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S01E01 Hello Dear: a podcast about the King of the Road.
69 Plays1 year ago
Hosted by Jenifer and Gabriel, this podcast is a series of honest and authentic conversations about what makes their 20+ year relationship work.
Rooted in the well-known Gottman Method, this is a conversation about two people and the things they have experienced together. This is not an advice podcast. Instead, it's a way for a couple of friends to spend time reflecting on what makes their partnership work.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
And okay. Okay. Can you hear me? All right. I think so. We'll find out. We will find out. Welcome. This is hello, dear conversation podcast friendship.
Exploring Relationship Concepts
00:00:35
Speaker
When you asked me to do this, I thought you wanted to go through the eight dates book together. Well, yeah, I think we should. I think we can do more than that, though, and contextualize the eight dates first. Yeah. Well, and that's that's why I was I was like, OK, we can we can go through that. But the
Meet Gabe and Jennifer
00:01:00
Speaker
idea. Hi, everybody. My name is Gabe Wallenberg.
00:01:04
Speaker
In case you don't know me. If you don't know me, why are you listening to this?
00:01:09
Speaker
Maybe it will be insightful. I have no idea. Jennifer, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. Thank you. I'm Jennifer Waite-Wolenburg and Gabe and I have been in a relationship since, here's the debate, 1996? In 97, 98, yeah, something like that. No, because I graduated in 95, so probably 93.
00:01:37
Speaker
Maybe 94. That's interesting. We got married in 99 and we'd been together five years at that point. So 94. 95, 94 is about right. Yeah. Yeah. I think of everything, especially now that I am a professional educator, I think of everything in the sense of school year. So when I say 95, 94, that's because I'm thinking in terms of the 94, 95 school season, you know,
00:02:03
Speaker
Yes, and I think in terms of fiscal years, which also runs August to July. Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, a couple of years ago, I was introduced.
Understanding the Gottman Institute
00:02:20
Speaker
We were introduced.
00:02:21
Speaker
to this system of managing a relationship through what's known as the Gottman Institute. And I have to be honest with you, the whole time I was being introduced to it, I was like, it sounds like a multi-level marketing scheme to me, especially when you watch some of the guys' town halls and some of the way that people just go on and on about
00:02:48
Speaker
Gottman's work, but then I kind of dug into the research part of it. And what I thought was really validating about the Gottman approach to relationship managing is that it is based on a research-based approach, right? Like it's not like a
00:03:09
Speaker
you have to have your chakras aligned in such a way that when the stars come down, you are able to address the issues that the tower has revealed, right? There's none of that in the Gottman Institute. Instead, what it really is, is about making sure, the short version, making sure that more of your time is spent in positive relations, like positive experiences with your
00:03:37
Speaker
with your significant other than crisis managing and or hurt, but hurt times. Like, I don't think he would say it that way, but can I help? That's that's how well, I'm trying to trying to wrap my head around it without just reading you from the Wikipedia page. But like a lot of therapists use this. A lot of folks talk about it as a couple's therapy and a therapeutic framework for that. But but what it
00:04:06
Speaker
comes down to is the sound relationship house, built on a foundation of trust and commitment, shared meaning created over that foundation, flick management, positive perspectives, lean into instead of away from that which is hanging and share fondness and admiration for one another,
00:04:35
Speaker
And it's that last part. Well, then there's also build love maps, but I, I don't, I'm not where I'm not. Well, we'll figure out where I am on that. So yeah, that's my take on it. And then, then the, our, the lovely lady who we, we, I think simultaneously inspired, terrified and upset and adored would tell us, you know what you guys need to do is subscribe to their email list. And so I am subscribed to their email list. And that is about the extent of.
00:05:05
Speaker
the involvement I've given it since we last did any meaningful work on that process. Does that make sense? I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think that one of the hopes with sharing this information to any intrepid listener who is curious about that would be to learn with us.
