Topic: Feeling uncertain about Relationship
Erp 149: 4 Things to Consider When You Are Uncertain About a Decision
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Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 149, “Four things to consider when you are uncertain about a decision in relationship.” Today’s episode is in response to a listener’s question, and my hope is that the tips that I have to share or the encouragement that I have for you to consider when making a decision, when you feel uncertain, I hope that it can generalize to perhaps other decision you may be contemplating if you don’t specifically resonate with this listener’s scenario.
But before we get started, I would like to just plug in with you, again, with the intention of this show… Those of us listening, we are in community, even if we don’t see each other, know each other; we are all seeking a higher expression and experience in relationship, knowing that we are in some sense called to develop ourselves individually and develop our relationship, and that whatever challenges we may face, that that’s our curriculum for growing and for healing and for developing.
So as we consider relationship principles, practices, tools and tips, that it’s all in the interest of growth, of increasing our capacity for more intimacy, more love and more connection, and really overall the health and well-being of ourselves in relationship.
If you are interested in accessing today’s show notes or any other podcast show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com. There at the top in the navigation bar you can find Podcast, which gives you access to all the podcasts that I have published, the show notes, and most of the transcripts. And if there’s any transcript that you’re looking for in the earlier episodes that you don’t see available, feel free to contact me. I’ve had listeners do this… And I will have someone transcribe that particular episode for you, so that you have easy access to that material. You can also find all the ways to reach me on the contact page. Again, this is DrJessicaHiggins.com.
Okay, let’s get started with today’s episode. Again, today’s episode is 149, “Four things to consider when you are uncertain about a decision.” Sharon, a listener, writes:
“I have discovered your podcast recently, and it has helped me so much in my own self-reflection and relationships.
My boyfriend and I are considering moving in together, but I am a little worried. We have been together for 9 months. We sleepover with each other a few times a week, so in some ways we are kind of living together already, without the financial responsibilities.
Regarding habits and lifestyle, I don’t think we will have any problems. He is very excited about living together because he thinks that we will be moving in together anyway. But to me, living together is a step closer to marriage and I’m not sure if I’m mentally ready. We are both just starting our careers, and it also seems more practical to live together so we can save up some money.
We are still young and definitely not thinking about marriage yet. I’m not sure if I’m just overthinking and worrying too much, which I tend to do, but I would love to hear what you have to say on this.”
Sharon, thank you so much for posing your question. I’m hoping that other people will be able to get value if they’re in a similar scenario, and then also the tips that I have today I hope that can apply to other decisions that you may be contemplating and you may be feeling uncertain about.
The first tip that I would love to discuss is what is the priority and what is the intention? As you describe your question, it sounds as though your boyfriend is enthusiastic, excited and confident. He’s a Yes, he believes that you guys are on the path of developing your relationship and will be pursuing deeper levels of commitment.
It sounds as though for you, you’re uncertain and unsure, which is absolutely fine, and just to recognize that that is part of your experience. I say this because I have clients that I’m working with right now, who are really at a tension point in their relationship, and they are very much wanting to prioritize the dynamics that they experience together, particularly as it relates to a challenge. Now, on this show I’ve talked a lot about how we will sometimes feel tension when we experience a difference or when we feel hurt feelings, or we feel some upset, or we feel triggered… And that’s one of the most complicated terrains to negotiate in relationship, is when we feel threatened, we feel hurt – how do we manage that?
And so this particular couple that I’m working with, they’re trying to learn how to reach towards each other in a safe way, that allows their joint interaction to feel good to both of them. He has described – and he is pretty sophisticated in his awareness and understanding about himself – that he comes from a background where he very much was the helper in his family of origin… So in relationships, up until now, he’s often been the helper, the rescuer and the hero. Yet at times – and most times – he ends up sacrificing, so he has to compromise himself, he has to shut down his needs and wants and often times over time he feels like he has lost himself, he feels resentful, and he’s in a bind, basically… “Do I take care of you and sacrifice myself, or do I take care of myself and then abandon you?”
No option seems great… So he’s trying to negotiate his internal world and learning how to reach from a very clear place around “Here’s what I would want, here’s what I’m interested in… What do you want?” and for her, she’s also negotiating some of her hurt or her pain when she feels him distance, when he’s trying to manage all of this stuff that he’s feeling; she feels threatened… “Are you there for me? Am I alone? Do I have someone? Am I in survival mode?”, those types of things.
