The LoveWorks Solution Podcast

Whether you receive or reject someone's invitations, will literally make or break your relationship!

Anyone who’s been around children knows how much they enjoy showing their creations. They’ll make a drawing and bring it to mom or dad and say, “Look!” As the adult, in that moment, we face a relationship-building or relationship-breaking decision. Choosing the former, we might say to the child, “That’s wonderful, thanks for showing me”. But if we choose the latter, we might say, “I don’t have time for that! It doesn’t even look like anything, it’s just scribbles!”

When we go with the first option, the kid feels validated and encouraged and will typically return to playing. With the latter option, the kid will feel deflated, rejected, and hurt, like she just received a verbal slap across the face.

Adults are no different. We too want someone to see our creations. We want someone to see us. What the child did is called “making a bid”. It’s an offer to share something, to show something. What the adult did is either accepting or rejecting the bid.

I first heard this term from Dr. John Gottman’s research into what makes some relationships succeed and some fail. From Dr. Gottman’s website ...

“In his research, Dr. Gottman observed that happy couples turn towards their partners approximately twenty times more than couples in distress during everyday, non-conflict discussions. In a newlywed study, newlyweds who were still married six years after their wedding had turned towards each other 86% of the time while in the lab. Those who were divorced six years later, however, had only turned towards each other 33% of the time.”

Turning towards means you accept someone’s bid. Turning away means you ignore or reject it. As adults in relationship, we make a lot of bids of our partners or prospective partners. Some of these bids we make consciously. “Wanna go to a movie?” “Can I get your phone number?” “Will you spend time with me?” are all examples of bids we make deliberately.

And then we make lots of bids embedded in everyday conversations. “Look what I found on Facebook!” “Did you see that?” “We sure haven’t had sex for a long time”.

On a deeper level, making a bid is an invitation for someone I care about to step into my world, sometimes for just a moment. In that way, we are all still like kids showing off our drawings in the hopes that someone will say, “Wow, you did really well with that”.

When someone receives our bid, we feel validated and witnessed and it gives a little jolt of “I matter”; which is a powerful antidote to the negative sound tracks many of us have running in our minds. When someone rejects our bids, we feel a little “ouch” inside. If our bids are rejected with force, like “I don’t have time for your nonsense!” it can really sting. And what do we tend to do when we feel stung? We counter-attack, get defensive, or withdraw, all of which contributes to the pollution of our intimate environment. If our bids keep getting rejected, we might eventually stop making them altogether.

For example, a couple who’s stopped having sex and intimacy is a couple where lots of bids got rejected over time (and/or the bids weren’t skillfully made, but that’s material for another article), eventually one or both partners stopped making bids.

As Dr. Gottman’s research suggest, accepting or rejecting your partner’s bids will quite literally make or break your marriage or relationship. Once you know these concepts, it’s easy to recognize, both in your own relationship and in observing others. Want to be a “relationship scientist” and make a prediction about the quality or stability of someone’s relationship? Watch if the partners reject or receive each other’s bids.

The studies quoted above are about married couples, but making bids is just as relevant for singles. The dating process is essentially one long string of bids that either get received or rejected. Sending someone a message is a bid. When you reply to a message sent to you, you accepted someone’s bid. Asking for a phone number or a coffee meeting is a bid. You might even say swiping right is a sort of indirect bid that you hope will be received. We talk to so many singles who get fatigued or guarded because they feel discarded and rejected, without anyone ever really receiving their bids.

In LoveWorks, we are big proponents of receiving bids with grace and kindness. For one, it’s effective communication and relationship behavior, it secures loving stability; it just works. Secondly, when someone makes a bid, that person is taking a risk, putting themselves out there in a somewhat vulnerable position, just like the kid showing off her drawing. Making a bid inherently makes us open to rejection, and we generally think that should be rewarded kindly. However, that doesn't mean you have to say yes to what is asked of you.

