Getting in Good Relationship Shape with Roy Biancalana
As if the divorce wasn’t hard enough, now it’s time to get back out into the dating world. But how do you know if you’re in good relationship shape? Luckily, Roy Biancalana from The Attracting Lasting Love Podcast dropped by to talk about learning how to figure out where you are mentally and getting back on track so you’re ready to date again. Roy has seven areas he talks about strengthening: Reality, your mind, feelings, the past, your truth, your energy, and love itself. He talks about the idea of finding someone who doesn’t necessarily complete you but with whom together you can share in your completeness, and he talks about the importance of dating yourself before messing up those dates with others.
It’s a powerful conversation about being open, honest, and vulnerable. Jump on in!
Links & Notes
Roy on Facebook
Relationship Bootcamp: Hard-Core Training for Life, Love & the Pursuit of Happiness
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Seth Nelson:
Pete.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Thanksgiving right around the corner. Halloween's behind us.
Pete Wright:
Oh, man.
Seth Nelson:
Trick or treating's over.
Pete Wright:
It truly is. And our sponsor this week, I wish they had some sort of a tool for candy overdose. I could have really used that.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I don't think you can eat into a Twix bar and then blow into Soberlink. That's not how it works, brother.
Pete Wright:
No, that's not how it works. But thank goodness it's around for us for those who are struggling with the alcohol abuse during the holidays.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. So if you haven't listened to the show and you're new, here's the deal. Soberlink is an amazing company and device. And what it is a small device that you can carry around with you. And at any time, you can blow into this device with facial recognition, and it will monitor whether or not you have any alcohol on your breath or in your system. So why is this important? It's important because one of the leading accusations in divorces, in child custody cases are one parent is "unfit" or an alcoholic and they can't properly care for the kids.
Pete Wright:
That's why we count on Soberlink, because Soberlink is such a powerful little device. It's a device you blow into. It has facial recognition. It knows it's you. If you have a history of alcohol challenge, right? If you have struggled with alcohol, you need this to prove that you are living your life in a way that keeps your kids safe. If you don't have a problem with alcohol, you need this device so that you can prove you don't have a problem with alcohol. Either way, the kind of realtime data that the Soberlink device collects is going to help you in your case. Right, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. And there's two things I want to point out here, Pete, is one, a lot of people will say, "I'm not an alcoholic, just because they say I am. Why do I have to do this?" You don't. You don't have to do this. Instead, you can spend a lot of time and money in court saying, he said, she said, and get all this other information into court and evidence, trying to show all the mistakes you've made in your life.
Whether they're true or not, they're going to be allegations. This is a way to wipe all that out, save attorney's fees, save cost. If it's that important that you need to drink over Thanksgiving and you're not willing to do this over Thanksgiving just to save all that money and spend time with your kids, then maybe there is a real issue.
So put your ego aside, save a lot of money, spend it on holiday gifts for the kids and not on the lawyer's kids' holiday gifts, blow in the device, prove that you're sober, and let's move on and get your great parenting plan. Let's get you some great time with your kids and focus on what's important.
Pete Wright:
Soberlink works so hard to keep kids safe and help you in the divorce process. Don't miss out on Soberlink's free guide for the upcoming holiday season. You can get it at soberlink.com/toaster. That's soberlink.com/toaster. Thanks to Soberlink for sponsoring this show.
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships, from True Story FM. Today, let's get your toaster in relationship shape.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everyone. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Today we're heading back out onto the field. That's right. You're ready to start dating again after the dust of the divorce has settled. But how do you do it? The landscape has changed dramatically in a very short time. So if you've been out of the game, it's time to learn the rules.
Roy Biancalana is a certified relationship coach and nationally recognized expert in the field of attraction and conscious relationships and host of his own show, the Attracting Lasting Love podcast. His latest book is Relationship Bootcamp: Hardcore Training for Life, Love and The Pursuit of Intimacy. And he's here to teach us how to get back in the game. Roy, welcome to the Toaster.
Roy Biancalana:
Oh, it's good to be with you guys. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Pete Wright:
Roy, so we're here to talk, ostensibly, about online dating. Our whole conceit here is that you've been divorced, let's just say the dust has settled enough that you're ready to get back into the field. But the field, I think, has changed. Is it even a field anymore? I've been married now 23, going on 24 years and I don't know that the field looks anything like it used to when I was there. And Seth is now engaged, remarkably enough.
Seth Nelson:
Shocking.
Pete Wright:
He's off the field. So we're-
Seth Nelson:
Pete, I am divorced and engaged, which means I've convinced two women to two actually marry me. And they're actually separate women. So I'm not married the same woman twice, because she's learned from that mistake.
Pete Wright:
But you are engaged to the same woman twice. So that's something.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. I've had one of those divorces and I had a fiance dump me and then I'm remarried. So yeah, I've had three.
Pete Wright:
You know something about the field, and that's what you're here to tell us about, to get us reacquainted with the field and what we need to do. How did you get into relationship coaching and to our conversation today?
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah, it's certainly never anything that I had any intention of doing. This was not a childhood dream. It wasn't even an adult dream.
Seth Nelson:
Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight.
Pete Wright:
I'm shocked.
Seth Nelson:
So when you're in like first grade [inaudible 00:05:49], what do you want to be? And people are saying firemen, policemen, sports-
Roy Biancalana:
Relationship coach.
Pete Wright:
Relationship coach, celebrated author.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, right.
Pete Wright:
Of relationship books.
Roy Biancalana:
No, it's something that kind of grabbed me. Here's the brief story. I was married for 19 years, and that relationship became kind of a platonic co-parenting functional relationship. We lost our sex life, we lost our attraction to each other, and that wasn't working for her. It wasn't working for me. So I initiated a divorce. And of course, the first mistake I made is I didn't take any time at that moment to maybe reflect on myself or do any work on myself. I just immediately rebounded into another relationship, which was the exact opposite. It was all sex.
And at the time, it was great for me because it had been so long. And so I was with her for like two and a half years, and we got engaged. And six months before the wedding, she broke up with me. And guys, that one destroyed me. I consider it to be like a year-long midlife crisis. I mean, I had heart palpitations, I couldn't sleep, obsessive thinking, I was a lousy father that year. My profession suffered. I was just a mess. And so mistake number two was I still wasn't convinced that I should work on myself.
Seth Nelson:
Just keep kicking that can down the road.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's right.
Roy Biancalana:
I just haven't found the right woman yet. Okay?
Seth Nelson:
That's got to be the problem.
Roy Biancalana:
That was my view. So I was in so much pain that I did the only thing at the time that I knew how to do. I don't recommend these things. Sometimes I joke with my clients, if you do the opposite of everything I've done in my love life, you're going to be just fine, because I've made every mistake you can possibly make. So at that moment, instead of maybe looking at myself a little bit, I was in so much pain that I just joined about four different dating sites. I just needed to find a new woman to help me forget the last one.
Now, I thought I was actually available to these women, but now that I reflect on it, I think I was using them to help me get over the last one. And so you can imagine the amount of drama that I caused because I'm there, meeting women and giving the appearance and even thinking myself that I'm actually available, I'm actually ready for something and to engage. And I really wasn't. I was still hurting and broken. I was still grieving. So it was just a nightmare. And right around then is when a friend of mine said, "Roy, maybe you should work with someone."
And really, at the time when he said that, I hate to admit it, but I was like, "Why? I mean, it's the women." It never really occurred to me that maybe I was a part of this. And it turned out I was the common denominator in all of these pictures.
Seth Nelson:
Roy, I hate to say this, I think you meant to say you were the lowest common denominator in this picture.
Pete Wright:
Well, this is this question though, what comes into this. And I think what I'm hearing is there is a point when you reach readiness for change, when you are willing to accept that it's time for you to change how you approach relationships, yourself, and these women. And you weren't ready at that point. So what was it that triggered you to get to the other side of that, to realize, "I can look inward and make some change"?
Roy Biancalana:
Some people get to the place where they're ready to change, and they seem to not need a lot of pain or suffering.
Pete Wright:
God, who are those people?
Roy Biancalana:
I tried everything else, and I was in so much pain. It was like, I need to talk to someone about what's going on with me.
Seth Nelson:
Let me back up here a minute, because I've always heard that before you get into a serious relationship after a divorce or after a long-term serious relationship, you need to wait about a year. And I tell people from the date of the final judgment, when you're actually divorced, you get the piece of paper, whatever you want to do in the next year, that's fine. But be true to yourself, be true to others, and tell them, "I'm just out here having a good time. I am not looking for a long-term relationship."
