Today's gift is a fresh perspective on marriage and the role of relationships in personal growth. Michelle Purta is helping us traverse the intricate dance of relationships, addressing the ways in which our formative years shape our adult interactions and how acknowledging the emotional needs of both partners can lead to a more harmonious and fulfilling union.
Join Michelle's free Masterclass here!
If you feel inspired please consider sharing this episode with a friend, writing a 5⭐️ review or becoming a Raising Wild Hearts Member here!
Today's gift is a fresh perspective on marriage and the role of relationships in personal growth. Michelle Purta is helping us traverse the intricate dance of relationships, addressing the ways in which our formative years shape our adult interactions and how acknowledging the emotional needs of both partners can lead to a more harmonious and fulfilling union.
Join Michelle's free Masterclass here!
If you feel inspired please consider sharing this episode with a friend, writing a 5⭐️ review or becoming a Raising Wild Hearts Member here!
Depending on how we learn to cope with situations, we might end up yelling, criticizing, shutting down, leaving silent treatment all those toxic behaviors that we are now exhibiting in relationships because we didn't learn there's a different way to get our needs met.
Speaker 2:Welcome, revolutionary Mama, to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, educator, mom of Three, rebel at Heart and Passionate Soul, on a Mission to empower and inspire you.
Speaker 2:Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts, and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is Healing. And so it is. Welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. So if you're listening to this on the day that it airs its Christmas day and if you celebrate, then Merry Christmas to you. Maybe you're hiding from your family with your earbuds and needing a little solace. If so, I might be right there with you. I don't know. No, I think the holidays can be a time of pure magic and joy and excitement, and sometimes that can border on overwhelm or frustration or burnout and just trying to do all the things with all the people. And then, when you bring the family dynamics into it, it can make it challenging, whether that's whoever In-laws are, just the family that you live with, or your parents or aunts and uncles, whatever. So, yeah, there's a lot going on this time of year. So I really am so excited to share today's conversation with you because in my mind, I went into this conversation in it being a gift for you and a gift for those listening. So Merry Christmas to you.
Speaker 2:I know that something that I don't talk about super often on the podcast, or maybe not at all, aside from the conversation that I had with my husband, is marriage and being in a marriage and being in a respectful marriage and a happy marriage and a sexy marriage and an intimate marriage and all those things. And I found the perfect person to talk to on LinkedIn. I found her through Cara Terell, who I also interviewed on the podcast, and I heard her clip and I immediately sent her a message of like hello, nice to meet you. I have to interview you on the podcast. One thing that I find is that in like the mommy and me circles, or like in my friendships and acquaintances and the co-ops and everything, that marriage doesn't come up super often for me, and maybe that's just my experience, but so, based on that, I found it really, really relevant to dive into the topic of marriage.
Speaker 2:I think some of the things that we think about marriage, like some of the beliefs that we don't really question in our society, are things like marriage is hard and longevity is the goal, and oh, that's just the way marriage is. When people get older and are disconnected from each other, or bickering is just normal, et cetera, et cetera, like fill in your limiting belief here that you grew up from with culturally, and then also, as you saw in your family, you know our relationships, that we grew up with our mom and dad or whoever it was grandparents, aunts and uncles. Those are the model for our relationships when we get older. And so today I'm really, really excited to have Michelle Perda on the podcast, because she is a marriage coach and the host of the Marriage and Motherhood podcast and, like many of us, she did not grow up with a healthy example of how relationships work and she found herself experiencing a ton of relationship challenges because of it. She tells us a bit of her story and some of the ways that she used to handle conflict in a relationship versus how she handles it now and how she coaches her clients to handle it. So it's very, very valuable firsthand knowledge and then also like she shares what she sees in her clients and the different needs that men and women have, and how we can help notice our own needs and then help notice that our husbands, if we're married, and our women and in heterosexual relationships, that they have needs too. So after Michelle made the harsh realization that she had actually co-created the challenging experiences in her marriage, she then committed to learning how to transform her experience so that it wouldn't feel like she had to choose between being a great mom or having a great marriage. Wow, put a pin in that I'm reading from her bio now, so this is just a bit more about her and then we'll jump into the episode.
Speaker 2:And so today Michelle is happily married with three kids. Her and her husband prioritize their connection and navigate conflict in a way that helps them grow closer as a couple with every disagreement. Even though she used to find herself in arguments all the time Arguments are very rare in her marriage because of the communication skills she's learned, and she is very proud of the example that her and her husband are setting for their kids. And now she's on a mission to help parents do the same for their marriages. So yeah, this conversation is absolutely golden. It is my gift to you and my gift to myself.
