Ep 22: Lost Your Mojo After Kids? How To Get Your Spark Back!

Welcome to Dating Greatly.

Let's talk about kids, baby! Let's talk about you and me! Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be!

In today's episode I welcome Wife, Mother and Relationship Coach, Shiloh Minor who shares her journey into the Underworld (also known as Motherhood) and how birthing her children affected and changed her marriage in a not-so-glamourous way. 

Shiloh talks about the challenge of balancing Attachment Parenting with her need for romance, and how she evolved from a vibrant and fun-loving wife into a husk of a woman who felt trapped in her own manifestation. Shiloh always wanted to be a Mother and have children, so why did she feel so miserable? And why was her husband not capable of showing her affection and stepping up?

Our chat takes us through the intense impact of feeling overwhelmed and isolated as a Mother, and the poignant realization that self-worth is crucial to a balanced partnership and family life.

This is an episode that promises to resonate with anyone grappling with the transformative effects of parenthood on partnership. 

Get your cuppa, your bickies (and your partner) and settle in for this stimulating episode!

READ ALONG

Yvonne [00:01:01]:

Thank you so much, Shiloh, for joining me today. I have been and I am super excited to chat with you today.

Shiloh [00:01:10]:

Well, thank you. I'm super excited.

Yvonne [00:01:12]:

Great. All right. I would like to start off by asking you what is the one thing that you wish people would have told you before having kids?

Shiloh [00:01:32]:

I wish that people would have told me that it changes everything. It changes you. Doesn't just change your obligations and the people you love and your environment, but that taking care of children, like I was going to say having children, but I presume that adopting them would have a similar effect. But bringing this person into your sphere and becoming there, all in all, is completely life changing to the point where you don't know what you'll be like. You won't really be able to project that. And so it's like an adventure. It's like a portal. It's like dropping down into something unknown where you have a lot of difficult decisions to make about how to care for yourself, how to care for your children, how to grow up, how they should grow up, and that nobody can give you those answers.

Shiloh [00:02:31]:

I always was the kind of person, and I still am, who will read everything possible on a topic. I'm like, oh, somebody's an expert on this. I'm going to read it. And I've had to let go a little bit of that infatuation with information because it doesn't put this. It's great to speak to experts. I still love speaking to experts. I love reading books. But if you think that they're going to take away the existential angst of motherhood, they won't.

Yvonne [00:03:02]:

The existential angst of motherhood, the unbelievable.

Shiloh [00:03:08]:

Responsibility of little people who, your vibe, your choices, your everything, they don't pick it. You don't know if it's the right one. You're not perfect. They call it mom guilt, right? And everybody tries to be like, oh, why are mom so guilty? And that's why. It's because you can't know what effect you will have on your children. You can't ever have certainty that you've made the right decisions. And so it comes to a letting go and a surrender and a trust that you didn't need before children. You didn't need that level of Zen mastery or whatever you want to call it.

Shiloh [00:03:49]:

It wasn't necessary. You just go out and learn stuff and do what you want to do. And if your life's not quite vibing with you, you can do something different. And I know a lot of your audience probably doesn't have children, and it always seems so condescending because people with children are like, oh, you have no problems. Life's so easy. But that's how you think. Once you have children. You're like, why did I worry so much? My life was so easy.

Yvonne [00:04:12]:

Right?

Shiloh [00:04:13]:

And it's not that to minimize, because obviously there are many very hard things in my life before children, but they're mostly just about you. Once you're an adult, they're you. And how do I deal with me? But when that all gets tied up with husband and kids, and it's just so complicated. It's so unbelievably complicated. So that's a very long answer, because I don't think there's one thing they could have told me, except for that nobody can save you from this. You have to go in and find your own identity as a mother and your own style, your own approach to who you're going to be now and how you're going to raise children, and that nobody can co sign on that to the point where you don't feel that pressure.

Yvonne [00:05:02]:

Wow, thank you for that. And I don't have children myself, so I've been so looking forward to this conversation just to open my eyes a little bit more. I have lots of women in my life that are mothers, lots of friends, lots of single women as well that are single moms. And I pick up little bits and bobs from them about challenges and just having a dedicated conversation to this subject, I think is, yeah, I've just been, again, very excited about it and thank you for that answer. And there's so many things that stood out to me that I want to get back to. And the biggest thing was I was originally going to ask you about your marriage before and after, which I'm still going to do down the road. However, what stood out more to me was like how motherhood changes you entirely. And I think about this baby being birthed, if you do have a birth, this child being born a new life, and almost like simultaneously the mother being born or being reborn.

Yvonne [00:06:13]:

So I wonder, who were you, if you remember, before you had your first child and what was, like, the biggest change that you noticed in yourself?

Shiloh [00:06:27]:

Yes, I do believe it's a new birth when you have a child. I think before I had a child, I did have this illusion of control. I thought I could hack everything. I had a philosophy of, like, I can be ahead of the game, I can figure things out before they come, and then I won't go through that stuff. I was all about being prepared, right? Like, I'm just going to be super prepared. And I really invested all my faith in that ideology. You can read the books, you can find the ways, you can do the therapy, whatever. And then when you have kids, you're going to have your theory in place.

Shiloh [00:07:07]:

You can have philosophy in place. You're going to have your whole strategy in place. I've talked to my husband about how we're going to raise kids. We agree it's going to be fine. I want to use the word arrogance, but that sounds harsh. It's more like a naivete. Like really just wholesale thinking I had control. If I just did enough prep, if I just did enough research, I did enough work, then I would be able to manage anything in life.

Shiloh [00:07:35]:

Just anything. And it gave me kind of a confidence and a positivity, which is great, like, served me really well. And what happened when I became a mother is that was torn from me painfully and slowly because at first you fight to keep it right. What you'll see with many first time moms is we have to do things the right way. And we're, like, rabidly obsessed with this, whether that's how you breastfeed, how you toilet train, how you discipline, how you sleep, your kid, all that stuff must be done the right way. And we're like, death grip on this, right? Because we want to be great moms. We want our kids to do well. It's all the most beautiful intentions, right? And then these things that you're trying to do, either they don't work for you, or they don't work for your kids, or they don't work for your marriage, or they don't work for your job, or they don't work for your lifestyle.