So what happens in relationship if we have two individuals – let’s use you and me, for example. If we’re in relationship, ideally I want to be paying attention for what’s going on for me; I wanna be aware of my experience – what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, what I’m sensing, what’s getting activated in me… And that’s my responsibility… As well as when I feel hurt, triggered or activated; my nervous system is on high alert, or in the fight, flight or freeze. That’s mine to negotiate; I need to recognize I’m in a triggered place, or I’m feeling activated, and it’s ultimately my responsibility to get calm, to basically look at what’s going on and then to do my best ability or my best effort to share openly and vulnerably with you, in this case, and what’s going on for me. Okay, so that’s all me.
Simultaneously, I also wanna be paying attention to you, I wanna be attuning to you. I am watching you, I’m attending to you, I’m observing you, I’m noticing you, I’m being present and available to connection with you… And then hopefully you are in a position to be paying attention to yourself, what’s going on for you individually, having awareness of your thoughts, your feelings, your felt sensation, to the best of your ability. This is a constant multi-layered things that I’m describing here…
So as you are paying attention to your inner world, and also attuning to when you feel emotional charge about something, perhaps you have hurt feelings or remembering pain or trauma, and maybe even noticing when your nervous system gets activated, and then doing your best ability or best effort to calm yourself, get back into the green, so to speak, where you’re feeling more regulated. That’s your responsibility.
And then, hopefully you’re also – if we’re in relationship – looking at me, focused on me, attuning to me in some version or some form, so that what’s happening here is we’re both individually attuning and aware of what’s going on individually, respectively… You are for you, and I am for me, and then we have this shared space, that in relationship to be connected we wanna be attuning and be present to and focused on each other. So it’s this multi-layered bigger system that’s going on.
As I’m describing with this couple, they’re still negotiating what comes up for them; they’re gaining awareness around “Oh, when you talk to me in a stern way, I feel triggered, I feel threatened, I feel hurt… And then what happens for me when I feel hurt.” They’re observing all of these things going on, that most of the time we will not be able to predict until we’re in relationship. So they’re trying to be very intentional and high-aspiring around having a more conscious, aware relationship, where they are healthy and they’re dynamic together.
The reason why I bring up this particular couple is because they were in relationship long-distance, and their solution to pursuing/exploring relationship together was for her to move in with him, and she would be pursuing her career goals, he’s a little more established in his career, and they negotiated the terms of that… And they’ve basically adopted traditional gender norms, where she’s more responsible of the domestic duties of cooking, and cleaning, and he is paying more for the rent and the food, and taking care more of the financials.
So the way that they’re working together is fine, but where it gets complicated is there’s the pressure of coordinating their lives together, and they’ve had conflict around, you know, there’s ants, and how to handle the ants, or negotiating quiet time together, where perhaps she’s feeling hormonal and PMS-ing and feeling more irritable; it’s like, how does she get space to have some self-care time…? Or what do they do when they’re feeling triggered?
All of this is complicated when living together, and then what I’ll talk about in a moment is when they’re looking at their hardship, there’s not a real safe refuge to go. They feel like they’re in this arrangement, and particularly for her, she feels a little stuck. So if they’re looking at “Do we wanna be together? Is this working for us?” she feels very stuck and doesn’t feel the freedom because she’s now in this new location and is dependent on him, and it is just difficult in the sense of logistics.
In this first tip, what’s the priority and what’s the intention, the thought here is that if we can get clear on what’s most important, it’s possible that we can arrange the situation to support that. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that this couple lives together, but I can say it’s complicated by living together… So it pools resources, it pools time, it pools energy, it adds more tension, it adds more threat that complicates them working their relationship dynamic.
The second tip I have is what is your intrinsic desire? In my mid-twenties I was dating a guy and we had been together I wanna say for at least a year, and he asked me to move in with him… And at the time, I was ambivalent; I was very unsure, and my way of dealing with that is I did a ton of research and basically everything that I was coming across at that time – this was several years ago; at least 15… Let’s see, I’ve just turned 44, and I was in my mid-twenties, so yeah, almost even 20 years… And at the time, everything was indicating that it was harmful.
Now, some of this research came from a religious perspective, and that cohabitating and pre-marital sex – these things weren’t supportive to a committed, long-lasting marriage. There was also research that indicated people cohabitating basically were test-driving, weren’t as committed; it was seen as just a casual thing, and therefore will people put in the work, will people be as concerted with their efforts and will they be more casual in the way that they relate to each other?
And so I remember telling him it doesn’t seem as though living together is very constructive for the relationship, and I told him I didn’t think it was a great idea.
