Set The Foundation & Habits For a Healthy Relationship PART 2 w/ Guest TJ My Fiancé

In Part 2 of our two-part series on setting the foundation and habits for a healthy lasting relationship we dive into the habits that can transform your partnership and personal life. We talk about the small actions and routines that make a big difference, like setting priorities and intentionally spending time together. From putting date nights on the calendar to sharing morning routines that deepen our spiritual connection, we’ve found that these practices are essential for building a solid foundation as a couple.

Habits are the backbone of success, whether in business, personal growth, or love. We’ll share why prioritizing your relationship is crucial—especially when life pulls you in every direction. We’ll also explore how seemingly small habits, like checking in with each other, expressing gratitude, or planning meaningful downtime, can help keep love strong and meaningful even through life’s busiest seasons.

Join us as we discuss ways to build habits that create connection, trust, and a sense of shared purpose with your partner. Whether you’re in a new relationship or have been together for years, this episode offers practical steps to make your relationship a priority, nurture intimacy, and keep the spark alive. If you missed part 1 go check it out. 

Connect with TJ- https://www.instagram.com/tjdrechselphotography/

Need extra support from Maria? Join MUSE Energy, her exclusive women 's-only channel on Instagram, for more insights and inspiration! - https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/?thread_key=8628881520460159

For personalized 1:1 coaching, visit Maria’s website at mariafuentes.net or email her at info@mariafuentes.net for guidance.- https://mariafuentes.net/

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Transcript

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in today's world, we're all busy. If you're successful, if you're rocking it as a woman and as a man, you have all this stuff pulling you all different directions. And if you don't prioritize what you have. With the person that you want to do life with, you are not going to last. I guarantee it. Hello, my beautiful muses. And welcome back to this week's episode. This is part two with my, again, handsome fiance, TJ drugstore. I am torturing him. Here before date night, but we really just wanted to get this done. And this part we're going to give you some tangibles. If you haven't listened to the first part, yet, first part, we talked about setting the foundation pretty much for healthy relationship, all the things that we had to go through, the challenges, the discomfort, the things that maybe a lot of people don't want to talk about to get to the healthy relationship. And how are we cultivated? And the habits we've created now is what we're going to talk about on this episode. Absolutely. Yes. Habits are important. Let's face it. Um, anyone, I mean, you talk about success in today's world and anyone that is successful says that there are rules to follow, to be successful. And why would you not follow some options? Rules, you name it habits. To have a great relationship. I think any, any couple, if you talk to any old couple and they said, you know, what is, what is their secret? They're going to have something to say that has to do with spending time together. Right? And in today's world, we're all busy. If you're successful, if you're rocking it as a woman and as a man, you have all this stuff pulling you all different directions. And if you don't prioritize what you have. With the person that you want to do life with, you are not going to last. I guarantee it. That's it. That's the end of that. That's all you need to hear. Yeah. What are the ways. Hold on. But that's really all they needed to hear, so right. I mean. We're all getting pulled. We're we're all getting pulled in multiple situations. Quite frankly, I can speak to this real quick. And then you, you certainly take the mic, as you say. I I've been dropping my workout routine for, for over a year now, simply because I've been busy with two different businesses. I have you as my top priority, I have a daughter, you know, there are all these things pulling me in. Quite frankly, it's just dropped because I haven't put it on the calendar. It's not a priority. It is a priority, but it's not one I put on the calendar. So to speak to what we do. That makes us successful. It needs to be on the calendar. It's gotta be on the calendar. Yeah, I agree. And priorities are important and I think different seasons of life too, you know, you've been rocking it with work and you've been super busy. And so something does need to fall off very like, even in my own world, like, I don't really socialize with other people other than you and whoever comes into town or whatever, coffee here and there, because I don't have the time I have priorities. Right. Yeah. And that's also important. You can't be everything for everyone and everything. Make a priority list. Um, that's not even on our list. To talk about, but now that I'm saying it, like make a priority list and stick to it and your partner should be there on the top. Yeah. And be okay with it. Right. Like I have a priority list and anything that doesn't fit in that I'm a thousand percent okay. With. Yeah, I'm good with it. I know what's important to me right now. This is we've spoken to it before. This is a chapter. Everyone's in a current chapter of life. And you have a priority list for that chapter alive. Your priority list is going to change for the next chapter of life. You'll have a different priority list and it's going to keep Morphin. Yeah. So don't, don't get stressed out if certain things don't fit in it, but you better have what's the most important right up on the top. Because otherwise everything else falls apart and your chapters are going to change fast. We're going to be on two different chapters. This is true. Okay. The first one, which I think is the most important, and you've helped me with this and my own journey with God has been a little. I wouldn't say challenging, but I've been far away from my spirituality with God for a long time and meeting TJ, I was actually like nibbling and coming back to what God is and what it means in my life. And because of TJ, I've gotten so much closer to God and I'm so thankful and grateful for him. And now we go to church on Sundays. Where we try to listen to it here at home. But one of the habits that we've created, and I feel like this is so important. I've never personally had this in a relationship ever is having this closeness spiritually with a partner and God, the source of our lives. Um, we read the Bible together every morning. Well, let's, let's face it. And this is what I put forth to Maria and, and hopefully any. Anyone out there listening to this. I mean, it, you know, there is a creator. And if that creator is God, and if he's real, And if you open yourself up to looking for what the creator might intend for your life. Um, if, if that creator's good and has purpose, which we see everywhere around us, that our creator is great. And you look at the world and you go out and look at a sunrise or sunset or travel, you know, you're going to see that ultimately everywhere you look. Then there's purpose to why we're here. And if he's real and we look for him, then he's going to show himself if he's real. And that's what Maria and I, when we started dating together, And she had, she had some religious background that was kind of scarred and not good. And a lot of people do. I did too. But that's religion. Those are rules. Those are things aren't even part of faith, you know, true faith is the real God. And if you look to him for something that is real, you're going to find something real. And the beauty of our mornings is we get to look to the source, essentially, our creator. And look for, for truce, for, for wisdom, you know, um, it's beautiful in the Bible. It says that if you ask God for wisdom, he will give you wisdom. And who of us doesn't want to have some understanding of. Today's world or in our lives. So it's a great chance for us to do that every morning. And it's, it's so gifted, I think together to just look to life together. To look for that and to be able to start our day together with that. Yeah. It really sets the tone. It's been feeding me so much spiritually. I even woke up. I wake up earlier. Okay. Talking about priorities. Talk about priorities. I wake up earlier so we could do this because TJ wakes up like five 30 in the morning and I wake up six ish. And so I knew I had to wake up earlier, so I could still have my 20 minutes of nothing. And then read the Bible before his day goes and every gets up and all these things. So I knew I wanted that to be a priority. So now I wake up earlier because of it. We all have to make choices, right. What's important. And what feels good? Maria needs her time were don't talk to me. Let me sit. And allow, wake up to happen. Yes. Coffee is highly part of that. Do not talk to me. Very necessary. I mean, he could talk to me. I just probably won't respond because my brain's not online yet. I love it. We all have our process folks. Yes. Um, but yeah, so that's a priority. And so we do that and we also pray together before dinner and we pray together after we read the Bible in the morning and just taking that moment to be grateful and show gratitude to God for everything he's given us as. Really also fed me a lot. And that feels really good. Yeah. Attitude. I mean, you hear attitude of gratitude, but man, it's amazing when you, when you throw that up, I feel like ultimately. We are blessed more through the process of realizing how much we're blessed, you know? Yeah, Justin. In, in that gratitude, that sense of gratitude. Yeah, were very positive people too. So I don't know if you've gathered that from all my podcasts. Neither of us are negative, but. I think a lot of people wake up and they see the glass half empty and I'll have to, I have to do this. I have to do that now, whatever you wake up and you say, I get to do this. And. God is amazing. Like I get to wake up healthy and have all my limbs and look at the sunrise and. It's the little things, but you have to be grateful for the little things. If not the big things won't come. That's just the truth. That's true. Yeah. Another one we do is have a weekly date nights. This is what I would consider one of the top. Like, if you want to have a relationship with someone, if you want to have a future with someone. And you just per chance say, well, can we try to like, just, you know, Do a date night now, and then, and you don't put it on the calendar. I don't think your last. He so sexy. I think he's trying to get the extra special, special day night ending here. That's not true. You got to throw it on the calendar and we're both rocking it. I have a lot of evening sessions when it comes to photography. And this is a family session time of year. So quite frankly, I mean, we have to book months out just to make sure that every week we have. A date night on the books and that is, it is not allowed to book anything else. And that's, that's my rules and her rules. I mean, we make it a priority that even if we sit in together and we have had a crazy day. And we say, we look at each other at, you know, coming in the door and we're