Shiloh [00:08:38]:

And you start trying to force this ideal motherhood into yourself, into your context, and it causes pain and suffering and shame and grief and exhaustion. And it's like, I feel like the change in motherhood happens when you surrender the ideal of motherhood, especially if you're a bit more mature when you have a child. This is extreme in women in our 30s because we had like ten adult years to fantasize and idealize this role. How amazing it's going to be, how awesome we're going to be, how great our kids are going to be. And every kid is so different, and every pregnancy is so different, and every home is so different that there's no possible way it's going to look the way you imagined in some aspects, of course. And every time that happens to me, I'm like, oh, this is how I imagined it. Yay, it worked. But so many times when it was not serving me.

Shiloh [00:09:46]:

And what I find in most cases, it's the mom who breaks, right? In order to maintain the ideals we have, we sacrifice ourselves because we're so committed to the ideals. I have to do it this way. So it's okay if I suffer a little bit or I don't sleep enough, or I don't get my exercise, or I don't see my friends because this kid's life is so important and they're just a baby and whatever, and when we wake up one day and go, what happened to me? Where did I go? Why do I not recognize myself? Like, in a bad way? Lose the mojo, lose the zest for life, lose affection for your partner, lose interest in pleasure. Just like you become this mom robot. And then you go, okay, something's got to give. And I feel like that's when you transform because that's when you have these roads diverging. Who's going to give? And the thing, too, that I've noticed is that at what point a woman breaks has a lot to do with her trauma, her upbringing or whatever. Some women will kill themselves for 30 years, right? Which is really tragic and become ill and really suffer super badly and some will kind of want to escape right away.

Shiloh [00:11:17]:

Like, oh, this is so painful. I'm not cut out for this. Like, I hate motherhood. Oh, my God, right? Panic right at the start and want to leave or want to get divorced or somehow just get me out of this uncontrolled thing that I can't get a handle on at all. And I think I had both those impulses kind of fighting each other. There was one that was like, shame. Like, I'm pissed off, I'm resentful, I'm miserable, I'm tired. And, like, shiloh, this is, like, what you dreamed of.

Shiloh [00:11:49]:

Like, you want to be this amazing mom. Why are you so right? Like, get over yourself. This kind of total bipolar tension. It's when I went, okay, I'm not going to be that ideal that I carried for ten years or more, maybe since childhood. I'm not going to be her. I'm going to consciously give myself permission not to be the fantasy mom. And that's a grief. Also have to give your kids permission not to be the fantasy kid, which is, I feel taboo to even say because we don't admit these things.

Shiloh [00:12:32]:

But I read a book once, and she said, we are talking about the kid you got, not the kid you wanted. Yeah, kids will push your buttons. Kids will exhaust you. Kids will bring up your shadow. Like, a lot of people talk in love, how your partnership will show your shadow. Right? Will bring out the worst in you sometimes. Totally see that. And children, exactly the same.

Shiloh [00:12:59]:

Exactly the same energy of, like, oh, you do the thing that I can't handle so much, and what am I going to do about this? Am I going to relentlessly try to make you change and sacrifice all connection through criticizing and manipulating and pressuring you? Or am I going to go, oh, my God, let that one die, too? Yeah, let it be. It's hard.

Yvonne [00:13:28]:

I want to ask you, how long did it take you to come to this breaking point? What was the time for you, that's one thing. And then if you're willing to share some of the specifics from the time your child was born, how you noticed. Yeah, I guess your emotions change and your feelings change. What did you notice? Maybe in yourself and in your partnership as well. I'd love to know more about that.

Shiloh [00:14:03]:

So it really was the second child. That was the tipping point, which happens for a lot of people, partly, I think, in my case, that was because my first child, I was doing attachment parenting. So he's, like, attached to me all the time. And my husband was totally in support of that. So that didn't cause conflict because he was like, yes, 100%. We both kind of had this ideal of everything about the kids. And so at first there was like, I could kind of handle it. I was exhausted and tired and stuff, but this was the ideal.

Shiloh [00:14:38]:

We're working together on it. What I did notice, though, is that what felt to me, like, invisible as a romantic partner, I became mom to my husband. I didn't mom him, but he was supporting the mom, okay. And it was very tricky for me because I thought, this is what I said I wanted. This is what people asked for. And yet there's, like, a distance in it, an emotional distance that wasn't there before. There was nobody literally in between us. There was no, oh, Shiloh needs this.

Shiloh [00:15:20]:

And, you know, he was in a provider protector role vis a vis me almost completely. And I wanted attention and affection and that sort of thing, and it decreased. It was less after I had a kid. Now, looking back on it, I understand it was because I had no vibrancy. All my energy was going towards this child, and I was asking more energy to be poured into me, but I wasn't really sharing myself because there was not much left. Like, the exhaustion was really setting in, not sleeping, and my husband was not sleeping, too. He was there in the co bed with us, and we laughed. Actually, the other day he goes, we were talking about not sleeping well and how it can get worse as you get older and more kids and stuff.

Shiloh [00:16:12]:

And he goes, remember when we just had our first and I didn't even have headphones because now we sleep with, like, headphones on sometimes. Like, whichever parent wants to actually sleep because the kids make noises and if you're at all a light sleeper, you wake up. Because somebody woke up. I kind of laughed. I thought, oh, yeah, back then when we were more idealistic and thought we should be able to cope with not sleeping for years. So there started to be this kind of, like, familial feeling. We got along okay and everything, but it was just like family and it was not romantic and stuff. And then when the second child came, he, again, super privileged.

Shiloh [00:16:53]:

He took paternity leave. He became the primary for the older boy. He did an amazing job, and they really bonded over that. So again, I'm like, okay, he's doing so much. But his focus on me as a romantic partner kind of disappeared. And when I was more desperate, too, right? So it's like a double whammy because I was depleted and isolated from my friendships the first year or two, when your kids napping all the time and you can't really go out because then they got to nap again and whatever, I was more grasping and more needy for him. So it created just greater, greater and greater distance.

Yvonne [00:17:39]:

Yes. That's interesting too, that you said, or the term attached parenting. And it's so true. Like you're attached to your child or the child, you're providing that attachment to your child, while simultaneously, in your case, and probably lots of women cases, you're losing the attachment to your partner. So it's kind of interesting that attachment parenting, that's true, but not attachment in the whole partnership sense.