And if you're open and honest and vulnerable about that, I think it makes it easier, as opposed to saying, "Yeah, I'm looking to get back and be in a relationship." But I think having that communication, that's different than what you're talking about. You're talking about if you're ready to find a long-term, serious relationship, commitment on someone you're going to walk the earth with.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. Right. Well, first let me say, may your tribe increase in what you just described there. To me, it's not necessarily... I think a year is probably a nice timeframe, but it's more about what you do in the time once that divorce you say is final. It's like, what kind of work do you do of grieving, of learning, of taking responsibility, of facing issues in your life?
And that's the important thing. Because you could wait a year and still be blaming the bitch. You could still be. And I could wait 10 years and I'm still in a victim mindset, it's all her fault. But I think to do the kind of work we're talking about, to really learn and recover and be ready to really open your heart and go deep with someone and maybe make a life with them, probably a year after divorce would be good.
I didn't do that. I started with the other one before the other one was over. They sort of overlapped, I'm embarrassed to say, but it's the truth. So by the time I hired a coach, I was ready. I mean, my coach said, "I don't want to hear about the women. I just don't want to hear about what they did or they didn't do. I want to know if you want to put a mirror up in front of your face and look at yourself. If you want to do that, then I think something special can happen."
Pete Wright:
Up until that point, it's like every relationship that comes along is yet another gun with which to shoot yourself in the foot. And then, when you're not ready, you're just wondering, why am I hobbling around so much? I just keep screwing it up, and it's never really my fault.
Roy Biancalana:
That's a great way to put it. Another gun is going to shoot you in the foot, or worse.
Pete Wright:
Right. Well, so that's, I think, what we want to get to. The way you refer to it is interesting to me, and my hunch is it's not quite this systematized. It's not quite this process oriented, but what we're talking about is when you haven't been in a relationship that is other than with this one person for the longest time, and the habits and the rhythms and the patterns you've developed are with that person, how do you open yourself up to learning how to be emotionally and physically intimate again with a new person?
Roy Biancalana:
It's not systematized. And yet, as I reflect, and I've been working with people now for, well, almost 15 years, I have identified seven areas of our lives. Those areas need to be operating at a pretty high level if you want to create a healthy, sustainable connection with another human being. And so I kind of put the relationship discussion in sort of a fitness metaphor, and so I call them your seven relationship muscles. These muscles need to be strong if you're going to be ready for something real.
Pete Wright:
So let's run through them, just so we know what we're talking about. Can you set the table for us?
Roy Biancalana:
Well, the ones that you mentioned a couple right there. One of them is your relationship to your emotions, your emotional intelligence level. Most of us are not very good at handling our own emotions. We're not very good at communicating them in a way that can create a connection rather than drama and discord. And most of us are not very good at being present with somebody else's emotions, especially if they're being directed at us, because that's a huge issue.
Seth Nelson:
So emotional intelligence level.
Roy Biancalana:
There's a relationship I call a relationship with your mind. You got that voice in your head that judges and interprets. It makes things mean things. It's giving you advice. In my book, I talk that you have a relationship coach living in your head, and you need to fire them because they don't know jack. Our views on relationships and things are just based upon our past and our experience.
So when a person does something, we will interpret, okay, they haven't texted me for a few hours. They're dumping me. Well, why? Well, because the last one did that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's a story we just made up. Right.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, yeah. We tell ourselves stories.
Seth Nelson:
I've had this theory for a long time, is that people learn about relationships when they're in high school and college from other people that don't know about relationships.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, right. And from our parents who usually were just trying to do the best they knew how to do.
Seth Nelson:
And that's that coach in your mind that we're going to fire.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah, yeah. We come out of our lives with love stories. This is what intimacy and love and relationships... This is what they mean. This is how they work. Love is compromise, or love is you're going to be smothered, or love is power, or love-
Pete Wright:
Love is a convertible mustang, man. That's what I learned in high school.
Roy Biancalana:
Right. That kind of stuff. Right.
Seth Nelson:
Wait a minute, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's not? Whoa. Yeah.
Roy Biancalana:
So that voice in our heads, I mean, every zen teacher, every spiritual teacher, they're really identifying that that voice is the root of your suffering, because it's just making things up and-
Seth Nelson:
Getting in your way. All right. What's another muscle? I fired that guy. I'm done with that guy.
Roy Biancalana:
Well, yeah. Good for you. Good for you. There's one that I call your relationship to your inner truth. This is the communication area. We don't know how to reveal ourselves to people. We end up concealing, most of us, because we want to control a person's response or we're afraid of rejection or we don't want to have somebody judge us or we don't want to get ourselves in hot water.
We have a lot of redacting of our truth going on, so there's withholding, there's half truths, There's just this tendency to manipulate by what we say and what we don't. And so one of the keys of a healthy relationship is that you live out loud. You don't keep secrets. There's no withholding.
Pete Wright:
Sure. Because otherwise, the picture, this is where the first one was painting a story in my own head. What I'm doing in this area is I am painting a picture that I want somebody else to see of me. And that is my what experience, I guess, is telling me as we're talking about this, is that's not sustainable.
Roy Biancalana:
No. Because you're not really revealing that... You're trying to control somebody, really. You're coming from fear. Because you're afraid, we start to say certain things.
Pete Wright:
Like somehow I landed this person because of who they thought I was, so I better be who that person is forever.
Roy Biancalana:
And that's where we go in this conversation about communication, is it gets down to, in the very beginning, are you meeting someone and are you putting on a show? We all have a tendency to know things about us that you're probably going to like, and you probably won't like that I've got a temper, so I'm not going to show that to you. You probably won't like that I'm a little insecure or I can be a little needy or whatever my neurotic stuff is. We're all neurotic nut jobs. Okay?
Pete Wright:
You hear that, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I was actually thinking of all the shit that I hide from myself and probably others, and that was a long list.
Roy Biancalana:
Somebody falls in love with what we've shown them, and then, over time, they're going to see this other part. And then it's like, who are you? So the challenge is to love yourself enough to say, "Here I am."
Seth Nelson:
My ears just went up, because so many people will tell me, "I don't know what happened. We got married, things were great. And then years later, it's a totally different person." And that's kind of what you just described, where they married one person because that's what that person was showing them, and years later, their true colors kind of come out. And they're like, "It's a different person." That's really interesting.
Roy Biancalana:
Right. Because you can go into a relationship. It's like, I want to get you to like me. So therefore, I'm going to come up with a strategy and I'm going to share parts of me that I think you're going to like and I'm going to withhold parts that you don't. And then it's eventually going to come out.
Pete Wright:
Seth, how often does divorce come out clearly, that you can read that that's what's going on?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, I see that a lot. It kind of goes like this, Pete, someone gets divorced. Let's say they've been married for 10 years. And they're like, "Oh my God. It was like this whole different person." And then when they split up, all their friends are like, "We've known that for years." And it's like-
Roy Biancalana:
Right. I'm glad you said that.
Seth Nelson:
... the friend wasn't hiding it. The spouse, let's just call him the male, that the guy was not hiding it from the friends, but he was hiding it from his wife or his girlfriend that he wanted to become his wife, whatever. And so they saw different people.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, but there's another dimension there. And that is the tendency... Let's just admit it. I mean, loneliness is a big issue. And so it's very easy to not notice things, to brush them off. In other words, a person could be showing themselves to you, but you might have such a scarcity mentality that either I got to put up with this, or I believe once we get together, that they're going to change that. They're going to be better with money or less of a temper. My love is going to change them.
Seth Nelson:
Along with that is when people are in a marriage, and then I hear them say, "Well, we're going through hard times, but everyone goes through hard times." It's like, whoa, when you say you're going through hard times, you need to stop and work on that. It can't just be like, "Well, we all go through them and it will just get better."
Roy Biancalana:
No. Right. Yeah, that's like having something wrong with your knee and it's really hurting a lot and just keep running on it. It'll get better.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Sometimes knees hurt. Well, yeah.
Roy Biancalana:
Well, pain in the body says something's wrong-
Pete Wright:
That's a signal.
Roy Biancalana:
... pay attention. And relationship drama says something's wrong. Something needs to be paid attention to. So that whole communication thing, I call it redacted dating. You know in the government, they release some document and all the good stuff is blacked out?
