Episode 132: The Quiet Quit

 Welcome to the Loving Truth Podcast, where it's all about finding clarity, confidence, and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host relationship expert and certified master life coach, Sharon Pope. Hello, loves. This is Sharon Pope and this is The Loving Truth. Today I'm going to introduce a concept to you that I refer to as the Quiet Quit.

But before we get to what that concept is, I first wanna talk about why we avoid having the hard and difficult conversations inside of our relationships. And when I talk about difficult conversations, what I'm referring to is the upsets inside of our relationship. Those places where we hurt each other, or the places where.

Our needs aren't being met, and we need to be able to express that in a way to our partners that they can receive and want to meet that need. So when I refer to hard conversations or difficult conversations throughout this conversation. That's what I'm referring to. So I first wanna begin with why we avoid having those conversations and then also what happens when we do that.

And the reason why I think that this is so important, and I wanna introduce the concept of the Quiet Quit, is because I think it is the precursor for why most marriages ultimately end when we talk about why did a marriage end? Like someone gets a divorce and you say, well, what happened? Well, typically we answer that from a place of what has been happening for the last call it year or two, just before the divorce.

We don't think about what was leading up to that, and this, I think, is that precursor that leads up to the place where divorce can become the only real answer. But if we can catch it earlier, we might have a different answer. So first of all, why do we avoid having these challenging conversations where we bring our pain to our partner and try to find a solution or make amends in some way, or the the challenging conversations where we disagree on something.

And we need to find some middle ground or some consensus so that we can move forward. Or there's a need that's not being met in my relationship that I need to be able to communicate to my partner, right? Those are all the challenging conversations. So why do we avoid them? Why do we avoid all the tough stuff?

Let's go through the the reasons. The first one is because we have a fear about our partner's reaction. Now that reaction or that fear is a result of the way our partner has responded in the past. So it's probably come from experience, and that can look like pulling away and becoming more distant. It can look like using the silent treatment as punishment, which by the way, folks don't do that.

It is horribly passive aggressive and terribly unproductive, and it's one of the leading indicators of divorce. So don't use the silent treatment as punishment. We can do better. It might be a fear that my partner's gonna get angry, they might even show rage. Well, that can be terrifying, right? Of course, that's gonna shut you down and make you feel fear and not wanna bring up a topic.

If you think about why people do that. Like you bring up a topic or a challenge in the relationship and then the person gets really angry and then you shut down. Well, they're using that as a tool so that they don't have to deal with or talk about whatever it is you're bringing up to the, to be challenged inside their relationship.

They don't wanna talk about it, so if they get angry enough, then, then you might shut down and then we don't have to deal with it. Right. It's actually kind of a manipulative tool. Your partner might rationalize or make excuses or minimize your feelings and say, ah, this isn't that big of a deal. You're overreacting.

They might blame you. You might have a fear that they're just gonna turn it around and blame me, or they're just gonna deny it. So why even, why even bother having that conversation? So our partner's reaction is probably one of the biggest reasons why we won't bring upsets into the relationship. I.

Another reason might be because we're afraid that we don't wanna hurt our partner's feelings. Like let's take an example of, let's say that you want to have sex with your partner. You just don't like the sex that you're having with your partner. Like maybe it's like the same book you've read a hundred times, and so now you just could sort of take it or leave it.

That can be an awkward conversation if you don't know how to navigate that. And so you're not trying to hurt their feelings and you don't know how to have that conversation, so you just don't bring it up. You just don't say the thing that needs to be said. You just keep coming up with excuses on why you don't wanna have sex, right?

Another reason is we don't wanna be a bitch. We don't wanna be unkind. That's what a woman would typically say. A man, particularly if they have more people pleasing. Um, in terms of, you know, they like to be seen as the hero and the good guy and the one that everyone loves. Well, he may not bring up difficult conversations because he wants to be seen as the hero and the good guy.