Turning Toward Each Other in Conflict
00:05:31
Speaker
as we go. We went through the Gottman method for one, not because we were contemplating splitting up or because we had reached a breaking point, but because when you're with someone for a long time and you sense that distance or discomfort, I like the Gottman three ways of kind of being in relationship
00:05:57
Speaker
encapsulated in, you can either turn against, turn away, or turn toward. And one of the things you and I have always done, maybe because we're friends before anything, is when we feel that separation and frustration, we turn towards. And sometimes we turn towards with smiles, and sometimes we turn towards with lots of swears.
00:06:24
Speaker
Full disclosure, lots of swears. Yeah, and actually the idea of leaning into a thing that bothers you is something that I've really grabbed onto post.
00:06:38
Speaker
2010 or so, or as I will say in an encoded way that I'm not prepared to explain right now, post-fire circle. You really have to, that's really when I learned to like, if that thing is bothering you, it's bothering you for a reason, and the only way out is through.
Drama in Relationships
00:06:55
Speaker
And that's kind of where I was coming from as to, or I guess that's where I like, what I like as much about
00:07:01
Speaker
The system is that if you lean into it in a way that's productive, it doesn't have to be drama.
00:07:10
Speaker
Well, but there's nothing wrong with drama. I mean, seriously, I'm not trying to be contrarian, but sometimes drama creates that release. If you do like what you were saying, you see it through. If you can use the drama for purpose rather than just, I don't know,
00:07:36
Speaker
Self-serving I guess that would be sort of releasing or venting on someone which isn't very productive I mean it could be a good thing but that could also be a difference between you and I because as we've stated from the beginning like
00:07:52
Speaker
I'm more of the pragmatist and you're more of the romantic. So maybe that's just my hot take on it. I just, I don't know. I think it can be purposeful. I also think that the idea of turning towards each other can feel so antithetical in the moment of conflict.
00:08:15
Speaker
That it isn't an innate skill, that it is a learned skill. What are you grinning over there? Well, I just, you know, you want to talk about the difference between how you and I respond.
00:08:31
Speaker
to that moment, right? Like when you talk about you being the pragmatist and me being the emotional one here, when it made me think of this idea of, hold on, I lost my panel here. There we go. It made me think about how
00:08:48
Speaker
When you turn into it in a moment, a heated moment, right? My turn it into is to grab you and hug you and squeeze the moment away. And like, that is exactly the opposite of your impulse in your flight or flight moment is like my fight or flight moment is like, no, just let, I got you. And yours is like, don't you get me.
00:09:11
Speaker
which I mean really gets us all the way back to our when we met you know not even when we met well yeah when we met but also you know when I first knew that we were gonna date which is a story we can tell some other time no I think our origin story is pretty
00:09:27
Speaker
foundational to the work we did in the Gottman Method and I'm really glad that you paired it with the idea of when we are in discord your intent is to like hug it out bro and my intent is to oh we're gonna we're gonna take this apart brother we're gonna go through this
00:09:52
Speaker
Line by line with a highlighter and we're gonna see what's what. I dissect and use mother with love. Fair? Very fair. I mean, that's yeah, very fair. Very fair. You know, I don't have a fight or flight. I have a freeze and cry. Yeah.
00:10:15
Speaker
Oh no, falls on the floor crying. My husband, the six foot three fawn. It's true. But, but I think, but hey, again, going back to one of the core
00:10:31
Speaker
sort of ideas in the Gutman Method is that shared humor is one of the more important things for a couple to turn to, especially when they're dealing with crisis. And I was just reading, you know, I love to read nonfiction because there's
00:10:50
Speaker
something wrong with me. But one of the things I was reading about, because the the Gottmans didn't just look at same sex, or what do they call it? Hetero couples, they looked at same sex couples as well. And one of the things that was true across the board, well, there are many things that were true across the board, regardless of the genders of the folks in the relationship was that shared humor
00:11:15
Speaker
was just one of those core pieces that if a couple had shared humor, it really helped weather some of the rough points that happen when you have folks sharing a lot of life experiences, both good, bad, and boring for a long period of time.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I think that's really true because you and I have always relied heavily on humor, sometimes maybe too heavily, but it has been a foundation of our marriage. I mean, I look at our, our family motto. Go ahead.