Shiloh [00:18:09]:

Interesting that you say that. And I thought a lot about why is attachment parenting so hard? Or do a lot of women burn out on it? Some women swear by it and do it for all their kids and everything. And I think it's because it was done in a village context. And so women weren't relying on men for emotional support, they were relying on other women for emotional support who would have been naturally, effortlessly providing cut childcare help around all the stuff that all the women were doing would have been seamlessly enjoyable together.

Yvonne [00:18:50]:

Yes. And also the caring of the child. Right. Like it probably would have been passed from breast to breast back in the day and attached to the community, to the various women. Yeah.

Shiloh [00:19:03]:

So I think we're trying to recreate the bonding, that kind of primal bonding that we read about through attachment parenting, which still makes so much sense to me. I'm not like against it or anything, but I also see where it can be unsustainable because there aren't those other supports for the woman. The loneliness alone, I think, is a huge problem. The isolation from other women that happens when you're in early motherhood and you're doing attention parenting and live away from your family or whatever, you literally can go weeks and weeks without really interacting with adults in any kind of social way.

Yvonne [00:19:45]:

Wow.

Shiloh [00:19:46]:

Really easily, right? And so all those things get placed on your husband. And that's also what I realized. It's not reasonable or fair or in any kind of historical sense natural for him to know what to do there or to have the resources to know what to do. Like, any of it. It's like, first of all, the modern man who involves himself in child rearing to the degree he does is new, is very avant garde manhood kind of thing. And then to also be like holding space for this kind of exhausted, irritable husk of the woman you knew, like, holy crap, now who's supporting him? He doesn't even have friends. Most men, sadly, men should have friends, but a lot of them don't. And I have compassion for them the same way we're isolated.

Yvonne [00:20:37]:

Yes.

Shiloh [00:20:42]:

It was kind of like a steady drip. And then when the second child came, I was now, in retrospect, realized I was dealing with the grief of not being able to maintain the attachment parenting with my first and also not being able to do it at the same degree with my second, because now there's two. But that was manifested as irritation and frustration. I didn't have emotional regulation tools, so I was just mad, a lost and frustrated. And that's the thing where I could see it now from my husband's perspective of, like, this woman wanted to get married and have kids, and she is more pissed off than ever. Stay away. So he just continued retreating while providing, like, really good man, like, the kids, the money, the stuff, doing it. Not to my standard again, I didn't understand these things.

Shiloh [00:21:45]:

So when I saw the house not being as clean as I wanted it to be or whatever, I would be irritated. But it's like, who cares? Honestly now, those kind of standards are so superficial to me now because I realize that when the romance and the connection is present in my marriage, I don't care because I'm just, like, happy and loved and all glowy. And that stuff is like, yeah, we'll get to it. It's always there because I was irritable and all the rest of it. So back to the original question. I lost the track for a minute. You said, when did it break for me? When did I break? And that's when. So when I had a one year old and a three year old, and I was angry all the time, I was exhausted all the time.

Shiloh [00:22:37]:

I had no patience for my toddler because he was a very high needs kid who was, like, grabbing and peeing and just constantly causing chaos. He was three. But I had no patience for it. And so I was like, in this, my breaking point was not only I'm not the ideal mom, I'm so far from it that I can't look at myself. I was so ashamed of how I was, what my emotions were, how I was responding to the environment and to the kids, not both of them. The little one was still a baby, but he had dietary sensitivities, so I was getting mastitis. I was sleeping even less than with my first one, and I had to go on an elimination diet to figure out what this was. So the crucible for me was super hyper crazy three year old super needy one year old, no sleep, and I'm eating like, five different foods.

Shiloh [00:23:38]:

And I was full of rage. And that was not what I expected to feel when I became a mother.

Yvonne [00:23:46]:

Wow. And it's interesting, as you're talking about this, what comes up for me is, like, motherhood is, like, the ultimate symbol for womanhood, femininity, feminine energy. We're mothering, we're nurturing. We're in this beautiful space. Yet as you speak, was there any essence or any element of feminine energy left in you?

Shiloh [00:24:11]:

Such a good point. It's so interesting to me because I feel that in my body about motherhood, right? And I feel it now on many occasions. But so much of actual motherhood is, like, frenetic, being head on, a swivel, like, stuff happening around you all the time, preventing disaster, cooking at the same time as cleaning, as, like, stopping kids from hurting each other, that it is really hard to drop into feminine energy while you're mothering small boys. Really hard. Now, I will say that breastfeeding my kids post sleeping with my kids, I love it. I hate it. And I love it because there were times when I was just like, why am I doing this? Then I was like, I chose to do this. I'm still choosing to do this.

Shiloh [00:25:06]:

So that closeness and that intimacy that I have with my children, where it's like we get each other and there's just, like, eye contact, and that real depth of connection is magical and is amazing. And also where they need you, that will soften you a lot sometimes, right? Where it's like, mom, they just put their hands up and you're like, oh, I'm sorry I was yelling at you. I know you're just a little munchkin, but I will say that when you're a burnt out mom, it almost goes away completely. And it's a grief, it's a disappointment because you wanted to have that mother Earth ocean, just softness for your children. And then you're like, but I know I'm not bringing that energy a lot of the time. Right?

Yvonne [00:26:01]:

Yeah. And what you talk about having, reflecting or visualizing all the women in my life that have children, to some extent, this is exactly what they've gone through for none of them. It was what they expected, for none of them. It was this harmonious, beautiful thing. But there's so many struggles, so much grief, so much anger and rage and disconnect with the partner and a lot of loneliness and feeling isolated and I guess, not understood. And so when you were at this breaking point, when you kind of looked around and you saw who you were. What has become of your marriage, how this motherhood didn't turn out the way that you anticipated what was like. Do you remember a specific moment?

Shiloh [00:27:02]:

What I remember is I would have fights with my husband, or, like, I would try to get him to make me feel better, right. And he wouldn't be able to. Or he wouldn't be able to respond with that grounded mother energy, really, that I wanted right to be. It's okay. Come here. Give me a hug. He was just also exhausted and almost confused. He did not understand what I was saying.

Shiloh [00:27:34]:

That's kind of what I realized. Now, what are you asking for? How am I supposed to do that? And I don't get it. And also, you're always mad at me, so you can't ask me to come here and soothe you when you're giving me disapproving, disrespectful kind of vibes all day.

Yvonne [00:27:51]:

Right?

