymore, or let’s reframe who our narrators are. Narrators are. And dive. Dive a little deeper. Right. And you dove a little deeper. And it sounds like marriage 2.0 certainly is. Still not without the normal bullshit of all marriages. Right. But considerably less. But it feels different. Right. Because of your narrator.
Scott [8:58 – 9:07]: Yeah. And at the time, we did actually split up for a very short period of time, and we both realized that it was a mistake.
Erin [9:08 – 9:10]: I wonder what your narrators were saying then.
Rebecca [9:10 – 9:11]: I know, right?
Scott [9:12 – 9:26]: Both of our narrators were telling us to go to marriage counseling, and we did. And it was really transformative for both of us. My therapist was able to discover what was in my past and making me act the way that I was acting.
Erin [9:26 – 9:27]: That’s right.
Scott [9:27 – 9:29]: And same with Kelly.
Erin [9:29 – 9:29]: That’s right.
Scott [9:29 – 9:50]: It was what we were. She was too much like her father. No shade thrown at my father in law. He’s a great guy. But it was kind of like one of those things, like the strong silent type. And that’s the way she became. And it was like, we need to communicate. You need to tell me I’m pissing you off.
Rebecca [9:50 – 9:50]: Yeah.
Scott [9:51 – 9:59]: So that I can fix it or so that we can figure out what the problem is and why you’re being pissed off. And then instead of not saying anything for three months and then.
Rebecca [10:00 – 10:00]: And then blowing up.
Scott [10:00 – 10:01]: Yeah.
Erin [10:01 – 10:05]: Because news flash about our narrators, guys. They’re extensions of who we are.
Rebecca [10:05 – 10:06]: Yeah.
Erin [10:06 – 10:09]: Imagine that they are whatever is in our backpack.
Rebecca [10:09 – 10:09]: Yeah.
Erin [10:09 – 10:11]: Just in like live ticker tick.
Rebecca [10:12 – 10:15]: Yeah, I know, I know, I know. And they don’t. And they don’t.
Erin [10:15 – 10:17]: That was a free piece of advice.
Rebecca [10:17 – 10:17]: Thank you.
Erin [10:17 – 10:20]: That was not charging for. For that. That was great. Okay.
Rebecca [10:20 – 10:22]: And mine never turns off.
Erin [10:22 – 10:27]: What do you mean? Your narrator never. Oh, yeah, I’m very aware.
Rebecca [10:27 – 10:29]: It’s like, here’s this.
Erin [10:29 – 10:34]: I’m still talking. I’m still talking. But what about this? What about that? Did you think about this? How come you didn’t think about that? Did you notice what this person’s doing?
Rebecca [10:35 – 10:37]: Yeah. And it’s including when I’m sleeping.
Erin [10:37 – 10:37]: Right.
Rebecca [10:37 – 10:44]: It’s like, oh my God, it’s never ending. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Which is why I’m never satisfied.
Erin [10:44 – 10:47]: Right. You never come to a natural resting conclusion.
Rebecca [10:47 – 10:47]: Never.
Erin [10:47 – 10:48]: Right?
Rebecca [10:48 – 10:53]: Never. Aaron was so shocked when she done with the to do list. Don’t you feel great? I’m like, no.
Erin [10:53 – 10:54]: Right.
Rebecca [10:54 – 10:55]: You do.
Erin [10:55 – 10:55]: Right?
Rebecca [10:55 – 10:57]: No. Never.
Erin [10:57 – 10:58]: Your narrator’s never done.
Rebecca [10:58 – 10:58]: Never.
Erin [10:59 – 11:15]: So can you relate with what Scott was saying about his narrator and his wife’s narrator and how like when it comes to each person’s narrators, have your narrators always been accurate in viewing Philip and his accurate in viewing you?
Rebecca [11:15 – 11:19]: Accurate? Yeah. No. Okay. No. A lot of assumptions.
Erin [11:19 – 11:20]: Okay.
Rebecca [11:20 – 11:21]: A lot of assumptions.
Erin [11:21 – 11:22]: So you can relate with what Scott was saying too.
Rebecca [11:22 – 11:28]: Oh, absolutely. And then I come to you and I tell you all these things and you’re like, you’re dead wrong. You’re dead wrong.
Erin [11:28 – 11:32]: I try and take the side of Philip’s narrator sometimes. That’s a scary place to be. No.
Rebecca [11:32 – 11:36]: Yeah. Because you can see things. You can see things from a different point of view.
Erin [11:36 – 11:36]: Yeah.
Rebecca [11:36 – 11:46]: And you, you’re much better at seeing people and dissecting people and seeing things from a different point of view. Especially because you’re not deep dive and you’re not deeply involved.
Erin [11:46 – 11:46]: Yeah.
Rebecca [11:46 – 12:12]: But you also know us intimately. So you’re able to help me, thank God, see things from a different point of view, so then I can much more openly and embrace that and see it and go, oh, and have the aha moment. But, yeah, no, I absolutely make a lot of assumptions. Lots of assumptions. But over time, have been able to debunk them. Over time.
Erin [12:12 – 12:18]: Would you say that you’re stubborn about your assumptions at first? You’re not? No. So that’s what I think is one of the biggest.
Rebecca [12:18 – 12:19]: No, I am.
Erin [12:20 – 12:29]: What are you. If you’re not stubborn about them? Are you curious what’s the opposite. What’s the opposite of stubborn? Well, I would think the opposite of stubborn. Yeah.
Rebecca [12:29 – 12:31]: Yeah. I’m very doormatish. Doormatish.
Erin [12:32 – 12:33]: Doormatish. I like that.
Rebecca [12:33 – 12:33]: Yeah.
Erin [12:33 – 12:36]: In your. Your narrator is doormatish.
Rebecca [12:36 – 12:47]: My door. My doormat. My. My narrator is very trusting. I’m the type of person that I absolutely believe everything everybody says until you prove me wrong.
Erin [12:49 – 12:58]: So your narrator. So when Philip’s narrator comes to your narrator and basically says, I don’t like this, this, and this, and you’re this, this, and this, you’re like, that’s exactly who I am.
Rebecca [12:58 – 12:58]: Yes.
Erin [12:58 – 13:00]: You’ll just take that at face value.
Rebecca [13:00 – 13:00]: Yes.
Erin [13:00 – 13:06]: And then you need to collect the data to determine whether or not your narrator has ground to stand on or not to come back.
Rebecca [13:06 – 13:07]: Correct.
Scott [13:07 – 13:11]: You don’t have a gut reaction that says, I think you’re kind of off here, Pat.
Rebecca [13:11 – 13:11]: No.
Erin [13:11 – 13:12]: Yeah, she does. It’s called Aaron.
Rebecca [13:13 – 13:22]: That’s right. No, it’s true. No, no, but I. She knows I don’t have a gut reaction because I will take it and be like, they’re absolutely right, even though it’s probably 100 wrong.
Erin [13:22 – 13:36]: And I’m not kidding about the gut reaction, because she’ll contact me and she’ll say, I need to tell you about something that just happened, and I will fly off the effing handle, Scott. I will pull over on the side of the road, and I’m like, facetime. I’m like, we’re not doing this.
Rebecca [13:36 – 13:37]: And I’m like, what do you mean?
Erin [13:37 – 13:49]: She’ll take that really strong reaction and be like, interesting. So is that what I’m supposed to feel like right now? And of course, because I am who I am, I’m like, it’s 100% what you’re supposed to feel like. There isn’t another way to feel.
Rebecca [13:49 – 14:12]: Yeah. It’s very rare. I don’t get it’s. Yeah, I. And I really do think it comes back to, you know, my issues, like abandonment issues. It comes back to, like, those kinds of things because I would. I choose. I would choose to be safe and secure over mad and angry and lose that. Do you know what I mean?
Erin [14:12 – 14:17]: Yes. Yep. Yep. That makes perfect sense. You would choose to be mad and angry.
Rebecca [14:17 – 14:20]: No, I would choose to be safe and secure and over through that.
Erin [14:21 – 14:21]: Right.
Rebecca [14:21 – 14:23]: Then. Then I would be mad and angry.
Erin [14:23 – 14:23]: Right.
Rebecca [14:23 – 14:28]: Because if I’m mad and angry and I push back and I lose whatever it is.
Erin [14:28 – 14:29]: Yep.
Rebecca [14:29 – 14:31]: Over something that may not be real.
Erin [14:31 – 14:33]: Then your worst fear has come true.
Rebecca [14:33 – 14:33]: Correct.
Erin [14:33 – 14:37]: Your opinions, your thoughts, your feelings. I would rather take out another person.
Rebecca [14:37 – 14:43]: I would rather take it and be something that I know I’m not than be right.
Erin [14:43 – 14:45]: That makes perfect sense.
Rebecca [14:45 – 14:45]: Yeah.
