How Joe & Tara Stopped Trying to Change Each Other

Joe: When you asked me to marry you, what were you looking for in a marriage? 

Tara: I, at that point, had distilled it down to one want. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Um, which was I wanted someone who'd grow with me. And I had started off like, "Oh, I want an artist, and I want a free spirit, and I want a blah, blah, blah." And when it all distilled, 'cause I dated all of those things, got all those things, and when it all distilled down, I just wanted someone who'd grow with me, who'd do the self-work with me. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: That's all I wanted. 

Joe: And so the, the one thing that I wanna say, though, is that's true, but I don't want it to sound like it was like you were 100% clear that you wanted me.

Tara: I might have had some commitment issues as well.

Joe: Right. And so the, the reason I ask is 'cause one of the questions that we get asked a lot is that, "How do you know if it's the one?" And, uh, we'll get to that in a bit. Like, I wanna get to that in a bit, but I don't want everybody to think, like, you were just 100% clear, "That guy's gonna do the work with me, and we're gonna work." There was a lot of, like, "Is he still the one?" Even, like, after marriage. Yeah. Right? 

Tara: Yeah. Terror. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. Okay. 

Tara: Commitment, terror ... 

Joe: So we'll talk about that in a bit, but I wanna just lay that out there for people, not to have this illusion, this fairy tale illusion that we were like, "We know that we wanna be married."

Tara: No. There was a knowing. There was absolutely a knowing. 

Joe: Correct. 

Tara: And with the knowing came, "What the fuck? No." 

Joe: Right.

Tara: "I'm too young." "Not yet." " Come back in 10 years." 

Joe: Whole bunch of things. Yeah. Okay, so that's what you wanted. What I wanted, I think I was super unconscious at the time.

I just knew that I wanted you. And I was definitely the one, like, the chaser in the relationship. Right? But I just knew, like, oh, I want this woman, like, I was just smitten. And somehow or another, I was also clear. I remember this moment, it was like our second or third date, and you showed up like an hour late.

And I said to you, like, I don't know where this moment of clarity came from, 'cause like I didn't have this clarity back in that time, where I had that clarity where I said to you "I would love to be okay with you being late. I would love to be that guy, but I'm not that guy. If you're gonna be late, I can just guarantee you this relationship will not work."

Tara: I don't think you said it that nicely. 

Joe: That's how I remember it. Leave me alone. Leave my memories alone. 

Tara: "This isn't gonna work." "If you want someone you can be an hour late for, you have to look somewhere else." Yeah. I think is how you phrased it somewhere. Like, that was a really clear boundary. 

Joe: Yeah. And it was, I remember going, like, "I want to." I remember thinking, "I wanna be, but I am just definitely not that." 

Tara: Yeah.

Joe: I didn't have a specific, like, hit list of things. But what was interesting, though, was every woman I had dated before you, I was very clear it was not that person. And I think for me, what it was, like subconsciously, was that you were not chasing me. Every other woman I had ever dated chased me. Was like, they were the lawn, I was the lawn mower. You know? It was some version of that. And you were the first person to just stand up to me. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: And so I remember that being like an, a really important piece for my system. Yeah. 

Tara: I was consciously not chasing you. 

Joe: Uh, yeah. 

Tara: 'Cause I had the chase in me.

Joe: I figured that out later. 

Tara: And I would be like, "Oh, I wanna... Nope. What do I want right now?" And I'd bring my attention back to myself. "I wanna jump in the creek. I wanna call my friend. I wanna, like, what do I want?" And so I wasn't always running after you. 

Joe: Trying not to obsess on me. 

Tara: Just trying not to give up my life for you.

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Not to lose myself. I had been able to really very effectively lose myself and not have to feel emotions in other relationships. 

Joe: Yeah, that's important work, prep work. Yeah. Like, I was dating somebody when we first met, but before that, I had three years of no relationship. I had sex with people, but I had no relationship, and it was to learn how to not lose myself.

