Five Elements of a Successful Relationship Strategy - Part 2

00:11 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Hello friends, and welcome to my unhealthy podcast, where we are on a journey to transform our unhealthy choices into healthier ones. I'm your host, Uncle Marv, and I am excited to dive into today's show. This is part two of an episode that I had with Emma Viglucci and it is going to be a fantastic show. For those of you new, this is a show where we talk about all things wellness. We don't just focus on diet and exercise. We take a holistic approach to health and well-being. On this show, we explore topics like mindset, self-care, emotional eating and even how to use technology to support our wellness goals. So usually I'll be joined by a friend or an expert guest psychologist, nutrition coach, wellness gurus and they'll all share their insights and personal experiences to help us learn how to live healthy and be happy. As I mentioned today, we are back with Emma and we are talking about successful relationship strategies, specifically for those of us that are busy professionals. So, Emma, welcome back. 

01:34 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Hello, I'm so happy to be back. 

01:36 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I'm glad you are. I first want to start off by saying thank you for agreeing to come back on the show. We of course got a little carried away with my questions, so we had too much fun. 

01:48 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
It's all good that is great. 

01:51 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So on that show, we started to talk about your uh five elements for the successful relationship strategy. 

02:01 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, that's correct. 

02:03 - Uncle Marv (Host)
And we only got through two. 

02:05 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yep, we carried away a little bit. We had so much fun. 

02:10 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So, folks, if you want to find the first two, I'll recap them real quick, but the full show was released back on April 4th. Five Elements of a Successful Relationship Strategy. And in there we talked about the first element, which is context and mindset, and that was pretty much the concept where we talked about helping couples shift from being stuck to empowering themselves to break out of the impasse. And then the second element, communication and alignment, where it would teach techniques to improve the mutual understanding and get couples on the same page to make the relationship be more effortless. Does that sound like a good summary? 

03:02 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That was a fabulous summary, very good. 

03:06 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right, and then today we're going to try to get through elements three, four and five, but before we do I know it's been a little bit of time since you did the show Was there anything that came to your mind that you said, oh, I should have talked about that or I should have mentioned this? Anything before we continue on? 

03:24 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, for those two elements. The only thing that I will add is, for element two, that communication skills also include apologizing properly. 

03:38 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Yeah, we sort of talked about that, but I think I sidetracked you. 

03:42 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Okay, okay. So I just don't remember, going too much in depth, what I wanted people to take away, and so the main thing to know about it is that we want to make sure that we apologize, not just with an I'm sorry, because a lot of people don't even want to provide an apology. I'm sorry, right, but the apology needs to include what we are sorry for and we can say I'm sorry that your feelings are hurt right. 

04:10
So it's more. I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, right? So what did we do? How did I hurt your feelings? Now, I might not agree that what I did was wrong, but it had an impact on you, so I could apologize for the impact that it had. So that's a much better apology. 

04:27 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Yeah, we did start to talk about that, but of course I sidetracked you with the comment of why should I apologize if I'm not wrong? 

04:37 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Right, okay, very good. So did you want to add anything else to that? Or do you want to flesh it out even more, or do you think we're good with that concept? 

04:44 - Uncle Marv (Host)
No, I think that's good, and then people can go back and listen to what we said about that on part one of our episode. 

04:50 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Very good. 

04:51 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So before we get going with the others, let me again remind people in case they listen to the shows out of order you have a Metropolitan Marriage and Family Therapy that this is all based out of. This is something that you've done for quite some time. I think I mentioned the fact that you are one of the few people that started a program without being broke first. You have had a successful relationship your entire marriage, and I find that great. 

05:25 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, thank you for that. We definitely have been on a journey and I am not going to claim that we're perfect or that we didn't go through our issues, and I think I'd share last time that my husband considers himself and I consider him my muse in our relationship or muse, and that I get inspiration from our conversations and observing our dynamics and how to do things. And so, even though it hasn't been a perfect marriage, it has been an amazing marriage and we have been together for a very long time and, yes, the work that I do not come from an originally broken marriage or abusive relationships or whatever story people may have. I did start fairly early on and I just wanted to always help couples. 

06:12 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Nice, nice, and a lot of what you do is focused on, as I mentioned earlier, the busy professional. Your website, metrorelationship.com, is a site where people can go and, you know, look up some stuff themselves. There is a what is it? A content-based content, and then, of course, they can get the private sessions with you and all of that. And it's simply, you know, for those of us that we have relationships that we want to keep going, we want to maintain, we like the person that we're with, but we're just stuck, we're busy, we kind of get off track. So that's what you help people do is get back on track. 

06:54 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, we help people rekindle their love, their passion, get back on the same page if they're stuck and feeling disconnected and just like, what the heck are we doing here? Are we even into each other anymore? Or people are fighting a lot but they're so disconnected that everything gets on their nerves and we just help them mitigate all of that and get on the same page and rekindle their love. 

07:15 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. So let's continue on and make sure that we get through all five this time and finish off with the five elements here. So I know that we did mention them at the end of the show. That way people would have an idea. And element three was clarity and dynamics. So describe to us what that means. 

07:37 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Okay. So a lot of times people don't understand partners, don't understand why they keep having the same fight, the same arguments or the same repeating patterns. They might make an agreement to no longer do that or to stop doing certain things to be nicer to whatever it is, but then they repeat the same behavior or similar behaviors, right, and so whatever agreements are made get broken. So not only is there the injury of the thing that's being done, but also the broken promise and the broken agreements and people keep repeating and looping around. So that's a dynamic piece and the clarity piece is okay. Why is that happening? What is the driver of those repeating patterns? And then how do we change them? 

08:24
So, that's pretty much the big concept of that particular element. 

08:29 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. So it's the relationship version of every year. I say I'm going to eat healthy and get in shape, but then I never do right? 

08:37 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, pretty much, that's very good. Okay, that's right. 

08:41 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So I imagine that part of that would be helping people identify what the pattern is, as to why, because obviously people say all the time I'm going to do better, I'm going to do better, but then if we don't, there's got to be a reason. So how do we help people identify what those reasons are? 

09:01 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, that's a very tricky part, right? What happens a lot with this? This is the hardest element out of the five, because this is where the deep work happens. This is where we go, finding the wounds and that unfinished business and the shadows and just like all the stuck emotional things, all this stuff that people usually like to gloss over, bury under the rug or they're not even in touch with, and so they're not in touch with their feelings, they're not expressing their feelings, they're not getting their needs met. So all that stuff is happening. Plus, you have the programming from younger that are the drivers for recreating the patterns in the present time. So you have the drivers from the past replicating, triggering things, and then our defense mechanisms create the patterns in the present time, keep the thing happening again. So let me explain it a little bit better. 

09:52
Well, something happens to me, right, my husband does something. I get triggered. His behavior might not necessarily be, of course, a bad behavior, somebody else might not find it offensive, but for some reason it touches my sensitivities, right, my wounds, my old hurts, all my stuff, all this stuff that I bring from before, and so when it reaches me, I get triggered, I get upset. Now, the way I deal with that upset with defense mechanisms. I've been working on responding better when I get upset, usually we respond with defenses, reactivity that what I do at that moment triggers my partner's sensitivities. Then they respond with their own defenses, unless, again, they have done some work or they're more evolved, which those defenses then are very similar to what initially triggered me, and I get re-triggered, and so we keep the loop. 

10:46
This is dynamic, and so what we want to do is okay, what is the thing that's getting triggered? Number one and then number two. How can I address that or respond differently so I don't trigger my partner and we don't stop on a bit, so we don't create the repeating loop? So those are the two places to go in what's triggering me and how do I address that in a way that doesn't trigger my partner? Okay, so that's the dynamics, that's how the loop, that's how people get stuck right. So then that's the work. 

11:23 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I imagine that that becomes difficult when people don't want to acknowledge that it's a trigger Right. 

11:32 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, but so it depends on how we ask the questions and how we look at it, right? So we don't have to say this is your wound from childhood, right so, but if you're in couples therapy, they're OK, you know, kind of go in there, because that's the whole point. But some people are a little prickly and so we just kind of we make it a lot more, we normalize the language, like so what bothers you about that, right? So very basic questions or feelings come up for you, right, and we don't have to call them wounds, we don't have to call them all kinds of things, right, that makes it more clinical. It's just a conversation, right? Curiosity and things come up and that's how we identify what's happening Now. 

12:15 - Uncle Marv (Host)
okay, so I'm having thoughts about relationships that are in peril, which I'm assuming that most of the time, your relationships are not. These are just people that are. They're busy. They recognize that they need to devote time to it, so they're not off the rails. 

12:28 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's not true. 

12:29 - Uncle Marv (Host)
But I'm okay Glad you said that. 

12:31 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's not true at all. We save marriages. 

12:34 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, because part of me is thinking that this could be an area where, when you're talking about wounds, you're talking about baggage from previous relationships that cause a trigger and it's a tough thing to acknowledge that. You know I'm bringing baggage from, you know, a relationship you know two people ago, as opposed to what's actually happening right here in front of us. 

13:02 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
You know, what's interesting is that it actually goes farther back than that. It goes back to childhood, and so any relationship that they've had since the patterns are going to be very similar. The triggers are going to be the same, and so if we go back to the bottom of the, the origin, we don't have to go through all of the relationships to learn all of the things. You don't have to talk about all your exes in couples therapy with your partner, current partner, right, we just get to the bottom of like okay, so where, how did this once get started? Or what created these things. And we don't have to go hang out in the past, we don't. We really do like past, past, um, digging, just a quick like oh, so where, where might have this started, how do you think this came about, kind of thing. And then from there we say, okay, so if those are the feelings that came up, then they're coming up right now by what your partner's doing now. 

13:55 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right, and I imagine that there are a lot more, because the things that pop to my mind trust, abandonment those are probably two of the big ones, but there's got to be a whole neglect okay. 

