315 - RADAR Troubleshooting

Full transcript available

Check-ins are vital

Holding a regularly scheduled relationship check-in with your partner(s) is almost always a good idea, so for this episode, we’re answering some questions about how to facilitate healthy relationship check-ins, especially with our RADAR formula. There are several different relationship check-in formats, so while RADAR might be our favorite, one of the others may work better for you! Most of our tips today are applicable to any type of relationship discussion.

When is the right time to introduce a RADAR to a new relationship?

• Setting up the habit of regular check-in conversations is an excellent idea, since there is already a multitude of advice about implementing them in established relationships.

• As long as it feels as though this relationship would benefit from such conversations, you can introduce them whenever you want.

• Depending on where you are in the relationship and the type of relationship, you may want to start small and scale it with a shorter agenda and topics that are relevant to your connection.

How do I pitch a RADAR to my partner?

• Spend some time thinking about your own purpose and goals in this.

• Many approaches depend on your situation:

  • Avoid criticism.

  • Don’t make the pitch during conflict.

  • Be honest about what you’re needing out of this.

  • Lean into the potential benefits and positive outcomes.

• See if you can agree upon a version of the check-in that you’re willing to experiment with for a set amount of time.

• Microhabiting is very useful for this (i.e. building up the habit before focusing on the quality of the conversations).

Anxiety about having a check-in

• Remember that “serious” does not always equal “something is wrong.”

• Normalizing these talks and helping them feel a little bit safer can help.

• Get you and your partner comfortable beforehand, however that looks for you.

• If you deal with anxiety on a regular basis, lean into the coping mechanisms that work for you.

• Consider talking to a trusted friend or professional if you do not experience anxiety normally and the topic of conversation check-ins causes a spike in distress.

Time management during RADAR

• Set a timer for each topic.

• Take notes ahead of time on the most important things to you.

• Consider experimenting with different times and/or locations, or different intervals between discussions.

• Shorten the agenda or pick a limited number of important topics.

• Find a way to attach a reward to it.

When a RADAR becomes a fight

• Practice HALT-ing or tabling certain topics.

• Setting aside dedicated time for particular topics.

• Practice NVC, softened start up, and taking turns speaking, listening, and reflecting back on each other.

• Get help from a therapist or counselor.

• Experimenting with the order of the agenda.

• Sometimes fights are inevitable, and working towards improving conflict is always positive.

Implementing action points

• Let’s talk about documentation:

  • Should you do it? Do we do it?

  • Write down action points in an easily accessible place.

  • Action points that keep getting deterred are an opportunity for discussion.

What if I’m the only one scheduling them?

• RADAR daddying.

• It may take a few repetitions of RADAR daddying if you were the one who was gung-ho about them in the first place before the other person starts scheduling.

• We recommend taking turns.

The appreciation round feels forced or fake

• Sometimes we struggle with verbalizing our appreciation.

• Taking some time before this round can be helpful or useful for some.

• Some people prefer writing down appreciative things about their partner.

• Physical reconnection or quality time is okay too if you and your partner don’t resonate with verbal appreciation.

• On another hand, you could try accepting the challenge!

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're doing a big old RADAR troubleshooting and FAQ. We're going to be covering all sorts of topics and questions having to do with the RADAR check-in formula that we created. If you have no idea what we're talking about by RADAR, you should go check that out first. RADAR is our regular relationship check-in formula for maintaining the health and well-being of your relationships. If you go back to episode 147 or multiamory.com/radar, you can get more information, a summary of that, and then come back and listen to this episode.

In this one, we're going to be talking about all sorts of questions we've gotten from people over the years, including how to pitch RADAR check-ins to a partner, how to manage your time during a RADAR, what to do about big fights that happen or anxiety that can come up around RADAR as well as much more.

Dedeker: Here's some fun facts. That RADAR page that you talked about multiamory.com/radar, that's the second most visited page on our site. Second, only to the podcast's page. It's also one of our top search terms, both within our internal site searching and on Google as well. Clearly, it's content that a lot of people are interested in Slash. We referenced it a lot and people are confused and need to go find out what the heck it is.

I like to say that RADAR is unofficially therapist recommended. Unofficially, four out of five therapists recommend RADAR for your relationship mostly because we've gotten a lot of therapists who reach out to us being like, "Oh my gosh, this is so great. I've been sharing this with my clients. It's so fantastic," or asking, "Hey, is there a format that I can easily share and send to my clients?" Things like that. I guess I've cobbled that together into four out of five therapists and one therapist just hasn't heard of it. That's how I'll explain that.

Jase: There you go. 100% of therapists who have heard it and talked to us about it recommend it.

Dedeker: Other trivia, our RADAR format has been translated into Spanish. I have to give a shout out to our patron, Jaime,who runs his own Instagram account, which is called Gotitas de Poliamor, which is all in Spanish. I did an interview on his channel a couple of weeks ago, specifically about RADAR and some questions about it as well. If you're interested in that also go check that out.

Emily: Just a quick word about check-ins, RADAR is not the only relationship check-in format out there though. We'd like to think that it's the only one that has a super cool acronym RADAR. Hell, yes. Our lovely Gottmans, they do have a thing called the State of the Union address. If you Google "relationship check-ins", you can find a lot of blog posts and articles about that specifically.

