Our spouses play many important roles in our lives. They can be our best friend or biggest advocate, our most painful button pusher, or all three.

A faith transition can cause a lot of very strong feelings to come up about our spouse. We may find ourselves super angry, frustrated, upset, annoyed, and ultimately judgmental about what they are saying or doing (or not saying or not doing).

Let me teach you about the Mirror Effect.

When you are most judgmental, most frustrated, most annoyed about about your spouse it is almost always showing you what in yourself you are most critical of or most ashamed of about. They mirror for you what you don’t like about yourself. This is why you can get so emotionally charged over an incident, look or phrase.

The opposite is true too. When you LOVE their generosity, kindness or compassion, that is probably something you love about yourself. When you love how they take care of their health – you probably like how you are taking care of your health. When you love how they are parenting you probably like how you are parenting.

It feels so personal because it is personal. It is really about you and your most painful thoughts you have about yourself.

Let me give an example:

When I am super annoyed with how my husband is interacting with the kids. I am probably ashamed of an interaction I have had with them.

If I am scared of him brainwashing them about religion. I am probably not proud of some conversations I have had with them about religion.

When I am angry that he won’t try to understand me, I am also angry that I won’t try to understand myself or him.

When I feel judged by him about my choices, I am probably judging my choices.

Your spouse is your best teacher (kids are pretty good too). They can show you where you are imperfect humans.

You can hate them for this. You can be upset. You can disconnect from them but you still have to live with yourself and someone else will show you these things (kids for example). You cannot escape yourself.

Next time you are super charged about something. Take a deeper look. What is really gong on here. Where are they right? What are they mirroring about me?

You can use your own inadequacies to tear apart your mixed faith marriage or you can use them to have more compassion for yourself and your spouse and learn from each other. Your choice.

Need help with this? One on one coaching can transform how you show up in your marriage. Reach out to me and let’s set up a free call to talk.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com

PS -I am now offering a home study course to really help your mixed faith marriage.  If one on one coaching is not a good fit for you, this is what you need. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Many couples claim that one partner is logical and the other is emotional (and that this is a problem). Usually the logical partner wishes the emotional one would be more logical the emotional wishes the logical one would be more emotional. Then they both spin into blame and frustration and create distance. A faith transition can cause this subtle (and common) belief system to get pushed to the surface and become a real sore spot. There can become a full out battle of emotion v logic. There is no winner in this battle. Everyone looses.

In my marriage I have held the belief that I am the logical one and my husband is overly emotional. (Our society usually labels men as logical and woman as emotional – not a helpful stereo type but one to be aware of). As the logical one I have believed that emotions are weak or messy or unnecessary.

The underlying premise of the battle between emotion and logic is that one is better than the other. Not true. It is also not true that we are either logical or emotional. We are ALL both.

We sometimes get stuck in beliefs that one way is better or more helpful. This causes us to judge our spouse and ourselves.

When I see evidence that my husband is emotional I may tell myself – Here we go again. He is so fickle or why can’t we discuss this like adults.

When I see evidence that I am emotional I judge myself – Why do I act so stupid. This is a waste of time. I am so ashamed of my outburst.

My husband probably thinks this about me as the“logical” spouse:

She is so cold, she doesn’t even try to understand my feelings.

He may also judge himself.  – I am so calculating. I don’t like this part of me.

The solution is to be able to see the value in both and accept both as good and necessary in life and in a relationship.

As humans we are both logical and emotional. We need both to be successful in our life and in our marriage. No one is fully emotional or fully logical (despite what we may say).

If you claim to be the logical one, find ways you are emotional. Find ways your spouse is logical  and vice versa.

Open up to the possibility that one way is not better than the other, but together they make a whole person.

If you struggle with accepting your spouse and and find yourself frustrated over their logic or emotion let’s talk and find out what is really going on.

This binary approach is not going to help you in your marriage. There is a better way of approaching your marriage.

