Have you ever received really bad marriage advice?
Today I have the privilege of interviewing Kendra Nielson, a fellow marriage coach and therapist.
Together we address common pieces of marriage advice that often miss the mark, such as “Never go to bed angry,” or “Always put your spouse first,” and “Your spouse should be your best friend.” And of course we reinterpret these peices of advice for healthier marriage relationships. Understanding this is crucial in order to have a healthy sexual relationship as well.
We just wrapped up our in-person couples retreat last weekend, and it was incredible! Seventeen couples from all over the United States and Canada joined us for four days of deep learning and connection. It was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again next year. So be sure to get on our waiting list. I hope you can be there too and have this experience with your spouse.
Do you have a desire gap in your marriage? If you do, you’re in good company. Just about every couple does. I’m going live on April 10th for a free webinar all about how to address the sexual desire gap in your marriage in a constructive, healthy way that makes your connection stronger instead of dividing you in your marriage.
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Episode 234
Dan: What some of the marriage counsel you received that turned out to be really bad advice? Ever try one thing in your marriage because someone told you it’s the best way to do it, and it ends up causing more division, heartache, and misunderstanding in your marriage. Today I have the privilege of interviewing Kendra Nielsen, a fellow marriage coach and therapist.
Together we address common pieces of marriage advice that often miss the mark, such as never go to bed angry. Or always put your spouse first and your spouse should be your best friend, and how these can be reinterpreted for healthier marriage relationships. Understanding this is crucial in order to have a healthy sexual relationship as well.
We just wrapped up our in-person couples retreat last weekend, and it was incredible. 17 couples from all over the United States and Canada joined us for four days of deep learning and connection. It was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again next year. So be sure to get on our waiting list.
I hope you can be there too and have this experience with your spouse.
now before we begin this interview with Kendra, I want to ask you if you and your spouse have a desire gap in your marriage, and if so, you’re in good company. Just about every couple does. I’m going live on April 10th for a free webinar all about how to address the sexual desire gap. In your marriage in a constructive, healthy way that makes your connection stronger instead of dividing you in your marriage.
Please check the show notes below for the link to register. You need to register in order to attend.
Alright, now let’s talk with Kendra and talk about bad marriage advice and how to make it healthier.
Dan Purcell: Kendra, welcome to the Get Your Marriage on Podcast. How are you today?
Kendra Nielson: Hi, I am doing so well. Thank you, Dan.
Dan Purcell: Great. It’s fun to get to know you a little bit better. We have this common connection. We went to college together. We probably even lived next door to each other and the same apartment complex for a while.
And here you are saving lives, saving marriages in your work as a marriage therapist. ,
Kendra, have you ever been in a situation where you felt enormous pressure to conform to what the group wanted or to what your brain was telling you was a reasonable thing to do, yet the act of conforming or giving into that pressure would mean there’d be some sort of a self betrayal, like you would’ve been going against your higher self in that.
And what was that situation like and what did you do?
Kendra Nielson: Yeah, great question. the first thing that comes to mind when I think about that was in my faith community, it was more standard, or at least I felt like it was to be the stay at home mom, to be, just really devoted to your spouse.
There’s nothing wrong with that devotion, and your family, but to such a degree that there was like this enmeshment, the way that I was viewing it anyway. I felt very lost, honestly, pretty depressed. anxious. I didn’t really even have words for it at the time. And probably the first 10 years of our marriage, I felt pretty lost and unfulfilled.
And I felt like this need, this calling, this desire to go get my master’s. And yet all around me, I felt like I was getting this other information. No, that, that’s only what. Selfish people do, or you have young kids, all of these things. So it wasn’t like people were directly rude to me or anything like that, but these other messages that I was getting, it’s like you shouldn’t do that.
So in that regard, I felt like I was, sacrificing what I felt would really help my soul sing. And yet. My understanding at the time in my faith community was that was bad. That was wrong.
With that example that I just gave, the part that is honestly still a little difficult to talk about is then what it meant in our marriage. My husband had really good points.
Like he thought our kids were still a little too young. This would be hard on our family, this would be hard on our marriage, all of these valid points. But in that, I had already been putting his. Values and his needs and his desires ahead of my own for so long without really articulating what I was doing, even though he wasn’t necessarily asking.
He’s a wonderful man. But I started to get, lost and I started to, Prioritize his desires over my own. And that really created that resentment. So that’s what I was talking about, that en mesh where, it just got muddled. So when I think about, honestly, differentiation, I.
Feels a little elusive to me [00:05:00] sometimes, and I talk about it with clients all the time, but I’m still trying to navigate that and figure that out. differentiation is that ability to maintain that strong sense of self.
While remaining, emotionally connected to other people still. And that’s a key piece that I sometimes forget too. And that’s when you don’t have to manage the other person’s feelings or fix it or jump in. But that’s, Maintaining that sense of self with your values, with your beliefs, without, and this is key too, without demanding that your partner or your spouse changes.
I still wanna change ’em all the time, and I have a good story for that later but also managing your own emotions, your own reactions, and respecting your partner’s individuality. That is so hard to do and I feel like it gets muddled so much. And a big part of that is also maintaining healthy boundaries.
There’s a
Dan Purcell: lot to this. This is so good there
really, there could be 20 episodes,
So maybe for our listeners, let’s pick two or three common marriage advice that people might hear and that might make you cringe, Kendra. And let’s dissect them. Let’s go there. What’d you say?
Kendra Nielson: Let’s start with there’s so many of them.
I’m sure you have your own that you could say, but one that I really don’t like because of my personality is never go to bed angry.
Dan Purcell: I’ve heard that too. Never go to bed angry. Uhhuh. I’m
Kendra Nielson: like, who? Who decided that? That was a great idea because I take a lot longer to process than my husband. He’s so quick about it.
He’s so used to, in his family culture, they just had a lot of quick, explosive feelings and they’d work it out really quickly. But I have to take sometimes 48 hours even to be like, why is this bothering me so much? And so to work it out quickly makes me feel angry and resentful.
So a differentiated approach to this would be more like, Recognizing that you’re different for, not having to conform to what somebody else is, but then giving yourself that time and that space to pause and to reflect and manage your own emotions, your own side, without getting sucked into that narrative or story and being able to stay grounded.
Dan Purcell:
Kendra Nielson: Yeah.
Dan Purcell: so better advice would be. It’s not about going to bed angry. It’s about making sure you have time to process for both of you.
Kendra Nielson: And respecting the different timetable of each one. if one is really quick, then you have to do it that way.
But when both can come to the table with a clear, calm mind that we do this with conflict resolution too. if you’re not both in that space, just wait until you are so that it is more effective and you’re not in that fight, flight, or freeze. And you can actually. Have some progress in your conversation.
Dan Purcell: Yeah. I read about John Gottman, who’s one of the country’s foremost marriage researchers in Seattle, he had a love lab and he’d invite couples to come and live in an apartment for a while, but they hooked them up to all these sensors on their body measuring heart rate.
Body temperature, blood pressure, And they’d observe them. some of the situations they’d be in would be tense, like how they would argue and fight then they would, go back through and View all the video footage and try to code and make sense of couples that thrive versus couples that really struggle.
One thing that he said is there’s a 0% chance of having an effective argument when you’re both elevated, right? You’re, thinking part of your brain seems to go offline. So it’s really about, being able to maintain this, if you can just calm that down and come to conflict, at least with, some sort of a settled down nervous system, I think you’re gonna be far more effective.
So if that means going to bed so you have a good sleep, so you’re settled, so then you can now approach things with fresh eyes, I think that’s much better advice.
Kendra Nielson: And I will tell you what I always thought I had to. Conform to this before. So I would force it and I was not very sweet and lovely, but when you give me 48 hours, I’m so willing to own my part, or even 24, but not before then.
So if you want a genuine apology, maybe you should wait a little longer for your spouse to cool down.
Dan Purcell: Yeah, that’s good. What’s another piece of advice that people might hear that kind of makes you cringe?