On a side note, I did a Google search and read a couple articles about the more current evidence and research, and I found an article that basically summarized that the emerging evidence of the research is that cohabitation isn’t harmful to marriage stability, but there isn’t any evidence that it’s actually helpful.
Okay, going back to my mid-twenties… So I’m staying with this guy for a period of time, I ended up moving in with him… Because at the time I didn’t feel like I had a good enough reason; yes, I was looking at this research that was basically indicating it’s not a great idea, I was ambivalent, but I couldn’t say really why I didn’t want to, and in some sense it just made practical sense. Like this listener is describing, we spent a lot of time together, and it just made sense to move in, because we were together most of the time.
This brings me to my third point, which is looking at the meaning and the significance. As I just said, I didn’t feel that I had a good reason not to do it, but I don’t know that I had a really great reason to do it… And when I moved in, it occurred to me this is my first time living with someone, and something kicked in in me over “I wanna do this well”, and there was a strong pull in me… I don’t know if it was the nesting, the feminine wanting to create a home — and he very much lived like a bachelor, and I moved into his place… Which I would recommend, on another side note, that if you’re gonna move in together, that you together get a place that’s neutral. It’s very difficult to move into someone else’s space and then to make it a couple space; there’s just so much of what’s his, and he started it, and he’s used to the things that he does, and so to make it a couple home it takes a lot more effort, rather than moving in together in a new place or a neutral place where you co-create it together. I would much more recommend that version.
Nonetheless, I moved into his home; he owned his own home, so it just made much more practical sense… And I felt that I was almost testing my skill at playing house. Basically, I had thought that it made practical sense, but then what ended up occurring for me is that I was living together with someone for the first time, and I was really doing a lot to take care of the home. I remember gardening, I was cleaning, and just organizing, and cooking meals, and it was just a whole lot more than I think I intended on doing, and it was just something that was brought up for me around the significance and the meaning around living together, which I didn’t give a lot of credit.
In one of the articles that I read it was referencing a research professor, Scott Stanley, who was describing a dynamic when cohabitating, and it was sliding versus deciding. He said two thirds of cohabiters are in fact sliders, basically moving from dating, to sleeping over, to sleeping over a lot, to cohabitating, in this gradual slope.
However, what happens is a couple that’s cohabitating and is uncertain about their commitment, sometimes gets very much entangled in a shared life together – they have a shared apartment, a routine, dogs, a group of friends, their finances, their lifestyle, their habits… All of these things become intermingled, and to separate them out and starting over seems like a lot of effort. So when the prospect of continuing relationship versus starting over feels way more daunting and there’s a lot more to consider.
The other thing that was notable – and I’ll read here:
“More sobering still is research which suggests that couples who otherwise would not have married end up married because of the inertia of cohabitation. They slide their way right down the aisle. “We might as well share an apartment since we’re already spending so much time together” becomes “We might as well stay together, since I might not be able to find someone else” and finally, “We might as well get married, since we’ve already been living together for so long.”
As I quote this article, you might be thinking “This is ridiculous! I would never do that!” and yet at the same time sometimes our decisions in life as just this gradual progression that we’re not necessarily being super intentional about.
The other really important consideration is number 4, what are your higher values? What are your top values? In Sharon’s question, she mentions the importance of being able to save money, and financial stability and being savvy about finances I think is really important… And when we’re talking about values, it can be helpful to consider “What would money allow me to do and what would money allow me to experience or feel?” That’s a great question because it gets at basically “What is important for us?”
There’s a book that I’ve referenced and a chapter in that book – it’s chapter two, and it’s out of the book called “Smart Couples Finish Rich” by (I believe) David Bach. And what I love so much about this exercise is so often when he’s doing workshops and he’s asking people about things that they’re wanting to do, or experience, they’ll be able to rattle off, like “I want this new car, I want this new pool…” – whatever it is that they’re looking for wanting, whether or not it’s a designer bag, or some new shoes, or this trip to Hawaii, or… Whatever it is, people are very clear about the things that they’re wanting to acquire or things that they’re wanting in general. And when he asks people about their top values, most people aren’t as crystal clear.
And in his line of work, and being a financial planner, a financial consultant, he sees people at every phase in life, and often times come mid-life he sees that people perhaps will look around at their life and think “Wow, I have all of these things, I have such a beautiful life, and really wonder why do I feel so discontent?” and sometimes when they look around, what they’ve acquired doesn’t necessarily represent their most important values… So he really encourages people to make decisions and basically orchestrate their finances so that they’re spending money to support their highest values. So it’s a great exercise, and I highly recommend it.
I’m bringing it up here because yes, saving money can be really important, but if you were to save money, what would that money allow you to do or be?
