How can you have a lasting, deeper, stronger relationship with your partner? In this episode, Susi Vine is joined by Brenda Dow and Wesley Dean as they talk about the power of communication for healthy and stronger relationships, so they can be loved for their authentic selves without sacrificing who they are. Brenda and Wesley reveal helpful perspectives and tools to support open communication, such as when is the right time to seek help for your relationship, how to avoid conflict that can lead to trouble, and how to set your partner up for success. They also talk about the difference between dialogue and discussion and setting expectations for holiday and family gatherings. Tune in and set your relationship up for success while loving your partner as your authentic self in today’s conversation. 

To connect with Brenda & Wes or to find out about upcoming online programs, visit their website at brendadow.com. 

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Watch the episode here:

The Power Of Communication For Healthy Relationships

As we slide into yet another ‘unprecedented’ season of 2020, navigating the holidays along with the other unique pressures being felt in romantic relationships right now, this talk with Brenda Dow & Wesley Dean illuminates some helpful perspectives and tools to support open communication for more balance and happiness with your partner.

I’m excited to share with you a terrific conversation that I had with not one but two special guests. Brenda Dow and Wesley Dean are a married couple that works together to help individuals and couples strengthen their relationships. I know you’re going to get a ton of value out of this conversation. I know that I did, especially coming right before the holidays after a particularly stressful year. There are some gems in here for you. Sit back and enjoy.  

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I am excited to share with you Brenda and Wesley, a dynamic duo that has a lot of great information to share with us. Let me introduce Brenda Dow and Wesley Dean. They help individuals and couples to have lasting, deeper and stronger relationships so they can be loved for their authentic selves without sacrificing who they are. They do this using the Fun Factor Funnel trademark method that Brenda created as well as online programs with groups or private coaching. Wes and Brenda have worked with hundreds of couples in some of the most successful premarital, marriage help and relationship building programs in North America. Wes and Brenda met during a job interview several years ago, and then later married. Not only have they juggled office romance as coworkers, but they’ve also jointly run their own business. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though. A few years after the wedding, they were discussing divorce. After saving their own marriage, they pivoted their business to help individuals and couples in committed relationships. I am so happy to have you both with me. Thank you. 

We’re glad to be here. 

It’s always perhaps challenging sometimes in relationships, and I’ve been married for several years. I’ll try not to get my husband into too much trouble since he is not here to defend himself. Perhaps you’ve seen some people struggle with this when trouble starts. In your experience in your work with couples, when is a good time for people to seek or bring in help for their relationship? 

I would say, always. There are no good times or bad times to bring in help. It’s always a good time to bring in someone to help and to serve as a mentor, someone who’s been in a mature relationship whatever you’ve got going that’s new, and you can use a different perspective. Especially when you’ve got problems and conflicts that come up, you don’t know how to deal with them, and it doesn’t go away on their own. 

There are different seasons and stages in relationships. There’s the romance stage, we’re all lovey-dovey, and then we get into the disillusionment stage. Scientifically, falling in love only lasts about two years or so. You’re going to hit a little bump on the road. If you haven’t worked on things, you can run into that disillusionment. Sometimes that falls into misery where you’re hitting rock bottom, but with many of the programs, including the programs that we’re involved with, you can have a re–awakening afterwards. Depending on where you are in the season of the relationship will dictate what kind of help you get, if you need a mentor or if you need a bootcamp, if you need to infuse some fun in your relationship because things are getting a little stale. It all depends on that, but as Wes said, it depends on the season and it’s always a good time to get help. The sooner you get a mentor involved, the less likely you’ll go into trouble. If you do, you have somebody you can rely on for advice and help. 

It’s powerful for people to have some tools that they can call up when trouble starts to arise, rather than trying to suffer through that miscommunication before we have that power of perspective from a mentor. 

Things will crop up. Sometimes you have a major transition, maybe there’s a medical issue that’s affecting one or both of you. We’re in this time when jobs are being lost, people’s hours are getting cut back. Whenever there’s an underlying situation with finances or maybe you run into trouble about parenting, that’s always a good time to seek a mentor or something like a coach or go on at one of those programs. They’ll teach you the tools on those programs. 