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Roy Biancalana:
We sort of date that way.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. That's right. So I like that. I got a sidetrack because clearly Seth and I have issues in that area in particular. So that was another muscle. Let's keep going through the muscles right quick.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. Another big one is your relationship to your past. In fact, this one might be the biggest one. It certainly is the dirtiest, hardest one. I often joke that the only people that don't have a past and some baggage and some bumps and bruises and pain are the little babies in the maternity ward. Everybody else has got some degree of pain from their past. Some have a lot of major trauma that have happened. Some of us have been gaslighted or ghosted or divorced or dumped or cheated on. We've got this stuff.
So there's nothing wrong with having a past. The issue is, is the your past something that just merely happened? Or is it something that's happening? Is your past still alive in you? And for most people, they don't know how to let go of the past, and so the past is alive in them. And so they meet someone in some degree of a guarded state, guarded, a little suspicious. Maybe you've even got a wall built up around your heart because your wall will keep you safe. But it will keep you single. Because nobody can get in to hurt you, but nobody can get in to love you.
Seth Nelson:
Isn't there like a song, No Woman No Cry, Pete? That's what just came into my head.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
A little reggae action going on right there.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Roy Biancalana:
A lot of songs about love from the past. So we don't have the time to go into exactly... because I have a whole way of helping a person let go of the past. There's a process to do it. Most people just need to be... help them recognize how important it is. Because otherwise, like if I've been cheated on by my last three girlfriends and I meet some new chick, there's no way that I'm not looking at her, are you going to cheat on me too?
Pete Wright:
Wondering when she's going to cheat, right.
Roy Biancalana:
Right. So I call it the menage trois from hell. It's me, it's her, and my past. And the three of us are in this together.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. Well, and her past too, right? It's all four of you.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. Then it's a foursome. It's a really the four horseman of the apocalypse. So this is normal, because what happens, what psychology calls is projection. You're going to project your past onto this person. And so when you meet a new person, if the past is alive in you, you're not really getting to know them, you're not relating to them. You are relating to them through the lens of your past. And it's going to make you maybe make a relationship go too slow, or you're going to be just holding them off, or you have to earn my trust or something.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Roy, here's my thought on that. Why are you inviting these past relationships into your current one? That's how I always view it.
Roy Biancalana:
Well, to protect myself. That's what it's about.
Seth Nelson:
Well, right, I understand that. But I think being open, honest and vulnerable is much better than trying to protect myself. Right?
Roy Biancalana:
Well, yeah. That's why I'm saying.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I'm with you. But sometimes people will say, when they're dating, especially early on, like, "Oh, have you ever been married before?"
"Yeah."
And then, "Oh, what happened?" You're out on a date, and why are you asking about past relationships? Why are you inviting that past girlfriend and boyfriend into your nice dinner?
Roy Biancalana:
It's because they're scared and they're trying to see if you've got some issue that I need to be afraid of. There is so much fear in us when we're dating, and we ask those kind of questions, and we're trying to size a person up. And so just like you, I advise people to stay away from that stuff, to be open, to be available, to just get to know the person and to not go interrogating trying to find something.
Seth Nelson:
Right. And when you go out on that date, people said, "Well, sometimes it just comes up. What do you say instead? What do you do?" And I've just told them, "Only ask about things in the future. Is there any place that you would like to go travel some day?" If you're asking future stuff, it's really... Now, they might say, "I've always wanted to go to Italy and that bastard would never take me."
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
All right, sorry.
Pete Wright:
But see, that illustrates the conflict that I think we're dealing with. Because when you walk out of a breakup, divorce situation, I can imagine very much you're saying, "I want to put the past behind me," which is an act of moving on, hiding from it, putting it away so I don't have to think about it. And yet, because you can't ever do that, you're constantly prompted in new situations to re-litigate your past emotional circumstances.
Roy Biancalana:
Right. You cannot let go of the past by suppressing it or just hoping it would go away or something like that, because it's alive in you. So there's a time to go through the feelings. There's a time to really look at your part in the dynamic of what happened. There's a process of forgiveness of yourself, of them. There's a real bit of work, because yeah, we all want to put it behind us, and that would be great. But we all know that when that stuff is there, we don't approach the next person with this open, available heart. We're afraid to be vulnerable.
So I love what you were saying about being open, honest, and vulnerable. I'm like, yeah, dude. But some people, they've been so hurt that I'm afraid to do that. I'm afraid to be open because the last time I was, I got whatever. One of the things I tell my clients is when you are in that open, honest, vulnerable place, that's when you're the most attractive person that you can be.
Seth Nelson:
That's right.
Roy Biancalana:
But when you have the fear in you, when the past is alive in you, it's blocking you. And you're not going to be as present as a man, which is the man's gift in a relationship is his presence, his ability to pay attention, to be here. But when the past is involved, it's hard to be present. And the feminine's thing is their radiance. But when the past is alive, your shine sort of darkens.
So the more you let go of the past, the more you're going to be the most attractive version of yourself. Doesn't mean I'm George Clooney or somebody is Jennifer Aniston or something, but you become your freest, most playful self. Like, I'm not afraid of getting hurt. I've let go of all that, and now I can be present and can be really available. And then you get to know the real person instead of you're trying to find something.
Some of things I talk about in the section of my book when we talk about the mind is the mind functions in various personas. One of them, one of my favorites is the secret service agent, and this pertains to the past. The secret service agent is always standing around the president and they're just scanning the crowd. They're looking for any sign of trouble. And at the first sign, we're out of here.
So you've got that in you when you have a past. You're going on this date and the secret service agent is standing behind you, and they're looking for things. What did he mean by that? What did she mean by that? Hmm, maybe I should ask them about their past. You see? And because you're scared and you're trying to figure out, am I going to be in danger here? And that will sabotage everything, because good people can sort of feel when you are sort of trying to size them up.
Pete Wright:
On your heels. Yeah.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. Or I describe it this way, there's two ways to go into a relationship. The conventional way, all of us do it, is we go in and say, "I don't trust you. You have to prove yourself to me and then I will trust you." So we start from, "I don't trust you. I want you to demonstrate that I can, that you're trustworthy and so forth."
That's a dangerous dynamic, because any good person who's standing in front of a man or a woman, and I can feel that you don't trust me and I'm being held accountable for what somebody else did. And frankly, I can feel your closure, and I'm going to go to that chick over there who's got her arms wide open and says, "Come dance, let's play."
Pete Wright:
Well, this goes into something you said about... Speaking of the common, at this point, trope, the law of attraction. You said the law of attraction works and it should scare the hell out of you. Is this kind of what you're talking about?
Roy Biancalana:
A little bit, a little bit. Right. The law of attraction means like attracts like. There's a lot of fluffy mumbo jumbo about it, just people trying to make money. It just means like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock together. So what it means is that you will always and only attract someone who is as healthy as you are, who is as evolved as you are, who they're going to be on your level, because like attracts like.
So if we're not in very good relationship shape, if these seven muscles are not operating very good, you're just going to attract someone who also is not in very good relationship shape, and you're going to do that. So then the law's working against you.
Seth Nelson:
If you're in a relationship and you're kind of bitching about the other one, the other person, are we thinking, "Maybe I'm not as healthy in this relationship as I need to be? Because I'm attracting these kind of guys that aren't really doing what they need to do." Does that make sense?
Pete Wright:
Like, should that be a barometer? Is that what you're saying? Like some sort of measure?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah, Pete, that's a good way to put it.
Roy Biancalana:
Well, if you're bitching about your partner, right there, you are functioning-
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you're in trouble.
Roy Biancalana:
... in drama. Right. I mean, it's not about them, it's about your complaint and your judgment and the way they should or shouldn't be.
Seth Nelson:
Right, but if I'm going from one bad guy to the next, or one bad relationship to the next, maybe it's because I'm at this lower level of emotional understanding, and I need to up my game to get someone else that is already upping their game. Because maybe I dated someone a couple times, and then they didn't want to go out with me again because they realized, mm, wrong level.
Roy Biancalana:
That's how the law of attraction can work for you. Because most people, like I was doing, you're in this dynamic and you say, "I just need to find a better partner. I need to find a healthier partner." It doesn't work that way. You'll only attract a partner who is as healthy as you are. So if you want a better partner, it's not about finding them. It's about raising your level. If you become healthier, you then resonate with a person who these muscles are stronger in.
Pete Wright:
Well, and I don't mean to go down the prurient side of the show, but there's a reason you ended up in a rebound relationship with a lot of sex for two years. There's a reason you were giving that off and you attracted somebody who was also giving that off.
