Episode #135

No Matter What & CBT

Relationships are difficult.

Dealing with addiction and addictive behavior is difficult.

Dealing with both together can feel insurmountable.

Is there a key ingredient that can help a relationship last under seemingly impossible circumstances?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I discuss a psychological element that often gets overlooked.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie, and I'm a doctor of psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So I appreciate you being here with me and I hope you're all doing well. I'm going to start off as I usually do sharing an email from one of my listeners, which I always appreciate you guys reaching out. This one says,

“Hi, Dr. Osborn,

I've been listening to My CBT podcast for a year now and I find it very helpful in understanding my feelings and how CBT works. I know I've been struggling with mental health issues for a few years, but I've never seen a doctor for help. After listening to your podcast, I feel CBT can help me.

How do I find a CBT therapist? I remember you shared a website to search for CBT therapist in one of your episodes. I'm unable to find it now. Thanks for making this podcast. I'm sure it is improving thousands of people's lives. Thanks again. “

So as always, thanks for reaching out. The website that I had mentioned before, which is also on my website, which I'll talk about in a second, is called feelinggoodinstitute.com. Anywhere in the world, you can go onto this website. They have therapists all over the world. They're all, we're all CBT therapists trained under Dr. David Burns and his tools for CBT. When you go on the website, it'll say Find A Therapist, you click on that tab, all you have to do is put in your zip code and who's ever in your area, their names will show up and then you can decide who you want to reach out to you.

They can't reach you at all because again, it's just your zip code. So that would be the place that I feel comfortable referring people to. Again, I'm on that website as well because we're all trained and on my website, which is MyCognitiveBehavioralTherapy.com. You can find a lot of really great information about CBT.

You'll find more information about me and my practice. I have some videos, I have blogs, and this website that I'm talking about, My Feeling Good Institute, is also listed on one of my pages as a referral source. I also have a store now where I have some merchandise that you can look through, but on the bottom of my store page, you're also going to see the Mind Over Mood workbook that I talk about all the time, and also Feeling Great, which was written by Dr. David Burns, If you click on either of those, it'll take you straight to Amazon where you can order them. I just like having them on my website. Sometimes people are asking me which book to buy and they want to make sure they get the right one. So this makes it, you know, easy for you. So those are just some information pieces, but really finding a good CBT therapist is not easy, even though it is the most researched, most successful therapy for people out there, it's hard to find a true CBT trained therapist. I tell a lot of people, you know, when you are interviewing a therapist, ask them, you know, what their training is because a lot of therapists I have heard from clients that, you know, they said, Oh yeah, I do CBT. And then when they went, they didn't really do CBT. And a lot of people are really getting more educated, and that's what they're looking for, and then they end up coming to me, for example, and saying, you know, I'm really looking for a CBT therapist, and one hint is that you will always have homework.

There's no good CBT without homework, because the whole goal here, or one of the main goals, I should say, is that CBT therapy is not long term. You can get better pretty quickly. So you need homework in between to work on stuff in between your therapy. Right? You're not going to get better going to therapy even if you go once a week for 50 minutes talking to somebody and trying to learn the tools.

You've got to be working on this every day because our mental health is going on every single day. Those are just some ideas. If you have more questions, of course, if you're looking for a CBT therapist, you know, don't hesitate to reach out, but that's a good place to get started. So today I wanted to talk to you about, , Something in my life that, , has really benefited me in my marriage.

And, I think it's a really interesting concept. That's the word I want to use. I want to talk to you about a concept that, my husband and I have used before we even got married. And we feel like it was a really, a big game changer. And so I wanted to share this with you. If you're in any type of relationship that this might find helpful.

So to start the story, I'm going to tell you where it all came from. So, wow, like over 30 years ago we were driving my stepdaughter home and she lived in Northern California at the time I lived in Southern California and we saw that there was a. convention going on in San Francisco, so it wasn't too far away from where we were dropping her off that was called Recovering Couples Anonymous.

So, I've shared before with my husband's permission and I have a podcast on it is, that he's been in recovery for almost 32 years now. And, , we were really involved with the recovery program back then. He still is. We both used to go to, you know, I used to go to like, Al Anon meetings. He was, you know, involved in his 12.

We went to conventions. We were doing a lot of things. So when we saw this, we thought, Oh, recovering couples, that sounds really cool. So let's go check it out. I didn't really read about specifically what it was about, just kind of made some assptions. So anyways, we show up and we're sitting in a group and we realize that the majority of this convention really is for couples, where one partner is a sex addict.

