Polly Mertens: 0:23

Hey, superstars, welcome back, Polly here and Sam Pruitt, what’s up, beautiful humans.

Polly Mertens: 0:28

Hey, hey guys, we’ve got a. Really I think this is a juicy topic today. So I’m going to say what the topic is and, Miss Pruitt, if you tell us a little bit about what we’re talking about. So we’re calling this episode today pivoting in partner relationships. I want to add intimate partner relationships, but it is part. So we’re not talking about the business world, we’re talking about partners, your life partners men, men, women, women, men, women, whatever that looks like for you married, unmarried, non-denominational and all that stuff. So say something about that. What are we talking about there?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:01

So what we’re going to get into today is when we say pivot and part of that title when is it? Either time and it’s always time, by the way to do many of these things to get clear with yourself about what’s going on in terms of the relationship, to revisit your values with yourself and your partner, to reestablish boundaries, if need be yourself and your partner, and how to grow forward together and stay in their relationship. Or maybe you’ve evaluated and come to a point it’s no longer good to stay together. So that’s a lot, but we know in humanity lots of people are partnered and we want to just make sure that people are always sort of taking time in their life to think about this really huge aspect of their life journey.

Polly Mertens: 1:56

You know, so much joy and so much suffering, you know, depending on how you’re doing it. And so, to lead us off, I want to say a couple things, just a little caveat before we begin. So I’m not in a relationship currently, except for with myself and my divine source. Let’s just say, yeah, I’m not currently in a relationship, have been married, have had multiple long termterm relationships, lots of small-term relationships or whatnot. So I just want to. I’m not a relationship expert. I’m going to give you, you know, my sense from lived experience, if you will. I’ve taken some courses, but I’m not coming at this like I’m a relationship coach or guide at any means. And you, my dear, tell us your, your journey.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:41

I have all of these things. So, um, I have been married twice. I’m on my second marriage. It is, uh, 26 years. The first one was to my high school prom date. That’s a whole other story, but anyway and um. So, two major life relationships and I am in a long-term relationship. Now I’m not a relationship coach either, except in the work that we do with humans. A majority of them have some kind of partner relationship and it has a radical impact on them, their journey and how they operate in the world and, in particular, our business clients who operate businesses and own businesses or lead companies and organizations. It really does impact in a massive way. So we’re not relationship experts, that’s not our whole genre, but it is a fabric of everything that we do, for sure.

Polly Mertens: 3:42

Yeah, and I think you know, I don’t remember a time where we’ve coached the business owner or leader and the relationship at home is a part of something that’s shifting or they’re handling or something is, you know, tied in with it. You know, because we’re the human, is not just the silo, they’re in a partnership at home. Okay, well, you know we’re working with them. That’s obviously going to have some, some impact both ways. You know how that person is and you know, okay, we’re not going to go into near-term stories, but we’ll, we’ll touch, we’ll touch on some of those Cause I think we’ve got some juicy stories. So the other little piece of housekeeping that I wanted to share.

Polly Mertens: 4:16

So, you know, big old thing that I want to put on the side is this conversation is not if you are in a relationship or in a situation where you’re getting lied to, cheated on, there’s abuse, you’ve got narcissistic overpowering, there’s deep codependent. You know we’re, we’re putting those heavy lifting topics off onto the side. This is not the nature of where this conversation is going to go. So, if you’re looking for something, if you’ve come and you, you know, listening to this, you’re like, oh great. You know, I want to make a pivot in my life I’ve got this complete jerk and he’s abusing me or whatever.

Polly Mertens: 4:57

It’s like we’re not going to go that deep right. You know it’s kind of like we don’t. We we do talk some about trauma in our work but we don’t do like heavy, you know, like those types of things. So in this conversation we’re going to put those. You’ve got some heavy abuse. Please get help for that, please. You know it’s absolutely something we want you to address and be honest with yourself. We hope that through. If you continue to listen to this, I think there is value to people that are facing those situations. I think you will hear in our stories things of value, but if you’re in dire straits, this isn’t necessarily the solution or all the things. There’s definitely a pivot needed.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:37

But we want you to get help right now, in an immediate source, so that there are helplines. For that there is counseling therapy. You need to tellines. For that there is counseling therapy. You need to tell somebody today’s the day, so we will encourage that. If you stumbled upon this and this really attracted your eyeballs and you’ve got something going on, please Do it. Today is the day.

Polly Mertens: 5:58

Now, yeah, take action, action. So where we want to go with this conversation is the relationship maybe has some dysfunction, but it’s not, you know, completely disempowering to one or two of you that are in it. It’s just gotten a little off the rails. Basically everybody everything else, whatever married relationship for six months, all of you know, all use out there whatever married relationship for six months, all of it.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:24

You know all yous out there. No one’s doing it perfectly, and why the hell should we? We’re totally imperfect humans. That’s why we laugh about it. It’s quite hilarious what happens out there, Us included.

Polly Mertens: 6:35

And one of the things we said before we started airing is like, just like finances managing your business finances, or doing a good job of looking at your P&L and your business I taught this in high school or even college. Relationship is one of the key things that we navigate. It has so much going on through the life of our journey.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:57

It’s how humans evolved in civilization, but we don’t teach anything about it. We don’t teach it.

Polly Mertens: 7:02

So what we want to focus on today. So I’ll just kind of give you a prelude of where we’re going. So we’re going to talk some of the obvious signs or symptoms that you’ve got some. You know something’s not working right and you probably know you already know that. So we’re going to talk about what they might look like.

Polly Mertens: 7:18

We’re going to introduce something if you haven’t heard this before, it’s called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Dr Gottman, john Gottman of the Gottman Institute, which is like four glaring signs and four phases of relationship deterioration and what that causes. And then we want to say, okay, well, if you are in a relationship and you want to, you know, adjust, pivot, stay in it, you’ve decided, you know, thinking, hearing of all that. Okay, how do I? How do I get started? Where do I need to look? What are the? Looking at myself and looking at my partner. And then, if we have time you know we haven’t gone too, too long with all this yummy topic We’ll see if we can share with you, you know, 10 qualities of healthy relationships, or we can at least link it in the show notes.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:56

So yeah, All right.

Polly Mertens: 7:57

So at you I do this I was like yeah, okay, some obvious signs. There’s a little disturbance in the force between you and your partner. Number one drains in your joy and I would say low energy drains. So like being around that person just sucks you down instead of lights you up, power you up.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:24

Power you up Exactly.

Polly Mertens: 8:25

Power you up, right? Another word, another way to say it like there’s toxicity, like just something about being around them is toxic, emotionally toxic, spiritually toxic, verbally toxic. You know, their habits are toxic, something like that we could look at judgmental, or like critical or assertive behavior, right, whether you’re being the one doing these things, like something’s coming out in you and you’re finding yourself judging a lot or being overly critical, or you’re receiving that Lack of trust Oof, that’s an ugly one. You know, when the trust breaks down, that, yeah, that’s. You know we’re losing some, we’re losing good ground here. This one too especially women, but it can happen for men too is not feeling safe. Yeah, you know, oh, totally, it can happen for everybody, right, right, and safety can be emotional that’s right, and physical, emotional.

