The Living in Clarity Podcast, w/Coach Ratner

Infinite Marriage Audio Book, Chapter #6

• By Coach Daniel Ratner

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Can material desires and the pursuit of external validation weaken the foundations of your marriage? Join us as we unravel the complexities of ego in relationships, starting with a relatable story of the time I bought a Porsche to boost my ego, only to find it unsatisfying and stressful. Through this and other personal anecdotes, we'll see how focusing on superficial attributes can harm marriages and why nurturing a soul connection with your partner is far more rewarding. We also reflect on how our perceptions of marriage are often shaped by our parents and discuss the importance of mutual understanding to build a lasting and fulfilling relationship.

But that's not all. Picture marriage as a profound merger of souls, much like the story of Adam and Eve from the Torah. We delve into the significance of emotional and intellectual connections over instinctual bonds and emphasize the role of self-love as a cornerstone for a healthy relationship. Moreover, we'll guide you through the 'research phase' of relationships to address potential issues before committing fully. To round things off, we explore how gratitude and acts of kindness can lead to genuine happiness and a richer, more satisfying life. Join Coach Ratner from the Living in Clarity podcast for practical advice and heartfelt stories that promise to transform your approach to marriage and personal fulfillment.

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Welcome to the Living in Clarity Podcast. I'm Coach Ratner. We are now on to Chapter 6 of the audiobook Infinite Marriage.

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Your ego is not your amigo. Although choosing to live by our souls instead of our body's desires can be difficult, our egos may even be a greater challenge to our relationships. Our bodies want to do what feels good, but our egos want to do what looks good. Our ego makes us do things that we think are logical but in reality are just serving our need for attention. Our ego can manifest itself in the kind of car we drive, the size of our house and the titles we seek in our profession. It even manifests itself when one's choice of a date is based on how many heads will turn around to glance at you when you walk into a restaurant. In fact, wealthy old men often date women who are in their 20s and 30s, both to fill their insatiable desires and because they want to impress their buddies. It is not about their soul's connection to their partner. It is just about filling the void from their lack of self-esteem with a boost to their ego.

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This is something that I went through myself when I was younger. I had always dreamed of having a Porsche. It wasn't because I thought the car was efficient, cost-effective or sensible. It was because I thought I would look so cool in it. I decided that as soon as I had earned enough money in my business, I would look for a used Porsche. Well, the opportunity came in the mid-1990s and I purchased a beautiful 1988 Porsche Cabriolet, which is a convertible model. I must admit it was a sweet looking car. Soon after I bought the car, the dream that I had of being the coolest guy around because of my car quickly faded into disappointment. If you've ever had a fancy German or Italian sports car, you know you can't walk into a repair shop without dropping at least $1,000. This was something I completely expected and anticipated, but the stress of spending all that money was not outweighed by the pleasure that I thought I would get from owning the Porsche. This is the perfect analogy for marriage. Everyone knows marriage is hard before they get married. Everyone knows that it takes a lot of compromise and good communication to build a lasting relationship. Everyone knows that even the best marriages will go through rough times. When the pain of being in a marriage outweighs the pleasure you get from being married, you get a divorce. Similarly, when the pain of taking your car to a repair shop outweighs the pleasure the car brings you, you sell the car.

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I decided it was time to get rid of the car. I originally thought that owning a Porsche would be exciting and fun. My perception of life quickly changed the way I view many things in this world. I figured out that the anticipation of owning the Porsche was more exciting than actually owning one. I only wanted it for my ego.

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If you think that finding a husband or wife will be the cure to make you happy in life or will help boost your ego, you may find yourself in the same situation I was in with my car. What is the real purpose of a car? Get from point A to point B, which almost any vehicle in the market today can do just as well. Your ego can be one of the most damaging aspects of any relationship. What is the purpose of a fancy car, expensive clothes and jaw-dropping houses? They call attention to yourself. Focusing on yourself instead of focusing on your spouse will cause problems in your relationship. If you can avoid taking action to satisfy your ego, you might be able to keep it in check and hopefully it will not let you pass up an opportunity to meet the love of your life or keep the love of your life, because your ego is not your amigo.

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Defining marriage While any relationship is in the research phase, both parties must also have a definition and a feeling of what it means to be married, especially if the marriage is your final goal. This is also true if you are already married and want to improve your relationship. Ultimately, this book is about getting to the point in a relationship where both parties are at the point of never leaving. What being married means to someone depends on their personal experience. Most of what people know about marriage comes from one source their parents. This is why, if you want your children to have a great marriage, you must show them what a great marriage is. If you were fortunate enough to come from a home in which your parents had a healthy marriage, you had positive experiences and role models and you will try to emulate that same experience.