14:09 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Abandonment? You said yeah. Neglect, um being made small, dismissed, not heard, um not valued, not having a voice, all those kinds of things come up a lot okay so usually. 

14:22
So let me here, let's, let's make it more, more tangible. Usually the partner, the partner that needs connection, more connection, is the partner that had the wound of feeling abandoned and neglected. Their partner is usually the opposite they need more space because they have the wound of being suffocated and controlled, oh, or something to that effect. Right? So my partner does something like I want to hang out with the boys this weekend, or something like that, or I want to go away, blah, blah, blah. I want to do my own thing. What You're leaving me, you're abandoning me, right? I get triggered and of course, that's what you want to do. You're always leaving. That would be my response. Potentially, right, like I'm just making this up. So I would get all worked up about them not spending time with me, not having connection time, right? So my reactivity in my like well, do you have to? I prefer that you stay, and I'm using reasonable language. Some people say you can't go. Some people get even crazier with this. 

15:20 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Right and from the other side. The other side is like I spent. I spent the last two weeks with you. I just need a break. I haven't seen the boys in you know a month. 

15:30 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, but that's what the other person would say, right? So if I say, like you can't go, no-transcript own way of expressing these things, um, but so that's, that's what happens, in that the triggers are usually the opposite. This is, like, so beautiful the way it plays out, right? So what I need is the opposite of what you want to, what you want to give, and it's your weeks, like your weakness, if you may, or like you, your Achilles, no, that's not the phrase Like you're kryptonite or something like that. So the thing that I need the most is the hardest thing for you to give, and vice versa, the things that you need the most, like space freedom, do your own thing, whatever, it's the hardest thing for me to give, and that's the stretch. 

16:28 - Uncle Marv (Host)
That's how we get stuck so we meet each other's needs. It’s that age-old adage of opposites attract that's right but how does that happen? Because there's got to be a way that you would acknowledge early on oh, you're like that, I've already had that and I'm not going down that road. But how do we keep ending up going down that road? 

16:53 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Oh my gosh, that's a beautiful question, well, so I don't know how much time we have for this, but I'll try to do it justice. So it's an unconscious process, right? So you could have the logical foresight to say you know what? I am not going with those kind of people anymore, right? Like if they do this thing, that's it. They're out Like that's my boundary or that's my hard stop, or like that's my whatever People make these decisions when they're dating, are people still falling in love with exactly that prescription, right? Or with that template? I should say, because there's all the unconscious patterns that are at play, that that's where the love happens. It's not a logical decision to fall in love, you just fall in love. It's all the unconscious mechanisms that are at play. So, when you first meet somebody, the unconscious mind is going like this is an opportunity for me to stretch and grow and heal. You're going to stretch me to the empty degree. You're going to give me all of the things that I need. So I could work on this stuff that's sitting here. 

17:59 - Uncle Marv (Host)
And you could be like okay, I'm going to ignore all the stuff I said I would do because I like where this is right now. What do you mean? Well, if we go in with a template and we meet somebody and regardless of what the attraction is, you know they're so beautiful, they say the right things, they're funny I may forget about the template for a while. 

18:25 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
The template. We don't know the template half the time unless you've done work on yourself. The template is just doing its thing. It's a program, right? And so you don't even know, unless people have done therapy and they're trying to figure out what to do. So they are aware and they have more you know they're bringing all that stuff to the dating scene. People don't know what's the drivers and what's the attraction and what's the template and what's the patterns are, right, so you just fall in love. It's like, ooh okay. 

18:47 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Right, but if we say I'm not going to go through that again and then we meet somebody, we kind of forget all of that stuff that stuff. 

18:59 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Okay, right, we forget that. We decided that we're not going to do this again because we fall in love again, and so we ignore the decision that we made. Plus, at the beginning you don't really see that stuff because at the beginning is the first stage of relationships, when we first fall in love. We didn't really let our hair down yet right? So everybody's showing up with their best self, with the best you know, the social masks and all this stuff. And as soon as you make that higher level of commitment, that's when the patterns start kicking in, right, right, and the people are like wait, wait, what the heck? 

19:25 - Uncle Marv (Host)
that's right the mask is off that's right, I got you. 

19:29 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
And also, what happens is that at that moment or at that stage in relationships, is that the things that you find so cute and adorable and quirky and not in in not a big deal when you first met? Now, because you have a higher level of commitment, not they're important, not they get on your nerves right Now. Now, this is a place where the work needs to happen. All right, it's not. Relationships are not for the faint of heart, right, as we know. 

19:59 - Uncle Marv (Host)
No, there you got to be in it for the long haul. So, uh, and their work yep all right. So let's uh, let's move on to element four and try to get through these. So, after you've done all the work and kind of clarified everything, um, next is this is where so, before we switch gears, hang on, okay. 

