00:00:00 – Introduction to Gratitude

full episode

Brent:You know, as we grow and age and get older, sometimes we lose track of our older life. The people we used to know, the things we used to do, and sometimes we get really curious. Case in point, sometimes we wonder about an old flame or a high school sweetheart. And sometimes we resist that temptation. Sometimes… we get a little cyber stalky. Go to Google or social media and try to figure out where our old people used to be and what they’re doing now. Now, I try my best to fight this kind of curiosity, but even when it gets the most of me, I do not go for the social media. Why? Because I’m better than you? No, not at all. When I am deathly, horribly curious about what my high school sweetheart is up to now, I just turn my head slightly and say, hey, baby, what you up to?

Camille: Hey, babe.

Brent: Or, since we’re empty nesters with losing hearing, I basically have to chase her across several rooms and say, hey babe, what you up to? The effect is the same. Anyway, yes, Bracketeers, it’s time for another episode. Joining us today in the stunt host chair is Camille Diggs, my partner and my wife of 35 years. And today, together, we’re gonna discuss the hero’s journey and what that means to your marriage, or vice versa, what your marriage contributes to your hero’s journey. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.

Camille: Woo-hoo!

Announcer: The Full Mental Bracket – 01:29

Brent: All right, so a reoccurring theme in the show is the use of the hero’s journey, viewing your life as an epic story, and the six steps of our reduced version of the hero’s journey. And one of the main steps of that is how everyone’s a protagonist. And we, Paul and myself and everyone’s been on the show has warned you over and over again, warned you, has reinforced so carefully that don’t get carried away as yourself as the sole protagonist because we are in this together. There is a weaving together, a harmony of different stories of multiple protagonists. And nothing brings that to the forefront as much as being married.

Camille: It’s not all about you.

Brent: Technically true. So being in marriage, yes, it reminds you that it’s not all about you, even if I’m the one who was talking with brief interruptions. And it reminds us that even though you are driving for your own goals and your own dreams and your own satisfaction and growth and development, that your partners are with you all along the way. And you need to always be conscious about that, is that sometimes we get lost and confused thinking, “This is my story, and you’re an accessory in my story.”

Camille: But I’m a very cute accessory.

Brent: Well, if you were an accessory in my story, you’d be a little quieter, but since clearly that’s not the case, it’s a reality check that perhaps the both of us are telling the story at the same time.

Camille: True.

Brent: The listeners are wondering why I invited you on the show just to tell you to be quiet. That’s a mystery for another day. That’ll be a separate episode. We’ll talk about that. So we have to always remember that although when you wake up in the morning and you see the world out of your own eyes and you see it according to your own goals, you tend to think that life is about you, but surprise, it’s not. And if there’s anything that we’ve learned across 35 years, it’s that having a close, intimate partner with you, next to you, in your way every day reminds you how it’s not about you. There’s a very-

Camille: I really don’t get in front of the microwave on purpose.

Brent: Yeah, we will, we’ll, there’s a, yeah. It’s a big house for two people. You’d think that we could not form a line and have to take a number to get somewhere, but somehow once a day we do. So that’s all good. So like one example I like to bring up, you know, in trying to keep your view of multiple protagonists, once something has happened to us, is when it came time, You know, let me back up a little bit. So we started a family pretty young, and then my beautiful wife had a scholarship that she left behind to follow me around to military towns and help raise our kids. We weren’t raising them together, but she did a lot of the work, most of the work. Um, and she dropped out of her, her college degree program to do that. So after the kids were, could kind of feed themselves and were somewhat self-sufficient, uh, she said, I need to go, I would like to go back to school again. And I said, that’s great. And like, that’s, and that’s wonderful. And then she reminded me, I’m actually going to need your help to do that. Like, oh, that’s right. We’re in this together. So then she said to me, of course, you know, you’re going to need to pick up the slack a little bit around the house. You’re going to need to pick up some of the weight of the chores and taking care of the kids and making sure some of these things get done that I normally do because I need that bandwidth to go to school. And this is this is a hint of a point later in the podcast, but it’s never cheating to give your partner the right answer, because I might not have thought of that of my own. I’m like, look at bless her heart, working so hard and going to school and doing all that stuff. Pass me another beer. Like, no, that was that was wrong-

Camille: That was the wrong answer. You don’t drink beer.

Brent: That was the wrong answer. But the thing you know, it was. But she told me that. And I’m like, that’s exactly an excellent point. And so I pitched in. I did the best I could. And then a few years later, when it was my turn to go back and start working on my degree, she picked up the slack for me. It was never one person was in the shadow of the other person’s story. It was always a constant reminder that we were in this together, that we were co-protagonists trying to get through this adventure together.

Camille: And I think we’ve done that very well as we’ve aged, also. There are some things now that you don’t do as well as when you were younger. And there are some things that I don’t do as well when I was younger. And we’ve had to pick up different chores and different things along the way as we’ve changed.

Brent: That’s true, that’s true. There might be mountain men out there that insist on doing all of the manly things themselves, even as their bodies fall apart, but I am not one of you. We’ve picked up the chores that fit well, and stereotypical roles be darned.

Camille: Yeah, and I enjoy mowing the lawn. It’s good exercise.

Brent: Yes, yes. So we’re talking about the fear of failure. My wife, mowing the lawn is still kind of a touchy subject to me. And I was hoping we wouldn’t mention that, but we did. And so here we are failing publicly together.

Camille: It’s not a fail. It’s a share.

Brent: It’s a share. But still, having said that, having made this bold statement about how I’m above social roles, that’s not entirely 100% true. I always get a little nervous when my wife’s out there cutting the grass because I feel like it makes me look bad, but it’s a balance that we’ve struck because it’s just how our partnership works these days.

Brent: So another point we want to bring up is that marriage itself is a hero’s journey, and it requires the protagonist’s mindset. We’ve talked about the protagonist’s mindset a lot, about the perseverance and the grit required to pursue your journey, and that is every bit required in a good and successful marriage.

Camille: Indeed it is. And you, you are doing that very well. And I think that I am doing that very well at this point in time. And we are sharing the journey and we’re sharing the load and making it work pretty darn well.

Brent: I think you’re right. Thank you.

Camille: Yes. Pat you on the back and you can pat me on the back and then, yeah. Okay. We’re good.

Brent: But that, that grit in marriage is a point that’s going to come back up because it’s easy to fly by your feelings. It’s easy to get discouraged just like it is when you’re chasing your hero’s journey. But that same protagonist mindset of like, I’m going to double down even though I don’t feel like being a good partner right now, even I don’t feel like adventuring right now, I’m going to get up and do that because that’s the decision I’ve made and that’s contributing to our growth and our transformation.

Camille: Well, it’s never about, it’s never about feelings. It’s not that you ignore your feelings, but your feelings don’t control you.

Brent: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Camille: You make a choice to love and serve your partner. You choose that. You don’t, you don’t base it off feelings because if you base it off feelings, you’re going to be out the first time it doesn’t feel good.

Brent: That is true. That is true. Something that we found, a statement that works well for us, is that good feelings follow good decisions, but good decisions don’t necessarily follow good feelings. There’s a lot of good feelings that can lead you into bad decisions. And so, as we’ve covered several times in this podcast, sometimes you have to have some emotional regulation, you have to override some of the System 1 responses you have and say, no, no, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to think deeply, we’re going to reflect on this, and we’re going to make a more intentional and a more long-range decision.

I mean, one thing that we have talked about is like the balance between pleasure and purpose, you know, and we’ve talked about that in the fancy, fancy terms of hedonic and eudaimonic or whatever, but it was just like the short-term enjoyment versus the long-term satisfaction. And if you want your relationship to have long-term satisfaction, you’re going to have to put some of that short-term enjoyment on the back burner. You’re going to have to say, all right, So it would feel good right now to yell and vent and give someone a piece of my mind, but that’s not going to help the situation right now. That might feel temporarily good for 30 seconds, but that’s not going to solve the situation. It’s not going to contribute to the relationship. It’s not going to contribute to my growth as a person. It’s just going to be bad in every single way. So let’s not do that.

Camille: Well, you never really truly say what you’re feeling and what you really want to communicate when you’re angry, because your emotions, when they’re taking over you like that, it doesn’t allow you to think straight. Your thinking gets all jumbled when you’re angry. You need to let yourself calm down before you have those conversations.

Brent: That’s true. And that’s something that I have to say that we have learned from experience, perhaps, is that if you feel like, hey, this, I’m gonna give vent to my passions and frustrations right now, it’s gonna make me feel a lot better, and then, like, two and a half minutes later, you don’t feel better, you feel dumb, because you probably shouldn’t have said it like that, and then the other person’s hurt, and then it takes, like, weeks longer to actually resolve the issue than if you had just, calmy taken a deep breath, stepped outside, said, hey, can we pause this for an hour? I’m gonna go for a walk and come back and talk about it.

Camille: Yeah.

Brent: And those are some tools that we’ve learned. These are all, these are all bonuses, man. These weren’t part of the episode. This is just exploding with value right now. This is, this is a thing that’s happening. So another part of the hero’s journey that your marriage infects is your quest.

Camille: So even… It’s infesting in a really good way.

Brent: infesting or investing?

Camille: Oh, what did you say? I thought you said, I thought you said, I thought you said infest. I’m like, it’s infesting in a good way.

Brent: Yes. Yes. So yes, our relationship is infested with unexpected blessings and rabbit trails, which is,

Camille: But in a good way.

Brent: Par for the course for this show. So the hero’s journey’s quest, You know, even, you know, you have your own quest that you’re trying to pursue. Life comes and gives challenges and leaves them on your doorstep and you have to answer the call to adventure and go off. And sometimes you or me, this is my quest. I will go off and I forget that I’d never get very far from her. And every quest I’m on is actually a quest that she’s on as well. Even if she, even if I haven’t told her about it yet. Because the things that happen to you, even if they’re very uniquely focused on you and very accustomed to your own particular goals and needs, they splash onto the people around you.

Camille: It’s kind of like when you throw the pebble into the pond, there’s ripple effects. Every action that you take could have possible repercussions to those around you.

Brent: That’s true. You know, if you decide, you say, hey, I want to swim the English Channel, and you tell the story about this great adventure, I’m going to assume this great manly adventure, although it could be a womanly adventure as well. I just decided I’m going to train and get in shape and swim the English Channel. But you once again, it’s like if you to free up that bandwidth, what is your partner doing to support this? Because they’re taking some of the brunt of it, even if you don’t, if that never makes it into the story or even into your awareness, it’s you don’t ever do anything alone, even if you might think that you do.

I mean, a good example of this is, uh, one day I hit up my wife and I said, Hey, I know this is going to sound weird, but it’s really important to me. I think that we should consider moving across the country to go to music school. But when I tell the story, it doesn’t usually come out like that. Well, you know, I boldly followed my dreams to music school. And somehow the part of my wife agreeing with that and helping to pack the truck and, you know, working a couple of jobs to help us get through that season, somehow they don’t always make the story.

Camille: Selling the house, saying goodbye to the friends, making all new friends, finding new communities, all of the things you do when you have to move. And then also, you know, working to ensure that you were able to do that.

Brent: Because it was never my adventure. Although it was my name on the admissions roll, it wasn’t, we were in this together as a couple and as a family. There were kids that we drug across the country. Another thing is if you’re facing a unique challenge and your partner isn’t, sometimes it’s easy to resent your partner. You’re like, this isn’t happening to you, it’s only happening to me. And that’s not always true. We were kind of talking off air a little bit and sometimes when things difficult happen to your partner, you’d prefer that they were happening to you. A, because you love them, and B, it’s just, it would be easier for me to deal with this than to carry you while you’re dealing with this. You don’t understand, I don’t understand how high maintenance I become when I’m dealing with something like, you don’t know, you’re not dealing with it. Like, no, I’m dealing with you as you deal with it. And I think that might be actually the bigger struggle.

Camille: Are you saying I’m high maintenance?

Brent :I was talking about myself,

Camille: Okay

Brent: But I mean, if the accusation fits.

Brent: So. Oh, man, so most every quest that you’re gonna be on is gonna involve your partner at some level and It’s easy to forget that but please remember that

Another aspect of the hero’s journey is leaving the comfort zone. We’ve talked about that a lot and that’s something that you can help your partner with I’m in our particular relationship Camille is really good at encouraging me to leave the comfort zone as I’ve mentioned on previous episodes I kind of got addicted to, it didn’t want to leave. As my contribution, I have to encourage her to return to the comfort zone. I was like, all right, that’s lap 52. You’re probably going to have a stroke. Please come back in the house now and return to the comfort zone.

Camille: It’s true. I do like to, uh, I do like to start something and finish it all in the same day, in the same time span. And as we get older, uh, we, we can’t do that so much. You are very good partner in that and helping me to see Hey, you’re probably reaching your limitations. Remember when you did that last time and you were on the couch for three days to recover? You may want to take this into the next day.

Brent: And I will compliment you as well because now you’re like, instead of limitations, what are those? You’re like, okay, yeah, I suppose you’re right. So we’ve all been learning this together.

Camille: There’s a little wisdom that comes with aging too.

Brent: So, we talked also in the hero’s journey about the tribe and your partner is going to be a key part of your tribe. If you remember key tribe members, there’s the advisor, there’s the ally and the cheerleader, there’s the mentor, and sometimes there’s even the adversarial ally that seems like they’re getting on your case, but it’s only because they are actually invested in trying to improve your approach, improve your ideas, and thinking maybe you’re just making a halfway attempt.

Camille: Well, try to make you a better person, too, because a lot of times, you can see things in me that I can’t see, and I can see things in you that you can’t see. When you are interacting with other people, or when you, even sometimes yourself talk, because you don’t talk very nice to yourself sometimes, and that really makes me mad. You need to stop doing that. So, you know, we do that for each other. We point these things out.

Brent: You heard it here, Bracketeers. I’m done. I’m cured as of this moment. No, that’s a good observation. And there’s some truth in that. And as it’s been very clear on the show, I am not the almighty guru lecturing people. I am working on myself and encouraging everyone else to join me. Everyone else.

Camille: I’m here, baby. I’m here for you in the journey. I’m all the way.

Brent: No, no. You’re not here for me. You’re here with me. Are you joining me on the journey?

Camille: Well, yeah.

Brent: To improve yourself?

Camille: Sure.

Brent: Cause it sounded like, yeah, I’ll help you improve you. I was like, no, that’s the question. Are you going to improve yourself?

Camille: Sure. Yeah.

Brent: I’ll get there once we improve you. You got a lot of work to do. It’d be next year for sure before we get to me. Okay. All right. All right. So the theme with the tribe is just a loving accountability. And you need to remember that as we keep going back to this theme, and maybe I keep going back to it, because I kind of see this in popular culture and social media and stuff, is that your mate is not a prop in your story. You know, she might be beautiful, but she’s not a trophy bride. I’m like, my bride’s not a trophy wife. She’s just got great skills and hard work. And if it was just about making me look good, I mean, I think you could do it, but it’d be a hard, it’d be a difficult job.

Camille: I mean, I could do it, but you know, there’s other things, there’s other ways to support you.

Brent: So that’s the thing is like, when you, you get absorbed in your own story, sometimes you see other people as tools or obstacles. They’re either helping you on your quest or they’re obstructing your quest and you forget that everybody else has a quest too. And that’s, we’re going to remind you of that again and again.

Announcer: Full Mental Bracket. 18:18

Brent: So the next chapter in the hero’s journey is dealing with adversity and challenges.

Camille: We’ve had a lot of those in 35 years of marriage. A lot of challenges, a lot of adversity, and we are We are. No, continue.

Brent: I open my mouth to say we wouldn’t know what that’s like because we’re amazing. Before he lies, let me tell you, he’s lying. I was here the whole time. Nothing but lies.

Camille: And it’s, you know. Anytime you have long-term relationship with people, you are going to have seasons. You are going to go through seasons of joy. You’re going to go through seasons of trials. If you just stick it out, everything kind of circles back around. You can have this beautiful season where you’re clicking, everything is going really, really well. You’re reading each other’s minds. You know exactly where you’re going, exactly what you’re going to do next. And then you’re going to have a season where I have no idea why he’s thinking that. I have no idea where he’s going with that. I do not understand. And I’ve got my own stuff I’m dealing with. I don’t, I don’t get him right now.

Brent: Right.

Camille: Yeah.

Brent: Right. And I think that this is a good place to make our standard disclaimer. It’s that there are toxic and abusive people out there, and we’re not at all in saying that you need to ruin your whole life with them. But statistically in our experience it is more often people running away because they’re a butthurt rather than they’re stuck with toxic people and so we encourage you to see the difference although those other people do exist. I Got off I got off point here.

All right, so when you’re in adversity, one benefit that your partner can give you is with validation. They’ve seen your struggles. They know when you have a great victory, they see it better than other people. When you have a great loss, they may see it better than other people because they’ve been watching the show the whole time. They didn’t just start with yesterday’s episode. They know where you’re coming from. They know what it means to you.

Camille: They don’t just support you in in the physical ways. They also support you mentally, emotionally, and encourage you, like I said earlier, with your self-talk. When you have this poor self-talk. I’m like, please don’t talk to yourself like that. That’s not who you are. That’s not how I see you. That’s not how other people see you. Encouraging each other in that way and helping each other to see like we all have blind spots where we can’t see who we are. And the other person who knows you the best can help you see who you are and get you back on task and get you back on point for your journey.

Brent: That’s good. And what you made me think about is like sometimes…When I say, when I hear the phrase, we all have blind spots, it usually means there’s something stupid that I’m doing that I can’t see and someone close to me needs to let me know. But it also works the other way. Sometimes there’s amazing things that you’re doing and you can’t see and someone close to you needs to let you know. It’s like, you know, you’re awesome at that. Like what? Like no one’s told you that? You’re awesome at that. Quit, quit, quit downplaying that. That’s amazing.

Camille: I don’t think we say it enough to the people in our lives that we care about. Hey, you are really doing good here and I’m really proud of you.

Brent: I mean, if you wanted to go on record in front of all the Bracketeers and tell me how amazing I am, I would, you know, just help you with your thesis there.

Camille: You are amazing, honey. You are doing such a good job and you in the audience, you are also amazing and you are doing a really good job.

Brent: It’s not easy taking this, but for you Bracketeers, I will do it.

Camille: Good job.

Brent: All right. So with your partner, in addition to validation, they can also provide you with direct assistance, which is something I think we’ve been hinting around as far as like a lot of times and in a lot of relationships, uh, one partner will have strengths in an area that the other partner has weaknesses.

Camille: Just, just guys don’t, if they say, does this make me look fat? You need to plead the fifth on that one.

Brent: Okay, okay. All right. So yes, so we can reinforce each other where we’re weak, but sometimes we have to be careful how we voice that, is what we’d say.

Camille: That’s right. Be cautious.

Brent: Be afraid. Be very afraid. So, and then another way is that, you know, we’ve talked about comforting and validation, supporting someone emotionally. We’ve talked about physically jumping in and complementing strengths with weaknesses and weaknesses with strengths. And a third way is just with encouragement and coaching. Sometimes Sometimes I can fill in for Camille with some of my strengths and sometimes she can fill in for me with some of her strengths. But you know, we have jobs, we have places, we can’t always be together. And sometimes we need to get better at things, even if we’re weak at them. And then we can kind of coach each other to get better at that.

Camille: And I’m going to say here at this point, too, it is absolutely OK to give them the answer. Don’t make them read your mind. That doesn’t work. Give them the answer.

Brent: All right. So what she’s telling you, Bracketeers, is that we’re not in school anymore and it’s not cheating to give your partner the correct answer. When I was young, I watched some relationships where people literally said, if you really loved me, you would know what you’ve done and you would know what you need to do. And that is as stupid as that is toxic.

Camille: Wrong. Wrong answer. Stop right there.

Brent: Survey says. Idiot! No, immature person who hasn’t quite figured out relationships yet. So give the person the answer. If there’s something that you want to see, you may not get it, but you’re definitely not gonna get it if you don’t explain it. We could just end right there. Where’s Paul with the mic drop? Mic drop! Wow!

Announcer: This is Full Mental Bracket. – 24:23

Brent: So another chapter of the hero’s journey is growth. So your partner will help you with your transformation and growth. They call out the growth that they’re seeing. As we mentioned, they help you stay accountable for the things, the growth that you want to see and perhaps that you’re sabotaging. I won’t mention anything about junk food and kitchens and my wife saying, what are you doing putting that into your face? Sometimes you want to accomplish goals and your partner keeps you accountable.

Camille: Sometimes that’s easy to do and sometimes it’s hard to do because they resent, even though they’ve asked you, hey, can you hold me accountable in this area? And then they resent you because you’re holding them accountable in that area. Just don’t take it personally. They’re just cranky.

Brent: Well, and it’s also what you said about the fat pants and stuff is how you approach it. It’s like, what’s worked for me, your mileage might vary, is like, You, person that I’m talking to, have asked me to help you be accountable. And you’re doing an action right now that you need to be held accountable for. You’ve asked me to do this, I’m reminding you that you’ve asked me to do this, and just gently kind of like, do you still want me to do this? Or are you going to get all fussy? Is this one of those days that you actually want my support? Or is this going to be like, no, life’s too much. But you do it lovingly. A loving accountability. Yes. This is something you’ve asked me to work with you about. I’m working with you right now. Do you still think this is a good idea? And sometimes they’re going to say, yeah, I really think this is a good idea. I really need this right now. And so like, all right, well, I’m here for you. I reminded you.

Camille: Yeah. Are we pushing pause or are we stopping completely?

Brent: Yeah. And I’m not here to scold you or shame you or anything. It’s like, you’ve asked me to help you with this. I’m helping you with this. If today is the day that you’re going to go off the wagon and then, I mean, I’m not going to scream at you, but tomorrow we’ll start again.

Camille: Exactly.

Brent: And if it involves ice cream, I might actually join you.

Camille: None of that.

Brent: All right, never mind. So another chapter of the hero’s journey is after you have your growth and your transformation, you come back with your legacy. Now, every relationship is going to be different. I’m not going to say that you have to have a family to have a legacy. There’s lots of people that go on and they just, they go on with their, their just, their relationship without any kids or without extended families.

Camille: There’s all kinds of ways to do that. Yeah, there’s different types of legacies are, I mean, we do have three children, three grandchildren and another one on the way. So we’ve, we do have that as a legacy, but we also have the legacy of, how we have grown together in this journey. That’s also a legacy. So we’ve partnered together and we have this legacy of you’ve helped me grow into the person that I am. I have helped you to grow in the person that you are. So now that legacy is that we’re better people as a result of that. And we have more to give to the community.

Brent: And that’s that’s an excellent point because as we grow, we can invest in other people, whether they be our offspring or whether they be our friends or whether they be our found family. It’s the same dynamic. It’s like you’re investing in another person, much like you did with your partner, and you’re watching them grow and mature and you’re joining them in that satisfaction.

Camille: That’s great.

Brent: And your marriage itself can be a source of legacy. It’s like an investment. You’ve invested in it, and it’s getting stronger and stronger, and then you can take this long-term satisfaction in it, or even like a loan, sometimes you need to borrow that back. Like, I really need the strength of my marriage, because I’m falling apart right now. This other area’s falling, my job’s falling apart. I need to lean heavy on this other thing that I’ve got.

Announcer: This is The Full Mental Bracket. – 28:14

Brent: So we have some takeaways for you. We have in our time together made marriage sound pretty good, but marriage isn’t like this out of the box. You have to really build this type of relationship. You have to work to find this kind of balance. So one thing I challenge you to think about is you think of your marriage or your relationship here as a long-term investment. You’re putting in, you’re putting small deposits, small sacrifices every day for a long-term reward.

Camille: Yeah, the big picture of any relationship that you have really is going to be in those small moments. How are you challenging each other? How are you encouraging each other in those day-to-day, in those small moments? It’s not this. I don’t know what movie would encompass this, but it’s not like this big aha moment where everything changes. It is these small directional changes that you’re making on this journey. It’s like course corrections. You’re in the vast ocean of your journey and with your partner, you are making course corrections and you’re helping each other to make those course corrections to get you to the place you wanna be.

Brent: Well, I’m not coming up with a movie either, but in the world of business, some people like they like, Oh, look, there’s a flashy founder and he founded a billion dollars overnight. And then there’s Warren Buffett. It’s like, how did you could be rich? It’s like just doing smart things every day. And then slapping my hand every time I want to do something dumb. I just like do my 2% every day and it compounds over time. And here we are.

Camille: Right.

Brent: And a long-term relationship is a lot like that.

Camille: Yep.

Brent: So what do you do when you feel that your partner seems like they’re dropping the ball, that they’re not fulfilling these functions in the way that you think they should?

Camille: Well, don’t scream and yell.

Brent: Okay.

Camille: Be kind.

Brent: Talk it out. It’s important to talk it out. It’s important to explain why this is important to you and don’t expect them to read your mind. As we’ve mentioned, it’s not cheating to give the right answer. A cognitive bias that comes to mind is the illusion of transparency. We like to think that our thought processes are more transparent to the people around us than they are. Like, clearly, you know what I would say in this time. It’s like, no, I have no clue what you’re going to say.

Camille: Well, even after being married 35 years, most of the time, I think I know what you’re going to say. But as often, I surprise you and you surprise me.

Brent: There’s a lot of surprises involved. Oh, man. So when you’re facing this kind of situation, calmly explain to your spouse what you would like to see from them and see if it seems reasonable to them. For example, if your dream is to tap your bank account, your joint account, so that you can try to beat the Guinness record for the most parakeet tattoos on your skin, your partner may not be as supportive of that dream as you think they are. You gotta sound them out.

Camille: Yeah, I don’t think many partners would be about that goal. I really don’t.

Brent: I don’t know.

Camille: I don’t think so.

Brent: It could happen. It could happen.

Camille: You have to work together as a team, for sure.

Brent: And as you’re having this discussion, be sure to own your own frustrations. Use phrases like, I feel, and definitely not things like, you always.

Camille: You always. That’s the worst.

Brent: And don’t say, you make me. Don’t even use you at all. You own your own frustrations. In this situation, I am feeling this. And once you start blaming the other person for it, things go downhill in a hurry.

Camille: Be honest with yourself and be honest with your partner.

Brent: Yes. And describe the situation, not the person. When you start attributing the problems in your relationship to character traits like lazy or dumb or selfish, you’ve gone down the wrong road and you’re not going to have a good resolution there. The problem is not because your partner is this, that, or the other. The problem is because you have a problem and you’re not communicating, you’re not working together on it.

Camille: Right. Look at the problem outside of the relationship. Look at that as a separate thing that you want to work on together to solve.

Brent: And remember, marriage is its own hero’s journey. It has its own struggles, its own transformations, its own requirement of grit and perseverance. And it’s also a resource and a legacy that you can lean on in your future times. So that’s it for this episode. Thank you very much, Bracketeers. Be sure to hit us up on the socials, subscribe, like, all of those things I should have said at the top of the episode. Thank you and good night.

Announcer: Full Mental Bracket podcast hosted by Brent Diggs. Executive producer, Brody Scott. Art design, Colby Osborne. Interact with the show at fullmentalbracket.com. This is The Full Mental Bracket.

Announcer: This is a Brody Scott production.

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