Prioritizing Your Partner Over Your Kids Can Save Your Marriage W/Amy Kiefer

Putting your marriage over your kids seems wrong, but keeping your marriage a priority is one of the best things you can do for yourself, your partner, and your kids. A strong marriage gives your kids stability and a foundation to model healthy relationships after. It is okay to schedule a little less kid time and a little more date time! Amy Kiefer and I talk about how we can have a better connection with our partners after kids through open and intentional communication. 


Amy Kiefer is the owner of 3 online businesses: Expecting and Empowered, HERself Podcast, and Pursuing HER Purpose. She built her 3 businesses while also having 3 little boys with her husband Drew. After figuring out how to tame her own mom guilt and live her life on purpose, she felt called to help other women do the same. 

Instagram: @ameskiefer
@herselfpodcast
@pursuingherpurpose
@expectingandempowered
Website: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/, https://www.herselfpodcast.com/, https://www.expectingandempowered.com/e-e-app
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/herself/id1489878793

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Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide any medical advice, it is for informational purposes only!

Transcript

A recent study of more than 5000 and faithful men found that the majority of men cheated after having children. With most of those men pointing to the lack of attention from their partner as the main reason. Wow. Take that in for a second. I will make sure to put that study below so you guys can check it out. The point is, it's OK to schedule your kids less and prioritize your marriage more. OK, I'm going to say that again, and please don't come at me. It is ok to schedule your kids less and prioritize your marriage more. A strong marriage is one of the greatest gifts you can give your children, and it's the foundation of their stability. And confidence in life. So why would you not prioritize your marriage? Right. You're teaching them what's important in life. You're teaching them who's important in life. And the person you married and made these kids with is the most important person next to yourself. Right. I'm so excited to talk to Amy today about this because her and I, we are like the biggest fans of our husbands, right? We are husband fan girls. She loves Drew. I love Tom. I mean, I'm sure you love your husband, too, but are you your husband's biggest fan? Because if you're not, you need to think about this, right? When you prioritize your marriage, it doesn't mean that you don't love your kids. It just means that you see the importance of cherishing the man who you deemed worthy of being your partner in life. And besides, without your partner, you wouldn't have these kids, right? So anyways, that's my rant on that. Let's dove in. Amy and I go in deep about priority izing your marriage, how to get there, how to change things, and how to consistently keep your marriage happy while having crazy children. Amy, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm super excited to have this chat with you. I actually I was going to pour myself another cup of coffee because I was like, oh, this is like a fun little girlfriend chat about our partners because I know you are a big fan of your husband. And I'm a really big fan of my husband. So I think you and I are on the same page as far as prioritizing your marriage and your partners. And I think it's important for my listeners to hear our side of things. I don't know if you know that I had a tick tock go viral of Tom and I dancing. Yes, I saw that one Yes. So that went viral. And I got a lot of love and hate, like 5050. A lot of people were like, No, your husband should never come before your kids. Your partner should never come before your kids. So I naturally, I'm an evidence junkie. I did a ton of research and evidence says otherwise. But let's jump right in. I'm actually going to just ask you right flat out. Amy, have you always prioritized your marriage in the time you've been together with Drew? No, we haven't. I mean, when I first became a mom, which was six years ago now, motherhood just hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a really hard transition. Breastfeeding was super hard. I feel like I had some postpartum anxiety. It wasn't talked about as much back then, like the version of motherhood I got on Instagram. Just look so beautiful. And here I was really struggling. So because I was struggling so much, I felt like my focus was on being a mom. I was trying to do. I don't know if you guys can relate. I was trying to do everything by the book, like I was trying to be the perfect mom and spoiler alert, like, that's not possible. And you definitely can't prioritize your relationship if you have that mindset. Like, I wasn't even letting people help. I wanted to do everything myself. You know, I can remember my mother in law who is so kind, trying to help me, and I was like, I wanted to prove that I could do everything. And now I know that you can't. But I learned the hard way. So I was not good at prioritizing our marriage. After our first. We