Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome back to success with Srini. Happy Tuesday morning to you on the podcast today again, I’m answering your question, an interesting one, given the gravity of the situation, this question has come in very lightly, I should have been approaching this very in a different way altogether law of intensity. So this question is about relationships. And this is coming from a listener of this podcast, who recently found this podcast, and wrote a long, big email. In fact, this question came in this email came in literally, yesterday, late last night. And I kind of took it to the top of the pile because I have so many questions to answer on the podcast, I took it to the top because I want to get to it very, very quickly. Given that I sense some deep sense of urgency in this. But the individual asking this question is not syncing the urgency. The question is about relationships, it has to do with a marriage that is going really, really bad Sunni, we are constantly arguing, fighting. And it seems we are heading towards a divorce. I wanted to touch base with you. And I wanted to pick your brain on what you think we should do.
Okay, so if a relationship is heading towards a divorce, then I would do a lot of things. Okay, I would do a lot of things, I wouldn’t email and get an answer on a podcast, I would. But I would do this at the very early stage. But not once, you aren’t already nine years into this relationship. So the describing the marriage and all those things, the emails of so nine years of marriage, in this specific case, to children involved, I would be really working towards doing something different here. In this case, I would be going crazy to bring in the best of the best of the people to solve this marriage and keep this marriage intact. I wouldn’t be reaching out to somebody who does a podcast like this and asks a question like this and gets an answer eventually, after a month doesn’t make any sense. Hopefully, we’ll take this seriously. So let’s get into this quickly. So first of all, this has not happened overnight. So you’re arguing right now, we are constantly fighting. And like, every hour you’re fighting, that’s what this email says. So if you’re fighting every hour, then this is not something that happened yesterday, and all this is not new. In my experience, my understanding, this should be happening from day one. And it is for you to respond to this. But the symptoms of this may not be obvious from day one, but the symptoms were there from the beginning. And so, this is something that you are so used to this is something that has conditioned you and your partner also. So this is not something that has to be solved right away. This is not something that you have seen new overnight, so you are frazzled by this or you’re like literally frightened by this, none of that.
So I think so because you’re just emailing me, I’m just making this assumption that is not that serious. But with that said, you are saying arguments and you are saying fighting. So I want to highlight these two things. Because in two different paragraphs, you said fighting and arguments, you see fighting over things, is not good. If you’re constantly fighting, it’s not good. That means a fight indicates that there is a complete opposite understanding of values. A recurring fight indicates there is an opposite understanding of values of what you value, your partner is not valuing that. So fighting over things is an issue that needs to be resolved. And I’ll share with you in just a second what I would do if I were in your situation, arguments are okay. Arguing is okay. You can argue you can have this, you know, disagreements, that’s perfectly fine. Well, arguments are necessary because they grow each other like with arguments you grew up with, you have exposure to what’s happening in other person’s life. And when you argue that means there are things that are coming from beneath the surface, they’re coming to the forefront. So which is good. So arguments are good. Arguments are mostly about the object, not the subject. The subject is fight subject is you as an individual, I’m the subject. So somebody’s fighting with me, then, you know, there are values, there are values that are in conflict. But if you’re, if I’m arguing with some individual on a specific object, which is maybe, for example, you will not like this podcast or you’d like this podcast and you can see when you go to modify this and back for the podcast, so you are now arguing about the podcast, which is okay. But if you come back and say you’re not good, or I’ll say you’re not good, then it just becomes we lose the point of the object, which is the podcast. And as subjects you and I are fighting, that means our values are in conflict. So arguments are okay. But fighting is not. Yes, at some point, you need to make a decision and say, Yes, I’m done with this, I need to move on.
