Bryan: Welcome to part two of the work life balance amplified marriage podcast.
Bryan: We had a really great conversation last week, just about some struggles that we've had with work life balance over the years, and today we just want to finish this off with moving into from the imbalance that happens when you actually just choose a work over family.
Bryan: And then we want to go into some solutions and offer you up some ways that can, you can apply it to your own relationship.
Natalie: Welcome to Amplified Marriage.
Natalie: I'm Natalie.
Natalie: And I'm Brian.
Natalie: As you hear us say every podcast, grab a tea, grab a coffee and a snack.
Natalie: We're so glad you joined us for our chat today.
Bryan: Absolutely.
Bryan: Wow.
Bryan: I was having, I was thinking about the last week and just the, the ways that we've struggled over the years with work life balance.
Bryan: Like we've not done it very well.
Bryan: We've done it really poorly.
Bryan: And I know we had a conversation earlier just about.
Bryan: What does it mean when you, you come from nothing and you have something?
Bryan: Why do people struggle with work life balance and choose to have work over life?
Bryan: And the like, even in our own study, the reasons are like a myriad.
Bryan: There's so many different ways, reasons why people struggle.
Bryan: Or would choose work over family, right?
Bryan: And some of it is because like even in our own relationship, you didn't want to be around me.
Bryan: I didn't want to be around you.
Bryan: So I would rather work and then be at home.
Bryan: And then when the marriage was healthy, I felt this pressure to always provide more.
Bryan: So I would work more hours cause I'm like, we need to be able to pay rent.
Bryan: We need to be able to have food.
Bryan: You're pregnant now and now what?
Bryan: And I even thinking if, if the relation was relationship was healthy, it would, these things would be a struggle.
Bryan: They would or they wouldn't, they would be like if, if I, we had a healthy relationship, but I was choosing to work all the time and we would watch the relationship deteriorate.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: Like how, how can these things be good?
Bryan: Like you could be listening to this podcast from wherever you are around the world.
Bryan: And be like, man, I got a really tight relationship with my wife.
Bryan: But if you choose or your husband, but you choose to now dis to, to work more and be absent, your relationship will never be will, will you'll begin to see a deterioration over time?
Natalie: Yes.
Natalie: And for us in our own personal thing, like we came from nothing, we had like a real.
Natalie: poverty mindset and a real struggle with finances most of our married life.
Natalie: And the, the disillusion I think that we felt was coming from nothing and then all of a sudden having some, the tendency was, well, we never want to be without again.
Natalie: And so we will just work.
Natalie: And before we had kids, like I was working too.
Natalie: So, and.
Natalie: Remember, like opposite shifts to you.
Natalie: So we were already disconnected there and then, then working crazy hours to make.
Natalie: So that we would never have to be in that situation of wanting or lack again.
Natalie: And then we had kids and then I was home.
Natalie: And I think that with the added stresses of, you know, our communication issues and things, you really push the envelope of, well, now we have a child, so we're almost like the pendulum swinging the other way.
Natalie: Yeah, we're never like I have to work all of the time now because it's expensive.
Natalie: Yeah, which is fair, right?
Natalie: And that's a valid Concern and the thing with our situation was that it wasn't so obvious right the slip into the disconnect and the financial strain and the Like, yes, it was secure because you had a job and consistent wages coming in, but the security of like, you just not being there wasn't so obvious at the beginning.
Natalie: And quite frankly, like it was exciting at first with all of these extra hours and the money coming in and things like that.
Natalie: And it wasn't until, you know, there was a big issue that it kind of.
Bryan: And, and I would say that we're probably lucky that we were able to come out of that hole that we had dug ourself in not being present.
Bryan: A
Natalie: hundred percent, like I'm just contemplating and thinking back to it, even as we're talking about this.
Natalie: Like.
Natalie: At that point even we didn't realize, and, and like, this is something we still battle with today is the work life balance and, you know, is more enough or too much or are we at what sacrifice?
Natalie: I think now that we have, even if we had no kids, we're still a family, you and I.
Natalie: And so at what cost?
Natalie: To our relationship.
Natalie: Is it worth it?
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: And I think that has to be the number one question.
Natalie: Yes.
Natalie: We need money to live and you know, we live in a very expensive city, much like probably everyone else here.
Natalie: So yeah, you need finances in order to survive.