had our kids very close in age. So our second Trey, he joined us, you know, 17 and a half months later. And it was after him where I was like, OK, this is getting to be not good. Like, I felt constantly kind of like snappy towards Drew. I was very overwhelmed. It was like I could be a super mom to one kid to Max. But when you have the demand of two little kids, I was cracking. Like I couldn't do motherhood the way I was trying to do it anymore. And I knew I was treating my husband in a way that I didn't want to treat him like our relationship did not feel good. So that was it. Was kind of like a wake up call. I was like, we have more attention than, like, good interactions. So something has to change the way that things are going is not sustainable. So the reason I like to share that with your audience is because I think a lot of people are in situations like that, right? Now. It was a journey for a journey to get back to being happy together, seeing each other as partners and not just parents like I really just saw him as like my copyright and that. So. So I'm so glad that we're in a better place now, but it's definitely been a journey. It's almost like this is our marriage version two point. Oh, like we had to figure out how to be married again while we were parents. And that's something that not a lot of people talk about. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I can my story is almost identical to yours. I don't know if my listeners can relate to, but after your first kid, you're like in a survival mode as especially as a first time mom, a young mom you're like just trying to do everything right. And I also did not prioritize time, and it felt like we were just trying to make it work. We did a date. We didn't do any of that kind of stuff. But yeah, after Mila came along, it definitely changed quite a bit. It was like, OK, we can't like we have two of these things now, so we kind of figure it out. Yeah. So when things changed for you, guys, how did you have that? You had the realization. Did you, like, bring it up or did you just what did you do? How did you change? Similar to, I think your personality. I was like, OK, I'm going to like read a couple of books and figure this out, like, what is going on? So the main thing that we had to change is our communication And I know that is probably like cliche advice, but I'm going to get a little bit more tangible here. So I think when we are raised and socialized as women, like we often put ourselves last and that what that's what I was doing. I was putting my kids first and then Jrue and then myself. But that that left me very resentful. So when Drew would get back, you know, because he kind of went on life as normal, I think men are able to do that a little bit better. So he still played softball. He still went golfing. He still went to Happy Hours, and he would come back. And I was like I said, I was like snapping at him. I would say things like, Oh, it must be so nice to go to softball. And now I've taken care of the two kids. I have them in bed. You know, I'm cleaning the kitchen. Like, I was just very like I constantly kind of felt on edge to him. And so what we realized is that I had to start doing things for myself. Like meaning I had to work out. I had to go see friends. I had to I had to get my life back. Like, I was swallowed up by motherhood. And the only way that I was going to feel better, which would also mean I could show back up in my relationship, was I had to I had to care about myself. So I started just being a lot more I would just communicate. Like, as a woman, you can see like stress icebergs coming. Like, I can see, OK, we have Max's birthday party, and then we have this, and then we have this. And then so now proactively, I'll be like, babe, I'm going to go to dinner with my girlfriends. Like, that's a very rejuvenating for me. That's one of my favorite things to do. So I just see this dress coming now, and then I ask for what I need. Like, no one is going to come and save us. We have to speak up and say, Here's what I need. And that might like also during I do it about our relationship and like I feel like we could really use a date, like we need to reconnect. Drew and I, when we go on a date and it's just the two of us, like we just we know why we got married, like we are so good together. But like, you can lose sight of that when you're doing the day to day grind of having small kids, getting everyone to daycare, getting everyone to school, getting everyone bathed, getting everyone fed, getting them in bed like it's such a grind and you lose sight of like, OK, this is my partner. I want to actually love and care about them. And then the other thing is, I. I I had to share the load a lot better. One of my favorite books is called Fair Play by Iraqi. And part of our problem is like, we were just so unbalanced. Like, I was taking on so much of the parenting load because a lot of it is unseen, right? Like the doctor's appointments the dentist appointments, the school communication. Like, all of this stuff was falling on me because our society, unfortunately, is still set up where, like, the mom gets the pediatrician couple. So we had to actually go. And even for Max's