Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between those couples who absolutely LOVE to be together and the ones who merely tolorate each other in their old age? I always want to run up to the cute old couples who still hold hands while walking down the street and ask them all their secrets to relationship success. This podcast gives me the opportunity to do just that!
I'm Monica Tanner, wife to a super hunky man, mom to 4 kids, weekly podcaster and relationship and intimacy expert/enthusiast. I help couples ditch the resentment and roommate syndrome and increase communication, connection and commitment, so they can write and live out their happily ever after love story. If that sounds like something you want, this podcast is absolutely for YOU!
Each week, I'm teasing out the principles that keep couples hopelessly devoted and intoxicatingly in love with each other for a lifetime and beyond. I'm searching high and low for the secrets of happily ever after and sharing those secrets with you right here. Sound marriage advice for Christian couples who want to live happily ever after and achieve a truly intimate friendship and passionate partnership, because an awesome marriage makes life so much sweeter. Let's get to it!
Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
Stop Listening to These 5 Pieces of Common Marriage Advice
Marriage advice is everywhere, but much of it is outdated, misguided, or flat-out harmful to your relationship, no matter how well-intentioned it may be.
• Happy couples don't fight - FALSE: Conflict is like exercise for your relationship and helps you grow stronger
• The myth of "don't sweat the small stuff" can lead to an explosion after years of suppressing irritation
• Compromise is outdated advice that leaves both partners with less than they want
• Collaboration creates solutions that multiply the best of both positions instead of subtracting from each
• Love is a foundation but requires communication skills, conflict resolution, and intentional connection to build lasting marriage
• Your differences aren't proof you picked the wrong person - they can become your greatest strengths when you learn to navigate them together
• Believing these myths sets expectations that don't match reality, which creates resentment
To be part of my book launch team for "Bad Marriage Advice: Debunking Myths That Will Make You Miserable and What To Do Instead", releasing October 1st, email me at moni@monicatanner.com. For updates and bonuses, visit badmarriageadvice.com.
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and I'm excited about today's episode because we are T-5 weeks and counting till the launch of bad marriage advice debunking myths that will make you miserable and what to do instead, and I'm really excited to talk about some of my favorite pieces of bad marriage advice in this episode. So, just to start, I mean marriage advice. Everybody has some. In fact, I recently saw a Facebook post that said what is one piece of advice you would give a young woman getting married? And there was literally hundreds of comments on that post and I just thought everybody has marriage advice for you, your parents, your best friend, that one couple at church who looks like they never fight, even the movies we watch. You can always find marriage advice and while some of it sounds really good, some of it's funny and some of it works, a lot of it is flat out bad or outdated advice. That doesn't mean it isn't given with good intentions by well-meaning adults who love you. It just might mean that some of the most common marriage rules are the very thing that can leave you frustrated, resentful and wondering what is wrong with us. So in today's episode, I wanted to bust five myths that actually really make couples miserable. So these are quick little phrases that you've probably heard a thousand times and maybe even repeated, but if you believe them, they'll keep you stuck in your marriage, and when I say stuck, it means you won't be able to grow and evolve past a certain point. If you're believing these things and the best part is that if you choose to replace them with the truth your marriage is going to get lighter, more fun and so much more connected. So I'm basically just going to tease out these five pieces of bad marriage advice, but remember that my book with all 15 pieces of bad marriage advice and the truth about them comes out on October 1st, so get excited, all right.
Speaker 0:The first question I wanted to answer is why, if it's so bad, does all of this marriage advice get repeated over and over and over again for years and decades and generations? The reason why is because they sound good, they're easy to remember, some of them are very cliche and quippy and they usually come from people that we trust, and I do believe that a lot of it was at some point, good marriage advice. But let's be honest modern marriage is very different from what? Sometimes our parents, most of the time our grandparents, but any generation before it looks so different. And another thing is, even though they sound simple, this bad marriage advice, just because it sounds simple, it doesn't make it true. Marriage is actually pretty complicated. It's beautiful and messy and full of nuance. So trying to apply these blanket statements to your relationship is almost like trying to fix a leaky faucet with duct tape. It might work for a minute, but eventually your whole bathroom is going to flood and you're going to be left wondering what just happened.
Speaker 0:So let's talk about five myths that I think cause a lot of damage. Number one is that happy couples don't fight. You've heard it. Oh, we don't fight. As if that's the goal, that's the gold standard, right? But here's the truth If you never fight, it means that somebody is swallowing their feelings, someone is staying small, someone is folding into the other just to keep the peace. And guess what happens? Those swallowed, pushed down, pushed aside feelings create resentment, and resentment kills intimacy. The truth is that happy couples do fight. The difference between happy couples and unhappy couples is that happy couples know how to fight fair, they know how to communicate with the goal of understanding and they know how to repair quickly. They don't avoid conflict, but they use it to create more connection, not less. I want you to think about conflict in marriage like working out at the gym. How do you get stronger? You get stronger by doing your reps. You're not going to get stronger by avoiding your workouts. Conflict is like exercise for your relationship.
Speaker 0:Many of us grew up in conflict avoidant households. In fact, my husband is one of those many people. I remember when I first married into his family, there was this kind of gold standard idea that his parents never raised their voice at the children or at each other, and they were wonderful parents and they were happily married. But I'm certain they disagreed about things and so if we had interpreted they never raised their voice to, they never fought it would have set us up for so much disappointment. So, parents, my advice to you is don't shield your children from your conflicts. Let them see you disagree and let them see you respect each other and repair, because when they grow up and they get into any type of adult relationship, and repair Because when they grow up and they get into any type of adult relationship, they need to know that disagreement is just part of the deal. But there are good ways to disagree and face conflict and there are not so good. You don't want your child to be the one who either bulldozes to get their way or folds into other people because they're so conflict avoidant, or folds into other people because they're so conflict avoidant. So remember, if someone tries to tell you that happy couples don't fight, you know that's a myth.
Speaker 0:Number two this one sounds really awesome. Don't sweat the small stuff. It's reasonable, right. Pick your battles, don't nitpick, just let things go. But here's the problem the small stuff never actually stays small. That wet towel that your spouse always throws on the bed, the dirty dishes in the sink that they never put in the dishwasher, or that habit of being just five minutes late it all seems like small stuff that you can brush off until one day you explode after years and years of being irritated by this small stuff. Here's the truth behind it. The small stuff grows into the big stuff. So learn how to deal with it early. Do it kindly and talk about it before it grows into something so much bigger, just like weeds in a garden If you pluck them while they're tiny, it's not a big deal, but if you don't, it grows into something bigger that chokes out all of the generosity and love and intimacy in your relationship.
Speaker 0:So here's some insight into my marriage. My husband grew up, like I said, in a very conflict avoidant family, and so for him, not sweating the small stuff is the appropriate, more admirable way to do things. However, what it looks like in our relationship is he will silently stew over something small that I actually have no idea that I'm doing, until one day, just like the steam building in the pressure cooker, the switch flips and all of a sudden he's having an extremely outsized response to something that's still small and it feels to me like it came out of left field. And so over the years we've learned that sweeping things under the rug and avoiding conflict is not the better way to deal with things. And so now, if something's bothering either one of us, usually we deal with it skillfully while it's small, so it doesn't become this little thing that just eats and eats and eats at us until one of us loses our cool. So now, every time I hear somebody say don't sweat the small stuff are cool. So now, every time I hear somebody say don't sweat the small stuff, I always ask then where does the big stuff actually come from, because that's not good advice. All right, moving on to myth number three, this one I hear all the time.
Speaker 0:Whenever I ask an older couple what their secret to marriage is, so many times they'll say learn how to compromise. And if I ask them what that means, they'll even say learn how to meet in the middle. But let me ask you this If you want pizza and I want seafood, what does it mean to meet in the middle? Does that mean we go out for tacos, then neither of us got? Then neither of us got what we wanted. So how can meeting in the middle actually be good advice? Now I will say, in generations or decades past, compromise was probably a good option. But in today's modern world, with all of the advancements in technology and the way marriage is structured today, there is no reason to ever compromise. We have so many resources and so many options when it comes to literally everything how we work, where we work, when we work, how to educate our children, where to live, how to commute, what type of medical care we want. There are so many options. So meeting in the middle is no longer good advice.
Speaker 0:What I teach instead is that marriage, especially a good marriage, is all about collaboration. It's not about giving up half of what you want, but it's creating an option that both of you feel good about. And here's how you're going to do it by learning how to communicate. Collaboration looks like I share what's most important to me and I find out what's most important to you, and then together we create something that takes the best of my position and the best of your position and puts it together for something so much, infinitely better that neither of us could have come up with on our own. So, if you want to put it in math terms, compromise is like subtracting half from you and subtracting half from me, and now we have less than we had before, where collaboration is multiplying the best of your position and the best of my position and coming up with something so much greater. So the next time someone says, learn how to compromise, you can say how about we learn how to collaborate? Again, I go into so much detail of this in the book.
Speaker 0:Moving on to myth number four, love is all you need. This one makes me giggle because it might be one of the most sneaky and dangerous myths of all, because it feels so romantic. There are literally songs written about this idea we love each other. That should be enough, right? All of those romantic comedies and love stories that we all grew up on. It's this sneaky little idea that we love each other and that's all we need. But if that were true, then how is the divorce rate so high? Because I imagine that most married couples at some point loved each other, right? We don't usually get married when we don't love somebody, and currently the divorce rate is near 50% higher for second and third marriages. Are we trying to say that those people didn't actually ever love each other? Hard to believe right Now.
Speaker 0:Love is a good start, but it's only the foundation. You need good communication, conflict resolution skills, intentional connection and the ability to be relational with each other in order to build a lasting marriage. When I think about how I loved my husband when we first got married, versus 23 years later, and all of the challenges that we've overcome together, the things we've learned, accomplished, failed at, I can honestly say that new love and old love are very, very different, and it takes a lot to go from just love to a mature, knowing, experienced, deep, connected and intimate type of love. So don't fall for that trap. We love each other, it's all going to be okay, because that one mostly ends in disaster. And last but not least, this one is also very, very prominent and very destructive.
Speaker 0:It's this idea that if you're not getting along, you might have picked the wrong person. This one hits couples especially the couples that I work with very hard, because what happens is, over the course of your marriage or life together, you start having friction and then suddenly this little voice in your head starts saying maybe we weren't meant to be, maybe we're just not right for each other. But the truth is like we've been talking about. Growth brings friction and conflict, and every strong couple that I know has had seasons where they wondered if maybe they were just too different, or seasons where they wondered about whether or not this was right. In fact, my mentor, terry Real, often says that the real marriage starts when you wake up and look at your partner and think what have I done? But here's the thing Differences can be strengths If you learn how to navigate them. The right person isn't the one who's not going to challenge you, who doesn't think differently than you. It's the one who chooses to grow with you despite those differences.
Speaker 0:So I can tell you honestly, with every fiber of my being, that my husband and I are so different in every single possible way. We were raised so differently. We come from different parts of the country, different religious backgrounds. He grew up a dirt poor. I grew up with lots of money. As he grew up, his family got increasingly more wealthy, while my family went the other way. He went to a very conservative college. Mine was very liberal. We literally couldn't be more different. We're both humans from planet earth, but that's about where our similarities end. In fact, if you were to ask my husband and I the same question, I can tell you there is a extremely high percentage chance that we're going to answer it completely different.
Speaker 0:Now, that could be taken as a bad thing. Maybe we're not very compatible, but I have found that that is what makes our marriage so fun and passionate and intimate. We never run out of things to talk about. We have such different wells of knowledge and experience and perspective to draw from, and over the years we've learned to communicate for the purpose of understanding each other better, not changing each other's minds about things, and that is where the real intimacy, passion, love, desire all the good things that we want out of marriage really comes from when you learn to communicate for understanding and not to change the other person. So there you have it. Those are five very damaging, in my opinion, pieces of bad marriage advice that you will hear over and over and over again. When you ask people what's the best marriage advice, you have.
Speaker 0:These myths sound harmless, but they shape the way you show up in your relationship every single day. They set your expectations, and when reality doesn't match your expectations, that's when resentment starts to build. The good news is, once you can see it as a myth, you can replace it with the truth, and the truth is always more freeing, more helpful and more practical. So let's recap. The five myths that make couples miserable are number one happy couples don't fight. Of course they do. Conflict is just part of being human. Learn how to do it well. Number two don't sweat the small stuff. Where do you think the big stuff comes from, right? Absolutely, start dealing with things skillfully when they're small so they don't choke out the love and generosity in your marriage.
Speaker 0:Three marriage is about compromise. No, it isn't. It's about collaborating. Compromise is lazy. Collaboration is so powerful. Number four love is all you need. Of course it's not. Love is a great place to start, but you better make sure you learn the skills of communication, conflict resolution, connection, commitment, all those good C words, right? And number five if you're not getting along, you probably picked the wrong person. This one I take so personally. Learn how to see your differences as strengths. Learn how to communicate about them in a way that breeds compassion, curiosity, creativity and understanding. All right. So if you've believed any of these five myths about marriage, don't worry, you're not broken. Your marriage is not broken. You've just been following broken advice. That's why I wrote Bad Marriage Advice, debunking myths that will make you miserable and what to do instead, because your marriage deserves better.
Speaker 0:The book officially launches into the world October 1st and I can't wait to get a copy in your hands.
Speaker 0:So if you'd like to be a part of this movement and you'd like to join my book launch team, which is going to be super fun, I'm going to show you behind the scenes of this launch.
Speaker 0:You're going to get access to some of my super intelligent relationship expert friends. There's lots of bonuses, challenges and fun goodies for you, and all you have to do is order your book on launch day, leave a review and talk about it with your friends. So if you'd like to do that, email me, monnie, at monicatanercom, and let me know you're in for the launch team. And if you just want to be on the list to know when to order your copy of Bad Marriage Advice, go to badmarriageadvicecom, jump on that list and get some of the goodies and bonuses that I have for you there. And with that I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening today, for taking this journey with me, opening your heart to the possibility that some of the things you've been believing for all of this time might be flawed. And remember to join me same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriage-ing.