Stronger Marriage Connection
It's often said that marriage takes work. The Stronger Marriage Connection podcast wants to help because a happy marriage is worth the effort. USU Family Life Professor Dr. Dave Schramm and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Liz Hale talk with experts about the principles and practices that will enhance your commitment, compassion, and emotional connection.
More than ever before, marriages face obstacles, from the busyness of work and daily hassles to disagreements and digital distractions. It's no wonder couples sometimes drift apart, growing resentful, lonely, and isolated.
The Utah Marriage Commission invites you to listen and discover new ways to strengthen and protect your marriage connection today!
Stronger Marriage Connection
Resilience in Marriage: Navigating Stressors Together | Nathan Leonhardt | 137
How do you transform relationship challenges into opportunities for growth? What does it mean to truly flourish together beyond mere happiness? When hardship strikes, what separates couples who crumble from those who emerge stronger?
Dr. Nathan Lenhart, assistant professor at Brigham Young University and author of "The Science of Virtue," tackles these profound questions with refreshing clarity. He introduces the concept of "capital R Resilience" versus "lowercase r resilience" – distinguishing between transformative crucible experiences and smaller but meaningful gains from everyday challenges.
Through the practical ABCX model (Stressor + Resources + Perception = Stress Response), Dr. Lenhart unpacks how couples can navigate everything from cancer diagnoses to daily work-family conflicts. He emphasizes that our resources (community support, extended family) and especially our perception of events dramatically affect our resilience trajectory. As he poignantly notes, sometimes the question isn't "why did this happen?" but rather "how can we make the most of this time together?"
The conversation deepens as Dr. Lenhart challenges our culture's fixation on happiness and satisfaction, which he describes as "fragile" and often "hollow" when pursued individualistically. Instead, he advocates for relationship flourishing – characterized by meaning, belonging, and growth – as a more stable foundation that withstands life's inevitable storms. His cross-cultural research reveals how Americans who chase happiness often end up less fulfilled than those in more relationally-focused cultures, suggesting our approach to happiness itself might need recalibrating.
Perhaps most thought-provoking is Dr. Lenhart's assertion that virtues like gratitude, forgiveness, and humility underlie truly successful relationships, more fundamental than even communication skills. "It doesn't matter how effectively you're communicating if you're communicating your distaste for each other," he observes. His recommendation to find inspiring relationships to emulate acknowledges that transformation often begins with inspiration rather than instruction.
Whether you're facing acute trauma or chronic stressors in your relationship, this episode offers both practical frameworks and profound wisdom. Listen now to discover how you can not just survive challenges together, but genuinely flourish through them.
Visit our site for FREE relationship resources and regular giveaways:
Strongermarriage.org
Podcast.stongermarriage.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strongermarriage/
Facebook Marriage Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/770019130329579
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongermarriagelife/
Dr. Dave Schramm:
Dr. Liz Hale:
http://www.drlizhale.com
On today's episode, dr Liz and I welcome Dr Nathan Lenhart to the show. He breaks down different types of stressors and resilience and shares some helpful research insights on trauma, transcendence and flourishing in couple relationships. He then offers some research-backed facts on relationships and sexuality, religion and the role of virtues. Nathan Lenhart is an assistant professor of family life at Brigham Young University. He studies virtues and flourishing in close relationships and teaches a course about resilience in family life. He has over 50 academic publications and his research has been featured in popular news outlets such as Psychology Today, daily Mail, cnn and Men's Health. He recently co-authored a book entitled the Science of Virtue A Framework for Research. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, welcome to another episode of the Strongman Marriage Connection Podcast. I'm Dr Dave here at Utah State University, alongside Dr Liz Hale, our psychologist. We're aiming to bring you the very best we have in research and resources, along with a few tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. All right, friends. Our guest today is a good friend. He's a great colleague who I've worked with over the last few years on some projects and papers tied to virtues. He was recently hired well, a couple of years ago at Brigham Young University. He's known for his great work related to resilience and flourishing as well.