Kendra Nielson: Yeah. This one I don’t hear quite as much, but it is.
Something I cringe even. Maybe more so because I saw myself doing this and it ties into my story. And that’s, always put your spouse first. Yes. Especially in faith communities, you see this one a little bit bigger. And that neglects that self-care and those individual needs. Jennifer Finlay and five talks about this, but that one up, one down relationship where you think other people matter more or less.
And that really resonated with me. But it took a long time for me to understand that concept and what ended up happening and what happens with a lot of my clients. ’cause I’m. A therapist. I don’t know if you mentioned that, I don’t remember. But, I was just filled with resentment and so many of my clients are too, when we are giving, giving, and then we are empty, like that gas tank or that cup like how can you effectively give to others when you are always putting other people first?
And I know there’s [00:10:00] something beautiful about that when it comes to altruism but personally I didn’t feel like it was coming from a healthy space. It came from a space of, resentment, exhaustion.
And then bitterness. And I’m like, I am definitely not my best self when I’m putting my spouse first, unless it’s something like, it’s a free will offering and you are very grounded and you’re able to, again, going back to that differentiation, where you’re able to maintain that sense of self, where you are doing it because you want to, not because you feel like you have to.
Mm-hmm.I don’t know if you’ve noticed anything like that in your life, Dan, but I definitely have lots of examples, especially in early marriage where that something like that has shown up.
Dan Purcell: And that’s advice I hear at church too and other places. And I think it’s all good in intentioned. Put others first.
Absolutely. This is the way Christ did it and things like that. perhaps a more nuanced approach should be, my understanding is we wanna sacrifice for other people. But what we’re sacrificing is we’re doing away with our lesser selves. And putting our better, best, more wiser self into a relationship because it does a relationship no good if one is turning into a doormat or folding into the other person, it’s no longer a relationship of two people yolked together pulling forward.
so I think putting your best into, and investing in each other is always wise and good, but it can’t come at the expense of something that’s not sustainable for what’s good for the whole relationship. So we need to take that into account.
Kendra Nielson: Absolutely. And I think the key of what you said is not being a doormat. I thought that I was being assertive and communicating all my needs, but now looking back that kind of makes me laugh. Like we always think we’re doing this great job of this is like a want or a need that I have and I really do need this.
And then you realize when you’re getting feedback back that they’re not. Catching any of that. They get used to you over time if you keep showing up a certain way of you doing something over and then you do become this doormat. So a big part of that is communication too.
For sure.
Dan Purcell: Do you have a specific story about that?
Kendra Nielson: I think that one still goes back to that 10 years earlier in our marriage where the very end of it where I was like, no, I really need this. I need something for myself. But it built up so much and he didn’t understand where I was at.
I didn’t even understand where I was at, where just a such a depleted mom needing something for myself and not really sure how to fill that need, that void. and trying to communicate that. And we both. We’re looking at, our families of origin. Like how he grew up, how I grew up, and thinking this is what we saw modeled.
We’ll just do what we saw, modeled, not realizing that Was not working. And neither of us were very happy in that dynamic. neither of us were very differentiated. We very much, wanted the other person to change, didn’t really understand why we couldn’t connect and come together in that way.
I don’t even think really appreciated the way that we do now. Our individuality in that and wanted the other person to be more differentiated. It’s almost like we were. Unknowingly seeking to connect in this codependent, enmeshed relationship. I know I’m using a lot of jargon here.
I’m trying to make it, in layman’s terms We didn’t realize that we were very needy, but in an unhealthy dynamic, where it felt threatening and scary for us to go do something like a master’s program or maybe develop a hobby that would take some time and take us outside of the house where the other one felt maybe alone.
Dan Purcell: That makes sense.
Kendra Nielson: Yeah.
Dan Purcell: All right. Third piece of marriage advice. People here that you cringe at.
Kendra Nielson: All right, I’m ready. Your spouse should be your best friend. Do you ever hear that one?
Dan Purcell: Yeah. Uhhuh.
