The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast
Nick and Amy are the creators and owners of the Ultimate Intimacy App and brand. They dive into all the tough topics regarding sexual and emotional intimacy, and discuss the things that most couples deal with regularly in marriage, that are seldom talked about on other podcasts. They are raw, unscripted, personal, and Nick will most likely say things he will regret ;)
They have been married over 22 years and have 4 kids, 3 dogs, and share their own life experiences and trials that have helped them transform their own relationship. They are on a mission to help couples not just survive in marriage, but thrive in marriage.
Their podcast is focused on helping you find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your relationship both in and out of the bedroom. Also, for a great resource to help transform your relationship, check out the Ultimate Intimacy App at ultimateintimacy.com
The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast
254. Building A Comprehensive Plan And Blueprint For A Successful Marriage
For many couples, they can envision what a "successful" marriage looks like for them, but they often don't know how to get there, or what tools or plans they need to follow to achieve it.
imagine you were building a house. You have a picture of exactly what it looks like when completed, but imagine trying to build that house without any blueprint or plans! It would probably end up looking quite different than the picture, and lack a lot of things vital to the structure, integrity and foundation. Would it be able to weather the storms? Chances are without any plans or blueprints, you would be in trouble. It would not only most likely cost you a lot more money to build, but wouldn't end up how you envisioned.
Marriage is no different! In marriage, it is important to have a blueprint (or plans) for where you want to get to as a couple, and your marriage, and a detailed plan as to "how" to get there, or "how" to build a stronger marriage.
In this episode, Nick and Amy talk about how to build a blueprint for a successful marriage. It doesnt mean you wont have obstacles or problems along the way, but if you stick to your plan, you will achieve what you are building.
If you haven't already, go check out the Ultimate Intimacy App in the app stores, or at ultimateintimacy.com to find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your marriage. It's FREE to download and so much fun! Find out why over 700,000 couples have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!
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The Ultimate Intimacy Sexual Intimacy Marriage Course can be found HERE
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You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship. We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life. Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun. The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
Speaker 2:It's the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy. Welcome to the podcast today. And today's episode is titled Building a Comprehensive Plan for a Successful Marriage.
Speaker 3:Don't turn it off. Nick said he's going to make it super entertaining today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't turn this off.
Speaker 3:We're going to be talking about the good stuff.
Speaker 2:This is going to be a good one. I actually do think this is going to be one of the really good ones.
Speaker 3:Nick has planned all this stuff to add in. That's super funny.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've been studying this for hours and hours, and just I mean like cramming for a test, right?
Speaker 3:I don't know, is that exaggerating? It's been a lot of years since we took a test.
Speaker 2:That's exaggerating, for sure so, but but it's important Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Well, I like to. I mean, I guess, consider this If you were going to build a house, okay, you have this perfect house and vision of what your dream house is going to look like the colors, the landscaping, just everything of what this amazing house is going to look like. And for most people, in building that their dream house, so to speak, they're given a very detailed and comprehensive plans and blueprints of exactly every little step to go through so that they build that house not only exactly the way it needs to be built, but safe, something that's going to hold up over time. They're going to stay within budget, hopefully, um, but they follow those plans and it makes that building process, you know, right? Or it should be fairly simple, right?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Simpler, simpler, and you end up at the end of the day with a house that's exactly like you envisioned, or maybe even better, and it just turns out incredible. But imagine trying to build that house without any blueprints or plans. I mean, just ask Amy, what a piece of Ikea furniture looks like. When I try to put that together and I'm like, oh, I don't need the plans, this thing's so easy, it's just a couple shelves or whatever.
Speaker 3:And then words are coming out of Nick's mouth that he doesn't normally. I'm just kidding. Like Amy's, here I have to leave the room if he ever puts well, we don't buy Ikea anymore because Nick gets too upset and we don't live by an Ikea.
Speaker 2:That's true, but what happens when I put a piece of Ikea furniture together without even following the plans?
Speaker 3:It doesn't well, it's probably not stable and it probably doesn't look right.
Speaker 2:Half the time I've got to take it apart because I'm like, oh, that's not what it's supposed to finish like Ikea furniture is the worst.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, then imagine that being like a house, or even your life, and your marriage is no different. I think often we have these visions of what our marriage is going to look like in all different aspects, whether it's money and finances, whether it's our family, whether it's our sexual intimacy, our emotional intimacy. We have these visions of what that's supposed to look like, but yet we don't have any type of plan or we don't have any type of blueprint or tools to use to make those as good as we can make them. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to cover what we feel like are kind of the most important things that typically most marriages deal with in their marriages and talk about how you can put together a good blueprint or a good plan for your marriage so that each of these aspects and areas of your marriage can, you know, basically turn out how you want them to turn out.
Speaker 3:What if you've already been married 20 or 30 years?
Speaker 2:What if you've already been married 20 or 30 years? Well, that would be called a remodel.
Speaker 3:Remodel you do get blueprints for a remodel job. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So if you don't like what the house is looking like, the wallpaper's just not doing it for you. The cabinet's outdated. If you don't like what's in your house, that's called a remodel.
