Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E168: Secrets to Reignite Happiness And Love in Your Marriage w/Laura Doyle

Transcript

E168: Secrets to Reignite Happiness And Love in Your Marriage w/Laura Doyle · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I think, like all men everywhere are kind of on the lookout for
• 0:03
  that opportunity to be someone's hero.
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  I was too proud to get divorced. As a last ditch effort, I
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  decided to ask women who had happy marriages what their
• 0:12
  secrets were. And it wasn't that long
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  afterwards that I came through the front door and my husband
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  saw me and his face lit up. He's happy to see me again.
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  You know, one point of maybe disagreement we have is this
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  idea that. Hey everybody, welcome back to
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  the Lila Rose Show. Today we're going to sit down
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  with Laura Doyle, who is a relationship coach and a New
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  York Times bestselling author. And we're going to explore the
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  question of how to strengthen our marriages so that both
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  spouses needs are met in the marriage.
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  I think this topic is so incredibly important because
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  strong marriages, I believe, really make or break any
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  society. Laura Doyle has quite a bit of
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  experience in this line of work. She's written several books
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  which have become New York Times bestsellers.
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  She has started a program that has helped 15,000 and individual
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  women strengthen their marriages, and she has traveled
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  the world with this message, with her work being translated
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  into 19 different languages and sold in 30 different countries.
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  I have friends who have been personally benefited especially
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  by her book called The Surrendered Single.
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  Today's episode is going to be focused on marriage advice and
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  communication advice for a relationship, conflict
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  resolution. So much more practical advice.
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  Now we do get into some controversial waters.
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  In part of our conversation we discussed the topic of abusive
• 1:27
  behavior in marriage and how to respond to abusive behavior.
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  Now, as I've said many times on the show, and I think this is
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  really important, there are absolutely cases where due to
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  abuse, it is important for a woman or for her children to be
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  removed from the situation to protect herself.
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  And of course, women can be in abusive as well.
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  I'm usually here talking about physical or sexual abuse.
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  In that case, it can be really important to protect yourself.
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  We do explore this a little bit and we have some disagreements,
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  agreements and you'll hear Laura and I hash this out towards the
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  end of the episode. But I wanted to say that here
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  because as with any advice that you read in a book that you hear
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  from a an expert or that you hear in a podcast, it has to be
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  applied with prudence to your personal life because
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  everybody's life is going to be different.
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  So I wanted to put that out there because I think that's an
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  important permission to give because Laura is very, very pro
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  marriage, as am I, but there are cases where separation may be
• 2:22
  necessary. All right, with that being said,
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  I hope you enjoyed this conversation as always, please
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  send me an e-mail or leave a comment with any feedback that
• 2:30
  you have. I love to hear from you, your
• 2:32
  perspectives, your stories. You can do that in the comments
• 2:34
  section or you can e-mail me at lila@gtbmedia.com.
• 2:39
  Also, don't forget to subscribe to the show if you're not
• 2:41
  already subscribed on podcast app or on YouTube.
• 2:44
  That helps the show reach more people.
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  Thanks for joining, Laura. So excited to be here.
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  Thank you. I'm excited too, that we're both
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  Californians. Yeah.
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  Yeah, it's so not. We live close.
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  Yes, yes. So thank you for coming in.
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  Your work has touched so many women.
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  I mean it really has touched millions of women and from all
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  over the world, all different walks of life.
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  We were just talking about that, that you have women listening to
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  you and men, but women listening to you from pretty much every
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  faith tradition and no faith tradition.
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  Yeah, that's been pretty amazing to me too.
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  So tell me how you first had the idea to write your first book,
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  The Surrendered Wife. Well it starts with me getting
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  my own marriage in a ditch where my husband and I were fighting a
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  lot. We were having big blow UPS in
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  the car and we're having wild wall hostility.
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  We'd have a cold wars with no talking for days.
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  And this was maybe 7 or 8 years into the marriage and it was
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  really lonely because he didn't want to have anything to do with
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  me. He felt very distant and I would
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  tell him that I needed more attention and more affection and
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  that just seemed to make things worse.
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  So I knew what we should do. We needed to go to marriage
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  counseling. Of course, everyone knows that's
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  what you do if your marriage is struggling.
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  And we went for over a year and it didn't help.
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  It didn't work for us. I remember being on the
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  counselor's Gray couch and realizing this is hopeless, he
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  is never going to change and I'm either going to spend the rest
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  of my life in a loveless relationship or else I have to
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  get divorced. And so I decided I would get
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  divorced and there was just one problem and that was that I was,
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  I was too proud to get divorced. I was embarrassed.
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  I knew I was going to lose status and I didn't want people
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  to think that I had failed in my marriage.
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  So as a last ditch effort, I decided to ask women who had
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  happy marriages what their secrets were.
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  I was like, how are you doing this?
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  And I, I did ask them and they said some things that sounded
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  crazy to me, didn't make any sense.
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  But I thought, OK, I've got nothing to lose.
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  I'm going to experiment with what they're saying and just see
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  if it works in my relationship. And it wasn't that long
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  afterwards that I came through the front door.
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  My husband saw me and his face lit up.
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  He was happy to see me again and that had been gone.
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  So I knew something's working here.
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  I've got something. And I thought I was very excited
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  because I thought now I can have the kind of marriage I've always
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  wanted so badly. I wanted to have a good marriage
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  and now I know how to do that. And we're not going to have
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  those big blow UPS in the car anymore.
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  And then a little while after that, we were driving in the car
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  and we had one of those big blow UPS.
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  Really horrible fight where I was saying mean awful things and
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  he was saying mean awful things back.
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  And I realized it wasn't enough to just know what to do.
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  I mean, the new stuff wasn't that hard.
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  It was just new, but I couldn't get myself to do it.
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  So I had the idea that if I could get some of my girlfriends
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  who were also complaining about their marriages to do it with
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  me, that might give me the structure and support that I
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  needed to be successful with the the new habits.
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  And that worked. I started a little support group
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  in my living room. There was five of us and we
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  started seeing miracles. I remember when we was like, my
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  husband won the sales contest at work and he took me on the most
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  romantic trip of our lives. And another one said, this is
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  not going to seem big. But my husband painted the
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  family room. And we've been arguing about him
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  painting the family room for a long time.
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  And he got up and did it with a smile.
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  And we were all like, no, that is a miracle.
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  So we knew we were on to something.
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  And one of the women said, my cousin in Florida, and we're in
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  California. My cousin in Florida wants to
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  know what we're doing. Can you write it down for her?
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  And I was like, sure, I'll do it.
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  And that became the book The Surrendered Wife, which then
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  went on to become a New York Times bestseller.
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  And it was published in 19 languages in 30 countries and
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  has now helped, you know, many hundreds of thousands of women
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  fix their relationships. So I never expected any of this.
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  I just wanted to fix my own marriage.
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  But it's been, it's been incredible to see how I, I felt
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  like I was the only one who was struggling and it wasn't
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  there's, there's lots of us struggling.
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  We weren't taught how to have great relationships.
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  My parents are divorced, so I was following a failed recipe
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  and I just needed to get my hands on the right information
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  and have the right support to make it shining amazing like it
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  is now. We just celebrated 35 years.
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  Congratulations. Thank you.
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  And I would have been such a tragedy if I'd thrown out the
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  amount of my dreams that I'm married to now.
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  All right, there's so much to ask you about the whole process,
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  but I want to thank you for not just doing the work in your own
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  marriage, to save your own marriage, it sounds like, but to
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  put it down into paper for so many people because you lived it
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  and then you prescribed it in a way that people can actually
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  receive understand. And I'm so excited to unpack
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  that in this interview because I know this is going to help a lot
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  of people and even people listening who aren't married yet
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  to prepare for that relationship.
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  Or maybe they're dating or people who are married and maybe
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  they think we're marriage is good.
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  Well, let's make it better. Yeah, absolutely.
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  Let's pursue the best that we can.
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  Yeah. It's so important, right?
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  I think in some ways it can feel like selfish, like, oh, OK, my
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  marriage isn't perfect, and that's OK.
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  I should just, you know, I should accept what I have.
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  But I find that families depend on strong marriages.
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  And so it really is amazing to see how much power we have as
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  women to be able to make our marriages really strong and and
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  so fun that you're not you're not thinking about the problems
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  because so much is going right. It's beautiful.
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  And I think it's such an example to other people when they see a
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  couple that seem in love and that are not just, you know,
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  being faithful to each other and working hard and maybe raising a
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  family, but that they really seem to love each other's
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  company and they honor and esteem each other and how they
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  treat one another publicly and privately.
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  And, and you get little glimpses of this.
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  You can't help but notice a couple that really seems to
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  enjoy each other's company. And it creates this, I think,
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  this sense of safety and comfort and warmth, warmth wherever they
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  go. So that's just the that is the
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  power of the surrendered wife and the the strong marriage.
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  Yeah, that's the goal went to be totally in love to be to to
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  gross out your teenage kids. I think that's we've established
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  as one of the goals like, oh, mom, dad, stop, you know, stop
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  making out like that, right. So that kind of thing.
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  So we're, I don't have teenage kids yet, but one day maybe
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  we'll get there. So when, let's start with the
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  beginning of maybe the dysfunction kind of analyzing
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  what were the patterns that you were falling into and then that
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  you've ultimately observed and no, many couples fall into.
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  Because I, I think that would probably be the first step is a
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  self-awareness piece to know like this activity leads to
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  leads to negative impact, you know, outcomes for the
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  relationship. Right.
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  Well, one of my big ones was that I was very controlling and
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  I didn't realize I was controlling.
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  I thought I was just being helpful and I did not know that
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  helpful in wife language is actually controlling and
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  critical in husband language. Like, I have so many
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  embarrassing stories about like, I remember trying to help my
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  husband dress better or I was going to help him eat healthier.
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  Like, like, Oh my gosh, you're having a county bar for lunch.
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  Like what? You know, you can't do that.
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  And I wanted to help him with his resume.
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  I would help him rewrite his resume.
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  And what I didn't realize was that the subtext of that, let me
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  help you with your resume is like, you're not very capable.
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  You're not very competent. I'm smarter than you, and you
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  need help. And all of that was hurting my
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  big strongman and I didn't realize it.
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  So, but one of the cheap phrases that I ended up starting to use
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  after I talked to those happy wives was this phrase, whatever
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  you think. So my husband would say things
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  to me like I, I want to take the car in to have the brakes worked
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  on and I'm, but I think I'm going to wait until next week.
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  Well, in the old days, I had an opinion about everything.
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  I'd be like, are you, Are you sure?
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  I mean, that's the brakes. Do you think it's really safe to
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  wait till next week? I really think you should take
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  it in now or or whatever my argument was going to be at that
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  day. And by learning to just trust
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  him to make some decisions for our family by saying whatever
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  you think. Was it like a little crutch that
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  I leaned on to remind myself that my husband is smart?
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  And I married him for I chose him for lots of good reasons.
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  Instead of deciding that, you know, I had this little refrain
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  in my head, like, I'm smarter than you are, and I have to tell
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  you what to do. And it's been kind of fun to see
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  students use this phrase to, like, one of my students, Kathy
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  Murray, was also really struggling in her marriage.
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  They've been sleeping in separate beds for six months.
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  And they've been also going to marriage counselling for a
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  while. And it wasn't helping for them
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  either. And she started going by herself
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  every week to kind of complain about her husband, Doug.
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  And by the way, nobody ever got happier by complaining about
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  their spouse for an hour a week. That doesn't work.
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  So but she got her hands on the surrendered wife, actually.
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  And so she decided she had nothing to lose by experimenting
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  with some of the suggestions in there.
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  So and she was on a trip visiting her mom.
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  And then when she got home, her husband said to her, I need you
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  to tell me what you want me to do because we need a new cell
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  phone plan. So just let me know.
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  And she was the chief financial officer of a large private
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  school, so really smart and accomplished.
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  And she's been trying to help her husband at home manage the
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  finances. Like she was running things at
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  work and wasn't wasn't going well.
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  So he said, you got to tell me what you want me to do with this
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  cell phone plan. And she said, oh, you know,
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  whatever you think. And he just looked at her kind
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  of funny because he'd been trained like he knew he didn't
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  want to get in trouble later for doing it wrong.
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  And he knew that his wife didn't really trust him to do it.
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  So he repeated himself, He's like, no, you got to tell me
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  what you want me to do with this, with the cell phone plan,
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  OK. And she just stuck with her
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  phrase. She said, whatever you think.
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  And she added, I trust you. So Doug went away and made the
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  the decision about the cell phone plan all by himself, and
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  she was worried that he was going to get a crummy plan or
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  spend too much money. But he didn't.
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  He did fine. What if he didn't do fine
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  though? Not to?
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  I, I, there's a lot of yeah, Then I think part of you have to
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  continue it to say I'm still going to respect, I'm going to,
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  I'm going to be a team player with the decision made.
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  Well, and, and it's interesting because I think a lot of times
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  we have fears and they aren't that realistic, right?
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  So in this case, her fear was not realistic.
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  But you're right, sometimes they can be real.
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  You know, it could be a realistic fear.
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  But it was interesting because just this one small act of
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  trusting her husband. He put his hand on her shoulder
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  later that night and he said, you were so nice today.
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  And tears just rolled down her cheeks.
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  And they slept in the same bed that very night.
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  And the next day, she fired her counselor and she started
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  training with me to become a coach.
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  And that was over 20 years ago. And she still gets tears in her
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  eyes when she talks about how tragic it would have been for
• 14:34
  her to throw dugout when he is also the man of her dreams.
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  So just that one act of trust can go a long way.
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  So that's where where would you put that in the principal list?
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  Is that really the first one is choosing to trust and choosing
• 14:49
  to surrender the control of certain decisions with the act
• 14:53
  of trust to your husband saying? I trust you, whatever you think.
• 14:58
  Is that kind of Ground Zero would you say?
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  Com Is that kind of Ground Zero, would you say?
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  It, it, it definitely is. I I guess I'd say it's part we
• 16:14
  would talk about staying on your paper.
• 16:16
  So pay your paper is sort of like when you're a kid at school
• 16:19
  and you had to keep your eyes on your paper, right?
• 16:21
  The kid next to you is doing something else, but you're only
• 16:23
  responsible for what's on your paper and your husband has his
• 16:26
  own paper. And one of the things that we
• 16:29
  find has gone missing a lot of times when women are feeling
• 16:35
  like hurt and angry and resemble in their marriages is there
• 16:38
  hasn't been a lot of good self-care.