Speaker 2:I think I'm diving into what do I want my marriage to look like in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and why is it so worth staying in my marriage for me? And we dive into this in the podcast. I tell Michelle a little bit about my experience and you know some of the challenges we've had and I think so much of the challenges I've had in relationship and then she also explains having in her relationship so much of it is universal. So I know that, no matter where you are in your path, whether you're in a valley or a peak in your relationship, if you're in one, that this is relevant. And if you're not in a relationship, this, oh my gosh, is probably, I would say, even more valuable, but just as valuable because there's this piece of awareness that we need to be aware of our patterns, our triggers, the way we grew up, and so much of this work on our marriage starts in ourselves anyway. So if you're not in a relationship, this is just the self work that comes with the territory of being human. So, yeah, enjoy. Can't wait for you to hear this conversation.
Speaker 2:Reach out hello at raisingwildheartspodcastcom. Let me know what your biggest takeaways were. I will put the links for Michelle's work in the show notes and enjoy everyone. I hope you're having an amazing holiday season. I hope you're having an amazing Christmas, merry Christmas. I hope you're soaking in gratitude and presence and joy and bliss and all the things. And if you're not, that's okay too. Tomorrow's another day, all right, let's dive in. Michelle hi, welcome to the Raising.
Speaker 1:Wildhearts podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Ryan.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for being here again. Thanks to the LinkedIn Gods for helping me find you. Their algorithm is really on point. So yay for that. I love it. Yeah, and so today we talked about this a little bit before we started recording. This is a Christmas gift to everybody listening, because this is going to air on Christmas Day, and so I think this is really such a relevant, helpful and maybe challenging conversation for us to sit down and have, and those conversations are my favorite ones, the ones that really challenge us to step outside of our perspective and maybe see something from a way that we never thought about it before. So thank you so much for being here and I'm so excited to jump in. And let's start with where do we learn to be in romantic partnership? From when do we get this? Is it from childhood? Do we learn it from Disney movies, from culture? Where are we picking up all these ways that we be in our relationships?
Speaker 1:Oh, I love this. This is a juicy, juicy question, and it's actually what inspired me to become a marriage coach. So, first of all, merry Christmas everybody. I hope you're having an incredible day filled with love, joy, connection, all the good things, healthy boundaries. I know how holidays go.
Speaker 1:So where do we learn this? All of the above, ryan? All of the above? Okay, we first witness it from our parents.
Speaker 1:How do you remember them being when you were growing up? How did they handle communication? How often did they touch each other? How did they speak to each other? How did they hang out with you, with you, without you, never alone? What was that like? What was the vibe in the home?
Speaker 1:Whatever you grew up with is what you as normal I love that phrase, normal because so many people have equated it to healthy. What our brains do is like this is familiar, this is what we like. Anything different is actually better. So if you grew up in a household where your parents communicated their differences by other slamming doors, slamming cabinets, being passive, aggressive, blaming each other, doing all the things that we, as adults, now know are toxic behavior, that's what you're likely going to do Because you're like well, I don't know any other way. This is just how I am, and you can start to associate that with your character. Well, take it or leave it. Don't piss me off then. Right, that's certainly what I did.
Speaker 1:I saw at relationships, but I didn't know it because that's what I grew up with. I grew up with passive aggressiveness. I grew up with ineffective communication, with yelling, with silent treatment, all the things, and so we either mimic what we see or we say, oh no, we are not doing that, I don't like that. And I kind of did both in my relationships. Right, I copied some things and I was like, oh, I'm going to the opposite spectrum there. Instead of doing the silent treatment, I'm going to tell them how I feel, but the way I was telling them was not tactful at all, and that ended up with me being in arguments that would spiral out of control last hours and get nowhere. So we had argument fatigue and we would just end up not resolving anything and just sweep it into the rug just for the sake of moving on Right.
Speaker 2:Anybody been up at 11 PM before, or 2 AM or 2 AM, fighting about the same fight over and over? It starts with something different always, but the core of it, if you get to the onion, it's the same fight. Yep, what's going on with that? Like? Oh my gosh, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's the same fight but different scenario, right. And so we learn all that from our parents, we take it into our relationships, we reinforce it, because that's what our brain is like oh, this is familiar, this is good, this is what is recreating our childhood. And so it takes a lot of realization, a lot of hard realizations, right, looking in the mirror, growing up, for you to change that. Yeah, but let's talk about society, because they also influence us, right. So we grew up with Disney movies. I still love them, right. But now when I watch them, I'm like, oh, cringe, like that's not good.
Speaker 1:And so when my kids watch the classic movies, I'm always like, ok, let's pause this and talk about it, like this is not what I want you to mimic, like this was not OK, this was sexist, this was not a great way to deal with the conflict. And that has such a deep impression on us the whole. Save the damsel in distress. Once you guys meet, you guys are going to be good, everything is great, happily ever after. But they don't show what marriage is like when you get into the day to day, when you have kids, especially right, because that's when life gets more monotonous, more routine, where responsibilities replace romance and that's where the real work is right, like the dating stage. Yeah, you've got some issues that come up here and there, but you don't have people distracting you, the kids, right? You don't have a million responsibilities to tend to, you just got yourself and the relationship, plus work and things that are, I say, easier than being parents, right, it shuts off at a certain time Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we don't talk about hey, what happens when you don't have the energy to deal with the bullshit anymore? Yeah, when you are beyond tired to hang out and cultivate the connection, what happens then? How do you deal with communication problems when you actually didn't grow up with that situation? Yeah, what do you do in those situations? Right? And so a lot of couples tend to argue grow up with that and argue, and how they reinforce that style in, really, especially if you jump from relationship to relationship without giving yourself that pause to grow through that relationship.