Speaker 1:Here to discuss those topics and more is Dr Nathan Lenhart. Welcome to the show, my friend. Hey, thanks a lot for having me. All right, nate, we're going to jump right in here. When I hear the word resilience, I mostly hear people talking about it and describing it as the ability to bounce back, or to bounce back better or stronger. As we talk about resilience today, can we just set things up for our discussion? What is resilience and why is it important, individually and as a couple?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the definitions that you put forward and, if I can add to that a little bit, I personally love the crucible metaphor, the idea of going to the refiner's fire, if you will, and allowing that fire to kind of burn off some of the rough pieces and create something new. It can be transformative. So the idea of taking the hardest of things that we have in life and somehow using them for our gain and transforming us into something better and there's something to be careful with that. I think there might be a difference between a capital R resilience and a lowercase r resilience, as I would describe it, where you have some stressors, some things that are really hard in life, that lead to a net positive, a net gain, of which you become better holistically as a person and you're able to accomplish more good in the world. There are some hard things that might be so intense that it's hard to view the experience as a net gain as a whole, and in that perhaps it's more valuable, this pain for the rest of our lives. But is there at least something small of value that I can take from this? For example, many people will describe how having someone close to them die being a motivating factor in their own professional or personal lives and being more aware of those types of things. So that might be an example of the lowercase r-resonance, but again, the general idea of what benefits, what can be gained from going through some hard things. So that's more of the definition side. As far as why does it matter, I think it's just the question of we don't want to remain broken. It's inevitable that brutal things are going to happen to us in our lives and unfair things, and I think every person that I've met, if I talk with them long enough, they have a story of sufficient tragedy that it can bring me to tears and I think, just knowing that everyone has that type of thing, we need to have a sense of resilience in order to try to deal with that in the best way possible.
Speaker 2:Getting more specifically to the couple level why it's so critical for couples I think it's important to recognize that in any intimate relationship where you truly get to know a person, that person is both a safe haven and a stressor. So the fact that I mean, hopefully, the people you choose to have close, intimate relationships with are predominantly more of a safe haven force, but as a stressor they're going to be different from us and they're going to present different challenges that we have to deal with. There's research from John Gottman suggesting that about two-thirds of conflicts in marriage are perpetual, meaning they're never completely resolved. So, yeah, it's inevitable that at some point your spouse is going to do things that hurt you and you're going to have to be able to work with each other in figuring out how to apologize, forgive and move forward and try to be better in facing some of those things. And even on the outside, chance that you happen to find that perfect person. That is all safe. Haven't had no stress, or let me know if you ever find someone like that.
Speaker 3:Let's say thought exercise.
Speaker 2:You do happen to find someone like that hard things are going to happen to that person that you care so deeply about. So, even if they're not the source of stress in your relationship, anything that is hard for them is going to be hard for you because of how much you care about them. So, once again, resilience being so critical in this person that I love deeply is in pain. I'm feeling pain for that. How can we approach this in a way that's resilient and working together and approaching whatever pains being experienced by this person that's dear to me?
Speaker 1:Man, Nate, there's so much there. Liz, yeah, we have to unpack it, Like when they hurt. Yeah, it's true, I hurt, right. I remember my again, my wife's brain surgery, you know, years ago, and it was, yeah, traumatic for me and for her, but resilience wasn't like okay, yeah, we're going to be. You know, all of a sudden she's, she's better. You know, her brain is all of a sudden better than it ever was. But all of a sudden I appreciated things. I didn't take things for granted and I and I made commitments to be like, okay, I'm going to treat her better, Right, Like the queen that she is, because of how fragile life is. And so, man, I love so much there that I've never thought about the capital R and lowercase r yeah, isn't that great, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3:I really love that too. I think it's so respectful of the things that we go through right. Some really are the capitals, and I just think that's a lovely way to differentiate that. It's very humbling to think I am both for my husband. I am both safe and stressful. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure that's the case even in this working relationship, dave. I'm safe and stressful. I think this is just such a great topic, nathan. Can you let's see yeah, I'm so sorry I was like what I do love this topic, nathan Can you give us some practical examples on what resilience looks like in couple and family dynamics?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a framework used in research and also really practical used in a lot of therapy settings. That's called the ABCX model and I talk about this constantly in my class on family resilience and this is something that's been used really heavily in family stress and resilience research since the mid to early 1900s, so it's extremely well established and used a really long time. So the ABCX model, breaking down those letters, the A is the stressor or the event, the B the resources, c perception, and then the X is basically the degree of stress or the reaction to the stress. So just talking through an example to get a sense of the practicality of this, let's say that a family member is diagnosed with cancer. So that would be the A, that would be the stressor, event, and then the resulting level of stress or the reaction to the stress, the X. It's going to depend very heavily on the resources that are available and also the perception of the event. So, justin, as an example, you have a family member spouse that's diagnosed with cancer. Consider the resources that are available. There's going to be potentially major upheaval. Is this a spouse? Maybe it's the breadwinner spouse? Are there going to need to be rearrangements in the couple of the non-cancer person having to go back to work that hasn't worked in a while. Maybe it's the homemaker spouse. Well, how on earth are these kids going to be looked after with this parent that is diagnosed with cancer? So you have that main stressor event and then a bunch of smaller stressor events that might be connected to that.
Speaker 2:So you look at something like resources. Are the ways to bring in, for example, extended family members community A lot of people in Utah have church communities, for example or is that a resource that can be activated of? Hey, we're in over our heads. Can we get a little bit of help in watching kids? There's all sorts of things that might be considered with that.
Speaker 2:And then, on the subject of resources, I think that one of the hardest things for us to do sometimes is to just utter the four-letter word of help. I think that there's many people that have resources at their disposal but they might be hesitant to access some of those for a variety of different reasons. Often, what happens with a major stressor event is in the days and weeks immediately afterwards there's this huge rush in of support, but then a month, two months, three months down the line, there's an acclimation to that and all of a sudden there's not the same outpouring of support when things might actually be getting worse with something like the cancer diagnosis. So being able to have ongoing conversations and realization how to access our most important resources is important. That's on resources.
Speaker 3:So B is resources, right, it's one to clarify B is resources, yep.
Speaker 2:So B is resources. Right, just wanted to clarify B is resources, yep, thank you. So B resources, C, again, a big thing that helps from the stressor and having a more effective, more likely, resilient response to it. C is the perception and, dave, I think the example that you gave earlier actually speaks to this point really well. So an example of a perception might be something called mortality salience, so this belief that life is precious, that it's short, that we have to make the most of the time that we have.
Speaker 2:So you think about a cancer diagnosis. There's a lot of different ways a family might perceive that particular stressor. Some people might perceive it as this is unsolvable, like we're doomed, there's nothing we can do about this. Some people might go so far as just ask questions like why did this happen? Like, is God punishing me? Is something that people might ask for? Something that's so unexplainable like this, or out of our control, out of our control, but asking more questions of how can we make the most of this, or how can we make the most of the time we have, how can we use this to draw closer as a family? These are the examples of perceptions and the way you view that event, viewing life as being finite, precious, short, and taking advantage of that and realizing tomorrow isn't promised and we need to make the most of the time that we have.
Speaker 1:That's powerful, nate. As you're talking about some of these examples, I think in my own life there's been like one time or acute events versus chronic or perpetual stressors. I mean, and I'll give you a concrete example of our daughters getting married this coming Saturday, right, so it's a stressor. I mean it's a good stressor but it's still a stressor. There's a lot of things We've got to make details and phone calls and money and all these things that are working up to this big event that we know that's going to the end. Know, the end, the event, the marriage, right, it's not going to end the actual wedding, yeah, that ceremony and the stressor is going to end.
Speaker 1:But some of it is like, okay, we've had another, you know daughter get married. So we've been through this before. So our perception, you know this is we can do this, we can make it, we've got resources and great, you know he's a great guy with a great family and so the communication and things there. But it's still it does kind of spill down to us and it even spills down to our other children because they kind of get different parents who are in this high intensity, you know stress mode. So that's one that immediately came to mind in my own life. So, nick, can you walk us through a little bit about the difference in resilience, or is there a difference in these acute kind of one-time things versus cancer, for example, or these chronic things or poverty or disability, things that are going to last a long time, and the impact I guess that has on the specifically on the couple relationship?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that. Yeah, there's certainly different flavors of stressors and different flavors of resilience that are going to be found in these types of things. So, on the one hand, something that might be a one-time thing trauma is an intense amount of distressing change in a short amount of time, change in a short amount of time. So that might actually be something that's more one-time, instantaneous, but can be so dramatic in its effect that it requires a complete reappraisal of everything that you thought was true. An example of this might be something like infidelity. You have this idea of who your spouse is and our identity is so closely tied into who our spouse is that someone's unfaithful to you. It raises all sorts of questions of who am I married to and who am I? How can I trust the people closest to me? How can I trust myself? Am I gullible? Am I someone that's taken advantage of? So you can have something that might be one time more acute, if you will, but the degree is so intense that it's going to require a different response due to the trauma that's involved. Meanwhile, there are things that might be chronic, daily stressors, like work-family-life balance. That's highly unlikely to bring a traumatic response, but it's more likely to have kind of this ongoing negotiation and consistent challenge in. Okay, uh, we figured this out today. Do we have this figured out tomorrow? We figured this out for what this semester of school looks like. But what happens with this next semester of how classes work with schedules? We have things figured out right now with our kids that are five, three and one. Is this configuration going to work when all of our kids are no longer at home and, using a more stereotypical example, mom's starting to get a little bit restless during the day because kids aren't at school anymore?
