Ep 136: Friendship: 4 Tools For Keeping You Connected

The #1 thing missing in most marriages isn’t sex or romance — it’s friendship. Learn research-backed tools from The Gottman Institute, Brené Brown, Dr. Andrea Vitz, Vanessa Marin, and Julie Menanno to rebuild friendship and bring desire back — from everyday connection all the way to the bedroom.

Description:

Most couples don’t drift apart because of big fights — they drift because friendship quietly disappears under kids, jobs, chores, and endless demands. In this deep-dive episode of Married and Connected, marriage coach Kameran Alareqi reveals why friendship is the hidden foundation of lasting connection, passion, and even great sex.

Backed by The Gottman Institute (friendship predicts sexual satisfaction), Brené Brown (vulnerability builds trust), Dr. Andrea Vitz (emotional sobriety), Vanessa Marin (responsive desire starts with friendship), and Julie Menanno of The Secure Relationship (secure attachment tools), you’ll get four brand-new, practical tools you can start tonight:

• Rebuild your Love Maps so you truly know each other again
• The Vulnerability Share that creates secure emotional safety
• The Emotional Sobriety Pause that protects friendship in hard moments
• Friendship to Flame — turning everyday connection into bedroom spark

Rooted in real-life parenting and marriage, eight years coaching hundreds of couples (93% success rate), and faith-based wisdom, this episode gives immediate steps for “rebuild friendship in marriage,” “how to feel like best friends again with kids,” “emotional connection to physical intimacy,” and more.

If you’re tired of feeling like roommates and ready to feel like friends and lovers again, this is your turning point.

Book your FREE 30-minute consultation today — no pressure, just honest guidance on 1:1 coaching, couples coaching, or my Skool community.

In the Skool community, men learn healthy, strong masculinity at home and women learn soft, feminine strength as a Proverbs 31 wife.

👉 Book your free consultation
👉 Join the Skool community

👉Kameran's website: www.recognizingpotential.com

👉Work with Dr. Andrea Vitz to gain complete emotional sobriety- email Kameran @ coaching@recognizingpotential.com

👉Register your spouse on the Verafied app

Subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend who’s missing the friendship in their marriage. New episodes every week.

Until next week, stay married and connected.

Keywords / Tags:
friendship in marriage, rebuild friendship marriage, Gottman friendship foundation, Brené Brown vulnerability marriage, emotional sobriety marriage, Vanessa Marin friendship and desire, secure attachment marriage, how to feel like best friends again, marriage connection with kids, friendship to intimacy, Christian marriage friendship