Erin [14:45 – 15:09]: My narrator could not be any different than that narrator. My narrator is 100% confident. She is righteous. She is very clear. She’s discerning, and she doesn’t give a flying F what your narrator has to say. She’ll put your narrator right where your narrator needs to be. And I think that’s one what makes us great twin flames. Because we can sort of balance each other out a little bit in that way.
Rebecca [15:10 – 15:15]: Right. Because we hold each other. I’ll put the mirror up and you put the mirror up every time. That’s right. Yeah.
Erin [15:15 – 15:38]: But this is where I think the role of compassion comes in to these narrations. And this is really touches upon what you were talking about, Scott. I think it would be interesting if we dove into a couple of, like, more specific examples of ways that we’ve seen this play out in our life. And we talked briefly before the show about, like, what kind of examples would y’ all bring up? If we’re talking about our narrators have a difference of opinion with the person that we love.
Rebecca [15:39 – 15:44]: Because reality is, we often get hurt based on these narrations.
Erin [15:44 – 15:47]: Oh, very much so, yes. Well, we think that they’re protections.
Rebecca [15:47 – 15:48]: Correct.
Erin [15:48 – 15:59]: Right. But they’re not. But often they’re recycling thoughts or feelings or patterns of behavior that have the.
Rebecca [15:59 – 16:01]: Reinforcements always served us well.
Erin [16:01 – 17:00]: They’ve maybe served one capacity in our life of keeping us, quote, unquote, safe. But they’re maybe not serving a different part of our life, which may be more connection, more vulnerability, you know, and that’s where I do think this. This idea of compassion and understanding and caring and thinking comes different. So I wanted to go back to your example, Scott. Maybe we can kick off with you. You Said that something happened in 2017 that ultimately fractionated your marriage in some way, shape, or form, and that you both had to look at that scenario through a different lens. You needed to. To tell your narrators that they weren’t gonna be the ones who were driving your marriage anymore. And so without having to go into specific details about what exactly happened, I don’t think those details matter as much as the example of how you communicated with your narrators. And what did that look like for both of you? How did you engage with your narrators and sort of change the story of your marriage?
Scott [17:01 – 17:55]: There’s a lot of answers to that question. But the basic thing that I found out through therapy was that my narrator was coming from sort of a PTSD incident that was telling me that I was no good, telling me that, well, you know, you’re gonna screw it up anyway, so you might as well just like, who cares? You know? So I just sort of stopped caring because I kept thinking that I was always going to screw something up. I was never good enough. I was like a kicked dog. That’s how I felt. But I didn’t realize that’s how I felt until it was explained to me. And I was like, yeah, that is exactly how I feel. But it just became so part of who I was that it was just like, all right, well, I know I’m gonna eventually disappoint you, so I guess I might as well double stand.
Erin [17:56 – 17:59]: I might as well start with disappointment if we’re gonna run there anyway.
Scott [17:59 – 18:12]: And then. And then it just snowballed from there. So I had to go back and learn why my narration was that way, to change the narration. And Kelly had the same thing.
Erin [18:12 – 18:12]: Sure.
Scott [18:12 – 18:43]: She had the same thing. To that introspective, that deep look to go. Okay, let’s. Because I think the biggest problem is not seeing it from someone else’s point of view, not seeing it from their point of view. Let me think about this. Do I love this person enough to understand where they’re coming from? Yes, I do. So let me figure it out. Okay. You had this happen to you, so you think this way, and then this happened to you. So you think this way. All right, let’s work on that. Let’s try to fix that. That’s pretty much how it went down.
Rebecca [18:43 – 18:56]: Yeah. You have to love someone enough to care about their point of view to do the work. Yeah. And if you don’t, then you’re constantly putting yourself first. You don’t love them. Yeah.
Scott [18:56 – 19:19]: And that was the whole thing when we were Separated for a short period of time, we both realized. We’re like, no. It was like, I can’t stand the side of you, but I can’t stand being without you. Being without you. And we’re like, so what does that mean? Does that mean. That means that we’re pissed off at each other because we both broke each other’s hearts. But we want to fix this because we have to be together. There’s no other way.
Rebecca [19:19 – 19:20]: Right? Right.
Erin [19:20 – 20:56]: I want to speak to this concept of love quickly because I want to be really honest that for me, I think people would think, oh, my gosh, she’s a mental health professional. She’s highly sensitive. She’s just one big emotion ball all the time. And I think if you were to have my husband on the show, he would tell you, I’m not the sentimental one in our marriage. And it wasn’t always about love for me. In fact, I’ve actually questioned the concept of love and this ideal that we place on love many, many times, because much in my life and in my relationship has felt more transactional or has felt more like a logic puzzle that had to be put together. I did this, you did this. Does this make sense or not? Right. I think that will surprise a lot of people because that side of me actually is much stronger than my, oh, my gosh, I’m in love with you, and I want to reconnect with you. So I want to speak for a moment to the people who may be at a point in their own relationship where they’re thinking love isn’t enough. Love isn’t just the thing that I need to reconnect with my significant other. I’m so pissed. I’m so angry. I am so resentful. Like, we’ve come so far in this journey that I can’t even stomach looking at you some days, let alone say the word love for my partner. Right. Because I don’t want people to get the opinion that the only people who get to talk to their narrators and change it are the people who still have love alive in their marriage.
Rebecca [20:56 – 20:56]: Yeah.
Erin [20:56 – 25:37]: So the real and raw for Mark and I is that over the course of about an eight year period of time, it became really difficult to find our connection points. And I now know, similar to Scott’s situation where and he says in 2017, they were like, we’re all set. We’re taking a break. We’re not doing this. I got to that point with Mark where I was like, I think we’re so far away from each other that this doesn’t even make sense to do do anymore. And that was a really hard reality. It wasn’t one that happened overnight. It was one that just sort of grew and grew and grew and grew. But it was that turning point. It was me saying, I’m pretty sure I’m all done with this, that led to the re Engagement with Compassion in Life Review for me and my narrator. It wasn’t for him. And I had to do this life review where I looked back at where we’ve been really, since Carter was born and what our marriage has looked like. And instead of thinking about where we’re at based on how I’ve been hurt or injured or resentful and mad, I focused solely on what I have done to contribute to where we are right now. And because I let go of the love, I let go of this isn’t about him anymore. It actually was from an anchor place of me, of, I’m going to own my own, so that I know when I walk away from this that, you know, my slate’s clean. I feel good about it. It was more out of resentment and anger and negativity than it was out of, oh, my God, I just love him so much. I owe this to him. That wasn’t where we were at at that point in our marriage. And so when I finally did that and I did the Life review, two things kept coming up for me. The first was, I can’t get out of my mind this video of Mark feeding Carter when he was probably four or five months old. Maybe it was six months. It was. I don’t know. Whenever they first eat their first gob of baby food, you know, and I see him in this video, and I feel so connected to him in this moment because he goes to put the spoonful of baby food in Carter’s mouth. Carter doesn’t know how to eat it, right? So he just immediately spits it all back out. And Mark’s response is, all right, well, that didn’t quite go as planned. And something about that response is how I remember walking down the aisle. To him, it was this curiosity, this funness, this, like, we don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but we’re gonna figure it out. He was so compassionate and loving in that moment, right? So I constantly would go back to that video as I’m doing my life review of, like, who is he there? And how did we get where we are now? And again, because I’m angry, and I’m doing a cle Slate review for myself. I start to look at the things that I have done. And one of the biggest things that came up for me, and this is why I didn’t have to go to marriage therapy at this moment, Scott. Because I was just doing marriage therapy on myself. I just want to save a little money. When you’re a therapist doing your own therapy. One of the things that came up for me is because of Mark’s ADHD and because of my complete opposite of adhd. There have been so many times in our marriage where I have grabbed the reins and tried to take control, and the control came out of my anxiety. It came out of perfectionism. It came out of wanting to make sure Carter’s life was as, quote, unquote, perfect as it possibly could be. And all of his experiences were great. That my number one awareness was that over the course of those eight years, I had beaten my husband down to a shell of who he was, because overtly or covertly, I was communicating to him that you’re an idiot who can’t do anything correctly. And it got to the point where I wrote Mark a letter. It was about six pages long, handwritten, like, we were back in high school, where I went through our journey together and just owned all of the things that I had been doing in our marriage that I was now aware of how that impacted him. And he didn’t have the words or the strength or whatever to communicate that. You’ve been a real force in our marriage, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was make you happy, and all I’ve ever done is fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
Rebecca [25:37 – 25:38]: Yeah, that.
Erin [25:38 – 25:54]: That changed the relationship that we had, where I became more like a parent and he became more like a submissive doormat who would do whatever I said. And then that wasn’t the dynamic I wanted, but it sure as shit was the dynamic that I created.
Rebecca [25:54 – 25:55]: Yeah.
Scott [25:55 – 25:56]: So some of that is like a mir.
Rebecca [25:57 – 25:58]: Yeah.
Scott [25:58 – 26:05]: I remember specifically Kelly saying, I’m not your mother. Like, I’m not here to mother you.
Rebecca [26:05 – 26:05]: Yes.
Scott [26:06 – 26:10]: And I didn’t know how to respond to that. I had no idea what the hell.
Rebecca [26:10 – 26:12]: She was talking about. Yes.
Scott [26:12 – 26:35]: And it was like it went so deep to get out of that. But I feel that same connection of hers. It was like we had to go back, and I had to think about, like, what when we got together, like, we were friends first eight, nine years before we got together, and it was kind of like, well, are we gonna do this now or what? We’ve been talking about it for almost 10 years.
Rebecca [26:35 – 26:35]: Yeah.
Erin [26:35 – 26:36]: Yeah, let’s do It.
Rebecca [26:36 – 26:36]: Yeah.
Scott [26:37 – 26:46]: And it was kind of like really fast. It was like, there’s no like dating period. It was just like, all right, well, I just quit my job. I’m moving to Rochester.
Erin [26:46 – 26:47]: Yeah. Like what?
Scott [26:47 – 27:01]: Yeah, come on up. You know. And then we discovered, holy shit. We both have a lot of problems. But we worked through them eventually. And also having kids real fast made us kind of. We were. A lot of the things that we had were forced. We were forced into.
Rebecca [27:01 – 27:02]: Yeah. You guys too?
Erin [27:02 – 27:06]: Yeah. Oh, very much so. I was five and a half months pregnant walking down the aisle.
Scott [27:06 – 27:06]: Right.
Erin [27:06 – 27:57]: That’s same with Cody. And when Carter was born, we just got married like five months before that. I just started a new job. I had to have a house instead of the condo we were living in. Right. And so that was part of my life review as well, was being like, I have been the one writing our story this, this entire time. And I’m like grabbing him by the shirt collar and being like, get your over here, let’s go. Get your together. Line it up. You need to make this much money. This is what we’re doing. Right. And. And he. His baggage here’s narrator is like, she knows what she’s talking about more than you do, man. She’s been successful. You just need to follow her lead. So he’s just shut it down and shut it up. And it’s like, great. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Also, he’s in a fearful place. I don’t know if you can relate with this too, Scott. Where he’s like, if I don’t, she ain’t staying around.
Rebecca [27:58 – 27:58]: Right.
Erin [27:58 – 28:01]: Right. But you don’t talk about that. No. God for, you know.
Scott [28:01 – 28:07]: Yeah. And it’s like, I. I’ve wanted to, to be with her for so long. I am not gonna lose that.
Erin [28:07 – 28:14]: You felt that way too, or were you speaking for Mark? Oh, because I was gonna say Mark will tell you he has been in love with me since we were in high school.
Scott [28:14 – 28:18]: I was a. I was a 29 year old child when I got married.
Rebecca [28:18 – 28:19]: Yeah. Right.
Erin [28:19 – 28:20]: I had so much on the line.
Scott [28:20 – 28:35]: I never lived out on my own. I had a short, like, span of time where I lived with a girlfriend for a while, but I was traveling so much that I stayed at home with my parents because I was always traveling and it made no sense for me to get my own place. Plus I was in a sick amount of debt.
Erin [28:35 – 28:36]: So stupid.
Scott [28:36 – 28:36]: 18 years old.
Erin [28:36 – 28:37]: Ooh.
Scott [28:37 – 28:38]: Credit cards in the mail.
Erin [28:38 – 28:39]: Let’s buy shit. Yeah.
Scott [28:40 – 28:58]: But when 29 rolls around and I’m gonna get into a serious relationship and start my life with someone. All of that came into play. And Kelly was together. She had her career, she had, you know, everything. She was paying her bills and just like, living on her own for, God knows, for 10 years already. And I was like, ha.
Rebecca [29:00 – 29:03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erin [29:03 – 31:07]: You know? But when we think about both of those stories, what’s interesting to me is this sense of something happens and then there’s a compassionate turning point. And me owning my own shit then allowed me to release myself of the burden of perfectionism and to recognize that my husband’s been there all along, just in a very different way than I imagined it. But until I was able to own that myself, I wasn’t able to see him and then start having the conversations we were supposed to be having all along. And that’s when the narrators came into play. That’s when the work really started. Which is what I’m hearing you say too, Scott. You got to the end, right? And it really was just the beginning. Right, right. And so I’m happy to say that Mark and I have really been through it and are really turning some corners that couldn’t have probably happened in any other time in our life until going through what you had to go through. Right. And so. But I just want to stress that it wasn’t through changing Mark. It was through identifying me and what I needed to change in me. And that if I wasn’t able to heal myself, that wasn’t going to be able to happen. And I had to thank my narrator for being there for keeping me safe, for helping support me all of those years, and then pat her on the head. That’s right. And say, hey, girl, listen, maybe I’m able to step forward a little bit here. And you can still be there, right? I can still hear you. But maybe you don’t have to be such a force keeping you from the ultimate thing that you want, which is really to have a partner and to have a loving relationship and to do life together. It’s fine. It’s just a ghost spirit here in the room.
Rebecca [31:07 – 31:15]: That is the confirmation that you’re doing. Exactly. Supposed to be doing what you’re doing in some ghost. I need to know what that book is called. Okay, I gotta go look.
Erin [31:15 – 31:16]: Okay, you know what it is?
Scott [31:16 – 31:19]: It has nothing to do with that. It’s because of the construction that’s going.
Rebecca [31:19 – 31:19]: No, it’s not.
Erin [31:19 – 31:24]: No, it’s not. Scott, we are in the middle of some hippie vu moment.
Scott [31:24 – 31:25]: Do this Because I take naps.
Erin [31:25 – 31:26]: It’s not that one.
Rebecca [31:26 – 31:27]: It’s the one on the Immigrant’s daughter.
Erin [31:27 – 31:28]: No, it’s the one on the ground.
Scott [31:28 – 31:30]: I don’t need to think that there’s a ghost in this place.
Erin [31:30 – 31:31]: I know.
Scott [31:31 – 31:32]: I’ve already gone through this.
Erin [31:32 – 31:34]: It’s just confirming. It’s just confirming.
Scott [31:34 – 31:35]: Sage.
Rebecca [31:35 – 31:36]: Just the Minstrel’s daughter.
Erin [31:36 – 31:37]: Yeah, that’s it.
Scott [31:37 – 31:39]: The Minstrel’s daughter or the Minstrel’s daughter.
Erin [31:39 – 31:42]: Why don’t you open up to a random page, then read us this?
Rebecca [31:42 – 31:45]: And she lives happily ever after.
Scott [31:46 – 31:50]: I’m just surprised that those books have actual, like, titles and pages. I thought they were fake books.
Erin [31:50 – 31:52]: Yeah, right. Yeah, right. You’re surprised it even opened.
Rebecca [31:52 – 31:52]: That’s hilarious.
Erin [31:52 – 31:53]: I know.
Rebecca [31:53 – 31:55]: And it says, aaron and Mark will.
Erin [31:55 – 31:59]: Live happily ever after because Aaron did some work.
Rebecca [31:59 – 32:03]: It says, I’ve decided to change dealers. Yeah, that’s right.
Erin [32:03 – 32:10]: That’s right. That’s right. Oh, my gosh. So I know this was the Aaron and Scott show. Did you want to say anything or add anything?
Rebecca [32:10 – 32:10]: No.
Erin [32:10 – 32:11]: I think this conversation.
Rebecca [32:11 – 33:11]: I think it’s absolutely beautiful. I think I just applaud. So many people throw in the towel when the going gets tough. And I applaud both of you to do the work. I just. I admire. I admire anybody who doesn’t throw in the towel. I admire anybody who goes through the mud. I admire people who are willing to. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Everybody makes really bad mistakes in life. Everybody makes. There are challenges. Things happen. The world is tough. As they say it, the devil shows up all the time. And we owe it to ourselves and to our partners and to our loved ones that we have to forgive, and we have to work through it, and we. We need to do the work. You don’t get unlimited forgivenesses. You don’t get unlimited choices, and you don’t get, you know.
Erin [33:11 – 33:13]: And sometimes your narrators can’t get there.
Rebecca [33:13 – 33:13]: That’s right.
Erin [33:13 – 33:14]: And that’s okay, too.
Rebecca [33:14 – 33:55]: But the question is how long you have to honor that and you have to do something. And I’m just really proud of both of you. And I hope that, you know, everybody gets. Everybody is strong enough to be able to do some of that work. And, you know, I do recognize that sometimes there’s not that option, but it’s hard. And, you know, I have my own. My own deep, deep, deep, deep stuff. And, you know, I know we don’t have a ton of time to go into it, but, you know, Philip and I have had our own stuff, you know, 20 years worth of stuff. And, you know, it’s hard. Yeah, it’s hard.
Erin [33:56 – 34:04]: And in your case, your narrator has had to come a long way from being doormatish to being safe, having an opinion.
Rebecca [34:04 – 34:05]: Yes.
Erin [34:05 – 34:11]: And his narrator has had to come a far way from I don’t have to care about anyone except for myself.
Rebecca [34:11 – 34:12]: Yes. To listening and caring.
Erin [34:13 – 34:18]: I need to be present and show up in a way that supports my family.
Rebecca [34:18 – 34:19]: Yes.
Erin [34:19 – 34:40]: Differently than what it was before. And I will never forget. I don’t remember the specific day, but I will never forget the time in life where I said to you, philip’s a different human being. Something has happened to Philip. He’s done some type of work. He’s done some type of insight. He’s let go of some type of past hurts. He’s worked through some stuff.
Rebecca [34:40 – 35:12]: Well, we’ve had some major things. We’ve had some major things go down. He’s had some major personal things, and we’ve had some major things in our relationship, and we’ve done the work, and we have come out different people together. And personally. And we are on the same page. And, you know, we’re also, you know, we’re going through a transition in life almost, because our oldest is coming to, you know, an end in her. You know, she’s about to move on in her life, and that’s going to change the dynamic in our family.
Erin [35:12 – 35:12]: Yeah.
Rebecca [35:12 – 35:23]: And that’s gonna change us as. As parents. And we’re already talking about that, and it’s so weird. And you’re gonna start to watch us go through that. I’m already feeling that.
Erin [35:23 – 35:25]: I’m glad you’re going through it first. I know.
Rebecca [35:25 – 35:30]: I walked through the airport this weekend, and I was hysterical watching people with strollers.
Erin [35:30 – 35:30]: I know.
Rebecca [35:30 – 35:31]: What?
Erin [35:31 – 35:32]: I know. When was that?
Rebecca [35:32 – 35:33]: That’s the menopause.
Erin [35:33 – 35:34]: I know. Oh, I know.
Rebecca [35:34 – 35:35]: Holy crap.
Erin [35:35 – 35:40]: I know. And Melissa Kelly’s son is going to college. Lily is going to college.
Rebecca [35:40 – 35:42]: I didn’t expect that to hit me like it did.
Erin [35:43 – 35:49]: I said to her, I think I’m gonna need to be there when you drop him off, because I’m not gonna be okay.
Rebecca [35:49 – 35:50]: And he’s. Your son’s only 10.
Erin [35:50 – 35:51]: Right.
Rebecca [35:51 – 36:16]: I wasn’t expecting that to hit me, so. And I still have two more years, and I’m not ready for that, so I feel the need to have to. Because our narrators are so different, me and my husband, and because he. He doesn’t. He’s not as emotional and sensitive as I am, I feel the need to have to start that groundwork now, because if I don’t, that’s what’s gonna hurt later on. Not intentionally, but he’s not gonna know that unless I start that now.
Erin [36:16 – 36:17]: That’s right.
Scott [36:17 – 36:24]: So you’ve learned that both me, my narrator, and Kelly and her narrator, we all are looking forward to our son moving out.
Erin [36:25 – 36:27]: That’s a very different narrator.
Scott [36:27 – 36:28]: The four of us are gonna have a party.
Erin [36:32 – 37:18]: I love it. So next week on the More Love podcast, we’re going to talk about, how does your partner view your marriage? So today was all about narrators. But if we were to ask our partners their opinion, their side of things, what their NATOR narrator has to say, let’s hear it from the other side to get a general idea of how exactly that dynamic comes into play in our own current relationships. So I’m going to leave you with an affirmation card for today. I choose caring and loving words. Contentment. Being mindful of your language. When you notice negative self talk or unkind words toward others, pause and consciously replace them with caring and loving words.
Rebecca [37:18 – 37:20]: Stop it. Stop it.
Erin [37:20 – 37:25]: Until next time. Keep feeling, keep questioning, and keep spreading more love.
Scott [37:31 – 37:42]: Sam.
Rebecca [0:23 – 0:26]: And it’s not nut coffee. This is protein coffee. You’re trying to.
Erin [0:26 – 0:33]: Stop talking about the freaking timer. Timer. That’s not working, y’ all. Come on. This is. At least you still played my song Friday night.
Rebecca [0:33 – 0:38]: I know, but I. You had mentioned you wanted more protein, so I got the protein coffee, and I thought you might like.
Erin [0:38 – 0:39]: I didn’t.
Rebecca [0:39 – 0:40]: Cause I don’t like it. I was gonna give it to you.
Erin [0:40 – 0:42]: I didn’t like it. It’s not great.
Rebecca [0:42 – 0:43]: Well, now I’m not gonna give you.
Erin [0:43 – 0:45]: Thank you, Scott. Thanks for turning that on.
Rebecca [0:47 – 0:51]: Well, it’s. Cause I love you, and I was gonna give it to you, but thank you.
Erin [0:51 – 1:04]: You handed me the nut coffee right at the very end of our intro that no one else hears except for me. That we only play for me. And then now we’re on a whole different episode here. So you know that narrator in your head.
Rebecca [1:04 – 1:06]: Oh, I’m very aware of mine.
Erin [1:07 – 1:07]: When I say that.
Rebecca [1:07 – 1:08]: Narrator.
Erin [1:08 – 1:12]: I mean those narrators in your head. You got a whole damn circus. And, you know, I just don’t have.
Rebecca [1:12 – 1:14]: The angel and the devil.
Erin [1:14 – 1:20]: No, yours is all. I’m telling you. It’s a whole circus. You got the freaking clown, the lion, the clown, the.
Rebecca [1:20 – 1:21]: I know.
Erin [1:21 – 1:22]: The fat lady.
Rebecca [1:22 – 1:24]: You got all the fat lady and.
Erin [1:24 – 1:26]: The bearded lady and the bearded lady. You got all the people.
Rebecca [1:26 – 1:30]: I do have a lot of them. That’s true.
Erin [1:30 – 1:39]: You got all the people. Yeah. Mine is just. Just one or two people. They show up consistently. They’re always on time, and they’re very clear what their messaging is. That’s right.
Rebecca [1:39 – 1:39]: And monotone.
Erin [1:39 – 1:43]: Yes, exactly. Oh, yeah, right. They don’t try to get me too excited.
Scott [1:43 – 1:46]: My narrator is either James Earl Jones or Gilbert Gottfried.
Rebecca [1:46 – 1:47]: Oh, okay.
Erin [1:47 – 2:16]: Both fits. What’s going on? Okay. They’re very different. Those are very different narrators. Yeah. So the narrator in your head, that’s what we’re gonna talk about today on the Moral Love Podcast. Narrator, my question for you is, is that narrator a victim? Is that narrator a hero? Are they a martyr? Are they romantic? Who is that narrator? And what story are they telling you in this case, about your relationship?
Rebecca [2:17 – 2:17]: I love that.
Erin [2:18 – 2:47]: So today on the More Love Podcast, we’re going to talk about our narrators. So we’re going to talk about what our narrators have to say, and we’re going to talk about whether or not the story that they’re telling us is accurate and on point or if it needs a little Revision, a little tweaking, little tweak, tweak. If you like today’s topic, if you like what we’re talking about, please, like, subscribe. Follow us on YouTube. Follow us on all of the places we want the world to hear our message and you can help us get there. So before, without any further ado, you got some hippie voo for us?
Rebecca [2:47 – 2:52]: I sure do. And, you know, we keep talking about this because I always do right before we start.
Erin [2:53 – 2:54]: I always do hippie voo.
Rebecca [2:54 – 3:03]: I always do. I always shuffle the cards and whatever falls out is what we. What we go with or whatever. I feel called to. And it’s so funny. I’m like, we should just do this live.
Erin [3:03 – 3:04]: I know.
Rebecca [3:04 – 3:12]: And this one falls out today. And this is the two of swords, and it’s shark behind the two swords. And I was like, aaron, oh my gosh. This.
Erin [3:12 – 3:16]: You’re like, you have to do this live. Because I’m telling you, this thing flew out right on point.
Rebecca [3:16 – 3:42]: And this is called the crossroads, and it’s so ironic. So it’s the two of swords and it’s called crossroads and it says, you are at a crossroads and there is a decision to be made. The two cross swords signify tension and indecision. Locked in conflict. Neither can win as their power appears to be equal. This situation may or may not be of your own making. Your perspective is blocked. Or there’s an obvious clue you are not seeing.
Erin [3:43 – 3:43]: Wow.
Rebecca [3:43 – 3:44]: Right?
Erin [3:44 – 3:45]: Come on.
Rebecca [3:45 – 3:56]: Is that crazy? So the advice is to look again. Take a fresh angle. Any action or decision is better than none. This is a great opportunity for breaking in your thinking. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Break up those clouds.
Erin [3:56 – 4:00]: Breaking in your thinking. Tell that narrator to go take a seat.
Rebecca [4:00 – 4:03]: Maybe you’re not seeing things right, but isn’t that interesting?