like, What do you feel like? And we look at each other, like, man, I'm just thankful to have lasted today. You know, Then, uh, like you want me to run to the store and grab a bottle of wine? And she's like, yeah, that sounds perfect. And we will sit on the deck and we will just sit there together. And that is a perfectly fine day, night, you know? Sometimes we'll go out and have dinner together either way. It's a connected time that we are committed. To building. Deeper into, you know, The future together. Yeah. Right. It's uninterrupted time together. It's us time. It's like, there's nothing that matters during that time, but us. And I think that's important. And like you said, I mean the other day I came back from a trip and it was. Uh, our whole day was date night. You know, we were so grateful to have the whole day. And we did nothing. We literally like. Later on in the bed and just did nothing all day. Do you want to take a walk? It's just like, I don't know. No. Why don't do nothing. But each other. That was it. That's good. Yeah, you gotta have it. And just, just by stating that, just by putting that as a priority. Like you're telling each other that they're a priority, right? I mean, it's like a subconscious thing, right? I mean. You can be as busy as all get out, rocking multiple businesses. It doesn't matter what you have, but for you to tell that person, I am unwilling to change the fact that we have a date night. That is letting the other person nor they're a priority that is building trust, love, commitment. It's all the things that all of us want. You have to be able to give it to your partner. They have to be able to give it to you. Anyone, that's not willing to do that. You've got a question. What you're doing. True. Mr. Especially if that's important to you. I think, I think most people would love to have a date night once a week. And like you said, it doesn't have to be. Go out and get dressed up and spend hundreds of dollars. It could be literally do nothing, but it's uninterrupted time doing nothing will actually give you the next one is we have these little card games that you've bought, and those are awesome for date night, too, because if you're like, oh, I just want to stay home. And what do we do? Open up a bottle of wine and get this little card deck. There's one, that's like a little naughtier and funnier. And there's one, that's like a little deeper with deeper conversation and questions. And you've bought them both from online, I guess. Right. You found. Yeah. The social media is great for these things. These days. You look for like connective, like dating, you know, card games or, I mean, she, you can search anything anymore. You can Google anything. Yeah. But, I mean, honestly, there's a number of them. They keep coming out with more. Um, but all great ways to just like sit down. And all right. Here's what was the one that we have is first base, second base. Home run or whatever at third base. Home run. Um, but all like deeper questions and it's like everything from sexual to intimate, to, to Fred's to purpose together, to love to, you know what I mean? It's all, it's all a great conversation. Every time we do want. We feel like we get to know each other better, right? Yeah. And I get relationships can get boring. It's because you're not putting in the time and the effort to get to know the other person. You have 49 years of life that I have no idea about or 48, I guess I might use. Russia. So these questions are great and I have, you know, a good 34 33. Yeah. It's a great way to understand each other and your past and your childhood and your who you are like. W what got you to who you became. And again, it takes effort, but I love that. And I love that you bought those, like that makes me so happy. Yeah. It's fun to sit and plus it's short. Like you don't have a lot of time. It's easy to take one card, ask questions and be like, all right. I'm exhausted. That was awesome. Yeah. Go get a shower. Yeah. Whatever. I mean, however, your day is going. Yeah, it's still totally doable. That's true. Yeah, I agree. And then we also have like check-ins, I would say. We don't have them scheduled because we have such great communication. We're not like let's check in every Sunday. But every once in a while, we're like, Hey, let's have a little check-in. How are you feeling? Like, are you happy with things? How are you feeling? I mean, like what if someone's being really, really, truly religious. Early in our relationship. We, we, we tried to do it almost every week. And, uh, that was a building block. I feel like a great building block for us. It's not something that at this point, We feel like we have to, because we've rebuilt some of the back, the back of the house stuff, you know? To get to this point. But yeah, it's the back of the house. That's where I'm trying to get all the time. He's trying to go to the back of the house. That's where he wants to. And date night. But I agree. And especially being long distance, we did long distance first year of our relationship. So the check-ins were helpful. Yeah. How you feeling is, you know, What's going on with the feelings when it comes to us. Is there anything that kinda is hanging you up right now? Right. Right. We've done really good. And then. The last one and I'm sure we have other habits. We just can't think of them right now. Actually, I just thought of one and this is like small, but it makes me so happy every time he does it. And, um, I try to be better at it. When he has a shoot or he has something going on or he's taking every here or whatever, there he's always so good at being like I'm on my way. Home. Just finished doing this. Just keeping your partner in the loop of like your life, especially when it has to do with the other person. Right. Like, I don't need to know what you're doing all day because we're working, but it's like when it's home time and it's like, you expect the other person to be around, or if you're running late, we're so good at communicating and you're better at it even than me. And I appreciate it so much because I love knowing that it's like, okay, now he's I try to have dinner ready. So like, if I know he's on his way, I'd try to make sure that it's ready and on time and. And I think those little things help. Oh, and I have another one now they're all just like coming at me. We are very intuitive with each other. A lot of our communications. Non-verbal sometimes like we, we know what each other needs. And I think that comes with a little bit of time and really tuning into the other person. But like, I know that when he, like, I've, I've learned him now, I've lived with him for six months and I know that he pops a beer every time he comes home. Especially after a long shoot or after a long day of wedding shooting or whatever. No. And so I make sure I have a beer for him. You know, it's like the little things, but I know I'm being intuitive and I think women should do this more and not saying the men don't do it. But I think we're just more intuitive that way. It's like, I see this is his routine and he's going to appreciate this and I want to do that for him. Ladies you'll blow your man's mind. If he shows up after a long day at work and you have a cracked, a beer ready for him. Look. Looking like you do, you're going to have this guy wanting to get home faster. That's for sure. And if fear's not his thing, whatever his thing is, like pop on football or whatever. I don't, I don't have one of those, but thank God her goodness. I don't have a sports watcher, but whatever your guys' thing is, I'm not judging. Oh, Which is given to it and they'll appreciate it. And then they'll want to be home more. They want to be around you. You become like so magnetizing to them, you know, they want to be around you. Yeah. Um, yeah. All right. And the last one, your favorite now, your favorite, you already told me your favorite is date nights, but. Travel. Oh, You talk about this. I, you know, if, if your muses or our rock in it, you. You know, and they're the kind of women who are, who are killing it in many ways of their, of their world. They're the same as us. We all need a break. Right? We need something. That's just this breather. This, this reset, you know, back to faith. When God created the world, he worked for six days creating everything. And then on the seventh, he rested. It's not the God needed to arrest. He was showing us an example of what we needed to do to have the most successful life. And I believe a thousand percent that we were all created to take a breather. That we were supposed to kill it, but at some point you better take a breather in order to then re re rock. You know, um, I found a while ago I was working seven days a week for a while, while I built my two businesses. And I got to the point where I was getting, so we're at war out that I was actually getting burnt out. And, um, I actually went to church one time and the pastor actually spoke about the breather about the reason for a Sabbath, an actual breather and how important it was. And I started taking part of Sundays off. And when I did that, I actually. Made more money. I had more energy throughout my week. I found that I was following a path of something I was created to do in a sense of taking a breather. So we do it on even a larger scale. That actually every quarter we try to plan, even if it's just a three-day weekend. A vacation. Uh, getaway something that we can go to. And every year, hopefully we try to plan a big vacation, something that we can for a week, truly check out. And if you do that, like all of a sudden, I mean, anyone who travels, if you've got any kind of wanderlust in you, if you've even gone to a place that really like all of a sudden rejuvenated. Your, your idea of what the world was. There is something that they say that if you travel, that opens up your eyes to what the world can be, you know, and, and all of a sudden you'll never be the same again. So we tried on, on. Pretty much a quarterly basis plan, something that does that for us. It's a reset. It's a chance to see the world in a different light and truly what it does for us in our souls, our spirit, and in our bodies. Is it Reese? It gives us energy. Yeah, in brand new, beautiful ways. And we get to experience that together and it's beautiful. Yeah. And we create, we have so much more intimate time too, because we were not running around, you know, like there's exclusive time when you're traveling, just being intimate and having. Lots of more sex. Yeah. Well, you can't do that. I mean, you can do that at home, but let's face it. We all have the, to do lists at home. If you're doing it and trying to take a break at home, a staycation is a lot harder because you think of all the things you want to do, right. But if you actually take yourself out of the home environment where normally you would be doing all the things that you do. Yeah, and you go somewhere else. You're kind of given yourself a, well, I guess I can't do all that. I guess, I guess we'll have to go ahead and relax. You know, it almost gives you like the okay. To go ahead and do what you're supposed to be doing in the first place, which is chilling the hell out together, you know, and connecting and taking time. And we have, we have ones that we hike and we do other things, you know, activities, or we have ones that where we just totally just man, Vibe