20:21 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
So one more thing I don't want to leave people with like, oh my gosh, that's just a formula for disaster and we're doomed to fail our relationships. That is not the message that I want to leave people with. What happens with those patterns is that once we identify, you know, once I know that my trigger is abandonment, in a nutshell, and your trigger is suffocation, then I'm going to be intentional not to suffocate you and you're going to be intentional not to abandon me, right? So that's number one. And then number two how do we ongoingly put in things to cultivate that? So I might say to my husband oh, how about you take the afternoon off or go do something or whatever? Like I offer the things right, and so he might offer the connection, as opposed to waiting for those tension moments to give each other stuff or not to trigger each other. So that intentionality about giving each other what we need, that's what heals. 

21:14 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, getting into element four, if you're trying to get into the connection and intimacy part, obviously you want to have done more work with the clarity and look for a resolution, but it feels like there's this slide that has to happen between element three and four. 

21:36 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Right, so the elements are not so linear like that. They're more like a spiral, like you kind of go circular. So you kind of work on them as you're going and you keep coming back around to go deeper and deeper and more in depth, or higher and higher. However, you want to look at this where you don't have to finish one to move to two, to move to three, to move to four, okay, right, so you could kind of tackle them as you're going and you could come back around and tackle them again at a different level and come back around, right, or tackle them simultaneously. So it's not like, oh my gosh, I will never be going to get to intimacy, right? Because if you want to heal yourself fully, you will never get feel yourself fully, so you will never get so intimate. That's the logic. There's no such thing, right? We're always growing and evolving and healing. 

22:25 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So you can be working on all five at the same time. So I guess it's more of a five circles that are all connected. I don't know what the shape is, but you got five circles with an intersection in the middle right. 

22:41 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's a good visual, okay? So for connection and intimacy. What we're striving for is to create connection and to sustain it. At the beginning it's very easy because we're really curious and interested in the other person. But as we get busy well, potentially we're busy when we first meet as well. It depends on the age that people are meeting and what their careers and life look like. 

23:04
But after the initial stage of falling in love and the honeymoon period, then people kind of go back to their regular lives, right, the usual schedule programming, and so then the busyness kind of takes over, as opposed to people prioritizing their relationship or dating Let me make myself beautiful for the date and all these different things Then it becomes more okay, I got the person, fine, perfect, and now let's just weave them into our life and they lose the priority status and life gets hectic, right? 

23:36
So then sometimes not only do they lose the priority status, they go to the bottom of the list. Right, partners, self-care and partnership are at the bottom of people's list. Usually, okay, kids, business, work, career, all that stuff is at the top for some reason Well, not for some reason, there's reasons, but beyond today's conversation. But if we don't prioritize, then the disconnect happens. And if we feel disconnected then we nitpick at all the things that annoy us. And if we look for annoying things then we will find them. If we're feeling connected we have more grace and we don't let those things bother us so much. But if there's no connection, there's no cushion, then the things that bother us really grind and really bother us and hurt us. 

24:20 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. So you mentioned a couple of things that I was going to ask in terms of what challenges people face at this point, but obviously you mentioned just things getting in the way and that sense of accomplishment and arrival. You know, for instance, we're married, we're set, the race is over, you know, and then that's it. So what are, besides those two things, what are some of the other challenges that people hit when they get here? Because I have to imagine and. 

25:00
I'm trying to imagine what's happened in my marriage of 20 years, as opposed to what others, that there's just things that deteriorate over time, but we don't always know the reasons. 

25:12 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, so when we get here, if we don't prioritize the relationship, we don't nurture it, right? So, like I said, it goes to the bottom of the priority list and so we don't make time for it. We don't make time to look our best, we don't make time to spend quality time with our partner, we don't give anybody attention, we don't try to surprise them, woo them, take care of them, do that nice little things. We just go through the motions, right? And so it's hard to feel connected with that level of just transactional, superficial interactions. Sometimes people don't even have interactions. People are like ships passing in the night. Their schedules are so different and so hectic they barely have any time together. And the time together it's like minimum, minimum interaction, minimum depth, minimum being together. That's not connection, right. And then if you have all those things, then physical intimacy definitely suffers too, because the female gendered or energetic person in the relationship, the more female partner in the relationship, needs connection to feel interested in sex. If there's no connection, they are not interested, right? And it takes a while for them to come to the place of being ready for intimacy. They're more like contextual sexual partners. Usually more male energy is more spontaneous, they're kind of ready to go all the time. 

26:40
Generally, this is a very simplistic language. Usually more male energy is more spontaneous. It is kind of ready to go all the time. Generally. Now, this is a very simplistic language. There's exceptions to all the rules, but then there's a disconnect. There too, opposites again right. And so negotiating all the different things of life and balancing all of the different things can be challenging, and so we want to make sure that we are intentional, that we bring priority, that we make the time, that we create the context for that connection, so then we could go deeper in the connection, so that we could feel more depth, nourishment, fulfillment, that then we could take into the other realms for physical intimacy and everything else that we might want other realms for physical intimacy and everything else that we might want. 

27:24
So it kind of feels like we're talking about the fact that you never stop dating. Yes, I love the way you said that. That's exactly right. 

