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219. How To Be Resilient Through The Storms In Marriage And Life · The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Hi and welcome to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy, and today's title of the episode is how to be Resilient through the Storms in Marriage and Life, because we are going to encounter storms, just like the weather.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Right, it's so unpredictable and we could wake up one day and have a massive storm hit our marriage, hit our life, and are we going to be prepared?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Do we know how to handle that?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Amy and I have had probably quite a few storms in our marriage.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe we live in like Oregon or somewhere storms and rains all the time, I don't know, but we've had to really learn how to navigate and handle those things in our lives.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: It's really, really difficult if you don't know what to do.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: In fact, many times we have a tendency to naturally want to do the opposite of what we should be doing through those difficult times.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So that's the podcast today.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: And Nick is going to make this one super, super exciting.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, aren't everyone of them exciting.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I just feel like we've been really what's the word?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Very serious the last few episodes, so we're going to try and make this one a little more.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Lighten up a little bit.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Lighten up a little bit, making it a little more fun maybe Fun ideas.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to see what we can do, but You're starting out with oh yeah, oh, I had a.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I told Nick to share a joke.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: That's what I meant by enlightening it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember what I was going to say.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: You don't remember your joke?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: No, I don't, I totally forgot.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It was like oh, I'm going to totally butcher you.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I'm totally on the spot here.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: My wife said that I should listen to her more clearly.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: At least I think that's what she said.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Was that the joke?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I think that was yeah, but you didn't say it right, I totally butchered it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: That's awful.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: At least I think that's what she said they're booing me off the stage, they're throwing stuff at me.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I guess you better keep your job.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, that was awful, so we'll move into the podcast.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: So, when you're going through the rocky and stormy times in life, what are the things you can do?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Because every couple out there listening is going to, like I said, hit the storm, and some storms are going to be worse than others.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Some storms are going to last a long time, some storms are going to blow over pretty quickly.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Stresses could include a job loss, sickness, a death, just anything.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Really, there's so many things that this could entail.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Especially right now.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like so many couples are stressed about finances and bills and just the world.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: It's hard.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: A lot of people are both working and we all know what stress does to intimacy right into your marriage.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: When one person is tired and worked out, stressed out of their mind, it affects both people and if both people like that, it just affects all areas of intimacy completely.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Well, and I'm really glad you brought that up because you're so right I feel like, with everything going on in the world right now the economy, inflation I think the majority of people would say that their lives are probably more stressful.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: A lot of people probably are going through stormy times right now and just the unknown, like we know a storm is coming.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: We believe things are going to get even worse, that we're kind of headed for bigger storms, so to speak, and so I'm glad you brought that up, because I really do feel like there are a lot of storm clouds, so to speak, moving in and that storm is gathering and difficult times are going to be ahead for a lot of people.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all about getting prepared right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we can fill that as well.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: It's just you can really sense just things building.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: So we'll talk about the things that couples can do to really weather these storms and stay strong together.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So I mean obviously the first thing you hear us talk about this all the time but communication During these difficult times, I know for me like naturally, like when things are tough or when you're having those conversations together and the conversations aren't the easy ones that are maybe more difficult I personally have a tendency to probably be less talkative and probably less likely to share my feelings and things like that.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I would say I'm better at that, but that's kind of my, I would say, tendency.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I would probably say that when we went through really hard financial stuff like 12 years, 15 years ago, you were definitely like that.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: You kind of just closed down.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like I don't want to talk about this.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I feel like you're opposite now.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's good.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: That's good, I've changed.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like I think you've really gotten those communication tools down.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: But I think it's natural for most people on hard conversations to just be like I don't want to talk about that.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, again, it's totally the way my personality was and Well, it turns into one of those nagging conversations, right?
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: Like we have to talk about this again and again, or both so stressed and it usually can.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: If you're both stressed, it can turn heated very easily, right?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think too, when things are really difficult sometimes maybe we're not thinking clearly or thinking straight on how to handle things it just is so important, when things are difficult and you're going through tough things, to really open up that communication even more so than you might normally do.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very important to show very much vulnerability and how you're really feeling and how it's affecting you and to really listen to each other.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, communication isn't just talking.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: If you don't have the communication skills, the tools of listening and acknowledging, I mean your communication doesn't really help.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Right, it's called healthy communication and that includes listening.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: So you have to be able to be vulnerable but, as a spouse, or your spouse needs to be able to take in what you're saying, really hear what you're saying and try to understand it for it to do any good.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the things that communication really does is it makes it an issue that you're working on together.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: The second you stop communication.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: It becomes almost like one person, one person dealing with it their way and making decisions their way, and the other spouse Doing the same thing and that, and that can obviously be just detrimental.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, how often do you hear of people going through trials or struggles or financial hard times and then they end up getting divorced?
