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What does it take to start moving your marriage up the priority list (even if your spouse does not)? To answer this question, I invited life and marriage coach, Dr. Chavonne Perotte, to share with us some strategies and tools she uses in her coaching practice. We talk about what it takes to get on the same team so it’s not you against your spouse as you navigate challenges like: how to make household duties and responsibilities more equitable? We talk about creating a culture change in your marriage where you make decisions together as roles and responsibilities shift. And Dr. Chavonne shares about the importance of connection and how to foster it, in just a few minutes a day.
Topics in this episode:
Getting on the same page as your spouse
The quickest way to make your marriage a priority
What happens if your partner is not on the same page as you?
Ending the “you” against “me” challenge
The “2 doorways away” rule
How to foster connection in simple ways
Show Notes & References:
Dr. Chavonne Perotte’s website: https://drchavonne.com
Her podcast: Love Marriage Again with Dr. Chavonne
Episode 133 - 5 reasons to not wait
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Transcript
Intro
What does it take to have a loving and connected marriage after you start having kids?
Because for so many couples, what tends to happen is that their marriage falls way down the bottom of the list, usually along with themselves and self care.
So what does it take to start moving your marriage up the priority list?
To answer this question, I invited my friend and colleague Dr. Chavonne Perotte, who's a life and marriage coach, onto this podcast to share with us some of her strategies and tools that she offers her own clients.
We talk about what it takes to get on the same team so it's not you against the other person when you're navigating challenges like how do you even out household duties and responsibilities.
We talk about creating a culture change in your marriage and the importance of that. We talk about connection and how to foster connection, even just in a couple of moments or minutes in your day.
Making your marriage a priority.
Dr. Chavonne gives us so many wonderful tips and ideas for how to take a first step towards making your marriage a priority.
And to be honest, I felt a little called out myself in the ways that I can improve on my marriage as well. So there's some vulnerability here that I just can't wait for you to hear. Y'all ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Rebecca: Hello, working moms. I am so excited. I have a friend and fellow coach with me today. I have Chavonne Perotte.
We are going to be talking about a subject that I have noticed some percolating interest from listeners and from working moms, and I could think of nobody better but Chavonne to come in here and chat with us today.
So thank you for being here, Chavonne. Can you just give us a quick little intro to you and kind of what you do, and then we'll jump in?
Chavonne: All right, well, thank you so much for having me, Rebecca. I'm delighted to be here talking with your working moms.
I am a life and marriage coach for high achieving couples who want to improve their communication, work better as a team, and enjoy themselves as a happy, thriving couple.
So when you extended the invitation, I was like, yes, these are my people.
Rebecca: I was going to say, I mean, we use the same words here.
Chavonne: So many of my clients are busy professionals navigating their roles and trying to make all of the demands for their time work well and not cause them to want to strangle each other.
Rebecca: I love that so much. And today we're really talking about balancing on some level, that ambition with what it's like to be in a marriage.
And in this case, my listeners have kids. And I would imagine there's probably a lot of your couples that have kids as well that you work with and what it's like to balance all of those things together. Right?
And so the idea came for me to reach out to you because I did this series not that long ago where I was talking about the types of thoughts that really have the biggest impact on our ability to create a life that feels balanced.
And one of the ones that I said was your thoughts about your marriage, your thoughts about your partner in this case, and just generalizing that.
And I don't talk about this very often, but that episode just ended up expanding its reach way beyond what I usually see an episode do.
And so I was like, wow, this is a topic that people really want to hear. And so I was like, I got to do another one. I got to talk about this. And so that was kind of where the idea to you came along.
Just out of curiosity, I mean, we have nothing really planned here except to just chat a little bit, so I love that. I'm curious if you hear that, why do you think that episode would go I'm not going to say it went viral, but it just expanded beyond…why do people resonate with that right now, do you think?
Chavonne: I think because it's the conversation that everyone is having in their head and not really clear or aware of where they can have it in community and not feel like it needs to be like their dirty little secret.
I think marriage in general is one of those topics that we have been conditioned to keep very close to the vest. And rightly so. You don't want to go around talking about marriage issues or challenges to any and everyone that will listen, right?
But there does need to be some permission granted and some normalization of the challenges that literally, I would say in my practice, 95% of professional working moms and couples are dealing with.
And I think really at the heart of thoughts and perspectives and the mindset that we adopt is this underlying competition for time, this underlying competition for the things that we want and need.
