Two Driven Spouses, One Big Argument — and a Psychologist who helped us see through it

Doug Brackmann [00:00:01]:

And so oftentimes, you know, two drivens find each other, but then, you know, they get together to meet each other's aloneness, but then don't have time to make it work. So this is. Yeah, this is a good story.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:14]:

I'm a small town kid, born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. Seventeen years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband JR and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you too.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:49]:

I'm Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared Confident. Hey, it's Tiffany. Before we jump into this conversation, the one that you're about ready to hear, I want to give you some quick context so that you know what you're jumping into. This episode is from my appearance on the I Am Driven podcast. So I was a guest on that show and it turned into a super raw, honest look into a my marriage, the parts that broke, the work that we did to put it back together, and what it means to be two driven people trying to build one life side by side. I decided to go all in on this conversation. The host, his name is Dr. Doug Brackmann and he's a psychologist and an expert in the psychology of driven people.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:35]:

Right. People who are driven. And let's just say that this conversation got super real. We talked about identity, resentment, and the loneliness that can live inside a successful quote unquote marriage, and the surprising things I had to unlearn about strength. So my husband and I are both firstborn, we both have massive goals, massive things that we want to do, and we're both super driven people. And I've long said trying to get two firstborns to live and fit together is like really hard and sometimes feel like a full time job. So I'm sharing this because I don't want anyone else to feel as alone as I did when things were really falling apart behind the scenes. I hope this conversation serves as encouragement that you can rebuild, you can grow, you can find your way back to each other, but it starts with ownership and vulnerability.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:26]:

So if you're in a season where things feel heavy and you just feel like you're not doing it right, you are just in it, you're not doing it wrong. And also, I want to say, because I get really vulnerable in this episode. I did have JR Listen to this before I put it live, so I have his permission to share this. I feel like, you know, I just need you to know that. So. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Listen in.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:52]:

I am a wife and a mom to four girls, and I'm an entrepreneur and CEO of a marketing agency called Element Three. And today I'm the founder of a movement called the Life of. And I accidentally now live in a two career household. My husband and I are both firstborns, and we live with all of the intensity of two firstborns trying to do life beside each other. And so, you know, as we built our family and our careers on the same timeline, I realized that I had a choice to make to either turn in my dreams or level up my toolbox. As I was navigating this, like, you know, life gets more complex. Four kids in four very different stages. They're from 15 to 3 years old.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:45]:

My husband travels a lot. I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of people that I like in my life. And so as the complexity was escalating, we were just breaking under the pressure of it. And so a few years ago, you heard me tell my story. I was like, I either have to give up on some things my heart wants to save the people and relationships I love, or I have to figure out how to solve for the end in my life in a new way. So here we are. I like to do my best, and I'm very competitive.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:18]:

And so I think I have proven to myself I've done my best when I beat most of the people in the room. And so, yeah, I got A's. I just am. You know, I'm sort of conscious of every single word. Time I say the word driven, I feel like it's like a bingo card on this podcast. But I'm just. I'm just driven to push. And I think for a long time, I was actually more comfortable in the struggle of things than in the abundance of things.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:45]:

It's like this intensity and this focus that came for me when the challenge was hard. The mountain was tall, the adventure was worthy, you know, was like, when I just had, like, crystalline focus in that environment. And so I've had to work hard to have that same kind of focus in times of abundance and in seasons of peace. To not make war just for you can create your own crazy. And so I don't remember how I got here, but anyways, that's my answer. Dr. Doug is, like, smiling And I.

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Doug Brackmann [00:05:19]:

Literally wrote a book about you. I mean, we thrive in chaos. My doctoral dissertation was about self sabotage. And so it is what we are really good at because that's where we feel most at home.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:31]:

Totally. Yeah.

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Doug Brackmann [00:05:32]:

Yeah. It brings out the best in us. And so.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:35]:

Yeah, when there is no way they're.

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Doug Brackmann [00:05:37]:

Calm and peaceful and it is. Yeah. And so you married a Driven.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:42]:

Yeah, I mean, he's an Ivy League athlete, only son, oldest three, sport athlete, like the crown jewel of the family. You know, all the things. So. Yeah.