Speaker 2:There's this constant reconfiguration for some of these more constant stressors and, yeah, I would say that the more consistent the nature of the stressor, the more consistent the nature of the negotiation. The more dramatic the nature of the stressor, the more dramatic the nature of the stressor, the more dramatic need of a more dramatic intervention. So, with a lot of those daily stressors, those are often solvable between couples and being able to talk through things, negotiate, figure things out day, week, month, quarter of a year, at a time when there's some more intense trauma involved, even if that's something that's a little bit shorter and a one-time event because of the intensity of the distress surrounding that. That might require a little bit of therapy, for example, in dealing with this complete reappraisal of how this has turned life upside down. So, yeah, those are just a couple of examples, but the general principle I would say is that, yeah, there's definitely going to be different flavors of stressors and different flavors of adapting and resilience in connection with those.
Speaker 1:And it still comes back. It seems like I mean the takeaways, resources, drawing on your resources, learning to do things differently, from a different perspective, or with compassion or patience, or whatever that is, but the combination of the resources and perception are key, regardless of the types of stressors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very common principles involved. Yeah, very, very common principles involved, but the flavor of how those might be applied are certainly going to vary from stressor to stressor. That's one of the reasons why it's such an effective framework the ABCX model is. It has such wide applications, so ranging from infidelity to divorce to a job transition. It can just be applied across so many different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Nate, switching gears a little bit. We've done some fun work together for a few years, publishing some things, presenting on some things. Some of that has been tied to flourishing. I'd love to get your take on what flourishing is in a relationship and what could couples do to flourish these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of this line of work came from just kind of a critique of seeing a lot of studies that focus on satisfaction as kind of the ultimate end-all be-all. And I want to be very clear there's nothing wrong with being satisfied, there's nothing wrong with being happy in a relationship, but flourishing is something that goes beyond that. It goes beyond happiness, for example, is very much based upon happenstance very similar etymology in the word where things that happen to you have a huge influence upon your happiness. That happenstance of that Flourishing is something a little bit deeper. I really enjoy reading Aristotle on the subject. He distinguishes between something called hedonia, which is the pursuit and pleasure and avoidance of pain as kind of the ultimate good, and avoidance of pain as kind of the ultimate good, versus eudaimonia, which is based in kind of this deeper sense of meaning and joy in life that has a little bit more stability, I would say. So in some of the work that I've been doing I've been trying to find ways to better capture what it means to truly flourish in a relationship and what some of those pieces are. So rather than asking things like are you happy with your relationship, are you satisfied with your relationship? Again, good things, but incomplete. How about asking questions like how meaningful is your relationship? What extent do you experience a sense of belonging in your relationship? To what extent are your experiences helping you to grow together as a couple? So kind of shifting that frame to a deeper view of what relationships are and can be.
Speaker 2:This very beautiful vision, and also recognizing the complexity and challenges people can have in life, really loved on a paper we worked on together that I think was capturing some of this. There's something called avoidance attachment, which are basically people that have a really hard time being vulnerable and being intimate in relationships, and we basically found that for those that were more avoidantly attached, they reported greater satisfaction in their relationship the less connected they were, which is not something particularly healthy. So there's something to be said about. People can report happiness and satisfaction from a wide variety of things, but sometimes we get pleasure and satisfaction from things that ultimately aren't the best for us. So there's something to be said about a flourishing perspective of trying to understand what some of these core pieces are to more universal applications of these. Are actually healthy behaviors and healthy aims to happen in a relationship?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, there is that different, that fascinating, we as we study that together, this happiness or satisfaction. It feels more like me, you know it's asking me, are you satisfied? Whereas flourishing feels like it's more of a, of a we, yeah, are we growing, you know? Are we have to have meaning, um, together? So it's more of kind of this, this togetherness, this purposeful.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so I I just, I just love that idea yeah, it's fascinating, and some people actually will say they're happier when they're more detached. Did I get that right?
Speaker 2:That's the basic idea. Yeah, those that were avoidantly attached, avoidantly attached yeah. So those with more avoidant attachment they reported more satisfaction with their relationship the less connected they were.
Speaker 3:Wow, got to think about that. I love this whole idea of flourishing and taking it back to resilience. How are resilience and flourishing tied together? Nate.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say that a flourishing relationship is better equipped to withstand hard things and achieve resilience. So, again, if you're anchoring your relationship in something like happiness or satisfaction, well, what's going to happen when the hard things come? Well, something hard happens. It's really hard to be happy in the moment when your spouse has a cancer diagnosis. It's really hard to be happy in a moment when you experience a child loss, and that's an understandable thing. Happiness is wonderful. It's certainly something that is a beautiful thing to have in life. It's also very fragile. But going back to the cancer diagnosis example, there's research suggesting that, while there might be decrease in well-being with things like satisfaction in the relationship, a lot of people report growth, including spiritual growth, when they have a spouse that they're put in a caregiving position and is dealing with cancer to. Is my relationship meaningful? And that becomes kind of the primary thing I focus on. Am I developing a meaningful relationship that's a stronger anchor in being able to withstand the inevitable, unfair, hard things that life is going to throw at you.
Speaker 2:And just a really interesting study that helped illustrate this point.
Speaker 2:This was a cross-cultural study looking at the pursuit of happiness and what it was doing to people with their quality of life.
Speaker 2:So, asking people the extent to which they're pursuing happiness in their lives and then just how good they're reporting their life to be Like, I believe I'm living a life well-lived. What's fascinating is that in the United States, people that reported a higher pursuit of happiness reported lower well-lived. What's fascinating is that in the United States, people that reported a higher pursuit of happiness reported lower well-being. Meanwhile, in other countries, in like East Asia for example, that are very relationally focused, those that reported a pursuit of happiness reported better well-being because that pursuit of happiness was driving them to form better relationships. It was very relationally focused on points surrounding happiness. So the danger with the way many of us in the United States view happiness in kind of a more individualistic lens, is less likely of fixating on this happiness. Likely of fixating on this happiness, uh, it's less likely to actually lead to overall well-being because it's not always driving that deeper connection in relationships that we really need happiness has to be connected to the connections of others.
Speaker 3:Is that, is that it? That's the key.
Speaker 2:I get that right yeah, so the idea is that when, when, like, pursuing happiness can be perfectly fine insofar as it's driving people to develop deep, flourishing-type connections the issue is often here in the United States the pursuit of happiness becomes a more individual pursuit.
Speaker 3:About me, me myself and I Am I happy. Yeah, yeah, I like it, thank you. About me, me myself and them. Am I happy. Yeah, yeah, I like it, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's not always driving these deeper connections that are needed in order to flourish and truly be resilient in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fascinating. It reminds me of the three needs we're born with safety, satisfaction and connection. But it reminds me of what a professor at BYU once said when I was an undergrad there. He said you can never get me of. What a professor at BYU once said when I was an undergrad there. He said you can never get enough of what you don't need. Use what you don't need will never satisfy you. It's this pursuit of this pleasure and this satisfaction and this drive. If it's not tied to connection in some way in relationships, it'll end up feeling hollow, I guess, and not truly fulfilling and meaningful. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like the word hollow there. Again, we pursue things that we think will make us happy that ultimately don't work that way all the time. It's a pretty common thing and it should be a pretty understandable thing. It's very normal to think that we're on the right track to pursue something, thinking this is going to be what I need, and then ultimately it doesn't end up working out and kind of leads to a reevaluation of sorts.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back after this brief message. And we're back, let's dive right in, nate. I also know your line of research has included over the years a combination of sexuality, of religion and virtues, even.
Speaker 2:How do you see these topics connecting with what we're discussing today? Yeah, so, starting with sexuality, this is actually the topic. That kind of was the starting point in me getting into some of these topics that we're primarily focusing on today. So I started off kind of my primary research interest was on pornography. I was concerned with the influence that it was having on relationships, and that led to just kind of some deeper questions about some of the mixed findings on pornography research. So predominantly, research suggests that pornography is harmful to relationships. But there is enough mixed findings, for example, showing some studies show that when people view pornography together, they're reporting more sexual satisfaction, for example. So I had the question well, why are we getting some inconsistency in these findings?