Being a shopgirl and in my own practice, I’m always an advocate of tools, and having them in process or under development before you’re in a bind so that you have them ready. 

That’s why we created the Fun Factor Funnel. Especially guys, “Honey, I want to go see someone.” “What’s going on?” We created the Fun Factor Funnel because we want to focus on having fun. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from men who have gone through the process saying that they enjoyed it. That’s a good tool to use too.  

There’s so much to be said for that energy of play and having fun, especially if you start getting into that point where sometimes things start to feel a little bit stale so it’s great to have some things in your arsenal, some tools to keep things fresh when you need a little spark. I’m curious to see if you have any insights as to what are some common challenges that you’re finding in the couples that you work with or that arise in relationships. 

I find that it’s often easy to avoid going into topics of conversation that they have conflict, especially as a guy, I’ve never wanted to rock the boat or bring up things like, “Everything is going smoothly. I don’t want anything to get worse. Everything is good right now. Let’s leave it there.” That’s been a real challenge for me. The idea that got me over that is caring enough about the challenge to be in conflict because the opposite of that is to be at this apathetic state where you just don’t care. That’s far worse to be in conflict. Having different points of view doesn’t make us good or bad, wrong or right, we just have different perspectives. 

There are already inherent differences in the way that men and women communicate. There’s this great book called You Just Don’t Understand. It talks about the fact that men do rapport talk. They’re talking about things and “What did I do today. I checked this off the list,” where women use rapport talk, they use conversation to connect with other people. It’s about getting to know each other. Oftentimes in their conversation, guys will try to one-up each other, “That’s bad, this happened.” Just that dynamic already is a challenge for men and women. We do a lot with communication and communication tools, conflict resolution, conflict management. 

There are some conflicts you can’t resolve, which you can feel a whole lot better when you can express your feelings, your emotions about a topic, as well as the judgments you have and the assumptions that you’re working under. Wes and I worked a lot on conflict. He was a conflict avoider. We teach this in a four-hour workshop now so that people can come together. If you care, you’re going to have some conflict because if you didn’t care, who cares? You wouldn’t have strong reactions, feelings, emotions over it because you would have apathy. People think the opposite of love is hate and the opposite of love is apathy, feeling nothing. 

One other thing too is that we’re seeing differences and changes in couples because of the pandemic that’s been going on, the COVID situation. Some folks have a lot of distractions, meaning they would be able to leave the house, or they would have their night out with their friends, or it was limited time sometimes, and then suddenly people were at home. They were at home working. They are at home taking care of the children or maybe they lost their job while their partner was home working. Suddenly, they found themselves in a different dynamic. In some situations, there’s a feeling of being overwhelmed. 

Couples are in a situation where they’ve had these routines and they’ve had these roles that they’ve played, and now things can be all topsy-turvy, not only in their roles but also outside pressure is coming in. One person in the relationship may feel that things are falling towards them. They may feel overwhelmed, or they may feel burdened, or they feel like they can’t ask for help, or if they are judging that, “I’m asking for help.” Maybe it’s not in a way that the other person can understand or receive or interpret as being asked. Once again, men and women already communicate differently. There are different love languages and different communication styles. Communication is the key. 

As a guy, sometimes I want to help. I’m a helper. I want to get in and do something. Brenda could be saying something to me and all I’m thinking about is, “I want to fix that problem you’re describing. I want to get in there and do something about it,” when that’s not what Brenda is looking for at all. Brenda’s just looking to talk about how she feels, describe her state and where she is right then. When I’m sitting there thinking about what I can do to solve their problem, I’m no longer thinking about her, I’m thinking about the problem. My attention is taken away from her. I am off on something else. Now that my attention is diverted, I’m not giving Brenda what she needs to feel heard, to be understood or may be connected with me. 

