Scott Edgar (00:15.47)
To the po-t'laid, my name is Scott, I'm the host, and I'm gonna just jump right in today. I've been thinking a lot lately about why relationships fall apart. You we've all been in a relationship, I'm sure, where we've cared deeply about it. Yet, we watch as it just falls apart before our eyes. You maybe it's a romantic relationship, or maybe it's a family, or a friendship that matters to us.

There was a relationship, there was something really there. It was beautiful, it was worth wanting, and yet instead of becoming steadier over time, it became more confusing, more draining, more fragile. And you found yourself thinking, if I could just explain myself better, if I could just get them to understand, or if I try one more time, maybe then it would work. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about that lately.

And what I've come to is this. Many things don't fall apart because they lacked beauty. They fall apart because beauty was asked to carry weight it couldn't hold.

One way that I've thought about this is to think about buildings.

You we can look at a building and it can be beautiful, elegant architecture, warm lights. There's charm about it. The atmosphere feels great. There's beautiful stonework, beautiful windows, stained glass windows, even the whole thing. It's just a beautiful design. And you look at it and you think I'd love to live there and relationships can feel like that too. Chemistry, shared humor, history.

Scott Edgar (02:01.088)
emotional depth, attraction, conversation that feels rare, and you think, this could be home.

Now, I think most people understand, it's commonly understood that the strength and durability of a building is mostly invisible. It's the foundation, the framing, the beams, the load bearing walls. It's the integrity beneath the surface. That's where the durability and strength of a building lies and relationships aren't any different really. So this statement feels true to me. A beautiful exterior.

can't carry structural failure for long. It may be beautiful on the outside. It may look fine. It may feel fine. It may function for a season.

But stress reveals what the appearances conceal. And as we know, life always brings stress. It brings misunderstanding. There's conflict and fatigue, disappointment, fear, and pressure, and the storms. The metaphorical storms of life always come. And it's in those storms that the internal structure of a relationship will always be revealed.

So the question is that I've been thinking about.

Scott Edgar (03:24.704)
what makes up the internal structure of a relationship. this is what I've come up with. I call them the three C's. Communication, comprehension, and consideration. So with regard to communication, let's talk about these in order. So here's what I think about. And again, I'm not a therapist. So this is just my life experience. This is me trying to figure out life. And these are things that I've come up

that I've come up with. So with regard to communication, think the biggest question is can truth be spoken? Can someone say that hurt me or I feel distant or I need something different or this matters to me? So can reality be voiced without punishment? Because that is, that is foundational. But the thing that I've also learned is that

Communication alone isn't enough, because a lot of people speak and never feel heard. And that's where the second one comes in, comprehension. What is actually understood? Not just heard, not just tolerated, not just waded through, but what is understood? Can the other person receive what's being said without instantly defending or twisting, without reducing it to something easier to dismiss?

Because if there's communication without comprehension, then something painful begins to happen.

If only one person keeps trying to communicate, this has been my experience, if only one person keeps trying to communicate and there's no sign of understanding, then communication itself becomes corrosive. The same pain gets expressed again and again, the same needs get named again, the same wounds get revisited again, the person trying to be heard becomes more desperate, the person not receiving it becomes more irritated at hearing the same thing over and over again. And that's when resentment grows on both sides.

Scott Edgar (05:26.58)
One feels unseen, the other feels pressured, and what began as an attempt at connection becomes a cycle of friction. That doesn't necessarily mean either person is evil. It may simply mean that the structure is failing because communication was never meant to carry the whole building by itself.

Scott Edgar (05:46.86)
So communication, comprehension, and then the third piece, consideration. Once something is understood, does it matter? Is there care, adjustment? Is there effort? Is there movement?

Does what hurts you register in the life of the other person? Because without consideration, understanding becomes passive. And passive understanding does not repair pain. Passive understanding does not move anything forward. Passive understanding

does not heal. And I think that this is where a lot of us get trapped. At least this is where I've been trapped. There's a deep human desire to be seen, to be known, and to be understood. We want to have our feelings matter to someone who matters to us. If we're in a relationship, and when that doesn't happen, we often don't step back. Instead, we lean in harder. We explain more. And that's where the repetitive

efforts to communicate become a problem. We plead more clearly. We try new angles. We become more emotional. We start sending Instagram posts that express what we feel.

We become more accommodating and this is the danger. We become more accommodating. We start moving our boundaries. We become more available, more desperate for what should have been freely given in a mutual relationship. And little by little, and here's the problem, little by little, we begin to abandon ourselves.

Scott Edgar (07:26.082)
And as I've thought about that, the idea that comes to my mind is that I become like water. When structure is weak, I've had a tendency to become water, to adapt, to flow around problems, to fill gaps, to soften edges.

