From Restraining Order to Reconciliation: How One Man Rebuilt His Marriage

What do you do when your marriage collapses so completely that it ends in a restraining order? Can a relationship that has broken ever be rebuilt?

In this powerful episode of The Voyage Cast, Eddie sits down with relationship coach Bryan Power to unpack how his marriage went from “pretty good” to total emotional breakdown in 2024 — and how deep personal work, therapy, and Integrated Attachment Theory helped him rebuild not just his relationship, but himself.

Bryan shares openly about growing up in generational dysfunction, carrying abandonment wounds into adulthood, and how those subconscious patterns shaped his marriage until everything fell apart. He and Eddie walk through the six pillars of Integrated Attachment Theory — core wounds, needs, emotions, boundaries, communication, and behaviors — and explain how each one becomes a practical tool for repairing relationships from the inside out.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered:

• Why do my relationships repeat the same painful patterns?

• Can a marriage survive betrayal, separation, or emotional chaos?

• How do I communicate without defensiveness?

• What does real personal growth look like when everything is falling apart?

Bryan’s story is honest, hopeful, and deeply practical. Whether you’re trying to save your marriage, heal from trauma, or break generational patterns for your kids, this conversation offers a roadmap.

Topics include:

• Surviving marital breakdown and no-contact periods

• Healing abandonment wounds and subconscious patterns

• When one person’s growth can change a whole relationship

• Setting boundaries without creating distance

• How to communicate without defending

• What emotional regulation looks like in real time

• Why generational trauma follows us — and how to stop repeating it

• Practical tools couples can use today

Connect with Bryan Power:

makeyourrelationshipfail.com

myrelationshipfail.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanwpower/

https://www.youtube.com/@myrelationshipfail

https://www.instagram.com/myrelationshipfail/

If this episode encouraged you, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs hope for their relationship.

Transcript

Ed (00:00)

everybody. Welcome back to the Voyage Cast. I'm Eddie, your host. And today we're talking about what happens when relationships completely break down and what it actually takes to rebuild those relationships. My guest, Brian Power, which is a great name, knows the road well. In 2024, he and his wife went from what looked like a pretty good marriage to total collapse, a breakdown so serious that it ended in restraining orders for emotional safety. But that wasn't the end of their story. During those six months apart, both Brian and his wife were committed

to therapy and discovering what they call or what I've come to learn about the integrated attachment theory program developed by Tice Gibson. It helped them rebuild not just their relationships, but themselves. Now, Brian, who's a coach for other marriages, uses those same six pillars or framework to help other people. Core wounds, needs, emotional boundaries, communication, behaviors are the things that they focus on in those core pillars. And they use these core pillars to help people break generational patterns and create

healthier families. If you've ever wondered what Deep Repair looks like when it's actually lived out, hopefully this conversation will resonate with you and give you some sense of how this goes. So before we get into those six pillars though, Brian, can you lead us in? Tell us a little bit about your backstory and even what got you into this kind of mental health arena of coaching.

Bryan Power (01:22)

Yeah, thanks. Thanks Eddie. It's great to be here today and thank you for letting me share my story. But what started it all, I think really goes back to our childhoods, That's really where a lot of our wounds are developed. That's really where a lot of our thought patterns are developed and our perceptions about life are developed. And for my wife and I, we both had very dysfunctional childhoods. My father struggled with addiction. My mom was 21 years old with two boys, myself and my brother. ⁓ So she really had an ex-husband.

Ed (01:32)

Absolutely.

Hmm.

Bryan Power (01:49)

who was dealing with addiction. was young herself and trying to figure her own life out. my mom was 21. So this is early, know, 1969, you know, she's 21 years old. Yup. So yeah, not,

Ed (01:53)

How old was your mom at the time? ⁓ geez. Yeah. ⁓ geez. And your dad,

was he caught up in the 60s then? Is that how he got into the addiction, do think?

Bryan Power (02:06)

Yeah, I my father came

from dysfunctional generational, you know, stuff as well. You know, his father was an alcoholic. You know, my beautiful, you know, Christian grandmother back when he was, you know, growing up, was, was, you know, was also dealt with some of her own stuff, right. And they used to fist fight in front of him, literally would like. Yeah, this is my grandmother telling me this, right. So, so that was his, his childhood growing up. My mom's mom was, you know, an orphan who, you know, found her way a little bit, but didn't really have the most, you know, nurturing type of.

Ed (02:20)

Okay. ⁓ my gosh.

Bryan Power (02:34)

know, childhood, my mom's father died when she was young. She was about 11, 12 years old. So she really took that role of motherhood, if you will, early on to her younger brothers. Yeah, it was just a mess. You know, this is generational stuff that unfortunately my brother and I came into this world in that regard. And that was our start. That was our foundation. So there was a lot of chaos, lot of craziness. We moved around a lot early on in our childhood. So the first 10 years of our lives, we pretty much moved every year.

Ed (02:37)

man. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Bye.

Bryan Power (03:01)

So a lot of instability. My wife was different. She had a military background. Her family was military style. They had a little bit more stability as far as location. They didn't move around as much, but a lot of chaos and dysfunctional stuff there. Her father was very abusive to her and her sister. Her mom stayed in the relationship just because her parents kind of put the shame game on her and told her, it's not what we do. You have to stay through this. even though it was destroying her and the kids for a long part, they were together till my wife was about 14 years old.

Ed (03:05)

Okay.

⁓ jeez.

Yeah.

Bryan Power (03:30)

But so even though they stayed together it was still very dysfunctional But that's really where our perceptions would come in a lot of our behaviors our thought patterns our wounds that would ultimately play out in our adult lives Were formed and so, ⁓ you know someone my wife and I got together even though later in life, know, know, know, she was in her 30s when I met her and I was in my mid 40s type of thing and ⁓ You know, but but at that point, yeah, I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, I thought I had my life together I thought for the most part everything was good, but

Ed (03:40)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan Power (03:57)

Little did I know that a lot of these subconscious wounds were still playing out in my life and ultimately would play out in our relationship in 2024. As you mentioned in the introduction that we would ultimately come to a complete relationship failure, would culminate with a restraining order against me, which was obviously extremely difficult, was just the craziest experience of my life. ⁓

Ed (04:04)

Yeah. Yeah.

brutal.

And

you, and what our listeners don't know, you had a kid at the time too, right? ⁓

Bryan Power (04:22)

Yeah. I was step,

yeah, stepdaughter at the time was 13 years old, but my son was four and a half years old. so, ⁓ yep. And so that was a big factor. ⁓ when the restraining order came about, this was after about four months of really emotional turmoil, were just emotionally just falling apart. know, the world was just like having our issues and that triggering each other in such. I really was, man.

Ed (04:26)

OK, that's right.

Okay.

