Detoxing from Bad Marriage Advice

A marriage advice detox can transform your relationship by eliminating harmful myths and replacing them with practical communication skills. Bad marriage advice like "never go to bed angry" or "happy wife, happy life" often sounds good but leads to frustration and resentment when applied to real relationships.

• Identify the marriage beliefs and advice you've been operating under
• Challenge unhelpful advice by asking if it's actually serving your relationship
• Replace false beliefs with communication skills that foster connection
• Implement the 3% rule: daily communication, weekly date nights, yearly check-ins
• Many couples give up prematurely because they're holding themselves to impossible standards
• The common thread in all bad marriage advice is lazy communication
• Write new rules specifically for your marriage instead of following generic advice

My new book "Bad Marriage Advice: Debunking Myths That'll Make You Miserable and What to Do Instead" launches October 1st! Join my launch team by emailing moni@monicatanner.com or sign up for the waitlist at badmarriageadvice.com to be notified when it's available.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Marriage Detox Concept
• 1:48 Why We Need a Marriage Advice Detox
• 4:11 Three Steps to Marriage Advice Detox
• 7:42 Replacing Myths with Communication Skills
• 10:19 Weekly Challenge and Book Announcement

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and we are going to continue in our series talking about bad marriage advice, and today's episode is based on a conversation I had with my husband the other day where we talked about how we needed to detox meaning we've been eating pretty badly these last few months lots of sweets and lots of fast food and things that aren't really great for our body and so periodically we like to just detox, meaning we're eating more healthy, we're being more conscious of the things we're taking into our body, because food is fuel, and so I thought today I would talk about a bad marriage detox. Meaning thinking about and being conscious of what ideas and beliefs go in, especially surrounding the idea of marriage. But when this episode comes out, there's only a couple weeks left until the launch of my book Bad Marriage Advice. So if you would like to be part of the launch team meaning getting the inside scoop on all of these bestseller launch strategies and lots of Q and A's and a special challenge I'm hosting just for my launch team that's going to be all about creating more intimacy in your marriage quickly be sure you email me, monnie, at monicatanercom, let me know you're in for the launch team and I will get you all of the information. What we're asking is super simple just that you purchase a copy of Bad Marriage Advice on launch day and leave a review as soon as you've read it. All right on to today's episode.

Speaker 0: 1:48

Let's be honest. How much marriage advice have you been given over the years from your parents, your friends, your coworkers or even some random person on social media? Are you taking in bad marriage advice or marriage advice that you haven't fully thought through? Because here's the thing about a lot of this bad quippy advice it sounds good. When you hear it, you automatically think, yeah, that seems like it would be good, but it ends up making you feel miserable in your marriage. It's a lot like food Sometimes that comfort food like homemade mac and cheese or something like that. It looks like it would be so good for you, but when you think about the calories and the fat and the just simple carb intake sometimes it gives us a stomachache, right. So I want you to think about the marriage advice you have been given and that you're operating on in your marriage and think about has it actually helped? Today I want to walk you through a marriage detox because, just like your body feels better when you cut out the junk food and focus on real nourishment, your marriage can completely transform when you clear out the junk that's been weighing it down. This episode is really special because, like I said, in just two weeks the book Bad Marriage Advice Debunking Myths That'll Make you Miserable and what to Do Instead launches on Amazon and will be available for purchase. So I'm getting really excited. So let's talk about why we might need a marriage advice detox For one.

Speaker 0: 3:33

A lot of the advice out there can be confusing, contradictory and even harmful. The brain clings to these simple, quippy cliches because they're easy to remember, even when they're not helpful, and over time these myths become like rules, especially, I feel, like older generations that have been handing it down. When somebody we look up to and respect says something like happy wife, happy life or never go to bed angry, it sticks with us. But then we get so frustrated when we're up in the middle of the night arguing, or we feel like our marriage is one-sided and only one person's happiness is really important. Sometimes I think about marriage advice like downloading too many apps on your phone. At first it seems like they're all super helpful, but eventually it starts slowing everything down. It's draining your battery more quickly, and half of the apps are glitchy and don't even work. Marriage advice can be the same way, but it's possible to go through and delete the apps that are not working in order to make your phone run more optimally. We can do the same with bad marriage advice, so I'm going to give you a couple of easy steps here. Step one is identify the junk advice. Now, my book that's coming out really soon is going to help, because it includes 15 pieces of bad marriage advice and why it's bad marriage advice, as well as what to do instead.

