- 3 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxgMu1zS9qk Are you married but feel like you're living in a silent marriage? You perform harmony for the world—you don't fight, your life looks great—but underneath, you feel profoundly lonely and disconnected. This is the marriage where substantive conversation is avoided at all costs.
In this episode of Rich in Relationship, host Rich Heller explains the true cost of prioritizing "peace" over honesty. We dive into why couples become systemized in their roles and dodge all real talks at home, and why this avoidance of conflict is one of the top predictors of divorce.
You'll learn:
The difference between prioritizing logistical excellence and relationship maintenance.
Why suppressed difference equals suppressed intimacy.
The steps you can take to stop avoiding conflict and start building dialogue that builds lasting intimacy and authenticity.
It’s time to stop letting your marriage die on the inside.
If you want to talk about your situation, join the free Rich in Relationship Group to grab educational pieces and schedule a free consult with Rich Heller: www.richinrelationship.com
🔗 Stay connected with us:
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Website - https://www.richinrelationship.com
In this episode of Rich in Relationship, host Rich Heller explains the true cost of prioritizing "peace" over honesty. We dive into why couples become systemized in their roles and dodge all real talks at home, and why this avoidance of conflict is one of the top predictors of divorce.
You'll learn:
The difference between prioritizing logistical excellence and relationship maintenance.
Why suppressed difference equals suppressed intimacy.
The steps you can take to stop avoiding conflict and start building dialogue that builds lasting intimacy and authenticity.
It’s time to stop letting your marriage die on the inside.
If you want to talk about your situation, join the free Rich in Relationship Group to grab educational pieces and schedule a free consult with Rich Heller: www.richinrelationship.com
🔗 Stay connected with us:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/richinrelationship/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richinrelationship/
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/richinrelationship/_created/
Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@richinrelationship
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rich-in-relationship
Website - https://www.richinrelationship.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Today, in Rich in Relationship, we're going to talk about the silent marriage.
00:06The marriage where not a lot of substantive conversation is happening when it comes to the relationship.
00:13In a silent marriage, we pretend that everything is wonderful.
00:16When our internal needs and expectations aren't, they're just not even being talked about, much less addressed.
00:21There's outward harmony.
00:23In fact, the purpose of the silent marriage is to avoid conflict altogether.
00:28Peace on the surface, loneliness underneath.
00:31Peace on the outside, sad on the inside.
00:36Welcome to another episode of Rich in Relationship.
00:41And I am your host, Rich Heller.
00:43And today we are talking about what is the silent marriage?
00:49It kind of brings up for me this image of, I don't know how many of you have ever seen a silent movie.
00:56But when movies first came out, they had no sound.
01:01They're just only what we call subtitles now.
01:05And a silent marriage is kind of like a silent movie with not many subtitles.
01:10So that means you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's going on because no one's really talking.
01:16Joanne says,
01:17First, Joanne, I'm really sorry to hear that.
01:29I'm glad that everyone sees you as the perfect couple.
01:32And I'm sorry that you feel like you're living with a stranger.
01:37And when we're living with a stranger, it's very often because there's just not a lot of communication happening.
01:43Last episode, we talked about roommates with rings.
01:46At least when you're roommates with rings, there's some kind of communication.
01:51But when you're living with a stranger, when you're in a silent marriage, that's almost like, how do you even, I didn't even know you lived here.
02:03Where did you come from?
02:04And it's because, the reason why it's like that, instead of saying, hey, who are you?
02:12You're saying, who are you?
02:14It's because in your social world, when you're in a silent marriage, when you're together socially, you almost have a script that you do in a silent marriage.
02:24And it's a script of, it's not I'm fine, it's we're fine.
02:29Talked to the last episode about fine.
02:31Forget internal needs and expectations.
02:35Well, socially, in a silent marriage, we pretend that everything's wonderful.
02:41When our internal needs and expectations aren't, they're just not even being talked about, much less addressed.
02:45There's outward harmony to the world, to family, to other parents at work.
02:54But inward, we're avoiding each other almost completely.
02:59We perform togetherness for others, but we dodge almost all talks at home.
03:07We're so systemized, and our division of labor is so complete, that there's little or no conversation.
03:18Now, we've also talked in previous episodes about the golden marriage myth.