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Doug Brackmann [00:05:53]:

So Barbie met Ken.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:55]:

Well, I joke when we go to marriage counseling and we, like, explain our birth order, they're like, we have a special little booklet for your kind of problems.

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Doug Brackmann [00:06:07]:

Well, it's in Drivens. We have an inner world and an outer world, and the outer world that looks really bright and shiny doesn't ever capture really, the inner aloneness that we both have. Driven can be. It's a very lonely thing to be an entrepreneur.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:22]:

Yes.

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Doug Brackmann [00:06:23]:

And so oftentimes, two driven spite of each other, but then they get together to meet each other's aloneness, but then don't have time to make it work. So this is. Yeah, this is a good story.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:36]:

Yeah. Well, let's get into it, because my husband and I, we don't, like, fight a lot, but this morning was challenging. And the core of it is that we miss each other, which is exactly what you're saying.

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Doug Brackmann [00:06:50]:

Driven marriages. I always laugh because it's a match made in heaven and hell. Because when things are jiving together, you know, stumble and Louise, it's just, oh, my God, it's all dopamine and we're all awesome. But then underneath, the truth about who this other person is is it has to come out and it has to be worked through.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:08]:

Yeah. Tell me more. Make me the subject. It's exactly right. When we are a team, we are so good. We've. Our marriage has gone through some really challenging times. I think it's Esther Perel who says 100% of us are married more than one time, 50% of us to the same person.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:24]:

And so we had to go through this season where we had both grown a lot as people and in our careers and the, you know, kind of place. We both individually lived in the outside world socially and the pressures that were on our time and the excitement and expectations around us individually. And we did not know how to, like, bring that same care and intention to our relationship. And so, like, predictably, it was struggling. And so we've done a lot of work to come Back together. And we both, like when we are on team is the word that we both use. So you say like Thelma and Louise. That's exactly.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:02]:

It's like is the world's best ping pong match. And we're intellectually stimulated by each other. We have the same sort of like, yeah, just proactive, like on the edge of our seat, like attitude towards life. Like, of course you'd go. Of course you'd drive overnight. Of course you'd take the red eye. Of course, of course, of course you would drive fast. Of course you would do all these things.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:23]:

But there is this underlying thing that feels like sometimes we drag around, which is. You're exactly right. This like loneliness that we both experience, sometimes in different seasons and sometimes at the same time. But it comes out in fighting and frustration and just this lack of connection and intimacy that like, makes the world feel even more lonely.

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Doug Brackmann [00:08:45]:

I differentiate the terms lonely from alone. That aloneness is something that driven a lot of psycho babble.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:54]:

So tell me how you see those words differently, alone and lonely. Tell me those.

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Doug Brackmann [00:08:59]:

We're about somewhere between 5%, 8% of the population, type A people. We are driven. We are. Have a different brain structure, different reward system, different. And we feel, we know we're different. And you know, everyone else who is not like us validates that we're different. And you know, we struggle with the imposter syndrome because it feels like I'm. There's something missing or wrong with me and it's boredom and the rest of the world validates that.

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Doug Brackmann [00:09:29]:

But two drivens come together and it's like a magnet. It is this. You get my aloneness and I get your aloneness. And when we're together, bliss. But it's an aching, that kind of. You know, Carl Jung's shadow is a great way to. It's a shadow, it's always following us around and it's just creeping itself into the truth of the reality. So 25 you guys along until this aloneness, this kind of awareness that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:57]:

Until it like showed itself.

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Doug Brackmann [00:10:00]:

Yeah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:01]:

I would say for him much earlier, probably five years into being married. Is that what you're saying? Like, as far as, like him.

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Doug Brackmann [00:10:07]:

So he became aware that there's something I. I'm not getting what I need here.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:12]:

Yeah. And he was saying it to me. I just didn't know how to hear it. I didn't know what to do. As a result, I was like, I. I didn't know how to satisfy that. And probably five, five to seven years into our marriage, be Five for him. And then I would say for me it happened probably around year.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:36]:

Let's see. We've been married for about 10 or 11.