Speaker 1:Ok, oh, I even knew to do this, but every time I had a boyfriend, I would give myself one year to be by myself to really figure out what happened here. Yeah, and then we get from so in love to this right, and what can I do to experience my next relationship better? And now I teach my clients to do that. From fight to fight, conflict is inevitable. But what we didn't learn was that arguing is optional, yep, and I'm adamant about more people knowing that that arguing takes two and it is 1,000% a choice. If you don't choose to participate in the argument, you're not going to have an argument, right?
Speaker 2:I think, when you're saying this, what I think of is a saying that I learned recently. I think it was my sister who said put the rope down in regards to your children. Put the rope down. So my husband and I look at each other like put the rope down. Same thing in romantic partnership Our need to be right sometimes surpasses our need to be connected, and so this is such a similar journey. It's relationship. It's our relationship with the people we love. It's a relationship with our bodies, our relationship with exercise, our relationship with food. Everything we do is a relationship, and so we can frame it like that. Why is the romantic partnership? Why does it seem to be the most challenging partnership there is? There's a phrase bopping around forever marriage is hard. I hate that.
Speaker 1:Right. So much with a deep firing passion. Yeah, why? So? I feel like that's the first warning you get when you get engaged right. When they give you advice like marriage is hard, just want you to know, right, especially when you have kids. It's like can we stop telling people that and instead give them actual, practical advice on how to navigate that right? So my firm belief is that marriage is not hard. Marriage has hard moments. Ok, and the reason why it feels hard is because your marriage is the next most significant partnership relationship that comes after your parents.
Speaker 1:So what are we doing? Right? We're growing up. They're parenting the best they can with what they know, with what they're capable of doing, what they have the capacity for which, as we now know, as parents it's not very much right. We do our best, but sometimes we lose our shit and it happens, right, yep.
Speaker 1:So we are walking beings of trauma, right. There's big T trauma. There's little T trauma. We all have it. We've all experienced feeling like we weren't loved the way that we needed to. Ok, your parents can still be great parents and you can still have this type of trauma and feel like I remember that one day where I wanted a lollipop and you didn't give it to me whatever like obviously not that simple, but something like that At that age, that was a lot for you to handle, right?
Speaker 1:Whether you grew up like me, where I was told to stop crying or they're going to give me something to cry about, right. Or when I was put in time out and told to figure out what I did wrong, when I truly had no idea what I did wrong, yeah, right, parenting back then was so, so different. It was like hey, you are to be seen but not heard. You can exhibit all these happy, joyful feelings, but anything that's uncomfortable for me as a parent, like embarrassing or just I don't know what to do with you overwhelming. Don't do that. You're not allowed to do that. You were supposed to add to my life, not make it stressful, right, and if only it was that way for us, right, right.
Speaker 1:But when we get into marriage, that's the most impactful relationship in our adult life. Because what happens when you think about your last fight with your partner? How did you feel about life in general? Right, things felt heavy. You're probably crankier with the kids. You just felt like you were just sludging through the day and just like you felt off right? Yeah, totally. But if you have an off day with your kids, it's like five minutes later, a new moment. Ok, shrug it off. It's much easier to release that because you're like you're a child, I'm an adult, you're just doing. Whatever you do, you'll get over it.
Speaker 1:But the biggest mistake that I notice in my clients, and just in people in general, is that they're failing to also see that we are also kids in adult bodies. So when we have those fights with our partner, what's really going on is the arguing back and forth. Is actually our feelings taking over, right? So there's a difference between our emotions and our feelings. So our emotions are the things that we should listen to. It's the physical sensations that we experience that we associate with feeling angry, frustrated, happy, whatever, right. So for me, when I feel angry, I'm like my face is hot, my heart is racing, I feel this urgency to do something right, and usually it results in yelling right, that's how I express my anger. Is it healthy? No, right.
Speaker 2:I'm a yell too.
Speaker 1:It's very human and that's what I grew up with. So that's why I do this and I'm working on it. But what our feelings do with our emotions is OK. These physical sensations are going on.
Speaker 1:Let's interpret that, and we all know our minds are flawed. Right, we have this like it's almost like we are creating a story about our life. That's right. And so it pulls up all the similar situations that we've been in, that we associate with this and we kind of just like put a blanket generalization oh well, they didn't put their sock in the hamper, and so I'm pissed because they don't appreciate what I do and they think I'm the maid, and this narrative starts to play out and it's fueling your anger. That's what's creating the argument.