Shared Humor in Marriage
00:11:55
Speaker
Our family motto is always learning and always loving.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yes. I think we explained the why behind that earlier, but it's true. And I think, I think we could add always laughing. And also eight times down, nine times up. Fair enough. And also don't sweat the butt stuff. Yeah. If you have colon cancer in your family. Colon not just go get it, go get it scoped. It's not a deal. It's not a big deal. Don't sweat the butt stuff. Just get your colonoscopy. Drink the stuff. You'll be fine.
00:12:28
Speaker
And feel free to complain the entire time you're drinking the fryer. Do you earned it? I don't know. Can that be our merch? Yeah, definitely. Don't sweat the butt stuff and then it'll have, we'll sell a 64 ounce glass, 64 ounce glass Pilsner. There you go. That you can, you can drink your go lightly out of. Yeah, you should drop a link to that video. Yeah, I will.
00:12:59
Speaker
But yeah, always laughing even even when dealing with really scary stuff, too, not because we're laughing it off, but because. I mean, especially in your when you're in something long term, you have to you have to roll with it.
00:13:13
Speaker
And that's part of, I think, both of us process with just the ability. Let me put it this way. You have, I have noticed, a really, really good sense of when it's time to step back and go, okay, this is ridiculous.
00:13:32
Speaker
and point out to just ridiculousness of whatever's happening. And it was, as evidenced a couple of months ago, when, I don't know, I was being all ragey about something and you and Gaia was raging at you and I was raging at you and you just reached over and you pushed the screaming goat button.
00:13:51
Speaker
And it just, Gaia and I both were like, oh yeah, okay. I should, for those of you who aren't familiar, Gaia is our teenage daughter. She will not be on this podcast because I think she would rather die than be on it. But I do, it is regrettable that she is never not going to be mentioned because she has been part of our shared experience for the last 18 plus years. So she will come up from time to time.
00:14:17
Speaker
trying to respect her stories is, is an ongoing challenge that I have because her stories are hers, but the goat story is one we all share. I think she'd be okay with sharing the goat story. Honestly, if, if you want to begin an entry point into dealing with conflict in your relationship, just get one of those screaming goat toys. And when somebody's just going off the edge, that's your code for, Hey, Hey bud.
00:14:47
Speaker
Go take a breath. You screaming goaded me too. There's a reason the screaming goat sits on our dinner table. It's silly, but it's hard. I don't think people appreciate how hard it is to be
00:15:10
Speaker
a committed couple, raising a family, working for organizations who have no respect for your family time, that's supposed to be the other spouses deal. You're the family, you're the breadwinner, so you have to be dealing with work stuff, whereas that's such a catch-22 trap, right?
00:15:40
Speaker
for both the breadwinner, who's the one tending the farm? Now, here in Casa de Wollenhat, it's mostly me because I'm a teacher, but also, you do a ton of work that makes this whole corporate organization work. So, I don't know.
00:16:03
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think one of the things that you and I have also done is just honor the strengths of the individuals. Like I give you crap for being the king of the 90% also king of the road for another reason, but you give me crap. No, no, no, no, no. Let's I'm going to put it out there. I will admit that I am bad about remembering to use my blinker when there's no one around.
00:16:31
Speaker
But if there are people there, I will blinker and it is, it is an effective training technique that the minute I turn without a blinker, you shout king of the road. It's very effective. It seems, tell me it hasn't been happening less. Okay.
00:16:57
Speaker
Well, I mean, you give me shit too for managing the household. OK, manager. Oh, manager would like me to take dictation, you know, and it's fair because I think I mean, heuristically having now lived with this this tool set for a year, there is a frame of reference for talking about.
00:17:21
Speaker
those little piccadillos that every, you know, you put one, two, three, four people in a room, they have relationships. You have a relationship with yourself. You have a relationship with your partner. You have a relationship with your children. You have a relationship with people at work. Maybe you're in a relationship with more than one person. I mean, there has to be common language.