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let's take a quick pause. I want to ask you a serious question. What are you feeding your mind right now? If it's social media, are you tired of doom scrolling through the angry comment sections and political rants yet? What if you use that time to actually fix your marriage? Welcome to the free married and connected school community. It's like social media, but without the ads, without the judgment, and without the noise. Just real self-paced tools that get you out of that roommate phase starting today. Inside, you get an exact blueprint for a weekly State of the Union meeting with your spouse. We're cutting mental load, we're stopping miscommunications, and we're breaking that exhausting loop of doom argument once and for all. Plus, you get instant access to workshops on overcoming resentment and bringing the actual fun back into your marriage. We have a dedicated space just for guys jumping into forging fortitude. It's a 10-week intensive to help you step into your masculine leadership and become the husband and man that God called you to be. And for ladies joining Edifying Eden, we're stepping out of that controlling, nagging era into our soft, nurturing feminine era. Even if your husband hasn't taken the reins yet. Either way, you can take responsibility for your side of the street. Stop scrolling the internet and start investing in your home. The community is 100% free with options to purchase certain courses. Click the link in the show notes and join the Married and Connected school community today. I'll see you inside. Marriage isn't supposed to feel like roommates, but it doesn't have to feel like a war either. Hi, I'm Cameron Alaricki, certified marriage coach and a relationship expert. Every week on Married and Connected, I bring you real talk, hard truths, and practical tools you can start using right away. Whether you've been married two years or 42, this is where you'll find hope, encouragement, and steps that actually work. So let's make your marriage feel good again, starting right now. Hey friend, welcome back to another episode of the Married and Connected Podcast. I'm Cameron Alaricki, your host. I am so excited that you are here today. If you have listened to the podcast for very long, you know that a hill that I will die on, don't laugh, don't judge. I know there's several, but this is a really big one is that friendship is one of the things that is missing the most in marriages. And it's also one of the most important things. We touched on this last week in the episode on desire. And I'm going to touch on it a little bit again here. But if you are new here and this is the first time you've ever listened to this podcast, hi, welcome. And here's what you need to know: there are three things that your marriage has to have. And this is according to Gottman Research. That's where I have my certification from, is through the Gottman Institute. And what I will tell you is that you have to think of your marriage like a house. There are load-bearing walls of commitment and trust. Can't teach you commitment, but trust can be restored. Even if your house is leaning a little bit or all the way to the ground, trust can absolutely be restored. I promise I've done it. That's what I help couples with every single day. But what makes your house feel like a home, what makes your marriage feel warm and fuzzy and passionate and loving and all the things that you want again is the friendship. It's the difference between walking into the house and energy can be felt. This is how you walk into the house and you're like, whoa, people have been fighting here. Whoa, somebody has cooked. Whoa, kids are wilding out. Like you can feel that. You can also feel the friendship in a marriage. And so this is the thing is that I really want people to start being friends again. The hill that I will die on is that marriage should feel like a really fun sleepover with your best friend every single night. That is what I teach couples to have when they come to me. So here's my question to you: if you looked at the friendship that you had when you were dating your spouse versus the friendship that you have now, has it gotten deeper? Has it gotten more fun? Has it maintained that same level of lightheartedness and fun and passion that you had when you were in the dating and the honeymoon stage? If not, the intention of this episode is to get you back to that. Real, everyday, not just I love you, but I like you. And I can't wait to tell you about my day friendship. That's what I want you to have. Most couples that I coach, busy, 30 to 45-year-old parents, just like you, tell me the same thing. We still love each other, we're still committed, but I don't really feel like they're my friend anymore. I don't feel like I can talk to them. The communication really isn't there anymore. We're like passing ships. These are things that I hear over and over and over. And here's what the research proves that missing friendship is the silent predictor of whether your marriage is going to stay connected for the long haul or slowly drift into the roommate territory. Now, maybe you're already in that roommate territory. That is okay. Maybe you are hours away from divorce. That's also okay. Because what I will tell you is, hill number two that I will die on, is any marriage, any marriage can come back from the absolute depths of hell that you are in if both of you want it to. So today we are going straight there. Friendship first, the secret to staying connected. We are pulling from, as always, the most trusted names in the field. Gottman Institute's decades of research on what actually makes couples last. Brene Brown on how vulnerability and trust are even built. Dr. Andrea Vitz on staying emotionally sober so that your friendship can thrive. Vanessa Merrin on how friendship is real, like it's that real on-ramp to desire. And licensed marriage and family therapist Julie Minano, who is episode 44 on this podcast, from the secure relationship on creating secure attachment that feels safe and exciting at the same time. I love all of these people. If you do not follow every single one of them on socials, I would highly recommend resetting your algorithm to do that. You are going to walk away with four brand new practical tools that you can start using immediately because that is what my coaching is all about. I want you to have tangible tools. Because here's the thing, you guys, the biggest thing that I'm seeing as a marriage coach with a 93% success rate over the last eight years is that it's not that people don't want to be married. It's that people want to be