Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda. I'm Laura. I'm Kendra. And today we have the first of two in a series of losing strategies. We recently did a little mini course on relationships. Per your all's request that is something that would really be helpful for you all. We like making content that makes a difference in your life.
And so, , to introduce this topic, please welcome Laura. I am so excited to talk about these losing strategies and we'll do one on winning strategies later. Don't worry. I've been doing a relationship coaching certification through Terry real at Terry real is a, he's a. Therapist who has been in practice for over 40 years and he is Incredible.
He's such a valuable resource, especially I really honestly think for us in medicine, we deal with such high levels of honestly, emotional immaturity in medical culture, that this is our man. He deals with the very toughest marital. Problems, like people go to him as the last stop before they get divorced.
And he's able to help a lot of them not get divorced. So they know that they're staying together. They're getting divorced after meeting with him and he's able to turn around a lot of them around. He wrote a book called us, which we highly recommend. And. It's about getting beyond you and me to us.
And in his book, he talks about five losing strategies. We're going to present 10. The additional five are from Dr. Jennifer Finlayson Fife. She is a counseling psychologist, PhD psychologist in Chicago. She's incredible as well and very well versed in these maladaptive relational behaviors that we do. So we're just going to talk about these losing strategies that Really come pretty naturally to most of us. They are, they were the water that we swam in as kids in our families of origin.
And until we know that they're actually losing strategies, we might think that they're winning strategies because we think they're helping us have more power in our relationships, but actually they're harming intimacy. And. I mean, the ability to actually have a fulfilling, loving relationship. So. Here we go.
First, first losing strategy. Number one, being right. Oh my goodness. I can't imagine that doctors would have problems with wanting to be right. In this losing strategy, we are focused on winning an argument, proving that we're right, often at the expense of our partner's feelings or perspective. And I want to add here, if we are going into a conversation to prove Our partner wrong or to prove that we are right.
We're set up to lose immediately. Perry always says, do you want to be right? Or do you want to stay married? Right. And sometimes we're not sure several times throughout that book. Sometimes we might not be sure. Yeah. So we do want to be happy, right? We do want to be happy. And no matter what relationship we're in, being right, like Going into a conversation to try to like, try to debate that down and prove that we're right.
It's never going to give us a relationship that we want. If we go in instead, wanting what's best for both of you, wanting both people to feel heard and loved and respected that's a better platform to start a conversation. So. , when we go in trying to be right, it at least a defensiveness shocking, right?
There's weird. Yeah, I know. It's just hard to understand that other person might not just want to accept our viewpoint and Lay down with it. No, it is natural for us to be defensive about You know, somebody telling us that we're wrong and it's going to escalate conflict and it's going to make it harder to reach a resolution.
So a better way to approach it is to shift the focus to understanding and empathy. As I mentioned earlier, rather than proving that you are correct or that you're right. So when we're in a discussion with our partner or anyone else, the first thing is to check our motivation. If our motivation is not to heal the relationship or understand the conversation will likely fail.
So here's an example. Yeah, sure. We can all think of examples from our own lives of where we have done this. And also, keep in mind that these losing strategies are not for you to find them in your partner. Believe it or not, these are for you. We all have these, and we can't control our partners. We can start to show up better for ourselves and find that we might find that things improve as we release some of these losing strategies.
So here's an example. During a disagreement about finances, Sarah insists that her way of managing the budget is the only right way. She refuses to listen to her partner, Mark, who has a different perspective. , instead of seeking compromise, she pushes to prove her point, leaving Mark feeling unheard and dismissed.
Mark, so like the impact of this is Mark becomes defensive and frustrated, leading to an argument where neither feels understood and no progress is made. And solving their financial concerns, so they're just going to remain on opposite sides of the table and not able to come to an agreement because they're just mad at each other.
I've noticed this in my own. So for all the listeners, Laura said this is not for you to find fault with your. Partners or people that you interact with. This is you're working on yourself, correct? So here's the thing is that I've noticed this in some of my primary relationships a strong need to be right There may be other physicians in my household So the way I notice it is when the beginning argument has moved on to something that is largely unrelated Now that like this person is feeling panicked You And I don't know what they're making it mean that the first original conversation hasn't been resolved in the way that he or she expected.
And so that can be a clue for you, is like, wait, we're on the third topic now. Oh, someone's feeling threatened that the original position didn't hold up very well. And that's when you can, from your own knowing, like back off. Like it's. It's okay, like this person is, doesn't have the words to say I'm flooded, or I'm feeling threatened, or I don't like where this is going.
