Purpose of of the podcast is communication and relationship.
When we're going through this like we, we notice that dropped
our ability to communicate, dropped everything that we've
been preaching and sharing and prioritising, it dropped.
Honey, we need to. Chat and we are back.
Welcome back to season 2 of Honey We Need to Chat far out
Brussels sprout. It's been it's been a minute,
it's been a minute. So for those who are tuning in
for the first time, this is the first episode back of season 2
of Honey We Need to Chat podcast.
What have we been doing? We had a much longer break than
anticipated. We initially decided to take a
break, I think it was October or maybe end of September last
year, because we were suddenly thrust into the area of moving
house, selling house, buying house.
We say when we say thrust into. We decided to.
Well, we weren't thrusted. Into it put on us.
Well, it was like, it was like we understood.
We came to the realisation that it was an option to do something
about our house situation, which we've been struggling with for a
little bit. And then it's like, oh, we can
do this, let's do it. And also the time frame of it
wasn't going to be long, long standing.
So I'm glad we got it done. It was hectic.
When we took the break, we decided it just wasn't going to
work for us to try and record and edit and release episodes
while we were doing everything. Did think it was going to be
more like a month. It was not a month as you guys.
Hotel. Yeah, in February now and that
happened in September last year. So it's been half a year almost.
Wow, that's crazy, but thank you for everyone that's been
reaching out and contacting us still during this time.
Again, the best thing about doing this podcast is actually
well, no, sorry. The best thing about this
podcast is doing this with Amy and the input that it has into
our relationship. The second best thing is you
guys like just that communication with you guys and
that seeing how how whole relationship of things that
we're working through conversations that we're having
is impacting your relationship. That's really encouraging
because you know, we're just your ordinary people.
We're everyday people discussing everyday struggles and a big
heart behind this podcast has helped to help others to realise
that they can do it too. You guys can do it.
And so you sharing that with us as being a real highlight,
especially through this this period of busyness and craziness
and not podcasting. Yeah, life.
Life in. Real life and thank you so much
for your patience during this time.
As we said, it went for longer than we expected and we didn't
keep you guys as up to date as we kind of hoped that we would
throughout the process. So thank you for your patience.
For those of you that have returned with us in Season 2, we
are so thankful that you're here.
We also recognise it's going to take a bit of regrowing and
getting momentum back again. So absolutely up to that task.
Also, we would love to encourage you guys to help us with that
too. If you like this podcast, if
this has been a blessing to you, please continue to share it,
promote it. Yeah, subscribe guys like I'm.
Over and over, yeah. You hear that all the time,
right on different podcasts and YouTube channels.
It does help us out a lot just to get that engagement out
there, to get that awareness out there.
Like share, Subscribe goes a big, big ways.
Before you keep going, just click that really quickly.
Whatever you're listening to on right now, subscribe, like share
it to one person. That would be a huge help to us.
Yeah. And I think, you know, you can
get into this rhythm where your algorithm or your phone like
setup prompts you to listen to the thing that you're engaging
with or watch the whatever platform you're engaging with
and not realise that you haven't actually subscribed, liked,
followed, whatever you want to call it.
But those things, as we've said, are what help us grow.
And so without them, even though you might be getting benefit
from hearing us because you're here every week, other people
won't see us if we can't grow. So we would love a little push
from you guys. And that's more than we should
be asking for because of being gone for five months.
But we're going to be doing it too from our end.
And we're really excited to hit the ground running.
And I'm going, I'm not going to lie, we're not fully prepared.
Like we've even up until today, like literally setting up the
room today. Yeah, it's not fully set up, as
you can see if you're looking at the videos.
We do have space now because we've moved into a much, much
larger house than we were in previously.
So it will be amazing. But it has been a little bit of
a leap of faith to be like, OK, we're going to release in
February because neither of us felt ready.
And I think we could have put it off and put it off and put it
off. But we're just, yeah.
And it's little things, too. You're like, Amy's holding her
microphone because we can't find our other microphone.
That's just the beauty of me. Anything.
You can never find anything. And we will find it after we've
bought a new one. Fairly confident that's what's
gonna happen. Yeah.
Absolutely. But the other very exciting
thing and hopefully we'll be playing out in how the podcast
is presented to you guys, although invisibly to you, is
our kids are all at school or daycare.
Hallelujah time since having our our complete family, all the
kids are out of the house Thursdays, Fridays we've got
baby in daycare and the three older ones are all in school.
So Oh my gosh, hopefully that frees us up so much more.
Which is an exciting time, like an exciting season that we're
entering into as well. So even having today, you know,
I mean, I like, wow, there's no kids in the house and we both
work from home. So, you know, it's school
holidays and working from home is Oh my goodness, like that is
a kick to the face 5. Times it was long.
Yeah, it was hard. Sorry.
You know, it's been really, really nice to have this time,
but it's also getting used to this time as well.
How do we use it productively? What does this look like now
entering into that season? And one of the big things we
wanted to prioritise was this podcast.
So we're really excited to start back up again.
We're really excited for this season.
We have we're, we're not mixing it up crazily, but something
that is big and exciting for this season is, you know, during
this break that we've had the interviews that we've been
having. So we have been actually still
recording a number of episodes with some interviews over this
break to be able to bring that, you know, we, we've got some.
So in this episode we'll be sharing about that break, what
that looked like for us, the difficulties we had in that
season through our communication, through our
relationship. But even in that, we still made
that priority of of getting guests to speak into our
situation as well, which was really, you know, impactful for
us and exciting for the podcast. Yeah, a lot more interviews
happening this season compared to last season and some, I mean
they are solid. They are really solid.
And there's more to come. So yeah, watch this space.
They they definitely add an extra pzazz to the episodes.