Natalie: Yeah, that's right.
Natalie: But there has to be a balance.
Natalie: I mean, I cannot work seven days a week nonstop, right?
Natalie: It's not possible.
Natalie: We all need a time of recharge.
Natalie: I've
Bryan: tried that.
Bryan: It doesn't work very well.
Bryan: It doesn't work.
Bryan: Well, and I think like even what we're saying here is that the financial stress or the security or the stability of you working and bringing in money while that's good, there's a massive trade off between you and your family.
Natalie: A hundred percent.
Natalie: And I will take it even a step further because like you're a pastor and yes, I work part time.
Natalie: There was a time though when I wasn't working, we were in ministry, but you were the sole provider.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: This can still have a detrimental impact to your family of like, I need to be at every single function.
Natalie: I need to be available for everyone else 24 seven because that seems to come with a job at the expense of your children.
Natalie: Yeah, that is so wrong on so many levels and we'll, we'll get to a solution for that later on.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: And, and I would say that that.
Bryan: At that point it wasn't about finances.
Natalie: No that's like the, the, the family security of just having mom and or dad present.
Bryan: That way he had not, that had nothing to do with the finances, everything to do with the fact that I'm a pastor and I was just learning how to, to choose my battles and choose this, which things I fight for and which things I need my time immediately and which things Hey, I can, I can actually put off till next week.
Bryan: And there's been times where.
Bryan: I was with my family and someone has said, Hey, I really want to, I need to talk to you about something, not telling me urgency, not giving me a, Hey, this is what's going on.
Bryan: And then you're getting blasted with it.
Bryan: Lee.
Bryan: Well, you, you didn't, you didn't connect with me and I've, I felt like you didn't love me or a band.
Bryan: And so they're bringing up their baggage and their issues, but you didn't, all you said was, Hey, I want to have a chat with you about this item X.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: But then me saying, well.
Bryan: Well, it's Friday and I'm, I'm actually right now when you're texting me, I'm with my family.
Bryan: And so I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be available until Monday cause we have a weekend plan with my kids.
Bryan: And so my wife and I are unavailable and that's, and now that's healthy.
Bryan: I probably wouldn't have said that two, three, four years
Natalie: ago.
Natalie: Like segues into it.
Natalie: There's a possibility of neglecting.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: Your, your spouse, your children, your family, the needs that they're needing emotionally of you being present and not just in the room, but your focus is elsewhere, but in the room and your focus is on your, your family.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: And, and how, how can I provide emotional or manly behavior, modeling manly behavior to my sons and to my daughter?
Bryan: This is what a good husband looks like, or a good father looks like.
Bryan: How can I model that to my kids if I'm never present?
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: That's very
Natalie: true.
Natalie: Like,
Bryan: like even what did, what did we say in the last episode is that the, your, there's no one in your job that's going to be like, that's going to up celebrate you working longer hours.
Bryan: That's right.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: But your kids will remember you were absent.
Natalie: Exactly.
Natalie: Oh yeah.
Natalie: You were talking about, they won't necessarily remember what you purchased for them, but they will remember
Bryan: if I was present, right.
Bryan: And, and, but all of those things are at a cost.
Bryan: It's like, how can mean you.
Bryan: Like, even on a, on the kind of marriage sexual level, even have foreplay or even want to do that with each other or have sex or be intimate with each other.
Bryan: If I'm never present to even have that, like, and there's like foreplay on text is only good at foreplay is coming because we've been at home for a while.
Bryan: Like I've been with you and I've been able to emotionally connect with you face to face, eyeball to
Natalie: eyeball.
Natalie: Exactly.
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: I'm not married to my phone.
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: You shouldn't be married to your phone.
Natalie: You should be married to, you know, your partner.
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: It makes it very challenging because there's a disconnect.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: And yeah.
Bryan: And you end up there, can you, you get to the place where you neglect or sorry, where you resent.
Bryan: Like 100 percent because you're like, well, you're never here.
Bryan: So I'm just, might as well be single mom, which you've said numerous times.
Bryan: Yes.
Bryan: And
Natalie: you know, when one is filled with resentment, one resorts to childish antics and you know, it was like, well, you withheld, you withheld your presence of even wanting to be home.
Natalie: Then I'm withholding intimacy from you.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: That's unfair.