Speaker 3:So if you don't like the way your marriage is going right now, let's remodel it.
Speaker 2:Let's throw a remodel in it. Exactly, throw a remodel in it. It's never too late to change course. I mean, even in our marriage, like we've talked about, we went from almost getting divorced to making some drastic changes in our marriage, having to hit the reset button or do a total remodel for our marriage, so to speak, and I don't think it's whether you've been married a year or whether you've been married 50 years.
Speaker 2:I think it's never, never too late to make these changes. In fact, sorry I'm rambling, but I remember we had a couple that reached out to us and just commented and they said you know, these things have completely changed our marriage and, in fact, our parents have been listening to your podcasts and different things, and I don't remember exactly how long they've been married, but it was something like 40 or 50 years, and they, they made the comment that they, their marriage was completely transformed and they had never been happier and they, just because they were completely changing some of the ways that and things they're doing in their marriage. My point is is not to not to brag, because we don't do that.
Speaker 3:No, I'm, I'm, I mean all right, just say it and I'll fix it yeah, um, my my point is is it has nothing to do with us.
Speaker 2:Honestly, like my point is is that it doesn't matter whether you've been married a year or 50 years or, in our case, amy's eyes, you know around 15 years it's never 15 years no, when we made the changes, when we started making the changes, like it's never too late to make those changes never, so how's that Bergie?
Speaker 2:no, and, and and again, it's nothing. Amy and I just love sharing the things that we've learned and hopefully they can be beneficial for a lot of people, but the thing is that we still have to implement these all the time. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's not like oh, our marriage is amazing, so now we get to stop doing certain things right, Like it's constant work, especially working from home every day, like you, oh, we struggle with.
Speaker 3:There's things that come up and it's like, oh my gosh, this is really hard. So it's like a constant I mean the weekly conversations, the weekly marriage meetings, the weekly date nights, the how to have a correct argument, like all those things we talk about. Like we have to do those every single week because we're just a regular married couple, too right, like you can't ever stop doing those things or your marriage suffers from it.
Speaker 2:So no one's above that. Yeah, and oftentimes we make mistakes as well. Like you know, we practice what we preach, but we fall short. We make mistakes. I mean it's, it's a constant. I don't want to say battle, but in a way it is because by natural man.
Speaker 3:It's easy for a natural man to take over, right like absolutely it's natural to be selfish and that takes constant, constant effort to bet, to battle that.
Speaker 2:It really is a battle yeah, we're battling these things, just like a lot of you couples out there are. We are no different than you and we've faced some really difficult challenges in our marriage and again, our goal is to just try to say, hey, we were at a very low place and now we feel like we've learned so much, and we want to share some of the things that we've learned in our personal relationship with you, and some of them may be applicable and some of them may not be applicable. So today we're going to cover the topics, like I said, that we feel like most couples typically struggle with, or these are the areas where things can typically go wrong, and we're just going to put together a simple blueprint or plan for each one of these areas that we think can really help.
Speaker 3:So an entire point is to find ultimate intimacy in your marriage, because your marriage should not be mediocre all right, so let's dive in.
Speaker 2:so let's talk about financial or money matters. Obviously, this can be a big source of contention or create problems. If you've heard our story, this was a big one for Amy and I, so we don't want to be boring and just go down this list and say, oh, do this, and these are the things you know like. You've heard a lot of these same things. So hopefully we can, you know, make it a look, make it exciting, which I think we can, but first you have to talk about it. You've never heard that before right, don't roll your eyes.
Speaker 2:You've never heard that before. But it doesn't mean just talking about money. You need to have, like these real deep openness, open and honest conversations about what your financial goals are, what are your concerns. You need to have conversations about your spending habits. Like in so many marriages, you have one spouse that maybe is a saver and another spouse that might be a spender, one spouse that maybe is okay with getting into debt. The other spouse maybe doesn't want to be in debt. You got to have those conversations and find those balances so that you as a couple can achieve those goals. I think for most couples, if you can eliminate the financial stress, money issues in your relationship debt, things like that, like that can really be such a weight on so many other aspects of your marriage. If you can get rid of that or get that under control, I think that will help so many other aspects of the marriage. If you can get rid of that or get that under control, I think that will help so many other aspects of the relationship. That was our case.
Speaker 3:I think this one is really hurting people right now. Because of inflation and prices, A lot of people haven't gotten into a home. Both spouses are working, which puts a tremendous weight on your marriage right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Just the stress, the pressure trying to make it so many people hurting right now financially. So totally, totally get that this one is not something you just overcome. Sometimes it's not easy to just go fix the problem right, Like a lot of people are in debt, or just trying to make it every month Like that's really really hard.
Speaker 3:But if you can try to live within your means, set a budget, try to understand how important it is to live within your means, and you're both on. I think what makes this one so hard is that people are not on the same page and they don't talk about it because money. They don't talk about it because it causes a fight.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. So you're exactly right. This is an area you have to have a plan and a blueprint together, because the decisions you make now are also going to affect you into retirement age and things like that, most likely. So you've got to sit down, you've got to set financial goals together. You've got to establish like you've got to set financial goals together, you've got to establish your short-term goals, your long-term goals, budget. What are we going to spend money on? What are we going to put away for retirement savings? And everyone's situation is better. Maybe you're not in a situation where you can put away for retirement yet, and that's totally okay. Every marriage this blueprint or game plan is going to look completely different for every marriage, and that's okay.