Some people it’s about connection and family, for some it’s about fun and a sense of adventure, for others it’s making a difference in the world, having a little bit of time and freedom to be able to make a difference and be of service. For other people it’s freedom, and having a pace of life that they’re not feeling so stressed… To feel a sense of security and stability.
So as I’m listening to this person ask their question, I’m also hearing “I’m young, I’m starting my career, I wanna have fun, and perhaps have a sense of freedom.” So if we imagine moving in together and all of the things that that might require as far as coming together and making decisions around how you decorate your home, as far as the cleanliness of your home, whether or not you invite people over a lot, or if you keep it more quiet… I mean, there’s lots of things to negotiate, and these are the things that you would negotiate with a roommate, for sure.
On a side note, you could probably save money by living with a roommate, so I don’t know that living with your boyfriend would be the only way to solve that issue of being able to save money.
When we think about saying yes to moving in in a romantic way, just inviting the consideration that not only are you negotiating how to share a home together and how to manage all the things involved with that… Secondly, there is how you are going to be allocating time and resources to developing your relationship more romantically, and then the consideration of what’s most important to you, and your highest values.
I have a client who I’ve been working with for over a year, and she has the highest intentions, and basically, our work has been to help her be in more optimal health in the way of her relationship, and her career, and just how she manages a lot of life decisions, and just giving her that support.
She’s talked about in relationship she’s been dating her boyfriend I would say for maybe even a year and a half, two years now. They met in college, and he is a pilot, so he is in the military and is required to be stationed in a different state, and she’s pursuing her career. So together, they’re mutually pursuing their respective careers, and as she’s described her desire, that she’s wanting to take very intentional steps, and even so much that if she fast-forwards to the time where they’re both available to be located in the same place, meaning she’s finished with her graduate work and she’s ready to actually start her career, and he’s done with his term and his pilot service in the military, and they’re both able to be located together, even if it’s however many years at that point – maybe five years – she said, “I would like to live separately.”
She described wanting to feel the experience of being together, being in relationship and getting a chance to explore connection while living in the same town, sharing experiences with friends, and dating, and just enjoying the relationship development without the pressure of creating a home together. She described in their long-distance relationship that so much of their time together was so concentrated, and she was like “I imagine it’s like going on vacation, and it’s not a real good representation of what good everyday life would be like”, and she really said “I don’t wanna skip a step. I really wanna have that time”, and that would be her first choice – to live in the same area, not live together, and really explore relationship without those added pressures and complications of negotiating living together and sharing a home together.
As I reflected on my relationship with my now husband and our process of cohabitating before marriage and what we did, it was really clear to me that we focused on our values, what was most important to us, and our vision together. For us, living together was a part of what we were creating bigger picture, and the things that were most important to us, so there was a level of intention, and that we weren’t just sliding together. We were deciding to be together.
In the article that I mentioned earlier, it states:
“Studies have shown that one of the keys to healthy, happy relationship is moving through important transitions deliberately. Whether it’s deciding to have sex, move in together, get married, or have a baby, couples who make these transitions with intentionality, with mutual discussion of meaning, expectations, plans and purpose, are more likely to flourish.”
To reiterate, I do not have a stance that cohabitation is bad, or wrong, or that it’s good; more of my interest is how you’re approaching it, what’s involved as this last quote I just said, with the mutual intentionality – discussing the meanings, the expectations, the plans and the purpose… So in the tips that I recommended today, one is “What’s the priority and what’s the intention?”
Number two, “What’s your intrinsic desire?”, meaning what do you internally feel and where is your internal desire? Less about what other people want you to do, what research shows, or what you think your parents want or culture wants… Really tuning into what you would like and what you would love.
Number three – the meaning and significance. So often we sometimes overlook what has meaning and significance, so if we really give it its due diligence and really look at “Is there meaning here? Is there significance? What does this represent?” then you might be able to gather some more information to make your decisions.
This is really the key distinction between sliding and deciding. And again, the research shows that if we just slide into doing something, it’s usually gonna be less constructive, less supportive, and maybe not even in alignment with what’s most optimal and what’s best for ourselves.
Thank you for listening to today’s episode. If you have questions or feedback or comments – I would love to hear from you – you can contact me. Again, my website is DrJessicaHiggins.com.
Also, if you are looking for support to go deeper with some of these principles discussed on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, feel free to reach out. I would love to hear from you and see how I may be able to support you and your significant other in your next steps of cultivating the type of relationship that you long for.
Again, I can be reached on my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com, or via e-mail, [email protected].
Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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