Habits for Your Happily Ever After: Relationship Communication Advice

Do you like the drama in your relationship?Hollywood trains us to believe that intimacy lives in the heart of conflict. All those Hollywood stories are about some huge obstacle and the music swells when they…finally…come together.But there is no swelling soundtrack that underscores your relationship. And navigating obstacles is hard! And most of us don’t have great skills to navigate those challenges, so we just make a mess.Today, we talk about how drama impacts your relationship.You'll hear about how big questions and grand gestures can light up your life and the shadow that it also might cast on your relationshipDo you and your partner think about drama differently? I'll offer a story from my marriage to help you ponder that question. And you'll hear about the consistent, ever-present, but not very sexy or dramatic, style of loving that might also lead to your happily ever afterHabit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to make a choice when it comes to the drama in your relationship.How can you simply show up rather than out shine? Where could your life benefit from some consistency?Date Night DiscussionI invite you to talk about the role of drama in your home.What are your favorite Hollywood dramas? How do those dramas show up in your relationship?How would you describe the roles in your home?What are the ways your various dramatic moments enhance your intimacy?Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

What do blueberry pancakes and butterflies have to do with your happily ever after?They’re part of divorce mediator Joe Dillon’s advice for staying married.I’m a relationship coach. It's odd that I would want to introduce you to a divorce mediator, but he has so much great information to share with us about what he sees when it comes to divorces:I found Joe Dillon online and his body of work was so extensive that I wanted to share it with you.Joe is going to help you understand what typical patterns bring people to his office so that you can use those as a cautionary tale.He'll also tell you what butterflies and blueberry pancakes have to do with your happily ever after.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit helps you make space for the individual inside of the shared life.Joe and Cheryl have regular marriage meetings, and it was at one of these meetings that they exchanged legal pads full of their bucket list items. This helped them realize that even though they share a life, they may not share every dream. Joe and Cheryl decided that although they live in Southern California where there's a beach for Cheryl, they'll take a month during the year to move to Chicago so that Joe can get his city fix.I invite you to trade bucket lists with your partner. What dreams do you share? Where will you have to compromise?Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480Connect with my guestJoe Dillon is a divorce mediator at Equitable Mediation. His unique blend of financial acumen, mediation expertise, and personal insights enable him to skillfully guide couples through complex divorce negotiations and reach fair agreements that safeguard the family’s emotional and financial health.Visit website here.Connect on social media here.

What kind of Friendship date is good for your relationship?Has life been noisy and busy and you just need some time of shared silence to both reset? What style of date would help you hush the ever-present noise filling your life? Maybe you need a date where you have some dedicated time to understand what your sweetheart is feeling.Remember my framework of Partner, Lover, Friend? I’ve identified 3 roles inside your singular relationship: Partners want to achieve together. Friends assure each other we belong together. Lovers want to explore together.Valentine’s Day is coming up and there is a lot of pressure to have THE PERFECT date, but I want to challenge this notion of THE PERFECT date. Instead, I’d like to talk about great dates for the three roles inside your relationship. Let’s break it down into three episodes to talk about each role: Partner, Friend, and Lover.Today we’re talking about designing a great date for the Friend inside your relationship. Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to put a Friendship-building date night onto your calendar.Date Night DiscussionThis week I invite you to talk about the kinds of dates that promote Friendship in your relationship. Your Friendship will be deepened by two things: talking and listening.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

What type of date does the Lover inside your relationship need?Remember my framework of Partner, Lover, Friend? I’ve identified 3 roles inside your singular relationship: Partners want to achieve together. Friends assure each other we belong together. Lovers want to explore together.Valentine’s Day is coming up and there is a lot of pressure to have THE PERFECT date, but I want to challenge this notion of THE PERFECT date.Instead, I’d like to talk about great dates for the three roles inside your relationship. Let’s break it down into three episodes to talk about each role: Partner, Friend, and Lover.Today we’re talking about designing a great date for the Lover inside your relationship.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to put a Lover date (or several!) onto your calendar.Date Night DiscussionThis week talk about the types of Lover dates that your relationship might need.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