Speaker 3:I think what's important here is that if one of the people spouses is a spender and the other one's a saver, I think it's really important to sit down and be like this is what's coming in, this is what's going out, because a lot of couples that we talk to they're not being clear in that, like, one person's kind of in charge of the bills and does all that financial stuff and he's like, whether it's the husband or the wife a lot of wives do it too they're just not on the same page, right, so they're not seeing. Like, if both people are sitting down and looking at the finances and balancing things and looking at the bank account weekly or daily, whatever that looks like, I don't know that makes a big difference, instead of one spouse being kind of checked out and being like why are we on a budget? Like to really I don't know. I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:You bring up a great point, and that is both spouses need to be involved or at least know what's going on. And that's where it really comes in to designate responsibilities, say, okay, who's in charge of the bills, who's in charge of this, who's in charge of this? Really, have a plan and designate those responsibilities, or maybe you do them jointly. Whatever you do, again, every marriage is going to look different.
Speaker 3:And I think it's important too to realize that things that are important to your spouse just because they're not important to you doesn't make them not important in your marriage. So like let me give a quick example, because these are the kind of little things that cause contention right so Nick has no problem spending money on food he doesn, right so Nick has no problem spending money on food he doesn't like he. And I am NOT a huge eater and I think food is kind of a waste of spent. We just have different like opinions on this. Right so Nick has no problem on date night going and getting a nice steak or whatever.
Speaker 3:And I'm just like let's go cheaper, let's go to Burger King like like he'll be all tight with the budget, with like other stuff, and then he like has no problem spending money on eating out, and so for it was a little bit of a problem at a point in our relationship when things were tight, because I was and like a lot of women are like hey, I want to go to Target or TJ Maxx or go buy some new stuff for the house or something, and a guy's not going to understand that side of it, right, like he's like our house is great, like why do we need some new whatever pillows or whatever, like.
Speaker 3:It's just important to realize that this is important to you, this is important to me, and we have different tastes and styles when it comes to spending money and so sitting down and trying to, it's not gonna be like equal probably with most things, but like try to. Or. Let me throw out a better example golf nick was a professional golfer, so we never like had to pay for golf when we would go back in the day. But a lot of wives complain that their husbands send a ton of money on like hobbies, like that it's expensive if you're paying for that, right and then, and then a lot of husbands don't understand, like why do you need to go to the spa?
Speaker 3:it's just those kind of things that can cause contention. Like you've got to step back, you've got to have some spending money and I know that's really hard for people who are super tight, but you've still got to live. And so getting on the same page and being like, how are we going to still be able to live and how are we going to balance this out? Because I know this is important to you and I know this is important to you, and even though it's not important to me, I don't know, I think that's really important to talk about and I know that might be a silly example, but it's the little things that trigger people in marriage, the little things that cause bigger problems, and sometimes this is I think a lot of people can resonate that, like, when it comes to finances, it's super important to be understanding of each other too.
Speaker 3:Not just open to the finances and the budget, but to have communication about why things are important to you and and try and understand your spouse's side of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, love it. Um, the final kind of thing is really plan for the unexpected too, like, okay, if we have a job loss or medical issue or you know something happens, you know, how are we going to plan for that? And I don't I don't think a lot of couples talk about that. I mean, I think probably we, you know, we could do a better job of that as well too.
Speaker 3:Well, hold on when it goes to finances. A lot of women are having to go to work and a mom is naturally the nurturer, the home. Take care of her.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to even say that Home maker, that's a new word you just came up with Home, take care of her. Home, take care of her. Let's write that down.
Speaker 3:Home take care of her. I think that it's really important when it comes to finances that if you're both working, everything in the home is now equal responsibility, and that's been a shift in our society that when both people are working, you have to come back together. After that, it doesn't matter who's working longer or harder, whatever to really talk about. We're both bringing something in, doesn't matter who's bringing them or what. We're a teammate, and so the household and the kids and everything have to be an equal joint responsibility too, which I know that's off topic that that comes down to finances, because a lot of women are having to go outside on work, and so that that actually creates a lot of contention where it doesn't need to. If you just really talk about how to be a partnership yeah, love it right, exactly.
Speaker 2:All right, let's talk about emotional intimacy. This is an area we often do polls on and people are really struggling like with the emotional connection.
Speaker 3:So yes, well, I'm gonna start out because you talked about building a house or a blueprint. Right, like you cannot build, like everyone's dream house is going to look different, okay, I'm just going to call it your mansion. If that's tiny little house, a tiny house or a mansion, I don't know, but you're building this beautiful mansion. That's your dream house. Okay, it doesn't matter the size. You have to have a strong foundation, even if it's a tiny home, and this emotional intimacy we probably should have started the podcast out with that.
Speaker 2:that is your foundation that's deep, I, but I agree 100 percent your emotional no everything is based upon emotional intimacy.
Speaker 3:But if we're building a house in our mind, that is the foundation, your emotional intimacy. But if we're building a house in our mind, that is the foundation. Your emotional intimacy is your foundation. That is your respect level, your love level, your kindness level, being able to communicate, that is your foundation, right?
Speaker 2:Agreed, agreed, okay. So what does a good blueprint look like for having good emotional intimacy?
Speaker 3:good blueprint look like for having good emotional intimacy what do you think?
Speaker 2:I think number one is how you handle conflict, conflict resolution absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think that's number one, if you haven't heard of the podcast go to.
Speaker 2:I think it's episode 111, um, I think. Hopefully I got that right I think it is the best podcast ever on conflict resolution. Go check it out. It is awesome.
Speaker 3:If you bicker and fight in your marriage and like get mad at each other and yell at each other. If any of that happens often, wherever that podcast episode is really, really important we had an expert on that gave some serious, amazing advice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that changed our marriage when she came on and said some of those things. I don't even think we've ever yelled or raised our tone of voice like since that day yeah, no it was life-changing, so yeah, it was a good I think how you like. We're building a strong emotional connection. It means that you should be able to talk and communicate with love, even if you're upset.
Speaker 2:Even if you're just lit up. Literally Like a bomb ready to go off.
Speaker 3:Literally Like if you're having the worst day. The stress is at 10 and a woman is.
Speaker 2:I've never made you have a stress level at 10. You have you absolutely have, I am probably like I probably get you maybe to a half a percent or maybe a one sometimes, right.
Speaker 3:He's joking, I'm like not now, but like back in the day I was probably a 20.
Speaker 2:Oh, a 20 on a 10?
Speaker 3:Holy smokes, oh my gosh, I couldn't even sleep at night. Anyways, that was a long story.
Speaker 2:That was in another life, it's been a different man. That was in another life, it's been a different man. But anyways, we'll talk about the pillars about emotional intimacy, and I think Amy hit the first one, which is really, you know, conflict resolution.
Speaker 3:Oh good.
Speaker 2:That was on your list. Learn how to resolve conflict, because you're going to have it and conflict is normal. If you have conflict in a relationship, just know that you're perfectly normal and that's healthy.
Speaker 3:You are and it's okay to get mad. We're not saying that you can't get mad at each other.
Speaker 2:That's just how you resolve it.
Speaker 3:It's how you do it. It's the Tony news, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you really need to share your feelings as a couple. I think that is so important. I know Amy and I were both guilty of like bottling things up and weren't sharing our feelings and we just were like a pressure cooker just waiting to explode.
Speaker 3:Well, you, can only share so much and they don't listen until you just like finally start giving silent treatment right, which is toxic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you've got to share your feelings, be open and honest about how you're feeling. You know your hopes, your fears, just all your desires. You got to be vulnerable. That is a must, a pillar for your blueprint, for emotional intimacy. Um, I really like to um express appreciation. I think I've said this before, but I think, like appreciation and gratitude kind of go hand in hand, and I think one of the biggest sins we can commit is being ungrateful or not appreciative of things. And so I think it's really important to be very appreciative with your spouse, with each other, appreciate the effort that they put in the things they do and just really expressing that appreciation. There's just something about it when you express appreciation, what it does to your relationship.
Speaker 3:It's just I don't know how to explain it, but that's it really is a game changer for your relationship I think social media is killing appreciation oh, I do too, I think so many people are swiping and and comparing and coveting and lusting that they literally are like rewiring their brain to not be grateful for what they have like. I think the more you see I wish I had that, or I wish I looked like that, or I wish my spouse did that, or I wish we could go there or like. The more you do that to yourself, the more ungrateful you become.
Speaker 2:And then and then, nothing's going to be good enough.
Speaker 3:Nothing's going to be good enough and you're never going to look at your spouse and be like I'm so grateful that you went to work today and worked so hard. It's going to become. Why can't you make more money?
Speaker 2:look at the people that you know in your life. Look at the people that are grateful, that show appreciation, that are constantly saying thank you, versus the people that aren't. I can promise you 100% of the time, the people that are saying thank you and appreciative overall are gonna be happier people. The people that are ungrateful nothing's's ever good enough. They're miserable. They're always complaining about something. Nothing can ever be right. So that is a great piece of advice to just really be appreciative and thankful for the things you have and express that appreciation to your spouse.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I really like this as well is create rituals for connection. These should be like going on regular date nights, having meals together, going on walks, having nightly check-ins. Turning your phone off at a certain time your relationship that are going to foster a deeper emotional connection and try to get rid of the things that are going to you know cause further maybe disconnection emotionally in a relationship.
Speaker 3:I think a big one that goes with this that we don't talk about often is going to bed together at the same time, oh for sure like I think people chalk that off as like it's not that important and I understand so many work schedules like sometimes that doesn't always work.
Speaker 3:But the more you don't have the same routine at night together, the more you're kind of killing your intimacy and it's gonna look different for everyone. But the more that you can climb into bed with each other and just talk or ask how their day was, put your phones down, just have that connecting time, like that's really huge for marriage because for a lot of couples that is the only time during the day that they even have time to literally talk to each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. There's obviously a million other things we could really hit on, but I think these are the pillars I'd say, following with the last one is be be empathetic to your spouse, you know. Put your put yourself in their shoes, try to understand why they're feeling about certain things, um build them up, um find compromise, just. We all need to show a bit more empathy to each other rather than just flying off the handle.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, Ooh, Amy's favorite topic. The next one. What is it? What's your favorite topic?
Speaker 3:You're funny. Is it Next favorite topic.
Speaker 2:I bet you, I don't think the audience can guess, Probably not. But following emotional intimacy. We, of course, have the blueprint for sexual intimacy. We talk about this all the time. We don't need to spend much time on this, but a blueprint for successful sexual intimacy. What does that look like? What do you think? The first thing is not in order.
Speaker 3:I wonder if you did not put these in order I. It doesn't matter what order they're in okay, well, we're talking about building a house, so but yes, we're gonna jump around. So I'm gonna put emotional intimacy as your cement foundation at the very bottom, like those things we just talked about are key to building a strong house or a strong foundation in your marriage, right so that?
Speaker 2:would mean the sexual intimacy would be like erecting things upward right. No Like the building of the.
Speaker 3:No, I would think, sexual intimacy is the roof.
Speaker 2:The roof, okay, I would think sexual intimacy is the roof the roof okay.
Speaker 3:I would put that as the very top. Like that is the. That is what you get when your house is stable and strong. It's like the cherry on top of the cupcake. That is what happens when you find. Ultimate intimacy in your marriage is the sexual intimacy is great. Absolutely great Like because if your emotional intimacy is strong and we're going to talk about like, if we're talking about blueprints, communication, goals, setting goals.
Speaker 2:Family.
Speaker 3:The family, the money and the finances. I feel like that's all like building the walls, putting on the insides of the house, building your structure right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like all those things that come with marriage. I feel like sexual intimacy is like that's amazing when everything else is going well yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:and if you obviously, for those of you that listen to us, often listen to our polls you hear us constantly talk about the polls how you know 90, whatever percent, say that sexual good, sexual intimacy, is vital to the happiness in their marriage, and that's both men and women.
Speaker 3:Well, you can't have a roof on a house. You cannot have a house without a roof, right?
Speaker 2:Correct yep.
Speaker 3:Or it just like you, just it's not going to. I don't. I'm trying to like think.
Speaker 2:How do I tie this like?
Speaker 3:my object lesson here. No, and I love your analogy. I think that to like think how do I tie this like my object lesson here.
Speaker 2:No, and I love your analogy. I think that's so true.
Speaker 3:Like I guess if you were in an apartment and someone was above you I don't know, my mind's trying to. I'm trying to figure this out.
Speaker 2:You got like 20 more, 30 more minutes to think about it.
Speaker 3:I'm going to come up with the perfect object lesson.
Speaker 2:So she's going to be checked out of the rest of this podcast. So let's dive into the sexual intimacy. So number one obviously comes down to communication. Again, you have to talk openly about your sexual desires, your preferences, your boundaries. You know everything and if you've heard, if you're new to the podcast or maybe haven't heard previous podcast episodes Amy's, my Story actually is a little bit different, because most people start off with the emotional intimacy to get better sexual intimacy. Amy and I started having tough conversations about sexual intimacy, which then helped our emotional intimacy as well, so we kind of did it bass-ackwards, so to speak. Is that a word?
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 2:Backwards, and that's a new word I created. Uh, no, I've heard that before, but anyways, we did it kind of the back words, the, the opposite way, but it still, at the end of the day, created the same results, right, so you gotta, you gotta, be able to talk about it. If you can't talk about it, you're you're in trouble. How can something get better if you're not willing to talk about it? Second, um, explore together, you know, be be creative, try new things, be open to trying new things in the bedroom. As amy always says, the bedroom is the playground should be it should be the playground should be
Speaker 2:so, yeah, um, making quality time together. Again, I don't want to beat what we talk about so often, but if you struggle with making time for sexual intimacy or putting it on your priority list, schedule it we can't even begin to tell you how important and how good that is. Make the time for something that's important. You'll make the time to go to lunch with your friends. You'll make the time for something that's important. You'll make the time to go to lunch with your friends. You'll make the time for a business appointment. You'll make the time for, so you know, soccer for the kids or so many things. Make the time for sexual intimacy with your spouse.
Speaker 3:And make it enjoyable so that you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Exactly.
Speaker 3:Like, if, like, if a wife I don't know any husbands that don't enjoy it, never heard of that but if your wife, if the wife isn't enjoying it, there's things to do to learn how to love it yeah to make sure that it feels good every single time and that you literally are enjoying it, like that's. What makes a marriage different from just being another roommate is sexual intimacy.
Speaker 2:And if you talk about it, you can do that. I mean, that was no different than us, right? So you're like oh, I just don't enjoy it. The reason why I don't like it as much is because I don't enjoy it as long as you do. And problem solved. So that was easy. We talked about it, all right, communication.
Speaker 3:That's the walls.
Speaker 3:The walls, the walls of your home. You have your foundation, you have the kindness, the love, the respect, all those things we talk about like emotionally, but communication, like I feel like, is more the inside of your home. I feel like communication okay, you're building this house. I feel like communication okay, you're building this house, but communication is one of those things that always has to be done. So it's almost like maintaining your home. Pretend the house is even done. The communication is like constantly cleaning it after it's done, right, Like it has to be always.
Speaker 2:Well, and the most important part of communication is listening. Like you, if you're not doing the listening to your spouse and really taking in what they're saying to you, then it does pretty much nothing, right, right, it's part of communication. A big part of it is actively listening and really also expressing yourself clearly. I think a lot of times people say, oh, we talk about things but they misunderstand or they don't. You know they say something but they misinterpret it or don't know what they're saying, or you know things like that. So you've got to be really careful and really clear as well, to be very, very clear in what you're talking about and what you are expressing to each other.
Speaker 3:So our very first marriage retreat we ever had, we talked about communication and it was about hearing each other. And so they had a couple go up in front of the room and practice having a conversation about something that was hard in in their marriage, and I remember this was a couple years ago. But the husband stated what he was trying to say to his wife and then she she repeated it back to him what I think that you're trying to say is this, and she put it back in her words, what she was understanding from the conversation, and then he had the opportunity to be like that's not quite what I was trying to get at, and then, correct, this is actually what I meant by that, and so if, if you're not understanding or actually hearing each other when it's an important conversation I think that's a great thing to try is I think what you're trying to tell me is this is that correct? And kind of repeat it back so that you're understanding well, that sounds silly, that sounds silly, that sounds silly.
Speaker 3:But I think with really important conversations or something that's really important to your spouse, that's causing tension. I think that's important to do.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of times we assume that like, oh, our spouse means this, or they're feeling a certain way, and most of the time, when you assume you're going to be wrong, right. So we kind of already hit on this as well. But resolving conflicts, you know, constructively, the right way, obviously, and then having regular check-ins, I think it's so important to say like, okay, you know, on every Sunday night or you know, whatever, whatever it is for you have your regular check-ins and conversations to just say, okay, how are things going, how was the week? And just having that, making sure everything is being understood correctly and your communication is really good. So pretty, pretty self-explanatory, yep, all right. I love the next one Family.
Speaker 2:I think this can be all-encompassing, whether it's each other or also your kids, obviously, family dynamics can be really complicated sometimes. You know kids can cause, you know, sometimes bring tough things into the relationship or things like that. So when it comes to family, you've got to have a good blueprint and I think number one which you and I talk about often is you've got to set boundaries with each other, within your marriage and with your kids. You have to establish what is okay and not okay. What is what is going to be acceptable or not acceptable um within your marriage and within your family.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And this could revolve around you know social media and you know meeting or with the opposite sex, or you know so many different things.
Speaker 3:You're going to have those kind of boundaries with each other. You need to have boundaries, like you said, with your extended family, like this is how we're going to handle holidays. This is how we're going to have family dinners.
Speaker 3:This is how we're going to handle holidays. This is how we're going to have family dinners. This is how we're going to handle relatives that live close to us, time with each family, those kind of things. And then, like you said, you have to have boundaries, with your kids Not sleeping in your bed, your kids not taking over intimate time, not over-scheduling your kids and too much stuff that you don't have time for your marriage, like stuff like that, right, yeah, yeah look different to everybody, but it's important to talk about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly like we had to do that, especially when we moved back and this family all lived here and we had to sit down and be like how are we going to make this work so that everybody's happy right? Exactly because, I mean, there's a lot of couples that, like, live by one side of the family and not the other side of the family. You're gonna spend more time with them, you're gonna spend more holidays with them. Like those are conversations to be had yeah, absolutely, I like.
Speaker 2:I like the next one too, which is, you know, kind of creating traditions for your own family, and this could be whether you have weekly dinners. It could be revolving around the holidays, it could be vacations that you're going to take, and things like that. I think the point we're trying to make is just talk about those things right, like, say, how are we going to handle family vacations? What are things we want to do as a family? A lot of families have weekly dinners, like we're one of those.
Speaker 2:Like we have family, sunday dinners with extended family, like you know, talk about those things together as a family and what you want to do together and things like that. And then I think, finally, is support each other, be each other's biggest cheerleader. Like I want to see Amy succeed, I will cheer her on for anything that she does and just, I guess, making your spouse your priority and we talk about this often but putting your marriage first, even above your kids, and what does that look like for you and your family? Carving out intimate time, doing the 2-2-2 rule, which is, you know a date every couple of weeks and you know overnight or on a vacation, whatever, my point is is, you know, talk about that together as a couple and identify what that means for your relationship and your family.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And the final one, which I think is extremely important too, is setting a plan for short and long-term goals together, and I would guess this is probably an area that most of us drop the ball on Setting goals, short and long-term goals. We just assume that, oh, we both want to be retired, we both want to travel, we both want to do things. So you just go through your daily life and you know, hope that someday that's what you can do. But I think it's really important to share short and long-term goals together, and that includes, like, defining what your vision is right. Like, my vision might be a little bit different than yours, but what are our visions that we want together, right?