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Right, they just can't weather those storms together, them.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: The first thing that happens is they probably stop communicating and Close up and try to just deal with things on their own, because sometimes that's Especially as men that's the way we're taught is like oh, don't share your feelings or concerns, just be a man and handle things, and that's the opposite of what we should actually do for sure.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: So, great.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: It's also really important to develop coping mechanisms to handle the stress together, and these coping mechanisms Are just healthy ways to manage the stress.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You know it could include going and exercising together, whether or jogging, or going on walks, or Getting out and doing fun things together.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I think I can say for us in our relationship, when we were going through the really difficult times financially, we probably stopped doing things that, I guess, manage the stress together.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: We stopped having fun, we stopped so many other things.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I think that made things even more stressful and more difficult.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: You can always find fun things to do or ways to you know, manage the stress together.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: That's like the main problem.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: As you're saying that, I'm thinking.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, when that happened to us, we started getting a little more disconnected because we were both stressed.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: And Then I started a business and started working more because I was stressed trying to fix the problem right.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah and then I get resentful, because then one person feels like they're fixing the problem or trying to work too hard, and then you get separated in that way too.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: And then if you're financially tight you're like, well, date nights out, we don't have the money right.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: So then those kind of things start to go bye-bye.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: So all of a sudden you start one person might take on more work and then be resentful or I don't know.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: There's just you definitely stop doing the things that are super in pairs, like even more so important at that moment.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm so, yeah, like you've got to keep doing those simple things we always talk about.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Like I wish we would have kept Dating and not realized, oh, we have to have all this money to go on dates.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: Like we could have done better.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: I mean more intentional at home, right, or?
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Hey, there still has to be healthy boundaries when it comes to work.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Like you still have to take a little bit time off for your marriage or your marriage isn't gonna make it through.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: And then like what was the whole point?
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Trying to work extra to make more money when your marriage falls apart, right.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Like looking back.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: We did so many things wrong.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, we totally.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I mean we totally did and luckily, luckily, we learned those lessons and yeah, they were the hard way, but I think we became stronger, like, oh, next time this hits we're not handling things this way again or we're gonna do things differently.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I think the only thing that held us together, that was that was seriously, that we were committed.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were 100% Committed, but we were not thriving.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: We were absolutely just surviving at that moment and we don't want anyone.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: You can go through hard times and still survive.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Like we see couples going through financial crisis and just Devastations, loss of jobs for months and months and months and months at a time, and they're still thriving.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: So Like it really does come down to Perspective attitude trying to fix that problem as a team, trying to help relieve each other's stress Right in whatever that way that looks like for your marriage and I wish we would have done a better job, I know, but we, we made it through it well, there's obviously gonna be ways you individually handle the stress, but I love how it talks about you know, handling the stress together, creating creating that stronger bond and unity together as a couple.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important to to have adaptability and flexibility.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I know for me, for a while, when things were difficult, I continued to try to do the same thing and same thing and same thing.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I I probably I wasn't very good at adapting and being flexible, and we all know that life is not going to go as planned.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I bet every one of us could look back and say our life is probably completely different than what we had envisioned.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And so being able to adapt and obviously be flexible with the things that life throws at you and being able to, so to speak, call an audible right like you would in football, yeah, where you can, you can go a different direction and pivot on what you need to do.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So you got to recognize that your plans and circumstances are probably going to change.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: That's probably one of the things I wish I would have known when we got married is not like everyone has that picture in their mind what marriage and family and life is going to work out like oh, by this I'm going to do this, I'm going to accomplish this.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: It's going to look like this I think the best marriage advice anybody could give at their wedding is like throw out all that out the door and you just got to roll with God's plan.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah like literally right, like it's not your plan, like you have to, like you said, be flexible and okay with change, with trials, and just have faith, like I would.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: That's what I would give.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Amy and I never ever would have imagined we would be doing what we're doing, like this is probably the last thing I ever could have imagined doing in our life.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: When we got married, I wanted to be either a big graphic designer or a huge artist.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Nick was planning on going on the PGA tour.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: We had our dreams right.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: We had our dreams in place like that when we got married.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: That's what it looked like.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: We were going to have kids.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: We're going to have this awesome, successful lifestyle.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: You had your dreams, I had my dreams.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: And then, all of a sudden, our life changed.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say for the bad, but just changed right and things got shaken.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Things didn't work out, plans didn't got changed.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Decisions were made.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I woke up one day and felt like, oh, I have the strongest feeling I've ever had.