The Partner role in your relationship asks, “Can I rely on you?”The Lover asks, “Do you make my life exciting?”And the Friend asks, “Do you really know me?”Remember my framework of Partner, Lover, Friend? I’ve identified 3 roles inside your singular relationship: Partners want to achieve together. Friends assure each other we belong together. Lovers want to explore together.Valentine’s Day is coming up and there is a lot of pressure to have THE PERFECT date, but I want to challenge this notion of THE PERFECT date.Instead, I’d like to talk about great dates for the three roles inside your relationship. Let’s break it down into three episodes to talk about each role: Partner, Friend, and Lover.Today we’re talking about designing a great date for the Partner inside your relationship.If you’re new to my podcast and you’d like an overview of the three roles, listen to my last episode with Dayna Haig-Conway, a therapist in Fernie, British Columbia who recently interviewed me.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to create a recipe for a Partner date at your house. I use 5 steps when I’m coaching couples to find a Partner date:Identify a conflict.Identify the dream you each have for a shared life.Build a bridge from conflict to your dream.Plan to fail.Begin again.Date Night DiscussionI invite you to have a discussion with your sweetheart about how and why you appreciate the Partner you already have.This week invite your sweetheart for a slice of toast, a cup of coffee, and tell your sweetheart 3-5 things that you appreciate about sharing a life with them.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

“What if relationship conflict isn’t about communication SKILLS–but about misunderstood needs?”This is the foundational question Fernie resident and Counselor, Dayna Haig-Conway asked me when I got to be a guest on her podcast–CAMP Conversations: Keys to Resilience–recently.I’m eager to share her conversation with you. Dayna’s approach is to search for “the needs behind the needs,” and I am thrilled I get to introduce you to this gem of a human being:You’ll hear how The Partner, The Lover, and The Friend can unintentionally compete with each other, confusing your communication and making it tough to see what each person truly needs.You’ll hear why naming HOW you communicate matters as much as WHAT you’re saying. Hint: your animal body communicates too.You’ll get some simple language shifts that will reduce defensiveness and cultivate understanding with your sweetheart.Connect with Dayna Haig-ConwayI invite you to listen/watch her podcast.Explore the world of resilience and service she’s building for front line caretakers like nurses and teachers.Or book a discovery call with her to see how she might be able to help you locate the needs behind your needs.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

What’s the best thing you can do to create momentum with a habit?If you want to form a new habit, psychologists tell us the biggest momentum builder is a positive emotional rush. Joy. Today we talk about the most important part of the habit-building cycle: celebration.You’ll learn why celebrating those tiny changes in the directional vector toward your destination matters so muchYou’ll hear about the biology of celebrating and how it contributes to habit formationAnd you’ll get a host of questions to help you celebrate to strengthen your own efforts at habit formation rather than relying on circumstances to make you feel better.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is…to celebrate!To help you celebrate better and more consistently, I’ve designed a couple questions to guide you. Use these questions to help you mine for the positive emotions associated with the way you’re living your life.Date Night DiscussionToday the discussion I want to suggest isn’t with your partner, but rather with yourself.And it’s a simple question. I invite you to ask yourself, “Did I truly let myself see and celebrate the tender habit of hello (or whatever habit you are building) I am creating?”Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

How is your negativity bias impacting your relationship, and taking you off course?Today, we’re talking about that little voice we all have that tends to focus on what’s wrong in our relationship instead of what’s right.Last week I shared a favorite quote from Jim Rohn, “Direction determines destination.” We talked about planes that are off course 90% of the time they’re in the air, but still manage to land in the appointed destination.The critical element for a pilot is to keep refining that vector of direction, a little north…oh! Overshot it. Now a little south. North again. South a smidge. Until your destination is inevitable.Similarly, when you’re able to focus on your direction—and all the tiny vectors of habits we talk about on this show—the destination of happily ever after takes care of itself.But what happens when that negative voice pipes up saying, “You never flush the toilet?” Or “You never kiss me hello.”We’ll talk about how this tiny voice is trying to help you, even if it’s really annoyingI’ll offer you 3 specific steps to mollify that voiceAnd, I’ll guide you with a discussion prompt so you and your partner can get past the negativity and connect with more hopefulnessHabit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to practice the negativity bias trifecta:Name itTame itMuscle upDate Night DiscussionThis week I invite you to talk about your negativity bias with your partner.Tell your partner all the various disguises it might wear. Ask about your partner’s negativity bias.I recommend naming it something goofy. Get a tchotchke that will help you develop a humorous relationship with your negativity bias.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationRegister for my upcoming virtual event.Visit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Do you ever feel frustrated because you’re experiencing the same stumbling blocks you faced last year?And you thought you’d dealt with those…but here you are again. Yuck.I am a life coach. I hear this complaint over and over. We work on something, my client and I. There’s a shift. Life is good. My client feels motivation and freedom, and then, a year later: Bam. They’re back where they started.Today, we discuss one of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn, “Direction determines destination.”We’ll talk about a fallacy that might be keeping you from feeling happy todayYou’ll learn about what airplanes and the pilots who fly them have to do with your happinessAnd I’ll introduce you to the word asymptote and tell you how just that idea can make you happierHabit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to examine where your life is an asymptote. An asymptote is a mathematical concept that, when expressed as a line on a graph, the line gets closer and closer to the x axis, but never actually touches it. Where are you getting closer and closer to the life of your dreams?You might even want to plot some points on your graph of life so that you can SEE how much closer to your dream life you’ve gotten.Date Night DiscussionThis week I invite you to talk with your partner about destination and direction.What is a destination you’re chasing? What vectors of habit are you using to point you there?What kind of support would you love to have from your partner when it comes to your habit vectors?What hope would you like to stir or inspire when it comes to who you will become as you travel the road on your way to your destination?Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationRegister for my upcoming virtual event.Visit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

What is it like to spend Christmas Day alone?We all hate to be left out. Today, on Christmas Day, I want to talk with you about loneliness. If you are alone today, and lonely, I want you to know I wrote this episode for you.I’ve experienced deep, dark, terrifying loneliness AND I found a bridge to turn that loneliness into an abiding joy.I’m going to tell you about how one of my clients found their way out of a similar lonelinessAnd I’m going to tell you how I understand my parents’ divorce—the source of my loneliness—differently after finding my way out of that loneliness.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to go on a research adventure to find all the beauty in brokenness. When we look for the beauty in the brokenness of things where we don’t have an emotional attachment, we begin to develop a different relationship with brokenness. We begin to see example after example of how gorgeous brokenness can be.3 Stories of lonelinessI tell 3 stories in this episode. The first story is about how loneliness feels in your body. I talk about dark caves and deep seas. Then I tell 2 stories about how my parents included me in their loneliness, but also taught me to cultivate joy: a bridge to healing our own loneliness. My mother taught me to make sand castles, and my father taught me to make up new rules to Monopoly when the game needs to change.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

We want to belong. We want to belong with all our friends and our community.Our friends are having a drink, and we wanna belong so we take the drink, even though we know that we’re gonna struggle to wake up in the morning. Or we eat the sugary treat because someone made it for us, but it’s gonna give us a headache an hour later.How can you participate in treats and feel the group celebration without diminishing your connection to yourself?This is the discussion we have on the podcast today as I continue my discussion with Dawn Larson (a therapist) and Amy (a 12-Step participant).ResourcesHere’s a link to my Sober January podcast episode last year.One of my clients wrote a book about their journey with sobriety and I had the privilege of coaching during the writing of that project.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

How does your sobriety–or lack thereof–impact your relationship? Emotions are a huge part of relationship. When you’re able to be sober with your emotions, your honesty and vulnerability cultivate trust and connection grows. We turn to addictions when we’re uncomfortable with our emotions. We want to hide from them or numb out. So you eat a quart of ice cream or you down a 6-pack of beer. Your addiction confuses your emotional state. You’re unable to be honest and alienation is fostered, trust is undermined, and your relationship connection weakens. In this episode, I speak with Dawn Larson (a therapist) and Amy (a 12-Step member). We investigate the various ways to define our own sobriety. You’ll hear us discuss eating, binging and a host of other addictions, but what we’re in search of is a definition of sobriety.ResourcesIn the episode Dawn mentions The Heart of Recovery approach to healing. Here is a link to a discussion about that approach.Here’s a link to my Sober January podcast episode last year.One of my clients wrote a book about their journey with sobriety and I had the privilege of coaching during the writing of that project.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

What’s your favorite meal? What was your favorite way to play outside as a kid? What does your favorite memory smell like? These are questions that are part of the culture in my house. When my kids were growing up, I asked about their favorite moment of the day, their favorite interaction with a friend, or their favorite moment to be away from me (this question was born during the teenage years). I ask about favorites because it’s so easy to complain, to focus on the negative, or to harbor resentments and focus on injustice. I knew I was going to be that small voice in the back of my kids’ mind for decades to come. I wanted that voice to be about seeing the good stuff.Today, I give you 52 ways to ask, “What’s your favorite?” I designed this episode to be used on road trips. Listen to me ask the favorite’s question, pause the podcast, and go around the circle with answers. There are no rules. Your conversation will get diverted. That’s great! The Favorites Game will always be here for you, if and when your conversation slows down and you want another favorite prompt from me. I hope you enjoy playing the game as much as my family does.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to play the game with someone you love, someone brand new, or someone with whom you don’t know what else to talk about.In the episode, I ask you 52 “What’s your favorite?” questions. Listen and pause after each question to give your answers.If you'd like to purchase your own deck of "What's Your Favorite" cards, text me at 970-210-4480 and let me know you're interested. I've just designed them and I'd love to get you a deck of your own.Date Night DiscussionI’m going to invite you to talk about what creates preference. What makes something your favorite?Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

The holidays can be a time of high stress. What if a tiny pause could help you respond thoughtfully instead of reacting to the stress, so you can cultivate connection instead of pushing your partner away?Today, we talk about the power of the pause and why it's so important at this particular time of year. I’ve brought back clips from previous guests to offer you three perspectives on why pausing can be so powerful for your relationship:You'll hear from Chantel Landeros, who talks about the 90-second pause in any kind of conflictYou'll hear from Kate, who talks pausing to examine your energy when it comes to invitationsAnd you’ll hear from Mary Beth Luedtke, who invites us to pause and identify the trigger from our past that is impacting us in the present momentConnect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