They don't have the words yet because they probably aren't reading as many self help books as you are. And it's okay, but like just realize that's what just happened, and so, okay. Right. Here we go. I'm glad that you pointed that out. Because. One thing we don't realize is once we become like flooded or go into that fight or flight or we can feel ourselves becoming activated, guess what?
Nothing good is happening at that point. And if you see your partner going into that, That's your opportunity to back off and also try to provide some safety for them by saying, Hey, you know, I'm not trying to suggest, so like here with Sarah, she's like, I know she could have said, I'm not trying to suggest that you don't know what you're doing with money or that you're that you want to spend all our money.
I'm just trying to come to an agreement together. I can see that you're stressed so we can table this and we can wait till we're both feeling more calm. You can extend a hand in grace because now you know what, now you know why you're arguing about the third topic. Yes. And you don't have to engage.
Yeah, usually it is also one of the things we talked about just that it's taking a step back and trying to understand. I know we've mentioned this before like that's Terry real. He says this over and several of the other people that we follow and listen to, you know, you, the Gottman Method too, just really take a step back and try to understand.
And they may not have all the words to make it totally clear to you, but at least you could understand like They're getting triggered. That's interesting. Like just staying curious and not, you know, I've had to work on this a lot. My enforcement is defensiveness. So just like, wow, that triggered something.
And instead of just turning right back to like prove my point, like I'm justified in what I feel and say is just really like, I wonder why that's so triggering, or and not that you have to bring it up right that minute, but just holding that space to keep you kind of a little bit more grounded, both of you can't go to level 12 because it's going off the cliff immediately.
Yep.
So the next losing strategy we want to discuss is controlling. And we talked about this a little bit, even before jumping on the podcast, cause it may not even be kind of what you think of as this over controlling partner, where, you know, you just feel like you can't even make a decision yourself that, you know, every day is already planned out your finances are planned out, you know, where that's that over controlling, this kind of shows up.
A little inconspicuous can kind of be a little insidious, and it's like covert control. And so we talked about several different ways, like if you are withholding information, so if you are trying to quote unquote walk on eggshells because you know the drama that's gonna come if you share the information that you have while you think you are.
Creating peace in the moment, you actually are one up stance and Terry real talks about the four quadrants. You can either be walled off one up, walled off one down or you can be grandiose and up or grandiose and down. And so he talks about being walled off and 1 up is just even with holding information kind of gives you that 1 up because you have something that probably needs to be shared and you're actually holding.
You know, some AMO maybe is what people might call it, or just something that you're not letting your partner know right away for some reason. And that can be kind of covert controlling because you're maybe manipulating that situation. Your need at that moment is to keep the peace and your expectation is that it's not going to go well.
And so. You know, the other, the thing that it can eventually give way to is just undermining that mutual respect. Like, how does your partner trust that? You know, you have been able to be open, honest, that you're able to share something that you're able to grow with them because you can, some of these difficult conversations or situations really are an opportunity for growth, if you both can see it that way, and then definitely creates resentment.
So you're angry, and you continue to stifle it, and so then that anger turns to bitterness, and then you're Like full on resentful.
The example of this is you have a reactive partner. Holla back if you can relate. You walk on eggshells, trying to create an environment for them to be less triggered. When, once again, we've talked about this before, you are not in charge of how they react. You're not in charge of their feelings. You're not in charge of what they're feeling.
They get to feel they're in charge of that. Same way with you. So walking around, kind of trying not to trigger them, that's not your job. John constantly tries to dictate how his wife, Amy spends her free time. He plans their weekends without consulting her, pressures her to socialize with certain people and micromanages her schedule.
That sounds fun. Yeah. Oh, wow. So pleasurable. That just, Oh. This is so great. Hey, me, on the other hand, feel stifled and resentful talker as if she has no autonomy in her own life, which creates tension and emotional distance. So that is not a surprising result. 1 of the things that positions talk out in general is, you know.
Burnout is not having autonomy in our careers, not having autonomy over our schedules, not having autonomy. So if you're don't have autonomy at work and you come home and someone else is trying to control your life at home, that's not going to make for an environment of growth or connection and intimacy.
So that's going to be an intimacy killer from the get go. I think one of the things that, you know, also. We'll talk about this coming up too, but even just being passive aggressive, I think that's covert control because you're just, you know, Oh, well, if you really want to do this, or if you really want to do that I'm not, or you know, just doing that Like, okay, go ahead.
