What If You Only Had a Year Left To Live?

Josh 0:00
Hello, hello, everybody. So today we're gonna be talking about this idea of if you only had a year left to live, how would you be showing up in your relationships? So stay tuned.

Cassie 0:36
Here at Touch of Flavor, we teach non monogamous folks how to overcome their obstacles and build thriving relationships.

Josh 0:42
This podcast is about answering one question, how do you create loving, passionate, secure relationships outside the box? Even if nothing has ever worked before? If you want to know the answer, you're in the right place.

Cassie 0:55
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Josh 1:05
All right, so a bit of a heavy topic today, but wanted to just kind of start this episode off with a question. So if you went to the doctors tomorrow, right, and you got a diagnosis, something we all don't want to hear. And you knew that you only had a year left to live? Or maybe that your partner only had a year left to live? How would you be showing up? In your relationships? How would you be treating the people around you? So I really like really, I want you to take a moment. And think about this. Right? How much time would you be putting into your relationships and spending with the people you love? Would you be settling for whatever problems disconnection or arguing or jealousy or whatever? Like would you be settling for whatever problems are going on in your relationship right now? Where would you be fixing them? And how hard would you be working to fix them? If you knew you only had a year left? Right? Where on your priority list of all the things that you have to do the work and the friends and the I don't know all the little day to day, things that come up, right? Where would your family, your relationships fall on your priority list? And like I said, I really just really want you to think about this for a moment. Like how would you be showing up? How would you be treating your partners and the people that you love? How much time would you be putting there? And then I want you to just kind of look at that and look at that picture of what that would be like and to ask yourself how big of a gap isn't there right now? All right, how big of a gap is there between the way you would be showing up and the way you would be treating your relationships? If you knew you only had a year left? And how you're showing up right now.

Cassie 3:56
And here's the thing, if you're sitting there and you're like this looks very different than this, right? Because I think for for most of us, that happens at times to times right? Because we get busy. We have other things going on. And we kind of put our relationships on the backburner. We put them you know, you know, we'll work on this problem next week, or next month, or as soon as I'm done with that project, or I'm done doing this thing. And we constantly put things off until later.

Josh 4:36
Well, and we it's not just normal, it's not just something we do but like it's normal in society. Right? You know, you look at you know, it's just so common this idea of like, well, you know, stuff's stuff is sucking now and it's suffering now. I mean, we just have all these things to handle. And you know, I'm looking to get this promotion and you know, like you're trying to finish school, and, you know, there's this life thing and that life thing and all these things popping up. And you know, we just have to handle this. And then some day, we'll get around to our relationships. And I think just as a society, this isn't specific to non monogamy. As a society, it's pretty much the norm for our relationships to be pushed to the backburner of some day, right? When we're really going to like fix things, handle things and a lot of time with our partners really kind of enjoy the opportunities with him. And I think for a lot of people, it's like retirement time.

Cassie 5:40
Mhm.

Josh 5:40
Right.

Cassie 5:41
Yep, yep.

Josh 5:43
And I do think polyamory-- so I'd be curious, in your opinion on this because I think like I said, it's a societal thing. I don't think it's just a polyamory thing. But I do think sometimes with people who are polyamorous it's easier to put like, this specific relationship on the backburner? Because maybe I can get like some of the stuff handled somewhere else.

Cassie 5:58
That happens to yeah, I think there's definitely the two things right. There's the hustle and bustle, and I'm just gonna let my relationships be on the backburner, right? Like, I've got this project, I've got this thing. But there's also this easy out for when there is challenges, right? So if you and I are having challenges, and we're super busy, and there's all this stuff going on, but I'm able to get something over here, I'll put that off a little bit even longer.

Josh 6:27
Yeah, and you know, just something got me thinking about this was, you know, so we'll have people, right. And we offer calls for folks who are in a spot in their relationships where the relationships aren't working, and they're looking to heal, and they're looking for something better. And, you know, so often we get people. And, you know, for folks, when they book calls, they wind up sending out an application, and, you know, the send in this application. And it's like, you know, life's awful like we're arguing or fighting. You know, I don't know how much longer this is going to last. I think we're gonna get divorce, like, I can't keep living like this every single day. And then-- go ahead.