It's just a storm like a tornado in a trailer park.

Bryan Power (04:46)

It was

crazy. It was wild ride, and I didn't understand it. And that's the thing. It was so hard to catch my breath, understand it, figure it out. I really thought she was having like a midlife crisis. That sent me into a triggered state though. That sent me trying to grasp and hold onto the relationship and fight for my family, which I thought was the best thing to do, right? But at the same time, that fighting for the relationship also kind of caused more problems on her side. It caused more emotional stress for her because she was looking for some space to figure some things out.

Ed (04:53)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bryan Power (05:15)

So my inability to kind of work with that really challenged it. It just made it really a chaotic, crazy situation. The restraining order ultimately would prove to be a really great gift though. painful as it was, yep, as horrible as it was, it really put a divide between us. We weren't able to look at each other and talk to each other. None of that, right? We had to now completely 100 % look at ourselves. And that really gave us some time to do that. And that time away would-

Ed (05:15)

Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah.

Gave you a little break.

Bryan Power (05:42)

Yeah, that gave us a break that a lot of people talk about going no contact after a breakup and stuff like that. This was a forced, forced no contact, right? So it wasn't even, there was no option of connecting. It was literally just forced upon us, but it really was a great thing. And so I truly believe that no contact and sometimes a breakup can be the best thing for your relationship. ⁓ number one to yourself to really get yourself together, but also can actually bring your, you know, your spouse back and you can now hopefully, you know, fix some of those problems.

Ed (05:46)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Power (06:09)

that caused the breakup and now have a really great relationship going forward. That's what my wife and I have been able to do.

Ed (06:14)

That's great, man. So many of my clients have been through different versions of stories like that. But it's often when it hits that epoch, that culmination of whatever, dysfunctional history, whatever, that it sort of rattles the relationship so severely, puts it on kind of notice. And then it's those moments that we're like, I got to wake up. I got to think about what it is I'm doing. everything before that, it's like we're in this unconscious rut.

We don't really know what we're doing. We think we're good. We think everything's fine. And as a man, we generally think everything's fine because we're usually pretty unaware. The woman is usually pretty aware of all the dysfunction, generally speaking. ⁓ And so we go years and years and years years and years. And I've had clients anywhere from like their 20s in their relationships all the way to their 80s. ⁓ And I can tell you, like even for them, they don't see it. They don't see those unconscious processes.

kind of that they were formed in from childhood, playing out in their marriages and destroying ⁓ everything they have. Destroying their families, destroying themselves, frankly, because then they get lost and hurt. it takes a lot of guts to face those things. It takes a lot of courage to look at yourself, but sometimes we don't get that courage and those guts until we get punched really, really hard in the face.

with something like a restraining order. Sometimes I've seen it in couples where there's an affair or there's other things that shake and rattle the cage of that relationship. And it's horrible. It's heart wrenching and heartbreaking. ⁓ But, you know, a lot of people want to know like very practically, and I've been experiencing this more and more over the years, what are the steps? Like what do I do to help myself? And that's something I know we mentioned in the beginning is that like we want to talk about these core six pillars.

And I'd like for you to highlight, if you could, a little bit about how the dysfunction, like how did you get to those pillars? Like some people come, usually it's the men being drugged by their wives into my office by their hair or feet if they don't have any hair, and they're being drugged in, right? And that's usually the change, right? They get rattled, they get shaken, something changes, they get drugged into the office. How did you do this? Because this is kind of an unusual approach in some sense.

Bryan Power (08:29)

Thank

Yeah, mean, you're so right. Yeah, no, you're right. That's why I call my practice, make your relationship fail or my relationship fail because unfortunately, a lot of times it takes that complete failure to shake us and to wake us. And so unfortunately, that's what it takes sometimes is to just get to that critical stage where you're like, my God, there is a serious problem here. And guess what? It might be partly my fault. And so the first thing we have to definitely do is take some ownership and realize that

Ed (08:43)

Like, what aimed you to that?

Right.

Bryan Power (09:10)

we are part of the problem and part of this relationship. And we're bringing in lot of our subconscious patterns and thoughts that are unhealthy patterns that we develop ⁓ into this relationship that can absolutely be destroying that connection and that relationship that we so desperately wanna have really be wonderful and great, right? We fell in love with this person. We wanna have this good relationship, but because of the wounds, because of the patterns that we've developed, we can't get of our own way. And we don't have the right tools necessary to fix that and really begin to...

Ed (09:27)

Right.

Bryan Power (09:39)

communicate well and connect properly and do all these things. We go from having that amazing, wonderful first connection and love down that trail to a couple of years later where some people are ending up hating each other. Literally just like the worst person you ever met in your life. And unfortunately, that just a lot of times comes back to our own issues and some of the things that we've developed over time. So first step really is to take some ownership, right? And to say, okay, let me look at myself. What can I do to kind of change here?

Ed (09:42)

Right.

Bryan Power (10:08)

And then I always say, man, you whether it's some therapy, whether it's some counseling, whether it's a combination, you know, go to church, whatever you need to do, man, you whatever it takes to get this fixed up, you have to be willing to do. And that's the first thing I had to really do is humble myself. I had to just be extremely humble and say, okay, I throw it up in the air. have no idea what's going on here, what's going to happen, how to fix this, but I'm willing to listen and learn and see if we can fix this up a little bit. I was fortunate enough to, actually that's what started, my wife actually challenged me to see a therapist.

Ed (10:15)

Yeah.

Bryan Power (10:37)

which I agreed to. At that point, I challenged her to see a therapist because I thought, you know, she had all the issues. She thought I had all the issues. So that's how we started down this journey, right? Thinking the other person had all the problems. ⁓

Ed (10:44)

Yeah. Yeah. As it goes. It's like that. It's like that meme

where it shows Spider-Man, like everybody's pointing at each other. If you haven't seen that.

Bryan Power (10:54)

That's exactly the way it felt, right? So, but that's really what started a lot of the awarenesses, but that started the emotional triggering. She was really seeing a childhood trauma specialist, but in that really kind of really brought up a lot of emotional feelings for her growing up and stuff. So, but after about four months again, fell into this spot where we just couldn't fix it. Couldn't get out of our way. My subconscious really was driving the train. All those abandonment wounds from my father leaving in and out of my childhood, all the...

Ed (11:03)

Mmm.

Great.

Yeah.

Bryan Power (11:20)

All that stuff, the fear of being alone, not good enough, really started to play out. And that's where we got into that really extreme emotional chaos. ⁓

Ed (11:30)

Yeah, that's

a common experience a lot of people have ⁓ when their relationship is sort of breaking down or all those attachment fears start kicking in of like, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. And we just start panicking.

Bryan Power (11:41)

Yeah.

