Discover a refreshing take on love and commitment as Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP sit down with Nate and Kaley Klemp, authors of "The 80/80 Marriage." https://www.8080marriage.com/
Discover a refreshing take on love and commitment as Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP sit down with Nate and Kaley Klemp, authors of "The 80/80 Marriage." https://www.8080marriage.com/
Hello and welcome, mrs Couples Counseling for Parents. They show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken. Hiya parents, our Dad, dr Steven Mitchell, and our Mom and Mitchell.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Couples Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Steven Mitchell, and on today's show we have the distinct pleasure of being able to interview Nate and Kaylee Klimp. Nate and Kaylee are authors of the New York Times Editor's Choice Selection, the 8080 Marriage a new model for a happier, stronger marriage. Nate is also the co-author of a New York Times bestseller Start here. Master the Lifelong Habit of Well-Being and Open living with an expansive mind in a distracted world. He holds a BA, an MA and philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD from Princeton University.
Speaker 2:Kaylee is one of the nation's leading experts on small group dynamics and leadership development, a TEDx speaker and the author of three other books, including the Amazon Bestseller the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, the Drama Free Office and 13 Guidelines for Effective Teams. She is a graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a BA in International Relations and an MA in Sociology, with a focus on organizational behavior. We are so excited to be able to talk to Nate and Kaylee today, and we are specifically going to be talking with them about their book, the 8080 Marriage. We hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as Aaron and I did, and we're just going to go ahead and jump right in. Hey, nate and Kaylee, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm very excited about this conversation.
Speaker 3:Really excited to be here.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having us Looking forward to it. Thank you so much for being on.
Speaker 2:Great. Let's just start off with this concept the 8080 Marriage. I'm sure a lot of people see that and they're like what does that? Mean If you had your elevator pitch, you're in the elevator. Somebody says, hey, what is the 8080 Marriage? What are we talking about? What would you say?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a model for relationships that's really born out of two things for us. One is our own experience in our life, having spent a decade or so at the beginning of our marriage locked in this just like battle for fairness, trying to figure out why didn't it work, why couldn't we ever get out of it. Then the other piece of it is, once we saw that predicament clearly, we started to think maybe it's about more than just us, and wouldn't it be interesting to interview about 100 or so people who are in a similar stage of life with kids, trying to figure out this predicament of modern marriage? That's really what led us to this exploration. To your question, what is the 8080 Marriage?
Speaker 3:We think that our current generation is unique in all of human history. We're the first generation trying to figure out how to have an egalitarian marriage where we're both equals. We have these models that are handed down from our parents and our grandparents which kind of work but kind of don't work at the same time. The default, we think, is this model of 5050, where we try to make everything fair and we can talk more about why that doesn't work. We think there's a much better alternative, which is something more like what we call 8080. The basic idea being what if you were to think about contributing at 80% instead of 50%? I mean, the math doesn't work, but we think that's a really powerful mindset shift that can really radically change the culture of a relationship.
Speaker 2:I think that word fairness is like. So I think, aaron, would you say it is one of the biggest conflicts that we hear partners trying to navigate this idea of who's doing more, who's not doing enough, and then there's this sort of great debate that begins to happen between couples Well, I did this, this was the list. I did no, this is what I did Well, what you did well, that didn't really matter, that wasn't as hard or as difficult or as big as what I was doing. Those kinds of things I feel like we have those kinds of conversations constantly.
Speaker 4:Sure, I mean easily one of the biggest, because even if the topic is different, ultimately it still boils down to that. So even if we're fighting about sleep or we're fighting about I don't know dishes, it doesn't really matter Anything in a day it can be this. I think what the word I picked up on it was that the mindset because I think there is this angsty bodily feeling of it doesn't feel fair.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So it does feel like more of a mindset rather than a balanced sheet.
Speaker 2:Well, kaylee, what is the mindset I mean? I think we know what that word means, but specifically here, how does that apply?
Speaker 5:I think you're already several steps ahead of most couples in that you've noticed that the fights that look like they're about sleep or that look like they're about dishes are actually about fairness. And I say that because in our interviews with these 100 people, we would ask them well so do you fight about fairness? And they'd look at us and be like no, no, we never fight about fairness.
Speaker 5:And then they would tell us all these stories about how they were fighting about fairness, and so the mindset is that of scorekeeping when you're in 50-50. And there is this notion that there's going to be some sort of magical equilibrium point where what we're doing perfectly balances and it's fair.