Josh 6:27
Oh, I was gonna say, not sustainable is a big word like, this is not sustainable. Like I'm getting to a breaking point.

Josh 6:45
Yeah. And then, right. We'll get people who will cancel or reschedule that's pretty normal, right? But we'll get people who will, like, cancel, and they'll be like, look, listen, I just is just so busy right now, you know, there's a lot of life stuff going on. And I'm just gonna have to kind of postpone this indefinitely. And, you know, I'll just at some point in the future, I'll get back to you. And, number one, of course they don't. But number two, right? You just said you can't do this anymore. And you're going to lose your relationship. And then you know, the moment something else comes up in life, right, stuff gets busy, the first thing to go is like, Oh, God, we need to fix this relationship is falling apart. And again, that's a normal thing that we all do. Right? The relationship goes to backburner, and we act as if our partners and the people in our lives are going to be there forever. And that's not the case. One thing that we see, sometimes it's certainly not all of our clients by any stretch of the imagination. But, you know, we do have a percentage of clients who come through, right, who have been kind of shaken out of that idea, by things that have happened in their lives. Right. And I know that was definitely the case for us. Unless you tell that story. It's I know it is going to interesting because I know we've talked about this like in writing, but I don't know if we talked about it, talked about it, like outside of our client base. So...

Cassie 8:58
I don't think so. I think whenever I talk about their client base, I get all like, weapy so we'll see how we do. But yeah...

Josh 9:10
I was gonna let you tell it, it's your story.

Cassie 9:11
Oh, my. Okay...

Josh 9:13
I'll chime in.

Cassie 9:15
So oh, I don't even remember. minutes. 2009 How many years?

Josh 9:21
Too many.

Cassie 9:22
Yeah, something like that. So I was driving with my stepmother. And we were coming back from dropping off my kid at school. And I always like to kind of back it up before being in the car because that morning, you're going off to work. And we were not having a great morning. It was like, "here's your damn lunch. Bye!" Right? I thrown Josh together a sandwich very disgruntledly and I kinda like handed him his bag it was like bye. My son at the time was you know, in like first grade, and we had not had the most fantastic morning either, right? And he got out of the car. And I was like, well, I guess I'll see you later. So it was, it was very much this morning of like, my relationships were not where I wanted them to be particularly the one with you, right? Like we had had this like whole interaction of just kind of like, see later, right. And then me and my stepmother were driving down the road and see this big old truck. And there's this second where I'm like, crap, like, he's not going to make that like turn like is a wavy road. It's a scary, scary road. And I'm like, he's not going to make that. And I was like, and we're not going to not hit him. Like that is just what's going to happen. And I didn't even have time to like, turn to my stepmother and say, this is about to happen. And, lo and behold, we hit the side of his truck, the truck rolled on top of our car smushed it, slammed us into the guardrail. And when everything was said and done, I was trapped inside of a car, my stepmother was able to get out the window of her side. But because it was crunched in on my side, the top of his truck had crushed over it. Like it was literally like my body was in there just perfectly in a triangle. Like if I would have turned my head the other way, I wouldn't have had one. And that was scary enough. But then the actual fire department got out there, and the car's smoking. And there's part of it, that's actually like catching fire. And I'm trapped in there. And so during that you definitely have a lot of things that go through your head, one of them just being like, not today, right? But the biggest one was, you know, like, I love my partner. You gonna pick up from here?