27:28 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Nice. 

27:29 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
I actually have a protocol that's called date your partner. Okay, that's the homework that we give our couples. You'll never stop dating and the couples night or date night or date. The date itself can just be very simple. How do I say this? Some people call dates very simple time together, which in my book, that's couple time. Date should be a step above right, like just more investment into that time together and you can bring your husband head your wife head your partner head your father, mother, head all the roles and all the things. You just have to be the person. When you first met, there was there were no roles, it was just a person, a human being with energy, and that's where the attraction happens. When we're together for a while, then we'll have all these roles, all these responsibilities, all these things come up and then muck up the energy and then we can feel the attraction right. So if we show up to the date with just us, yay, we create the spark again. 

28:31 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. Now does this go back to the way that we ended, part one, where we talk about scheduling all of this stuff? You schedule you know date time; you schedule sex. Is that all part of this area here? 

28:46 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yeah. So I call this connection habits right. So this is perfect for your show because you love talking about habits. So this is where we, we invest and cultivate love and connection and nurturing in the relationship. So I like to teach people start at the beginning of the day, from the moment you open your eyes to the rest of the day. How do you want the day to feel in terms of being in relationship with your partner? 

29:13
Most people don't think about their partner all day long. I don't know anybody who does. Really, if you think about it right, they might be back here somewhere, but like they're not very intentional about staying in touch, nurturing the relationship throughout the day and so okay. So what's the connection point in the morning? Is that like when you first part ways after you wake up? What's the connection point mid-morning or around lunchtime, like middle of the day, sometime A little bit after that? What's the connection point when you first get home? 

29:41
How do you guys reconvene or re-entry, right? That's usually when people have conflict. They say at the end of the day, everybody's tired and people get home and all hell breaks loose, especially if there's children involved. That's one of the times. How do we do that time? Then how do we do night routine with the kids and everything else, but they get to bed. Now it's a couple of times. How do we do that? And then bedtime how do we do that Right? So there's a bunch of places where we could connect. How do we go about those touch points One, two, how we, how are we intentional about this? So they're rich? And then we have more specific kinds of connection habits, like debrief times, synchronizing meetings. These are all the things that I teach our couples, just different, specific ways of meeting so you take care of the business of life and take care of all the different things that you need to do as a couple, either romantically or practically or practically. So different kinds of being together couple time, connection time synchronized time, daytime, sexy time all the times. 

30:51 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Now I'm thinking of something, and I don't know if it falls in element four or element five, but I'm going to show a little personal side here to where one of those things that, in terms of our habits is when I get home from work, she allows for me to have decompression time. 

31:11 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Right, good, so you get freedom. You see, right, that's usually what guys need Very good. 

31:16 - Uncle Marv (Host)
But it's not. I mean, it's a habit that we got into, but it's not like I said. I don't think it falls under four, or does it? Because you're talking about? You're talking about these, okay, all right. 

31:32 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, maybe that's falling into both right, because if you think about the flow of the whole day, the structure, the routine for the whole day, that's definitely five. But I like it, I like to also put it in four and, like I said earlier, the elements are not so discrete. There's overlap, right? So nothing's like exactly in this element, exactly in that element there's, there's a bit of interconnectivity here. But so the way that we could add it to element four is to think about it as okay, Marv is connecting to himself first, so I think he could be aligned and present to connect with me. You see, that's still a connection place. 

32:31 - Uncle Marv (Host)
If you go back to the beginning, when you're dating, you had that separation where you both worked and then you went home, had your little downtime from work, then your preparation for the date. Maybe people didn't see each other for the week until the weekend and stuff, so that's kind of how I was looking at it. As you know, you wanted to have a little bit of separation in order to look forward to the time together. 

32:48 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's perfect. That's a great way of reframing that. Absolutely so. Some people, like you, know especially the partner who wants connection everything's we and they have to do everything together and that's like the death of the other partner. And so the key is to find the balance between connection and separateness. So that's exactly right, because we still want to be individuals. We can't just be a blob of we all the time. Right, it's me, it's you and it's us. And how do we find the balance so that we as individuals have a full, rich life and then we bring yumminess to the middle and we create a relationship that's amazing okay, now are there exercises, or how do you get people to list out their connection points and follow through with them? 

33:33 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I have to imagine that it's not as simple as writing down. I'm going to leave a note here at three, 30 or something like that. 

33:42 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Well, you know, that's very specific to the couples. So it depends on who the couple is, their personalities, their lifestyles, their jobs, you know, so that we kind of co-create that and people bring their own brain and their own kind of desires and what makes sense for them and what they each person kind of wants. And if the partner leaves a note and doesn't do anything for the other person, eh, wasted effort, right? So it has to be things that make sense for the partners. You know the person who's doing it and the person who's receiving it, and they could agree to things, some things could be put in place and we call that time mapping. 