Yeah, I always say we're all secure until the crap hits the fan really, right? It's like, of course I'm secure until the things are really going south and I don't know how to fix it. That's really when you start to see what's real and where your wounds are. And that's where I got exposed, right? My wounds got exposed big time. ⁓ I was fortunate enough to be doing some therapy. I came across a really great video by Thais Gibson, T-H-A-I-S Gibson. She did an hour and a half long roughly podcast on the Mel Robbins show out of Boston.

Ed (11:47)

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Bryan Power (12:12)

And she was talking about attachment theory. And when she went through the four different attachment styles, I was fascinated because I was like, wow, I really saw my wife on one side. She was kind of more leaning dismissive. I was leaning a lot more anxious at the time. ⁓ I saw a lot of the wounds that she was talking about and some of these patterns and stuff. And so I was like fascinated by this work, but it was unfortunately a little too late at that point. It wasn't enough to kind of grasp on and fix it in time, but at least I saw some answers. And when the restraining order happened,

Ed (12:12)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yep.

Mm.

Bryan Power (12:42)

I was able to finally kind of move out. ⁓ found a place, I got some stability, if you will, pretty soon, thank God. ⁓ But I just decided to focus on that work. I was like, okay, I want to keep learning this. I want to keep understanding it. I want to keep figuring this out. And so I delved into that program and just really, again, just kind of spent every day trying to looking at this thing and yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Ed (12:47)

Yeah.

Can I comment on that really quick?

Because when I'm working with a lot of, I love what you just said there and I want to highlight that because when I'm working with a lot of couples, they sometimes have this tip for tat mentality about growth. Like I'm only going to grow if you do and if you're not, F it basically. And what you just said there, I hope our listeners are understanding and hearing because it's really important for your personal development. Grow anyways. Grow because it's good. Grow because it's the right thing to do.

Bryan Power (13:28)

Yeah.

Ed (13:31)

regardless of anybody else or anything else in your life.

Bryan Power (13:34)

Yeah, don't play that game of like, you know, well, you're not going to therapy. I'm not. That's that's garbage. That's that's just really awful stuff. Honestly, take the lead, especially I believe as a man, I want to take the lead in this relationship, right? I'm to be the man to step up to the plate. And if that means humbling myself and being the one to go to therapy, being the one to read the books on this and figuring it out for my family's sake, especially if you have kids, you better believe I'm going to do everything I can to fight scratching cloth for my family and to survive for that. So so that was what I did. And

Ed (13:38)

It's ridiculous.

Yep.

Love it.

Bryan Power (14:02)

Again, at this point, it was kind of critical, right? I thought it was almost like it was over. I wasn't really fighting at that point to bring it back. I was fighting to get myself to a healthy point so that I knew I could have a good relationship with somebody in the future because I knew I would have another chance to have a great relationship with somebody. ⁓ And I also wanted to make sure that I didn't pass these wounds onto my son as much as possible, right? I was fighting for his future so that he didn't have to go through this type of situation. And I was going to be able to pass on some skills, hopefully, that he could look up to and say, okay, my dad knows how to...

Ed (14:16)

That's right.

For sure. Yeah.

Bryan Power (14:30)

do some things. And so that's, that's all I was looking for. I knew I had problems because of my, my childhood, my adult life, my relationships throughout my adult life had been, you know, stressful and you know, really difficult if you will, to find all that. But my wife and I truly loved each other. And that was a thing that was so hard because we loved each other. We just didn't have any tools to fix it. We didn't know how to manage through this. We didn't understand why we were dealing with some of the issues and fighting in some of those things. ⁓ So, you know, this is where the awareness came for us. We really through that time alone.

Ed (14:31)

One

Bryan Power (14:59)

really got the chance to look at ourselves and figure ourselves out a lot. And it truly turned out to be a big blessing. Yeah.

Ed (15:05)

That's awesome, man. I love

what you said that you kind of brought in sort of the motivation of your your son too. You know, I don't I don't often want people to be externally motivated by other sources. However, like if you're going to be motivated by anything, changing the legacy of a generation is great. That's great motivation. You know, looking at your transgenerational process of your your own father's father, the abuse through all of that, it goes down into you.

You have to carry it forward and it's like, I got the ball coach. What do I do now? And this is where I think a lot of those kinds of skillsets sort of started developing, but you took the ownership of kind of training your mind, training your soul, training your heart to be a better man and a better father, which is so, so important. And I love what you said too, about being the leader of the family. I know there's a lot of different views on how people should approach family.

who should be the leader whether it's the man or the woman and you can take the traditional approach of being the man in the relationship and leading your family and I love that but what I'll say to those that maybe are dissenters on this sense somebody's got to drive the car you can't have both people driving the car get in the driver's seat drive get healthy it doesn't matter just get healthy doesn't matter who your passenger is get healthy you know

Bryan Power (16:24)

Yeah.

And when I say that, want to make sure, you my wife is my partner, right? We're partners. I'm not, I'm not the boss. I'm not the, you know, ⁓ somebody's got to wear the seat though, right? Somebody's got to be the captain, if you will. Somebody's the co-captain. And, and so that's just the way it works. It's not saying that I make all the decisions and she just rolls with that. No, my wife is feisty enough. She's, she's. Yeah.

Ed (16:28)

100%. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

Yep. But the way you describe it though, what I like about

it though is that it's really focusing on personal ownership. You know, if I'm going to take the lead in my family, like I got to own what I'm doing and make myself better.

Bryan Power (16:49)

Yeah, truly believe in that. Yeah. Yeah, Eddie, a

hundred percent. love that. And that's one of the things Thais Gibson talks about is to say that we're both 100 % responsible for our 50 % of the relationship. And so we can't say that, I'm reacting because of this, you know, she, she's doing this, which is causing me to react this way or that and stuff. That's what we get into this tit for tat, right? Well, I'm only this way because of her. I'm only this way because of him. No, the reality is you're that way.

Ed (17:11)

Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Power (17:19)

And you can't blame your actions on how they're acting. I always say this, the way they act tells us everything we need to know about them. The way we act tells them everything they need to know about us. And so we have to take ownership of how we're acting, whether we're acting or reacting, because the key word in reacting is still acting. Okay. And so we can't let that be the excuse as to our poor behavior. ⁓ So that's the key. Yeah. Take the lead, be the man and do that type of thing. And yeah.

Ed (17:22)

Right?

100%.

Yep. Amen.

Bryan Power (17:48)

Somebody's gotta do it. And whether or not your spouse comes with you, it doesn't matter. We're doing this for ourselves. We're doing this for our benefit so that we can be blessed, that we can have a good relationship. I don't wanna go, you know, and fail the relationship, fail the relationship, fail the relationship. There is nothing worse in this world than losing the person you love simply because you don't have the tools necessary to keep them in your life. Okay, and to go from heartbreak to heartbreak to heartbreak.