Josh 12:01
Well, yeah, and like so-- and so the car had OnStar. So they actually call me I'm at work. And, you know, I get a call from Cassie. And she's like, she's again, she's like, trapped in the car. She's First off, she's like, injured, like there's blood everywhere. Like they can't see where she's bleeding from. She's trapped in the car, like they can't get her out of a car to treat her. And the car is on fire. I left work, I think I was like, my partner and I were in the middle of something. I was like, Dude, I gotta go. And I left. And he was cool. So it was fine. But you know, and we've had one or two other really significant, I love this one to death, but she is one for like the weird health stuff. So we've had one or two other really significant scares over the years. And, you know, it really does just bring a focus to the fact that, you know, we count on these people in our lives to be here. And first off, obviously, with the knowledge that, that isn't, that's never forever, right? I mean, like, I'm a big believer, we're gonna like cure aging, but that hasn't happened yet. Right? And then there's not like a timeframe on the horizon for it.

Cassie 13:16
And even if there was, there's still all the things that happen in life.

Josh 13:20
Well, that's what I was gonna say, right? Because, you know, forever, you know, even somebody who, you know, like, the other problem is, you know, we don't ever know what's coming. And you know, we've seen this for a lot of clients and things where people have had, you know, like, like I said, significant accidents, or, I mean, I know, we have a couple of clients who have actually lost partners in the past, right at, like young ages. And so, you know, it's important to remember, I think, that the people in our lives aren't always going to be there. Number one because like I said, like, you never know what's around the bend, right? You know, what I'm talking about, what if you only have your left to live, like, maybe that's true. Or, or your partner only having your left to live. And, number two, because our relationships aren't well for most of us, our relationships are going to last our whole lives. So there's also that peace. And, um, you know, I think it's just important to keep this idea in mind that, you know, we like to act and treat our relationships if they're something that's here forever, but they're not. And whenever I need a reminder of this, I know, this is a little morbid, but it's just something that works for me is I like go to the graveyard, and I walk around and you look at the the tombstones and like, you know, you have all these couples who are buried together, and you just look at the gap in people passing away, you know, 5, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, right? In like people passing away and and just it's important to keep in mind that that these relations we have, they aren't forever and they particularly aren't forever if we're not taking care of them. Right. And I want to talk about that. Do you have anything else to throw in first?

Cassie 15:01
No, I was just gonna say, you know, you can control your relationships being together while you're here, but you can't control how long you're here.

Josh 15:11
So I want to talk about the problem is that this idea that like that our relations are going to be forever. And then we're just gonna backburner our relationships until some indefinite point in the future causes, right? Because one is, I mean, we can, like I said, Something can happen, and we can lose that person. And, and this is all we had. Right? This is this is how we left it. And this is what we did with our time. But there's a lot of other problems beyond just that, that you can kind of start thinking about when you're thinking about your relationships this way. And the first is a problem that this, tomorrow never comes right like this destination of this place that we're going to hit, where life is going to be calm enough for us to fix the problems and do spend time with our partners. Like that point. It never comes.

Cassie 16:02
No. It's it's one of those things where, you know, it will talk to folks. And they're like, well, it's after this and after this and after this. And it's like, Well, how long has this been going on? Well, the last six years, you know, this happened, and this happened. And that happened, there's always going to be some kind of challenge that life is throwing you. Like that's just, that's what life is right? Life is just a series of like, different hurdles and challenges that we overcome.

Josh 16:30
And so, you know, the problem is, like, if you're waiting for this idea like this, at that point in the future, that will never happen. I think I've told the story. It's funny, same partner, actually, you know, I was years ago, I was talking to him, we were talking about Cassie and I and this was back when we were talking about having kids. He's like, you know, why didn't you do it? And even talk about it for like three years, four years? Like why, you know, why haven't you done it yet is like, well, it's not the right times, like, do, there's never a right time to have kids, like, you're either gonna do it or you're not, it's the same thing with your relationships, there's never gonna be a great time to fix the problem, there's never be a great time to spend time with your partner, it's never gonna be a great time to make them feel important. And to actually enjoy the time that you have together. Right, there's just the time that you're going to make. And if you're waiting for the right time, you're just never going, it's never going to happen. And for most of us, you can look back at your life, and see how long you've been saying, Oh, I'll fix this, I'll fix this, I'll get to this, like, there's gonna be a time, you know, like, the kids are going to be old enough and work's going to have settled down, and we're not have this craziness, what's going on with our house, and then that'll be the time. But then of course, that gets there. And now something else is going on, your dogs dying or whatever, right?

