Transcript: 

Velcro & Marriage: Cleaning Up Marriage Love

 

Welcome to the Us and Kids podcast. I'm your host Jan Talen. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a mom, a wife, a grandma and in this Us & Kids podcast, it's about how to be married forever while you parent together. You and I know it's not an easy task and so I'm going to encourage you to subscribe to Us & Kids podcast in your favorite app. I'm glad you're here so your marriage and your home can be really fulfilling and very good.

 

Today we're going to talk about Velcro and about staying connected. So I have a question. Do you think your home life can just naturally get better without any outside support? I know that you keep on trying this thing and then that thing and then this thing and there's two steps forward and there's one step back. Sometimes there's three steps forward. Sometimes there's four steps back and it can look and feel like a really similar story over and over and over again just with different ages of the people in your house. Each time we know you're trying to improve the connections with your kiddos and the connections with your spouse and often it can just feel like a moving target and it could also be that your all the time at home together and that much connecting can seem overwhelming or it might be that you're home alone a long time while your spouse works.

 

Either way that stress can undo either one of you or both of you and all of those little steps to keep moving forward can take so much effort that it can just wear us down and wear us out. And pretty soon both of you, one of you might be thinking, there's no solution. This is the best it's going to get. Oh, I hope not. And I hope that for the next two weeks while we talk about bonding and connecting and how stress impacts it, that we can keep the bond strong and clean and together. First, this podcast we're going to talk about marriage, the adult partnership, bonding and connections. Next week we're going to talk about the bonding with our kiddos. So this conversation, both of them will really work for any age and any stage. However, today it's going to have a little bit more emphasis on the bonding with your spouse, but some of the things apply to the kiddos.

 

We're going to pay attention to what we want in the end result because we know that that's part of what you're thinking about is this isn't the direction I want my marriage to go. This isn't how I thought it was going to be. All right, let's get started. Oh, I know one more thing. I just wanted to remind you that what we're talking about today, you'll get a little bit more in depth that when you join the DNA for fun communications course, that's going to be starting up against soon in, so when you go on the website, you can see how to sign up for that. I'll look forward to seeing you there, but right now let's get going with this. My goodness. Right here we go and it's time to talk about Velcro. I am thinking, you know what? This is, if not, I'm just going to say go Google it a little bit and see once what you read up about Velcro. It's a rather fascinating invention that has to do with material and loops. I've done some pretty fun things with Velcro, but my question is, have you ever read how strong Velcro is? Those tiny little loops as they link together can hold a lot of weight and if and when they're tightly connected, when both sides are together, it's supposed to sound pretty much like this.

 

Mine is fairly strong. It's not perfect, but my Velcro has been used. The connections between the two sides have been used a fair amount? Yes. What happens when the Velcro gets carried around and used a fair amount? If I had a picture for you, I'd show it to you because my Velcro has got some little strings and fuzzies caught into it. You can hear me sorta scratching trying to get some of those things out and my audio guy is not going to be happy that I'm scratching while I'm talking. Sorry, Phil. Hey. You know, those two sides can't connect as well as what they did in the beginning because of the fuzzies that are entwined in some of the loops. What does this have to do with you? I want you to think that you are one side of the Velcro and your spouse is the other side and we're gonna think about how do we stick together well?

 

Well, what do we do when there are too many fuzzies or junk in the middle? If our loops are sort of worn out? Well, there are some things that can make either side of the Velcro, your Velcro or your spouse's side, a little gummy or just not very attachable and it can happen even before we come into the relationship. Now it's like this. If we've had abuse in our past, it can put some strings and some fuzzies right into our bonding atmosphere, right onto our Velcro. If as a kiddo in an a dating relationship, there's been some abuse that can help us learn. Don't link too deeply with somebody, don't, don't become too tightly attached. And so those fuzzies keep us from becoming too tightly attached. Now if you both have some abuse in your past and there's fuzzies on both sides, then the two of you really getting nicely and snuggly connected so that you can take on a lot of the weight of everyday life could become a little bit more of a challenge.

