Ep. 59 - Talking About Your Feelings - Listener Q&A

This week I'm taking your questions about sharing your FEELINGS with your husband!

Question #1: HOW do I share my feelings with my husband, and how do I create a relationship where we can do that?

Answer: First of all, STOP and be absolutely sure that you aren't sharing your feelings in an effort to change him! We always want to be responsible for our OWN feelings, so you must stop and do some thought work and figure this out. Sharing your feelings so that he'll change is, essentially, manipulation, which of course none of us want to do. (If you need support on the thought work piece, go to www.firstyearmarried.com and watch video #1 of my course!)

Question #2: How do you separate frustrations in a conversation and say it in a way that your spouse can understand the REASONS for your frustration?

Answer: If your frustration is with him, you want to start by taking care of your own emotional well-being (see above).

"As long as he's responsible for how you're feeling, you're really limited."

Beyond that, sometimes we need to actually plan out a conversation with our husband. Let's say your life is set up in a way that you're not getting enough sleep. First, work on the resentment piece. Then you can come to the conversation with openness and belief that the two of you can find a solution.

To hear my interviews with Alison Armstrong where we talked about our husbands' problem-solving abilities, go here.

Question #3: What do I do about a husband who can't access his own feelings and frustration?

Answer: Focus on your lane. His feelings and thoughts are HIS lane, not yours. So question how YOU want to show up in this situation. What's your story about how he's acting? Why is it a problem? Actually get this down on paper.

Question #4: If something bothers you about how your spouse deals with disciplining the kids, how do you communicate that?

Answer: Women often have more experience with kids coming into a marriage, so we often see ourselves as the authority. So first of all, go back to the business partner model. Is it possible this highly respected partner might have another good idea? Possibly even a better idea? Could I maybe be wrong about this? He's different from you by design.

Question #5: I always hear about your feelings are not your thoughts and the other way around, but how do we work on internalizing this?

Answer: There's a difference between processing a feeling and just thinking a thought over and over. This is described clearly in Episode 58, "When You Can't Get Over It."

Question #6: I'd love to get help with first identifying the feelings--like, what am I even feeling right now?

Answer: It's just a vocabulary problem. You can literally Google "list of feelings" or "synonyms for sad." It is helpful, but don't worry about not being there yet.