Shiloh [00:27:52]:

I understand now. My husband's not a wordy person, so I talk for him in my head. I figured out, okay, I understand now. But so we would have these. And that's what really was demoralizing, because as much as I fantasize about being the good mom, I always fantasize about having the amazing marriage, having this loving, vibrant, passionate marriage that does not decay over time, that is, of these two like minded people who just crazy about each other. And my husband is a very passionate person, and we had this really high intensity connection right from the get go, and he's fearless. We just kind of adventurous and everything. And so to kind of go from that, which was the character of a relationship we met, to this very cold, kind of perfunctory, dutiful marriage, I was just like, I can't live like that.

Shiloh [00:28:52]:

And I have a very high value for marriage, even though I don't. How do I put this? You never know what's going on inside of other people's relationships. So I don't pass judgment on what people choose to leave, to stay, whatever, because you don't know unless you're in it. But I have a very high value for marriage, and I was like, I am not going to get divorced. I can't do that. I can't do that to my kids. I can't do that myself. I can't do that to my husband.

Shiloh [00:29:22]:

I can't do that to my community. I know that it's a big effect on everyone. And also, my husband is truly the most extraordinary man I've ever met. I was like, the grass is not greener. I'm not going to be able to find someone like this, and I don't want to, and I don't want to look for them. And so what happened is I kept feeling worse and worse, but also being clear that this was not something to leave. There was no escape. That feeling of, like, I need to escape versus I'm going to just slug it out and suffer forever.

Shiloh [00:29:57]:

But the thought that kept coming up in my head is, I won't be able to slug it out. I'm not that woman who can do it for 30 years. And this is kind of a little aside, but what I realized in this process is the things that I saw as character flaws in myself, like that I was too selfish or I was too much about my needs are what caused me to break through. It's a good thing that I want to be happy. It's a good thing that I don't have enough perseverance in me to suffer for 20 years. Or I could have just done that, right? But the voice in my head went, no, you won't be able to do it forever. So you better figure out how to make it enjoyable that you don't want to leave, or eventually it will get to that point. And I communicated those kinds of things to my husband.

Shiloh [00:30:50]:

And again, it just did not work. Like, it didn't really get what I needed, didn't have the tools to respond to it the way I wanted them to. And so I remember I would go to bed and ball my eyes out all the time and just have no idea what I was going to do. And it struck me that I needed help. And that was the turning point moment, because I've gotten help in my life, I've been good at getting help. And it's always this moment of, I've done everything that I know. I've exhausted all my intellectual resources, I've tried all the things, they're not working. So either I can say, oh, that means I need a divorce, or it means I need help.

Yvonne [00:31:31]:

Yes.

Shiloh [00:31:33]:

Right? And so it was an I need help moment, and that I needed to reach out. I needed to find something that knew more than me, someone that knew more than me. And actually what I did was I told my husband, I told a friend, I was stressed and stuff. And she recommended a parenting summit, like one of those virtual summits. And I heard a parenting coach talk about the rage she felt at her own daughter and how shocking that was to her. And I thought, this person gets it. She's not sugar coating it. She's not making it.

Shiloh [00:32:06]:

Oh, we have to be patient. It's like, no, there's such intense emotions going on that are so overwhelming, right. That all the things you knew about parenting, you can't even do them because you're so filled with rage. And so I went to my husband and I said, I think I need help, and I think I need to do this parenting thing. And he said, your mental health is the most important thing. And that was such a sweet moment to me because he didn't know how to help me. But he was all for me getting the help. I can see you need it.

Shiloh [00:32:36]:

I don't know what to do about it. So please. Because I thought he would say, oh, too expensive or whatever, have some kind of critique because he wasn't aware of the field at all, right? But he, I think, number one, loved me and supported me and also saw this wasn't good for our family. Like, if mom's not doing well, this is not going to be good for anyone. I got this parenting coach, and she helped me with parenting, but what she really did was she broke me out of my victim complex. She literally said to me, shallow, you're not a victim. And I went, oh, my God. Because I never saw myself as whiny or victimy.

Shiloh [00:33:17]:

I've always been a proactive person. Didn't really contemplate that that's what I was doing. But what I see now is that there's nothing like marriage and motherhood to bring out the victim in you because you think you can't escape. You think you're stuck, think you don't have a choice, right? She was like, you can do whatever you want. You're not stuck. And that was so powerful for me because I turned everything that I saw as victimizing me in my life, my difficult kid this way or my difficult diet that way, or my husband not getting it and turned it into. I chose all of these people. I chose attachment parenting.

Shiloh [00:34:02]:

I chose to continue nursing. I chose to sleep up with my kids. I chose to stay with this man. So am I an idiot or is there good reasons that I chose these things? And that was very, totally, completely life changing.

Yvonne [00:34:20]:

Wow. What were some of the. In your day to day, how did you start to notice that moving from victimhood to self empowerment, self responsibility, how did that start to show up?

Shiloh [00:34:38]:

Well, for example, I would stay up at night nursing my kid and feel just miserable and exhausted and trapped and alone. Right? And so when I was practicing this stuff, she also taught inner child work which is what I do a lot now, too. So I would comfort my inner child and then I would say to myself, you are living your values right now. You're like heroically living your values. You care so much about these kids having whatever, my version of the optimal childhood, that you want them to have that breast milk, you want them to have that skin to skin connection. You're not going to compromise on those and give yourself credit for that. Feel good about it, feel empowered by that. Feel like this is you being this mom you wanted to be.

Shiloh [00:35:26]:

It just looks different than how you thought it would look. And so I started looking for ways to approve of myself. That was big. So, so big. Because what I also wanted my husband to do was say how amazing a mom I was and how tired, giving so much for the kids. But I wouldn't say it to myself. So my day to day was honestly just validating the hell out of myself as much as I could and making meaning out of all the difficult choices I'd made, owning them over and over again. Like I could change and feed this good formula.

Shiloh [00:36:00]:

Am I going to do that? Make a conscious decision? I'm not going to do it. So now I don't feel trapped. No. Every single bit of my day I made a conscious choice about, and I have a thing now I tell my clients is the red flag. Word is I have to. No, you don't. There's no have to when you're a grown woman living in North America. Actually, there's zero have tos.

Shiloh [00:36:26]:

Yes, but we talk like that all the, ah, my kids are like this, so I have know not get any sleep or my husband is like that, so I have to do all the work. You don't. And even now I'll catch myself sometimes using that phrasing about something and I'm like, no, that's not true. I don't have to do anything. So I always tell them, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. It's kind of hard to absorb the first time you hear that as a mother because you spend so much of your life telling yourself you have to do all these things you don't want to do. Yeah, you don't.