• 16:42
  I'll call it self-care, but that's not just code for, you
• 16:45
  know, 30 minutes of cardio and five fruits and vegetables a
• 16:47
  day. What I mean by self-care is I
• 16:50
  call it like frivolous fun. So it'd be doing at least three
• 16:53
  things a day for your own happiness.
• 16:55
  So I love to play volleyball. I love to have chats with my
• 17:00
  sisters and my other girlfriends.
• 17:03
  I love to take a walk and listen podcast.
• 17:05
  I love going to sushi. So these are all things that
• 17:07
  just bring me joy. They don't have to save money or
• 17:12
  I don't know, healthy environment.
• 17:13
  They just have to make me smile and feel good and happy because
• 17:18
  that's the condition I was in when my husband fell in love
• 17:21
  with me. I was like, I was a happy girl
• 17:24
  of fun and light. I call her and that's who went
• 17:28
  missing a little bit, went a lot actually, when I was running
• 17:31
  around with my frowny face on all the time, like being
• 17:34
  responsible for his resume and buying his underwear and doing
• 17:38
  all these things. So.
• 17:39
  So the very first thing you kind of have to do to be able to
• 17:44
  implement any of the intimacy skills is do those make a list
• 17:48
  of at least 20 things a day that bring you joy and then do at
• 17:53
  least three a day. And a lot of busy wives and
• 17:57
  moms, you know, they, I work full time and I, you know, have
• 18:00
  my kids and I commute to work and the, the mortgage and the
• 18:04
  bills and, you know, just the housework.
• 18:06
  They'll say, I don't have time. I don't.
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  I'm busy thinking about everybody else.
• 18:10
  And it's like, yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly the
• 18:13
  problem. Because our husbands didn't
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  marry us. So just to have somebody who can
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  clean the house and pay the bills, they married us for our
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  joy to be even for the for the opportunity to be our heroes.
• 18:31
  And unless we make ourselves happy, they have no chance of
• 18:34
  being our heroes. They miss our smiles.
• 18:37
  There's such a deep philosophical principle here
• 18:40
  that I just want to call out, which I love and it's such a
• 18:43
  good reminder for me and I'm sure people listening, which is
• 18:46
  this idea of leisure and the Sabbath.
• 18:49
  I mean, it's a very religious idea that there is a day that
• 18:52
  God himself rested at creation to what did he do on the day of
• 18:56
  rest? He delighted at what he had
• 18:57
  made. And that is the ultimate draw to
• 19:00
  be. And I think we are.
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  So it's so easy to fall into the rush and the busyness and to
• 19:06
  think too, especially if you're coming from a faith background,
• 19:08
  that this is what you're called to do, to work hard, raise your
• 19:11
  kids, like sacrifice, give back to the community.
• 19:14
  But part of our gift is our self and how we are, you know, our
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  disposition, how we show up. And if we are constantly
• 19:21
  grinding ourselves to the bone, we are not able to show up in
• 19:24
  that way that brings light and, and, and lightness too.
• 19:27
  Like you want to bring that that levity, that cheerfulness, that
• 19:30
  even humor to the daily life. And you can't do that like a
• 19:33
  robot, like it has to come from, you know, an authentic place.
• 19:36
  And so, I mean, thankfully, I, I think for me, I just feel super
• 19:41
  blessed with all of the things I've been given.
• 19:43
  So I think I, I find I, I've been, it's been not as hard of a
• 19:46
  struggle for me, at least in my recent life to find like the
• 19:50
  humor and the joy in the day and to do do that.
• 19:52
  But I know especially in close friends and everything, there
• 19:55
  can be just those doldrums, especially when you have kids,
• 19:58
  especially when you have multiple kids and you're just
• 20:00
  trying to provide for everyone. Do you have specific advice for
• 20:04
  how to identify those things that are not going to break the
• 20:08
  bank, They're not going to, you know, destroy the, the family
• 20:11
  ecosystem. But that can also be the
• 20:14
  self-care that is so necessary to show up as not just the wife,
• 20:18
  but also the mother that. Her family needs, yeah.
• 20:21
  I mean by a student named Bonnie comes to mind because she had
• 20:25
  she had two littles, pretty small littles.
• 20:28
  And she actually, she was trained to become a coach.
• 20:32
  And one of the things she decided to create in her home
• 20:34
  for self-care was a one hour nap time, I guess you'd call it in
• 20:41
  the middle of the day. But it didn't mean that her kids
• 20:43
  were napping. It meant that Bonnie was napping
• 20:46
  like, and call it napping or sometimes she would journal or
• 20:50
  sometimes she would read. But she really trained her kids.
• 20:52
  Like this is this is momma's time.
• 20:54
  Mommy needs some time and you know, she you know, they were
• 20:58
  cared for, of course, and had things to.
• 21:00
  Do they could line up the nap times.
• 21:02
  Yeah, yeah, you could try to line up the nap times, but but
• 21:06
  it didn't, it didn't cost her anything.
• 21:08
  And and it and the whole family got trained.
• 21:11
  Like mommy needs her self-care. Like, no, don't interrupt mommy.
• 21:15
  She's having self-care right now.
• 21:17
  It's just cute to hear the story because, you know, unless you
• 21:21
  have small kids, you know, you don't understand what that
• 21:23
  challenge is really like. I think so anyway, she and she
• 21:28
  found that that put her in a position to be able to be happy
• 21:32
  to see her husband when he got home versus being so desperate
• 21:36
  to like get his attention, you know, like to tell him about her
• 21:40
  day and have that adult interaction.
• 21:43
  Like she was really giving that to herself in a way earlier in
• 21:46
  the day. So that's just one example.
• 21:48
  I mean, I, I have a another student I remember who she kept.
• 21:52
  She was really lost. And this is very common when
• 21:55
  you're struggling in your marriage.
• 21:55
  Sometimes it's really hard to remember what you love to do.
• 21:58
  What is it I do that's for fun? And she went all the way back to
• 22:02
  high school. She's like, well, what did I
• 22:03
  used to like to do? And in high school, she twirled
• 22:05
  a baton. So she actually went and got out
• 22:08
  her old baton. She still had it.
• 22:10
  And she would like play music and be in the garage, like just
• 22:14
  twirling her baton for for fun. And her husband loved that she
• 22:19
  was doing that. And he actually got a custom
• 22:21
  baton made for her that was like fit to her adult body, I guess.
• 22:25
  Her other one was small and gave it to her for Christmas.
• 22:28
  And he was so delighted to do that for her.
• 22:30
  So you can see how it created a little intimate interaction
• 22:33
  between the two of them. I this reminds me of a recent
• 22:36
  girlfriend who was asking her husband like, hey, I want to
• 22:39
  take some time on Saturday. And he's like, you know, can you
• 22:42
  watch the kids or whatever? And he's like, OK, what would he
• 22:44
  want to do? And she said something about
• 22:47
  helping another friend of hers, which, you know, the husband
• 22:49
  wasn't begrudging, like he wanted to help this other
• 22:52
  friend, but he was like, why don't you go get your nails
• 22:54
  done? Why don't you do something for
• 22:56
  you? Because that is, you know, it's,
• 23:00
  it's rare. And again, I'm not in
• 23:02
  everybody's experience, but I have noticed it's rare in a
• 23:05
  marriage when you have two well-intentioned people that the
• 23:08
  husband doesn't want to help. The wife do self-care.
• 23:12
  Well, you know what? You brought that up.
• 23:13
  Because he knows that this is good, this is going to help her
• 23:17
  and this is going to help our relationship ultimately and help
• 23:19
  our family. Well, part of my research that I
• 23:21
  did really kind of validates what you just said, which is I
• 23:24
  have asked thousands of men, how important is it to you that your
• 23:27
  wife is happy? And you know, they have all said
• 23:30
  the same thing. They'll say, oh, it's the most
• 23:32
  important thing or they'll say it's everything.
• 23:35
  Wow. In the UK they say it's
• 23:36
  imperative wow. So we have this validation that
• 23:40
  that is actually a very high priority to them.
• 23:43
  And I noticed with myself that sometimes the struggle was not
• 23:47
  whether he was trying to createspace for me to make
• 23:50
  myself happy or be or to do something to make me happy.
• 23:53
  It was whether I felt OK taking it.
• 23:56
  Did I deserve. It's interesting this journey
• 23:59
  I'm on of like becoming like feeling like I deserve to have
• 24:03
  some of these. They are amazing luxuries.
• 24:05
  And I get that not everyone can have that, but but I can.
• 24:09
  I'm in a position to and my husband wants me to have
• 24:11
  everything that will make me happy.
• 24:13
  And so it's up to me to to receive that graciously, which I
• 24:19
  consider to be the crux of femininity.
• 24:22
  That's the art of being feminine is being willing to receive.
• 24:26
  Our bodies are a metaphor for that.
• 24:28
  We are built to receive. And when I mean, I think of the
• 24:33
  metaphor of like a coffee cup, like every object has yin and
• 24:37
  Yang or masculine and feminine. And I love the idea of using a
• 24:41
  coffee cup to sort of illustrate that, you know, the ceramic part
• 24:44
  of a coffee cup is the masculine or the Yang.
• 24:48
  And then the part that receives the coffee, the part that can
• 24:51
  hold coffee is the feminine part.
• 24:54
  And without being able to hold coffee, the coffee cup has no
• 24:59
  purpose. So if we won't receive, the
• 25:03
  masculine has no purpose. Tell me.
• 25:06
  More about what that looks like practically and the other tips.
• 25:10
  So you mentioned, I trust you, that magic phrase, whatever you
• 25:15
  think and the self-awareness piece to know, you know that you
• 25:19
  have your you called it the paper and going through the
• 25:22
  steps of what are things I can do on a daily basis to do the
• 25:26
  self-care to be that person that has a light wherever I go.
• 25:31
  So I love those ones. What are some of the other ones?
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• 26:22
  Well, so receiving graciously is is one of the six intimacy
• 26:27
  skills too. And this was a tough one for me.
• 26:30
  I didn't think I was such a bad receiver.
• 26:32
  I didn't. I didn't know that I wasn't
• 26:35
  because, but I was my husband would say, I remember like
• 26:38
  waking up in the morning and he'd say, oh, you're so
• 26:40
  beautiful. And I would be like, no, I, my
• 26:43
  hair's a mess. Like, don't look at me like I
• 26:45
  would reject his compliments or he would buy me flowers.
• 26:50
  And I wasn't so great about that either.
• 26:52
  I'd be like, you know, we could save money if you didn't buy me
• 26:55
  so many flowers. Like I made it about an expense.
• 26:58
  And I remember taking his gifts back.
• 27:03
  He would buy me presents and it, you know, I think, well, it's
• 27:07
  not quite right. And so he he couldn't give me
• 27:10
  gifts or compliments or even help.
• 27:13
  Sometimes he would do the dishes, but he wouldn't do them
• 27:17
  the way I thought they should be done.
• 27:19
  And so I was a critical. I was like, never mind, I'll
• 27:22
  just do it. I'll just do things myself.
• 27:24
  And I was taking away his opportunity to be my hero to,
• 27:32
  you know, like I was saying with all those men that have said
• 27:35
  that making their wives happy is the most important thing, he was
• 27:38
  losing his opportunity to make me happy.
• 27:41
  And further, I wasn't happy when we were struggling in our
• 27:44
  marriage. One of my strategies was to just
• 27:47
  wear this frowny face all the time and to let him know that he
• 27:50
  was not making me happy. I'm like, yeah, you know, I was,
• 27:52
  like, frustrated and full of resentment because I was doing
• 27:56
  everything because I wouldn't let him do everything.
• 27:58
  But I didn't see that. So.
• 28:01
  So there's a chief phrase for receiving graciously gifts,
• 28:05
  compliments, help and apologies. And it's it's just two words.
• 28:09
  I feel like, you know, write this down.
• 28:11
  Right. All right, you ready for the
• 28:13
  I'm? Ready.
• 28:14
  I'm ready. You say thank you and nothing
• 28:18
  else, nothing else like I used to.
• 28:20
  Have trouble? Not even thank you so much, just
• 28:23
  you could say thank you. So much.
• 28:24
  Thank you so much. We do a little exercise
• 28:27
  actually, when when we're not we this is not something you do out
• 28:31
  in the world, but when the coaches are together, we do a
• 28:33
  little exercise where you if you receive a compliment just to
• 28:37
  kind of strengthen that muscle. You could say thank you or you
• 28:40
  could say thank you. That's true.
• 28:42
  Just to really let it land it's but maybe it would be something
• 28:47
  like if someone said, Oh my gosh, I just those are beautiful
• 28:49
  shoes, you know, not to say, oh, thank you.
• 28:52
  I got them on sale. You know, they're having a big
• 28:54
  sale at Macy's or whatever, right To deflect.
• 28:57
  I always think about Beyoncé. She stood up for a for for three
• 29:03
  whole minutes. She stood during a standing
• 29:05
  ovation. So she's one of my role models
• 29:09
  or Cat Deeley who is on so you think he can dance.
• 29:12
  I think she's a great receiving role model too.
• 29:14
  She she came out on stage one night.
• 29:16
  My husband and I were watching the show and the judges say to
• 29:19
  her, oh, Kat, you look so gorgeous.
• 29:22
  And she just smiled big under the white hot spotlight of that
• 29:26
  compliment and just said thank you.
• 29:28
  And she could tell she was really taking it in.
• 29:30
  And she is gorgeous, of course. And then they the judges said to
• 29:34
  her, and congratulations, Kat, on your Emmy nomination.
• 29:38
  And she did it again. She just smiled big and she took
• 29:42
  it in. Thank you.
• 29:44
  Now, those judges had also been nominated for Emmys, so she
• 29:48
  could have easily said, oh, and congratulations to you on your
• 29:52
  Emmy nominations as well. But she didn't.
• 29:55
  And I think it's part of her success and her beauty that she
• 29:57
  was willing to receive graciously.
• 30:01
  That's such a powerful point and that's speaking to me a lot
• 30:03
  because I realized like my go to is like, thank you, That's so
• 30:06
  kind of you and change the subject, you know, not so much
• 30:10
  because I feel awkward necessarily, but yeah, sometimes
• 30:12
  because it's like receiving a compliment can be, it can be
• 30:17
  awkward. And I think women especially,
• 30:19
  they want to create equilibrium where they don't want it to seem
• 30:22
  like they're better than the other person.