Speaker 5:And all nod in the direction of folks that it's not the worst idea we've ever had. Like trying to be peoples and in love, fairness isn't a terrible idea. It just doesn't work. It's a super clunky technology. So the mindset of 80-80, of radical generosity, is really striving to contribute 80%, which is where I get to drop that scorekeeping, drop that ledger and try to overshoot the mean, recognizing that I probably land somewhere around balanced. But I get to drop how much energy goes into exactly what you were describing here and, like the tit for tatting, I woke up in the middle of the night and got water for our kid who was upset. That counts for at least two times taking out the trash Now you owe me.
Speaker 5:But the extra trip to do the carpool pickup, does that count as calling your mom? Because I mean, let's be clear, talking to the extended family, that should, at least count for double the. It's wild what we get into.
Speaker 2:So what I think is this is what I was so fascinated by and was really.
Speaker 2:I was like it feels very like.
Speaker 2:I feel like, well, yeah, I should have known that, but I just didn't think about it until I was reading the book and I was like this is the idea that just really stuck with me. Kaylee and Nate, when you're talking about that mindset of I'm trying to be radically generous, the person you're focused on is yourself and not looking at your partner and what your partner's doing and keeping that score and saying you know, kind of like all of those things. It is a mindset that is meant to like direct you as an individual, and I think that that's a really important aspect of that mindset, because it's that idea of I'm going to work really hard, but there's this idea of I have to trust that you're going to be doing this too. And I'm curious, as you've talked to other couples about this and kind of gone through this, have you found that couples sometimes have a hard time trusting that their partner is going to be given the 80% to be radically generous and then, like you, can end up keeping score about that? You know, like.
Speaker 2:How do you like what? Have you seen? Yeah, yeah. What did you say to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is actually. I think one of the foremost objections to the whole idea of an 8080 marriage is this idea of well, let's suppose I actually do this and I'm contributing it to 80%, but my partner is still stuck in this mindset of fairness. Now things are almost even worse for me because I'm almost like the dorm out of the relationship, you know, being taken advantage of. And I think the made up response to that objection is that there is this way in which mindset has this contagious quality. You know, in psychology they call this social contagion or complementary behavior. But the basic idea is that our mindset is contagious and so when we're locked in that mindset of fairness from approaching Kaylee that way which definitely still happens even though we wrote this book there's a way in which she's going to mirror.
Speaker 2:No, way.
Speaker 4:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:You guys know that you have a book coming out.
Speaker 5:I'm sure you did. The projection doesn't happen after the update.
Speaker 2:It's so funny yeah we have this handle, it's all right. Exactly.
Speaker 3:But anyway, if I approach Kaylee with that mindset of fairness and I'm scorekeeping and I'm resenting her she's going to mirror that back with 100% certainty. What's really interesting about shifting that mindset to something more like radical generosity or 8080 is that it also has that contagious effect and that when we drop fairness as an individual, there's a way in which we open up the space where our partner can also drop that mindset of fairness. So maybe it doesn't perfectly work out in an egalitarian way, but what it does do is it creates this space where the other person can now experiment with being a little bit more generous and experiment with dropping the scorekeeping.
Speaker 4:Sorry. No, no go ahead In this model. So I'm thinking of so many of the couples we talk to.
Speaker 2:I know I'm too. What would they?
Speaker 4:I know what's the pushback yeah, but I think honestly, for a lot of couples we talk to, they're not actually even at 50-50.
Speaker 2:Frankly, there may be more that you talk about the old 80-20. The 80-20 kind of old sort of 1950s break down.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and, honestly, I think most couples, at least the ones that we talk to, and we know we have a pretty skewed sort of base here, because there are people who are willing to talk to people like us but they don't even always know how to get like, how do we do that? So, like yeah, I mean I can hear a thousand different people like, yeah, it isn't completely fair. Like, yeah, they do handle more of the parenting responsibilities. Or yeah, like the example it's early in the book, I can't remember exactly, but something about the like Kaylee, you were asking Nate if he could handle more of the pickups.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, picking up.
Speaker 4:And like how, the way you all wrote that, like I honestly laughed out loud in reading a book, which I feel like doesn't happen very often. But like that is a response I can hear from so many of the couples we talk to of like you asked for me to pick up this. You know our kid a couple more times a week and what I heard is and I'm now paraphrasing what you said, but like my job isn't important, I'm, you know I don't make as much money, so it doesn't matter as whatever Like, but like we do hear through that lens and I think so many of the couples we talk to aren't even there.
Speaker 2:Aren't even at a 50-50 even or like a yes Okay.
