The power of regular check ins with our partner. Always tend to the space between us. Relationship math: 1 + 1 = 3.
How do you check in with your partner? Do you have regular check ins? It's easy not to. Have something, have some intentional time when you hear one another. It's not about check ins, it's about couples counseling.
If you're not communicating, it doesn't matter. It's not a relationship, it's a roommate situation. What it means to be a conscious couple is that we are consciously engaging in the reality of our couplehood.
All right, Cadresphere. It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood in Los Angeles. And I know it's cold for some of you, but it's not here. In fact, I've got a sweatshirt on, but I've got shorts as well. And today is week three. That means we talk about consciousness couples, conscious couples, right. So week one, conscious masculinity. Week two, conscious fathers. Week three, conscious couples. And then week four, conscious living. And then of course, week five is always just a bonus. So conscious couples.
Well, you know, if you watch any of my videos, you know, I try to just bring stuff from life, not making stuff up that I read in books or kind of aspirational stuff. I'm trying to talk about, like what's really going on. And what's really going on in my coupledom is my wife and I have been married 22 years. And one of the things that helps in that's it communication, the ability to talk and check in. And so that's what we're talking about this week is just literally how do you check in with your partner?
Do you have regular check ins? And it's easy not to. It's easy not to prioritize it. You know, my family, we do family meetings. That's my daughter, myself, my wife. Right. And even our little dog sometimes weighs in, but it's the three of us and we do that. That's not the same though, is the check in for my wife and myself. In fact, we're probably going to be doing a check in tonight because my daughter is out at a sleepover party. So it's a great time for us to do it because we can just do it out in the open and not worry about anything.
The structure that we use is one person talks, shares, whatever they want to share. They don't get to criticize or insult the other person. They don't try to deal with things, you know, that are outside of the scope of that simple conversation. But you just share. And then the other person listens and then reflects back and says, this is what I heard you say, is that correct? And then the person says yes or no, or you miss this or that, or do you want to add anything to what you said? So, you know, I mean, if you're in a relationship that has deep resentment and has a lot of negativity, it's not about check ins, it's about couples counseling.
It's about deciding if you want to really be in the relationship or do you just want to be resentful roommates? Who watch Netflix pretending to be happy, which was going to be the next Netflix special that I do. It's going to be called that. But in all seriousness. So that's one of the demarcations, right? I mean, if you don't have the capacity to just hold love and hold a space for listening, you know, then the check ins, like, that's, that's different. But when you do have that, it's got to be something.
It doesn't have to be the structure that I've talked about, right? It's like, but have something, have some intentional time when you hear one another. There are a lot of models that people use. This is the one that works for my wife and myself. And it's pretty simple. But the idea is that like you're checking in and like, you're really talking about, like, this is what came up for me this week. This is what's going on. This is how I feel about us, blah, blah, blah. But then there's other people.
They use like various specific areas. Like you do a little meditation together and then you say, on a scale of 1 to 10, this is how I'm feeling about our marriage. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is how I'm feeling about our sex life. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is how I'm feeling. And then you just share that with your partner and your partner shares their score. And then you talk about it and then you kind of reflect and it's like, hey, one person scores our sex Life as a 3 and the other one scores it as an 8.
That's interesting. Both people score it as an 8. That's Interesting. So those Likert scales, those 1 to 10, those can be very helpful because you're quantifying it and you're getting a sense of where each person's coming from. Even though the scales mean something, something different to the other person, you're at least having something to compare it to. The bottom line, in my experience, right, I've, I've, I've been in the roommate situation, okay, I don't. You probably can't be married for 22 years and not have a couple of roommate moments, you know, where it's just, I mean, to be, to be a little crude, right?
A friend of mine says it's called hallway sex. It's when you pass each other in the hallway and you say you. Because it's like that's where it's gotten to. It's like that's the ugliness and the resentment and the disconnection. So you can have that. A lot of people have that. A lot of people pretend they don't have that. But, you know, it's the communication, it's the connection, it's the being able to just take the time to tend to that space that lives between both partners. Right? So in the description of this, I said one plus one equals three.
I was taught that a long, long time ago in a human sexuality course, that in relationships it's one plus one equals three. You have, you take care of yourself, you take care of your partner, and you take care of the relationship. And all three have their own kind of almost identity. And that's something that I also try to think of. So that's it, you know, the idea of the check in. And you can have those weekly check ins. And sometimes it's also important to just have like a brief check in where you're like, okay, hey, my mom is getting ready to come to stay with us for a week.
How we doing? What do you need from me? What's going on? How you feeling about it? Okay. My mom has now been here for half a week. How you doing? What's going on? How's everything? You know, I mean, it's. At the end of the day, you can have all the scripts, you can have all the narratives, you can have all the roles that partners are supposed to play. You can have all the. What are those called? The. I forget, you know, like when it's like the man is supposed to be this and the woman is supposed to be that, you can have all of that.
But if you're not communicating, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, from my perspective, it doesn't matter. It's not a relationship, it's a roommate situation. And as I said, I've been there. I don't want to go back to that ever. It wasn't because we stopped loving each other. It was simply because we didn't have the tools to get past the resentment we were feeling and the willingness to really do the check ins. And you know what happened? We went to couples counseling and you know what happened?
We went to individual therapy and we did our individual recovery programs. And it's like, that's what happens. And that's. That's. At the end of the day, I think what's been most valuable for me in these years that I have learned, you know, by so much failure, but a lot of success as well, how to have a meaningful relationship. And to me, that's what it means to be a conscious couple is that we are consciously engaging in the reality of our couplehood, not just our individual lives. So with that note, I wish you all a wonderful holiday, wonderful weekend, take care.
