[LEXIE LEE] The Married Entrepreneurs Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Bomb Mom and Grow A Group Practice, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. [RON LEE] Welcome to the Married Entrepreneurs Podcast. This is Ron Lee. [LEXIE] I am Lexi Lee. [RON] We are professional counselors and serial entrepreneurs who are married [LEXIE] To each other. [RON] Thank you for joining us as we explore the business of life and the life of business. Managing your partner’s emotion, that’s what we’re talking about today. [LEXIE] This is a topic that we decided to talk about because one, it’s something that we have struggled with ourselves through the years in our marriage and it’s something that we hear a lot from clients who come and sit on our couch. So we’re like, oh, okay, this will be a good thing for us to address and really help people to understand why it could be good or bad to help somebody manage their own emotions. [RON] One of the things we have to understand is why is it a problem? [LEXIE] Exactly. Yes, why is it a problem? [RON] I think it could be a problem because it could help people start to change behaviors in some ways. People start modifying the behaviors that they would have because they’re trying to manage their partner’s emotions. So in that they’re going — [LEXIE] Often we do that because we’re trying to avoid conflict or not wanting to deal with an issue. Because we don’t like how our partners going to react. [RON] One of the other behaviors you see that happens in this is you hide information. So one of the information that I would hide, I’m a clothes horse. I like good clothes. I was a dry cleaner for a long time. So with that in mind, my wife doesn’t necessarily think I need more clothes. [LEXIE] You have way more than me, way more than me. [RON] So I’ll have to go to dealers or something like that and I’ll find a nice shirt and I’ll pick it up. I’ll take it home and I’ll put it in the closet and I’ll leave it there for like three months. Then one day I’ll break it out and I’ll put it on and looks like garbage me and go, is that new? I’m like, no, it’s been in the closet for months. That’s not new. That’s a lie. I don’t think it qualifies as a lie. That’s probably just a straight up lie. [LEXIE] But yes, a lot of times people, I hear this from other clients as well, usually it’s the woman that is hiding the clothes, but that’s a whole different story. But yes, people will try to hide information or if it’s not about finances that they’re trying to hide sometimes they will not share with their partner issues maybe having with their kids. Like I don’t want to tell my partner that my kid did this because then they’re going to get mad, so another way of trying to manage their emotions. Something else that this pops up with is when we feel that we should tell our partner how they should act, that that’s not an okay way to act or you should react this way. Basically, it’s telling your partner how they feel. [RON] That won’t play out very well. Let me tell you, with that you’re going to find conflict. [LEXIE] Absolutely. [RON] So it’s very dangerous. [LEXIE] So what we find is usually the managing of emotions tends to be around dealing with uncomfortable emotions. Emotions aren’t really positive or negative. They’re comfortable or uncomfortable. So it’s the uncomfortable ones that we tend to manage. Probably the most uncomfortable of emotions is anger. [RON] So let’s explain anger real fast. I’ll give you a good concept of what anger is, when you need to look at it and see it and understand it. Anger in our world is what we call a secondary emotion. You can never be angry. Well, you might be able, most people are not angry just to be angry. There’s an underlying thing happening there. So let’s break this again. Let’s call anger a bus. It’s a giant yellow school bus that has flashing signs on it, they say, stop and see me. You can’t miss me. I’m angry. So we recognize that but what we don’t recognize is the small driver, that little emotion that’s sitting in the driver’s seat, that’s driving those negative emotions. So that could be for men, for the most part, it’s a feeling of disrespect. Guy feels disrespected, man, put the keys in the anger bus and let’s go. Women, it could be fear. Fear, sometimes drives the anger bus for women. So let me give you a word picture for that. So what that workout picture looks like is you’re taking your kid to Walmart and you’re walking through the parking lot and your kid wiggles out of your hands and starts ninja running through the parking lot, cha cha and mom, or dad’s running up behind him and they grab them by the back of their neck or their shirt, that arm. They spin them around real quick. What do they say? They look at that kid and go, you have to hold my hands. Probably not. It’s probably more like you have to hold my hand in this parking lot. These people are going to run you over. They can’t see you. You’re going to be a dead kid and nobody wants a dead kid on their heads. You have to hold my hand. Kid doesn’t see fear. All they hear is anger. [LEXIE] Well, and you said that fear is often something for women. I would say that’s not necessarily true because reminds me of a story when I was pregnant with our second kiddo. Our first kiddo, we had a home birth. So that was my plan, with our second one that I wanted to have a home birth, but my blood pressure was not cooperating at all. So the midwife that I was using was like, okay I think we’re going to have to transfer you to a regular doctor, plan for a hospital birth. So our plan was just to show up at the emergency room in order to have someone take on my case then because at that time, people were not easily transitioning from a midwife to more traditional meds. So we show up at the ER and the ER doctor agrees that my blood pressure is an issue, but he