I'll just be home this weekend doing nothing or just something like that. Just that real kind of passive aggressive stance, that, that's also covert control. The next losing strategy is unbridled self expression. So instead of being passive, you are full go, throttled down, level 12 all the time. you vent or express every feeling, every thought, every impulse without any consideration.
So this is totally unhinged, unbridled, non filtered. You don't consider the timing of bringing some of these like loaded conversations up. So like your partner may not even be in the right mindset to go there and you throttle down on them all of a sudden, you know, considerably it can overwhelm the relationship and lead to emotional distancing.
I mean, if you're level 12 all the time your partner is going to hightail and run. They are going to slowly back away and avoid you at all costs. It can also cause a real discrepancy. If you're level 12 all the time, how, what do we know? What situations are actually really that important? Like what are you really passionate about?
What are you really considering is important to you? Not everything you, not everything is very important. And so if you express yourself that way though, it's gonna be hard for your partner to really determine, is this something that we really need to come to a understanding on or grow together for or come to a compromise or whatever, so that can make it tricky.
So we, so that Terry says advocate for balanced emotional expression with empathy and mindfulness. So less words. So we don't have a communication breakdown. I often hear especially tear. I think Terry said this, but men like they, they can process, I don't know, something like a hundred or 200 words in a conversation.
Whereas like we can process 10, 000 women. It's just how our braids work. So like after that first couple hundred words. It's done. So like the brain place to just start shutting down malfunction. I can't take anything else anymore. So I think that's a men versus women problem, but can being emotionally can having self control over your emotional expression really can.
And the Gottmans talk about having a gentle startup. So using your feeling words, really being able to approach the situation in a calm manner from the get go, it's actually going to allow your partner to receive that. So the example here is Lisa, after a stressful day at work, immediately comes home and vents all of her frustrations to her partner, Alex, without considering whether he's had a stressful day or might not be in the right emotional space to listen.
She dominates the conversation disregarding his needs. What kind of impact does this have? Well, Alex feels overwhelmed and emotionally drained. He's going to disengage. He may stonewall. He may withdraw just because he cannot engage with all of this onslaught. And so in turn, Lisa feels unsupported and it further escalates her frustration.
So she may bring it up in the next conversation. Like every time I try to bin or whatever, you shut down or you don't emotionally support me. And so she's going to escalate her frustration and that's going to lead to that bitterness and angry and resentment. Definitely not as definitely an intimacy killer.
Yeah. Two things that I think of one, I think maybe my \ brain's more like a man's brain because I can't process a ton of words either. , I definitely feel more settled when there's not, you know, minutes and minutes of words coming at me. Like the more that's coming at me I, the more activated I feel.
It's I don't know, just interesting and to the concept of nonviolent communication, which we've referenced here and there before, I think we'll do a podcast on it. to offer some helpful tools. Like we, in this situation, if Lisa wants to vent, she might say, Hey, I'm feeling frustrated with my day. Do you have a minute to just listen?
Would that be okay? Rather than just like spewing all this negativity on him. And he's like, not even in a place to be able to do it. Not to be able to. To even hear it is, it just feels a little bit better than, you know, assuming, making the assumption that someone else owes that to you. Oh, they owe it to you to listen to you.
They don't. It's a choice and a gift when someone's willing to listen. That's a nice way to put it. Yeah, I was going to say the exact same thing. Like I, I don't know if it's male versus female versus like chatty versus less self expressive or extrovert versus introvert or whatever, but like legitimately, that is why many times I prefer a text in some cases, because it forces the final nugget that I'm supposed to be understanding from this interaction, whereas sometimes when I'll text somebody and then immediately get a phone call, I'm like, oh no.
I don't have any control of when this conversation is going to end. I do have control, but it's like, it's much more likely to like, go to a place that I start feeling less in control of my day. So. Great. Anywho, just funny. Okay, so number four on the, these first five losing strategies is retaliation.
And that is reacting to hurt by trying to hurt your partner in return. And that can take a variety of different ways. It can be sarcasm, passive aggressive behavior, like we've already talked about, or emotional withdrawal. And the problem with that is that it just escalates. Because then the other person then owes you a payback.
And I would just think that a, a coupling like this would be really hard to ever have a sense of safety or trust if you never know when the other shoe is gonna drop. Yeah. So it, but it feels very righteous. Right. You did this to me so I, I get to do this to you. It's just that's not operating at your best adult.
Self so, he suggests constructive conflict resolution and a focus on repairing rather than punishing You can keep on punishing each other. It's just do you like the result of that or are you driving? You know, are you driving each other away? So an example, these are all AI generated by the way, We're not picking on people.