Dedeker: It's not really an address. I think I just accidentally added address.

Emily: Because that's how you State of the Union. Address.

Dedeker: Just State of the Union conversation or check-in. I don't know what to call it. Not an address though.

Jase: They call it just the State of the Union, I think.

Emily: Essentially, I'm assuming it's just like trying to figure out what the state of your relationship is or let’s, yeah, tackle how it's going.

Dedeker: It's three or four questions of like, "What did I do to help you feel loved this week? What can I do to help you feel loved or supported this week?" There are more broad questions, but also short and sweet.

Jase: It's a much shorter, simpler little thing. Not as in-depth.

Emily: RADAR is our favorite way of checking in in relationships, but it doesn't have to be yours. If you prefer something else, some other method then go for it, have fun. We hope that you can find some things in this episode and in our RADAR episode that maybe you can pick and choose from and take into your own relationship check-ins. Hopefully some of this will be applicable to you, to any type of relationship check-in, not just the RADAR's.

Dedeker: The questions that we're going to be covering today are questions that we've just gotten over the years, as well as I made a specific post in our Patreon-only Facebook group to ask people, "What are the things that you run up against with your RADARs? What are your FAQ's? What are the things that could be helpful to talk about on this troubleshooting episode?" Thank you to all of you who chimed in on that thread.

Jase: All right. We're going to start with the very first question. This is one we get a lot. That is, when is the right time to introduce RADAR into a new relationship? Is this something you should do on a first date? Is this something you should wait until your two-year anniversary? What is this?

Emily: On the dot, two years, then it's time for a RADAR.

Jase: 100 days into the relationship is when you should start. Now, a lot of the way that people get into relationship check-ins in the first place is out of a response to things being bad, out of a response to, "We're having a crisis. We're having a really hard time communicating," or, "We're freaking out about something that's really stressful. We need to find some way to deal with it and start a check-in."

Ideally, doing a regular check-in is something that you could start before that ever happens because it will help you to hopefully avoid issues like that piling up and building up a backlog of things that you haven't communicated about. Two, you'll already have that habit in place. If something does come up, you will fairly quickly be able to talk about it at one of your check-ins. That said, I know some people who've started doing RADAR in the first week of dating, but I don't know. What do you guys think?

Dedeker: I was about to scoff when you said, "Do you do it on a first date?" Then I was like, "That could be a really interesting nerdy first date where instead of it being like, 'What's the status of our current relationship?' because maybe we don't know these things, but just a check-in of like, 'Talk to me about your sex. Talk to me about your sex.' "

Jase: Talk to me about it.

Emily: Your sex life, I'm assuming, is what you mean?

Dedeker: Maybe your sex life, you as a sexual being, or like, "Talk to me about conflicts that you've experienced in a relationship." I don't know. Maybe it's a terrible idea or a great idea. Y'all go out and try it and let me know if it was just total crash and burn or if it was fantastic.

Emily: Perhaps some people would be a little scared off by that, but maybe not everyone. Maybe it would be beautiful.

Dedeker: You'd have to have someone who is ready for that.

Jase: They are on board.

Emily: Totally.

Dedeker: If you met and, right away, learned that you're both huge Multiamory fans, maybe then you could be our Guinea pigs to experiment with doing a RADAR on the first day.

Jase: Be sure you let us know how that goes.

Dedeker: I don't have a hard and fast answer for this one honestly. Ultimately I feel like you can introduce the concept of a check-in or a RADAR whenever you want, as long as you feel like you and this other person could stand to benefit from having this type of conversation. My only experience is honestly having some 2020 hindsight of looking back at a relationship.

Emily: You mean 2020 hindsight as 2020? Or you mean the year 2020?

Dedeker: Oh, I should clarify that. Shouldn't I? Hindsight as 2020 looking back with 2020 vision and seeing, "That's a relationship where I should have introduced a RADAR much sooner than I did. Maybe that could have helped this relationship in the way that it ended or not ended or whatever." That's really only, my experience, was having a sense of like, "Ooh, I waited a little too long to do this." I couldn't quite tell you exactly when the right time would have been, but I feel like the relationship got to a point of enough intentionality and enough investment that having some check-in probably would have been helpful.

Jase: I also feel like I've had relationships where we started doing RADAR maybe within the first month or so. It just did feel like maybe it was a little bit too big of a thing to start putting into that, especially if it's a relationship where you're not seeing each other multiple times a week. It was someone I was seeing maybe once, maybe twice a week. To spend once a month doing a RADAR, it felt like a little too much for the scale of that relationship. I think it could really go either way.

Emily: Depending on what kind of relationship you're in with this person, you're unique, your relationship is going to be unique. You can tailor the RADAR process to what that relationship looks like. Maybe you want to start really small, start with a couple of our questions. Start, I don't know, with broader topics perhaps, or put a time limit on it for a very, very short RADAR. Yes, maybe that'll be relevant to you and relevant to your connection with that specific person.

Dedeker: I think the funny thing is that in a lot of traditional dating and traditional relationship-ing, it's like we get to a particular point where in the traditional narrative we have the, "Ooh, we need to define the relationship," or, "Are we committing to each other? We're going to be exclusive," and that's the start of intentionality in the relationship, supposedly.