Polly Mertens: 9:20

all of that, yeah, yeah, and then not intimate. Right so intimacy is a lot of things right, sexual being one of them, but also intimacy not wanting to be touched by them, not wanting to be around them physically, not wanting to open up and share. You know, intimate emotions yeah.

Polly Mertens: 9:36

Goings on unresolved conflicts, that, that things that either you’re, I call it, so I’ve done this. You know, maybe this is time for a story, but I, you know, there have been times in my life, definitely. So unresolved conflicts that could be. You know, you have all of this could be like mini or macro, right, micro or macro, I mean it’s like unresolved conflicts could be like oh damn, he didn’t, you know, do this right, he left the toilet seat up, like you know, whatever, or um, something you don’t agree on, but you just sort of shove it down right or you brush it off. Or it’s like oh, you know, and especially in the beginning of a relationship, when we’re in that lovey-dovey kind of phase, we’re often more agreeable, tolerant. 26 years, I’m like I don’t I mean you guys, but you’re very a lot of flexibility exactly so does my partner exactly yeah, and and that.

Polly Mertens: 10:34

So that’s and it’s part of like the ways of being that you go about this, right, you know. So you guys have a chosen communication style. I’m sure that you’ve arrived at, and maybe some people I’ve seen, with this unresolved conflict it can look like an agreement to not let disagreements get pushed under the rug or not go to bed with a disagreement. The conflict doesn’t allow to linger, because that sort of is poison. If sometimes that you sleep on it, it only grows. Maybe you sleep on it and maybe it’s your energy style. It’s like, oh, you get all puffy and then the next day you’re fine, you can talk about it right, but those unresolved conflicts A couple more here. So you’re either shoving down or you don’t share your needs.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:20

More importantly, your wants. Yeah, ouch, yeah, needs. More importantly, your wants, yeah, ouch, yeah. A lot of the ones you were saying up front reminded me of, um, you know people struggling for control, struggling for. You know fear and anxiety and things of that nature. And now you’re getting like down the rabbit hole, if you will, even to these really deep areas of self-worth. Am I I being seen? Am I being heard? Am I being respected? Am I being appreciated for my uniqueness in the world?

Polly Mertens: 11:52

This is the deeper layers, yeah, and this was the last one which is not feeling seen or heard, and your partner doesn’t prioritize your happiness. It’s like, oh, they just don’t seem to care. Or you, you don’t seem to care about your partner. All this, your happiness, like you know, it’s like, oh, they just don’t seem to care. Or you know, or you, you don’t seem to care about your partner. You know, all this stuff could go two ways. So the way we say this is hear it for yourself, or hear it for how you’re being responded to, or you’re yeah, it takes two people to be in a partnership you know, and so I’ll just maybe talk a little bit about.

Polly Mertens: 12:24

And so I’ll just maybe talk a little bit about, and I I have done this, you know, in recent experiences and in older experiences of relationship with um.

Polly Mertens: 12:30

I don’t, I, you know, I haven’t talked to the therapist to know exactly what the roots of some of these are, but if I had to self-assess myself, there’s definitely um worthy I think the worthiness is probably part of it Um, where, where I and some of the two I have this thing about in relationship, that I’ve noticed that I’m speaking it publicly now and it’s like okay, declaring that it’s not continuing on in my future, and that is, you know.

Polly Mertens: 12:56

You think that if, or I have thought that if I don’t, if I say what I really feel or want, or my true self-expression, my truth, that I’ll lose that person or they’ll think less than of me or something like that, right, and so I don’t feel comfortable. I haven’t felt like my voice, that’s a vulnerability, yeah, it’s like, hey, I need this, I want, and it’s not like a demand but even small micro things or macro things, not feeling comfortable at my own level, even not even saying that it wasn’t safe, it was just that was my insecurity about this person is going to do this. If I say that, right, and whether or not that was true, that was just something that was made up in my mind and I was causing it. I was causing my own shutdown.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:45

Well, what you’re reminding me is that we learn relationships through growing up in family units, where we are in these dependent and codependent relationships. Right, there’s this relationship dynamic as we’re evolving, from a baby and the needs you know to be taken care of by our parents or our family or whatever, and then our siblings, and then et cetera, et cetera. So these skills, or lack thereof, or awareness of our needs versus the needs of others, et cetera. You know, all of that evolves as we are evolving as a human, and so I’ll just speak briefly to, for example I said it jokingly because it is hilarious that I got married to my high school prom date the first time.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:31

But I mean, I was really a child, Like I was a young person in the world who didn’t have a lot of skillset around relationship, except what I had witnessed from my own upbringing and family unit. And then, when I went out and found that partner initially to be, you know, a husband and to start a life with, I was coming from this incredibly dysfunctional experience and you know I was. I’ve been on my own since I was 16. So I was really in this vulnerable place of looking for someone to help take care of me and bring stability and all of these things completely the wrong reasons, by the way, to get into any actual partnership that could be quality and lifelong, and also just being incredibly young and immature, as we were, you know. So we don’t come to these relationships with these skills generally, and so a lot of times we are learning them as we go. Right. We’re building the plane as we are flying it through the air at warp speed.

Polly Mertens: 15:33

And.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:33

I think that’s where a lot of the pain and suffering and confusion comes from.

Polly Mertens: 15:39

Absolutely, and I would say I love what you’re saying there at the end is like being in these relationships teaches us how to be in relationships, exactly, Totally. So we hired a relationship I was in. We hired a coach, a relationship coach, to help us through. You know, and people do therapy, either separate or together or whatever you want to call it Right, I haven’t done.

Polly Mertens: 15:59

I tried a little couples counseling when I was with my husband but the counselor just was like not at a level that I was like we’re not going to get anything. You know, it just wasn’t workable. But find a good therapist, find a good coach. And wasn’t workable, but find a good therapist, find a good coach. And the coach that we hired was giving us really good coaching and one of the things so I was in that relationship I was on a should I say, should I go like we’ll talk about the four horsemen apocalypse? I was, you know, really down the levels in terms of things I had let things go for so long, right, and of my own admission, like my own shutting down of my voice and asking for what I needed and fear and stuff like that. And one thing I said to myself as we, as I thought about hiring this coach and we did was there’s no better place for me to do this work than with the person I’m with right now?

Polly Mertens: 16:47

I was like if I you know, because a lot of times we say, oh, if I leave this job, if I leave this relationship, if I move across the country your problems don’t go with you, do they? Well, you go with you. Exactly, I was taking me to the next relationship and I was like well if.

