12. The Rulebook

Do you find yourself getting hurt or frustrated when your partner doesn’t behave the way you expected them to? You’re not alone, and there’s a reason for that. In this episode, I explore the hidden “rulebook” we carry around in our heads, an invisible list of how we believe our partners (and others) should act to make us feel better.

Whether it's feeling unappreciated, misunderstood, or let down, these rules can quietly dictate the emotional tone of your relationship. But what if it’s not their behaviour that’s hurting you, but your expectations in a relationship?

Key Takeaways:

• Identify the invisible rulebook shaping your emotional responses.

• Learn how unmet expectations lead to emotional detachment and blame.

• Discover how to take back your emotional power without suppressing your needs.

• Understand the danger of needing others to behave a certain way for you to feel okay.

• Get practical steps to rewrite your inner rules and deepen the connection.

💬 Reflection questions:

What unspoken rules are you holding your partner (or others) to? How would your relationship shift if you took ownership of those expectations?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. And welcome to episode number 12 of the self Luke Shillings. If I'd been doing these monthly as monthly episodes then I'd have been a year already.

Crazy. As it happens I've not so you'll still have another 40 episodes to go until we get to the one year mark but trust me we'll get there and I promise you it'll be full of things that can help you and people that you know who have experienced infidelity. Whether you are the betrayed or the unfaithful spouse I guarantee that there will be something here that will help you make more intentional decisions in your relationships going forward.

So as promised following on from last week's episode I said that I would talk about the list and what I meant by the list. I'm talking about a list of rules. A rulebook let's say that we have for our partners.

A list of things in your mind about how your partner should behave. What they should do. What they shouldn't do.

How they should do things. How they shouldn't do things. All of the rules.

All of the things about what they need to do to make you happy. To make you feel better. Does that sound familiar? Isn't it annoying? Isn't it frustrating? You know sometimes when your wife doesn't do that thing the way you wanted to or maybe she finds it annoying when you put the dirty dishes on the counter right next to the dishwasher.

Just not quite in the dishwasher. I'll let you in on a little story about this guy. He would often get home from work about an hour before his wife did.

So he would always try and do a few things around the house so that when she got home from work it meant there'd be less jobs that she would have to worry about. What happened was he would do all these jobs. The washing up.

Make the pack ups for the following day. Tidy up the children's toys. Run the vacuum around and get them ready for their baths.

And then his wife would arrive home and she would immediately comment on one thing that hadn't been done. Like the kids homework or the bathroom light had been left on. Just something that hadn't been done.

Absolutely no comment or reference was made regarding any of the things that had been done. He found this infuriating at the time although he very rarely showed it and he often didn't react in the moment. He didn't get angry.

He didn't shout. Although an occasional snide comment or whisper under his breath might have slipped out but generally speaking he just got annoyed inside his own head. The reason I can be so sure of how he felt is because that guy was me.

I'd think how ungrateful. How unfair. It's like I just spent the previous hour doing all of these things and the first thing you do is walk through the door and criticise something that I happen to have missed and I just found that really difficult.

It turned out I had this rule in my mind. It was pretty clear my wife should be grateful when I do jobs around the house unrequested. She should be grateful and she should tell me.

That's honestly what I thought. I just want to clarify before you all start screaming your head off at me. That's not what I think anymore but it is what I thought at the time.

I thought I'm doing this thing and in exchange for that I should receive some gratitude, some thanks and when I didn't get that I got pissed and even if I didn't react there and then in the moment it did change how I showed up for the rest of that evening. I would be a bit more moody. I would perhaps avoid physical contact when walking past her.

I wouldn't say much and anything that I did say would be short and to the point. The main thing though is I would blame it on her. At least that's what I'd be doing in my head.

It's like well I did this thing for her. Not only did she not thank me for it but she then pointed out something that I didn't do so it's like double whammy and then I felt annoyed because of her behaviour so I then withheld any kind of love, affection, care, anything else positive for the rest of that day. In my eyes it was her fault literally.

That is what I thought. Many of you listening thinking yeah it was her fault. What's the problem? Okay here's the problem.

The problem is I had an expectation about what my wife should do in any given situation and this was just one of those things. So let's look at some other examples of things that people might have in their list, you know in their rules, their rulebook. She should spend less time at work.

She should make more money. He should want to go on a date night more often. He should be more emotionally available.

She should know what I'm like. She should tell me that she loves me. He should remember my birthday and he should know what to buy me.

She should support me. He should listen to me for as long as I listen to him. She should be kind and understanding.

Now these are a fairly basic, they're a course in reality. The list of rules are far more comprehensive than these examples. They tend to be complicated, intricate and detailed and if your partner's list was a book, a rulebook literally, it would probably be several hundred pages thick.

But why is it a problem? If my partner did those things I'd feel better. Well what's the problem with that? Well the problem is people get to do whatever the hell they want and that includes you. You get to do whatever you want.