This bonus episode of Habits for Your Happily Ever After is a reminder to find what's funny as you're heading home for the holidays. When you can be the one who brings laughter to the room, you can put the "fun" in dysfunction. You'll hear a segment from my interview with my son, Logan, and how his superpower is being able to laugh no matter how a conflict goes.Listen to this week's episode for more ideas on how to put the "fun" in dysfunction this holiday season. Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationBuy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Your mom slays you in that way that only she can and says, “Oh, I see you’ve julienned the carrots when I asked for slices.”For you, it might not be your mom. But I bet there’s someone in your family of origin who makes you feel … less than.Today, I’ve got a few games for you to play during this holiday season as you visit your family. I have 4 intentions with today’s episode:My hope is that these games will keep you laughing instead of crying so that…Your relationship with your relatives gets stronger instead of more distant because…There is a particular feeling of belonging that only comes from those people who knew you when you were itty bitty. But we also know that those are the people who can DRIVE YOU CRAZY like no one else.  So it might take a special mindful effort to maintain or grow those relationships. Especially, as you integrate your partner into your family of origin.You can download my holiday bingo template here.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after has 4 steps: Be in charge of yourself: your own body, mind, and spirit. If you’re struggling with this, listen to my episode from a couple weeks ago about loving the person who votes differently from you. You can calm your body with the right tools.Laugh. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your relatives. Invite your relatives to laugh at the whole mess.Come to the party ready to spread some joy. Shout out anything that might make the room of people you’re with a little happier.Have compassion. Go looking for the capacity genius in each of your relatives. When you find their unique capacity, it will be a little easier to forgive them for having so little capacity to manage their own emotions or behaviors.Date Night DiscussionIt’s important to give your partner perspective on how they regress when they visit their family of origin. And to normalize that rather than pathologize it. We all regress a little. We fall into habits from our childhood.How can you laugh about these regressions rather than getting frustrated? How can you remind yourself that you don’t live with the version of yourself that your partner becomes when they’re with their mother? How can you thank your partner for being patient with you when you regress?Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Bodies tell the truth. We may not like the truth they tell, but your body doesn’t lie. This is why you can’t “find the right words” to say something you don’t truly feel/believe. Your body will be at odds with those “right words” and the person to whom you’re talking will leave the conversation feeling confused. This is one of the primary truths that Kasia Urbaniak, author of Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power, is helping us understand in her book.Today is a first on my podcast: I’ve invited you all to come and be a part of my first book club discussion:Our first book is called Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power and it’s written by Kasia UrbaniakWe’ll talk about what makes it so difficult for so many of us women to initiate and uphold a firm boundary (hint: desire plays a much bigger role than you might realize)And we’ll talk about how gender has played such a big role in power as well as offer a hopeful message for normalizing power dynamics when it comes to gender roles I want you to join my next book club discussionSubscribe to my newsletter so you don't miss the invitation to participate.And, text me at 970-210-4480 to let me know which relationship books you’re interested in reading and discussing at the next book club.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Notice. Notice without judgement.When you’re able to do that, you get into a meditative state that allows you to shift your behavior, and live a better life. No candles or incense required. It sounds so simple, right? What’s the big deal with noticing? Well, lemme tell you: almost all of my clients resist noticing their body. I do too. It takes too much time. Too much energy. But actually, ignoring your body leads to stress, illness, and definitely unhappiness. Today, we’ll welcome back Allison Evans who talked to us about The Body Budget recently.Allison will teach us how to notice yourself without judgement so you keep your Body Budget well-tended.  And we’ll unlock the power of meditation—which is just a codified way of saying notice. Notice your body without judging your body’s needs. Connect with my guestVisit website here.Connect on social media here.Register for Allison's free workshop on November 12th, 2025 here.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Reckoning. Where do you compromise for your partner? Where do they compromise for you?Every marriage requires compromise. There comes a point when you realize you and your partner don’t always fit perfectly. You married a separate person, with their own history and agenda. Choosing to stay—despite unmet needs, hurts, and those moments of wondering if things will ever change—can lead to a real, reliable love that goes beyond fairytale fantasies.Long relationships inevitably experience a “reckoning.” This is that point where neither person is willing to compromise. Each person says, “My way.” So you are forced to choose: The highway? Or do you stay?Stay in spite of the fact that your sweetheart isn’t gonna budge? You’re unwilling to change too?Yikes!Then what?Today, my guest is Bonnie ComfortBonnie is a psychotherapist and author of Staying Married is the Hardest Part. Her story shows the complexity, contradiction, and loneliness that can exist in a loving marriage, alongside the joy and togetherness.You’ll hear about the reckoning in her marriage. It was about sex, her husband’s fetish, and her struggle to find her own personal agency.You’ll get fed with an example of how a relationship can survive through a reckoning and how love can deepen despite differences.And you’ll get a habit to help you focus on the one thing you can change in your relationship: you.The Sexy DetailsThe reckoning in Bonnie's marriage was about their different sexual appetites. Her husband was raised in a conservative Christian environment where sex was forbidden. As a result, he developed sexual fetishes that allowed him to "cheat" and get a little action. This conversation explores all the implications, all the compromises, and all the places where they wouldn't compromise for each other. Bonnie Comfort fell in love with a man who made her laugh. She describes many difficult moments in her marriage. Really difficult. But she also describes all the ways her husband would make her laugh which made her fall in love with him all over again. Marriage is both. The laughter and the hard. This is why there's a reckoning.Habit for your happily ever afterThis week's habit for your happily ever after is to notice if you keep having the same fight over and over in your marriage. I wonder if there is a reckoning for you that you're not going to change your partner and your partner's not going to change you? In Staying Married is the Hardest Part, Bonnie Comfort addresses how “It’s always easier to see how you’d be happier if the other person changes, but such a focus interferes with thinking about the only thing you can control: your own behavior.”Consequently, she designed two questions for her clients that I invite you to use:What do you think your own role might be in the conflict?And how might things improve if you changed your part?Connect with my guestVisit Bonnie Comfort's website here.Get Bonnie's book, Staying Married is the Hardest Part, here.Connect on social media here.Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480

Is there someone in your life that you love dearly and they vote differently from you? And their choice to vote so differently is making it hard for you to be close to them? Love them, even?I had a marriage therapist ask me to do a podcast episode about our nation’s polarization because it is ending marriages. This is my attempt at this difficult topic. I’m going to talk in the episode as if it’s your partner that votes differently because that’s a huge struggle for people right now. But if it’s not your partner, each time I say “Partner” or "Sweetheart," I invite you to substitute the person’s name with whom you struggle.In this week’s episode of my podcast, I tell you a story about when I realized my husband and I believed RADICALLY differently. My marriage has gotten stronger and stronger because I leaned into the difference rather than fighting it or pretending it didn’t exist.Habit for Your Happily Ever AfterThis week’s habit for your happily ever after is to keep your body calm so your heart can remain open.Date Night DiscussionHow are your partner’s political opinions an example of love? A different way to put love into the world? When you start with this question, and you keep your animal body calm, and you remember (and reimagine the animal body feeling of that love) you can be genuinely curious. Connect to Improve Your Relationship CommunicationVisit the show notes here.Buy my book.Listen to my book.Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.Follow me on Tik Tok.Reach me at 970-210-4480