Another challenge you see oftentimes is when she had an unanticipated situation, her conflicts had come up there, there are difficult to address. They can come from different expectations. We get a different family of origin or different perspective when it comes to finances. My family of origin and Brenda’s family origin have different ways to deal with money. We got them both together. When we came together, how we dealt with things with money was a real challenge for us. 

Wes raises a good point about the family of origin. Particularly in December, January and then again in the summer when their family reunions, weddings and vacations, you are getting thrown back into your family. You might’ve worked things out with your partner, but suddenly you’re in this family dynamic. You get trapped into it. Now too with COVID, people weren’t able to do the things for summer vacation or visit family. There can be a lot of pressure from in-laws or your parents or siblings about doing things a certain way. Those add to the challenges and frustration. It’s always good to talk things through with your spouse. Don’t look at your partner as he has a problem. Listen to what they’re saying so that you can understand. One of the things that Wes and I do is before we start talking and if one of us forgets to say it, I’ll say, “I’m sorry, Wes, are you venting? Are you coming up with a solution?” He’ll tell me, “I just need to vent.” I’m like, “I can be successful. I knew exactly what to do.” Don’t try to solve the problem. Don’t give unsolicited advice. Be there and listen to him and make it a safe space for him to share. 

That’s something that I have found in communicating with my husband. It’s easier if I give him a little heads up and say, “I need to rant. I’m having a moment. A lot of stuff landed on my plate. I need to burn off some steam.” He knows too that if I’m short-tempered, it’s not because of him. I don’t need to direct it at him. He’s lucky to be the first one to cross my path while I’m working this out. There’s so much to be said for helping your partner understand where you’re coming from and what you expect out of an exchange. 

We have to know ourselves in order to know what to tell our partners. Sometimes I’m a verbal white border. I talk aloud and try to work through things. Sometimes I’ll say to him and he’ll be like, “What?” I’m like, “You can ignore me. I’m whiteboarding over here. If I need you, I’ll come over and I’ll call you by name.” That allows him to be successful. I know what I’m doing. I’m self-aware. I’m able to help him be successful with me by being self-aware and articulate. 

We want our partner to be successful. 

Suddenly everybody gets to win. 

Set each other up for success. 

Are there other suggestions that you have in terms of how we can begin to frame or start conversations to support that open space for an honest exchange? 

Two things come to mind. First, we use what’s called the Hal Method, which is we have conversations that are honest and open. We want to be willing to change, to not be dogmatic or sticking to a single perspective or point. Maybe the other person is right. Maybe I’m right. I don’t know. Being open, being honest with yourself, with your feelings and with your spouse. There’s a difference also when we talk between having a dialogue versus a discussion, whereas dialogue is for him an open exchange of feelings and emotions, and discussions is a conversation about thoughts and ideas. 

An idea or a thought or an opinion, you could be right or wrong, you could be correct or incorrect, whereas a feeling is never right nor wrong. It’s where we are at that moment. It’s important to be able to frame a conversation within the context of Brenda’s feeling something. It’s not my role to tell her she should feel that way or to feel guilty about causing her feeling. Brenda’s feelings are her feelings. The best way I can connect with her and have that honest exchange is by being open to her feelings in her current state. 

It’s about creating a safe space. When we dialogue, that’s the word we use, we want to share our spontaneous inner reaction to a person, place or situation. It’s something I get triggered. I’m feeling that. That’s an emotion. I need to get control and recognize that emotion so then I can be resourceful. After I get my emotion recognized and under control, then I could approach Wes and have a discussion about it. “I got triggered on this and I’ve been thinking about it. I got angry. Help me to better deal with my triggers. Could we talk about some things where you could support me in doing that better?” You can hear that I’m saying, “We’re working on this together.” The problem is over here and we’re on a team together, but I’m initiating the problem-solving. 

I’m going to him and asking for him to work with me to help me be better in this. We’re a team in doing this. It’s not your problem or I’m a problem. The reason I can do that is because he lets me express my emotion and is very calm about it, “Brenda’s having an emotion. In another two seconds, she’s going to have another emotion, 30 seconds another emotion.” Emotions are coming and going all the time. We’re constantly making decisions about whether we’re going to act. Some people say, “I get so upset with my spouse.” Think about your kids and your parents. You get upset with your kids and your parents, but don’t you find you have better control over your choices? 

We’re deciding to love someone. That doesn’t mean blasting them with whatever emotion is coming in. That means going inside of ourselves and figuring out what’s going on. When we do that and we allow our partner to do that, we want to not just tolerate the emotion, we want to try to accept them having this emotion and even embrace them in having the emotion, which makes it a safe space. It’s not something that I need to react to, “Brenda’s upset again, what could I do?” It’s, “Brenda’s upset. She’s going to work through it. She’ll come to me if she needs help.” Otherwise, I might go later on and say, “I’m struggling with this Wes. You know me, I have a 24-hour rule. I got to get past this in 24 hours or I got to do something about it and I’m in hour-twenty. Can I bounce some ideas off of you? Could you listen?” He’ll say, “Sure.” You can see I’ve set him up for success. I told him what I’m expecting from him and how he can help or not help. I told him that this is where I am on the journey. He cannot only just tolerate, but he can embrace me at that moment by offering that support. 

I want to point out a thought that I had, which is when I express a feeling, you can say, “I am happy or I feel happy.” With that in mind, if Brenda’s feeling a feeling and I reject her feeling, in a way I’m also rejecting her. That’s not great. 

Another thing is when you go into problem-solving with your mate, instead of just being there for your mate, sometimes it can be interpreted that your mate is the problem. If every time I try to open up to Wes to be heard or to work things like whiteboarding and he starts to problem solve, I’m going to get the feeling or interpret that or make an assumption or judge like, “Does Wes think I’m a problem? How come every time I try to talk to him or share, be vulnerable with him, he’s sensing that there’s a problem and he has to solve it? Does he see me as a problem?” That’s why it’s important to tolerate, but better than tolerate, accept. If you can go beyond accept, embrace the emotion because it’s going to come and go at all times. 

We want to recommend a book. It’s called The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. There are five love languages. If you have not heard of the Love Languages book, get it. If you’re not someone who reads a book, go online, you can take the quiz to find out which of the five love language is yours. It’s important, because Wes, his love language is physical touch. Not sexual activity, just touching physically. He would always put his hands all over me to try to express love to me. I’m not a touchy, feely person, but when I understood that was Wes’ love language, I can make it a safe space for him. When we talk to each other, I’m going to put my hand on his shoulder. I’m going to hold his hand. I’m going to rub his leg, and then that allows him to feel loved. 

For me, it’s acts of service. An act of service is helping me with something that I specify I need help with. Sometimes the acts of service people can be confusing. Someone will say, “My partner’s love language is acts of service. I’m going to do these ten things.” Your partner isn’t happy. Your partner doesn’t feel loved, “What do you mean? What do you mean I did ten things for you?” They may not be the right things. If you have a partner whose love language is acts of service, say, “What, dear, are the three most important acts of service that I can do for you?” Ask them. Sometimes it‘ll be something you don’t even anticipate. Part of the act of service is not having to be asked over and over again. 

When I ask Wes for something, I only want to ask him once because then what happens is if he doesn’t immediately do it, I don’t feel like it’s an act of service. I judge, “I’m going to have to nag him to get this done.” I feel like there’s this bad dynamic that’s going on. When he does get around to doing it, it’s frustration. Have those conversations. Have those questions about what can I do to successfully support you? It’s about knowing what you need so you can express it to your partner. 

All of that is so empowering because we get this feeling that perhaps we take upon ourselves, “In order to make my beloved happy, I should know what they want.” Why not make it a conversation? Why not be honest and open because we don’t always want the same thing? It’s not always perhaps what we would think of as logical. When we love someone and we want to see them happy then I remember, if she’s not having a great day, I can check-in and say, “What can I do for you to make your day a little easier?” and then watch her light up.  

My husband’s love language is words of affirmation. He works hard and he loves to be appreciated for the work that he does. It goes a long way. It’s something that occasionally falls off my radar because we get busy. We get into our own heads. When I can tell he’s starting to grind his teeth at me, I try to touch back in and say, “It’s amazing. Thank you for taking care of that chore. It was huge, but that was off the list. You’re amazing for fitting that into your busy schedule.” It’s a great book and a great quiz. That’s helpful because we tend to get in this place where “Why don’t they understand that I’m showing them how much I love or appreciate them?” We’re not talking the same language, that’s a world of difference. 

Sometimes when people have a hard time grasping the love languages, we teach them a reverse way of paying attention to their partner because their partner often will express to them when they want to be loved. That’s a way if your partner is not able to communicate or doesn’t want to read the book or doesn’t want to take the quiz like, “I’m trying on my own, Brenda, and I can’t get them to take the quiz or read the book.” We work with them to say, “Here are some techniques where you can study what they’re doing.” You can take clues from that and figure out what their love language is so that you can respond to them in kind. 

For this publication in particular, how do you find that holidays may add or illuminate some relationship tensions? 

It’s been my observation that holidays often involve a lot of expectations. Sometimes those expectations go unexpressed or uncommunicated, or they are unrealistic. We want our partners to be successful. An uncommunicated or unexpressed expectation is a resentment that’s waiting to happen. If I expect Brenda to give me an ice cream cake for my birthday and I don’t tell her, then it’s a guessing game where she’s got to figure out what can she do to make me happy. Whereas if I say, “Brenda, I’d like to have an ice cream cake on my birthday or I’d like to visit my father for Christmas,” then she can be successful in our interactions. She can help me diffuse the tension that can come from that, “Is she going to do it? Is she not going to do it? Does she keep and care about me? Does she even know me?”  

The other thing I found out is I want to focus on key priorities. I want to let go of the rest. Is this thing that I’m thinking about, will it matter next month or next year or five years from now? Does it matter if we want my in-laws first or her in-laws first? What would matter? The important thing is in that situation that we go to see family, that we go to interact and share love and share the holidays. I let go of the things that aren’t priorities and focus on the things that are. 

We try to set each other up for success by saying things like, “The holidays are coming up. On Christmas day, Wes, what’s the most important thing that ideally you would like to see happen? Ideally, what’s the thing that you would like to avoid doing or happening on Christmas day?” We already have a baseline for success because I don’t want to do this. I want to do that. When you each express that to each other, then your four points are typically manageable. If the thing is, “I want to talk to my parents on Christmas day. We can’t go there because of the way the situation is. We’ll try to get them online. I don’t want to talk more than an hour because it’s stressful for me.” Set up ahead of time. What does that look like? If one of you get stressed, negotiate in advance how long you’re going to be there. 

One of the things that Wes and I do is have a secret code word that we use with each other before we go into a situation where we might have a trigger. We also call this thing, leave on a high note. We negotiate in advance how much time we’re going to spend and what the code word is going to be. We respect each other that if one of us has to use the code word, which means I need to withdraw from the situation, then we do. If we don’t help our partner and withdraw when they need to, they’re not going to want to do it again. This helps build trust with each other. 

I’d rather have a half-hour online with my parents than never being able to get Wes to be online with my parents again. That’s an example, using the code word. It could be a code word where he could say something like, “What’s going on up there? I think I see something.” That could be the code word. The codeword could be, “What were we having for dinner tonight?” It could be a code phrase, “Have you seen what time it is?” That’s another one. We’ve also been known to text each other if we have to. Think about that. The idea is to set your partner up for success. A good tip is what do each of you most want ideally to have and what do most of you ideally want to avoid on a particular holiday. 

It’s tremendously helpful to just be honest. As we’ve been discussing throughout our conversation, the power of that is tremendous because sometimes what one person wants the most is what the other one might want to avoid. You can recognize that and then say, “I respect that because this is a holiday. Maybe instead of an hour, we’ll aim for 30 minutes. It’ll probably be 45 and I can make this concession for you. I know that this is important to you. It’s your turn and let’s do this so that I can show you how much I appreciate that you’re doing this for me because you love myself and my family.” 