And a lot of my clients come to me with this dynamic that's in the sort of like my sphere of world and research is this underperforming, overperforming dynamic where one partner feels like they are the one shouldering all the responsibility, all of the burden.
Especially because, again, as you, my clients usually have young children and they feel like their partner is underperforming in that area.
And I think anything that touches upon the internal conversation you're already having about your marriage and gives validation to your real lived experience is one that people are thirsting for.
Marriage becomes low on the list when you have kids.
Rebecca: I love that. And I think it is a silent kind of conversation that happens because and we could get into this, a little bit here, but the marriage tends to be one of the things that is way low on the list once we start having kids for lots of reasons.
And we don't even realize the dialogue that starts in our own brain until it gets really bad, right? And then we really do realize it, but we didn't catch it early enough. And then it becomes something much bigger than it maybe needed to be.
And to your point, there isn't a space to really get to air it out and to normalize some of the challenges that are happening. And so I usually say it's either your marriage or it's you.
Those two things are oftentimes very equal at the bottom when we look at the priority list. And I'm all about changing that because I know that we need to be at the top. Our marriage needs to be at the top for lots of reasons. And of course, there's lots of challenges that come with that for sure.
Coming back to this competition for time. Tell me a little bit about what you see in that in dynamics of marriages or in the challenges that people are facing.
Chavonne: I could almost break it up in terms of work week time and weekend time.
And I think when it comes to what life looks like in a typical work week for my clients, they are doing their work, right. They are getting either working from home or working in an office. And there's obligations that they have during the day.
And then there is the time that is required to navigate their home life, right. With getting their children to school, picking their children up sick children, doctors appointments orthodontist appointments, all of the things…
Rebecca: The piano lessons, the soccer gosh, I've had so many. Orthodontist appointments.
Chavonne: Exactly.
Rebecca: So many right now.
Chavonne: Right. My daughter actually just got her braces off. But there's all of that, which is literally its own full time job, getting your children to all of the places.
One parent shouldering the responsibility.
And, when there's this dynamic of like one parent being the person that shoulders that responsibility, the internal conversation in their head is gosh, I'm doing all of this.
And they begin to silently or verbally keep score of what their partner is not doing. And that's the mindset that is like the seed that then spirals down into potentially resentment and this internal frustration and aggravation with the system, right?
And I think a lot of times we don't recognize how we contribute to the system and, what needs to happen to create a different culture.
So as you think about the organizations, for the listeners, the organizations and the corporations that you're a part of, there is a culture, there's a way that things are just done.
And if you and your partner have fallen into a way of operating that doesn't feel equitable, that doesn't feel like what you want. And you're now keeping score and noting for yourself, well, I'm, the one that always does this and they don't, then that's the conversation you want to start having.
Not from a shame and blame, but like, hey, we've created a culture here that isn't working optimally, and how can we shift, how can we begin to make some adjustments so that I'm not feeling…because usually it's the mom - so that I'm not feeling overburdened, overtaxed with what needs to happen for this third job that we both have right, and navigating our families and what to do.
I have an entire podcast episode on this thing called competition Matches in Marriage.
Rebecca: I will link to that for sure.
Chavonne: So that's the work week. So the weekend, what that then looks like, especially for the moms that are listening here on your podcast, they are the ones who are wanting to carve out more space for themselves.
They're wanting to be able to practice self care so that they actually feel rejuvenated throughout the weekend instead of burdened even more.
A competition of free time.
And so what I find that that conversation looks like it then becomes a competition for free time of, who gets to sleep in, who doesn't have to do something, who gets to pass off responsibility to the other person.
And what I find again, I don't typically like to be very gender stereotypical, but at least in my practice and in the tons and tons of families and couples that I speak to, what typically happens is men are good at just taking the time that they need, generally speaking.
Rebecca: But yes, right.
Chavonne: Like, generally speaking, in my practice, I'll put all those caveats. They will just inform, like, hey, I'm going to do this. Whereas the women that are really struggling with this that I coach, it becomes this thing of like, he didn't offer it to me. I didn't get permission.
Permission to take time for you.
And so I think, I'm sure the conversations you've been having around self care and prioritizing your own well being all start with permission.
The couples that I'm working with, the wife is waiting for permission, whereas I teach, as I'm sure you would align with as well. No, you get to take what you need and you can also inform.
Now, it's not from a place of like, I'm so resentful and angry, I'm going to go away for a weekend and turn off my phone and never talk to you for those 48 hours.
Standing for what you need.
But it is just like, I'm standing for what I need. This is what I need. This is what we can do to accommodate the other things that might need to happen. And that's okay. Like, I deserve this. I'm entitled to this as much as my partner is.
Rebecca: I love the idea of permission, because it's permission with yourself and women, generally speaking, at least the ones, again, that I tend to work with as well or I hear from, are not able to give themselves permission.
Seeking validation from outside yourself.
They're seeking a lot of validation from other people. They want it from their spouse. They want it from their friends. They want to see it. And culturally, they want to seek permission in order to take the time that they need.
And they tend to have a lot more other competing priorities going on, oftentimes with the kids and their desire to connect with the kids. Of course, our partners want that, too. It just looks different.
They look at the priority differently, they value different things as a parent than you value.
And that tends to feel like a bigger commitment of time or a bigger kind of struggle to try to figure out how to navigate some of those time challenges and then within the dynamic of the marriage as well, and how you want your family time to look like holy smokes. We could have a whole conversation about that.
So coming back to this idea that there's a culture change, I have a feeling that it has to start here.
Usually I would imagine a lot of women, as they approach this with their spouse, if they approach it with their spouse. It is a very me against you sort of feel versus it's like us against a culture that we've set and taking responsibility and ownership for your part of building that culture, but then a shared ownership and responsibility for how we want to create a new one, right?
And so I'm curious, when you think about the starting this conversation or as you start this conversation with your couples, what does it look like to create a culture shift in the dynamic of the family?
Anchoring thoughts.
Chavonne: Like you and most coaches, I start everything with the mindset, right? So I teach my clients what I call anchoring thoughts. And one of the anchoring thoughts that I think is most relevant to this level of conversation is we both want the same thing here, even if we approach it from different strategies and tactics.
And what that really means is when you zoom out, both you and your partner want to be happy together.
You want your relationship to be smooth and easeful.
You want to support each other.
You want to work well as a team.
You want the things in your life, both personally, professionally, and familial, to operate well and in balance. Right?
You don't want there to be this unnecessary tension and conflict and disconnection.
So if we can approach it from there of, like, really, at the end of the day, we want an easeful, enjoyable relationship with each other that feels fair and good to both of us, then you are already united as a team.
And then I teach a process. It's called the Team Project Protocol, which, again, I'm just, like, so delighted to be on this podcast with Working Moms because we know what it means to work on a team.
You know, when you're leading teams at work, what that looks like, you come together, you all have different roles, but you have a goal together.
And so if the goal together is to create a more equitable dynamic and culture, then you approach it as, we're both on the same page about this. Like, what has gone wrong in the past is data, but it doesn't then cloud what's possible for us moving forward.
So I teach this eight step series of questions and process of how to have this conversation and what that looks like in broad strokes is you identify what it is you want to be different, and you can apply this protocol to anything, to literally any aspect of your marriage.
Identify what you want to be different.
You identify what you want to be different. You look at what have been the contributing factors that have created this thing that we want to change.
So here we're talking about the equitable distribution of things to do for your family. That's where you take some ownership. Like, hey, I realize this is how I've contributed to this. And then they get to take ownership for like, hey, I realize this is how I've contributed to this. Then you both offer your solution. You're just brainstorming, right?
Like, I remember when I was working for a nonprofit, leading a team, we had this message, like, during Brainstorming, all ideas are accepted without judgment. We're just brainstorming. We're not making any decisions.
So that ability for you both to come together with your best thinking about solutions and adjustments that can be made without judging it and saying, well, that's never going to work, right? That will keep the ground very neutral.
Take time to make your decisions.
And then you look at your solutions and you take a break. I am a big fan of not rushing decision making conversations, because when you feel like you're in a rush to change something, to make a decision, you're going to be in a more reactive mode, right?
Your emotions are going to be more heightened, and you'll be less open minded because you're like, no, we've got to figure this out right now.
So sometimes I'm, like, put all the solutions out there, take a break, evaluate, let them sit, find the merits of something that maybe you hadn't considered before, then come back together to decide, okay, let's try it this way.
And then in your decision making, you can almost look at some of those ideas as experiments. You're going to run a mini experiment, all right, let's try it this way for the next month.
And then you evaluate, did this work for us? Was this better?
If not, then you might move to another solution that gets you both out of like, no, we have to do it my way, or, no, we have to do it their way, where it's like, we're going to try.