Speaker 4:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so I think this idea of radical generosity, especially from the person who already feels like I'm, at like 95, maybe even percent of what I'm offering, and I feel like my partner's at 30. And that's probably generous in their mindset, like what does that sound like? Or I get, that's not really a question, but Well, what you're?
Speaker 5:describing is so common. I think you're illustrating it really beautifully, and there are two different pieces that I think you're putting together in a way that shows up in real life. So piece number one is the mindset. Can I see my partner with an aspiration to contribute 80%, with an aspiration to appreciate the things they are doing and with an aspiration to reveal about myself? That's the foundational piece of the mindset. Only when I have this mindset of radical generosity can then we start to tackle what you're pointing out, which is deep inequality in roles.
Speaker 5:And so what Nate and I discovered as we were writing this book.
Speaker 5:So the story that you're telling is when our daughter was going to first grade. The question was who was going to meet the bus, and from my perspective, it was crystal clear that Nate should meet the bus, and from his perspective, it was crystal clear that I should meet the bus. And each of us started hearing the other person's statement that well, you should meet the bus as all kinds of accusations that Nate's job wasn't important, that he should be around, that he was just sort of the default. And only when we could see each other through a mindset of radical generosity, you are the person I love. I want to build a life with you. We want to have shared success. We want to have our daughter, have someone who loves her at the bus. At the end of the day, what are our shared aspirations? Then we could look at who's doing what. And so then to your point, that couple that says I don't know about this 80-80 nonsense our relationship is 90-10 or like 100-0 or whatever it might be.
Speaker 5:That might be true when they look at those roles. But they can't even start the conversation about that until they're willing to enter into a mindset of generosity. Because if you go in with a mindset of scorekeeping, regardless of if it's like it could be off by like 1% and you'll fight about it or it could be off by 90% and you'll fight about it, okay, thanks, great.
Speaker 4:So how sorry?
Speaker 2:well, I think I think I was just about to ask the same question that I think you're gonna ask We'll see is is how, how do you enter into that mindset of generosity and, and I would say even, like, when there's been like some hard calcification of resentment, that that is built up? Because I think that I think that, like it makes sense, like, yes, you know, like, hey, let's love each other, let's be for each other. Let me, like I want to give to you, you want to give to me, we want to give to our family, like all of those, those really really powerful, necessary, important things. But you know, I mean honestly, like we kind of get couples down the road a little bit in their relationship and that Feeling sort of that Sometimes is is really hard to find. It's like buried and like it's been like a like cement got poured over that and it's hardened and there's that resentment like what are some ways that maybe you've seen couples move into that mindset?
Speaker 5:the place to start is Seeing if what you're doing right now is working. If it's working to bathe in cortisol and hold resentment and score, keep and finish the night. Yes, sort of hating each other. Yeah, keep it keep doing exactly what you're doing. Go for it, keep doing it, yeah but if it's not working, then there are some tactics to shift to 8080. Oh, you talked about those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we do think that it's important to operationalize this idea of radical generosity. Otherwise it's so abstract and so right. We think there are a few things that couples can be thinking about. One is contribution, which is almost the essence of generosity, just these small acts of contribution throughout the day. They don't have to be huge. It doesn't have to be the trip to Fiji, right, it could be like the cup of coffee in the morning or the sticky note that says I love you, or even tiny things.
Speaker 5:This is. I noticed that Nate left his dish in the sink and rather than me running through the lake oh man, he always leaves his dish in the sink I move it to the dishwasher, because that's actually a gift to me, because I like the tidy kitchen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally Well. So so there's contribution. The second, which I'm sure you all love, it's probably our favorite relationship hack appreciation just the. Shift in the way you see your partner from looking at everything they've done wrong throughout the day to maybe Appreciating them for one specific thing they've done to contribute to the family, to your kids, to you. And then the final piece is revealing, which is really just getting in.
Speaker 3:This habit of talking about more than the weather, you know, I'm sure you see this we see this all the time with couples we coach, but there's this habit of just defaulting to like, wow, it's snowing outside, oh, it's it's windy, oh you know, like what's going on at work, right, just this kind of very superficial level of conversation, which is fine, but asking better questions about what's really going on, sharing about your inner life and then, when there are those disagreements, having a way where you can reveal your hurt feelings or your disappointment or the miscommunication. We think of those three pieces as almost like the way you take that abstract idea of radical generosity and start to create actual, tangible habits which Can kind of have this upward spiral effect. I'm sure you've had that experience yourself where you start just doing one or two acts of contribution and you notice a shift in your partner. You start appreciating each other every day, you notice that shift.
Speaker 2:So so that's how you kind of put it into practice, we think I so I'm gonna start with the, the last one, the reveal part, because I think that that that I remember reading that in the book and I what I really appreciated about that was this idea of it's not that you try to avoid hard conversations by just saying like, ooh, I'm well, you know I'm I'm really frustrated about that dish, but I'm just gonna do something generous for for Nate there.
Speaker 2:That might be something that you have to reveal like, yes, you, you'll do it, you'll do it and you'll try to do it with that spirit and with that mindset. But it's still important to have difficult conversations. It's it's important to talk about Difficult feelings, and to do that is actually being very generous to one another, because what it does is it helps the relationship. Have those little habits of like I mean, if you're doing that more often, your resume won't stack it but because you'll be kind of addressing things in the moment. But I did really appreciate that because I think some people could hear this and be like oh so I'm just supposed to like fake that I'm not upset or that I'm not Angry and just sort of like think the best of my partner and it'll all be okay, and I think that that really misses sort of the depth of what of what you're saying. I think that reveal part is so very important.
Speaker 5:I'm so glad you Named that, because you're exactly right you can't just appreciate and contribute your way to a healthy relationship, that those are some of the gifts that you give your partner, but if you don't share, hey, I felt upset when, or hey, I'm watching this pattern happen and if it continues, I'm worried, I'm gonna be resentful. There's a not an opportunity for your partner to do anything different. I think one of the huge right.
Speaker 5:Risks that happens in relationships is we expect our partner to read our mind. Well, didn't you know, by the way, that I did this thing, that you actually didn't see me do that? I wanted you to do something else, and they're like I don't even know what you're talking about, and so yeah.
Speaker 5:Revealing. Hey, I was hurt, I was upset, I was angry, I felt resentful keeps that connection clear. Exactly to your point. So it doesn't stack up that one of the things that I think is really tricky is couples will often Wait to seek help until there's so many layers of resentment that, to your point, there are cement blocks that you have to remove from the surface.
Speaker 3:If we can get in the habit where we're revealing all of the smaller pieces, then they don't stack up and we can clear them more quickly when I would just say there is a book coming out this summer by Aaron and Stephen Mitchell I've had the privilege of reading an early copy of, which is about exactly this. I mean, you all are the experts. Yes, like the practical dimensions of how do you have these conversations, what are the scripts? So anyone listening look forward to that.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Well, I do. I do think like and to. So I think In that, like we have, we have a little part of our process where we, where we talk about like Partners, have to believe their partners experienced. They might not agree with it, they might not understand it, but if their partner is saying I feel this way, or I'm upset by this, or I'm challenged like this is difficult that I think one of the ways to be generous is to say, okay, I believe you, I don't need to, I don't need to argue with you, I don't need to defend myself. What I need to do is try and understand what you're trying to reveal to me and in that and in that effort, what I can do is I can understand you better and then we can practically do something together.
Speaker 2:Because I think what I, what I again, just what I really love about this idea of radical generosity is, I think it really Shortcuts and bypasses defensiveness and criticism. Yes, because because it's like why do that? We like we don't need to do that, like I could get, like why I'd want to, but that's not going to help us right that and that's, and that's not going to move us towards anything. But I think a lot of people stick with defensiveness and criticism because they're feeling something very strongly and they want to communicate that emotion and that's how they know how to do it. But but again, what you're talking about is, no, reveal the emotions, but do it with that mindset of generosity that's been built on the contribution and the appreciation. Like it, like it just. It goes to me. In my mind it goes very well and allows partners to be able to believe each other's experience and, like, actually do something together rather than Vicar and when the hard Things happen when somebody does feel reveals an experience.
Speaker 5:I love this notion of I believe you. Dr Becky talks a lot about that with parenting that one of the most powerful things that you can say to a child isI Believe you, because it helps them know that their experience is real. We are all like there's an inner child and all of us that just wants to be believed.
Speaker 5:I am real right and when our intimate partner can say I believe you from a perspective of Generosity, I think about it like seeing our partner with soft eyes versus harsh or critical eyes and Listening with empathy, where I am listening with love, because I care about you and I want to understand your experience, which doesn't mean that your experience now has to be my experience. It means I want to listen with that generosity of I believe you. Exactly as you're saying, stephen, it shortcuts. We don't have to criticize, we don't have to compare, we don't have to argue for whose perception of reality is the better or the more true. It's to say, you are having a feeling and I want to know what that is. That's revealing.
Speaker 5:And then there can be a request. One of the places I we find couples get lost is that they do a bunch of revealing and then they look at each other and they're like so what am I supposed to do with that? And Again back to this notion that most of us are quite terrible mind readers. To make the request explicit hey, I just want you to listen so I can vent, or hey, I would love some coaching here, or I'm really stuck. You know, can you just I'd left some compassion. Whatever the request is, helps your partner not guess wrong.
Speaker 2:Go ahead no.
Speaker 4:Okay, so I am listening to the contribution, appreciation revealing, and I'm thinking about again, I think I'm just I don't know what, it is, a broken record maybe, but like. So for the couple who like again. So we specifically talk to parents and other couples might be listening and I hope they are, but for, like, the parent who feels like I'm doing a lot of this, you know sort of like the buzzword of like the mental load, or like I am the default parent and I'm saying these things to you and I've been saying these things to you and Stephen says Aaron, I hear you like, oh man, I hear you, but nothing feels different.
Speaker 4:I think that is where that's never happened. Yeah never.
Speaker 2:This conversation didn't happen this week.
Speaker 4:But I think this, I think this is where we do get that couple who feels a little like I don't, I don't feel generosity towards you anymore.
Speaker 2:You know so because I think a lot of times just bitterness or hurt or anger, yeah, which I think does come out as bitterness.
Speaker 4:But, yeah, like I don't appreciate that, you woke up and said good morning, like I don't particularly. I don't feel. I feel like you have a lot of empathy for how much work I'm putting in and how much I'm doing, but I don't think there's a lot of action. So, like, how does? And I think I think that's what I'm saying, I think what you're saying is these three steps lead to the action, so it's not just a like the practice, the habit of doing.
Speaker 4:I really, I really love to feel appreciated, because Stephen's really good at saying like you just tackle that, like you nailed it and like me, but I definitely don't want to have to tackle it all by myself next time. Like so how do like? How can we make sure? And I think that's what you're saying. But I just want it to be like super clear and I want people to hear like we get that, that's real, we get that this, this feeling of like it doesn't do just to feel appreciated. If it doesn't feel different again, that's not a question.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, there is a really important response to that, I think, because that is a real experience and that was actually our experience for a lot of years in our marriage. The dynamic the way I would name it is you have an over contributing partner and you have an under contributing partner and our dynamic. I was the under contributor, she was the over contributor, and so this, and this is a very common dynamic.
Speaker 3:A lot of people listening are probably in this dynamic a lot of your clients are probably in this dynamic and what's really interesting, especially having lived this together for so many years, is that when we used fairness as a way to try to escape this dynamic of radically unequal contribution, we ended up making the contribution even more unequal. So it was like this noble idea where the way it would play out is Kaylee would essentially nag me to do certain things. Okay, babe, could you clean the grill right? She would become the de facto.
Speaker 4:CEO of the family.
Speaker 3:I would become the de facto director of the family. I would go direct report to her and my response to that which I think is the response of a lot of under contributing partners and reluctant partners is to say you know what? Screw it, I'm just not going to do anything because nothing I do is enough.
Speaker 4:We're never going to match up. Yeah, exactly like there's so much resentment, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:And so you go from an unequal dynamic to an even more unequal dynamic. So I think one really key thing is for the over contributor and maybe you can speak to this because you were that to take a really close look at how they've set it up.
Speaker 5:So and so I challenge you to find a single over contributor, over contributor, who initially says this is awesome, I totally wanted to be doing way more than my partner.
Speaker 5:No one ever has consciously said I want to over contribute, I want my partner to under contribute, and I'd really love for us to resent each other a lot. And so it's. It's a pretty bold move to say this keeps happening. Why, what's really going on here? And it was quite right and false. So the example that we share in 8080 there are lots more is I would say to Nate hey, babe, will you clean the grill? And he would say it's on my list, and a week later it's a hey. So you said you clean the grill and he'd say it's on my list, which was basically his way of saying F you, nicely, it's on my list, but I got that, I got that I would just get so mad.
Speaker 5:Where is this list? Now I'm going to micro manage you doing the thing and the list on what you're keeping. The thing and what I realized was I was creating this dynamic in a couple ways one, I had my way of doing it and I wanted him to do it my way, so it wasn't about the outcome, it was about how the thing got done, and I was setting it up where I wasn't actually giving him any control about some of the things that he was up to. And so what I realized is that, by me nagging, by me making it my way and by me trying to control the entire process, I made like I was a nightmare to try to partner with.
Speaker 5:There were other things in our relationship where, like I also managed the finances for us and I'd be so pissed that Nate would go spend money. I'd be like don't you know what budget we're operating on? He's like, no, actually I don't. And so a lot of what happens in this over contributing place is I'm controlling, and it's painful to acknowledge all the ways that I'm controlling. And then, every time my partner tries to do something, they try to contribute. They try to like help out or lean in. I criticize them for all the ways that they were imperfect, and what they learn is I can't ever get it right, and so they stop trying. What did I miss or misrepresent?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's good yeah.
Speaker 2:I wonder. So I imagine too, though, for you, nate, because, kayleigh, I think that makes a lot of sense, I think also for the under contributing partner. I don't imagine, nate, you woke up and were like, hey, I want to just be perceived as a slacker who doesn't do anything, and just you know that, like that's not, that's not what you're wanting to communicate. But there is, and see, if you because I'm thinking about, like again, these conversations that we have with these couples where there's, there's mutual responsibility, right, so, kayleigh, you're thinking like, hey, I need to like dial back the control in a sense.
Speaker 2:But I think, nate, like what I hear, or like what we talked to other couples about, is like you've got to dial up the engagement and not use the, not use the like. Well, hey, just because you're never going to be happy about it, forget, like, forget it, I'm not going to do anything, because that's a real easy, you know, escape hatch to go through. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's again, it's that movement that both partners can make in a generous way and an accountable way of I'm going to dial down the control and I'm going to dial up that engagement. I'm curious if that's what you found, and I think that that's a kind of conversation we have a lot with couples.
Speaker 2:That's exactly, but yeah, how did it work for you?
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. The move you named there, I think, was so beautiful that one partner the overcontributor needs to lean in and let go of control a little bit. The other, the undercontributor, needs to lean into engagement. And also to your point, I've now talked to a number of reluctant partners and one of the misunderstandings of people in that position is that they somehow have this amazing situation, this free ride where they don't have to do anything.
Speaker 3:But the truth is, if you talk to somebody in that position, they're miserable and it's incredibly painful to feel disempowered and to feel like you're a free rider. So nobody wants to be there. The undercontributor doesn't want to be where they are, you know, and so it becomes just a question of like well, how can you each lean toward the other person? And that's that idea of generosity, or shifting from what's best for me to what's best for us and to your point exactly. It's going to feel uncomfortable for both partners. It feels really uncomfortable to let go of control for an overcontributor, but it feels really scary and edgy to lean into engagement for the undercontributor, because they've probably done that before and it hasn't worked out very well. So it's really a dance and I think if you can just start moving into that place of discomfort more often with a spirit of love underneath it all, it is something that can be resolved. I mean, we were able to get out of it ourselves, so we know it's possible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you mentioned this earlier, nate, and I can't now remember the context. But about. You said the word resentment and I realized in the moment that you meant for the undercontributor. I don't think we'd used those words yet but I was like, oh, that's an important thing to hit on, because I think a lot of times couples in the 80, 20 or in the 50, 50 feel like the resentment is only for again. I'm going to use the buzzwords the person carrying the mental load or the default parent.
Speaker 2:The overcontributor in this scenario?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that there is so much stacked up hurt and resentment, both ways that because, to your point, what you just said well, I think kind of what all of you have said is no one wanted to be here. And Kaylee, to what you'd said earlier, like, do we like? Where this is, no, no one feels great, going to bed disconnected and like your dish ruined our day. And the other person, like how can a dish ruin a day? Like why does a dish have to ruin a day? And I just think it matters. And I think what you just said too, they've probably been there before, I think, everyone in this situation. The reason a dish hurt so much, the reason feeling like all of these dynamics hurt, is because I it wasn't supposed to be this way. You know, I married Steven because he finally, for once, carried his weight and I didn't feel like I had to do everything by myself. And then we start to get into these patterns and I'm like you lied to me yes.
Speaker 4:I was like. You were not deceived. You were supposed to be better than this and I wasn't supposed to have to carry all this. And no one knows that. No one's actually able to articulate that right away.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and then I'm sitting there being like I'm doing a lot. I feel like I'm doing a lot, I'm not trying to not do stuff and there's just a mist that then you have to.
Speaker 4:Well then, exactly what we just said is the fairness battle.
Speaker 5:Yes, right, and that is where it gets to like that misunderstood perpetually, like there's another piece to what you're describing that I think is worth naming here, which is we often loop in evidence in our favor. So I do the version of like, but compared to other working moms, I'm crushing this right, or like you should see the other people at my office.