Polly Mertens: 17:04

I’m going to practice being a voice in the world, being seen, and you know all the things that I was working with this coach on. Yeah, I was like do it right here and see how it responds. Right, whatever the response was going to be, I was going to learn something right. And so I just want to encourage you. If you have that trait or any of this this isn’t necessarily like none of this we’re saying jump out of the relationship you’re in right now Like boom, make a quick pivot exit stage, left. It’s your choice, which it is, but you know, I think sometimes we get in these relationships long-term, short-term, whatever to teach us stuff, to learn stuff about ourselves, 100%, 100%.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:47

I mean I did obviously end up getting divorced and we did try counseling and therapy. It didn’t work at all. And then I was single for a while, single mother, and then when I remarried, we actually did do marital counseling because there was stepchildren, blended family, there was a lot of complexities to this life we were going to build together and so, you know, we’re both running businesses. There was a lot going on and so it made sense to do that. I’ll tell you, personally, I didn’t get a ton out of it, except it was a sign of my commitment to the partnership and I really wanted to see if that would add some value there. I have very few takeaways that I can think of, but still the fact that that was a sign of the commitment that we were making and investing in, of the commitment that we were making and investing in.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:34

So, whatever the path is for our listeners, I think you know taking these partnerships seriously, whether you’re creating children or not, or growing whatever that looks like, you know whatever that looks like, do it your own way, but it’s, it’s a huge thing to really understand the value of the other and the self.

Polly Mertens: 18:55

Yeah, you know, and part of what you’re saying. One of the things we’re going to talk about is like, as you’re evaluating, should you pivot in or out?

Samantha Pruitt: 19:04

Let’s say you were like that’s what we’re going to get into next.

Polly Mertens: 19:08

So it’s like I mean, one of the questions you could ask is am I settling or am I satisfied, or could I be more satisfied? Right, Like, is there something that I’m causing? Like, for me, I was causing my own dissatisfaction, you know, because I wasn’t asking for what I needed, whatever, I wasn’t getting out of my partner, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff, and I was settling in another relationship for something you know a little bit. I’m guessing your first marriage was, you know, maybe some misalignment. I feel like in mine there was some misalignment, you know I one of the ways I languaged it for myself is I said I think I married their potential and that happens, right, I’m like, oh, he could be so great, if that’s, it’s up, whatever, you know, but I settled for the person that I had in the relationship that I had and trying to make that work. It was never going to work, you know. So it was never going to work.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:01

And we’ll talk about values alignment, which is what you’re alluding to, which is a critical part of partnership. Okay talk about the nasty things.

Polly Mertens: 20:09

Let me introduce the Four Horsemen of the Ap apocalypse. This is by Dr John Gottman. It’s not as bad as it sounds, so I don’t mean like the name is like what the heck that’s?

Polly Mertens: 20:19

horrible. I find the name not remarkable, but it’s like one of those things that it jumps out at you, like if I said, oh, there’s four bad things that can happen in relationship, like you’re not likely going to remember them. But if I said, man, there’s this thing called the four horsemen of the apocalypse of relationship, your ears perk up a little bit Like tell me more, what’s that thing about? Right, and it’s true, because these are four biggies and they’re phases, and I would say you can kind of go back and forth if you will. It’s not like you graduate from one into the next one and you don’t have some of one also. So, um, and again, I’m not I’m, I’m saying the words that are the uh, categories or the phases, if you will. But Dr Gottman can definitely explain this more. If you want to go deeper into his work, please do.

Polly Mertens: 21:05

But the first one first step is you know you go from. You know everything’s all peachy, and this could be in an immature relationship or in mature relationships. It doesn’t necessarily mean like it’s, you know, six months, in eight months, in eight years, in whatever. So criticism, right, attacking your partner’s character or being attacked, so either way. So if you find yourself in a state of criticizing your partner or being criticized, or it’s a growing states of criticism how you look, the way you’re dressed, things you’re doing you’re not doing it well enough. You know those types of things. That’s the silent killer, you know.

Polly Mertens: 21:43

So what’s going on there? Take it, take a look at. Maybe I’ll share the like, the antithesis that he recommends. You know, like, how do you recover from those things? I’ll just drop this in is it’s so? Criticism, it’s opening up your feelings, right, so there’s something that your needs aren’t getting met. You’re like criticizing that other person because you’re not being honest about something that’s true for you usually. So opening up about your feelings, I am statements like I am feeling this is largely how you can work with that stage. The next one is contempt Just that word, saying that word.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:18

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 22:19

So that’s treating your partner with disrespect. You know, and I you started to say that a little bit earlier. You know, like I find that the three or four, so it’s like respect and men and women have it a little bit differently. The study that I’ve done in relationships so men like to be honored and I think when women see men they can honor them, like I have respect for this man or my partner, let’s say masculine, feminine, of who they are, then it can be a workable. If we don’t respect that human being then we’re not going to have the next phase. You know, workability in the relationship there’s gotta be a level of respect. And for women, cherish and adore.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:58

Adore might be like the, the, the idealized, but at least this is so interesting because I don’t see the field the male, female at all. Well, I don’t know what the work is that you’re specifically talking about. Yeah, but to me, um, it’s the same thing. Like respect is at the root of that of all of that, you know. Yes, yeah. So I think you’re just talking about an expression of that. How?

Polly Mertens: 23:27

do I show it.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:28

How do I, how does?

Polly Mertens: 23:28

it? How does it appeal to the masculine? How does it appeal to the feminine? What does that manifest like? Or what does it feel like? If you will, but yes, absolutely respect, yeah, totally yeah, and when that’s gone or when it’s being eroded, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:42

Listen for any human, never mind your partner.

Polly Mertens: 23:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:46

When their respect is gone, what is left? Yeah, and why would you want to be there standing in the room? Yeah, I mean, that really goes for just humans, humanity, come on.

Polly Mertens: 24:01

You know, I can remember some men that I’ve dated. I remember this one man that I was dating years ago and you know we had been, I don’t know, maybe in three months, six months, not not super long, or whatnot. And then I overheard him on a business call with someone, Um, can’t remember the nature of the call, but how he was treating the person on the phone, just the language that he was, you know, just like berate, I mean, just whatever you want to. However, it was just lost respect for this person.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:33

Yeah, it’s like yeah, how can?

Samantha Pruitt: 24:35

you, you know what’s another example of this that is totally on my radar that I experienced is witnessing how that male person was treating other females in the world Not me, because I was the beloved right, but other females, whether it was a comment or an action or just things that I was bearing witness to. I was exposed to enough. It was like whoa, no, and I mean, I’m just this type of person that, like, if you’re not just respecting all of us, then you’re respecting none of us, right, and you see, that kind of character defaults. We will call them I’ll be very gracious to call them that Um, and that’s a very quick way to lose respect for somebody when you see how they treat other people. Maybe not you, but other people, yeah, yeah, and that’s what we were both you know mine was a phone call business to business.

Polly Mertens: 25:31

He’d never treated me that way, but I was. You know, mine was a phone call business to business. He’d never treated me that way, but I was like, wow, you can be that way in the world.

Polly Mertens: 25:37

Like you know, I think also, you know, in this area of respect, one of the things we can or sorry, contempt you know, respect we can talk about is for oneself, right. So we can see people not respecting themselves stop taking care of themselves. You know, they just their sense of self is kind of imploding, right. That can be a slippery slope as well, so we’ve got to shore that up, ok, so we went through criticism, contempt, defensiveness.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:08

Defensive.