Now that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences. There may be consequences but there's nothing stopping you doing that now. This is something I picked up as I was going through my training but one of the common things that we see in society today, particularly in the likes of couples therapy, is about how each partner could meet the needs of the other partner or how each partner should meet the needs of the other partner.

What can I do to make things better for you? And this is a bit of an issue because almost by definition it's saying that I'm prepared to change my behaviour and my feelings for you to feel better. Which sounds nice. It sounds like the thing you would want to do for your loved person and I'm not saying that you don't want to do those things.

But what else is it saying? Well it's also saying that if that's true then it's also true that I expect my partner to change their behaviour to make me feel better. Okay so what's happening now? What have we got? We've got two people in a loving relationship and we've got each partner doing things that they might not even want to do. All in order to satisfy the emotional state of their partner because they don't want to upset them.

They don't want to make them angry and they don't want to do something that will then affect the relationship. But of course the reality is that both people in the relationship are responsible for meeting their own needs. And you know what's best about that is if you and your partner can both meet your own needs, you can both satisfy your own needs, then what you can do for each other becomes exponentially better.

Besides which when you love someone do you really want them to do something that they don't want to do just to make you feel better? Is that really what you want from the person that you love? Just think about that for a moment. Maybe it is. My objective is for me to look after myself.

For me to take responsibility for myself and then I can choose to feel better and not let that power be with the other person. Let's say you have an expectation for your partner and your partner does sometimes fulfil that. They do the thing that you wanted in the way that you wanted.

Okay so is it realistic to expect them to do that all the time? Like continually? Every single time? Well no. Us humans are not very good at doing anything consistently for long periods. That's why robots are much better than humans at many tasks because they're not affected by fatigue and tiredness and emotion.

If they need recharging it doesn't matter if their batteries get low they just get plugged in and recharged. Of course humans don't work like that. We are an organic biological machine of sorts with far more complex needs and requirements that involve sleep and rest, food, joy and motivation.

Whatever it is. Okay so if you're tied up with your partner's behaviour you've given them all that power and you're setting yourself up for disaster. Furthermore being in a relationship with someone who's needy it's just exhausting and it's not fun.

So what now? We've established that we have this list of instructions, this rulebook. Now we want to do something about it. We don't want somebody else in control of our emotions.

So right now when someone follows your rulebook you may think this person likes me and cares about me and this is what you think is causing you to feel good. Also or alternatively when somebody doesn't follow your rules and you interpret it negatively you may think this person doesn't care about me or I'm not good enough and that will lead to what you think is causing you to feel bad. In both cases you are not taking responsibility for how you feel.

See this is what actually happens. People say and do things. We get to have a thought about it and then we'll feel something based on the way that we are thinking and that's it.

It really can stop right there. That's for us to play with. It's our journey.

It's our experience. We can share as much or as little of that as we choose but we're not going to give it to anybody else. We're not going to give other people that power.

Up to this point I've been talking about rules and the rules that we have for our partners but of course these lists are not exclusive just to our romantic partners. We have a rule book for everybody we know. Friends, parents, work colleagues, extended family, the neighbours, our children.

In fact even people we don't know. Maybe people who act a certain way online. Maybe we have rules about how people should behave online.

People should use correct grammar. If not it means this. If someone uses an incorrect grammar it annoys me and then I'll take it out on the next person.

Unfortunate enough to cross my path that day. As you may be beginning to piece together in terms of what I've been saying, a stranger on the Internet's poor grammar has absolutely no place in controlling how you feel. It's just your thoughts about their grammar that's making you feel annoyed.

Reacting is one of the easiest things for most humans to do. It's a great way for us to not feel our feelings. For more on that listen to the feelings episode, don't mention the f-word.

Reacting may offer some very short-lived relief but it does not help you feel better in the long run. Another common response is to just try and change the situation. I don't want to feel uncomfortable so I'm going to do whatever I can to avoid feeling it.

I'm going to change the situation. I'm going to change the person. I'm going to change their behaviour and then I won't have to do anything about it.

I'll just ignore it. Let me ask you a question. If you were trying something repeatedly, do you think you'd get better at it? It's just a simple question.

It's a yes or no answer. If you keep trying the same thing repeatedly, will you get better? I would say that there was no right answer but there is. The answer is yes.

Okay so let's say you try being in discomfort on purpose, like intentionally. You did something that scared you. You did something that made you feel anxious.

You do something that makes you feel tense. That makes you feel weary on purpose. You put yourself in an emotionally vulnerable situation intentionally.

I suggest that if you do this you do it in a safe place. Avoid doing it whilst driving or working with power tools or at heights, just to name a few. If you could practise just feeling discomfort, guess what? You'll get better at it.

You'll get better at feeling discomfort. I know, who'd have thought? I can picture you all jumping for joy as you've just heard me give you that great bit of news. Luke said I should be uncomfortable as much as possible.

Okay, okay, bear with me. Will you ever enjoy feeling discomfort? Well, it's an interesting question because on the surface you would think not because by definition it's discomfort and therefore it can't not be uncomfortable. Yes, that's true.

However, how about what makes you feel discomfort? Could that change? Perhaps you could just change it bit by bit. You could change one thing that you know is uncomfortable to experience and just let it be there. Pay attention to what it feels like.

Be curious about how it feels in your body and with practise it will literally become easier to handle. And the great news is that if you get good at doing this with one thing then other things will start to be easier to handle as well. Now there is one exception to these rule books that I'd like to mention.

For those of you who are parents you might be thinking well I have a rule book for all of these people in my life. I have one for my mother-in-law, I have one for my brother, I've got one for my boss and what about my children? Are you saying that they get to do whatever they want and I can't control other human beings? So generally speaking yes but also no. Kids will be kids.

Most of us have witnessed a toddler laid on the floor in the middle of a store kicking and screaming in full-on temper tantrum. Well that's them exercising their right of people can and will do whatever they want. And of course you will still have a list of rules in your rule book for your children.

So for example my children should sit down at dinner, my children shouldn't be so loud, my children shouldn't run around when we go outside or go out in public. And as a parent myself there are many many more. I would treat these specific examples in the same way that we've already spoken about, in the same way that we do with our partners and the other people in our life.

However when it comes to safety then yes your children probably should do as they're told in certain situations where they are at risk. Because as a parent certainly in the modern Western world and many other places you are responsible for your children until they reach adulthood and keeping them alive is usually pretty useful. So yeah if they're going to be putting themselves in a situation where there's a significant chance that they could do harm to themselves or others then they probably need some intervention let's say.

And finally for those who are interested in my current relationship, if I choose to help out my partner I now do it from a place of love. Because I want to, I choose to. It literally doesn't matter to me whether it's acknowledged or not because I'm not doing it for them, I'm doing it for me.

If my partner just happens to benefit from it then great. I like doing things for the people I care about and that is something that I like. The way I think about that makes me feel good, it makes me feel love, it makes me feel like I, you know, it's nice.

It's an experience I want to keep having so I'm going to continue doing it. But most importantly if they respond in a way that isn't favourable then that's okay too. And what I'll tend to do in that situation is just, you know, ask them if they're okay.

Maybe they've had a bad day, maybe something's not going quite right for them in a minute and they just want someone to listen rather than me reacting to the situation, getting angry, getting frustrated, then showing up completely differently which only sparks more disagreements, more arguments and ultimately creates a bigger disconnect between myself and my partner, myself and my work colleague or my mum or my children or whoever it is that I've got these particular rules about. So I ask you to look at the relationships in your life, write down what rules you have for partners, what things that you think that they should do, what they shouldn't do, how they should behave in social situations, how they should behave when you say a particular thing or do a particular thing. Get it all down, see what rules you've got and then question them.

How much power are you giving to your partner in that situation? You can still have preferences, you can still have things that you would like your partner or friend or family member, whoever it is, to do. You can still like that or want that but if they don't do it, bearing in mind that people get to do whatever they want, then that's on you if you feel something about that. If you feel crappy because of something they do, that's on you, not on them.

They get to do whatever they want, you get to choose to love them unconditionally, they can show up however they like and you still get to feel whatever you choose as well. Now that we're getting pretty close to Christmas and the holiday season, these rule books that we've been talking about really come to the surface. There are so many things in which our partners and our children and our family members should or shouldn't do during the Christmas season, particularly when we're getting together with, you know, other parts of the family and other friends and, you know, going out for dinners, all of the things.

How grateful our children should be on Christmas Day, for example, and many, many other little rules that we may have for those people. And of course the holidays is a challenging time, particularly for anybody who's been through infidelity. There's this story that we have about how the holidays should be and now that we've experienced this betrayal, then or even for those who have, you know, maybe been unfaithful themselves, now is the time where all of those things are brought back to the surface.

Everything's under closer inspection. So I'm excited to announce that due to the success of the holiday workshop that myself and coach friend Jen Frey did last month, we'll be running it again on December the 13th at 9 a.m. Central Time, 3 p.m. UK time or GMT. I highly recommend that you sign up and even if you can't make the live event then you will get access to the replay afterwards.

And even if you did attend the previous workshop, I'd still recommend signing up and attending again or at least watching the replay because it's so easy to just passively consume content but not really take it all on board. So repetition is without doubt the best way to be able to help train your brain to learn these new techniques, to learn these new skills and concepts so that you can actually implement them and actually make a difference in your holiday experience, in fact your whole relationship experience. So we cannot wait to see you there.

I will put the link in the show notes or you can just visit lifecoachloop.com forward slash holidays. Okay thanks ever so much again for listening, great to have you here and look forward to speaking to you again next week, only a couple of episodes before Christmas. Talk soon.