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: This isn't the right thing to pursue and do.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: After his entire life of pursuing it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought oh, if I listen to that prompting, then everything from here on out should be easy, because I'm listening to what I should do, and that was the furthest thing from the truth that ever could have happened.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: So what you're saying is like we had to learn to roll with the punches and so when my kids start getting married, I think my biggest piece of advice is you just can't plan everything out Like God has a bigger plan and you just you got to like be a team and know that you're getting into life together and be okay where it goes Right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And I want to point out, too, that a lot of times when bad things happen like, let's say, you have a job loss we look at that like it's the end of the world.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: But oftentimes it's just another door that's even better will open up.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: We had a good friend that lost their job recently and it was devastating, it was completely unexpected.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: And, lo and behold, a couple months later they got an even better job with better pay that allowed them to be with their family, more Benefits Like they're just, they were just like.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: This couldn't have worked out any better.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And so you know, trusting in God and knowing that, hey, even though something bad happened, maybe there's going to be another door that opens up.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I just need to be flexible and adapt to you know what what he has for me.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I can honestly say, in our situation, you know, trying to pursue some of the goals that we had, we ended up getting into like real estate and mortgages.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: For a while I was doing mortgages and it was doing real estate, and this was before 2008 hit.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: We had gotten into some investing and 2008 hit us like it hit a lot of people, like wiped us right, like can't even explain it for little kids and just destroyed us financially, which was a big part of our you know.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, decisions could have I mean a lot of things come into effect with that right, but we had to reevaluate our entire life, right.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: And that's when things got really hard, for a while that we got tested and challenged like we never would have in any other way, which, all of a sudden, this is where we had to start implementing things and be like are we a rock?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Are we committed?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Like what does marriage look like to us?
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: How do we get through this and how do?
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: And then, all of a sudden, like down.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: You know, it was yours.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: For us it was really, really hard and we learned a ton, but that's where the app came from.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: That's where we, like completely changed our careers in our life and just let God guide us.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I could totally say that you have to be flexible, yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And just let things happen.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Because things are going to happen.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It's not a matter of if they're going to happen because they are.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It's a matter of when these things are going to happen, and it doesn't mean that they're not hard, that's right, that's for sure it doesn't mean they're not hard.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: The next thing is, you know, having that strength and unity, recognize you are a team and when you're facing adversity or bad things in your life, it's crucial to stand together, support each other, encourage each other, communicate instead of allowing it to drive you apart, and I think that's I think that's so important.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I know, for me, I made a lot of decisions on my own because I'm like, okay, I'm the husband, it's my job to get us out of this mess, and so I just quietly went and made a lot of decisions that ended up making the situation even worse, and I didn't tell Amy about a lot of those things because I was like this is just my job, I have to do this and don't do that.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Do the opposite, absolutely do the opposite of that.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: That's kind of caused a lot of heartbreak, resentment, and then healing and forgiveness later on.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, be together in unity, as a team.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Encourage and do everything and make all decisions together.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Which is also hard.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: We get that.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: We get that right Because everyone's different, everyone's personalities are different.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: It's not just easy to be like let's be a perfect little team all the time, sir.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Personalities can make that really, really tricky.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: For sure yeah, absolutely, especially if you've got someone that's stubborn or wants to be in charge or actually like growing well and this is.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to add this our backgrounds and our pasts play so much into what I'm saying because Nick was thinking I have to be the supporter and I was like he needs to be the supporter and that didn't work in our marriage.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: That didn't happen in our marriage.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: So we had to get past that.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Certain roles and certain things that you're brought up to believe they change, right, yeah, you marry two opposite people or two different backgrounds.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying sometimes it's harder than it can.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it can be hard.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: No question, I really like the next one and I totally dropped the ball in this area as well.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: But you know, really practice self-care, support each other, continue to exercise and focus on your well-being.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: You dropped the ball.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I remember I got up to like a hundred and ninety three pounds.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, and he's a little tiny guy.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I'm a tiny guy and I looked in the mirror one day and I'm like, who is that guy?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: He's got like a double chin and I was disgusted with myself and just completely let myself go.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And so it's really important to continue to exercise and do those things together and focus a little bit on yourself.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: I have to reiterate this even more for the women, because while my kids were little and I was financially supporting our family, I didn't do anything for myself.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I look back and I'm like more resentful of myself almost than anyone, because that is the time when you need to go do fun things, to still have a hobby, to still feel like you have something, rather than just the caretaker of the whole family, like it's so important to maintain that individual love and self-love and I don't know.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I think that's really important because you cannot show up in your marriage in a healthy way if you're not physically and mentally healthy, and sometimes when we quit exercising or getting outside or doing stuff for ourselves that makes us feel beautiful or happy or healthy, it totally impacts your spouse.