Erin [4:03 – 4:05]: That is. That is interesting.
Rebecca [4:05 – 4:21]: I mean, there you go. There you go. And also, side note, Erin calls me last week and she’s like, I got this problem. And so we talk about it for a good old hour and we come to zero conclusions. And then all of a sudden, I have this brilliant idea. I go, I know how to fix it. I go right down to my office and I pull out my deck of cards.
Erin [4:21 – 4:24]: I got the tarot. So was it spot on?
Rebecca [4:24 – 4:30]: Spot on. But not only was it spot on, I was only planning on pulling one card. And four cards fall out.
Erin [4:30 – 4:34]: Yep, fall out. You said, guess we’re doing a four card reading. And we sure did.
Rebecca [4:34 – 4:38]: Oh, my God. It was a freak of the freakest freaks.
Erin [4:38 – 4:38]: Yep.
Rebecca [4:38 – 4:41]: And I said to her. Now we have to do FaceTime because.
Erin [4:41 – 4:42]: I have to see your face.
Rebecca [4:42 – 4:50]: I go, I can’t. I know what your face is going to look like, but I have to know. So of course we get on the FaceTime and as I’m reading it, I’m like, I. I don’t even know what to say.
Erin [4:50 – 4:50]: I know.
Rebecca [4:50 – 4:52]: I can’t. It’s. It was so freaky.
Erin [4:53 – 4:59]: So that’s a nice little message that if your narrator is not telling you what you want to hear, go do a four card tarot and let that be.
Rebecca [4:59 – 5:09]: And then let it, let it inter. Let yourself interpret it and you can figure out, well, you can at least take. It’s for you, take some advice and figure out if it works and if it doesn’t, and then answer your questions.
Erin [5:09 – 5:15]: Rebecca will offer you a four card tarot for $400. She’s just trying to make some extra funds.
Rebecca [5:15 – 5:15]: Give me a call.
Erin [5:15 – 5:16]: Totally fine.
Rebecca [5:16 – 5:17]: Give me a call.
Erin [5:18 – 6:10]: All right, so we’re going to dive into today’s session by. This one is focused on relationships, whether that be a partnership, a marriage. Maybe it’s a really close friendship, maybe it’s someone that’s really close to you. But this narrator who shows up in our relationships is one that has a pretty big, an important purpose, and that is that what happens to us has a tendency to be seen through the eyes of this narrator who’s either going to frame that story or that experience in a victimized way. In a, I’m better than this person. In a, I’m resentful of this person, whatever that frame may be. And in my experience, I don’t know if this is true for you guys, Rebecca and Scott, but my narrator is pretty consistent in how she sees my relationship once she holds on tight.
Rebecca [6:10 – 6:12]: Specifically, your romantic relationship we’re talking about.
Erin [6:12 – 6:33]: Yes, yes. My relationship with Mark, my narrator for a very long time, many, many years, has sort of grabbed onto this one balloon and then has said, I will be flying with that balloon for the rest of our conversations, the rest of our arguments. Anything that happens, it’s me and my balloon that I will help you see this world through. Is that the same for the two of you?
Rebecca [6:35 – 6:37]: Not necessarily. What about you, Scott?
Scott [6:38 – 7:14]: My narrator has definitely changed in the last eight years because there was sort of like a breaking point in our marriage in 2017, and things kind of went. But it got repaired and both of us kind of were able to take a step back and realized that. And I think this is. I never thought of it this way, but both of our narrators were wrong. They were narrating incorrectly. They were narrating based on presumptions that we had because of a lack of communication we didn’t have. We didn’t know each other well enough.
Erin [7:14 – 7:14]: Yep.
Scott [7:15 – 8:16]: I think that’s often assumptions about each other that were so wrong. And when we finally, both of us. When we both finally figured out what the problems were, we were able to. I mean, my own narrator is, like I said, it’s one of two people. And I don’t know how correct they are, but that’s a different story when it comes to the relationship. I think my narration is, every once in a while, the Gilbert comes back in and says, hey, she’s acting this way. What are you doing? But it’s wrong. I have to stop and I have to think about it and go, no. That’s the old assumption. Like, sometimes I will still knee jerk reactions based on how I expect she’s gonna react to something. Now I’ve gotten really good with catching myself. And it happens rarely now. But for the. For a couple years into our new, you know, marriage 2.0, I guess I would do that. And she’d be like, no, that’s not fair. You’re making the assumption that we used to make, and that’s not me anymore. And I’m like, you’re right, that’s not you anymore.
Erin [8:16 – 8:17]: Yes. I love.
Rebecca [8:17 – 8:18]: That’s powerful.
Erin [8:18 – 8:20]: That’s really powerful.
Rebecca [8:20 – 8:21]: Yeah.
Erin [8:21 – 8:58]: So I’m hearing you say, scott, you used to have a narrator. She used to have a narrator. Something happened in 2017. You both basically sat your narrators down and said, I’m not positive you’re telling us the right story about our marriage. We either have two choices here. We either say, let your narrator win and we’re just not going to be a couple anymore, or let’s reframe who our narrators are. Narrators are. And dive. Dive a little deeper. Right. And you dove a little deeper. And it sounds like marriage 2.0 certainly is. Still not without the normal bullshit of all marriages. Right. But considerably less. But it feels different. Right. Because of your narrator.
Scott [8:58 – 9:07]: Yeah. And at the time, we did actually split up for a very short period of time, and we both realized that it was a mistake.
Erin [9:08 – 9:10]: I wonder what your narrators were saying then.
Rebecca [9:10 – 9:11]: I know, right?
Scott [9:12 – 9:26]: Both of our narrators were telling us to go to marriage counseling, and we did. And it was really transformative for both of us. My therapist was able to discover what was in my past and making me act the way that I was acting.
Erin [9:26 – 9:27]: That’s right.
Scott [9:27 – 9:29]: And same with Kelly.
Erin [9:29 – 9:29]: That’s right.
Scott [9:29 – 9:50]: It was what we were. She was too much like her father. No shade thrown at my father in law. He’s a great guy. But it was kind of like one of those things, like the strong silent type. And that’s the way she became. And it was like, we need to communicate. You need to tell me I’m pissing you off.
Rebecca [9:50 – 9:50]: Yeah.
Scott [9:51 – 9:59]: So that I can fix it or so that we can figure out what the problem is and why you’re being pissed off. And then instead of not saying anything for three months and then.
Rebecca [10:00 – 10:00]: And then blowing up.
Scott [10:00 – 10:01]: Yeah.
Erin [10:01 – 10:05]: Because news flash about our narrators, guys. They’re extensions of who we are.
Rebecca [10:05 – 10:06]: Yeah.
Erin [10:06 – 10:09]: Imagine that they are whatever is in our backpack.
Rebecca [10:09 – 10:09]: Yeah.
Erin [10:09 – 10:11]: Just in like live ticker tick.
Rebecca [10:12 – 10:15]: Yeah, I know, I know, I know. And they don’t. And they don’t.
Erin [10:15 – 10:17]: That was a free piece of advice.
Rebecca [10:17 – 10:17]: Thank you.
Erin [10:17 – 10:20]: That was not charging for. For that. That was great. Okay.
Rebecca [10:20 – 10:22]: And mine never turns off.
Erin [10:22 – 10:27]: What do you mean? Your narrator never. Oh, yeah, I’m very aware.
Rebecca [10:27 – 10:29]: It’s like, here’s this.
Erin [10:29 – 10:34]: I’m still talking. I’m still talking. But what about this? What about that? Did you think about this? How come you didn’t think about that? Did you notice what this person’s doing?
Rebecca [10:35 – 10:37]: Yeah. And it’s including when I’m sleeping.
Erin [10:37 – 10:37]: Right.
Rebecca [10:37 – 10:44]: It’s like, oh my God, it’s never ending. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Which is why I’m never satisfied.
Erin [10:44 – 10:47]: Right. You never come to a natural resting conclusion.
Rebecca [10:47 – 10:47]: Never.
Erin [10:47 – 10:48]: Right?
Rebecca [10:48 – 10:53]: Never. Aaron was so shocked when she done with the to do list. Don’t you feel great? I’m like, no.
Erin [10:53 – 10:54]: Right.
Rebecca [10:54 – 10:55]: You do.
Erin [10:55 – 10:55]: Right?
Rebecca [10:55 – 10:57]: No. Never.
Erin [10:57 – 10:58]: Your narrator’s never done.
Rebecca [10:58 – 10:58]: Never.
Erin [10:59 – 11:15]: So can you relate with what Scott was saying about his narrator and his wife’s narrator and how like when it comes to each person’s narrators, have your narrators always been accurate in viewing Philip and his accurate in viewing you?
Rebecca [11:15 – 11:19]: Accurate? Yeah. No. Okay. No. A lot of assumptions.
Erin [11:19 – 11:20]: Okay.