Ed (17:53)

For sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love that.

Bryan Power (18:17)

is a really tough way to live your life. And I've been there, I've done it. It is, it's difficult, it's hard, it's awful, you don't wanna do it. And that's why I'm so excited about this program because I truly believe for me, it's been a real benefit and helped save our relationship, but I truly believe it's helping others save their relationships and really get in tune with themselves, learn how to get some skills. My wife and I, have tools now. I got tools in my relationship tool belt that I can now pull out when situations arise that I never had before, right?

Ed (18:19)

It's a miserable and lonely way to live,

Yeah. Yeah.

So let's get into that though, because again, like I said earlier, so many people really want practical tools. And I can tell you as a therapist, one of the experiences I have with a lot of my clients and what they appreciate about me is because I'm very practical. I'm going to tell you what I think works and we're going to work towards that end. ⁓ But a lot of therapeutic experiences that people might get sometimes is a lot of the just affirming sort of experiences, which is fine to a degree, but you can't like...

You're in the room because you don't know and you need someone to educate you on what you don't know. so share with us to help our listeners figure some of this stuff out. Share what they don't know because I guarantee you there's a lot of people listening to this who don't know.

Bryan Power (19:31)

So let's talk, first and foremost is that key wounds, ⁓ the core wounds, those are those subconscious behaviors that we're actually now implementing and living in. We don't even realize we're thinking this way, our brain is a needs meeting machine. And so it's going to get its needs met the fastest way possible, even if it's unhealthy. So if I had, let's say a fear of abandonment, which I have, a very big one, right? So subconsciously, I may now be doing everything I can to hold onto that relationship.

to the point where it's actually not healthy. It's no longer good for me anymore because I'm fighting for, because the wound is holding onto this thing, not me being confident, being okay and letting it go. And true love lets things go. We don't have to hold onto it. We truly let them go. ⁓ And that's something that for me I learned is the subconscious actually makes about 95 to 97 % of our decisions and that the conscious cannot overpower or outwill the subconscious.

Ed (20:02)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Power (20:29)

So if consciously I wanna say go to the gym and get in great shape, but subconsciously I just want some connection and I want some comfort and I want some of that. That's why all of a sudden on a Thursday night, I find myself out with my friends having a beer and a burger rather than hitting the gym again. Because consciously I know one thing, but subconsciously it's fighting for the other. And so I love the idea of that there's really no, it's not really self-sabotaging. It's just that the brain has a different need.

Ed (20:43)

Yeah. Right.

Bryan Power (20:57)

that we're not really tapping into. And so we have to learn what those wounds are, what those needs are, so that we can tap into that and utilize them in a healthy way. So let's just say if I wanna go to the gym, but I also have a need for connection, how do I make friends at the gym? How do I maybe bring some friends to the gym? How do I get it so that maybe I'm hiking with my friends, so I'm getting exercise, but I'm now got that connection, if you will. And that's now gonna be more apt to actually have some success there.

But the core wounds is number one. We've got to learn what they are, figure those out a little bit, and then begin to heal them. And there are some, you know, some exercise that you can do to begin healing the core wounds. The second thing is really learning about our needs. You know, what do I really need in life? You know, what's most important to me? And what do I need on a regular basis, daily basis where, you know, and then begin to figure those out, but also begin to learn how to fulfill those needs on my own.

So I'm now feeling excited every day because I'm in control of my needs being met. I'm no longer outsourcing those, right? If I'm looking on everybody else to depend on them to fulfill my needs, everybody has their own issues. Everybody has their own busy schedule sometimes. And what if they're not able to do that? And I'm not saying we don't have a need for connection with our friends and family or something, but even that for the most part, I've got to meet my own safety, my own feeling of comfort and everything else mostly on my own, right?

Ed (22:08)

Right.

Bryan Power (22:16)

The more I can do that, the less needy I become. And that's a good thing.

Ed (22:20)

Well, and what's interesting about that is, again, you're once again taking responsibility for your needs. Because I like how you said it, if you're outsourcing your needs, ⁓ you're regularly going to be disappointed. Because if people are just really honest with themselves, we can barely manage ourselves. How could we possibly manage the needs of another all of the time? That's absurdity.

Bryan Power (22:37)

That's right.

Exactly. It really is. And

it's hard to even know what they would need from us anyway. You know, like, right? So we don't even know how to meet their needs sometimes. It gets really complicated. So that's important. Understand our needs, learn how to fill those needs on our own, really fill that bucket. So we're feeling very good about ourselves, whether we're in a relationship or not. The third thing is very critical is really understanding our ⁓ our emotions. OK, and so the emotions are just emotions are really just ⁓

Ed (22:49)

Yeah.

Right.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

That's right.

Hmm. Yeah.

Bryan Power (23:11)

coming from our beliefs and our thoughts. So beliefs lead to our thoughts, our thoughts lead to our emotions. So what I have to ask myself is if I'm feeling this way, if I'm at that heightened, let's just say I'm angry. Why am I angry? What's causing this angry? What's the thought I'm having that's causing the anger? Is it, I angry because I feel disrespected?

Ed (23:20)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Bryan Power (23:29)

Because let's just say my wife leaves the cup on the table, she doesn't put it in the dishwasher and I come in the house and I see it there and I lose my crap on her. Am I angry because the cup is on the table? No, it's not a big deal. But I'm angry because maybe I feel disrespected, maybe I feel unloved, maybe I feel unheard, nobody cares about me. I feel uncared about like, yeah. So those are the things that I'm subconsciously telling myself that now I heightened my elevated emotional state, now I'm angry about it.

Ed (23:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bryan Power (23:58)

Because you see what saying? So now we have a problem that really shouldn't be there. Now that's not to say we can't have certain, there's certain things, times we need anger. Anger is not a bad thing, right? But when is it used properly? What is it really, again, if it's something minor where it's again, like a cup on the table or some clothes on the floor or something like that, what is the real story we're telling ourselves about that situation that's actually elevating the emotional state? And that's where those core wounds are. We have to say, wait a second, yeah.

Ed (24:05)

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right.

Hmm.

Bryan Power (24:25)

I'm feeling unloved here. I'm feeling disrespected. Am I truly disrespected? No, actually my spouse really respects me in so many ways. Like, you know, I know they respect me, but I'm feeling that way because of my own wound. So we have to kind of really tap into the emotional emotions and learn from the emotion. That's the key. ⁓

Ed (24:41)

It sounds

like too what you're also saying is not just be aware of the emotions, but do kind of a self analysis. what's the predicate? Like what are these emotions based on? And is my interpretation of the situation or the reality I'm in correct? Because if I'm assuming neglect when the cups left out, I'm assuming that she doesn't love me anymore because the dishes aren't done or she's just being hateful or spiteful or something. I don't really know.

I've made up a story. As you said, I made up a story in my head and now I feel a whole bunch of emotions based on that story. And then I act as if those emotions are true. I've personally been in that situation, especially around the dishes. I don't know any family where the dishes isn't like a massive problem for a family. know, and laundry. Dishes and laundry, those are the two, man, that really will just get under people's skin and get their goat.

Bryan Power (25:17)

So the question, yeah.

That's right. The question you have

to ask yourself when you're feeling that emotion is, is this 100 % true? Can I 100 % know that this is true? Can I 100 % know that she's deliberately disrespecting me? Can I 100 % know that she doesn't care about me because she doesn't pick up the dishes? Can I 100 % know that

Ed (25:41)

Good, yeah.

Bryan Power (25:50)

She doesn't love me because of this situation. So we have to ask that question, right? Can I 100 % know, is this really true? And if we think back about it, yeah, no, you know what? That's not really 100 % true. don't think, I can't know that 100 % she doesn't love me simply because she doesn't pick up the cup off the table when I ask her to, that type of thing. So that's a big question to ask. Anyway, tap into those emotions and you're right. Let's learn from the emotion, not just feel those things. It's okay to feel them. We have to understand that. But then we have to fix that wound, that the thought pattern.

Ed (25:53)

Totally.

Right?

Right, right.

Bryan Power (26:19)

So that now we get to that point. So it's no longer triggering me at a level 10. It may still bother me at a level one or two, but it's not necessarily triggering me into a state where we now have problems in the relationship simply because of some of these subconscious thoughts, if you will. Those are the top three. Past there, we wanna learn number four is the boundaries. How do we set boundaries? What are decent, healthy boundaries so that we're not setting extreme boundaries that are really unobtainable, really kind of doesn't allow for a good relationship at all?

Ed (26:25)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right,

right.

Bryan Power (26:47)

but

also not being boundary-less where I'm just a doormat and you can walk all over me. ⁓ So we have to kind of learn what some good healthy boundaries are and then learn how to communicate them, learn how to set them, learn how to actually make people adhere to them a little bit. If somebody crosses my boundary, how do I readdress it? How many times do I allow that to happen? And kind of what do I do as they continue to cross my boundaries? What do I do about that? ⁓

Ed (26:52)

Absolutely.

Sometimes I find

when an individual in a couple situation starts asserting boundaries in the marriage, it really throws the other person off. They're feeling like, why are you being an a-hole to me? Why are you being cold? Like, why are you being whatever? Do you find that? Did you find that experience or?

Bryan Power (27:21)

Yeah.

No, 100%.

That is a very common complaint about boundaries initially because the other person's probably not used to that, right? And so if you haven't set boundaries before and now you're setting them, your partner may go like, what's going on here? So it does take some communication, trying to communicate with that person. Hey, it's not anything personal. I do love you. This is important to me though. And this is where I'm learning, I'm growing. And this is something that I do want to be able to start to adhere to. And it takes some practice and that partner may break that boundary.

Ed (27:53)

Right.

Bryan Power (27:59)

a handful of times before you really start to figure it out a little bit. Again, it's not an easy thing to do, but it is something that we need to begin to practice. And as we practice these things, they do get easier, they do get better. We do learn new different methods on how to do it. And ultimately, we're able to do it in a much healthier, better way, right?

Ed (28:06)

No. Yep.

Yeah. Right, right.

And just to comment on that for a second too, ⁓ boundaries aren't always stone walls. Sometimes they're permeable, sometimes they're flexible, but they're context based. Like stone wall boundaries are things that are dangerous, know, physical violence, things like that, you know, but there's so many things in our relationships where sometimes the boundary isn't even about our spouse, it's just about me. Like I have to do this so I'm not a mean jerk to you, you know.

Bryan Power (28:33)

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I always

say that the boundaries are like that fence around the house that protect the house and we're the house. Yeah, we're the house, you know, so the boundaries are the fence, you know, so that's what we're going to set up. We're going to set up that little fence that we can be a little bit protective of what we need in our lives. And so that and then people begin to respect our fence, right? If they climb over the fence, then we got a problem, right? So how do I do that in a good way? And you're right. A lot of them are permanent and they change. I may have certain boundaries today that are important to me, but, six months from now, my life changes a little bit.

Ed (28:49)

Right, right, right, right.

Right.

and we got a prob.

Bryan Power (29:14)

you know, I can change that boundary a little bit and say, yeah, that's not as important to me. It's okay. This is different now. Right. it's okay. Yeah.

Ed (29:20)

That's a good point because sometimes

people, again, they think that these boundaries are hard and fast and it's like, we evolve, we change. Like that's part of being humble in our life and growing up. Yeah, that's great.

Bryan Power (29:27)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The boundaries I have today

may not be the ones I had last year, the ones I'm gonna have next year. for sure. So that's huge. Number five is really, ⁓ it's our communication style. This is a big one. This was a huge one for me. My wife and I, when my wife would talk to me in the past, I would always listen to defend myself because my wound wouldn't let...

Ed (29:35)

Right, right.

Bryan Power (29:52)

let myself be imperfect. I had to prove that if you saw that I wasn't perfect, you may not love me. You may not, you may abandon me. You may leave me. So I'm going to listen so that I can tell you how you're wrong so that you will see that, look how great I am. ⁓ My wife, we laugh when you're like.

Ed (29:58)

Right. Right.

That's like the Ron Burgundy approach of communicating. I'm such a big deal. Everything I say

is amazing.

Bryan Power (30:13)

That's right.

That's right. Pretty much. Right. I love that. and, that's what was happening. My wife would be like, well, you're not listening to me. And I'd be like, yes, I am. You better believe I'm listening because I'm listening because I'm going to make sure I defend myself properly here. So, but in her mind, the truth is I wasn't listening to understand her. wasn't listening to understand what she was trying to say. I was listening to defend. And so that's a big difference. Now ⁓ I was notorious of jumping over her. Right. So if she was trying to say something, I would cut her off mid-sentence.

Ed (30:26)

Right. Right.

Right. Great distinction.

Mmm.

Bryan Power (30:43)

try to break in. And now we do something different. We do a practice where we kind of hold space for each other, where she'll get to talk for five or 10 minutes, completely uninterrupted. We look each other right in the eye too. We look square, I want to look right into her eyes. We look like that. And she talks for five or 10 minutes. And now I'm listening to truly understand, what are you trying to speak to me? What are you trying to say? What are your thoughts? What are your feelings on this?

Ed (30:43)

man. Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Power (31:08)

I wanna get to know this person, right? I love my wife. She's amazing. I wanna really know you. And then when she's done, she does the same for me and she'll listen to me for five or 10 minutes. And she'll just, again, listening to understand. She wants to see my heart. She wants to see me as a man. Who am I? And now at the end of that, when we do it that way, we both come away feeling heard. We feel more understood. We certainly feel that. Now it's not to say that every time we have that.

Ed (31:10)

love it. I love it.

I love that.

Bryan Power (31:35)

type of discussion, it ends perfectly because there are times that can still trigger a little bit, right? And if it does begin to go that route, we know we can catch our breath and say, hey, let's put this on the shelf. Let's come back to it at another time. And we'll do this again when it's time is right. But again, it's a much healthier, better way to go. And we do find a lot more resolution in that than standing there in a triggered state, you know, trying to have these conversations where nobody's listening to anybody. just now in this conflict.

Ed (31:39)

Right?

Yeah, and just trying to hash it out. Yep.

Bryan Power (32:04)

That's the first

Ed (32:04)

Right.

Bryan Power (32:04)

thing I would say too, is never have conversations when you're in a, excuse me, when you are in an emotionally triggered state. If you are emotionally triggered, ask your partner, hey, I'm really feeling emotional right now, this is not a good time. I wanna revisit this. This is an important discussion and I wanna revisit this, but can we do this at a later time when it's a little bit better for us to do this? Yeah.

Ed (32:12)

Yeah, it's a good tip.

So I want to comment on that because that's really important

⁓ because it addresses a couple of things. It addresses our nervous system, calming it down, and it also addresses our attachment fears of abandonment. So I'm recognizing my nervous system is getting hijacked emotionally and I'm vocalizing it versus just acting on it. So that's good self-control, regulating my nervous system, communicating that need of a boundary. So we're clear about that boundary with the communication. But the thing that I tell a lot of my couples

Because they're fearful that if we take a break, we'll never come back to it. And so that's that attachment fear of abandonment or even just neglect. Like, well, they don't care. And that translates usually they don't care about me or this issue or solving these problems. And now I can't trust you. I can't work with you. The mind extrapolates a lot of things from there. So what you said about like, we'll come back. I usually say give it like 10 minutes.

If it's still not long enough, come back anyways, tell them I need 20, tell them I need an hour, tell them I need a day. And the other thing that people get kind of anxious about is they fear that if they don't hash the issue out now, it'll never get resolved. And the truth is, is if you're always hijacked trying to hash out issues, it will never be resolved. So give it a day. The issue will come back around. You can talk about it another day. It's okay.

Bryan Power (33:27)

Absolutely.

That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. If the issue is important enough, and it usually is, you'll find another time to come back around and you just simply approach yourself, your spouse and say, Hey, honey, I'm in a better state of mind. I'd love to have that discussion that we were continuing our discussion from the other night. Can we do that maybe tonight? Would tonight be a good time for us to do that? Yeah, it'd be great. Okay, great. And you revisit that and you will find a hundred percent, man, it is so much better than sitting there trying to argue it out and hash it out right now. You don't need to fix it right now. Okay.

Ed (33:55)

Yep. Yep.

That's right.

Absolutely.

Bryan Power (34:14)

99 % of those arguments do not need to be repaired right at that moment. Absolutely not. So put it on the shelf, catch your breath, but then yes, make it important. Hey, we'll talk about it. wanna bring this up again. And when you practice that and you realize, wait a second, we can put it on the shelf and we can revisit this. It's possible. So now you start to believe in the process and you realize that, you know what, we can do it that way and it is okay to do it. It's the best way to do it really. So I love that practice.

Ed (34:28)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bryan Power (34:40)

It's been a game changer for my wife and I. I really feel like that's one of the big ones for us that has really just been huge in changing the dynamics of our relationship and how we really can hear each other and feel each other's presence in that regard. We now have a tool to actually move the needle in some of these really important issues that we face in our relationship. It's huge. It's a game changer. It's a game changer. Yeah, last one I love to talk about is just our behaviors, okay, overall. So number six is behaviors. And something simple like, you

Ed (34:58)

Yep. That's right. That's right. Love it. Love it, man.

Bryan Power (35:09)

Maybe in the past you get a little bit triggered and now you're flying off the handle. Maybe I grab that cup and I throw it in the sink and I'm like, nobody cleans up around here. I'm getting frustrated. But instead of that, I changed my behavior and I say, you know what? I'm gonna take a step outside. I'm gonna walk around the block for an hour or so. I'm gonna put my sneakers on, go for a little walk or I'm gonna do something that kind of gets me out of that triggered state a little bit. And now all of sudden you see me as like, wait a second. This is a guy who knows how to handle his emotions. He knows how to stay in control.

Ed (35:17)

Right, right.

Right, right, yep.

Bryan Power (35:38)

He's not flying off the handle like that before. And again, just changing our behaviors, how we do things on a daily basis really begins to again, show the other person how we are changing and we do know how to do some things differently. I really love those six pillars because I can work on different ones on certain days. Maybe I kind of really doing good on this one. And then I realized, I need to work on this here. And we can see, I almost can grade myself a little bit. Okay, I've got more tools on the communication side.

Ed (35:56)

Yep. Yep.

Bryan Power (36:06)

Maybe I need to tap into some more of my core wounds and figure that out a little bit, because maybe I got triggered over something. So I just love that ability to kind of look at those six pillars and then see where I can maybe get a little bit better at each one. I it really does seem to move the needle.

Ed (36:19)

And the last one that you mentioned, the behaviors, ⁓ one of the things I notice when people are ⁓ making good progress in their relationship, when it's early, I find that the paradigm, so like the person who's the offended party, let's say you're making a lot of progress, your wife's offended, and she just cannot see you in your growth. She cannot visualize it. So a lot of couples, they'll interpret

They won't even see that good behavior. They just, they're anticipating the negative. So that's all they're interpreting is a negative. So sometimes, you know, maybe if your spouse is very, if they're working on it, sounds like your wife was, you know, if you're working on it, you're going to be more ready to see it. But if they're, if one person's working on it the other's not, sometimes they just won't see it. So it may take a while for them to get used to this kind of new way of being and interpret like, he, took a walk and didn't break all the dishes. Like that's progress. That's great.

He might still be kind of an ass right now and that fine, but I'll take the win. And then later he's now respectful and kind and gentle and understanding and engaging in all these other pillars. It's like, okay, something's changed. And now that paradigm of who they thought you were that they would project onto you, that shifts and they can start seeing that growth. if those of you out there working on your marriage, be encouraged.

Bryan Power (37:17)

Yeah.

Yeah

Ed (37:41)

This can be a lonely road for some of you if you're just doing it on your own. This can be a lonely road. But be encouraged that when you take the responsibility and put the effort into those behavioral changes, they won't notice it right away, usually. It'll take some time.