And these are couples that have worked through it and we're working to stay together and so the concept they shared there was that They said to themselves the ones that chose, you know, they wanted to be together and work on things that no matter what They were gonna make this marriage work or this relationship so My husband and I were both I married before, so that was kind of a heavy concept to take in, you know, like no matter what, 'cause that's not what we used in our first marriages for many good reasons. But, , you know, we really listened to some, we thought, wow, that's really interesting no matter what. So I remember us going back to our room and just looking at each other going, is this something we could do? You know, so let me clarify what it means when I say no matter what, right?

So no matter what means, aside from, you know, domestic violence, any kind of abuse, if somebody does, you know, uh, practice alcohol, drug use, whether, you know, it's an addiction, it's a problem. , anything, you know, when you're in your safety is, you know, of course, you know, You know off the table that is not a no matter what and what that also falls into I want to say is that I Don't believe that marriage is a unconditional love type of relationship.

I know this is fantasy I think a lot of people have like oh, we love each other unconditionally My personal belief is the only unconditional love is between a parent and child Because I have conditions in my marriage as well as my husband and I'd want him to, right? So the conditions are, I mean, I mean, love you unconditionally, you know, I have expectations.

I have my needs that goes, you know, for both of us. So things have to be in a way that, you know, we're going to work together and work on things. But when we say that we're going to be together and work through no matter what, what that did for us is it totally took the fear. out of the marriage that I never worry about him leaving when we have a disagreement, if we're fighting about something, if we see things differently, right?

That, you know, even no matter how heated it may have gotten over the years, you know, I was never like, Oh my God, is he going to leave? Oh my God, what am I going to do? Do I need to be more passive? Do I need to hold my feelings in because maybe he'll get too upset and he won't stay, right? Like that's the fear that I think most of us have in relationships because most relationships out there aren't super healthy.

You know, some people have one foot out the door. Some people think a lot that, you know, divorce is an option where of course divorce is an option. Sometimes divorce is necessary. Trust me, right? So, you know, some people should not be together for sure. But my experience in meeting many people is that a lot of marriages, I think, are relationships.

When I say marriages, just keep it simple for the rest of the podcast. It's just a relationship. It doesn't mean you're legally married, whatever, whatever relationship you're in, right? That I think a lot of people could have worked out the relationship if they had gone for help way sooner when, you know, the bps were showing up.

Right. Most people show up to marriage therapy when they're in crisis, when one person's done. And I've had people say, Oh, we're here because you know, if we can't work it out here, we're getting divorced. And I am like, how long has this been going on? You know? And usually it's years. A lot of times it's before they even, you know, got married, if that's what they did.

That people kind of wait. They think going to marital therapy, couples therapy, like that's a failure if I'm ending up here instead of seeing it as something super proactive. Right. So I, so my, so my point is that a lot of relationships could be worked out given the tools. Most of us don't have tools, right?

So going into a relationship and making that commitment that, okay, we're in this no matter what, that means we're both committed that we're going to work it out. We're going to figure out a way. If we can't do it alone, we're going to go get some help. Right? We're going to read what we do, you know, we read, we're really into personal growth, obviously, right?

Me as a therapist, but, , he's in that with me, you know, we've always had the 12 step program in our marriage. , we read books, we've gone to, you know, conventions together. We've got to see speakers, you know, really into personal growth, growing our marriage. You know, we change, we're going to be married 30 years this year and you know, we've changed over the years, right?

We've each grown, we've each gone through different things. We've parented our children. I mean, there's so many life situations and aspects that you go through in a relationship that you're always working on it. And I think that's a good thing. You know, I mean, some people are like, Oh, I got to work on it, but it's not a negative.

It said, yeah, we're working on it to keep us happy and love, , wanting to be together, growing, learning new things, you know, all that good stuff. But. We were never afraid that one of us was going to leave. And as I've shared also with my personal, you know, issues and situations in life that, you know, my core issue was I was afraid I was going to be abandoned.

Cause that was my experience that I went through with my mom and my dad divorcing and my mom leaving. And so I didn't know it right for a long time, but I had this fear of abandonment. So I really needed. To have somebody who I knew was going to stick it out with me through good and bad No matter what we were going to figure it out So it was like a game changer for us when we were at this convention, you know and looking at…

You know any addiction is serious sexual addiction is really serious and the stories and the pain These couples went through you know, I was a very young therapist back then I don't think I you know, I was still In graduate school, actually. So, , I was a social worker. I was doing therapy and I remember thinking, wow, what these people have gone through and the stress of the situation and they've, they've chosen to work it out and put the work in and said, no matter what, we're going to work it out.

And you know what? I have never heard that concept anywhere else ever. I've never read it anywhere. I've never heard in any other meetings like that was the, only place I've ever heard that concept. And I've even had like some, uh, some feisty conversations with people that are like, what do you mean no matter what, or, you know, that divorce isn't an option for you.