kindergarten, we were like, Drew is going to be in charge of the communication. He's better at it. Like, he's more organized, like this is what's going to happen. And so when we got stuff off of my plate, I was able to show up better in our relationship. And I think a lot of women are like really hesitant to give their husband more to do because they feel like maybe he's going to be resentful But we are now like such a better couple if you lower your stress level like so many other things for feel better. Like, I wanted to have sex again. I wanted to date him. Like, if you can figure out how to get your resentment to go down, which often times means your partner has to step up in some areas, like the reconnection can be there again. Yeah. And I think the society makes us believe that a marriage is supposed to be happy and things are supposed to go well and they're just supposed to click. But in reality, marriage is so hard and you have to work for it. You have to work for every single thing in your marriage. Just because you fell in love once doesn't mean you're going to stay in love. Staying in love means that you're willing to fight and put in the hard work to be together. And it wasn't until this last year I'm very open about my therapy journey as you know, on social media and also here on the podcast. I am learning through my therapist with my therapist that if you don't put yourself first, I kind of you kind of brought up a lot of really good points here, so I'm going to go back to that one. If you don't put yourself first, nobody is winning. Your kids aren't winning. Your relationships aren't winning. And not just your marriage, but all your relationships. If you're able to take care of your basic needs and and then also do the things that you love people think that basic, basic needs are not important. But the other day I was talking to my therapist. I hadn't slept in like two weeks. Neil has been waking up in the middle of the night, and I was telling her about that and how I just have been awful. I've been irritable, I've been grumpy. I don't want to hang out with my kids. I don't want to hang out with anybody. And then, luckily enough, I got a couple days of sleep after that and I checked in with my therapist on Tuesday, and she's like, So how does that feel? Like, do you feel just that simple, basic need that you were able to get? And how do you feel now? And basically, my whole point with that is if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't eat, you don't go get some air outside if you don't sleep. And then on top of that, you should also be doing things that bring you joy, that are what identifies you as you, not what I identifies you as a mom and a wife. And so I think that's super important point that we need to take care of ourselves. The other thing I really wanted to just touch on is you mentioned that us women naturally take on a lot more responsibility. And that's true. We all know this and if we don't take on that responsibility, we feel that either it's not going to get done, it's not going to get done correctly, or we're going to be resented. For it. Those are the three feelings I get when I'm delegating. However, I've learned that, one, I started trusting people and delegating and just trusting that what happens is OK. I have become so much calmer, so much better at everything. In all my relationships and just sigh. Not my brother. I used to always resent him for being late and forgetting dates and just being so loose about everything. And when I stopped caring or stopped like bothering him about it and I would tell him, Hey, the birthday parties at this time, are you going to come see you there? And then I just let it go. I didn't bother him about it a million times because I always felt like I had to. And sure enough, he shows up I didn't have to remind him. So it's just little things like that. Like if you actually just let go of that control and see what people can do for you. It's amazing. And here is here's a spoiler alert. Like Drew, one thing that would really bother me is when we went out of town, like, I had to get myself ready and all three of our kids ready, and I would get in our Suburban and I would be, like, steamed. Like, it was such a hard start to like a long weekend or a weekend, like, something we're really excited for. So I started delegating. I'm like, Drew, you have to pack the diapers, the wipes, the snacks, the swim, diapers. Like, I told them exactly what he was in charge of. And I and I said to myself, Amy, if he forgets like the cream, you know what? That could happen to you, too. So, like, when you are giving the control to the other person and they make the mistake, that's not a reason to take it all back and be like, you know what? I'm just going to do it myself because that person has to like learn and grow and we all make mistakes. So, like, I could have forgotten something, too. So just to have that, like, grace towards your partner, to be like, whatever, we'll go to pick and say we'll grab, we'll grab some diapers. Like it's OK. But then they probably aren't going to forget that the next time. Yes. Thank you for saying that because I sometimes tend to be like, Oh, never mind, I'll just do