Kendra Nielson: Okay. So I love my husband very much , and actually this one I don’t think about with my husband as much. my husband is also a therapist and he is an incredible communicator in a lot of ways, although you might not think that based on the stories I’ve told, but I have a lot of clients come in and they tell me that their spouse is not able to connect on an emotional level with them.
And it’s been really frustrating and they wonder oh, maybe this marriage is just not gonna work out. And I hear these stories all the time I sympathize I do empathize, but my husband being such a good communicator, I don’t get that part as much.
But the part that I do understand is. It’s okay if your husband isn’t everything to you in all of those realms. And that’s what I work on with some of these clients too, is you can have friends that can meet some of your other needs or your wants. socially or emotionally, it’s okay to go to other people for some of those things too.
Not with that resentment, but just recognizing. I can have these other friendships , and interests outside of the marriage. And that’s okay. Like letting go of trying to again, change your spouse. Like maybe you married an introvert that just really doesn’t wanna talk about all these mental health things like my husband and I talk about, or how people connect
and [00:15:00] he might. Never change. And that’s okay. That’s that differentiation that I was talking about. You can’t change their values and their beliefs and their personality, even though you might really want to and be really determined it’s not gonna go anywhere positive or productive.
Dan Purcell: Yeah, it makes sense. And I think, Dr. Esther Perel said it this way more than any other period in history than today. We demand more out of our marriages. Think about it. We’re living longer than we ever have.
Yeah. So used to What’s life expectancy? 40 50. Die of tuberculosis and then you die right back before now we’re living to 80 90. of course our marriage is gonna be a lot longer, or people used to die in childbirth often, so it wasn’t too uncommon for there’d be a second or a third marriage due to problems like that.
And now we’re staying married longer, and yet we expect more out of our spouse not to be a only a provider or a companion, but also to be all of the things. And that’s a big ask.
Kendra Nielson: Absolutely.
Dan Purcell: I think, Some of the things that help me and my wife most in our relationship now. I think being really good friends is absolutely wonderful.
Dan: you gotta, like the
Dan Purcell: person you’re married to if you wanna thrive in life. There’s something really nice, but one of the things that’s really helped me is just the power of gratitude.
And recognizing everything’s a gift. The fact that I could wake up this morning, I’m just grateful for that when there are some people that didn’t wake up today that I can wake up with my wife and my arms, which I absolutely love. What a gift to have her hair in my face and just the way we talk, the way she talks.
It’s a gift. And the better we get at just recognizing the miracle of every day and the ordinary, everyday goodness that people have and offer. I think helps us appreciate things a lot more and can move us more into a place of liking and accepting, a lot easier.
Kendra Nielson: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s the key, what you just said, that liking and accepting and that’s differentiation.
not forcing them to look a certain way, be a certain way, but loving them. Regardless, I think there’s some quote, I’m trying to remember it, something like when you are engaged, it’s keeping both eyes open and when you’re married it’s keeping one eye closed or something like that.
Uhhuh, I see. You know what I’m, yeah. So loving them where they’re at while still that healthy, challenging in some ways. but. that differentiation aspect of it, not demanding that they show up differently or they demanding that you do, but still encouraging each other to be your best self.
Dan Purcell: Yet there’s a strong temptation in marriage to change your spouse. Oh. Can you tell me the story when you wanna change your husband?
Kendra Nielson: Actually yes, I can this morning,
Dan Purcell: Let’s hear it.
Kendra Nielson: Okay. So I am really into exercising. I love it. I’ve loved it since I was 16. and I am very consistent, like that’s my superpower.
so I go to the gym and just recently, probably in the last year, he started going with me. And this is something that I’ve wanted for so long, so I was really excited because we go early, we, get there at five. but fairly regularly. I try not to notice, but he will just read in the car for the first half, or he’ll read in the building, or he’ll like just do his own thing and just barely work out sometimes.
And it is not how my brain works. I’m like, you’re at the gym like. You work out like you’re here to lift weight, you’re here to get cardio. And that’s not him. So this is me not being differentiated, and trying to change him, but in this like kind of passive aggressive way. Hey, how was your workout?