Yvonne [00:37:05]:

What an empowering realization. And like a change in your words to change that. I have to.

Shiloh [00:37:13]:

To.

Yvonne [00:37:14]:

Well, I want to or I'm going to or words have so much power.

Shiloh [00:37:22]:

And it's that trapness. Like, I don't know if you're into Enneagram and stuff, but I'm an Enneagram seven. I'm an EnFJ. It's all about freedom and expansiveness and adventure. And then you're stuck in this really narrow parenting mom role. It's like a real shock to the system. Yes. But again, with the power of your mind and the power of your focus, this season has been the greatest adventure because I have gone inward and changed the inner landscape of my own self, which is like, way cooler than going to Thailand.

Shiloh [00:37:58]:

It really is. Right? Like, you go to Thailand, you have a great time, you come home, you're miserable again because your victim complex lives back at get. We get stuck in that, as I think modern women, because we have so much more years of freedom. Whereas historically, women had none of that. They didn't even. Whatever. You just were taking care of your sisters, and then you were taking care of your nieces, and then you were taking care of your own kids and you're taking care of your grandkids. You probably never even got a taste of that kind of excessive freedom.

Shiloh [00:38:30]:

But there is so much gold in the mothering role and in the parenting and in marriage. If you choose to take it for that, as opposed to this guy I chose is kind of difficult. Naj could have chose an easier one. That's what we get thinking when we start getting into the transformative stages of relationship, where to make a break time.

Yvonne [00:39:01]:

Yeah. And you said something that I found so powerful. Did you say heroically choosing your values or heroically living your values?

Shiloh [00:39:11]:

Yes.

Yvonne [00:39:13]:

So powerful for every aspect of life to remind yourself, like, these are the choices that I made, and then I'm heroically living my values. That's so good.

Shiloh [00:39:27]:

What really did it for me, too, is because I feel like there's a lot of, like, well, if you don't like it, don't do it. Right. But you're like, I don't like it, but I want to do it. There's things we care about enough that it is worthwhile to go through the pain to do it.

Yvonne [00:39:45]:

Yes.

Shiloh [00:39:45]:

Right. Like, whether it's nursing your kids when they're getting too old and annoying or it's staying married through a tough season. That is not fun. Go ahead, please. I was going to say, but if you only choose what's easy, you're not going to be able to respect yourself and you're not going to have the life you want, because the life that you really want is one that's based on your values. And so this is also what I believe the maturing process of motherhood is. You start to really recognize the value in doing hard things that you value. Not just hard things for hard things sake, but there's some honor and dignity and maturity that comes with, hey, I did this thing because I knew it was important and it mattered to my soul and it was not fun a lot of the time.

Yvonne [00:40:40]:

Yes. And asking yourself in those moments, like, what don't I like about this? Why isn't this fun right now? And then what you mentioned doing that inner child work. A lot of times, the things that we don't like about something or that isn't fun is just triggering a part of us, whether it's like, I'm not sure, not wanting to. There's so many examples. But I'm just asking yourself in those moments if you're still aligned with your values and your vision, like, what is it about this moment that I don't like?

Shiloh [00:41:13]:

That's completely it. I found that with housework, I was always triggered by the endless housework of running a family. I thought, God, this stuff never ends. It's so boring. And I had all these reasons to just hate it. Right? And then I did some work on it, and it was like, yeah, because at home there was so much pressure put on me to do it, even though lots of other people didn't do it, because I was the oldest daughter and that was the tradition of my dad's family. And so I saw it as complete oppression to have to do housework. Right.

Shiloh [00:41:46]:

And that's just, like, my terrible gloss I put on it. Lots of people, like, cleaning their kitchens. I always was in awe of those women. Still am. I like, I wish I loved it. I mean, I guess I could if I really put the energy into cultivating that belief. But the thing that's helped me with the housework is actually observing mature women who I admire, who keep their house well because they have a dignity and a confidence and a zeal for it. They kind of are proud of what they're doing.

Shiloh [00:42:15]:

Right. They don't just see it as meaningless, busy work that gets left to them because they're the woman or they're whatever. They're like, no, I like to keep my house. I'm proud of my house. And I've almost kind of absorbed some of those codes off them. To be like, this is a cool thing. And if you're going to choose that role, if you're going to choose a kind of homemaker type role, it's because you value a comfortable home and you take pride in the result. Right.

Shiloh [00:42:44]:

Good for you.

Yvonne [00:42:45]:

Then I love that. That you were able to shift that. Yeah. That's awesome. That's great. So what were some of the ways that you started to notice the relationship with your husband?

Shiloh [00:43:00]:

Change for the better, you mean? Well, the first thing I learned was about emotional safety. Like, I learned that in the parenting work. Right? Like, if you criticize your kids and if you're on them all the time, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. They don't trust you. They don't feel safe with you, so they listen even less. Right. They don't pay attention because what's coming from you always is. It always triggers a negative feeling.

Shiloh [00:43:29]:

Mom says stuff and I don't feel good, so I'm going to kind of avoid her a little bit. Right. And then I immediately went, oh, that's what I'm doing to my husband. I'm, like, highlighting for him stuff that I want changed all the time. That's not going to be easy to listen to. That's not going to really open his heart. He's not going to be wanting to hear from me because I'm a negative source. And so the first thing I did was I stopped criticizing and I just stopped doing it.

Shiloh [00:43:58]:

I disciplined myself to bite my tongue and not offer unsolicited feedback and criticism about things. And I noticed right away that he started talking to me a lot more, that he just always, like the beginning. He always had stuff to say, and he was always wanted to come share whatever was going on for him. And he was just, like, chatty. And I got that friendship vibe back right away where. And I wasn't just criticism. I used to criticize his perspective. Right.

Shiloh [00:44:26]:

Oh, you're being too negative. Or I would be triggered by his way of being in the world and I would try to make him more like me, essentially, which, naturally, we're better at everybody else. Yeah, exactly. I like living in my head. I don't want to live in your head. So I would have these kind of ways of being a little bit combative, and it wasn't, like, flashy. We didn't scream at each other. It was just annoying.