Now, I do not know what that decision point is going to be. There is no nothing written somewhere that says that after 100 fights, you need to get a divorce, or you walk away from the relationship. I don’t think there is any set principle anywhere. But arguments and fights are natural in any relationship. It doesn’t matter whether you are in a marriage, or you are in a dating relationship, or you’re in a romantic relationship, or you’re in a business relationship doesn’t matter fights or, you know, there’s always an element of fighting involved, because there are some values that will be that will not be in sync, there’ll be some value that is out of sync, and it’s natural. So there is some form of disagreement, there is some form of argument, and there is some form of fighting, but nothing should be dominating. Now, let’s talk about this for a second, just because the question is in the context of a marriage. So I want to, I think I did multiple podcasts here on multiple episodes talking about it, relationships are becoming more and more symmetrical as we are growing Gen X, Gen, Y, Gen Z, you know, over all these years, you know, every going forward, marriage has a whole different definition altogether. Now, because relationships are symmetrical, they are starting to become non-functional. Historically, marriages are complementary, what my dad did, my mom could not do what my mom did, and my wife and my dad could not do. So they were playing different roles of complementing each other. So it was very efficient, the chances of disruption, there was a distribution of labor, and the chance of disruption was very minimal, one has to fall sick, the other has to stay home, and all these things. But mostly, the distribution of labor was very clear. In a symmetric relationship, the distribution of labor is not clear. Because of that, it becomes dysfunctional, or I would say, not functional. And even though it seems that the relationship is cruising, there is always this chance of an escalation. And the escalation starts when one of the partners says I can do it better than you. In a symmetrical relationship, both can do anything, and everything. When one says I can do it better than you, that’s when the disagreements happen, the argument starts, and an argument can escalate into a fight. And now you are fighting. And now you’ve forgotten why you’re fighting and you’re fighting each other, and the object is removed, and two subjects are fighting. So that is why a company with two CEOs doesn’t work. Clearly. So how do you resolve this, the fundamental rule behind this, there are many things you could do. But there is one big rule, which is, in a relationship like this and a situation like this, you got to have an overall agreement in place. There are companies that have multiple CEOs, more than one CEO, two CEOs, and three CEOs, I’ve seen that happen. But there are some agreements in place, we call them meta agreements. People on the top agree to a specific, there are 10 or 15 things that people on the top have to agree once they agree to those things, people below will not get conflicting directives. So meta agreements and eta meta agreement on the very top has to be in place. There are so many techniques.
For example, Don’t get into a fight, walk away from a fight, and come back to the fight later, when you feel when you’re feeling good. When there is an escalation in the relationship, and you’re getting into a fight and an argument has taken place. There are so many techniques, people suggest so many techniques. I have also suggested some techniques here. But here’s the truth. The truth is, you got to go and ask a question yourself, why are you or why did you get into this relationship in the first place?
And that’s the question you got to ask while in the middle of that argument or in the middle of that fight. As the fight is happening, you got to ask yourself, why did I get into this relationship in the first place? If the answer to that question is consistent intent to your thought process when you got into the relationship, that means everything in between has done no harm. This part is very critical, very important, but most people don’t follow this. It’s very difficult to pull yourself out of a conflict and ask that question. So next time there is a fight, there’s an argument that is going very deep. Internally, pause yourself and ask this question, why did I get into this relationship in the first place? What were some of the Attract doors? Not what were the attractions of this of you getting into this relationship? Once you go back to the beginning, the present seems small if the beginning is right. So this is a question I keep telling all my clients to keep asking as they go through any challenges they’re going through.
Now, as I said, every relationship will become stale, will become challenging. And at one point, I said, if if you’re not getting divorced once a day, and you’re not getting married once a day, then it’s not a relationship. What I mean by that, or what I meant by that was, it’s important that you need to have arguments in place, I’ve seen lopsided relationships, where one individual does everything they want to do the other has no voice, no questioning, no identity, no standing none. Those are flawed relationships, relationships, whose main intent is to challenge you. And the challenge is not happening. That means you’re not growing, you’ll never grow. Period, simple. See, you go to work, you come back home, and your spouse doesn’t ask you for updates on what happened at work. Or you don’t, on your own don’t provide an update. Then there is an issue. See, I go home, and I provide an update on what’s happening with my business, not necessarily the nitty gritty of the business, but overall. And my wife tells me, I have had a great day at the office, I do not have a good, I did not have a great day at work. I say did not have a great day at work, I had a great day at work. So it’s important to have those two lines, though. Nothing specific, nothing in detail, because nobody has time for that. But it’s very important. So that’s what we say, clarifying relationships. You got to be constantly clarifying the relationship. Okay, I’m going to stop here. And my suggestion to you, the person who emailed me is that you go see a therapist, in getting somebody in volunteers very, very quickly. Nine years is a long time, get over with this, get somebody involved. Let them guide you both to the outcome that you’re seeking.
That’s all for now. Hopefully, this podcast is helpful. Hopefully, my answer is helpful. I could have done a bit of better research on this but this was so casually written email for such an important thing. I don’t know why. Okay, you take care of yourself. I’ll be with you as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned, bye now.