Speaker 1:It's not the problem, ok, because the problem could mean nothing to someone else, or it could mean nothing if you had different experiences in your past relationships, or even in your same marriage right now, or in your childhood, right. So it's biased, but it's biased towards you. It's defending you, it's trying to protect you from re-experiencing potentially hurtful situations. Ok. But if we think back to the cave mandates, these feelings were really just meant to help us survive, like lions chasing us, but it's evolved to seeing emotional distress as also something dangerous to get away from, to fight to freeze. Like all of our coping mechanisms come out, and depending on how we learn to cope with situations, we might end up yelling, criticizing, shutting down, weaving, silent treatment all those toxic behaviors that we are now exhibiting in relationships because we didn't learn there's a different way to get our needs met other than those ways. Right, so that's why?
Speaker 2:Wow, so OK, what are you finding that most women's needs are, you said, needs met and needs are something gosh as mothers like. It's so complicated because we're meeting needs of other humans. Some of us have multiple humans. I've lost track of how many humans I have. No three feels like a lot right now I bet you two I hear you.
Speaker 2:You know it feels like a lot. You know in phases and stages it feels different. But so needs from the women do you have like a generalization of what the women typically need and then a generalization of what the men typically need, like what are those needs, and then we'll talk about how we can see that those needs are met?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so women and men are different. Thankfully, right. Thankfully, yeah. However, when you don't understand the differences, that could cause a lot of problems that you don't know how to get around Because, again, with the repetitive fights, you're not noticing and honoring each other's differences and working with each other and instead you're like kind of treating your spouse as someone that should be like you and because they're not, you're judging them and criticizing them. You're like seeing them as like a hairy woman, right, and you're like, well, why can't you be more like me? Ok, for example, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:For example, us women, the way we operate, we're very much relationship based, the way we make decisions, the way we share, what we want, we are always considering everybody else, always. Now, this is positive and negative. It's positive in the sense that it helps us stay in connection with people, right, because people love to be thought of, people love to be catered to, right? Men, on the other hand, are very much like I know what I want and they're very direct about it. There's no guessing with them and we can learn more from them in that sense and they can learn more from us in that sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ok, totally Men focus on being a provider of safety, of finances, like whatever their thing is. Yeah, they're the head of the tribe. If we think back to cave mandates, right, they're like they are our protector, they're our leader. That doesn't mean that we can't call some shots, but they prioritize feeling respected and I'm sure if you really think about your marriage as it is today, you can see that play out being true 1,000%.
Speaker 2:One of my husband's core values is respect and I've been understanding what respect means to him Because he'll say respect, respect. And finally I said what does respect mean to you? And he gave me a visual and a sense.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful question to ask yeah, and up until then it had never occurred to me, it just was a word, but I didn't know what he meant by respect. So when he described it to me and how he feels respected from our children, from me, me respecting him in front of our children also, which we can get into that, and so, yeah, very complicated, oh, my god, I love how you're talking about the polarization, because in essence, we have opposite needs, which is what makes this heterosexual relationship attract and it's what makes it magnetized towards each other. So here are these beautiful magnets. I also think that our traumas let me know what you think about this I think our traumas are magnetized to bring up all this shit in each other.
Speaker 2:That needs to be healed, and so that is probably where that phrase like marriage is hard comes from is because we're seeing not our husband, we're seeing like our dad or our mom, like treat us wrong when we're 7 and 1 half years old, but we don't realize. The real line here is like that awareness it's what you talked about in the beginning becoming aware, knowing that where we stand today, where our two feet are, if we're picking a fight, if we're bickering, if we're venting, that it's not today, it's 7 years old, 10 years old.
Speaker 1:It's a culmination of all the things that you've experienced, and when we choose partners, we tend to choose someone that's like one of our parents or primary caretakers.
Speaker 2:Yep, which is creepy.
Speaker 1:But true, it's so creepy, it's just what our brains find familiar, right. And until you do that healing work, it's going to keep coming up because they're a mirror to what you need to grow through right? And I want to go back to what women need. So men need respect. Their goal is to provide With women. Their desire is to feel cared for, cherished, desired, wanted. That's it. We just want to feel wanted, that's it. And so this plays into intimacy.
Speaker 2:And can I add, understood. Does that resonate and vibe with you?
Speaker 1:OK, yeah, or sure, yeah, understood, seen right. That's really the core of it. We want to feel seen, yeah. And this plays into intimacy because we have very different goals that we have for our marriage. For us, we feel close to our partners when we emotionally connect, have deep conversations, get to know each other better, understand each other on a level that we don't share with other people our fears, our desires, our wants, our goals, our dreams for life, knowing that we are aligned and we're headed towards the same goal, the vision right. And I actually have a free master class that I can share with your listeners here about the number one conversation that married couples need to have, but aren't, please. And with men, they feel close to us when we have sex, when we are physical with each other. It's that physical union where they feel like there is true intimacy in the relationship.