The funny thing is that while that does happen in non-traditional dating and in non-traditional relationships, I have come across far more people who are much more ready to be intentional right out the gate with their relationships and just be real on the nose of like, "Hey, let's just be real honest about what it is we're looking to build here, what it is that we want to get out of this. Let's be real intentional with checking in on a weekly basis or a monthly basis just to say, 'Hey, how do we feel about the direction that this is heading? Are we still feeling good?' "

I do feel that people in the non-traditional relationship community often are much more likely to be willing to incorporate these kinds of things much earlier than maybe your average Joe.

Emily: The next question that we got was, "How do I pitch a check-in RADAR to my partner? Because there are certain things that may happen once you do that like my partner is really resistant to doing a check-in, or my partner just wants to talk about topics organically as they come up." When this happens, maybe sit there, maybe question yourself first, think about your own purpose, your own goals in having a relationship check-in at all. Do you want just a time and a place to address a certain topic? Do you want better, safer communication? Do you want to be more close to your partner? Things like that.

Maybe start there first when you're bringing this idea up to your partner and frame it in that fashion, like, "Hey, I really am interested in better, deeper, stronger communication with you. This is a way in which I think that we can do that."

Jase: I like that. I think that many approaches to making the pitch can depend on your situation. Emily said just saying, "I want to have better communication," or maybe listening to the RADAR episode together, to just say, "Hey, check this out with me and see if you think it might be something good for us." You could do an elaborate PowerPoint presentation about it.

One of the key things is to keep in mind that for a lot of people, the idea of a check-in has a very negative association with it. Especially when you're approaching it, really avoid criticism being part of it. Avoid saying something like, "I think we should try this RADAR check-in because you're so conflict avoidant," putting the problem on them.

Emily: That is not the best way to put it.

Jase: Also it's good to, in that, remember that part of the purpose of this is just so we can have a chance to get on the same page about things, to make plans together, find ways to improve our relationship together, rather than saying, "We need to have this check-in because we're broken or because I want a venue where I can tell you all the things you're doing wrong." It is important. That can happen. That can be part of it, but that's not all it is. It's not just a place for dealing with conflict.

Dedeker: Speaking of conflict, I think it's important to not make a pitch for a RADAR or a pitch for some kind of check-in during conflict even though that can be tempting because you can be like, "Oh my God, I'm so frustrated that we didn't talk about this for months. Now, we're exploding about it now," or, "I'm so frustrated that there's so many topics that we have to cover. Now it's all coming out now. We need a check-in."

Ideally find a time when you're not hungry, angry, lonely, tired, drinking, sick, horny, all those things, and the two of you are feeling relatively safe and connected. Again, if you're coming from a place of like, "What's the good that could come out of this? What am I longing for and coming out of this?" that's a really good entry into making that pitch of, "Hey, I was thinking that maybe we could try out this thing because I think that it would help us become closer or it would help us to feel a little bit more stress-free in our day-to-day life," whatever it is that rings true for you.

Emily: Just have an honesty about that, exactly what Dedeker said and what we talked about before. Just be honest to yourself and to your partner about why you want this to happen. Again, stated in an affirmative way rather than a negative way, "We need to do this because you suck at communication," and really lean in-

Dedeker: Just to jump on that, the same thing with the affirmative versus negative also refers to putting more emphasis on what you do want rather than what you don't want. Again, instead of coming to your partner to say, "Hey, I'm just really sick of us devolving into this type of fight, and I want us to not do that. Let's do a check-in," is going to be less effective than focusing on what you do on which is, "I want to carve out a safe time and space for us to be able to process these things when we're feeling calm and relatively not stressed." Things like that.

Emily: Yes. Those benefits of having a really structured time for check-in rather than just an amorphous, like, "I'm pissed off right now, so I'm going to talk about it in a really volatile situation." Talk about those potential benefits and ideal outcomes of having a relationship check-in and hopefully you can get there.

Jase: Also the whole point of RADAR is that this is something where you and your partner get to work together to make your relationship better, something you're doing together to make your relationship better. Part of that is working with your partner to agree on, "Is there a version of this that would fit better for us," or, "Is there some customization that we could do to this to make it be a better fit?"

We'll talk about that a little bit more later in episode two, but just don't forget that this is your thing. This doesn't have to look a specific way. It doesn't have to look the same as it is with your other partners or with their other partners. This is your thing for the two of you to make.

In addition to customizing it, keep in mind that you could try it out temporarily. You could just say, "Let's try this for three months," or, "Let's just try this, this one month then maybe adjust it for the next time," just to take off some of that burden from your partner feeling like, "Oh gosh, I'm committing now to something that's going to be a lot of work and has to look a certain way and I might not live up to it," or something like that.

Dedeker: I really like encouraging people to do micro-habiting, which we referenced on this show before. I like to think of it as-- I don't know about all y'all, but you know those hurdles that they use in tracking fields that are-

Emily: I've heard of them.

Dedeker: -six feet high and seem impossible?

Jase: I don't think they're six feet high, but okay.

Dedeker: Closer to six feet high. That's how they feel. I have never, in my life been able to even imagine ever being able to remove a hurdle.