Bryan Power (37:57)

Yeah, no doubt. mean, you're used to certain person being a certain way for so long that when it changes, it's going to take a little time, but they will notice. If you continue to down that path, they will notice. And all of a sudden, you will notice. You will notice how you're doing, feeling better, feeling good about things. And you're going to be able to really begin to change yourself. That's the most important part is as we change ourselves, the relationship dynamics change as well, because we're bringing that into the relationship. And even if that other person isn't working on themselves, isn't doing anything.

Ed (38:05)

Yeah.

yeah.

Absolutely. Yep.

Bryan Power (38:27)

A lot of times one person can change the dynamics of that relationship by just their own behaviors, their own way that they're doing everything. All of a sudden that other person is now forced to come along with you. Or eventually if they just can't come along and you completely outgrow them, that's where we get a little tough sometimes. But at that point, if you're making that work, you're getting to a healthy point and you have somebody who's really at that point dead weight doesn't want to change, is staying stubborn, is staying completely stuck in that negative zone.

Ed (38:31)

Amen.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Power (38:54)

Sometimes we do outgrow that person and that's unfortunate, but I do feel like a lot of times, you're gonna be able to see that person come along with you. I always say this, they say that two is better than one, but one is better than none. So just because your spouse isn't coming with you doesn't mean you shouldn't do the work. If nobody does the work, I promise you if nobody does it, it's really gonna stay unhealthy, right? So you have to have at least one person stepping up to do the work and that can really be a game changer.

Ed (38:56)

Yeah. Yeah.

Amen. Yep.

Nothing gets better. Yeah.

Bryan Power (39:22)

Don't think that just because your spouse isn't that you can't see benefits.

Ed (39:26)

And it's honorable too. You know, it's honorable to put the work in and to reach for higher virtues and to be healthy if nothing else for yourself. Because at minimum, the ripple effect, whatever circle of influence you're in, the ripple effect will be felt there. You know, if your family rejects you and if your own town rejects you, fine. But the circle of influence will be felt everywhere else.

Bryan Power (39:44)

Yeah.

Ed (39:53)

You know, and that's a really beautiful thing. And the thing I also I like about these pillars is they're terribly practical. So I hope our listeners can understand that these ideas, these concepts are so practical. You don't actually need a master's degree like I have to implement and learn these skills. It's okay. You can just learn them, you know, and you're right. And the one thing I'll say to that end too is like what a lot of people struggle with and they struggle with this

Bryan Power (40:14)

Yeah.

Ed (40:22)

it also like in the research and self-help books is that they, ⁓ when they start implementing new tools, whether it's self-help or through a coach or through a therapist, initially it might be a little confusing. And what I would say to that is have a coach, have a therapist, have a pastor, have a friend, have somebody to help mentor and guide you along because as you use and implement these skills, which are doable, again, you don't need a degree to do them, ⁓ you will have greater success.

because you can try them, you can fail, you can try it again, you can fail, you can try it again and fail. And the more failures you have, the more successes you'll have, because that means you're trying. So that's a pretty good measure when you're getting coaching, when you're getting support, when you're getting care through these things. Because they're easy concepts in some sense, but they are a little bit hard because we're battling, as you said in the beginning, kind of the demons of our past. The transgenerational processes or the sins of our fathers, they're all passing down.

into what we do and what we produce in the world. That's fine. That's normal. Nobody's going to escape that. But that doesn't mean we're stuck and lost in it. mean, you're a great example of that story of redemption in a marriage.

Bryan Power (41:29)

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank God we don't have to have a master's to do this because I'm just an average Joe, right? I'm just an average guy who's been through a lot, who has his own stories, if you will. And I've done my share of self-help and working on this and stuff. But yeah, that's what I do. I love it. It's very practical. These are some things that can be implemented very easily and the ability to learn this and some of these concepts can really just some of the basics. You just need a good foundation.

Ed (41:36)

Right. Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Bryan Power (41:58)

and that foundation can really change your life. Like I said, I didn't have anybody to teach me these things. And so, I grew up without anybody and I do believe, I think it's great to have a coach, have a therapist, have a team. If you can get a good quality team behind you, man, you can really move the needle even better. If you try to go at it alone, you can get there, you can get there, but it's gonna be harder and you don't have that person to bounce these ideas off of. You may hit a blocking point where, it's like, do I strike? Whereas if you have a good team.

Ed (41:58)

Yeah. Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Power (42:25)

you know, between your co maybe a couple of good frie idea, somebody will come u that you're like, yeah, a good approach. I like t be a game changer going fo ⁓

Ed (42:39)

Right, right. And you don't have

to throw away that which you love. Like if you love your family, if you love your spouse, like what all of this is suggesting in some sense with a little bit of help, a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of effort, you can repair the things that you love. You can save the things that you love and hold on to it sometimes for a lifetime, which is beautiful. Right. And especially if your spouse is motivated too, by God, like you can make a difference in a way that's

Bryan Power (43:00)

Yeah. Yeah. Her.

Ed (43:07)

earth shattering and possibly and probably what you're experiencing right now, if I can reflect on that too, what you're experiencing right now in some real sense is something you've never in your life experienced, which is a healthy relationship. And a lot of people don't even have context for what that looks like. And so this is all, it's like a foreign language to be healthy.

Bryan Power (43:27)

Yeah, if you'd asked me before all this happened, if my wife and I had a pretty good relationship, I would have said, yeah. But looking back at it now, I realized, and it wasn't the worst, it wasn't horrible, but you know what? I can look back now and realize, wow, how much better is it today than what we had back then? Yeah, when we're able to communicate this way, we don't argue as much, we're not triggered emotionally, we don't have all that baggage we're bringing in.

Ed (43:32)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. Absolutely.

Bryan Power (43:52)

We are on a really good page. We connect well. We help each other, meet each other's needs as much as possible. We're just in love with this relationship. We're in love with our family, our kids. We are doing everything we can just to be a good family and not pass this on to our kids. We're a family of healing and I think that's just been huge for us. Yeah, it's a night and day experience. never thought, because again, I never saw this, that...

Ed (43:56)

I love it.

Bryan Power (44:18)

this is how a relationship really kind of should look like and be. And so I always say a lot of times, look, it's not your fault that you're in the position you're in. The chances are if you went through a childhood like mine or even if you had somewhat good parents, you know, a lot of times we, you know, good parents doesn't mean that children don't develop some wounds, right? I mean, so a lot of times you can come from a good family and still have some wounds there that are playing out, but we are responsible to fix these things. So we're not responsible for the fact that it happened to us.

Ed (44:21)

Right. Right.

For sure.

100 percent.