Bryan: But it's also on both on both counts.
Bryan: Yeah, I was gonna say it's unfair that I'm, I'm not home to provide for my wife, but I'm also, it's also unfair that she would do that.
Bryan: And then
Natalie: what happens when we're dissatisfied?
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: That just opens the door for emotional affairs.
Natalie: It opens the door for physical affairs.
Natalie: Right.
Bryan: We've actually, we've met with some couples, some older couples that actually had earlier in their marriage had struggled with similar things that we had, and they've been married for 10, 10 or 14 years longer than we have.
Bryan: Something like that.
Bryan: But they said, and we asked, well, how they had, she had had an emotional affair.
Bryan: And I asked her, I said, how did you get to that place?
Bryan: And so how did you go there?
Bryan: Because the person that it was with was unlikely shouldn't have happened.
Bryan: And she's like, it just was one of those things is that they were present and the husband wasn't.
Bryan: The husband was not, it wasn't even working out of town and that's a whole different conversation.
Bryan: I've seen way too many marriages fail.
Bryan: Way too many because I'm going to be a mill right up.
Bryan: In the boonies and gone for three months out of the earth, nine, 10 months out of the year and never home.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: And God knows what happens when you're gone and then those two anyway, that's a whole different thing.
Bryan: But this person wasn't even away, was just gone 10 or 12 hours a day, six, seven days a week and wasn't providing an emotional, a physical, a mental, a spiritual connection to her at all.
Bryan: And she's like, it just
happened.
Natalie: That's right.
Natalie: And so if you think that you're exempt, no one is right.
Natalie: Like this is something that we ourselves need to be so aware of and, and fight against, you know, idle thoughts and your mind wanders and whatever else happens there.
Natalie: You need, you need to be super focused.
Natalie: You need to be aware of hate.
Natalie: You know, when, when we talk about like scripture saying, capture your thoughts, this is exactly what it's referring to, well, not probably the entirety of it, but that's a portion of what it's referring to of be careful that you are not.
Natalie: Get disengaged and, and then run with that, right?
Natalie: If you feel a disengagement, then you need to communicate, Hey, this isn't working.
Natalie: This is how I'm feeling.
Natalie: We need to come up with a solution so that we guard our marriage.
Bryan: Yeah, absolutely.
Bryan: And like.
Bryan: I think the understanding very clearly that no one is exempt from this is the moment that you get comfortable to go.
Bryan: That'll never happen to me is when the enemy will come in and swoop in with something where a man or a woman will be present that just provides you something a little bit different than the other.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: Then so you just have to be really care.
Bryan: That's a whole different.
Bryan: Podcast to talk about that kind of stuff.
Bryan: And this one, this one's interesting.
Bryan: There's actually health impacts.
Bryan: You can have your health impacted because of overworking.
Bryan: Now I want to say this, it's one thing to.
Bryan: Develop a chronic issue because maybe there's a genetic thing or something happened to you got a bad batch of blood or when you did the transfer.
Bryan: It's one thing to end up with a chronic problem just based on like bad diet or or genetic or something like that.
Bryan: It's another thing to actually.
Bryan: End up with chronic problems in your body because you chose to work so much that your body was stressed out and you developed problems.
Bryan: That is all that is, that is to me is one of those crazy things that we've actually heard of happening that developed back problems, neck problems, stomach problems, stomach problems is common because remember the stress episodes we did, this is what happens.
Bryan: Pick your poison.
Bryan: This is what happens when you allow stress.
Bryan: To live in your body because your choose, you choose this.
Bryan: And I actually think now that I look back to this, I actually think there's a I wouldn't have said this before, but there's a greater stress in you or a greater responsibility when you choose the work over the family.
Bryan: That means there's an extra layer that you have that you've added, that you've added to yourself and you know it.
Bryan: You know it there's no way that you're like one day.
Bryan: Oh, I didn't know this was happening They didn't know you chose this you knew what might happen.
Bryan: It's not only do you have a physical issue There was a mental strain on there that you chose.
Bryan: I
Natalie: don't know that But you would necessarily know that this would happen.
Natalie: And I don't know that you would even recognize it was caused or potentially cause some of your issues.
Natalie: I think it, I think everyone thinks they're, that's a, that person,
Bryan: that I definitely get.
Bryan: But do you think, and this is just the question, do you think that in the modern time, if you have access to the internet.