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If you grew up in a house with parents who had a poor marriage, then dysfunction can also become your reality and affect your relationship with your own spouse. This doesn't mean you can't have a great marriage, and, in fact, many people from such backgrounds do. You just need to be aware that children from dysfunctional marriages often have to deal with more issues. This manifests mostly in children from divorced parents, although divorce may be necessary in many instances, if parents knew how adversely this would affect their children, they would see much less of it. It is fairly common to hear a couple who is getting divorced say that their children would be better off when they are separated or divorced. Parents may be giving that excuse because they do not want to go through the pain of having to work on themselves to improve their marriage. Children are harmed immensely when their parents divorce. We can see this in the high divorce rate for children from divorced parents. Men have a 35% greater chance of a divorce and women have a whopping 60% greater chance of divorce.

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One may assume that everyone defines the word marriage similarly, but that is rarely the case. Just like I gave a definition in the filling of the word love, I will do the same for the word marriage. At the very least, if you do not agree with my definition of marriage, the two people who are in the research phase of the relationship should definitely agree on their own definitions. The feeling of being married is when you feel complete in your relationship, is when you remain purposeful and likely to give to your partner is when there is no more self-doubt that maybe you could have done better with someone else. There is no more. The grass is greener is when you look at your spouse, knowing full well that there may be others who are better looking, happier, wealthier and more emotionally healthy and may have other personality traits that are better than your spouse's. In the end, you would not trade your spouse for anyone else. That's the feeling you want to ultimately reach when you are married. This feeling may not happen when you first marry, but you work on it so it develops several years into the marriage.

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Marriage can be defined as the merger of two souls. We discussed the idea of souls earlier in this chapter and that living with your soul as your focus will lead to better relationships. When you have a merger of two souls, you will be better able to fulfill the ultimate goal of sharing our unlimited love. According to the Kabbalah, we have half a soul until we get married. When we are born, our soul is split in two. Half your soul goes into your body and the other half is waiting for you somewhere in the world. What happens is that your soul unites under the chuppah and unite as one soul, that person then becomes your basheret. I believe that one soulmate can mean many different people. It all depends on where you are in your. The person you marry at 22 isn't going to be the same person you marry when you're 32, 42, or even 52.

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I know it is very easy to use the analogy that marriage is a team or a partnership, although a team has a better analogy than a partnership. A sports team has a common purpose, and that is usually to win a game. The issue is that once a team wins a championship, they have reached their ultimate goal, and many times a team does not stay together or has a hard time repeating a championship run. Of course, if it is someone like a Tom Brady or Michael Jordan, then the one supposed individual can lead a winning team for years, but that is an outlier and not the norm. Since you are probably not the LeBron James or Serena Williams in your marriage, you will have to work harder to make your relationship into a dynasty. You want your marriage to win the championship every year.

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A partnership is generally when two people have skills, money or contacts that the other one needs, so they join together so they can both get what they want. When their goals are met, they may find that they don't need each other anymore. For example, a partnership is formed in business because one person needs someone else with certain business skills. Once the person learns the business himself, the need for a partnership evaporates. This is why there are so many divorces after children are born. The main purpose for the marriage was because both spouses wanted children and they needed each other to achieve their goal. Once someone's goals are achieved, one business partner may buy the other business partner out or do what many partners do, namely sue each other in court. Why? Because partnerships don't work. If one person feels that their partner isn't doing their fair share In a marriage, how can you be certain that both partners are doing equal work?

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How do you define equal? Can you put a value on raising children? Can you put a value on being the breadwinner and supporting the family financially? It is impossible to put a value on something that isn't tangible and more often than not, people think their spouse is not doing their fair share. That's why looking at marriage as a partnership is a losing proposition.

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Looking at marriage as a merger of two souls means you are not one. You're one, not two. Who do you love the most? Most likely is yourself. Therefore, if you're giving something of yourself to another person, you will love them as well. But there is an even deeper reason why we should look at marriage as the merger of two souls. Will you ever hurt yourself? I know there are people with emotional issues who do things to harm themselves, but most of us would never intentionally burn our skin or call ourselves a derogatory name. Therefore, if you harm your spouse, it is only yourself who you are hurting. Your wife is complaining that her arm is hurting her. She has tried with no success to ease the pain. You go with her to the orthopedist to get some help. When you walk into the doctor's office, you her to the orthopedist to get some help. When you walk into the doctor's office, you say to the doctor our arm hurts.

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Looking into the Torah to the very first man in creation, adam, we can learn an important lesson on marriage. God paraded all the animals in front of Adam so he could name them. As he was naming them, he noticed that they all had a mate, but the relationships were based on animalistic tendencies and instincts. Adam told God he wanted a mate also, but he didn't want the connection to be based on animalistic tendencies or instincts. He wanted a mate he could connect with on a much deeper level, one that was based on emotion and intellect. God took Adam to sleep and created a woman out of one of his ribs.

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This suggests that our spouse should be the person we are emotionally and intellectually connected to. They are the missing piece of us. They are our soulmates. This is why the definition of marriage is the merger of two halves of one soul into one person. This is the person who completes us. Imagine taking a piece of paper that is shaped like a heart and ripping it right down the middle. One half is what your soul looks like when you are born and the other half is waiting for you somewhere, so that both halves will eventually join to form one heart. We should ultimately have one mission and one purpose, and that is to merge two souls together so we can form one heart and one life together. You must love yourself.