out chill. Take it easy and really connect together. So important. And I love it. I love our vacations and our time together actually. Actually just thought of two other things that we do. As you're talking. So we're not done, but we're going to be done here soon. I love that we're very transparent with each other. And I don't know that it's necessarily a habit. It's more like, I guess it has habits. It just comes natural and we do it. So for example, he's on his phone. He's home after work. Or on the weekends, he'll tell me who he's texting. I don't have to ask him. Yeah. Vice versa. Yeah. Yep. Or, oh, Hey, I have to do, I have to just send an email really quick. Like he didn't just disappear to go to his office or myself either. There's a difference between being honest and being transparent. That's right. You can be honest after the fact. Oh yeah, I was doing so-and-so like, what's the person already, maybe got upset or got annoyed that you just disappeared or the other, person's not giving you attention, but when you're just transparent. I think that that helps too, that I think it's a healthy habit to have, because it, it builds that trust that we talked about in part one, It's transparency, leaving your phone around, like all these things that those are, I don't guess they're not really habits, but they're. Transparency. Things that you can do to help build more trust. And more connection because at the end of the day, that's all we want. It's more connection. Oh, and to build that trust. I mean, we all want to like to look at your partner and be like, I fully trust that person. You don't do that without intentionally doing it, you know, actively doing things to do. I just set that out. I mean, You're right. We pick up, I mean, anytime that we're both texting people or we've got, Hey, I've got customers trying to get up with me, let me just reply to them really quick. You know, all that's doing is showing great respect for the person that you're with, you know, and if you're willing to do that, Yeah. It might not be that important, you know, or they might be like, ah, you don't have to tell me that. But you know, being able to actively do that, what that does for building trust together. Yeah, I mean, That goes a long way. Yeah. And I'll leave it at the spicier one that I just thought about. And while we were deciding about sex and I was like, well, I think it's important to connect that way. Yeah. Physically. And for men, you guys connect that way the most, like that's how you feel the most connected from an that's just the truth. We feel we need the emotional connection. And you guys feel like you need the physical, not that we don't need the physical and you don't need the emotional, but in the hierarchy of needs, one's more important to one person than the other. Sure. Don't go more than like two days without. Around my menstrual cycle. That's a little harder, but there's still other ways you can connect physical. Get creative ladies. Y you all know that lady, she. We all know the answer. Yes. Like keeping that as an important thing too. And it's like, keeping like, okay, well, am I going to go a whole week without just cause I'm busy, you know, like keep it important and keep it spicy. Well back to any of these successful relationships. Like you. You don't have to search very far where they're asking an older couple. How did you, how did you stay connected? And usually intimacy is one of the things that they say. Yeah, it's true. Uh, there was, there was actually, I saw it as a wedding photographer. I just saw this recently. Where they S. I saw a post that said this, this old guy had the best, toast for the wedding. You know, couple of anyone out there, they had a whole list of people who were toasting, you know, this couple. And it was like a great big wedding. And finally the. The oldest people there were. The couple wa hobbled on up together, you know, he was holding her up, she was holding him up and said, what kind of, you know, what, what, what can you tell the winning couple today? And, and the old guy, everyone like was quiet and all of a sudden the old guy got up and he said, all I can say, folks is, I hope. The only all the ups and downs of life you have or in the sheets. Oh, my gosh. That is funny. And he's, uh, and they all said, Mike drop, that's it. That's all we got folks. That's the best one yet. That is awesome. That is very important. It's there for a reason. Make it a priority. And that's all we have for you guys. I hope these tangibles help, even if you just adopt one of ours or hopefully it sparks and enlightens you to start your own, like this is just helps us because it's us. Maybe some of them help us, maybe some of them don't, but at least try something and create your own habits and your relationship. You will thank us later. So worth it. Yes. Yes. All right guys, talk to you next week. As we come to the close of this episode, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude and admiration for you. Taking the time to show up for yourself is an act of self love. And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit. And also, if you love this episode, please rate and review us. When you do, screenshot your review and email it to us for a special gift. Our Rediscover Yourself Worksheet. This worksheet includes exercises to help you uncover your authentic self, and assess the areas of your life that are misaligned with the true you. Email it to info at maria fuentes dot net. Also stay connected with us on social media for updates and more inspiration. You can find all this information in the show notes. Again, thank you for being here and I cannot wait to continue this journey together.