So I had actually already done that work as well, and a slower process than you. But I think, just, I'm just thinking as, as the next question is, what did you do to prepare? I think that's just something we both came in with. Even with that, I think we lost ourselves many times in the relationship. Still a little lost in you. 

Tara: Yeah. The best. 

Joe: Okay, so what did you, how did you... Like, we did this special preparation, then you were the one that had some demands of you. So just for the story for everybody, we were on the coast near Santa Cruz, Monterey? 

Tara: Santa Barbara. 

Joe: Was it down... Okay. Yeah. And I can't remember exactly, but I said something, and then you were like, "Yeah, well, are you gonna marry me?" And I was like, "Did you just ask me to marry you?" And you're like, you pulled over, you're like, "Nope." 

Tara: No. Nope, wasn't what I said. 

Joe: And then I was like, "Okay, well then will you marry me?" That's how the whole thing happened. Yeah. And so you were like, "Yes," and then I think it was a couple days later you came with some demands. Like, yes, under certain conditions. 

Tara: Mm-hmm, conditions. I had three really clear conditions. 

Joe: Yeah, so let's, what were the conditions? 

Tara: One is you... I had been in therapy and had an amazing experience with, like amazing life-altering experience with it, and so I said, "You have to go into therapy with me."

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And that was non-negotiable. 

Joe: Best choice, yeah. And we saw your therapist who knew you already, who was fricking brilliant. We got really lucky. 

Tara: Really, really lucky. And who was really brilliant with individuals, like she could see me alone and you alone and us together, which not everybody can do.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. 

Tara: So totally lucky that way. And then I said you have to, I had started doing 10-day Vipassana, silent meditation retreats, and so I said, "You have to go do a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat." Cause that was really important to me. 

Joe: Yeah. I remember with that one, I was like, "Yeah, I can be silent for 10 days."

Like, that sounds like a challenge. You know? I was, like, young, man, and I was like, "Challenge: be silent for 10 days." And holy, holy shit, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was the first time, for those of you who don't know, it was the first time I ever meditated was the first day of that, I'm like, "Meditation? What?" Right, so that was the other one. The third one was? 

Tara: Travel with me in Southeast Asia. 

Joe: Third World was your specific, you're like, "It has to be in a Third World country. It has to be challenging," I think was your thought process? Or you just didn't have the money to do First World, or what was… 

Tara: Oh, probably both.

Yeah. But it had to be out of our comfort... We had to be really out of our comfort level, and, like, Europe felt very comfortable. 

Joe: Right, right.

Tara: So it had to be really out of our known reality. Come experience something really foreign to us. 

Joe: And how did you come up with... I think I know how you came up with that, but how'd you come up with the travel thing?

Tara: It was a few parts. One is I was a lifelong traveler, so I loved travel. It's one of my great loves and joys, and if that wasn't something you were gonna share with me, we were not gonna have a good marriage. And two, I had to find an inner resilience through travel and the unexpected, really challenging things that happen.

I just thought, if we can navigate that together like I'd done it with friends and learned. Like my friends that I did it with, we could navigate whatever came up in life afterwards, so… 

Joe: Or it was really clear you couldn't. 

Tara: Or it was really clear that this was not a friendship that could navigate that. And so I wanted to know, can we navigate extreme challenges in the unknown… 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: together? Because that's what we're getting into as a, as marriage. 

Joe: Yeah. So I think by the time we got married, you already satisfied my condition, which was that show me that you could use power tools. I remember, like the stories that turned me on like back then were, were the, the stories of your resilience and capacity.

There was the story of you being late for a plane 800 miles away in Australia, so you taught yourself how to drive an 18-wheeler because the driver was drunk and passed out, but you had to get there and like this...

Tara: had to make it from Darwin to Sydney ... 

Joe: there was you driving, you learning to drive the bulldozer to make roads at a Burning Man, and then there was like just you're, you just like, "Oh, power tools. Ah vroom." And so I was like, "What a..." Like, this is not a woman that I am going to have to like... Like, she's very capable, and so she'll keep up with me, and I remember that. To me that for whatever reason, that was important at the time. And I think it was just the strong will of it that was, I think, most important to me. I love strong-willed people generally. So I think that I didn't really... again, I was very unconscious. Like, I hadn't really done any work by the time that we had,

Tara: Yeah ... 

Joe: gotten married. 

Tara: I remember you telling me, I was talking about emotions, and you're like, "Oh, when I just wanna change, I just tell myself I'm gonna change, and then it's done." And I was like, "Uh-huh. Oh, grasshopper." 

Joe: Oh, my God. I think about clients telling me that now, and I'm like, "Ohhh God." "I totally forgot that I was one of them."

Tara: Yeah, and then it's just a done deal. 

Joe: Oh, my God. I was in so much misery. Had no idea.

Tara: You were cute. 

Joe: Yeah. So that's what... That was the setup. The setup was, if we do these three things. Okay, and so then we did them. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: And for you, what was the... How did that go? 

Tara: I got all the information I needed. I learned that you were really interested in working on yourself, and using our couplehood, our marriage, as a vehicle for looking at yourself and growing. 

Joe: Yeah

Tara: Which was bar none the most important thing to me. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And that you'd go there. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And you would look at yourself. 

Joe: I have my limits, but yeah. I remember there was a couple of sessions with Marie Scott where I was just not willing to go to that dark corner. There was so much shame in it.

Tara: But, those were not with me. Those were one-on-one. 

Joe: Those were one-on-one with her. Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. With me, you always went there. 

Joe: Yep. 

Tara: It's like, you might be like, "Rawr, rawr, rawr." 

Joe: Might be. 

Tara: Okay, so you might have hemmed and hawed a lot and barked. You barked a lot on the way down. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Tara: But you always looked. So that was, like, the biggest thing. And then, um, meditation, you fell in love with. You had an amazing experience meditating. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: So you were in love with silence, which was so important to me. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: So I was like, "Okay, we're aligned on this." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And still are 

Joe: And then the travel was… 

Tara: And then the travel…

Joe: brutal. 

Tara: was brutal. 

Joe: And awesome and brutal. 

Tara: And awesome, and I learned like, oh, you'll travel with me. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And, um, you'll take unexpected left turns with me. You will up my travel urge and take us to even more interesting corners. 

Joe: Oh, yeah, I did do that. I forgot about that. 

Tara: You totally did. You upped it. You're like, "Okay." 

Joe: So back in the day, I think it's important for people who are younger who don't know this, back in the day, you had a book called The Lonely Planet. You landed in an airport, and you just, like, figured out where you're gonna stay. Flipped in the book trying to figure out. You didn't, you couldn't make phone calls. You would show up at a town, 

Tara: Yeah, you didn't have, we didn't have phones ... 

Joe: on a bus that was late and be like, "Where is a hotel?" And it would be, like, somebody's house because there was no hotels in Laos at the time. It was definitely... It wasn't any kind of leisure travel, get on your phone, find... like, none of that stuff existed. 

Tara: And we had to land in places, and every single room in the whole town would be booked. 

Joe: Oh, yeah, with the, like, men looking at you side-eyed or hitting on you.

Tara: Yeah. They'd be like, "Oh, we have a little pagoda in a rice field you can sleep in." And you'd walk through a rice field for half an hour at night with your backpack not knowing where you were going and end up in a pagoda and go, "Okay." 

Joe: I remember Laos when we got, we had to hitchhike? 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: And the only food that was available were rats on sticks. 

Tara: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joe: There was those moments where we were hungry and tired, sleeping in the concentration camp or, 

Tara: Yeah

Joe: the reeducation camp. Yeah. that was probably, like, the most fucking freaky night of my life ... 

Tara: and hitchhiking with the Vietnamese truck drivers 

Joe: Drivers and it was smugglers. Yeah, yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. So it was like that. I just wanna say it was, like, that intense. And I think, you know, at the time, I remember we got, like, in that huge fight in Inle Lake. We would get into big knockout, drag-out fights. But somehow we just kept on showing up for each other, even through the fights. 

Tara: I think they felt like familial. 

Joe: They were incredibly familiar. 

Tara: I was like "Oh, you fight like my family fight. This is great." 

Joe: This must be love. Fighting must be love, 'cause that's what I got... That's what I learned. 

Tara: But I did learn, like, oh, you might leave in a fight, but you'd come back. Like, we could repair. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And we would have ugly fights like, if I could do anything different,

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: it would be consciously going, "Oh, this is how we're fighting. This kinda looks like, uh, this looks like my family of origin. I'm guessing it, maybe it looks like your family of origin, and is this how we wanna do it?" We didn't have that conscious talk at that point in our journey. 

Joe: I think that the biggest pivot point for me, and this happened before we got married, but after we were engaged, when I realized changing you was not the path. That was, like, a huge thing. I don't think, so I can always say like, "Oh, I was willing to grow and you were willing to grow and that's what made us successful," and I think it did. I think one of the first things in that growth process that also allowed us to be successful was the fact that we learned pretty early on we're not here to change each other.

Tara: Or if we tried, we were fucked. 

Joe: Yeah, well, two very willful humans. But yeah, like the, the trying to change one another, that was, oh wait, the relationship isn't about doing the work on the other. Our marriage was about doing the work… 

Tara: On ourselves ... 

Joe: on ourselves. Yeah. And we learned that, that was pretty early and that was I think for me part of that process, especially with the meditation retreat and the therapy and like though the fights were big, They were getting more and more uncomfortable. Like, what had become normal, I remember going "oh, I really don't like this level of fighting." 

Tara: Yep. Culminating in a fight right after we got married, where it was like, "Oh, something has gotta change now. Something's gotta change 'cause we cannot fight like this." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. That's when we really got into doing even, like, non-violent communication and everything. 

Joe: Yeah, I think it was Marie Scott who said to us, "Oh, you, you guys are verbally abusive." And we're like, "No, we're not." 

Tara: Fuck off and go die. 

Joe: And she's like, "Let me read to you what verbal abuse is," and she read it, and we were like, "Yes, we are."

Tara: Oh, shit. Yep. 

Joe: Yeah, totally. And that was... I think we're still getting better at fighting. But, like, that was, like, the big switch to, like, now we have to learn actually how to fight well. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Which was tricky to learn that. 

Tara: Oh, decades 

Joe: Decades. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: I love that we did therapy, and that we both got to experience the amazing Marie Scott before she retired. She retired when we were pregnant with Esme. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: So. 

Joe: I remember those therapy sessions. It was like we both walked out needing to nap. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: We're just like, "What?" So tired. And we'd be like, "Ah." 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. 'Cause we were just so... It was, 

Tara: Like, DNA changing ... 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. It felt like we were, like, changing ancestral patterns, really.

Joe: Yeah.

Tara: Where are you going?

Joe: I was just... Ancestral patterns, like, yep, that's just what we say, ancestral patterns. 

Tara: Yeah. Like, we were, well my grandparents had done it, my parents had done it, and you and I were like, uh, buck stops here. 

Joe: My grandparents had done it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the weird thing is to know that, like, our grandparents and great-grandparents probably did it even worse than our parents. Right? And they were making their improvements. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah, so yeah, the only... The biggest thing about the process itself that I think could be better, not what we've learnt afterwards, was to bring some sort of level of consciousness to it. To have said, like, "What kind of marriage do we want?" "How do we want to relate to each other?" There was a lot of, "What's broken? How do we fix it?" But there wasn't a lot of, like, "What's right, and how do we get there?" And I think that would have been the different... and to be having that conversation consistently through the process, to say, "Oh," "What, what do you want out of a marriage? How do you wanna travel together?" Like, what... Therapy was often very much talking about the problem that we had at that moment and what was going on inside of us, but there wasn't a ton of vision thinking like, what the fuck is this all for thing. And I think that would've been, that would've been… 

Tara: Absolutely

Joe: even though I, at the time I would've used it to beat myself up for not getting there yet. I'm 26 years old, and I still haven't bought a house, or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah. 

Tara: Or you would've thought it was like, woo, woo, wow, envision the future? No, we're just living.

Joe: Ancestral twines? What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. 

Tara: There is one other thing that, if I could do it all over again, I would do differently, which is I sort of imposed those three things on you. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Because they were important to me, and I would, my today self would be like, "Hey, these things are really important to me. How do we come up with a series of facilitate or create a series of experiences to see how we're gonna, 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: navigate life together and come up with it together, as opposed to me saying, "Okay, you have to do this, this, and this." 

Joe: Yeah. But it's kind of like a great story that you told. I agree with you, totally, but it's, like, really nice to tell people, "Yeah, she told me I had to do this shit, so I did it."

Tara: You like being told what to do, then ... 

Joe: I like to be... I do. 

Tara: You still do sometimes. 

Joe: I still do. Yeah. Sometimes, keyword. 

Tara: But I would like to be working at it together. 

Yeah. And so it wasn't a telling you what to do, it's you and I coming up with it. 

Joe: Yeah, do it together.

Tara: Because when we come up with something together, 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: it's just, 

Joe: Far better ... 

Tara: delicious. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Great. Okay, so now let's just talk about all the things that maybe we didn't learn during that time period, and what we learnt after that made a difference. And the one I wanna start with, there's a lot of good ones here, but the one I wanna start with is the whole attachment style thing about chasing. Like, even after we got married, I was constantly trying to get your attention. 

Tara: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: And you were 

Tara: ADD distracted all the time. 

Joe: Yeah. Well, this part hasn't particularly changed, but you had, like, one foot out of the relationship. 

Tara: Yeah Like, I was commitment-phobic ... 

Joe: Yeah.

So what, what was that? So there's a lot of people who are like, "Is it... Are they the one and are they not the one?" And, you know, we get that a lot, and I think that that question isn't actually the accurate question. The first question is are you deciding if they're the one or are you having an issue with, you can call commitment, 

Tara: Mm-hmm

Joe: or I can say, you know, you're scared of love because something was wired with love that made it scary. Which I would also argue would be the case with you. But so is it, is this a you issue or is it a them issue I think is the right question, and oftentimes people are like, "Are they good or are they bad?" instead of, "Oh, is this my issue? Not sure if I wanna be with them or is it theirs?" So what... like, what was that for you? 

Tara: I think I was always aware it was my issue 'cause I knew you were the, like, there was just a knowing in my gut and my heart I knew you were the one.

But there was I think a fear of being seen, like my own shame and fear of being seen and receiving love, 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: that just kinda made commitment a dance for a long time. 

Joe: What shifted that for you? Like, I don't feel you've... I haven't felt you one foot out of our relationship for a long, long, long, long, long time.

Tara: It's gonna sound weird, but I didn't really have a... I wasn't in my body in those first decade or two even. I didn't really... Like, I lived in my head and in my imagination realm and in a, 

Joe: Which is weird 'cause you were the emotional one among us. 

Tara: I was the emotional one. 

Joe: Like, you would have these big emotions, but you were living in your head at the same time. It's true. It's very true about you.

Tara: Yeah. And my emotions were kind of more than my body could handle. Like, I hadn't learned how to turn into them, so they were, like, 

Joe: Definitely more. Very, than my body could handle. 

Tara: You wanted some of that. You were like, "I wanna learn how to feel." 

Joe: I did. Yes, true. 

Tara: But I didn't have a body, and I don't think I could commit until I really had a body. Like, I didn't know how to be in a body, and that took me a... that was a long, slow process to learning how to really be in my body.

Yeah. And once I was in my body, then I could be in the relationship with you fully, but when I couldn't... it's gonna sound weird. I didn't have a body, but I was so much in my thoughts which meant I was not with you. I was half in my thoughts and half with you. 

Joe: Yeah. So somebody's like, "What do you mean? How do I get in my body?" And I think this is a very good pointer because most of the people are like, "Are they the one? Are they not the one? Are they one the one?" They're not in their bodies. 

Tara: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Joe: So somebody listens to that and they're like, "That's me." How do you say getting your body? Like, what does that mean? 

Tara: It's for me, it was doing a lot of somatic body work and grounding work, and not up and out meditation, but down and in, like it was why Vipassana meditation was such a game changer 'cause it was coming into the body. And various other meditations forms that brought me into a body, and, martial arts and dance, and even theater. I think I was doing theater so I could…

Joe: Theater was huge for you. 

Tara: Yeah. And movement theater, so I could have a body. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And Suzuki work, all to have a body. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah, and grounding, like learning how to ground. 

Joe: I think this is really common for people who had any kind of emotional abuse and/or physical abuse, like having the body is, like, very painful.

Yeah. And to learn how to get back into it can actually, people want it to be very quick. The mind wants it to be very quick, but the body has its own pace.

Tara: Yeah. You know? I mean, I had emotional and physical abuse at the hands of nuns and whatnot. Yeah. So, a body wasn't safe. Like, that was where the pain happened, so it was really easy to fly up into the corner of the room or into my head.

Joe: Yeah. And that was a big point. That was when we started straightening up. There wasn't, like me chasing you or you chasing me or you running away. I mean, we both do it a little bit, but, like it was far more balanced. 

Tara: It was the next big, like, aligning with each other. I mean, I think we had kids after that 'cause we were aligned. 

Joe: Yeah. Very shortly after that. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Then there was that, yeah. Okay, other stuff that we learnt along the way that I, that are critical, besides marry somebody that you are willing to do the work with, focus on yourself, and get to a place where one person's not chasing the other person, don't try to change the other person.

Tara: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: Those are all big things. What, uh, what other things did we learn along the way? 

Tara: Consciously name when things aren't working. 

Joe: Yeah. Talk about everything. 

Tara: Yeah, everything. 

Joe: Everything. Yeah, that's a huge one. Just everything that you wanna squirrel away is like a bomb, like it's like a landmine for your future relationship.

Tara: Yeah, or currently. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. And then the other one I'd say is anger. We had to really learn how to process anger, 'cause you could bark, have barking anger, and I could have passive-aggressive, jabby, complaining, resentment anger. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, so I think that, I remember there were some phases in that for me. The first phase was, "I'm bad 'cause I'm the barker." And I'm pretty sure you were in agreement, you're bad 'cause you're the barker. 

Tara: Absolutely. 

Joe: And then there was this moment of recognition. I'm like, "You're angry, too." And you were like, "No, I'm not." 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: There was that moment. And then there was the moment of, "Oh, there's passive aggression and aggression. They're both the same thing." 

Tara: And my complaining was a form of aggression and owning that, and learning how to ask for what I wanted so I wasn't complaining, and stand up for what I wanted. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: God, that made our life so much easier. 

Tara: A lot easier, yeah. 

Joe: Right. And definitely reduced my barking, too. 'Cause I think both of them were coming from the same place, both of them come from a belief that I can't get what I want. Both of them come from shame. There's a deep shame in both of the two things, and both of them come from because we feel attacked.

Tara: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: Like we're being dominated and so they were coming from the same place, but there's definitely this moment of yeah, the, the weird part was for me, and I think still to some degree is when I'm working with people who are passive-aggressive is this like somehow or another, the person who's aggressive is the wrong one. And so it's so easy to just, like, fall into that instead of seeing that, like, oh, no, this is a dynamic.

Tara: Actually the person that's aggressive is usually sitting on a shit ton of fear or other emotions. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And the person who is passive-aggressive is aggressive underneath, but afraid on the outside, so it's like they're kind of mirror reverse images of each other. That's what we learned.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. 

Tara: Like, oh, in those moments, like, oh, I was scared on the outside, but, like, argh on the inside. And you were scared on the inside and Rurgh on the outside ... 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah, that's a great way to say it. That was a good one. And for the boundaries, like getting more consistent, we had some lucky boundaries, but getting more consistent, that was a big one. Because the more we started drawing boundaries with each other, loving boundaries, that was huge. Yeah. And if anybody's interested, there's a whole podcast episode on boundaries. There's also something where we just got... this is later on, where we became non-defended You know, kind of,

Tara: That was late in the game.

Joe: Later in the game, where it's just like, whatever 

Tara: For me, that went along with the anger. Like, when I learned that your anger was actually overwhelmed grief, fear, 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: then you could be angry and be like, "Yeah, tell me all about it." Like, I would... could be totally unreactive and, like have all the patience in the world for you.

Also learning I could have a boundary and say like, "Oh, I don't have the patience right now. You get to be as angry as you want to. I'm gonna go step outside and get a break. I'll be back in, like, five." So the boundaries, and then I could be undefended in the face of that anger 'cause it wasn't doing anything wrong anymore.

Joe: Yeah. This was, like, happening and then, like, kinda cemented with Case. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Like, it was like this, yeah, I'm angry, and that's okay. Like, it was this, I'm not gonna defend, you know, we're gonna look at stuff about each other, about ourselves without having to say somebody's wrong, somebody's bad. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Which I think in itself is just I mean, as the fear triangle says, it's like you make one person wrong, one person right you're obviously in fear. That's what's actually going down. 

Tara: What I wanna go back to is the, is this the right person, how to know this is the right person, 'cause I know that was one of those questions. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: And you touched on it, but I wanna double-click on it, 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Tara: which is I don't think the head knows. Like, I don't think the head can get, if you're questioning it, it's usually from the head, and the head can get as many data points as it wants, and then it's not a... For me, the knowing was not intellectual.

Joe: In the head. 

Tara: Yeah, there was data points, like, okay, he'll meet me with this way, this way, this way. But it was the knowing came from I had to have a body a little bit, enough to know.

Joe: Yeah, I agree with you, and I think about the people who are listening who are in their head, who are like, "I, but I don't have the knowing, so it must be not right."

Tara: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: What would you say? 

Tara: I'd say hang out with your body for a while. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Be like, how do you know anything? Like, start listening to how do you know about decisions at work? How do you know about things that aren't loaded? Is this the person that I'm supposed to be with forever?

Joe: Right. Yeah.

Tara: And also, like, take the weight off of it, like forever. Like, is this the person you wanna be with right now? 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Going to the future is just always false. 

Joe: One of the things that I've noticed in it is that with, like, several of my clients, it's like they have something married to love, either because the way their parents were with each other, the way their parents were with them, or their caregiver was with them. Guilt, criticism, abuse, something that they're like, "I don't want love because I don't want the thing that's married to it." And when they can separate it,

Tara: Yeah ... 

Joe: it was, like, three months later usually they found the person that they're gonna have, at least have a long-term commitment with. And it just actually happened. We had a person at Groundbreakers who was at reunion, and she came up to me and she said, "Fuck you, Joe. I found the guy in exactly the time schedule that you said once I got over the thing." And so it's, like, that consistent. I've seen it that many times. And so I think being in the body, I think is a critical component of it. I think the other thing is, how do you detach the thing that makes you not want to be committed?

Like, we would like find out what that thing is. What is it that if I'm in a relationship, how am I gonna lose myself? How am I going to, how am I going to not be who I wanna be or be committed to something that I don't wanna be committed, or forced into something, or lose my identity? 

Tara: Or what makes love so scary.

Joe: Yeah, what makes love so scary. Yeah. And then separate that thing from love. Like, oh, how do I practice being in a relationship where I'm not doing that? 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Where I don't, make sure that, I don't obsess over the guy, or I don't make sure that the woman's always happy or I don't feel guilty because I just took care of myself or whatever the thing is, or I don't accept the criticism. There's also something that happened in us where, and I think I've seen this in a lot of relationships, where somebody is the better and somebody is the worse. 

Tara: Yes. Yeah. 

Joe: Right? And it's usually the mental person who's the better and the emotional person who's the worse. Because the emotional person is empathetic, so they're like, "Oh, I'm so like empathetic and I can feel that you think I'm worse. I'll agree with you." You know? Yes. And the person who's right's like, "I can't feel my body, so I'm very right and..." 

Tara: Yeah. I was the problem in the relationship. 

Joe: You were the problem in the relationship. 

Tara: There was a point I remember when it was like, yeah, I'm no longer the Problem in the relationship. Like, it's an us, not a me. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: And that was an interesting pivot too. And I remember when you said that, I'm like, "That's not true. You're definitely..." And it was weird for me too because on one level, I remember thinking, "You are the problem," and on another level, I remember thinking, "You're not the problem." Like, I know that I have something to do with this. And like, I'm... So there was like, I would say the intellect knew that you weren't the problem.

There was an intellectual understanding that nobody was better than anybody, that I needed to learn to be in my emotions. You were teaching me that. Like, I had a whole bunch of intellectual understanding about it, but if I had to feel the shame, I would literally, I think it was just the shame. If I had to feel the shame, I was like, "No, fuck that. I'm gonna just make myself better than you." 

Tara: Yeah. Throw the shame over there.

Joe: So there's this emotional movement in me, and then I could logically justify it. Because I had this intellect where I could like whack, whack, whack.

"See? You're wrong, and let me explain the 17 ways in which you are wrong, and there's proof over here that you're wrong, and I'll tell you how wrong you are," which is... and I remember one of the things that we did that it was really useful was that we had a, where we just said, "We're not litigating. We're not in the court of law." 

Tara: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: And so any time any conversation happened where we were in the court of law, we're like, we're not trying to figure out who's wrong and who's right. We're trying to figure out, what's your reality? What's my reality? And how do these two realities work?" It was no longer, "I didn't do that. You did it." It was no longer, "I'm not the one to blame. You're the one to blame." It was, "Whatever your reality is true for you, and I'm gonna accept that as true. Whatever my reality is, is true for me. We're gonna accept that as true, and then we're gonna figure out how to work together."

Tara: Actually get curious about each other's reality. Like, "Oh, if I don't have to litigate or defend or, or protect, then what is your experience?" 

Joe: Yeah. And to honor that as a real experience. And I think that was another huge unlock. 

Tara: Yep. 

Joe: Yeah. And we have, we've been for 20... how many years now? 28? 27? 26? Somewhere in there. 

Tara: We've been married for 27. 

Joe: 27 years. Been together for 29, something like that. And she's not mad at me for not remembering the exact year amount. 

Tara: 'Cause you can't remember either. 

Joe: Note. It's like, so this has been our practice, right? Our marriage has been our, one of the biggest practices in our own personal growth. 

Tara: Absolutely. 

Joe: And I remember early on, I was like, "I can't be married. I need to be a monk to be able to get there." I had, like, this whole thing. What do you just have to say about that as, like, marriage as a developmental practice, as a... 

Tara: Yeah, I would call it the Buddha in the bedroom.

Joe: You're making fun of my weight, woman? 

Tara: You're

the happy Buddha. Happy Buddha in the bedroom. No, I mean that I do think that marriage as a vehicle for growth and spiritual uncovering more than development. It's like just using marriage to take the layer, peeling away the layers of the onion of identity. Find out what's underneath 'cause nothing will peel it away as fast as marriage. 

Joe: Oh, kids. Kids and marriage. Yeah, I think that's the thing is, like, to me, the biggest gift in our marriage is exactly that, is the fact that it is constantly a way to learn about ourselves, and then in learning about ourselves, our marriage gets better. And then the better our marriage gets, the more we learn about ourselves. 

Tara: And not just learning, but getting supported in that process. 

Joe: Yeah, that's huge. 

Tara: Like, I feel more supported by you than anybody else. I've learned how to support myself through the support I get from you. 

Joe: And vice versa.

Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Like, that's, I would say, still the deepest lesson of the last couple years too, is, like, these new layers of support that we can give to each other, and therefore, give to ourselves. And yeah. Yeah. That's been, like, the biggest learning these days.

Tara: And delicious. 

Joe: And delicious. Yeah. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for doing this with me. 

Tara: Thanks for saying yes. 

Brett: Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. You can learn more about our programs at artofaccomplishment.com. If you liked this episode, leave us a review or share the show with a friend. See you next week

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