married, but they don't want to feel hopeless about it. They don't want to get into an argument and think, God, I recognize the cycle. I understand this is what's happening. I see that this is our pattern, but I don't know how to fix it. I want you to be able to fix it. My coaching is not shame-based. My coaching is here, let me give you some tools to help you. Because I'm gonna be very honest with you, I don't think that people are truly equipped to be married until you've learned how to be married. I wasn't, I wasn't married, I wasn't equipped for either one of my marriages when I got into them. And this is what I see in couples that come to me for reconciliation all the time. We don't know how to do this. We only know the way that we've been doing it, and clearly that's not working. So, what do we do to change that? What do we do to fix that? What do we do? What do we do different? That's where I step in. Here, let me help you. So, here we go. These are not complicated, these are intentional steps that feel doable, even if you've got kids and jobs and soccer and the house and the dog pulling at you in every direction and all things. So by the end, my hope for you is that you will either be thinking, eh, this is straightforward. I can totally do this starting tonight. Or you will know that it is time to book a call with me and get a little bit of extra support in that way. Either way, you're gonna have a clear path forward. So let's dive in. So the research is actually pretty blunt about this. The Gottman Institute has studied thousands of couples for over 40 years, and their clearest finding is that the strength of the friendship between partners is the single biggest predictor of long-term satisfaction and sexual connection. Couples with solid friendships handle conflict better, you recover faster from arguments, you're more willing to repair, you have more emotional safety, you have more connection, you have more emotional intimacy, which then leads to a great physically intimate life. And that is what surprises most people is that friendship is directly correlated to desire. Not just a great physically intimate relationship because you've gotten into the act and it's great during, but also it's that it's the difference between the higher libido. One of the biggest causes that nobody talks about of low libido is resentment. Well, where does resentment come from? No friendship. Brene Brown puts it this way: trust is built in the small moments when we choose to be vulnerable instead of armored up. Well, guess what? When friendship is strong, you feel safe enough to let your guard down. When you play baseball, like I talk about all the time, after your partner bats and they tell you something, you run to first space, you have emotional safety. You allowed them that space to tell you what they needed to tell you. You didn't get defensive, you didn't get judgmental, you didn't throw a fit, you didn't start conflict over it. You listened to understand you were curious instead of having emotional insobriety, all of those emotionally triggered behaviors. That's first base. Second base, connection, third base, emotional intimacy. I think people get scared of emotional intimacy because they don't truly know what it is. There's a they say that fear is a lack of knowledge. I think that absolutely applies in this situation. With lack of emotional intimacy, it's because we're scared of it, especially if you're a dismissive avoidant attachment style or even fearful avoidant that leans heavily dismissive. There's a fear of emotional intimacy of truly being known. And so what happens is you don't want to be vulnerable with your partner to let them know you so you keep it all clammed up. But not only does that keep you from being fully loved, because you can't be fully loved if you're not fully known, it also keeps you from having the emotional intimacy. And if you're male, it keeps you from having the emotional intimacy that your wife needs first in order to feel safe and open and vulnerable to actually open up to receive you. Whereas if you're female, you shut that down and you keep yourself from having that emotional intimacy that you need in order to have the great physical intimacy. Well, if you're male or if your partner is male, that's what they need the most in order to have the emotional intimacy. They get that connection from the sex where you get it before having the desire to have sex. Does that make sense? Julie Menano from The Secure Relationship teaches that secure attachment isn't just for parent-child relationships. It is the glue in your marriage too. And this is also part of your emotional insobriety. Emotional insobriety is like the umbrella, whereas love languages, apology languages, your attachment style, all that is underneath the umbrella. When you consistently show up with empathy and emotional responsibility, your partner stops walking on eggshells and starts turning toward you. When you turn toward them again, number one, that's what you did when you were dating, and again, something else. There's like eight hills that I've mentioned in the last 12 minutes of this podcast. But with this, the hill here is when you were dating, you set the expectation. You were warm, you were loving, you were empathetic, you listened, you put intention into the dates, you called, you were present, you cared. Wow, care is a really big one. You were intentional about this person. You wanted to spend time with them. You wanted to spend every waking moment with this person. Where did that go? Why aren't you like that now? Hurt it is physically impossible to go through a relationship without getting hurt in some way, shape, or form. You can't do it. You're working with people. People hurt people until you have worked through your emotional in sobriety. And even then, you may have a jagged tone or something like that that you still have to apologize for. So when that's happening, when you become completely secure, when you become completely emotionally sober, you also build the capacity to have more fun in your life. So you have a deeper friendship, you have a stronger friendship. Dr. Vids talks about this being the ability to stay present and regulated. And without that, even the best friendships get hijacked by reactivity. Responsive desire, which we also talked about last week, is the kind that most of us have after kids. It almost always starts with friendship, though. You simply can't want to have sex with somebody that you don't like, that you aren't friends with. When you feel like friends first, the physical spark has room to come back naturally. Now let's think about