Speaker 1:But what happens when you become parents? Hormones, libido, exhaustion, overwhelm, burnout, right, the females experience. Up until this generation, I'm going to say we're the cycle breakers, ok. Up until this generation, females did everything for everyone, put themselves last, wore the martyr badge with honor. It was like their goal is to have their gravestone say most selfless person, yeah, ok. And if you identify with this. You're amazing for caring about other people and I want you to extend that level of care to yourself as well, because you deserve it and that's what will help you be the type of woman wife and mom Want to be, not the person who's yelling or so serious all the time now that you've become a mom, or you don't even recognize yourself as a woman where your husband's like where did my wife go? I miss her. Yeah, right. Or you can't even joke together anymore without someone getting offended. Or you don't even know how to hang out together when the kids aren't around, because the buffers are gone. You're like I don't know, what do we talk about? We'll just talk about the kids, we'll just talk about the house. And how do we have fun together? Again, I don't know. I'm too tired to forget it. Let's just watch Netflix, right, so that. And hormones, right. Hormones go crazy wacky. Our libido goes down and we don't know what to do with it. So we just accept it. We just accept that.
Speaker 1:We are OK with a sexist marriage, yeah, but, like I said, that's how they feel close to us, right? So when that stops, when that doesn't seem like it's going to happen in the near future. What do they do? The same thing we do when we don't get that emotional connection. We just shut that part off of us and we become co-parenting roommates. Hey, who's going to pick Sarah up from soccer? Ok, this week we have to clean the house. We've got guests coming over and that's basically the extent of your conversation. Oh, when do you have meetings budget? You're not talking about the stuff that it's going to grow your marriage. You're not cultivating the connection anymore and you settle for the bare minimum and just watch Netflix when the kids go down. Yeah, but do you feel like your marriage is growing? Probably not.
Speaker 2:Oh, michelle, this is like this is hard to hear because I've been in this space. I've been in a very thriving, juicy marriage where we're just intimate and on and the eye contact and all the things. And then I've been in the rut where it's like we're just too tired the Netflix, the postpartum, you know whatever. And so I've been in both seasons and I am thinking back to when I was in, when we were in, my husband and I, the season of let's just watch Netflix, let's just like be business partners, let's just like check off, the bare minimum. There is no intimacy.
Speaker 2:I think to me when I'm in that place and honestly it felt hopeless, where I would consider the word divorce, you know, in my own mind, and sometimes out loud, and I would go to myself like, is this all there is? And it didn't feel like there was a way out. And so let's speak to maybe someone who's in this situation right now, because I know that we can resonate with it. I know that it's hard to hear, because it's it's work to get out Like it's it's I don't know if that's I'm phrasing Marriage is work. It's work right. So we have to take a lined action to get into the other space. We have to, you know, work on ourselves, right. So dive into that with us, like tell us when we're in that phase what's the next best thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the way I work with my clients is the approach is working on yourself, is working on your marriage. Okay, I know, naturally and I've done this before we want to just wait. Wait for them to change, wait for them to ask us on a date, wait for them to initiate more around the house. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But that's not helping the marriage, you know. What does is becoming more aware of what your triggers are. It's becoming more aware of your emotions and how to manage them, how to regulate them, so that you can effectively commonly communicate what your needs are, what you want out of your marriage, and so that you are capable as in not able to, but, like you, have the capacity to listen to them instead of rolling your eyes, talking over them, assuming you know what they mean, cutting them off, right, that's where arguments just spiral out of control.
Speaker 1:When you are connected with yourself and with your partner, that's when you can handle conflict differently. Right, arguing is just one way to handle it. What if conflict could just be a conversation between two adults who have something in front of them? That's a problem and they're tackling it together. Yeah, that's how you can use conflict as a catalyst to grow your marriage, where you can learn more about yourself in the process, learn more about your partner, learn more about how you two work together and get better right? The conflict is meant to evolve you as a couple, and if you're not using it as an opportunity to do that and instead you're just trying to push your point, be right, be heard, then it's like you're talking to a wall. Because they don't feel heard, they don't feel like they have a safe place to communicate their side of things, share their perspective, their experience, their feelings, and if there's no safe space, there's no growth at all, right?
Speaker 1:So the best thing you can do is work on yourself. How are you being as a wife? How are you improving the situation? Because you're in the situation you're in because you co-created it. You have responsibility in it too. You contributed to how things are going. Whether you enabled something, whether you didn't communicate something, didn't set healthy boundaries, whatever it is, you have a part in it. I'm not saying he doesn't, but you only have control over yourself, and that's the best way through it, because if you're just waiting, that's going to build resentment in you, which is going to affect how you interact with your spouse, which is not going to leave him feeling like he wants to work on it, because here she goes again. Let me just shut off. I'm just going to pretend I'm listening, or okay, here we go. We're just going to fight again, right.
Speaker 2:Michelle, at this point some people might be like this is the shittiest Christmas gift I've ever received.
Speaker 1:This is all out of love, though. I want your marriage to grow and it does take you reflecting and growing to have the marriage that you want. I want you to take a second and actually close your eyes and dream up of how you want your marriage to feel like in a year, 20 years, whatever Kids are gone. What do you want your dynamic to be like? Do you want to be like that old couple traveling all over the world, so in love, still flirty, grabbing each other's butts, however you do it, or old, happy around your grandkids, being so happy with how life has panned out for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, now take that vision and work your way backwards. Who did you need to be to create that and be that version right now? Be that version right now and whatever obstacles are getting in the way of like, but work through that. Those are your challenges that you need to grow through, because you need to do whatever you need to do to be that version, because if you're not that version, you're not going to get that vision. That's not going to happen. You coming from resentment, frustration, from well, you hurt me, so I'm not opening up to you, like physically opening up to you. We're not having sex yeah, that only hurts the marriage more. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think it can go past a certain time point where then it like there's something about the length of time for me that I've experienced like the longest we've gone without having sex which was probably in coordination with one of my pregnancies and or nursing journeys and it feels like the longer it goes, the longer I can let it go.
Speaker 1:Like coming back into the saddle, so to speak, has always felt like oh my God, this is like, this is new, this is vulnerable, this is hard this is very vulnerable for women because you are physically opening yourself up for someone to come into you, yes Whereas for men, it's vulnerable for people to see them truly, especially because of like let's just talk about toxic masculinity, right? The way men have grown up which I'm thankful that we are no longer raising boys this way is that their feelings are to be ignored, to be pushed down. Stop being so sensitive, stop crying like a girl, stop, you know whatever. Like. They're human too. Their feelings matter too, and it takes a safe space for them to let that come online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what's interesting is, when you just said that, I felt this tremendous feeling of compassion. I felt this tremendous feeling of understanding where our men are coming from and wanting to put aside all my stuff that I grew up with and we grew up with collectively as women and girls, to go. Wow, I can see from another's perspective. That must be so hard, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is yeah To be told to shut everything down, stop being weak, right? Yeah, and that's rough because they're shutting off a really vital part of themselves to not be in touch with their emotions. And that's what we need as women is their emotional intimacy, right. So what's crazy is that we need emotional intimacy to be receptive towards physical intimacy. They're the complete opposite. They need physical intimacy for them to feel open, to emotionally, be intimate with us, and so, as you can see, when we're both like, well, once I get this, then I'll get that. You see how that doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally Like what comes first the chicken or the egg, Exactly. And so we have to decide how much do we want that marriage, how much are we willing to work for it? And instead of playing the game of like pettiness, we have to be like no, I want that so bad for us that I'm willing to step up and take the first step. Not that you're going to be walking alone, but you do like someone needs to take the first step. And you, if you just tell them hey, I need you to open up to me, why don't you talk to me more? That's not going to encourage them. You know what would. Is you being like? You know what? I'm going to be compassionate and committed to us, and this is what I'm willing to do. And when they see you taking a step to like okay, maybe I can dip a toe in, let's see where this goes right. You have to rebuild that trust that you've broken as a couple by not providing each other is what you each need. Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you said how bad. How much do you want this marriage? That is a pivotal question that we can all ask ourselves how much do we want our partnerships? And for me, what I've noticed over the past few years, things have gotten, you know, like we've been on a journey, my husband and I, and things have been up and down again, like I alluded to. Over the past few years. We've added a third child, we have a toddler where you know moving, we're purchasing another home. All these different stressors some good, some, you know, challenging have come into the mix.
Speaker 2:And I have looked around and sometimes, if I'm being really honest, I've said to myself, well, what's the freaking point? Because all the married couples I see from family or you know, cultures, neighbors, just out and about right, the old couple who's sitting at the table not talking to each other. I'm like, oh my God, you know you're going to get to a point where you don't have anything to talk about. So when I look out, I go Well, what's the point? Because look at all these married couples who seem very miserable to me. And so I loved when you asked what's your vision of your marriage? So we can create this vision in our minds of like our ideal marriage. But then where the hell do we look for the married couples who are like, just like the ideal people who we want to strive to be? Where are those people? Where are these unicorns?
Speaker 1:Look for them and be friends with them honestly, because our environment dictates what we find normal and what we deem okay and what we settle for. And if you don't have what I call expanders, people who like motivate you to be like, oh, there is more, it could be better than this. If you don't have those people in your life, then you'd be like oh yeah, so and so, argues with their spouse a lot. My parents argue a lot, this is just how it is. Yeah, but I'm telling you as a marriage coach it's not, it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1:I don't argue with my husband. If we do, it's like maybe once a year, twice a year, most right. And even then it's like very short lived. We disagree, like don't get me wrong here, we're complete opposite people, okay, but we don't argue Because, like I said, it's a choice.