Bryan: Instagram, Facebook, any kind of social media where influencers all over the place are talking about a work life balance and this, that, and the other thing.
Bryan: Do you think that anytime that someone's like, Oh, I didn't know that this would happen if I worked 90 to a hundred hours a week?
Bryan: So
Natalie: I propose the same thing back to you.
Natalie: If they're working so much, do they even have time to be?
Bryan: And I propose back to you.
Bryan: No, I get it.
Bryan: I understand it, but there's, there's no way that in modern, modern time with HR departments in these big corporations and like my boss pays attention to my time, just like I pay attention to his boss.
Bryan: You got to take time off.
Bryan: Pastor Brody, you got to go take time off.
Bryan: Like he's talking about it and then because he's such a responsible guy, he's like, I don't want to do it.
Bryan: I said, you need to go.
Bryan: It's just like he says to me, Brian, I will collude with your wife and I will make you go on holidays.
Bryan: Wrong word.
Bryan: Collude.
Bryan: Bye.
Bryan: It's a right word.
Bryan: It means when two people work together, what
Natalie: did you think?
Natalie: You are right.
Natalie: It is the right word.
Natalie: I'm thinking the other word you have an inappropriate, no, no, no, it wasn't inappropriate.
Natalie: It was just like, that is probably not the right word.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: When two people are working together to get someone else to do something.
Bryan: Scheming.
Bryan: Scheming there.
Bryan: That's a good one.
Bryan: You and him will scheme to make sure I take my time off, which that's so important.
Bryan: It is.
Bryan: It, all those things are important, but I just feel like there's, there's impacts to me not choosing to go to the gym, right?
Bryan: Like there's impacts to me choosing to eat fast food over home cooked health food.
Bryan: There's impacts to me choosing to be a smoker versus a non smoker.
Bryan: There's impacts to me choosing to be staying up
Natalie: all night video gaming instead of sleeping.
Bryan: Yes.
Bryan: I don't like that one because I want to play video games because I'm just a 45 year old child.
Bryan: But, but, you know, like there's always a choice in either one or the other there, there's, you have to make a choice.
Bryan: And at some point, like there's times, and here's the thing, I want you to hear me who's listening to this.
Bryan: There are times.
Bryan: Where you have to work because something's going on, I deal with funerals and weddings.
Bryan: Both of them are inconvenient, right?
Bryan: Like the, both of them will like a, a wedding will take up two days of my, of my time with my family because of rehearsals, then the full day, then you're there at the reception.
Bryan: It's the whole thing.
Bryan: Funerals.
Bryan: Someone passes a week later, you got, you're planning a, you're planning a four hour service.
Bryan: You're spending hours of time with families, dealing with grief, dealing with planning, dealing with trying to set up.
Bryan: pictures and tech, all this stuff, trying to make families like pastor families to lead families through a really tough time.
Bryan: Those are times where you just have to work extra.
Bryan: Exactly.
Natalie: That's communicated.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: That's a communicated thing.
Natalie: That's not the norm.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: That's kind of the exception.
Natalie: I mean, yes, people get married and unfortunately you can't control when people pass away and that's just, it's never.
Natalie: But I will say if you are experiencing some health concerns, perhaps, and I, please go see your doctor, but perhaps take a look as we are not medical professionals and we would never give medical advice.
Natalie: But.
Natalie: Go see your doctor, but also take an evaluation of work life balance because perhaps it's a little bit off.
Bryan: So now we get to the fun part, the
Natalie: strategies.
Natalie: I mean, we talk about this all the time.
Natalie: We're broken records, setting boundaries.
Bryan: Do we talk about boundaries often?
Bryan: We
Natalie: do.
Natalie: We talk about boundaries as much as we talk about communication.
Natalie: But you know what?
Natalie: It's something that we've had to learn the hard way on how to do it and then not feel bad or that it was like you're somehow mean for setting boundaries.
Natalie: No.
Natalie: If, if like we have to keep us on schedule, like with a podcast, it's scheduled in our calendar.
Natalie: It has to be.
Natalie: Otherwise, the tendency is like, Oh, I'm tired.
Natalie: We've had a long day or this, that, the other.
Natalie: And then it just tends to, to like, and we don't want it to like so when it comes to her, and this is also work, it takes thought, it takes planning.
Natalie: It takes like evaluating where we've been, what we want to talk about.
Natalie: Like it does take time to set boundaries and preferably set them like together so that you're on the same page or set them as a family so that everyone knows what everyone is doing.
Natalie: And when everyone's home and when everyone needs to be at things.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: And I, and I liked it easy, but yeah.
Bryan: And I like how this, the the way we have read down is unplugging.
Bryan: We kind of unplug at like after work my phone goes into this is just something that I do it goes into automatic Do not stir mode at 8 o'clock every night.
Bryan: Actually, no, it's 7 now It's 7 7 or 8 every night it goes in and sometimes I didn't even notice it until Like, you just don't notice that it's gone.
Bryan: And that was intentional.
Bryan: And there's a few numbers that are allowed to get through.
Bryan: Like my family is able to get through my kids, my brother in law, my sister, my pastor.
Bryan: If I ever get a phone call from someone from my team, it's bad.
Bryan: In particular, if my pastor calls me at.
Bryan: at nine o'clock on a Friday night, something's gone wrong and we're about to be dealing with probably a funeral or something really severe.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: And, but those are, those are the exceptions and that doesn't happen.
Natalie: But you have the ability to screen, to screen what is coming in and what, and what isn't.
Natalie: I have the privilege with my job where my laptop stays at work.
Natalie: So, when I log out at the end of the night and I close the laptop lid, I don't even think about work until I'm there the next morning and so, perhaps Cause that is something that if you have an office at home and you work from home, close it.
Natalie: Don't keep going back to it.
Natalie: And I don't have my work email set up on my phone, so I can't see anything coming in on my phone.
Natalie: Work related.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: Right?
Natalie: So that's a, that's a check and balance that I've set in place for unplugging.
Bryan: Absolutely.
Bryan: And the, the, so the first one for some of those strategies or goals for balancing out the work life balance to set boundaries.
Bryan: The next one is you want to have quality over quantity.
Bryan: You want quantity, but the reality of life with children, different events
Natalie: with each other 24 seven,
Bryan: you know, and I like her and she's awesome.
Bryan: Like Natalie's fun to be around.
Bryan: I would say almost all the time, but I still need time with your girls and anytime with the guys.
Bryan: Yeah.
Natalie: And I need time like on my own.
Bryan: But then when we do have specific things, we make sure that not, I don't mean just like you're sitting at home and we're watching a show or it's a little bit, we're just getting ready to go to bed and she's on her phone.
Bryan: I'm on my phone and we're just kind of just.
Bryan: Chilling out for a little bit and we're sending each other memes sitting on the couch together.
Bryan: Like we do that.
Bryan: That's fun.
Bryan: And I do that with the kids.
Bryan: I'm talking about, Hey, we have a date night plan.
Bryan: Let's make like date night plan is in.
Bryan: We, the kids are at youth.
Bryan: We're going to go for a couple hours.
Bryan: Exactly.
Bryan: We go shopping, we get a coffee or an ice cream and we just wander around and we talk.
Bryan: We make the best of the time that we have together.
Bryan: Yup.
Bryan: Even if it's 15 minutes, even it's 15 minutes and we have some, we have some planned time together date nights that are specific.
Bryan: We don't do those nearly enough and we're getting better at it.
Natalie: And you know, one of the things that.
Natalie: We've worked really hard and it was hard to do.
Natalie: I feel when the kids were smaller was when it was you and I intentional focused, we're on a date.
Natalie: It was so hard to not just talk about the kids.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: I
Bryan: remember we used to bend.
Bryan: We're like, we're not allowed to talk about the kids.
Bryan: Oh, it was so hard
Natalie: because that was our life, everything, kids and, and it was great.
Natalie: But really being intentional about when you're with your spouse of really.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: Making that conversation about you too.
Natalie: Absolutely.
Natalie: I think it's super important.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: That's very much.
Bryan: And again, you're going to hear us say the very next one.
Bryan: What is it?
Bryan: Communication is the
Natalie: key.
Natalie: You got to talk.
Natalie: If you're never around, it's kind of hard to set these boundaries, set these, what like discuss what quality time looks like for you, right?
Bryan: Yeah, absolutely.
Bryan: And like there's, sometimes there's jobs that just take you out like RCMP or fire or EMT.
Bryan: These are things that you, like those types of jobs that just like shift work, shift work, or yeah, shift work where you have to intentionally.
Bryan: Balance your schedule so you get an hour and a half in the middle of the day while you come home from work and then they drop the kids off and come back for a bit and then they go to work and then you go to sleep.
Bryan: Like we get it.
Bryan: We understand.
Bryan: We're not saying, all I'm saying is that if you want your relationship to survive, you have to communicate your way through it.
Bryan: And you have to, and in the case of you having a weird work life, so many
Natalie: times I was working and you would be home, you would start dinner or you would clean up something weird hours or then when I was home you know, for the most part, I tried to have sort of it presentable and I succeeded at times and I didn't succeed at other times.
Natalie: And, and it was one of those things where you just had to help.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: And absolutely.
Bryan: And which leads to the
Natalie: very last learn how to ask for help too.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: You weren't
Bryan: very good at that.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: You have, we have to share the love.
Bryan: I love how you angry vacuumed while giving me the eyeball like,
Natalie: Hey, you have you.
Natalie: Like we're a team and we have to share the responsibilities and what may have worked prior to us having kids might need a readjustment.
Natalie: Well,
Bryan: and I would say every time you add a kid or you add a scenario or you add a, a new job position or a different time, or you had like, you have a lunch hour change from 12 to.
Bryan: Anytime you add anything, you just have to communicate about it and that's how you work through it.
Bryan: Which leads to this very, the very last thing, these four things, setting boundaries, quality over quantity, communication will be the key.
Bryan: The very last one is you have to learn to share the responsibilities.
Bryan: Yes.
Bryan: And I, can I, can I make a comment to some men in the, in the world here?
Bryan: Get a grip.
Bryan: I don't say that because I'm trying to be a jerk, but it does get a grip.
Bryan: There are some guys out there that are like, well, no, that's her job.
Bryan: You, you helped make the kids.
Bryan: You're a part of it.
Bryan: You were there for the pregnancy.
Bryan: You were walking all the way through that.
Bryan: If your wife needs you to make breakfast one morning because she didn't sleep all night, get up off your butt and make breakfast.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: And I get most people's work is nine to five but five o'clock doesn't mean that you get to come home in my opinion and put your feet up on the couch and disengage from being present with your family.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bryan: And, and I was that guy.
Bryan: Do you know why I can tell you to get a grip is because I was that dude and it just about crushed us because I would work and work and work and I'll come home, I wouldn't do anything with the kids.
Bryan: And,
Natalie: and, and, you know, you talk about all the, all the consequences.
Natalie: You just like cha ching, cha ching, cha ching, like check, check, check, check, check boxes.
Natalie: All of that suffers.
Natalie: In that mindset that you, that you had.
Natalie: So
Bryan: we, we, we, we divide, here's, here's the fun thing I love about our relationship right now is that we've, we've always divided the jobs into, you probably heard this if you're listening to this pink jobs and blue jobs.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: This is fairly recent, I guess.
Natalie: Well, in the
Bryan: last 10 years, we've done this for a long time as pink jobs and blue jobs.
Bryan: And there's just some things that Natalie just won't do.
Bryan: I hate doing.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: Like mowing the lawn.
Bryan: She won't mow the lawn.
Bryan: That's true.
Bryan: I don't
Natalie: mind mowing the lawn.
Natalie: I hate weeding.
Bryan: Yeah, but you don't like mowing either.
Bryan: It's not that you're like, I don't mind it.
Bryan: It's just not, but there are certain things and I hate doing dishes, but.
Bryan: Natalie has mowed the lawn and I've done dishes.
Bryan: Yep.
Bryan: And, and here's the thing about this is that there were at this flow in life right now where I'm really enjoying cooking for whatever reason.
Bryan: And I welcome it.
Bryan: And Natalie is really enjoying me cooking.
Bryan: Yep.
Bryan: Right.
Bryan: I don't cook as well.
Bryan: I make some really, some things really well, but we've just found this, this new wave of like responsibilities because she's doing the school with the kids and I'm coming home from work and I go to the gym and come back, we make dinner and I have one of the kids help me.
Bryan: My oldest son loves to cook.
Bryan: My middle son makes amazing orange chicken.
Bryan: Like we have all these things.
Bryan: My daughter bakes.
Bryan: So yeah.