Emily: I just completely face-plant. Hit it with machines and then face-plant.

Dedeker: I like to think about like, "Okay, this hurdle feels way too high," but if the hurdle was two inches off the ground, I'd be like, "Oh yes, no problem. I'll hop over 20 of those in a row. Throw them at me." I like thinking about that with anything that we want to try out in a relationship or anything that we're wanting to try, but it keeps not happening. It's that, "Is there a way we can literally make it so small that it's just super easy to accomplish? What's a way that we can make this short positive, super simple?"

For instance, let's just book a 10-minute RADAR. Let's set it for Saturday morning. We'll get up, get our coffee, sit down for 10 minutes and then we just have a 10-minute intentional conversation of, "How's this week been going?" Super small, super easy, and it can literally be. We'll set a timer there at 10 minutes, like, "Okay, great. Awesome. Thanks for RADAR-ing with me. Let's go about our day."

The whole thing with micro-habiting is that it's about building up the habit, building up the routine and getting yourself to take those first few steps because those are the hardest ones rather than needing to do it exactly perfectly right, right out the gate, especially because a lot of people, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, find that on their very, very first RADAR, it takes way longer than they were expecting.

Emily: I've heard of people having eight-hour-long RADARs and I've definitely had four or five hour-long RADARs that take the entire night.

Jase: Dedeker and I have had some-

Dedeker: We've had to do this for sure. Six hours, I think, at the very least?

Jase: Yes.

Emily: For sure. It happens. Let's move on to the next question, which I feel deeply in my soul at times, which is that I get very anxious or my partner gets very anxious before having a check-in. This is normal. This is a normal thing to have happened. I find myself in maybe the day or so approaching a RADAR being- just feeling it a little bit and getting close to it. You do feel better after it's done but still, it's potentially going to be an emotional talk.

We live in this culture that suggests that serious talks and relationships mean that something is wrong. I feel that very hard as well. It is also a big thing that a lot of people will just have serious talks when they are in points of conflict with their partner. You can feel those emotions coming back up because maybe that's the way that you've only ever interacted with serious conversations, but it's important to normalize those check-ins. It's hopefully going to help you feel a little bit safer and build up more neutral or positive associations for yourself and for your partner.

Exactly, what Dedeker talked about, the micro-habiting, gentle repetition and exposure. Maybe just that 10 minute check-in like you talked about. I want to try this one. If you do a full RADAR, but really you only talk about good things or silly things or things that you're excited about, for my partner and we're really excited about traveling again, I know the two of you were really excited about traveling again, but even if it's just like, "Let's talk about all of our dreams for when this is over and all of the fun things that we get to do once the pandemic is coming to a close."

Jase: I think it's great to keep in mind that if this is something that you'll hopefully do over the long-term of your relationship, there's no need to rush in to doing every single part of it right away. You could even start out as your micro habit of just doing the reconnection, appreciation round, really build up that positive association. I know that's a part of it that I really look forward to with RADARs is, because I know that even if we get into heavy stuff during it, that that reconnection at the end really does do wonders in my experience for bringing us back together and reconnecting with what it is we appreciate about each other.

Another thing you could do is really set the scene, create your nest, get yourself and your partner comfortable and soothed beforehand. It could be taking a bath beforehand, doing yoga, having sex beforehand, whatever it is for you and then setting up a space that feels good, that feels comforting. This could be something like having pillows and blankets and candles and relaxing scents. It could be putting on some soft music or it could be, "We like doing this while we're taking a walk through the neighborhoods so that we're not just stuck staring at each other." Experiment with different things.

Dedeker and I have had RADARs in airports. We've had RADARs while driving in the car. We've had them at Emily's restaurant, or we've had some where we're just sitting down and focusing. We've had some where we've gone out to a park to have a RADAR. We've had many where we move locations throughout the RADAR. We'll do some of it over dinner and then we'll go to a park and then we'll come back home. Whatever works for you, just try things and switch that up a little bit.

Dedeker: I think it's up to you to determine how formal or informal you want this ritual to be getting into it. I've known some people where they will start out their RADAR with a little bonus reconnect at the beginning of maybe some eye-gazing or some touch or some giving compliments just to sandwich that feeling of connection and intention setting for like, "We're doing this because we're caring for each other and we're caring for the relationship. We're holding good intentions, even if we may potentially get into some awkward conversations or uncomfortable conversations."

If you're someone who normally deals with anxiety in your life, and this is a familiar response for that, then of course, you're the one who knows best of what's going to work for you. Lean into the stuff that does work well for you, make sure that you care for yourself ahead of your RADAR, to the best of your ability.

If you're someone who doesn't normally deal with anxiety, but the prospect of having a check-in or a RADAR causes a huge or the normal spike in your distress, that could very much be some kind of trauma response. Either capital T trauma or little t trauma or some kind of baggage, either from this relationship. Maybe there's been some violent communication that's really left an impression on you and has made intentional communication feel really scary or past relationships as well.

I just want to reiterate that, that's understandable that your body and your nervous system would be reacting in that way. This could be something that's good for reflection or discussion either with your partner or with a trusted friend or with a professional, like a therapist or a counselor as well to get to the bottom of like, "What's going on with me when I'm getting this incredible spike of anxiety before having some intentional check-in with my partner?"

Emily: We're going to continue on with our listener questions and deconstructing how we can make RADARs easier and more manageable for all y'all out there. First, we're going to talk about how you can contribute to our show and continue bringing it to the masses for free.

Jase: Our next question is about time management. We hinted at this before with some of these RADARs that maybe take six hours or something like that, especially early on. These questions are things like, "This thing takes too freaking long. How do I make it more efficient?" or, "How do we stay committed to doing this amongst all our other time commitments, between having a job, raising kids, everything else going on in our lives?"

There's a few different things that we've tried over the years or that we've heard from people. The first one of these that you could try is just setting a timer for each topic. If you specifically tend to just go on too long on each topic, something you could try is look at how many topics you want to discuss, figure out how long you want your RADAR to be, and then do some math and divide by the number of topics leaving some time for action points and reconnection at the end, but that can also be a useful thing to try.

You may also find, I know for Dedeker and myself, some topics just always take a lot longer than others. You could also customize that a little bit and say, "These first few topics, we're going to give 15 minutes per, then these later ones where we could talk forever about our families, but we're already pretty up-to-date about that. Let's just keep that to five minutes." Whatever it is for you, it depends on your situation. That can be a good way. It's just literally setting a timer.

Dedeker: It can also be helpful to take a little bit of time, either this could be 10 minutes before your RADAR, or it could be a couple of days leading up to your RADAR. Just take some notes for yourself on the most important points or most important concerns for you. You can also with each agenda item, instead of it being a big broad check-in of like, "Oh, let's discuss sex for the last five years of our relationship," or whatever, you can get specific in your agenda items instead of doing broad strokes.

It could be more specifically about, "Let's talk about this upcoming trip that we have. Let's talk about this last therapy session that we had." That can help you to make things a little bit more efficient and make it so that maybe it's also a little bit less overwhelming when you're diving into things.

Emily: You can do that and truncate the whole process or you can keep it as it is, but just find an interval of time that works for you. We recommend doing it monthly, but if that doesn't work for you, then you can do it maybe quarterly. Maybe that's the easiest thing. As long as you're not just running into huge backlogs and have a lot of communication problems or avoidance or things like that. Try not to do that.

Jase: I do want to say with that, I've noticed with Dedeker and myself, we will sometimes just not be great about scheduling the next one and it might creep into two or three months between. I have noticed this pattern though, of when it's been more than a couple months, I do feel like we end up in more conflicts than normal. I don't think Dedeker and I are super high conflict or anything, but I definitely notice it will be more. I do think that finding the pace that works for you, it seems like for us, at least doing it every six weeks seems to help. We try to do it monthly, but just something to observe for yourself too, over time.

Emily: You can also experiment with the time of day and the location of where you're doing it, like they talked about before. I know that for myself generally, it's always on a Tuesday or Thursday at seven o'clock after work and that just takes up the entire day.

Dedeker: Emily. It sounds like a terrible timeframe. I can already tell you that.

Emily: I know. It does. It definitely has not always been great, but that's generally what we do. I think that having a different location and a different time of day sounds great because it will break apart the habits that we've formed around it and then allow us to go and do something else entirely and break out of that mindset that tends to get pretty anxious and intense.

I recommend that for sure. That's something that I'm going to do, maybe, not at the end of the day. I think that seven o'clock at night after a long day of work, probably not the best time. You're probably going to moody and pissy anyway.

Dedeker: I feel like I haven't done an intentional nighttime RADAR on a long time. I feel like I've learned from experience. Generally, it has to be either the morning or during the day just to give that space around it.

Emily: I think it's a good idea to try to do a weekend. at some point. It is challenging at times, but it feels really good to know that you're delving into the minutiae, you're delving into the sinew of the potential relationship problems that may be there, or just the whole broad strokes of how you feel your relationship is doing because those are the things that you don't necessarily get into day in and day out. It's worth it. It's worth it to do it. See, you might not have an unexpected blow-up because you're doing this. That's a big thing. That's a really nice thing to not have to deal with in a random time in your relationship.

Jase: Actually, on that subject, not just avoiding, "We're saving time because we're not having these other arguments because we have a place to talk about things and discuss things," but also I've found it can be time-saving in terms of, you're starting to get into a more heavy conversation with your partner while you're trying to get back to work or you're on your lunch break or it's getting late or something that you can also save time by saying, "Let's write this down so we're sure to remember to talk about this at our RADAR, but let's talk about it then."

I've also found that that's saved Dedeker and myself sometimes, when we're getting into it. It's like, "You know what? Let's do this at RADAR." Usually by the time RADAR rolls around, we have a great conversation that's much shorter and much calmer than if we had tried to just have it right then because there's no other time.

Dedeker: It's a little bit of this front end time versus back end time commitment to doing it. I feel like nowadays, my RADARs with both my partners, depending on how they go tend to average out to maybe two hours or so maybe three but-

Jase: That's pretty good in that neighborhood.

Dedeker: For some people, that's like, "Wow, that's so short." For some people, that's like, "Oh my God, that's so much time." It is, of course, a time commitment, but again, I've never felt that it was not worth it. I've never gotten to the end of a RADAR and been like, "That was a total waste of time, and I wish I had my life back." It's always felt so much worth it. It's the kind of thing that it's okay to dedicate time to.