Pzazz. In fact, they add everything to
the other side. So yeah, they won't just be us
this this season. So anyway, here we are.
We're going to dive in into season 2.
Fuck, honey, we need a chat. So starting us off strong and on
topic that we've already kind of dived into we're going to do a
would you rather? Yeah, old school honey, we need
a chat. Cool, I'm going to find that
because that's my task. Would you rather, and this is
very relevant, this is very, very relevant.
Would you rather have to move houses every year for the rest
of your life or live in one house forever but never be able
to change anything about it, not even the furniture?
This is the thing, right? We did move house every year for
the first seven years of our lives together.
And it was a lot. Yeah.
And we love being more stable. If we had to move into this
house and we couldn't have changed.
Anything we. Would literally be dead by now,
so yeah. Yeah, share, share that.
Well, no, let's get, we'll share that after.
But no, absolutely. If we had to move into this
house when we first got it, no, I would rather move every year.
Yeah, every year. But if we moved into this house
as it is now. Then I would struggle not to
change anything, but I do think it would be better than moving
every year. Yeah, absolutely.
So this is still a fixer up house, right?
We still got some work to do on this place.
But if I had to pick, I would still pick to stay here and not
move anything, especially in light of where we've just been
through. It was hard and and yeah, I
would just stay with as it is. Blair's really set on never
moving again. And I think, you know, we've
only been two months in the South now.
And so it was, it was a lot. And but we also have four
children very young. And I said the only reason I
would want to move again or the only way I'd be happy to move
again is if we had a lot of money that we could pay someone
to do literally every step. And we didn't have any rush in
terms of selling, Selling was the worst.
Selling was the worst part of the whole thing.
Moving in and of itself is annoying, but selling and then
buying and the logistics that went into that was a lot huge
blessing that we can don't get us wrong, like the fact that we
can do that is huge and we we don't wanna complain in in face
of that. No, but it was a lot so.
Let's get into this is this is what we wanted to sort of talk
about in today's episode is going through.
What? We what, what's life been like
for us in the last few months? Why did it take so us so long to
get back into recording again or releasing episodes again?
Oh, so we, you know, we were in this house, it was our first
house. You know, we're a family of six.
And look, it was a great first house.
It was, it was great. We moved in first house.
Love that we only had three kids at the time and all three kids
were in the same room. It worked, but we knew it
wouldn't be long term. Then comes along #4 #4 provided
some difficulty. So at first he was in with us.
That stopped working because we, well, I think from our first
three we didn't had done a lot of sleep training and so forth.
And it really helped because we had extra room and that would
have their own room and they wouldn't wake anyone up.
And you give you that space. To sleep train.
Yeah, they. Slept the whole, all of them
slept really well, but the other three slept really well.
But our youngest wasn't sleeping that great.
And so we're like cool, let's get him out of our room and get
him in with the other kids. So we had four kids in the same
room, toddler was one of them, and that didn't work well.
They literally told us they don't want him in there anymore,
which is not normal for them. Normally, they'd be like, let
him in here. And then they're like, I don't
want him in here. Yeah.
He just would keep him awake. He was.
He definitely has struggled with sleep more than the rest of
them. Yeah.
And because we both work from
home, we needed that office space.
Yeah. So we had an office, we had a
three bedroom house. The third bedroom was our office
slash studio where we recorded our episodes and we were holding
on for as long as we could because we just needed that
space. And then we like, look, ace is
not working. The kids are miserable.
We're miserable. We're we're getting less sleep
now because all the kids are awake, not just our toddler.
So he moved into our office, which is the other bedroom.
And so my office or our office went into our walk in wardrobe,
which was tiny and it was just very claustrophobic and it just
was not great. And, you know, we both have a
history of mental health struggles and so knowing like
things like natural light and so forth have been important to us
because of our previous struggles.
So it was hard. It was really, really hard.
We weren't on an income that would allow us to do anything
about it for a number of years. Some good things happened within
our careers and our work that then meant we got a pay bump,
went to our broker. So hey, this is our situation.
Help us, please. And he came back with really
good news, saying we could borrow actually quite a bit more
than we thought we would be able to.
And so we're like, all right, this needs to be done for our
sanity, for the sake of our family, for the sake of our
relationship where like we need to do something about this,
hence starting renovations. So that's the other thing too is
we had projects that we had been working on for the three years
we were living in the previous house that had not been
completed. And the idea that all of a
sudden now we need to complete all this stuff within a month
because self inflicted, we put that time pressure on and that
was like, all right. But we just had to get our head
down and just work. Like literally the whole of
September into October was just every night, every day, working,
working, working, getting the house with help from a lot of
family, which has been super amazing because it wouldn't have
happened literally without them. So it was just like, all right,
we've just got to knuckle down and do this.
This opportunity has come up. I've actually documented the
whole story because at so many points along the way, including
before we found out that we could even buy a house that was
larger and would fit us better, I like there was just so many
like genuinely miraculous crazy situations that just shouldn't
have worked out the way they did.
And so grateful for that journey, as painful as as
extremely exhausting as it was. But yeah, it's, it was just a
month of like, let's, let's do this, let's get it done.
The funny thing was to when we first met with our real estate
agent to sell, we were saying to her, we know we want a four
bedroom house. We just need an extra bedroom.
That's all we need is an extra bedroom just to get some kids, a
little bit more space. And then I, I remember saying to
her when she came in, because we were looking at what was
available and that kind of thing and, and we could just squeeze
by like at a four bedroom house. And I remember saying like an
extra living space, like this was like a luxury in my head.
Like an actual living space would be amazing.
And I was like, but I'm not holding my breath.
We just need that fourth bedroom.