Polly Mertens: 26:09

Defensive yeah, which is responding?

Samantha Pruitt: 26:11

to this all the time Defensive, defensive, yeah, which is responding to the walk around like this all the time.

Polly Mertens: 26:18

So defensive, you know, I know.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:21

That happens, that definitely happens. Yeah, experienced all of those things Totally, whether my partner was getting defensive or I was Both.

Polly Mertens: 26:30

Yeah, and that’s this isn’t. We take turns, and this isn’t to say that I mean all of these can happen. They can be an experience, like they’re part of relationships. Yeah, you’re going to be criticized, you’re going to have a moment of disrespect, you’re going to have a little different.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:46

You know, like this isn’t it’s just the repetitiveness, it’s the continuation of it’s. What do you do when these moments might occur? Because we’re not perfect, but people are gonna slip up? Yeah, but then how do you handle it? What? And?

Polly Mertens: 27:00

how and how egregious is it you?

Polly Mertens: 27:03

know, so like, um, you know, we talked in the beginning about the abuse, right? So if the disrespect or the treatment is so egregious to to ourself or to someone else, it’s like whoa, no, not right here, not to this human being, right? So that’s where we step in and take care of ourself, our needs. Right, speaking up. So in that case that’s a quick hot. No, you know, like, if it’s right out, you’re out immediately. But if somebody you know, you know, makes a, you know a comment or something, or they attack you in a heated moment and you know what have you? Defensiveness, you know, can be a natural reaction. It’s just do you find yourself always on the defensive, like what’s going on here?

Samantha Pruitt: 27:45

this person just you know, always on the attack.

Polly Mertens: 27:47

They’re always on the attack. Yeah, because we’re talking earlier about the signs. It’s like that’s draining, that’s joy draining, right, that’s not like somebody you want to be around very much. You know that’s toxicness of those types of things. So all right. And then, uh, oh, so let me go back. So the the counter to contempt is appreciation, right? So instead of you know, disrespect, it’s learning to appreciate things, not that that moment of that thing, depending on how egregious it was. And then the defensiveness is where do you need to take responsibility for something? Right? And it’s not always your responsibility everything this person does, but maybe you had something to do with this. So taking responsibility for what’s yours Responsibility?

Samantha Pruitt: 28:27

is not blame.

Polly Mertens: 28:29

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:29

It is a very different thing. Say that, yeah, say more, yeah. It is a very different thing. Say that, yeah, say more. Responsibility is not blame. Responsibility is me owning who I am Perfectly imperfect, right, and your feelings, yes, and all the things that might come out of this mouth or these actions that I do and this way I am in the world. Right, but that’s not blame, whether me taking the blame for things that maybe go wrong over the course of this relationship or blaming the other.

Polly Mertens: 28:59

For sure, for sure it’s empowered. I mean, what you’re talking about is like there’s always an empowerment behind that and blame is disempowering. So, yeah, stay in your power. The last one in the four horsemen is stonewalling. So this looks like pulling back, withdrawing, shutting down, not responding to physical touch, avoiding the person not taking their call. You know different degrees of this right. So, whatever, whenever you feel like you’re kind of look at it like you’re turning the love channel off, you’re like no love here for you. You know, it’s like not putting out the love factory that we used to. Um, that’s a sign you know, like, oh, and that’s one of the well, that’s a sign it’s gotten pretty far exactly.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:43

I mean, that’s like you’re coming to the end of this road, people, if you didn’t already get there and repairing that is going to be very, very difficult to very difficult, to coming back from that.

Polly Mertens: 29:55

Massive intervention and, frankly, a lot of the things that you mentioned.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:58

If you don’t go out correctly, repairing some of these things can be pretty impossible.

Polly Mertens: 30:03

For sure, for sure. And you know it’s the last one, because it’s where most relationships. The next stage is just you’re done Fall off the edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for for sure. Um, okay, so those are the four horsemen criticism, content, defensiveness, but on a positive note, hey, let’s go with this. Yeah, so now we’ve laid this yucky sewage here’s what not to do.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:28

And here’s the thing again. To be honest, we’ve all experienced some of these things, okay, whether it’s past relationships, current relationships, whatever because we’re humans having a human experience, learning Again. Yeah, we’re learning as we go, and so some of this is going to be normal. I look at it as we’re evolving, so each of us, individually in our own life, are evolving as a human being. It’s amazing, it’s magical, it’s incredible, frankly. What a gift. But then you get into partnership with another human, and we were laughing about this earlier too. How does this even happen? How could you possibly come together with another human and be like we should spend the rest of our life together? I don’t know where you came from. I’m sure it was radically different than me. You know, we’re so different from one another. And we have this even more hilarious idea that, because there’s some sexual chemistry, that’s the one that’s the perfect one, right there. The cute one is the one for me, right? So we have all these weird cultural instinctual, sometimes instinctual instinctual programming.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:41

So much programming right, so many stories we tell ourselves, and then we somehow miraculously narrow ourselves down to the one and then make this commitment and then we go on this incredible journey together. So what I like to think of is that is another opportunity for incredible evolution as a person and as a collective, as a partnership, and what is the potential of that? You know, when you find the right person to spend years with or a lifetime with in many instances, you know you can create so much. I mean it’s incredibly beautiful, but it is not going to be easy, it is not for the faint of heart, you know.

Polly Mertens: 32:24

Yeah, I mean the, I think the I want to say, like the work, the strengthening of that bond is it’s like muscles, you know it’s, it’s massive massive Talk about emotional fitness.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:40

There’s a whole other genre of you know partnership, partnership, fitness, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 32:43

You know, I was just thinking also. We didn’t touch this at the beginning, but just as we’ve been talking, I’m like man, you know, I don’t want to, um, not give space here, cause there’s a lot of people that don’t have a philosophy or don’t have a desire to be in a one on one relationship, like they have other needs. They have a multi relationship, kind of matrix, you know, or how they’re made made.

Polly Mertens: 33:12

So we want to give space to that. You know like you and I talk because a lot of what, what is what has felt right or been, you know how we’ve operated in the world is one person feels good to us, but total, you know, however you, however it floats you, you know or for some people it’s it’s no person, which is also great and amazing, right Like if you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:29

however, you know yourself to be your best self, your best truth, and that’s the path that you choose. We completely love and respect that. That’s what everyday awesome is all about Finding your own personal way in the world.

Polly Mertens: 33:44

And you know part of this too. So some of you listening may be sitting in a relationship. So where I was, you know, like I was just strung out in the settling feeling. You know, whichever relationship I look at, what it was like is this all there is? And I was like, ah really, you know, not unwilling to do work, but either seeing the partner I had chosen or the person I was with at the time either wasn’t willing to, wasn’t able to, didn’t have interest in, was totally satisfied with who they wasn’t willing to, wasn’t able to, didn’t have interest in, was totally satisfied with who they were, you know like never did a day of therapy, or you know work on themselves in their life. It’s like okay, right. So it’s asking yourself and, as you said, you know, at some point, you know, I think sometimes people um, I had this in my first marriage because you know, my husband and I we wrote our vows and I was like took a lot of spiritual time in creating that, because I felt like there was I’m huge into ceremony and huge into what those agreements were.