Roy Biancalana:
I was totally codependent. I mean, I could describe this, because I came out of a sexless relationship. I didn't feel wanted. I didn't feel desirable. I wanted to find a girlfriend who felt that way about me. And what happened was, so I was sort of depending on her to make me feel like a man. We can go deep into the psychology here, but I was looking for my life partner to be my life source.
Now, when I'm doing that, I'm going to attract someone who is also doing that. She's going to be looking for me to give her something she's unwilling or unable to give herself, which was, I sort of rescued her as a damsel in distress. Her life was a mess. She was overwhelmed with a busy career and being a single mother. And so I sort of took care of her, and she took care of me.
Pete Wright:
I see what you did there. I see what you did there, Roy. That was...
Seth Nelson:
I'm going to take a break and have a cigarette now.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, right.
Seth Nelson:
But hold on, you said something really interesting there. You said, "I was looking for my life partner, but it's not my life source." You got to be your own source, and then you come together with someone else that's their own source and you can create stuff. And I always describe it like, I live my life. My fiancee, she lives her life, and we come together on things that are important to us. We don't do everything together all the time.
She's not up at 5:00 AM when I'm going for a run and going for a run with me. She's up at 7:00 when I wake her and bring her a cup of coffee, and I've already had my exercise. I'm showered, I'm ready for work. So there's things that we do to connect every day, but it's not that we're connected every moment of every day.
Roy Biancalana:
Right, right. I believe it was Neale Donald Walsch who said, "The purpose of a relationship is not to find someone who will complete you, but to find someone with whom you can share your completeness." So that's the work I did with my clients-
Seth Nelson:
Look at that.
Roy Biancalana:
... is, how do we get you to feel like you're whole and complete unto yourself so that you don't think, "I have to find a partner who is going to fix that not-okay feeling"? I had that feeling of I'm undesirable, I got to find a woman who will fix that for me. That's my job, though.
Seth Nelson:
No, I totally get what you're saying. The way you said that with the completeness, I went from having a cigarette to having a scotch by the fire. That seemed a lot better. Just totally changed the picture.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright:
But Seth, in your own journey, I mean, you end up divorced, you end up in a serious relationship, and that relationship will, what do we say now? Took a break, and then becomes a relationship again. What are you learning in those breaks, in the context of this conversation? Do you have a sense memory of that?
Seth Nelson:
Oh no, absolutely. So when I first got divorced, the biggest hurdle for me, and Roy touched on this a little bit, was I had to learn to be alone. And I actually thought that, up until that time in my dating, and it's kind of what Roy was saying, because I didn't get engaged till I was like 31 or get married till I was like 31. And then everyone at the time was like, "Oh, why isn't this guy married yet?" Because it was a long time ago. But I was always looking for the one, looking for the one, looking for the one.
And then after I got divorced, I realized I need to be comfortable just being by myself. So I did a lot of things that I actually lived a daily basis an unbalanced life because I was a single dad at the time. My son would go to his mom's. So those were the days that I would work late and run my law practice and work, work, work. But when I had my son, I was really focused on him. So I might leave work early and spend more time with him. But I did a lot of things by myself that I had never done before. I went out to eat by myself.
Roy Biancalana:
I call it dating yourself. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. I got comfortable going to a restaurant by myself. I got comfortable going to the movies by myself. I got comfortable going for a run or going for a bike ride or doing whatever I was going to do. So that was one. And then once I started dating again and got into some serious relationships, and then I was with my fiancee and we were dating for 10 years and then we took a break for two. If she was on the show, she would say that's when I needed more time to wise up. I'd tell a different story. It's just easier to agree with her.
But in that time, Pete, I think what I really focused on then is when we started talking again is a better way for us to communicate. And I think that was the difference there, is that for the first 10 years, we just couldn't get out of each other's way. It's not that we didn't care about each other, it's not that we didn't love each other, it's not that we didn't understand. Some things we did, some things we didn't. But ultimately, I think that I really learned how to communicate much, much better.
And so the two things that I learned was how to be alone and how to communicate. And that open, honest, and vulnerable is amazing, and she's learned how to communicate with me. And literally, some of the stuff she's said, like when she's stressed out or if I'm stressed out, she goes, "Just give me a hug." And I was like, "I'm pissed off at you. I don't fucking want to hug you right now." And then I realized when we started getting into a mild argument or... which an argument really, to me, is a misunderstanding. We're not intentionally trying to hurt each other. And I started doing exactly what she asked me to do, and I'd give her a hug and things would just get better.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah. I got to say, you sound like you are ready for something special with a woman, from what you're saying.