it. But it is important to realize we're all human, and especially if you spent most of your relationship being in charge of everything and now you're kind of giving away some control. There's going to be trial and error. And that brings me to my next question. Communication. You've kind of touched on this already. How do you guys, you and Drew, communicate your needs to each other? And because I think there's a very fine line between telling, asking and then also just like communicating, right? You don't want to come off like you're I'm this is what's going to happen. This is how it is. And you also don't want to be like, can I do this? You want to be like, hey, this is a partnership. Like, this is what I need. I want to hear about how you guys have transformed your communication style based on your needs. Yeah, this has been an absolute crash course for us because it was definitely rocky there for a while. Like I keep mentioning, I just would wait to communicate until I was like past the point of no return. So, like, I was already mad, I was already overwhelmed. I was already stressed out and what I had realized is like, I had to communicate way earlier. So like, before I got to that point, it's truly asking for what you need. One of my favorite accounts on Instagram is called Decoding Couples. Yeah. It's two therapists, Stacy and Rachel. And one time we've become like Instagram friends, as you know. People do. One time I went to them with a problem because I thought that they were going to take my side. Like, typically here I thought that they were going to have my back. Because one thing that bothers me about Drew is sometimes I feel like he over asks to do social things so he'll go golfing on a Saturday and then on a Tuesday he'll ask if he can go to the driving range. And in my mind, I'm like, Why can't you like keep a tally of how much you're asking of me? And, like, sends? But I'm overwhelmed. I have three businesses that we've got three kids. Like, I can't always be the one that's like at home taking care of them. And I went to them. I told them, like, I had gotten really angry because he had asked again after he had a weekend and they said, Amy, you know, he is allowed to ask for what he wants and you are allowed to say no, which I think is another really key point for your listeners, because I know that I learned from it, is that when we say no as women, often we feel bad. Yeah. And when you are in a partnership, like our marriage is a true partnership, I'm allowed to say no if I feel overwhelmed I'm going to say, Babe, this one's not going to work like I'm strapped at work. I feel like I just I just can't give you that night. And they said, on the flip side, Amy, you need to ask for what you need more. Clearly, Drew's never going to be able to read your mind. So you two have to get to a place where he's allowed to ask for whatever he wants or needs, but so are you. And so as a woman, you need to step up and you need to just use a lot more clear communication. Drew is very open about talking about our marriage. She comes on my podcast herself podcast a lot in the last at the last episode he was on, he said something really impactful. He said, if you're going to your partner. So like if you're going to Tom with something and you have a grievance, like something he is doing is making you mad. Also try to come up with a solution. So often when Drew and I are having tough conversations, if we need something from each other, we need to be able to state what that is. So that would look like Tom, you know what? Are you going fishing every Saturday? Like that's become really daunting for me. Could we make it every other Saturday, whatever that looks like? Just you should know why you're bringing in the conversation up to the person. And then the last thing I'll say is what has changed in our marriage so much from those times? I was talking about earlier when we had two little kids and we were I was often feeling angry with him is that our day to day communication is just much kinder. So like the way you say things like, I can't I tell you I can't control my eyebrows because like I'm always just like I have a judgy look at him and he tells me I can control my eyebrows. But so the way that you say things, the way your face looks, it does matter. Like at the end of the day, we were like, we are on the same team. We want to stay married, we want to stay happily married. So like the way we talk to each other matters. And so our communication has just been a lot kinder and as small as that sounds, it's actually just like our house feels like a very nice place to be now. And we feel like that it's a really good example for our kids. That's not to say we never argue, but there is even a way to argue that isn't, you know, yelling and raising your voice and getting mad right away. Like there's just no way to directly say things that doesn't have to be mean. And I think in marriage, when we're overwhelmed sometimes, unfortunately, like if that is your closest person and sometimes that person, you know, kind of gets things taken out on them. And I wish that we didn't do that, but sometimes you do. And so like just knowing that and being like, OK, I don't really