She's like easy. So we started working towards
that. And then we saw this House, this
house and I, this what I mean by everything was just so perfectly
aligned, difficult, but perfectly aligned it.
Was it was difficult because we made it difficult and I want to
probably touch on that a little bit later.
Like a lot of the difficulty was our stress and our anxiety of
things that around it that didn't need to be there.
But if we just chilled, it would have been like click, click,
click into place. Like that was our experience
with. This yeah, but we'll come back
to that. Struggling, yeah, more than we
needed to, but yeah, so we at the same time as just deciding
to list and not even being ready to list, like we're still two to
three weeks off because we've got to go.
All these things done on the House.
This house popped up and I was like, that's a big house.
And you know how you see like the floor plan and then you see
the photos and everything looks big, and then you go walk
through the house and it looks smaller in real life.
This one looked really big in the photos and it was like just
outside of our like range. And so we were like, I don't
know. Also we're not really ready to
put an offer on, but we just, I inquired with her and I got a
call the next morning and she's like just letting you know, he's
not quite ready to sell, but he's listing it.
There's a few things he needs to get in place and he's got
tenants so it won't be able to be lived in yet.
And I was like, that is so perfect for us because we aren't
ready to buy. Like we haven't sold our place
yet. It would be, it'd be on
conditional of our sale of their house and we wouldn't be moving
in for a while anyway, so we'd need a long settlement anyway.
We she's like, they've got tenants in, but I can squeeze
you in tomorrow. So we came in like 2 days after
this house was listed and walking through the house we're
just like, this is huge. Like it's so much.
Comparison to our last place like in.
Comparison in comparison to our last place, Yeah, but it's so
much bigger even than it looked on the photos.
And the reason it stood out to us was it had an extra living
room. It had a whole rumpus room, it
had the four bedrooms, a laundry, an office as well.
Yep, and this massive master bedroom.
So like the amount of space that we would be gaining was just
like beyond imaginable for us. The house was rough.
It was, it was in rough condition and.
You get that from from tenants over time, right?
And you know, just in case the. Tenants are listening.
To this but it's we don't know where the mess started and like
it could have. Been a long change.
Yeah, yeah. Tenants.
Yeah, yeah. 'Cause I know that cause one of
the things that was really great about this place, it dropped
$100,000 over a year because they couldn't sell it and they
tried. To sell it the year before and
it was only listed for I think it was 16 days or something like
that and it didn't sell. So then they just re listed it
right when we were ready, which again is another one of those
things. It's like, wow, it could have
sold the year before. So after we saw it, we said, you
know, we're really interested in this place, didn't think it was
going to happen to us. Every step we're like, it's
probably not going to work out, but we're like, we'll talk to
our broker. The broker's like, look, you can
say conditional, conditional on the sale of your house and offer
them a low price because of the state of the, the property.
It might not work, but you might as well try.
So we did. And then a few days later she's
like, he's accepted your offer. Well, I think we like met him a
little bit higher than we did, but we like, yeah, we, we did.
We got it was just amazing. Not to get into too much detail
about that, but, and he accepted it.
Condition of our sale of our house, a 90 day settlement, like
all these things just like fell into place and then we're like
all right. And then every step we're like,
but we've got to get our house sold by then.
So that was a whole, whole stress.
On me, yeah, we moved out of our place, our old place, and lived
with my mum for like a month. Yeah.
Which was hard because, you know, with a toddler out, we set
up our house for our family, right?
We know our family. We know you know you're baby
proof stuff you don't put. Things you get tired of stopping
him from doing, you make it so he can no longer do it.
Yeah. But then you go and live in
someone else's house for a month and.
There's all the whole new. Things You're unsettled, you
know you're not in your place. His sleep was bad.
It's tough. And then also added to it all
the stress that we were going through as well.
So very gracious of her to open her house to us twice actually.
We lived with her own team, for instance.
And if, again, if that didn't work out, we wouldn't have been
able to do what we did. So we did that and then this
amazing person came through at the last minute to buy our house
and. We were like, oh man, we're not
we're not gonna sell. We've had people walk through.
No, no one wants it. The.
Yard's too small. Like these are all the different
things were coming up like we we need.
Virtual to put your house out there and hear people's
feedback. That is brutal.
Yeah, Especially when you've done a lot of work, like you've
just done a lot of renovations to it, Like that's hard.
Yeah, she came through, put the like, accepted what we needed,
everything. Everything.
She was so speedy too. Everything just went Bang, Bang,
bang that week. Yep, and it was done.
And we just kept looking at each other like, Oh my gosh, yeah.
Like we would drive past this house we're in now.
And this location and like location.
Is amazing and we're just like that is our house.
How did this happen? How do we get this place?
Like, yeah, it was crazy. So as we said, the place was
quite rough and we we walked through again.
So the tenants have moved out and the new real estate, the
real estate for our new house is like, do you want to have a
look? And we're like, yeah, cool.
We would love to because we've been driving past the house
every day. We want to go in again.
Went in and it was this, the smell was bad.
The the snow was in our noses like for hours after we left.
Like it was bad. And again, I I'm not, you know,
if there's a lot of tenants or the tenants beforehand, these
tenants were only in for a year. Also the house had been closed
up for a couple of weeks after they moved out too so it's
probably just like. And anyway, so we're like, we
can't move into this house with our kids.
Like we just cannot do it. It was the carpet, yeah, that
was the issue, that. Was the main issue.
It was really damaged. And so we're like, all right,
cool. Well, what do we need to do to
we started exploring that. Well, we don't have any money.
So your mum helped us out to get the the money for the carpet to
change the carpet over and we had our settlement date and we
had to be out of our house. We were in this in between
period of like what are we going with our furniture?