Facilitating Relationships
00:17:47
Speaker
for understanding what's happening in that interaction between human beings, whether it's one, two, three, four, twelve, you know, stadium, I guess. Well, I mean, like when you present and things, both you and I have done big national conferences where we've spoken and there's definitely a relationship with the audience there.
00:18:09
Speaker
But there's, again, common language to describe the experience. So even though we all have our own flavor of what those words mean, there's at least a core reference to begin with. So I'll use an example. So if you're giving me the
00:18:31
Speaker
No, no, I'm giving you my sincere listening face. Well, okay. So for example, when we are in conflict,
00:18:43
Speaker
or when we're having a great time, both you and I understand that these are the little points of contact that will have a cumulative effect on the comfort we feel in being in relationship. So I'll give you an example. You talked about it right off the get-go when we started, and that's like, are we turning towards, are we turning away, or are we turning against?
00:19:12
Speaker
So like the other day when Gaia and I were giving you the business all day long, we were turning against. You're going to need to be more specific.
00:19:22
Speaker
I am not telling you what you're saying. The other day when Guy and I were giving you the business all day long could have been any of a number of other days is what I'm saying. Fair enough. The car seat. Let's just do that. Ah, there we go. Okay. And I could tell, I could tell that it was starting to wear on you.
00:19:43
Speaker
Like, oh, you know, shit, we've been turning against the humor in it is getting lost in hurt feelings and that need for attunement without trying to be enmeshed and caretake. You're, you know, the person who loves feelings is important.
00:20:07
Speaker
You know, it would almost never strike me to describe a one-on-one relationship as something that I facilitate. But when you talk about it in terms of groups, that's what we do, right? Like, I'm a teacher, I facilitate. And the truth is, what you're describing right now is a kind of facilitation. It's just on a very
00:20:27
Speaker
limited. You're like, Oh, okay. So this bit isn't going over the way I thought it was. So now I need to change the way I'm facilitating to get the direction I want to go. And, you know, to put it like that makes it sound so, cause it's not, it's organic, right? Like it's, it's not facilitating to get everyone on board to sell more things, but you are facilitating
00:20:51
Speaker
you know, toward a comfortable, happy, forward looking place. So when you're leaning into it, I think that's the yeah, I like that. Well, yeah.
Observations of Long-term Relationships
00:21:01
Speaker
And, you know, like in those moments, you think back on, well, at least I do. I'll speak for myself. And really, that's what we're doing with this whole thing. We're each speaking to our own experiences. You know, that may be different for others, but we can only speak from our own heuristic experience of
00:21:20
Speaker
of utilizing the core tools of this method and the benefits it's had for us and share our journey with others to see if it's helpful to them. I mean, we have been lucky that we have friends who are older than us who've been in relationships for extended periods who are, you know, happy.
00:21:45
Speaker
Is it perfect? No. No, that's creepy. It would be creepy if it was perfect. Do they have ups and downs? Absolutely. But are they friends with each other? Yeah. They're friendly. They're friends with each other. Do they care about the well-being and growth of the other? Yeah, they do. And that's pretty cool. I have to say, conversely,
00:22:10
Speaker
that when I see, like, I'll speak for myself again, that I've taken things too far. It reminds me of relationships I grew up seeing. And that makes me sad. Like, I don't want to do asshole stuff.
00:22:26
Speaker
I like, you know, given someone the business, you know, having fun, but I don't want ultimately to do lasting harm or hurt to anyone, especially, you know, the person that I love and that I trust to spend my time with every day. That's why I love checking up.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, we were good at that. I love checking up because shacking up is the only contract you have is your shared rent. And so every day you just have to choose whether or not to be with that person, not because, you know, oh, we're going to have to get a lawyer. We're going to have to go. It's like every day is a choice. That's why I loved shacking up.