One on one coaching is the BEST tool I know of to really get to the heart of these issues. Reach out and let’s set up a time to talk and see if one on one coaching is a good fit for you.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com

PS -I am now offering a home study course to really help your mixed faith marriage.  If one on one coaching is not a good fit for you, this is what you need.  CLICK HERE to learn more.

A good wife makes her husband happy

I want to help my husband feel better.

Happy wife, happy life.

Those sound really nice. They seem like they would be really helpful in your marriage. They are probably what you and I have been taught about a good relationship.

What if they are not helping you at all? What if they are actually hurting your marriage?

These thoughts can be harmful because when we tell them to ourselves we are effectively setting ourselves up for failure.

You cannot make another person feel anything. You cannot make them feel better, feel happy, sad or feel anything. You sometimes trick yourself  into thinking you can make them feel better because your actions sometimes seem to make them feel better – but it is really what they are making your actions mean that helps them feel better and not actually your actions. (You know sometimes you say the wrong thing and they are ok, and sometimes you say the perfect thing and they freak out).

This may seem like an inconsequential difference. it is not. When you try to make another feel differently, you are going to fail most of the time. When you fail most of the time we are going to be frustrated in the relationship and get resentful that they are not feeling better after ALL you have done. Now you are blaming them for how you are feeling – If they would feel better, I could feel better! It is a losing cycle that creates a whole lot of codependency.

Another option is to take responsibility for your own emotions and let others take responsibility for their emotions and them decide how you want to show up in your marriage regardless of how they are feeling or acting. This is so much more empowering because its 100% in your control.

When you want them to feel better it is always because you think  you feel better when they feel better. This may be true, but do you want to wait on the other person to feel better?

So how do you want to show up in your marriage? How do you want to feel about your spouse and marriage? You get to decide. You can’t decide how they will feel and how they will show up, but you get to decide how you will feel and how you will show up.

Telling yourself that you can make them happy is going to cause some frustration because it is just not true. They are the steward of their own emotions and their own happiness. You are the steward of yours.

Are you ready for some one on one coaching to really get this figured out? Are you tired of carrying the emotional weight of two or three or twenty -three? Reach out and let’s talk and see if coaching is a good fit for you.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com

PS -I am now offering a home study course to really help your mixed faith marriage.  If one on one coaching is not a good fit for you, this is what you need. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Love feel amazing. When we are feeing love we act lovingly. 

Often we get loved mixed up with other emotions. We think love hurts. There are thousands of love songs about how love hurts. That is NOT love. They are singing about another emotions: disappointment, fear, anxiety, loss, but not love. 

I see in my clients that they genuinely love each other and want their marriage to be a success. They also feel  a lot of feelings that do not look anything like love. Usually when you are feeling disappointment, fear, anxiety, or loss it means you have stopped loving. 

If you are hurting. You have stopped loving. 

If you are sad, you have stopped loving. 

If you are angry, you have stopped loving.

Now there is nothing wrong with being hurt and sad and angry. Those are normal  and important emotions. I just don’t want you to think you are acting out of love when you are acting from those emotions. Love feels very different than those emotions and creates very different results in  your relationship. 

What most people want in their marriage is connection and love. They want open communication and they want intimacy. Love can create those things. When you are feeling love, it is easy to be vulnerable and honest and open and to reach out and connect even in the face of rejection. 

When you are feeling disappointment and rejection, anxiety or sadness that changes completely. You act differently then when you feel love. This is why is is important to recognize when we are feeling love and feeling something different. If you want certain results in your marriage then you have to create the right environment for the results to be achieved. Fear, disappoint, anger and sadness do not create connection and intimacy.

Are you feeling love? If if feels great it is probably love, if it hurts it is probably somethings else, You need to know this if you want to create more connection otherwise you might end up creating more hurt or anxiety.

Are you looking to learn more about love and looking to create more connection and intimacy? Let’s talk. I help my clients do just this through one on one coaching.  

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE