Is your marriage hanging by a thread? Do you question if marriage restoration is possible after a devastating betrayal? In this deeply personal episode of Relationship Radio, we welcome Chris and Karista Stutzman. Their marriage restoration testimony is a powerful reminder that hope and healing exist, even in the most challenging circumstances.
Chris and Karista candidly share their struggles with infidelity, limerence, and the breakdown of communication that nearly led to divorce. They found themselves on a path of despair, unsure if their marriage could be saved.
Their journey to restoration led them to Marriage Helper. Through workshops, coaching, and the guidance of the team, Chris and Karista gained invaluable tools and insights. They learned how to:
This episode explores the transformative power of Marriage Helper. You'll learn how its resources provided Chris and Karista with a roadmap for healing their marriage and building a stronger, more resilient relationship.
If you feel lost or hopeless about your own marriage, let Chris and Karista's story ignite a spark of hope. Their journey demonstrates that restoration is possible, and Marriage Helper can be a vital catalyst for change.
Relationship Radio is hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.
Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.
Relationship Radio is released every Wednesday and is an extension of Marriage Helper.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We love hearing from you!
For more resources about your specific situation, visit marriagehelper.com.
We have a new website for the It Starts With Attraction podcast!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Is your marriage hanging by a thread? Do you question if marriage restoration is possible after a devastating betrayal? In this deeply personal episode of Relationship Radio, we welcome Chris and Karista Stutzman. Their marriage restoration testimony is a powerful reminder that hope and healing exist, even in the most challenging circumstances.
Chris and Karista candidly share their struggles with infidelity, limerence, and the breakdown of communication that nearly led to divorce. They found themselves on a path of despair, unsure if their marriage could be saved.
Their journey to restoration led them to Marriage Helper. Through workshops, coaching, and the guidance of the team, Chris and Karista gained invaluable tools and insights. They learned how to:
This episode explores the transformative power of Marriage Helper. You'll learn how its resources provided Chris and Karista with a roadmap for healing their marriage and building a stronger, more resilient relationship.
If you feel lost or hopeless about your own marriage, let Chris and Karista's story ignite a spark of hope. Their journey demonstrates that restoration is possible, and Marriage Helper can be a vital catalyst for change.
Relationship Radio is hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.
Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.
Relationship Radio is released every Wednesday and is an extension of Marriage Helper.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We love hearing from you!
For more resources about your specific situation, visit marriagehelper.com.
We have a new website for the It Starts With Attraction podcast!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Chris and Carissa, thank you so much for joining me today on Relationship Radio. I am thrilled and honored to be able to have this conversation with both of you. Thanks for having us. Well, for the first question, let's have the listeners get to know each of you a little bit, so tell us about how the two of you initially met and what your marriage was like in the beginning.
Speaker 2:We met in 2004. I would have been fresh out of high school. We met at Youth Group. We both come from strong Christian conservative backgrounds, and so we dated for a couple of years, got me right in 2006. We also both come from family business, growing up in the family business and working together. So we also have that same similarity in our backgrounds and had our first daughter in 2012. And then a second one in 2015 and a third in 2019. So we're girl parents. We've got three daughters.
Speaker 1:So that is a lot of females in the house for you, chris. So you said you all both grew up in the same bit, like you worked together in a in the same family business. Is that what you were talking about?
Speaker 2:Two different family businesses but the same kind of thing where? Yeah?
Speaker 3:So it was a early on in our marriage. It was very much focused on working, keeping the family businesses moving. How did we be a part of that and it really became a focus.
Speaker 2:Kind of our identities a little bit I think at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can understand that. Are y'all still involved with those same family businesses, or did you exit out of them at some point?
Speaker 2:We've exited out of them. We actually both own our own businesses, now small businesses, so we've kind of exited out of the family businesses, started our own. In a sense we're still nearby and somewhat involved here and there, just because most pretty much all of our family lives pretty close here, so we're fortunate to be around them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is I mean. Yeah, that is awesome and it's nice to have family around for support. So you've been married at the time of this interview. You've been married 18 years. You have three kids, all girls. You're both entrepreneurs and business owners. You have a lot going on. So what was it that kind of led to some of the initial problems that you began having in your marriage, and when did those problems begin?
Speaker 2:I think they I mean they started kind of at the beginning just the whole finding our identity in the family businesses and we didn't take enough time for each other. And then I stepped out of the family business once. I had our first daughter and I always wanted to be a mom but was not prepared for how difficult it would be I mean, whoever is as a becoming a parent and I think I struggled with finding or losing myself maybe in a sense, I don't know, trying to figure out what, who I am, and all of that. I tended to probably live in a little bit of a fantasy kind of thing, Like I didn't. I tended to push away, like that. There was more serious problems and kind of thought. We come from the same backgrounds. Divorce is never an option, Like nobody has a perfect marriage, like all of those things. And he would have struggled, I think, a lot more from the beginning than I did. But communication was our big thing for sure, that true, intimate, honest communication. We struggled with a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, early on we got married. I was working on a farm, my family was a farm, and so that takes a lot of time and I didn't do a very good job at taking purposeful time on our marriage. It was we got married, we have a house, okay, now we go to work. That's what it felt like at that time. And so there were times early on where I think we both can I say there's got to be more to this. There's got to be more than just what we're doing. I mean, it's a marriage, right. Why does everybody feel so high about this, feel so high about this? You know, but we turned, we're so focused on our jobs and succeeding in our businesses that we didn't take that time to be together.
Speaker 3:We always talk now about oh, we should have done more trips, we should have got, took more time for ourselves. We. You know she says she should have came out and wrote with me to track herself. You know just little things like that. That inside, like that, was kind of what I wanted. You know, I wanted her to want to come out and spend time with me, but I never communicated that with her and so that just kind of held in and you know, it's that whole adage of if I have to tell her, it won't mean as much, and I can't read her mind, she can't read my mind, and so the communication barrier just kept growing and growing and growing.
Speaker 3:And then you know we have a kid and it's kind of that same old thing like, okay, now she's a stay at home mom, I will come home now more because I have a child at home. Right, I still didn't do that and I still kept other priorities held higher than what I held our marriage, and that continued to separate us more and more until 10 years, 12 years in, it started to feel like it was just going through the motions. But yes, we both had a strong background of, you know, divorce isn't an option, you know, separation is not an option, and so I'm a person that will just, I'll swallow those problems down and I'll just, you know, just hold on to them. It's like it's okay, I'm going to make the best of the situation that I can. And yeah, it just kept growing and obviously you start adding more kids into it, more, I guess, requirements of my time, and it was about that time that we, you know, we left my family business and and then it just kind of kept building from there just to a breaking point.
Speaker 1:What was the breaking point and what did that look like?
Speaker 3:What was the breaking point?
Speaker 2:That's a question for him.
Speaker 3:For me, the breaking point where I felt like that there wasn't a marriage anymore. I felt like I was coming home to my kids who loved me, but I felt like I was coming home to a house that I just lived in and I didn't. I the whole time I wasn't taking time to break down the barrier with her of communication. I didn't want to fight with her. We never fought. I mean, for the first 16 years of our marriage we never had a fight. Our fights consisted of saying a few things that were intense and then walking away Silent treatment for a little bit. You know, I'm going to get her back by just withholding myself from her. I'm going to get her back by just not talking to her. Those kinds of things Not at all healthy, obviously.
Speaker 3:But and then it just got to a point where I started, you know, letting other thoughts come into my mind of how, you know, I could be happier elsewhere. I could be. You know, you start getting attention from other people. You start surrounding yourself with people who you know, I mean, I have the same ideals as myself but they just they start, your mind just starts to wander and I had kind of lost heart in it all, we started getting really busy at work and I just decided that's what makes me happy and so I'm just going to, I'm going to dive in harder at work. And it just continued to pull us apart from each other even more and more. But as far as like the breaking point, you know, I think a lot of that led up to, you know, to a situation where it finally I was okay with being unfaithful of my marriage and it's this continuation of things that I didn't take care of early on in our marriage.
Speaker 3:I still allowed addictions to, you know, to mess with my mind and everything all those things that I think back now I can pinpoint the divide that happened in our marriage and how it affected my marriage. One of the things that I don't want to jump ahead here, but one of the things when we went through marriage helper, they talked about the wall and how it's not just a wall, it's a brick by brick, and I can sit down and lay off a lot of bricks that I put up, that that stopped the conversations to having a healthy marriage and having the communication that we both desired. We're just we weren't allowing ourselves to do it.
Speaker 2:So the big breaking point would have been 2022, march of 2022. That's when the affair started, and it was. I was blindsided. It had just started. Basically, he came home from a couple of business trips, had the whole I love you, but not sure that I'm in love with you anymore. Like I don't know if I want to be married. And to me I was just thinking about this over the last couple of days too that like I don't know that I even believed what was going on, because it was a shock and like divorce isn't an option. So he's just going through a thing like we're gonna go to therapy, like it's, you know, it'll work itself out, kind of thing. And then about a week and a half later would have been discovery day, and from there we had a really rough about six-ish weeks right At all the push behaviors. I pleaded, I begged, I everything that you can think of to try to get him first of all, to walk away from the other woman but also to stay, and it ended up he moved out six weeks later, so it was pretty quick. And then from there, it was probably a month or six weeks later before he finally used the word divorce. At that point he had never really. He would say things around it but wouldn't actually use that word.
Speaker 2:And I feel like once that happened, that's when I started digging and I'm like there's gotta be something else, some other option out here. At that point he would have said we're not doing any sort of counseling, we both were doing individual therapy. But I think I just did a Google search can one spouse save the marriage, kind of thing and that's how I ended up finding marriage helper. So I know it took me a few weeks, kind of started going through some of the information, the YouTube videos, things like that. I ended up purchasing one of the toolkits and I don't remember exactly which one it was, but at the end of each session in there there was a couple of interviews with some couples and I just remember Ren and Adele were one of them and just hearing the tiny bits of their story I felt like a strong pull to Adele. So I remember looking, thinking if they have coaching, maybe I should add that in I might see if I can look up her and see if I can specifically get her and for whatever reason, as a circumstance or divine interventions or whatever and when I was finally on the website trying to book that first coaching session. It kept glitching for me and at one point said something about Adele's not taking new clients, and then it would glitch again, and so it took me like a week to finally get set up.
Speaker 2:I ended up going against my planner nature I'm an Enneagram six, so like I like to plan things out and not leave things to chance, basically and I ended up putting in whoever, whatever coach is available. I don't have any preference and I remember getting the link and, seeing the coach's name, didn't think a whole lot about it. And then, right before my first coaching session, looked it up and here it was Ren. He was who I got paired with and so that was just like and it ended up being really really good because he was the spouse and was the one that was in my husband's shoes. So I felt like I got a lot of insight and it helped me tremendously, whereas if I would have gotten somebody who would have been in my shoes, I'm sure I would have gotten the help. I mean, coaching is coaching, like it has the same parameters or whatever, but just knowing some of how he might be feeling was really instrumental in my journey for myself. And then I ended up doing in September of 2022, I ended up doing the solo workshop online and did that for a weekend and then ended up getting served divorce papers the following week. So he ended up going through filing for divorce. We navigated that for a few months. It was gonna be a fairly long process with the three kids, with businesses that we owned, so it was not some quick and easy thing that we were gonna be dealing with.
Speaker 2:And then kind of just I feel like Christmas, january was kind of a change. I think there was a little bit of shift. I struggled with control and didn't kind of knew it, but that was something that I was working towards in the coaching sessions. Even in my own therapy kind of thing, thought I had let go of it, but I think there was a big shift that happened around Christmas time, january-ish that just letting go completely of control of the situation and saying, okay, it's just me, like I have to focus on me and I can't focus on him anymore, and so once that happened, I think there was a shift kind of, and we ended up just still navigating things Like it was. There wasn't really a whole. I tried to put myself out there. I signed up for divorce care class things like that to try to move my life along.
Speaker 2:At that point I just wanted the divorce over with, like kind of wanted the event to just be done and then whatever happened with our story can happen. But going through divorce, it's just this process that like makes you feel like you can't live your life, like you're stuck in this limbo kind of thing. I actually ended up meeting somebody at divorce care and started getting to know them just a little bit, and about five weeks into divorce care he ended up reaching out to me. He was actually on a business trip across the world, texted me to ask how the girls were doing that day and I ended up asking can we talk when I get back? And at that point I was like I don't know what else there is to talk about. So I had to take some time.
Speaker 2:I ended up doing a therapy session.
Speaker 2:I made a coaching session to kind of go over it with everybody kind of those professionals in my life, and I ended up deciding this is what I stood for, for how long, this is what I went through all the marriage helper things for this is all the toolkits that I did the workshop, that I did all of that stuff and for me to throw it away is going to go against my beliefs and values. And so I made the phone call and I said I have to step out of the divorce care class and I have to try this and I have to figure out where this is going to go. And that was almost right a year ago. So we've been in reconciliation now for the past year. Ended up a couple of weeks later we went to the couples workshop there in Nashville and that was where he kind of learned finally about limerence, which was a big thing I think for him to learn that, the definition and what it all was. And then we just got a lot of tools there to have a foundation on.
Speaker 3:And it was definitely something that is a lot of answers for me that weekend, Because I knew there was times where I would sit there and be like why do I feel this way? Why do I think this way? What is it that's just blocking me from listening? Even after I moved out, the limerence period probably ended in September, October, somewhere around in there, and I started dealing a lot personally with this shame, feeling like I ruined everything that we worked for and whether or not I was going to be able to keep my business, whether or not I was going to just have a family by the time it's all done. But at that point it's like, well, we're working towards this. It's the right thing to do. I've already messed it up, so I'm going to move on.
Speaker 3:And the shift into that kind of happened around the Christmas time was kind of a thing of figuring out what does my next five years look like, what does my next 10 years look like, and it was definitely a struggle. There was a lot of times where I felt okay with it. I had bought a house. I had bought a house and was living there, but it wasn't ideal, but it was still that thing and what we talked about your core values and beliefs and that was still there and I fought that a long time. But yeah, then it was just okay. I'm going to focus on business again and that's the way I tried to go and what's best for me you know, you hear that a lot what makes you happy, what's best for you, and it doesn't matter who you walk over in the process. That's not my nature and I knew it wasn't my nature, but that's just kind of the things that were filling my head, yeah. And then, obviously, our conversations changed when the shift happened and it wasn't the push nature that had seen before. It was kind of more of a hey, we got a co-parent, we got kids. You know what's best for them, what can we do for them? And I saw that and I was like, okay, well, my first thought is okay, we can make this work, you know. Obviously, you know we can be separated and we can still do our best co-parenting and our kids are going to be okay, you know.
Speaker 3:And but yeah, my core values kept kept pricking at me and we had a lot of people in our lives that were reaching out to me and obviously I'm in a place where don't talk to me. I don't want any help, you know, I know what I'm doing. I don't need help. And so I, I I've barricaded myself off from a lot of those people. Yeah, I was on a trip long ways away and my texture and just like it was, it was just kind of an aha moment that it's yeah, what does my life look like?
Speaker 3:And and I know, since I was in that stage of heavy limerence when I first moved out, that anything she suggested we try whether it was therapy, couples, intensive, all that stuff I was shut off to it Like no, I'm done. You know, you reach a point in your life where you just say I'm done and you walk out and that's it. But that really didn't sit well with me. Then it was like 16 years can be for nothing. You know, three little kids can't be for nothing. So, yeah, it was like we, I can't. Somebody mentioned to me like can, can you live with yourself through this? I feel like you didn't give it every opportunity you could and my response was always well, I gave her 16 years, you know, and I just kept saying her, her, and I was like I never looked at myself.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, once I kind of had that moment of understanding that gets. It's something that I got to put forth the effort, you know, and that means a weekend where we try to figure on our marriage. I can do that. And so, yeah, fortunately she, I flew home and drove straight over like 930, 10 o'clock at night and basically wasn't messing with her telling I'm gonna sit out here until I can come in the garage and talk to you, and she finally let me in. And that was when, you know, I just I said, hey, we gotta try. And I could sense in her that there was resistance, obviously, and but I was. That was time we got to read. I wanted to try one more time, I wanted to put forth the effort because I know what we did for the first 16 years, what didn't work, and I don't want to go back to that and I want to have another 40 years of something we can be proud of. And so, yeah, fortunately she gave me that chance.
Speaker 1:Were you scared to send that text message to her?
Speaker 3:I was freaked out. Really. I was freaked out Because I knew there was still some things in my life I needed to clean up, but I wanted I followed myself a long time to send that text because I was like I should just wait till I get home and have that conversation, but I wanted to text her right away. I just want to end looking back. I don't know if it was the right way to handle it, just because I was in a situation even in that time that she figured out later that you know it didn't go very well. I was over there with somebody else and but it was. It was just I was thinking where's like I don't want to be here and I so I went in and texted her and and she figured it out and sent me a text back. That wasn't encouraging, but I completely understood and I was like I did it. You have every right to be mad.
Speaker 3:You have every right to not even give me a chance. But I didn't say I knew that she would, but I was just. I was hopeful and I started to have that hope again that we could fix our marriage. And so she didn't want to talk to me until I got home Understandable, but yeah, I did. So I just came home and I was just like you know, we have to talk about this and if you tell me that we're going to go through with it, that's fine. But I don't want to proceed until we at least say we've done everything we can. And if she feels like she's in that point, I understand, you know, I'll take the. I'll take the consequences for my actions. But fortunately, yeah, she gave me a chance. And when she said something about the weekend down there for marriage helper, I was like let's go. You know, I mean it's whatever is. We've tried in the past. We got to keep trying and find something that works.
Speaker 1:How did your three daughters handle the separation and the reconciliation?
Speaker 2:It was tough I. The one thing I did do both times, when he decided to move out and then again when he decided to file for divorce, because I made him tell them to me that was, I was clear, all along with the girls, that this was not what I wanted and this wasn't what I stood for, and so they all had their struggles. Our oldest she would have been 10 at the time she suffered almost the entire school year with a huge amount of anxiety, struggled to get her to school because she just I mean, we tried all the things with her, and so she had a hard time. Our middle daughter had a hard time with it too, though she cried a lot more at bedtime and things like that. The youngest was little enough to where she didn't really understand everything, and yet enough, I guess, I think.
Speaker 3:I don't think she knows the severity of what it was or what it meant yet she still. So we kept the house that I bought and so she still talks about going over to dad's house and things like that, and so I don't think she quite fully understands that she was three. But with the struggle, I saw the struggle with our oldest. I would take him to school every morning and we'd try to have conversation by the time we got to school. It was a struggle to get out of the truck but I never saw the crime. I didn't see that part of it.
