How Do I Create A Safe Space For Us To Communicate Better | Marriage Q&A | Ep428

Cass Morrow, Author of Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man. Saving Struggling, Sexless, and Toxic Marriages.

Kathryn Morrow, Author of Behind The White Picket Fence.

How Do I Create A Safe Space For Us To Communicate Better?

Kayla called in with one question: how do I create a safe space in my marriage so we can communicate better without him blowing up?

Cass flips the frame immediately: a safe space starts with you—with identity and self-worth—not with managing your partner’s emotions.

What we cover:
The safe space formula: when you stop depending on your partner for your worth, you become steady
The “fat purple cow” test: is it true? (and why some words hurt even when they’re unfair)
How to own what’s true without absorbing what isn’t
Why saying “it’s going to be OK” often isn’t support—it’s discomfort management
Empathy as regulation: how to not get pulled onto the “crazy train”
Communicating when a partner has a clinical diagnosis (and why it can require a different level of love)

If you or your partner are dealing with schizophrenia or any mental health condition: this episode is not medical advice. Please work with qualified professionals for diagnosis, medication, and treatment support.

🔗 Explore more resources and our story: https://www.morrowmarriage.com/

Join Cass Morrow and Kathryn Morrow, the resilient couple behind Morrow Marriage. Together, we share our unscripted, raw, and against-the-grain journey of saving our marriage from the depths of Hell. We battle narcissism, emotional abuse, reactive abuse, and physical and sexual assault, offering lessons, actionable steps, and real-life examples to inspire couples worldwide.

Our journey is a testament to overcoming adversity, with challenges including Cass’ restraining order, seven separations, and two divorce lawyers. If we can survive and thrive in toxic, abusive, and sexless marriages, what’s your excuse?

Both books are searchable on Amazon and often purchased together:

Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man by Cass Morrow: https://a.co/d/31vm4bV 

Behind The White Picket Fence by Kathryn Morrow: https://a.co/d/f0diMvp

Discover our story, challenge societal norms, and help disrupt the 78% divorce rate. Subscribe, comment, and share if you find value as we strive to save marriages.

What to Watch Next:

Explore our journey through our podcast playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzgMDD_noj4rUVhb9v9alyZe5ws_Su0I4

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MorrowMarriage.com | Disrupting Divorce With The “New” Marriage

Cass and Kathryn came back from the depths of hell to save their marriage and keep their family together.  Battling narcissism, abuse, reactive abuse, emotional, physical and sexual assault. Listen as they share their lessons, actionable steps and real life examples from even the worst of their story. 

Unscripted, real, raw and against the grain from society’s example of marriage - currently leading to the demise of nearly 78% of all marriages today.

Inspiring couples around the world...

If they can save their marriage from toxicity, abuse and a sexless marriage - not only survive it all... but THRIVE... what’s your excuse?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Kayla. Kayla, Kayla.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, Kayla. How are you? Kayla, you say you'd love you'd love it if you could not be so affected, so hurt so badly, I'm assuming, um, by what your partner says to you. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

That's like my main thing. And like, how do I create a safe space for for him to like and I to be able to communicate better and without him like getting upset or blowing up?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Okay, so let's address problem one, but problem one will help you address and understand that he has to do this for him for problem two. Okay. So the first thing is when he says things that hurt you, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say something right now. You are a fat purple cow. Does that hurt you? Pardon me?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Well, I guess not physically.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No, because no, but not physically, but but it shouldn't even mentally. You're not a purple cow, girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

So when someone says something to you that's not true, right? Like, oh, that's like if he called me a fat purple cow, I'd be like, he's nuts. Like that nothing about that is true.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Even if you are overweight, I'm my only thing is is when he tells me I'm a fat pig.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Oh, that's why I hurt you. Okay, well, that's a really bad luck. I that sucks, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

But um, we have a guy that we work with that's a purple popsicle.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Purple popsicle.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