03:22There's a difference between this and the golden marriage myth.
03:24The golden marriage myth is about, look at how financially successful we are.
03:31This is more about speaking like you're successful without focusing so much on the house or the car.
03:41It's more like mimicking life success is probably the best way to put it.
03:45But it's an emotional performance.
03:47So the difference is in the golden marriage, you're all about materialism.
03:52In the silent marriage, you're pretending that you have an amazing marriage.
03:59You may not have the physical trappings.
04:01You might have the physical trappings.
04:04It's emotional performance versus emotional honesty.
04:09Tom says, we don't fight much, but we also don't really talk about anything that matters.
04:14Is that normal?
04:15Another great question from Tom.
04:17Sadly, this is fairly normal.
04:21It's fairly normal that in public, we smile.
04:25In public, we make jokes.
04:27In public, we give partnership vibes.
04:31We do a great partnership act together.
04:35In private, there's a lot of distance.
04:38There's a lot of silence.
04:39There's parallel lives.
04:41And it may not even be hostile.
04:45It might be kind of cold.
04:47A hostile distance wouldn't be silent.
04:52Hostility vibrates harmonically.
04:54Silence is more like avoidance of one another.
04:58There's just no emotional presence.
05:00It's kind of dead.
05:02In fact, the purpose of the silent marriage is to avoid conflict altogether.
05:08Peace on the surface.
05:11Loneliness underneath.
05:12Peace on the outside.
05:14Sad on the inside.
05:15There's a stat that states that one in four married couples describe themselves as emotionally distant, but stable.
05:25That's from the National Survey of Families and Households in 2020.
05:29Emotionally distant, but stable.
05:31The silent marriage is very much about this.
05:34We are going to keep the peace.
05:37It's a balance of power.
05:38We're going to keep the peace.
05:39It's détente.
05:40We're going to keep the peace and present everything's fine.
05:43It's good diplomacy is what it is.
05:46It's bad marriage.
05:48Lillian asks, if we're not fighting, isn't that a good thing?
05:51And yeah, it's a good thing.
05:53It's better than fighting all the time.
05:55Studies on child well-being show that the highest level of well-being are parents who are in agreement or on the same page, who have emotional fluency with one another.
06:04The next level is parents who are living separately, who are pretty much on the same page when it comes to values and how to raise children.
06:13The third level is people who are divorced and not on the same page.
06:20And the lowest level of well-being is parents who are living together and not on the same page.
06:26And I would argue that on that lowest level, not fighting is probably the top of that lowest level.
06:32It might be a step towards being divorced, however, because even though it's better to keep the peace by not rocking the boat, you still are not working out what differences need to be addressed, right?
06:50The truth is that change happens in the context of differences, expressing differences.
06:56And when people have agreed to live separate but equal lives without confronting their differences, when people who signed up for a partnership pretend that they have a partnership in public and in private just pretty much lead very separate lives because they're afraid of rocking the boat,
07:16they don't grow, they don't grow, things don't get better, and something that isn't getting better is generally getting worse.
07:26They may get the cultural reward, admiration for being the couple that presents well, but they know the truth, which is they're not growing in their partnership.
07:37This can happen because of learned scripts that conflict equals danger, the silence equals love.
07:44These are things we might have learned from our parents, or maybe we grew up with parents who fought all the time, and rather than have that, we'd rather have this.
07:53And those are all valid experiences, but we don't have to let the past define us.
07:59We can take the past and the lessons from the past and grow into something more.
08:05And when we stop growing, when we stop talking, when we stop airing out our differences, we stop growing individually and in our relationship.
08:13We might engage in this because the brain chemistry of a brain that evolves in a genetically female body often feels responsible for harmony,
08:25or the brain chemistry of a brain that develops in a genetically male body often feels that avoiding conflict escalation is what's best for everyone involved.
08:35And those are all great instincts, but they're misapplied.
08:40True harmony comes in expression and resolution of difference, creative resolution of difference.
08:47True serenity as a goal only occurs by moving through the things that you've been avoiding.
08:56The Gottman Institute did a study of stonewalling, which primarily occurs in men, and 85% of stonewalling, it turns out, in marriages is done by men.
09:06And they do it to avoid conflict escalation, not just because they're silent SOBs.
09:11Another listener says, we keep things calm, but I feel invisible.