I want to do a callback to our episode about doing regular date time with a partner. That it's the same thing of, "Yes, I know we're all busy and we're all really encouraged to just pack out our schedules to every possible single moment, but there are some things where it's worth it to find the time for." We think that doing a check-in is definitely one of those things.

Again, we're going to sound like a broken record, just customize it for you. If you need to shorten the agenda, if you need to pick out a limited number of important topics when you're short on time, if we know, "Oh gosh, I know on this date that we're only going to have an hour, so let's just pick out the most important things, and then maybe next month or in a few weeks, we can do a bigger one," whatever it is.

The most important thing is just, you have to be honest with yourselves about whether or not there's any topics that are consistently being avoided by doing this, or constantly being left on the back burner because, "Oh, we only have enough time for three topics or these most important things." Just being aware of that, that shaving down the agenda can be helpful, but it can also lead to, "I sweep this particular topic under the rug or this topic that I want to avoid based on the excuse of there not being time." Just think about that.

Jase: Aside from all of these ways to try to keep it more efficient or keep time under control, if for you it's more that you just feel busy and it's hard to commit the time to it, one thing that can help is attaching some kind of a reward to it. This could be something like, "As part of our reconnection, once we finish our RADAR, we're going to crack into that new board game that we bought," or, "Maybe if we don't eat out very often or we don't get delivery very often, maybe that's a special treat for when we do our RADARs," or, "Maybe there's a favorite restaurant," or, "We get to have ice cream on RADAR days." Whatever it is for you, find some way to attach a positive reward to make that feel a little bit more fun and like, "Oh yes. Let's do this because I want to have that ice cream."

Dedeker: The next one, "Our RADAR just turned into a big old fight."

Emily: Been there.

Dedeker: We've all been there. We've all been there. Or another variation is, "There's just certain topics that we just can't get through or we just have a really, really hard time checking in on." First of all, like I said, totally normal, definitely happens. It's definitely a possibility, relationship conflict is normal. It doesn't mean that something's definitely wrong.

That means that this is really, really good practice for doing something like halting or taking a pause when things are starting to get too heated.

It's really good practice for being able to tune into your own body. Have a sense of, "Is my pulse going through the roof? Am I starting to get into that survival fight or flight mode? Is this a good time to hit pause, go take a 20, 25-minute break, go distract myself, and then we can come back to it?" Or it's a really good practice for deciding, "Maybe we need to table this particular topic just for now." These are some good tools to bring to a RADAR when there's going to be more hot button issues.

Jase: One of the things that you can do for this is if you have a particular topic that either regularly takes up a lot of time or that gets heated, or if you're starting to get into it right then, and you're realizing, "Oh my gosh, we're going to spend the whole night on this and we're not going to get to the rest of our RADAR," one option is to schedule some separate dedicated time just to talk about that.

Depending on the situation, that could be something that's worth having a counselor or a coach or a therapist work on that with you. I do think though, it's important to realize especially if this happens regularly and now we're missing out on all the rest of our RADAR and all the rest of the benefits of that, is that you can separate it out. If this is something you're still working through with your therapist, do that there and maybe just lightly check on it in the RADAR or maybe not at all. Depends. It's up to you.

Another thing is just really digging into your communication toolkit. Things like non-violent communication or softened startups, which is a Gottman saying about how to bring up areas of conflict in a soft, non-attacking kind of way. Taking turns speaking, even setting a timer for that, like, "You're going to speak for five minutes and I'm not going to interrupt you at all, and then vice versa." Practicing things like reflecting back to each other what you hear or paraphrasing back to each other, all these different just good communication habits, RADARs are really great place to intentionally try those.

Even being explicit about that and talking about that with each other of like, "I'm going to try to do my best to use this framework. Let's try that." That can be something that's really helpful and it's a good opportunity to try those things and just get better at them in general.

Dedeker: Again, this can be something where if you're in a position where you're seeing a therapist or a counselor or a coach that you and your partner could maybe agree, "Maybe this topic is something that we take to that space and get their help with it." I have been toying around with the idea of offering my own services as a coach, specifically for helping facilitate people's RADARs. I'm trying to figure out what form that would take because I also don't want to be there for six hours with people necessarily. Maybe I do. Maybe if people are super into that, maybe that would just be my day.

Jase: That's your whole day. Yes.

Dedeker: I don't know. If that's something that people are interested in, definitely reach out to me and let me know. I have to gauge interest because that's something I'm also interested in helping people as well, of helping them at least set up the first couple of RADARs get in a place where it feels a little more comfortable to do the rest of this on their own.

Emily: I think what you can also do is to examine the order of the agenda. We have a very specific order that we have up on our website and that we reference of each of the topics that we go through during the RADAR, but you can do whatever you want. You don't even need to use all of those topics. If you don't have kids, if you're not interested in having kids, then maybe throw that one out or whatever. Currently, none of us are traveling, maybe don't do that right now. Don't speak about that. Stuff like that.

Also, if you have very difficult topics that continually are challenging for you, maybe put those first because then you can get through them and then end on a nicer, happier note. Or maybe opposite. Maybe it's better to knock out all the easy stuff first and then build momentum and connection before going to the really difficult things that you needed to talk about.