• 30:24
  So they're trying to be encouraging or whatever, but I
• 30:28
  think what's missed in all of that is the reality that by
• 30:32
  really taking the compliment and letting it sit, you're actually
• 30:36
  are showing honor to the other person.
• 30:38
  Absolutely. It's kind of frustrating, right?
• 30:40
  Have you ever had a friend where you say you look so beautiful
• 30:43
  and they go, Oh no, no, I didn't even.
• 30:46
  Say you look so beautiful. Too and.
• 30:47
  You're like, thanks, you know, but it was then it almost feels
• 30:50
  like they said that because I said that and it loses the maybe
• 30:56
  it loses not. It's not that it's inauthentic
• 30:58
  that the other girl didn't mean it to, but there is sort of this
• 31:02
  potential superficiality that enters into it where it's now
• 31:05
  we're just kind of patting each other in the back instead of I'm
• 31:08
  receiving something really special.
• 31:10
  And that doesn't mean you can't compliment them down the road
• 31:13
  even 5 minutes later, like take your moment, but you're really
• 31:16
  accepting, really fully accepting them by accepting the
• 31:20
  comment. That's such a good point.
• 31:21
  It's vulnerable, such a good point.
• 31:23
  It's. Vulnerable.
• 31:23
  It's vulnerable. It's intimate to do so.
• 31:25
  Sometimes it feels uncomfortable.
• 31:27
  Sometimes you just don't want to.
• 31:28
  I had a situation where we had an 80s dance party and with a
• 31:33
  bunch of coaches and I was dancing next to this coach who's
• 31:36
  a really good dancer. And the next morning one of the
• 31:39
  coaches, another coach came up to the two of us and said, you
• 31:43
  guys are such great dancers. And I, my first thought was
• 31:46
  like, oh, she means her. And I wanted to like say, I
• 31:51
  wanted to say something along those lines like I think.
• 31:53
  And but I stopped myself. I caught myself fortunately,
• 31:56
  because I teach this stuff and it looks a little hypocritical,
• 31:58
  so I'm not doing it. So I and I just said, oh, thank
• 32:02
  you. And I thought, why would I want
• 32:05
  to argue with someone who speaks well of me, thinks well of me?
• 32:10
  I would rather actually take that in.
• 32:12
  So what does that do for a man when he's complimenting his
• 32:15
  woman or he's doing anything for her?
• 32:18
  Like it could be maybe as simple as opening that door and she's
• 32:22
  just says the thank you with a kind expression.
• 32:25
  What impact does it have on him? Well, I, I think of that coffee
• 32:29
  cup having its purpose. First of all, I was in this
• 32:32
  situation really just not too long ago actually, where my
• 32:34
  husband, I, I was out driving on a rainy, stormy day, windy,
• 32:39
  awful weather day. And I got a flat tire and, but I
• 32:43
  made it back home. That wasn't very far from home.
• 32:46
  And so then I came home and I said, oh, I got, I got a flat
• 32:49
  tire. And John said, oh, OK, well, I'm
• 32:51
  going to go right now and just get, I'm going to get that
• 32:54
  fixed. I'm going to get your car
• 32:56
  operational again. And I started to say, I was
• 32:59
  trying to say, I don't know why I was doing this, but I was
• 33:01
  like, oh, well, you know, I don't need to go anywhere again
• 33:03
  until this day. So you could wait until the
• 33:05
  weather's better so you don't have to like, go out in the
• 33:08
  rain. And.
• 33:09
  And he just looked at me like, like, what are you doing?
• 33:13
  And it was like, he's like, just let me fix your tire.
• 33:15
  And he didn't say just let me be your hero.
• 33:17
  But that's how I heard it. Like, just let me be your hero.
• 33:21
  And then I realized I'm like, Oh yeah, okay, thank you so much,
• 33:24
  John. I, I, it makes me so happy that
• 33:26
  you take care of my car for me. Like I'm, I'm like the queen and
• 33:30
  he did, you know, he went and I I mean, I never even, I don't
• 33:32
  even know what kind of tires I have or where he got him or
• 33:35
  anything about. Tires know what I drive, but he
• 33:37
  got it for me. Exactly.
• 33:39
  And it just feels so wonderful. But it was he was equally
• 33:44
  thrilled. Like we both got just a huge
• 33:48
  yeah. It's it feels.
• 33:49
  We all felt loved from that interaction.
• 33:51
  And he felt loved. He felt like.
• 33:54
  Doing you a favor and and you're appreciating it as it.
• 33:57
  Was crazy, isn't it? But what a.
• 33:59
  Great. What a great setup for women,
• 34:01
  but what a racist. I feel like women really we, we
• 34:04
  are major beneficiaries, major beneficiaries.
• 34:07
  I feel that way in my marriage every day, which I know it's
• 34:09
  such a privilege, and I just think like, how did it work out
• 34:12
  that this man enjoys taking care of me?
• 34:15
  He enjoys it. OK.
• 34:17
  And it's such a blessing and. Along those lines, I think one
• 34:20
  of the things that we are not taught very often that was
• 34:24
  really mind blowing for me and I just want every woman to know
• 34:27
  about this is how to express your desires in a way that
• 34:31
  inspires. Because once your husband is
• 34:33
  motivated, because he thinks he can make you happy, like he will
• 34:38
  move heaven and earth, he'll he'll do anything.
• 34:41
  And, and then if you're willing to receive it graciously, then
• 34:44
  you know you'll both benefit from that interaction.
• 34:47
  So, so I want to just kind of teach everybody the cheat
• 34:51
  phrase, if that's all right. Like and definitely write this
• 34:53
  down and just for my own organizational brain here, we've
• 34:57
  done, we're learning these like priceless cheat phrases.
• 35:00
  So, and I know you mentioned the six secrets of intimacy.
• 35:03
  Yeah, there's six intimacy still.
• 35:05
  Are they connected to these cheat phrases?
• 35:07
  They are. There's about there's about 20
• 35:09
  cheap phrases and actions I know.
• 35:11
  We're getting some, maybe go. Underneath one of those those
• 35:14
  six intimacy. Skills.
• 35:15
  So, so far we've learned two or three.
• 35:17
  Which ones we we've learned. Thank you.
• 35:19
  Christian. Yeah.
• 35:20
  We've learned there's. More that we're going to be able
• 35:21
  to cover. Well, we'll do what we can.
• 35:23
  We wear you. I want everybody.
• 35:25
  To get as much of them as they can for.
• 35:26
  Sure. We've learned the thank you.
• 35:28
  We've learned. I trust you.
• 35:30
  Yes. Whatever you think.
• 35:32
  I. Trust.
• 35:32
  You think I trust you? That's right.
• 35:34
  And then we're about to learn. We're about to learn how to
• 35:37
  express your desires in a way that inspires.
• 35:40
  OK. And so I have a sads head story
• 35:43
  about how I used to. So we used to fight a lot about
• 35:48
  the dishes like I I've, I've always been our cook until the
• 35:51
  last year and congratulations. Yeah, and.
• 35:56
  And John. And so for me, I was like, I
• 35:58
  remember saying, like, how about if I cook and you do the dishes
• 36:01
  or, and then I would say like I cooked, so you have to do the
• 36:04
  dishes or, and then I was like, you have to do the dishes.
• 36:08
  So just, and it got and then my husband like refused.
• 36:11
  He like was not going to do those dishes.
• 36:13
  It became like a power struggle between US.
• 36:16
  And I mean, I tried, I begged and I remember like talking,
• 36:20
  trying to explain to him why it was fair and you know, like
• 36:22
  logic it out with him or whatever.
• 36:24
  And I just remember him like turning up the TV like to drown
• 36:27
  me out because I was such a nag about the dishes.
• 36:30
  So finally I, I learned this phrase and I'm going to tell the
• 36:34
  story about it and then I'll spell out exactly what I did so
• 36:37
  everyone can, can practice it or, you know, experiment with
• 36:39
  it. So finally, one day I, I
• 36:42
  remember always say, like John, this kitchen is such a disaster
• 36:45
  area, which is just a complaint. And I have a theory that no one
• 36:49
  can hear us when we're complaining.
• 36:51
  They I think he just heard like John ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, you
• 36:54
  know, like the rest of it's lost forever.
• 36:57
  And so finally one day I said, John, I would love a clean
• 37:02
  kitchen. He goes, OK, I'll do it.
• 37:05
  And he did. He cleaned that the whole
• 37:07
  kitchen that night and I was like, this is like what is
• 37:11
  happening here? And and not only that, but he's
• 37:14
  been doing it ever since. And that was.
• 37:16
  Over 20 years ago. No, no, I know I.
• 37:19
  Know. Wait, wait, wait.
• 37:20
  You must have just in a sweet way, first of all.
• 37:22
  Like no, no, I just said I, I mean I when you say sweet way.
• 37:27
  I I agree cream kitchen is. I I know.
• 37:29
  Oh yeah, I would love a. Yeah, I would love a.
• 37:32
  Smile on your face. Yeah, I or well, just a desire,
• 37:35
  which is a pure desire. So I think it's true.
• 37:38
  Like, I think a lot of times before I could have even said it
• 37:41
  in a nice way, but I was so seething with resentment.
• 37:45
  Like that was the overarching take away that he got from it
• 37:50
  was like, she's she's trying to tell me what to do or she's
• 37:53
  being an AG or she's yeah, she's trying to be the boss.
• 37:56
  And and this day I just was releasing expectations.
• 38:01
  I think I don't, I don't think I expected to get a great response
• 38:05
  from it necessarily. I was just dreaming of a
• 38:09
  beautiful clean kitchen. So I just said I would love a
• 38:13
  clean kitchen. And he did it and I was so happy
• 38:18
  afterwards. And he saw the direct
• 38:19
  connection. Like she said she wanted that I
• 38:22
  did it. Now she's happy.
• 38:25
  I'm I made her happy. And I, I did say like, oh, this
• 38:30
  kitchen, look at this beautiful kitchen.
• 38:32
  It's so clean. Like thank you so much.
• 38:33
  I'm so happy that you cleaned the kitchen for me.
• 38:36
  So I did give the gratitude on the other end of it.
• 38:40
  But yeah, what's crazy to me is he's been doing it ever since.
• 38:43
  Ever since. I don't do the dishes.
• 38:45
  I don't cook or do dishes now. So now it's getting.
• 38:47
  That was really getting it on the ranges there.
• 38:49
  Yeah, yeah, I'll just skill, but because it makes his wife happy.
• 38:55
  And so this is what we find all over the world that when men
• 38:59
  find out she wants to move closer to her family, they move
• 39:03
  her across the country or does she wants to live out far from
• 39:09
  the city. He will take that commute and
• 39:11
  he'll and she can even have the nicer car if it makes her happy.
• 39:15
  Or like they just will do just about anything.
• 39:17
  In fact, it's really doing this work has made me.
• 39:21
  So I'm just so moved by what I see men being willing to do for
• 39:27
  a woman. That is a couple of things.
• 39:29
  One is pleasable. You have to be pleasable, and I
• 39:33
  might have made-up that word even, but it just I know that I
• 39:36
  wasn't pleasable in my early marriage.
• 39:38
  I was so committed to my misery because I thought that that was
• 39:42
  going to be how he realized that he wasn't doing the right thing
• 39:46
  and needed to change and be a better husband.
• 39:49
  But that never got me the results that I get now from.
• 39:52
  So now it's crazy how I'll just you say, you know, I would love
• 39:57
  a chef. And he's like, Oh yeah,
• 39:58
  absolutely. We're getting a chef and he
• 40:01
  comes every Monday morning. So it's something.
• 40:05
  I just wish every woman knew this formula.
• 40:07
  So I just want to share that right now.
• 40:10
  So it starts with I would love. And then just.
• 40:15
  I would love. I would love.
• 40:16
  We're going home and trying. I would.
• 40:18
  Well, I already have all the things so much, but let's.
• 40:20
  Prove it with it. I would love and and then it's
• 40:23
  just the final outcome. So, so I had a student sharing
• 40:28
  recently, so cute she because one of the the things that we
• 40:31
  do, we train on as coaches or even the students that come and
• 40:35
  could get coaching is that every complaint is actually a lazy
• 40:39
  desire. So I was saying like this
• 40:42
  kitchen's a disaster. Well, my husband never knew what
• 40:44
  I wanted. He didn't know how to make me
• 40:46
  happy. He just knew I thought the
• 40:48
  kitchen was a disaster, but he didn't know what he should do
• 40:50
  about that. So I had this student recently
• 40:52
  talking about how she had been complaining about her kitchen.
• 40:56
  She wanted to, yeah, well, she thought the tile was ugly and
• 41:01
  the cabinets were old or whatever, and it was kind of a
• 41:03
  dysfunctional layout. And so that was her complaint.
• 41:06
  And then she realized like, oh, I have to turn that into a
• 41:08
  desire. So she she realized she would
• 41:11
  love a new kitchen. She desired a new kitchen.
• 41:14
  So she would just be like cleaning her counter.
• 41:17
  And she's like, I hate this tile, but she'd flip it and go,
• 41:20
  I would, I would love new, new tile or new countertops.
• 41:25
  And so one day she's like cleaning the kitchen and she's
• 41:27
  just like, I would, I would love a new kitchen, but no
• 41:30
  attachment, no expectations. And her husband's like, well,
• 41:33
  you know, there's, there's no money for that.
• 41:35
  And he and she's like, I know I'm just dreaming.
• 41:38
  Well, next thing she knows her husband's arranged with like her
• 41:41
  brother and they're coming in and they're measuring and she's
• 41:44
  like, I'm getting new countertops.
• 41:45
  No, she got a whole new kitchen. Like somehow the money showed up
• 41:49
  for that new kitchen. So it's just I would love and
• 41:53
  then the final outcome and there's no need to say how it
• 41:56
  would happen. Like I used to do.
• 41:58
  I would say like I would love a new dress And there's, there's a
• 42:01
  sale right now and it's in the store window and I'm a size 8,
• 42:04
  but wait till it goes on sale, you know, and like, and that's
• 42:08
  not inspiring at all. That's just me making him to
• 42:10
  into my employee. Like he's going to go run an
• 42:12
  errand for me. So it's it is also a vulnerable
• 42:16
  act to say what you desire because we you have to feel
• 42:20
  deserving of what what you desire.
• 42:22
  And sometimes it feels a little indulgent, but I feel like
• 42:25
  overcoming my own, you know, misgivings about that has been
• 42:31
  wonderful for me personally, personal development, and also
• 42:35
  has created so much more intimacy in my marriage because
• 42:37
  I'm willing to let my husband spoil me and treat me like a
• 42:40
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• 43:36
  There's such a beautiful, profound philosophical principle
• 43:40
  here too, which is about the importance of desire because I
• 43:45
  think there's, it's easy to have relationships with desire that
• 43:48
  are not healthy. Meaning our desires kind of
• 43:51
  control us and make us unhappy or we suppress our desires and
• 43:55
  we don't acknowledge them to ourselves.
• 43:57
  And we have these like secret hopes that we're like holding
• 43:59
  in. And I, I love this idea of just
• 44:01
  expressing it openly and yeah, to your husband, to your spouse,
• 44:05
  but also to God, in my view, and just saying.
• 44:07
  This is a desire. And I open it like I don't have
• 44:10
  full control. I mean, I maybe can work pieces,
• 44:13
  but this is this is a desire. And on a spiritual level, I
• 44:16
  think part of the prayer can be like, you know, help me have the
• 44:18
  right desires and I guide my direct desires.
• 44:21
  But in a relationship, it's real.
• 44:23
  It's like, this is really a desire.
• 44:25
  And why why is it that that approach for a man has all of
• 44:31
  the difference? It makes all the difference from
• 44:34
  the approach of saying, you know, I'm really upset about the
• 44:39
  fact that I don't have the new kitchen.
• 44:40
  Like what? Tell me more about the impact of
• 44:44
  that, you know, from this new kitchen.
• 44:45
  This kitchen is driving me crazy.
• 44:47
  Or, you know, maybe maybe the woman, I know a lot of women who
• 44:50
  listen to the podcast, you know, they have jobs or part time jobs
• 44:52
  and they want to quit. They want to be home with their
• 44:55
  kids. You know, that's right.
• 44:56
  That's a, you know, increasing shift.
• 44:58
  I'm seeing where a lot of women they they like their creative
• 45:01
  work. They still do some work, but
• 45:02
  they want to. They don't want to have to work.
• 45:04
  They don't want to have. To work, they want to be able to
• 45:06
  be with they're children. So it's like I really don't like
• 45:10
  working versus I would love to be home with my kids.
• 45:15
  And why is that? But why is that change so
• 45:18
  important for male psychology in your view?
• 45:21
  I think you did a great job with that.
• 45:23
  I call it the flip, right? So you take the lazy or the
• 45:26
  complaint, which is the lazy desire, like I, I don't want to
• 45:30
  work right. It's just a complaint versus I
• 45:34
  would I would love to be a be a stay at home mom writer.
• 45:38
  I'd love to, I'd love to stay at home.
• 45:40
  I'd love to be a stay at home wife even.
• 45:41
  Right. And we do see this happening so
• 45:44
  much on our campus. There's like a rash of people
• 45:47
  quitting their professional jobs where they have, you know,
• 45:50
  they've got a lot of I have a physician who's just cut down to
• 45:53
  like two days a month or something like that.
• 45:55
  And she's like, yeah, you know, I realized that that's that's
• 45:58
  not my highest priority. That's not the thing that I want
• 46:00
  the most. So, So what I think, I think the
• 46:02
  difference is that if we are pleasable to begin with, so we
• 46:09
  talk about, you know, the first foundational step to fixing your
• 46:14
  marriage, It has to be to make yourself happy.
• 46:16
  So if you are already happy, then a kitchen is a cherry on
• 46:21
  top, right? A new kitchen is would be
• 46:23
  wonderful, but it's like I'm already a happy, you know,
• 46:27
  blessed person who's grateful for her life and and whose
• 46:30
  husband can feel successful that he's got happy wife, happy life,
• 46:35
  right. It's not just an expression.
• 46:37
  It actually means something to them.
• 46:39
  So if if I'm if I'm coming through with the resentment in
• 46:43
  the complaint, then I'm I call myself like I used to do that
• 46:47
  and I'd be like a porcupine wife where, you know, nobody wants to
• 46:52
  get close. But if I am coming through the
• 46:56
  girl of fun and light, if I am laughing and singing and smiling
• 46:59
  and dancing, I'm an irresistible magnet and he just wants to pile
• 47:04
  on some more. And so if I say like I want
• 47:07
  Mexican food for dinner or whatever, or or whatever it is I
• 47:11
  want a chef, then he that that becomes an opportunity.
• 47:17
  He sees an opportunity versus the complaint.
• 47:20
  I don't think we're really even communicating what the desire
• 47:23
  is. And it's a lot less vulnerable,
• 47:26
  right, because if you say, like I, I would love to be a stay at
• 47:30
  home mom. It's like that does that could
• 47:32
  come right up against maybe a feeling of deserving like wow,
• 47:37
  I, I have all this education and I've invested in this career or
• 47:41
  I know everyone's got to pull their weight.
• 47:44
  I know everyone's got to earn their keeper, you know, but I
• 47:46
  also love living like where we live.
• 47:48
  It's very expensive around here or like I want my cake and eat
• 47:53
  it too. And who am I to have that desire
• 47:56
  that you can. I think it's very confronting.
• 47:58
  I know what it has been for me when I've gone through these
• 48:01
  levels of expressing my desires, it's brought up tremendous
• 48:05
  vulnerability and but it's also so amazing to feel so loved when
• 48:12
  I give other people the opportunity to give me the
• 48:15
  things that I'm expressing openly as my desires like that
• 48:20
  is feels like amazing intimacy. It sounds like a key part,
• 48:25
  though, of this cheat phrase is that you're coming.
• 48:29
  You're saying it from a place of cheerful homeostasis.
• 48:34
  Yeah, I think that's true. Fair way to say it.
• 48:36
  I think it's true. I mean I.
• 48:37
  Like if you're saying it and you're already miserable, then
• 48:40
  it's like. Eating pure.
• 48:42
  Maybe not pure and you're also like this bottomless pit of
• 48:45
  like, is that is that really going to make her happy after
• 48:47
  all these unhappiness? But if you're coming from a
• 48:49
  place of contentedness. Yeah, that makes a big
• 48:54
  difference. It's.
• 48:54
  Easier for the man maybe to see that this is going to just
• 48:59
  increase the contentedness instead of like this is going to
• 49:02
  solve her problem from going and also maybe is more inspiring to
• 49:05
  him if it's a contented and and happy woman asking for something
• 49:09
  as opposed to or hoping for something as opposed to someone
• 49:12
  who's miserable yeah in the. Porcupine Wife, absolutely.
• 49:16
  That's absolutely true. And, and I think, I think part
• 49:19
  of it is just really the part where you honor your desires is
• 49:24
  huge because once you honor your own desire, I, I, I became a lot
• 49:28
  less needy. Like I, I remember one time
• 49:30
  early on in a relationship, he took us to romantic getaway to
• 49:34
  Hawaii. And I was super excited on the
• 49:36
  first day because I thought, oh, we're going to, we're going to
• 49:39
  the beach. I cannot wait to go to the
• 49:40
  beach. And, and so, but it's just
• 49:43
  saying that I wanted to go to the beach.
• 49:45
  I said to him, what what should we do today?
• 49:48
  And he said, well, let's go see a volcano.
• 49:52
  No volcano. Let's hike 15 miles.
• 49:58
  OK. But I didn't want to cause
• 50:00
  conflict. This is very early on in my
• 50:02
  relationship, So and I thought, well, if I say what I want,
• 50:05
  that's going to conflict with what he wants and then I don't
• 50:08
  want that. I want to be close.
• 50:09
  I'm thinking I'm making us close and so we just are going to go
• 50:14
  see this volcano and we're driving around in the rental car
• 50:16
  and there's no volcano for a long time.
• 50:18
  First of all, we're. Just at least it wasn't hiking
• 50:19
  little. Yeah, We weren't hiking yet.
• 50:21
  Thank God. Yeah, you're right.
• 50:22
  And there's little molten rocks on the side of the road, but
• 50:24
  there's no volcano. So.
• 50:26
  And then I start to think, like, he didn't even ask me what I
• 50:29
  wanted to do. And he kind of catches on.
• 50:30
  There's something. There's tension in the car.
• 50:33
  And he goes, is everything OK? And I go, did you think this was
• 50:37
  going to be fun? Because I don't think it's fun
• 50:38
  at all. I think it's stupid.
• 50:39
  And you don't even ask me what I want to do, but I want to go to
• 50:41
  the beach. And we're not even at the beach,
• 50:42
  you know, what are we going to the beach?
• 50:44
  And I mean, he saw a volcano, all right, but not the kind that
• 50:47
  he had in mind. So I think, you know, in
• 50:50
  retrospect, I feel sad for that version of me that just had no
• 50:54
  concept of how to express her desires.
• 50:57
  Didn't even know how to to honor it for myself, right.
• 51:01
  Like I could have even said, I could have just said like, well,
• 51:04
  a volcano, you know, maybe, but I would love to go to the beach.
• 51:08
  Like I could have just said that, right?
• 51:10
  It doesn't doesn't have to be a conflict.
• 51:12
  I could have just honored what I wanted.
• 51:14
  And do you know what? He actually, he did take me.
• 51:16
  He turned the car around. We never saw the volcano.
• 51:18
  We went to the beach. Wow, after that man, even though
• 51:21
  I'd behave so. Badly.
• 51:22
  What if you had said and it does this fit the script or is this a
• 51:26
  a potentially no go zone? But you say, I would love to go
• 51:29
  to the beach and then maybe we can go to the volcano or no,
• 51:32
  that's too like controlling, trying to make everybody happy,
• 51:35
  people pleasing. Just stick with.
• 51:37
  I'd love to go to the beach. Yeah, I just try to stay on my
• 51:39
  own paper, you know, And what his paper was the volcano, but
• 51:44
  he didn't. Especially now that I know how
• 51:47
  important it is to him to make me happy.
• 51:49
  Like like you're but you're saying basically, sorry dinner.
• 51:51
  But it sounds like what you're saying is it is psychologically
• 51:55
  ultimately more important for the man to make the woman happy
• 51:58
  than for the man to pursue XYZ that's independent of the
• 52:01
  relationship. Like at the end of the day,
• 52:03
  psychologically he will be happier making you happy than
• 52:06
  going seeing the volcano doing the XYZ thing.
• 52:10
  Oh yeah, absolutely. I I think of my desires now as
• 52:16
  the North Star. He needs that to navigate by.
• 52:19
  He picked a volcano because he had no idea what I wanted and I
• 52:23
  wasn't telling him. So I hung us both out to dry.
• 52:28
  Wow, I think that's a that's that I that concept, I think
• 52:32
  maybe intellectually makes sense to a lot of women listening
• 52:36
  maybe and maybe men listen. You're like, Yep, you got it.
• 52:39
  But practicing it can feel very awkward.
• 52:41
  Very vulnerable. Very vulnerable.
• 52:43
  Very vulnerable. Yeah.
• 52:45
  Because what if somebody. I mean, yeah, for me, it's a lot
• 52:50
  about deserving, you know, do I deserve to get taken to the
• 52:55
  beach even though somebody else wants something else?
• 52:58
  Shouldn't I think about other people's needs too?
• 53:00
  Or I do think it's trained out of us a little bit.
• 53:03
  The the pure desires. I can understand, right.
• 53:06
  But how many times, you know, like a mom in the store with her
• 53:09
  kids, like, OK, yeah, I know you want that, all right?
• 53:12
  But we're not getting that right now.
• 53:13
  Like, I stopped, stop asking. Stop asking for all these
• 53:16
  things. Like, you know, we don't have
• 53:18
  time for that right now. You're no, you're not going to
• 53:19
  get that, right? Which that's Ouch, right?
• 53:23
  That's Ouch. So we're, we're trying to
• 53:25
  protect ourselves by not being straightforward about what we
• 53:29
  want. And then I know for me, like I
• 53:32
  ended up being my desires didn't go away.
• 53:36
  So then they would come out sideways.
• 53:38
  They I'd try to manipulate to get what I desired.
• 53:41
  And that's, that's not appealing either.
• 53:43
  Like being straightforward about what I desire has actually been.
• 53:50
  It's been interesting to see how people respond to that.
• 53:55
  Like I like just recently I was sharing about how I would love
• 53:59
  to get the six intimacy skills into every woman's hands that
• 54:02
  wants to have an intimate, passionate, peaceful
• 54:05
  relationship. So I was like, I really want to
• 54:07
  sell like 1,000,000 copies of the Empowered Wife book and I
• 54:11
  was sharing that with the scribble women.
• 54:13
  They all immediately like, how can we get that to how how can
• 54:16
  we start your like they got inspired too, but it's just
• 54:20
  that's just my pure desire, right?
• 54:21
  That's just me like this, what I want, like who am I?
• 54:24
  Who am I selling million copies of the of my book or whatever?
• 54:26
  But but other people get lit up when they see those desires and
• 54:32
  who gave us those desires anyway, right?
• 54:33
  This. I feel like it's a pure
• 54:35
  expression of my heart. And there's the spiritual aspect
• 54:39
  to this, of the power of dreaming.
• 54:42
  And that's not to say like every dream's perfect or every dream
• 54:45
  will come exactly the way you dream it.
• 54:46
  But we're as human beings, we're made to create.
• 54:49
  Yes. And you can't create without a
• 54:51
  vision. Especially as women.
• 54:52
  Yeah, right. We're made to create.
• 54:54
  Yes, especially as women, we're made to create.
• 54:56
  What a great point. Yes.
• 54:57
  Yeah. All right.
• 54:58
  You mentioned the six intimacy skills, so I have to ask, can
• 55:01
  you run us through? OK.
• 55:02
  I know we've probably touched on some already, but.
• 55:04
  I really can't. I'd love to, but it's sort of
• 55:07
  like the word water doesn't quench your thirst, you know, So
• 55:11
  that's why there's a book, there's a podcast, The Empowered
• 55:14
  Wife. But but absolutely I want
• 55:16
  everyone to know all about them. So I think one that we haven't
• 55:21
  touched on very directly is, is the gratitude skill.
• 55:25
  So and so for me, one of the most powerful cheap phrases of
• 55:29
  all gratitude, I feel like is the most powerful intimacy skill
• 55:33
  of all because it does double duty.
• 55:35
  So it changes the way I see my husband and it changes the way
• 55:41
  he responds to me both and so and the way I like to well, I
• 55:47
  want to share about the power of a spouse fulfilling prophecy.
• 55:52
  And the way that manifested in our relationship was that I were
• 55:56
  saying to my husband early on, like, hey, maybe you should ask
• 56:01
  for a raise at work or, you know, maybe you should try to
• 56:04
  get a job where you make more money.
• 56:06
  Or, you know, maybe you should start, you know, trying to get
• 56:10
  your more educated, whatever, make more money.
• 56:13
  And of course, what he heard was you don't make enough money, and
• 56:16
  rightly so. So we got to the point where he
• 56:21
  actually, he quit his job and he wasn't making any money.
• 56:24
  This is what a powerful manifesto I am, right?
• 56:26
  I was. I was so focused on you don't
• 56:29
  make enough money. He stopped making any money.
• 56:31
  And I was so bitter and resentful about this.
• 56:35
  Really quick. How is that different from
• 56:38
  saying I would love that you make more money?
• 56:40
  See, I'm asking like because you're saying that one of these
• 56:42
  principles that I would love. I would love that we could pay
• 56:45
  off our house. Let's put it more in something a
• 56:47
  concrete things are just more money, but I would love that we
• 56:49
  could pay off our house. Theoretical thing a woman could
• 56:51
  say, a wife could say versus you should ask for a raise so we can
• 56:56
  pay off our house. And this is exactly why I can
• 56:58
  never go through the six intimacy skills in like an hour
• 57:00
  because but you raise a great point.
• 57:03
  And that is that when I'm expressing a desire, it has to
• 57:08
  be a final outcome. So money is just a means to
• 57:13
  something. So like I remember one student,
• 57:16
  I said, you know, what is it you want?
• 57:19
  She wanted him to make more money.
• 57:20
  And I said, and then what could you have if he made more money?
• 57:24
  And she said, well, then I could buy myself some more things,
• 57:27
  right? And things is pretty vague, so
• 57:29
  right. And so I said, well, like, what
• 57:30
  kinds of things would you buy? She said, well, I need new
• 57:32
  boots, right? And I said, OK, so her desire
• 57:36
  was to buy new boots. So that's a final outcome.
• 57:39
  And that's something that could spark a husbands, it could
• 57:43
  inspire him or anybodies, right? Like I would love new boots,
• 57:47
  right, Great, that's that's all you need to say.
• 57:49
  You don't even say I need to buy new.
• 57:50
  I would love to buy new boots. I would love new boots because
• 57:53
  then we're not controlling the outcome.
• 57:54
  Like we're just open to every possibility.
• 57:57
  You don't know, like somebody could say, I've got these
• 58:00
  designer boots from a sample sale and they're your size.
• 58:03
  Do you want them or whatever? Right.
• 58:04
  That like we're just leaving room for the universe to respond
• 58:09
  to that. So anyway, so in my story, I
• 58:12
  was, I was, I had an unwitting spouse fulfilling prophecy.
• 58:16
  Unfortunately, I hadn't been trained yet that you don't make
• 58:18
  enough money. Why?
• 58:19
  Why don't you make some more money?
• 58:20
  You don't make enough money. You stopped making any money.
• 58:23
  And I was so resentful and so bitter because I was the one
• 58:26
  making all the money for our family, which is yeah, it was
• 58:29
  awful. And around that time, I heard of
• 58:32
  Lee Miltir speaking about her course that she taught, where
• 58:37
  she was teaching people the power of auto suggestion, which
• 58:40
  might be where you'd say, like, I ran a marathon or I have a
• 58:42
  successful business or whatever it is you're trying to
• 58:44
  accomplish before you've done it.
• 58:46
  You're just sort of visualizing in that space.
• 58:50
  And so this woman went to Lee's course and she realized that
• 58:54
  she'd been like Otto suggesting repeating to her husband that he
• 58:58
  had a bad temper, like he lost his temper all the time.
• 59:01
  And she'd always say that's just like you, you always lose your
• 59:03
  temper. So she went home from Lee's
• 59:05
  course and waited for her husband to lose his temper so
• 59:08
  she could change it up because she just wanted to experiment.
• 59:10
  She just wanted to see how that would go.
• 59:11
  So she waited for him to lose his temper and she didn't have
• 59:13
  to wait very long. He lost his temper.
• 59:15
  And then she said, that's not like you to lose your temper.
• 59:18
  And he just looked at her funny. And their 12 year old son said,
• 59:22
  yes, it is mom. He loses his temper all the time
• 59:24
  because he'd been listening to her affirm that, but she just
• 59:27
  decided to stick with her guns. And they were at a restaurant
• 59:30
  not that long afterwards and she'd been continuing to affirm
• 59:33
  that he was even keeled and he just had such a good
• 59:37
  temperament. And the service was slow at this
• 59:41
  restaurant and he started to lose his temper.
• 59:42
  He said, he's like, I have a good mind, call manager over
• 59:44
  here and tell him how long we've been waiting.
• 59:46
  And he stopped himself and he looked at her and he goes, it's
• 59:49
  not like me to lose my temper, is it?
• 59:51
  She just nearly fell out of her chair.
• 59:52
  So I thought, I'm going to, I'm going to practice with that too.
• 59:55
  So I decided to change it up and say to my husband John, you
• 59:59
  know, you've always been a good provider and just for fun
• 1:00:03
  because I do like to have fun with all this stuff, I started
• 1:00:06
  saying. I started calling him Mr.
• 1:00:09
  Moneybags too. So I said you're always been a
• 1:00:12
  good provider. Thank you, Mr. Moneybags.
• 1:00:15
  And at that time he started his own company as a legal video
• 1:00:20
  company, and it was very successful.
• 1:00:23
  He didn't. He was more successful with that
• 1:00:25
  than he had been at previous jobs.
• 1:00:27
  And he would get checks in the mail and I go, oh, look at Mr.
• 1:00:30
  Money Bags, you know, taking me out to sushi tonight or
• 1:00:33
  whatever. So I had a direct experience of
• 1:00:37
  what I focused on increased in my marriage as I focused on what
• 1:00:41
  a good provider he was. And I had evidence for it.
• 1:00:43
  You know, you know, when I first met him, he had a good job and
• 1:00:46
  he would Take Me Out. And you know, I had every reason
• 1:00:51
  to focus on that aspect of my husband.
• 1:00:53
  I had been unwisely focusing on other things that didn't serve
• 1:00:57
  me. So the power of spouse
• 1:01:00
  fulfilling prophecy has just been remarkable to watch women
• 1:01:04
  using in their relationships to create the kind of experience
• 1:01:07
  that they want to have. I've had like I had one woman,
• 1:01:11
  her experience was her husband never wanted to spend time on
• 1:01:13
  her. So that was her unwitting,
• 1:01:15
  unwise spouse fulfilling prophecy.
• 1:01:18
  And she realized, like, oh, I don't want to affirm that
• 1:01:20
  anymore. So she started, we came up with
• 1:01:23
  it. She was going to say, I know you
• 1:01:25
  want to spend time with me. I know you enjoy spending time
• 1:01:27
  with me. So one Saturday they get up and
• 1:01:30
  she's thinking, we're going to spend the day together.
• 1:01:32
  And he gets a call from his buddy who wants to go mountain
• 1:01:35
  biking. And he tells the friend, like,
• 1:01:36
  yeah, I'll go mountain biking with you.
• 1:01:38
  And she could. She's so hurt and upset.
• 1:01:41
  And she says to him, you never want to spend time with me,
• 1:01:43
  which was her old spouse fulfilling prophecy.
• 1:01:47
  And but she cut herself. She kind of like went away for a
• 1:01:50
  few minutes. And she went, oh, yeah, I wasn't
• 1:01:51
  going to, I wasn't going to say that anymore.
• 1:01:53
  So she went back and she said, I apologize for saying you don't
• 1:01:56
  want to spend time with me. She said, I know you do.
• 1:01:59
  And I'm I'm sure you'll figure it out.
• 1:02:01
  I know you enjoy spending time with me.
• 1:02:03
  She used your new phrase. And a few minutes later, her
• 1:02:07
  husband walks into the room and says, hey, what do you want to
• 1:02:10
  do today? And she's like, I thought you
• 1:02:11
  were going mountain, Maggie. He goes, no, I called and
• 1:02:13
  cancelled. I told him I can't go today and
• 1:02:15
  and she goes why? And he goes, well, I want to
• 1:02:18
  spend time with you. It is just incredible the power
• 1:02:23
  we can have like you think about as children, the power of a
• 1:02:28
  parent who believes in you or an authority figure who believes in
• 1:02:31
  you as a kid. And that tells you, you can do
• 1:02:33
  it, you can do it or that little voice inside you can do it.
• 1:02:36
  But in a spouse that you, there's no one more intimate
• 1:02:38
  than your spouse. And for them to say, not just
• 1:02:41
  that you can do it generally, but in our relationship dynamic,
• 1:02:44
  this is what I believe about you and what you want and how you
• 1:02:48
  how you show up. I mean, it's, it's incredible.
• 1:02:51
  What about Laura? What if, what if it's not
• 1:02:55
  working? You know, what, what about the
• 1:02:57
  cases where there are significant issues maybe that
• 1:03:02
  they're dealing with a couple is dealing with and she's trying to
• 1:03:06
  like kind of not manifest, but you know, speak life into the
• 1:03:09
  relationship. Use some of these cheap codes,
• 1:03:12
  have this positive attitude, do the self-care, all of the
• 1:03:14
  things. And there's still significant
• 1:03:17
  roadblocks. Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  And I know you've you counsel so many couples and you've dealt
• 1:03:22
  with counsel so many women specifically and coach so many
• 1:03:24
  women. And you've dealt with women who
• 1:03:25
  literally had husbands who were unfaithful, husbands who had
• 1:03:29
  moved out, husbands who wanted a divorce, husbands who were, you
• 1:03:32
  know, basically you could argue abusive and the woman was able
• 1:03:37
  to turn it around, which is a little bit dangerous.
• 1:03:39
  And I want a caveat this year. I know you have a lot to say
• 1:03:41
  about this, but I think there is obviously a mentality,
• 1:03:44
  especially if there is abuse in a in a relationship where the
• 1:03:48
  woman thinks I can fix this and then she keeps going back for
• 1:03:53
  more abuse ultimately and it's harmful to her, maybe her kids.
• 1:03:57
  So draw the distinctions for us. And then what would be your
• 1:04:01
  thoughts on the situation that is really tough and how to solve
• 1:04:04
  that? Well, I'm, I'm thinking about a
• 1:04:06
  client named Cindy who had her husband was in a relationship
• 1:04:12
  with their bookkeeper. And let me just preface that
• 1:04:18
  story by saying that when I first started writing about
• 1:04:21
  marriages, you know, I was just writing from my own experience
• 1:04:25
  and I was really nervous about this topic, women getting abused
• 1:04:29
  and, and having them think that, you know, it's their fault or
• 1:04:32
  whatever. And so one of the things I wrote
• 1:04:34
  in The Surrendered Wife was that if your husband was either
• 1:04:37
  physically abusive or chronically unfaithful or
• 1:04:40
  actively addicted, that maybe you shouldn't do any of this,
• 1:04:43
  you should just leave. And that turned out to be really
• 1:04:47
  arrogant, unwise thing to write. And really, yes, because women
• 1:04:53
  came and they schooled me. They were in situations for
• 1:04:56
  whatever reason, they were not going to leave.
• 1:04:58
  They had a lot of kids or they just didn't have the finances to
• 1:05:01
  leave or, or deep down, they just had hope that their
• 1:05:04
  marriage could be saved, that it could be fixed, that everything
• 1:05:07
  was going to be OK. And they came and showed me that
• 1:05:11
  once they when they applied the intimacy skills, a lot of things
• 1:05:15
  changed. Like sometimes we are hearing
• 1:05:18
  both sides of the story when we're hearing about those
• 1:05:20
  situations. So anyway, so I think about
• 1:05:24
  Cindy where her husband first he said, I don't love you, I've
• 1:05:28
  never loved you. He moved out and then she found
• 1:05:31
  out he was having this affair with the bookkeeper and Which?
• 1:05:34
  By the way, by a lot of people standing today, they could
• 1:05:36
  consider that abusive to be told I've never loved you, to be
• 1:05:40
  cheating on them, to be, you know, you could call that
• 1:05:42
  emotional abuse, certainly. I mean, it's crushing if nothing
• 1:05:45
  else, right? What?
• 1:05:46
  No matter what you call it, it's heartbreaking.
• 1:05:49
  And but they've been, they've been married 30 years and they
• 1:05:52
  had three kids and a granddaughter.
• 1:05:55
  And Cindy was in a tough spot because she just wanted her
• 1:06:00
  marriage back. She wanted to keep her family
• 1:06:01
  together even though this was happening.
• 1:06:04
  And so they and he agreed to go to marriage counseling.
• 1:06:07
  They were going to marriage counseling for months and the
• 1:06:11
  counselor kept saying, well, there's nothing you can do until
• 1:06:14
  he drops the other woman. There's absolutely nothing you
• 1:06:17
  can do. Cindy, this is all on him.
• 1:06:19
  And it was really frustrating because there was nothing Cindy
• 1:06:21
  could do even though she really wanted her marriage back.
• 1:06:25
  So then she she found the six intimacy skills and she got some
• 1:06:29
  empowerment from that. She got some accountability for
• 1:06:32
  maybe ways that she contributed to that breakdown.
• 1:06:34
  I know it sounds crazy because he's the one who was moving out
• 1:06:37
  and cheating and saying he didn't love her.
• 1:06:40
  So she decided to get the support at the highest level she
• 1:06:42
  could, which would be so she came in to train to be a coach.
• 1:06:46
  She went into relationship coach certification with us.
• 1:06:49
  It's a year long commitment, thousands of dollars.
• 1:06:52
  Even though she has maybe no hope unless she fixes her
• 1:06:55
  marriage, how is she ever going to be a marriage coach, right?
• 1:06:57
  It was really more about going all in on her marriage and when
• 1:07:02
  she started that her her husband did drop the other woman first
• 1:07:05
  of all, which was really exciting.
• 1:07:07
  We all celebrated with her so big.
• 1:07:09
  And then he got on one knee and with tears in his eyes and
• 1:07:14
  begged her forgiveness. And then they so they were doing
• 1:07:17
  this like slow dance of reconciliation.
• 1:07:19
  And then at Christmas time, he moved back and they had
• 1:07:23
  Christmas with their whole family, with all the kids and
• 1:07:25
  the grand, the granddaughter. And then he bought her a new
• 1:07:29
  ring and it recommitted. And that was several years ago
• 1:07:34
  and she she tells a whole story on on my podcast.
• 1:07:38
  Actually, she came on as a guest to describe how she did it.
• 1:07:40
  So. And still together.
• 1:07:43
  Oh, yeah. Still, she's she's.
• 1:07:45
  Yeah. She also gets tears in her eyes
• 1:07:47
  when she talks about how wonderful her marriage is now.
• 1:07:51
  And they're getting a pool. They they're together.
• 1:07:53
  They're back in, you know, the same house and they're going to
• 1:07:56
  get a pool now, you know, family celebrations and things.
• 1:08:00
  She talks a lot about the gift of having her whole family all
• 1:08:03
  together. They're not like when Christmas
• 1:08:05
  comes, it's not like his house and her house and people
• 1:08:08
  splitting up and all the all the things that come with divorce.
• 1:08:13
  But the reason I tell that story is just partly as a Mia culpa.
• 1:08:16
  You know, when you read this rendered wife, that's it still
• 1:08:18
  says it in there that if you're married to one of these three
• 1:08:21
  kinds of guys, like I took away people's hope and I regret that.
• 1:08:26
  I shouldn't have done that. It was arrogant.
• 1:08:28
  I think I gave in to my own fear.
• 1:08:30
  So this is obviously such treacherous water because there
• 1:08:34
  are, you know, so many stories for the story of maybe the woman
• 1:08:38
  who experienced abuse, worked on herself and the relationship in
• 1:08:44
  the way she could and had this, you know, miraculous outcome of
• 1:08:48
  the abuse stops. And now he's, you know, back in
• 1:08:50
  the fold and they're in this healthy relationship again.
• 1:08:53
  There's probably another story where the woman tried to work on
• 1:08:57
  the relationship and then got, you know, even worse abuse or
• 1:09:01
  the kids got, you know, caught up in abuse or they were just
• 1:09:04
  bad outcomes for her. And so the common knowledge
• 1:09:07
  today is, you know, not common, but you know, a common some
• 1:09:12
  advice today certainly is. And I've given this advice,
• 1:09:15
  you've been on the show. I'll be honest and you would
• 1:09:16
  have heard this. If you're dealing with a very
• 1:09:19
  abusive situation, if you're dealing with an abusive
• 1:09:21
  situation, for your sake and likely your kids, if there's
• 1:09:24
  kids involved, you should create distance.
• 1:09:28
  And that might be the most loving thing to do.
• 1:09:30
  Tell me why that might be wrong, though.
• 1:09:33
  And then also this is connected to, I know an A mission that
• 1:09:36
  you're on right now to end world divorce.
• 1:09:38
  I'm on a mission to end world divorce.
• 1:09:40
  And so much of divorce is happening because the woman
• 1:09:43
  often feels like most divorces are initiated by women, and the
• 1:09:46
  woman's often feels that there's abuse or there's addiction or
• 1:09:50
  there's maybe not physical abuse, but emotional abuse is a
• 1:09:53
  big conversation happening right now.
• 1:09:56
  Yeah, I write and share from my personal experience.
• 1:10:00
  And one of the things that was going on at my house, I'm not
• 1:10:03
  proud to say is what I would call verbal abuse, verbal
• 1:10:07
  emotional abuse, not just anyway, I say that I, I was
• 1:10:13
  raging at my husband. I was verbally abusing him and
• 1:10:16
  he was also saying horrible, terrible, dreadful things.
• 1:10:21
  We could certainly call them abuse.
• 1:10:23
  So one of the things that came out in the Surrendered Wife was
• 1:10:25
  like, I'm like, verbal abuse is fine.
• 1:10:27
  You'll be able to fix that because I had we had had it at
• 1:10:29
  my house and I knew we had healed from it.
• 1:10:32
  So I was confident about that one.
• 1:10:34
  I'm like, this is not going to be a problem.
• 1:10:35
  But the other ones that I hadn't experienced, I was scared about
• 1:10:38
  those I wanted to, I didn't want to be in the position of someone
• 1:10:42
  saying, well, you said it was OK to, you know, if there was
• 1:10:45
  physical abuse. So, you know, of course I was
• 1:10:47
  saying like those you should leave as though I was the expert
• 1:10:51
  on her life when I'm certainly not.
• 1:10:53
  I'm just, I'm just a woman, my wife, who's got some experiences
• 1:10:57
  to share that are valuable. So I really just want to make
• 1:11:01
  that point really clear that every woman is the expert on her
• 1:11:03
  own life. It's not really for us to define
• 1:11:07
  what is abuse or not abuse, even though I think that's, it's very
• 1:11:10
  popular and common for people to do that.
• 1:11:14
  For me, you know, my, my question, I'm always standing in
• 1:11:19
  her corner and I'm always standing for her husband as
• 1:11:22
  well. Because everybody, everyone who
• 1:11:25
  comes to me to work on her marriage, I know that she
• 1:11:29
  wouldn't be asking me if she didn't have hope.
• 1:11:33
  Because if she wanted to get a divorce, she would go talk to
• 1:11:35
  somebody else, right? If you want to leave, there's
• 1:11:37
  lots of people that will validate you for that.
• 1:11:39
  For me, I'm always saying, OK, you're asking me what can be
• 1:11:43
  done to fix this marriage. That means you have hope that
• 1:11:46
  your marriage can be can heal. Not just that you can stay
• 1:11:50
  married for the kid or put up with a really intolerable
• 1:11:53
  situation, but that there can be a true transformation.
• 1:11:57
  So you're, you're flipping a modern paradigm totally on its
• 1:12:01
  head right now, which is I think going to be really fascinating
• 1:12:05
  to a lot of people. And, and concerning, I mean, I
• 1:12:07
  think controversial, you know, controversial for sure.
• 1:12:10
  I think, you know, one point of maybe disagreement we have is
• 1:12:13
  this idea that only the person can define abuse.
• 1:12:17
  Because and, and maybe I read too many true crime stories, but
• 1:12:20
  you read the true crime stories and you look at these cases of
• 1:12:24
  women who really thought they could fix that guy and they kept
• 1:12:27
  going back and they were get punched and pummeled and it got
• 1:12:31
  worse and then they end up dead, you know?
• 1:12:33
  And this is of course, like the story, right?
• 1:12:35
  And so in that case, it's like, well, if he's punching you, if
• 1:12:38
  he's beating you, that's pretty much as clear.
• 1:12:41
  Now, it's one thing if you're inciting it, I guess.
• 1:12:43
  And but even then it's like you, you know, this the, the golden
• 1:12:46
  rule never hit, you know, just don't do it.
• 1:12:48
  Even if you're, you know, like if you're on the playground and
• 1:12:51
  you get hit, you, you know, you walk away.
• 1:12:53
  You would, would encourage your kid.
• 1:12:55
  You don't, you don't want to get into a fist fight right now.
• 1:12:57
  There is the other wisdom of like, well, you should stand up
• 1:12:59
  to bullies, you know, do the standing up to bullies thing
• 1:13:02
  and, and fight back. But all this to say, I think
• 1:13:04
  there is some bright lines when it comes to abuse.
• 1:13:07
  And certainly legally you can get, there's criminal penalties,
• 1:13:12
  certainly the treatment of children and, you know, battery,
• 1:13:15
  assault. You can get, you know, do
• 1:13:17
  criminal charges for certain actions, whether they're in a
• 1:13:19
  marriage or outside of a marriage.
• 1:13:20
  Absolutely. So what do you see?
• 1:13:23
  You know what? Yeah.
• 1:13:23
  What's your, what is your response to all that?
• 1:13:25
  Well. You bring up a great point,
• 1:13:27
  which is safety always comes first and you always have to
• 1:13:31
  make yourself safe. You always get to decide what
• 1:13:33
  that looks like. So am I saying you should never
• 1:13:36
  leave a marriage ever? No, I mean, if you are not
• 1:13:39
  feeling safe, it's incumbent on you to make yourself safe and
• 1:13:43
  and to protect your children 100%.
• 1:13:46
  All I'm saying is I have this experience to share.
• 1:13:49
  I share my experience and the women that I've coached, the
• 1:13:53
  women I've had the honor and privilege of having a front row
• 1:13:56
  seat to some of these incredible transformations.
• 1:14:01
  They have remarkable experiences to share that are full of hope.
• 1:14:07
  And and maybe just maybe there's just a little bit of Gray area
• 1:14:12
  in that whole, the whole black and white like, well, if there's
• 1:14:15
  abuse, then you should leave, right?
• 1:14:18
  We're not always hearing both sides of the story.
• 1:14:21
  And there's also the reflex of, you know, the reflexive act of
• 1:14:25
  men are bad men are. I do think that is that like
• 1:14:28
  their strength, you know, their emotional distance, their
• 1:14:31
  ability to compartmentalize like these can all be weaponized so
• 1:14:33
  easily. And so that's bad.
• 1:14:36
  And so if there's any of that, then you should just peace out
• 1:14:38
  because it's not OK. That's right.
• 1:14:40
  And, and I, I know a big bad habit I had early my marriage
• 1:14:44
  was male bashing, right? Going with my friends and being
• 1:14:47
  like, you know, telling jokes about how immature men are,
• 1:14:50
  whatever. And for me that my perspective
• 1:14:54
  has just changed so much for the reasons that we're talking about
• 1:14:57
  all the, the their, how motivated they are to make us
• 1:15:00
  happy. And it's not just like my
• 1:15:02
  husband, it's all men want to make me happy.
• 1:15:05
  Like my, you know, the guy that takes care of our yard will come
• 1:15:09
  sometimes and say, like, I got these flowers for you at the
• 1:15:12
  nursery. They were free and I'm going to
• 1:15:14
  plant them for you. And I'm like, thank you so much.
• 1:15:16
  That makes me so happy. Like men just want to take care
• 1:15:19
  of all women. They all want to put my overhead
• 1:15:22
  bag in the, you know, my bag in the overhead compartment for me
• 1:15:26
  on a plane. They all, they all, you know, I
• 1:15:29
  just see so much good there. So that habit of male bashing
• 1:15:34
  was really dangerous because they didn't it, you know, when I
• 1:15:38
  was done with those margaritas in the man mail bashing or
• 1:15:41
  whatever, and I got home to my husband, you know, that wasn't
• 1:15:44
  contributing to intimacy. I was like, oh, here's, here's
• 1:15:46
  the one of the idiots we were talking about or one of the
• 1:15:48
  dangerous guys we were talking about or compartmentalizes or
• 1:15:51
  just sees me as an object or all those things that we could focus
• 1:15:55
  on. God, it was, it was really
• 1:15:58
  detrimental. And now I'm I just authentically
• 1:16:01
  feel so much admiration for men and all the ways that they
• 1:16:04
  sacrifice for their wives and for their families.
• 1:16:08
  I I think that is definitely under appreciated and
• 1:16:11
  understated kind of culturally that that is what would be the
• 1:16:16
  what would be some North stars that you would give a woman who
• 1:16:19
  is experiencing either what may be full blown abuse or things
• 1:16:25
  that are abusive. You know, that maybe is mutual
• 1:16:27
  activities that they're like patterns are falling into for
• 1:16:30
  her to explore getting into a place of health while still
• 1:16:35
  maintaining safety, if this question makes sense.
• 1:16:38
  And what I mean by that is exploring seeking health and
• 1:16:41
  healing for a relationship that has gone really awry, but doing
• 1:16:44
  it in a way that's not sacrificing her safety.
• 1:16:46
  And I think this is what's really hard for women who may be
• 1:16:49
  in an abusive situation who still maybe have a hope or
• 1:16:52
  belief for the marriage, but they are they're not safe or
• 1:16:56
  their kids are not safe. And so how what, what
• 1:16:59
  recommendation? That's what you give for.
• 1:17:02
  Sure, for sure. I would just love for her to get
• 1:17:05
  support, right, Especially it's interesting too, like if a woman
• 1:17:09
  is in the marriage and there's been abuse and and it's she's
• 1:17:12
  been in that marriage for many years, typically, right.
• 1:17:15
  This is who we who I encounter who I'm I'm talking to.
• 1:17:20
  So it's not like it just the abuse didn't just start
• 1:17:23
  yesterday or the day before or even, you know, after she had
• 1:17:27
  kids, right? A lot of times it's there's a
• 1:17:29
  situation that's been going on for a long time.
• 1:17:31
  And one of the things that we talked about on our campus is
• 1:17:36
  the, I'll call it malware, right?
• 1:17:40
  So sometimes, sometimes you're getting triggered into kind of
• 1:17:45
  an old familiar feeling, right? Like mine was that I, I've had
• 1:17:50
  like a big, huge fear of financial insecurity, right?
• 1:17:53
  And so I would manifest with my husband.
• 1:17:55
  I'm like, oh, he doesn't make enough money, right?
• 1:17:57
  Well, I had that fear before I even met my husband.
• 1:18:00
  And now something might happen in life like, oh, we need
• 1:18:03
  unexpected car repairs like that unexpected expense.
• 1:18:06
  And it was sort of trigger that malware to run in my head.
• 1:18:09
  I'd be like, Oh my gosh, we're not going to be able to, to pay
• 1:18:12
  for that. Or if we do, it's just going to
• 1:18:13
  go to credit card. We're going to get into debt or,
• 1:18:14
  and then we will be able to pay the taxes or whatever.
• 1:18:16
  I, I would just run this whole thing.
• 1:18:18
  So that was already there before I ever met my husband, but it
• 1:18:22
  felt really bad, but it also felt familiar.
• 1:18:24
  Every time it would happen, it felt familiar and it didn't feel
• 1:18:26
  optional. It felt like the truth like this
• 1:18:29
  is happening because this is all real, but really it's very much
• 1:18:33
  like, you know, when malware comes and takes over your
• 1:18:36
  computer or whatever and goes off some down some dirt Rd. with
• 1:18:40
  it. So I think what's interesting is
• 1:18:44
  if you find yourself in a situation where you are
• 1:18:46
  questioning whether you are safe, I'd love to see you get
• 1:18:49
  support from somebody who is not so necessarily so quick to say
• 1:18:54
  you have to get out right. Like I'm afraid, OK, let's I'm
• 1:18:56
  afraid for you too. Let's get you out, right,
• 1:18:58
  because because there is so much at stake in that whole all the,
• 1:19:03
  all the lives that depend on that marriage, right?
• 1:19:06
  Whether whether they have kids or not even, right?