You may not bring up difficult conversations 'cause you don't wanna be perceived as a bitch, but it's all about perception of. By other people and including your partner, but also yourself, like how you perceive yourself is an important part of that conversation. Another reason why we would avoid difficult conversations is because we don't feel equipped to have.

The difficult conversation if we don't feel confident that we know how to start the conversation and how to navigate it and how to move through it and what we want as an outcome. On the other side, not feeling confident is automatically going to lead to us being more passive inside of our relationships.

And so it's one of the things that I'm super passionate about inside my membership program is just equipping people to be able to. Have these challenging conversations and navigate them well, because I think that when you increase how equipped you are in terms of relational capabilities, the fear about doing the difficult stuff goes down.

It's like this inverse relationship. Another reason this is a big one that we will avoid having these difficult conversations is because they feel uncomfortable. They're called difficult conversations 'cause they're difficult, right? So most of human beings, most human beings, we don't like being uncomfortable, do we?

Right? So every time something gets uncomfortable, we're like, oh, stop, quit. We just freeze. And we do that over and over and over again. Whenever we get outside of our comfort zone, oh, that doesn't feel good. Stop. Quit pump the brakes. We try something, we're moving towards something new. It gets uncomfortable.

Stop pump, the brakes quit. Right? We don't like being uncomfortable, and so we practice not getting outside of our comfort zone. And so when you're getting ready to have a difficult conversation or bring up something challenging in the marriage, that's outside of your comfort zone. So what are you gonna do?

Pump the brakes. Don't do that. Quit. Give up, don't do it. Right. And so it never gets done because my friends, whatever you practice, you're going to become better at. And so if we practice quitting every time we get uncomfortable, we're going to get better at it. And some of us have just gotten really, really good at quitting every time something gets uncomfortable and it's not serving us.

Now the last thing that I wanna bring up, and this is where a lot of people find their way to my work, is they will avoid having those difficult conversations because they've already given up, they've given up on the relationship, ever evolving into anything new. And so they just think, well, why bother trying?

Why bother having these conversations? I've tried to have these conversations so many times over so many years, and I've not had success. It's not gone well, so I just quit trying. Right. And that's what leads us into, when you avoid bringing up the challenging stuff inside of a relationship, over the course of years, what's going to happen is that we're going to shut down to our partners, we're gonna close our hearts to them.

We're gonna stop being open. Vulnerable and expressive with them, they're gonna stop being our person. What I mean by that is like, you know how like when something great happens, there's one person you think of calling first. That's your person. When something bad happens, they're the person that you want to be able to share it with and get some comfort from.

So we stop looking to them to be our person and we start building this kind of wall around us. I think of it like brick by brick. Of all the reasons why I don't feel safe with you, why I can't trust you, why you can't be my person. And we close down to our partners and that's when we do what I call the quiet quit.

We give up on the relationship ever evolving into anything new. But we don't tell our partners that we quit. And I know this intimately because it is exactly what I did in my first marriage. I. It was around eight years into that marriage that I very much wanted to have more affection between us and more connection.

Now, I didn't know how to do that. I didn't grow up in an affectionate household and neither did my husband. So he didn't know how to do it either, and he would try, and I didn't always, I wasn't always great at receiving it, be it. It just became awkward. And after a while I just said, you know what? This is too hard.

I just quit. I quit on the marriage ever evolving. I quit on it ever being something that would feel really good for me. And I just tried to talk myself into, you know what? There's enough other good things inside this relationship that I can just live without. Those things like affection and connection and it's not important and you know, you can lie to yourself for a couple years.

You can't lie to yourself for a lifetime that's not sustainable. And so those whispers of things that you need inside the relationship or hurts that need to be healed, just because we ignore them, it doesn't mean that they're healed. Like things that aren't addressed don't ever get healed. And problems don't go away just because we ignore them.

It becomes like a cancer inside of your marriage. And so this is what I mean by a precursor.

We stop having the difficult conversations and we start to check out of the relationship over time. And the disconnection between us grows and grows slowly over time until it becomes undeniable, very much like. When cancer begins to form in someone's body, we don't know that specific day that it began because we don't feel any different.