Cassie 17:40
We gotta fix the car, we gotta, we got to help out the in laws, we've got this thing going on. Our friends have this thing, like there's always something that's going to happen.

Josh 17:50
And the problem is, is that as you're going through this, and now you're sitting on these problems for, you know, a month, a year, five years, you know, we're arguing, we're fighting like, we're feeling like roommates, I don't even know why I'm here. Like, you know, I'm like that spark is just gone. I'm watching my heart out with somebody else. And like, I'm, I'm crying myself to sleep at night. And you're going through all these things, right? Any or all of those are lots of other things that can be going on. And the problem is, we do this thing where like God, this sucks. You know, like, this sucks. It's awful. Like, I just I can't do this, but just you know, a little longer, and then it'll be the time to fix this. And then you're looking back. And it's five years down the road, it's 10 years down the road, it's 30 years down the road. And this has been your life, right? It's been a life where you've been settling a life where you've been feeling disconnected, a life where your partner and you have become like the biggest thing dragging each other down. Rather than the biggest thing, lifting each other up. And like it really, you know, at the end of the day, like best case scenario, we just keep putting off these problems and putting off these problems and just being in this suffering. We wind up settling, we wind up settling for ourselves for a life that we don't want, we wind up settling for our partners, being miserable, we wind up wasting our lives at the end of the day, being unhappy in our relationships in our lives. And, you know, like living less than we ever imagined or wanted for ourselves or the people in our lives. Anything you wanna throw into that.

Cassie 19:30
Just that for the most part, we end up losing a lot of the opportunities to have the life with our partners that we wanted. Right? Like there's this idea that we have like all of us if we take a second we think about like what it is we really want with our partners. We have this ideal, right? And then we spend all of our time not making that happen and putting that off All right, and we've lost all of that, you know, some of the clients that we've had who are older, you know, one of the things that they constantly say is, I wish I would have done this 10 years ago, because it's not the fact that we were just unhappy. But that's 10 years of missed opportunities that we had, we had 10 years of, of missed opportunities to be happier, to be connected to be passionate to have fun, right? And now that's gone, you can't get time back. Right? Like, that's one resource that like, no matter what you do, you don't get to get back last year.

Josh 20:41
Oh it's, you know, it's all the shitty vacations and all the holidays that, you know, everybody was unhappy at. And, you know, like, kids didn't even want to be there. And it's all of those things. Right? And you're right, like, you can't get those opportunities back. And then the other thing, too, that is in this process, right? And this is the problem is we're going through this, and most of the time, we're going through this because again, we're like, well, we have all these other things that we were focusing on right now, right? Like, we want the promotion, like or money's tough, or, like I said, you know, we're trying to do this thing with the house or whatever the hundreds of things are, right. And the problem is also that in this, when your relationship, your relationship, supposed to be the biggest place, like I said, that is lifting you up, right, you're supported, it's making you happy, it's allowing you to show up as your best to the other things in your life. And the problem is that when you are miserable in your relationships, like when your home is a place of you know, conflict rather than refuge, and you're just unhappy and dragging through life, it winds up tearing down everything else that you're trying to do anyways. I can't tell you how many people I talked to who it's like, well, you know, like, money's a problem right now. It's okay. Well, let's, you know, talk about what's going on. It's like, well, you know, I've, you know, I've been having these relationship problems, like I haven't able to show up, I haven't been able to, you know, I've been getting like my boss has noticed I'm slacking off at my job, right? I'm not, especially when people are like self employed or like, work with people. Like, go ahead.

Cassie 22:30
I mean, I just had someone that I talked to, you know, before who like, they were like, I literally lost a project, because I wasn't able to get it done. Like I was, I was too distracted, I lost this project. And this is something that I've worked on for four months, thinking that it was going to be my income for the next six. And I just lost it.

