Marriage: Inside My 20 Year Marriage and Practical Approaches That Keeps Us Going Strong

In this episode of Wonder Boldly, Christine celebrates her 20th wedding anniversary by sharing insights into her relationship with her husband, who has been a constant source of support and motivation. She recounts how he supported her decision to leave corporate America to care for her mother and start her own business.

Christine shares various strategies that have strengthened their relationship, including maintaining independence, practicing effective communication, and engaging in daily rituals such as having breakfast together and taking morning walks while sharing 'GEMs' (gratitude, excited, manifesting). Through these anecdotes, she offers listeners practical tips to apply in their own relationships.

00:00 Introduction and Anniversary Celebration
00:57 Leaving Corporate America for Family
02:01 Starting a Side Hustle
03:55 Support from Todd, Christine's Husband
06:30 Strategies for a Strong Relationship
09:08 Daily Rituals and Quality Time
12:23 GEMS: Gratitude, Excitement, and Manifesting
15:22 Conclusion and Anniversary Dinner

Resources mentioned:

• Chris Harder Podcast: https://chrisharder.me/podcast/
• Sunday Morning: https://www.instagram.com/cbssundaymorning/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Christine Santos: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Wonder Boldly. On today's episode, I want to talk about my relationship with my husband, Todd. Today is our 20th anniversary. Honestly, I can't believe it. How time flies. And we've had some health challenges in our 20 years together. Ups and downs of normal life.

[00:00:23] And through it all, he has been my support and my cheerleader.

[00:00:27] So today I want to dedicate this episode to him, share with you some of our. relationship approaches in hopes that you gain some insights and perhaps some new ways

[00:00:41] that you can positively approach your relationships.

[00:00:45] I'm not going to start from 20 years ago, I'm going to start maybe five or so years ago when I decided to start my own business. I was in corporate America, I loved my career, I was in upper management working with incredible humans developing medical software. It was exactly where I wanted to be and what I loved doing.

[00:01:07] I often thought how grateful I was to be at this company, have the position I did, and I had no intention of leaving before retirement.

[00:01:16] One day I stumbled upon a personal development blog, and I realized that there was this whole other world out there in personal development that other than maybe Tony Robbins, I wasn't aware of. So I started to dive in. I started really enjoying it. I joined some classes and really worked on my personal development.

[00:01:39] It really, really spoke to me. Along the way, I decided to start a side hustle where I would create some extra income serving other people with skills that I had to help them along their journey.

[00:01:54] One of my primary roles in corporate was hiring, and I saw a need for helping others with their resumes and with their interviewing skills. So I offered these services, I made a little bit of extra income doing so, and I really really enjoyed it.

[00:02:10] Then I really started to get interested in entrepreneurship. So I signed up for more coaches, more classes, more programs, more masterminds.And I absolutely loved being in this world.

[00:02:22] I got certified as a life coach, I had clients as their business and life coach, I just loved it so much. And then one day my mother had three strokes. What that meant was she was bedridden 7. That became my role. And as time went on, she started to get better, but I could foresee that she was going to need more care, and more help with daily activities. It was at this point that I decided to talk to my husband about leaving corporate and becoming my mom's primary caregiver. I'm I had no idea what he would say up until this point in our many years together, we had both been bringing home a full time salary. Now we had a child to support,

[00:03:13] a mortgage, all the things.

[00:03:16] When I approached my husband, He was in full support.

[00:03:20] I went into the conversation knowing that if he wasn't comfortable with it, that it was not something I was going to pursue because I had seen many relationships in my life fail and I did not want that to be our story. I knew our relationship had to remain strong and supportive.

[00:03:39] I am incredibly grateful for his support.

[00:03:43] obviously it was a very scary decision. I hadn't had proof yet that I could make a significant income.

[00:03:49] But together, we decided to make the change and all along, my husband has supported my decision, been my cheerleader, watched me grow my business, watched the failures and the successes, and all along, has cheered me on.

[00:04:03] Now, let me tell you a little bit about him. he has this ability to make me feel strong, to make me feel seen and heard, to make me feel like I can do anything. And he is incredibly smart. I actually don't even know how to express how smart he is.