It's just going to happen. You're going to potentially get in a fight sometimes. It definitely has happened to all of us, as we said, but hopefully, the name of the game of all of this is that you are working to improve the way in which you speak to each other, the way in which you have conflict, and learning to get away from those really toxic things that sometimes we all fall into, those toxic patterns and hopefully, just minimize the damage and increase understanding within your relationship.

Dedeker: I think the whole point of this is just, "How do we have a better conversation about this topic this time than we did last time? How can we have an even better conversation on this topic next time?" I don't know, that's the whole point in relationships, is that we increase connection, intimacy, understanding and decrease the damage that we're causing each other.

Jase: I like that. All right. The next question that we get is, how do we actually implement action points?

Dedeker: This is actually a good opportunity to talk about documentation, which is also something that people-

Emily: What is that? What do you mean?

Dedeker: This idea of how much do we document of what actually goes down in the RADAR? I know my approach to RADAR has always been, I always write down the action points that we come up with. That's helpful to do, not always necessarily, but super helpful to do. Some people will document literally, "What are the things that we said?" and almost take meeting notes. I haven't done that in a while. I don't know how y'all feel about that.

Jase: To me, I haven't ever felt the need for that but after each topic, after each section, is when before we move on to the next, I will always check in with Dedeker to say, "Hey, is there anything here that's an action point?" We'll write those down and just stick them all in a list at the end, and then once we're done, we'll go through them and really decide how to implement them. For me, that's the really important thing to write down, is to make sure we've made notes of those action points because once you've talked about five more topics, it's easy to forget that, "We had talked about, we want to be sure we finished season three of Highlander," or whatever it is.

Dedeker: It is an action point. It's an unofficial action point but it's not one that we've come up with it in a RADAR for our relationship to write down.

Emily: Can I ask, how many action points do you all generally come up with in a session? Because I'm thinking of myself. Generally, it's only three, the three big ones maybe.

Dedeker: I feel like the average is just two to three. Our last one, Jase, I guess-

Jase: 10.

Dedeker: I guess because it had been three months. We fell off the wagon a little bit. That's probably why we ended up coming up with a lot of action points but, two or three.

Jase: Also some of the action points are more general of just, "Hey, let's try to do more of this kind of thing," versus others that are like, "We want to start a new workout program together. An action point is figuring out which one we're going to do." Sometimes there's really concrete ones or, "You're going to book flights to here," or, "You're going to look into this thing and I'm going to look into this other thing." Then other times it is just more general action points of, "Let's try to remember to say nice things in the morning before 10:00 AM," or just something like that. That's fun.

Dedeker: It's a challenge for me.

Jase: Something else in the review section at the beginning of RADAR is that's your chance to check in on your action points from last time. Particularly, if you notice that certain things just keep ending up back on the agenda and just keep not getting done, that's a great opportunity for a discussion and problem solving together. Just like, "Why do we think this isn't happening? Is there an obstacle in the way? Are we feeling hesitant about this thing, so we maybe don't actually want to do it? Maybe we need to change it. Maybe we need to make it more specific or maybe we need to just do one part of it during this RADAR and maybe the next RADAR."

Dedeker: The hurdle metaphor.

Emily: Make it a smaller hurdle.

Dedeker: Tiny baby hurdle.

Jase: Tiny baby hurdle. Yes. If you see that where an action point comes back again and it's like, "We didn't do this. We totally forgot about it," or, "I meant to, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it," just explore options. Maybe there's some other ways to approach it, breaking it up in a different way or saying, "You know what? Actually, why don't you take that one? I'll take something else because clearly I just have a block about doing it." Whatever it is, just be open to having that conversation.

The other thing I did want to say too about this is for any action points that do have a specific outcome, this goes into everyone's personal preferences of, "How do you like to get things done? Do you do a to-do list? Do you put it on your calendar? Do you have a bullet journal?" Whatever it is that you do is just take those few moments right then at the end of your RADAR, when you're checking in on the action points to actually put things in your calendar, if there are things that need to happen by a certain time or put it on your to-do list, if you know you're someone who does your to-do list.

If it's like, "I need to look into booking a flight," or, "I need to look into finding a babysitter," make that on your list now because otherwise you don't look at that RADAR document perhaps for another month, and then by it's like, "Shoot, I'd really dropped the ball on that."

Dedeker: Some people also, I've heard of, will write down all their action points and put them in a place that's easily accessible to both people, whether that's a little post-it note that's on our bathroom mirror or something, but the important thing being-

Jase: Or in a chalkboard on the living room, I've seen. All sorts of things.

Dedeker: Stuff's where it's easily accessible and easily visible as well.

Emily: Let's talk about if you or your partner are the only one who has impetus to go and schedule the RADAR or if they're the person who's always the documenter, who's always taken the notes or always doing the scheduling, something along those lines. What happens there?

Dedeker: I'm so glad you asked. This is what Jase and I have coined as RADAR daddying like, "Who's the RADAR daddy?"

Emily: Who's your daddy?

Dedeker: At least between the two of us, we did run into, sometimes it's only one of us who actually remembers, "Oh, hey, there's a RADAR," or there's only one of us who remembers the schedule, or there's only one of us who is the one who's like, "Hey, we got a RADAR this weekend. Let's find a time for that." There's only one person, sometimes, who steps up to be the RADAR daddy. That can be really frustrating and challenging for some people.

It helped for us when we finally, in our RADAR, just had a straight up conversation about that, just called it like it is. It was just like, "Hey, this is something that's happening. Maybe we can find a way to make this feel better."

Emily: Who's the RADAR daddy? I'm assuming it's you, Dedeker.

Dedeker: In my life, I tend to be a daddy of many things. Right now, Jase has taken a turn being the RADAR daddy, recently.

Jase: That's the thing, is that we have switched it up in the past about sometimes it's just very explicitly taking turns. When we schedule the next RADAR at the end of the previous one, it will be also, "You're the daddy this time," or, "I'm the daddy this time," whatever it is.

Emily: Y'all maybe take that out there. I love it. Take it and run with it. No, I love that. If you are the person who's the one who's super gung-ho about having a check-in then maybe just be the RADAR daddy for a while until the habit is established, until the two of you realize at the end of every RADAR, or at the beginning, in your scheduling, "It's time to schedule the next one. We need to do this." Take that torch for awhile. It's okay.

Like the two of you said, this is a good topic to discuss. Maybe take turns on who is responsible for remembering and initiating the check-in but figure out what works best for you. I agree that sometimes I'm not great about it because it does make me anxious. My partner's like, "You got to do the RADAR. We got to do the RADAR," which is good. He can be the daddy for a while.

Jase: All right. Our last topic for today is about the appreciation round at the end or the reconnection round. That's it. Some people say it's hard or it feels fake and that's totally understandable. I think some people really struggle with verbalizing appreciation that might not come very naturally to you. Others might feel put on the spot. For others, it's hard to be appreciative if you're still feeling tense or upset from the conversations that you've had.

One thing I wanted to say is that it's okay if it feels a little fake. I've found that often in my RADARs, we get to that part at the end, and it does feel a little silly or robotic of, "I appreciate that you worked very hard to express yourself clearly today."

Emily: That's a good one.

Jase: It literally can be delivered like that in this is weird robotic, "I'm trying-"

Dedeker: I've never experienced you being robotic in the appreciation.

Jase: I always feel super awkward and very-

Dedeker: Really? You don't seem like it.

Jase: -going through a script.

Emily: That's not my love language. My love language is not words of affirmation. Generally, I'm like, "I got to figure out a different way." I'll go do the dishes or feed the dog. I don't have a dog, but sometimes I-

Dedeker: Go find a dog to feed for your benefit.

Emily: Exactly.

Jase: What I was getting at, though, is that, that awkwardness and weirdness is okay because, at least in my experience, the impact of it still comes across. It's still nice to appreciate each other, even if it does feel just awkward and like you're reading a script, and you can even laugh about that, as you're doing it. As long as what you're saying to each other is true, even if it feels awkward, that's okay.

The second one is, it's okay to take a little break at the end if it is that you're still feeling a little bit amped up and you need a moment. It could be like, "Okay, let's do our own thing, and then we're going to meet back up tonight at seven o'clock for dinner, and we'll do our appreciation, then." You can, again, customize it, find what works for you.

Emily: Like you just said, some people might find that they can compose their words better if they take a minute, and maybe write it down or think about the loving things or the appreciative things that you've been feeling about your partner, and then reading them to your partner maybe an hour later or something like that, or just giving them the written words.

I am not a huge verbal appreciation person, although I probably should be better about that. It's okay to reconnect with your partner in different ways. If you're not that words-of-affirmation-verbal type person then maybe do stuff with physical touch, or quality time, or playing a video game together or doing something nice for your partner or something along those lines. You can, again, customize.

Dedeker: Or you also might just consider accepting the challenge. Being able to express appreciation and care for your partner or for the relationship even in moments when you're not feeling very loving, it can actually be a great skill that carries over into a lot of different situations, like when you are a little too activated, and you need to halt in a way that's non-violent of being able to essentially grit your teeth and tell your partner, "I'm really upset but I love you. I'll be back in 20 minutes, and we can keep talking about this." That's a skill, that's a muscle that gets built up over time.

Or in a situation where maybe your partner has some kind of issue with you, maybe you've hurt them, and they need to talk about the impact that that had, that's a skill to be able to still listen compassionately even if you're not feeling totally loving and appreciative. This could be an opportunity just to try on that skill even if it feels a little bit awkward at first.

Jase: I feel like in those instances where the conversation is really intense, that sometimes expressing appreciation, just for them, being willing to try to communicate about this thing that is difficult for you and for them, that even that, I think, is a muscle, first of all, to recognize that, to recognize the fact that for them to bring something up with you, probably isn't easy for them either. You can express appreciation for them being honest enough, and being vulnerable enough, and caring enough about your relationship to want to talk about that.

On the other side, also, you can express appreciation for being willing to listen and to try to understand what it is I was saying today. That meta appreciation, that's not just, "Okay, now we're done talking and I appreciate you because you're so cool," and just coming up with random, unrelated stuff, starting from a place of, "I'm going to appreciate you for what you brought to this," and even when they were hard that you stuck with it through this RADAR, stuff like that can be really impactful.