Josh 22:51
I had somebody who lost a massive-- he was like entirely performance based and just lost a massive amount of money in like inside, like a month, like his income went from like, pretty well to like zero. And but it's not just that, right? It's not just stuff at work. I mean, it's, you know, when you're showing up exhausted, and miserable, and like wondering what the point is, and caught up in your own head. Nothing, none of those other things that you're working on in life are thriving, like you're not showing up as the best parent to your kids, you're not showing up to those things that you're volunteering for as well. Right. Like I said, like the money stuff definitely becomes a problem. Like all those other things that we're working on, wind up being dragged down. And then the other piece of this too, folks, and this is what I find most people aren't thinking about in this is that our relationships aren't standing still, like they're just not standing still waiting for us like staying on this like plateau, plateau, plateau, plateau plateau?-- waiting for us to heal things. Do you want to talk about relationship inertia for a second?

Cassie 23:55
I mean, I feel like you explained it better.

Josh 23:57
Okay.

Cassie 23:57
So...

Josh 23:58
So relationship inertia is this idea that our relationships are never sitting still, right? If you look at your relationship, they're never sitting still, they're either getting better or they're getting worse, right? You're either you know, you're putting in the work and the effort and things are going well, and they're improving or they're going downhill. And the other the thing with inertia, right? And relationship inertia is this idea that the further we get in one direction, the more inertia we build, the harder it becomes to change course. So you all can think of like a time in your relationship where everything was amazing, and like you guys are just getting along amazingly well and like you're in love, you're passionate, your connection, and your partner did something stupid, that like were you in a worse mood or worse plays with them might have been a huge problem. But because, you know, you're going pretty well, you know, and things are good. Like you can give them the grace and the compassion around it understand this is out of character, and kind of overcome that and the relationship just keeps moving up in the right direction. Right. Whereas, you know, when you're way down here, you know, there's things that you can look at and you know, that normally would be fine. But like, you know, now your partner comes and says the right words with like a tone, that's two degrees off and you lose your shit. We all have experienced that. And the problem is the further and further that you get down. So there's kind of two parses that's important, right? One is, if our relationships are suffering, and we're not working on improving them than they are, by definition getting worse, right, so this is just like, our relationship is going to continue to stay the same for the next six, seven years. I mean, that would maybe suck enough if they did, but they're gonna get worse and maybe slowly, and maybe quickly, but they're going to get worse, right. And we're going to end up arguing more and being even more disconnected and more of that than we are now. And the other problem becomes that the further that we get down the scale, remember, the harder and harder it becomes to shifting back up in the other direction. So eventually get to a point where somebody's tapped out, or hopeless, or starting to wonder like, Okay, well, would it be better? Like, would my life maybe look better, not here? And when you're at that place, kind of the the death bells are kind of ringing for the relationship. And this, this is the last piece again, we're talking about not having all the time in the world, is you don't have all the time in the world, because at some point of relationship gets bad enough. It's just not going to be there anymore.

Cassie 26:16
Yeah, and often, and this is a thing that, like us, humans really think that we are more aware than we are, okay, like, even the most like, in tune with our emotions, folks. We don't always know what the like straw is that breaks the camel's back, we're not fully aware of like, when that's about to happen, like when things build and build and build and build, we get to a place where we're like, well, we don't know when that is, and then we're like, it's now right, like, it ends up being that conversation, where you're standing there and that you talked about the tone being just slightly off. That thing might be it might not, it might be the, you know, the little spat that we have, it might not. And it comes without us, even recognizing it, like without us even knowing that that is the thing. But eventually, that's where you get right when you're building up this, this negative kind of I see inertia is sort of like a snowball, either it's a snowball moving in the upward direction or the downward, right? When it's building and building and building, eventually, you get to that place where it breaks.