[00:04:24] But I'm going to try to give you examples of what I mean by this. I'm not talking about his IQ level. I don't even know what that is. I'm sure it's high. That's not my point. He has this incredible gift of being able to see different pieces of a puzzle of a story and putting it together and seeing the entire big picture.

[00:04:45] And so he might not have the entrepreneurship experience. I tap into his knowledge a lot. Maybe I'm thinking about creating a new program or maybe I'm thinking about a different approach for the business. Or maybe I'm thinking about a new approach for my podcasting business. He will listen, he will give me his thoughts, and he will support me.

[00:05:09] No matter which direction I choose to go in. And I value that so much. And when we have these conversations, he like is truly listening to me. And after we're done and he gives me his insights, I walk away feeling so motivated and excited to embark on whatever it is that we were chatting about.

[00:05:29] So yes, I feel very fortunate that these are qualities he brings to our relationship. now I'd like to share with you some approaches that we

[00:05:38] put into practice and have so for years. Now I realize these work for us. They may not work for you. Take what speaks to you and leave the rest.

[00:05:48] So from the beginning in our relationship, we have maintained a very good level of independence. We each have our own interests. We each spend time alone. We spend time with our own friends and then collectively come together with all of our friends. But we do have this level of independence and that has really worked for us over the years.

[00:06:11] We also have a very strong approach to communication. This is something that we have worked on through the years. 

[00:06:19] these practices around communication How do we continue to support our relationship In living a happy life as a couple?

[00:06:28] The first one I want to mention is pausing before responding and or reacting. There are times when we don't agree or something is upsetting to the other person. Pausing and asking ourselves, how do we want to respond? If we just react, most likely we are not going to be happy with that reaction when things settle down.

[00:06:51] I pause and ask myself, is this response delivered with the utmost respect, kindness, and love. And if it's not, I take time to think about what I want to say, what words I want to use, how do I want him to feel, and what do I want the outcome to be.

[00:07:10] I always use I statements. I might say something like, This has been on my mind. This has been bothering me. I've taken some time to think about it. I am upfront that I am being intentional with how I'm communicating about it and I want want it to be received knowing that I love him, respect him, and want the outcome to be that I'm able to communicate and share how I'm feeling and that he does not feel disrespected or shamed by what I'm saying.

[00:07:41] This approach takes practice. Am I a hundred percent perfect with this? Absolutely not. Over the years, I've definitely gotten better.

[00:07:50] The second approach I want to share, we started in 2020, and that is we have breakfast together every morning. We sit at the breakfast counter and I have this practice that I absolutely love, which is making us coffee. What does that look like? It is a practice that has sounds and smells and intention.

[00:08:10] The sounds, Whole bean. I always get organic, whole bean, well sourced coffee. I feel really good about the coffee I purchase, where it's coming from. I feel really good about the fact that I'm supporting a small business. I buy whole bean because I love the sound of the whole beans falling into the grinder.

[00:08:31] I love and don't love the sound of the grinder, but it's part of the process. I love the fact that each cup is made individually, one for him and one for me. He drinks decaf. I do not drink decaf. So each cup is made with intention, with its own filter,

[00:08:52] With its own fill line, he puts milk in his coffee, I take mine black, so I leave more room intentionally for the milk. It is such a practice, and being present in that moment.

[00:09:05] While I'm doing this, he is getting ready for the day in another room, and I just absolutely love it. I put everything out, he has cinnamon in his coffee, and We use grass fed, organic milk, and I put everything out on the counter for him, and I set myself up, I always have a glass of water before I put anything else in my body, and if we're having food together, he makes our breakfast, or sometimes I'm fasting, 

[00:09:33] So he'll make his own breakfast. And we sit at the counter and we talk. Now, let me be really clear about The sitting at the breakfast counter and talking. It is not profound. Sure, some days there are things going on in the family that we need to talk through and we will do that. I'll say more than 60 percent, probably 70 to 75 percent, we are talking about maybe something going on

[00:09:58] Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber or we're talking about a new Marvel movie. He loves Marvel movies. I don't but i'm happy to listen to him. He gets really excited about that. We will talk about something going on in the neighborhood, the neighbors. How are the neighbors doing?

[00:10:15] Maybe somebody got a new pet. It could be anything. And it's just so fun and it's really a beautiful way to start the day.

[00:10:25] Another practice we have is every Sunday morning, we watch the show CBS Sunday mornings together. Now, another thing you need to know about my husband, one, he's extremely opinionated, and two, he has something to say about everything. And I'm here for it. I could mention the color yellow and he'll tell me where yellow originated from, what are the stats on yellow, What he thinks about yellow how it affects other people it is Unbelievable the knowledge that he has he is an avid reader and has been an avid reader for many years Coupled with I just think the way his brain works.

[00:11:07] He just brings so much fun entertainment facts and sometimes

[00:11:14] too much information to the table.

[00:11:16] So when we watch Sunday Morning, he'll have comments about everything that's on, pretty much everything. And so we always watch it together, and it's You know, I'm being silly, but it is a nice way. We get to hear how each other feels, our opinions about things. We don't always agree for sure. It doesn't mean there are arguments, but we're fine with not agreeing on certain things.

[00:11:35] He might see something one way and I'll see it another. It allows us to really express ourselves and practice that communication.

[00:11:43] Another practice we have, I got this idea from Chris Harder and Lori Harder. I am an avid, avid listener to Chris Harder's podcast. I've taken some of his courses and He and Lori have this practice where they talk about what they're grateful for, maybe what they're manifesting, something like that. And so I heard about it a while ago, and in 2020, around the same time as sitting at the breakfast counter, we started what I call GEMS.

[00:12:10] So each of us says three things we're grateful for. Three things we're excited about and three things we're manifesting. And I tell you, this has been such a fun practice. Now, when I first started this and shared it with my husband, I really didn't think he would be for it. I just thought he usually goes along after a few times with something that I've suggested.

[00:12:31] So I just figured I'd write it out and see what happened. A few years later now we've been doing this and sometimes he'll even initiate. If I forget, if we're on our walk and maybe we're talking about something and I forget to initiate it. We do this on our morning walk together. So some mornings, if he doesn't have to go into the office, we'll walk Peaches, our dog, together.

[00:12:49] And we will do this practice. And somebody mentioned somewhere along the line, like, why don't you mention your challenges? And I can tell you that the challenges come out in those three categories. So maybe he might say, I'm excited for my morning meeting to be done with. 

[00:13:05] So then I'll know he's got a meeting coming up that he's not looking forward to. And maybe after we've done our gems, we'll talk about that. One thing that I had to learn was not to tell him how to do his gems. So When we first started doing this, he would say some things, maybe that he was grateful or excited about, whatever, and I would interrupt and be like, Oh no, it's, you should really be saying this or saying that.

[00:13:26] And then I was like, wait a minute, what am I doing? This is all about what he's feeling, what's on his mind, his heart in that moment. There's no right or wrong. So that was a practice for me. And now we're way beyond that. And I just listen. When I say mine, he listens. When he says his, I just listen.

[00:13:43] And then if there are things that we want to go back to and talk about, we will. That came out of those. But for the most part, we don't interrupt each other. We just go. We keep walking. Maybe there's silence while somebody's, one of us is thinking about something that they're going to say. And we just let that.

[00:13:57] Silence be what it is until the person says the next thing. So that has also been a really great practice that we've started. And I think if you asked him, he would say he enjoys it as well. And like I said, he'll even initiate sometimes. So you never know is my point. Maybe you're thinking, that sounds interesting.

[00:14:16] I might mention that to my partner, but they would never go for that. Well, You never know. And then honestly, You can do it and they can just listen and then maybe you keep doing it and then a week later They start sharing as well

[00:14:29] So to wrap this up I don't know where time goes time flies by tonight We're going out to dinner to celebrate our 20th anniversary And I am so grateful for him in my life and You took anything away from this. I hope you saw the through line of communication being so important. As always, thank you so much for listening And continue to wonder boldly.