let me ask you some questions are you in
a loveless
marriage we're both good people they're
both good people but
they have fallen out of love or
something else has happened that's
created a created a massive wedge
they've tried you've done everything
they've done all that they can to
improve their marriage it's just not
happening but you still have a level of
level of care
and love maybe not in love now before
you go down that route of thinking of or
even pursuing is divorced the right
option in that case and before you
listen to people who might persuade you
sway you are hint for you to go down the
direction of it's a personal choice but
it sounds like yes i want you to listen
to my next guest coming up
[Music]
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[Music]
my next guest laura doyle was the
perfect wife until she actually got
married
when she tried to tell her husband how
to be tidier more romantic and more
ambitious
he avoided her
so she dragged him to marriage
counseling
and nearly divorced him but she was too
embarrassed to get divorced
in desperation
she asked women
with happy marriages for their secrets
and that's when she got her miracle the
man who wooed her returned
laura accidentally started a worldwide
movement of women who practiced the six
intimacy skills that led to her having a
playful passionate
relationship
her books have been translated into 19
languages in 30 countries including the
number one amazon and new york times
bestseller the surrendered wife
laura has
laura is the founder of lourdes connect
an international relationship coaching
school she has helped over 15 000 women
fix their relationships even the
hopeless ones without
their husbands even knowing what they
were doing
laura is also the star of empowered
wives on amazon prime the creator of the
ridiculously happy wife program and has
appeared on the today show good morning
america and
the view is my next guest here with us
laura doyle how are you lauren i'm great
thank you good to be here it's good to
have you back
thanks
so you're not really a big fan of
traditional marriage counseling
are you no sir i am not
no
why
well i was on the marriage counselor's
great couch myself uh we'd gone for
years we i remember we paid over nine
thousand dollars and this is like 20
years ago
and uh i was on her couch when i thought
okay this is hopeless i'm going to have
to get divorced
because um either that i'm going to
spend the rest of my life in a loveless
marriage because he's never going to
change
and
i remember deciding to get divorced
out of that counseling where we had uh
spent a lot of time focusing on all the
things that were wrong in our marriage
and i remember
leaving with a kind of a heaviness
and feeling very hopeless about things
and
i thought we were the only ones i
thought
must be something about us or you know
especially i thought something was wrong
with him
but now that i've helped tens of
thousands of women
make their marriages last and thrive
i hear the same story from so many of my
students that they
went to two or three counselors also and
left uh in worse shape than they got
there or the counselor says well i think
you should get divorced or
um yeah they they uh unfortunately i
think marriage counselors mean well
i'm sure that they do they got into the
business for the right reasons to help
people
and unfortunately the structure uh is
very destructive and i think the
statistics uh bear that out
unfortunately about couples that go to
marriage counseling what is the divorce
right now
uh we're currently around what's the
data showing you know there's there's
various studies uh you know for a long
time we heard that it was about 50
so about half the time marriages end in
divorce
uh and then for a while i heard those
statistics were down but it was partly
because marriage was also down
people were getting married older they
are getting married uh when they're
older now and so uh they're less likely
to divorce so i think when you dig into
those statistics
um it takes a little doing right and and
even if
you are married like i was still married
but we were living
almost as though we were separated like
like awkward roommates uh instead of
husband and wife so i think even the
formal divorce
statistics don't tell the whole picture
about
how many couples are unfortunately
suffering
and i think it has a lot to do with no
one teaching them
[Music]
the skills that you need to be
successful in marriage i know no one
taught me my parents are divorced
i was following a failed recipe and they
didn't have any
relationships one-on-one at my school so
i made my own school right i asked women
who had happy marriages for those
secrets and um that was so life-changing
have you heard of this documentary
called divorce corp
i have not no sorry it's a really good
documentary it talks about the it
interviews attorneys it interviews
private investigators and it goes into
the 50 billion dollar industry of
divorce and it talk it shows how couples
will actually go in there and they'll
just want a peaceful resolution but then
it's already like a tinderbox and then
the lawyers you know the system is there
just to suck you dry so they're just
putting already on a very fragile
situation they're putting fire
and it just ends up really really messy
and ugly
and this is what your material your
books you're you're trying to um
help people
by avoiding that
absolutely um i'm on a mission to end
world divorce actually so
and one of the things that i think
he kind of touched on in talking about
this divorce court thing is uh just how
scared everybody is right it is a
tinderbox
um i was just interviewing a man
actually who's the husband of one of my
relationship coaches and he was talking
about
the transformation at their house and
how different things are now and he was