Josh 27:33
Well, and like I said, like, we have this idea of relationship gonna be there forever. And it's not just losing the people in that way. Like at the end of the day, relationship gets to a certain point where we're not taking care of and things getting worse, we're isn't going to be there. And like, we all like to think that with the exception of this, but you know, the truth of the matter is, you know, this country, all right, divorce rates, like 50 plus percent reverse marriages, 65% for second 73%, something like that for the third. And that's just divorces. And most of the time, people who are married, like there's more intwined of them together, it's harder to separate, right. So just the rate of people just breaking up is obviously higher than that. But and yet, somehow we think it's never going to be us. Like we can just continue to coast along and argue and fight, and you know, to be miserable, and watch people crying themselves to sleep and to, you know just keep getting more and more disconnected and people getting unhealthy. And now they can't show up at work. And they're going through life and they're depressed. And they're, and we think it's just gonna be there forever. And it's not like there's always a breaking point. Right? And you know, we're not in the space here, of you know, that people are not monogamous as a general rule, like we're building lives outside the box, you know, you're not in a space where people are just going to stay together in a relationship that is ripping them to pieces for the rest of their lives. Because God told them to, right, which has its own obviously, huge set of problems anyways. But, you know, most of us, like there's only so much that is sustainable, before relationship breaks. And like Cassie said, you don't know when that point is going to be. So you know, the biggest problem with treating relations, like they're always going to be there isn't that our partners are going to die before their time, they're going to be stuck where we're at. Right? I mean, that obviously can happen. And it isn't that. I mean, it is that going through life and settling and wasting all that time is a huge deal. But it's also that our relations aren't always going to be there. Because eventually if we neglect them, and mistreat them and let the problems run out enough, somebody is going to break. And I can't stress enough what you said, which is what we see over and over and over again, is people don't actually understand where that point is. People always think they have more time than they do or less time and usually they think they have way more time than they do. Right. And then it's like one day, one conversation, somebody finally hits that point of hopelessness, where like, they just aren't willing anymore and now it's done.

Cassie 29:53
And the other thing else happen here is not only are you not familiar with where you're at, as a coach, I can say this with so much confidence, you usually have no idea where your partner is, like, you really don't. I can't tell you how many people we talked to where they're like, Yeah, my partner, you know, they would never leave me. And then it's like, well, they just talked about separating, like, where did that come from? Like, not only are you not necessarily aware of your breaking point, you are definitely not aware of where your partner's is.

Josh 30:31
All right. So here's the thing, your relationship, your relationships always are in a place where if you want them to thrive, they need time, they need care, they need effort, they need to be important. You can't put them on the back burner. Actually, the truth of the matter is, you can never put your relationships on the back burner and have them thrive, even when things are good. So I have this bonsai tree, that somebody got me for my birthday last year, I think they thought it would get me to like calm down, to have something like that to take care of. And, you know, this bonsai, it doesn't matter how good a care I take of it, how healthy it is, how well it's doing. If I ever, you know, ignore it, I forget to water it and put it outside at the wrong time. Whatever, I neglect it. The thing starts to shrivel and it will die. And I came very close to killing it actually here recently.

Cassie 31:29
We went on training.

Josh 31:29
Yeah, we went we went on training and I forgot to have somebody look after it and things almost dad I had to anyways.

Cassie 31:35
It's in a much better place now.

Josh 31:37
It's in a much better place now.

Cassie 31:38
It is more green and fluffy...

Josh 31:40
It is.

Cassie 31:40
It took a lot of care and work to bring it back.

Josh 31:42
Yes, took a lot of a lot of care and work. And even when things are good, you can never neglect your relationships. But this is doubly true when you're struggling, right? Because again, the further down that road we go, the harder it gets to turn that around. And you know, the people that we see who succeed and overcoming challenges in their relationships. They're the ones who not only do they not backburner their relationship, but they make healing those problems and overcoming those challenges and getting their family back to like a safe and secure place the priority. And, you know, doing that makes sense. Because at the end of the day, everything else aside, our relationships are the most important things in our lives.