Sometimes, say we’re going to go over there and we’ll spend two hours, I might call the code word after 90 minutes. We’ll get in the car and Wes will be like, “What’s going on? You called the code word at 90 minutes. You said you wanted two hours.” I said, “I wanted to leave on a high note.” That’s what we mean about being on the high note. Right then and there, it’s like a crescendo. He’s laughing and smiling. I’m laughing, smiling. It’s like, “Isn’t this a good way to end things? We don’t know what the next 30 minutes are going to be. Let’s leave on a high note.” I might say, “Look what time it is. We got to get going.” We get in the car and he’ll be like, “Did something get triggered?” I go, “No, we ended on a high note.” We high five each other. How do you feel after that? 

I feel great and respected, especially when one of us has to tap out and the other person picks up and we make modifications or we find a way to fit that in leaving. In the debrief, I felt respected by the fact that you saw what I was trying to communicate. You’ve recognized that I have limits. I was at mine and you work with me. There’s no shame. We deal with what we could. We’re moving on. I appreciate that. 

When you get a response like this, you want to work together and set each other up for success. 

It inspires you to keep that level of respect for each other. You can’t get to that place of complacency where you forget that this is the relationship you chose. As you were saying, you love your children and your parents, but you chose this person. Sometimes it might take a little more effort, but I believe that the payoff is exponential. 

When you’re doing that, you’re building goodwill. When one of those situations come up, when it’s impossible to do those four things, then you have a lot of grace for each other because you’ve been so successful in doing much of that and have a good path that you’ve set yourself down. When you get little setbacks like it was a crazy day and we couldn’t do it or something happened, the car broke down or someone walks through the door who I haven’t seen in ten years. I wanted to stay an extra fifteen minutes to say hi. Those things happen. We’re imperfect people. When we demonstrate to each other that we want to be successful and we’re on a team together, and this is the goal and this is the approach we’re going to take with our relationship and how we want to approach things. When you have those little slip-ups, as we all do, or certain things happen and you have no control over a situation, that should be the exception, not the rule. It can be the exception rather than the rule when you use these tools and techniques. 

With all of this awesome insight and information, folks might be wondering how to stay on track or when to know which tools to use at the right time. What are some resources that you recommend to stay on track or if they’re interested in working with you, how can they go about that? 

We have quite a tool chest because we work with many different programs over the years and have created our own programs when we saw there was a gap in what we were doing before. I always encourage people to reach out to us for a complimentary discovery session. We can take a look at where things are in your relationship and make the proper recommendation based on, is it something the two of you are going to do? Is it just one of you that’s going to get some help on your own to try to change the dynamic of the relationship, which does work? Is it something that we would do? Is it something that we would refer you to with some of the organizations that we work with? Everyone’s different and they’re in a different place. They can reach out at Brenda@BrendaDow.com, that’s my email. BrendaDow.com is our website. 

You’ll see that both Wes and I are on there. I do this full-time. He does this part-time. We create quite a team because we’ve been doing this type of thing together for several years. We also want folks to know that if you’ve been to a counselor or therapist and you’re still struggling, don’t give up. We have many different approaches that many folks have not experienced. We know, we’ve been in the trenches before trying things, now you can see we’re in a pretty good place because we kept at it. It’s finding the right match. When people come and they have a discovery session with me, I want to help them. This is our passion, our vocation. Wes and I want to help them. That may not be us, it may be someone else or something else with which we can use to make a referral. 

That’s so helpful to recognize too that if you recognize you’re in a situation and you know you want help or support that you can start working yourself. Reach out and try to make some shifts, make a little space, let that effort be demonstrated so that your partner may be ready to come in and make that a couple’s venture. Sometimes it takes one to break out of inertia, to start to turn things around. That’s helpful too for people to recognize that if you can’t get your partner to buy in on seeking help, that doesn’t mean you can’t bring help to the relationship. 

That’s how I work with a lot of people. We were working primarily with couples for several years. Now we work with individuals just for that reason. We have seen how important it is that if one person wants to take that step and get to know themselves so they can bring a better dynamic and self-knowledge to the relationship, it can change everything between the two of them.  

Is there anything else that comes to mind you want to share before we wrap up? 

A point I want to make is that before we got into our time of trouble, I thought our relationship was great. I didn’t see any real problems. I thought things were going smoothly. We weren’t fighting very much. We’re seeing it going fine. Brenda asked me once, “Are you happy in our relationship?” I’m like, “Yes. Of course, I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I be happy?” It turns out she was not. She was miserable. With that in mind, being able to reach out to a mentor couple, to other folks is important. Even when you don’t think there’s a problem to be solved, there are always ways to be better, to have your relationship be more comfortable. It doesn’t have to hurt, frustrating and painful. Even in conflict, even in times when you’re not happy, you can feel supported, loved and accepted because you’re on a team. You’ve chosen a team. You can be successful working together and working with other folks even when you don’t know if you do. 

One of the things that I want to stress that Wes and I do differently is we don’t want to go to someone who says, “Here’s what you should do. You should do this. You should do that.” Our approach is we don’t ask you specifically what your problem is. What we do is teach you tools that you can apply to any type of problem. If there’s a problem that’s going to be discussed, we’re going to say, “Here’s the problem we had and here’s how we effectively use this tool.” If you have a partner who’s reticent like, “I have to go air my dirty laundry,” no, you don’t always have to do that. In fact, we don’t want to know the details. We have a track record of using ourselves as examples. 

We get a smidgen of where you are in the cycle of your relationship, maybe what a key part of it is, but we use ourselves. We teach tools that can apply to any situation. We show you what a train wreck we’ve been and how we climbed out of the dumpster fire and hosed ourselves off and are in good shape now. If you go to places where they’re telling you advice, or they’re rationalizing, or they’re diminishing your feelings, move on. Find someone who’s a match for you. That’s why we do the discovery sessions so that we can help you find the help that you need, whether that might be working with us, or might be working with another entity or organization with which we’ve had past practice or volunteer as well. 

I love both of those insights so much. First of all, because Wes, you brought it back to the beginning where you were saying don’t be afraid to disrupt the status quo. Sometimes comfortable isn’t as good as it can be. It’s so good to check in with your partner and see, “Are you as comfortable as I am? Are we comfortable in this or is there room for growth?” I do believe that there’s always potential. Thank you for sharing too, Brenda, that people should never feel exposed or minimized or diminished when they seek help to support themselves in their relationship. That’s such a beautiful place to meet people and say, “Maybe this works for you. In our situation, this is how we saw a shift.” I love that approach. 

Sometimes people have walked away, and they’ve told us like, “We had a great discussion on the way home because we were talking about how they got themselves out of that.” Instead of talking about their problems, they were talking about ours. Some people have even said, “I felt a whole lot better about my relationship when I found out what the two of you were going through.” We don’t use war stories to tell them. We use it to illustrate how to use a specific technique. We meet people where they’re at. We meet people where they are and try to bring the tools to them to help address the needs so that we’re lifting them up, we’re encouraging them, we’re supporting them, nonjudgmental. That’s our focus. 

No beating up on one spouse or the other. 

It’s a team effort. 

We teach you how to be a team together if you come together. If you come to us individually, we teach you how to learn more about yourself so that you can better express yourself to the partner, which can make all the difference in the dynamic of the relationship. 

Thank you both so much for sharing this. This was perfectly timed after the year that we have had. There have been some shifts in dynamics especially approaching the holidays. It’s a great time to give ourselves a little extra grace. Thank you so much to both of you for sharing. 

Thank you, Susi. 

Thank you. 

Important Links: 

• You Just Don’t Understand 
• The 5 Love Languages 
• quiz – The 5 Love Languages quiz 
• Brenda@BrendaDow.com 
• BrendaDow.com