How can the answers to difficult questions guide you to where you need to work in your marriage? Can “fixing” your marriage also be done when things are going well? How is a marriage like climbing Mount Everest?
In this podcast episode, Veronica Cisneros speaks with Dr. Peter Lynn and Tod Jacobs about what makes a good marriage.
Meet Dr. Peter Lynn and Tod Jacobs
For more than 13 years, Peter and Tod have been helping their students develop a mature and idealistic vision of marriage as the primary vehicle to create wholeness, meaning, purpose, and happiness in their lives, and on working to perfect the character issues that lie at the core of a successful spouse — giving, empathy, focus, staying power and a strong desire to help build the other.
Their work combines practical and mystical Jewish wisdom with modern theory and techniques, and with experience accrued through years of real-world implementation and practice.
Visit their website and connect on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
In This Podcast
Summary
- Three paradigms of marriage strength
- An important marriage investment
- How your character core affects the marriage
- Dr. Lynn and Tod’s advice to exasperated couples
Three paradigms of marriage strength
1. How do you define your marriage?
Working out a definition of what marriage means for you and your partner will give you both goals to work towards to fulfill in your marriage.
This is the commitment you both place towards the marriage between you two, however, it does not mean that you lose yourself for the sake of the union. In order to be the best version you can be for your partner and for yourself for the sake of the marriage, you need to do the work on yourself in order to become that better person.
2. Great marriages do not just happen
Partners receive the “gift” of meeting one another and falling in love, but afterward it is their responsibility to maintain that level of commitment and love through putting in conscious effort.
3. What causes you to love your spouse?
Genuine love is developed where you give, not where you get things, and therefore when someone complains that they no longer love their spouse, Tod’s advice is for them to start giving to their spouses, investing time and energy into them.
An important marriage investment
The people that have the most successful marriages spend conscious effort not only working in their marriages when there are problems, but they are also proactively working on their marriages even when things are going very well.
These people spend time listening to podcasts, reading books, attending seminars, go to therapy, and are educating themselves on what it means to build a resilient and compassionate marriage. They take the time and effort to figure out what that means to them, as individuals in a partnership, and they figure out where they want to take it further.
Your partnership can grow so much more when you let go of what you think marriage is supposed to look like and start working towards what the marriage means for you and your spouse.
How your character core affects the marriage
Every person in the world struggles with some inner issue, and when that issue is not resolved it can spill over into their marriage. By committing to work on your own issues, not for the sake of your spouse or even the marriage but just for you, you can create substantial change in the marriage as a side effect.
When you improve yourself and recognize that it is your job to further your own evolution, not your spouse, you make your own personal growth your business, and then you can no longer blame the failing marriage for your own issues. It takes hard work and accountability, but when you and your partner work on yourselves as individuals, you inspire one another and you deepen the connection within your marriage.
Dr. Lynn and Tod’s advice to exasperated couples
You two are on the same team, it is you two against the world. It is in your hands to put in the work and try your best to work on yourselves to work on your marriage, and you complete this work by making small steps by each person working on what they bring to the table.
Ask yourselves, has your behavior contributed to the state of the marriage, and enabled certain behavior of your partner that frustrates you? It is difficult but important to observe your behavior and what you bring to the marital table. In the world of quick fixes, are you willing to put in the energy and time to work on your marriage?
Books
Not A Partnership: Why We Keep Getting Marriage Wrong & How We Can Get It Right
Useful links:
- Your Fresh Start to Forever Fit with Cathy Richards | EU 45
- Download your FREE workbook HERE – THE 5 MISTAKES TO AVOID FOR A HEALTHY MARRIAGE: TIPS FROM A THERAPIST
- Sign up for the VIP membership
- Join Our Girl Gang
- Empowered And Unapologetic Free Course
Meet Veronica Cisneros
I’m a licensed therapist and women walk into my office every day stressed and disconnected. As a mom of three daughters, I want my girls to know who they are and feel confident about their future. I can’t think of a better way to help other women than by demonstrating an empowered and unapologetic life.
So I started Empowered and Unapologetic to be a safe space for women to be vulnerable and change their lives for the better before she ever needs to see a therapist.
Whether you listen to the podcast, join the free Facebook community, join the VIP community, or attend our annual retreat, you’re in the right place. Let’s do this together!
Thanks for listening!
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Empowered and Unapologetic is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you thrive, imperfectly. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom Podcast, Imperfect Thriving, or Beta Male Revolution, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.
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