this, okay? I keep talking about this friendship, and you're like, yeah, I am friends with my partner. Well, are you? Do you talk to them like a friend or do you snap at them? Do you ignore them? Do you leave their texts on read for eight, nine hours a day? Do you listen without the intent to fix? Do you validate? You do all of these things for your partner. You respond back to texts quickly, you care, you are intentional, you want to tell them about certain things, your day, things that they'll enjoy. You send reels to them that, like, oh, hey, they would really enjoy this. You send jokes back and forth, you joke around with each other. Everything is lighthearted. If there's a problem, do you jump in and judge? Or are you like, hey man, it's okay. Like, let me let me fix this. Hey, sis, let me fix this. Like, let's work together on this. Is that the same dynamic that you have with your partner? Something to think about. Scripture backs this up beautifully. Proverbs 27, 17 says, iron sharpens iron. Friends make each other better. Here's the fun part about that, though. I was just talking to a friend this morning. She called me. She was like, hey, my husband, she was griping about her husband, not doing certain things. And I was like, okay, so here's the thing. We we assume that friends are gonna be like, oh yeah, they're totally right in the wrong. You're absolutely right. That's not a true friend. A true friend is gonna look at that and be completely unbiased and say, I am for you, therefore I am for your marriage. So are you like that? Are you being nitpicky? Are you having anxiety over things that he's already figured out? Another friend. And this is also something a lot of us are friends with the opposite sex. Now, for some of you, some of you think that that's okay. Some of you, you're like, no, absolutely not. I have always been the type of woman that has a lot of guy friends. However, this is also, and not trying to toot my own horn here, but from a value perspective, I consider myself a high-value woman because I respect their marriage because I respect my friend. Respecting your friends also means respecting their spouse. That means not calling after a certain time, not indulging information or having the same types of conversations that you would have before you two were married, you or them. There is a high level of respect there. And being a friend with people, you sharpen them. Iron sharpens iron. That means you are always pushing each other to be the best version of yourself. Now, when you're married, it's the exact same way. You're always pushing each other to be the best version of yourself. But what happens is we start taking offense to that once we get married. Oh, you're telling me I need to go to the gym? Well, yeah, you've gained 25 pounds, sis. I'm worried about your health, but we get offended by that. And I'm guilty of this too. I absolutely did this in my marriage. I gained 45 pounds. And Mo was like, hey, like, and he was kind about it. You know, you don't have to be a jerk about it. But it was like, hey, let's work out together. And it was automatically, oh, I'm not good enough for you. No, I'm not saying you're not good enough for me. But as a friend, I care about you. I want you to be the best version of yourself. And I see something that you don't see. You're close, you're too close to the trees to see the forest. Allowing people to say, hey, this is what I'm seeing that maybe you're not is very vital to a friendship. That means friends outside of your marriage, and also, and most importantly, the best friend that you sleep next to and shower with and eat 80,000 meals in your lifetime with. Jesus himself called his closest followers his friends. God designed marriage to include deep friendship, not just partnership. So how do we rebuild it when life has quietly pushed that to the side? Here's your tools. Tool number one the daily fondness and admiration spotlight. This is Gottman's simplest friendship builder. Okay. The Gottman Institute discovered that those who stay happily married maintain a habit of noticing, that's first, and verbally expressing fondness and admiration for each other. Even in the middle of chaos, in the hundreds of couples that I have coached over the last eight years, this is what typically ends up happening. This is going to come really easy for one of you, and it's going to be very difficult for the other. Maybe it's because you have a hard time being grateful. Maybe it's because you have a hard time expressing yourself, finding the words. There is a multitude of reasons why this happens. But it is very important. Not too long ago, I was working with a couple that when they first came to me, she was just pissed. Just pissed all the time. And as it typically happens, they had been in therapy for, I don't know, two or three years. And she said, I don't, I don't feel like we're getting anything out of the therapist sessions because the therapist just keeps saying, well, tell them three things that you like about each other every day. I don't like him. I don't know what to say. So I don't, I don't like him. I don't have anything. So this is really difficult for me. That may be a reason too. Totally understand. And here is why they do this. So if you are in therapy right now and you are listening to this, this is where your therapist is trying to go with this. Okay. I will also say, though, that therapists throw you in this in the very beginning and you're not ready for it. They're trying to do that, but they're basically putting the cart before the horse. So it's something that you have to build up to. And it starts in your own mindset. Okay. Here is the deal: is that when you are in a season where you, especially if you're like hours away from divorce, or if you are in a roommate season, you don't like your partner, any of those or any of the gamut of those, what's happening is that in your brain, you have what's called negative sentiment override. All you can think about is the negative things of your partner. He doesn't put the seat back down, she doesn't fold the clothes right away after they come out of the dryer. She just throws them on the couch and they stay there for a week. Whatever the case may be. You start telling them something that you like about them every single day. Two to three things, preferably, and not just on what they do. I like you that you did the dishes. I like that you did bedtime and bathtime. I like that you walked. The dog. No, we're gonna focus on who they are. I love that you are so empathetic to those who have less than us. I love that you are so compassionate with your aging parents or with my