stressful day with the kids, but at the end of the day, that's not my husband's fault. What can we do right now? Like I could say, babe, could you just take Max and Trey outside? Because I'm just like, I'm overstepping elated and I need help. And then he would be like, Yep. Whereas before I would have just said that in such a, like, ruder tone, I love that. I love these are all things that Tom and I are always working on in our marriage as well. But one thing that's a little bit different is I'm very comfortable asking and telling and expressing my needs to Tom. He, on the other hand, is not he. And I feel like a lot of women are the top like they're not expressing their needs and it frustrates me because I know he needs that self-care. I know he needs some of these things for him, but he won't ask for them. Because I actually talked to Allie on the episode. Oh, God, I don't know what number I'll link below, but he we talked about how men feel after after we have kids and how they feel lonely and they feel like they're not doing enough and this and that and and Tom definitely resonated with that, saying, Yeah, I do feel I feel like I need to do more and more and more because you're doing so much. And then he forgets to take care of himself and he won't ask. He rarely goes and does anything social. One I think he just doesn't like to ask to. He's he's a little bit kind of a lazy planner, but that's beside the point anyways. So what I do for my listeners here, who also may have a partner like this, what I do is I always sit down with him at the end of a week. We've skipped some weeks because parents love. Right. But I try to always ask him, what's important to you this week? What do you need to get done? What do you want to get done? Anything social or anything this and that. And to him, he tells me it's very important to him that he goes to the gym every single morning. So I always play a big role in that by helping in the evening to get ready for the next day and getting to bed at a decent time. Because when he gets to bed super late, he doesn't get up for the gym. Also, to him, it's important to have some time to clean, like clean the garage and take care of the lawn. And these are all basic things. But to him, he like is always afraid to ask or say like the law needs to get mowed. Are you good to watch the kids? I wish you would just be like, Hey, I got to go mow the lawn. When is a good time? I wish you would just say that to me, but I know he's not good at that. So I always say, Hey, what's a priority to this weekend? What? How can I put it? I absolutely love that you brought this point to the table because when when things are really hard for us, one thing we implemented is from the Gottman Institute, and it's exactly what you said. They call it a State of the Union meeting and we would do it every Sunday. We were out of sorts, Nina, so we needed to sit down and be like, What do you need? What do I need? What does the family need? This week? And that's like one way that you could plug that in and things feel so much better. I think the other point would be that we all have different personalities we all have different needs. So like, you never want to have it be tit for tat. Like because Amy goes out one night. Does it mean Drew has to, you know, but respect that maybe your person doesn't want to do as much stuff? That's OK, but what are they doing that gets them what they need? Exactly. Yes. Checking in and that's exactly I also learned this through. Podcasting is so important just to check in with your partner, especially if communication styles are different. So thank you for offering all that up. So I'm curious, withdrew being modern, us moms are usually like the primary go to parent typically. Right. Tell me a little bit about how you hold space for your partner during moments of struggles for him, like when he's having a dad fail moment or he's struggling with something and instead of being like, Oh, get over it, how do you hold space for him and what do you offer him? Yeah, I think that this one can be really hard because sometimes I joke, I'm like, if you guys had a video of our house and you could actually see how rambunctious and loud and overstimulating it is, I think people could have really get a peek into how hard, you know, this phase of life can be. But for Drew, I can often see his well, like it's pretty clear as day he'll be short on his patience. His face looks super defeated and I if I'm feeling like I am in a better spot than he is, I say, Babe, why don't you go watch the game upstairs? Or Why don't you go for a walk like Drew often needs space, like you should start to get to know what your partner needs. And for Drew, he gets a very overstimulated which is a real thing. Like he's just more sensitive to the boys yelling. And so I'll just say, babe, do you want to go take a walk? I feel good. Like, I'm giving him the permission. Like, you need a timeout, and that's OK. We all do sometimes. Why don't you go ahead and then just come back when you're ready? Now, the challenge is because I am the more resilient one when it comes to, like, tantrums and things like that. It's also hard because it feels like it can feel like it always falls on me. And so I do say I'm like, babe, I can't always like if he's having a really bad night, I can give him that space. But you can't always check out on the hard times. And so I think that that's just a fair point to bring up, too, because I think when you are the one that can handle things, that doesn't mean that you should always, always have to be the one. Yeah, I love that. I love that you do that for Drew and I think it's important for us as women and wives and partners to know that that's OK. It's OK to give them a break because typically as women, we are more resilient to these things and we naturally hold that space. But then is just as important to ask and make ask for your own space. And Mike, I'm kind of loud about it now. I'm like, I got to go for a walk. Like, honestly, because it just gets to the that crescendo where you can feel yourself be like, I know I'm not going to be the best parent. I'm about to flip out. So I just how do I make I got to go outside like I just can't. And so we're we're really open with each other, very open with each other. I actually heard somebody say that they do like a code word with each other. If one of the parents I try not to intervene when Tom is disciplining, even if I don't agree, I try really hard not to, like, judge his parenting. But but sometimes it slips. Yeah. Sometimes if he's really struggling, I'll be like, I'll ask. I'll be like, do you need do you need help? Can I help? Or we try to do this like code word someone said to say banana or something. Like, if you're struggling and we try that and it's those who are just pissed off even more like in the moment, you're already pissed. And then someone just screamed out and you're like, Screw you and your butt. And yeah, yeah. See, for me, like, and I don't know. I don't know. There's so many ways to do things. Like, you and I are never saying this is the only way. But for me, I don't mind that the boys see us resolve conflict in real time or like, I don't mean, like, if Drew is, you know, yelling and that's he's just getting really escalated. And I say, hey, babe, I think you need a time out. I think it's actually a great example for the boys because if you're getting escalated and you need to step away, like, we would rather have them do that. So, yeah, we have a pretty open family when it comes to like but like we said before, like it is also all about the way that you say things so I don't want to be like, Drew, you're being a psycho. You know, like, I wouldn't say bad from the kids because I don't think that that's a good look. But I would say like, babe, I think you need a time out. I think you need to step away. Yeah. Yeah. We've actually, like, we've had plenty of arguments in front of Dom, and he'll say, stop talking to each other like that. And like sometimes we're just we're just like talking kind of firmly and because we're having a heated discussion and then we never get to finish it and then we feel like we just failed our child. And so we always have to explain to him, no, we're just having a very strong conversation right now. We're not mad at each other. It's not your fault. Yeah. Max will say something like, Why are you guys fighting if you're married? Because he just thinks marriage means like, you're so in love. And I actually am like, Max, people that are in love, they disagree sometimes. Yeah, Dad and I have to work through that. And we're going to keep we're going to keep working through it. So I think that, like, giving kids because like, sometimes if you grew up in a home, like, I grew up at home where my parents did, like, yell at each other and walk out on each other. And so for me, I'm like, I'd rather have them see me stay and, and talk through something. You know, I walked out on Tom and the kids on an argument. I walked out of the room and said, I'm leaving. Like I said that to Tom, and this was a few months ago, and Dom took that literal. Oh, yeah. I started bawling Mommy, please don't leave me. Please don't leave us. And I oh, my God. Talk about a knife in the chest. Because you just made your three year old think that you're leaving them forever. I for me, in the moment, I needed to step away and I needed space. Yeah. And I just said it in a literal way, like, I'm leaving I'm getting out of here. But I think it's so important for your listeners to know, like, we all, like, I say stuff like that, none of us are going to nail it perfectly. But then as you as you talk about, like, then you just have to repair and explain to your child, like, oh, I just meant that mom needs to leave. But I'll say that to the boys. I'm like, I'm leaving this house right now. You guys I am up to ten with you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I say stuff like that all the time, and then, you know, mom, guilt kicks in. But Dom, even brought that up a few days after the fact. Mommy, remember, are you really going to leave? Do you do you remember when you said you're going to leave? And and obviously I would explain that was really scary for you to hear, wasn't it? That was scary. And, you know, Mommy was having a really hard time and really big feelings that I needed to step away and so definitely, actually, I read this article for preparing for this interview. I wanted to have some backup evidence because most and actually all of the evidence points to you should be prioritizing your marriage over your children. That doesn't mean you don't love your children. Right. Anyways, so one of the doctors that I was reading, Doctor Rafi Billick, he was saying that if your kids have a tendency to think that it's their fault when you're fighting in front of each other. So it's always important, it's always important to repair in front of your kids or talk to them about it. And make sure they know, like verbally say, this is not your fault. Mommy's having big feelings. This is daddy's fault. You can just pop yeah. So I love all that and. OK, a couple more questions. What are some, like, simple day to day things that you and Drew do for each other that shows you that your marriage is priority? Yeah, it's really nice for Drew and I right now because his company has actually been work from home for the entire pandemic. So Drew works from my office. We have separate offices. He works for a different company. I work for myself, but it's really brought this really nice, like connection time. And before when we didn't work in the same place, we would still do like lunch dates. So if one of you can go to where the other one works, like whoever has the longer lunch break that was always Drew, like we would go and grab lunch and just like really connect as a couple. Drew and I also text each other like nice things throughout the day that are not about our kids. Like, you know, I love you, whatever it is. Like, just have that those connection points. We also do go to bed at the same time most nights, and it is a time where we do put our phones down like we will put our phones down and it's like it's just our little connection. Time to be like, OK, we are in this together. We still enjoy each other. Like those are just really little things. But if you do really little things all the time, I just think the vibe of your marriage is just in a totally different place. I agree. I think that if you are constantly offering some type of love and respect to your partner in little tiny ways there, even if they're a partner, some people may feel like their partner doesn't do anything for them, but maybe that partner feels like that they're just not enough. So they screw it. I'm not enough. I'm never going to be enough. But if they feel loved and respected for what they are, then they're going to give that right back to you. And obviously, like, if you aren't getting it back, you need to make your needs known. Yeah, and I think too, we overcomplicate things when we could just be like, Drew, what would make you feel more loved? Yes. And I people can answer that. Like I could tell him right now, you know, like, what do you need today to, you know, and for people who can't do lunch dates and stuff, something that Tom and I will do as the text messages is the top one. Like, yeah, even like if your partner's not a love one, go ahead and send your partner a message saying, hey, thinking about you today, I hope you're having a good day. You know, simple things like that and something that's not about the kids. Another thing Tom and I do is sometimes we feed the kids dinner, put them to bed, and then we do our old dinner and just sit at the table and chat, like, not a date. We just, like, quietly just sit and talk. So literally, just like when we get there when it's the weekend, because I will stay up a little bit later on the weekend and we get the kids to bed. I'm like, Hey, do you want to have a glass of wine on the back? It doesn't have to be this big thing. It's like it's more about those, like, small moments where you're extending yourself to your partner and be like, I want to hang out with you. I want to spend time with you. Yeah. And for people who feel really stuck and don't know what to do, I'm a huge fan of these conversation cards. I'll link them below in the notes, but basically you get them on Amazon there are therapists that have some, too, but they're just like simple conversation cards that you can talk to talk through with your partner. All right. So I want you to tell my listeners, what are your top three ways that you have kept your marriage strong after kids? Such a good question. The first one I have talked about a lot already. So I'll just briefly say, like, if you can improve your communication, that improves your marriage. So wherever you are right now, maybe it's like the State of the Union meetings we were talking about. Maybe you implement those, maybe you're just going to say things a little bit kinder. I think communication is a huge one. Number two, I think this is really going to surprise people. But I did mention it earlier is that we both realized in this phase of life, we still need space to be ourselves. And I think people really don't understand how important that is. My husband told me one time, he said, Amy, I really miss the Amy that isn't just their mom. Like, I really lost myself for a minute there and then like I said, it's so hard to be in your partnership because you're just like my conversations were about our kids. Like, I, I felt like I didn't I wasn't interesting anymore in a