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: It totally impacts your marriage.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no question, I totally agree Resilience through learning.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: It's so important to be resilient through the difficult times.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I, amy and I haven't shared everything we've been through and I think, at an appropriate time, we will, because I think some of the things are still fresh and things that maybe haven't run their course completely.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: But I think it's so important to be resilient and not give up and just trust that everything's gonna be okay.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not even exaggerating when I say this.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: We were literally like had like a thousand dollars left in the bank and almost like no hope, and within about a week's period of time, thousand bucks in the bank.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: You mean like negatively owed money.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but literally like within about a week's period of time, our whole world completely changed to where we had just some things happen that were miracles, that completely changed our situation.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm saying this only for the reason like be resilient, put your faith and trust in God and hand things over to him and he will, you know, help, direct you, help you make the right decisions and help you get through those stormy times in marriage and life, if you keep working hard.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: If you don't give up and you keep working hard because you have to do your part right.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And I also think, too, it's important to, like I said, look back and pull the good from the things that you've gone through previously, the stormy things that you've gone through.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: There's always ways to be able to pull the good out of those things and learn so that when you know the storms hit again, you're prepared for those.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Which I think comes down to maybe documenting or writing.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I was kind of a journal keeper back in those days, but when you go through really hard stuff and you've learned something, to write it down in case you have to go through it again, I don't know.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not like a huge writer, but I think it's really important, you know, to maintain your.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe you're getting into this gratitude.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I was the opposite.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: I was like man, I'm burning that journal.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I don't ever want to.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I don't ever want to remember those things again, and it's amazing how quickly we do forget like things that we go through a lot of the times.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but one of the most important things, too, is continue to maintain perspective and optimism.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: It's so easy to focus on the things that we're going through right at that moment that we tend to forget about, like the big picture in life.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, so easy to forget.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: And I'm not sitting here, we're human.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: We're saying that that's an easy thing to do, because it absolutely isn't.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't looking at things that way.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: I was looking at things from that hey, I need this here and now.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: But looking back, I guess I should say we did kind of look at things from the bigger picture as far as our relationship goes right For our relationship absolutely.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: So I guess I can't say we failed in a lot of areas.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: But it is so important to keep the perspective in mind, the big picture, to know that things are going to pass, and try to maintain that positivity throughout that.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Well, it really comes down to not letting your trials break your marriage, right, and so I think what you're trying to say is it was really hard not focusing on the negative in the trial, like the trial itself, but when you look at the whole marriage perspective in a big picture, it helps with those little trials, right?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: For sure, which is really really hard to do, like it takes a lot of patience and a lot of faith, a lot of the things that we, as humans, struggle to have when things are really hard.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Well, like I said at the beginning, we tend to do the opposite of what we probably should do, right?
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Like why we're called natural men right Like we're like.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Naturally want to do the opposite.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: And so, like we always say, like marriage is a really big test, like we're humans, and all of a sudden we come into marriage and it's like you're opposite.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: You're sometimes sexually opposite, you're sometimes emotionally opposite, you come from opposite backgrounds a lot of times.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you have different goals I hope not.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: But like there's lots of differences between us and here we're like okay, get married, stay committed, take care of each other.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Good luck to you.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, by the way, you gotta financially support raise kids, own a house, maybe have a pet Like.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Have a pet Deal Pets, multiple pets if you're me.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I did that to Nick.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Maybe it was a little revenge.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Just kidding, by the way.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I'm going to throw health trails at you, financial trails that you, family trails that you that are hard as crap.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Try to stay together and not just stay together.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Be happy and thrive through all this.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: It's rough, it's a lot to ask, right?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: It's kind of why we're here and why we're.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Marriage is one of the biggest tests is because it makes us, hopefully, better.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: The test is so much it's supposed to make us better and so having that perspective of this marriage is a bigger thing than this.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we have to focus on OK, this is a test.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Well, we had a guy say something at church the other day that really hit me too.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: He said 90% of the things we do just suck.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: They're difficult, right, yeah, they are.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: We go to work, we don't want to go to work, we spend X amount of hours per day, even vacation.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: He brought up vacation.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: He's like we have to book the vacation, we spend a ton of money, we have to go to the airport and pack and we have to rent a car and half the kids are whining, the kids are fighting and complaining and there's all these things happening and 80% to 90% of the vacation sucks, but the 10% to 20% is just like blissful.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: And as we look back, why do we still keep going on vacations?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Why do we still do these things that are so hard or difficult?
