How can I be close to a man who is so different than me?
Join Leah with Guest Speaker Chana Levitan as they delve into common obstacles in marriages from blaming, withdrawing, or relying on our spouse to disconnecting from ourselves or our husband. Ladies, it’s time to learn the secret of how to reconnect to your core and get closer to your husband.
Points to Ponder:
- Differentiation is the ability to maintain my sense of self while I discover how different my spouse and I are, while at the same time learning to stay connected.
- Before any relationship is the relationship with ourselves. At certain times we feel that core sense of who we are- sometimes we feel it in nature or when praying- that’s our core.
- It’s important to keep developing ourselves because then we have more to bring into our relationships.
- Often, when we see how different we are to our husband, we disconnect. If we can hold on to who we are, we can get close to our spouse, if not, we are threatened by them and can’t get close.
- Our goal is an enduring love. When we first get married, we’re fused together with excitement and expectations, then we hit the roadblocks of realizing how different we are.
- Differentiation is the key to getting through the “roadblocks” we face.
- Roadblock 1: Blaming our spouse and trying to change them- so we take responsibility for our reactions, self-soothe, take a step back and reconnect. Marriage mastery begins with self-mastery.
- Roadblock 2: Blaming myself and losing myself- so we need self-esteem and self- validation and to remember we are a beautiful neshama.
- Roadblock 3: Relying on our spouse for our own happiness- so we find ways to cultivate our inner happiness and whatever our husbands bring us is a bonus.
- Roadblock 4: Realizing how different we are so withdrawing and cutting off- so we learn how to show up, communicate and lean in.
Viewer Questions:
Tammy: I feel like I had to stifle my personality a bit since I got married because otherwise my husband’s and my personality would clash. What’s the balance of toning it down but not feeling like you are losing your own personality?
Marriage is a dance of working things out. The best preparation for marriage is working on our self-esteem issues beforehand. If you feel you’re stifling yourself, look at your personality and find what you love about it. We all need to learn how to make space for our spouse, which isn’t necessarily stifling ourselves. If we can’t express ourselves, this needs therapy. Sometimes we need to ease ourselves in and slowly let our personality come through.
Shiri: I totally lost myself in devotion to my family. I know it’s important to take time to do what makes me feel good but when it comes down to it, I don’t even know where to start.
We must be doing some form of self-care. It’s common to lose ourselves a bit. We need to do any internal or external actions which maintains our wellbeing.
Can you refine what self-care is?
Mindfulness, exercise, massage, grounding exercises, music, crafts, affirmations, journaling, spending time in nature, reading, breathing exercises.
Mali: When I came into my marriage, I had a lot of things I still needed to work on. I hoped that marriage would fix me, and I resented my husband for not making me happy. I should have faced my own issues before marriage. Now it’s too late and it’s draining to be in therapy for myself and marriage therapy. What should my priority be?
No one can make us happy, we take responsibility, and our spouse can collaborate with us.
Therapy can be draining but there are so many modalities, we need to find what works. It’s challenging, but all growth is. Own it, look for the people, books, podcasts which will help you grow. Jump in with conviction and excitement instead of dreading the growth process.
Try This At Home: Take a deep breath, give yourself a hug and see your spouse’s beauty.
Link to Chana Levitan’s book:
