Conscious Coupling - Drinking From Many Sources

All right, so welcome to the Cadresphere. I didn't have a live stream last week. I'm not sure why it wasn't pre scheduled, and I think I was confused about how to schedule it, but. So such is life. But I'm back. And this is week three, which means it's conscious coupling, right? So this is the time of the month where I try to really talk openly about my relationship and about this idea of being in a conscious relationship. And I've talked already a couple of times about this idea of communication.

But the title of this particular talk, share, whatever you want to call it, is this idea of drinking from multiple sources. And what I mean by that is that when you're in a relationship, it is so easy to think of that person as your person, as the person. Men in particular are prone to that because it's like we are told our whole lives not to open up, not to be vulnerable. Then we get into a relationship and we're told to open up and be vulnerable. We don't have a lot of practice or comfort with it.

We don't have a. We don't have a lot of experience of doing it with anybody else. So then we find this person and we do it with them. And it's supposed to be like this amazing experience. And that's great in everything, except for the fact that it should never. That it was never meant to be with just one person. That's a lot. It's a lot for one person to bear, right? So for your partner, as a man, it's a lot for your partner to bear if they are the sole source of your emotional comfort in your emotional home.

But for you, it's a loss of, like, for anybody who is stuck in a relationship or in a relationship, maybe you're not stuck or you don't feel stuck, but maybe you're in a relationship where really the only source of, like, real intimacy and connection and vulnerability is your partner. There's so much more available. And the truth is, who do you go to to talk to about your relationship, your partner? And so, for instance, I regularly have a head that tells me something about my partner. I regularly have a head that makes up stories about my partner.

I'm married 21 years, man. And that. That thing has a lot of stories that it wants to share with me, most of them propelled by fear. So when I'm talking about drinking from many sources, what I mean is I go to the men in my life about that fear. I talk to friends, and I share my fear. I talk to my sponsor, and I share that fear. I pray to my higher power, and I share that fear and the vulnerability. And the reason why that's valuable is because then it gives me perspective and it gives me the opportunity to wait.

And that's what I talked about some weeks ago, right, Was this idea of the pause, this idea of waiting. And so I'm waiting, you know, 24 hours to share something. And in that time when I've got some conflict comes up in my head that I think is right, and I think it's the truth, and then it's. I'm so ready to share it. I'm so ready to sit down and tell my partner that, you know what? I think we just want different things in life. And maybe, I don't know, maybe it's irreconcilable, okay? I don't know how many times that's come up in my life, okay.

In my marriage. And I have learned to be quiet, but I've also learned, like, here's a perfect example. Thursday, I had a rough experience around some work stuff. It was pretty tough. My wife was not available. She was in a work conference, talked to a friend. Boom. He was super empathetic, super supportive. Shared a little bit about what was going on with him and some similar experiences. I felt heard, I felt seen. Did I need that from my wife? I didn't. Now, do I want my wife to be a part of that?

Yes, of course. Absolutely. But if my wife is the sole source of comfort, is the sole source of. Of connection, I'm screwed. Honestly, I think I'm screwed because inevitably, in any kind of close relationship, there's resentment. Inevitably, in any kind of close relationship, there can be enmeshment. In any kind of relationship, you're just constantly dancing back and forth between, you know, peace and conflict and resentment and love and joy and passion. You know, all of it. You take all of that to your partner and try to resolve it with your partner.

In my experience, that doesn't work so good. And. And so I'm grateful. My. My encouragement to you is to find those multiple sources. And, you know, the other component of that is I could complain to anybody, and if all they do is listen to me complain, I don't know that they're really the source for me. I want somebody who's going to listen to me, and if. If I just need to vent, that's one thing. But if I also need somebody to help me get toward the solution, to get some perspective, to be able to kind of see because I got all kinds of childhood trauma, all kinds of attachment trauma and it blurs my vision of the reality of my marriage and my relationship because all of that stuff gets activated.

So if I am trying to sort through that with my wife, who also has some of her own stuff, well, we might be successful. But there's real value in drinking from many sources. And so that's, that's my encouragement. If you're watching this and you only have one or two sources, find one more over the next week. Choose one person, one person that you've wanted to connect with and you haven't and you want to share something more real with them. And you do that. You take that step, take that step to add one more person into your life, one more source of nourishment, of drinking, of the fluid of engagement and connection, vulnerability.

It's such a gift to have that. And for me, it takes a lot of the pressure off of my marriage. So wishing you all a wonderful weekend. I've got a hopefully.