34:15
How do they use the whole week so that they get all of the aspects of life? This is now we're getting into element five All the aspects of life taken care of. So nothing falls out through the window and people are worried Like I can't be present because I'm thinking about this whole thing. No, there's a time and a place for everything, right? And so, aside from that, aside from the time mapping, then it's like what do you fill the specific times with? That's just very specific and unique to the couple all right. 

34:43 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So we've kind of dipped our toes twice into element five, which is collaboration and partnership, and that's why I was kind of there, because a lot of these things it feels like a collaboration when you're going through the connection points. It feels like you're coming to this partnership agreement of this is what I need, this is what you need, and how do we work together to make them? 

35:09 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
happen. It's part of element four, more specifically, is the actual meat of the connection. Okay, right, so, as I said, the structural and scheduling and the flow of life and time, then they actually have to show up to the connection, right, and then how are we each showing up? Are we being vulnerable? Are we being available, are we being present? There's all kinds of things that create intimacy Aside from physical intimacy, just connection at a deeper level with somebody, right? 

35:42 - Uncle Marv (Host)
so that's the deeper work that happens with the connection element all right, and so that's why we have to look at these as not steps, but just part of a complete holistic approach correct all right. So what else falls under collaboration and partnership? 

36:01 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
So for collaboration and partnership. It's a few things that I like to highlight for people. So, aside from okay, what does a daily routine look like, so that our life flows and it makes sense and all of our needs get met and everything is in the right place? Then is okay, how do we take care of the business of life? How do we actually collaborate, so creating systems for taking care of things, all the kids' stuff, all the calendaring thing, all the financial things, all the events I mean there's just so much life things and how do we get on the same page about those things and have each other's back and collaborate and co-create together? And then the piece that might get people is how do we clearly share responsibilities and divide and conquer? People get really tripped up with this. 

36:55 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I was going to say did you just smirk when you said that? 

36:59 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Because it's funny how people and it's not, I don't mean to laugh at people suffering, because this really tortures people, you know, and it's such a simple thing at the end of the day, you know. 

37:08 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, but is it, is it the torture in terms of creating this shared responsibility, as if to say you know, you know, oh well, this isn't 50, 50, it's really 60, 40 and trying to actually get that balance. 

37:23 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
No, because people kind of agree that you know what, because of our circumstances, I'll take care of 90% of the practical things in our domestic life. Because you work 100 million hours and you bring in most of the money. Therefore, the collaboration piece might feel lopsided, but in terms of life, energy that you put into your career and work and contributing financially versus what I might contribute domestically equals that at the end of the day, okay, or something like that. Right? So it's not so much dividing the chores 50 50, but it's dividing it in a way that makes sense for the couple. Okay, and? 

37:57
But the torture piece is that people make the actual practical things so much harder that they have to be because it's not about the practical things and they bring in all of their baggage into the conversations about the things. This is why it's element five right. People sometimes come in with like I don't get support in my relationship, I have to take care of everything, blah, blah, blah. But we can't even have that conversation about dividing chores because you have all of these scribes, you have all these communication issues, you're not setting things up properly, you're feeling disconnected, so everything's going to bother you. Him or her not picking up their socks is going to bother the crap out of you because you're feeling disconnected, but otherwise who cares about a sock on the floor? So we have to do some other things first before we start co-creating some of these other things. And that's where the torture comes in, because people are sending so much more meaning and it has so much funky stuff that if people don't work on the other things first, then the torture happens. 

38:50 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Right and I okay. So I guess I was thinking in that same term, where people are nitpicking as to you know, you need to give more in this area and the one person's like okay, but I give so much more in this area, Okay. 

39:08 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, a hundred percent. And people don't, don't appreciate what the other person contributes. A lot of times they only see what they contribute and they get hung up Like let me shove down your throat what I do and you're trying to shove down my throat, throat what you do, and we're just shoving stuff down. We don't get to see each other, and that's the human condition. We want to be seen, we want to be appreciated, right, we want to be valued, and so everybody's fighting for that. That's the power struggle and it goes back. Then all this stuff from element three gets triggered. At that point. 

39:38 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, so Element three gets triggered at that point. Okay, so you did mention that you've got to work through all of these things and if we're looking at this as a spiral, as you said, people can actually start to deal with this adversarial dynamic. But I guess the question for me is how do you help people make that shift? The question for me is how do you help people make that shift? Because you can't. Just, if we're not dealing with this in steps, you got to start somewhere. So how, where do you start? 

40:13 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's a beautiful question, my, my. My funny answer was going to be you go for a master's in marriage and family therapy. 

40:18
That's how you help people. That's the funny answer. But to answer your question truthfully, is that we, we? That's why we start with mindset right. So when people first come in, we can't talk about you sharing responsibilities if your mindset is so weird. If you're really looking at your partner as your enemy, they're trying to get you. They don't give a crap about you, like they have all these funky thoughts and scripts and things going on, limited beliefs, like all this programming in the mind and their thought patterns. Right, that's where the mess happens. So we definitely start there. We start there. We start with ownership. We start with foundries, because that automatically suits everything down, and then we do the start. Then the communication skills comes almost immediately, like at the same time, and then we go deeper into the wounds and triggers and then we can talk about connection and then we get to co-creating. 