 

And for that, I'm going to suggest some professional help to get some of those stringy things off from there. So you can do a better job of connecting at the very least, keep listening to these podcasts, doing what they say and checking out the DNA for fun connections course and these links, the Velcro pieces that keep us together are also what keep us emotionally grounded. It helps our perception of things that are happening around us so that what people say and what we think people said can be more accurate. When our Velcro, our ability to bond is pretty cleaned up, you might be thinking, wow, if I have that in my past, even if there was that in our relationship, well maybe it's just, well, we got what we got. We might as well quit now. Hold on a second. Let's talk a little bit more cause we're going to think about how can we clean up our Velcro and our bonding so that we can do it well.

 

You know, my Velcro has fuzzies and strings and little pieces of lint on it. I can't really get my fingernail tucked into it to get it pulled out. Some of it's pretty tangled. So use your imagination with me. Let's call the fuzzies actions from way back in your younger years that you wanted to be warm and soft, but the warm and the soft has worn off and you understand now that you were being used or manipulated and so that fuzzy isn't so fuzzy anymore or so fun, but it's still stuck and entwined on you and it's blocking you from getting other people's warm fuzzies and saying that those things from those people are genuine people and nowadays could well be saying to you that they really do like you. They are genuine about it, but we can't hear it because all we can hear is the manipulative voice from back in the past.

 

Okay, so my Velcro also has some thread wrapped around it. I think of thread as being useful for something or fixing something, holding something together and maybe there were people around you that did try to help you. They did try to hold you together. Maybe a teacher or a coach or a friend's mom or just a good friend and they sort of entwined themselves with you and what was going on, helped you through a rough spot, but then they just sort of went away. They attached with you in the moment. But now their role in helping you really is it very significant at all and so it blocks some of the loops that would like to attach to people in the present that are here for you now, but your fear that they will disappear sort of like the people that helped you in the past limits you from really attaching nicely.

 

I have one other thing in my Velcro that, I'm sorry I can't show you, but I want you to use your imagination. It's a little stick and it sort of stuck into the Velcro. I really can't even just pull it out. I'm not sure how it happened, but it takes up a fair amount of space and worse than that makes it so that the other side of the Velcro is really blocked from gripping real tightly. So for you and me, it might be something like a strong memory or an experience. Something like a mom and dad's divorce or someone's death or moving away or just lots of rejection and loneliness or bullying wherever you are. It could be something scary. A car accident, a tornado, your house burning down, other abuse, things like this are significant and they can really block up your Velcro side so that you hesitate from really snuggling and close to our spouse because we don't ever want to feel that kind of hurt again.

 

So we don't move that closely in. Then the tear should we have to separate? This isn't as bad. All of us have something. All of us have something I just want you to understand because when we understand now we can do something about it. And remember, your spouse has stuff on their side of the Velcro to, nobody is squeaky clean. And so you're going to help each other so that you can best loop together. If one side is gooey and fuzzy and the other side isn't, the bonding still isn't dandy, so you want to work together and work your way through your struggles. So how are we going to do that? Good question, right? How are we going to clean it off? I want you to start by just being aware of the things that are tangled up in you or on you. So for me, I've studied Velcro piece rather carefully.

 

I'm probably going to want a few tools to get sort of underneath the loops and loosen things up a little bit more and you could do that with or for your memories by making a list. I don't think of it necessarily as a neat English writing paper. Okay. Just a random list on a piece of paper can be sticky notes or a way to keep some list in your phone. Let it come. Those memories come back over time and just keep adding to your list as you write them down. Little ones and big ones. You will see that all of a sudden you have a little bit more brain space to pay attention to things in the present because the Velcro stuff that's in your body and in your brain is now on paper and yes, it sounds funny, but it works. Okay. I have this thing.

 

My second grade teacher was never very nice to me. At least that's how I remember it. I don't understand why. I don't know what I did wrong. She just never seemed very nice to me. That's something that I would put down because if I can't understand why somebody is not nice nowadays, I get a throwback back to that teacher and I have to rethink a little bit, be a little bit more aware of, well, let's figure it out. If that person's important, let's figure it out. I didn't dare do that with my teacher, that's for sure. Because you see, I could say it's no big deal. She just didn't like me. She wasn't nice to anybody. Okay. But it's a big enough deal for me to remember it. So it might be something that blocks me up a little bit, but could be also something as silly as I wanted the top bunk.

