It can be difficult for some people to open up to their own partners, let alone someone whom they’re not intimate with. However, there are times when it’s necessary as a couple to work with somebody else in order to straighten things out and save the relationship. Frederic Gobeil and Christy Whitman discuss the differences between couples work, couples therapy, and couples coaching to help you asses and determine what you need most. They share a defining moment in their life where the help of a third party changed everything for them as a couple and as a family, for the better.
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Below is a transcript of the video and audio above. The paragraphs and sections are alternated between bold / not bold for ease of reading along with the video or audio.
Resistance To Doing Couples Work
We are counting down to our third. This is our third last and final Conscious Connected Coupling episode. We’ve provided lots and lots of great information. If you’ve missed any of the episodes, I definitely urge you to go back and read them. If you’re looking to have more empowerment from us and learn more about this information to go deeper, there are a couple of options for you.
You can go to FromDramaToLove.com. You can go to BreakingFreeFromDrama.com/love. It’s a free seven video series on how to get out of the drama. It goes into From Drama To Love. We have a couple’s retreats. We’re still doing our couple’s work but the blog, we’ve done what we could do here. There’s a lot more that we could do.
We’re still doing our own couples’ work. We’ve got to come up with a new series from the couple’s work that we do.
Here’s the thing and that’s what this episode is about. There’s always one in a couple that might have resistance to doing couples work. One might be willing to do it where the other one’s like, “No way.” We wanted to address some of those objections that the one in the couple might be saying, “No, it’s too this, or I can’t do that.” To understand what couples coaching is because it’s not therapy.
Couples Work Is Not Necessarily Therapy
When we say couples work, it’s as we said. It’s not necessarily therapy. It’s more someone that is a third party that offers an outside perspective about questions that you would have inside your couple. We all come up with certain questions inside our couple. There are always certain situations.
Sometimes, it’s the same situation that we butt up against and that’s what happened with Christy and me earlier on in our relationship. There were a few situations that we used to butt up against. Those situations would come up more often than others. Because of that, I started asking myself some questions. I started wondering, “What do I need to do in my relationship so that it continues, it flourishes?”
We have the relationship that I wanted to have in my life, not a relationship that I had seen necessarily with my father and my mother having a divorce after their marriage. Those were the patterns that I had within me that I needed to understand.
How I was able to understand these patterns that I was bringing into my own relationship with Christy was by having some third party help distinguish this and illuminate it and tell me about these behaviors, these patterns. Even to the point where there are things that I was communicating, speaking that was leading to these ways of creating these patterns.
I heard something on the radio and I shared it with Frederic and it made me laugh, but it’s so true. There was a DJ talking on one of the radio stations. He was saying that a lot of men will complain when their wives are nagging at them because they’re complaining. They’re like, “You do this. I want you to do that. I want you to go to couples coaching with me. I want to go to therapy.”
He said, “It’s when the nagging stops that you need to worry because then you’re headed to divorce.” It’s so true because the woman asks. Usually, it’s the woman that is like, “I want to go to therapy. This isn’t working for me.” I can speak for, at least in our relationship, this isn’t working for me. I didn’t sign up for this.
We kept butting our heads on the same thing that it felt like a nag because it turns into, “I’m not heard.” It gets elevated and then it gets more in complaining or the woman doesn’t know how to necessarily skillfully ask in a way that’s clear but it is true. He couldn’t hear that.
I was stuck in my own reasons why I didn’t want to do couples work. My main reason is I didn’t want to show anybody the intimacy. That this intimate world of my couple was only for her and me.
He used to think someone would seep in there.
Why should I share this stuff? A lot of us think like that. This is our sacred space. Why should someone know what’s going on and be aware of what’s going on inside of our own space, our own nucleus? Lo and behold, now that I know that there are some insights again that are there for me to understand what’s going on inside our relationship, now I understand that it is worth the effort to make the work that is my inner work also.
It’s partly mine to do because we come together as one individual inside the relationship. Each individual has their things and that’s what it’s all about. It’s figuring out inside our inner work is where we’re coming from. Why we are acting or doing certain things or behaving in certain ways and speaking certain ways that we are bringing into the relationship.