You know, people get really defensive because I think they want to think like, I'm not stuck. You know, I want to have an out and yeah, we're never stuck. I don't feel stuck. You know, I choose to be in this relationship, but this is the way we're going to go forward. And, you know, to get in that fear place.

Which I'm assing a lot of you guys can relate to because I've been there myself, like, Oh my God, is this the end of the relationship? Is this the argent we can't get through? Is this the deal breaker? Right? When you're fearful in a relationship, there's no way you can be your authentic self. Right? And so many people have this fear of abandonment.

I think, This is just my personal opinion. I have no research on this. But I think, The nber one core issue for most people is this fear of abandonment. So this fear of abandonment is so many different aspects, right? It's, it, you can be with somebody, but feel emotionally abandoned. You can be physically abandoned, right?

, you know, so many different ways. Abandonment doesn't mean the person's actually gone from you, but I meet so many people when we get down to the core issues. Abandonment is so, so common. So common. So we're going to, if we don't deal with that, if we don't even recognize it, cause it took me most of, you know, my, I didn't really recognize it.

So I was like late twenties that that was my issue that was causing all the problems I was going through in relationships and even understand that, right. We're going to carry it through our lives until we address it. It's like a ball and chain around our ankle. So with that being my issue, Right. I was always finding people that were abandoning me and it was not a, no matter what, we're going to work this out.

So for me and my husband to be on the same page and to make that agreement, right. Saying that no matter what we're going to work this out, just gave both of us the freedom to be who we are and really to have the marriage that we have today that I'm really grateful for. And. We will always carry that throughout our entire marriage because it has really worked for us.

And again, I know it can be scary because a lot of us want to run, right? Or we don't want to go through that pain or do the work. But I'm telling you, it's really, really worth it if you can be brave enough. And, you know, even if you're in a relationship already, it's not too late to have a discussion about this.

You know, If you're holding back in your relationship because you're afraid, , you're going to trigger your partner. You're afraid they're going to get too angry. You're afraid you're not going to be able to communicate through it. , you've asked your partner to go to therapy and they just won't go.

You know, if you're feeling stuck like it's not going to move forward and you're not allowing yourself to be your authentic self, I'm guessing you're probably not very happy either. Because when we're not ourselves and we don't honor who we are within our relationship, we're not going to be happy. Your job is not to make the other person happy.

Your job is not to manage their feelings, right? We can be there for our partners to support them and help them and maybe guide them sometimes when they feel lost. But each of us have to be responsible for our own mental health basically, right? If we're struggling, if we're not handling things right, we need to own that and work on that.

If you're in a relationship where you feel like you're managing your partner's feelings, you know, if you're always making sure or trying to make them happy, if you're not bringing up topics cause you're like, Ooh, they're going to get angry. Or last time we talked about this, it didn't go well. You know, don't just dishonor yourself by being quiet and unhappy and staying with somebody in that situation.

Because you think there's no other options when there really are. There are lots of options. And again, most of us don't know what a good relationship looks like because I think, you know, most of us didn't have great role models. There are some out there, so I'm not insulting anybody, but you know, divorce is what, 50 60%?

We're not seeing good role models there. You know, why, you know, did my parents relationship end? Some of us don't even know that answer to be honest, right? But we maybe saw them fighting. We saw them arguing. We didn't see them make up. We didn't see good communication skills. So whatever we saw, trust me, you're going to be bringing into your relationship.

Right. And then there's more failure there sometimes. So meeting failing to be able to communicate or, , you know, find that happiness that you're looking for. Yeah. And whatever happiness is to you, again, that's a personal thing and we're all looking for different things. But I'm just saying that I wanted to share this, I just was, you know, sharing this with another client recently.

I thought, you know, I've never done a podcast and this is such a huge part of my life. You know, this is a value and a belief that I live by in my marriage. And we've never questioned it from day one when we were able to make that commitment to each other and say, yeah, well, you know what, let's go forward with this type of thinking and let's see where things go.

It gets us and let us remind ourselves that when we get in that fear mode Because it's not our fear doesn't kick up right or have that thought like, you know what? I just want to run right now I want to get in my car and drive away. I don't want to go back home. I don't want to deal with this I'm exhausted and you know, yada yada yada right a million things to you know be able to say Okay, that's not what I need to do with this person Doesn't mean I have to talk about it at this moment.

Maybe I say my partner like, Hey, I need a day, an hour, you know, a week. I need to think about the situation before we can have a good conversation. If we have a therapist, you know what, let's call our therapist and make an appointment. You know, I don't have to deal with it right now, but I don't need to run away and make things worse.

Right. Or I don't need to go You know, I used to eat when I was stressed, or I don't need to go have a drink, or I don't need to go shopping. I don't need to go and do some behavior that's not healthy because I'm avoiding this uncomfortableness. Because my thought is like, it's not going to work out. We're not going to be able to fix it.