Even that was wild though, because mum did help us out,
which just eased pressure. Because it's just a timing
thing. All of this whole entire process
is a timing thing. It's like this like tower made
of of cards and one thing out of place is going to topple the
whole thing. And so I was like, I think we'll
have the finances, but we are so close to the line and we needed
it done before we moved in that I'm just not sure when
everything's going to be in place.
So mom very graciously helped us.
But what was funny was like a few days later, I randomly got
given this big chunk of money that I wasn't expecting to be
getting to be paid back for something from a while ago.
And I looked back and it was almost exactly the exact amount
of money we needed for the deposit.
To pay for these these carpets before we moved in like that's
if we if we just waited that would have just covered that
anyway like thankfully it worked out regardless and we.
Were able to pay her back like straight away.
Exactly. It was like just one of the
another one of those things that's like out of the blue,
this money came along that just like was literally exactly the
amount of money we need. Yeah, yeah.
And then so we started moving stuff and also I started ripping
up the carpets and it was, it was so I threw up like I threw
up from I, I just don't want to go into details too much.
It was. So sad.
I felt horrible for for days because it took I did it in a
day. You did it real quick.
I ripped it all out, but it was, it was rough.
It was very. Rough.
So that's why if we had to live in this house without changing
anything, that's why it would have been a note, because we
would be unwell. Like genuinely would not be.
Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And then we got in, and now it's been that process of trying to
find everything, figure out sort of what we're going to do,
where's the studio going to go, you know, all this sort of
stuff. And then, yeah.
And then it was a matter of getting the kids ready for
school. Now, first day, we are in a new
place. Yeah.
Because that's the other thing, too.
Like, again, this is sort of just explaining why we've taken
so long to get back up and running again, because we just
had so many things on our brain. The end of last year as well, I
didn't finish work too well. Like I, I was just exhausted.
I put in some really bad habits for myself on, you know, working
remotely and work life balance and so forth.
Just, I just didn't do well. And then, you know, all the
renovations and everything. So there's a lot of stuff going
on for me personally. And then then that would go out
into the family and we just needed that break.
And it's like you're on pause until that day, which is today.
And yeah, so we do everything. Yeah, we do everything now.
But it's great. Like I, you know, just loving
this time of I feel like I'm awake again.
I feel like, you know, we because the big thing is through
this period. OK, So going down to the purpose
of, of the podcast is communication and relationship.
When we're going through this, like we, we notice that dropped
our ability to communicate dropped everything that we've
been preaching and sharing and prioritising when we're in this
stressful hard time. It dropped and it was so easy to
drop and that was quite hard. And so I feel like coming
through this now, even knowing this day was coming, was this
breath of fresh air of like, it's only a season though this
isn't going to be forever. I know this isn't a new norm for
us. We're out of our norm for, you
know, maybe four months or whatever it was, and it's been
gradually being aware of that, putting little things in place,
but trying to get through that. So probably my question for you
though aims is from from that, how was that time for you in
terms of yourself, your mental health, but also I guess what
were your struggles in in our relationship in that time?
It's funny because we had, like we said, we've moved every year
for until we moved into our previous place here.
And so we're used to moving and I think we or I, we didn't talk
too open like too constantly about this, but I was
anticipating we were going to have difficulties like
everyone's. You always know when people go
away on holiday or when they go on a camp, like because we used
to be youth leaders, I always knew the couples were going to
have arguments on camp. That always happened every
single time. Or you know, you go on a trip or
like you move house. These are the things when you're
going to have an argument basically, and it's not a bad
thing like that. I think I was coming into being
like, Yep, we're probably going to argue.
And my best friend had just moved house and I'd watched her
go through the whole process and talk to her about it.
And then literally we started doing it as well.
And I was like, Yep, we're going to have the exact same things.
Like everyone's on edge, everyone's tired, everyone's
exhausted. You're I just found my philtre
for being gentle or, or like even just having mental space to
like consider other people's like how to do things gently for
other people, my kids, my husband, everybody was just
gone. Like I just hadn't.
It was like I was on edge the whole time.
I was like, I can't even take a second more of mental space to
think about how to say what I'm about to say nicer.
Like I just need to say what I need to say in terms not be
mean, but just like this is what we need.
Like just very straightforward. And I think that's how you get
you get survival mode. I don't think all this sounds
like it's just going to happen. You can't do anything about it.
You can prepare yourselves for these things.
And I think one of the biggest things was that going into it, I
knew that that was going to happen.
And so I had a bit of grace, even though it was tough.
We had moments where it was really like, we're just at each
other for no reason kind of thing, or we're just both
frustrated and we don't even really know what the cause of
the frustration is. I still had in the back of my
mind that's what happens in times like this.
You're all on edge and there's just an extra serving of grace
in terms of both of us. Grace for myself being more
frustrated than I am. Grace for Blair for being more
frustrated than he is. It didn't mean that those
moments were easier necessarily, but it just meant that they
didn't hold the same weight that they normally would.
But yeah, that was definitely tough.
We had times where I like, we just, yeah, I don't know.
We had multiple little, little arguments along the way that
we're just like, wow. That was intense.
Where did that come from? You know, it does not even like
correlate to the actual issue itself in terms of intensity.
Not, not huge intense, just to be clear, but just like, yeah,
it was more intense, yeah. And I think that was one thing
that we were trying to do in this season was figure out like
what's going on for us. Like why am I struggling so
much? Like why am I being so short?
I feel like we kind of swapped a little bit.
So for majority of our marriage and quiet a or relationship, I'm
quiet A to the point blunt person and I, I can, I just
struggle to think about how the other person receives
information and more about getting my point across.
Not in the self righteous way of like I need to get my point
across, but it's more of like just the way that I process.
I'm like, is this, is this what you're trying to say?