saying that he
had been looking for an apartment prior
to
his wife
training with us because
he thought the other she was gonna drop
and she was gonna kick him out or say
we're getting divorced now you've gotta
go so he was very defensive and angry
uh every day because he was so scared
and then i'll have
my students on the other side say well
my husband said he's moving out so and i
think
and he said it's over and we're getting
divorced so i think i better get a
lawyer
because um now it's it's serious you
know this is a real threat to
my financial well-being and and my
children and the custody so i really
need to to lawyer up and it's really all
coming out of fear
uh which is understandable as mere
mortals when you're you know the
ground's shaking underneath you like
that and
the way of life that you've had it seems
like it's it could be threatened uh we
all tend to get defensive right it's a
normal human reaction but it is very um
such a sensitive moment and it does take
so much courage i think to uh choose
your faith over your fear in that moment
and i i hear what you're saying that
these uh
the divorce attorney the whole uh system
kind of beyond the attorney it sounds
like
is kind of set up and maybe to uh to
really push on that fear and how people
react out of fear instead of out of
their faith like this is the
this is the man i'm married right or
this is the woman i married i picked
them for a reason they have good
qualities right no one's all black or
white and um
so i think a big part of what we
do
on our campus is try to make sure that
people are acting out of love and out of
their faith instead of out of their fear
uh this is the dr minor this is the
trailer real quick if you want to check
it out would be easier than a divorce
i think death would be easier than a
divorce
it's very frustrating to have gone for
help
and then come out with your family
destroyed
we have serious problems in our family
law court system
getting divorced is far from easy
litigation lasted for over a year i was
married only four months and my
has lasted over six and a half years
close to eight years eight years
why is divorce so difficult people can
get as much justice as they can afford
most people
cannot afford any justice at all what's
wrong with that
this is a business the more you charge
the more people are willing to pay
they didn't give me a lawyer paid us 11
000
or go to jail
it really got to the end of the line for
me
i said to the litigants i want you to
know after two hours we will have spent
more than most people in this courthouse
making a year
your home your your valuables are all
going to be sold to pay the lawyers and
people like me
though i was acquitted he still made a
decision to take my son away from me his
birthday was last week and i didn't get
to see him what you have is a tinderbox
and the lawyers are throwing gasoline on
that fire the system is designed to
create conflict i received a phone call
for another 25 000 he'd be able to give
us what we wanted extortion
family court results in more violence
than any other area of law jeff's
suicide murder
no jury just the one biased judge the
judge says even if you win you have to
pay
the whole thing is just insane
[Music]
follow the money
i i think everybody uh what's your
reaction to that i mean just a trailer
scary huh horrified i'm heartbroken for
them
if you get a chance watch the whole
thing it's really worthwhile and anybody
who's thinking about divorce or anything
should should really um watch this
documentary it just puts things in in a
reality
a check yeah so what what are what are
some of the also when you see some of
the traditional marriage counselors how
much do drugs get involved prescription
medication you talk about that well
i can share from my own experience on
that as well so
both my husband and i were diagnosed i
was diagnosed with depression and i was
put on antidepressants
and my husband was diagnosed with a
a deficit disorder attention deficit
disorder which is uh
i just cringe when i think about that
now like a deficit and a disorder like
wow he was really screwed up and and
prescribed medication for that and i
really was so hopeful
about these diagnoses like okay there
was something wrong now it's getting
fixed everything's going to be better
and of course it didn't make things
better in fact um
and it you know it's been many years now
it's been over two decades since that
happened neither one of us is on
medication and
neither one of us suffers from those
mental illnesses anymore in any way that
i can detect that affects
us or our marriage so um
i don't really uh
i look back and i find that that was an
unhelpful distraction from the real
issues
um you know
labeling someone with a mental illness
might feel kind of satisfying briefly
like oh that explains the problem but
there was still not a happy ending right
there's a broken down
husband and a depressed wife and that
was never my vision for my marriage i
wanted to uh have a playful passionate
relationship um and a strong family and
that really didn't contribute to that at
all i had a psychologist
on the program dr keith witt and he told
me
that a lot of times these terms are
developed and people are labeled it's to
go ahead and be able to
make a claim for the insurance
otherwise they can't get paid
yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah so so what were some of these
secrets now so you're going from the
traditional marriage counseling you're
spending all this money and getting
nowhere so we want to help people get
nowhere from getting nowhere to get in
somewhere so you got somewhere
when you started talking this is like
common sense you started talking to
people who had successful marriages not
people who were in the divorce club
that's right exactly and that's an
interesting thing about marriage
counseling is you don't know their
history of their marriage so they could
be on their third divorce but they've
got that certificate on the wall that
says they're qualified to help you right
and so sometimes i remember one student
said that she went to a counselor and
the counselor said well
first of all you know figure out where
all the assets are in case you need to
divide them up that was like the first
that was her opening session with the
counselor so it really was not geared
toward helping her solve the issues in
her marriage it was really geared
towards like you know how you're going
to end your marriage
so uh so anyway uh it was very
eye-opening it was in fact shocking to
find out some of the things that these
happily married women were telling me
because they were the opposite of many
of the things i'd heard in marriage
counseling and other places too
things i'd heard all my life about
relationships turned out not to be true
at all based on what these women told me
so it took me a while to even be willing
to try some of their crazy suggestions
because they didn't make any sense to me
i remember uh one woman said
i try never to criticize my husband no
matter how much it seems like he
deserves it i was like
have you got anything else because i
didn't think that that was possible i
didn't think i could do it
uh and as a mere mortal woman i gotta
say i'm i'm still not perfect at that
but it is now something that i strive
for
because i know that when i'm criticizing
my husband um i'm tearing down my own
house right i'm i'm um hurting the man
that i pledge to love and that i do love
and now that i have the kind of marriage
that i dreamed of having
um it's not nearly as tempting i have
better ways of getting what i want and
need in the relationship uh to where
it's a virtuous cycle it's a win-win
situation
uh and i can i can give you some
examples of the
tools and skills that have helped me get
to that
please share subscribe
to making my marriage happy that really
had eluded me and that was that um i
needed to first
make myself happy but it's not so
obvious i know when i say it like that
like only happy people have happy
relationships but i didn't think that i
could be happy because my marriage was
so
miserable and i got kind of attached to
that i thought well if i act like i'm
happy he's gonna think it's okay the
things that he's doing the way he's
showing up i thought that in order for
him to
make changes i had to stay angry
and upset
uh and that turned out to be very
counterproductive i was just
unpleasant and it kind of repelled him
and it was also exhausting and unhappy
for me so there was this uh structure i
came up with where i made a list of
20 things that bring me joy
so i'd love to play volleyball for
example that's on the list or even just
having a cup of tea and reading a book
or
listening to music i love and going for
a walk oh you know i spent a list of 20
simple things like that that i love and
then i decided i was going to do at
least three a day like no matter how
busy i was that was going to come first
was just filling myself up with
happiness so that i could show up
smiling and happy in my relationship
instead of like you know
you know that miserable unhappy look
like okay you know you're in trouble uh
which had been kind of a permanent
feature of my marriage for a couple of
years unfortunately several years before
i discovered that this incredible secret
and
a lot of times on our campus we'll say
we'll ask a woman to start with this it
really is the first skill like unless
you do that one you're not going to have
the energy to do the five other skills
right they do take a little focus and
concentration because a lot of times
they're the opposite of what you've been
doing right they're new habits
and you've got to do something different
to get the you know you've got to do
things you've never done before to get
the kind of marriage you've never had
before right so
they're not hard they're just new
and a lot of times women will say like
okay yeah yeah i get that but you know
what my marriage is really in a crisis
he's got another woman or he's
threatening divorce he's already moved
out
uh you know show me how to fix this
right away and we're always like yeah
you know how's your self-care how many
things have you done today because
without that it's really hard to go on
to the rest and um you're never going to
have a happy relationship until you make
yourself happy first now that doesn't
mean that your husband doesn't want to
make you happy in fact how important is
it to you
that your wife is happy let me just ask
you that
i think for every man that's when you
asked you asked that question before you
you asked like every man that you've
asked said the same thing that's right
exactly it's just a i just love the
reminder of how
uh every man says it's like
the most important thing or it's
everything or it's imperative and um i
think that as in a struggling marriage
you forget that that's his priority
because it honestly does kind of stop
being his priority if he's feeling
criticized or disrespected
because he's busy
shoring up his own ego he's busy
defending himself
but you can still tap into your
husband's desire to make you happy and
really by you can trigger his hero gene
uh and then he shows up like completely
willing to do so much to help you to
lighten your load to delight you
if you are happy and he knows that you
are pleasable and that he can delight
you even further
a lot of things great things you covered
um
do you see people coming into marriage
thinking that so a person cannot be so
happy kind of happy but then they think
okay if i get married that person is
i'll be happy and then they end up
projecting you know what's going on
inside of them and they get more upset
because they think well you're not
making me happy now so you're the
problem and now you're the source of me
not being happy but i wasn't happy uh
even before i got married
that's right that's so exactly right in
fact
um
i forget who was who was it that said if
you can't be a good example
you'll just have to be a horrible
warning and and this was certainly my
story you know i
did not uh
i did not have the tools to make myself
happy
uh when i got married so i was looking
at my husband to make me happy and of
course he can't do that and i remember
even um
on this trip to hawaii early on he took
me on this romantic getaway to hawaii
which so wonderful right uh
and
while we were there i was looking
forward to uh going to the beach on the
first day and he was looking forward to
uh he if i asked him what he wanted to
do and he said let's go see a volcano
and i thought oh that's gosh that is not
what i want to do but i'm going to just
suck it up and
do what he wants to do because i don't
want to cause a conflict
and so i never even said what i wanted
right and if you can't say what you want
of course you're never gonna get what
you want
so we're in the car going to see this
volcano but you don't see it for a long
time it's just a long drive
and um i started to kind of get upset
and he realized something was wrong he's
like there's something wrong you know
and i was like did you think this would
be fun i have these fun and i think it's
stupid and i didn't want to see a
volcano i wanted to go to the beach but
that's where i find it now so you saw a
volcano all right
and poor guy all he knew was he took me
to hawaii for a romantic trip and it
really backfired on him but even after i
was behaving so badly
he took me to the beach because he just
wanted me to be happy
and um you know it's just sad that i i
just had no idea how to express a desire
in a way that inspires him and now that
i have that formula uh things go so much
smoother there's so much less conflict
here i thought i was avoiding the
conflict by just doing what he wanted
and it actually is much more powerful
if i can
say what it is that i would love to do
you mentioned the term disrespect last
time we talked about
oxygen
being respect being like oxygen
for men for men there's a saying that
boys cry for it men die for it like how
does the term respect
play into a good
healthy
relationship
that's a great expression i hadn't heard
that boys cry for it men die for it yeah
um well i think this is such this is for
me like one of the areas of mystery
about marriage because i think for the
female brain at least my female brain to
have a real understanding of what
respect means to men
has taken quite a bit of concentration
um and has kind of revealed itself to me
over time
in a way that um
is uh
i just didn't see it coming because i
was raised knowing that i should respect
my husband
because most of us are and you know
husbands love your wives and wives
respect your husbands
and uh and yet i still did not
understand that when i was uh telling my
husband how to drive or when i was
telling him what to wear or i was asking
him if he remembered to bring
uh the water bottle and did he remember
to charge his phone or whatever that all
those things were disrespectful if i was
saying
don't you think this you know that that
was
a form of disrespect or
um you know correcting him
uh there are so many examples uh
interrupting him was a big one that i
struggled with
early on and uh so those were things
where i i didn't have any intention to
be disrespectful but i also didn't
realize
that i was being disrespectful and it
was doing us a lot of harm
it's unintentional but whatever we were
both suffering so it was a great benefit
to
learn what respect looks like and then
be able to bring that to him like um i
remember just not too long i'm still not
perfect being respectful unfortunately
but we were at dinner uh a while ago and
we my husband took me to this really
nice restaurant it was it was really
buzzing and the waiters are flying
around you can hear the noise from the
bar and people are laughing and we were
having a nice time and then um i said
something critical about his um company
the way he was running his company
and was i was criticizing one of his
clients actually and but it was really
about the way he was running his company
and all of a sudden it was like the
music stopped the waiter stopped the
people in the bar just stopped and my
husband got this look on his face
and i was like oh
oh i i wasn't really ready to be
accountable yet i was like oh
was that disrespectful and he was like
yes
and i was like oh
and then i said
i apologize for being disrespectful when
i criticized your client
and all of a sudden like the music comes
back the waiters are back my husband
relaxes our good time is back our nice
conversation is back so instead of
having a tense night where maybe we're
just i'm not even speaking for the rest
of the night you know we're able to have
our good time again because i was able
to identify like oh i i was
disrespectful and i i want to be a
respectful wife
and so being able to apologize and clean
that up just feels like gold
in your book
empowered wife you have that chapter we
went over people can watch that episode
that we we did
it goes over many of the myths and
misconceptions and i've seen over the
years i've seen people
hit a lot of those and just get them
wrong
and these are people who also are doing
we have a lot of different imams also
marriage counselors in the muslim
community
and i'm like wow they should really and
i really recommend your book you know
because people kind of just are passed
along information they don't question it
they just kind of regurgitate it and
then just go ahead and pass that along
but you kind of put those myths and
those misconceptions in their in their
place uh which which ones do you get
uh i don't i don't have it in front of
me but which what are some of the top
three
that you encounter often you're like oh
they've got it wrong there
i'll tell you one that i hear again and
again and again and it drives me bad in
fact it i i get upset i want to like
throw a pie in someone's face or
something because uh one that i hear
repeatedly is that you should use these
um these blasted i statements you say
you know when you don't take out the
trash i feel uh abandoned or something
like that right and they're just awful
because it's it's just a criticism
you're just complaining
about that person and if you say i feel
at the beginning you can say anything
you want after that and it's like it
should be okay and then when he reacts
badly then you go oh my gosh see there's
something wrong with him because he gets
upset when i do what they told me i
should do well you shouldn't do that
it's not helpful no one wants to hear
this uh packaged criticism uh in this
this way and um i mean this is an issue
we used to have like i couldn't get my
husband to take out the trash i didn't
know and i was following what the
experts were saying you know i would
really love for you to take out the
trash today or you know something like
that and
uh that doesn't work and like our trash
was overflowing and then i'd end up
taking it out like receding with
resentment
and we've come such a long way because
now um
what i did was i just
caught him doing something good you know
i would he would take out the trash and
i would appreciate him for it i would
say oh i'm so happy you took out the
trash thank you so much
and uh this just came up the other day i
was talking about somebody suggesting
this i statement thing for the trash
and uh it was hilarious because i was
talking to my husband about it and he
goes you know i'm going to go over and
check the trash right now make sure it's
empty in case you want to throw
something away you know like he's just
all about taking care of me making sure
i'm happy
and i would never use those i statements
now because i just you know same reason
i wouldn't i don't know pull my hair out
would be painful so that that's that's
the number one uh myth that i hear
coming up all the time
i think and another one the second one
that i hear uh that is really truly
heartbreaking it kind of goes back to
your divorce court uh reference is how
often
the the conventional wisdom is oh you
should divorce him right that's like the
helpful advice
uh you know well you should leave him oh
he's he's uh verbally abusive right well
you should leave him or he's uh
he was flirting with a woman at work
well you should leave him you deserve
better
so um
and and i get like those are
heartbreaking situations and you
feel like maybe
you can end your own suffering by um
you know kind of maybe doing these
ultimatums
uh or telling him you know telling him
he's wrong or exploding on him
and um boy that just never works um
in fact
i was just
hearing from a student recently who's
her what her friend had
caught her husband cheating and she just
immediately uh ran to that divorce and
and of course he shouldn't be cheating
and
uh you know that is a horrible horrible
situation but this woman also had three
children
and um you know she uh kind of made a i
don't wanna say i mean kind of an
impulsive decision right to immediately
start that divorce and and gave herself
very few options for the possibility of
the recovery of that family and she's
now in a position where she's counseling
other women don't do what i did you know
to see if you can fix it because boy
this is painful this is hard and this is
uh this was rough on my children and
this is rough on us financially
and uh i'm always going to be connected
to my my ex-husband because we have
these three children together
you have a audio podcast i recommend
people to check out and you interview
many different women who've had
tremendous success implementing many of
the strategies and tips that you give
advices and i remember
one interview
the
woman was talking about how she went
around a certain group
of friends
uh and who were divorced and they were
kind of encouraging her to divorce
and then she would feel a certain way
and then she was like i don't want to be
like that but then she saw how their
lives were they were kind of like
miserable and then on the other hand she
was seeing again those the success
stories she's like i want to be like
them so how important does it play like
who who you're around how much influence
does that have over your decisions
i'm so flattered that you listened to my
podcast that is very uh that's so sweet
and um yeah i
to this day
um i
purposely and very intentionally
surround myself with women who
think that marriage is important and
they want to have great marriages and
they invest their time and energy in
strengthening their families because uh
first of all they inspire me they're
some of my favorite people i mean um
none of us are perfect right so
sometimes
these other women are sharing about the
horrible thing that they said to their
husband or the horrible thing that they
did and um it's kind of relatable for me
as a mere mortal woman who's also
said and done some things i'm not so
proud of um so 20 years later
having a group of like-minded women who
are standing for my greatness as a wife
and standing also for my husband's
greatness uh has has meant the world to
me it helps really keep my marriage
shiny
and the way that i want to have it
how do you think you describe yourself
as a as a college educated
have you seen the feminist movement at
one point where there was some
legitimate concerns you know fighting
for many of the rights that women didn't
have to where it's like second third
wave feminist where where we're at today
yeah it's a really interesting question
i think it's um maybe
poorly defined um what those second and
third waves really are about
um but i think i think one big shift for
me is
that i was raised with this
indoctrination that it was really
important to be in independent you got
to be able to get that education and
support yourself you don't want to
depend on a man
and um and today that is certainly not
my goal it's really my goal to
have a connected um
playful passionate marriage where we're
interdependent
and uh i consider that
um a big part of my success in life as a
woman it's in fact just the thing i'm
most proud of in the whole world i we
just celebrated our 32nd wedding
anniversary and i consider that like my
biggest accomplishment ever and um
so i guess as a woman who stands for
other women being successful
uh i i want to stand for them being
successful in their families
you mentioned last time being pleasable
like if someone's not pleasable there's
no pleasing them like
can you that's also stood out that's
something that has
been there i've thought about that
since the last time we spoke can you um
remind us about that
yes so
i had this totally unfortunate habit of
i remember telling my husband
don't buy me flowers they're expensive
and they die
or or he would
buy me a gift and um maybe it was like
the wrong color or something so like
nothing he did was right and because
and maybe i would even say oh thank you
that's that's so sweet but then i'd
return it right so he knew
um i wasn't really pleasable so of
course he stopped trying right because
he couldn't succeed
with that so um and then that was the
same way with so that was gifts i was
the same way with compliments you know
we'd wake up in the morning and he'd say
oh you look so beautiful
and i would go no i don't you know my
hair is a mess or whatever i gotta argue
with him
and um so i was i was a poor receiver
and um very very unpleasable or he he
would um offer to help
with something and i'd be like no no
i've got it you know even
something like i remember one time i
carried a
a
box of heavy dishes like up the stairs
to our house and
he um
was like okay you know okay i guess i
guess you've got it you know so um
uh i was really
robbing us both of this wonderful
interaction that we have like many times
a day now where
um he gives and i receive and i'm
delighted and he
is um he he finds a lot of satisfaction
in
and making me happy pleasing me like
that so and i had the key the whole time
i didn't know it i thought oh my
husband's just not doing anything
romantic
well he couldn't i was blocking that by
not being pleasable
there was another thing that you
mentioned in the myth section of the
book empowered wife was that this
misconception that
uh one has more power than the the other
you know in a relationship and you get
it towards
one
rather than the other who has actually
more power and you gave some examples
about who initiates more divorce etc etc
can you explain that to us
sure so um
my experience
not just with myself but with
tens of thousands of students who've now
been very successful in transforming
their marriages and making them
wonderful you know i'm not just like
okay we're not getting divorced but
making their marriage is amazing
tells me that women are the keepers of
the relationship and i know this is
very unpopular to say this right now
because um i think there is a
big push towards um this idea that you
know men and women are the same
and it just isn't my experience you know
um for one thing i i i
there's a study at the university of
toronto where they discovered that um
you know i'm glad you're sitting down
for this that women are more emotional
than men so
that was shocking right that was
research money well spent and but i
think this is just one example like
women have this emotional brilliance and
that is
a gift and a contribution to their
marriages that uh where the marriage
suffers without this valuable
contribution that they make so
i say viva la difference you know we are
we bring uh
and maybe you can look at it just as yin
and yang even right that there is um and
kind of going back to this pleasable
example that we're just talking about um
the yang can be like you can think of it
like a coffee mug
where the yang is the structure the
maybe the ceramic part from the handle
of the mug and the yin is the part that
can receive the coffee that can hold the
coffee and without the ability to hold
the coffee
that yang has no purpose right that
coffee cup has no purpose
and so i think we fit together
beautifully very complimentary
and yet uh
uh women for whatever reason we seem to
have more power and influence not just
whether the marriage lasts but the
uh the culture within the marriage if
it's gonna be wall-to-wall hostility or
if we're gonna have um intimacy and
laughter uh and peace
uh and uh warm fuzzy feelings
wow that's a shock for many so that kind
of um you know the common mantra is that
it's like um
50 50 but here it's showing that
women are the gatekeepers here yes
absolutely 100
in fact um and and i think it's good
news bad news a lot of women describe
having this realization that they are
that gay keeper as like a slap in the
face
but also that made them so hopeful
because it's kind of like spider-man
right with great power comes great
responsibility so
the you know the bad news is it's your
responsibility and the good news is it's
also within your power to create the
kind of marriage that you want to have
this enormous
influence in your marriage
to really make it
magical moving uh exciting like
everything you dreamed of
as a little girl which i think it sounds
almost too lofty to women who are
struggling i know when i was struggling
i just wanted my husband to stop
ignoring me and stop watching so much tv
and
you know help with the housework and
some very basic things
and what i've come to realize is it kind
of all goes together like the man will
do he'll move heaven and earth for me if
i um
take my responsibilities seriously and
do the things that actually contribute
to that uh intimacy and peace in my home
but that also feel good for me as a
person as a woman to it feels better to
be a respectful person than a shrieking
nagging person right i i'm enjoying
being around myself more than i used to
um when i was
behaving like that uh two words that
come to mind this is for the
male and female the man and the wussman
husband and wife how important
uh when you hear these turns attitude
and tone
tone and attitude
well they're certainly important i um
i'm giggling because i was thinking
about how
one of the things that we do on our
campus is we have i call them cheap
phrases we have these cheap phrases you
can use and they're meant to put your
heart right right so when you like with
children we teach them to say please and
thank you
and we're doing that to teach them to
put to have a grateful heart right so
but sometimes you know kids just say
please thank you right and you get that
they're like they're just going through
the motions and i've done the same thing
with these phrases that the cheap
phrases that are meant to
i like to rely on them to put my heart
right so
one of those phrases is so for instance
if my husband
is kind of uh looking to me to
maybe i've been controlling about
something in the past and he doesn't
want to be in trouble so he's like you
know do you think i should take the car
in now or can i wait till next week and
it's really something he can decide for
us right i don't really need to
weigh in on that he's totally
competent more confident than me with
cars right so i can just say oh you know
whatever you think and sometimes i'll
say you know i want to use that phrase
like i know it's going to serve me but
i'll say
whatever you think right and i'm using
the wrong tone when i'm using the right
words in the wrong tone and it doesn't
work really you know it's just it's um
you do want to put your heart right of
course uh as you're saying things if
you're being intentional
um about really uh making the choices
that are gonna serve the intimacy versus
maybe being controlling or
kind of acting out of your fear right
which why all of us get controlling it's
always about being afraid
what advice would you give right now if
there is someone tuning in they've
already lawyered up but now she's tuning
into the show
and the lawyer's advice is
don't talk to him don't talk to her no
if they need to talk you need to talk to
me so they already like established that
where they are doing their best to try
to avoid any of the two reconciling come
together because they'll lose the
business they're not in the business of
bringing people back together but we are
we're trying to save homes save
marriages so now so now they're tuning
in but they're at that brink it's it's
almost over they already put a down
payment they've already been going to
the lawyer the attorneys but
we're saying there's hoping to the end
what advice would you give oh there's so
much hope and i um i think the first
thing i'd want to say is
that i uh my heart breaks for her right
my heart breaks for her that is a
it's a terrible lonely scary
position to be in and i still remember
um when i felt really terrified about my
marriage ending and how
um yeah i just so i really feel for her
uh being probably feeling very alone in
that situation and
we see this uh actually on our campus uh
we've seen it hundreds and hundreds of
times where she's already got a lawyer
and he does too and they're well along
and um
we have a specific strategy and specific
steps that you can take
to
uh not just make your to save your
marriage but really to make it thrive
even when it's to that point even we've
even
uh have students who have gotten
divorced they've gotten completely
divorced
and then they reconciled and remarried
and uh and they're there to say it's
better than ever
um and of course i you know if we can
save you the pain of that divorce if we
can stand with you and support you in
doing the things that will
prevent it that's always the goal but
not only is there hope after you have a
lawyer there can even be hope after
you're divorced
to to really um
rekindle that love
how does someone become a coach how does
someone
because that's what you offer training
for someone can go ahead because i'm
sure you're spread thin you know you're
all over the place but now you're
coaching people to kind of also what do
they do the coaches they they go ahead
and teach people these uh six intimacy
skills and how to save your marriage and
be more i think what were the terms how
to be become loved cherished and adored
correct exactly yes thank you so much
yeah we have about i have about 50
coaches right now and we really
need a lot more because um it like you
say 50 divorce rate and a whole
system apparently that's set up to um
yeah
propelled them to divorce uh that's what
we're up against so
um all the coaches
i started out struggling in their
marriages every single one so we don't
have any coaches that just said oh i'd
like to be able to help people uh so i'm
just gonna learn how to do that no these
are all women who also
uh have uh areas of their marriage that
they might have been ashamed to talk
about
uh where uh i have a coach whose husband
was an alcoholic i have a coach who's uh
whose husband was physically abusive
prior to her uh learning the six and
missy skills along with the connection
framework and uh we have a coach who had
a restraining order against her husband
so every coach has had some kind of a
struggle in her marriage and has
had a transformation using her own power
right she she did it
single-handedly i would say although
we find that once she uh learns these
new
ways of being
that the husband then changes too he
becomes a better man
just couple more questions before we
conclude uh you talk about
communication
being overrated oh yes yeah
i'm sorry gosh my eyes just roll out of
my head like that don't they sometimes
well because it's another thing that you
hear a lot right your communication
marriage is all about communication and
of course as you know i think
communication can be very overrated
especially
um i think what i heard as a woman and i
think what a lot of women hear is like
you've got to tell him
how to behave you've got to tell him
what he's doing wrong you've got to tell
him how uh resentful you are that he's
not helping out with the homework or uh
with the housework or yeah housework or
homework
and uh and of course um that actually
just digs your
hole deeper that's not going to help
there are
certain uh i guess i would say ways to
communicate that are just very different
than anything i ever saw or learned
growing up
and what i found when i first started
practicing the sex intimacy skills is
that i felt almost like a mute because
so much of what had been coming out of
my mouth when i was communicating was
control it was disrespect
it was criticism and it was complaining
and when i stopped
there was hardly anything to say for a
while until i got to what
uh i still until i learned
are you kidding
wow
that's deep
powerful
uh and then what about men now what men
also uh you know what about working men
working to improve the relationship what
what could uh men do yes
i struggle with this one i really do
i'm really in this quandary with this
right now because of course men want to
save their families also
uh and of course it's important to them
and um
and it's
certainly been my experience that the
women have so much power along those
lines
i'll tell you a story i heard though um
just recently uh from one of my coach
trainees who was saying that for uh 27
years uh you know in their marriage she
would say i'm i think we should get
divorced i'm going to leave you i think
i'm going to go and he would say no no
you know we'll bake it it's worth it
let's save this marriage and so she
would be like all right you know then
they kept going
and then he uh decided one day that he
was going to
stop taking her bait in fact i think he
had even been in a program
uh where they encouraged this he said
they said just react like a man just
don't take your wife's bait
and um so the next time she said well
you know i think we better get to and i
think i'm going to leave
and he said to her
don't let the door
hit you on the way out
that's what he said so instead of
begging her and saying oh come on try to
persuade her to stay
he just said well all right yeah okay so
then then you're leaving all right go
for it
and she was shocked she was so shocked
she realized oh i guess this is really
on me i guess i'm gonna have to
if i'm gonna
fix this i'm gonna have to do something
different she didn't really want to
leave it was a it was an empty threat
and then she um did some searching
online and she she found some of the
the books and programs that we offer and
uh and now she has really restored that
marriage made it worth saving her
husband brings her wildflowers and he
comes home from work early to to be with
her and they're really enjoying each
other's company after
all these years 20 you know 20 i think
it was 27 years
so um
so there's you know there's just always
so much hope and i think uh for a man in
some cases
it doesn't uh you know a lot of his
power is going to be in how he responds
to her um
yeah how she shows up in the marriage
him either taking the bait or not taking
the bait can make a big difference
wow have you have you thought about
writing a book
uh for men
that'd be awesome like giving these
inside tips
because i don't have any experience
being a man i only have experience being
a wife and that's really
all i have to share you you just gave a
good tip right there i mean i'm sure you
got so many more uh hacks as they call
it you know marriage hacks for marriage
hacks for men maybe that's the next
episode we can do i'm listening
how to navigate through some of this for
a minute for a man
yeah yeah i think there's um you know
in some ways i think men are so great
because they are
they just are men and they know how to
be men already no one has to tell them
how to do it right and uh certainly as a
woman i'm not gonna be able to tell them
how to be husbands or men or fathers
right that's impossible
but um
anyway i i just admire how men show up
um
they just seem incredibly
loyal and dedicated and sacrificing in
marriage
if you know how to uh
benefit from that well thank you very
much our intention was like we started
to help give the good advice to help
save the family because if the families
broke society will be broke and where
are we going to be so
uh how can people i know you've
translated you've made many of your
books now on audible right an audio
version of the books yes they want to
get one of your surrendered wife or
empowered wife that's exactly right i
recommend the empowered wife it's a
little more uh it's unabridged it's more
thorough and it lays out the six
intimacy skills
step by step and i just think the world
needs more women who
are
really making their marriages a priority
treating them is important to make them
not just you know
okay but to really make them last to
fortify them i think yeah the world
needs more women like that
uh and the empowered wife will
definitely help you do that
thank you very much thank you for being
with us and sharing that with us god
bless you thank you lord see you thank
you take care bye-bye bye
and thank you guys for tuning in
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until then peace be with you assalamu