sense. Like, I just completely lost that part of me. So we really make sure that we each have time for ourselves. And it allows us to be such better partners to each other. And it also allows us to be better parents to our kids. So that one is huge. Like if you're suffering from burnout, first stop would be like to start to take care of yourself, you know, before you could probably show up better in your marriage. And then the last one is true, and I have always had this personality of we're very proactive in our marriage. We did marriage counseling before we got married. What we had to to get married at our church. But two things that cause divorce are money and sex. So you have those huge clues of issues that people run into. How are you going to make a plan that those don't become issues for you? So for us, I talk about this on my Instagram. We have monthly financial meetings every every single month. We've been married. So we've been married for eight years now. I don't know what eight, eight times 12 is, but that's a lot of meetings. And what we do is we pay all of our bills. We talk about our upcoming expenses we talk about our cash flow, which means how much money is coming in versus how much money is going out. We talk about our future goals. We talk about our investments like we are on the same page when it comes to money and that really we've essentially had such minimal fights about money in our marriage. Because we have that meeting and it really keeps us accountable to each other and also to like our family goals. So that has been instrumental for us and then Sacks, I am going to mention sex. Like I feel like you and I are really, really lucky because we have similar sex drives. I know our mutual friend Vanessa Morin talks about sex drives and if they are different, like that can be really hard on a relationship. There is stuff you can do, but I would say like commune education when it comes to sex, people don't talk about this, but I told you what I want. I want him to tell me what he wants. What do you want more of? What do you want less of? Like if you hear it from your person, like you can start to understand like Drew. Drew is more of I forget how they name it, but like he's more proactive. So he's like always making the move on me. And he's like, I would really feel more desired if sometimes you initiated. And so I took that to heart. I was like, I can totally understand that. Like, he's always the one that has to make the first move. Like this isn't the 1950s I can throw down. So like, that's one thing. So like we feel like we are really good with our money and we're really, you know, obviously as parents we all go through seasons with sex, but now that our kids are a little bit older, we feel like we're on the same page too when it comes to sex. And these are things that like, I know in the beginning when we started having open conversation it can feel kind of awkward, but I don't know now we're just like a chance for us to be like, This is what I like. I, I really like that. Like that. Does it make me feel good? I agree. We, the whole talking about sex stuff definitely can be awkward in the beginning. But again, it all if you, if anybody got anything out of this communication, like if you can communicate, you can do it. Yeah. So I'm really grateful for all of your wisdom I'm here, Amy. I had so much fun. Like, I'm so honored to be on. So thank you so much for having me. Of course, I just, like, look up to you, Andrew. And you guys are awesome and you're awesome. And I love how down to earth you are. Can you tell my listeners here where they can find you, how they can get in touch yeah. So I show up the most on Instagram and my handlers, Ms. Keefer, I'm sure you can link it. And then also herself, podcast is our podcast. Nina has been a guest on it. We cover all of this stuff. And the cool thing I think is, is that we've had our husbands on probably like eight or ten times now. Like, I think to hear men talk about these things because I think some people can be like, Wow, she really goes into detail. But like, my husband's comfortable with it. He, he reads the demands that we get, which they'll be like, You saved our marriage. Oh, because I mean, it's communication and it's money, it's sex. It's like, these are really important things to talk about. And so he sees the mission behind it. He sees the impact, and he gets very vulnerable. Like he's able to say the things that are hard for him as a dad, as a husband.Like, to your point about Tom, it's like dads have their stories, too. And for Nina and I, we were we love our husband so much. Like we're not a husband bashers. Like we want to work together and they get to a really good place. Yes, I love that. Thank you, Amy. That was so fun. I love chatting with Amy. She just is. So why is that love that girl? I look up to her and Drew and their marriage and partnership so much, and I'm so grateful that she took the time to talk to us today. If you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure that you're following me on social media. Make sure you leave a review. Subscribe, check out the Herself Podcast Pursuing Your Purpose Podcast A Link Everything below and let's chat next time.