Is this what it is like just I want to get to it so I can
unpack it from there. What's a, you know, all that
sort of stuff. But it comes across quite blunt,
which is being quite hurtful for you in the past.
And I just, it just was, it's been such an effort over the
years to really get into that, still struggle with it, just a
lot more aware of it now. And we've worked on that quite a
lot. And I think it was just kind of
reverse. I was because I knew we were
struggling and I was very much aware of like, and I've got to
put in going OverDrive here. I've really made sure that I
communicate clearly. And then you would communicate
bluntly and I was overly sensitive because I was so
tired. And I'm like, but I'm putting in
this effort. Why can't you put in this
effort? But it was just that we were so,
so much more easily triggered over stuff.
So the issue, we would have an issue on something and we would
find that we weren't discussing the issue.
We're discussing the way that we discussed the issue.
The tone was. It was, it was just, it was.
And then I would, you know, I would get blunt back, you know,
and wasn't that Amy was the only blind person, but it was just
that I was overly sensitive. You were unusually
straightforward and blunt. And it was just like what is
happening? And we did, we unpacked a lot of
that and it kept on coming back to we're tired.
And one big thing is that gave us hope through that period is
to know that it was a season. I think it's really important is
when we do identify, see, identify seasons that we're in.
So if you were struggling as a as a couple identifying the
season, but it's really important in that season, it's
like, well, when's the end date? You know, it's not that this is
the season for the rest of our lives, the rest the rest of our
relationship, because then it's not a season anymore.
Yeah. I think it's, it's about
identifying. It's a season of unusual
circumstances. So we've got unusual triggers,
unusual environment, things that are going to add to our reaction
and our relationship in a way that we don't normally.
So we're not in default, we're not in normal, but I think the
challenge is to not just be like, because I hear this phrase
a lot like it's a season, you know, early parenthood, it's a
season. And so then almost it's like
it's followed up by so these things won't happen.
So you know, your sex life is going to go down the drain or
your your time together is going to go down the drain.
And I understand it is a season that makes those things more
difficult. But the, the challenge is to be
like, this is the season we're in.
How can we be intentional in that?
And how, like you said, how can we be intentional to move
through that season and come out the other end, whatever the
season may be, without coming out separate?
Basically, you know, you're thinking about young kids,
people. There is a pattern of couples
putting their relationships on hold because they have young
kids and they just don't have time and then ending up not
being friends by the end. Like they don't have a
relationship to come back to when their kids are no longer so
dependent on them. So I think it's the same with
this. Like we had lots of
conversations through this season.
We had lots of times where we were like, and then all of a
sudden having to unpack that. And it was tiring to unpack that
because of all the things going on.
But it was important that we unpacked that because if we
hadn't, those are the things that would sit there and be
like, I would be like, why is he doing this?
Why is he doing this? Why is he doing this instead of
being like, I don't like that he did that or that I did that.
It's not how it normally is. Or we've talked through it and
we've explained it and we're going to move on from that and
find intentionality in it. So it is a season, and that's
such a good thing to remember, as long as you don't become a
victim necessarily to the season or you don't become like trapped
in the season, powerless because you're not powerless.
And we weren't powerless. It just felt like it.
Yeah. But we had to put things in
place to make that work. I'll start this off, but what's
something the reflection that you're happy with through that
difficulty, right? So for, for example, something
that you brought out in in that season was about how you've for
so long you struggled to actually share.
You've been so concerned about how people feel and that you
struggle to get out what you feel in that season.
You're like, I can't do that right now.
I can't. I don't have the emotional
mental until capacity to think about how you're going to
receive something. I need to get this out because
otherwise it won't get out. That we know is a huge, well, a
huge possibility for unworked through situations and
difficulties, right? So now I actually felt that as
high as it was in that season, as Roar as I felt in that
season, a very big plus because I think that we've now been able
to take that through to now. He's like, well, all right,
cool. That's something that we
identified there is that this is something happy you feel.
That wasn't the best way we've handled that in the past, but
now we've identified that we can apply it going.
Forward yeah, that's good. I think I like seeing that we
can do hard things so when you're cruising along like life
is never really cruising necessarily but when there's not
big huge challenges like this just felt like a mountain all of
a sudden in front of us. I like seeing that as a team, we
can, we can do hard things and we can push through and have
discipline. And that was really a blessing
to me because I don't always believe that I can do that.
And, and I if we haven't tested that out in a relationship, I
wouldn't necessarily know deep down inside, we can do hard
things and we can stay close in hard times.
And we, I really liked that we were willing to come back to
each other and be open with what's going on and reflect and
talk about it. And regardless of how those
moments were travelled, to come back at the end of it and be
like, OK, this is what's happening.
They know each other better and know each other more like
intimately in that space, which I think is a blessing, even
though it's difficult. Hey guys, welcome back for
season 2. It was so great to have you
here. We're going to take a little bit
of a break in this in this chat right now.
Just share something fun. What's your What's your
favourite episode of Season 1? Aims.
I think it's a mental aid one, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Why's that?
I think because it's the biggest like mystery ticket in
relationships and I feel like for us it's been like whoa.
And then for other people it's been the same thing.
And it's it's the I think it's there's so much more to talk
about it and excited to keep tackling that topic in different
ways. But yeah, I think that was my
favourite. What about you?
For me, it was our interview with Luke and Susie.
I think it was our, it was our main interview for last season.
And I love hearing from other couples on the way that they
deal with stuff, the way they navigate through difficult
situations and circumstances. I just, I get so much from that
and so excited to apply those different things to our
relationship. Absolutely.
So anyway, just wanted to highlight that if you haven't
seen those episodes or heard those episodes, go check them
out in season 1 and enjoy season 2.
Let's get back to the episode. Thanks.