Maybe we'll try a bunch of ways and see what really lands and what works best for us. So that's just pieces like broad strokes of what that team project protocol looks like.
Rebecca: I love it. There's so many things that I resonate with.
Where my brain is going, though, as you're talking about this is at this point, both people in the marriage have bought into and have decided, we, want to work on this, right? And that this is our goal together.
We've already made that decision, but a lot of people are way before that. That decision hasn't been made by either them or their partner or there's never been even a shared conversation around it, or if there is, there's more fighting and so forth.
And so I'm going a little bit earlier to this place where there's a moment where someone has to decide in the marriage eventually both, but at least somebody has to initiate the conversation that the marriage is like, at the bottom of the priority list.
And it often is for new moms, right? And it often is for new families. And when multiple kids come into the picture, there's a whole time adjustment thing that has to happen and energy adjustment and commitment adjustment that has to happen for all of us.
You have to decide for your marriage to be a priority.
And there has to be a moment where you decide that the marriage is going up on the priority list.
And I'm curious about that moment as you think about what it takes for somebody to move the marriage up, if you will, and how somebody can decide that against all of the other competing priorities that are going on at that time.
Chavonne: I think there's a couple of ways to answer that. And it's so funny. As you were talking, I thought you were going to say, like, what do you do when your partner is resistant? Which I think we can absolutely can talk about too.
But let's start here. So with upping the prioritization of the marriage, here's what I want to say about that.
There are very specific things that are like marriage focused conversations. But I think for the couple that is really just now seeing, like, hey, our marriage has been on the back burner, I think there are also ways to see the marriage as just your life together where it doesn't need to be, like, this big deal of, like, now we've got to lift this big boulder and put it up the top of the hill, because for some people, it can feel that way.
Then what it looks like is, how do I in my life with you, get more connected? Where it's not like, oh my gosh, now we've got to put our marriage at the front.
What can you do to connect more?
It's like, what could we do to just connect more? I love to make things just like, light and simple. And with my clients, a lot of times I just do a time audit of like, how are you spending your time as individuals? And where is their potential to just make some small tweaks and shifts to connect with each other more.
And the more that you're connected, the easier it's going to be to function as a team and ultimately address the things that you do want to change.
So I would say that as you look at prioritizing your marriage and you realize it's been the lowest thing on the totem pole to not then make it be such a big hurdle that you need to overcome.
But it begins with, like, just as maybe it got moved farther and further down the priority list, it can move up the priority list in increments slow, steady way.
Rebecca: Yes, exactly.
Chavonne: And that is very appropriate for the people who overall are functioning well and are still happy together and love being together, but you just have these kinks to iron out. Sure.
Rebecca: Or you can kind of see, if you never fix this, this is going to be a problem down the line. Right.
Chavonne: Yes. Those are the very proactive people. Right. And I recognize that as we think about this audience of listeners, there are going to be some people who are like, no, we're in conflict a little bit more than I would like.
I'm not feeling as happy and the marriage is on the bottom of the list because I'm not happy in the marriage and I don't really want to think about it. Right.
Putting your marriage back on the top shelf.
And so you want to know what's the strategy and approach that can really work well for you. This incremental shifting of putting it back on the top shelf will help you down the road. It'll iron out a few things and definitely help you build towards thriving and be able to sustain that. Right.
But if you are in a place where you're like, there's actually some significant things that need some attention, then you do want to be honest about that.
And I think the first thing that I just love to ask people is to be clear that you really want to dedicate some extra time to this now and that you're clear on why.
Because again, as you're juggling your life and your profession and your family, to put this little heavier thing up higher does require some significant commitment and you have to be really clear about why it matters now and ultimately the benefit of addressing it now versus waiting.
I think I was reading something and the article indicated that it was written by a marriage therapist, that people came to the practice sometimes four and five years.
In a crisis, people wait too long to address things. And I think that's because we often think like, well, it's marriage, like, it's not going anywhere.
Which I think is the mentality for the couple that's doing okay, but could use a boost, versus the couple that's really not doing well and needs some significant changes.
Why you shouldn’t wait to make change.
Rebecca: I actually just did a podcast on this. I think it's going to be the one that comes out before this where I talk about why you shouldn't wait, why now is the time to make any change that we're talking about on some level, and what does that look like, to do that, to take those steps.
Because you're right, this is strange to say, but it feels better or easier when things are on the brink of disaster or we're on the edge of burnout or where our marriage is having a moment of potential absolute failure.
It feels easier and better for us to make the sacrifices we're going to have to make in commitment in time to make all the trade offs that are going to have to happen with that commitment when we're in that desperate space than it ever does to just decide, I'm going to trade off time with my kids. Maybe for us to spend time together. Right? That decision feels hard if you don't feel desperate for it.
And so anyway, so I'll lean into that too. So everybody makes sure that we listen to that because that's what we're definitely talking about on this level.
I want to come back to this idea of connection because I think it's such a beautiful one.
Connection is always a good thing.
And whether you're a couple that just needs a little boost or the couple that's doing really bad, connection is always a good thing, right? It's always going to be something that you're going to come back to.
And I think about this with my clients a lot, because one of the things I see happen for my clients after we start working together is their connection to their spouse or to other people, generally speaking, goes way higher.
Where the conversation is not you in passing with your partner or you talking about the logistics of who's getting who today or what are we making for dinner? Or let's look at the calendar this weekend. What do we have to do? Those conversations.
I love when couples have those conversations because some couples don't even have those. But if those are your only conversations, that's not connection. That's not what we're talking about. That's logistical life.
We want to be cultivating that connection on a regular basis in a different way than others.
And talking about logistics, which to be honest, can feel really awkward because we're out of practice with it, particularly when we have kids and all of the schedules and things like that. Like taking an actual intentional moment to check in and have a connection does not feel natural.
But I also think, and you kind of alluded to this too, it doesn't have to look like, okay, we're going to spend tonight together. We're going to do something together tonight. It's going to be a date night - that is something and it's huge and we should be working towards that.
But connection happens in the pass by moments. It happens in small little moments.
I'm curious, what are the kinds of maybe really impactful connection moments that really aren't that big of a commitment for people to start thinking about today.
Make eye contact with your partner.
Chavonne: One is just making eye contact. How often are you actually making sustained eye contact with each other? That is major connection.
So I would say aim for, like, five to 10 seconds of eye contact. That makes a difference when someone walks in the room, actually look at them and take them in, that takes no more time than you chopping up the vegetables for dinner. So that's one thing.
Also, I think hugs. Literally, we're talking about all of the senses here. Hugs. A 22 second hug when you greet each other, that creates connection.
Sleeping in the bed and actually touching, that creates intimate connection. And then by way of verbal conversation, I offer my clients this 31 great questions.
Because I think a lot of couples ask, like, hey, how was your day? That may be a step above the logistics, the logistical conversation, right? How was your day? And that usually results in like, it was pretty good. And no expounding, or it results in, like, a play by play of the day, oh, well, I had to do this and then I had to do that, right. So it doesn't necessarily foster a meaningful connection.
Asking deeper questions.
So instead of this sort of generic, how was your day? One question that I just recommend for everyone to start using is what was the best part of your day? That is a question that takes it deeper.
And I encourage you, as you have that conversation, which literally can just take three to five minutes, is to listen to your partner's heart and to use it as a way to get to know them and to study them. Here's what I mean by that.
I remember when my kids were born, you don't know them, right? You don't know their personalities. You don't know the things they like, the things they don't like. And I remember just studying them. That's how you learn.
Like, no, this kid only likes his pasta with butter, or this one won't eat anything that has meat in it, right? You pay attention.
And so as you're having this conversation about what was the best part of your day, pay attention and start picking out what does this person value?
What matters to them?
What makes them feel good about themselves?
What's the kind of encouragement that they like?
You want to use it as like, I'm going to study my spouse by having this very simple conversation with them.
Rebecca: It reminds me a couple of things that my husband Darryl and I do or have. We have a rule, actually, he instated a rule because he was having a problem with me walking out of a room when I'm talking to him and I am multitasking. So I'm talking and I'm doing something at the same time.
And so his rule was, I was never allowed to talk to him or really that wasn't the rule. The rule was he just wanted to inform me. He was never going to respond. I was allowed to talk, but he was never going to respond if I was two doorways away.
Chavonne: Good boundary.
Rebecca: So only one doorway. It was his boundary, right? It's become like a joke for us because immediately, as soon as he put the boundary up, I realized how often I did it. And then I started catching myself and be like, oh, I got to move closer in order to actually connect.
Even if it's about logistics, to actually just be in the same room and make eye contact and make sure the other person is listening actively and hearing and responding, right?
And so it's been something that has been really solved some problems right, that were potentially there before, just out of communication and so forth. And so I love that.
Chavonne: I love it too. And I think it's reminded me to give some rules to this conversation even too of what was the best part of your day.
Because I think in marriage you have so many passing conversations, right. You're like washing the dishes or helping a kid with a homework, and maybe someone walks in and you're like, hey, what's the best part of your day?
I would say to the best of your ability, just have it as a ritual that you do uninterrupted, right? Because you don't want to be making this bid for connection with your partner, but they're not even aware that that's what you're doing, right?
They may be scrolling on Instagram or whatever and you're like, hey, what was the best part of your day?
Listening with your heart to connect.
The more you can say like, hey, I'd love for us to start carving out like three to five minutes of just uninterrupted time, then you can actually be present and do the studying, the taking in the really listening with your heart to connect with him much more effectively.
Rebecca: So there does need to be a little bit of a shared buy in to some of it on some level.
But even as you were saying that, my husband loves to talk about his day when he first walks in, right? And that's something that he kind of needs. And to be honest, as you're talking about it, I'm not doing so well at that right now.
And he actually asks that very same question, what's the best part of your day? He asked me that yesterday, I remember. And he likes to ask and have this connection point.
And it's usually very chaotic to me with him coming home and the kids want to see him, and they're bouncing off the walls, and maybe Alexa is going and my daughter is cheerleading in the same room that I'm trying to pick up. And my son is playing with an airplane and making airplane noise, and I'm trying to start dinner, and he walks in and he wants to have a connection. Right.
And this is not the moment for me, but I also know it's really important to him. And I just had a little moment where I thought, I wonder what would happen if I stopped and I turned to him during this moment that he's named.
We've been married for 16 years. He said number of times to me, this is a really important moment that I stopped and I turned and I gave eye contact to him.
I don't ever have to tell him that I'm doing it, but I wonder how much more connected to me he would feel and how I would connect to him, obviously, but I wonder what that would do. And I love that idea.
Chavonne: I love it too. And I think, yes, try that and see if that moment of sacrifice for you right. And giving him your attention feeds you as well.
Because I want to offer a variety of options for people. If their partner does the same or they prefer to do the same. If saying, hey, this is so important, I want to give you my undivided attention. Let's shift this to a different part of our evening. I think both are equal options available.
Rebecca: And in different seasons and different moments, even different days. If it's a soccer and a swim day, probably not going to happen on that day. But if it's the ortho that's happening after, there's things that literally on a Monday versus a Tuesday could be very different that might allow for that conversation or not. I'm totally with you on that.
Trade off’s.
And you just said something that sparked for me another thought, which is the trade off. Because what I trade off in that moment is usually the productivity of the dishes that are getting done or the cleaning of the table so that we can have dinner, or even the making of dinner, for that matter. And it potentially being five or ten minutes late.
Because I'm going to take this time to stop what I'm doing, to look him in the eye and have this moment of connection with him.
And that trade off is a really important conversation to be having on some level with yourself. Right.
We're constantly managing the demands of priorities.
We're always reprioritizing and deciding what's the most important thing. We just want to make sure we're doing that not from a reactive place or from a place where we're chasing the thing that feels the best.
But instead, we're making a decision based on the goals that we have and the life that we want to live and the, emotion that we want to experience ultimately in that life.
And so that's a really conscious decision that we have to be thinking about ahead of time.
The moment I had the thought I would have to turn to my husband and look him in the eye, I thought, oh, my gosh. The dishes are going to remain there for a longer. I'm literally going to have to stop. He's always coming home after me.
I'm going to have to stop. I'm going to have to dry my hands. I'm going to have to leave literally the dishes there. Or I might have to turn off the stove. And I would have to turn around for a moment.
And that whole moment, I felt it in my body. I felt the productivity dip that would happen in that moment, which we're all talking about high achievers here, which means that we thrive on productivity. We're really good at it. We're efficient. We like optimization. We value optimization. We value achievement. We like the checkboxes. That's what we all live on, on some level.
And that way of life isn't oftentimes going to get us where we want to go. Because achieving isn't the only value here. And leaves us oftentimes feeling very burned out and has our priorities way out of whack when we don't get that in check. So curious, your thoughts about the trade off?
Chavonne: If I could nod my head more vigorously, I would, right? Because it is, and I think this is again similar with my clients in that we are especially in the evening time, it's all about productivity.