We're not ratting on our neighbors. Yeah, exactly. So, Emily is upset that her partner, Dave, forgot their anniversary. In response, she cancels their weekend plans without telling him, knowing that he was looking forward to it. When he confronts her, she acts cold and distant as a way to punish him. What is so wild is that if you look at this, Emily, Was upset that they forgot their anniversary.
She's wanting a connection and what she ends up doing in response is Canceling an opportunity to do something together And so you feel like you're a lot, so many of times like this, you feel like you're punishing the other person, you really end up punishing both of you whenever you're doing this tit for tat behavior.
And then, I mean, if he's really upset about her cancelling the weekend thing that he's looking forward to, then like, when does it ever end? Like, when are you ever like, okay, we're all square. We're starting from scratch. And do you really believe that at that point? Or do you feel like, It's just a trick.
So really try to stop retaliation behavior. It just escalates the conflict and creates a toxic cycle of revenge and resentment. And if what you're really wanting is emotional connection, retaliation behavior just creates a huge emotional divide. I know that in the past, like, I do this because my, my immediate response to conflict is to bail.
So, like, we'll have this great weekend. This has been in the past has happened a while, but I think back to the times when. We'll just have the terrible days leading up to like an anniversary weekend or just a planned trip and I want to bail so bad. I just want to cancel it and I have always gone not really to like, you know, sometimes it's like you can't cancel past midnight.
On the day before you're leaving or whatever. So you're like forced to go, but then I just am so thankful that I don't, I can't remember a time and that's happened a lot, but just that we went and. We were both bidding for connection. It was just showing up in a negative way. And, you know, even though it gets off to a rocky start or a rough start, like come back from that weekend energized because it was the underlying theme was the bid for connection, something.
Life just gets in the way of that and you, sometimes, you know, things happen leading up to that frustrate you about your partner. That's normal stuff, guys. And, every time that I didn't bail and we went and it was a great weekend and you come out on the other side like, Oh yeah, probably underneath all that was just, we hadn't been awake together and that closeness or whatever and that intimacy really can heal a lot of hurts.
That's a good one. Okay. So number five, the last one for today is withdrawal. And so keep in mind we'll talk about stonewalling later and I'll give you my take on it and we'll see whatever you all think too, because I could be on top of this, but this version of withdrawal, it's shutting down emotionally or physically to avoid conflict, vulnerability, or connection.
It leads to emotional disconnection and unresolved issues. Obviously, like if you're trying to. resolve something and the person is fleeing, well, it's really hard to have a conversation that ends in resolution that way, when you're talking to the back of their head, or not talking to them at all. So, for example, during an argument about household chores, Mike becomes overwhelmed and stops responding to his partner, Karen.
He leaves the room, giving her the silent treatment for the rest of the day. The impact of this is that Karen feels abandoned and emotionally shut out and leads to unresolved issues. Clearly, whatever this issue isn't getting resolved right away, and that leads to growing frustration. Mike's withdrawal leaves both partners disconnected and .
Here's my take on Stonewalling let me know what you guys think, too. For me, Withdrawal is the initial, like, sense of overwhelm, and needing to retreat. And honestly, sometimes if you're gonna go to level 12, that might be a more kind thing to do, if you're losing control Of yourself to me stonewalling is then choosing to stay withdrawn instead of trying to make a repair back to me stonewalling is you have made a conscious decision then to refuse to connect whenever there's a bid from there.
I don't know. What do you guys think the difference is? I think that makes sense. And then the. People listening might be like, well, what the heck do I do? Because this is what I would've, yeah. I'm like, I like, what do I do when I'm flooded and I am freaking out because this person keeps coming at me?
I mean, I'll this is one of my big losing strategies right here. And it, I know it started from childhood. I had a really, I had a really. grandiose dad. And I did, I actually would go and hide under my bed sometimes, even in high school, like just to get away and like nobody could find me.
And the healthy version, there's, you know, healthy version is not going to hide under your bed figuratively or literally healthy version is to say, Hey, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now, or I'm feeling a little flooded or a little activated, or this, I'm feeling like this is too much for me right now.
I need to take a timeout and take time to go calm ourselves down. And within 24 hours, the person who asks for the timeout, they come back to the conversation. That's their responsibility to bring the issue back up. And let's try again. I'm calmed down now. So, It doesn't mean you have to sit there and stay in a conversation that is, is at level 12 or where both people are activated.
That's just not wise when we're both activated like that. We're not in our prefrontal cortex anymore. We're not in the neocortex. We are down in the limbic system and the limbic system isn't great at resolving things it's trying to keep us alive and it thinks we need to fight and. That's just not going to be healthy or helpful.