So one other thing I want to talk about in this episode is
what are some things that we've been working on personally?
You know, it's been another thing that we identified through
this hard season is like what do we work on together and what do
we need to work on individually? So for myself, something I
actually put a video out on our socials recently talking about
something I want to really work on.
And this is in light of what you're going to be sharing is
how do I listen to you when you're coming to share something
with me without going into fix it mode?
I think that's something that a lot of guys struggle with, but
also we also got some females writing as well of, of things
that identifying that they struggle with it too.
And so anyway, this is something that I'm really want to be
intentional on and work through is identifying that.
So what I did, I asked for people to write in on how do
they navigate through and help themselves to prevent themselves
from working on for going into fix it mode for their partner.
So this is some stuff that people wrote in on how to stop
going into fix it mode when you're listening to your
partner. So first one is easy is
reflective listening. So before responding, they
summarise what the other person is feeling, right?
So for example, it sounds like you're frustrated.
That's something that I've really tried to put in place of
like, all right, what is it that you're actually feeling right
now? Because it's a lot of times that
you might share something. I'm like, oh, well, it's simple.
This is the solution to that. But I'm not understanding what
you're actually feeling because if you're feeling sad, you don't
want to fix something while you're feeling sad.
So understanding the emotion behind what you're sharing was
quite good. So reflective listening.
Next one is ask before offering advice.
So this was a lot of people wrote in on this one.
Do you want me to help fix this or do you need me to just
listen? So having that phrase in place
is something that a lot of people wrote in about, again, do
you want help fixing this or do you want me to listen?
And that just gives people like myself that tool or that phrase
to be able to know how to respond in this circumstance.
And then it gets my brain into all right, it's listening mode,
but then it's active listening. You know how it's not just like,
you know, I'm listening, but don't acknowledge anything.
It's a matter of OK, cool. And interacting with the
conversation too validate first. So again, this is part of the
active listening size stuff. Our response can be that makes
total sense why you feel that way.
So, well, I think something that I've had to learn with this
active listening, a big, I feel like a big thing that you're
trying to do in that scenario is you're trying to understand
sometimes, is this worth me feeling this way?
Am I stupid for feeling this way?
And with that validation, it's like, well, no, it's not stupid.
It makes sense that you feel that way.
It makes sense that you're struggling with that.
So it's it's helping you unpack that as well.
Yeah, there have been times where I I'll talk about
something that's really frustrating me or is very
fascinating to me, and you'll just be quiet and then I'm like,
OK, well, obviously he's not interested.
And then a few minutes later, I'll either ask you and be like,
was that are you not into that stuff or whatever?
Or you'll come out with something you've actually just
been internally processing and you go into like thinking about
it. And so I'm like, he's not
interested, but you're just sitting there like if I was in
that, I would say this or this or this.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm either trying, I'm either
trying to workshop it and I don't want to share it with you.
So why I start to shut down? It's like she doesn't want me to
fix it right now, but I'm fixing it in my head and then I forget
to actively listen and put into the conversation.
Let me know that you are invested exactly.
Or I'm trying to picture, I picture myself in that scenario.
So I'm like, I'm just playing it in my head of like, ohh, this is
what it be like, you know, So I'm not actually trying to
ignore you. Yeah, I'm in the conversation,
but I'm not responding in the conversation for you to know
that I'm doing. That there's been sometimes
where like I've I've told you a story that's just ridiculous.
It's just like, I'm so frustrated.
This person did this thing to someone I love or to me or
whatever, or said this thing and you're just kind of quiet.
But then you've been like, you have been getting frustrated
inside another thing and you just haven't like shown me.
So I'm sitting there like he never cares about these stories.
Like I was like standing, yeah, another good one too.
And this is this is like a contradiction to that one
because we just shared was time delay rule.
So if your instinct is to fix, take a breath and wait 5 seconds
before responding. And I do that, but then I forget
to respond. So that's a but that's still a
good one is again, just stopping ourselves and getting into the
mind of what am I trying to improve on here?
What's the result that I want? I want the result to be that you
feel that I'm someone safe that you can share with and I'm not
going to go into fix it mode. So taking that that breath is
going to help me focus on what's the desired outcome.
And I feel like that's a good technique across the board.
Like it's a good technique to help not be reactionary as well.
If if someone's coming to you with a concern or something that
you might feel defensive in, it's a good idea to take a
breath and just be like, I'm not going to straight away dive into
what I think about this thing. I just need to take a second to,
to kind of ground myself and then respond in maybe a little
bit more appropriate way. Yeah.
And body language check if you're leaning in like you're
gonna fix it, you're gonna try and solve it physically lean
back so it's actually a physical thing that you can do.
So if you, you know, you look excited and you, you lean
forward, you're like, all right, this is what we're gonna do.
You know, like you need to fix it mode.
You're like, Oh no, take that breath and then lean back.
Yeah, change your posture. Because then again, yeah, it
just helps something practical lines, we get to say all these
things help us. Yeah, with that.
So these are the things that I'm trying to apply anyway.
It's not what I've got. I don't do them.
I want to improve on them. And then I've got a lot of
messages as well from from females saying I'm going to
share this to my partner because to remind them we all do it.
Yeah, so this came up from something I've been working on
this, this whole fix it thing, which I'll dive into, but I
sometimes don't even know what I want from you.
Like sometimes I'll share something with you and I'll be
like, like I said, he doesn't care.
He's not invested whatever and whether you are or not is to be
found. But then sometimes you'll be
real fix it. Like especially if it's stuff
that I need to do for myself, like health or mental health.
It's you have a lot of suggestions for how to do that
and I appreciate that. And then I'll be like, hang on a
second. That's too much.
But then sometimes I'm like, no, I need him to, he's not giving
me any like insight. It's just like flip flops.