Speaker 2:So as I dove deeper into the different studies that are out there, I started to realize, oh, we have this issue with the way that people are defining satisfaction. So if you ask someone that's been in a relationship for a few months, how sexually satisfied are you on a scale of one to 10? Do you think that looks the same for a couple that's been married for 20 years On a scale of one to 10, do you think that looks the same for a couple that's been married for 20 years. On a scale of one to 10, how sexually satisfied are you? So I started to realize that, oh, there can be different ideas of what people consider to be satisfying and again, sometimes we can find things that are satisfying that ultimately aren't the best for us in the long term.
Speaker 2:So with something like pornography, this idea that, yeah, so people might use pornography trying to get this deeper fulfillment in relationships, but I would argue that ultimately it's short-lived, that it might quote-unquote, spice things up in certain situations for a period of time, but the long-term ramifications of it, uh, I have real concerns about objectification within pornography, the separation of identity from sexuality, and the basic idea is you can't love someone completely for who they are if you accept a message of sexuality without identity.
Speaker 2:So we have this basic idea here that we dive deeper into what ultimately makes a high quality relationship, particularly a sexual relationship, you can start to understand more clearly oh, this is how and why pornography is inconsistent with what a healthy relationship will look like for people. So that was kind of how this whole line of thought got started and in looking at that it motivated me to ask deeper questions about what a good sexual relationship is moving beyond satisfaction to capturing some of these things like belonging, growth, meaning in the relationship, and from there it just kind of has gone in all these other directions of just relationships as a whole and life as a whole and how we can maximize flourishing and resilience in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Nick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, mate, Please go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it's something to say on sexuality like, yeah, I'm just going to jump to the next one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very good.
Speaker 2:We can stay on that.
Speaker 3:Let's do that, my friend. It's pretty common in private practice to hear about sexual intimacy and the struggles that couples are facing, and you've done a lot of research in this area, even tying it to gratitude, which I'm so curious about. What have you learned that you want to share with our listeners today, those practical tips you've come across, my friend? Yeah, some practical tips.
Speaker 2:Um, there are as many people you can scratch that. Uh, there are. Uh, there are as many sexual relationships as there are relationships between people, right? So at the end of the day, your spouse is going to be the most important expert you can turn to with things like this. Yeah, so with that, I'm a little hesitant of being overly prescriptive of some of these things, but certainly happy to talk about principles and, yeah, there can be some specifics, but I want to start with that caveat of this is so individualized and so specific to each relationship, but some general ideas that, when it comes to sexuality, it's valuable to consider the biological, the psychological and the relational.
Speaker 2:All of these things are working together and in order to have a good sexual relationship, uh, those are all good check-in points of what might be going on.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if the overall relationship you have with your spouse is not good, it's going to be really hard to be fulfilled sexually. At the same, you might have a really great relationship with your spouse. But if you are dealing with some major trauma from past sexual experiences, no matter how good your relationship is with your current spouse, there might be some things that you need to go to therapy to address some of these more psychological points from past hard experiences. You might have things really wonderful in your relationship and you might have a very healthy psychological perspective when it comes to sexuality, but there are some very real biological challenges that make it hard to be fulfilled sexually and that might require a little bit more medical intervention in trying to figure out what's going on there. So trying to focus from all of these different prongs and being able to be open and realize that kind of all of these things need to be working in conjunction with each other is very healthy for maximizing the likelihood of having a better sexual relationship.
Speaker 1:And so just summarizing that Nate, the psychological, the biological right Things in your body, the kind of the way that you process things, view things, and then the relational in that relationship. Yeah, well, said that they all spill over and affect that. But what about some of the other topics religion, virtues, yeah.
Speaker 2:So on the subject of religion, I've been doing a lot of research on sacred experiences and a sense of transcendence, if you will, and this is an idea to still iron out and keep thinking on. But I would argue, in many ways transcendent experiences are kind of the opposite of traumatic experiences. So traumatic experiences are an intense amount of distressing change in a short amount of time. I would argue that in many ways, transcendent experiences are an intense amount of positive change in a short period of time, extremely powerful experiences, and there's actually good research out there highlighting that this is something that can get people out of some really painful ruts. Just one quick example this is from several years ago but it happened here in Utah.
Speaker 2:Chris Williams, drunk driver, killed his wife and two children and there's a really moving experience where he talks about having this sense of transcendence and just kind of this spiritual healing that he had from the pain of that experience to the point that he was able to forgive this young man who killed his wife and kids and became something of a mentor figure to him. It became something of a mentor figure to him. I would argue that that's going something beyond rational type of experience. It's hard to just kind of explain that and logic your way through that type of experience to get to that point of healing. And regardless of what your spiritual or religious beliefs are, there's something to be said about the potential for religion to help us access these types of transcendent experiences that can break us out of being really stuck in this sense of pain and sorrow from the different hard things that life throws at us.
Speaker 3:What Chris Williams went through. I mean, that's what you call the capital R right are right yeah, that um yeah, definitely it's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't I guess it depends on the way you're looking at it definitely a capital. I guess you might say a capitalist stressor or something like that. Um, and I don't know, I don't know if he would describe that experience leading to an overall net benefit in life, but I think it's clear to say that he achieved an incredible amount of resilience where many might deem it to seem impossible to do that under such a painful type of thing like that.
Speaker 3:It's a remarkable story, yeah.
Speaker 1:What about virtues?
Speaker 2:Nate, yeah, so I would argue that virtues are at the heart of success in this area. Lots of people talk about communication, and that's definitely important. Strict definition of communication. What I want to successfully say is understood by my partner. That matters. To successfully say is understood by my partner, that matters.
Speaker 2:At the same time, you might counterpoint that it doesn't matter how effectively you're communicating if you're communicating your distaste for each other. Accurately having my message understood isn't sufficient. With that, I like to joke that there's been practitioners that have used the talking stick so you can only communicate while you're holding the stick and then pass it on to someone else for them to be able to communicate. Sometimes people get so frustrated with each other they just end up wanting to beat the other with the stick. So communication matters, but there's something more at the heart of things. Virtues are a bit deeper and I would argue that successful communication is likely an extension of people who are forgiving, grateful, humble. If you hold these types of virtuous characteristics more, successful communication is more likely to become kind of an offshoot of that, and that's something I'd really love to see more work done on. So there's some research suggesting that interventions surrounding communication don't have the same staying power. It might help things in the short term but it doesn't fix kind of the core issues involved. And again, not saying it's problematic to focus on communication, I'm saying that solely focusing on communication without focusing on some of these deeper, underlying issues is insufficient. So there's some trickiness to it.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people focus on communication because it is quicker and practical of say these things, do these things. Here's how you effectively communicate. It's a lot easier to get to some of the hows. When you talk about some of the virtues, it's like be more humble. Being instructed of that can be a bit more challenging. Being instructed of that can be a bit more challenging. So I think that there's something to be said about trying to inspire virtues in people. Communication can be more effectively interwoven through instruction. I would argue that virtues, we need a lot of inspiration. Find exemplars of people that you want to be like and allow their experiences to inspire you towards developing some of the virtues that are good in relationships with them.
Speaker 3:Nice. I hope you write that book on virtues in marriage.
Speaker 2:So thank you, we love that. Yeah, that's right, let's get going. So thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Just that whole idea, though, and you and I I mean if you've written and talked about this before, uh, in other areas but just this whole idea that it's both it takes both skill and will write this this soft, this open um heart, because, yeah, you can teach all these skills, whileally Goddard likes to say it's like the shiny outside of the sports car, but it's the inside underneath and the engine. That's real where the power is, and that's more about getting our hearts right, our hearts open to being compassionate, yeah, to humble, grateful, all those other types of virtues.
Speaker 2:So yeah, love that Yep, like that language.
Speaker 1:Yeah, singing my tune, my friend. That language yeah, singing my tune, my friend. Well, hey, nate. Before we wrap up, uh, we'd like to ask all of our our guests a couple of questions. Uh, the first one, in honor of the name of our, our podcast the stronger marriage connection. What do you feel like is is a key to a stronger marriage connection?
Speaker 2:I appreciate that language of a key, because there's so many things and uh, yeah, I definitely can't definitively say this is the thing, but it is helpful.
Speaker 2:Uh, just piggybacking off of what I was saying earlier, I'd say to try to find couples that inspire you. So I'd say, be on the lookout for the best relationships that are out there, see what they're doing and let what they're doing motivate you and hopefully you have something more proximal. Hopefully people are able to look to their parents' marriages and be able to find some things. That's not everyone, not everyone. Maybe sometimes they find someone else in the community where they're able to find this beautiful example of what they want to have in their relationship and maybe, if they're struggling with that, they can go to other sources. There are a lot of beautiful stories in literature and film that have very detailed descriptions of how truly inspiring marriages can come to fruition, and I think being on the lookout for those examples and doing our best to have experiences that motivate us to emulate those and trying to follow those examples is one thing that can be very helpful in developing a stronger marriage connection.