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Doug Brackmann [00:10:39]:

I will try to speak to your husband's side. It it. Oh, you have daughters.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:45]:

Four of them.

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Doug Brackmann [00:10:47]:

Wow. Does it surprise you how sensitive men are?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:51]:

Yes. Yes.

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Doug Brackmann [00:10:53]:

How long did it take you to figure out that it, it is really we are as I always joke, women have a lot more emotion. You guys are swimming in emotion 24 7. But when men have emotion, it's much bigger.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:07]:

Yeah. And it's more fragile than I understood.

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Doug Brackmann [00:11:11]:

How did you find that out? How did you know what did give me the stories?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:15]:

I think there were a couple of things playing I, I would say when we went to marriage counseling, neither one of us are good listeners. We have had to learn how to listen and not like fight, defend, justify my, you know, like lay out the evidence for our case and in as polite, manipulative way as possible. You know, when we went to marriage counseling, you talk about your little girl self. That was when I talked about. I was probably 13. It was, I was in middle school. We had come to like two different elementaries had come together. And I like, I'm still very, in a way that I actually value.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:58]:

I'm very naive, like in a way I value like I just take people at face value. I jump into the ring like, hey, let's go, like everybody's going to be nice. And so I sort of walked into the environment like that, not realizing like the social dynamics that were playing out. And I ended up getting really picked on. There was a, a nickname that stuck with me for a while that was like really painful for me. And like that was sort of this moment where I was like O I things are not as they seem. And so part of that my husband is a stamp collector. Like I'll do something like wrong or something that he like sees as like some infraction and then he won't tell me.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:36]:

And I'm like, I'm just going along my merry way, like doing the things. And then one day he'll re like overreact to something that happened. And that violation of trust if things are not as they seem, went all the way back to my 13 year old self. And he grew up in an environment where I want to say he was really protected. And so there were places where he was waiting for me to kind of solve some problems for him that were his to solve. Those are not me problems. Those are you problems and I am not going to share them. With you, I like, you know, I mean like I'm, I'm here beside you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:15]:

Those are you things that you to take care of. And yes we are married, but you own those things. Just like my 13 year old self, I needed to heal that in me and I want you to stand in strength beside me. But that is my thing to heal. And so I think we understood, took ownership in a different way. I grew up with a very capable dad. Like in a world where our household, my dad kind of could do no wrong. And then my best friend, her dad was like this very powerful figure in our lives.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:48]:

He was just like took us in our wing. He like took care of us. And so I like the sort of like men are strong and not weak and don't make mistakes was my starting point for kind of my expectations for him. And so when he would be weak or need me to be tender with him, I was sort of like, huh.

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Doug Brackmann [00:14:05]:

As you discovered, he's a human being full of claws and insecurities and wild men are wildly fragile compared to women. It's. And you know, at 13 we're not mean to each other because it hurts too much. That's why we make up so quick. And you can remember, you could probably write the list of names of the girls from 13 who were mean to you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:29]:

Yeah, it's true.

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Doug Brackmann [00:14:31]:

So men, we just forgive, you know, we just forgive. So as you're waking up to his need for a hero's journey, that's the classic, I mean that he has to take responsibility for his life. How was the therapy? How did help?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:46]:

I mean it was, it was so productive for us. We went to an intensive where it was like four days, three nights. I think it was four solid days for eight hours with the therapists. Two therapists, two of us. And it gave us vocabulary that we didn't have beforehand that was really, really meaningful for us. Just being able to stop the crazy cycle of defend, justify, explain. It's like, it's not really the problem. I think allowed us to almost sit above our relationship for a minute and see the path of how we became who we are and how we became what we were.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:25]:

And that was really productive. We're both can sort of like pause.

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Doug Brackmann [00:15:30]:

It'S that monkey, elephant, soul or observer. And you both stepped into the observer together.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:37]:

Yes, we very much did. Yeah.