So sometimes I don't even know. So I guess that question, asking
your partner that question helps them think about what it is that
they want out of it as well. As long as you're not asking it
like to be so black and white that you're like, it's either
this or this, figure it out. What do you want from me?
And it's more just like helping both of you be on the same page
about how to navigate the conversation.
I think then that's it. That's a healthy way of going
about it. But yeah, this, this all kind of
stemmed from the last, I guess, since we started to move.
It sort of started a little bit earlier than that.
But I've just had a rough time with my mental health and just
processing what's going on there.
And I said to you the other day, because you said I feel like
it's getting worse or more intense.
And I don't actually think it's gotten worse.
I don't think it's something that I'm like worse than I worse
off than I was before. I think it's actually something
that I've just become more and more aware of.
And so that feels like it's worse because it's more on the
front of my mind. It's kind of it's coming out
more intensely. But actually navigating it or
the actual issue itself or the actual challenge, whatever you
want to call it, is not necessarily worse.
I don't think it's grown. I think it's just me being like,
yeah, that pattern that I fall into is just really not helpful.
And it's such a constant thing. And suddenly I'm like so aware
that it always happens, whereas it's been happening in my whole
life. So I've had, I've had a tough
time just really feeling low. And I felt low on and off like
my whole life, like I just said that low anxious.
I can never really put words to it.
It's just like, I'm just low. Like everything feels heavy and
I'm stressed and I'm anxious and I'm worried about things, but I
don't have the time. I don't even know exactly what
I'm worried about. I'm just overwhelmed.
And with kids, it's just so much on.
It's like on steroids because you're overwhelmed and then
you're having to like be totally like constantly brought back to
the moment with these little things.
And I found myself over the last couple months having them be
like mom, mom, mom, mom. And all of a sudden it's like I
look over and I'm like, you're here and I just, I'm like, what?
Like I just can't like put my brain from this big cloud that
I'm navigating into this tiny question of can you open my
packet of chips or something like that?
It's just that kind of contrast is so jarring and overwhelming
and it just adds to the noise in the background.
Holidays has not helped. It's been fun to have them home.
Like I love watching them play, but they are they everybody's
been stir crazy and intense and there's been a lot of change and
everybody's on edge. So it has not helped.
But I've definitely been navigating my mental health.
And part of the way my brain works is I just like somebody
just takes over and takes over and takes over until I figure it
out. And so when I can't figure out
what's happening, it just constantly, it's like I'm just
spinning my wheels in mud and it takes up a huge chunk of my
consciousness and even my subconsciousness.
And so then it can feel very overwhelming or numbing.
I've been using that phrase a lot, describing it like numb,
almost like I'm just not really connected to the moment.
And and I've realised that I think, I think I'm navigating
something like OCD, like obsessive thoughts.
And that was a real, when I kind of came to this, I'm going to
say conclusion. It's not a conclusion.
I don't have a diagnosis or anything like that.
But when I've kind of thought about that as like potentially a
framework over what I'm navigating, it's been really
freeing because I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense why my
brain doesn't, it makes sense why my brain just ticks over and
over and over until I can make sense of something.
It's like an obsessive wheel that's just going round and
round. So it's, it's been a lot to feel
like to figure this stuff out. And I think that the biggest
thing is recognising how much my mental health takes from me or
has taken from me as I've like grown up.
Coming to terms with that has been sad because I don't want to
be not present. I don't want to be always on
edge. I really don't want to always be
worried like I'm always worried. And with the house stuff, every
time, like we said, every step was felt so difficult.
And the main reason it felt so difficult was because I was so
anxious about it and I'm so stressed about it.
And really it kind of fixed itself.
None of my anxiety ever did anything in that process.
None of it, not a single one of my moments of anxiety fix that.
And hindsight is 2020, Amy in the moment wouldn't have known
that. But I think that's yeah, that's
been my big thing is just kind of navigating this whole thing
going on for me. And then I haven't been able to
communicate that well with you. And partially, partially that
was because I just felt like every time I came to you with
feeling low or feeling whatever, you'd be so quick to be like,
well, you should go for walks or you should whatever.
Do you want to talk to someone? Do you want to get like see a
counsellor, cold shower, Like these things that are actually
so helpful and have I have been doing and they have been helpful
because I wasn't quite clear on what was going on.
I didn't feel, I'm going to say safe.
I didn't feel unsafe. I didn't feel safe or welcome to
just just throw it out there with you casually without it
then becoming a thing. Blair is very like, let's do
something about that and intentional with everything.
And so I always know if I've ever got an idea, especially if
it's something that's like a challenge or like self
discipline related. If I say it to you, then it has
to happen. So it's things like every now
and then I'll be like, I think I'm going to I think I'm going
to get off social media. I'm like totally addicted to
social media. And I almost never tell Blair
when these thoughts come into my head because the moment that I
do, how's it going with being off social media?
But or just keep me accountable, which is what you should be
doing. But I'll just then, then I just
like, I'm like, no, I'm done. So yeah, you're just very good
at staying on track with that stuff.
So I think that's all part of the reason why I just didn't
really express a lot of this until it was kind of more big.
And then you're like, I haven't heard this.
Yeah. And so then we had to process
all that. Yeah.
And which is, again, like these all things that we go through
and every time we do, every time we go through something new,
it's always strengthening what we have.
Yeah. And that's, you know, it is
hard. It is very hard to hear that,
you know, I'm not the first person you go to Forsoft because
of my reactions, but it's I also again, am very practical.
So I'm like, cool, what do I need to do now practically to do
this? So that's where putting that
video out there reaching out to you guys.
And I just really, really did appreciate that.
Cause again, that's very much my practical mind of man.