Polly Mertens: 34:41

I mean, you can imagine like when we I cried, like I cried reading that was amazing, right, think, you know, years later looking back and seeing or thinking about the moment that we wrote those vows together and we spoke them to each other in the witness of our family and friends. You know to break that. You know to break that was so. I looked at that for a long time, right, and so if somebody’s listening to this and they’re like, you know I feel like I’m in the bottom of this, I’m in the stonewalling’m kind of settling or I’m just sort of going through the routines or when, the when the kids grow up, you know, whatever it’s like your life is now like. I just felt like I was losing oxygen the longer I stayed in that relationship and at some point it would. It wouldn’t kill me, but it was killing my soul and so was like I had to get real.

Polly Mertens: 35:33

With me Was my commitment to that relationship and what I thought we had, and you know these agreements that I had made. Is that what was going to take me forward? Do I have, you know, like these bonds people have of religious agreements and you know structure, like, oh, you’re married, you’re married forever, it’s like, and you just suffer in silence? And I wasn’t willing to do that for very much longer, and so I took a long look at this and we’re going to go through these things to look at and address. Could you adjust any of these? Is this is there hope? Is there workability? Is there ways to restructure, re-communicate, re-imagine the relationship that will give it life again?

Samantha Pruitt: 36:14

put life in yourself and put that spark you know, and I would just add for me, one of the questions I’ve always asked myself as I, when I finally became an adult and couldn’t have real relationships, it didn’t matter, I was already married and parenting by the way and parenting. I was already married and parenting by the way and parenting, like anyway. Oh, I figured it out somehow. But um is this question and I’ve posed it to people before and it’s just a nice reflection pieces it does this partnership make me a better person?

Polly Mertens: 36:45

Hmm.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:46

And do I make my partner a better person? It’s an incredibly simple question to ask my partner a better person.

Polly Mertens: 36:52

It’s an incredibly simple question to ask.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:53

That is so good, but asking yourself that in the partnership does this partnership make me a better person and do I make my partner a better person? Are we contributing to each other and to ourselves on this journey? Together, we’ve chosen this path where we’re marching down it, and it’s called life and, by the way, it ends at some point. It doesn’t go forever. So the clock and calendar are moving as we’re marching forward. Are we becoming better individuals together? So am I becoming a better version of myself? And asking that question.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:33

Now, there’s going to be times where you’re definitely going to say, no, I’ve gotten pretty horrible. Or maybe they’ve gotten pretty horrible, right. And and if you catch it early enough, because you’re all going to have struggles, I mean, hello, I’ve been married 26 years, right, like there’s going to be struggles. Life is really complex, but if you can be honest about it, be on the journey together, go through the struggles and continue to have conversations, work through it, support each other, do all of the things that are actually the work of being a partner, being in a partnership, then they’re incredible. But you do have to catch these experiences that could be taking you down the wrong path early enough to resolve these things.

Polly Mertens: 38:20

Yeah, take some ownership. Yeah, do an inventory. So let’s look at things that we should look at, right? So this list is not meant to be exhaustive, like oh yeah, you have to do everything on here. It’s just, these are ideas.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:31

But you do. You have to do all the things and you should be writing it down right now. Are you writing? Notes, take a note Rewind, Listen again. Yep, here we go. We’re going to hear somebody’s partner going rewind that play that again for Fred Pull over.

Polly Mertens: 38:44

I need to write something down. You know, get off the get off the treadmill, Okay, Okay. So values, that’s your key one.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:53

Oh my gosh. I mean. To me, values are at the core of everything. First of all, what are my values? Can we all just like get a grip on that? So many conversations you and I have with humans that we love and adore, that are disconnected from their own value set, haven’t given it thought, don’t think about it ever, maybe thought about it once and have forgotten about it, their life has just gone off course, right? So if they don’t have a real sense of self-value, like understanding who you are and what is important to you in the world. Value, like understanding who you are and what is important to you in the world, how can you find a partner? And, I would say, how can you find any opportunity in your life that is going to be a match Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 39:43

So how would you know if this person, if they don’t share the values, if you don’t even know what yours are right, you can’t have the conversation, being able to have the conversation. Hey, what are your values? Yeah, what do you? What do you live your life by?

Polly Mertens: 39:57

and you know, call us if you don’t know how to do it like, like.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:00

We can help you create these you know we’re going to sort that out because it’s it’s.

Polly Mertens: 40:05

You know, I’ve been through numerous workshops where I’ve understood this, but until I had been through those trainings, like never even occurred to me. Never even occurred to me. You know, value is something you purchase at the grocery store. It’s like oh it’s, there’s a value of that.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:18

Whatever you know, it’s like your value system drives all your decisions and your actions are reflected from your value system. So saying you value these things and then your actions, that’s a misalignment right. So really having a handle on that? And then finding a partner that has a match there.

Polly Mertens: 40:36

Yeah, or enough of them are aligned, absolutely, absolutely Okay. So values. The next one is agreements. This is my, this is how I look at it, so micro and macro agreements.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:48

So contracts, you make them sign contracts.

Polly Mertens: 40:50

There are little little little yeses, and I’ll do that and you’ll do that, and sometimes they’re unspoken. You know, it’s kind of like oh you know you, I expect you to always open the door for me, or whatever you know, like you do the grocery shopping, I’ll do the cooking.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:03

You do the laundry, I’ll mow the yard whatever, I’ll pay the bills you’re gonna be the primary for the kids and I’m going to do this other thing, you know, like all of those, those are the agreements.

Polly Mertens: 41:14

Yeah, and I don’t think people just like values, necessarily take them out and look at them, you know. And so I’m just saying in this, looking at where you might have some breakdown in agreements or agreements need to be updated too, because oftentimes you have some outdated agreements. It was like hey. And that goes to this next one, which is roles and responsibilities.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:34

It’s like hey first of all, we should revisit agreements every year. I’m totally serious, cause I’ve been a 26 years, right, and, of course, come on. How can we possibly have the same operating agreements that we had 26 years ago? Trading agreements yeah, that we had 26 years ago.

Polly Mertens: 41:55

That makes no sense at all and so largely like where? So people are like oh, where do I find the agreements and is there a list? And should we, whatever it’s like? Look where you have friction in your relationship, the areas that are causing you friction, frustration, tension, non-agreement, some, you know, lack of communicate, whatever. Where you’re having little mini breakdowns with yourself, at the person, whatever these criticisms are showing up, or something like that. You know, take a look at where there’s friction, cause there’s probably a breakdown of agreements or roles, responsibilities, things that haven’t been updated. You know like, hey, I’m still carrying the weight of all this. You remember when we you were supposed to do that and you know, whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:31

Yeah, and don’t feel like they can’t be changed and that they can’t evolve over time. Right, and they don’t. Also, the whole traditional idea around agreements right, like that’s just. This is the year 2024.