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: It's because of that 10% or that 20% of blissfulness.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And I think life is like that a lot.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: So much of life is so difficult, but it's just that small portion that is amazing.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: That, I guess, gives us that happiness, that optimism.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Well, his, actual quote, I hope I got it right is the hard times outnumber the easy or good times?
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: But the good times, or that 20%, 10%, whatever that is completely outweighs the hard times.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: And I'm like the longer I live, the longer I'm married, the older my kids get, the more I'm like, yeah, 90% of life sometimes is super, super hard and challenging as trials.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: But that 10% or 20% or maybe it's 50%, I don't know what your life looks like Everyone's numbers are different, but that heart, that more lower point outweighs.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: That's why we get up every day, right?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: It's for those little moments in our day, or little moments in our marriage or our parenting that outweigh the hard times.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Because the hard times are always an outnumber.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: They just are Life.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Life isn't easy.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Marriage isn't easy when marriage is amazing, which is why we totally came up with ultimate intimacy.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: That's what we all want, that rough 80% of marriage, that 20% of ultimate intimacy in your marriage when it's thriving, when it's passionate, when you're making love, and it's awesome when you're connecting on a deeper level emotionally.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: All those moments totally outweigh those hard times.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Agreed.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I totally, you know, totally agree.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And the final one, which I think is really hard for a lot of people too, is seek help when needed.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Don't hesitate to seek guidance or thoughts from professionals or people that are close to you friends, family, those types of things, I mean.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes they can give great feedback, especially when they're not in this situation, and I wish we would have done maybe a little bit more of that.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to say, since we're just admitting all our flaws today we sucked at this and we did not do this and that was one of our biggest regrets, because I think those several, several years that were really hard for us could have been easier if we would elect over pride and realized that seeking professional help or a third party does not mean that you are any less in any way.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Like I think we had a pride up, like we can fix this ourselves.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: We don't need someone to fix this.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I don't need to spend money on getting a mediator, whatever Like.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: I just think that having a third party once in a while if it gets hard enough or bad enough or maybe it doesn't even need to get bad We've talked about this a long time ago.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: But maintenance sometimes getting a professional counselor if you really need help can be more maintenance rather than fixing right Sometimes we wait.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, we need professional help because our marriage needs fixing where, if we look at it more and I wish we would have of more of a maintenance thing like help us get through this, like help us, so it doesn't get broken, so it doesn't break, and so I think we've heard marriage advice from newlyweds now that I wish we would have heard when we were younger, and I think it was someone that came to our marriage retreat last year and they had only been married a year and they're like, oh, we already go to a marriage counselor and our marriage is amazing because we don't let any of those things become rocky, Because we literally go get professional help to learn these tools once a week or once a month, whatever.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I don't remember what it was right now and we've only been married a year, but our marriage is great and I was like, oh my gosh, I never had that perspective that sometimes going to a professional for something before it's broken is a great thing to do.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: However, I'm going to say this that you have to be extremely careful about who you're going to and getting help with.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: They need to be someone that you trust, someone that you know.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: We see a lot of times where there's horrible advice given and it actually makes a problem worse.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Or they're not there to actually help you fix something.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: They just want your money, and so they're going to do it right.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: So the longer you're needing help and, yeah, exactly, some therapists out there are in the business of just making money and the longer you're sick or the longer you need them, the more money they make.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And again, not all of them, I'm not saying all of them are, but I'm just saying you've got to be very, very careful about who you trust and who you're, I guess, having help right.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: So yes, there's a very big balance when it comes to professional help, getting the right people.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know, we could go a whole other podcast on that.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, which we probably will.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: We probably do need to talk about that.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: But don't wait to get, and doesn't even have to be, a counselor.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: It could be someone you both look up to, a family member, someone who has a lot of experience.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Like, just sometimes a third priority can be helpful and sometimes it can be not helpful.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: So just being careful there.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that you brought that up.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Anyways, you have anything else to add.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I just feel like being positive, staying a team, being flexible with life and knowing that things can change.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: And if life is flexible, just literally stepping back and realizing if we do this together, we can conquer anything.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And I think that's what got us through our hard times was realizing there's a bigger picture.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: This is temporary and I've seen couples go through hard stuff and come out stronger, so maybe that can be us.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Right.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Love it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Well, christmas is coming quick.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: We hope all of you are having a great holiday season and enjoying the time together with your families, and let us know if we can do anything for you.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: We have some great products at shopultimateintimacycom to help connect you as a couple and go check it out.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: So got some great things going on.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: So hope you enjoyed the podcast and until next time, we hope all of you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.