Bryan Power (44:45)

but we are in that position, we have to now fix them because nobody's here to save us. Nobody's gonna come to save us. If we don't take the ownership of this, we're gonna continue to destroy our own lives and destroy the lives of people around us. And if you don't wanna do that, then it does take some work to change that and to stop that, you they say hurt people hurt people. Well, we have to stop hurting. And the first thing we do is we typically hurt ourselves, but we have to start hurting ourselves, start healing and really get to that point where we're feeling really good about things.

Ed (44:49)

Amen. That's it.

⁓ all the time. All the time. Yeah.

Bryan Power (45:13)

And then we're not gonna pass that out to the rest of the world as we interact with everybody in our lives, you know?

Ed (45:17)

Right.

When you said earlier too, like you had to humble yourself enough to look at yourself properly. And whether you come from a good family or a dysfunctional, transgenerational dysfunctional family kind of system is irrelevant. People develop problems. People don't understand how relationships work. I mean, I'll be in this job for the rest of my life for that reason alone, you know, but to to begin the process

Sometimes the tree needs to be shaken so bad that everything falls out and you can kind of see what you're really working with like a restraining order just a culmination of something in a fair whatever it is But if you can humble yourself enough, then all of these things we've talked about today are actually something you can use But you have to be willing like if you're if the tool that you're used to using in your relationship I use this example a lot with my clients if you're used to using a specific set of tools like and how you do life like let's say your tool is a hammer and you're really really good at the hammer

Like when you go to clean the windows, you'll just break all of them. But you're great at the hammer. Like no one's questioning your use of the hammer. But like to become sophisticated in life, to grow up, which we all have to do, ⁓ means we have to humble ourselves to say, yeah, hammers are maybe not the best choice for cleaning windows. There's gotta be a better tool for that. ⁓

Bryan Power (46:18)

Yeah. All right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that. And

I always talk about, you know, like building a house or fixing a car, right? You know, I'm not a mechanic. ⁓ So nobody taught me how to fix a car. Nobody ever taught me how to fix a car. I don't have all the tools to fix a car, right? So how can I expect when my car starts to fall apart that I'm just going to reach in the bag, grab some strange tool and know how to fix this thing? It's not going to happen that way. So I have to read the manual a little bit. I have to begin to understand. I have to maybe spend some time with the mechanic.

Ed (46:47)

For sure. Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Right. Just know how to do it. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Bryan Power (47:08)

that can teach me these things, and then learn what tool is best for that particular situation. And as I do that, now I can go driving around with confidence, knowing that if my car begins to fall apart, I know how to fix it. I know what tool to grab. I know exactly what to do. And that's the same thing with my relationship. Nobody showed me how to have a great relationship. And I didn't have any of those tools. I didn't know how to communicate. didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know any of these things.

Ed (47:09)

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Right. Right.

Nope.

Nope.

Bryan Power (47:38)

So

how can I expect myself to know all these things and have a great relationship, right? It's almost guaranteed the relationship is gonna just continue to fail. So we now have to get those tools. And that's what I love about this program. love the type of work that you're doing, helping people begin to learn these things, understand them, begin to heal so that now we know how to get through this in a much healthier, better way. And we don't have to spend 20, 30, 40 years of our lives struggling, either going from different horrible relationships or even if you're in one.

A lot of times people stay in a relationship for 20, 30, 40 years, but it's a loveless relationship. It's a relationship of convenience, if you will, or something, or being stuck in that thing. You wanna have a good relationship where you feel connected, you feel fulfilled, you excited every day to share your time with this person. And that is a different, much more beautiful relationship than the rest of those types of things. But anyway, that's the way I love to talk about it.

Ed (48:07)

Totally,

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, no, you're right.

100%. And your

story represents that too, which is so great. People need to see hopeful stories. There's so many out there. I your own family is an example of a kind of a bad ending. mean, there's just divorce, pain, suffering, abuse. It's just horrible. And then now there's hope. So people need to see that. ⁓ Speaking of that though, how can people find you and get connected with you to learn these things?

Bryan Power (48:37)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ed (49:00)

Or if they want your coaching, find you in that sense as well.

Bryan Power (49:03)

Yeah, if you want to learn any more about this, about myself or my situation and some of work that I do, you can go to my website, honestly, makeyourrelationshipfail.com or myrelationshipfail.com. Either one brings you to my website. Hey, well, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I just play on that fact that I understand that failure is often the missing ingredient that we, unfortunately, you know, it takes sometimes that big failure before we're willing to do the work and grow from it. But I wanted to give you hope if you are in that situation.

Ed (49:15)

It's a good name.

It is.

Bryan Power (49:31)

Yeah, I hope that my story can give you some hope and the idea that anything can change. I don't care what your spouse has told you. I don't care how bad it looks right now. I don't care. You know, my wife told me she'll never be happy with me so long as I'm in her life. Like, wow, that's painful, right? It hurts. Right? A restraining order. It's like, oh, this is done. Like, what? But if you do the work, if you're willing to change, that can turn around. And I promise you, you'll be amazed at sometimes what can happen. I've heard a lot of good stories and if nothing else.

Ed (49:46)

That's brutal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, yours is one

of them. So yeah.

Bryan Power (50:02)

Yeah, if nothing

else, the healing that you'll do will lead you to a higher ground than something better. But go to my websites. And then if you want to, you can take the attachment style quiz on my website. It's completely free to do. You'll learn what your attachment style is, which is kind of fun. And then if you want to join the personal development school from my website as well, when you join that's Ty E. Gibson School. And that's what's going to give you some really great access to amazing videos, lots of good workbooks content that we can, you can work on and really begin to move the needle.

Ed (50:06)

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Bryan Power (50:32)

When

you do that, I want you to set up a time with me as well to get a free session. I want to hear your story. I want to hear what's going on with you. See if I can help point you in the right direction, give you some good information to move the needle ⁓ from there. If you decide you want to continue to work with me, then we can certainly talk about that as well. And I'd be happy to be your coach and see if we can get you to a good spot so that you can have this type of amazing relationship that I'm very fortunate enough to have today myself. So yeah.

Ed (50:56)

Awesome, Well, Brian,

thank you so much for coming on to the Voyagecast today. I appreciate you. I appreciate your story. And I really do hope that it moves a needle for so many people and they now have an additional resource. They don't just come to the Voyagecast. They can go to you. They can see us in person if they're in Colorado or they can find other resources, but at least they have something, you know, virtually that they can go to anywhere from anywhere in the world. Really, they can come to you and find you in a way that they couldn't with me, actually. So that's phenomenal. And

With that said, make sure if you haven't subscribed to the VoyageCast, do that now. Give us five stars because it helps me out get these kinds of messages to other people who need it. OK, thanks so much for joining me today on the VoyageCast. Brian again, thank you so much for joining me and ⁓ until next time. All right, buddy,

Bryan Power (51:43)

Thanks Ed, this is a pleasure. Thank