This Week’s Featured Radio Podcast

Listen to Volume # 052 — “Milan & Kay Yerkovich” (Podcast)

“Marriage 101” on KKYX Radio 680am San Antonio, Texas
Hosts: Starr & Bob Calo–oy
Guest: Milan and Kay Yerkovich
Broadcast Date: November 28, 2009

Kay and Milan Yerkovich, authors of “How We Love”, say our childhood experiences that leave imprints in our souls and develop our expectations about love determine our love-style as adults.

It is important that you feel able to hold your partner and allow them to cry and feel.  We insulate ourselves through our life, and we learn to hide our inner child early.  You need to access your emotions; if you haven’t been able to feel certain emotions, there is a tool.  Make a word list.  This can help you articulate.  Men access emotions much more quickly and feel more vulnerable when they are being held, instead of face to face.  When you get a man’s head on level with their heart, they begin to feel, and basically feel nurtured.

Nurturance is something that, if we are going to grow spiritually, and more like Christ, we are going to also need to develop our nurturance and comfort capacity.  There is toughness to the male, and also a soft side as well.  We have often missed the true face of God, because God is tough, and also tender—not just the Old Testament God.

Men need to show their young boys how to love and open up their spirit by how they relate to mom and God.  They see that tenderness side, and without it they don’t know how to feel, and what they need later on in life.  Feelings are like little lights on the dashboard telling us what we need.  Without access to these emotions, we can’t meet those needs in others.  They will then go elsewhere for that fulfillment, often met in illegitimate ways.

Young girls sometimes have an addiction to love praise or positive affirmation that we should give them as a father early-on.  Babies are coddled, but we forget that this attention is forgotten as they get older.  Kisses and hugs, and gentile innocent touching is the most important form of communication lost in families.

View their website at www.howwelove.com.

Secure connector -  the ideal growing up time.  The child is seen and known by the parents.  They pay attention to the child and the parent responds and meets those needs.  The child learns that need=parents taking care of that need.  Needs met training is firmly set within the first six years of his/her life.  If those needs are not met in that time then they, as parents, can end up having a low emotional quotient.  Broken love style.  This is often unrecognized that it affects your parenting and relationship with your loved one.

Controller/Vacillator/Victim/Avoider/Pleaser:  These are types of damaged love styles – mostly unrecognized, and these people aren’t aware of any damage.  Avoider’s aren’t able to articulate feelings and share them properly.   You need to “own it” and learn to feel and understand what need your feelings are telling you to have, and learn to hold and be held.  It is foreign and awkward at first;  this is not gender specific.  Pleasers often come from fear based homes-with anger or criticism around, and walk into adulthood anxious and on a quest to make everyone happy.  They fearfully pursue to care take, rescue and make others happy in an attempt to make others smile.  If you are smiling at me then I am happy about me (affirms them).  They forgive quickly and expect to be forgiven quickly.

People don’t realize how much parenting issues contribute to their children’s relationships later on as parents themselves.

A couple is highly reactive to each other sometimes and when friendship/intimacy goes down, sexual intimacy is uncomfortable.  They don’t have fun with each other anymore, which leads to this.   Relationships prosper and thrive with openness and safety.   If your home isn’t a haven, and your bedroom isn’t a haven, then what relief/retreat do you have?

THE AVOIDER

If you are an avoider you are private, self-sufficient and like your “space”. You are usually “fine”, have few emotions, and avoid being needy. Most likely, your spouse wants more connection and affection than you want to give and you may try to comply with their wishes, but ask for little in return. When your mate becomes angry because you “won’t connect”, you minimize and attempt to evade the conflict. Your partner’s complaints are most likely the focal point and if they were happy, you would be fine. You are probably task oriented and a high achiever and show your love by doing more than by connecting. Over time, you may resent your spouse because you feel they always want something, while you want very little. Your spouse may tell you that you are distant and don’t seem to need them. One of your most important growth goals will be to learn to receive and give on an emotional level by becoming more aware of your feelings and needs.