• 1:19:08
  There's, there are, you know, their parents that have, you
• 1:19:12
  know, when you've asked someone to love your spouse, you know,
• 1:19:15
  you've asked your siblings and your parents to now accept that
• 1:19:17
  person as part of your family. There's, there's just a lot at
• 1:19:21
  stake. So I I just would love to see
• 1:19:24
  that person get support from a trained coach who's able to
• 1:19:30
  reflect back to her, her own truths.
• 1:19:33
  So it's not, we are never in a position to tell anybody what to
• 1:19:36
  do. We just, yeah, we have our
• 1:19:40
  experience to share and we have, we can, I think we can bring
• 1:19:44
  some possibility and hope that is kind of hard to find other
• 1:19:49
  places. In a lot of these cases, the
• 1:19:51
  woman, and I'm just thinking about cases I know and you know,
• 1:19:54
  people that I've, you know, talked to and been able to go
• 1:19:57
  deep with them about things that they're experiencing, you know,
• 1:20:00
  and often they feel like they are trying everything.
• 1:20:03
  Yes. Oh, they know.
• 1:20:04
  They feel like I am doing, you know, whether it's the spouse
• 1:20:07
  that's cheating, the spouse that's maybe borderline abusive
• 1:20:10
  or full blown abusive or whatever it is they feel like
• 1:20:12
  they're doing a really, they're doing their best and walking on
• 1:20:17
  egg shells is certainly part of it.
• 1:20:19
  Or maybe there's just general fatigue.
• 1:20:21
  Maybe it's connected to like raising children, like they're
• 1:20:23
  feeling completely neglected when it comes to the kids.
• 1:20:26
  I mean, there's all, you know, there's any number of stories,
• 1:20:28
  right? Have you seen when you've I know
• 1:20:31
  you've heard so many and you've counseled so many women?
• 1:20:33
  Have you seen certain themes of these are some key disconnects
• 1:20:38
  that she might have that have kind of, you know, contributed
• 1:20:43
  to the demise or the impending demise of the relationship?
• 1:20:48
  Part of my story is we went to marriage counseling for over a
• 1:20:51
  year and spent many thousands of dollars and it didn't help.
• 1:20:54
  And I actually have a segment, there was a segment in my
• 1:20:57
  podcast for many years called the Worst Relationship Advice of
• 1:21:00
  the Week award. And a lot of it sounded like
• 1:21:03
  good conventional wisdom, right? Like, of course, we've heard
• 1:21:07
  this so many times. This must be true.
• 1:21:09
  It must be so that if your husband is distant and
• 1:21:13
  inattentive and you want him to be more affectionate, you must
• 1:21:15
  go to him and tell him to be more affectionate.
• 1:21:18
  Tell him that's what you need. As if, and I and I did that, you
• 1:21:21
  know, as if my husband didn't know that I wanted him to be
• 1:21:26
  affectionate, affectionate or else, you know, he forgot to be
• 1:21:30
  affectionate or something. I don't know exactly what that
• 1:21:32
  advice was for, but I can tell you it didn't work.
• 1:21:35
  In fact, my husband became more distant when I became needy and
• 1:21:40
  complaining and critical of how affectionate he was.
• 1:21:43
  And I tell the story in the context of this question you're
• 1:21:46
  asking just to give an illustration of like, I tried
• 1:21:49
  everything. I tried telling him, I tried
• 1:21:50
  begging, I tried insisting and demanding and, and, you know,
• 1:21:54
  inviting or whatever him to be more affectionate and none of it
• 1:21:57
  worked. And it's because it was never
• 1:22:00
  going to work. I had my foot on the accelerator
• 1:22:03
  when I was looking for the break, right?
• 1:22:05
  I was doing something that was actually pushing him further
• 1:22:08
  away. So I think, and this is part of
• 1:22:11
  the heartbreak of the business we're in, is I see a lot of
• 1:22:15
  women who are like me, where they felt like they had done
• 1:22:18
  everything to fix their marriage.
• 1:22:19
  That's why I was so hopeless. I was going to have to get
• 1:22:22
  divorced because I'd already tried so many things.
• 1:22:26
  And they're feeling so just exhausted.
• 1:22:28
  They're feeling and that. And then they sometimes some of
• 1:22:31
  those women, they'll lose the desire to stay married and.
• 1:22:33
  Then they want the divorce, of course, because they are getting
• 1:22:37
  hurt and it's heartbreaking. Or maybe their kids are getting
• 1:22:40
  hurt. They're seeing this happen.
• 1:22:43
  And I actually don't have a single coach.
• 1:22:46
  You know, I have hundreds of coaches now.
• 1:22:48
  I don't have a single coach who wasn't in that kind of a
• 1:22:52
  situation where either he was, you know, they he was treating
• 1:22:56
  the kids in a way that was unacceptable or he was, you
• 1:23:00
  know, there was something. I mean, there's there's a lot of
• 1:23:03
  good stories, not I mean good stories when I say like dramatic
• 1:23:06
  stories about what they were enduring before thinking they
• 1:23:12
  were doing their best to fix the marriage and actually putting
• 1:23:17
  out the fire with gas. I see that a lot.
• 1:23:22
  So all that to say, there's plenty to get scared about and
• 1:23:29
  to focus on the danger. But to paraphrase Thomas Wolfe,
• 1:23:35
  you know, miracles not only happen around here, they happen
• 1:23:38
  all the time. So I know too much to ever say
• 1:23:43
  like, oh, that's happening. OK.
• 1:23:45
  She should definitely leave. I could never say that.
• 1:23:47
  You know, she should definitely stay.
• 1:23:49
  I have no idea. I don't know that either.
• 1:23:51
  But is there hope for her situation?
• 1:23:53
  If she thinks there is, then there is.
• 1:23:56
  And if she's asking me, she must have some hope.
• 1:23:58
  Rather, she she wouldn't raise her breath.
• 1:23:59
  She would find another podcast or, you know, another coach or
• 1:24:03
  or read a different book if she didn't have hope.
• 1:24:06
  It's that's the part I want to, I want to nurture.
• 1:24:09
  It sounds like a core element of what you're saying, though, is
• 1:24:11
  she's having hope within a sort of structure of accountability
• 1:24:15
  and support and also transparency.
• 1:24:19
  Is that fair to say? Meaning she's opening up to
• 1:24:22
  other people about what's happening and there's.
• 1:24:24
  She's not like hiding things or stuffing things down.
• 1:24:27
  Yeah, that is definitely a big part of what we do.
• 1:24:29
  And I think a big part of what's gratifying about our community
• 1:24:33
  is I remember one woman saying she was pregnant with her first
• 1:24:39
  child and her husband had cheated on her.
• 1:24:42
  And so she came to our group and she was so hopeless because come
• 1:24:46
  on, like, that's if there's ever a deal breaker, that would be
• 1:24:49
  it, right? He's cheating on you while
• 1:24:51
  you're pregnant. And she's like, no one's got
• 1:24:53
  this story. I can never tell anybody that
• 1:24:55
  this was what happened, but she was going to come to these group
• 1:24:57
  coaching calls that we have anyway.
• 1:24:59
  And the woman that got coached on one of these calls had her
• 1:25:03
  exact story, had her husband had cheated on her while she was
• 1:25:06
  pregnant. And she was there kind of in a,
• 1:25:11
  you know, a triumphant mode. And they reconciled.
• 1:25:15
  They had reconciled. So what were the?
• 1:25:17
  I mean, I know I keep asking what were the secret magical
• 1:25:20
  things that, and I know you've shared some of these principles
• 1:25:23
  already. Yeah, some of them.
• 1:25:24
  Yeah. In that in that case, was there
• 1:25:25
  another principle that she used that maybe we haven't talked
• 1:25:30
  about yet? I mean, there are, there are
• 1:25:32
  several that we, we haven't dove into yet.
• 1:25:35
  So I mean, I could, I could do that now.
• 1:25:37
  We, we talked just a little bit about the gratitude skill.
• 1:25:39
  We talked about spousal feeling prophecy.
• 1:25:41
  So another one of the skills is one of the aspects of the
• 1:25:44
  gratitude skill is just the simple practice of giving your
• 1:25:50
  husband 3 gratitudes a day, just three gratitudes a day.
• 1:25:53
  And so, but really giving him to him like coming up with those
• 1:25:57
  three things. And I think a lot of times when
• 1:25:59
  you're marriage is feeling really broken and really
• 1:26:02
  struggling, like I know it was very hard for me to do that at
• 1:26:05
  the time that just felt like that.
• 1:26:07
  I like saw this in my mouth to thank him for anything.
• 1:26:09
  He does nothing. I do everything.
• 1:26:10
  Why should I thank him for anything?
• 1:26:12
  And I had a student early on. I remember Isabella who was
• 1:26:16
  basically saying that that I, I, I had AI was teaching a workshop
• 1:26:20
  and I said your homework for this week until next week's
• 1:26:22
  workshop is to come up with three things a day to thank your
• 1:26:25
  husband for and to tell them to him.
• 1:26:28
  And she raised her hand like, OK, first of all, I do
• 1:26:30
  everything. He does nothing.
• 1:26:32
  So I don't know what I'm and, and nobody's thanking me.
• 1:26:34
  And this just seems really like fake, like I'm going to stroke
• 1:26:39
  his ego. Like, why am I doing that?
• 1:26:41
  And but she agreed that she would just do it as an
• 1:26:45
  experiment for the week. And so, so the first day she
• 1:26:49
  thanked him for watching the baby while she went to exercise.
• 1:26:52
  And she thanked him for working hard to support the family even
• 1:26:57
  though she worked too. But you know, that's a
• 1:27:00
  contribution. So she thanked him for that.
• 1:27:02
  And then she I think she thanked him for he'd put gas in her car.
• 1:27:06
  So she thanked him for that. And then so that's day one.
• 1:27:09
  And then the next day she, she was like making her list of
• 1:27:11
  three things She's going to thank him for her.
• 1:27:13
  And then they were sitting down to dinner and he goes, you've
• 1:27:16
  really taught me that we need to appreciate each other more.
• 1:27:19
  I just wanted to thank you for making dinner.
• 1:27:21
  Wow. She's nearly fell out of her
• 1:27:22
  chair like she had in one day, basically 24 hours created a
• 1:27:25
  culture of gratitude in her home that had been missing because
• 1:27:30
  and she and what she's described was, you know, I'd been so
• 1:27:32
  stingy with appreciating the things that my husband does the
• 1:27:36
  ways that he does contribute. So it's a great example of what
• 1:27:40
  we focus on increases, right. I can either find fault with my
• 1:27:44
  husband like it was buried treasure or I can remind myself
• 1:27:47
  of all the good qualities all the way he makes my load lighter
• 1:27:51
  and you know, all the all the benefits that I get from being
• 1:27:56
  with this amazing man, right. And when, and it's hard for me
• 1:27:59
  not to say he's amazing now because I'm, I've been spending
• 1:28:03
  the last 20 or so years more 25, I guess, years focused on his
• 1:28:07
  good qualities so that I could enjoy them instead of missing
• 1:28:11
  them. Because I'm thinking about the,
• 1:28:13
  I used to tell a mere mortal man, you know, I promise there
• 1:28:16
  are faults there, but it's just, I'm just not interested in
• 1:28:19
  focusing on those. And they've gotten really, I
• 1:28:21
  mean, I, it'd be hard for me to figure out what they are at this
• 1:28:24
  point. Have you ever had a situation
• 1:28:27
  where you know of a woman, maybe you're coaching them or they're
• 1:28:30
  in your program and they really are employing all the, the
• 1:28:34
  hacks, the, the, the mindsets that you know, changing, you
• 1:28:37
  know, the self-care, all of the things and it doesn't work.
• 1:28:40
  This is a great question. And the answer is I have never
• 1:28:43
  seen the intimacy skills fail for a woman who uses them.
• 1:28:47
  And what I mean by that is like, it's sort of like if somebody
• 1:28:50
  said, well, I tried exercise, but it didn't work for me.
• 1:28:53
  You know, it's like, well, what do you mean by that exactly?
• 1:28:56
  You know, what do you mean exercise didn't work for you?
• 1:28:58
  The skills, the intimacy skills are really for us.
• 1:29:01
  Like if we just review what we've talked about, like I'm
• 1:29:04
  making myself happy, I'm focusing, I'm counting my
• 1:29:07
  blessings instead of counting my curses, right?
• 1:29:09
  I'm, I'm expressing my desires. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm not
• 1:29:15
  trying to control people that I can't control, which is
• 1:29:17
  exhausting, right? This is if you, if you really
• 1:29:20
  look at it, it's a personal development program.
• 1:29:24
  And when I show up in a way that's respectful and feminine
• 1:29:30
  and, and happy and positive and vulnerable and grateful, how are
• 1:29:37
  how, how can I, how can I lose? How can I not win in that
• 1:29:42
  situation, right. So these are these.
• 1:29:45
  Are always see reconciliation. I don't 100% of the time see
• 1:29:49
  reconciliation, no. And that and sometimes, as you
• 1:29:53
  said, a woman decides she that's no longer what she wants.
• 1:29:59
  But but they say things like, you know, students will say
• 1:30:04
  something like I don't know if this is going to save my
• 1:30:05
  marriage, but I know it's saving me.
• 1:30:08
  I see. I have, I have one student who
• 1:30:12
  came to the campus when her divorce was pretty far along
• 1:30:16
  already. And so that divorce happened,
• 1:30:19
  I'm thinking to two students, I'll tell you the first one
• 1:30:21
  first, but her name is Leslie and Leslie.
• 1:30:25
  So she went through the divorce with the intimacy skills.
• 1:30:28
  So the the whole idea of fighting over custody in court,
• 1:30:32
  they never did one second of that.
• 1:30:34
  They never, they didn't have to pay the lawyers a lot because
• 1:30:36
  she was able to use the skills to say whatever you think, I
• 1:30:39
  trust you and have her husband show up as her hero during those
• 1:30:44
  negotiations. They had.
• 1:30:46
  Ex-husband. Yeah, well, it.
• 1:30:47
  Worked with the ex-husband. It worked with the ex-husband
• 1:30:49
  and it works, right? I mean, of course it is, but
• 1:30:52
  it's interesting. Like, you know, before our
• 1:30:55
  interview, we were talking about how your grandfather still wants
• 1:30:58
  to take care of your grandmother even though they're long since
• 1:31:00
  divorced. And we find that that that hero
• 1:31:03
  instinct is always there if you know how to, to trigger it, if
• 1:31:06
  you're willing to be trusting to show up with trust, right.
