A lot of people struggle with being accountable and responsible for their personal happiness and often resort to blaming others for their struggles. This can be said in every aspect of life, including intimate relationships, and this has a significant impact with how happy you can be as an individual and as a partner. In this episode, Frederic Gobeil and Christy Whitman discuss the symptoms of being in the drama triangle and the steps you need to take to get out and into the circle of love. They also talk deeply about why you need to be responsible for your own happiness in order to stay connected as a couple.
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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.
You Need To Change In Order For Me To Be Happy
We are going to be talking about what are the misperceptions in most couples that if you would do something different, if you would make more money, I’d feel secure. If you would take better care of the kids, then I would be happy. Do the list on the honey-do list. There’s always a condition. We’re putting our own happiness, our own emotions in the hands of somebody else that can’t do anything about our emotions.
When I used to come from that place that if you would do something, no matter how many dishes he did, I still wasn’t satisfied. I remember this one time when the kids were young, Alex must have been three years old. I got all that dolled up for dinner with him. I came out of the bathroom and I didn’t take the time to connect with myself and connect with my own beauty or fill myself up.
I went to him and he goes, “You look nice.” I was like, “Nice?” He goes, “What do you want me to do, be flamboyant?” He goes, “You look fabulous.” I was like, “That’d be nice.” Nothing he was going to do or his reaction was going to be enough for me. The funny part is, our little three-year-old son comes up running in the house in our bedroom and he goes, “I like that.”
She got the reaction that she wanted.
My Feelings Are Not A We
If it wasn’t from him, I’d get it from someone else. Honestly, I wasn’t in that place to fill myself. If I get ready, I’m not looking and needing it. I’m not hungry for him to compliment me or to tell me I’m beautiful or to tell me whatever because I know it myself. I feel good within myself. I’m responsible for my own thoughts and feelings.
My feelings are not a we. There are things in our relationship that are we, that are us, but our feelings, our own individual consciousness is not one of those things. Whenever we’re looking at our partners to say, “You need to change in order for me to feel this way.” It’s a clear sign that we’re in the drama triangle because we’re a victim. We want him to rescue.
It doesn’t mean that we can’t talk to each other like, “Let’s not talk to each other. You’re fine. You should do your work so that you could be happy and I’ll do my work at my side and I’ll be happy.” That’s not the case. It’s learning to talk to each other, but without having to rescue the other one, without having to say things that the other one might want to hear, but you could stay yourself in that situation.
She was asking me and I was honest with her. She looked beautiful and nice. That’s what I said. It wasn’t an off the chart reaction that she would have liked to have. It was me, Frederic, being myself, being this calm and aligned.
You were a tempered down version of yourself. It was like, “You look fine.” Now, you’re like, “Baby, you’re beautiful.” You come out more because there are more of you that are available to come out. Also, I don’t need that anymore and that’s the whole point. If we’re looking towards our partner to fulfill, we need him or her to be that support because we feel empty.
We don’t feel supported and aligned with our own life partner, our divine self. When we know that this is our ultimate support, this is our ultimate stream of love. This is our connection and our source of abundance, prosperity, joy, whatever it is, then we have an energy-filled up within ourselves and then we can give and then also receive.
Most of us look towards our partner to be our provider, to be our source, to be our protector. We look for that partner to be all. We talked about that in another episode. That it’s not your partner, that is your all. It’s your divine self.
I brought up being the wall inside. It’s true because I had that wall inside of me, where I had some stuck emotions that I couldn’t reach inside and feel what I needed to feel, whether it was anger, some deep love inside. I couldn’t feel those emotions because I had that wall inside. When I started doing my own growth, what happened is I could see more of what was inside. I was able to put that wall out, blow up the wall and see what was inside of me and not going to ask her how I was feeling.
You don’t expect me to know how you were feeling.
I can come from the place of, “This is how I’m feeling,” and it’s okay to say that. It’s okay to translate that and share it with my partner. It’s a learning of my behaviors of how I’m reacting to certain situations and then communicate it.
Happy Responsible Relationship: Whenever you’re looking at our partners to say, “You need to change in order for me to feel this way,” you’re in the drama triangle.
Here’s the fallacy. When people get married, it’s like, “It’s now our life. We’re now one.” No, we’re not. I’m my own breathing separate self. When I took a breath, he did not take a breath. We’re not breathing for one.
I’m connected to my life force. The divine that’s beating my heart, my soul and he’s got his. We get to connect and share together and be in a relationship and have this energy exchange. We may have, it’s our house that we live in. It’s our bed that we share, our kids, dog, and our life. However, you want to say it’s our vacation we’re going to go, our mortgage, our car or whatever.
You Can Choose To Be Happy
What is not ours is how I think. I’m not responsible for how he thinks. I’m not responsible for how he feels and he’s not responsible for how I feel. When I say you need to change in order for me to be happy, that’s his responsibility. I can choose to be happy.
If he’s still doing his thing, then you’re not happy. Who is ultimately in charge or responsible for your own happiness? You can still be happy and then request. I can still find fulfillment and happiness and still say, “I prefer that the dishes be out of the sink,” but it doesn’t mean that it used to in the day that, “When he leaves dishes in the sink it’s disrespectful. He doesn’t love me.”
It pisses me off. I’m upset. He’s doing that to annoy me. There’s no meaning into it.
I can still be connected to my happiness even if the dishes haven’t been done. I can then say to him because there are times when he cooks the dinner and then rushes the kids off to soccer. He goes to the bathroom and does whatever and the dishes are there and it hasn’t been cleaned up.
I’ll come out teaching and he’s like, “I got the dishes,” or I’ll say, “What’s this?” He’s like, “I’m on it.” It’s not like, “You need to do this. I can’t be happy.” Unless you behave a certain way, unless you think a certain way, unless you fill me up a certain way, then I can be happy. That’s one of the things that we have to understand.
When we’re doing that, we have that expectation in the drama triangle. In order to get out of that, we have to be able to understand that we are the ones responsible for our own feelings. Somebody else cannot rescue us. When we’re assigning our emotions outside of ourselves because of that person, then we’re making somebody else the persecutor and we’re the victim. The way out of the drama triangle is choices.
Another important thing is we’re giving our power away. You want to be aligned with yourself. You want to have your own power in order to say things in a mature, in an adult way so that it doesn’t come out like a child crying and whining. Adults are not allowed to whine.
When you hear yourself say, “If he would do this, then I would.” We’ve got to stop that language and ask yourself, what do I want? Why do I want it? How do I want to feel? What do I need to do to put myself in that feeling place?
Ultimately, I’m the one that’s in charge of my own. I’m the one that’s in charge of my consciousness. My partner is not responsible for my thoughts. They’re not responsible for my feelings. They’re not responsible for my actions and my behaviors.
They’re not responsible for my breath. They’re not responsible for my life. When we can let our partners off the hook and it gets to be someone that we engage with, play with, share things with, dream with and envision with, life becomes different for couples. It becomes conscious. It becomes connected.
Go to FromDramaToLove.com if you want to learn more about how to get out of the drama triangle and into the circle of love. Next episode, we will be talking about emotional intelligence, which is on the heels of what we’re talking about. Know that if you don’t do it, I’m not going to be happy.
If you don’t change your story, she’s not going to be happy. Start changing your story and stop telling the same old story.
Happy Responsible Relationship: Be responsible for your own happiness. You can still be happy and then request something from your partner.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time.