We don’t realize it because it is the Law of Attraction that we do attract and we are attracted to each other even by our buttons. We found along our way with doing our own journey of going inward and connecting with each other that he was in a total place of fear and projecting fear that he’s going to get married and he’s going to get a divorce because that’s what was modeled for him.
I was coming from a place of I’m going to run the first minute there’s any trouble because I don’t want to stay stuck in something that I don’t want. Our patterns would bump up against each other and that’s what brought us together. We both had to release that.
I shared this on the show at some point where I came to him and I said, “I realized that you’ll never be able to win.” In my training as a woman and watching all the women before me, except for my grandmother, the men were never enough. They never did enough. They never made enough. They never supported enough. It was just never enough.
I was looking at him through the eyes of, “You’re not enough, you’re not rescuing me, you’re not helping me and you’re not whatever.” He was having the exact same matching patterns because his mom, like the women in my family had, that men are not enough. They don’t make enough and do enough. They don’t take me out enough.
He was programmed that men are not enough. Who and what is he? He’s the man and he’s not going to ever be enough. I had the pattern of you’re not enough. He agreed with his pattern saying, “I’m never going to be enough.”
We Don’t Need To Come From Our Roles
When we release those patterns, I can now appreciate him not as a man or husband, but as Frederic and appreciate all that he brings into the couple. He doesn’t have to feel like he’s not enough anymore. I’m not also feeding that constant disappointment, frustration and anger coming at him that’s going, “My mom was right. It’s true that I’m not enough.” That couple’s work changed everything for us.
It made us realize that we don’t need to come from our roles. The roles of being a father and a husband are different from coming from Frederic, from who I am as a person and what I like. Now, I can start sharing with her what I do prefer as Frederic. What I like and what I want in my life.
As both of us grow older, all these things change. These requests, these ways of being, they all change. As I grow, then there’s a different way to connect to each other. There’s a different way to be intimate with each other. That is the growth that belongs in couples’ work together. Being intimate together is learning what he or she likes and how to coordinate life together like that.
Let’s talk about the objections.
A lot of objections that I had earlier on was I don’t want to have a third person into my relationship. How can we have a broader perspective of our relationship when we’re in it? When we’re in it, we only have tunnel vision instead of having a broader vision of total vision of what’s in it in our life. Another reason is money. “Why would I invest and pay someone to work with us? It’s too much money.”
He used to say that too, “You’re paying her again? Why do we have to pay for that?” That investment that we made and the time because there’s a time investment. There’s a courage investment because you have to have the courage to be able to willingly look at yourself. There’s that and then the money. It’s a resource but it’s the best investment we could have made not only for our kids and their well-being for each other. We wouldn’t be together if we wouldn’t have gone through it.
Couples Work: When you release those negative patterns, you’ll be able to appreciate your partner not as a man or husband, but as an individual and appreciate all that he brings into the couple.
For the health of our family because we have kids and we do have a family that is around our couple. Our kids are affected by our energy. The nucleus, as I call it in our family, is us. It’s Christy and me. I believe that for the sake of the health of our kids, we owe it to them in order for us to be aligned in our own power. It’s important to do the work as well.
One thing I will say with our kids is even when we were driving them to school, we’re flirting and talking about flirty stuff and they’re like, “Oh God.” I always tell them, “Wouldn’t you much prefer to see us sharing how much we love and appreciate each other and flirting and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other than arguing, separated or not even looking at each other?” They prefer that.
Our kids are growing up with that or it’s like, “Could you stop touching him? Would you stop talking about sex?” They’ll have their own issues that they’ll have to do their own therapy when they’re older but it’s a good issue, “My parents couldn’t keep their hands off each other.” It’s a better issue than, “My parents couldn’t stand the sight of each other.”
What Do You Want In Your Relationship?
“My parents hate each other.” That’s the thing. Once you don’t necessarily understand your partner, how they grow into something then you can’t relate to them. Don’t you want to relate to your partner and have an awesome time together? Always have fun adventures together and continuing on the path of joy together.
That’s what I want in my relationship. I know that now. It leads me to another reason, “My relationship is fine the way it is.” That’s looking at your relationship now. How about tomorrow? How about in the future? What do you want in your relationship?