 

I never got the top bunk. Okay. Any memory that just has some pain in it, you would simply jot down. Of course there are other glaring memories as well that might take a little bit more effort, maybe a little tougher to do. Sometimes there are those memories that just run a tape around in your head. It's the same memory over and over and it's always running in your head. Sometimes you're more aware of it than others. It's bumping around in your heart and your mind. Be gentle with yourself and write down as much as you can. Take these memories as information. They have something to tell you about your past and they could also tell you something about the future to the extent that you can and sometimes want professional help to do this. We want to to leave the shame and the blame about what you did or you did not do a bit off to the side.

 

Focus patiently with as quiet of a heart as you can. Looking at those things closely so you can see where the treasure or the lesson is that you would like to keep in your present life. This is like getting the most of the fuzzy off from the Velcro. The closer you look, the better you can get the fuzzy off. That's why I'm saying quietly, don't work too fast. Focus in, get a little bit at a time. Okay? You pull it a memory a little bit at a time. If I were to work on my Velcro piece to try to get all the fuzzies off it for hours, I would have finger cramps. You might get finger cramps from journaling and that means like I would do with my piece of Velcro. I would put it down for a while and come back to it later.

 

So what are we going to do once we've made our memory list, we're going to evaluate what do I need to get from these memories? Maybe a different color pen will help you here, but this is what do I need? What's the precious piece out of this that I would like to keep? Maybe it's, I learned how to be really harsh in that I want to leave the harshness behind cause really I'm, I'm more kind than what I learned to be back there. Maybe you're saying I have too much going on in my head and I'm going to get myself a therapist. Okay, we're going to have somebody else look at this with me. Just a little aside. Therapists like me are trained to know how to help you. We know how to do it and we do it gently, much like how a doctor sets a bone or gives you stitches.

 

They don't try to make a whole lot of chaos about it. There's some pain but in the end because she got their help, it heals well and you go on your way and that's what we're trained to do as therapists is heal that wound and then help you go on your way. If you're stumped with that, then email me at [email protected] and I'll just help you process that a little bit more. And find a therapist in your area if you want. What else are we going to do to get some of those fuzzies loose and off. They got to come off right? Well, maybe we're going to find a good book about the topics we know are making some of our loops sort of gummed up. We're going to do some reading to learn from others who have experienced similar things. Maybe we're going to do some spiritual growth and guidance and then just like in the Velcro, carefully removing the stuff.

 

Sometimes it's orderly. Sometimes we have to tug edit a little bit. We have to think about it. We have to wonder at it. We have to study it a little bit. Sometimes we cry. It's okay and sometimes we just gently lift and it moves aside. It's not very often that harshness, roughness rushed too fast is very helpful for cleaning off a piece of Velcro or for cleaning out your connection spaces. Persistent gentleness, thoughtful movements and decisions usually work best. Another thing you might want in terms of getting your Velcro clean or your connections better is to say, I might need a little bit more support. It takes some time, but asking for your spouse's support, talking with a good friend and for me sometimes talking with Jesus often helps give me that other perspective that helps me see how to take on or reconnect in a better way so that I'm at a better angle and therefore more tightly snugged in with the people that I want to be close to.

 

Well, you know, there might be work to be done between the two of you. If during your early years of marriage or parenting there became a process of a sort of dismissing or disrespecting or distancing that started to happen because you didn't quite know how to settle the little tiffs between you. And maybe you just figured out what we're going to have different preferences and attitudes and behaviors. And so that's what's going on here and it's just a little bit of gum up after a while that can stack up. If we continue to do the disrespect and the uglier sentences and attitudes towards each other. Well maybe you're thinking we have to clean some of that up. I have to change the way I approach my tone or my behavior, my smile, my look. You could also begin to notice that you might want more room on your Velcro space for more preferred connections.