I wanna, I wanna fix this. What do you guys do?
Help me Like, you know, yeah, but yeah.
But also what I loved about that is as you guys helped me, we
were able to help others. Yeah, we were able to share that
that journey too, which was great.
And one thing that was cool that I think is helpful is we had
this big discussion, which is where all this came from the
other day when I was like, I think this is what's going on.
I'm just feeling very low. And then you were like, I didn't
realise. And then I said the fix it
thing. But one thing that I, I was able
to say in that was I think I need you to look into and
research what it is to support someone with this in case this
is what I've got. And then because it's so, so
hard to take what I'm navigating, learn it about
myself and then tell you what you need to do to support me,
especially if I'm feeling like guilty or shame in that space.
I don't want to be like, now you need to do all these things.
And so I think that's not something that I've really said
before, like I need you to figure out how you need to
support me in this. But I also wasn't sitting there
like, he better know how to support me.
He better be doing this without me telling him.
Like he should just know that this is what I want.
I I was like, I really need to tell you that I need you to do
this because you were asking me like, how can I support you?
And I was like, I think I need you to look into this.
ChatGPT has been been the main, the main source.
It's not the be all and end all, but it's sure helpful.
So even that when you're like in the fix it mode, it's so hard to
not fall into those patterns that everybody's into.
It's also really hard not to just expect that your partner's
going to know what you need. And I actually made a video
about this the other day as well, like we are.
So I don't know if it's everybody, but I definitely, I
find myself so constantly like expecting other people to know
what I need or what I'm thinking or feeling about something.
And I understand, like someone commented on it and said, yeah,
but when you're five years into a relationship, they should just
know. And I was like, I just don't
think that's true. There's like things you should
know, as in like, don't yell bad words at your partner.
Like that sort of stuff is like basic.
Toilet seat down after five years, put the toilet seat down.
But even that, if you've had five years of not putting the
toilet seat down and your partner hasn't said, Hey, can
you put the toilet seat down? Why on earth would you suddenly
be like, you know what, I should put the toilet seat down?
And if you are like that, awesome.
But for your partner to then be like, he never puts the toilet
seat down. I just feel like so much we
don't, we don't question ourselves and be like, have I
clearly communicated my need in this space?
Or am I getting frustrated or hurt or whatever, feeling
neglected in something that I haven't actually sat down and
said? I need this from you in this
space. And if we want each other to
succeed and if we want our relationship to be the strongest
it can be, why would we not take that time?
That doesn't mean that they're suddenly going to be everything
you need. Doesn't mean that they're a
constructive partner in your relationship.
There's so many dynamics at play, but just knowing that
you've done what you need to do to communicate what you need is
really important. Hmm.
Yeah. So there's some lessons we've
had in this tough time. We could probably talk about
them for seven episodes. Yeah, but we won't we?
Yeah, well, you'll find out. Hmm, awesome.
Well, that's pretty much what we have the end of our first
episode back. Man, it was actually really
nice. I've missed this.
I've really missed connecting with you on this way because I
feel like we, we debrief a lot in this space too, you know, and
unpack a lot of stuff for ourselves as well.
So I've missed this. I've loved it.
I'm so keen to be, I hiccuped. I'm so keen to be back.
Yeah, same. Which is great.
But last thing, just to wrap up, I just wanted to share what's
coming up. So we've got guest speakers.
Aims, Who are some guest speakers we have and what
topics? Next week we have such a good
episode with someone called Bryce.
He's worked on this game that we actually got gifted last year,
which is amazing because I think it costs us something like
$50.00 to send to us from from Canada.
Anyway, it's an incredible relationship game and the reason
we're chatting to him is the, I guess the research and thought
that's gone into the game and the resource that it is is super
interesting and unique. And the spin that he has in his
conversation about relationships and about how to like, grow and
understand each other better is really fascinating.
So I highly recommend. He's a great chat.
He's really like easy to get along with, very funny.
And yeah, he's going to be our first guest next week.
Watch this space. Super good episode.
And we've got so many others. We've got an author and her
husband, very powerful speakers talking specifically on the
topic of intimacy. We've got people talking about
finances, people that were in a a difficult stage of their
relationship. And we're willing to let U.S.
chat to them in that space, which was super special as well.
And we've got some awesome guests that are coming up.
And and yeah, I just, I don't want to spoil too much, but
watch this space. They're really, really valuable
episodes. Yeah, other things that are
coming up. So we are having more
opportunities for you, our listeners, to speak into these
episodes as well. So we've opened that up again.
If you haven't signed up, go to our website at home.
We need to chat.com, register there.
You can put in your stories there.
You can send a recording in and we can actually play your
recording live, not live, but on the episode, on the episode,
live on the episode. And it can be also completely
anonymous if you want to. There's completely anonymous
ways of putting your story in as well, if that's helpful.
Yeah, it's anonymous to us as well.
Yeah, and I'll chat. That does have more of a say
into the what we're doing in topics we're doing and stuff
like that as well, which is really exciting.
And yeah, that's pretty much it. We're just going to be looking
into, again, communication importance, importance of
communication in a relationship and how we prioritise that in
our relationships to make our relationship stronger.
Because when communication dies. Bad things happen.
All right guys, if this episode related to you at all, we want
to hear from you. Please comment on the socials,
please message us. We'd love to hear from you guys
if this meant anything, if it, if it resonated.
Also, if you've heard anything in the episode that you're like,
oh, I've got a really good tip for this or I we've navigated
this and this is how we've gone through it.
We would love to hear from you because as we saw on your video
the other day, it's super impactful when people actually
give their insight into it as well.
Yeah. So please do contact us.
We would love to hear from you guys and not just be an echo
chamber here. Thanks guys.
Good chance. See ya.
Bye.