Polly Mertens: 42:48

Come on.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:49

Right. But there’s still a lot of people who are living in these really traditional relationships, especially if they’ve been in a longer term relationship or whatever the dynamic was, maybe culturally, you know how they were raised, so they’ve inherited all these things. Blow it up, start over if it’s not working. But you love this person and you want to stay in partnership with them. Below that shit up and just start over. Create what you want. To stay in partnership with them. Below that shit up and just start over. Create what you want. There’s a lot of freedom in this one.

Polly Mertens: 43:18

Yeah, if the team is worth being on and you want to stay in it. There’s just some friction, like speak up Time to do some talking Time, to use that mouth for what it’s good for and share what you need and what and I. What I have found is, um, there’s almost no unworkability. If you have a workable partner, like if you guys are up to the same thing, you can find ways to make new agreements, new ways of doing things that are workable, whether they’re you know, a hundred, everybody gets their way, a hundred percent. No, it’s maybe some flexibility, but it can be more workable than it is. That’s causing you internal friction or friction between each other. So, exactly so we talked about goals or we’re going to, you know so goals. So I think you’ve got some things shared and individual goals.

Samantha Pruitt: 44:06

Yeah, so I’m a big goal queen, and so what I find to be important and relevant in this piece of the topic is that the individuals have goals because they’re individual humans. By the way, no person makes me whole. I am whole all by myself, and so is every other person out there. Right so, to be a complete person? We can’t, we come to the party complete, right, so that would mean I would have my own ideas and goals and dreams and wishes, and that’s wonderful and beautiful. So I think it’s really imperative also to find that partnership that the other supports your goals and that you support their goals. You don’t have to have matchy match. We want to do all the things together, and I’ve seen this so many times as a coach of athletes, but also a coach of people in business. The commonalities are so off the hook, by the way.

Samantha Pruitt: 45:05

But, like the athletic people you know, for many years I was coaching athletes and a lot of times the female or the male would come with this idea of doing an Ironman or doing a marathon or whatever the hell their thing was, and their partner was not part of this process. Right, this was their own personal thing. They were going to join the club, be on the team, do whatever, get trained, go and have this great experience. And many times the partners were super supportive and it was wonderful, it was beautiful. And many times the partners were super supportive and it was wonderful, it was beautiful. But also many times they were not.

Samantha Pruitt: 45:35

And I would witness this really interesting, strange, unhealthy dynamic where the other partner would get jealous of the time they were spending. They would start showing up at practices. Next thing you know they’re trying to join the practice. I mean really, and I was like I’m not what’s going on now? They just couldn’t really handle the fact that their partner had this other thing going that they weren’t part of. It made them feel insecure, unwanted, whatever. All their dramatic stuff was behind the scenes there, right, and it was really a shame to see that.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:09

And sometimes I literally have to have conversations with them and I’m not a marital or relationship counselor, but it was really a shame to see that.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:11

And sometimes I literally have to have conversations with them and I’m not a marital or relationship counselor, but it was like you know, this is just not a healthy experience.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:18

I’ve seen the same thing in business and I’m sure you have too Many times. The business owner is a partner to somebody but their spouse or their partner is not part of the business, right, and as the person sets really big goals for themselves to grow the not part of the business, right, and as the person sets really big goals for themselves to grow the business, buy the business, expand the business, whatever, transform the business, that partner is kind of swirling around on the outside of all of these things that are going down in that person’s business life and they’re not really part of it and it can create a lot of conflict, right, and jealousy and insecurity and things that are not necessary. So these things need to be talked about and they need to be understood and they need to be navigated so you don’t create just literally a piling up, a building, if you will, of all this animosity and dysfunction that can happen so easily.

Polly Mertens: 47:10

Yeah, you know, and I think one of the things we said is like individual goals because you’re both should have rich lives that are separate. You should be up to amazing stuff as a human being, and when two amazing human beings are crushing it and having fulfilling lives and and they have a shared experience and they co-create some shared mutual goals as well, but it’s not you’re, it’s not 101 and zero the other, you get no goals. I gotta do all the things. Or you get, you know, whatever, and it doesn’t have to be 50 50, it can shift whatever. But so, looking at making sure you have your personal goals and you’re going after them in mutual and they’re not too far apart, or they support each other or sometimes negotiate timing. Hey, you go after Ironman this year and next year I’m going.

Samantha Pruitt: 47:53

Seasonality, yeah Right, the seasonality of a relationship is so important to go with those ebbs and flows. Sometimes, like my husband has had several businesses and is a business person, so am I Different ones, right? So sometimes it’s all in on some crazy thing I’m up to and then the pendulum will swing. And it’s all in on some crazy thing I’m up to, and then the pendulum will swing and it’s all in on what he’s up to. But you know, finding that swing, that ebb and flow, so important, so important.

Polly Mertens: 48:22

All right. And then big one you know they talk about on, you know, people Magazine or whatever, not New York, whatever. The finances are the big reason why people you know disagree or relationships break down. I think there’s other things. This is the worst category. Yeah, it’s never pretty or whatever, but like okay. So I don’t think we’re going to spend too much time here, because people know if there’s dysfunction or lack of communication or you’re just out of whack with each other Like you got to handle that you got to handle that?

Samantha Pruitt: 48:48

Communication, I would say, is at the root of most of those things People not properly sharing information, or communicating or getting an agreement with how things are going to be spent and budgeted, et cetera, et cetera. One person, irrelevant of who is the primary earner in the partnership. If you’re in a partnership, one person does not rule. This category does not rule this category.

Samantha Pruitt: 49:16

It is a shared life. You have made a commitment to a shared life, and so the amount of communication and respect and trust and transparency in this area has to be paramount. This will absolutely divorce so many people, as it blows up business partnerships left and right. This is a big bucket.

Polly Mertens: 49:32

And know it before going deeper with someone. You know, like if you’re not too far down the road with someone by golly, look at this category. So I was in with what became my husband, and from the outside you know, driving a nice truck and had a house here and a rental, and I was like, wow, look at all these nice things this guy has. Like good for you, you’re doing okay, right, I can’t remember how, whatever you didn’t look under the hood.

Polly Mertens: 50:04

Oh, but then I did and I needed to cause. He like so what happened for this young man when he was, um, when he he was struggling financially? Like it didn’t, he didn’t even know it, but when he got to the point of, you know, needing to look at books and I, you know, I have an MBA it’s like, let’s look at this, like I can, I can understand this stuff. Let me help you here. Like he was like pretty much curled up, sweating, trying to, you know, have conversations around this. I was like, well, this is interesting. And what we came to find, I was like, guess what? You’re going bankrupt, guess what You’re going to end up in foreclosure.