41:05
You see, okay, all right, so that's the whole process but we could be talking about collaboration while we're practicing the communication skills and fine-tuning the, the mindset, you see. So it doesn't have to be like, oh, it's going to take forever to change the mindset so that we could get to the communication. It's not like that. We could, like I said earlier, we could be working on all the things at the same time okay, so let me ask a. 

41:30 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I don't know if this is a weird question to ask but, have you ever run across people that are absolutely perfect in two of the elements, but they need help in three of them? Or you know, is that type of a mix or is it kind of across the board deficient? 

41:52 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Let's see how I answer that. I'm trying to think of the work. 

41:59 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Because here's okay, let me ask it this way yeah so I'm the question is very valid. 

42:04 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
The question is fantastic. I'm just trying to see how that's fit. You know, from all the data that I have in my head, from all the different couples, you know what the what the answer is because I'm thinking that there are people that could have a connection and an intimacy that they just they love, they value. 

42:22 - Uncle Marv (Host)
You know they've got the. You know they've got the sex down. They, you know, pay attention to each other but they're deficient in other areas. But I'm wondering if, if there's truly an overlap where maybe they're overcompensating in that one area because of the deficiency in the other areas, does that make sense? 

42:46 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
It makes sense, but I'm not sure that that's how it works. I think that and I don't like the word deficiency, that's why I chuckled before I think that when the couple is struggling, that it kind of shows up in all the elements. So just a little context. The elements came about from me working with couples who were really struggling, right, and so I did work with couples for many years and after paying attention to the pattern of the work that I was doing, I'm like huh, we're working on these five areas, we're working on these five areas, we're working on these five areas, we're working on these five. Ok, and I just then I, these five areas, we're working on these five areas, we're working on these five areas, okay. And then I named the areas Okay, there was a pattern to the work that I was doing, and so if people are struggling, they're pretty much struggling across these five areas. 

43:31 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, so I apologize for using the word deficiency. I was trying to think of a healthy versus unhealthy concept, because my thoughts are is we can feel like we're, you know, actively healthy in one area, but we're not healthy in another area where we, you know we may not have clarity. You know, most of the time where our communication is fractured, you know, sometimes we say something that gets taken in the wrong context, but it's not intentional, if that makes sense. 

44:11 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
It's usually never intentional, Right and so, but if people's mindset gets so. But this is the beauty of interconnected and of all the elements, right, and I know that you're not going to like this answer because you're looking for something concrete, but just bear with me. Maybe we'll get there together. 

44:28 - Uncle Marv (Host)
So okay. 

44:30 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
So you say something that didn't mean to hurt your partner right, it was unintentional, but your partner's feelings got hurt. Now something got triggered. That's element three. Number two is the communication. Now, something got triggered. That's element three. Number two is the communication. The trigger is not I'm sorry, let me say that again Whatever you said is communication. 

44:45
Whatever got triggered is clarity and dynamics, what your partner makes of it and what they do with it. Now, it's mindset. That's element one. Right. Now, it affects the connection, or it all happened like that. The partner is taking it funky because they're feeling disconnected, you see. So it kind of all interplays. But you're right, some people have more skills in checking their mind and checking themselves. They know their partner's awesome, but they're still struggling somehow that they don't go to like the worst places that I've seen people go with their mindsets right, so they don't have to be terrible at it, but you, still, they have like really crazy communication and really escalation and really massive triggering points. People could have magnificent sex, but they still feel potentially emotionally disconnected, right, but so, yeah, I mean, it's not going to be like across the board. All the areas are going to be equally a one, right, so they might be a little bit better at some things than at other things, for sure. 

45:41 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, all right. Well, no, I mean I wasn't looking for, like you know the dagger as to this, is it? I was just trying to imagine that there's got to be some ebb and flow in terms of you know what is working in a relationship versus what isn't working, and maybe the degrees aren't as drastic in a lot of places. You know what? 

46:07 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
I have an example. I have one couple that they consider their element five, the collaboration and partnership, to be outstanding. Okay, they were like we get shit done, we make it happen, we figure it out, we grind, we know what we're doing, we know how to take care of things. Okay, they were like we get shit done. Right, we make it happen, we figure it out like us. We like we grind, but we, we know what we're doing, we know how to take care of things. But their communication is terrible. And so they have massive escalation fights like really bad, which would trigger really funky mindset where they every day they're threatening divorce. That all those triggers now at element three right, an amazing sex and connection with their get when they're threatening divorce that all those triggers now are element three. 

46:41 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Right. 

46:42 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Amazing sex and connection when they're getting along. That's actually very common. 

46:46 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay. So how can you have great collaboration with poor communication? I mean, is it only you know? If they're in alignment, they're great, but when they're not in alignment, that's where the friction comes in. I mean, okay, Yep, when they're not in alignment, that's where the friction comes in. 

