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
You’re Both Trying… You’re Just Missing Each Other
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This week, I'm sharing why generous effort can still miss the mark and how a simple meaning check turns intention into real connection. Practical scripts, everyday examples, and a clear path to feel loved without guesswork.
• early chemistry fading into real differences
• clashing stories and nervous system triggers
• feeling unloved versus being unloved
• problem solving versus emotional presence
• love as subjective; unique blueprints
• five love languages as a starting point
• the meaning check skill and script
• starting small and scaling to bigger topics
• appreciation to reinforce what works
• monthly reset to review what lands
If this episode resonates, please write a review for the podcast and share it with someone you love who could use this information.
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, and I am excited about February's episodes. These are going to be a lot of fun, and we're going to start getting really granular about things that you can do to improve your relationship starting right now. I'm so excited to announce that I get an exclusive interview with Dr. Gary Chapman, the creator of the five love languages. We're going to be talking about his new book, and my episodes this month are going to set that up. So as you are listening to this podcast, if something resonates with you, if you hear something that you're like, yes, this, I would love it if you would go and write a review for the podcast that helps other people find it and share it out to somebody in your life that you love that could use this information. We're going all in this year, and I'm learning to ask for the things that I want and need just like we're talking about in these episodes. So my desire for you is to share out this podcast. Let's work together to really help couples find joy in their relationships. All right, let's get started with today's content. Recently, I did a podcast interview with a man named Dan, and he asked me lots of questions about what to do when both partners were not fully bought in. Meaning, like if one partner really wants to go to coaching or therapy and the other partner is very resistant. And that is a very common scenario. But I've also had a lot of couples where both partners were fully bought in. They both understood that the relationship needed to be better and they were both willing to put in the effort. And sometimes, even then, you have a disconnect. So this episode is for you. If you feel like both of you are trying, but you're still missing each other somehow. I have found in my years working with couples that a lot of relationship pain is not caused by lack of effort from either partner, but it's caused by misunderstandings or a clash in the stories that you're telling yourself. This is something that you will not figure out on your own. It's one of those things that you need a very intuitive friend or a coach to point out to you. It's one of those dynamics that happens inside of the bottle, and you need someone with a third view or a perspective looking in on the dynamic that can point out to you where you're getting stuck. So the story that my clients tell themselves that creates a lot of emotional distance, resentment, and loneliness is this idea that if my partner cared about me, they would do things differently. I allude to this in my book in a couple of different chapters, but today I really want to dig in and help you see that this might be happening in your relationship. So this dynamic of we're both working on the relationship, but we seem to be missing each other is a pretty normal occurrence. In fact, a lot of the couples that come to see me in coaching, when I ask them what's going on in your relationship and how can I best support you? They'll both tell their story about how they're working hard to make the relationship better, but it seems like they're coming up short. And sometimes this turns into what I'm doing is never enough. It's like I keep trying and trying and trying, and my partner will not recognize it. Does that feel familiar to you? Some of the loneliest people that I've met are in relationships where both they and their partner are trying to make things better, but they're coming up short. So here's how this happens. When we get into a relationship with a significant other person, the beginning of the relationship, there's that unique cocktail of hormones and pheromones. The other person is reinforcing your idea of yourself and it feels so good. You're super attracted to each other and you're almost obsessed with that other person. How are they feeling? What are they thinking about? You want to know everything about them. And then you decide to commit marriage or a long-term committed relationship, and all of a sudden, this idea of differences pops in. You think about things differently, you do things differently, and both partners start to think if my spouse would just do things my way, this would be so much easier. Have you ever thought that? Whether it's as small as how they load the dishwasher or as big as money, parenting, sex, those are the biggest issues that people start to get frustrated and resentful with their partner because of their differences. Now, this all starts in our nervous system. We don't know why we're getting so upset with our partner. We don't know why it's so important that things be done a certain way, but it stems from our histories, our preferences, and our past relationship blueprints. So something that feels so loving to me, when I do it for my partner, it might feel dismissive or it might feel opposite of what they're looking for. Here's a classic, classic example using traditional gender roles. But as a woman, have you ever gone to your husband with a problem or a breakdown of something happened during the day? And immediately your husband starts solving the problem and telling you all the ways you could have done it differently, or ways in which you can just make all of it go away. And in that moment, you feel so unseen, so unloved, and so unheard because you were just looking for a sounding word. You just wanted him to listen and go, oh yeah, that sounds awful. I would have hated that. I can see why you feel that way. You were looking for emotional presence and your husband gave you problem solving. This is a great example of how his effort, which would have felt loving to him, felt so off to you. It wasn't what you were looking for. And you may just brush it off and think it's not a big deal, but that one experience starts to erode trust. You start thinking, I can't share these things with him because he's just gonna solve the problem and I don't need the problem solved. I even go so far as to think I am perfectly capable and competent. I don't need his suggestions on how to live my life. And the reality is, by simply preemptively asking for what you want in that situation will prevent that whole misunderstanding from happening. So, what I want to talk about today, I want to give you real tools to feel more loved by your partner. But I promise you this, it's not gonna happen by accident. It doesn't matter how long you've been together or how much you love each other, you're not going to accidentally stumble upon ways to show love to each other that the other is going to recognize. And here's why: because love is not objective, meaning there's not one right way to show love in your relationship. There's not one right way to react or respond to your partner in a way that's going to feel loving to them. Relationships are a completely subjective experience, meaning every single one of us has a completely different blueprint for what feels loving to us. So when we go into a relationship, we think if I feel love in this way, surely my partner will feel loved that way too. A good example of this is the five love languages. I'm a words of affirmation person. I love to be recognized for what I'm doing. In fact, the best gift you can ever give me, and you can tell by what I asked for at the beginning of this episode, is a review on my book or my podcast. Or send me a little note and let me know how I've helped you. My husband leaves little notes like this for me, not because it comes naturally to him, but because I've asked repeatedly for 23 years. He finally gets it. It doesn't come intuitively to him. He has to be asked and reminded. And after I've asked and reminded him and he does it, I feel so loved. On the flip side, my husband is an acts of service guy, meaning he feels loved when I do things for him, like the dishes or put his vitamins in his little vitamin holder for him. Little acts of service where I go out of my way to do something for him make him feel so loved. But when he does those things for me, I rarely notice. Not because I don't love him, not because I don't appreciate it. It's just because that's not my loving blueprint. So here is a really, really important principle. And that is that feeling unloved is not the same as being unloved, but it feels really, really real for people. You can be in a loving relationship where your spouse is constantly doing things that express their love for you and you might not feel it. You could be constantly doing things that show your love for your spouse and they might not feel it. It's not that something has gone wrong in the relationship, and it's not that you're in an unloving relationship. Those feelings of being unloved are valid, like I said, because your relationship blueprint is different. So, how are we gonna fix this? The skill I want to share with you today, I call it the meaning check. And either one of you can initiate it. It's super simple. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're feeling like maybe you're missing each other somehow. Either you are feeling unloved or you get the feeling that your partner is feeling unloved, I want you to simply try this relational skill. Go to your partner and ask them, when I do this, what does it mean to you? So here is some examples. When I do the dishes after I've just gotten home from a long day of work, what does that mean to you? And then be open to whatever response your partner gives you. They might say, it's not that big of a deal. I was gonna do them anyways. You could ask your partner, when I stop on my way home from work and get you roses or bring you a treat, what does that mean to you? Your partner may say, that's amazing, I love it so much, but they might say, eh, it doesn't really mean that much to me. And then you'll know. Remember that if you're going to ask the meaning question, don't get defensive, don't take their response as a criticism. You're just being curious. It's like saying, I want to get to know you better. I want to know exactly how you feel my love. And that will allow your partner, maybe they've never really given it a lot of thought. Maybe you're familiar with the five love languages and maybe you're not. I personally believe there are so many nuanced ways to show love, but the five love languages are a good way to start the discussion. And then, equally as important as checking out the things that you do to show love is expressing to your partner how you feel loved. So, my suggestion for you is go out on a date and call the whole date a meaning check. Start the discussion by asking your partner when you do certain things, what does it mean to you? Do you feel loved by me when I do these things? And then be sure to share with them the things that they do that make you feel particularly loved. Like the example I gave of the notes. When my husband takes a few seconds to write me a note, short or long, it doesn't really matter. Obviously, the longer notes make me feel more loved, but the shorter notes also make me feel so loved. When I get a text in the middle of the day from him that says, hey, I'm thinking about you. I love you. You're so hot. I can't stop thinking about last night. Those are perfect. They make me feel so loved, so see and so appreciated and so recognized. But when he does the dishes, not so much. So get comfortable sharing with your partner. Hey, when you do this thing, it makes me feel so loved. When you load the dishwasher this way, when you refill the toilet paper when it gets empty, here's a funny one for me. When my husband puts out a clean towel for me when I'm in the shower, because my husband can reuse a towel a hundred times before he washes it. I do not like using damp towels. I love a fresh towel. Now he doesn't think of it that because he's not that way. So when he takes a minute and he's walking through the bathroom while I'm taking a shower and he makes an extra effort to take a clean towel from the closet and hang it up for me so it's ready when I get out of the shower, I feel so loved. Like literally, that is the epitome of my husband took some extra thought and did something that I recognize as love. But he would never know that accidentally. I've had to tell him over and over and over again: hinting doesn't work, criticism doesn't work, just lovingly, hey, I feel so loved by you when you put a clean towel on the hook for me while I'm showering. I love that. And then when they do it, be sure to notice it. Oh my gosh, thank you for putting a clean towel out for me. That was awesome. All right. So if this feels a little new for you, the meaning check, I want you to start with small things, like the towel example. And then as you get more comfortable, you can move to bigger issues like parenting. For example, I really appreciate it when you support me or back me with the kids, even if you disagree. I can't tell you how many times this has happened with curfew or having friends over, or we have this motorcycle at our house called the ruckus, and my youngest loves to drive it around. And I feel like that's so unsafe, where my husband thinks it's fine. But if I've said no, and my teenager then reaches out to my husband, and my husband goes, Wait, have you already asked mom? And did she say no? Well, the answer is no. That makes me feel so loved. But it's not gonna happen accidentally, like I said. I have to say, it means so much to me when you back me up on a decision I made for the kids, even if you don't agree with it. And that's how you're going to start feeling more loved in a relationship, even if you're both trying. So, in closing, I just want to put an exclamation point on this principle. If you're both trying, but you're missing each other, it doesn't mean anything's wrong or broken with your relationship. It just means that you're two different human beings with different preferences, teaching each other how to treat you well. You have to teach your partner how to show you love. You have to ask your partner to teach you how to be more loving to them. Like I said, it's not an objective thing. You can't really learn about it in a book or even by listening to a podcast. You have to go to the source. You have to go to your partner and do these meaning checks. What do you feel when I do this? What does it mean to you? It means so much to me when you do this thing. And then make sure that when your partner follows through, that you recognize and appreciate their efforts. That's how you teach your partner to treat you with love. And that's how you learn to show love to your partner in the way that they recognize, in the way that they feel loved. So that's it. That's all I have for you today. I often really think of February as the month of love. My husband and I rarely celebrate Valentine's Day on the actual day. In fact, this year I'm out of town. I won't even be with him. But you better believe that we're gonna revisit all of the things that he can do to show me love, and vice versa. January is a great month to revisit your goals and your intentions for the new year. And February is a great month to review the ways in which you can show each other love in the most meaningful ways. So I hope you'll work on that this month. And I'll be here same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriaging.