How to Stay Connected as a Couple During Busy Seasons of Life
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[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome back, beautiful mamas. I'm so excited to have you, especially because it's not just me today. I have Chanelle Nielsen here as a guest. Chanelle is a friend of mine and a fellow coach And you also, we met through the creation of my Cyclone Mom method book, right? I forget that sometimes- Yes, that's right
How long. But you now have some great changes going on in your life, and some information that I want to give out to my own listeners on the topic of connection as a couple. I definitely know this is something [00:01:00] that us busy moms want, because I hear it with my coaches all the time. So welcome to the podcast.
Thanks so much for being here, and I'm just gonna have you start out by telling everyone a little bit about yourself, and we'll dive in.
Okay, wonderful. I have been... I've known Danielle, let's start with that, for a while, and she's fantastic, as you guys know. And so it is an honor to be here. And my husband and I have started teaching about marriage, and this is something that we're passionate about.
We started because back in our early days, we met in college, and one of our very first jobs was to be a host couple for marriage retreats. And what we would do is we did all the logistics. So we would get the food and the vans and everything, and we would drive couples up where we would sit and listen to, communications teachers, the president of our university, other leadership, and they taught about marriage.
And my husband and I were newlyweds ourselves, and [00:02:00] so we were doing this weekend after weekend, and we felt like that was such a strong foundation for us, for our marriage. And we always have said, and there are 20... It's been 25 years we've been married now. We always said, "Someday, we're gonna do that.
We're gonna teach that." And so someday has finally come. We are teaching some of the things we've learned, because we feel like that was such a strong foundation for our marriage, just learning these tools that have helped us all along the way. And so we live in southern California. We have five kids. We have had many of- many challenges, like we all do in life.
But I'm a mom also, and then marriage and figuring all that out is not easy, and so having those tools is very helpful. I'm also a student, a, an associate marriage and family therapist. So I am just learning to be a therapist, and and that'll come up as we talk a little bit today. Yeah. So that's me.
Excellent. Okay, yeah. I think I knew that before and just forgot, but we had our [00:03:00] 26th wedding anniversary, my husband and I. And so I'm excited too to hear about this what you have to say. I, this is where I wanna start. Because, again, like I mentioned, I coach, and this comes up in the relationships when I'm coaching of my clients about how they're feeling disconnected, right?
Why is it so difficult for couples to stay connected? Especially we're talking about once kids come, the careers are in full swing, and of course, all the daily responsibilities that comes with being a busy mom.
Yeah. I think there's so many elements to it, right? As, especially as faith-filled women, the faith-based, we've got church responsibilities, we've got home responsibilities, and maybe careers, and all these things that we're doing, it's very easy to feel like we're, we love each other.
We're good. Our, my marriage is fine. And I think that's the word, the key word we hear all the time, fine. It's good enough. It's fine. We're not really worried about it because there aren't [00:04:00] really problems. If we're not seeing big problems, it seems like it's okay. And I think as, being religious, being faith-based gives us one advantage and one disadvantage, and the disadvantage, it makes us even busier, right?
We're going to church. We're very especially I am, I'm LDS, and Danielle's Catholic, we are family-based. We love our families, and we know it is so important to raise a good family. And so as moms, oh, we wanna do it right. And so we pour so much energy into our kids, sometimes there's not as much left for our husbands.
And that's something I see over and over, that we want to do right by our kids, and husbands can get a little bit on the back burner, even though they're part of our family, too. But the real advantage I think we have with our faith is that commitment. We know marriage is important. We know it matters. We know it's ordained of God, and so we want that.
We want that strong marriage. And so I feel that we [00:05:00] can use that to our advantage wherever we fall, whether we're religious or not. W- we can look intentionally and say, "Am I putting the right kind of energy into the marriage to have the marriage that I want?"
I love, when I'm working with my clients, I sometimes use this exercise, a scale exercise, to just kinda check in where they are.
And that's what kind of reminded me when you were talking about everyone saying "It's just, it's fine." Like again, when there's no big problems to solve, and you're busy taking care of all the responsibilities. But that's what it made me think of, 'cause sometimes I'll ask, like on a scale of one to 10 with 10 meaning it's awesome we're just like blowing it out of the park, and one being like it's terrible, we're like totally disconnected, we have never...
I'm seeing how people would probably say that even they were like maybe, oh, it's a four, it's a five. Yeah. Kinda the it's fine. So I guess I'm like, that kind of piqued my interest to think for anyone who's [00:06:00] listening, like it doesn't have to stay there, right? Despite all the other things that are happening in your life, and having a lot of kids.
If you truly have a desire that if you were to answer that question and it be something like an eight or a nine. Anyways that's what came to my mind. Yeah. That's possible, right?
Definitely. Yeah. And I wanna add to that, one thing that holds us back is we think, "I don't have any more time to give."
And that's one of the key things that we teach. It's not about more time, it's about more intention. Because you can, you s- we're all gonna have the same 24 hours in a day, and we do have a lot of other responsibilities. And so having a strong marriage means putting more intention to it, not necessarily a, a lot more time.
Love it. So what inspired you to focus specifically on couples who are, quote, "doing fine," but want more connection in their marriage?
Yeah. So as I've gone through this therapy program, the, my master's program, it's [00:07:00] been really interesting to see. Because when couples come in, they're, I don't want to say too late, because it's never too late, but they have years of built up resentment, years of not fine.
And it is so much easier, we know this, it's so much easier to prevent than to fix. We see that in all areas of our life, right? It's easier to th- with our health, it's easier to prevent than to wait until we're in really bad shape to try and fix it. The same thing is true in our marriage. If we can see, all right, we're fine, but it could be better, that's a much better starting place than really not fine.
But what usually happens is we see it coming down the tracks. We're a four, a five, a six, like you said. It's not great, but it's okay, and we've got other things we're worrying about. But as the years go on into the s- first decade, the second decade of marriage, and that keeps getting pushed down the line, that [00:08:00] scaling question is gonna go down even more.
We're a three, we're a two, right? If you don't put that intention into it. And that's when people go to therapy. Now, therapy can help, and it can work, and it can do wonderful things, but you're gonna have a lot harder slog at that point to climb up that mountain together, versus if you say, "Fine is not acceptable to me.
I want a great marriage. That's what I signed up for," and you start there, not only do you have all those happier, more content, more fun years together, but you also don't have that hole to climb out of. And so that was something that was really important to me. Because as I'm seeing, there are ways to fix a bad relationship, there are, but those patterns get deeply ingrained, and it's a lot of working, and it's a lot of rewiring our brains and all those things.
So prevention is where I would love to live, where I'd love to help people.
My favorite w- correlation right there, I think you just hit it when, earlier when you just, you likened it to your health goals. That right there makes [00:09:00] so much sense to me. So it's a good question to contemplate, right?
Is there anything that you can see you're doing in your busy mom life where you're putting the time and attention into your health? I know this, because that's one of my focuses right now, which I'm seeing how much time it really does take to really move the markers. And and so yeah, so I love that you c- we could now look at our marriages and think about that, even if we're thinking it's fine.
Like our health, what could I do now? What supplements can I take? What boost in my exercise? But put that in the context of your relationship and marriage. So I love that way to think about it, right? Okay. Everybody here knows that I, the framework that I have for my business to help and serve is the Cyclone Mom Method, right?
So I know that you have a framework as well, and it's called FIRM. So tell everybody, what is your FIRM foundation marriage framework, and [00:10:00] how does it help couples rebuild closeness in a practical way?
Yeah. So FIRM foundation is what we're all about, and that stands for friendship, intimacy, respect, and momentum.
And so I'll go through each of those quickly- ... and then talk about how they work together. Okay. So friendship is really the basis of a strong marriage. Lots of research has been done on this. John Gottman primarily did most of this research and found that when couples are, have a strong friendship, they report higher marital satisfaction by 70%.
That is the main thing, and he found this across all different ages and types of couples. Friendship matters. And so that means playing together, having fun together, treating each other like a friend those kind of things, wanting to spend time together. And then intimacy, of course, I think most of us, our minds go to physical intimacy, and that's definitely part of it.
But I think there's [00:11:00] more there's more nuance to this idea of intimacy because it also has to do with being vulnerable with each other, being open, letting your partner see you In, that's a physical thing, but also y- all of the emotions, all of the hard things. That is, that intimacy is really what binds you together.
The friendship makes it possible, I feel like, and the intimacy is that binding method that, that brings us close together. And then respect is how we do everything. So the respect piece is how you're treating each other, how you're talking about each other when you're not even in the room. The, how you're asking him to load the dishwasher or whatever those, those day-to-day things, because marriage is more than just the romantic part that we see on TV.
It's this partnership. It's raising kids together. It's having a household together. So how do you do that in a respectful way? And then the momentum piece is keeping it going, and that kind of leans back to what we talked about [00:12:00] earlier of this idea of it's easy to let ever- get caught up in everything else, right?
We have so many other things going, but momentum is, okay, our marriage matters. How are we gonna keep this going? How are we going to still prioritize each other in simple ways over and over? So that is the framework in a nutshell.
I love it. I love it so much. Okay. And as I'm listening as I'm listening and thinking about my own marriage and relationship, o- one of the things, again, that I help my clients understand when a lot of them come and tell me that their, relationships are disconnected, it's usually that they want to focus on their husband changing, whatever.
They're feeling that what they're, what he's doing is the reason for disconnection. Yes. And then this is when I redirect to talk about my philosophy and the relationships exist in the mind, and that we do not need a person to change or to even be physically, in front of us for us to have a connected relationship.[00:13:00]
But with that being said, just and thinking about your firm foundation- Just having somebody listen. I know there's some of my listeners who are still thinking that. "Oh, we would be... How do I get my husband to do these things?" But what's one small shift that you could offer that the couples can make today, and especially the woman listening, right?
If even if her husband isn't willing to participate in some form or fashion and she wants more connection, to be able to move from herself feeling disconnected to more connection with her husband.
Yeah. I love that question, and I wish I had just a simple one-part answer, but of course I don't. I have a whole thing on it.
So the, this is where I would start with that. It starts with intention. Looking at, okay, where am I feeling disconnected in the marriage? Is it physical? Is it we're not spending enough time holding hands? Is it that I don't feel that, that [00:14:00] closeness, like it's not romantic anymore? Or is it that I'm feeling burdened because he doesn't feel like my partner, and I feel like I'm doing all the work, and I...
He's just one more kid I have to nag about doing things? That's where I would start, is look at where is the disconnection. Is it that when I'm talking to him, he's not listening and he's scrolling something on his phone? Where is that piece, just one, and I would narrow it down to one. Where is that one place where that would make a really big difference.
Now, sometimes, say it is that he's on his phone. That's easy to go right where you said, Danielle. To say, "Okay then it's his fault. He needs to get off his phone, and if he doesn't change, nothing's gonna change." Now, honest and open conversations, w- we need to assume, and this goes with the respect piece, that our husbands have good intent also.
But when we approach them in a very respectful manner, when we come to them... So let's say it is the phone one. We look at it and we say, "I [00:15:00] talk to him. He... I don't feel like he's listening. I feel like he's on his phone." In the moment when he is on his phone and you feel like he's ignoring you is not the time to bring that up.
A wise man once said to me, "Talk about talking when you're not talking about anything else." And I love that phrase. Me too. And I come back to it over and over. It's so good, right?
Yes,
so good. Because when you are talking about something else is not the time to say, "And you always are on your phone." That turns into a whole different thing.
The time to talk about that is maybe you're in bed together and you're getting ready for bed and you're snuggling and you say, "Honey, you know what? I love when we just have time to talk, and I want more of that. Do you think we could set aside 10 minutes every night to just hold hands on the couch with no phones before we turn on the TV after we get the kids to bed?
'Cause I wanna be close to you." If your husband also wants a strong marriage, he's probably gonna be on board. Pitch it in a [00:16:00] way that it's something that he wants. "You know what? I wanna be close to you. I would love to just rub your feet at night when you get home from work. Put down your phone, let me rub your feet and tell you about my day."
Okay. Yeah, I'm in. That is such a different thing than you need to change. Now, the byproduct of that He doesn't have his phone. You're listening. He's listening to you. You're feeling connected. It gets you where you want, but in such a loving, open way, and you're not asking him to do anything in that moment than, other than put down his phone, and you're showing that you love him.
So that's one, one example of how I would get to that end answer. It may be something else. It may be that you're, you guys are arguing all the time about big things. Then I would back up and I would say, "How can we talk about simpler things that aren't ar- arguments? Where can we set aside time to talk about something that won't lead to an argument?
Where can we play more? Where can we have more [00:17:00] fun?" That, that's where I go in my mind to figure out where is it that we need that connection in our marriage.
Yeah. I love it. And what that is, what I'm seeing from you, is it's just a series of stopping, pausing, and asking yourself some questions so that you can zero in, focus your brain to be more intentional and have it go find a simple starting place, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly. And so that's what we do with couples. We have a series of date nights based on each of these four friendship, intimacy, respect, momentum, and in those date nights, part of it is a Zoom call with us, and we teach some things, and then we give a question for discussion. And then everyone's off camera, and we say, "Okay, now go and discuss that.
Talk about it with each other." So it becomes a conversation where each couple can answer these questions together, and you find out. We've been married 25 years, and as we've done these exercises, we find out things because we keep changing, right? Maybe the [00:18:00] answer was different 10 years ago. But we keep finding out new things about each other and what we each need in this season, and it keeps us connected.
It keeps us really leaning into what the other partner needs.
Now, you might have already mentioned this or started or elaborated on this, but the question that's coming to my mind is literally if you think of those couples, this is what I also like to do with my clients. I like to take them to the version of themselves, or in this case, that they are a...
They would tell, yes, we're a couple that's very connected. Okay? What... Because I also don't want my clients to be overwhelmed and think that they have to do all these things now. We have to have the 10 minutes of holding hands before, which I totally love, like before we watch TV, and, go on a date night every week or whatever it is.
But if you can think about, and you can maybe use your own marriage, of what are the- The habits and practices that [00:19:00] couples who already are at this point, what are some of the things that they do on the regular? And then I would like my listeners to, to again, not jump to having to do all those things or to think they have to get there right away, but then I think can you come back to today and one of them might be like, "Oh, hey, I could do that."
Whether it's send a loving text every day or something like that, and work to be that. Does this make sense, what I'm trying to ask?
Yes.
Okay.
Totally. And I'll say this is one of the things we do in our date night. One of the date nights we create this vision together. What does it look like for both of us?
And, 'cause it's important to also know what it looks like for your husband, right?
So yes, what it looks like. Here is mine. Your husband comes home from work, and instead of continuing to stir whatever you're stirring on the stove or dealing with the kids or scrolling on your own phone, you stand up and you give him a hug and a kiss.
That little greeting, that little, "I care that you're home," [00:20:00] is huge. I think that matters so much. You do the same thing when he leaves or he, when you're leaving in the morning, however that looks. But you say goodbye and you say hello because they matter. Then when they talk to you, you listen.
That's so huge. So phones are... I have to always bring up the phone because one thing, I hear it over and over, and also I live it, right? I, we all have to fight that tendency.
It is the part of our society now, right? It is. That we are,
and sometimes we need to be on our phone. So if my husband's trying to tell me something and I'm not fully engaged, then I will say, "Can you give me just a minute?
Let me finish this, because I want to give you my attention." So I think that's another thing that it looks like. It looks like giving our full attention and being respectful enough to let the other person know when we can't. Another thing it looks like is spending time together. So date nights, yes, huge.
Just, there's something, especially for a woman to get [00:21:00] dressed up, to show this part of you that you can sometimes forget when you're in your sweats and you're making dinner. That looks different than putting on your jewelry and your makeup and going out and being treated like a queen.
That's really important to a marriage. One thing my husband and I, this is a specific one, but one thing we love to do is go on walks almost every night. And that's, it helps us- Same. ... Because, isn't it? Isn't it just amazing? You're moving your body. That helps you process emotions. There's like a physiological thing going on.
You're not, you don't have your phone. That's taken out of the equation, so that's helpful, too. And then you're seeing different things and it's okay to be silent sometimes, it's okay to talk sometimes. It's a beautiful thing. So if that works for you, that's one that I highly recommend is going out on walks.
So those are some of the habits. There are probably a lot of more. Danielle, what other ones do you have? I would be- I- I would love to hear in your marriage
what other ones. I'm a- I'm actually, I'm just smiling because my husband and I, we do take walks pretty much every [00:22:00] day, but we've also been into hiking.
And so those are very long walks, right? But-
Yeah ...
but I'm smiling because we have developed this habit. In our neighborhood, there's certain routes, like we have the library route, we have the post office route, we have the alley, like the trash alley route.
Yeah.
But each of them, when you get to a certain place, we give each other a kiss.
Aw, that's so cute. And I, and it's, I, so I was just laughing 'cause I was thinking about how this is, that's a habit that we've just built. And sometimes we're in conversation and I will, we'll just be talking and I will go past the spot. And then I will be like, "Oh, wait a minute. I don't feel him around."
And he's standing at the spot waiting because he remembered, right?
I love that.
Or vice versa. So now we're always- Yeah ... waiting to see who remembers. But we even- Yeah ... do that at a certain hiking, when we get to this certain point, and then we do a reverse order. Anyways I was just smiling thinking that, oh, I am applying this one- Yeah
habit aspect to it. [00:23:00]
That's so cute. Yeah. I love it. And that one kiss- It doesn't matter all that much, but the habit the fact of doing it over and over. That is how these things in marriage are. We're married for the long haul, and so little things compound. Yeah. They really do. And on a side note, on our walks, we also have n- the different routes.
We have the long block. Okay. We have the willows route. We have all these- That's so good ... they're named. Yeah. It's so funny. I
still. Yes. It's which one do you wanna do tonight? Yes. Kind of thing, yeah. All right. Look, I always wanna keep cognitive of having, for my busy moms not, a, a shorter end of an episode.
So just wanna ask you, is there anything else that you want that we didn't touch on that you would want to have my, my listening audience that you think would be some takeaway thoughts for them before we end today?
Yes. I will just say this: love is a verb. Love is an action word. I know you guys love your spouse.
Maybe you forget sometimes, but you do. You [00:24:00] do, deep down, right? We love them. And so do that thing. Do- take the action. Take a little step to show them that you love them. That will bring so much connection, just that little tiny thing. And like I just said, it compounds, so a little bit every day is gonna make a big difference, and it doesn't have to be this extra thing on your to-do list.
It can take two seconds to let's g- let's say two minutes when he comes in the door, giving him a big hug and a big kiss. That's gonna start just a ch- chain reaction of feeling more connected. So we're, if that's not the thing for you today, choose one little thing that will make you feel more connected, and then take action on it.
I love it. I love it so much. Okay, and if anybody wants to connect with Thienel, just know that in the show notes I will have all of the links, and I just really appreciate you coming on, and and helping us all. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you.
All right, everybody, until next week, may peace [00:25:00] be with you always.