Speaker 0: 5:11

This idea of marriage requires compromise, or, if you're fighting a lot, maybe you married the wrong person. Or this idea that love is all you need. I want you to really go through in your mind and maybe get out a piece of paper and a pencil or your journal and write down some of these marriage beliefs that you've been operating by, whether you've been married for days or decades, or you're not even married yet. I want you to think about what is the big marriage advice that I was given, what are my beliefs around it, and is it actually helpful? Step two, of course, is challenge those ideas. If your answer to the question is is it helpful? Is no, many times it's unhelpful. Many times it causes more pain and frustration than I want you to challenge it. I want you to think about is there a better idea that's going to bring more connection and intimacy, and especially communication, into my marriage? For example, never go to bed angry. Could we maybe replace that with? Rest is really important, and so if something doesn't get resolved and it's late at night, we should press pause and revisit it in the morning when we're both fresh.

Speaker 0: 6:32

If you're operating under the assumption that compromise is the only way and you feel like you're giving up so much, maybe you could challenge it with the idea of there has to be a way for both of us to get more of what we want in this relationship. What skills of communication and cooperation can we add so that this partnership feels more collaborative? So, like I said, step two is to poke holes in your beliefs or ideas. If it sounds nice but it feels impossible, that's a red flag. Truth is sometimes hard at the beginning, but it will set you free. It might stretch you, but in this, discomfort is where all the growth and progress happens. So step one is to identify your beliefs around marriage. Step two challenge those beliefs and then step three is to replace those false beliefs and ideas with skills, especially and specifically communication skills. I will tell you that the through line of all 15 pieces of bad marriage advice that I talk about in my book is lazy communication. So what I'm really teaching you in each one of those chapters are skills to communicate more effectively and efficiently.

Speaker 0: 8:01

So detoxing doesn't mean just cutting out the junk. It's really important to replace it with something nourishing. For example, if you're operating on an idea that if my spouse loved me, they would know how to make me happy, they would know what I need at any given moment, you've got to replace that idea with good skills around making requests. It is more vulnerable to make a request because your spouse can either honor it or not, and that is scary, especially if we grew up with the idea that a good person doesn't have needs and desires. Again, that'll give you something to look at and address. If you're operating on this idea that you love each other so much, what could go wrong? Love is all you need. It will get you through anything At some point. That's going to be super frustrating. You have to be willing to replace that with what I call my 3% rule, which is implementing habits of daily communication, weekly date night and yearly relationship check-ins. One of the things I really tried to do with this book is make it fun and funny and easy to get through.

Speaker 0: 9:23

I really truly believe that one of the reasons that so many couples give up prematurely is because they're holding themselves to impossible standards. They think things like we fight too much, maybe we're not meant to be or we're too different, maybe we're just not compatible. But the truth is is you're just following a faulty guidebook? A detox will let you start fresh. It'll give you permission to say that advice isn't really serving us. We're going to write new rules specifically for our marriage. That's what I'm all about. We want to ditch resentment, ditch roommate syndrome, ditch bad marriage advice and get back to writing the happily ever after love story. We want to be remembered for. Remember that your kids and your grandkids and members of your community are watching you. It's not too late to ditch the bad advice, detox it and replace it with things that are nourishing for your marriage.

Speaker 0: 10:29

So here's your challenge this week I want you to do a bad marriage advice detox in preparation for Bad Marriage Advice, the book that's coming out October 1st. Step one write down a few pieces of bad marriage advice that you have been carrying around. Number two ask yourself is this helpful or harmful? And step three replace it with a truth or skill that sets you free. And, of course, if you liked this episode, you are going to love my new book.

Speaker 0: 11:04

It's basically one big detox. It comes out October 1st and I couldn't be more excited to get it in the most hands humanly possible of couples who are striving to live a true happily ever after that they can be proud of. So if you want to be notified the moment it's available on Amazon, be sure to go to badmarriageadvicecom and sign up on the wait list there. And if you wanna be part of this movement and get all the behind the scenes and extra bonuses, join my launch team by emailing me, monnieatmonicatanercom, and I'll give you all the details on how you can help. Marriage deserves better advice, and so do you and every young couple embarking on the adventure of marriage. I want to hear all about your detox, so feel free to send me an email and I will be here, same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriaging.