He gets into this point where he gets frustrated and he feels
like he's stonewalls, but so he won't engage in a conversation
anymore. Then a little bit later he'd be
like, oh, I shouldn't have even got that frustrated before.
And then he's just like, well, I just won't bring it up.
Yeah. And I think there's even stuff
in there as well. Hello.
Hey welcome guys to honey. We need a chat.
We a married couple doing a podcast on the importance of a
communication. Yes, when communication stops,
bad things happen. So we want to get better at
communicating so we bad things don't happen as much.
Yeah, that's who we are. Yeah, So welcome, Welcome guys
to this episode, this Reddit chat episode.
It's not only Reddit chats today though.
We have another listener. I'm going to say send in because
it's not a write in. So we have a special audio story
that was sent in by one of our chatters.
Chatters, What's a chatter? A chatter is one of our honey.
We need to chat fam bam on the subscription platforms Patreon
and or Spotify subscription at the moment.
If you are not a chatter, go check out Patreon or Spotify
subscription. We got extra episodes there
also. It helps us out a lot.
We're really trying to work on growing this podcast.
We've had such an incredible season so far in the two months
that we've been running, with just over 2 months we've been
running. We'd love to, we'd love to grow.
We'd love to really invest more time in this.
So yeah, if you would like to, we'd love your support over at
Patreon. Extra content, extra input.
The chatters have been really engaged and inputting into the
content they've been giving us suggestions for.
Would you rather they've been giving us suggestions for
outros, that kind of thing. So if you're interested in being
a bit more involved, up on over. Yeah.
Boom, boom. But anyway, today one of our
chatters has sent in an actual audio recording, so you get to
hear his voice, which is exciting for us.
That's not the only way you can send in stories.
If you want to send in a story, please feel free to email us at
honeyweneedachat@gmail.com. It can be anonymous, it can be
the secretive as you want. But this is a special edition
where he has sent in his own voice explaining his story.
But before we get to that, we're going to break some ice.
So the first would you rather it's would you rather clog the
toilet on a first date or first day at a new job?
First day at a new job? Not even.
Oh, no, I think you said first date.
Heck no. Yeah, I'd rather first date.
Well, yeah, because first date, a new job, you've got everyone
there. You're going to be the toilet
clog guy or girl. First date.
But a job even people don't have like at a job, it's like, I
don't know, I would way prefer that than.
No, because like later on, later on, you're more like, for me, I
I envision that you would later on joke about it with your
potential partner. Yeah.
In the future where at work there'd be the talk behind the
back. That's the guy.
The clock. Yeah, but I would rather that.
Really. But you know what?
You can get around it at work, and I may have done this before.
Oh, what do you want to hear? I have two stories.
OK. I don't know if you want to hear
them, but they're very funny. Go.
For it. Number one.
Number one or number? Two, number one, I, I went to
the bathroom. It wasn't purely my fault, just
to be clear, but I went to the bathroom at a, an establishment
that I was working at and it would not flush after I went to
the bathroom like for multiple reasons.
And so I just went up to the manager and I was like, someone
has clogged the bathroom. Just letting you know, it's
someone's clogged the bathroom because it was in the disabled
toilet. That's where we went because it
was. And so she's like, oh, thank you
for letting me. Know so much of your secretive
lies will be coming out in this podcast.
Yeah, well. Do you want to know an even
worse one that includes you? No.
You don't want. To, I mean, yes, yeah, all
right. This is funny because these two
instances that you planned on me.
No, I I used to live next door to friends when we first
started. No, it was early on in OH.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I lived in a very, very
small apartment. What did I do?
No, you didn't do anything. It wasn't you.
But you were coming over and I really needed to go to the
bathroom. But I was like, I'm not going to
do it in my apartment because this is such a bad story and I
feel like I've got to regret. I've never told you this.
I really apologise if you, you'll know exactly who you are.
I apologise about everything I'm about to say.
They weren't there. I was, they had gone away and I
had their key. And so I was like, I'll go to
their bathroom and and because if I went in our in my
apartment, it would just not be pleasant.
It's such a small space. We are still early on.
I think it might have actually been engaged, I don't know.
But so I went in there and then I remembered that they used to
talk about their toilet had a lot of issues with plumbing, so
it wouldn't. Flush properly.
And it didn't flush properly, but I was like, that's right.
I've got their key. I'm cleaning their house while
they're gone. So I've got their key.
I'll come back later and I'll fix it.
And so you came over. I was a bit like flustered
because I didn't know when you were going to come.
You came over, we hung out and whatever.
And then I suddenly remembered that I'd left their key on their
bench and I'd locked their house.
And I was like, Oh, no, oh. My gosh, not only have I not
cleaned their house, I've left something in the bathroom that
if I don't explain, they're going to come home to this and
so you're over. And so I was like freaking out.
I don't know if you remember this.
I was like, do I break into the? House.
Yeah, yeah. I was freaking out because I was
like, oh, I've left their key and I don't remember what excuse
excuse I gave you that I'd left the key there.
But anyway. Maybe you were starting to clean
the house. Maybe because I needed to clean
the house. And so you, you didn't break
into their, you broke into their house.
But you didn't break anything. Just yeah, I think you went
through the the laundry window or something and you got the
key. But then I was like, if he goes
in there and it's really bad, how am I gonna like excuse this?
Anyway, essentially you got in, got me the key and then came out
and I was like super panicked. And so I somehow made some
excuse of like, I just need to go check on something and left
you in my apartment. And I just quickly went and
dealt with it was fine after that.
Just to be clear, I think it had actually flushed itself or
something, I don't know, something weird.
Magical poop. Oh my God, it wasn't poo because
I don't do that. Yeah, me either.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I've experienced both. Of these.
I've experienced both of these scenarios and neither I would
definitely pick the work one over the 2nd and I apologise to
my friends if you. Hear this, They were your
friends. They were friends, everything
was fine, but it was a bit scary.
But heaven forbid I admit to my boyfriend slash fiance or even
my husband until we're 10 years of the child why I needed him to
break into their house. So have we broken the ice?
We've broken something. We've broken our relationship.
Is that a child? No, I think it was actually my
throat. I really broke something it.
Was like a wheeze, breath little laugh thing.
I don't. Know did you have another one,
not another wheeze would you rather oh.
Yeah, I do. Yeah, I've got one more do.
You still love me. Look.
Are you still attracted? To me, I've got another
question. None of that ever bothers me, by
the way. I know, but we're not super
gross people like that. No super open with that stuff.
We get teased about that a little bit sometimes.
We don't go to the we're not the couple that goes to the bathroom
in front of each other. Or fart in front of each.
Other No, we don't. We don't.
Really. Unless you are about to.
Have a epidural. Yeah, and then you just fluffy.
And I can't stop. Yeah, All right.
This is more of a phobia one. OK, Would you rather be stuck in
a phone box with 10 snakes or 10 tarantulas?
10 tarantulas. Yes.
Absolutely. Yeah, easy.
Yeah, that's all. That's all I heard because the
snakes could jump like I I was just thinking like I could do
that, wedge myself against the top if I need to, and the
tarantulas like crawl, no. They go up this.
Yeah, but snakes jump like you would be, yeah.
They well, yeah, I don't know, but if they're trying to eat
you, which snakes don't do, I don't think they'll be trying
to. I reckon.
I reckon actually now that what you said that I actually reckon
snakes because. Tarantulas are going to try and
eat me. No, no, no.
But that will climb up the sides and then climb on you if you're
up there. Yeah, but are they as poisonous?
It depends on the type of snake and the type of.
Well, I guess tarantula is the type of spider is.
If they were pythons, then I would go snakes.
Yep. If they were anything from here,
then I would go spy tarantulas. Yeah.
Cool. Well, I feel like the ice has
been broken. The ice has broke.
Well, in that case, let's move on to the stories.
So today's theme is, is it stonewalling question mark?
And if you have not listened to our Four Horsemen episode
episode, I suggest actually jumping across to that one and
starting with that because we essentially run through the
Gutman Institute. John Gottman is a relationship
psychologist, incredibly clever man, and the government
Institute have this concept called the Four Horsemen, which
the four communication styles or relationship styles that
indicate that your relationship is not heading in a great
direction and stonewalling is one of them.
So if you haven't listened to that one, definitely have a
listen to that first because it will step you through all four
of them and they kind of all kind of connect to each other
then come right back to this one.
Because we're going to. Deep dive a little bit more into
is it stonewalling and the reason I'm questioning that is
it's not always going to be stonewalling.
So just be stonewalling could be like a bit of a one of those
what I call them trigger words or like a a tokenistic word
probably a trending word maybe. And so I don't think that it's
all going to be stonewalling we. Can't dig into that.
Yeah, let's dig right in, honey, we need to chat.
So first of all, we're going to start with our chatter.
Hey, Chatter. Let's listen to the chatter.
Hey there Amy and Blair, I'm a father of two and have been
married to my beautiful wife for coming on 13 years now.
We have an amazing relationship of both incredibly tolerant and
understanding of each other's shortcomings and very rarely
disagree or get upset with each other.
This is a great thing, but also leans into the issue that I'd be
interested to hear your opinion on.
Because we don't get upset with each other much, we also don't
tend to openly discuss when we are upset.
Instead, we are both guilty of stonewalling as you both put in
an earlier episode. If we encounter an uncomfortable
situation, one of us will tend to shut down and wait for the
negative feelings to pass by. They always do, but I'm aware
that doing this leaves issues that could be resolved with open
discussion. So here's the question.
How would you open up a dialogue about something that your
partner has done to upset you when you know that one of you is
upset and could potentially go into that fight or flight and
shut down? I know this is an issue that
doesn't have an easy solution. The old communicate just
communicate isn't gonna do it as we need to set that safe space
up and if one of us is upset, setting up the safe space
becomes very tricky. Keep up the great conversation
peeps, and love from me and everyone else at Dawnhaven.
Cool. Awesome.
Well, thank you Chatter for sending that.
And I just want to start by saying your voice is very
soothing. And we made a comment after we
heard the first time. What'd you say?
You said. May.
I don't know about. It's very soothing.
It's got an epic voice. Yeah, it's very.
I don't know what the word is like classic or.
I feel like, I feel like I'm sitting down at my granddad's
fire and I'm watching my granddad in a dressing gown,
drinking a whiskey. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, yeah. And telling a story.
I'm just picturing your granddad and that's.
Not a granddad, A granddad. A nice Santa Claus type.
Granddad, I just picture someone in an audible recording booth
recording an audio book. That's less creepy.
Yeah, that is a little bit less ageist.
Anyway, thank you very much for sending in that story.
Really appreciate your vulnerability and your support
absolutely in more than just being our chatter.
So thank you for that. But yeah, really, really common
dynamic that plays out in relationships.
So I thought before we dive too deeply into workshopping that I
might just quickly refresh on what exactly stonewalling is and
just so that what we've got that in our heads as we dive into
these stories. So the the Gotman Institute
referred to stonewalling as withdrawing from interaction,
shutting down, or not responding.
It often occurs in response to contempt, which I'll cover in a
second and can signal overwhelming negativity.
If you feel like you're stonewalling during a conflict,
stop the discussion and ask your partner to take a break.
So contempt is another one of the Four Horsemen.
And the interesting thing about the four horsemen is they, like
I kind of mentioned earlier, they lead into each other, they
can kind of flow into each other or interact a little bit there.
So this is suggesting that stonewalling often follows
contempt and contempt is disrespect, sarcasm, mockery or
insults towards your partner. It implies moral superiority and
can make your partner feel despised or worthless.
So obviously that would be if, if that's a pattern of
communication from your partner, you're likely to be reacting
from a non constructive place as well.
And that's where stonewalling can sometimes come in.
So just to give you that context, that's what the Gotman
Institute on their website has listed.
And a quick defining note as well.
Because as I was going through these stories, like I mentioned,
I was like, is it stonewalling? And I don't want to be quick to
be like, oh, stonewalling. Just like people are like quick
to say, oh, he's a narcissist or, you know, to throw those
things around, say I've got trauma.
And there's, there's words that become widely used that maybe
aren't quite accurate. So I did a quick search to see
if there was a, an easy definition defining the
difference between stonewalling and maybe just needing space or
just needing being overwhelmed or something like that.
And I saw an article by psychotherapist Marni for
Fuhrman. Marni Fuhrman from the blog
verywellmind.com, and she said in there that there are a few
different ways that stonewalling might appear in a relationship.
There's one which is unintentional stonewalling,
which is often a learned response that partners use to
cope with difficult or emotional issues, who avoid escalating a
fight or avoid discussing an uncomfortable topic.
They also might be afraid of their partner's reaction and
then intentional stonewalling. In extreme cases, stonewalling
is used to manipulate a situation, maintain control in
the relationship, or inflict punishment.
If you think your partner is verbally abusing you, speak with
a counsellor or therapist. So it can actually be a form of
abuse and manipulation in an intentional context.
There are also healthy behaviours that can be mistaken
for stonewalling. It's important to note that
stonewalling is not the same thing as asking for space or
setting boundaries. Asking for time or space
requires communication. When your partner asks to
discuss something later with the full intention of coming back to
the conversation, they are not stonewalling you.
So I just wanted to clarify that because I don't want to just
fall into that trap. I'll be like, oh, stonewalling,
cut it off. So that is from psychotherapist
Marni Fuhrman. All right, so this recording
from our chatter really common. That's a really, really common
thing. And I think something we've
navigated a little bit, probably more so on my side, just not
shutting down and not knowing how to talk about the stuff, but
really common. So just to start us off.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're not alone in that
journey at all. I think a lot of the things that
we will talk be talking about and a lot of the stories that we
read, and some of them might be quite extreme, but I don't think
any of them will be unique to those stories.
Yeah, people writing in what we want to be doing is normalising
struggles, normalising the growth, you know, because when
we when we do that, we kind of give ourselves a little bit of a
break. We never excuse behaviour, but
we just when we normalise the feeling, normalise the struggle,
the struggle, I feel like we can take a bit more of a breath and
then we can be like, all right, cool.
Well this isn't unique to me. I can do something about it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely that, because I feel like there are so
many things in the world right now that you're not giving grace
and space to work through and wrestle with you.
It's a very hard line, yeah. And so unless you're given,
unless you are given that space for your feelings and your
struggle to be normalised, how will you ever grow?
That just means we're cutting off a huge portion of the
population in whatever topic it is saying no, that's actually
not OK. And it's not just not OK, it's
actually not OK for you to be wrestling with that behaviour or
that reaction or that emotion. So you just cut them off rather
than encouraging people in that place to grow.
And I can understand where it comes from because there's
people that have caused horrible hurt to people.
And so I can understand this kind of like hard line reaction.
But it's, I think it's gone so far the other way that we have a
whole range of topics that it's there's no grace.
There's no like space for people to explore that in a safe place,
in an encouraging place that encourages you to be better.
You just are encouraged to not be that, which is, I think,
really damaging. I had a meeting today and not to
sideline too much or go down a rabbit hole too much, but had a
meeting today with a bunch of workmates and leaders and
volunteers about the groups we run for for dads.
And they were talking a little bit about how they're running
breakfast for these dads. And just to start the
conversation, just got dads talking right?
And a lot of the feedback that they're getting is, you know, I,
I, I haven't really seen guys open up.
I've never felt like I can share.
I feel like I'm either not allowed any emotion or the
emotion that I'm allowed is anger.
And you know, and that's what's been modelled to us as either no
emotion or anger. Not, not every guy, but these
are the lot of guys that we're interacting with and working
with. And so this is a big thing of
what we want to do. And I love that our chat as a
guy because we want to be saying like, hey, being a man does not
mean you show no emotion. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Being a man does not mean that you're just angry.
We can be vulnerable and we we should be vulnerable.
We should be aware. And and I hear this a lot from
our chatter is like they're actually very self aware.
I had a chat with them afterwards after they sent this,
recording him of a Patreon and and talking about how for them
it's it's it is an issue and they want to work on it and get
better at it. But he gets into this point
where he gets frustrated and he feels like he's stonewalls, but
so he won't engage in the conversation anymore.
Then a little bit later he'll be like, oh, I shouldn't even got
that frustrated before. And then he's just like, well, I
just won't bring it up. Yeah.
And I think there's even stuff in there as well that we could
be discussing too. But props to you mate.
Being vulnerable, being intentional, being self aware.
Love that we get to model that and grow in that too.
And even this is a really simple thing, but being a man doesn't
mean that you can't engage with the dynamics in your
relationship and workshop them yourself.
I feel like a lot of in the cliche space, at least a lot of
men. Are led to that place by their
partner. I don't know if it's because
they maybe they feel like they just can't or it's not normal
for them to be like workshopping.
Yeah, absolutely. And well, it's, it's not normal
to show weakness, vulnerability. This is a big thing for a lot of
guys. And again, not every guy, but a
lot of guys really struggle with that.
It's like, I'm not meant to show weakness.
I'm not meant to show feelings. I'm meant to be hard, firm and
get to it, you know, and that's what we're breaking the mould
on. Yeah, and if you are a man and
you're listening to this and something in your relationship
doesn't feel healthy, take a SEC.
Just take a SEC and be like, OK, I'm not going to just wait for
my partner to nag at me about something or to to constantly
bring things up. I'm actually going to sit there
and be like, what can I do to engage in this better?
What can I do to look into what's happening for us?
And so I love, I love this as well, this question that's been
sent. And I think that's incredible
because it's coming from him and he's aware of what's going on
for him, which is a huge step. I think straight off the bat,
the stonewalling if if we're going to call it stonewalling,
because obviously I don't really know what happens in that
situation. I think the stonewalling
reaction can be for so many reasons.
And like was kind of alluded to in some of these definitions.
It can be because of how you were raised and what was shown
to you or what was done to you when you felt emotion.
You can shut down because of that.
Like for me, my my trap with this is that I wrestle with,
I've seen stonewalling play out and it was very unhealthy.
I've also seen this like hounding of needing someone to
answer you right away. And that was really unhealthy.
And so I fall into this gap personally where I'm like, I
don't want to be naggy and like in the moment, just a tacky to
you. And so I try to take a SEC to
like not be in the moment. I try to.
But then I can also fall into the trap of just not bringing up
the thing that is that I need to bring up.
And so either it will come out later in a not healthy way, or
it won't come out, but it'll just snowball.
Like it'll just become, it'll just make everything else feel
worse. And so then it's not helpful
either. Yeah.
How you're raised, what you've seen, who you are personality
wise and the dynamic between the two of you can all input into
how you react in that moment. For me, the biggest answer to
this kind of thing is easing the tension of that moment,
recognising like you have that you're not great in the moment
reacting to this conversation. And that is OK because you do
not need to be great in the moment reacting to someone's
accusation or complaint or emotions or whatever it is.
You don't need to have a great reaction in that stage.
You need to have a loving reaction.
And that's like, you're responsible to still be kind and
loving. But if that means literally just
saying to your partner, I can't talk right now.
Yeah. I'll talk later.
That's OK. That's actually an OK, the
person might not love that. I don't always love that when
we've done that. But if as long as you can
communicate, like that definition said, if you can
communicate that you will come back to it.
And then you also come back to it, which I know you said is
where he wrestles as well. That eases that tension.
I feel like that eases the tension in the moment so that
you're not feeling like I have to react now, but I'm not
reacting. And then you just get stuck in
the fact that you're not reacting.
I feel like that would just be like a downward spiral instead
just having almost like outside of any disagreement or issue or
anything, having a discussion and saying, hey, I'm super aware
that I Stonewall, like I'm really aware that I do that.
So if that happens, we need to have almost like a trigger word
or something that this means I will come back to it.
I just can't talk right now. Like I'm just struggling.
I'm shutting down. I can't get my brain to engage
in this conversation and. We didn't have a word.
We, we literally just say, look, I, I can't talk right now.
I'll come back to it. And I think coming back to it is
an important thing. You know, even how he says so
he's brought up two things, one in his message, but secondly,
what I mentioned afterwards that we spoke about.
So the first thing is that he's asking like, how do you start
the conversation? And I think it's really about,
you know, we, we look at a struggle that we have, say,
stonewalling and we're like, how do I address stonewalling?
You know, and we have something specific that we want to
address. And what we really want to
encourage is that it's really about the culture that you
foster within your relationship with your partner.
And this has been really important for us.
So again, if we don't have date nights, if we don't have these
conversations, we get stagnant. We, we struggle with
communicating. We really do.
But since we've been, especially since we've been doing the
podcast, I find that because the things that we're discussing,
we're actually implementing in our own arguments, you know, in
our own conversations. And so it's we're we've really
fostered and grown a culture within our relationship to have
these conversations. So get onto those date nights
that we spoke about at home, date nights, you know, get onto
those or have a games night, but it's a night.
It's also intentional. So it's not just games, but it's
a time where you come and you discuss your relationship.
It's not just the time where you come and bring up the difficult
conversations because you can be dreading those nights every
single time. But how are you investing in
your relationship? In next week's episode, we're
going to be sharing something that we could we believe is a
really, really great resource to help those conversations.
But looking at, you know, possibly a book or a reel or a
podcast episode that you've listened to, Hey, this podcast
is a good idea. You know, bring those up as
topics and say, Hey, what are your thoughts?
So don't come in with an agenda. Don't come in with, I want to
bring up these difficult topics. Just come in investing in the
relationship like and have that approach.
And then I really, everything that we've had to discuss comes
up anyway. You know what I mean?
The things that we're growing, but sometimes we have to bring
out something specific, but that's less shocking because
we're already in a place where we bring stuff up.
Yeah, I think I've been more. I've had more things that just
sit on my brain. I'm like, how can I bring this
up? When can I bring this up?
How can I bring this up? When can I bring this?
Up, absolutely, and I do too. Like remember how last week we
was a chat jar and I'm like, I don't know how to bring it up.
When can I bring it up and whatever else.
And it was sitting on my mind and it was staring and staring
and staring until I could figure out how to do it.
Then I brought it up and it blew up because I didn't.
Well, it didn't blow up. No, no, sorry.
It was. It was exactly because I hadn't.
Yeah, I've been sitting on it. It was new to you.
But my point is more is setting the culturing relationship.
So rather than just coming at it, we haven't really been able
to talk about it. When how do we talk about it?
Well, I don't think you just bring it up.
Well, I think you have to only just bring it up.
I, I think a really, really helpful thing for us, for me at
least, was there was a time where we implemented it wasn't
just a date night, it was a check in night.
And IA friend of mine suggested it on Instagram once.
I think it asked a question, I can't remember where it came
from, but basically you set aside a time every week and you
make that your special check in night and you literally do have
an agenda. Like it's not an agenda like my
agenda. It's an agenda that you work on
together and, and you figure out what are the things we want to
check in on every week. So it'll be things like how are
we going with our love languages or how are we going with
physical intimacy or how are we going going budget wise?
Like also, is there anything that you would like to raise?
And so it gives a space where, you know, it's coming up.
I've had times when we did that where I was like, I don't really
want to bring this up, but the amazing thing about it is if say
it was Monday nights, I think it was Monday nights for us.
You know, something might have happened on like Wednesday or
something. And I was like, I really this, I
need to talk to Blair about this.
By the time Monday comes around, it gives me enough time to be
like, is this serious enough? If yes, I'll raise it.
If no, I'm good. Like if no, it's resolved
itself. I was just like Moody or
whatever it's going on. It gives space for that, but it
also gives a space where it when things are brought up, it's not
some kind of shock. It's not like I'm like cornering
you in the kitchen one day and I'm just like, hey, when you
said that thing to me, it really made me upset.
It's like we actually have a time set aside where we can
reflect on this stuff. We know it's coming.
We're outside of the emotions. We know we will still feel
emotions when you talk about it, but we know that that's what
this time is for. But instead of also just making
all the negative things, you'd make it special.
So you do that thing like have it have a board game that you
play or have a movie or show that you watched just on that
night or get takeaway or, or make a hot chocolate.
Something about it. Make it special too.
So it's not just the difficult things that you start to dread.
And then when someone person's like, I can't be bothered doing
that tonight and the other person's like, yeah, me neither.
Like you make it special and you commit to it.
That can be a really good way for starting that culture that
Blair's talking about, just starting, that culture of being
able to communicate if it's not a natural thing that's happening
right now. And I think if I reflect, I
actually think that was a bit of a turning point for me because
until then, I really struggled to know when to raise things.
And I would just, it would just sit on my brain and like I said,
it would snowball. So I would be, you know, annoyed
about this one thing or hurt by this one thing.
And so then everything that Blair would do would feel like
another thing. So then when I had that check in
and I was able to communicate what I needed to communicate, I
actually realised not everything that he was doing was annoying
me. It was just that I was irritated
and hurt because of whatever and, or felt misunderstood,
whatever The thing is. And, and when you're in that
space, you're not like, like just before we started
recording, I was overwhelmed and Blair was trying to joke around
and I was like, I'm not really joking around.
It's not that he's annoyed. Like he's the what he was doing
wasn't actually annoying. Well, it wasn't really annoying.
I was just in a space where I'm like, I don't have that
capacity. And so, yeah, when you're
wrestling with something bigger or something that's more
serious, it's hard to just set that aside and be normal.
So I feel like that's for me that it was a really practical,
really easy way. And I feel like if it's not
something that comes naturally in your relationship, it's not
too hard to suggest that that tactic.
And just like, say, when I Stonewall in these
conversations, you know, I, I shut down and I really hate that
I shut down. I'm aware that that's not
helpful, but then I don't want to rock the boat later, which
was a huge thing for me. I don't want to rock the boat
later when things felt OK. And so bringing something up
just was like, why would I do that?
If you don't bring it up, you will find yourself stonewalling
again and you'll find yourself getting more bitter.
And that's when the other 4 horsemen can come into place,
which is things like contempt and criticism and defensiveness
because you haven't been able to communicate through the, the
more simple things that then snowball.
And so having that, yeah, having that check in that was like, I'm
not great at this. So can we have a night where I
actually am kind of forced to, to confront the things I need to
confront? And then that led to a place
where we don't really need specific check in at this stage
because it just kind of comes up when it needs to come up for the
most part. Yeah, absolutely.
The other thing I wanted to talk about was when he was saying
about how, you know, after a while he's like, oh, it's
something a big deal because like you said, sometimes, yeah,
just let it go. Like, it's not a big deal to
bring up and that's fine. But if if you stonewalled me in
a conversation and you didn't give me anything, it might not
be a big deal to you anymore. But your reaction can actually
sit in my mind. And I'm like, why?
Why don't you shut down? Like what's going on for you?
And that's where I was just encouraging him.
Like it might be good still to revisit and not necessarily set
like bring up, like, you know, dive back into the issue because
if that's not an issue anymore, that's fine.
But together, discuss, why did you show Stonewall?
Why was that an issue for you in that moment?
Why do you think you reacted like that?
And together, diving into that, I think is really, really
powerful and really impactful. And I love doing that with you.
Like after we've had a heated conversation and then we go back
to like, why did we respond about that?
Reflecting on it, I learned so much more about you and I
learned so much more about myself because a lot of times
I'm like, why didn't I react that way?
Why did I respond that way? Why did I shut down?
And then so yeah, unpacking that together is is really, really
cool. So that's what I would encourage
as well. Yeah, still revisit the
conversation and unpack that together.
You do not necessarily need to unpack the issue if it's not a
non issue now, but just is this a growth opportunity?
Is this for you? A chance for you guys to bond
more, to get more closer, more intimate and grow together?
Yeah, because stonewalling goes two ways.
So there's a recipient and there's a person that does it.
A. Giver, recipient, I don't know
the person who's doing it or there's two people doing it at
the same time. But so it's, it's, it's got a
two sides to it. 1 is how it is received.
And we're going to dive into that in more stories because
like I said, it might not always be stonewalling.
What's going on for the person may not be stonewalling for the
person doing it. It might not be I'm stonewalling
because, you know, I'm shutting down.
I might actually be, I am so overwhelmed.
My brain is not functioning. Their intention isn't
stonewalling, but to the recipient, it is stonewalling
because they know no different. And so I was just thinking as
you were talking, you know, for you, you, you Stonewall in that
moment, shut down and then later the issue is not a big deal.
Your partner has received that stonewalling is probably hurt,
frustrated, disappointed, confused, whatever The thing is
by the stonewalling, by the lack of engagement in that scenario.
And then either it's just left undone for them, like you said
it, it could still be an issue for them, not the the issue
itself, but the actual engagement.
Or, you know, if it's a pattern for them as well, which it may
be, if they're seeing this reflected all the time, they may
then go into stonewalling. So from your perspective, you're
like, oh, I don't want to rock the boat.
It's all OK now, but they're actually stonewalling like so it
could just become something that builds on itself.
And so absolutely. And the one thing that I didn't
read, but I will just now in the Gotman summary of stonewalling
is they talk about the antidote to stonewalling.
And their antidote is physiological self self
soothing. I couldn't say that the first
time and I can't say it this time, but basically recognising,
so they say, recognise the signs of stonewalling and take a break
from the discussion physiologically, self soothe by
engaging in calming activities for at least 20 minutes.
So that means if you know you're getting heated as you come into
a situation or a conversation and you can feel those walls
going up where the stonewalling is about to start you, you can
start to train yourself to be aware of your triggers before
they happen, which we've had to do in different scenarios as
well. Feeling like, OK, I'm getting to
this point and I know once I get past that point is kind of too
far and, and putting a fail safe.
Is that the word in at that stage where you a circuit
breaker or something so that you're like, I'm not going to go
further down that way. I can feel that happening.
So I need to go do my 20 minutes of self soothing, whatever that
might be, mindfulness, shower, go for a walk, going outside and
looking at the mountain, something like that to calm
yourself. So being aware of those things.
But the interesting little example that they gave, they did
an exercise or an experiment on, I think it was 30 couples where
they interrupted couples after 15 minutes of an argument and
they just said that they needed to fix something tech wise.
So they had to come in and and take a break.
And so they interrupted these couples and they asked them to
go sit separately while they fixed this tech, but they just
wanted them to read magazines. That's all they wanted to do.
And then when they started to talk again, their heart rates
were way lower and the interaction was way more
productive and way more positive.
And so basically they figured out that during that time,
because they're reading magazines that are separated,
they were physiologically soothing themselves by reading
and avoiding discussion. So they calm down.
And once they were calm, they were actually able to
communicate a lot better. So, you know, the suggestion is
taking that time, which we've kind of suggested, you know, if
you're getting overwhelmed, you know, I can't talk about this
right now and taking the time you need until you have calmed
down to talk about it. But the really important key and
the reason I'm bringing this up again is it's not time to take
away and be like, they said this, they said this, I'm a
victim. And they, and they say this on
the government side as well to avoid the thoughts of
indignation and victimhood. So you're not sitting there just
being like, how dare they? And then having the argument in
your head and then reinforcing the argument, take that time to
be like, why am I reacting this way?
Especially if you feel that stonewalling in yourself, take
that time and be like, where does this come from?
And why am I reacting this way? Or what is it that they said
that triggered me so much? Especially if you have your
relationships usually healthy and you get along really well,
there's going to be something that's triggering that so you
reflect internally. And even if you're the recipient
of stonewalling and you've been put into one of these breaks,
instead of sitting there and be like, they always do this, they
always shut down and they never want to communicate.
And why they stonewalling, you could take a SEC and reflect on
yourself. Why am I so triggered?
Why am I feeling this way? And maybe even take a SEC and be
like, I've recognised this pattern in my partner that they
Stonewall. And so why might they be
stonewalling? And instead of it being like a,
they're doing this to me, taking that moment to be curious like
you suggested and be like, why are, why do they do this?
Like is there anything I know about them that might play into
this? And if you can switch that
break, I reckon that's a game changer.
It's not just about having a break.
Everyone just has their little argument in the bathroom at the
mirror and they get more angry and then they come back is.
That what you do. Have you never done that?
Are you kidding me? Don't do that.
I'm serious. Is that actually your thing?
Oh, A. 100%. On this picture, you walk walk
into the bathroom. You're like.
I even made a TikTok about it one time.
I don't know if I posted it. It was just it was just like
what you do in the bathroom and it was like me at my mirror and
you make you don't talk but you go like why?
Because it's not talking, but it's like talking.
Why? I don't know.
Don't ask me this. Question I'm a normal person I.
I'm a normal person I. Mean yes you are.
I know you have arguments in your head.
Oh no, yeah, definitely in my head, but.
Not in front of this is what Blair does.
He has arguments in his head and his hands just get like clenchy
and I can just see him like his jaw's clenchy and his eyes are
going all over. Yeah, because I couldn't.
See, your mind sounds that much, much weirder.
It's, it's I've, it's quite a bit weirder.
I put it up to the weirdness. I'm just releasing the energy,
you're just holding it inside. Yeah, but you're looking at
yourself, getting angry at yourself.
Why am I getting so defensive in this moment?
Basically, I think being helpful to yourself.
If you know that you can't communicate well, you know this
pattern. You're aware of it because
you've just shared it with us. What is a way that you can still
communicate that even to your partner?
And maybe you have, but even just a lot of these stories like
just having a SEC when you're outside of the emotions saying
to your partner, I really struggle and I don't like that I
struggle. I'm aware that that's not
helpful in the moment and work shopping with them.
What can we do that's going to make this better?
What would make it better for you?
What's going to make it better for me?
When do I see it escalating that I need to intervene?
Or, you know, what's a way we can put something in place, like
a check in where we have the emotions removed and it's
actually just for communication so we know that's what's
expected of us. Being your own helper in that I
think is a really helpful way of navigating it.
You know something, since doing this podcast I have, I have
realised how numb I am to the thoughts of you being frustrated
at me outside of when we're talking seriously.
You don't. Care.
No, it's not that I don't care. I just like no you're good but
it just does not enter my mind. Like I'm just so oblivious.
The guy just picturing you yelling at yourself in the
mirror. Well, it's not usually to about
you. Sometimes it's about yeah, yeah,
OK. And doesn't happen that often.
It used to happen more like as a teenager type.
Yeah, yeah. But just, I don't know.
It's just, it's, it's good. It's refreshing to be like, Oh
no, I've still got some stuff. I've got, I've sort of worked on
some stuff we've got, still got a way to go.
It's actually refreshing to know that you get frustrated at me.
Do you get frustrated at me? Very rarely.
See, this is a weird dynamic, yeah.
Very rarely. One thing.
I, you know, and I, we had a conversation today.
I feel I bring a lot more baggage to the relationship.
Which we did discuss and I don't agree with that.
I think everybody brings baggage and I don't think it's a helpful
or even possible to some extent exercise to weigh that baggage.
Like it's not. You can't compare baggage to
baggage, and your baggage and your way of functioning is very
external. It's very loud and obvious and
straight away and dealt with quickly, but it's also gone
quickly. And, well, most, most of them
are. Yeah, yeah.
But whereas mine's a lot more slow burn, not super obvious,
kind of seeps into a lot of the ways that I function.
So I don't think it's, well, I think.
I think it's more that I feel that my stuff, because it's
external loud, it impacts others more.
Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
And that's where I feel like the impact is different.
So yours is quieter and more yes it might be more impactful for
you, but mine I feel is more impactful for others.
I know how you could feel that way, but if I'm bitter at you or
frustrated at you silently in my head and that's coming on,
that's what. I'm saying I'm naive to.
It I, I know, but if, but you do like even before you're like,
are you annoyed at me because I was overwhelmed?
Like you do see it play out in my same with my family, like it
comes out with the kids and in the way that I interact with my
house and that kind of thing. So I think again, I just think
it's different and I wouldn't want someone like me.
I would be really mad. I would really struggle with
someone like me. But that's what I mean like
because in my head, you it's so internal for you.
So again, this is the refreshing part is I feel like I'm seeing
more of what's going on inside. And that's great because now
it's like, Oh cool, I'm seeing and.
He's messed up too. We're.
Messed up together, no, but this it's refreshing to know that
we're growing together because up until now I feel like I I
felt like I was the main 1 putting baggage on my family.
I'm really sad about that because that's absolutely not
the case, yeah. But again, it's just the the
beauty of communicating, the beauty of digging deep is I can
see that side and I feel you. Can see all the baggage input,
yeah. Well, I feel like I'm actually
more a part of your baggage. Where before because I didn't
know about it. Yeah.
Which is a really, really good example of the benefits of
working on stonewalling because I know first hand how hard it
can be to navigate stonewalling. And I think the erosion that
that can do to, there's so many things that erode, erode
relationships, just to be clear. But the erosion it can do in
like just a really almost subtle but super damaging way is huge
if it's not dealt with. That's why it's one of the four
horsemen. And I think it's also why it's
not something that's super well understood because it's not
necessarily something we hear, you know, we hear criticism, we
hear that all the time. We know what criticism is.
We know what offensiveness is. The other one, contempt is a
weird word, but I like bitterness or like hate
basically is what that is. We know those things.
Stonewalling's like subtle, but it's actually it's just as bad
do. You feel like you struggle with
stonewalling. I think I'm, I'm much more than
you, yeah. And I definitely have had
moments where I have, but I think we've got really good
practical stuff in place. I can see my brain doing it.
And I think that's one positive too, is like, it's just because
this is a pattern doesn't mean it's how you are or how you have
to be or how you have to interact for the rest of your
relationship. Like that's not it at all.
You've recognised a pattern and you can then work on it.
And that's one cool thing about these patterns is they are
reversible. There are things you can work
on. They talk about the antidotes
with these things. So it's actually almost exciting
because it's like, oh man, how much space is there to grow,
like to be closer? And there is another way.
And there is another that's. Really, really important to
state and again, going back to guys, a lot of guys just want to
see that there's another way, you know, and I'm just so
passionate about that. It's just of of sharing these
things for people like myself, guys, girls, whatever, to seeing
that there is another way we can actually grow on these things.
So when we find something that we're struggling with, we can do
something about it. Yeah, we can work on.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Thank you for sharing. Yeah, thanks mate.
Really. Appreciate, really appreciate
the story. Question is your jumper inside
out? Oh, I meant to say that.
And even when we were doing that chat just then I was like, oh, I
need to say that and I still didn't.
Yes it is. And this is the reason why all
of my jumpers are branded and not just branded, but branded
with like companies we've, organisations, we've worked with
all. Camps we've been on.
All camps have been on so I don't really we're.
Ashamed of all? I'm not ashamed of them, I don't
I think they'd be ashamed of me. I genuinely don't want to put
their name to our stuff just for their sake.
So yes I do need to get well we both need to get non branded
hoodies especially as winter is. We can do our own brand.
Which is also an option, but we've got to figure that out.
That's the whole thing. Yeah.
So yes, my jump ray is inside out.
Please ignore it. I've also got tonnes of our
golden retriever here. I was like, I feel like a black
hoodie today. And then I put it on and
realised my golden retriever is blonde golden, you might even
say. So we're going to dive into some
Reddit stories now on stonewalling as well.
We'll we'll hear some of these stories workshop on how we would
navigate them if This Is Us. Hey guys, just wanted to pop in
and take a SEC to talk about the extra content you can find over
on our Patreon and our Spotify subscription.
We have a fun little community growing over there with extra
episodes, extra stories. We're also going to have
resources, messages back and forth and also submitting
listener stories through that portal as well.
So outro themes. If you want to be a part of our
closer knit community here at honey, we need to chat.
Please hop on over to Patreon or Spotify subscriptions and join
us there. We would love to see you.
Thanks guys. Thanks.
So the next story is titled Stonewalling and argument
escalation. During a recent argument with my
significant other, me 30s male, her late 20s female, she pointed
out that I have a habit of stonewalling her.
After taking some time to read up on it, I realise that's
exactly what I do. I become defensive, emotionally
withdraw and try to de escalate by stopping the argument or
walking away to cool down. However, despite her recognising
that I'm getting emotionally flooded to the point where I
can't rationally respond, she doesn't seem to understand that
I need to stop. I've recognised that if I don't
end up taking a break from the argument, I'll just become
increasingly defensive and eventually lash out and say
things I will always regret afterwards.
I've told her that before several times, but it still
seems like me stonewalling her is the only thing she sees as an
issue, not that she keeps laying an emotional barrage on me when
I'm clearly at my limits. While articles will discuss the
importance of letting someone who's emotionally exhausted take
a break, they also often times seem to place the blame entirely
on the person engaging in the stonewalling behaviour.
So my question is, how do I get her to recognise that I'm trying
to stop the arguments from escalating further by taking a
break from it for a moment? I know stonewalling behaviour
isn't healthy, especially since it seems to upset women so much
anyway, but but pushing someone further when they clearly need a
break doesn't seem like a healthy option either.
In general we don't argue that much or that often with the
exception of very recently due to a lot of emotionally charged
things going on. But when we do, it always seems
to end up with me wanting to check out from the argument and
her oppressing me until I lash out and say something hurtful
which then causes the situation to further escalate until I end
up sleeping on the couch and her being angry at me for days.
Just to be clear, I think stonewalling would hurt anybody.
Yes, it may be, there may be there's a pattern of women
experiencing stonewalling more, but I think no matter who's
receiving it, it would upset them.
Absolutely, yeah. Is that what you were going to
say? Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah, This is, this is 1.
I think you said at the beginning, is it stonewalling?
Stonewalling, yeah. And well, first of all, he
doesn't say that. He says I'll come back to this,
doesn't he? So he doesn't mention that.
But I can completely relate to that overwhelmed feeling.
You know, it's just like, oh, man, like I feel like I'm
terrible at debates, you know what I mean?
Like, I can have a conversation with someone, but when it comes
to debates, I get overwhelmed and my brain just shuts down.
And like, I can't. I just can't.
I don't agree with you. I know I don't agree with you
and I know I've got reasons, but I can't think of any reasons.
I can't actually think of what to say right now.
So I completely relate to that, that overwhelmed feeling and
just shutting down. Like, I don't know what to say
right now. I don't know how to communicate
to you right now. It's like in those moments for
me, I feel like I'm a deer in headlights.
Like my eyes is like, what you what?
You want to what? Like, yeah.
I I also understand, although I don't react the same way, but I,
I know the moments why I'm just so overwhelmed that my brain
doesn't think publicly. And so it's actually great.
I think that he's recognised that that's what's happening for
him. And I think you're right.
The thing that came to mind when we, when I read this was he says
in here question is how do I get her to realise?
I'm trying to stop the arguments from escalating further by
taking a break for a moment. So potentially that is just
maybe he does want to come back to it and she just still doesn't
really get it in my thinking. I feel like if you prove
yourself to be like, hey, I need to take a break, I will come
back to this. And you prove that that's going
to happen. I think your partner would start
to trust that. And so if you're able to prove
to them, you're able to say, not only do I need to take a break,
but I'm going to come back to this.
I promise you, I'm going to come back to this and and you
actually follow through on that. She's going to have more
confidence in that. I can imagine this playing out
as a regular thing where he takes a break, he doesn't
discuss the thing. He shuts down because he's too
overwhelmed and he just doesn't come back.
And that I can see being a like almost a panicked reaction from
her perspective, being like you, you don't come back.
You'd like, why don't, why can't you talk about this now?
You don't come back. And I almost like we're in this,
I need to discuss it. I'm not going to have closure.
We're not going to be able to get closer or resolve this until
we come back to it. But you never come back.
You just shut down. We had to learn this.
Yeah, we had to learn this. I still remember that night in
the rain. I don't.
Remember very. Well, so.
Then we made out no, it, it was, it's such a vivid moment because
I feel like it was so many light bulbs that went off in my mind
and that's why I think I remember it so much.
And and you said this, you like, I just can't talk about this
right now. And it was hard for me to like
go, I'm like, no, no, you won't, you know, and you had to build
my trust in that. And it seems weird saying it,
but you did. I, I just, I had this maybe
control issue because like, if I was afraid that if we didn't, if
you didn't bring it back up again, then I couldn't, we
couldn't like talk about it. And whatever it was that we were
talking about, I'm like, I don't want to keep going back to this
situation. So I want to address it.
And I think it was this big drive for me back then too,
because I'm like, I want to be better at communicating.
I want us to be a couple that communicate.
Why won't you communicate with me?
And so, yeah, I feel like we've definitely experienced that.
And for me it was a control thing, not out of me trying to
be controlling person, but I just wanted to be able to make
sure that the conversation was going to happen.
I I completely agree with what you're saying, but don't expect
that to happen that time like that.
Trust me, built off 1. Conversation.
It won't be, no. It'll be like it took us
multiple. We had to work on it for a while
about OK, I need you to trust me.
And I I believe this is sort of what you said.
I need you to trust me. I will bring this up again.
And I had to and it was very, very, very hard.
And it we had to work a lot. I.
Want to know what we were talking about?
It's. Probably something really
important. I'm really intrigued.
I have no clue. Yeah.
I think that's, I think that's really helpful.
And you're saying that, you know, this is a pattern and
you're wrestling with it. You need her to understand, I
think one quick challenge as well as you need to understand
her side. So regardless of what's going
on, you're wanting her to understand something.
Maybe take a SEC and try to understand her side so that when
you do come back to the conversation, you're not just, I
need you to understand this, you do need her to understand this,
but you also need to understand her.
So if you can come to that conversation, showing you've
taken time to address and acknowledge what she might be
experiencing, I think that will speak volumes.
But outside of your emotions, outside of those moments, sit
her down, say, hey, I'm real. I really struggle.
I'm sorry. I recognise that that's hard.
I really, really struggle. My brain turns off and I can't
process and then I snap and I'm sorry and I hate the things that
I say to you because they're not true.
I, I just need that space. So we need to figure out a way
so that I can love you the way I need to love you.
In those conversations, we can have the conversations we need
to have, but so that I also am given space so that my brain can
process and I can come back to it.
Because if he's trying to, if he's trying to address that
issue inside of a heated conversation, So you're not
going to get anywhere. If you come at me later and you
say, look, I'm trying to like, I, I, I shut down because you
keep, I'm, my barrier's going to be up, my wall's going to be up
and I'm going to be snapping you back.
It's just, you know, going to go straight back into the argument.
If you came at me owning your stuff and you're like, look,
this is something that I'm trying to work on.
I, I hear what you're saying, how it's hard for you when I
shut down and I Stonewall and I apologise for that.
I really want to get better. Like I just need you to commit
with me that we're going to work on that together, but let's just
explore that together. Why do I do it?
You know, if I can explain that to you or if you can explain
that to me, my approach, if you come at it from that
perspective, I'm like, yeah, I want to help you.
Like I definitely do want to help you.
And amongst that I'm going to be like, oh, that's I'm, yeah, this
is what I'm doing and that's how you're reacting.
Ah, that's going to be a lot more.
Yeah, exactly. And like they said in the Gutman
Institute explanation, instead of taking that time between
whenever you're having these conversations or whatever break
you do get or whenever you stop those conversations, to just
reinforce for yourself that she's victimising you in this
process. Reflecting internally, getting
yourself ready in that way, reflecting on what's happening
for you and what might be happening for her is going to be
so valuable. Yeah.
Because exactly that if you come at it and you're like, you just
keep shutting me down. And never she's.
She potentially has so many conversations that she writes
serious issues or into her pillow on her bed.
She potentially has all these things that have happened like
because we're just talking about how the conversation is going
now, we don't even know what you're discussing.
And so I think that's as the recipient to stonewalling, that
would be something that I would wrestle with because I'd be
like, yeah, I get it, I get it. But the issue that we're
actually discussing is also still an issue.
So being careful to not over shadow the issue at hand as well
or over shadow her feelings that she might be navigating, I think
is really important. So I think if you're asking what
you do, you say, well, your your question is how do I get her to
realise? And I think that's a touchy way
of putting a question. Yes, that needs to happen.
That's probably not the aim you need to have.
Maybe more the question should be how do I communicate this to
my partner? How do I let her know where I'm
coming from or how do I start that conversation or what can I
do to help deescalate myself, especially if there's hurtful
things being said. The all of these things build on
themselves. And so just because there's one
part that is misunderstood from your side doesn't mean that it's
going to be without emotional impact on her.
And I think that's an important thing when you're addressing the
conversation. Cool.
Maybe we'll go into the next one number number trace.
Number trace. Neuro trace boy for boy.
Yes OK. I think my 35 female boyfriend,
38 male is chronically stonewalling me.
So my boyfriend, 38 male and I-35 female have been together
for nearly four years. We live in a 900 square foot
space with his 11 year old daughter and our two month old.
Needless to say we don't have a lot of privacy or personal space
where we live since we've been together.
Whenever we fight and things start to escalate he almost
always says something like I'm done with this conversation or
fine you win or we can't talk about this right now because my
daughter might here. Then proceeds to walk out or
leave sometimes for hours and give me the cold shoulder and
silent treatment all night. He usually wakes up the next day
like nothing happened. Sometimes I just try to brush it
under the rug but most times I lose sleep over this type of
behaviour. I feel shut down every time he
does this and when I feel like we haven't come to a resolution
and it's still heavy on my mind, I bring it up again in the
morning. This usually leads to him
throwing his hands up, getting upset and rolling his eyes and
quickly apologising. Most times I can tell he just
apologising to move on and shut me up rather than actually
acknowledging where I'm coming from.
He claims he does this when the conversation is going in circles
or he feels I don't listen, when that's not true at all.
I listen to every word he says, I just disagree most of the time
and want him to see my side. But when I relentlessly try to
get him to see my side, that's when he throws his hands up and
is over it. I will admit I tend to get
defensive a lot of the time and going forward I'm going to try
to recognise this and respond healthier.
I found that there's such a thing as stonewalling while
Google searching this and I think this is what I'm dealing
with. I feel like our conflicts rarely
actually come to a resolution. I rarely feel understood or
acknowledged and often am accused of not listening.
Today I told him I'm on the verge of considering leaving him
over this. I'm already losing sleep being
up with our newborn multiple times a night.
I can't lose sleep over stressing about our relationship
and constantly feeling alone and invalidated.
I don't want him to feel not hurt or validated, just like I
equally want this reciprocated. My question is this.
Is this stonewalling behaviour? If so, how do we move forward
with this in a healthier way of communicating?
I want to work on this relationship for the sake of our
daughter and we have a great relationship other than this
unhealthy way of dealing conflict.
First of all, it's really sad that she's considering leaving
him. I know.
Yeah. She says she's got a really
healthy relationship other than this.
And it's like, man, this is worth fighting for.
Like, it's. Yeah.
I mean, people have their reasons, and I'm not one to tell
them what they should and shouldn't do.
But this is what we're fighting for is a healthy relationships
and the fight for relationships and the fight for relationships
to get stronger and better. Yeah, and for there to be 1
pattern that throws that out the window always boggles my mind.
And I don't know that that's always accurate because I think
one thing might be actually impacting a lot of things.
But yeah, it does seem quite extreme.
I think the thing that came to my mind while I was reading this
was she talks about how she gets defensive.
And one of the things, again, that they talk about in the
Government Institute is defensiveness.
So there's. Criticism, defensiveness,
contempt and stonewalling. And it's, again, a story that is
very much on he's doing this thing, what is he doing?
But she actually said that he, in the conversations, talks
about how she doesn't listen. And she said that usually he
throws up his hands when she's trying over and over and over to
let him see her side. And so I was thinking, to me,
this sounds like there's more communication dynamics at play
than just him stonewalling. And if defensiveness is in that
communication, that is a really tough thing to navigate as well.
And from his perspective could be just as difficult as
navigating stonewalling. So I think that's, I'm glad
she's aware of it. I and she said she's going to be
more aware of that as she goes into these things.
But I think defensiveness in a in an argument is super
difficult to get past, just like stonewalling, because you're
literally putting up a wall of defence.
And so you don't get further. Like it's almost like you just
don't get past. Yeah, but you do this or yeah,
but I do this and this and this. So that doesn't matter.
Like those kinds of things talk you in a circle kind of the same
way that stonewalling would. You, we, we had a conversation
last night about something that our oldest boys are going
through. And we spoke about how we would
help each other, like address the way that we speak to the
boys so that they don't speak to each other that way.
Yeah, right. And how we pull each other up
in, in a, in a loving way. And you mentioned how you would
really struggle with that, but you want to do it, but you would
really struggle with that. Is that defensiveness?
Yeah. From your side.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How have, because not that I
don't struggle with defensiveness, but because you
brought it up last night, so I feel it's a bit more fresh.
How would you work on identifying that in yourself?
And then how do you work on it when you've identified it?
That's a good question. I just quickly flicked back as
well to what the Government Institute say about
defensiveness too, because it is a tough one.
They say the antidote is to accept responsibility, even if
only for part, and avoid blaming your partner, acknowledge your
role in the issue. So I don't know, it's a good
question. Defensiveness is definitely the
one that I see play out the most with us.
And for me in particular, it's really, I find it extremely hard
when I misunderstood. So I understand her perspective
of being like, I need him to understand my side.
I it really irks me to be misunderstood.
And so that's usually where the the defensiveness will come in
for me. I'll usually get offensive
because I'm like, yeah, but you're pointing this out on me,
but what about you do the same thing?
This instance is my bad, but you do it all these other times.
So I find that really hard because I'm like, I feel
misunderstood. The reality is I still did the
thing. And so I still need to own up to
that. And so I think it's genuinely
just quite a personal process to work on because you need to
become OK at accepting the fact that you're going to play a role
in things. You're going to bring the
baggage like we're talking about.
You're going to bring those things to relationships.
When there's a disagreement, there's almost always multiple
sides to it. There's almost always two people
playing into whatever it is you're navigating.
And so I think until you can just hear and accept your role,
especially if it's already a sensitive thing for you, you're
going to find it hard to just have a conversation without that
springing up. It's not very practical, but
it's kind of just. An interesting it sounds like
it's more of a personal thing because I'm even coming from the
perspective, do I help you in this?
Like how can I help you in this? You do, I think sometimes like
you when you approach things, you try to do it gently.
So I think you do help with that.
But yeah, I don't know what the practical, practical help with
that. My bigger trigger for defensive
is if you brought something out to me and I'm not prepared.
So if I'm not prepared, I can find myself very defensive.
So I think the benefit for us is I tend to be the person who's
brought it up. So I tend to have kind of
already assessed what's happening and why it's happening
and how I'm feeling and how you're feeling and try to
address it more gently. If your goal as a couple is to
be stronger and have better communication, you need to be
entering into those conversations thinking about how
the other person's going to receive it.
So she could take that instead of saying you Stonewall, have a
conversation and say, I've become aware that I am quite
defensive in arguments and I'm really sorry about that.
I need help with this because I'm trying to work on it, but I
find it really hard when you raise things in a way that's
like quick to point the finger or you raise things when I'm not
prepared or whatever The thing is.
Like just assess that for yourself and if she can get him
on side. Can you help me with this?
I think that's one really good step.
It's so easy when you've been hurt while you think you've been
hurt or you have been hurt or something's gone in a way that's
not constructive to come in and be like, you did this.
But instead of like just taking a second to be like, how would
he best receive this for the outcome that we want as a
couple? And think about the words that
you say. I think that's going to really
help your own defensiveness as well.
If we're both getting defensive, I find it really hard to calm
down from that if we're bouncing off each other.
And that's, again, you still kind of like stonewalling.
You're just bouncing back and forth.
You're both defensive. You're not in a great headspace.
You need to take a SEC, stop the conversation and come back.
I think it's a matter of like, I really think they should go
through this, this, you know, like this kind of be sorry.
That she asks for is there. Yeah.
That's what I'm thinking of. Instead of it being, like, books
for me to fix his stonewalling. Yeah.
That, I think is just an important thing across the
board. First point of call should not
be like, how do I fix this thing?
And my husband, how do I help him fix this thing?
Yeah. How do you fix yourself?
Because almost always is going to be multiple sides.
Yeah. And almost always more efficient
if you start to work on yourself before addressing those things.
But even work on those things. Work on yourself first, but
openly. With him.
With him, you know, I mean, just like I, I identify that I do
this and I really want to work on that, you know, it's not just
a matter of just doing. Internally.
Because because you could come back and then say like, give up
and doing all this work. Yeah.
And you've done nothing. You know he doesn't know.
Yeah, it's your responsibility until it's communicated.
And so communicating as clearly as you can about how you're
feeling, about what you're trying to work on, you don't
have to avoid the fact that he doesn't react well.
Like you can still mention that. But I think if your focus is
working there first, I think, I reckon that we would find the
best transformation in this situation by doing that.
This one, I'm I'm not sure it's stonewalling completely.
Look. There might be stonewalling in
it, but it's a, it's a lot more than just, is it stonewalling?
It's like, yeah, cool, maybe, but there's other stuff in there
as well. Look at your history, yeah.
How you work as a couple and start working on yourselves and
your triggers. Yeah, cool.
All right. Well, that's on stonewalling
guys and. That was good.
Even just that analysis. Is this stonewalling?
I think it just makes me think so much deeper about the
conversation. You know what I mean?
And and even just the growth is just like again, it's not it's
not clique cut Stonewaller, Stonewaller, it's.
Like man, we're so trigger happy in this world.
We're so and us as individuals so trigger happy to just like
point the finger and be like that's what it is and sometimes
it is. But that I just don't think
there's much to lose by being a bit curious about the situation.
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
Great, great topics, babe. Yeah, well, thank you.
Thank you chatter again, really appreciate your story and thank
you to these Reddit people that will never know that we'll never
know. Imagine just listening to a
podcast one day and be like, oh, that's me, that's my story.
That's. My story.
Well, if you do, I hope you keep listening.
Awesome. Well, chat TBT is gonna shut us
out because today's topic was Stonewall.
I asked it to do a theme of Stonewall.
Just a Just a Stonewall. Stonewalls.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and there you have it.
No more walls between us, at least for today.
We've tackled the tough stuff, breaking down what stonewalling
is and how to chip away at those emotional barriers.
Don't let this combo be the end. Take what we've uncovered and
start demolishing those walls in your own relationships.
Remember, open hearts, open minds.
Catch you next time on Honey. We need a chat where we keep
breaking barriers and building connections.
Stay open, stay awesome. Good shot.
Thanks guys.