We've been here before, right? Those are all your thoughts that are making you anxious and makes you avoid addressing the situation. So, you know, Instead, you want to say, yeah, I'm having all these thoughts, all this scary stuff's coming up, these uncomfortable feelings. A lot of this is from my past, maybe some things I didn't resolve, but you know what?

This is my partner that I actually know I can trust and we've made a commitment that no matter what, we're going to work things out. So we just got to figure out what that's going to look like for this particular situation. If you are open to marital therapy, I think it's a great resource. You know, we've been to someone in the past and the nice thing is if something comes up, you can call that therapist and they know your story already.

I have a lot of clients that'll call me up and be like, do you remember me? You know, it's been, you know, three, four years. I'm like, yeah, I remember you. And they come in and they don't have to go through all their history and start a whole new relationship. And we can just say, Hey, what's going on? Yeah. I remember all these people in your life.

So, you know, having a marital therapist is great. Also, Which I've talked about before is, you know, if your partner won't go, you can still go and have a lot of success because in each relationship, it's going to come down to what are each of you doing because your behavior affects other people around you, right?

So with your relationship, it's kind of what came first, the chicken or the egg sometimes. So if I change how I communicate, maybe how I behave, how I approach my husband, what's going to be a better way to have him hear what I'm saying? He's going to react differently to me as well. So you don't have to have your partner in therapy with you to make changes in your relationship.

So it's not a black and white, a lot of people are like, well, he won't go, so we're not going to go or she won't go, so we're not going to go. I'm still going to go and I'm going to see what I can learn and I'm going to learn these CBT tools and these communication skills and see where that can take me.

So I know one podcast, it might not sink in of this, like no matter what, but just to kind of reiterate what I'm sharing is that in my marriage, we made a commitment to each other that no matter what, aside from, you know, violence, unsafe behaviors, right? That we are going to work out whatever comes up and that's allowed us to not have any fear in our relationship.

And it's allowed us to be authentic and vulnerable. And be able to find ways to always work through what's ever come up in our marriage. Right? And, and every good marriage, no matter how happy how in love you still are, you have gone through things and that's why you probably are happy and still in love, right?

That your conflicts can help you grow. Your conflicts can help you be closer to each other. You know, look at them as opportunities for the marriage to even get better. Right? Instead of like, Oh my God, Oh my God, you know, with this argent, I can't, everything's an opportunity to make things better, to do it different, to say like, you know what?

I got some tools now, right? I've been listening to my CBT podcast, like this last listener that wrote me for a year, right? I've been doing this four years. Now you guys, there's a lot of information that I give you guys a lot of tools that you can use on an everyday basis to change your relationship. to change how you are in the relationship for you to get honest with yourself and say, what problems am I causing?

How could I do things better? Could I sit down with my partner and say, Hey, let's listen to this podcast. Dr. Julie did. What do you think about what she's saying about no matter what, can we trust each other enough to get to that place? It's really a beautiful place to be. And I'm grateful for it every single day, every single day.

So I'd love to hear your feedback on this. Any questions, any experiences, if anybody else has heard this somewhere, again, I am grateful we went to that Recovering Couples Anonymous convention. As far as I know, Recovering Couples is not around anymore, which is too bad, but it was a place that we were supposed to show up and it was a group we were supposed to be in, because it was definitely a game changer for us.

That's for sure. That's for sure. And I know it can be a game changer for you if you choose it to be right. First thing is I'm in a safe relationship. I'm in a relationship where I can trust that my safety is not an issue and I'm with somebody that wants to work on things and that we love each other and we have our best intentions.

So how can we make this even better?

So I hope you found this helpful. I hope we found it intriguing. I hope you're thinking a little differently, right? And I know I didn't get into all the specifics with CBT this time, but if you know me well enough for my podcast that you know, what are the CBT is all of these thoughts, right? I mentioned a little bit, but all the thoughts I'm having that keep me from really committing or really, you know, going in 110% to really make this the best relationship I can have because that's really what I want for myself and I deserve that and by doing that I'm honoring myself that all the CBT tools I've taught you guys it's all woven in because to make that commitment no matter what really goes down to my belief in my values of what kind of marriage did I want and do I have today and that's all about our CBT tools and that we the way with that we live our life.

So, please share this with anyone you think might benefit.

Again, you guys know where to find me at my website I mentioned earlier at MyCognitiveBehavioralTherapy.com.

You can also find me on Instagram under MyCBTPodcast and Dr. Julie Osborn on Facebook.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. I love hearing from you and getting your feedback. Please hit the Subscribe button to make sure you don't miss an episode.

And remember, I got some fun merchandise on my website now, a lot of fun things that you can purchase along your journey of your CBT tools and making your life even better. You can find them at mycbt.store.

And as always, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.