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Doug Brackmann [00:15:39]:

That's the model that I used to. Do you remember the therapists? Who were they?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:42]:

The organization is called Hope Restored. It's a Christian therapy. And I, I was like, I mean my husband And I are Christians. It's a big part of our life. I was like, if I go here and they just start telling me that I need to submit and, like, you know, you are one and I'm gonna lose my mind. Like, that is not going to work with where we are right now. And it was not that at all. It was, like, helped us also understand while you are married, and that is a choice you have both made.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:12]:

And there are choices when you are under the covenant of your marriage. There are choices that you both have decided to be under. But you are individuals. You're not losing your individual identity, and you're not losing your individual responsibility over your own care of yourself and being able to be whole and healthy. It's not JR's job to be perfect for me so that I have this permanent anchor to tether back to. No matter how crazy and insane I want to go be. It's his job to be unmoving, and it's not my job to clean up the house, so to speak, and be that for him. He's got to come in and be whole into the marriage.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:52]:

And so this idea of, like, tending to yourself as a whole person and choosing to step into this choice, covenant, sanctity of marriage, those can coexist. And that was very helpful for me. It wasn't like I was to become. Yes, to become one and all this kind of stuff in the spiritual sense of, like, the way that God sees us. But that was helpful for me. Like, yeah, there are some things that are just still very me.

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Doug Brackmann [00:17:20]:

So that, yeah, I'll bust out the Adam and Eve story because I'm sure it was intertwined in the marriage retreat. So Adam told Eve just to let the audience catch up. God told Adam, don't eat from the tree of knowledge. I'm sure he told Eve a thousand times. She goes and does it and then convinces him that it's okay, and he goes along with it. God comes to Adam then and says, dude, what'd you do? What did he say? Her fault. She made me do it. And then God comes to Eve and what did she say?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:17:50]:

The serpent made me do it.

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Doug Brackmann [00:17:52]:

Serpent made me do it. So that transition of taking personal responsibility, really owning your life is critical for this thing to work. He's not being my strong anchor, and that's not my fault. If he was only my strong anchor, then I wouldn't be in sin. Women tend to blame their husband awful lottery, Kobe about their husbands a tremendous amount. Well, I'll go there with you. How'd you let J.R. off the hook.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:18]:

Ask me that in a different way. What do you mean? How to, like, how to let him off the hook from needing to be perfect? Yeah, Well, I think in the spiritual sense, if we can go there on this podcast, I started to realize, like, oh, I am a spiritual being. My soul craves perfection. That is why Jesus is perfect, is because that needs to be my anchor. And I think there were places where I was literally expecting JR to be savior. Like, and once you realize that, it's like, well, that seems silly. That was certainly part of it. And I think we also saw there was a lot of beauty in our shared brokenness, and there was a vulnerability between us that we didn't know how to get to ourselves.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:57]:

And I think that Deep water became.

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Doug Brackmann [00:18:59]:

A little safer, you know, shared beauty in your brokenness. That's what I always say. My brokenness is my godliness. Only in my brokenness that I beatitudes. How did that come out for you? How did you find beauty in your brokenness?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:15]:

I think even like that presentation that I did a couple years ago, I know that God has given me the gift of communication and synthesis and the ability to make normal. I mean, some of the things that my husband and I were going through, like, why does this feel so. So uncommon? But it is so common. When you go read marriage books, it's like, oh, you know, half. It's like, oh, there's so much going on. Why are we not, like, I know a lot of people, why don't we talk about this? Like, I never felt so alone. I didn't tell my friends until, like, after we got back from marriage counseling, like six months later. I like, why wasn't I able to be vulnerable and present and real through the moment in my life where I needed them most? I didn't give them the opportunity to love me in that way.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:02]:

It's not that they wouldn't have. And so I think I started to see my own strength. I'm kind of just reflect, like, my strength is my superpower. I can get through fricking anything. I can have short maternity leaves. I can build businesses. I can. Like, I am tough as frickin nails.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:22]:

And there was a place where that didn't serve me, where admitting the pain, feeling the emotions, allowing others to come into my life would have been such a blessing and that it didn't have to hurt so bad. It didn't have to get so low, it didn't have to be as hard. And I think I have brought some purpose to it for me and telling the story in ways to say like I want to liberate my own story into the public so that people know this is, this can be redeemed. That is important I think to hear if you get here, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. And it's a reminder for me to like feel my life because that's not my always starting place is to feel my life. It's to do my life. And I've gotten a long way doing my life. But there's a kryptonite that comes with only doing it and not feeling it.