 

You've matured a little more and you don't want so much gummed up connection space. You have kids now and you need to stay nicely connected to your kids as well as to your spouse. This isn't the funnest part of this podcast, but we're going to talk about it for a minute because if we don't clean up our Velcro loops so we can bond really well with our spouses, the bond between us and our spouse begins to weaken. And that's when the D for divorce starts to sneak in because our bond isn't as strong. It's our relationship becomes more messy and unmanageable and relationships can't hold up under those kinds of pressures. The pressures of children, more financial needs, more busy schedules, much like a gummed up piece of Velcro can't hold up under that load well either. The loops have to be well linked, then they can carry a heavy load.

 

And marriages we know will carry heavy loads from time to time and so making sure that you and your spouse are cleaning up your relationship really trickles over into how well you also be able to parent together. Now I know there are other pressures that come up. Sometimes there's mental illness or physical illness. Just keep taking care of your Velcros together. Gently help each other. Don't ignore those connections and disrespect and disengage from each other. It moves into dark of a space. Instead, sit down quietly in that dark space and gently shine some light on the Velcro, on what's gummed up and start to take the fuzzy, we don't need these pieces anymore, off. Okay, let's come on out of that dark spot for a minute. Okay, and let's go back to cleaning up the loops because you can loop arms and hearts and hands with joy.

 

As this stuff comes off from you and out of you and through good personal work, through kindness and forgiveness and generosity, your loops will wake up, they will become able to reattach and you will make experiences and memories and quit moments over and over and over again. Instead of being blocked out from good stuff, your relationship and your connection is good and clean. It loops up and links up nicely. At first it can feel sort of vulnerable and overexposed. I'll give you that. The work can also be delightful and precious as you pick what connections do we want to use these loops for? And then using your loops on your Velcro bonding together and on purpose with the same goal in mind.

 

So I have a short story. Me and my husband Chip often loop nicely together when we do a DIY project together and earlier on we did lots and lots of them we learned, occasionally we get a refresher that if we don't set some loop expectations and information about the process for the project, the DIY project becomes a do it yourself project. Ooh, well not quite so cute. Right? Then we have to go back and clean up the yucky loops that got entangled in the, well, what I thought, well you didn't say that last time. Well why didn't you? And sometimes we find it old, but last time you did or last time I felt and we've got blame and shame and criticism and critique going on like crazy and we have to untangle that too.

 

So this could happen around a DIY project or the dishes or the laundry or putting cars away or toys away or bedroom stuff or anything. When you talk through the plan, what's your end goal? And then you have the same processing goal in mind. You use through the same skills to pull the fuzzies off. Then we get to the high five and the giggles. Then we have the joy and then the sentence is, Hey, it only took us two hours longer than what we thought. Which for us was not bad. Our laughter and our hugs really help us lift up our energy towards each other and we're looping together with confidence, not just in our ability to do the DIY project, but our confidence in ourselves, in our confidence in each other as a couple. So what do you think? Time to grab your piece of Velcro. Okay. If you need one, just look for maybe a tab on one of your kid's shoes. Okay. Or a part of the tab on what links the the cuff of a jacket together.

 

Talk about with you and your spouse. What's on your Velcro? How's it looking? Remember you're just going to listen for information that can help you clean things up. It's not a critical critique. It's not character judgment. It's not insult. It's information. Make sure your loops for your Velcro are strong and ready to link up. I love little dandy sayings for closing, so here you go, because you're going to be loopy and in love and loving it when you link up together. I knew you wanted to hear that one. I'm going to cheer you on. Keep on making those connections together and strong.

 

I know it's been a little bit more of an intense podcast. If you have questions, email me at [email protected] I'll try to respond as best as I can. Thank you for joining me and remember that if you would like to check out the DNA for Fun communications course that's starting again soon, then you can go on the website and find the waitlist there. Okay. I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing how you are growing together, enjoying the looping process in the connection process. You are worth it. Take good care of each other and good care of yourselves. We'll talk about Velcro and our kiddos next week. Oh, one more thing. There is that printable. Don't forget to get it. It'll help you work with this just a little bit more. Thanks again for joining. Bye bye.