Cassie 32:28
Yeah, this is one of the real, really one of the biggest principles that we teach our clients is that recognition, our relationships, impact everything else. You know, we talked we talked about this a little bit before, but our relationships impacts how we show up to our jobs, they impact how we are as parents, they impact our health, our physical health, not just our mental health and our physical health. Our relationships impact every piece of our lives because they're connected to every piece of our life.

Josh 33:03
So the longest running study on human happiness was done by Harvard. And what they determined is that, you know, when people are sitting back, and you're looking at what makes a good life, right, and the people who are the happiest, kinda when they're coming to the end of it all. It isn't about class, it isn't about, you know, like physical markers, like blood pressure, it isn't about any of this stuff, right. It's about how much money somebody had, at the end of the day. Just scientifically, when you're looking back at somebody's life, what most determines how happy somebody is, is the relationships that they had. When I say, you know, our relationships are the most important things in our lives. I'm not just saying that, because that's what we believe here personally, I mean, it is. And also scientifically, you know, your relationship really has the biggest impact your relationships really have the biggest impact on your happiness and fulfillment in life.

Cassie 34:07
And that study, the fun, the really fun, interesting thing about this study is, as well as determining what makes you the happiest in life. It also determines how long you live, like those who are the healthiest people tend to be the ones who have the best relationships. And those two things coincided through the study. So it really is important. It's not just saying, Oh, our relationships are important, but really understanding that our relationships have this huge impact on everything else.

Josh 34:43
And I want to kind of spin this on its head because like I said, the way we tend to look at as oh we'll backburner the relationship, we'll focus on these other problems, then we're really suffering those other problems because when we're suffering in our relationships, we aren't showing up the way that we want to in anything else. But when you're in a spot where you choose and you recognize you how important the people that you have and you have are to you, and you decide to make healing, whatever the challenges are in the relationship a priority and getting to a spot where people are happy, and people are healthy, including yourself. Right? All of a sudden, solving those other challenges becomes a lot easier. You know, if you're in a place where you're let's say, you're trying to increase your income, I'm using just a purely hypothetical thing here for a minute, but you're trying to increase your income. And, you know, like, you're going for this promotion at work, and you're working towards that. How much easier is going to be to get that promotion, if you're in a spot where, you know, you're, when you're at work, like you're present, you're focused, you're not sending like 100 angry text messages on your phone, you're not like caught up in your head about, you know, is my relationship going to be together, you're not having a call out sick, because your relationships so bad that you're in a spot where you can't even get out of bed and come in. When we do put, you know, this is that thing of putting the big rocks first, when we do put our relationships in a sense of priority. And then we heal the things around and we have relationships where we're loved and connected and supported and thriving. And like I said, home is a refuge. And we're not feeling sick or caught up in our head or worried or anxious, or all of those things. All the other things that we're doing in life, we have an easier time succeeding at, right, we're better parents, we show up better to work. We're better students, we all have those other things, you know, those challenges become easier to solve and actually kind of become more solving. Right? Because when you're, I mean, like having a promotion is great. You know, but if you're going to spot where like you're having a promotion. But you know, now what you get to do with that promotion is pay child support and alimony at not It's not not really good. Right? You know, you go ahead.

Cassie 37:08
You build a house, and you have no one in it.

Josh 37:09
Oh my god, I've seen that so many times.

Cassie 37:11
And I mean, it sounds really harsh. But we talked to folks all the time that were like, you know, we were just trying to finish that addition on the house.

Josh 37:22
Or we're building our dream home.

Cassie 37:23
Or we're building our dream home.

Josh 37:24
Or renovating that bus we're going to drive around the country in.

Cassie 37:27
Yeah, like these are, these are true things that happen. And now no one's living in it, no one's no one's taking that trip, no one's enjoying...

Josh 37:37
One person is until they sell it because they can't afford it with somebody else living somewhere else.

Cassie 37:41
So it's all these things that were like, you know, while we're doing this thing to be together, but if you're not together, you never actually succeeded them anyway.

