How Roleplaying Can Save Relationships
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Thanks for listening to my Call of the Day podcast. You can hear my live radio program Monday through Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph 111. Michelle, welcome to the program. Hi. What can I do for you? I guess I'm kind of nervous. It's all right. It'll pass. Well, I'm calling her. I've been married. It'll be 25 years coming up. We have three beautiful children.

I still have one in high school. One has graduated from college and is getting her master's. One is still in college. But my husband and I, I'm starting to become resentful and just not having the same respect I had for him. He changed careers about seven years ago and did a startup and just has been kind of wishy-washy about things. And then

Just doesn't want to go on trips, doesn't want to do anything. And I just, I feel like he's depressed and I've talked to him about it, but he doesn't seem to want to do anything to help the situation. And I don't know what to do anymore. Well, I'm not sure there's anything you have to do. Sometimes we just need to survive stuff. So just keep hanging in there? Well, you've got a child at home. I never suggest a divorce when a child is at home.

That disrupts their lives way too much. So other than you're pissed off, if he were on the phone with me, what would he be saying if you couldn't hear it? He would probably be saying the same thing, that he's depressed. Well, make believe, let's, for the sake of it, let's just make believe you're him now. And Michelle cannot hear my conversation. Talk to me like what you imagine he's feeling, thinking, needing, wanting, suffering. Do your best.

I don't think he knows what direction to go. Okay, you're talking about him now. I asked you to be him. Hi, Dr. Laura. My wife, Michelle, is not happy with me, but I want to tell you my side. She's frustrated with me, with my lack of motivation and decision-making and depression. What's his first name? Mark. Mark. So Mark...

Tell me about when you were highly motivated. What was that time? When was that? Tell me about it. I enjoyed everything I was doing, but I was working too much and I felt like I was neglecting my family. What made you think going this route of your own business was going to be better for you emotionally and time-wise? Because normally when people start their own business, they have less time and then they have to worry about failure, startup and all that.

He said he would have more time to be with his family. No, not he said, I, I. You are Mark, okay? Yes, I wanted more time to be present with my kids, to work out. But how did you think starting up your own business would give you more time? Because I would be in control of my own time frame. Not when you, not really, when you have to start up a company. When it's successful, you have time. Right, which is...

So pretty much, Mark, you have failed. You have failed and you don't know which way to go. Correct. Correct. More of the same as in getting you there. I'm curious that other job that you liked that had a lot of time requirements. Could you get back into it?

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That kind of comes with the territory. But you're killing yourself now. You're miserable. Your wife is all bitchy and annoying. And, you know, so we'd have to think if we took a little bruise to the ego, but we could get back what we used to have. What do you think? That's part of my issue is this has been going on now for seven years. I know. Do you want it to be going on for eight? Do you want it to go on for eight? No.

Well, then maybe we ought to backtrack. And, you know, this doesn't mean you're a loser. This means that this particular business at this particular time, with all the circumstances you have, it didn't work. Right. Well, we don't stay with what isn't working. Ego notwithstanding. You want to get back your woman, your life, your ego, your happiness. You want to get it back. I think you ought to fight to get it back.

So I just need to have that conversation again about when were you most happy when you were being successful? Michelle, I'm going to send you this conversation in an email. I'd like you to tell him you called me. I'd like you to be very brave here. I want him to hear the role playing, and maybe this is just what he needs to hear. Okay. So let me put you on hold, and you give them your email address, and we'll send it to you. This is a chance.

This is a chance. I thought she did a good job when she got into it. Very important to force yourself. You know that old saying, oh, you know, you're not in their shoes. You don't know what it's like. It's true. We can't ever really know the whole thing because we really don't know every synapse in the brain that's talking to the person. But for some extent, we can find compassion and understanding of what it feels like. And when she said ego, that's very important to a man in particular.

Ego is different from, quote, self-esteem. Women tend to use that phrase. So, hmm, hmm. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. And I kind of like when married couples do that. And I've done this at personal appearances, taken people, put them on a stage, and couples. And give me something that you get annoyed with with each other, whatever it is, time you go to bed. Even something like that becomes an issue. Time to go to bed.

And I'd have them both tell me what the problem was from their point of view. And then I'd say, okay, we're in a court of law and you now become your spouse's defense attorney. Explain why, explain what their position is, defend it. And it usually, like this call, took a little bit for her to get into the thing because to some extent we don't want to know because we're holding on to our position. But when we get into it, it's amazing the revelations we have. You ought to try that at home.

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