Polly Mertens: 50:32

I guess you know like just facing the music or whatnot, but had I not like? You know like, hey, let me take a look at this. What’s going on here? You know like, from the outside sometimes things can look whatever and people’s habits may be hiding something. So take a look, all right. Communication.

Samantha Pruitt: 50:52

I mean we could just go on and on about this one. I just don’t. First of all, can I just ask a question? If you want to spend your life with somebody on the daily, can you not have a conversation with them? And I know sometimes it’s uncomfortable and it gets heated and it can be weird and whatever, because we bring all of this lifetime of stuff with us to the conversation, all of our traumas, all of it. We bring it all to the party. But you’ve committed to this person, they’ve committed to you. Can you not have a conversation? And if you cannot have a conversation about any of these things we have discussed today, you have a problem. It’s you, yeah, it’s you.

Polly Mertens: 51:32

Get the mirror out.

Samantha Pruitt: 51:33

Get the mirror out Like get some help for that Pointing fingers across the table Get some help for that. Yeah, 100% Get some help yeah and it may be underlying beliefs.

Polly Mertens: 51:43

You know, like I was talking about mine, like trouble speaking what was real for me or speaking the truth because I felt I feared it would you know, blow things up or whatnot.

Polly Mertens: 51:53

It’s like it needs to blow some things up. You know, if that’s, if it’s going to blow things up, blow it up. You know, like I say, when I was in real estate we used to get into escrows and people were like oh no, no, don’t tell the buyer this, or whatever. I was like no, no, no, no, no. I’m sorry, we want to blow this deal up as soon as possible so none of us waste any time doing any of this dating thing called escrow any longer than we have to, right, no, you right. So I know that in business, but in my personal life I was like throw away the key, you don’t need to know suffering over here, so yeah, communication learn how to learn ways to.

Samantha Pruitt: 52:33

And it’s courage. Communication is courageous. It’s vulnerability, courage.

Polly Mertens: 52:35

It’s courage, it’s courage.

Polly Mertens: 52:36

So these last three I would say are have to do with ourself or ourself. So one is if you’re finding you don’t value yourself, or maybe you’ve gone downhill, or you’re let yourself go right, you know the kids are more important, or work’s gotten too big and you just start like not taking care of yourself. Self care goes downhill. You’re valuing yourself something you know you’ve been comparing yourself or you’re just your monkey mind is getting away with you or you’re not not growing. You’re not like taking care of yourself right like this can just erode who you see yourself as in the relationship. You’re not your best self in this partnership. That could lead to a lot of these things a partner criticizing you. You’re feeling contempt, you’re not feeling uh, you’re feeling jealous, so you start throwing, you know, attacks at the other part, whatever you know, so having a solid sense of self, or working on it, if you’re not taking care of yourself?

Samantha Pruitt: 53:30

Exactly yeah, which starts first with communicating that. Tell your partner I feel like shit, I can’t sleep, my body hurts my brain and being you is just such a big part of all of this. Being able to be vulnerable, be seen and heard, means sometimes saying I feel like shit, this sucks, I hate whatever. I’m not talking like perpetual complaining and doing nothing, but like getting your partner on board with whatever is going on with you so they can step up or they can be a witness to yeah, honey, you haven’t been taking care of yourself.

Polly Mertens: 54:14

You know, can I help with anything you know? Or you know speaking that you need support in this area, or just being able to talk about it with them Asking for help.

Polly Mertens: 54:22

Asking for help Helps you do better, something like that. Okay. So those are the areas to look at. So how are we on time? Can we just drop in some? We got five minutes. Let’s drop in some juicy, okay. So we hope that you’ve gotten. You know, the obvious warning signs of like I got some, you know some fr horsemen, things, areas to take a look at and then let’s go into like, okay, let’s leave you with like quality areas of a healthy relationship, right? So what are those? Number one we talked about is respect, period, period respect, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, spiritual intimacy. Can I open up? And I love what you just said is like just be yourself, like speaking what’s real for you, right? Do you have a safe container, a safe relationship space that person will hear? You give you space, trust. Ooh yeah, a healthy relationship has healthy trust.

Samantha Pruitt: 55:21

Yes, yes, I think that goes with communication.

Polly Mertens: 55:25

Oh yeah, it shows up on this list too. Another one, I love this, so friendship.

Samantha Pruitt: 55:32

Oh, that’s cool, you know. I mean, is this somebody? Isn’t that at the core of it? It’s funny. I just sort of take that for granted. Wow, we have to say it out loud, it’s a thing. Wow, we have to say it out loud, it’s a thing it’s.

Polly Mertens: 55:42

You know, because I think you know a lot of the fairytale, hollywood makeup, cinderella stories lead a lot of women towards the desire to have this giant wedding. And don’t take a look at what the relationship, the you know that’s a one day. The courting and you know a wedding is one day that they spent all this time, money and energy towards. Do you, are you friends with this person? Like you’re setting up yourself to be with this person for a lot of your life, right yeah?

Samantha Pruitt: 56:12

Can you just hang out with this person? Well and that speaks to what I said earlier is like oh, that must be the perfect match, because they’re hot and sexy and I should definitely spend the rest of my life there, but there’s no shared values, there’s. None of the other stuff is there, but they sure look good. On the wedding announcement, yeah, and you know.

Polly Mertens: 56:30

on the honeymoon after that, you know, and it’s so funny how, you know, I can remember so many years of my life, looking on, let’s say dating, and this is before the dating apps, when I was yeah, we haven’t have.

Samantha Pruitt: 56:42

The whole thing is based on what is a? What does it look like? What does it look like? This is so. I mean. I just don’t understand that world at all because it’s so feels so incredibly superficial to me. And let’s see two, three, three of my children married people from dating apps and the fourth uses a dating app, is just still single. But so this is the world that we live in, is that? And, of course, my grandchildren will all be using dating apps no time soon. You’re too young, but I mean, so it’s so superficial.

Polly Mertens: 57:21

I know, but so that’s where it you need. To put it through a different lens is okay, so that person looks attractive or looks acceptable, or you know, I I could their bio reads all the wonderful right, just like a resume. Oh, you’re perfect yeah, so it’s like you have. You have enjoyment with this person, right? Because I mean you’re going to spend time with this person, right?

Samantha Pruitt: 57:42

Because I mean you’re going to spend time with this person because you want every day. Yes, Hello every day.

Polly Mertens: 57:49

many meals, many meals. So you know we want friendship with this person. That’s the sign of a healthy relationship is we’re good friends, we’re good, not good buddies, whatever, but like you’re good friends, you treat each other like good friends. Would you care about each other? Thoughtfulness, connection is yeah, you connect with your partner right, you’re on the.

Polly Mertens: 58:06

I call that like being on the same team. Right, there’s commitment. Right, there’s a commitment to the workability, to the doing the work, to growing together, to and then you know some of these other things is having healthy conflict. You know, like, you’ve talked about that. You know with, with, like, the communication style, so things aren’t always going to go your way. It’s always going to be sunshine and rainbows. Avoid, you know, get things on track before the four horsemen of the apocalypse show up, right Through healthy conflict, flexibility and then just enjoyment, right? So I think you know if you have this recipe and it’s not always that every day right, I think you know you’re 26 years.