For those that have kids, it's like, how fast can we eat dinner, get a bath, get the kids to bed so that they're rested, so that I'm not dealing with chaos in the morning because nobody got enough sleep.
Rebecca: And then I get my own time. And then maybe it's time for me. Maybe I work out, maybe I get my Netflix show, maybe I get something. Right.
Chavonne: It's so much we try to cram into that time. And so it is, it's like, is efficiency in this moment more important than connecting?
Rebecca: That's what I'm trading off, ultimately. Yeah.
Is what you’re trading off worth it?
Chavonne: And you get to make that choice. It is what you're trading off? And I think we really have to tune into how does it feel like when I offered that, it was like, feel what's happening for you when you make that trade off.
Because what we don't want to happen is you reprioritize connecting and you put lower efficiency and productivity, but then you're resentful about it. Right.
You want to own whatever choice you make and let it feel good, and let it nourish you and be worth it for you.
Rebecca: I like that idea of owning your choices. So often we don't like to take ownership over our choices. And we think this should work out this way, like I've sacrificed here, and so it should result in connection. And the marriage should be getting better, and he should be feeling X, Y, or Z.
And this should be elevating everything in life. And if it's not getting us to the desired results, then rather than say, this isn't working for me, I need to make a different decision. I need to go about this, which would be the ownership piece of it, the responsibility to the result.
We like to oftentimes, I mean, we do throw it to our spouse a lot, but we also just throw it to circumstances. And I talk to clients a lot about that.
Well, this is just the season of life that we're in. This is just not possible. My kids are too young. I have to wait until they're X, Y, or Z. I just have a spouse that can't cook.
It’s a very big kind of not owning life, not taking responsibility for our own choices. And the fact that we are either making choices that aren't serving us and not leading us to the connection we want in our marriage and in our family life, or we're making decisions to not do things, which is another form of decision making, and that's leading us down that path as well.
Taking ownership and responsibility for our own choices.
Ownership and responsibility for our own choices and getting us to our desired result, that is the heart of what I coach on, is ownership.
Like, we never want to wait on someone else on a circumstance of life or whatever it may be, in order to get to the life that we want, we have to assume it's possible.
It's all within our decision making matrix, if you will, of life in order to get there. Otherwise, we're just delegating out our results of our life to other people or to the potential circumstances or to chance, and then we just don't know.
Chavonne: I could not agree more. I spend multiple sessions on this concept of owning your choices.
And it's from a place I remember saying to a friend once, I'm like, I have a love hate relationship with taking responsibility because it's much easier to just blame things outside of myself.
Rebecca: Feels way better.
Owning your decisions gives you so much power
Chavonne: Right? I know owning your decisions gives you so much power to create what you want. And I just so agree with what you've just said.
And there's a yang to that side, which is that it often feels bad. It feels bad. It feels horrible to own up to our problems, right?
The only thing that gets in the way of us achieving the life that we want is an emotion that we're unwilling to feel.
Rebecca: Yes, totally. The only thing that ever gets in the way of us achieving the life that we want and receiving it and experiencing it is an emotion that we're unwilling to feel.
I like to say that a lot. There's a lot of icky feeling emotions that can come with ownership and taking responsibility for life. I just want to circle a little bit back to this idea of the start of the whole process when you have to decide that marriage has to move its way up.
And we talked about connection being a really simple way to start elevating it.
What are some of the other things that you maybe talk about or think about as it's an unspoken subject in a lot of women's heads, and we have to make it a spoken subject at least to themselves about what it is and how to go about the starting process of making a marriage a priority.
Chavonne: I want to answer this, I guess, from two lenses.
One, like, the internal conversation that you can have with yourself and then the external conversation that you can have with your partner.
You've forgotten how good it used to be.
And I think the internal conversation, I once wrote an email with a title like, you've forgotten how good it used to be. And I think this speaks especially to the comments of, like, well, this is just our stage of life. This is just what life is. We're in this season, and we're going to have to wait 10-15 years before we can bounce back to this happy dating couple that we were before.
And I would suggest and this is part of all of the programming that I do and the coaching that I do. You spend your time just reminiscing, just reminiscing about maybe three of your most favorite moments together and what it was like to have a relationship that you were so in love with and that was such a priority to you and how that actually made the rest of your life easier and better.
Because I think at this point now, right, as people have been together for such a long time and they've added more responsibility, they have more professional responsibilities as they've moved up and got promoted and assumed more leadership roles, they have more family responsibilities with the addition of kids.
And it feels like to prioritize the marriage will be taking away from those other areas.
How will prioritizing your marriage benefit all areas of your life?
And I want you to have the internal conversation with yourself of, how will prioritizing this marriage and my connection and enjoyment of my spouse help these other areas? How will it be an asset?
I had a client once say, like, now her marriage is an asset to the rest of her life. That is a beautiful thing to just get to that point. So that's one piece.
The second piece is this conversation with your partner. Because, again, in my practice, or not even in my practice, because obviously they have to be on board by the time they come to work with me as a couple.
But in conversations that I have with some, women, the initial response of their partner is, things are fine. So maybe one of you is like, no, we can actually make it better. And the other is like, no, it's just fine, let's leave it as it is. I don't have any issues. This isn't a problem for me.
So if you have a partner who is unaware of things that could be improved or feels like it's fine and they're sort of relegated to this season that you're in and not wanting to shift it, then I think the best approach initially is to just be curious about that.
And this is where studying your spouse also comes in, because I know a lot of times and again, this is not to stereotype just the dynamic that I am, most often working with.
It's the wife going to a husband around, hey, I want to make this improvement. And a lot of times when we have that conversation, and I've been that wife as well, we present it from our vantage point and our viewpoint. And what is going to be better for us versus studying our spouse and finding what motivates them.
What would be in it for them? What would motivate them and excite them to put forth some additional time, energy and effort and maybe financial resources, if you're hiring a professional to elevate this area of our life.
So if you are met with some hesitancy, you want to just be curious about it, like, well, what's that about? And maybe they've forgotten how good it can be. Maybe they haven't seen the benefit.
And ultimately, a lot of the husbands that get on board, they're like, listen, if this is going to make her happier, I'm going to be happier. Sometimes that's the thing that gets them.
What's great and beautiful about that sometimes is, again, back to this anchoring and foundational belief of, like, you both want the same thing.
You both want to be happy together, thriving, having a better easeful, more enjoyable life together. And if prioritizing your marriage is going to get you there, then let's do that.
Rebecca: I wanted to add one little snippet about what you just said, though, because I think it's really important too, is as we get curious, we stay out of judgment.
So you discover their motivation, on some level at least, what your hunch is. If they're not telling you it, it's only through your own perception of it. But then there's full acceptance of that.
There's not judgment that it's different than you or you don't think that somebody should, or as a father, they should x, Y, or Z, all these very sweeping judgments that we can make of other people just because human beings are different always, and everybody is motivated by different things and there's no right or wrong.
We have to come back to this place of pure curiosity and acceptance of whatever's discovered in the process.
And for me, that's been a big journey in my marriage, is that level of acceptance. As my husband's gotten better at being able to verbalize it, noticing my initial reaction is this resistance to it.
It's like, well, that feels weird to me, or I don't know why you're doing that and having to go, huh? That's what he says is important to him. I want to get more curious with that. I want to understand that and taking a different kind of approach to it. So checking your own energy in the midst of that is super important.
Chavonne: Totally.
Rebecca: I feel like we could just keep talking and talking. There's so many good things to talk about as we've gotten into this. So good for me.
It just all goes back to my very first question to you, which is, why did this trigger something for people? And you said it's this silent conversation that we're having and everything we've talked about here is taking what's been something just like words in your head and letting them be real and verbalizing them either to yourself in a very honest way or to your spouse or to somewhere the ethos right?
In some way, saying, I'm thinking these things, I'm feeling these things. I want something different. And that being an initial step to move you in that direction.
So, Chavonne if people wanted to follow, you or connect with you, or are interested in working with you in some way, what's the best way to connect?
Chavonne: Awesome. So you're listening to a podcast. Go on to your search bar and search Love Marriage again with Dr. Chavonne. That is my podcast. You can listen to that on every podcast platform.
And then if you're interested in working with me or learning more about how I could support you, you can go to my website. It's DrChavonne.com. That's Drchavonne.com and I'm sure we'll link to it.
Rebecca: Definitely. Thank, you so much for being here. What a pleasure to have you again and thank you for sharing all of your wisdom.
I have also been listening to some of your podcast episodes, so definitely listeners should go take a listen to that. You have some amazing things to say and so much great support just in that particular resource.
So awesome. You're awesome. Thanks for doing what you do and putting yourself out into the world in the way that you do.
Working moms till next week, let's get to it.