Shiloh [00:44:58]:

He didn't want to talk to me because I always had something to adjust about the way he was expressing something. And so I started to see it as I am offering an emotionally safe space for him to have all of his ways of being. He can just be him, and it doesn't have to be at all like me, and I don't have to make it about me. I don't have to agree or disagree. I can just listen. And that evolved over time, I want to say, because at some point you do need to be able to express how someone's expressions affect you. Right. But that's nuanced.

Shiloh [00:45:38]:

That's really high level. Like, you first need to be able to not be triggered by everything someone says. First need to be able to hold your own emotional space. Remain happy when they're not happy.

Yvonne [00:45:50]:

Yes. And that's so challenging at the best of times for me. Without kids, without having to navigate the family aspect, that is so challenging. And what you're saying, just being that safe space for someone to share their perspective, I think that even is advanced work because I notice with myself, even when I'm feeling good within myself, everything's going well, I'm balanced. But then if my partner shares a perspective, I'm like, yeah. Because of course my perspective is the better one going into it. I need to make him see that's not fun because I know if I share something with someone and I'm received with that kind of energy, it's just like, well, I don't feel listened to and why am I even bothering? So I think that takes a lot of skill to master that piece.

Shiloh [00:46:51]:

It is ongoing, and it's what I would call the healthy separation part of marriage, because that's also what I learned that I adapted to my work with women, is that with your kids, we don't have healthy separation fantasy. Mom doesn't have healthy separation. Everything is wonderful and enmeshed. We're just always glowing and in love with each other, with our children, and they're kissing us and we're hugging them. And when they don't, we're like, you're ruining this mothering experience for me. It was supposed to be wonderful. And then you go, oh, wait, they're having an emotional experience that I need to be able to detach from. If I'm so attached to them being happy children because I'm rearing them so beautifully, I'm going to be triggered by all their displeasure and be triggered by all their attitude problems, I'm always going to make a big deal about it.

Shiloh [00:47:46]:

I'm going to be upset about it because I am not healthily detached from those kids. And so in marriage, it was the same thing for me. I had to go from, oh, we're harmonious, we have the same perspectives. We're in good moods together all the time to, oh, my goodness, I'm going to live with someone for 50 years. I better let them have their own zone. Good grief. Who can stand it if you don't have your own zone?

Yvonne [00:48:10]:

Yes.

Shiloh [00:48:10]:

So the early parts, you want to kind of merge with someone, you're so excited to be with them. And then what has been so liberating for me and just totally increased the joy in our marriage is just pull that apart. We get to be totally different. As different as ever. It's great that we're different. That actually makes it more attraction. Let it be different.

Yvonne [00:48:33]:

Right. I love that. And as you're saying, like, detaching, what does that look like? Like you mentioned in a conversation, just holding space for their view. And what does that look like with your husband?

Shiloh [00:48:49]:

I would say one of the critical areas of this detachment, which have been so important for me and is really hard for most of my clients, is that when you want to do something or believe something or go somewhere and he has some kind of feeling about it, you don't let that change your mind. So respect his request, respect his boundaries, but don't cater to his mood. There's a big difference there. And as women, we get into, like, well, I love him and he's upset by this, so I shouldn't do it. Right.

Yvonne [00:49:25]:

Can you give an example of that?

Shiloh [00:49:27]:

Yeah. So a good example would be, I want to go to the gym in the afternoon, right. But he has to change his schedule a bit or whatever, or he has to inconvenience himself, or he has to watch the kids when they're cranky or sick. Right. And he might be willing to do that, like he said. Yes, but he's irritated because it's a shitty job. He doesn't want you to leave. Right.

Shiloh [00:49:52]:

And women will say, I have to stay home because my husband gets cranky when I go out. You don't let him be cranky. And we'll blame him and we'll call it controlling, or we'll say he's being infantile, or he doesn't think he's treating us like the primary parent or whatever. And it's like you're cranky when you have to take care of your kids sometimes too. And he's gone.

Yvonne [00:50:17]:

Yeah.

Shiloh [00:50:18]:

So we really overly become involved in our husband's moods and emotions. And anytime. I actually worked this out with my husband recently because I wanted to learn belly dancing, and my kids are just old enough now that going out in the evening is not a total stress case for all of us. It's somewhat stressful, but not completely stressful. So I said, I want to go to these classes, so I started going to some. And sometimes my husband was grumpy, sometimes he wasn't. And then I said to him, look, I really want to go to every single class, but when I'm leaving the house, if there's tension, it makes it hard for me to leave. And he's like, well, just go.

Shiloh [00:50:58]:

And I'm like, I know that you're not doing it to try to manipulate me or keep me in the house, but I need, like, an enthusiastic approval of this. And because a relationship, again, is at this level where he doesn't feel like I'm demanding things, and it's great. He now suppresses his expressiveness when I'm leaving the house, because he's an expressive guy, he's going to say out loud, whatever he's feeling, he doesn't expect it to change me because he has a solid sense of self. It wouldn't change him. Right. But I have that more typically feminine, typically more anxious attachment style, which orbits his mood and tries to make him happy all the time or placate him. And because we're so different and he's sometimes more negative mind frame, that would be an impossible task. That would be completely impossible for him to.

Shiloh [00:51:56]:

Essentially, what I believe I was subconsciously doing was trying to make him feel like I do most of the time by not upsetting or catering to or whatever, manipulating, dancing around. Oh, total nightmare. You become resentful of them. Every time they're upset. You're like, I do everything. You're still grumpy. Like, get a life, man. You start blaming them for every negative experience they have, which, again, to them is like, what? I'm not allowed to be cranky? I'm not allowed to be upset about anything? Why are you getting in my face about nothing? But this enmeshment that women have with their husbands causes so much resentment in us that we put on them.

Yvonne [00:52:38]:

Yes, and thank you for saying that. It's more typical for women to experience anxious attachment. It's more typical for women to be enmeshed in their partner's energy, to want to cater, to want to please, to want to keep the harmony. Yeah, I think it's important that it's very common for women to do that.

Shiloh [00:53:01]:

Yeah, I believe that it's what caused us to survive. I think it comes from an evolutionary behavior perspective that if you lived in a society where there's no rule of law, there's no cops, there's no rights, tribal society. The reason you survive as a woman, the reason your offspring survive, is because you have the protection of a man who loves you or who cares about you. Right. Who approves of you, who's chosen you, right? So as long as you're chosen by a man and as long as you feel like you're in his good graces, you won't die, your offspring will go on.

Yvonne [00:53:42]:

Yeah.