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Since you are in the research phase of your relationship, you need to make sure that the person you are considering sharing a life with loves himself. This may sound a bit off to some people, but if you really think this person may be the one. Maybe ask them point blank. Most likely they have never been asked this question and may open up some wounds that are hidden. At least with open wounds you have a chance to heal them. It's the ones that are hidden that may sneak up on you and destroy your relationship. I would venture to guess that if you ask this question, almost everyone will say yes. Since that's certainly not the case, we may need to look for is if they are hesitant or if they look away quickly. When you look and then look back at you. When you look and then look back at you, this may be a sign of some festering issues.

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Adam was alone in the garden of Eden before God made him a wife. The Torah does not say Adam complained that he was unhappy because he was by himself. So we must summarize that he was happy. It was only then that God said it wasn't good for man to be alone. One misconception that people have is that whatever issues they have will go away once they find love. The truth, which many people do not want to accept, is that in order for you to be open to love someone else in your life, you must love yourself first. It is similar to someone who takes drugs to escape life. It will work for a short period of time, but when the drugs wear off, you will have to face reality. If you marry someone because you think it will solve your problems or make you happy, you will eventually discover that only will you still have the same problems, but you will also be making someone else unhappy, which will only compound your troubles. At least before you start a relationship, you only have to worry. You only have to yourself to worry about. When you are in a relationship, like a marriage, your feelings and moods will affect your spouse as well. If someone is willing to better themselves, they can learn something from anyone, especially someone they date.

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I was blessed to have dated some amazing women and I personally learned a lot from every one of them. But what was the most important was I learned what not to do so I could improve upon my behavior in the future. Unfortunately, I once dated someone who was extremely unhappy with herself. She had trust issues from her parents and that eventually caused major problems in our dating. Early on, I knew that she was a fantastic person and of course, when you first meet someone unless they are totally nuts you'll see the hidden dangers. When I got past the crush phase and started the research phase, the red flag started to show. I stopped dating her because I realized her unhappiness was a barrier to any future healthy relationship. Thankfully, after our relationship ended, she was able to seek help and come to terms with herself and her past. Looking back, I believe our relationship helped her realize that she needed serious professional help in order to get on a path where she could be happy with herself and eventually get married. Even years ago, I knew there had to be a phase between the crush phase and the commitment phase. This is why the research phase is so important, so that you can understand what kind of person you may be committing to.

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A student of mine wanted to talk to me privately about her then-current relationship. The guy she was dating came from an amazing family. The family was involved in the Jewish community and were big donors to many organizations. He suspected the father had some narcissistic tendencies that most people did not know about. She felt that her boyfriend may have the same problem. After spending some time talking to her, she decided she wanted to break up, and so I helped guide her through the process. When she finally ended the relationship, he then started calling her family and harassing them. He then threatened to kill himself. She then told me that she knew with clarity that she had made the right decision, especially after seeing his reaction to the himself. She then told me that she knew with clarity that she had made the right decision, especially after seeing his reaction to the breakup.

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Breaking up can be hard and painful. It is very hard to hurt someone you have been close to. But maybe the main reason it's hard to break up is that when you have been close to someone for a long time, it is hard to be alone. Many people have a fear if they don't marry the person they are with, they will be alone for the rest of their lives. If you marry someone who doesn't love themselves, you will wish you were alone.

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When I was entering my mid-30s and still single, I had finally made the decision that I would strive to be happy whether or not I got married. I believe that relieving myself from the stress of finding a spouse allowed me to be open to meeting the love of my life. It's hard not to feel pressure about finding a spouse, especially for women who feel that their biological clock is ticking. Everyone has their own personal challenges in life that they need to deal with in order to allow themselves to love other people and allow themselves to be loved. Whatever your challenge, taking steps to love yourself will put you in the right path towards meeting someone where both of you can get to the point of never leaving. Happiness is a choice. One where both of you can get to the point of never leaving Happiness is a choice.

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Here are two ways to help you be happy. Number one focus on your thoughts on your blessings. Think about what you have, not what you don't. If you are reading this, it means you have blessed with two good eyes. How would you feel if you were blind your whole life and suddenly had a new procedure that gave you the ability to see? How happy would you be? It would be like winning a lottery. You should preserve this feeling because of the way you will attract the kind of person who preaches life, as the Mishnah in Pirkei Avoh says, who is rich, one who is happy with his lot and life. Number two bring happiness to someone else. There is nothing more fulfilling than when you can make someone else happy through words or actions. If you indulge yourself, you will feel tenderly and superficially fulfilled, but that feeling won't last. However. When you do a good deed for someone else, you will feel deeply fulfilled with a sense of well-being. This is Coach Ratner, the Living in Clarity podcast, and we'll see you next time.