• 1:31:11
  So, so that that's an example. So she and, and actually I just
• 1:31:16
  saw her last month and she was saying how there's they've been
• 1:31:21
  divorced for several years, but they are there's kind of a
• 1:31:26
  little reconciliation. A possibility of reconciliation
• 1:31:29
  is is afoot from from what I understand from our brief
• 1:31:33
  conversation I had with her. So why?
• 1:31:35
  Be your hero with divorce proceedings.
• 1:31:36
  Let me just yeah, be your husband again.
• 1:31:39
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:31:40
  And when he felt he could please her and she trusted him and he
• 1:31:44
  felt respected again and she was happy and she was grateful.
• 1:31:48
  Who doesn't want to be around that?
• 1:31:50
  Especially the mother of your child, Right.
• 1:31:53
  That you've already committed to once that you were already.
• 1:31:55
  Yeah, so invested in so. So when you say so, I guess I
• 1:32:00
  would say I haven't seen 100% reconciliation yet, right?
• 1:32:04
  Like I love that. I'm just never, I'm just, we're
• 1:32:06
  never giving up. Like not on my watch.
• 1:32:08
  You know it's it's not going to happen.
• 1:32:11
  What you, you may had this phrase that you just said he
• 1:32:15
  wanted to be her hero or you mentioned that phrase.
• 1:32:18
  And I think that's part of, I think you've mentioned it before
• 1:32:21
  in the interview, but I'd love to hear you just share a little
• 1:32:24
  more on that concept because it sounds like that's a key to a
• 1:32:27
  lot of what you teach and recommend.
• 1:32:30
  Yes, well, this has to do with the concept of respect which I
• 1:32:36
  was raised knowing. Wives should respect their
• 1:32:39
  husbands when you know and that men should love their wives,
• 1:32:44
  right? We all know the second part of
• 1:32:45
  that. Women should respect their
• 1:32:47
  husbands, men should love their wives and and I so I knew that I
• 1:32:52
  knew about that already. So there was no issue there
• 1:32:55
  because I already knew and I did respect my husband.
• 1:32:57
  I mean, except for the way he dresses and the way he eats is
• 1:33:00
  not. And I wish he made some more
• 1:33:01
  money, right. So like I had such a big blind
• 1:33:04
  spot thinking I understood respect and I really had no
• 1:33:07
  concept of it. So it really kind of hurts my
• 1:33:11
  female brain sometimes when I'm I'll be trying to write about
• 1:33:15
  what men consider respect versus what women consider respect.
• 1:33:18
  Like I thought, hey, I reheated his dinner when he came home
• 1:33:22
  late and I, I let him know where I was going to be.
• 1:33:25
  Like consideration was what I was calling respect.
• 1:33:29
  And for my husband and for many thousands of other women
• 1:33:34
  describe what their husbands to respect is when I treat him as
• 1:33:38
  though he is capable and competent and I expect the best
• 1:33:43
  outcome from my husband. So little ways to be
• 1:33:46
  disrespectful that I didn't even know would be like, like I'd
• 1:33:49
  say, OK, drive careful. There's like this implication
• 1:33:52
  like you're not a very good driver, right?
• 1:33:54
  That's the subtext or like, or like I was saying before, you
• 1:33:58
  know, I'll help you with your resume because really you're not
• 1:34:00
  very good at it. So I was being disrespectful in
• 1:34:03
  so many ways where I was like, or even with the tire story,
• 1:34:07
  right? I was like, why don't you wait?
• 1:34:09
  You know, the weather will clear up and you don't have to go out
• 1:34:10
  in the rain. It's like, like he's a man, like
• 1:34:14
  he just wants to go out and fix that tire for me.
• 1:34:17
  He doesn't care about getting a little bit wet, right.
• 1:34:19
  So they have such a different value system in that regard.
• 1:34:24
  They are made so differently. And my husband, I even kind of
• 1:34:27
  asked my husband about this concept of him wanting to be my
• 1:34:31
  hero. And he's like, oh, yeah, he
• 1:34:32
  goes, I couldn't be there for World War 2 or Frozen Chosen or
• 1:34:36
  what? You know, I could, I couldn't, I
• 1:34:37
  couldn't be there. He goes but but every day I I
• 1:34:40
  want that opportunity to to to be a hero.
• 1:34:43
  Like it's just part of being a good man is being able to take
• 1:34:47
  care of somebody else. Yeah, it's, it's so moving and
• 1:34:53
  but and, and and it's not just my husband, like our UPS guy.
• 1:34:59
  One time I had a whole bunch of boxes I went to send back and I
• 1:35:01
  asked him if he would take him back.
• 1:35:03
  And it's totally not his job. I was supposed to take him to
• 1:35:06
  the store and he's like, yeah, I'm going to take all these for
• 1:35:09
  you. And I was like, you are my hero.
• 1:35:11
  Thank you so much. And he just like never forgot
• 1:35:13
  that. Like he he's like, there's not
• 1:35:15
  too many opportunities. I get to be somebody's hero.
• 1:35:19
  So, I mean, I think, like, all men everywhere are kind of,
• 1:35:22
  like, always on the lookout for that opportunity to be someone's
• 1:35:27
  hero. I've seen it from my husband.
• 1:35:28
  Like, we'll be in the crowded waiting room of the restaurant,
• 1:35:32
  you know, waiting for our table or something.
• 1:35:34
  And he'll have a seat and he'll just watch the door.
• 1:35:37
  He cannot wait to jump up to give that seat to someone who
• 1:35:40
  looks like they need to sit down more than he does So.
• 1:35:44
  And it sounds like you're a lot of what underpins what you're
• 1:35:48
  recommending is that the more you do this, the more you get
• 1:35:52
  the outcome. It's like, it's like developing
• 1:35:55
  not just your own skill of receptivity, receptivity and
• 1:35:58
  respect and appreciation and vulnerability, but it's helping
• 1:36:01
  him develop his skill of being that hero, of being competent,
• 1:36:04
  of being the man. Yeah, it's really expecting the
• 1:36:08
  best outcome from him. Like, of course he's going to be
• 1:36:11
  capable of supporting us. Of course he's going to be
• 1:36:15
  capable of protecting us, right? Of course I'm going to, you
• 1:36:20
  know, I'm going to have a beautiful home.
• 1:36:22
  Of course he's going to help me have all these things that I
• 1:36:25
  desire, right? Even like expressing your
• 1:36:26
  desires can be a form of trust versus dismissing them because
• 1:36:30
  you think like he can't afford us getting a new kitchen.
• 1:36:34
  So I'm just not even going to, that's not a possibility.
• 1:36:36
  I'm not going to bring it up right.
• 1:36:37
  It's kind of actually second guessing him.
• 1:36:41
  You're trying to, you're treating him like a child.
• 1:36:43
  And that was something I used to do.
• 1:36:45
  I mean, I'm laughing. I don't know why I'm because it
• 1:36:47
  was really tragic because I would treat him like a child,
• 1:36:50
  like I need to tell him how to eat and how to get a better job.
• 1:36:53
  And then I was like his mother and men are just not physically
• 1:36:57
  attracted to their mothers. And then he was like my son and
• 1:37:00
  men, women are not physically attracted to their sons.
• 1:37:03
  So it really was very damaging to the physical intimacy in our
• 1:37:07
  relationship. Give us one more if you will.
• 1:37:10
  Give us one more phrase that you recommend or tip before we wrap
• 1:37:14
  up. Let's see all right, so we I
• 1:37:15
  mean the two I mean, I did OK, we did spouse of feeling
• 1:37:18
  prophecy, which I absolutely love and we did talk about thank
• 1:37:20
  you. How to express your desires in a
• 1:37:22
  way that inspires. So I'll I'll I'll go to let's
• 1:37:25
  let's talk about how to be vulnerable.
• 1:37:27
  So let's say that your husband, I'll tell you this story.
• 1:37:34
  So recently we're watching a comedy like a Netflix special,
• 1:37:39
  Tom Papa, and he was talking about his marriage a little bit
• 1:37:43
  and he goes, my wife's a talker. Oh, my wife's a talker.
• 1:37:48
  And we were just laughing at this show.
• 1:37:51
  We're having a great time watching it.
• 1:37:53
  And then we're getting ready for bed a little while later.
• 1:37:56
  And John's just kind of he's we're just kind of goofing off
• 1:37:59
  and getting ready for bed. And he goes, he goes, oh, my
• 1:38:01
  wife's a talker, my wife's a talker.
• 1:38:04
  And it's true. I am a talker.
• 1:38:06
  But in that moment I was like, wait, is he saying I talk too
• 1:38:09
  much? It's really funny when Tom
• 1:38:10
  Papa's saying about his wife. But like in that moment, like is
• 1:38:13
  he did he just, I think he just said, I talk too much.
• 1:38:16
  And so in that moment, it was a little bit like, oh, Ouch.
• 1:38:20
  And so in the old days I would have maybe defended myself.
• 1:38:25
  I would have said, like, first of all, I talk exactly the right
• 1:38:28
  amount. I don't talk too much.
• 1:38:29
  I, I talk exactly the right amount.
• 1:38:30
  And maybe once in a while I talk too much.
• 1:38:33
  But whatever, you know that that's OK.
• 1:38:34
  You know, you should or just to to let him know he'd said
• 1:38:37
  something wrong. And what I've learned is that
• 1:38:40
  when I can just be vulnerable and just say just one word and
• 1:38:44
  it's Ouch. If I just say Ouch, like my
• 1:38:47
  husband will just trip over himself to be like, oh, no, no,
• 1:38:51
  I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
• 1:38:53
  So on this occasion I decided to.
• 1:38:56
  So I was thinking to myself like, oh, that was an Ouch.
• 1:38:59
  But instead of, and I've said Ouch for a lot of years, so and
• 1:39:02
  I hardly ever get to say Ouch, need to say Ouch anymore because
• 1:39:08
  I don't know why exactly. I mean, I think anytime you're
• 1:39:10
  with somebody a lot, it's like when kids play together, they
• 1:39:13
  get bruised, right? It's just that just happens.
• 1:39:14
  It's just part of being together.
• 1:39:16
  Sometimes you're going to get hurt.
• 1:39:17
  But in this case, I, I thought to myself, like, OK, I know my
• 1:39:21
  husband never means to hurt my feelings.
• 1:39:22
  He never ever does. So I'm like, what, what did he
• 1:39:24
  mean by that? And I was like, Oh, maybe he's
• 1:39:27
  just repeating the joke that we both laughed at so hard.
• 1:39:30
  Like he's just, maybe he's just trying to make me laugh.
• 1:39:33
  And then so I was able to say that I was like, Oh, are you,
• 1:39:37
  why are you trying to make me laugh some more?
• 1:39:39
  And he's like, yeah, you know, like, like Tom Baba did or
• 1:39:42
  whatever. And I was like, oh, OK.
• 1:39:44
  And we kissed goodnight and just, we're totally connected.
• 1:39:47
  There was no tension, no nothing in our relationship because of
• 1:39:51
  this. So I just feel like the skill of
• 1:39:54
  being able to be vulnerable. And it did start with just
• 1:39:57
  saying, Ouch, like whenever he was saying and like, yeah, he
• 1:40:00
  didn't mean to hurt me, but whatever.
• 1:40:02
  The reaction over here was a little bit like, I talk too
• 1:40:05
  much. Like I didn't like it.
• 1:40:07
  So just being able to say that one word has been so powerful
• 1:40:11
  and I and I don't use it just in my marriage.
• 1:40:13
  I use it everywhere. And I might use it with my team
• 1:40:17
  or anybody that I'm interacting with just to let them like to
• 1:40:21
  show tenderly instead of defensively because I, I wore
• 1:40:26
  that armor for a long time. You know, I, I used to, I used
• 1:40:30
  to have a rage problem actually, when I get hurt, I would rage at
• 1:40:33
  people like hapless sales clerks or bank tellers.
• 1:40:36
  And I RIP them up. I ripped up one side and down
• 1:40:39
  the other with my sister. I used to do it and my husband.
• 1:40:42
  I'm not proud to say it all. It's embarrassing, but I'm just
• 1:40:46
  proud that now when I get hurt, instead of that Godzilla person
• 1:40:50
  coming out, I'm able to respond tenderly.
• 1:40:54
  Like for myself, I like, I'm there, I'm present for Laura,
• 1:40:57
  I'm taking care of Laura when that happens.
• 1:40:59
  And Ouch might just be the exact expression of how I'm feeling in
• 1:41:03
  that moment. Wow, so much good stuff, Laura,
• 1:41:06
  Thank you. I thank you so much for sharing
• 1:41:09
  and being vulnerable and sharing your own story because I think
• 1:41:12
  that it unlocks a lot of receptivity and people listening
• 1:41:16
  because it's so a lot of, it's so relatable.
• 1:41:19
  How can people find your work and what's next for you?
• 1:41:22
  Well, I the Empowered Wife Podcast is full of interviews,
• 1:41:26
  hundreds of interviews of women who have used the six intimacy
• 1:41:29
  skills to fix their marriage. And they describe exactly how
• 1:41:32
  they brought it back from, you know, he got a DUI or he was a
• 1:41:36
  narcissist or they had all kinds of incredible challenges.
• 1:41:41
  They have really inspiring stories.
• 1:41:44
  So the Empowered Wife podcast, but also we have something kind
• 1:41:47
  of fun going on right now. We're giving away the Adored
• 1:41:49
  Wife Road Map, which gives a nice overview of the six
• 1:41:52
  intimacy skills. And you can get that at my
• 1:41:55
  website, lauradoyle.org. Amazing.
• 1:41:58
  Thank you, Laura. I'm so excited to share that
• 1:42:01
  with folks listening and thanks for coming on the show and
• 1:42:04
  sharing all of your wisdom. Thank you.
• 1:42:06
  What an honor to be on your show.
• 1:42:08
  It's been a real joy. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:42:11
  this episode of the Lilas podcast.
• 1:42:13
  I want to know what you guys think.
• 1:42:15
  This is such an important topic and I believe that fighting for
• 1:42:18
  marriage and relationships are so important.
• 1:42:21
  Again, there's a lot of advice here that's really powerful and
• 1:42:24
  really wise and also controversial.
• 1:42:26
  Let me know what you guys think. You can e-mail me at Lila at GTV
• 1:42:29
  Media or leave a comment in the comment section.
• 1:42:32
  Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you guys next time.
• 1:42:34
  A huge thank you to our partner. EWTNEWTN is the largest
• 1:42:39
  religious network, reaching millions of people with the
• 1:42:42
  truth of the faith, entertainment and news.
• 1:42:45
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