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Doug Brackmann [00:21:17]:

Yeah. There's a book that I always. I use for a lot of couples work it a couple of books. A guy named Robert Johnson wrote a book called she and he and he is a Hero's Journey Finding the Holy Grail of Healing for She. It talks about how complicated women are. You guys. I mean men are simple creatures. We are pretty linear.

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Doug Brackmann [00:21:40]:

You guys are got a lot of stuff going on. But the way it's described is that there's multiple sides to women. You have an Aphrodite side that can start businesses and kick ass and take names and do. But you have this psyche side, this little girl side that is so scared and so vulnerable and so precious and so. And wants to be protected, needs to be protected. And that God created man out of. He took a ball of dirt, mushed it up, breathed into it. He took and the word for rib that they used, the floating rib closest to the heart.

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Doug Brackmann [00:22:20]:

And that's what they created woman out of. And literally that's the part of men that we don't have. That's the only part of you that you need to submit to him. And if you do, what happens? What's your story?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:32]:

Yeah. Closeness. And I would love to hear Dr. Doug like your practical tools because we're going through this right now. I actually was. I've like self aware enough over the last couple of weeks to say to my husband a couple times, I miss you. I don't feel like a priority. His job is very hard right now in a.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:52]:

In ways I totally understand and see. He's pulled on in a thousand different directions. Are trying to get a big transaction done. He's onboarding some really key executive. It's just a lot and I want to have. I want to hold space to the extent that I can in our family to say like I get it. I need to make it easy for you right now so that you can dip in, dip out because it's a lot. I see you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:23:15]:

I'm trying very hard to do that. But like, week three, week four, it's like, okay, I'm trying really hard to water and feed myself. And I'm really not a high maintenance person. I just need sometimes for when you're home, for you to not be behind a screen. 20 minutes, 10 minutes, the fight starts. Because I. I recommend a solution like, hey, babe, can you put your phone down?

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Doug Brackmann [00:23:40]:

You do to him what makes women crazy. You come in and try to problem.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:23:45]:

I'm really struggling with the vocabulary. Tell me.

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Doug Brackmann [00:23:48]:

So here's. Here's Men. Men 101. We are stupid, simple creatures. He is doing all of this for you guys?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:23:56]:

Totally. I believe that.

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Doug Brackmann [00:23:59]:

And this book, she. I strongly recommend you read it. It's a good one. It's 90 pages. It's a living document. And most driven women that haven't done any work will throw it against the wall. It pisses me off because it literally. And I don't, you know, Alison Armstrong, the Queen's code is the other one.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:24:16]:

Oh, yes. I know this book. Yes.

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Doug Brackmann [00:24:18]:

Yeah, yeah. And I've had her on my podcast. She's one of my favorite people in the world, but she pisses a lot of women off.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:24:24]:

Yes, I do know this. I. I didn't know her name, but I know that book. Yes.

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Doug Brackmann [00:24:27]:

A highly driven woman. She's one of us. I mean, she. She is firecracker. So for men, I mean, he's doing this all for you, and he's still not doing it right. And so if you lead with the part of him that's not doing it right, and this is the Aphrodite side of you that what you, you know, I can solve this. All you need to do is come in the door, give me two kisses, give me a hug, tell me something to be okay. But really hug me.

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Doug Brackmann [00:24:53]:

And all we hear is we're still not enough. That is all we hear. And so this is the coaching from Xi is learning to illuminate him because Aphrodite wants to pull out some scissors and stab his ass. And that anger that you guys have, but it gives you these four tasks, you know, and this is archetypal stuff, but four tasks. And it teaches you how to approach him and how to actually illuminate the part of him that you actually need.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:23]:

Okay.