00:23:14
Speaker
Well, yeah, and I've always said, and this is less funny now, but back in the day, it was very funny to me to say, like, listen, I agreed to move in with her. I agreed to get married. But the day that came that we had to merge our student loans, that was when I had to stop and go, oh, well, wait a minute. Yeah. Well, now you've got student loans, too. The revenge is mine.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We are the generation that brought intense student debt. And then the millennials put the cherry on top of it. God help us for what Gen X or Gen Z is going to end up with. But that aside though, but
00:24:06
Speaker
If you look at, look at how even relationship humor was growing up. Take my wife, please. Just all I need to do is talk about and I don't know what I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and tell stories about my parents. You choose as you need to for your parents. But, you know, it was hard to watch.
00:24:30
Speaker
the animosity between my mom and my dad specifically manifest through married with children.
00:24:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That program was such an incredibly family, anti-maturity, anti-feminist product. And it was presented in my household as just this soothsaying comedy. And watch an episode now. It's not funny. It's just disturbing. It's really uncomfortable.
00:25:02
Speaker
Well, and who could live on a shoe salesman's income? In a suburb of Chicago. I agree with you. I agree with you 100%. I also agree that in the eighties and I don't really remember the seventies, but in the eighties animosity in a relationship was normalized. Like that's just how it is. It's, it's going to, there's going to be animosity.
00:25:32
Speaker
That's just, and I think, yeah, that peaked with, with that Raymond show. Oh, oh, yeah. That was where it turned, right? Because at that show, every line was about how everybody in there was disliked every minute of every day with each other and their families. And then, and then TV kind of went away.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's a really good point. Like in looking at.
00:26:03
Speaker
What is normalized for couples in relationships now? It's it's changed in a very different way.
Media's Impact on Relationship Perception
00:26:11
Speaker
It's almost like, well, one, television is kind of irrelevant now. Everything's like short series and streaming platforms. But if you look at I mean, because you're more immersed in this than I am, as I admitted earlier to not really being a fiction reader, aside from a smutty book.
00:26:32
Speaker
But you're more immersed in popular culture in that regard. It just seems like it's less about relationships now and more about individual experiences. So I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying it's different.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think the other thing that we get now out of our popular media is this idea of the family of choice. And so you don't have you don't have animosity, the family of of obligation. You have the family of choice.
Family of Choice vs. Family of Obligation
00:27:05
Speaker
And it's really interesting to see the way that
00:27:08
Speaker
Gen Z as they become adults are struggling with this family of choice and how it changes and grows. But that's probably a conversation I'm not ready to have without doing a little bit more research. But when you watch these kids and the amount of attention they give to this idea of their friend group,
00:27:29
Speaker
It's really, it's like almost become a culture of enmeshment as opposed to animosity. You know what I mean? What enmeshment is normalized. And I don't know why we went from animosity to enmeshment, but there's got to be a sociologist who has written something on it. And if anyone would like to look that up, I'd be
00:27:53
Speaker
interested to read it. But Meshment, obviously, my perception is skewed with the work that I do, but Meshment seemed like how people understand love to be. And yikes. For those of you who aren't familiar with the... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, just for anybody who's not familiar when we say enmeshment, what we're talking about is the sort of co-opting and creation of oneness around two people's emotional states, right?
Conclusion: Exploring Dynamics, Not Giving Advice
00:28:22
Speaker
Let's talk about this just real quick. So coming up, I did mention the book and I think, let's see, what was it called? It is officially called Eight Dates.
00:28:32
Speaker
Essential conversations for a lifetime of love by John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman and a whole bunch of other people. And I think we'll be touching on that a little bit going forward and, you know, telling stories and doing more of this. So what have we learned today, Jenny?
00:28:50
Speaker
Well, hopefully we learned that this isn't an advice show. If we haven't learned that now, we're going to learn it in a hard way. And that we are not a perfect couple, but we are two people who are trying to figure stuff out together.
00:29:16
Speaker
excellent excellent five x of kindness for each act of animosity there you go five times to turn toward for every time you turn away or turn against beautiful go out and do something nice today see you later