Speaker 1:So this, coming from someone who argued a lot, I have strong opinions, I have strong preferences, okay, so it's really easy for me to like pick a fight, but I've done the work, I've seen how it doesn't work to do that and I choose to be someone different for my marriage, for me to actually feel really close to my husband, for me to want to hang out with him, for me to be excited about dates, right For me to want to have sex. Okay, like this is coming from someone who I think we had sex a handful of times in a span of like a year, maybe a year and a half, because, like you said, postpartum pregnancy, whatever and I completely forgot about the sexual side of me. I'm like, well, I'm a mom now, yes, but we get to be sexual beings no matter what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I might not have the libido of, like, my teenage self or I'm like, oh my God, right yeah. That doesn't mean that I can't still enjoy it, that I can't still want him and want that part of our marriage to be alive, which is really important, even though I didn't care about it right and I didn't like physically desire it. It doesn't mean that it's unimportant because there's this whole other person in the relationship and that's really important to him. So if you are like how I was and I was like, oh, I can do without it, I'm good, I want you to think about how it would feel for you to be in a marriage where your partner doesn't care to get to know you, to know your thoughts, to see you, to support you and your endeavors.
Speaker 2:How would that feel Lonely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how they feel when they don't have that. Yeah, and so if you're like, oh shit, I don't want that, that's horrible, well, you're creating that by not making an effort. Okay, and there's things that you can do if your libido is low, to ramp it back up. Okay, from self exploration to just get to know yourself again as that sexual being, without like eyes or pressure from your partner. Yeah. To redoing your whole entire routine to prioritize connection right. A lot of times we're kind of giving our partners a leftovers, which is, like, always nothing at the end of the day. But looking at how you're creating burnout. When we're stressed and overwhelmed, our body's in survival mode. It doesn't want to have sex, pleasure is not on the table, we just want to sleep, we want to just veg, right, and if that's your current way of being, you got to change that. So a lot of times when I work with my clients, I take a look at that like, okay, how are you doing life right now? Because we need to change what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how? Let me know what you think about this. I've been setting an attention the past like month or so to notice pleasure and sexual pleasure, sure, but just pleasure in everyday life, simple pleasures in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wind blowing on my face or the sun Presence, yeah, like so I'm noticing pleasure. So everyday I'm like, okay, where can I notice pleasure? And it's interesting because it will expand our nervous systems capacity to feel that pleasure and to believe that we're worthy of feeling pleasure. Because I think I've gotten to places before in my own life with, you know, just being at a deficit of sleep and all the things that I'm like I'm not worthy of pleasure, there's no pleasure anymore. And I've start to feel like you know, like, oh, I don't know, it's just like you mentioned, like not needing it, not wanting it, not even being on the table, and then we go so long that we don't realize, so just noticing little little things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, definitely, because you need to balance it, because your body and your mind are going to be very quick to notice things that are wrong. But if we're not balancing it with what's good, then we have a very skewed perception of life. We're missing out on a lot of opportunity to savor and gratitude of what is right. We're always like, oh, what, what? What don't we have? Yeah, can you savor what you do have and embrace the season that you're in? Right, and exercise is a huge contributor. If you are not exercising and you don't love the body you're in, you're not going to feel confident to have sex. You're going to be thinking about oh my God, my stomach is jiggling. Right, if you don't have your routine set up, you're going to be like, oh my God, dishes aren't done or oh, I need to schedule this thing and I got to make brownies for this person's school event. Instead of being where you are, like, be where you are. Can you be present with your husband? Can you be so aware of your body that you know what you enjoy and tell him, because he gets enjoyment out of your enjoyment and I think that's been the biggest revelation to me and our sex life is like, holy shit, he actually thinks that I am like this goddess that he wants to please. When I accepted that, I was like oh, okay, I'm going to tell you all the things that I need, all the things that I like. I'm going to live this up because you love it. You get joy out of this, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so sometimes we trade chores for sex Because I'm like I need some time to myself, right? So, hey, if you do dishes, I can guarantee that it's going to end on a good note, right, and he's all about it. He's like hell, yeah, I'm going to put the kids' fed, I'm going to do dishes, I cannot wait to hang out with you. It's kind of like when we have like a girl's night out and we're like, oh my God, I don't care what I have to do to like prepare for this so that I can go out. Same thing for them. They're like I don't care what I have to do. If this means that we're going to connect, I'm on board.
Speaker 2:Sign me up and you can feel the difference of connection from oh yeah, from them. So we need that emotional intimacy, right, and they need the physical intimacy. But when we allow the physical intimacy, it's for me I can just speak. For me it's like instant. I'm just like, oh like. I look at them and smile instead of look at them and like, remember the things that annoy me that day, or right, and so it's interesting how they both kind of like and then they're more willing to show us their emotional side. So it's just all this like beautiful firewood for this wonderful fire that we are creating together.
Speaker 1:And they're more willing to support you. Like if you notice the next day, right, if you had sex at night time before bed, you noticed they're like more likely to touch you walking by, can I make you some tea? Like lately, my husband's been making me breakfast every morning. I'm like what is this.
Speaker 1:I can get used to it. I'll go exercise while you cook for me, okay, yeah, right, like it makes a huge difference in the day to day. You're more playful, you are able to be more generous with how you view them and what they do, right? The difference between oh my God, they didn't put their plate in the sink or in the dishwasher to oh, they must have been off in a hurry. Let me just help them out. That's the difference that communication or connection makes.