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's good Roy, because I'm engaged, brother.
Pete Wright:
Timing is perfect. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Man, if you would've said something different, we would've had to cut this show.
Roy Biancalana:
No. Well, it's just that you've been through a lot of the junk and you've actually learned from it, rather than... I don't hear any blame for what you've been through. You've learned how to be alone and communicate.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, if there's anyone to blame, that shit was on me.
Roy Biancalana:
The best quote I've ever heard about communication, it comes from a writer named Jeff Foster. And he said, "Communication is as simple as putting the present moment into words." So it's like, what's present? What's actually real here? What sensations do I have? What emotions do I have? What thoughts am I even imagining? What wants or desires do I have? And then putting that into words, that's what communication is. Because too much of our communication is putting the past into words.
We throw something back in someone's face that they did a while back, or we're talking about future things. But we're not very good sometimes at what's really present right now. Like when you say, "Give me a hug," right now, I don't want to do it. I'm going to do it, but this is what it feels like to me. Or this is what's really happening here. Then, to me, that's what vulnerability is, is when you're revealing the present moment rather than your thoughts about your past or your future, or something like that.
Pete Wright:
Well, this is amazing. Roy, we didn't cover most of the stuff we wanted to cover with you, but my hope is that if you're listening to this, that what you hear is, one, you're not alone if you're struggling with what it's like to get back into the field, if you're struggling with what it's like to get to know yourself, and two, that it is absolutely possible to learn to be alone, to date yourself, to treat yourself well, to get through, clean up all the cobwebs and to actually be the kind of person that you would be attracted to.
And that, Roy, is incredibly helpful. So here's what I need from you, Roy. I need you to tell us where we can go to learn more about your work. And you got the book, Relationship Bootcamp. I'm assuming it's in Amazon and all the right places.
Roy Biancalana:
Yeah, if I could take two minutes, my shtick, you could say, is about getting in relationship shape, getting these seven muscles strong. So if you went to the gym and hired a personal trainer, the first thing the trainer is going to do is run you through a bunch of assessments to find out what is your current fitness level. And then they can put a program together to get you where you want to go. Well, that's what I do, is I want to help people get in relationship shape.
So we need to find out what is your current relationship fitness level. So on my website, which is coachingwithroy.com, there's something called the Relationship Fitness Self Assessment test. It's free, it's a 30 question, true-false thing, takes about three or four minutes to take. Your results are absolutely confidential. And the test, I tell people, sadly, it's accurate. So don't be surprised if it tells you that you probably need to get in better relationship shape.
So it's a way of sort of gauging what is my fitness level now, because that is what is going to affect how the dynamics you attract. The better shape you're in, the healthier dynamic you're going to attract to yourself. The less shape you're in, the more you're going to keep attracting drama and difficulty and getting dumped and divorced, and all that kind of stuff.
So go there, find out your fitness level. And then, if you want to talk with me about, "Roy, can you tell me a program on how to get me in shape? Because the test said I got some work to do," then you talk to me and I can put a program together.
Pete Wright:
Again, coachingwithroy.com. Thank you so much, Roy.
Roy Biancalana:
I love you guys. You guys are fantastic. So thanks for having me.
Pete Wright:
Hey, this was a lot of fun, Roy. We sure appreciate it. And just as a closing thought, everything you just said about your thing, we're talking about getting yourself into relationship shape, I got to imagine that you're going to have clearer eyes in who you are attracted to if you get yourself in order. We've been talking about what you put out there and those people have you attracted to. You'll be able to filter a lot of stuff out if you figure yourself out first.
Roy Biancalana:
One of the things that's going to happen is you're going to be attracted to someone who's done some work on themselves too. Because I don't want to be with someone who hasn't done some introspection because, well, we've lived it. We know what that's like.
Pete Wright:
Well, Roy, coachingwithroy.com. Thank you so, so much for joining us today. We sure appreciate it. On behalf of Roy, and this is Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney. I'm Pete Wright and we'll catch you back here next week, right here on How to Split a Toaster, divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