Rebecca [11:20 – 11:21]: A lot of assumptions.
Erin [11:21 – 11:22]: So you can relate with what Scott was saying too.
Rebecca [11:22 – 11:28]: Oh, absolutely. And then I come to you and I tell you all these things and you’re like, you’re dead wrong. You’re dead wrong.
Erin [11:28 – 11:32]: I try and take the side of Philip’s narrator sometimes. That’s a scary place to be. No.
Rebecca [11:32 – 11:36]: Yeah. Because you can see things. You can see things from a different point of view.
Erin [11:36 – 11:36]: Yeah.
Rebecca [11:36 – 11:46]: And you, you’re much better at seeing people and dissecting people and seeing things from a different point of view. Especially because you’re not deep dive and you’re not deeply involved.
Erin [11:46 – 11:46]: Yeah.
Rebecca [11:46 – 12:12]: But you also know us intimately. So you’re able to help me, thank God, see things from a different point of view, so then I can much more openly and embrace that and see it and go, oh, and have the aha moment. But, yeah, no, I absolutely make a lot of assumptions. Lots of assumptions. But over time, have been able to debunk them. Over time.
Erin [12:12 – 12:18]: Would you say that you’re stubborn about your assumptions at first? You’re not? No. So that’s what I think is one of the biggest.
Rebecca [12:18 – 12:19]: No, I am.
Erin [12:20 – 12:29]: What are you. If you’re not stubborn about them? Are you curious what’s the opposite. What’s the opposite of stubborn? Well, I would think the opposite of stubborn. Yeah.
Rebecca [12:29 – 12:31]: Yeah. I’m very doormatish. Doormatish.
Erin [12:32 – 12:33]: Doormatish. I like that.
Rebecca [12:33 – 12:33]: Yeah.
Erin [12:33 – 12:36]: In your. Your narrator is doormatish.
Rebecca [12:36 – 12:47]: My door. My doormat. My. My narrator is very trusting. I’m the type of person that I absolutely believe everything everybody says until you prove me wrong.
Erin [12:49 – 12:58]: So your narrator. So when Philip’s narrator comes to your narrator and basically says, I don’t like this, this, and this, and you’re this, this, and this, you’re like, that’s exactly who I am.
Rebecca [12:58 – 12:58]: Yes.
Erin [12:58 – 13:00]: You’ll just take that at face value.
Rebecca [13:00 – 13:00]: Yes.
Erin [13:00 – 13:06]: And then you need to collect the data to determine whether or not your narrator has ground to stand on or not to come back.
Rebecca [13:06 – 13:07]: Correct.
Scott [13:07 – 13:11]: You don’t have a gut reaction that says, I think you’re kind of off here, Pat.
Rebecca [13:11 – 13:11]: No.
Erin [13:11 – 13:12]: Yeah, she does. It’s called Aaron.
Rebecca [13:13 – 13:22]: That’s right. No, it’s true. No, no, but I. She knows I don’t have a gut reaction because I will take it and be like, they’re absolutely right, even though it’s probably 100 wrong.
Erin [13:22 – 13:36]: And I’m not kidding about the gut reaction, because she’ll contact me and she’ll say, I need to tell you about something that just happened, and I will fly off the effing handle, Scott. I will pull over on the side of the road, and I’m like, facetime. I’m like, we’re not doing this.
Rebecca [13:36 – 13:37]: And I’m like, what do you mean?
Erin [13:37 – 13:49]: She’ll take that really strong reaction and be like, interesting. So is that what I’m supposed to feel like right now? And of course, because I am who I am, I’m like, it’s 100% what you’re supposed to feel like. There isn’t another way to feel.
Rebecca [13:49 – 14:12]: Yeah. It’s very rare. I don’t get it’s. Yeah, I. And I really do think it comes back to, you know, my issues, like abandonment issues. It comes back to, like, those kinds of things because I would. I choose. I would choose to be safe and secure over mad and angry and lose that. Do you know what I mean?
Erin [14:12 – 14:17]: Yes. Yep. Yep. That makes perfect sense. You would choose to be mad and angry.
Rebecca [14:17 – 14:20]: No, I would choose to be safe and secure and over through that.
Erin [14:21 – 14:21]: Right.
Rebecca [14:21 – 14:23]: Then. Then I would be mad and angry.
Erin [14:23 – 14:23]: Right.
Rebecca [14:23 – 14:28]: Because if I’m mad and angry and I push back and I lose whatever it is.
Erin [14:28 – 14:29]: Yep.
Rebecca [14:29 – 14:31]: Over something that may not be real.
Erin [14:31 – 14:33]: Then your worst fear has come true.
Rebecca [14:33 – 14:33]: Correct.
Erin [14:33 – 14:37]: Your opinions, your thoughts, your feelings. I would rather take out another person.
Rebecca [14:37 – 14:43]: I would rather take it and be something that I know I’m not than be right.
Erin [14:43 – 14:45]: That makes perfect sense.
Rebecca [14:45 – 14:45]: Yeah.
Erin [14:45 – 15:09]: My narrator could not be any different than that narrator. My narrator is 100% confident. She is righteous. She is very clear. She’s discerning, and she doesn’t give a flying F what your narrator has to say. She’ll put your narrator right where your narrator needs to be. And I think that’s one what makes us great twin flames. Because we can sort of balance each other out a little bit in that way.
Rebecca [15:10 – 15:15]: Right. Because we hold each other. I’ll put the mirror up and you put the mirror up every time. That’s right. Yeah.
Erin [15:15 – 15:38]: But this is where I think the role of compassion comes in to these narrations. And this is really touches upon what you were talking about, Scott. I think it would be interesting if we dove into a couple of, like, more specific examples of ways that we’ve seen this play out in our life. And we talked briefly before the show about, like, what kind of examples would y’ all bring up? If we’re talking about our narrators have a difference of opinion with the person that we love.
Rebecca [15:39 – 15:44]: Because reality is, we often get hurt based on these narrations.
Erin [15:44 – 15:47]: Oh, very much so, yes. Well, we think that they’re protections.
Rebecca [15:47 – 15:48]: Correct.
Erin [15:48 – 15:59]: Right. But they’re not. But often they’re recycling thoughts or feelings or patterns of behavior that have the.
Rebecca [15:59 – 16:01]: Reinforcements always served us well.
Erin [16:01 – 17:00]: They’ve maybe served one capacity in our life of keeping us, quote, unquote, safe. But they’re maybe not serving a different part of our life, which may be more connection, more vulnerability, you know, and that’s where I do think this. This idea of compassion and understanding and caring and thinking comes different. So I wanted to go back to your example, Scott. Maybe we can kick off with you. You Said that something happened in 2017 that ultimately fractionated your marriage in some way, shape, or form, and that you both had to look at that scenario through a different lens. You needed to. To tell your narrators that they weren’t gonna be the ones who were driving your marriage anymore. And so without having to go into specific details about what exactly happened, I don’t think those details matter as much as the example of how you communicated with your narrators. And what did that look like for both of you? How did you engage with your narrators and sort of change the story of your marriage?
Scott [17:01 – 17:55]: There’s a lot of answers to that question. But the basic thing that I found out through therapy was that my narrator was coming from sort of a PTSD incident that was telling me that I was no good, telling me that, well, you know, you’re gonna screw it up anyway, so you might as well just like, who cares? You know? So I just sort of stopped caring because I kept thinking that I was always going to screw something up. I was never good enough. I was like a kicked dog. That’s how I felt. But I didn’t realize that’s how I felt until it was explained to me. And I was like, yeah, that is exactly how I feel. But it just became so part of who I was that it was just like, all right, well, I know I’m gonna eventually disappoint you, so I guess I might as well double stand.
Erin [17:56 – 17:59]: I might as well start with disappointment if we’re gonna run there anyway.
Scott [17:59 – 18:12]: And then. And then it just snowballed from there. So I had to go back and learn why my narration was that way, to change the narration. And Kelly had the same thing.
Erin [18:12 – 18:12]: Sure.
Scott [18:12 – 18:43]: She had the same thing. To that introspective, that deep look to go. Okay, let’s. Because I think the biggest problem is not seeing it from someone else’s point of view, not seeing it from their point of view. Let me think about this. Do I love this person enough to understand where they’re coming from? Yes, I do. So let me figure it out. Okay. You had this happen to you, so you think this way, and then this happened to you. So you think this way. All right, let’s work on that. Let’s try to fix that. That’s pretty much how it went down.
Rebecca [18:43 – 18:56]: Yeah. You have to love someone enough to care about their point of view to do the work. Yeah. And if you don’t, then you’re constantly putting yourself first. You don’t love them. Yeah.
Scott [18:56 – 19:19]: And that was the whole thing when we were Separated for a short period of time, we both realized. We’re like, no. It was like, I can’t stand the side of you, but I can’t stand being without you. Being without you. And we’re like, so what does that mean? Does that mean. That means that we’re pissed off at each other because we both broke each other’s hearts. But we want to fix this because we have to be together. There’s no other way.
Rebecca [19:19 – 19:20]: Right? Right.
Erin [19:20 – 20:56]: I want to speak to this concept of love quickly because I want to be really honest that for me, I think people would think, oh, my gosh, she’s a mental health professional. She’s highly sensitive. She’s just one big emotion ball all the time. And I think if you were to have my husband on the show, he would tell you, I’m not the sentimental one in our marriage. And it wasn’t always about love for me. In fact, I’ve actually questioned the concept of love and this ideal that we place on love many, many times, because much in my life and in my relationship has felt more transactional or has felt more like a logic puzzle that had to be put together. I did this, you did this. Does this make sense or not? Right. I think that will surprise a lot of people because that side of me actually is much stronger than my, oh, my gosh, I’m in love with you, and I want to reconnect with you. So I want to speak for a moment to the people who may be at a point in their own relationship where they’re thinking love isn’t enough. Love isn’t just the thing that I need to reconnect with my significant other. I’m so pissed. I’m so angry. I am so resentful. Like, we’ve come so far in this journey that I can’t even stomach looking at you some days, let alone say the word love for my partner. Right. Because I don’t want people to get the opinion that the only people who get to talk to their narrators and change it are the people who still have love alive in their marriage.
Rebecca [20:56 – 20:56]: Yeah.
Erin [20:56 – 25:37]: So the real and raw for Mark and I is that over the course of about an eight year period of time, it became really difficult to find our connection points. And I now know, similar to Scott’s situation where and he says in 2017, they were like, we’re all set. We’re taking a break. We’re not doing this. I got to that point with Mark where I was like, I think we’re so far away from each other that this doesn’t even make sense to do do anymore. And that was a really hard reality. It wasn’t one that happened overnight. It was one that just sort of grew and grew and grew and grew. But it was that turning point. It was me saying, I’m pretty sure I’m all done with this, that led to the re Engagement with Compassion in Life Review for me and my narrator. It wasn’t for him. And I had to do this life review where I looked back at where we’ve been really, since Carter was born and what our marriage has looked like. And instead of thinking about where we’re at based on how I’ve been hurt or injured or resentful and mad, I focused solely on what I have done to contribute to where we are right now. And because I let go of the love, I let go of this isn’t about him anymore. It actually was from an anchor place of me, of, I’m going to own my own, so that I know when I walk away from this that, you know, my slate’s clean. I feel good about it. It was more out of resentment and anger and negativity than it was out of, oh, my God, I just love him so much. I owe this to him. That wasn’t where we were at at that point in our marriage. And so when I finally did that and I did the Life review, two things kept coming up for me. The first was, I can’t get out of my mind this video of Mark feeding Carter when he was probably four or five months old. Maybe it was six months. It was. I don’t know. Whenever they first eat their first gob of baby food, you know, and I see him in this video, and I feel so connected to him in this moment because he goes to put the spoonful of baby food in Carter’s mouth. Carter doesn’t know how to eat it, right? So he just immediately spits it all back out. And Mark’s response is, all right, well, that didn’t quite go as planned. And something about that response is how I remember walking down the aisle. To him, it was this curiosity, this funness, this, like, we don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but we’re gonna figure it out. He was so compassionate and loving in that moment, right? So I constantly would go back to that video as I’m doing my life review of, like, who is he there? And how did we get where we are now? And again, because I’m angry, and I’m doing a cle Slate review for myself. I start to look at the things that I have done. And one of the biggest things that came up for me, and this is why I didn’t have to go to marriage therapy at this moment, Scott. Because I was just doing marriage therapy on myself. I just want to save a little money. When you’re a therapist doing your own therapy. One of the things that came up for me is because of Mark’s ADHD and because of my complete opposite of adhd. There have been so many times in our marriage where I have grabbed the reins and tried to take control, and the control came out of my anxiety. It came out of perfectionism. It came out of wanting to make sure Carter’s life was as, quote, unquote, perfect as it possibly could be. And all of his experiences were great. That my number one awareness was that over the course of those eight years, I had beaten my husband down to a shell of who he was, because overtly or covertly, I was communicating to him that you’re an idiot who can’t do anything correctly. And it got to the point where I wrote Mark a letter. It was about six pages long, handwritten, like, we were back in high school, where I went through our journey together and just owned all of the things that I had been doing in our marriage that I was now aware of how that impacted him. And he didn’t have the words or the strength or whatever to communicate that. You’ve been a real force in our marriage, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was make you happy, and all I’ve ever done is fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
Rebecca [25:37 – 25:38]: Yeah, that.
Erin [25:38 – 25:54]: That changed the relationship that we had, where I became more like a parent and he became more like a submissive doormat who would do whatever I said. And then that wasn’t the dynamic I wanted, but it sure as shit was the dynamic that I created.
Rebecca [25:54 – 25:55]: Yeah.
Scott [25:55 – 25:56]: So some of that is like a mir.
Rebecca [25:57 – 25:58]: Yeah.
Scott [25:58 – 26:05]: I remember specifically Kelly saying, I’m not your mother. Like, I’m not here to mother you.
Rebecca [26:05 – 26:05]: Yes.
Scott [26:06 – 26:10]: And I didn’t know how to respond to that. I had no idea what the hell.
Rebecca [26:10 – 26:12]: She was talking about. Yes.
Scott [26:12 – 26:35]: And it was like it went so deep to get out of that. But I feel that same connection of hers. It was like we had to go back, and I had to think about, like, what when we got together, like, we were friends first eight, nine years before we got together, and it was kind of like, well, are we gonna do this now or what? We’ve been talking about it for almost 10 years.
Rebecca [26:35 – 26:35]: Yeah.
Erin [26:35 – 26:36]: Yeah, let’s do It.
Rebecca [26:36 – 26:36]: Yeah.
Scott [26:37 – 26:46]: And it was kind of like really fast. It was like, there’s no like dating period. It was just like, all right, well, I just quit my job. I’m moving to Rochester.
Erin [26:46 – 26:47]: Yeah. Like what?
Scott [26:47 – 27:01]: Yeah, come on up. You know. And then we discovered, holy shit. We both have a lot of problems. But we worked through them eventually. And also having kids real fast made us kind of. We were. A lot of the things that we had were forced. We were forced into.
Rebecca [27:01 – 27:02]: Yeah. You guys too?
Erin [27:02 – 27:06]: Yeah. Oh, very much so. I was five and a half months pregnant walking down the aisle.
Scott [27:06 – 27:06]: Right.
Erin [27:06 – 27:57]: That’s same with Cody. And when Carter was born, we just got married like five months before that. I just started a new job. I had to have a house instead of the condo we were living in. Right. And so that was part of my life review as well, was being like, I have been the one writing our story this, this entire time. And I’m like grabbing him by the shirt collar and being like, get your over here, let’s go. Get your together. Line it up. You need to make this much money. This is what we’re doing. Right. And. And he. His baggage here’s narrator is like, she knows what she’s talking about more than you do, man. She’s been successful. You just need to follow her lead. So he’s just shut it down and shut it up. And it’s like, great. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Also, he’s in a fearful place. I don’t know if you can relate with this too, Scott. Where he’s like, if I don’t, she ain’t staying around.
Rebecca [27:58 – 27:58]: Right.
Erin [27:58 – 28:01]: Right. But you don’t talk about that. No. God for, you know.
Scott [28:01 – 28:07]: Yeah. And it’s like, I. I’ve wanted to, to be with her for so long. I am not gonna lose that.
Erin [28:07 – 28:14]: You felt that way too, or were you speaking for Mark? Oh, because I was gonna say Mark will tell you he has been in love with me since we were in high school.
Scott [28:14 – 28:18]: I was a. I was a 29 year old child when I got married.
Rebecca [28:18 – 28:19]: Yeah. Right.
Erin [28:19 – 28:20]: I had so much on the line.
Scott [28:20 – 28:35]: I never lived out on my own. I had a short, like, span of time where I lived with a girlfriend for a while, but I was traveling so much that I stayed at home with my parents because I was always traveling and it made no sense for me to get my own place. Plus I was in a sick amount of debt.
Erin [28:35 – 28:36]: So stupid.
Scott [28:36 – 28:36]: 18 years old.
Erin [28:36 – 28:37]: Ooh.
Scott [28:37 – 28:38]: Credit cards in the mail.
Erin [28:38 – 28:39]: Let’s buy shit. Yeah.
Scott [28:40 – 28:58]: But when 29 rolls around and I’m gonna get into a serious relationship and start my life with someone. All of that came into play. And Kelly was together. She had her career, she had, you know, everything. She was paying her bills and just like, living on her own for, God knows, for 10 years already. And I was like, ha.
Rebecca [29:00 – 29:03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erin [29:03 – 31:07]: You know? But when we think about both of those stories, what’s interesting to me is this sense of something happens and then there’s a compassionate turning point. And me owning my own shit then allowed me to release myself of the burden of perfectionism and to recognize that my husband’s been there all along, just in a very different way than I imagined it. But until I was able to own that myself, I wasn’t able to see him and then start having the conversations we were supposed to be having all along. And that’s when the narrators came into play. That’s when the work really started. Which is what I’m hearing you say too, Scott. You got to the end, right? And it really was just the beginning. Right, right. And so I’m happy to say that Mark and I have really been through it and are really turning some corners that couldn’t have probably happened in any other time in our life until going through what you had to go through. Right. And so. But I just want to stress that it wasn’t through changing Mark. It was through identifying me and what I needed to change in me. And that if I wasn’t able to heal myself, that wasn’t going to be able to happen. And I had to thank my narrator for being there for keeping me safe, for helping support me all of those years, and then pat her on the head. That’s right. And say, hey, girl, listen, maybe I’m able to step forward a little bit here. And you can still be there, right? I can still hear you. But maybe you don’t have to be such a force keeping you from the ultimate thing that you want, which is really to have a partner and to have a loving relationship and to do life together. It’s fine. It’s just a ghost spirit here in the room.
Rebecca [31:07 – 31:15]: That is the confirmation that you’re doing. Exactly. Supposed to be doing what you’re doing in some ghost. I need to know what that book is called. Okay, I gotta go look.
Erin [31:15 – 31:16]: Okay, you know what it is?
Scott [31:16 – 31:19]: It has nothing to do with that. It’s because of the construction that’s going.
Rebecca [31:19 – 31:19]: No, it’s not.
Erin [31:19 – 31:24]: No, it’s not. Scott, we are in the middle of some hippie vu moment.
Scott [31:24 – 31:25]: Do this Because I take naps.
Erin [31:25 – 31:26]: It’s not that one.
Rebecca [31:26 – 31:27]: It’s the one on the Immigrant’s daughter.
Erin [31:27 – 31:28]: No, it’s the one on the ground.
Scott [31:28 – 31:30]: I don’t need to think that there’s a ghost in this place.
Erin [31:30 – 31:31]: I know.
Scott [31:31 – 31:32]: I’ve already gone through this.
Erin [31:32 – 31:34]: It’s just confirming. It’s just confirming.
Scott [31:34 – 31:35]: Sage.
Rebecca [31:35 – 31:36]: Just the Minstrel’s daughter.
Erin [31:36 – 31:37]: Yeah, that’s it.
Scott [31:37 – 31:39]: The Minstrel’s daughter or the Minstrel’s daughter.
Erin [31:39 – 31:42]: Why don’t you open up to a random page, then read us this?
Rebecca [31:42 – 31:45]: And she lives happily ever after.
Scott [31:46 – 31:50]: I’m just surprised that those books have actual, like, titles and pages. I thought they were fake books.
Erin [31:50 – 31:52]: Yeah, right. Yeah, right. You’re surprised it even opened.
Rebecca [31:52 – 31:52]: That’s hilarious.
Erin [31:52 – 31:53]: I know.
Rebecca [31:53 – 31:55]: And it says, aaron and Mark will.
Erin [31:55 – 31:59]: Live happily ever after because Aaron did some work.
Rebecca [31:59 – 32:03]: It says, I’ve decided to change dealers. Yeah, that’s right.
Erin [32:03 – 32:10]: That’s right. That’s right. Oh, my gosh. So I know this was the Aaron and Scott show. Did you want to say anything or add anything?
Rebecca [32:10 – 32:10]: No.
Erin [32:10 – 32:11]: I think this conversation.
Rebecca [32:11 – 33:11]: I think it’s absolutely beautiful. I think I just applaud. So many people throw in the towel when the going gets tough. And I applaud both of you to do the work. I just. I admire. I admire anybody who doesn’t throw in the towel. I admire anybody who goes through the mud. I admire people who are willing to. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Everybody makes really bad mistakes in life. Everybody makes. There are challenges. Things happen. The world is tough. As they say it, the devil shows up all the time. And we owe it to ourselves and to our partners and to our loved ones that we have to forgive, and we have to work through it, and we. We need to do the work. You don’t get unlimited forgivenesses. You don’t get unlimited choices, and you don’t get, you know.
Erin [33:11 – 33:13]: And sometimes your narrators can’t get there.
Rebecca [33:13 – 33:13]: That’s right.
Erin [33:13 – 33:14]: And that’s okay, too.
Rebecca [33:14 – 33:55]: But the question is how long you have to honor that and you have to do something. And I’m just really proud of both of you. And I hope that, you know, everybody gets. Everybody is strong enough to be able to do some of that work. And, you know, I do recognize that sometimes there’s not that option, but it’s hard. And, you know, I have my own. My own deep, deep, deep, deep stuff. And, you know, I know we don’t have a ton of time to go into it, but, you know, Philip and I have had our own stuff, you know, 20 years worth of stuff. And, you know, it’s hard. Yeah, it’s hard.
Erin [33:56 – 34:04]: And in your case, your narrator has had to come a long way from being doormatish to being safe, having an opinion.
Rebecca [34:04 – 34:05]: Yes.
Erin [34:05 – 34:11]: And his narrator has had to come a far way from I don’t have to care about anyone except for myself.
Rebecca [34:11 – 34:12]: Yes. To listening and caring.
Erin [34:13 – 34:18]: I need to be present and show up in a way that supports my family.
Rebecca [34:18 – 34:19]: Yes.
Erin [34:19 – 34:40]: Differently than what it was before. And I will never forget. I don’t remember the specific day, but I will never forget the time in life where I said to you, philip’s a different human being. Something has happened to Philip. He’s done some type of work. He’s done some type of insight. He’s let go of some type of past hurts. He’s worked through some stuff.
Rebecca [34:40 – 35:12]: Well, we’ve had some major things. We’ve had some major things go down. He’s had some major personal things, and we’ve had some major things in our relationship, and we’ve done the work, and we have come out different people together. And personally. And we are on the same page. And, you know, we’re also, you know, we’re going through a transition in life almost, because our oldest is coming to, you know, an end in her. You know, she’s about to move on in her life, and that’s going to change the dynamic in our family.
Erin [35:12 – 35:12]: Yeah.
Rebecca [35:12 – 35:23]: And that’s gonna change us as. As parents. And we’re already talking about that, and it’s so weird. And you’re gonna start to watch us go through that. I’m already feeling that.
Erin [35:23 – 35:25]: I’m glad you’re going through it first. I know.
Rebecca [35:25 – 35:30]: I walked through the airport this weekend, and I was hysterical watching people with strollers.
Erin [35:30 – 35:30]: I know.
Rebecca [35:30 – 35:31]: What?
Erin [35:31 – 35:32]: I know. When was that?
Rebecca [35:32 – 35:33]: That’s the menopause.
Erin [35:33 – 35:34]: I know. Oh, I know.
Rebecca [35:34 – 35:35]: Holy crap.
Erin [35:35 – 35:40]: I know. And Melissa Kelly’s son is going to college. Lily is going to college.
Rebecca [35:40 – 35:42]: I didn’t expect that to hit me like it did.
Erin [35:43 – 35:49]: I said to her, I think I’m gonna need to be there when you drop him off, because I’m not gonna be okay.
Rebecca [35:49 – 35:50]: And he’s. Your son’s only 10.
Erin [35:50 – 35:51]: Right.
Rebecca [35:51 – 36:16]: I wasn’t expecting that to hit me, so. And I still have two more years, and I’m not ready for that, so I feel the need to have to. Because our narrators are so different, me and my husband, and because he. He doesn’t. He’s not as emotional and sensitive as I am, I feel the need to have to start that groundwork now, because if I don’t, that’s what’s gonna hurt later on. Not intentionally, but he’s not gonna know that unless I start that now.
Erin [36:16 – 36:17]: That’s right.
Scott [36:17 – 36:24]: So you’ve learned that both me, my narrator, and Kelly and her narrator, we all are looking forward to our son moving out.
Erin [36:25 – 36:27]: That’s a very different narrator.
Scott [36:27 – 36:28]: The four of us are gonna have a party.
Erin [36:32 – 37:18]: I love it. So next week on the More Love podcast, we’re going to talk about, how does your partner view your marriage? So today was all about narrators. But if we were to ask our partners their opinion, their side of things, what their NATOR narrator has to say, let’s hear it from the other side to get a general idea of how exactly that dynamic comes into play in our own current relationships. So I’m going to leave you with an affirmation card for today. I choose caring and loving words. Contentment. Being mindful of your language. When you notice negative self talk or unkind words toward others, pause and consciously replace them with caring and loving words.
Rebecca [37:18 – 37:20]: Stop it. Stop it.
Erin [37:20 – 37:25]: Until next time. Keep feeling, keep questioning, and keep spreading more love.
Scott [37:31 – 37:42]: Sam.