If somebody calls you a purple popsicle, what do you do? Well, you laugh because you're obviously not a purple popsicle.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah. My my point is this, and and I even I was gonna say, but because we we got off track, but even if you are overweight and there's some level of accountability to that, we can take that the other way. So the first thing is is it true? If it's not true, it doesn't have to hurt me. And I know this sounds stupid and cliche, but sticks and stones will break my bone. You know what I mean? But the second thing is that um it there's a level of accountability that does hurt. Maybe you don't like how you feel. You could be super skinny, actually, and he's calling you that, it could hurt you. We owned a jet for 20 years, we saw stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Okay, and so anything can hurt you, anything can hurt you, or not.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

But that's where it goes to the real question is identity. So, even in your question about safe space for him, like both what you're both your questions roll into identity and who you are. The moment you don't depend on your partner for your self-worth is the moment that you can start to create a safe place, and the moment you have a safe place, the moment they can start working on their self-worth. So if you want to know how this works, have you heard my songs? Have you heard outgrowing you? She's outgrowing you.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yeah, I've heard all of your songs that are amazing. Like I said, it's they're it's they're amazing. That's the first thing that I heard that got me following you guys and then oh cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Thank you. Um, I can hear your little one, it's cute.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

So she's trying to be around everywhere trying to run. You know the song away from the little one. I've been there ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Uh I built a podcast studio like like a hundred feet from the house just to stay away from the little ones. Uh so if if you can understand, she's outgrowing you, okay? In that song, what I'm describing is Catherine decided to figure out who she was because her standards were no, she wasn't, she wasn't she wasn't willing to sacrifice them anymore because her lower standards allowed and tolerated all of my abuse, the things that your husband might say to you, okay. When she started to grow, she started to identify with who she was and who she wanted to be. So she started to recognize what was true, what was not true. Remember, I'm I'm full-blown narcissist at the time. So she has to decide for reality what's real. Okay. When Catherine was the the whole song is trying to inspire you women. If you hear that one part of the song, a lot of women get, they're like, oh, see, I'm outgrowing him, I'm leaving him. That's not the point of the song. The point of the song is that Catherine didn't take my shit anymore, but she accepted what was real and what wasn't real. In other words, if she needed to hold herself accountable for something, like uh one of the things she'll teach you now is that um I said to her, if I don't receive your love, then you're not she, you're not, you're not giving it to me the way I need. She's like, huh. And so she started to love me different. Now, we learned way later that I didn't know how to receive any love. But in her efforts, I started to feel it. She found a way, she connected with me, she softened me. And so she didn't have to outgrow me. But you can do the same thing as my point. But it starts with knowing who you want to be. If he's hurting you with the things that he says, and we're not taking accountability for the things that are true. I'll use a weight example because it could be true easily. That, well, I I could do more with my health. Okay, then thanks for the reminder. And you're cute about it. Thanks for the reminder, you know, and then you start making a plan. But you work out only if it's for you. You eat right if only it's for you. If you're doing it for him, that's not for you, in which case it won't last and it's gonna make it worse, right? And then the next side is then the rest of it is not accountability. The rest of it is do I have to quote unquote stoop to their level? Catherine decided not to fight back and be violent with me. And now, if you know violence ain't physical, like I teach, then you understand that everything you do with the way you move, the words you say, the way you go silent, everything is still violence because it cuts you so deep, or the other person, right? So Catherine decided she wasn't gonna treat me that way. She was gonna treat me the way she was gonna treat me, no matter how I treated her. I could I couldn't help it. I had to be different. I had to be. She she forced my reflection and growth. And if you ever hear it, that's why I say she was the catalyst that supercharged my growth. And I have a song called Catherine coming up tonight as a tribute to her. Maybe it'll motivate you a little bit. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah, like um, he has schizophrenia too. So um I try like I mean, he takes medicine and you can't really like tell that he has that. Like when I first met him, I didn't even know. You know, I I had no idea, but you know, which I mean, I love him. I love him so much, you know. I mean I can only imagine what goes on in his head and how maybe you should speak to that, honey.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

You know, that's what Catherine why did you speak to that?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

So it you said he's medicated. So w how does the schizophrenia present?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Um, it all so it only it only comes out if he doesn't take his his medicine for like um like a week or something, and I try to remember to give it to him every night, you know, but I I get really busy too.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Does it happen? Well, he should be taking his own medicine for his mom. Absolutely. Yeah. How often does this the symptoms of schizophrenia come out? Because I if it if he's medicated, I I probably don't have much to say, honey. But if it's if the if the symptoms are coming out regularly, like that's gotta invoke empathy. So what you said was that's what I thought you were talking about. Yeah, what you said was I can only imagine what's going on in his head. That was one of the one of the turning points for me, was I started to empathize with this is gonna sound not very nice, but I want you to take it as as funny as possible how crazy my husband was. Like, oh my gosh, it must suck to be in his head right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

To be so in love and be so afraid.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And to well, not even that. I was just like, you to in order for me to not get enmeshed and for me to jump on the crazy train with him, I I needed to literally be like, wow, wow, he's crazy right now. I can't get crazy with him because then the turnaround time is really long. So with your husband, if he's medicated, then you can't really blame you know his symptoms on his schizophrenia. But you can hold him accountable in regular day, you can hold him accountable to take his medication in a loving way. But if he's schizophrenic, if he's schizophrenic, usually things run, I don't know much about schizophrenia, but things run comorbid, meaning, so you know what it means. Okay, you know what that means, maybe no. So two things come together. So, like um borderline cluster cluster B things often have substance abuse problems, for example, they're comorbid. And and so they're so I don't know what it what it's like for schizophrenia, but I would guess that just because he's medicated for schizophrenia doesn't mean that he doesn't have something else running comorbid in parallel that's still affecting him. And it needs you need to invoke empathy. So I use the word crazy lightly. It probably wasn't very nice to use it in a sentence about somebody that actually has schizophrenia because people probably call those people crazy. I don't think your husband's crazy, I don't think my husband's crazy. But in the moment when they're acting crazy, whether it's schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, or just getting on the crazy train, just acting cuckoo banana, if you can separate yourself from that and just empathize with wow, it must be so hard to be nuts.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what I try to do.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Schizophrenia aside, because I'm not calling schizophrenic people nuts. I say this about everybody's husband and everybody's wife.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yes, and and you heard the song peel the label off, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Okay. You know, a lot of people are developing empathy. You already have it, and he this isn't like a label, this is a conditioning use case.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It is an actual medical clinical diagnosis, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And so one of the things that I'd like to really give you schizophrenia, but I mean Oh, it's drug induced? Yeah, it was like well, you can't you still can't oh yeah, I still can't back come back from it.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, it's it's too late now. Yes, okay, and so I want to encourage you to understand that this is your partner. This is the person that you said I do for better or for worse. We didn't say unless you have schizophrenia and you're fucking losing your shit on.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Like, and that's the that's I think the hardest thing is the for worse thing that we signed up for.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yes, this is the hardest thing. I and I do usually I would talk about that with sex, like unless you don't fuck me. You know, we didn't say that in our vows. Maybe more people need to be fucking transparent, but they aren't. And so it's this sucks, and it sucks you have to go through this, but I know that there's a reason you're going through it. And I do believe with so I I take anybody on it. Like if they want to change, I will try anybody in my program. Okay, and anytime I've ever had a man that's medicated or needs um some things you can't medicate, by the way. Um what I'll do is I'll I'll work with them on that.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

But like narcissistic personality disorder, exactly. You don't medicate personality disorders, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

But the thing is, what you have to realize is when a person does this work with me, with even just watching our podcast, with trying with you therapy, whatever. The thing that you have to understand is they need a different level love, a different level of love. Like we we already have the identity crisis that everybody's going through. We already don't know who we are and what we're going through. And then we have this, and you already have the guilt and shame we're dealing with, and we're gonna add this guilt and shame. You can't he can't be the person you want to be unless you start to be there for and I hate that. I hate that you have to start to be there for him first, okay, Kayla?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Because I think especially basically I feel like I maybe I'm not being there for him in the ways that he needs, you know, because obviously whatever I'm doing, like even with me always trying to like be or thinking that I'm being there for him and just like telling him it's gonna be okay, honey.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Like Yeah, but that's fixing it. Fixing it doesn't make anybody feel okay. We have to stop saying things like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Yeah, I don't think I'm being I'm not I don't think I'm doing things the right way for well you're you're new, you're new to us, okay?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

You could if you found us from the songs, it could only be a couple weeks or a little over. So go to the podcast. Like if you have two days, okay. Go to the podcast, and there's 400 episodes before we started doing these call-in shows. Like there's any answer you want. If you go to YouTube, um, you could actually search the YouTube channel, the playlist, Moral Marriage, and you can search for what you're exactly what you're talking about right now, and you'll see episodes will come up, I'm sure. We've talked, I don't think there's anything we haven't covered. You know, the only thing is like I you know, sometimes like uh we talked about medicating people before, but it might not be a topic topic, it might be in the episode. You know what I mean? Uh, but that's that'd be the smartest thing in the episode. She's making she's teasing.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I think it's cute because it's cute that I'm moving around with the hand.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Um, so I would start there, get to know us, and then if you want more help, just just again DM me on Instagram, Cast Loss Tomorrow, and then I'll hook you up with Catherine. Good.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Okay, that would be awesome. I would really love it if maybe maybe he like because I was playing your songs for him yesterday, and like he totally like like I just laid on the bed and like kind of closed my eyes like I was gonna fall asleep, and I had your songs playing, and he he did listen. He was on his phone, but he listened, and then he said, Oh, this is a great way for me to feel like shit. And then I was like, I didn't say nothing, and then he ended up he ended up leaving.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, do you know what?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

But he called me and told me that he loved me. He said, You know I love you, right, babe? And I said, I know I love you too.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Did you send me that in a DM today?

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yes, I sent you that text message.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I thought that was the sweetest fucking thing. And I th I replied back, I'm sure I replied back. I think I said, Um that that's so powerful. You you moved him with that. He couldn't handle the guilt and shame. So he left. And you didn't give him anything to go crazy with, which is good. But when he was leaving and he said that, you could have said, Hey baby, I love you. Right? We always want to go where we want to go. Okay, but the fact is it hit him and so many people are doing that, and I thought that was the sweetest message we have sent. It was awesome. He loves you, he sent it.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Before he left, though, and I did start to cry a little bit, you know, like right before he left. Like I and and he said, What's wrong, honey? And I just said, I just love you so much, you know. This is just to start. You know, we've been together 11 years, and like um, we have a 20-year-old, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Kayla, you're gonna you're gonna rock this shit. I'm gonna get to one more piece of homework, okay? I want you to listen to our podcast around him, but I want you to have a journal out, and when he gets annoyed and thinks I'm a douche or an idiot, um, that fuck that guy, I want you to go, yeah, he's pretty strong-willed, he's got some opinions, that's for sure. And then just say, because that's validating him, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

And then no, don't I'll kill you.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Excuse me. Once you validate your husband with that expression, then I want you to just say, I'm learning so much from Catherine. And be writing down in a notebook. Write it down. Learn. Implement what Catherine and I teach. Okay? He loves you. He's it's all clear. We people are in love, but they don't know what to do. So start learning. Okay?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Okay. Okay, all right. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Have a good day, Kayla. Got this.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Thank you guys so much.

unknown 14:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

It's our pleasure. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

See ya.