Speaker 1:I love that, nate, and in some ways I think back. As you're mentioning that, I mean specific names and faces and couples and people that have inspired me to be a little bit better and in some ways I almost want to say that they're transcendent. Not this overpowering, but like this person has inspired me to be better. I want to be more patient as a husband or be a better dad because of those. So it is. I love that. We have never heard that on the podcast and, yeah, I love that answer. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love what you say there. I think that there's a very close tie between inspiration and transcendent experiences, so yeah, I love the connection between those.
Speaker 3:Dr Lenhardt, please tell us where can our listeners find out more about you, your research and other helpful resources that you would like to share, please?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm happy to send some links for this. You can look me up on a website called Google Scholar. It has a list of everything that I've published. I'm always happy to answer questions that people have on things. You can look at my email and if there's a particular publication that seems interesting to you topic, want to know more about it? I'm very happy to answer questions and chat about it. Want to know more about it? I'm very happy to answer questions and chat about it. I also did recently publish a book. It's not as much focused specifically on marriage, but it does more broadly focused on virtues, so it's called the Science of Virtue, a Framework for Research. The virtue stuff is stuff that sounds particularly interesting to anyone. Yeah, you can definitely look into that book. I'm very happy with the work that me and my co-authors have done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, nate, we're going to plug that. We're going to put links to that our listeners both the Google Scholar and a link to your book in our show notes for our listeners. So go check those out.
Speaker 3:And just real quick, dave, do you mind if I ask Nate? I'm sorry, nate, did you look at William Bennett's book, the Book of Virtue? Is that a really thick book? Say the name again the Book of.
Speaker 2:Virtues by William Bennett. Virtues by William Bennett. I don't know if I've read that specifically Up to this point.
Speaker 3:that's really the only thing I have seen on Virtues. To tell you the truth, I'm sure it's out there. I haven't done a deep dive, but now I've got the Science of Virtue by Nate Lenhart, so good enough. Thank you for telling us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, thank you.
Speaker 1:Nate. Another question we have for you is we like to conclude with? Is really your takeaway of the day? Is there a take-home message you hope our listeners will remember from our discussion today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a couple of quick nuggets. I think it's important to recognize the complexity of relationships and I want to say that nobody is completely whole and nobody is completely broken. We all need people. We all need people close to us. We all need a little help and hopefully, wherever we are on that spectrum of hold to broken, we're able to turn to the people closest to us in establishing more of that sense of resilience, of just truly being able to help each other, because we all need a little bit of help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it, thanks, nate. Able to help each other, because we all need a little bit of help. Yeah, love it, Thanks Nate. Liz, what about you? What's your takeaway today?
Speaker 3:I'm just thinking about that. No one is completely whole or completely broken in how we need each other. It's so beautiful. I love this whole idea, nate and Dave, of anchoring into meaning not so much happiness, but anchoring into the meaning of life, the meaning of this marriage, the meaning of this particular relationship. I love that. And Dave, what about you? What's the richest nugget that you hope we will all remember from our time together with Dr Nathan Lenhart?
Speaker 1:Yeah, nate, I haven't heard the capital R, lowercase r, resilient stuff. So I love that insight. But I think that my biggest takeaway is the traumatic to the transcendent. We've heard of ACEs, all those awful experiences that people can have, those adverse childhood experiences, but also I've seen the HOPE document, the helpful outcomes of positive experiences, and so that's what it kind of reminds me of. But I would love to kind of dive in and learn a little bit more about those transcendent experiences, about the inspirational people, people that want whether it's music or people or experiences that help me, inspire me to be a little bit better and do a little bit better as a husband and as a dad. So, thank you, I love those insights. I'm taking those with me today, so I appreciate that, nate.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Nate, thanks again for coming on, that's all for now.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us today. Our friends, thanks so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1:We'll see you again next time on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection Podcast.
Speaker 3:That's right, and remember it's the small things that create a stronger marriage connection.
Speaker 1:Take good care of yourself. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram, at Stronger Marriage Life, and Facebook at Stronger Marriage, so be sure to share with us which topics you loved or which guests we should have on the show. Next, If you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit StrongerMarriageorg, where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University and you, our audience. You make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.