Hey Julia Woods
Honestly…we aren’t good
Here is the link to Marriage Growth Community
https://beautifuloutcome.com/marriage-growth-community
In this episode, we dive into our guests, Jared and Kurrin's story of how they transformed their failing marriage. They both felt helpless, and Jared said it would take a marriage miracle to turn their 15-year marriage around. This episode is rich with insights, particularly valuable for couples who find themselves struggling to balance family life and personal development.
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🎁 Free Gift for you! 100 Prompts and Ideas to Connect with your Spouse!
🎁 FREE GIFT: Turn Defensiveness into Connection! https://beautifuloutcome.com/e-guide
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👉 Take the free communication quiz! What’s YOUR communication type?! https://beautifuloutcome.com/communication-quiz
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Where you can find me:
INSTAGRAM: Connect with me at @HeyJuliaWoods
YOUTUBE: Subscribe to @HeyJuliaWoods
SHOP: Marriage resources in my storefront
RETREATS: Attend a Marriage Workshop
WEBSITE: Find more resources at BeautifulOutcome.com
FACEBOOK: Like me at /HeyJuliaWoods
Here is the link to Marriage Growth Community
https://beautifuloutcome.com/marriage-growth-community
In this episode, we dive into our guests, Jared and Kurrin's story of how they transformed their failing marriage. They both felt helpless, and Jared said it would take a marriage miracle to turn their 15-year marriage around. This episode is rich with insights, particularly valuable for couples who find themselves struggling to balance family life and personal development.
_______
🎁 Free Gift for you! 100 Prompts and Ideas to Connect with your Spouse!
🎁 FREE GIFT: Turn Defensiveness into Connection! https://beautifuloutcome.com/e-guide
_
👉 Take the free communication quiz! What’s YOUR communication type?! https://beautifuloutcome.com/communication-quiz
_______
Where you can find me:
INSTAGRAM: Connect with me at @HeyJuliaWoods
YOUTUBE: Subscribe to @HeyJuliaWoods
SHOP: Marriage resources in my storefront
RETREATS: Attend a Marriage Workshop
WEBSITE: Find more resources at BeautifulOutcome.com
FACEBOOK: Like me at /HeyJuliaWoods
Welcome to hey Julia Woods podcast. I'm your host, julia Woods, founder of Beautiful Outcome, a coaching company focused on helping couples learn to see and understand each other, even in the most difficult conversations. On my podcast, I will share with you the real and raw of the messiness and amazingness of marriage. I'll share with you aspects of my relationship and the couples I coach in a way that you can see yourself and find the tools that you need to build the marriage you long for. All right, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 1:I am so excited for you to meet Jared and Corinne, this couple. They have been married for 15 years and they have three children that range from six to 11 years old, and I am just so excited for you to hear their story. It's a unique story for me in regards to it's not uncommon for me to get to work with one spouse first and then the other spouse joins. So that's what this story is is. Corinne started working with me a little over a year ago I think May of 2023. And in that year, we got to go pretty deep and wide and, as she showed up in her marriage and, you know, did her work, she was allowing Jared to do his work, and Jared was actually working with a counselor doing some of your work, and now, as of recent, you guys are working together through Marriage Thrive and are starting to do joint coaching calls with me. So did I get that right? Anything you guys would change about what I shared is your story.
Speaker 3:I would say that's right. Yeah, that sounds pretty close.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's probably a detail in there that we didn't remember, but we can leave it out. Okay, good, all right. So because you guys have been in Marriage Thrive for about, you're about seven lessons in. Everything that we're going to talk about applies because, jared, you are gaining a lot of what Corinne has been gaining and, corinne, you're gaining more as you go through the Marriage Thrive with Jared. So I'd love to start by you guys, each of you describing your own experience of what was your hardest season in marriage. You've been married 15 years, have three kids. What has been the hardest season for each of you?
Speaker 1:Before we dive deeper into today's episode, I want to talk to you about something super exciting. It's a game changer really. To have the relationship you long for, you must take responsibility for yourself and who you are being, moment by moment. It's not about what your spouse needs to change. It's about you taking control of the only thing you can control, which is you. That's the truth that nobody's talking about when they talk about marriage, but I am inside the marriage growth Community where I will help you take responsibility for your ability to lead conversations with your spouse, to love and connection, so you can have the marriage you dreamed of when you first fell in love. At the very first link in the show notes you can grab my Marriage Growth Community and that's really going to help. I know that because it's based on the same principles I've used to coach this couple and hundreds of other couples to marriage success over the last nine years. So grab Marriage Growth Community at the top of the show notes. Okay, back to the show.
Speaker 2:So my answer is when our third child was born, I feel like we entered into a season of hard, and Jared and I did some reflecting on this, um, and the hard came about. A year to a year and a half after he was born. I sensed some hard, some hard uh, around his birth because he just was so different than our other two and definitely more challenging and definitely felt like there were a lot more needs from everybody, a lot more things I was trying to meet for our kids as a mother of three and then also as a wife. So I started feeling the challenges when he was born. But at about a year and a half is when we really hit a hard season. We were not communicating, we were living in a lot of bitterness and resentment and it continued to build until you and I started working together a lot of years, yeah.
Speaker 1:So about from 10 to 14 years in the marriage. Was in your experience, Corinne, the hard season?
Speaker 2:It was a little bit less than 10 to 14 years. I mean it was he's. He's six and a half. So I would say our marriage was it was never great. If I'm being honest, it was never great. We had highs and lows. We had good moments, but I think Jared would agree with me when I say we probably had more lows than highs.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the hard season came. So for six years we sat in really a lot of ugly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so marriage year is nine to 15 then.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, sorry, that's what you were saying, yeah no problem.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit more. You said there was a lot of business you weren't communicating. Was that always that way, or did it come gradually, like what was the bitterness and resentment around? Can you explain that a little more?
Speaker 2:So I learned through working together that I'm an avoider. So I up until now. So I did not. I did not communicate well and my communication style was two things stonewalling and shaming, blaming, criticizing and telling him what he needs to do. So once I would go ahead and share with him what I felt he needed to do in all of those ways. I would then Stonewall, he would shut down and then I would decide it's not even worth the conversation because nothing comes of it, nothing changes, and we would sit in that for a long time.
Speaker 1:A long time, how long? Like, tell me link. Like you would have a. Maybe what I'm sensing you say is that you get upset but you would hold it and then you would finally tell him you know, shame, blame, judge, all that, and then then you would shut down. Is that accurate? What am I? Tell me a little bit more about how that went.
Speaker 2:I would say that's. That's pretty accurate. I would not hold on to it for long. I often acted in the moment and I often told him what I was thinking in the moment before I'd even had a chance to think it through, before I'd have a chance to process my own thoughts or what I was even angry or upset about. And once this fight or this argument, or really me coming at him, would happen, we would often go weeks to months without any resolution. Yeah, and then we would do the business of marriage and the business of who's picking up the kids and who's taking them here and who's. And that was, that was our communication style in that hard season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I. That's not uncommon. I think a lot of people will resonate with that. So can you tell me in that season, corinne, what were you, what were some of the emotions you were most feeling?
Speaker 2:In the moment I I would say I was most feeling anger and I was feeling a lot of uh resentment for who he was showing up as as a husband, and I had decided I can't change, I can't do anything, I'm a victim of this circumstance. Until he changes, our marriage is not going to get better. Until he changes something. I'm not going to be happy until he does X, y, z. So I sat in that until I realized and uncovered that there was a lot of fear under what I was experiencing. There was fear of our marriage not working and of divorce. There was fear of our family falling apart, which is something that Jared and I both experienced as children. We both came from divorced homes. So I had a lot of fear underneath all of these uh emotions and all of these experiences I had that I didn't uncover.
Speaker 1:For a while, uncover for a while. Yeah, yeah, makes sense, jared. How? What would you say is the hardest season you?
Speaker 3:experienced in your marriage. I would say all of it.
Speaker 1:The whole marriage yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, from day one till day two till day now. So I mean, there is a little bit of truth though, to that statement, because marriage is challenging and, as Corinne had mentioned, we had a lot of lows. We had more lows than we had of highs, and our highs unfortunately wouldn't last very long before a new low would come in and stuff. And that was through kind of from the beginning. But I would actually kind of be on the same page with her when it comes to probably the hardest time that we dealt with was a little bit after our third child was born. The dynamic changed in the family. We went from kind of having a little bit of a seems like a good routine there's one boy, there's one girl, there's one mom, there's one dad, you got one, I got one. It's kind of working out, it's flowing. We started to kind of connect a little bit better through that time, and you know things happen. You know when you play with fireworks sometimes you get burnt. So you know, third child came and then at first it was like okay, okay, okay. But then I think, as it started to set in a little bit, it was like hey, I have work to do, I've got things to do, you've got stuff, and so then we kind of started growing more apart in those ways and through that became a lot of, a lot of those feelings really started.
Speaker 3:I think that maybe we've had from maybe even kind of the beginning of marriage, cause, you know you, you don't realize, you kind of have these things and then they start building up, building up, and then when the really hard times come out, that's when I think it all starts to flood, um, and so I think that's when we started to have, uh, even heavier breakdowns in communication. You know, we didn't talk very much. We lived, as Corinne kind of mentioned, we co-parented really well, but we didn't live marriage very well. So we wanted to make sure that our kids were OK, but it was all kind of about them, it wasn't really about us. We kind of spent a little bit of in and out of counseling Um, and that wasn't kind of working.
Speaker 3:And then, finally, when we, I guess, bunker down and started doing it separately, where she was working with you and I was working with somebody else, that's when it actually started to take off, because instead of us arguing and discussing our problems that we don't like about the other person during counseling. Now we kind of focused on okay, here's what you stink at, we're going to talk about. You know, I'd be like oh I, I didn't realize I've contributed to that, different things like that. So so it's been a blessing now, since obviously we've never had any negative since we started. Now everything's perfect.
Speaker 2:But he jokes a lot, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm getting used to his sarcasm.
Speaker 3:So, so, yeah, so that's I would. I would say those. Those age ranges are our ninth to almost 15th year of marriage.
Speaker 1:Those have been probably the most challenging times yeah, one of the things that's so helpful because we often can feel alone in our um journey of marriage and the challenges of it. So one of the things that's often really helpful for couples is just con or listeners, is like context, like, if you guys can come to, does anything come up when you think about, like in that season between years nine and 15, what was what was like one of the biggest fights that come to your mind that you now look back on and you're like, wow, that was very revealing. When I look at it now and like you know, often there's a line that's said in that fight that like brings you to really be like, okay, we got to do something or we are. This is not going in a good place. Anything come to mind for either of you when you think about the biggest fight or the sentence that you said that you know that kind of changed it for you.
Speaker 2:I remember saying this isn't working and we're either going to fix this or we're going to get divorced. There's no other option. At this point. Because there was no other option, it was not working. The pain got, it became too hard to live in every day and in that moment of speaking that sentence, I saw no other way out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I didn't see a way through until I was wondering like what, on a scale of one to 10, how high was your hope when you said we're either going to fix this or we're going to end this? Like, how much hope was there? Was there much? Or you just really kind of thought it's probably, we're probably not going to be able to fix it, so it's going to end?
Speaker 2:I was at a one or a two on the hope scale. I really thought our marriage had so many cyclical patterns that I thought this is pretty hopeless.
Speaker 2:But this is pretty hopeless and when we started doing the work and I learned the way through it and I learned to look at my own contributions and to help me see things that I was blind to and I could not see, it shifted the course of our marriage and it shifted what I was focusing on, because for as long as, for as long as I focused on, he is the problem and he needs to fix this for this to get better. Nothing changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, jared, any lines that you remember or moments that you remember that come to mind that were just like OK, this is not.
Speaker 3:I remember, I remember a real quick story and I shared this with Corinne a little while back, because there's a lot to what she's saying right now. One of the things, one of the things I remember, is we went to counseling before and it kind of was like okay, it seemed like there were little nuggets of hope, but then it really just kind of dwindled back out in the same patterns and the same routine kept going on and going on and then when it came out again like hey, we need to go to counsel, this is not working, we're going to. And so I had kind of told her I said I just don't think, I don't think it's going to work because I don't have much hope to it. And part of that reason, part of that reason is I I saw her in the kind of mindset that she had, which was you need to change and if you don't change we can't do anything. And the hard part for me was like I didn't disagree with her statement but I needed her to realize she's contributing to this. And it wasn't until she got she found you to realize that she did contribute to it. I'm not obviously, I had my own issues, I had to work on this stuff. So she wasn't wrong. So that was one thing I thought was really big. So when, when that came to fruition, it really really opened up a lot for our marriage to start thriving and stuff, because we started to own our own junk.
Speaker 3:But I was talking with a friend and he was asking how things were going. This was about. It was on Easter, just over a year ago, so not this last Easter, the Easter before. We were having a talk and he said how's things going? How are you and the wife doing? I said honestly, we're not good. And I he's like I just and I told him I said I don't, I don't know if this is going to work. And he says do you, you know? Do you think? Do you think it's possible for it to work? And I said we're at the point where we need a miracle from God. That's where we're at. So unless God's going to give us a miracle, I don't see this working. So that was a big line for me that I remember coming to that point and feeling that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Apparently he had a miracle up his sleeve.
Speaker 1:I am grateful we are here. Yes, all right. So you're in that hard season. I think a lot of people will resonate with it and what would you say looking back now, because you've gained a lot? You're going through marriage, thrive We've talked about this and so you've gained a lot of what we call tools that really are about you learning to do the work in yourself. And so what would you say has been the most helpful tool or tools that you really wished you would have had during that years nine to 15?
Speaker 2:I have two. My first one is coaching calls, because it was not until you helped me see the things I could not see and you helped me discover my own contributions and where I was placing blame on him instead of taking ownership and accountability for my own contributions. And I think even Jared and I had actually looked at doing Marriage Thrive prior to me working with you, and I think I can confidently say if we had been going through it, knowing myself and speaking just for myself, having the tools would not have been enough. I needed, excuse me, I needed the accountability. I needed somebody else to help me see what I was not seeing. So for me it's coaching calls. And the second one is my backyard Learning how codependent I was and learning how I would stand in my backyard and point at Jared's backyard and tell him how ugly it was and how full of weeds it was.
Speaker 3:It looked nice back there.
Speaker 2:We all had our own backyard. There were just a few varmints running around, but other than that weeds it was.
Speaker 1:It was nice. It looked nice. Back there we all think our own backyard Just a few varmints running around, but other than that it was great.
Speaker 3:It had a really cool slide.
Speaker 2:I found a lot of freedom in learning what my backyard was and learning what Jared's backyard was, because once I learned that concept, I could immediately see oh, I'm in his backyard. And it would allow me to step back into my backyard and into myself and my own empowerment and what I had control over and what I didn't. And that was a huge shift for us too, or for myself especially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and just for context, for people listening, what Corinne means by her backyard is. I describe marriage as like a neighborhood of two people and each spouse has their fenced in backyard, and in their fenced in backyard is their beliefs, their reactions, their thoughts, their feelings, their bitterness, their unforgiveness, all the things that are in it goes on in each person's heart and that's our greatest work. That's what we have control over. But naturally what we do is we stand at the fence, pointing into our spouse's backyard of all the things they're not doing right, of all the things they should. You know, weed and garden and all that.
Speaker 1:And the power is is that when we work in our garden, we begin to grow this beauty that fills the marriage and often, like exactly in you guys's case, what happens is when you work. Well, it's a little different, but from my experience I was working with Corinne if you grow this, it's going to grow and the marriage will grow and eventually your husband may want to join you in the work that you're doing. And that's what happened While you were also working in your own backyard, jared through the counseling you were doing. Often the other spouse isn't doing any work, but as the one spouse begins to beautify their part of the marriage they eventually want to join. So, yeah, all right, jared, what would you say are the tools? You or the tool or the tools you most wished you had during that hardest season in your marriage?
Speaker 3:So I would say one of the tools off that come to my mind right away is just having to deal with like a limited belief or a limited mindset on how things are. I feel like I would constantly kind of go into that and then I would get stuck in that and it would be that like it can't be better because this is all it can be, this is the only mindset that it could be and I couldn't get out of. What could be truer, what could be more true than this beliefs right now? And I still, I still struggle with going back into that.
Speaker 3:Corinna will help me from time to time. She'll be like okay, so what do you like? Let's poke the bear a little bit, let's get out of here. So I think just being able to have that and see that has really helped me a lot. Realize, okay, it's not exactly what you're putting it as a lot. Realize, okay, it's not exactly what you're putting it as, there's more to it than this. And so a lot of times I'm able to kind of snap out of some of that or take something completely different from the discussion or the argument or just the talk we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what you're saying is really powerful. You're talking about a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, and a fixed mindset is automatic in our DNA. It's how our survival system functions. So could you give context, like is there a recent time or something that you can think of where you had a fixed mindset and what it means to shift to a growth mindset?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, this is a this is actually one that I I've gone to a thousand times probably over the years and not realized it, but it was we would get into an argument or a discussion about something, and and so this is more of even comes into play. Even sometimes now, because I feel like the devil wants to take me here to play even sometimes now, because I feel like the devil wants to take me here We'll get into a discussion about something. It doesn't go well, or she'll go and do something that she used to do.
Speaker 3:That would frustrate me and it would take me to the mindset of see, nothing's changed. It's the same way it's always been. It's never going to get any better. Why are you still doing this? And so then I get to change it. From no guess what, we're able to resolve this issue. Instead of it being a month or two months, now it's resolved in a day, or it's resolved in hours or different things, and there's a way better. It's resolved so much better now than it was before, because one she's able to work on her stuff and then I'm able to work on my stuff, and by bringing those together, it's like the full package that gets to be worked. So that's definitely an area where my mindset has to be changed and has changed so much more and being able to get out of that when that starts to creep up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, really powerful. I think that is one. I think that's a very, very common human belief is nothing's changing, and I think it's a part of what our survival system wants, or because our ego wants to get back to comfort. So if it can convince us nothing's changing, then we'll go back, you know, we'll give up and say why, why keep trying if nothing's changing? So I haven't worked with too many clients that that belief hasn't come up and it's so powerful just to rewrite it for yourself and call yourself to know what is changing, which is what I hear you doing. It's like well, this is different. We can. Our speed of recovery is faster. Even if it's only 30 minutes faster, it's still faster.
Speaker 1:So the belief of nothing's changing is no longer true. What's more true is you are faster, it's still faster. So the belief of nothing's changing is no longer true. What's more true is you are changing. It's happening maybe a little slower than you'd like. So is there a way to speed it up? And then you can stay in the tension and keep going forward. So powerful. Anything else Jared in regards to tools.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would.
Speaker 3:One more tool that I would say has helped out, and I will.
Speaker 3:I will say I'm cheating a little bit on it because I don't do it exactly the same way that you do it, because it's a really long process, but the generous listening. But to me, the biggest thing that I've gotten from it was just the idea of OK, I'm, I'm actually now listening to what my spouse is saying to me, rather than already having my mind made up on my response, of what it is that I want to say to her. And when I'm generously listening to her, I'm actually now a part of the conversation and I'm getting something from this conversation which I've also found helped me retain the conversation. And so he's not coming back to me going like we talked about this, do you not remember? And then I have to honestly say when did we do that? She says 10 minutes ago and I'm like, oh shoot, I was there. I was there. So I think that that's helped a lot, because I think through that as well. It's helped Corinne feel like she's being listened to, she's being valued and what she has to say is important.
Speaker 3:So, I would say that changing the way I choose to listen has helped a lot as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because naturally we listen with the intent to reply. That's our natural tendency in listening. But generous listening is listening to learn what you don't know. You don't know about whatever's going on for your spouse, or what the upset is, or what your impact is, or whatever, and it's powerful, and it's powerful, it creates. You know, the more someone feels seen and heard, the more they open up, the more depth and meaning and value is there, and that's the beauty of generous listening. You know, many couples come because they can't, they know they're not feeling seen or heard in conversations and they don't actually think that feeling seen and heard is possible because they've not experienced it with each other. And generous listening is a major key because when you start listening from a place of really trying to see the other person, it changes.
Speaker 1:Both of you, yeah, I agree. Both of you, yeah, I agree. All right. So I'd love to hear, um, as you each think about these tools. Uh, corinne, for you, the coaching calls and your backyard, and Jared, for you, the growth mindset and the generous listening. What difference do you feel they would have made back in the in that hardest season?
Speaker 2:Well, I know for myself, if we would have started this process, if you and I would have started this process together, then I don't feel we would have endured such a long season of hard. We would have been able to get through it back then, through it back then. Um.
Speaker 2:so if I had the tools, then it it would have ended years of the suffering and years of the ugliness between us, um, and if I was able to see the concept of backyards, then I would have been able to approach conversations differently with him. I would have been able to release a lot of the control that I had about him needing or wanting excuse me, to do something in a certain way or not do something, and when I. If I could have realized he gets to decide those things. If I could have come to the conversation differently and asked him versus told him what he needed to do, had a conversation around my feelings and my thoughts versus just yelling at him, telling him things, it would have prevented a lot of the bitterness and resentment that went on for years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to just if we can take a little caveat here, because I think that three, that third child it is not uncommon, for it's definitely Jeff and I story Our third child like changed so much and, um, we entered a very hard season, we, we were having a hard season and then the third child kind of was like the nail in the coffin and I have my thoughts on it and I know Jeff and I's journey and our third child has wound up being the catalyst of what drove us to start getting help on our marriage, which I think is often the case.
Speaker 1:And so there's this beautiful gift that comes in a third child, but it shows up in the beginning somewhat like a thorn. What do you guys think was really what? We talked a little bit about it, but I'm curious what do you recognize now was going on for you when that third child came up in regards to, like your backyard work and you know what you weren't seeing Corinne, and then also for you, jared, but let's start with Corinne. What do you see now, looking back, was happening for you at that third child stage?
Speaker 2:I needed and wanted more help in different ways than I was getting it, and I didn't recognize that. I didn't own that, I didn't ask for it. So things shifted. Obviously with one more, there's just a lot more needs. I can mention that and, um, if I could have recognized what I was wanting and needing in those moments or after he was born, and I could have asked for it, jared may have come alongside me and supported me in that differently than what happened?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I often say that when you have a third child you've run out of hands and the perfection goes away. You don't you realize you don't have it buttoned up. And if you have a deep relationship with perfection, like I did, and shame then you. I was losing my mind because I'm like everything I thought I was was blown out of the water and it was. It was rough, jared. What about you? That resonates, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I know for me during that time was a very interesting and challenging time in a lot of ways. So not only was that our family grow and a lot more needs were needed, but, uh, I also own a business. Business was growing and so I had to be in a lot of places already as it was and super busy, and so I think that part of it was being able to look now and changing the way I viewed something because of it being a limited belief could have changed how much maybe more I could have been able to help or could have been there in certain ways instead of just being I have to do this for work, I have to do this for work. This is the only thing.
Speaker 3:And then for me, it was also just maybe not taking some of the time that I did have and giving that back to them, but taking it for myself, because I wanted my own break, just like she needed her own break. I wanted my own break, just like she needed her own break. I wanted my own break, so those kinds of things. And so, and in doing so, being able to actually listen to what she was probably trying to tell me, because if I'm asking questions back on what she's telling me, I'm going to get a better answer than just running with it and then going into the. I mean, I had a massive, limited belief, which was the idea of she needs me to do everything, I have to do everything around here, and then that turned into I don't do, apparently, I just don't do enough for her. So it's like this constant cycle of how that would affect thing.
Speaker 3:So it's like this constant cycle of how that would affect thing, when ultimately, that I don't think was probably how she really felt. I mean, I'm sure she probably felt like I definitely needed to do more, let's be honest. But but the idea came, a very kind of almost, almost a selfish idea, which I didn't realize until later. It was me selfishly being like look at all that I do. How is this not enough for you? You're how lucky you are to have this, I mean. I mean, that's that's true, yeah, but, um, but, but it's.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going in a different direction but it's, but it's the.
Speaker 3:The idea of it was me just praising myself.
Speaker 1:Right, self-flattery, it's what we do Yep?
Speaker 3:And so if I had the ability and had the tools to be able to listen better and to be able to change my limited mindset that I had, I think it could have done a lot of wonders. It could have done a lot of wonders and I think between those and between what she's learned and being able to stay in her backyard and those kinds of things, I do agree that you know we could have been through this a lot sooner and you know ideally that would have been nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we create our own suffering and we lengthen it a way longer than it needs to be. So what would you guys say is the difference that these tools are making for you now, like how we've talked about a lot of the hard season. What's life like now as you apply these tools in the day-to-day challenges that arise and the work of marriage?
Speaker 2:Well, I know Jared mentioned being able to get through arguments or differences so much faster. It's not lasting weeks and months anymore, it's lasting hours to a day at the most was something recent that came up for us. So we're using the tools daily and we're using the tools in our conversations and it has deepened our communication. For sure we have a greater emotional intimacy than we've ever had, and we were joking recently about sometimes our conversations take hours now and we love that and we love having conversations that last and we walk away, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Like conversations or enjoyable conversations, not the challenging ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah and even yes, and even the challenging ones. We walk away connected and with a better understanding of each other and a greater love for each other than we've had in the past. That's my experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Can you describe that a little more, Corinne? Because earlier you said your pattern was avoiding shaming, stonewalling, blaming, criticizing. What is it like now?
Speaker 2:Now it's. There are still moments where I can react, and the difference is that when and if that happens, I will take a step back and look at my contribution, look at what I'm not seeing, look at what I'm believing to be true without questioning it, and then going back to Jared and saying, okay, I need to take ownership of this and ask for forgiveness for my piece in this, and here are some questions I have. Here is what I came to on my own. So then we get to explore the conversation in such a different way, and that makes the conversation go deeper. That makes you know I'm going to speak for you real quick, jared, but he'll tell me if I'm right or wrong.
Speaker 3:But it also makes.
Speaker 2:It also creates a space for him to open up where I recognize blaming, shaming, criticizing is down and then he's not wanting to share anything with me. So when I'm coming back or I'm coming to any conversation and I'm creating this space where he doesn't feel that way. His communication style is completely different to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's really a really great description of what it means, what the backyard work means, right. When we're not doing our backyard work, we are judging, criticizing, blaming, shaming. When we are doing our backyard work, we're honest, we're humble, we're curious, we're open and the other spouse just feels so much safer when we're planted in our backyard because we're seeing and revealing the things that are really driving the underneath part of the conflict, that need to be revealed for us to be able to understand each other better and and connect because we're learning about each other.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah yeah, all right, yeah, yeah, all right, anything else, I can slightly add to what she was saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:So I agree. I agree basically with what she has said and I think the thing to just kind of add to it and she kind of touched it a little bit but for me, where we're at now and how things happen now are night and day different and, as it's kind of been alluded to and we've already mentioned, like we resolve issues way quicker than what we did before and in doing so we connect in a way different way than we did before. She mentioned I'm sorry, tell me more. Okay, one of those ways is I'm way more open now with my wife, and anyone who knows me knows I am not short of words, but when it came to conversation I never talked, I didn't say anything. She was always kind of trying to pry at me, but I don't. Until until we got to this point I did, I couldn't understand what the reason was, why I didn't want to talk. And then I was able to realize why I didn't want to talk, because you basically kind of wanted me down here in a way. You know and I'm not trying to put the blame on her, but that was. We kind of realized that I didn't talk because I was getting criticized, because it wasn't the way that she wanted it done or how it should have been done, and so now she's way more inviting to me and more open to me and even if she doesn't like maybe my viewpoint or what I have to maybe say about it, she still is receptive to that being my opinion and so I don't feel like I have to maybe say about it. She still is receptive to that being my opinion and so I don't feel like I have to hold back as much. And in doing so, I felt like I was hiding everything that I was doing in life from her, because I didn't want her to get mad at me or whatever, and some of the things she rightly sort of been mad about. So you know. But so the communication as a whole has just completely changed and in doing so, as you mentioned, our conversations are a lot deeper. They're a lot longer in some cases.
Speaker 3:So sometimes we'll sit down and expecting to have the you know, hey, how was your day today? Conversation and the how was your day today turned into an hour and a half, how was your day today? And it's like the kids are coming going like what are we eating for dinner? We're like I don't know. I don't know. We got to go pick up something because mommy and daddy failed at dinner tonight, so but at the same time we get to kind of laugh and joke and be like you know what. It was worth it. I enjoyed the conversation we had and through this I've one of the things that I've grown to realize is how much I really enjoy our emotional intimacy that we've been able to create. In fact, we had a conversation just a couple days ago where I got to let her know that, hey, it's been kind of crazy and busy and we haven't connected and I miss you, which before I would not have said. I would have only been like, yeah, it's been busy.
Speaker 3:I guess we'll get around to talking whenever and to me I kind of liked it that way, and now I like it when we get to talk and connect more and have conversation and that kind of stuff. So that's that's how a lot of this has changed from where it was before for me, yeah, it's a marriage miracle, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I know you were piggybacking off of what Corinne said. Anything else for you, jared in your tools, using your tools, is how are your tools showing up today? I think we have a pretty good sense, but want to make sure that there is not anything else you wanted to share about that.
Speaker 3:Not too much else other than they apply to like work too. I get to use them at work and so it helps me with things at work as well, just kind of changing the way I'm doing things and looking at things or just connecting and talking with the people we work with and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really begins to change every relationship because you change the relationship you have with yourself. That's where it starts. That's why doing your backyard work is so important, because you start changing the way you're relating to yourself, which changes every other relationship that you have. So all right. So we're to our bonus question, and it's the one that you guys are surprised by, and that is how, would you say, these tools are impacting your sex life?
Speaker 2:Hmm, those are good. So the emotional intimacy that we keep talking about has been pivotal to our sex life. There was no emotional intimacy for a lot of years and that part of our marriage suffered greatly. So I have noticed that that using the tools, tools, what we've been able to create, the way we've been able to transform our marriage and our communication, um has created more of a desire for conversation and more of a desire in the bedroom. They, they, go hand in hand really.
Speaker 1:Yes, what for you, Jared?
Speaker 3:Well, it's helped me understand why I like emotional intimacy so much, because I've realized that emotional intimacy helps drive physical intimacy, and if there's no emotional intimacy, the physical intimacy is not nearly as fun. And I think that, because of these tools that we've had to be able to connect in such a deeper way, it's also helped us be more open and talk about things in the bedroom too. Hey, did you like that? Do you not like that? Do you want to do this? Or you know what I mean? It kind of has a little bit more, and so there becomes a, there becomes a little bit more of a playful experience, and it's not always just can we hurry up and get this over with?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, do we have to make eye contact.
Speaker 2:So there's the desire, now that it's not it's not an obligation. I used to really approach it as an obligation which he would sense and really took a lot of the joy out of it so, jared, you said a trigger word, I think, for many men, and so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1:Like, as a man, when you hear emotional intimacy, what did you think before and do you? Has your definition of emotional intimacy changed like? What would you say to a guy who's like emotional intimacy? That sounds awful. Did you ever think that, or what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:So I don't know if I ever thought it was awful, but I definitely thought that it didn't matter very much and that was a girl thing, girls. And so I've been able to learn and now experience how both are vital and they're both important. But they're both important for both spouses to have, not just one to have one and one to have the other. And I feel, for me, the emotional intimacy, for me the emotional intimacy, it kind of has helped me realize that I have emotional intimacy all the time with friends and I didn't take that and translate it into things with my wife, and part of that was because it was a time I didn't care, I wasn't happy with her, she didn't like me, I didn't like her. But ultimately we're having this emotional intimacy with other people, and not in the same type of a way necessarily, but we are in the sense of we're getting to know people. Oh, this is my, these are my buddies, what do we like to do? He likes to do this. Sometimes I know more about them than I know my own wife.
Speaker 3:And so when you start to see that and realize that the emotional intimacy isn't just her telling you, oh, I want to talk about my day and you're like, oh my gosh, just kill me. Like again you're going to tell me that the kids were horrible, or you're going to tell me like I think that's the stereotype that we get with it. And so most guys are like, oh my gosh, I really don't want to talk about this stuff, but instead it's actually you sharing with her as well, so you get to tell her about I don't know the garbage that happened at work today or stuff. But usually as you start to talk about these stories, you start to talk about other things too. You know, it's kind of embarrassing for me that when one of my wife's closest friends says, hey, jared, I want to buy her a plant for for her birthday, and she's like what, what does she like? And I'm like, oh yeah, she's a big fan of tulips, come to find out my wife hates tulips, by the way.
Speaker 3:Like, like, clearly I was, I was, I was sucking really bad at the emotional intimacy and, knowing my wife, that's her mom's favorite plant. I know her mom better than apparently I know. So this is. It did not go well, like I mean, we got to laugh about it.
Speaker 3:But my wife was like you told her this and I'm like, yeah, yeah, clearly there was some struggling there and so ultimately I would say to like any guy that's like just listening or or wants to know more, like it's not necessarily being, uh, more feminine to have to connect with your emotional side, with your wife. It's the person who's supposed to be your best friend and your confidant through everything. And it doesn't mean that you have to talk about all the girly things. It means you just get to talk about life just like you would one of your buddies, and in doing so you get to learn and explore and know more about their heart and what's really going on inside. And I guess the easy way to say is like, just give it a try, because it'll be worth it in the long run.
Speaker 1:Weekly. Yeah, it's beautiful because you know emotional intimacy flows naturally in the falling in love stage, because you're getting to know each other. You're discovering who you are, who they are, who you are together. And we often think, once we get married, that we know each other, and then the marriage starts to get stale and old and we don't know why sex becomes a chore, right? Because the beauty of this is when you're working in your backyard. It's an endless discovery. There's no end to what you can discover. And then, when you're coming into conversations, firmly planted in your backyard, there's endless discovery that what you started experiencing when you were dating, it never needs to end and it just keeps getting richer and more life-giving. Because it's exciting, it's an adventure.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:I would agree. And just to add one last little thing to it would be and you kind of said it said it made me think about the idea of when you first start started dating your spouse now, right, you guys were like, oh my gosh, she's amazing, she's this. And that first time you guys were being physically intimate together, it was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool, it's awesome. Together, it was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool, it was awesome. Well, because you guys were being emotionally intimate with each other and people don't even realize.
Speaker 3:A lot of guys will realize like, you've already done this. You kind of just stopped doing it. Basically, and guess what, when you go and do it again, you have the ability to help return it back to that fun stage and that exciting stage where she maybe wants to put on that cute outfit for you that she's kept in the closet for all those years or something like that, you know. So things like that get to kind of spark a little bit more and you get excited to want to. Like you said, the physical intimacy isn't just about trying to hurry and get it over with. You actually want it to have a little bit more time and see how it pleases her, and she wants to see how it pleases you, and so it becomes a way different experience than it did before, and you feel even more connected once you're done with that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am shaking my head strongly that nobody can see while they're listening, but yes, so wow guys, thank you so much. I think there's so much value for listeners and so much that I think we couples resonate with. But we don't usually have these kind of conversations where anyone really gets to see behind the scenes a little in a couple's relationship. So as we end here, is there anything else that either of you want to share, anything that's occurred for you that we haven't talked about?
Speaker 2:Well, this is kind of silly, but Jared used to come home and tell me about his golf game and I did not want to hear anything about his golf game. And now he'll come home and well, first I'll wish him a good golf game and second, I always play better when she does that.
Speaker 3:I play better when we're better, which is awesome. My game's gotten better, because I'm like wait a second oh my, my house life is better, so now I can focus on my golf life.
Speaker 2:And now he'll come home and I'll ask him and I'm genuinely interested, I'm genuinely excited to hear how his golf game was and excited for him to be able to go do that. So just another little shift that has happened, and that's happened in a lot of areas, but it's something that you think might be so insignificant, but even something as small as that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. Amazing what bitterness and resentment robs in a marriage and when it's healing the beauty that can open up and be seen.
Speaker 3:So yes.
Speaker 1:I love it. I'm so grateful to be a small part of your marriage miracle and I'm just thankful that you guys would share it, and I think it will be valuable for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:So thank you so much, thank you, thank you. We appreciate the tools that you've been able to help bring to us to help make it what it is.
Speaker 2:So grateful.
Speaker 3:It's been awesome.
Speaker 1:Good, all right guys. Thank you so much, thanks, okay, that's going to do it for this episode of hey, julia Woods. Now I have a quick favor to ask of you If you've ever gotten any value from this podcast and you haven't already, please leave us a five-star rating and a quick review in the app that you're using to listen right now. It just takes a couple seconds, but it really goes a long way in helping us to share even more valuable marriage growth tips and interviews here. This episode shares the power of what can happen when a spouse takes responsibility for who they are, being one conversation at a time, and if you want the marriage that you long for, click that first link in the show notes and this will take you straight to the resource that's going to solve that for you. I can't wait to connect with you inside my membership, where you can get the support you need to grow the marriage you long for 24-7. All right, that's going to do it for the show. My name is Julia Woods. I'll talk to you next time.