Josh 37:52
And here's the other thing I want to throw out here, right is like, Listen, guys, I'm totally down for, you know, I'm not opposed to physical things, like in any stretch. I mean, you want to have the house. And I mean, you know, I want you to thrive in every area of life, you know, you would have the house or you know, the bus to drive around in or the promotion or whatever, like, kudos to you, that's awesome. And, you know, I hope you get it. And the truth of the matter is, you know, for all of us, most of us in our head, like those things are means to an end, right? We don't want the house to be empty, we don't want the promotion to be making money not to share with anybody, right, we don't want to be able to take the vacations by ourselves, you know, at the end of the day, we want to be in a spot where we can do that and share those experiences those benefits with the people we love. And at the end of it all, you know, when you're sitting there, and you're coming to the end of your life, you know, it isn't really about you know, the house or the car, or how many degrees you had, or you know, where you gotten your job or any of that, right, it's about who's there with you, and the experiences that you had and the impact that you had on the people around you. So yeah, like make fixing the relationship a priority, stop putting them on the back burner. And the rest of the stuff I don't want to say will work itself out because it won't work itself out. But it will get easier and not only will get easier, you will actually have the people that you love and care about they're with you when you get those things. Anything else you want to throw in Cassie?

Cassie 39:28
No, I think that's about it. Cool.

Josh 39:31
So here's the other piece of this, folks, if you're in a spot where you are ready to stop putting your relationships on the backboard and you're listening to this, you're like, yeah, like I do want to make fixing this the priority I do want to make getting out of the arguing or the fighting or the jealousy or the insecurity or, you know, getting to a spot where we're all feeling loved and connected and I have the relationship that we all signed up for at the beginning. You know if you're ready to stop putting your relationships on the back burner and you're ready to start making it a point I already book a call with us like, because, you know, deciding to make it a priority is the first step. And the second piece of that is okay. Now how do you actually fix it though, because obviously, it was easy, you would have done it by now. Right? And we help people you know, who are struggling, they're non monogamous relationships, you know, even if it's bad, even if they're on the edge of breaking up, even if they don't see a path. Every day, we help folks who are in their shoes, navigate out of that and completely turn the relationship around and get to a spot where they are connected. And it is a loving, and they do have the relationship that they had 10 years ago, 15 years ago, or 20 years ago. And you know, happy to talk to you about that, and what that looks like in your relationships. So what you can do with that is you can go to atouchofflavor.com/talk, okay? Like, every time I do this, I have to like scoot my head up atouchofflavor.com/talk, it'll take you to our calendar. Go ahead, grab a time that works for you. You got a little application, fill that out has some info that we need to prepare for our call. And we'll get on at the time that you pick one of us or somebody on our team. And we'll dive in and figure out okay, you're ready to make your relationship a priority now how do you actually do that? Right and have that relationship that you want. Alright, so like I said, atouchofflavor.com/talk. And we'll help you with that. Anything else? Before we wrap up, Cassie?

Cassie 41:16
No. See you next show.

Josh 41:18
All right, everybody, have a fantastic week, and we'll see you soon.

Josh 41:26
Thanks for tuning into today's show. We release new episodes every week. So make sure to subscribe.

Cassie 41:32
If you're ready to transform your relationship and you'd like to see if you're a fit to work with us. Here's what I want you to do. Next, head over to atouchofflavor.com/talk and book an appointment to speak with our team. We'll get on the phone with you for about an hour. And we'll get you crystal clear on three things. What's really not working in your relationships, what your dream relationships would look like and a step by step plan to close the gap and save your family even if nothing has worked before.

Josh 42:00
We talk with hundreds of non monogamous folks like you every year. And here's the truth, building loving, thriving relationships that doesn't happen on its own. You need expert guidance to make that happen. And unfortunately, when you are building relationships outside the box, that's impossible to find and we get it. But that's exactly what we do. We've helped clients all over the world, save their families, get the passion back and become best friends again.

Cassie 42:24
So if you want to see if we can help you do the same head over to atouchofflavor.com/talk. I'm Cassie.

Josh 42:31
And I'm Josh. Let's talk soon.