Waiting on your husband to make you happy

Rock Solid Relationships

Ready to create rock solid relationships with the people that matter most to you, you are in the right place. My name is Sarah Payne, and I'm a master certified relationships coach. And each week, I teach you how to create the connection and love that you desire, because you know that the quality of your life is directly related to the quality of your relationships. I'm so glad you're here. Um, hello. Welcome back to the podcast, my friends. Today we are going to talk about when you wait for your husband to make you happy and the different ways that, as spouses, we do this and why it negatively affects our relationships, not only our relationship with our partner, but also our relationship with ourselves. So I think we can all relate to some area of our marriage where we are waiting for our spouse to change. Waiting see if any of these sound familiar. Maybe you're waiting for him to recognize you more, just to pay as much attention to you as he does to the football game. Or maybe you are waiting for him to appreciate you, appreciate the things that you do for the kids, appreciate maybe the sacrifices that you have made for his career, appreciate the little ways that you appreciate him even, right? Have you ever felt like, fine, I don't need him to do small little things for me, but I just want him to appreciate the small things that I do for him and the sacrifices that I make for him. Maybe you're waiting for him to change and work less and spend less time on his career. Or maybe you're waiting for him to be more involved with the kids. Maybe you want him to be less involved with the kids and more involved with you. Maybe you're waiting for him to be more dedicated in his church, in your church, and in the responsibilities that he has there. Or maybe you want him to be less dedicated to his church responsibilities and more dedicated to you and your family. Whatever it is, I want you to think about an area of your life where you're waiting on your husband to make you happy. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast for any number of times, you're probably thinking, sarah, I know that my husband can't make me happy. But you're also like but he would if he would just take out the garbage without me asking, then I would be happy. And you're not wrong about that, my friend. But the reason you would be happy is because you'd be thinking something like, we're a team. We share the household responsibilities, or he listens to me, or he cares enough about me to complete the tasks that I ask him to do. It wouldn't be because he actually took out the garbage, because he could also take out the garbage. And then you might think, fine, you got the garbage out. But could you please put a new liner in. I mean, seriously, do I have to tell you to do everything? And then you would feel frustrated, right? So it's just good to acknowledge that whatever it is that you're wanting him to do, the reason you would feel better if he did it is because of what you'd be thinking about what he did, all right? Now, it's not uncommon for coaches to teach that you are responsible for your own needs, and you just need to fulfill your own needs and not wait for him to fulfill them for you. And now listen, I'm not disagreeing with that advice. I've probably said that advice myself before as well. But it doesn't have to be that black or white. It doesn't have to be either he fulfills all of your needs or you fulfill your needs. Like, either one of those feels kind of isolating and separating, all right? But there is a gray area where you can take responsibility for how you're feeling and for what it is you want in life and not separate yourself from your husband. Because I know that when I hear fulfill your own needs, that actually feels pretty lonely to me. I'm like, I didn't get married so that I could just live this completely separate life from my husband. Right? But at the same time, if you have in the past or you are currently waiting on your husband to fulfill your needs, then you're probably feeling lonely too, because our husbands aren't very good at it. They're not mind readers, and then our brains are. So they think so quickly and they adapt so readily that even if they do the thing that we think we want them to do, our brains automatically just go to but what about the next thing? What about the next thing? So even if it lasts, it doesn't last for very long. All right? So I'm going to teach you a few things that you can do in order to meet your own needs and feel connected to your husband, all right? And make requests of him, all right? So first off, notice what the need is that you actually want. Sometimes we have a need, and we don't even know what it is. We just feel awful. Right? This is actually a really big clue for me in my life, especially, I like to pay attention and notice when my reaction to something, when I get bothered by something, and the level of frustration that I feel doesn't match the action taking place. For example, if I just fly off the handle when I'm driving, if somebody cuts me off, that's just a sign to me. Okay, sorry. You have a need inside of you that isn't being met. And how can we, with so much love and compassion, just get curious about what that might be? Or if there's dishes left in the sink instead of loaded into the dishwasher, and I just lose my mind over it. That's a sign to me that if I come home and I make that mean nobody respects me at all because there's a bowl in the sink or a spoon that's not been loaded in the dishwasher, that's another sign to me. I'm like, where is my reaction to certain things, like heightened or elevated or out of proportion to what's actually going on? So that's the first thing you notice, the need, and then you get curious about it. So I like to ask myself, okay, Sarah, what do you need? Do you need, like, a break? Do you need a rest? Do you need to ask for, like, what is it that you like, let's just get curious about that instead of just instantly going to, well, if people appreciated me in my house, my husband appreciated me, if my kids appreciated me, then I wouldn't be feeling so overwhelmed right now. Okay? I just notice the need. And then I like to ask myself, okay, how can I fill that need? What would that look like if I were the one to fulfill that need for me so often, especially as women wear ourselves out so much and burn ourselves into the ground, waiting for somebody to tell us we deserve a break. But did you know, you don't have to wait for someone to tell you that you can give that to yourself. Like, what would that look like if you were just like, okay, today, what are you going to do to take care of yourself? And honestly, the number one thing that I think that we can all do to take care of ourselves is speak kindly to ourselves. That is self care 101. That is where it all begins, okay? And then once you ask yourself, how can I fill it? Then you can also ask yourself, okay, does part of me fulfilling this need mean asking for help, asking for help specifically from my partner? And what would that look like? And before I ask for help, I like to just ask myself, is he already fulfilling this need in some way? Let me just look for ways that he's already fulfilling this need. Like, if my brain likes to offer to me, you have to do everything around here, then I just like to pause and be like, okay, Sarah, how can we help you out? And also, in what ways are you not doing everything? And then it's amazing, my friends, how my brain will show me when I'm looking for it that I'm actually not the one doing everything all the time. And I like to tell myself that story sometimes, but it's actually not true. And then once I can see the ways that the people in my life that I love and that love me are already helping me to fulfill this need, then I can start there. And it still might mean that I ask for help, but I do it from a place of, like, it's so helpful when you do this. I would love it if you would do it more, which is such a better, more useful conversation than, I'm so tired of doing everything around here. Seriously, could you just pitch in a little bit? It might sound like it means so much to me when you take the kids to their practices and pick them up. Like, I just love having that time in the evenings to just prepare dinner without distraction or whatever. It means so much to me when you do that. I would love it if we could work it out a way where we could do that more often. Or it might sound like, I love it so much that you always take care of X, Y and Z with the family or the household or whatever. Maybe we could find a way where you could take care of this as well. It's such a different space than, I'm so burnt out, I'm so exhausted and I can't do everything all the time, every day. So you figure out where they're already doing it, and then you build on that. And then once you build from that space, then you can ask for help. And you can ask for help from a space of abundance and from a space of like, I appreciate what you do. Can we do more of this? Versus feeling totally strung out and they're not doing anything and you're doing everything? I'm going to give you an example of what this might look like when it's not something concrete, like something that you wish that they would do, but something that you wish a way that you wish that they would think. Let's say you just want your husband to believe in your dream of being an entrepreneur and owning your own bakery as much as you do. But it's like he just doesn't believe in me. And it's just so hard to fulfill my dreams if I don't have a partner who believes in me. So if we take this example or these steps and what you want is someone to believe in you, right? You want someone to encourage you. And so first I want you to ask, how can I fulfill that need myself? Truly? I've said this before and I will say it until the day I die. If you don't believe in yourself, it does not matter how many people believe in you, it will not land. So if you are asking your husband to believe in your dreams and you don't believe in your dreams, that work starts with you. On the flip side, if you believe in yourself and in what you want to accomplish and in what you feel like you are put on this earth to do, it doesn't matter who doesn't believe in you. It will not matter as long as you believe in yourself. And then once you do the work of believing in yourself, you will actually, nine times out of ten. My clients see that, like, oh, they actually do believe in me too. And your brain will show you all the ways that they do believe in you. Maybe your husband will say things like, do we need to put aside some of our finances to build up your dream? Or how can I support you in this? Or I want to be the kind of support to you that you are to me. What would that look like? You'll notice those things more. And even if you don't, even if you don't, it won't matter because you have done the work to believe in yourself. Here's the thing. So many of us never do what it is that we want to do, what it is that lights us up inside. Because we tell ourselves that the people in our lives don't believe in us. And so we can't. And I know for sure that I don't want written on my headstone after I die. She could have been so much, but the people in her life didn't believe in her. That's like, such a place of victim mentality, right? That really, am I going to let the fact that other people are doubting in my ability to accomplish what I want to accomplish stop me? No. What if I didn't let anything stop me? What if I was just like, it's okay if they don't believe in me because I believe in me? Really? It can be that simple. It can just be like, it's okay if they don't believe in me, because I do. And I get it. I used to not believe in me either, but I do now. And isn't this so fun to kind of believe in something that nobody else thinks is possible? That is a fun thing to do. And then it's just kind of fun when people underestimate you to go do it anyway and to prove them wrong. Not from a space of like, I told you so, but just like, look what human beings can accomplish when they set their mind to something. Isn't this so fun? So whatever it is that you're waiting on your husband to do so that you can have the life that you want, I just want to offer to you that you don't have to wait anymore. That you can believe in your dreams, like, enough for the both of you, that you can fulfill your needs. And that might include asking him for help. But do it first from a place of thank you so much for doing this. And this. And this. I would really love it if you would do this as well. Whenever we start from abundance and enoughness, whether it's with our partners or with ourselves, it just is such a better conversation than if we start from a place of like, you're doing everything wrong. And if you're waiting on your husband to say, yeah, let's make space in our life and in our budget for this or that that you want to do. You can do that. Did you know that? You can do that. You can be the one to go first in leading out in what it is that you want and what it is that you need. And then you don't have to wait for your husband to make you happy. You can be happy. Now. This work of taking radical responsibility for your own emotions and for your own happiness can be challenging. I am here to help you. It can be really hard to do on your own and that is why a coach can come in so handy. And if you want help with that, if you want help believing in yourself first, going first in creating your own happiness and bringing your husband along with you, like leading out, then that is my superpower. So sign up for a consultation. Call with me. I call them take your turn strategy sessions. The best way to do that is to go to Sarah Payne coaching on instagram and click on the sign up for a take your turn strategy session or learn how to work with Sarah. I can help you do that. I cannot wait to be a part of this journey where you no longer wait for your husband to make you happy.