THE PLEASER

Growing up, you were probably known as the “good kid” and tried your best to please others and avoid rejection or criticism. As an adult, you form connections by seeking to meet the needs of others with little consideration or awareness of your own needs. You have difficulty tolerating space, separation, and conflict in relationships and emotional or physical distance from your mate may cause feelings of anxiety, insecurity or jealousy to surface. When others are upset with you, you pursue and give help to sooth the anxiety and stress you feel. You avoid conflict and it’s difficult for you to be honest. Anger, if felt, is expressed indirectly or not at all. If you have been in this role for a long time in your marriage, you may be resentful feeling you give more than you get. Your spouse may tell you that you over pursue and give things they don’t ask for or want. Your most important growth goal is to learn to say “No”, and tolerate the conflict that may result from being more honest. Expressing your own feelings and needs will help your relationships be more reciprocal.

THE VACILLATOR

Instead of minimizing your feelings and needs as the avoidant, you are keenly aware of your desire for connection. You prefer intense experiences of bonding in relationships because passion makes you feel close. This initial, intense connection causes you to idealize others early in relationships, believing you have found a person capable of devoted, passionate, and enduring connection. You are sensitive and easily feel disappointed, rejected, or unwanted as the relationship progresses, and you eventually become angry when your expectations are not met. Over time, you feel betrayed, abandoned and made to wait for your partner to be available. Your anger causes you to vacillate between wanting attention and feeling too angry to receive it. This is confusing to you as well as to others. The message you give is, “Come here”. “No, go away”. Your mate may tell you they feel like they are walking on eggshells and cannot make you happy. One of your biggest growth challenges will be to admit your part in your marriage problems by recognizing no spouse can be as wonderful as you would like. Learn to accept the weaknesses of others, express sadness rather than anger. Be willing to reengage with your spouse rather than letting anger block progress.

THE CONTROLLER AND THE VICTIM

As kids, your parents did not relieve stress; they created it, so chaos was “normal.” You may have learned to defend yourself by becoming controlling and aggressive, discovering anger is a preferable emotion to any tender feelings, feelings of humiliation, shame, fear, or grief. As an adult you control others believing you must take what you want by using threats, intimidation and sometimes even violence. Any flicker of vulnerable emotion like insecurity, fear or grief is quickly banished with anger. You must acknowledge and deal with the pain from your past in order to grow and change because there is a lot of grief under all that anger.
If you survived the chaos of childhood by trying to be compliant, passive, and invisible, as an adult you still feel unable to assert yourself and will tend to marry someone controlling, who will dominate you. Your low self-esteem keeps you believing problems are somehow your fault, so you try even harder to subdue anger in your spouse. You will need to find a safe place to gain some confidence and support.

THE SECURE CONNECTOR

Secure attachment was described in chapter four when we looked at what kind of home guides a child toward a secure imprint as an adult. If you are a secure connector you are comfortable with reciprocity and balance giving and receiving in your marriage. You can describe strengths and weakness in yourself and others without idealizing or devaluating. You are good at self-reflection and know what is inside you, which makes it easy to clearly communicate your feelings and needs. Resolving conflict was modeled for you growing up, so in your marriage it is natural for you address problems, accept advice, see alternative perspectives, and negotiate and compromise to resolve problems. You know you are not perfect and can apologize when you are wrong. You also can set boundaries and say “no.” You are comfortable with new situations, can take risks, and delay gratification. When upset, you go to your mate for help and comfort. You may have some of these qualities and need to improve some of the others. Set a goal today and pick one of the areas listed above to in which you would like to make progress.

Starr & Bob Calo-oy created Marriage101.net to offer help, encouragement and counseling to couples. Through weekly Radio Shows on KKYX 680am San Antonio, they host special guests who cover many unique topics concerning marriage. They also have weekly TV Segments on KENS TV 5 San Antonio where they share marriage tips. All of these programs are archived as Radio Podcasts and TV Podcasts for your easy listening. Visit their sister site, CaregiversAdvice.net for caregiving help for your special loved ones. Starr has written Four Books on Caregiving.

Tags: Bob Calo-oy, How We Love, Kay Yerkovich, Love Styles, marriage, Milan Yerkovich, Starr Calo-oy
This entry was posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 11:09 am and is filed under Featured Radio Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.