I think the other part of that is with withdrawing, I think, I mean, just like I was mentioning on the weekends, like you want to leave, I mean, taking a time out, but you're also engaging your partner. You're like, Hey, you explained how you were feeling and that you needed the time out, that's really engaging your partner and, you know, asking permission.
Like this is important. And I really do want to like come to an understanding or agreement or whatever you decide. And I don't feel like I can do that in the headspace I'm in right now. Can I get a timeout and stonewalling? I see that as, or it seems to be the perspective is they'll stay there.
They'll stay in the conversation, but they are not looking at you. They're not active listening, like giving you the okay. Holla back. Yeah. Preach it, whatever, or they're not looking at you. Their arms are crossed. The body language is saying, I'm physically present here. But I have turned you off your, I, and so that to me kind of is the, that's why it's one of those four horsemen.
Cause you just totally disengage, but you're staying there. So it's a little patronizing and you're clearly not going to engage in the conversation. And it's also a little bit protective from that person also going to level 12 because I knew that in my relationship, that was a real problem. And what would happen would be my husband would just sit there.
Not give me any feedback. So I would level up and I'd be like, and I'd say the same thing again, but this time with a little conviction and passion. And then if I didn't get anything, I would keep leveling up until I struck a nerve enough that he said something back and it's, I'm not advocating for this.
I, we have grown through this, but I needed some. something back? Like, are you listening? Are you hearing me? Does this make sense? I needed something back. And if, and since he just sat there and stonewalled, I had no idea if he was even present. Like, are you even hearing me? Am I speaking English? So then do you think that withdrawing is more like a self protective behavior that you're choosing to engage in and stonewalling is almost like a more punishing behavior?
It seems like it, but I think they both can be a little protective because I do think that, like, that was what my husband knew to do, which is kind of stonewall, stand there and just disengage. I don't think he had any other method of, you know, Conflict resolution or whatever and like growing up, I mean, it was a, you are seen and not heard family.
And so there was just a, I do think in a way it was protective, meaning I can stand here and take this like verbal or emotional abuse, but I can disengage. I've taught my brain how to disengage because I really can't take this, but I didn't have a chance growing up or the autonomy to call a timeout or go away from the situation.
What about this? On Terry Real's, like, quadrants, maybe Withdraw is the One down. One down, and then Stonewalling is the one up of the same behavior, maybe. It, yeah, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna go research this, because I do think that there is some contempt with Stonewalling. I do too. That's why it seems like to be the one up.
Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's good. And we'll talk about that with the next podcast. We'll have Stonewally and I feel like my ability to withdraw was from the one down. Like I was feeling shame, like everything manifested shame, even though I didn't realize it was shame that brought it was always the one down.
I took like, I almost was like over responsible for everything going on. And so I definitely. Okay. I'm a great stonewaller. I'm like everyone else here is stupid. Everyone just needs to calm down and come around to where I was. Anyway, anywho, it's just funny. Yeah. So just as a reminder, these are things to use to reflect on ourselves. Not to judge our partners. And I promise you, if you go to try to tell them that they're stonewalling or that they are doing some unbridled self expression to you and use those words in that way, it is not going to go well because you're going to losing strategy number one of being right.
So, these are for us to reflect on ourselves. I was going to say strategy number 11 is trying to point out losing strategies number 1 through 10 to your partner. Yeah. There are so many. We're human. And so there are a million different ways that we can not be relational and not be And lose in our relationships, it really does all start with looking at our own behavior and how we're showing up and being curious about why what from our childhood, what did we see?
What did we experience? What kept us feeling safe and looking at how we. How we show up now and is that still helpful? Is that still something we want to hold on to? And as another reminder, these strategies are things that we did or do to help us avoid discomfort or protect ourselves from perceived threats in our relationships.
But they ultimately undermine connection and intimacy, which is hopefully what we all want. We, if we're in these relationships, hopefully we really do want connection and intimacy. So later we will work on some winning strategies. But you can always remember that empathy, self reflection doing a good job active listening and trying to understand your partner's perspective, taking responsibility for our own behavior are all important.
Going to be good things to do in these situations.
It's awesome. We've started a amazing conversation and we will continue in part two. So stay tuned, check it out. We are excited to invite you to check out a new video that we just recently launched, how to crush physician burnout for good without cutting back hours, quitting medicine, or sucking it up in silence.
So scroll down in the show notes. There'll be a link there. Click it and check it out today. So until next time you are whole, you are a gift to medicine and the work you do matters.