Speaker 5:I'm amazing. So we bring in comparison from the outside that isn't actually relevant in our relationship. On top of one of the main reasons we talk about fairness doesn't work is this notion of availability bias, which is just a fancy psychological term, for I know everything that I'm doing and so I count it at 100%. I am aware of every dish that I wash, every pickup that I do. Every time I set a boundary and I'm the mean parent, I know it. But every time that you do something the hard day you had at work, the call that you made to reset our insurance, all the things that you did that I wasn't there for, they don't exist for me, and so I don't count them. Not because I'm meaning to have a completely insane, imbalanced ledger, but I just I literally don't know.
Speaker 5:Right, and so we're basing this idea of what's fair on something that's invisible, because you name this so many times there and in such a beautiful way emotional labor is always invisible. Caring about how are we going to navigate the complex extended family dynamics around this birthday party, the hours that I spend thinking through who gets invited and how we set it up and how that sounds so that nobody's mad, that's a lot of load that is absolutely invisible and therefore really hard to take into account or appreciate or do something different around without that clear reveal and request.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, I think that's where all that the availability bias, that's where the appreciation that you all talk about comes in key there, because it's you're looking to be mindful about, appreciating and thinking through, like what are the things that maybe I haven't been aware of, that I should make an effort to be aware of, and that I think another thing that's really challenging about all of this is what you're talking about takes effort, it takes intention, it takes practice and work, and I think so often times.
Speaker 4:I have to interrupt. I think it also takes a ton of work to keep a ledger. Oh sure, yes, I think it takes a ton of work. Yes, so I'm not saying that's so true. I know you're not saying that man it's hard.
Speaker 5:Yes, where do you want to allocate your energy? Where? Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:Exactly Because you're spending it regardless. But if we're looking for the ways that Steven fails me, in a day I will find it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I can hear a couple say like, oh well, that just feels like more work and it's like no, why don't you do the work, to do this good work, which will benefit you, instead of all that other work that you're doing to have conflict and be resentful towards each other? And so I think, yeah, that's it Again. It is just where do you want to focus?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, there's another way of saying it that we really like, which is something like so much of what happens in our relationship, in our parenting, happens by accident, and that's not to say that it's easy, but it's purely accidental.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. So the scorekeeping that we're doing, the ledgers that we're holding, that's all happening by accident. We never sat down and said that's the best way to run this shift here. Right, right, right, yeah. So parenting and in relationships is really about shifting from that accidental arrangement to something that's more intentional. And so few couples have taken that moment to just take a step back and say if we were to actually design this thing intentionally, versus by accident, where our parents' habits from the 1950s just filter into the way we interact with each other, what would that look like Like? How would we set up our roles? How would we set up our priorities? What boundaries would we need to set? And that way there's still effort involved. But to your point, erin, the effort has now shifted from this kind of accidental gnarly thing that keeps us fighting to something that we've actually designed and thought about that's going to serve us together.
Speaker 2:And then that you keep assessing.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I love that you all do in your book is you have a reader or listener, not reader, listener. If you're reading the book, like you'll flip through and there's all these like little gray boxed out pages and that's like the practical, like this is where it's going to happen, this is how we're going to map it out, and then this is how we're going to assess it, because you all have the where you go through and you kind of score yourself in terms of how you're doing and meeting the expectations and roles that you've all set. And like these practical, intentional, on purpose kinds of assessments and like drawing things out, mapping it out, are like like they're so useful and practical so that it does take this from kind of abstract to enacting it. And I think that like again, it's like spend your time doing that rather than ruminating late at night or early in the morning or all day long about how terrible things are, how uncaring your partner is. It's really you didn't like that. I said that I can tell.
Speaker 4:No, I was going to say, is this spoken from experience?
Speaker 2:No, not that way.
Speaker 4:But yeah.
Speaker 2:I just think again just a lot of power in those exercises.
Speaker 5:I loved it. You emphasized the practicality, because that was one of our primary objectives in writing this book and in our conversation we focused a lot on the mindset of radical generosity, because that's the essential foundation. You can't do the exercises in the book with nearly as much success without that foundation of radical generosity, contribution, appreciation revealing. But then our goal was to give you concrete exercises to do so. In the book we give you an exercise how do you define your shared values so that you know whether or not you're pointing your ship the right direction that you want to go? How do you?
Speaker 5:get super clear on what your priorities are. So what are you saying yes to and what are you saying no to. And we give you fun. I think they're quite fun, like do a life report card and see if you can find places to give yourself Ds and Fs, because then you know that your.