Why were you so late? Not in an admirable way. but my eyes said it. I don’t even remember on the way home from the gym though, I said something like. It’s good to have cardio too, like not just a little bit of lifting.
And anyway, we got into it a little bit and then afterwards he calmly explained that it just felt like I was trying to change him or make him value something that he didn’t really value in the same way. And I thought about that.
But it is totally true. I wasn’t being differentiated. I was trying to change him into being something that I was and to value something in the same way that I did. And that’s not going to help us come closer together, that’s just going to alienate us more. So I hope you’ll learn from my poor example.
Good. What not to do.
Dan Purcell: Yeah. I think as humans we’re very resistant to our spouses trying to change us. I think it’s very human nature to resist that and resist it strongly. Yeah. And there’s definitely better approaches, but, That’s a fantastic way to talk about that differentiation piece.
I am me, you are, you and I can come to peace and accept this. We can look for ways we have strengths to build together. I think that’s fantastic.
Kendra Nielson: And one quick other thing to that too, before , I wanted to fix things so much. I wanted to manage his feelings and the other person’s feelings, and I was [00:20:00] so focused on that instead of.
Allowing people space to manage their own feelings, allowing them to work through their own struggles unless they are asking for help. And I can do that without resentment and filled with love and for the right intentions. And that’s like that second part of my marriage journey, I feel is leaning into that more and making sure that I am.
Emotionally grounded enough so that I can let go more and stop controlling those things around me. Just accepting others and myself instead of taking the reins so often.
Dan Purcell: That’s good. Kendra, before we leave, there’s a question I ask many of my podcast guests and, I’m putting you on the spot here.
Kendra Nielson: Oh,
Dan Purcell: these principles we’re talking about are very important for any couple to thrive in their intimate relationships. It’s this ability to work well together, the ability to be friends, ability to calm yourself down instead of trying to force solving a problem when you’re not even physically in the right head space to be able to solve that problem and so on.
Now let’s take things up a notch and put it into more of a sexual context. What would you say is a black belt I. Sex tip for a couple. Who’s working on these things to take their sexual relationship to the next level?
Kendra Nielson: It’s communicating and allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable and processing things verbally. I had a lot of resistance to things. I just went along with a lot of things sexually, based on how I thought it should and shouldn’t look, and that made it very hard, and I’m getting a little vulnerable here
For me to climax, it took me years. And so when I finally started to have more frank conversations with him
Kendra: about.
Kendra Nielson: Why things felt difficult, why I was, like emotionally just checking out during sex. And until I finally started to talk to him about that experience, and he listened so well, and lo and behold, sex started to get more enjoyable and I wasn’t avoiding it as much and I was staying more present.
Dan Purcell: So it was opening up and risking sounding maybe a little bit crazy when I didn’t understand it myself and leaning on him to explore that Together. What I love about, your story right there is, it does take two.
Kendra Nielson: Yeah,
Dan Purcell: it does take two. And what a blessing it is to have a husband that would listen and take it all in without shame or judgment because you’re like, am I crazy? Because what I’m about to tell you just, I don’t know if this is gonna come out. Because that’s probably why you haven’t expressed it to that point in your marriage.
’cause you’re or yourself even just questioning or judging, is this even okay or not? But you’re able to work through that together and lo and behold, things got better right after. So that’s great advice.
All right, everyone. if you want to follow Kendra, where can people go to find you?
Kendra Nielson: at fulfillment therapy or fulfillment therapy.org. You can check me out really anywhere. Fulfillment therapy. I’m there.
Dan Purcell: Great. Very good.
Thanks.
Kendra Nielson: Of course.
Dan Purcell: Thank you for listening to this episode, please share it along with our apps and timidly us. And just between us with their married friends. I promise they will thank you for life. If you want a more meaningful sexual and intimate connection in your marriage, I invite you to check out my, get your marriage on program.
Dan: Over a hundred couples have said this program packs tremendous value and has helped their intimacy grow to the next level. Now go get your marriage on.