Speaker 2:They showed me that and so it was hard. I struggled because I would tell him I would try to talk to him at the beginning, like this is what's going on when you're not here, kind of thing, which again was just pushing him away because he didn't want to hear that kind of stuff and he's the fun dad. So they were having fun when they were with him and they weren't gonna show him the side where they're sad and where they didn't like what was happening. When we did finally tell them about the reconciliation, I think they were kind of shocked. They didn't really know how to respond. I don't know if they even it took them a little bit to process and but then it's.
Speaker 2:It kind of fell back into like we know how to do this, like we know how to parent and do all of the business items really well. That's what we did. That was how our marriage worked was because we knew how to do that really well. It was just that intimate connection with communication and friendship and that sort of thing that we struggled with Like we could put on a pretty good front.
Speaker 3:We couldn't emotionally connect in our marriage. We struggled to have an emotional connection. But and that's where, yeah, the day to day stuff was easy. I still remember telling the girls that we're gonna try where things are, we're gonna put forth things and we're gonna make this work. And I just kind of looked at us like okay, and I was like, well, don't worry, we're still gonna have fun, we're still, but this is, we're gonna try to figure this out. And our oldest daughter's anxiety has been a lot better. She don't seem to suffer with that. It's a lot easier to take her to school. I think some of that has to do with being a little bit year older and kind of get out of that preteen stuff a little bit.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I got a house full of girls but I don't know how they think. So, whatever that was, it was a whole other thing. So, but yeah, it's there's obviously. So we're still, we're working on the house right now that I've lived in, so we're actually going over there and they're still going out back and sishing and they're still hey, dad remember when we did this, dad remember when we did that. And it stings a little bit when they talk about it, but it's still a process to understand, kind of what the. Obviously I don't know a whole lot of what happened, but just helping them get through some of that and seeing what the effect was and I don't know if we've seen that yet, but it's it gives us something to moving forward, taking this experience and someday, you know, maybe you know helping them like we did this and it did not, you know, like stay away from this, stay away from that and use it as a teaching moment to help them when they get old enough to start considering marriage and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I want to encourage both of you that the example of seeing their parents go through the hard thing but then come back together and make it work is that is going to be monumental for them in their future. So just encouragement that it's going to play out in favor for them, for both of you choosing this, choosing to come back together, choosing to reconcile, even when at times it felt hopeless and helpless. One of the things I would love to know is what were the changes that each of you saw in yourself and in each other through the things that marriage helper taught you and that you learned during this journey that has made your marriage so much better now?
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest things in myself is the concept of acceptance that marriage helper teaches it's the whole thing of accepting that person. It doesn't mean you have to accept their behavior. And I think like it sounds simple, but I don't think I understood that before. That was fully explained to me. Going through the marriage helper stuff, understanding the push behaviors and realizing that the healthy way to that there are healthy ways to argue that we can both have a voice, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:I think that was part of the struggle when he did come back and ask for a chance was I hadn't really seen the change yet, so it was to me it felt like it was taking another, like a big chance kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I hadn't seen enough of anything at that point and that's why I was very skeptical and was a little worried that he that it wasn't going to work basically and I didn't want to put the kids through that saying hey, we're going to try and then it doesn't work, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And the big things for him that I think I saw like right away when he came back was he turned his location services on his phone, kind of thing, which was something we had not done before. And then he went for himself to a men's conference, which again was not something that he had done before. And then just the immediate agreeing to go to the marriage helper workshop, when I had brought that up multiple times and had always been a no. And so going through that and I think it just, we learned a lot about the horseman, the four horsemen, going through that, figuring out like he's, he's a stone wall or I get defensive and a little bit critical, and so just being aware of those things, understanding if it does come out, we can recognize that and say you know, I think you're stonewalling me like, help me figure out how to. Am I coming across as defensive or too critical to make him stonewall? Those are some of the things that I think we learned, things that I saw.
Speaker 3:It was basically learning, learning how to argue, I mean, with the four horsemen, understanding, you know, recognizing that the problems, the problem, not this person, you know, and it's, yeah, the conversations changed from how you know, I didn't reserve things and hold them in and then and then take it out on her later by silence or anything like that, and so we learned how to communicate in a much different way. We had some instances that happened early on that we immediately like, okay, hey, this is one of those moments, right, like first, let's remember what we learned in marriage helper, so that we can have this, the communication, the right way. And so that really helped us move through there. And obviously, you know, just the pies were a big thing, like it was interesting because there's so much push on the feeling that that love is just a feeling, the love is something that you have and that it's, it's easy, and that's that's what I thought it was. And you know, and I understand, it's a work and it's a choice, and I think that comment to me the one time was like, well, it's, you know, you have to choose this every day, and I was just like why should I have to choose it? Like it should be a feeling that just flows out of me and comes out of her. It's a beautiful, you know, marriage, but it's hard, it really is hard, and that was going way back to when we were dating and when we were getting ready for marriage and that was the way to us.
Speaker 3:You know, the learning of how to make a marriage work and the things you have to go through, maybe some struggles, but there's things you can learn that help you communicate, because that's the biggest thing. And we just we didn't really get that early training. We felt like, you know, thinking back now, that that would have, that would have helped us. But you know, it's kind of our, I guess, product of your environment. I don't want to say that, but it's kind of the way things are because it's an expectation. You stay married and then the work through it though again, the four horsemen were big for me to understand. You know I don't want to derail things by making a comment I shouldn't make and or just going silent for one.
Speaker 1:Krista, you mentioned that you did the solo spouse workshop first and several things coaching, solo spouse and and then later you all went through the couples. So I want your honest answer to this Are you glad that you did the solo spouse workshop first and if so, like what? What benefit do you think it had? Or do you think that it would have been just as good if y'all had waited and just done the couples workshop together later?
Speaker 2:No, 100% doing that. First, because of where we were at, I had no guarantee that we would ever have the opportunity then to do the couples workshop. Like I didn't have that and you know, I didn't know it at the time. I think I found out like a day later or something anyway, that he was filling out those that the divorce paperwork while I was doing that workshop. But that was huge action. That one of my very best friends at that workshop through the little group thing and and still connected with her today and we talk every single day and so that's that was one of the big things.
Speaker 2:But just learning kind of in depth about the limerence, obviously going through the toolkits and the YouTube videos it's not that I didn't know, but just going through the course there and being on that group with everyone who was in the same boat as you yes, their stories were a little dip, a little bit different, but everybody was there and like to have that group for a whole weekend of people that were standing for their marriages, where in today's society they just say at the drop of a hat, any little problem like walk away, it's okay. I feel like you just get taught that every like you said everything just should come easy and you don't have to. If you don't want to put in the work, move on, kind of thing. And that's not my nature. I'm going to sit there and fight for that because I feel like that's one of my core values and beliefs. But to see that many people all there because of that same thing was really cool.
Speaker 2:So, 100% the coaching and the workshop to do that beforehand, learning the smart contact stuff, so that again like I feel like it wasn't till Christmas or January before I felt like I really perfected that. It's tough to not let the emotions and the feelings get mixed in there too much, but just knowing that and learning that ahead of time, I felt like I was a little bit more prepared than going into the couple's workshop knowing what he was going to hear. But I also felt like I learned a bunch just going through the couple's workshop. Again, new things. It was similar and almost the same material, but maybe it's just being starting in the reconciliation that it just made it different.
Speaker 1:So I highly loved both of them. You mentioned. Both of you mentioned that emotional connection was your weak point. Before. That's what you felt like your marriage was lacking. How would you rate or describe the emotional connection that the two of you have now? I think it's a ton better.
Speaker 2:I think we stopped to work at it. I mean again, it's not just going to come easy. Just because you know it, it doesn't mean it's just going to happen. So we definitely have our days where we don't necessarily connect emotionally. One of us will. It'll vary back and forth. We'll say, feeling a little bit of a disconnect, like let's sit down tonight and be phone-free, TV-free, kind of thing. We'll find some connecting questions to ask each other it might be one, it might be three or whatever and just reconnect that way.
Speaker 3:That's kind of the key is to recognize, in that we call it cruise control, recognizing those moments where, yeah, there's also not the disconnect, but just kind of flat-lying a little bit and, okay, I need this, like this is a part of my love language, or something like this, like we just need to talk, and purposely going out on dates and, more importantly, just not allowing the outside noise, the social media, those kind of things take so much of our time that by the end of the day, we're just so tired we don't want to talk to each other. So it's an intentional thing that we basically have focused on to have time for each other. And even though if I'm tired, if she comes to me and says, hey, let's just talk, like what's going on, whatever, I'm going to make that effort and not just blow her off and be like I'm just too tired. That's part of the work, right, and it doesn't come easy.
Speaker 1:Right, that's awesome, but you're intentional about it now and you have a plan and a way to talk about it and a way to voice your concerns and then knowing what to do next, which is so key. You both have been so open and transparent and honestly went answered many of the questions I had written down without me even asking them. You just naturally unfolded in the way that you spoke. The last question that I would have for both of you is what would you want to say to someone who is going through the crisis right now either the person initially standing for and wanting to save the marriage or the person who wanted out, and especially if they're considering whether or not to get help through doing something like Marriage Helper or not?
Speaker 2:I mean it sounds cliche, but it's that whole. There's always hope. Marriage Helper says that a lot, I've seen that a lot, but there is. I mean there's so many stories like ours. We didn't go all the way through with the divorce. It was filed but back in September it was legally thrown out, kind of thing, dissolved I guess, and so we didn't have to go all the way through. But there's so many stories that the divorce did have to go through and so just that whole thing that there's always hope. There's other people out there that are going through the same thing. There is a support system and you can get help and getting the help for yourself to make sure that you are strong and okay moving forward, no matter your circumstances.
Speaker 3:I would just encourage that from my situation, where I was the one who wanted out at that time. It's kind of obviously every situation is different, but for me, I guess my encouragement would be you know, looking forward. What do you see your life as? Are you going to be able to move forward, knowing you gave everything of yourself to make it work? It's not easy, it's hard and we still have our hard moments. But are we equipping ourselves with the tools that we need and recognizing that in ourself that this is where I need to make a change or this is where I need to work harder to make the marriage what I want to be?
Speaker 3:Everybody has an idea of what they want their marriage to look like. So what are we doing on a daily basis to make that marriage look like that? If I'm still like we have a friend of mine, tell me, if I want to find something wrong with her, I'll find it. I mean, this is our human nature. So if I want to find something good in her, I can find that too, and then it's just it's working through understanding that I have the tools to make this work. What do we have to work on to just make the self the strongest couple you can.
Speaker 3:And you know some people don't want to put in the work. I was in that place, I understand that. But there's there's also that, that feeling moving forward. Dr Joe gave an example. You know, moving forward without knowing that it was going against what you believe and what that can do to you as a person. And so it's. It's making sure that the tool you get the proper tools. You look into your yourself and understand I will fight for everything I can to make this work and then you make a decision based off of that. And so that would be my encouragement is keep having hope and keep working on yourself to prove that you, you want to marriage and that vision of your marriage. Fight for that.
Speaker 1:And so I think, christa, at the beginning of this, you were talking about how you saw run in a del's video and how it was such an inspiration for you, and I believe that the two of you, chris and Christa, talking through this, you're going to be an inspiration for so many people who are going to hear themselves in your history and see hope from what the two of you shared. So thank you so much for joining me, for being so open. I know that this is going to have an amazing impact on thousands of people who see it, and you are just like minutes away from me badgering you to be part of the marriage helper team. So, like I see future breakout leaders, I see amazing people that could join our team and overall, thank you both for saving your marriage. Thank you.