And then it starts to grow and it starts to take root and it starts to overtake other cells. And all of that can take years or a decade or more to happen. And you don't feel any different. You don't know that that is happening. And maybe you're so distracted with work and getting older and writing it off to, oh, it's just menopause or whatever, until it becomes undeniable and then you're like, I better go to the doctor.

I don't feel very good. And then the doctor gives you a cancer diagnosis because now it's undeniable. This is the same thing that's happening. If we had an alert on day one of like, cancer just started in your body, we would do something about it then. This is what's happening when we avoid those difficult conversations, when we're not expressing the hurts and we're trying to ignore them and pretend that they're just gonna go away over time, that's day one of cancer inside your marriage.

And the sooner we can get on top of that, the sooner we can potentially have a different outcome. So it's really, really important because when you don't pay attention to your relationship and you just quit on it. And you don't tell your partner that, Hey, I've given up on you. I've given up on us. I've given up on our marriage ever being something that's gonna feel really good to my soul.

We don't say any of that. We just quit and don't tell our partners and pretend that everything's fine when it's not fine under the surface. And so then what happens if we just play this out over the course of years is that you detach from your partner and you detach from the relationship. You probably start pouring your time and attention and energy into something else.

It might be something socially acceptable, like pouring your attention and time into your work or into your kids. It might be something mildly destructive. Self-destructive, like drinking too much or eating too much or spending too much, or it might turn into something really destructive like an addiction of any form because we don't wanna deal with the challenges in our marriage, so we just need to avoid distract ourselves and numb out.

We stop reaching for our partners. We stop taking risks inside the relationship. We stop being vulnerable with them, and we pretend that we're indifferent. We pretend that we really don't care. It's fine. It is what it is, right? We say things like that, and all the while what's actually happening that you don't even realize is happening is that you are grieving the loss of that relationship over the course of years.

You are going through stages of where there's anger and there's sadness, and then there's, there's bargaining of like, I can make this work. I know how to do this. No, I can't do this. How can I do this for the rest of my life? I Right. Bargaining. And then there's denial. Like, you know what? I should just be happy.

Like, I have so much, I'm so blessed. I should just be happy with what I have. I shouldn't need these other things. I shouldn't feel so upset. I mean that that thing happened years ago. I should've let go of it by now. How come I can't let go of it? 'cause I never dealt with it. And finally you get to a place of acceptance of this relationship is not ever going to be something that's going to feel good for me.

And that's when you start asking the question of maybe the only answer here is to end it. And that is when things get scary. Because as you are getting closer to that place of actually ending it, that's terrifying. 'cause then there's so many fears that come up and then the unanswered question becomes, can this be anything different?

Can this be turned around or turned into a new direction? Is there any hope or is the only answer to release it? See my friends, the earlier that we identify. The ways in which we're avoiding those difficult conversations, knowing how to start the conversations, how to navigate our way through those conversations, and knowing what we want and communicating what we want on the other side of it as an outcome is so, so important.

And the sooner we can identify this and predict it, then the lighter the lift and the easier it is. To be able to try to create a different outcome because if we just let the quiet quit run its course, this is only gonna end in one of two ways. We're either going to live like roommates for the rest of our lives, and I'm going to, in some ways, abandon and betray myself to, in order to do that, in order to stay in the marriage, but live like roommates or it's going to end.

So if you don't want either of those outcomes, then we have to deal with being able to have those hard conversations, be able to express our needs in a way that our partner can receive it, be able to bring up the ways in which we inevitably are going to hurt one another, and then being able to take accountability and responsibility and make amends where amends need to be made.

All right. Until next time, please take really good care. If you're listening to this podcast because you're struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you're serious about finding that answer, it's time to book a Truth and Clarity session with a member of my team. On the call, we'll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there's a fit for you and I to work together.

So you can make and execute the right decision for you and your marriage. Go to Clarity for my marriage.com to fill out an application now that's Clarity for my marriage.com.