Shiloh [00:53:43]:

So we get like, a primal fear when we're disapproved of by our husbands. That's why it's so outsized. It's like he just looked at you sideways because you're leaving the house and you're like, I finally have to stay home. I'm going to die if I deal with this anxiety and tension. Actually leaving the house while he's disapproving of me. Oh, my God. Must go in and bust and placate. Which, frankly, makes it way worse.

Shiloh [00:54:12]:

Men hate that they are not pleased by it, but we don't know what else to do. So we get really smothering and weird. I was doing all those things and it's honestly, I can't tell you how this is. The good news for us anxious women is when we give up this role of, like, pleaser, our husbands like us more. In a twist. In an ironic twist.

Yvonne [00:54:40]:

No one saw it coming.

Shiloh [00:54:41]:

Yeah. We're like, wait. When I let him be mad, he's going to be like, you are hot. Yes. What actually happens? I think it's partly because it's respectable. And they're like, damn, look at her. She's got some self worth. She's got a little bit of swagger.

Shiloh [00:55:00]:

Got a little bit of sass in her. Good for her. She must be cool girl. I always say that when we get married to a man, we understand that he wants a woman who's a catch, right? Who has options, who's got a life, who's like, whatever, she's great. She's not needy and simpering and on top of him every second of the day. That's obvious too, when you're dating, right? And then you get married, lose your sense of self and forget all of that. And you start to be needy and desperate and catering and placating, and it's because you're just scared and messed up and you've lost your sense of self. So one of my things I say is, I say dating advice is the best marriage advice because it's all about dignity and self worth and regulating your emotions.

Shiloh [00:55:51]:

Don't text them 7000 times in a row. We do that when we're wise and we think it's not going to have a negative effect. Well, it does, because it's that healthy tension which I'm sure you talk about in polarity work. It's like if you're collapsed into him either by begging or nagging or harassing or pleasing, he's just like, I'm doing visual things on it, I'm putting my fist together. If you're collapsing the distance between you, if you picture two hands together like they're praying, all he can do is back up from you. And so if you can't get your dignity and your grounding and stand up straight, he's not going to be able to come towards you. He's not going to feel that attraction and tension for you. And this is something that in the marriage realm where I am, people forget all this stuff and they talk about, oh, we just need to communicate more and we just need to be open more.

Shiloh [00:56:49]:

And it's like we have communicated the hell out of ourselves. In most marriages there has been too many words spoken and you need to start acting like someone who is valuable and lovable and worthy and has a life. Yes, I call it vote with your feet. Right? Like, if you don't like the way he's acting, go do something else.

Yvonne [00:57:08]:

Sometimes.

Shiloh [00:57:10]:

Don't just talk about how he's acting, just like, go out the door. And I mean, it's harder with kids. And that's where I think you get into that trap thing. Like, well, I'm stuck in the house with these kids and you're here and I can't get my own space. And I'd say that's only true for the very early days. And after that, this is the hard part. You have to consciously remember that. You could just go out the door, even with a kid in your hand, you could just get in the car and go to the beach, you could just go to the playground, you could do those things.

Shiloh [00:57:39]:

Or you could take your kids to mom's house or to auntie's. Remind yourself when you're married that you don't have to stay put all the time.

Yvonne [00:57:49]:

Yeah.

Shiloh [00:57:52]:

And not out of an fu. Right? Like, that's the important thing, too. You're not doing it to make a statement, you're not doing it to make him pay, not doing it to make him sad or jealous. Right? You're doing it so that you can get your balance, you can get your center, you can remember who you are.

Yvonne [00:58:10]:

Yes, I think that comes back to self worth as well. And with all of this, it's the inner work and it's getting to a point where you believe you're actually worth doing the inner work and worth getting out and going to the beach, and that you're literally worth as much as your children.

Shiloh [00:58:34]:

Yeah, I love that. Worth as much as your children, because it is all about self worth, 100%. Shout that from the rootstops with you. And like you said, the further step is, am I even worthy of any of this effort and time and attention, whether it's investing in someone or taking a holiday or taking some time off. Why do I get to do that? Well, why don't you? But also, the motherhood one is so key, because when we love our children and care for our children, we have a physical example of what someone does when they love someone and when they're worthy. The way you care for those kids is so holistic and conscientious and careful and planned, and it takes money, it takes time, it takes energy, and you're like, all of it. You're worth all of it. We're doing it all right, because these kids are so precious and they're so worthy.

Shiloh [00:59:29]:

And then you look at yourself and go, I give myself, like, one 16th of any of that. But I'm their mother. Like, I created these lives in a lot of ways, and I'm their example. I'm their home space, but I'm not worthy. And so, yeah, I often say women, just think about the fraction of the love you give your children. Just give yourself some of that to start triggering, as you know, to get too much at once. Just give a little bit. And I've done this, like, when I first started doing the work, it was like going for a walk when there was a mess in the house was anxiety provoking.

Shiloh [01:00:10]:

Right? Going for any walks when there was always work to be done was really hard at the beginning. And now I plan a mom retreat every year, and it gets longer every year away from the house for no other reason than to just do whatever I want to do. To experience life with no dependence for a couple of days. And that was really anxiety producing. The first time I did it, it felt selfish. It felt like, I will be inconveniencing my husband, for sure. My kids are going to miss me. They're small, for sure, right? But then after you do it and life goes on, it wasn't even a big deal at all.

Shiloh [01:00:50]:

You reregulate in your nervous system that I'm worthy of these things. The world doesn't fall apart. I feel better. I can do it again. And for me, I'm an example for my clients, I have to show them that women who are married and have small children don't have to give up their whole lives. That's not a requirement. And show my kids, people always say, oh, you have daughters, and it shows them. But it's the same with sons.

Shiloh [01:01:17]:

When you have sons, you're like, this is how women act who are mothers?

Yvonne [01:01:21]:

Yes.

Shiloh [01:01:22]:

This is the kind of woman you want to be with who has a sense of self, who's going to speak up for herself, who's going to pay attention to her own needs. That's going to be a healthier woman for you to be with.

Yvonne [01:01:34]:

Yeah.

Shiloh [01:01:36]:

That all, to me, helps me get around some of those guilt or those lack of worthiness, is recognizing the benefits to my children, my clients, my community, when I treat myself with that kind of love and worthiness.

Yvonne [01:01:53]:

I love that. Yeah. Thank you. And where are you today with your kids and your husband? And where are you at today and within yourself, of course?