Scott Edgar (07:49.208)
I've had the tendency to reshape myself in an attempt to preserve the communication. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Flexibility can certainly be a good thing and a healthy relationship flexibility absolutely matters. There are times when one person is struggling or life is hard or something has to give for a while and being adaptable is part of love. So let's understand that.

But flexibility isn't the same as structure. That's the part I've had to learn because yes, water has value, but it also has the limits. Water fills space. It adjusts to whatever contains it. Water yields. But the thing is you can't build with water. It isn't load bearing. It has no structural integrity of his own. And that's the problem. So flexibility.

can support a healthy structure, but it can't replace one. So if I keep becoming water, if I keep adapting and adjusting and reshaping myself to hold together something that isn't holding, then I stop asking the more important question, which is, can the structure itself stand?

If the only reason that there's connection or apparent connection, if the only reason that the structure is together, the relationship is together, is because I am abandoning myself and I am giving myself up.

So if that's the only reason, then there's no amount of flexibility from me that will make that structure, that relationship sound. And so this is the hard part. This is the hard part.

Scott Edgar (09:44.206)
If I see that I'm not being understood, if I see that I'm not being considered, if I see that my repeated communication is only deepening the wound, then I have a responsibility. And again, I don't think we give up after one instance of feeling like we're not understood. I'm not saying that. But if we start feeling crazy and our life starts getting chaotic and we start abandoning ourselves, if it gets to the point where we feel like we are

needing to abandon ourselves and we're still not seen, then we have a responsibility. It's not to punish. It's not to condemn. It's not to attack. Like none of this is, meant to, indicate that one person is better than the other. We all have different levels of understanding and communicating. And maybe this, and that's the whole part here is maybe this, we just have different structures, but

We have a responsibility when we start feeling like, okay, in order for this to thrive and, or in order for this relationship to maintain any semblance of structure, I need to abandon myself. If we get to that point, then the responsibility is again, not to punish or condemn or attack, but it's to recognize reality and to see things as they really are. Stop trying to force understanding.

to stop trying to extract consideration, to stop asking an unstable structure to become secure through effort alone.

And I know that that responsibility is painful. It hurts because it often means grief, distance, letting go of hope, as we may have imagined it. But it's still responsibility. And again, I'm not a therapist, but this is what I'm learning and this is what I'm understanding. And we can resist it if we want. We can resist that responsibility.

Scott Edgar (11:51.234)
You know, we resist it because part of us believes if I say it one more time, maybe now they'll get it. If I love better, maybe now they'll care. If I shrink myself, maybe now there will be peace. But the truth I keep learning is that you can't force someone to understand you. can't compel genuine consideration. You can't negotiate another person into readiness.

and the harder we force it, the more toxic the loop becomes.

Scott Edgar (12:29.038)
And as I've passed through all of this, and I've been learning this, the key lesson that I am learning is that in all of this, the most important relationship structure for me, and I think this is a truth, a general truth, the most important relationship structure isn't out there. It's in here, my relationship with myself.

Now, do I believe my own pain when I feel it? Do I respect my own limits? Can I say no? Can I walk away from what wounds me? Even when I love it, can I tolerate grief without betraying myself to avoid it? That's a big one. Can I remain kind? And I think that's a big one too. Cause as I said earlier, this is not about one person being better than the other. It may just be that there's a structural mismatch.

There's a readiness mismatch maybe. So can I remain kind? Can I do all this without disappearing? So that is internal structure. That is foundation. That's framing. That is recognizing that the solution to all of this is not to try to force this external relationship, but it's to try to heal the relationship that I have with myself and make sure that that structure is solved.

a few years ago, I wrote a poem that's feels that's related to all of this. It reads, he tried and so did she, but neither understood the other. And that is how things fall apart despite the trying.

Trying does matter, and love matters, and effort matters. But the thing is, trying can't replace structure.

Scott Edgar (14:32.888)
So my question used to be, do we connect?

Now it's this, can this hold? Can truth live here? Can repair happen here? Can I remain myself here? Can this relationship exist without requiring someone to disappear? And as far as I'm concerned, can this relationship exist without requiring me to disappear? Can it exist without me feeling or having to erase myself?

That's the question. Some relationships need more honesty, not more effort. Some need more distance, not more explaining. Some need reinforcement. Some need boundaries. Some need to be rebuilt. And some need to be released. And wisdom, as I'm learning now at 52 years old, is learning the difference.

May we appreciate the beauty, but not forget the importance of structure. May we in our lives, our relationships, whether they be romantic, whether they be family, friends, whatever the relationship be, may we become more than water in those relationships.

Thank for listening. you got something out of this, you feel like it was helpful. I would love it if you shared it. As always, in the words of E.E. Cummings, may I be I is the only prayer. Thank you.