09:16Is that just the price of peace?
09:18As things now are, keeping things calm, the way that you're doing it, by avoiding personal expression, is the price of peace.
09:29But it does not have to be.
09:31You can have personal expression.
09:34You can express your needs, you can express your expectations in a way that they can be received by the other person, and so can they.
09:45And when you both received one another's needs and expectations, when you actually receive them and get them without trying to push them away or fight them,
09:56you can now find common ground to fulfill needs and expectations, maybe not all of them, maybe just some of them.
10:05But if you just start with a few, you can start to work your way up to the more complex ones.
10:10And a new piece, in which you are heard and understood, will emerge.
10:19I want you to get this equation.
10:22Suppressed difference equals suppressed intimacy.
10:29SD equals SI.
10:32Suppressed difference equals suppressed intimacy.
10:35Intimacy is based in vulnerability.
10:38Vulnerability is based in feeling safe enough to share difference.
10:43The long-term cost of suppressing difference and intimacy is the marriage may look good on the outside, but it is dying on the inside.
10:55Avoidance of conflict is one of the top predictors of divorce within five years.
11:01If you have this going on now, the chances are you're moving towards divorce.
11:05I want you to really get that.
11:06Kate asks, how do we start talking about the hard stuff without it turning into a blow-up?
11:12And this is a really important question.
11:15You may not have, well, it's based in this.
11:18Number one, how easily triggered are you both?
11:21I was working with a couple recently where we were, we're working in some baseline practices using I statements, committed listening, agreeing not to blow up, that if we feel ourselves blowing up, we're going to step in our corners.
11:37And the next step to that would be to start, and once we do that, now that we have the understanding and the agreement and we have vehicles for expression and hearing one another, would be to talk about festering resentment and start getting some healing in those areas.
11:53And they were not willing to move forward because that felt too dangerous for them.
12:00This is working with a professional.
12:03I expect that they'll be back in two or three weeks or they'll seek someone else to help them.
12:09It might be that I just wasn't a good fit, which happens.
12:12But the fact is that they felt so unsafe with their own feelings with airing them out.
12:19They were afraid everything was going to blow up.
12:21And you, a part of this needs to be a decision that where you are is worse than if you blew up.
12:28You got to take the risk of blowing up to get to that place.
12:32Sometimes with the help of a trusted professional.
12:36The goal is not to have constant conflict.
12:39But it's dialogue that builds intimacy.
12:43Dialogue that builds intimacy might be airing out your differences without reacting to them or even trying to resolve them.
12:50What this couple avoided was airing out.
12:54One of the members felt so easily triggered.
12:58And in deficit of that individual, they have things going on in their lives that might cause them to be easily triggered.
13:05Maybe they need to manage those other things first before they focus on the marriage.
13:09Sometimes that's the case.
13:11We need to be able to air our differences and just recognize them.
13:17Without making a judgment about whether we can tolerate the other person's differences.
13:21Without making a judgment about whether they're right or they're wrong.
13:24Without making a judgment about whether this is going to work.
13:28We just need to be able to air them out and just let that sit with us.
13:33Until we get to a place where we can now talk about them with acceptance of the concerns that drive those differences.
13:43And that often takes professional guidance.
13:46If a good marriage isn't about never fighting, what is it about?
13:50Good marriages equals authenticity.
13:53Airing out needs and expectations.
13:55It's about honest sharing of self.
13:58Not so much about performance.
14:00If we have the honest acceptance of one another, then we're going to perform better.
14:05True intimacy is knowing each other fully.
14:07The fact is that couples who argue constructively resolve differences easily and report greater long-term satisfaction than those who avoid conflict altogether.
14:21Remember, avoidance of conflict is a top predictor of divorce.
14:26So embracing difference and constructively resolving it is an indicator of marital success.
14:36If you want to talk to me about your situation, you can get a free consult through my website, richinrelationship.com.
14:44You need to join the free bridge relationship group.
14:51There's a bunch of educational pieces in that group that you can grab.
14:56And there's a link to schedule a call with me.
14:58Feel free to do that.
15:00richinrelationship.com.
15:02In the meantime, thank you for being a listener.
15:04Have an amazing day and a fantastic tomorrow.
15:08Have a great day and a fantastic day.
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