Speaker 3:And if our visions are different, how can we find a balance with the two, or how can we support each other with our own visions, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean because Amy and I, I I think we have the same visions, but I think sometimes we different paths of getting there.
Speaker 3:I think yeah yeah, for sure yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So define what your vision is, say this is what our vision is, this is what we want for you know personal interests, lifestyle, what your lifestyle is gonna be like, just every aspect of your short and long-term goals for your life. And I think, how are we going to prioritize those goals right? For some people, it might have to be okay we got to give up eating out, or maybe we're eating out too much. Or if our goal is to get out of debt sooner, what is the plan to do that? And we can't tell you what that plan is. We're just saying you need to define a plan. Sit down together and talk about what a plan is for your marriage, because your marriage is going to look completely different than maybe our marriage, or someone else's as well too.
Speaker 3:And that's not just financial goals, just financial goals. These are like all sorts of goals, like spiritual goals, date night goals um, intimacy goals, exactly.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of different goals that you have to talk about, right? Yeah?
Speaker 3:short, long-term goals and every every aspect. We have a goal sheet on the app under the printables, coupons and printable section, and it um separates each one of the areas that couples should really be setting goals in, yeah, which is really important.
Speaker 2:Yep, write them down. There's something about writing it down and just looking at it like all the time, right, yes, um, create a timeline too. Like don't, don't leave it open ended and just say, oh my, my goal is to eventually have this. Like I think there's something about creating a timeline. So what that looks like is, you know, sit down and say, okay, where do we want to be at in a year, where do we want to be at in five years, where do we want to be at in 10 years or 20 years? And really having those goals and then putting a plan together to achieve those goals. How are you going to achieve those goals?
Speaker 3:And I think weekly goals are important.
Speaker 2:Let's just make it through the week.
Speaker 3:Let's just how do we make it through the week. But I think that we need to simplify. Actually, this isn't really. This is actually complicating.
Speaker 3:Writing out goals every single week might be a little more complicated, but it's going to simplify your marriage in the long run because things turn into habits, right like, we all set goals in january and half of us fail by the end of january on a lot of things and some people excel their goals and they turn into habits, right yeah and that's the whole point of like, setting goals in marriage is for a lot of these simple things like we're going to start doing better at date night, we're going to start turning our phones off at a certain time, we're not gonna eat with our phones at the table and we're gonna communicate more and we're gonna have more physical touch in our marriage non-sexual physical touch just during the date, like those are the kind of things that you want to turn into habits absolutely right, no, totally, and that's the whole point of that is is if you can set weekly goals together, like let's try harder to to be more passionate this week, and this is what this is gonna look like, or let's step up our emotional intimacy this week, I could use this.
Speaker 3:What could you use? That is, what's changing is if you do that weekly yeah, exactly, and I.
Speaker 2:The last thing on this short and long term goals for creating a great blueprint and I think this is one of the best ones is you have to celebrate your achievements, Like we are wired to where, if we do certain things, I think we want a reward right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like that's just the way we are right.
Speaker 3:So if, regardless of what that looks like, I think you can say no, but we go to work to get, we go, we work to get paid yeah we get married so that we can be intimate, things like that. We're emotional intimacy, like we right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do things for getting something, so to speak, in return, and so it's important to celebrate your achievements. You know, and that could look like and say okay, you know, this year we're going to really try to save and let's make it our goal to save this much money, and if we are able to save this much money, we should treat ourselves to a, you know, short vacation or something or you know, whatever that is like that that makes it so that you are driven because you know that there's something that you're going to do together, there's going to be a reward or something.
Speaker 2:So I think it's really important to celebrate your achievements and that's going to look different for everyone, but whatever that is, I think, like for Amy and I, it might be like, oh, let's, if we can, if we can do this, then let's plan on, you know, taking a vacation or whatever, like that's what we, we enjoy, just because we love spending that time together.
Speaker 3:So you're smiling at me well, you would want a vacation, I'd want a new couch things like that.
Speaker 2:Right, let's, let's so we have to compromise let's go on a vacation to try to find you a new. Yeah, exactly. So, anyways, we hope you enjoyed the podcast. We uh feel like this is a really important one, building a blueprint and a plan to create a happy marriage and intimacy and ultimate intimacy. And go check out podcast episode 157 as well. You know we talk about why you should do this one thing as a couple, which I think this would be a great podcast for you to listen to also and uh, yeah, anything to anything to say before we wrap this up um, still like trying to figure out my whole object lesson.
Speaker 3:But I just really think that if a couple will really work on their foundation and rebuild their marriage with the emotional intimacy and really work on just the simple things like like embracing your spouse when they look like they're having a hard time and asking them what can I do to be a better spouse this week or today, like those little simple things. Or just giving your a spouse a kiss on the forehead every time you leave the house, like it's the little tiny, simple things that we do that really change our entire, not just our entire marriage, but our entire attitude and positivity and everything right. Like I think that we can get so stuck in the daily routine and the daily grind of life that we kind of forget that marriage is actually supposed to be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is Like it's supposed to make you happy.
Speaker 3:It's supposed to make you happy Like your wedding day, like that was a great date, but like that should never have to end Like we let it end, like we just literally start being lazy. I really think that complacency is my favorite word for this I agree because I think we just get, we let ourselves get bored in marriage, we let everything start overtaking and then we realize, oh I, I miss those feelings we used to have, but I'm not really willing to do the work to get them back.
Speaker 2:Like I love that word complacency like.
Speaker 3:I think if we're going to rebuild our structures and our emotional intimacy, we need to to think about the word complacency and be like where am I being complacent in my marriage? Where am I just settling? Why? Why are we settling? Why are we not having awesome? Why? Why are we settling? Why are we not having awesome sex? Why are? Why are we not looking forward to the bedroom? Why are we not looking forward to date nights, Like going out and having fun together and having awesome conversations?
Speaker 3:Like there's been times in our life where it's like, oh, it's just another date night, I guess we'll go talk about the kids and work. Like that's our fault. That's our fault. And if I'm just like, oh, I gotta go do it again because it's important to him, that's my fault. Like I'm being complacent in those areas. And so I think we just need to step it up and realize marriage is supposed to be awesome, it's supposed to be fun. And if it's not, then just fix it. Like you fell in love for a reason. Like you love each other. You're still with each other because you deeply love each other. If the fun and the friendship and the emotional intimacy isn't strong, fix it.
Speaker 3:Like we're capable human beings like like if something's wrong with our kid, our child or or anything else in our life, we go, go and fix it right, like we're not happy with our body we go to the gym If we're not happy with our job, like a lot of people will try and search for something else. Right, like we try and fix things except for everyone's kind of stuck in unhappy marriages and they just kind of like let life go by.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the attitude is and I think the world just kind of jokes around and leads us to believe that. Oh, attitude is, and I think the world's just kind of jokes around and leads us to believe that, oh, that's just the way marriage is.
Speaker 2:You're married now, that's the way it is. For that's so sad and I think you know, obviously was we talk about as well, like Satan's really trying to destroy marriages and he's trying to destroy families and he's doing everything that he can. And, at the end of the day, all these things we talk about like yeah, marriage is hard, but to have the difference between an unhappy marriage and a happy marriage isn't that much. It's actually like doing just simple little things. Most people think it's like, oh, I've got to climb this mount everest and it's going to be virtually impossible. I just don't ever think I can get there.
Speaker 2:It's not. It really isn't that difficult, but it does take a little bit of effort and it takes constant effort. I mean, it's something you're always going to be doing. But oh man, it's just like I think we're fooled to where Satan just wants us to believe that we're just going to be miserable and it really, again, it isn't. It isn't that much to change your marriage around, like we've talked about, like Amy and I were at a very dark place and now we're at a really good place, and it wasn't like it wasn't life-changing things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really wasn't life-changing things. We actually never.
Speaker 3:I don't know if this is the right thing to say, but we actually never went to therapy. We literally got to a place where, like our marriage sucks, and we sat down and we looked at each other and I'm like, is this what you signed up?
Speaker 2:for what are we going to do about it?
Speaker 3:No, but is this what you signed up for? This isn't what I signed up for. We're not on the same page. Like this isn't even fun anymore. Like we're just bickering, we're not really setting goals. We're kind of going in opposite directions. We're just you want it. No, that's not what I wanted either. Let's just fix it. Let's start tomorrow.
Speaker 2:And we put a plan together. Right Now, the plan might've looked a little bit differently than this, but we said, okay, what are we going to do to fix this? What are we going to do to fix this? And we really talked about it and put a plan together and we said, okay, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 3:Simple goals on day one, and it was. It was like we have to start putting effort in this, this, this, this and this, and it has to be every day and we have to be accountable at the end of every day and have a check-in. That's how you make change, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so don't get overwhelmed and feel like, oh, this is something that's going to be so hard to overcome, because it's not, and I think too. Obviously you have to have both of you wanting change, right. If one of you doesn't want change, unfortunately there's not much you can do if you have a spouse.
Speaker 2:You can change yourself. Yep, you can't change someone else, but you can change yourself, and a lot of times, changing yourself will enact changes in your spouse or in other ways as well too. All you can control is yourself, but if you do have a spouse where the both of you are like, yeah, we, we both want these changes, you are in such a great place, like there's so much hope and and even if you have a great, a good marriage, it can get so much better. It can always be getting better right but it does take work.
Speaker 2:So anyways, yeah, we really hope you enjoyed the podcast today. We hope this can be beneficial for you. Please leave us a review. As we've said in one of the previous episodes, We'd appreciate it. We'd very much appreciate it. In fact, if you leave us a review, take a screenshot, send it to us and we'll send you a discount code to get discounts in our shop. So happy to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, happy to do that.
Speaker 2:Want you to have good products, want you to have a good marriage? Yep, exactly so until next time. Hope each of you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.