Samantha Pruitt: 58:45

If I listed this list, you’re like yep, didn’t have that yesterday or the day before that you know, like the one that brings the most value to my mind right now is flexibility, because life is so complicated and challenging and messy and beautiful. So if we’re not flexible with ourselves and then ultimately with our partner in the relationship, there isn’t a flexibility component, how could you possibly evolve over the course of many years, if not a lifetime, together? Impossible. The stuff that my partner and I have gone through in 26 years is insane Multiple businesses, many kids, grandkids, illnesses, finances. It’s endless. It’s endless the challenges that come the way of a partnership yeah right and it’s.

Samantha Pruitt: 59:45

Can you be resilient together? Can you be nimble? Can you be flexible? Can you find grace? Can you find humor? Can you know somehow can you still enjoy the ride? You know, because a lot of times it kind of sucks. But if it sucks together, all right. You, you know, you just kind of at some point you just laugh about it, yeah, totally, Totally.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:00:10

I love it. To me it still comes back to that primary question I asked up front is like does this partnership make me a better person? Yeah, Do I make my partner a better person? Am I contributing in that way? Does this partnership make me a better person? And am I contributing in that way with my partner?

Polly Mertens: 1:00:30

That’s the one thing I want to leave people with.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:00:32

I think that’s it, you know ask yourself the question and, if it’s not, do something about it. Yes, we don’t. We’re not saying exit the building, even though in some cases, with all the dysfunction we loaded into this conversation, there are instances they should be exiting the building, there’s no doubt about it, right, but in many cases it’s like just the awareness and then opening up to the conversation and the healing and being back on the same team together, being back on the journey together. It can be magical.

Polly Mertens: 1:01:06

And you know, taking the responsibility to do the work, to evaluate yourself and what your role is in what’s happening or has been happening or has led to. Whatever phase you’re in in this, you know, are you in the early phase of criticism? Ok, what? How can I start shifting? What have I been doing to contribute to that? Or have I let it get to the point of defensiveness?

Polly Mertens: 1:01:27

And yet I can still repair it, you know, or I need to make some requests of my partner, I need to open up about some things, right, so, like stepping in and being empowered in this relationship to find out if it’s workable or not, you know so I, you know, in multiple relationships, as I stand on the precipice of a pivot myself. You know, as I said, you know, when we hired that coach, I was like I want to do the work in the relationship instead of get out of it, because I will, you know, grow more and maybe this will make it work. You know, maybe this was the relationship that could be turned around. The growth would, would benefit both me and the partner. And you know off we’d go, you know we’d stay together. It didn’t in that case, but you know, finding the opportunity to ask yourself and explore where your growth is and where the growth together is.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:02:15

I have this revelation that we upfront say we’re not relationship. You know, coaches and therapists and all this stuff. However however, both of us have had partnerships, relationship partnerships that we also were in business and operating businesses with our partners Super complex, dynamic.

Polly Mertens: 1:02:35

Yeah, both of us.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:02:36

Yes, and in our business coaching specifically that we do. It’s very common for us to work with couples that own and operate businesses. We are experts in this, that little niche right there. So if you have a business and you’re in it with your partner or you want to start a business with your partner, I mean you definitely call us because we have like a lot of experience in that the good, the bad and the ugly but we can definitely help people through that, so I just wanted to throw it out there.

Polly Mertens: 1:03:07

Yeah, and it’s not the only thing. You know I think that’s true is like you know, we’re not quote relationship. You know coaches or counselors, but we’re great at this because there’s a lot more. Oftentimes that’s a complexity.

Polly Mertens: 1:03:18

That is a human, you know because if you just you know, it’s like you just go to the ear, nose and throat person but gosh, you’ve got a cough, you know, and it’s like, uh, maybe that’s something else. You know what else is going on here, somebody that’s more naturopathic or holistic medicine like us, you know. Hey, I think we can find the other symptoms of where this is coming from as well.

Polly Mertens: 1:03:37

Also, we’re really good at having horribly awkward conversations In a loving container of like we’re going to get up in your face and help you. You know I had. It was funny I had a call right before this with a client and it had been a couple of weeks it wasn’t relationship counseling, but it’s a newer client to me in business and we took a look at his profit and loss. This is the first time he’d looked in this year this is six months into the year that he’d looked at his P&L and said, hey, let’s just pull it up, whatever. And so he like, at the end of the call I could just feel his, you know, he was disappointed with what his numbers were showing him. That’s an understatement, right. So we get back on the call today and he goes well, once you, mike Tyson’d me, you know, you like knocked me out last time. It’s like, well, wait a minute, you know.

Polly Mertens: 1:04:25

But it got him into action. He’s like, man, I really appreciated that. Well, I said, I said I actually acknowledged him. I said, you know, it wasn’t that I was meaning to, you know, give you a punch or whatever.

Polly Mertens: 1:04:37

But it’s like sometimes we need that raw information, sometimes we need to know, like, what’s really going on for ourselves. Like asking people like us who ask those questions, who put forth in front of people hey, let’s take some inventory. Hey, what do you? What’s the? The symptoms are great but like, let’s get to the root thing here. Right, and I shared with him cause he’s been in action ever since then.

Polly Mertens: 1:04:57

The last three weeks he’s been just like a little tornado and I’m like, well, you know what you in that moment, instead of getting you know that stomach punch that you felt when you looked at this, which was just me helping you see what was actually going on in your business. It wasn’t I did anything, it was like just showing your reality here, just showing your reality. You had the opportunity to either pity party it and not do anything or, as you did, you got into action and you took some steps and you made some growth. And now I can help you make some more growth. You know things like that, so you know that’s where I think our coaching comes at people is with loving compassion, to help you get real and get to the bottom of what’s going on in your life, whatever area, so that you can do some things right.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:05:38

We create the space right and then we curate the questions. Yeah, it’s up to the human.

Polly Mertens: 1:05:43

you know what they’re going to do next, but we’re on board for all the crazy things, and that’s what this podcast is all about is like hey, we want you to have an awesome life, we believe every day can be awesome, right, and so if it ain’t feeling that way in your relationship and your body, something like that, like we, you and I are, we’re like I don’t know what we’re going to call ourselves. It’s like change agent, ding dong, like like like the hell out. So this, the work that we’re doing in every episode that we record from the core of who we are, is to go hey, hey, hey. This is this is the life. Like hey, hey, hey.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:06:19

Right now right now yeah.

Polly Mertens: 1:06:21

And it’s like does, does your life look, feel you know the way that you want it to. So let’s, let’s share what. Let’s remind them of the last thing that we always leave with them as a reminder for every episode. What do you want to share with more beautifully, humans?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:06:38

What I always say. Maybe you should get it tattooed right here, by the way. I wouldn’t be offended if you did, but how your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Polly Mertens: 1:06:47

And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:06:51

All right, lady, nice work. See you next time.