47:01 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
I mean, okay, yep, so the communication they could communicate about tasks, but they couldn't communicate around feelings. 

47:09 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Ah, okay, that connection. That makes perfect sense, right? 

47:18 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Especially for us men who don't like to talk about our feelings. Yeah, and then in her point, the person that I'm the couple that I'm thinking about with is. Her point was like we can't just jump in bed and have sex. I need some connection; I need some intimacy. Right, let's talk. And that piece was very hard for him to do, right, okay, he was ready to go any minute. Like why she was ready to go any minute. Like why is this a problem? Why do I have to jump through hoops so I could have sex? I'm ready, let's go, let's go. 

47:43
All these things are very common. 

47:45 - Uncle Marv (Host)
If we take time to talk, it's going to pass. 

47:50 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
That's not true, because you guys are ready to go at any moment, supposedly. 

47:55 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Okay, that's another show. 

47:57 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yeah, that's another show, okay. All right, I just want to mark, just FYI for the audience, I have an episode on sex coming up the last Wednesday of the month, on the 27th. So if people want to learn more about all of this and we even talk about scheduled sex so they could check it out. 

48:13 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. So that's a great segue, because I was going to mention your podcast again Successful Relationship with Emma. You're on just about every podcast platform, so whatever your choice is, do the search there. I'll have a link to it in the show notes and a lot of the stuff that we talked about. You actually go pretty in-depth and you have some other experts on with you and explain things a lot more clearly than I was doing. 

48:45 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
You're doing fabulous. I love your questions and I love your insights so amazing, so thank you. 

48:49 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right. So there is the podcast and then the website, metrorelationship.com, and you can actually get to the podcast from there as well, as well as look at some of the other resources that she has. You've even got a download for exercises. 

49:09 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Yes, so people could. They're all free, so it's a one page downloadable. They're related to our monthly themes and it walks you through a specific exercise so that you could apply it to a pain point, so like detoxing all areas of your life that we did that in March. This month we're working on nurturing the relationship. It's all about relationship verbs, how to nurture the relationship so your love can blossom. We have reparenting. We talked about the dating protocol. That's one of them. That's over there for people. There's all kinds of things in there so people can definitely check it out alright, so I was going through there. 

49:49 - Uncle Marv (Host)
You've got the one was spring cleaning for your relationship that's right very nice. Alright, Emma, so we've got through five. Yay, congratulations to us. Is there one kind of general point that can help sum this up? So, in terms of you know the successful relationship strategy, I have a feeling that there's something that would sum all of this up. 

50:24 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Thank you for that. 

50:25
Yes, so the one thought that I like to really instill in people whether we have a one minute interaction or we work for a long time, and sometimes it's hard to still fully click onto this is to focus on creating change through ourselves, not waiting for our partner to change. 

50:43
Right. We can't change our partner. A lot of couples partners wait for their partner to change before they can show up properly or do the things that they want to do and be the best partner, and the partner's doing the same. So now everybody's waiting, so nothing's changing right? But instead, if I focus on what I could do different, how I could show up better, how I could be the best partner that I want to be, how do I stay loving and compassionate and affectionate and graceful and all of the things that I value and I would want our relationship to be sprinkled with bam? Now I'm inviting my partner to do the same, and by that I automatically help create change. You see, so if I change myself, or if I focus on what I could do, I induce, I invite, I encourage my partner to meet me and then together we can create awesomeness. 

51:38 - Uncle Marv (Host)
But if I don't do anything, I wait for them and they wait for me. We're all going to be waiting, yeah, Somebody's got to be first, so make the first move, and then the other person if they see that you're actively working, making a change. Hey, you know what, if they're willing to change, I should be willing to change too. So it makes perfect sense. 

51:56 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
If my partner is willing to show up, then maybe I should show up too. Sometimes it takes a little while for them to catch on, but let's be patient, right Like. Just do your side, Don't do only if you see. Oh, my partner's noticing. Okay, let me keep going. Oh, they haven't noticed. Forget it, it's all worthless. No, just keep going, a hundred percent in. 

52:15 - Uncle Marv (Host)
All right, Emma, thank you very much for coming on the show and thank you again, like I said, for coming back and finishing this up. I wanted to make sure we gave them their due and I encourage you that, if something else comes up and you'd like to come back on the show, I would welcome your visit. 

52:32 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Thank you so very much. 

52:33 - Uncle Marv (Host)
I would love to visit again All right, but folks of course go check out her podcast. She's got some pretty good episodes. I've listened to a few, which is why I was able to kind of throw out some great gems. 

52:45 - Emma Viglucci (Guest)
Very nice Mark. 

52:48 - Uncle Marv (Host)
Awesome, but that's going to do it, folks, for this episode of the Unhealthy Podcast. Again, this is a show where we talk about much more than being healthy when it comes to diet and fitness. We're talking about the entire mindset. We're talking about relationships, and we'll continue to do that, and I hope that you will join us on this journey. So come back soon and figure out ways that we can change our habits and live healthy and be happy. See you soon.