Bryan: But we're in this wave where the responsibilities that could be looked at as traditional, this should be a woman's job.
Bryan: I am doing hogwash.
Bryan: I'm doing this happily because it benefits my family.
Bryan: Sometimes I'm grumpy.
Bryan: Like I'm like, I don't want to make
Natalie: dinner right now.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: I mean, I don't want to do some of the things I have
Bryan: to do, right?
Bryan: But what I'm saying though, is that the shared responsibilities, if you've communicated with them, you communicate them through, you set some boundaries in place and you, you actually have desired to have a good quality relationship with your wife, the shared responsibilities become natural.
Bryan: And I choose to do these things because it helps Natalie around the house and it benefits my kids when I cook.
Bryan: They get to eat that day.
Bryan: And when we
Natalie: cook together, that's quality time.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: We
Bryan: really, so sometimes I'm just, I'm plugging into my earphones, I'm listening to podcasts or listening to music as I'm cooking
Natalie: or I'm listening to true crime.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: But we're together
Bryan: in the kitchen.
Bryan: This is Natalie relaxes by listening or watching a murder show.
Bryan: That's right.
Bryan: I don't understand.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: There's, there's millions of these, these people out there.
Bryan: They're like, what did you do to relax over the weekend?
Bryan: I watched a crime documentary on murder.
Bryan: That's right.
Bryan: Oh man.
Bryan: Like.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: So, again, I want to go through these four things so you, you remember them.
Bryan: If you have any questions or comments or you want to add one, please let us know, but it's setting boundaries.
Bryan: It's definitely quality over quantity.
Bryan: It is communication is key and you want to be able to share the responsibilities around the house.
Bryan: Yep.
Bryan: Men don't think that you are exempt just cause you're a man.
Bryan: Mic drop or face punch.
Bryan: One of the two.
Bryan: I'm, I just, I, I struggle.
Bryan: I struggle with Cause that's a, that's an, that's an older style of, and it still works for some people because of the type of jobs, right?
Bryan: If you were home all day and you didn't have to work, it would be different.
Bryan: Yeah.
Bryan: But it would be, you're working, you're working part time.
Bryan: So you can help Ben support this family because that's just what the, where we're at.
Bryan: But if you are available and you are able to help, there's nothing in you says you're not babysitting your kids.
Bryan: You're taking care of your own kids.
Bryan: If you have to watch your own children, yes.
Bryan: When you're not grocery shopping for a year, like I'm going grocery shopping for my, just because I have to.
Bryan: You're doing it because you have a family that needs to eat, right?
Bryan: You are able to help through on these things and to walk through these things with your wife and, and know what's going on.
Natalie: And if your kids are older, share some of the responsibility.
Natalie: Maybe you're a single parent.
Natalie: Get your kids involved.
Natalie: Our kids are involved in the shared responsibilities.
Natalie: Our kids are involved with like.
Natalie: The focus and the budgeting and all of that so that they know, like when I'm saying no, we're not doing that.
Natalie: It's not because I'm trying to be mean.
Natalie: It's because we have a goal in mind.
Natalie: Yeah.
Natalie: Right.
Natalie: So get your kids involved.
Bryan: I really enjoyed this, this last two episodes.
Bryan: This was really good to see how it works out man.
Bryan: But every time we, we kind of were like, Oh, I think we should talk about this.
Bryan: Cause it's a real thing.
Bryan: I realized how much we struggled.
Bryan: In some areas and some, not so much.
Natalie: And this is one of those areas where we still have not arrived.
Bryan: It's
Natalie: not gone as good as good as struggles.
Natalie: It was when we were younger, but we still have to be so intentional.
Natalie: Yeah,
Bryan: absolutely.
Bryan: If you love amplified marriage podcast, you mean so much to us when you like it, when you share it, when you let people know about it, when you go onto iTunes and you let people know, and you leave us a review, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
Bryan: If you.
Bryan: Have a topic or anything that you would love to discuss or a particular area that you would like us to lean into to focus in on.
Bryan: We would love for you to email us again.
Bryan: You can talk to us on Instagram email us at amplified marriage at gmail.
Bryan: com.
Bryan: And as you hear us say every week, we believe that marriage can be reset, refreshed, recharged and restored.
Bryan: Thanks so much for listening.
Bryan: Talk
Natalie: to you soon.