Shiloh [01:02:06]:

Well, I am more confident than I have been in my entire life, and I'm going to be 41 this year. And it's such a cool thing to recognize that it's not about your actual age or your actual stuff. It's like the inner work allows me to feel really much better about myself than I ever have, which is really fun because I am a normal woman who has plagued by insecurities my whole life. Right? So shedding that stuff worth a million bucks. And then with my kids, I think my kids is the hardest one for me because I still want to not traumatize them at all, and I still want them to have this great emotional foundation. But what's amazing is I have all those conversations with them now, and I apologize. And it's more about transparency than perfection. And that's my growth edge with my children, is, yes, I'm going to get better at my reactions and yes, I'm working on it.

Shiloh [01:03:04]:

And I'm going to talk you through all of this, so at least you gain some learning in the process. Right. And with my husband, what's so cool is it's better than it has ever been. So in the beginning we had all the chemistry and connection, but we still had friction because there was still unconscious relating going on. I was still loud when triggered or have to defend myself and have to stand. I had to kind of like, must stand up for myself, must send me my opinions every time they come because that's what a worthy woman does. And now it's like, no, a worthy woman has nothing to prove, has nothing to defend has no agenda. It's so great.

Shiloh [01:03:45]:

It's so peaceful, right? And I've taken the time to patiently teach him how to love me, which people say you shouldn't have to teach people, but if you love the person and you want to stay married to them, put in the time to teach them, because it just makes it better. So now things like affection and words of affirmation, which were not a natural love language for him. He does them. He does them. And it's super exciting to me because even though it's not perfect and we still have our friction, sometimes it's more passionate and more secure than it's ever been.

Yvonne [01:04:26]:

Wow. I love it. And I got to say, you're definitely oozing confidence and self belief and self worth. It's definitely radiating outward. And I love that you're transparent and open with your kids and that your marriage is just that relaxing, like you said at the beginning, that trusting, surrendering, and letting go. And it sounds like you've been able to do that with all of that, with your family, with yourself.

Shiloh [01:04:58]:

Thank you so much for saying that. I think the biggest thing that I want to share for women who are more in that anxious type energy is that when you get to this place, you stop worrying about your relationship, you stop fixating on it. You stop having to solve it all the time. Right? Because I did that for years. And it's like, okay, there might be a thing here or there that needs a bit of work, but I'm not expending so much energy there. So I actually can put it into myself and my passions and all these other things. Because it's not just like the anxious be closer. I don't feel secure enough.

Shiloh [01:05:35]:

Something's not quite right. I'm not loved enough. What's missing? What's missing? What's missing that has released.

Yvonne [01:05:46]:

Amazing for women that are in the dating phase or maybe just at the early stages of a relationship, maybe they're thinking about having kids with their partner. What do you think is a conversation that they should be having with their partner before having kids?

Shiloh [01:06:07]:

I think one of the main questions that you want to ask is about division of labor. Like, what exactly role do you want to have or are you willing to have? Like, what are you excited to have and what are you willing to do? Because people have so much history on that that's assumed. You have no idea what they mean by fatherhood. You have no idea what that looks like at all. You just don't know. And then the other thing would be how able or willing are they to deal with the fluctuations in sexual activity, the total change in romantic relationship, because you hear about people cheating on their wives when they're pregnant or when the baby just came. And that always breaks my heart because I'm like, what greater betrayal than that? I can't even think. And there's many men who don't have that.

Shiloh [01:07:02]:

They're like, oh, yeah, they have self control. They understand their seasons. It's just, like, normal for them. So you want to kind of ask about that and also kind of test it out. Like, if you have a man who's entitled sexually and has no self control, that's a nightmare. With family. That's an absolute nightmare. Because even when you have a great, passionate relationship, there's so many obstacles that there's just periods where you don't.

Shiloh [01:07:26]:

Right. And those men will go to pornography or they'll go to other women, or they'll go to Instagram. And for me, that's like, the mature, masculine is like, oh, yeah, I got this part covered. Don't worry, I can handle myself. Versus the like, oh, my God, I can't go that long. What do you expect from me?

Yvonne [01:07:46]:

Wow. So, okay, awesome. For women listening that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach out to you so you can.

Shiloh [01:07:59]:

Just come and follow me on Facebook? So I'm just Shiloh minor, and I do lives weekly and post a lot on there, so you can kind of get in the vibe and you can also just message me. I offer free consultations to people who want to know what it's like to work with me. But if you just want to kind of test the waters and say, hello, messenger is the way to do that. I'll leave the link for the free consultation with you so that they can just do that. But message me, just say, hi. If there's something where you're like, okay, I need to dig deeper into this. I need to figure this out. I'm happy to speak with you.

Yvonne [01:08:34]:

Awesome.

Shiloh [01:08:35]:

Yeah.

Yvonne [01:08:35]:

I'll be sure to leave those links in the show notes to make it easy for people to do that. Wow. Okay, so just final question before we wrap up. What song are you dancing to nowadays?

Shiloh [01:08:51]:

I have always loved Whitney Houston. I want to dance with, have actually. My husband has actually come to dance lessons with me in this year, which he would never have agreed to throughout our entire relationship. So if that's not evidence of progress, I don't know what is.

Yvonne [01:09:07]:

I love it. Great song. And I love that you guys are taking dancing lessons. That's so cool. Love it. Is there anything that we haven't touched on? Is there anything that you're burning to talk about?

Shiloh [01:09:23]:

I really loved our conversation. Thank you so much for asking great questions and just feedback and everything. I really enjoyed it.

Yvonne [01:09:30]:

Awesome. Thank you so much, Shiloh, for coming on and chatting with me today. Yeah, it was such a treat listening to you. You've got such a passion for your own story, like, your own experience, but also working with women and helping them navigate these rough waters. And it's so wonderful to see that you've come out the other side. And, yeah, it's just been such a treat listening to you. So thank you so much.

Shiloh [01:09:58]:

Thank you. You're so sweet.

CONNECT WITH US

➡️ Find Out How Shiloh Can Support You (and your marriage) here

➡️ Follow Shiloh on Instagram

➡️ and on fb

👉 Join The Waitlist & More Info: Deeply Connected with Leslie & Yvonne

✅ Dating Greatly Playlist on Spotify- an uplifting dance playlist, curated by Dating Greatly guests

Intro Song: Bensound- Summer