Yes, you can receive a bid kindly and still say no to the request. Say someone asks for your phone number, but you don’t want to give it. You receive the bid first by saying, “Thanks for asking for my number, I’m honored you would ask”. Then, you can give your reply, by saying something like, “I’m not prepared to share my number with you right now (or quite yet); but I’d be willing to take yours”. Point being, first receive with kindness, then give your response.

In a recent article I quoted a movie character for sharing her theory that why we get married is so that we have a witness to our lives. In a world of billions of people, what does one life really matter? But in a marriage or committed relationship it’s as if we say to each other, “Your life will not go un-noticed, because I will notice it”.

Philosophically, we believe there’s a lot of truth to that theory. Practically, in our day-to-day lives and relationship, this philosophy gets played out by the making and subsequent reception or rejection of bids. Our invitation to you is two-fold:

1. Notice how and where you make bids in your relationship. Do you do it consciously or unconsciously? Do you do it a positive way? (You can make bids negatively. “We never have sex anymore!” sounds like a criticism, but is often a bid for more sex and intimacy).

Image by Aravind Kumar on Pixabay. 

You know what it means when someone takes stuff personally, because it’s really irritating when’s it’s someone you’re trying to talk to.

What you might be less aware of is when you take things personally.

Taking things personally happens all day every day for most people in most relationships. In case you’re wondering, “what are you doing when you’re not taking things personally”, here’s what you’re doing: You’re listening. You’re observing. You’re calm. You consciously choose your response to a given input.

Taking things personally shows up in a multitude of everyday situation. Some examples …

• You’re sharing something about yourself or about your day with your partner and he makes it all about himself instead of just listening

In the podcast, I break down what happens when we take things personally, and what it does to our relationships, plus I share five valuable lessons. Listen to the podcast to get the lessons.

PS. I mention the men’s retreat I’m hosting Jan 17-19. Here’s the link: https://loveworksforyou.com/mens-retreat-jan-2020

Masculinity, and why it’s challenging for us men to find our own authentic masculinity. We are caught between several competing strong forces that pull us in different directions. I’ll give examples of how this dilemma shows up in men’s relationships.

I have been engaged both professionally and personally with men’s work for over 10 years now. Through that work I have worked with, coached, educated and learned from thousands of men. Once a year, in January, I host a small private men’s retreat, so as I’m gearing up for this retreat I’m putting some extra focus on men and masculinity and men’s relationships.

You can find details about the men’s retreat here: https://loveworksforyou.com/mens-retreat-jan-2020

Today, when we hear the word masculinity, it’s mostly in relation to “toxic masculinity”.

Toxic masculinity is part of our cultural conversation now (type “toxic” into Google and guess which search term is the first one to show up?)

It is a powerful development that toxic masculinity is being talked about so openly now; it’s a human rights victory for women and anyone else who are victims of toxic masculinity that they have some recourse and more options than just suffer in silence, as has been the case for a very long time.

It’s also really sad how much we talk about and hear about toxic masculinity, for a couple of reasons:

• It’s sad because there’s so much to talk about! There are so many incidents of toxic masculinity, every day, in every part of the world.  Abuse, violence, harassment, lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating, threatening, stonewalling, raping, pillaging, and on and on.

I personally want to do anything I can to foster more of those kinds of masculinity.

I see (at least) five competing forces that influence a man:

1. Innate masculine or biologic forces, such as aggression, sex drive, or assertiveness

It’s really tricky at best, or downright schizophrenic at worst, being a man and trying to deal with these various forces that impact how I show up and how I relate, because it seems no matter what I choose to do or how I choose to show up as a man, one or more of these forces work against me.

Listen to the episode for examples of how this shows up for men, and how these forces are confusingly contradictory.

You and your mate both come home from work. You expect to relax, chill, and reconnect. But somehow, you end up feeling stressed out and arguing! 

That is one example of a daily transition going wrong. 

Transitions are a “hidden regulator” of our daily quality of relationship and wellbeing. Hidden, because the vast majority of our transitions take place with no conscious thought. Regulator, because the content and quality of our transitions often determine if we feel great or terrible, or if end up connecting deeply with your partner or yelling at them.

Every day, we go through many transitions. The first transition of the day is from sleep to being awake. Then there’s another transition in going from your home to your work place. And on and on, all day, until you make your last transition of the day, going to sleep.

There are some transitions that commonly result in breakdowns and upset:

• Coming home from work. By yourself, or reuniting with your mate.

Looking at these examples, can you relate to having breakdowns and disconnects during those times? Like, when you think “bedtime” means having sex, but your partner thinks it means sleep? Or when you come home from work, expecting to relax in silence, but your partner can’t wait to talk and do stuff together? Or when you come home from tense or stressful work environment but you can’t the tension go? Or when you and your partner have been loving hanging out with your (step)kids, but now it’s time to send them to their other family?

In all these cases, and many more throughout our days and months, we end up with upset, disconnection, and stress because we don’t know how to do transitions consciously.

In our intro workshop, we teach a whole host of tools for this purpose. More info here ... 

Listen to the podcast for more ideas and insights.

The process of dating and exploring new relationships can be both exhilarating and frustrating, fun and demoralizing. If you’re having fun the process, more power to you. We hear from a lot of singles who are not having fun, and who feel overwhelmed and disillusioned with the entire process. We’ve had people tell us that dating is like having a second full-time job! You don’t have to be a relationship expert to figure out that that is not a good starting point for any new relationship.

In this podcast, I'll talk about many different issues singles run into, such as:

• • I can’t find the right partner; it’s like there are no good ones in my town.

Here are some of the suggestions for how to make dating enjoyable and productive. This is the short bullet list; you might want to listen to the entire episode to get the context and full details.

• Ease up on “the List”

Rooting for your enjoyable dating experience:)) 

How do you move yourself from feeling like a victim, to a stance of power?

One aspect of this process is taking 100% responsibility. But what does that mean, and how do you do it?

Taking responsibility often slides right into self-blame, basically being a fancier way of saying, “It was my fault”. That’s not useful.

In fact, there are three ways to take responsibility, and using responsibility.

The first way has to do with the past.

The second way has to do with the present.

The third, and perhaps most empowering way to take responsibility, has to do with your future.

Listen to the podcast to learn the differences, and how to actually apply it for yourself.

“My partner doesn’t want to work on our relationship!”

Have you ever been in that situation? Where you want to, and feel the need to, engage in some sort of relationship work, but you get a “No” from your spouse or partner?

Maybe you’ve been the partner who doesn’t want to engage in relationship work?

Just in the last few weeks, we’ve heard from 5 couples, where one partner is eager to work on the relationship, and the other partner is either resisting or flat-out unwilling.

This if sad because marriages/relationships break up because one or both partners didn’t engage in doing some sort of “relationship work” in time.

In coupled relationships, we’re big proponents of not making any significant decision before you get on the same page. But there is one important exception to that rule: When one of you wants to get relationship help, don’t wait till you both agree it’s “bad enough” to get support.

Besides, even if you’re happy with the state of your relationship, but your partner isn’t, you now live with an unhappy partner  who isn’t happy. Does that really work for you?

Listen to the full podcast for ideas for how you talk to your partner, and how you might understand your partner better.

Interviewing Susan Bratton, sex advisor to millions of people, and according to herself, “very opinionated” about porn. Curiously, Susan herself produces graphic sexual education materials.

Susan is the founder of Personal Life Media which publishes educational materials to make you a better lover.

Susan is part of a big, and free, online summit about sexual vitality.

On this episode, hear how she distinguishes between degrading porn versus graphic sexual material that’s love-making centered and kind.

Some of the other topics in this podcast:

• How to pornography industry preys on men (and increasingly women, too)

Porn is a big topic with far-reaching impacts, and whereas this episode does not cover all angles and perspectives, we trust you'll find food for thought here.

“You’re always late!” … How often does being late show up as a source of irritation, frustration, or even major breakdowns in your relationship?

Maybe your partner is the one who’s late, maybe it’s you, or maybe it’s your kids or your friends. Either way, someone gets irritated, and someone gets defensive, and arguments ensue.

Being late is among the very top complaints we hear from all the couples and singles we talk to. Often, we have two people with completely opposing positions on the matter of timelines and punctuality. To one person, it’s clearcut: If you say you’re doing something at a certain time, you do it at that time or earlier, or you’re late, and being late is disrespectful. But to the other person, it’s simply not an important matter, and why are we even making such a big deal out of nothing.

As you’re about to hear, there are lot of perspectives around this recurring issue. If you’re someone with strong opinions or values around this subject, you might even get triggered listening because this reminds you of how your partner never keeps his or her agreements. Make sure to listen to the entire episode, and towards the end of the episode we’ll talk about broken agreements and how to clean them up.

In addition, I’ll offer practical tips for what you can do about this.

Some of the perspective and tips addressed in the podcast … (as per usual, listen to the podcast for the full content):

Agreements. What does being late even mean? And what actually constitutes an agreement?

Culture, context, and personality and how they influence your relationship to timeliness.

Domain-specificity. Is being on time always important to you, or does it depend on the occasion?

Make-ups and meaning. When someone is late, what do you make up about it, and about them? What do you think it means? What you answer to this question, will impact what you do next.

Values and preferences. What do you value around time? What’s your preference, and why?

Rules around time. What are your made-up rules? Typically, the stuff you put the word “should” in front of. Such as, “people should be on time”

Broken agreements. What are the impacts of broken agreements, and how do you clean it up?

Requests. How to ask for you what you want around timeliness.

As always, you can reach out to us for coaching or support about your relationships. Email us at [email protected] or call us at 530-878-3893.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

“I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a relationship workshop - it was totally out of the question”

A married man who came to several of our workshops with his partner, told us this, and he added, “It wasn’t until a trusted friend told me about it and spoke very highly about it!”

And yet, this same man, who according to himself was not the workshopping kind, came back to several more workshops and has now been raving about the results he gained. Both him and his wife have stated that their communication, sex, and partnership are vastly improved, and they have referred several of their friends to our workshops.

If it weren’t for a trusted friend, this man would have never experienced a workshop and all the transformation he gained for himself and his relationship, and that’s a shame. 

We’ve been leading workshops for decades, and we’ve heard many of the myths or prejudices people have about workshops, so we thought we’d offer you some of the myths we’ve heard, plus our responses to them.

Of course, we’ve heard directly from our students how their participation in workshops have profoundly transformed their individual lives and relationships and marriages.

Listen to the podcast to hear our full responses to the myths and fears someone might about workshops. Spoiler alert: These myths and fears are just that … myths and fears.

Some of the myths and fears about workshops …

• It’s all hippie antics, people getting naked, kum-ba-ya, touchy-feely stuff. (Actually, our workshops take place in professional hotel conference rooms and everyone’s fully dressed:)

Why do a workshop?

• It’s a fun and lighthearted way to do deep work on your relationships and yourself. We once had a married couple on the verge of divorce attend. After the first day, the woman exclaimed: “I can’t believe how much fun I’m having working on our marriage!”

About our workshops, Tania Choi, LMFT, whom we interviewed in episode 38, said after attending our weekends, “I’ve done Gottman, Harville Hendricks’s Imago, Hedy/Yumi’s Encounters in Intimacy, Stan Tatkin, Somatica Couples training, Family Life, New Life and multiple church marriage camps - nothing parallels the life changing, accessible and game-changing tools I learned at LoveWorks.” 

Listen to the podcast for full details.