Speaker 1:And when you're arguing or when you're disagreeing, connection is what you lean on. If there's no foundation there, then you're gonna be quick to get into an argument. If there is foundation there, then you're gonna be like I wonder what's going on for them. You're gonna be more apt to listen instead of trying to push your point, trying to convince them that you're right. Right, you're gonna seek to understand before being understood, and that's a big deal. And when we feel like the other person wants to understand us, we're gonna be more willing to understand them. It's not this push-pull effect. You're going to be on the same side of the wall having a conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always just think about putting my ego down. Oh, yeah, just putting it down. It doesn't, you know, and I will check myself and I don't get it right all the time. I maybe have the time, so I just yeah, I think that awareness piece is so important. I think I love how you view the philosophy as work on yourself. Then it will start to fall in place.
Speaker 2:Yes, notice when you're picking a fight. Notice when you're in your head about what the sock on the floor means. Notice when you have a disagreement and you feel unsupported, how you want to pick another fight and fight until 2 am, like just starting to notice those things, and then you can put down the rope, set aside the ego and listen, and when we do that, then they will do it for us. It's like such a beautiful give and take. Oh, I love this. This conversation is a gift. I'm going to ask you the three questions that I ask everybody at the end of the interview, plus a bonus question, and the first is the bonus question and it's if you could teach a class to elementary aged kids, what would you teach them, michelle?
Speaker 1:I would teach them how to witness their thoughts. I think emotional regulation is a huge thing, and if we can all be more aware of how our feelings are affecting us and how we behave, the better society will be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love that. I would sign my kids up for sure. I think there's so much value in our children learning things from other amazing, wonderful women, especially who are self-aware and working on themselves. I think it's a beautiful thing to have that village. Every woman has their strengths and then they can pass that along to the kiddos in the community. Okay, so the next question is what, if anything, are you reading?
Speaker 1:right now, oh okay. So I'm the kind of person who starts a lot of books but doesn't finish a bunch of them, so right now on my desk I have you're the one you've been waiting for somatic internal family systems therapy and the five personality patterns. I love self-awareness books. I love learning different ways I can support myself and my clients and different ways to understand why we do what we do I'm a psych major so I love that and just different ways to support ourselves, our nervous system, our emotions, and so that we can truly be people that have the capacity to be in a relationship with other people and not just be walking around with a bunch of hurt trying to spew it on to other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Love it. What, if anything? Well, I guess something is bringing you joy today. But what is bringing you joy today?
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Okay, so this is kind of weird. I don't love that we're down to one car today because our van is being serviced right now, but because we're down to one car, my husband took all three kids to school, which made it possible for me to do a 20-minute hit workout, and I just felt so energized afterwards and so, I don't know, productive and successful. And then he came back and we ended up, you know, because I was just so feeling myself and so, anyway, nice, that's bringing me joy today. It's just a really great way to start the day and then, have breakfast made for me, like that was amazing, my gosh.
Speaker 2:That sounds like an amazing morning, and that is why you are a marriage coach, like case in point, right there You're walking the talk. I love it. And then the last question I have for you is who or what has taught you the most?
Speaker 1:Oh, who or what has taught me the most? I mean it's several. Who's? Honestly? It's my parents myself, my kids, my husband, my son, my oldest son, he's my stepson, his mom, my mother-in-law like literally anyone that has presented a challenge in my life has been the biggest teacher for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful and it's a testament to the work that you do and to the power of our close relationships, because, they're here to make us grow. So where can we find? You follow, you learn about the masterclass you talked about in the beginning or the middle of the episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have my own podcast, so go check it out there. It's called the Marriage and Motherhood podcast, and the best place to connect with me is Instagram. I love showing up there. I love connecting with people and seeing who's following me and supporting you and creating things that will help you grow your marriage and help you learn how to communicate with each other, because that's important, right. Communicate all day. Let's make it count.
Speaker 1:I also have a free Facebook group called the Marriage and Motherhood as well, so go join that so you can get in on the conversations happening in there and the masterclass. I'll share the link. This is like a quick masterclass that will teach you a conversation that will help you avoid arguments. Okay, because we talked a little bit about it how we're not really getting to the root of the problem and creating the vision. So let's teach you how to have a really effective conversation so that you can build that trust, partnership and marriage that you want and know that you are working towards the same thing, so that you can essentially nip all those potential arguments in the bud and be like we don't need to have that because we already know we're headed in the same direction, right.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I think this is such an important piece because we all like to listen to podcasts, we all like to consume the information but actually integrating it. So taking like the steps to work on it daily is like the next step. So go get into that masterclass, get into the Facebook group and start taking those tiny actions in the day. You know that's really going to push you to change something, rather than just, you know, listen to it, hear it, think, oh, that would be nice, but that's not for me or I can't do it. You know, I think that's some of the self-talk that we have a lot Like oh, it's too hard. But I think, with an amazing coach like you to support, you know, it makes it that much easier. So thank you for the work you do, Thank you for the gift of the masterclass and thank you for being here. Thanks so much for having me. I loved this. Thanks everyone for supporting me. You can stay.