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Doug Brackmann [00:25:24]:

And that looks like, you know, art in junior. You are kicking ass. I'm so proud of you. So you are this amazing man, but there's a part of me that really needs a hug. It's not your fault that I need a hug. I need the hug. You got to own it. Melts him.

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Doug Brackmann [00:25:44]:

Absolutely melting. Make him cry, because it is acknowledging all of the good already. He already is this man. He is that man that you need, and that's the one you want, but you got to pull it out of him, because otherwise we are. We are. Men live in spotlights. We live in a narrow, little, tiny ego tunnel. Women are floodlights.

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Doug Brackmann [00:26:09]:

You guys have a double the size of a corpus callosum than us especially driven women. So you see everything he's thinking. I'm protecting, feeding family. I'm. I'm good. And it's not that he doesn't see it. I mean, it's not that he sees it and doesn't acknowledge it. It literally, he doesn't see it.

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Doug Brackmann [00:26:28]:

And so women, and I say this all the time, women, you guys have a hundred times more power than men do, but you got to own it. And what is the power that you own is the vulnerability. You have part. You. You have multiple parts that we don't have that we really want, but the part that we want the most is that tenderness. And that tenderness, if you're illuminating the good God, you are kicking ass. And hold me. It's a reflex because it's calling.

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Doug Brackmann [00:26:57]:

It's calling forth divine masculine, but you got to lead with your divine feminine. That divine feminine is that mobility, that nurturing.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:27:06]:

Yeah. I really love the reframing. And it goes back to even what I said of, like, I'm still a whole human is. This is my need, and I own that. I hold him accountable for not, like, noticing it sometimes. And that's unfair. I just need to be like, yeah, that's what I need. Let's not make this complicated.

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Doug Brackmann [00:27:25]:

For whatever reason, men, we are really clear. Women are not us. We don't work like you. But for whatever reason, it takes a minute, takes some time. Get some education under your belt. And that's why I always joke about boy moms. Boy moms get how unbelievably fragile we are. And I don't know if boys are horrible until they're about nine or ten.

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Doug Brackmann [00:27:49]:

They're monsters. And they break it. They're crying all the time. They're flipping out their little chips. They're terrible. And then about 11, they get real easy. Girls are the sweetest little creatures until about 11 or 12. And then good luck.

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Doug Brackmann [00:28:03]:

And yeah. And so it is because the emotional, you know, and how he learned to. He had a mommy that, you know, all he had to do is mom. And she'd cook him, give him hugs. And so she saw it and pulled it out of him. And so for you to really own your power, you have the power to Alison Armstrong. Why I love her so much and why she pisses a lot of women off is because you have the power to completely create this. But you gotta accept that boys are really different than women.

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Doug Brackmann [00:28:34]:

We literally just. We're problem solvers. I always joke that men are light switches when it comes to emotion. We have a corpus callosum that is very narrow. And so we're in our left hemisphere. Logical, rational. I'm doing everything you need. And then flip our switch and we'll break cell phones and storm out of the room.

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Doug Brackmann [00:28:53]:

Women are dimmers. You guys are always in this emotional world, and so it's hard not to see through emotional eyes, you know, and that anger that you have that he doesn't see me, it's not that he doesn't want to see you. He would love to see you. But if you're coming at him with Aphrodite, he's going to get defensive and back up.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:29:14]:

That is exactly what happens if you.

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Doug Brackmann [00:29:16]:

Come at Psyche with that vulnerable racial learning how to. I need you. Well, what do you want me to do? Nothing. Hug me. I can do that. Because it calls for us, really. Because the Holy Grail is our heart and men's heart. And it takes, you know, the journeys from head to heart.

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Doug Brackmann [00:29:36]:

But when we get to our heart, it's actually empty. The Holy Grail is empty.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:29:40]:

What does that mean? What does that mean?

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Doug Brackmann [00:29:42]:

It means that the Grail is about service. And what fills our heart is service to others. We're a service animal. We're literally like a, you know, seeing eye dog, Labrador, easy to train. Real easy to train. But we run in the house with mud because we get excited. I mean, really do. We're simple creatures.

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Doug Brackmann [00:30:01]:

But what serves it. He is serving his heart. By being so busy and creating all this money and doing all this stuff for everybody, that's not what you really need from him. You guys need to get into the Holy Grail too, and feel his safety and protection.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:18]:

Hey, it's Tiffany. If you've been listening to the show for a while and find yourself thinking, I just wish there was more good news. You can sign up for my newsletter. It's filled with my favorite products, recipes, tips, stories to help encourage you as you build your life of. And the link is waiting for you in show notes. See you there.

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Doug Brackmann [00:30:36]:

Being driven is. It looks Very narcissistic. From the outside. Junior's experience on the inside, he is doing this. Everything he does is for you guys, everything. And women go, well, not really. And I get men when I'm working with men. And they will.

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Doug Brackmann [00:30:55]:

Junior would say it. He'd kill for you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:57]:

I know that's true. And I get super tangled in my own head of being like, I know every outside room outside of our house, every room he walks into. He's an incredible leader. He's an incredibly intelligent. He's an incredibly shrewd negotiator. He's incredibly good at what he's been asked to do in his job. And so I have this tangled mess in my head of being like, I want him to walk into our home and feel as lauded and like capable and loved that he feels like that for me and the girls. But I don't want to do it at the expense of my own truth of saying I'm a dry well.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:31:41]:

And I feel like that's what you're helping me understand. Is I. Part of the way I unlock what I want from him is not making it this complex guessing game, but of saying, I see you doing these things. I see you landing at 6pm on a Friday, jumping in a car and driving four hours to a volleyball tournament. Like, I see you doing this. Because that's where he gets so crazy with me, is he's like, you don't see all the things I say no to, to be able to be present when I'm saying I need you to be present more. And he's like, you don't see the long list of stuff I said no to because I want to be present.

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Doug Brackmann [00:32:16]:

And you're saying exactly. And so Aphrodite, he will immediately say, I am that man.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:23]:

I know. So I'm still a little confused. I'm like, okay, so I very simple.

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Doug Brackmann [00:32:27]:

I'll keep this. Well, is you acknowledge Junior you are this man.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:32]:

Yes.

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Doug Brackmann [00:32:33]:

And I need him right now. And he'll literally, I know. Your sacrifice. I know. And you'll see him go right into his heart.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:41]:

Yes. Because I'm fighting with his mind. And his eyes, like, his eyes are unkind to me.

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Doug Brackmann [00:32:47]:

Driven, driven, driven. Men in particular. I could have called the book the Shame based personality type. I wouldn't have sold very many.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:55]:

Yeah.

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Doug Brackmann [00:32:55]:

Meaning that we are reflexively defensive. You want to drive one of us crazy, accuse us of being bad and wrong and no opportunity to explain ourselves. We're not defending. We're explaining. I'm still this good guy. So you want to own your power. A couple steps is number one, own your vulnerability. There is part of you, small, that is very fragile, very precious.

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Doug Brackmann [00:33:21]:

Where you're a little girl that just wants to feel safe in daddy's arms and still part of you and doesn't take away all of the companies you founded, all the billions of dollars you make, all of the other things. But it. It's that part of me needs protected by the best part of you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:40]:

It's so true, it almost makes you cry when you say it. It's exactly it. It's exactly it.

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Doug Brackmann [00:33:45]:

God created them in his image then. God is a relationship between all things. And so the yin and the yang of that. Is that the part of you that he doesn't have is that soft, sweet, sensitive. And you saw it with his little girls. Makes me want to cry thinking about my daughters. And he is, because it's so precious knowing that he is a good protector of that. And you want some more right now.

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Doug Brackmann [00:34:12]:

And it feels so well. And then it takes about three months and then he'll be buying you lunches. That made my. And be careful because it is. You know, men are what we're treat. We're very trainable. We want to be trained by you. We don't want to be bad dogs.

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Doug Brackmann [00:34:29]:

We just don't know what it means to be a good dog. Women are put on this planet to help men. Nothing to do with the dishes, nothing to do with the kids, nothing to do with the. It is helping us actually find our real value. And that is how we become. That is the cloud. That is how we can only become men. I love you.

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Doug Brackmann [00:34:48]:

I respect you. I trust you. And I still need you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:34:53]:

It couldn't be further away from my current approach. And I think it will work a lot better.

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Doug Brackmann [00:35:00]:

It's 80, 90% of entrepreneurs get divorced. Two entrepreneurs get together. And it is so amazing when I turn couples like you guys into power couples. That's what I call it. Because when he knows the most important thing in the world is you guys and he knows that he can get it at home, I don't have to go kill a thousand things for it. I actually can come home and actually feel that value.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:35:27]:

Yeah. And I so desperately want to create that environment for him and for us. Like I really, really do.

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Doug Brackmann [00:35:33]:

It is so simple. You are this thing. I see you, I respect you, I trust you, I love you. And man, I need you right now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:35:40]:

Yeah.

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Doug Brackmann [00:35:41]:

And little tear. It'll make you cry.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:35:44]:

Totally. I'm. I. Yeah. This is the conversation I need, I will have with him tonight. It's exactly. It feels like an answer to my prayers this morning of like we have. This is silly.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:35:55]:

This is taking a lot of energy. Okay, let's talk some takeaways. If you're in a two career household, raising kids, chasing dreams, and feeling like the wheels are coming off, I want you to hear me. There is nothing wrong with you. You're just trying to do something incredibly hard and brave. And I can tell you, 20 years in, super worth it. Here's a few things that help me and the hubs get unstuck. The first one is to listen without defending.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:36:25]:

This is still very hard for me, but it's not about being right. It's about being understood. We had to unlearn our need to win and start learning how to really hear each other. We have to repractice this all the time, but it is a big deal. Learn to listen without defending. Number two is own your own stuff. Like, own your shit. You know? Healing didn't start until I stopped blaming and started looking in the mirror.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:36:48]:

I had to tend to my own broken places and stop expecting him to rescue me from them. So you've got to fix your own stuff. You've got to keep your own yard clean. You'll also hear counselors say number three is say the quiet part out loud. This can be really hard because it requires vulnerability. Kind of when the moment when you're hurting and when you have need. I miss you. I need a hug.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:37:10]:

I feel invisible. These are really small phrases with a lot of power. And when I finally said them and when he has the courage to say them to me, things start to shift. We don't have decoder rings for one another. It would be really cool if life played out like a Hallmark movie, but it doesn't. And so we have to say the thing out loud that we need. The last one is don't confuse strength with numbness. My ability to be tough, to get tasked on, to keep things going, has made me really successful, but can also keep me disconnected.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:37:41]:

Like, disconnected from feeling really feeling. I can stay in performance mode, and I can do that in my marriage instead of just really bringing, like, fighting to bring the connection back. So I don't know if this episode, this is, like, not about J.R. and I's marriage, but I can tell you guys my favorite podcast in the world. That's maybe an overstatement, but one of my favorite podcasts is Esther Perel. She has a podcast called Where Do We Begin? And you literally listen in into couples who are in therapy sessions with her. And I love it because it helps you see your own story when you can hear other people sharing theirs. So this is not about Junior and I, even though it is about JR And I, but it's really about us sharing our story because I hope that it helps you see your own story more clearly.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:38:25]:

So if this episode has stirred something in you, I want hope that you walk away knowing that you're not alone. Go have the awkward conversation, admit what it is that you need, and if you need help figuring out the how, then let me know. My husband and I attended a marriage retreat called Hope Restored, and I'd love to share more with you about that. So anyways, thanks for listening. Thanks for letting me be real with you. And be sure to tune in next week when my husband, J.R. is joining me on the POD to give an honest look at where our marriage is right now, 20 years in. As always, thanks for joining us.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:39:02]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling Fear. You will not decide what happens in my life. I will.