is refusing to admit me and Ron just goes off on the doctor. I mean — [RON] I went blow-stic. [LEXIE] Yes. I want to, he wasn’t overly rude, but he was rude. Ron was rude. The doctor was trying to manage it but what was really going on is not that Ron was angry at the doctor. It was that Ron was afraid that something was going to happen to his wife; that my blood pressure wasn’t cool, that my pregnancy wasn’t going to go well, that they weren’t taking my medical condition seriously. He couldn’t be vulnerable and show the fear. It was much easier to be angry at the doctor. I remember, the first time that I recognized it in myself, this anger bus was easier to deal with than the vulnerability of difficult emotions. We had just gotten married and when we got married, Ron was a dry cleaner. We worked six days a week, easy at the dry cleaner. We were a small business. We were self-employed. So the bulk of running it with day to day operations was on us. So we had this rare Saturday morning off; we were going to sleep in, we were going to take our time, and then the phone rang. It was — [RON] Let me set the timeline. This was near the Christmas holiday. That’s why we were shut down. It was like Christmas happened the day before. This was the day after Christmas. [LEXIE] So we get this phone call and it’s the police calling to say that overnight there was some teenage kids that had shot out all the windows in the strip center with a baby gun. [RON] Playing with that new baby gun. [LEXIE] So the police were watching the shop for us until we could get down there with plywood and board up the windows and make it more secure. So we, I’m a city girl and I have not had a whole lot of experience with plywood. So I really, before this moment did not know how heavy plywood could be. Then Ron, I know you can’t see him through the podcast, but he’s a big guy, six three. At this point, he was like 270, think linebacker. Imagine a linebacker, big, huge shoulders. This is Ron. So we get the plywood and we’re attaching it to the frame and we both have our hands on it. So Ron needs to take his hands off to pick up the drill, to attach it to the frame. I’m not expecting the weight of it. So it slips and it slips just right to where it hits Ron, on the side of the head and knocks him out cold. I mean, he’s flat on his back in the parking lot. I start yelling at him. I mean, I am yelling at him and he’s waking up and he’s like, how are you Ron? [RON] Oh, I was just like, why are you yelling at me? Well, who’s yelling at me? Where are we? What’s going on? [LEXIE] Why am I laying in the parking lot? Now, I wasn’t mad at Ron. I was scared. Very rarely do I not manage fear. Well, usually I’m pretty good at being vulnerable, but that was too scary for me at all. My whole world lying there in the parking lot and I couldn’t deal with it. So the anger came out. I think that happens a lot with us and that driving emotions too difficult to deal with and so we show anger. And when our partner shows anger at us, we try to manage that, because that doesn’t feel comfortable for us either. So a lot of times it’s like, oh, we’re angry. Okay, let’s be angry now.. [RON] That’s a horrible thing. Being mad, used to be mad. So what we have to do within this, we have to try to get permission to help manage our partner’s emotions because sometimes we can get that permission to go. Now everyone understands the intensity or the energy that they output. I do not understand sometimes the energy that I put out. I can come across as angry when I’m not because I have that magical 6’3 and 300 pound linebacker body. It can be very intimidating for people. So I have to be very aware of that. So if I want Lexi to help me manage an emotion, I will just say, “Hey, give me a hand with this. Don’t let me get crazy. Don’t let me get outrageous. [LEXIE] But if he’s not giving me permission to do it first, it does not go well. It feels like, again, I’m trying to tell him how he feels or how he should be. I’m not his mom. I think sometimes that probably feels like I’m being his mom. He’s responsible for his emotions. Sometimes you may give your partner permission or ask your partner permission and they may say no. Or it may be you haven’t had a chance to talk about it and you find yourself in this situation where maybe they’re reacting to something with the kids in a way that you don’t agree with. So here are some good rules on what to do if you find yourself in that situation where you don’t have permission to manage your partner’s emotions. You want to just walk away. You want to remember that it’s not about you. It’s not a reflection of who you are. It’s their emotions and they get to be them. Then when the situation has calmed down, you can discuss it. Don’t try to discuss at the moment. Certainly not in front of the kids but give yourselves a time out to where you can just calm down and come back to and discuss it. If that doesn’t go well, sometimes you may even need a professional and see a counselor or have some help in managing how you want to deal with that conflict and those uncomfortable emotions. [RON] So if you, when you’re in that moment, you sometimes you need to come up with an action plan. What am I going to do? You see your spouse is losing it. You’re trying to get in between your spouse and whatever he’s losing it on and you’re trying to manage that and you find yourself just getting more and more frustrated. So you have to leave that situation. What’s the action plan? What are you going to do? [LEXIE] Okay, well, here’s the action plan that we want you to walk away from this episode with, this is what we want you all to do to help make sure that this is not a problem in the future. One, recognize that conflict can be okay. That conflict just means that something’s not working right. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s because something’s not working and we need to find a different way. We need to re-address it. So that’s the first step, is recognize that conflict can be okay. The second step that we want you to walk away with from this episode is that you recognize that your partner’s emotions are their responsibility. It’s not your responsibility to manage it. You can give them some good information but it’s not your responsibility to manage their emotion. [RON] One of the other things we would recommend is having what we would call a Geneva. Convention. You all were older. Some people may not know what a Geneva Convention is. The Geneva Convention was basically when all the countries got together after World War 1 and decided to have a conference about the rules of war. So that’s what we do. We tell couples all the times, you should sit down and have a discussion about what your rules of war should be. Because you’re going to fight. That’s a guarantee. It’s locked. You’re going to fight, especially when you’re like us and you’re entrepreneurs. So it’s like I’m around my spouse,24/7. We go to work together. We go to home together. We go to lunch. We are together. You’re going to have some conflicts. So what does that Geneva Convention look like? Great question. I have to label what’s okay for my wife to do and what’s okay for my wife not to do, what’s okay for me to do, what’s okay not for my wife to do so. Let me give you an example. All right, I’m a slammer. I don’t know why I’m a slammer. I’m a slammer. I like to slam doors. I like to slam cabinets when I’m frustrated. It shows in a lot of different physical behaviors. I walk around slamming stuff. Okay, so me and Lexie are in a fight and I walk to the back bedroom and I slam the door on the way out. So Lexie just runs up behind the door and it’s like, oh, we’re going to slam stuff. She’s just slamming the door back and forth. That just really, really just sends me over the top. I was just like, are you kidding me? So that’s one of the things we had to discuss, like it’s not okay for me to slam doors. It triggers her. Now if I want my wife to be more mad, then by all means let’s do the things that we know that are going to trigger our spouses. Doesn’t usually play well in the long-term effects of a relationship, just to walk around, trying to piss off your spouse. Lexi gets a little louder than I do. So we had to come up with a rule for that. She needs to be able to voice and she needs to be able to say what she’s feeling. I get that. She has to be about five feet away from me. I mean, I don’t do well with someone getting up in my face and screaming at me. That won’t play well. So it’s like, I can handle it if you’re at that distance,. I’ll give you by all means. Now one of the things we both agree on, nobody should name call. [LEXIE] Yes, absolutely. So the purpose with this Geneva Convention is just sit down and say, okay, these are the behaviors that are okay. These are behaviors that are not okay for myself, for my partner. Then if your partner is having a difficult moment, also talk about how you want your partner to bring it up. For instance, if I am, because I do get loud, if I’m too close to Ron as I’m expressing myself, he calls it screaming. I call it expressing myself. [RON] I call it passion on some levels. [LEXIE] Yes. It’s intense. It’s passionate. Sometimes Ron will say, “Are you aware of how loud you are?” That, because we’ve talked about it is a cue for me that, okay, I need to step back away. I can still be passionate because we’ve talked about it and it’s easier for me to step back than to totally cut off the passion. So that’s part of it too. Maybe there’s this long list of things that you need to work on as you’re evolving and you can say, okay, I’m going to start with this, but these other things that’s going to take longer. So you’re going to give me some grace. So Ron gives me grace on being passionate. He just says, are you aware of how loud you are? That’s my cue. It doesn’t feel attacking. That’s my cue to step back. Attacking would be don’t yell at me, which is where we used to be. So we recommend you can use this phrase. You can steal it from us. Are you aware? But the key to that phrase is that I had to give Ron permission in the beginning to give it to me. So back when we talked earlier in the episode about, you have have to have permission to manage your partner’s emotions, that is a really important ingredient. You talk about it during this Geneva Convention, when is it okay for me to bring something to your awareness and when is it not okay. [RON] Once we have that information, once we have that timeline of when it’s okay to do stuff, it allows us to be able to help up our partner. It’s not a matter of what I’m trying to say to you is wrong. It’s not a matter of me trying to undermine you or make you feel bad. That’s not what people are doing. They’re trying to go. I want you to be the best person you can be. Let me help you with that. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing with partners, understand we sharpen each other. [LEXIE] So again, we hope that your takeaway from this episode is this three-step action plan. One recognize that conflict is okay, to recognize your partner’s emotions or their responsibility and three have the Geneva Convention. We’d love to hear from you on what this convention looked like from you. Thank you so much for listening. I’m Lexi Lee. [RON] I am Ron Lee, and you’ll have a great day. [LEXIE] Thank you for listening. Time is our most valuable resource and we appreciate that you shared your time listening to us. If you enjoyed our show, please rate us or give us a review. You can share this episode with someone that you think may benefit. You can find more from us at marriedentrepreneurspodcast.com. [RON] This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.