Speaker 5:A's actually matter. So we went through and did exercises on all of these pieces roles, power so that at the end you felt like you had concrete, actionable things that you could go put into practice. Because I think you said this early, stephen, I wish that we could contribute and appreciate our way to bliss, but then we need to go actually make it real, and the exercises are designed to do that.
Speaker 2:Right and I think they're again. Yeah, do them. They're great. I was really. I really enjoyed looking through them and I really was like. I was like Erin and I, we should sit down and do these.
Speaker 4:I think what makes it great too is if you just do the exercises without the mindset, that is back to the 50-50.
Speaker 4:It's still done with the spirit of resentment. And I'm doing this because you're sort of requiring and no one likes to be told what to do, no one. And it doesn't feel good and, honestly, a lot of the things that are unequal in Stephen's and our partnership, I want to be, or he wants to be, I don't mind doing more like some of that, like you know, some of the mental stuff, when Stephen's like I'll take that, I'll handle this birthday party, like well, I don't want you to do that, I'm going to be doing it anyway. So I don't think that. But knowing that that's happening, it's important to me that Stephen acknowledges that and affirms that and appreciates the positive outcome of my sleepless nights about all of those things. But I don't want him just to come in and take over a bunch of stuff that I don't actually want to give up and vice versa.
Speaker 4:Right, I mean we just took a trip and Stephen packed every single bag, because if I had packed any of the bags, stephen would be, I would have been unhappy, stephen would unpack the bags and then reload the bags.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a little, I am particular, I can't admit about that.
Speaker 4:I don't think that's bad. I think we all are particular in our own ways. I just think so for me to be like hey, you know what? This trip, I'm going to pack the bags. He's going to be like this trip. No, thank you and never, ever ever again. I just mean like I think the mindset alone, I think isn't enough. It doesn't feel to me like it doesn't feel like I want to know. I want us to have on paper that I can trust.
Speaker 2:It's a mindset plus the practice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think, and I think the practice alone doesn't feel like it either. Anyway, I just think it's great.
Speaker 2:I know we need to let you go.
Speaker 4:I know.
Speaker 2:I have one last question, and then maybe you can tell everyone where they can find you in the world. So I'm, you know, people see 8080. I imagine there's the question of why not 100? 100, you know, like, like you know. So yeah, how come 8080 as opposed to 100, 100?
Speaker 3:Well, we think that we're mostly underdoing generosity. That's the 50-50 default state that many of us have slipped into. But it's also possible to overdo generosity, and we learned this through interviewing a number of people who were so generous in their relationship and gave up so much that they had this experience of losing their sense of self, losing the sense that they had projects that mattered, that they had an identity that mattered, and so there's a trap, obviously, with underdoing generosity. But we just wanted to also point to that trap on the other side that some couples or some individuals can fall into.
Speaker 3:So and obviously you know, the math is all very relative here and approximate- but that's the basic idea that we want to leave room for your own projects, your own sense of self, and so that's why 8080 instead of 100, 100. And then to your other question where can people find out about the book and what not? Probably the best place is our website 8080marriage.
Speaker 5:Okay, right, and I have to say 8080marriagecom, because we found out that if you just listened, to it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like 80HD.
Speaker 5:It's not that. It's not that.
Speaker 3:It's not that yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh my goodness, I can totally see that.
Speaker 3:Totally 8080. So we have a bunch of information about the book. We also do a newsletter every couple of weeks called the Climp Insights newsletter, which is really about these practical tools. So people are interested and they can sign up there and then on Instagram as well.
Speaker 4:How can they sign up for that newsletter on the 8080?
Speaker 3:Exactly At the bottom of the main page there's a place where you can sign up for the newsletter. It's totally free, but it's just tools that we sort of like are driving in the car home from the mountains and we'll be like, oh, what about a newsletter on this?
Speaker 5:What about a newsletter about relationship tailgating? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all that comes through there.
Speaker 4:And then, what is your Instagram handle?
Speaker 3:8080marriage. 8080marriage Okay, awesome.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 4:Thank you for such a great conversation.
Speaker 2:I love the conversation and really I really feel like, just even personally, my own mindset and my own heart and even thoughts towards Erin have really been shaped and helped by going through this book and considering what you've written. So, just on a personal note, I really appreciate it and thank you so much for talking with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 2:Today's show was produced by Steven and Erin Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please be sure to subscribe to the show and leave a rating. This will help others find our content more readily and, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples, counseling for Parents and remember working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.