What’s the vision?
That’s what we do every year.
We did it. We were sitting down talking and we were talking about our vision.
We look at the future of our relationship. Where do we want to stay? What house do we want to live in?
What vacations do we want to go on? How do we want to invest our money in? All of it.
That’s the fun part now for us. It’s not, “I need to talk to you about what we want to do in the future.” “No, I don’t want to do that.” We’re both happy to look at what the future looks like together. That’s part of the reasons that a couple’s work is something important to me.
It’s very different from therapy. A lot of people are like, “I don’t want to sit around and talk about my feelings all day.” That’s not what a couple’s work is. That’s therapy. Couples coaching is very different. It’s focusing on where do you want to go? What do you want to do? How do you want to feel? What do you need to let go of and let’s move in that direction? It’s a future visioning. It’s being able to manage your own energy, connecting with your divine self now, at this moment.
When you do that then you start healing the past. It’s not advice-giving and that’s one of the other things too is that people think, “Who’s someone else to give me advice?” Therapists will give you advice. Psychologists will give you advice. Well-trained coaches like I train within the Quantum Success Coaching Academy or I have been trained, I don’t give advice, we don’t give advice.
We ask questions so that you are having a time dedicated to your couple and then you can ask yourself and your partner, “How do we feel about this certain thing? What do we want?” If you’re going to go on a vacation, where are you going to go?
Peel Off The Layers And Start Discovering
You come up with the answers. You come up with the options. You come up with the things that are opening up to you as you discover. As you peel off the onion, the layers of who you are as a couple and what’s inside yourself then you start discovering, “This is what I like and this is what she likes. This is something that we can do together.”
It’s a self-discovery first and then it’s pinging back and forth.
It’s therapy versus coaching. Coaching is not something that we want to make you feel that you’re right or you’re wrong. It’s really discovering what’s going on inside of you and answering some questions because we all come up with questions week-by-week, day-by-day. We have questions.
You could sit down together and that’s what we do sometimes. We’re like, “What happened with that situation? Let’s talk about it.” When you’re leading to that, it is awesome to have inside your couple.
Remember, when she stops nagging and that’s when the trouble begins.
You don’t nag anymore. That’s awesome.
No nagging.
Don’t you want no nagging from your woman?
With that being said, we’re not here to sell anybody on coaching but we’re here to really show what the options are and why it is so different from therapy because a lot of people will be like, “No,” but they just don’t have all the information. When you don’t have all the information, when you don’t know what it’s like, when you haven’t done it before, it could be a little scary.
I’m grateful whether you choose it for yourself or not, that’s totally up to you. We all have free will but it changed our relationships. It made us stronger. It made me stronger to learn my place within myself about the drama triangle and how to get out of that and into the circle of love.
How to be empowered to know that I’m a free-willed individual and I can choose my thoughts. I choose my consciousness and him too. It improved our relationship, our family lives and us as a parent. We offer From Drama To Love.
We have our whole program. You can go to FromDramaToLove.com and its 30 days of all the concepts, all the behaviors and all the perspectives that keep us stuck in the drama triangle that all of us learned.
Couples Work: Couples that can’t keep their hands off each other is a better issue than not being able to stand the sight of each other.
They’re easy concepts to understand, to learn about and to apply in your life. That’s what we want. We’ve applied these concepts in our lives. We found that it changed our relationship. These concepts will work in your relationship as well. That is what we want to share with you.
Check it out. If you need further support, we still have our Costa Rica beautiful VIP, only ten couples going on vacation, five-star private plane, picking you up from San Jose Airport. It’s the only us in this beautiful place, waterfalls and private beach.
If you are wanting more of that, more time together, more healing work in that capacity, you can email Beth@ChristyWhitman.com about that. Our second to the last episode is all about you need to change in order for me to be happy.
How do I have to be for her to be happy? We’ll find that out in the next episode.
Until next time.
Important Links:
- FromDramaToLove.com
- BreakingFreeFromDrama.com/love
- Quantum Success Coaching Academy
- Beth@ChristyWhitman.com