aging parents. I love the way that you stepped in and handled that situation with our five-year-old who was having a meltdown over the fact that I gave him the blue cup when he just chose the blue cup, but now he doesn't want the blue cup, he wants the green cup. Thank you for handling that so that I didn't lose my ever-loving mind. Those are the kinds of things that we need to appreciate about each other every day. Thank you for being flexible and understanding in this situation. Something like that. Now here's your tool. What I would like you to do is that every day, maybe before bed or first thing in the morning, look at your spouse and do uh Megan and Casey Caston over at Marriage 365 talks about they call it a 60-second blessing. It doesn't have to take more than two minutes. You take one minute, they take one minute. You say three things that you like about them. And again, not thanks for taking all the trash. Something like, I really admire how patient you were in this situation. Be specific, especially because if your partner or you have a dismissive avoidance attachment style, what's gonna happen is you don't do well with generics. You need specifics in order to understand what your partner is talking about. Make it specific, make it genuine. Try not to repeat a lot. The Gottman's data shows that this one habit alone dramatically increases the I like you feeling and protects your friendship, especially during stressful seasons. Now, as with any tool that I give you, consistency is going to be the key. So I want you to do this tool for about two weeks. I promise you, you will notice the tone start to shift in your house. Tool number two. This one is from Julie Minano, and she talks about a rupture and repair check-in. I've talked a lot about this on my Instagram, maybe not as much in the podcast, but it is something that I find is extremely important in marriage, and that is that you are always gonna have small rupt. That is inevitable in your marriage. Moments when you feel dismissed or unseen or disconnected. However, the couples who stay close are the ones who repair those moments quickly. Okay. So you're gonna try this short check-in twice a week. Takes maybe five to seven minutes. If you have a partner, especially if you are in aviation, because I know a lot of my clients and a lot of you listeners are in aviation or on the road quite a bit. You travel a lot for work. This is something that you can even do through voice text. Okay. One of you starts, hey, is there anything from the last few days that you are feeling a little disconnected or unseen on? The other person is gonna answer honestly, but briefly, big part, briefly. Then the listener is going to repair with a simple statement. Hey, I hear you. I am so sorry that I did this, this, and this, or that I'm so sorry that I dismissed you in this moment. Here's how I'm gonna show up differently next time. Will you will you forgive me? Five-finger apology. I've talked about that multiple times too. Don't defend, don't explain. Just take ownership and have empathy. It is not that hard. And yet, it is our emotional in sobriety that keeps us from doing that. Julie's work shows this pattern, builds your secure attachment really fast. And when attachment feels secure, your friendship starts to feel effortless again. And that's what we all want and love. Tool number three, emotional sobriety. The friendship anchor. This is Dr. Vitz's tool for staying connected under pressure. Dr. Viss's research on emotional sobriety, and she is, gosh, she's had, she's been a guest on the podcast multiple times, and she's got another episode coming up in a few weeks on maturity that you don't want to miss. Her friendship anchor technique is simple and powerful. This one is for parents. So the next time you feel the tension rising, kids are fighting, schedules clashing, tones getting really short with each other. Pause and just ask yourself these three questions. Am I reacting from an old wound or from a present moment? Is my partner the enemy right now? Or is this just a hard moment that we're in together and actually not working together on it? And the third one is what would what would my best friend do in this situation? What would my best friend do? Or reframe that to say, how would I handle this if it were my best friend coming to me in this situation? And then speak and act from that compassionate, loving, anchored place. Dr. Vitz has a book coming out next month called The Composure Challenge. I am an advanced reader on it right now. You guys, so good. So freaking good. And she talks a lot about stuff like this in there. Dr. Vit says that the single practice practice keeps your friendship intact even when life is loud. It turns potential blow-ups into moments that actually deepen your connection. Tool number four. This one is going from friendship to flame. Vanessa Marion's bridge to the bedroom and adding in Brene Brown's vulnerability layer here, friendship is your spark plug. So here is a progressive four-week path that moves from plain friendship to spicy, because we like spicy. Weeks number one to two, friendship touch reset. We talked about this last week. Spend 10 minutes a night cuddling or holding each other with absolutely zero expectation of sex. Talk about your day, share your um, some people call it buds and thorns. A previous client that I had calls it they're happy and they're crappy, a win, a stress, something like that. This is going to build your safety and your oxytocin. It's also going to let your partner into your world. How can they be your best friend if they don't know what's going on in your life? They can't. And again, going back to that, how can you be fully loved if you're not fully known? This fixes that. Additional, add kissing into the mix. When you are kissing each other without the expectation of sex, a lot of times it's going to lead to sex, but also it is going to give you a boost of oxytocin, which is the love bonding hormone. It's going to lower your cortisol, which is the stress hormone. That's weeks one and two. Weeks three and four, playful friendship and flirting. Bring back your light, teasing, and inside jokes. Send a flirty text during the day. It doesn't have to be super spicy. It can be safe for work, but it can also be flirty and fun. Compliment something physical in a fun, friend-like way. Hey, that shirt still looks really great on you. Hey, your butt still looks really good in those jeans. Keep it light and affectionate. And then weeks five and on, friendship foreplay. Ask one open question. Hey, what's one way that I could make you feel desired and wanted this week? Listen fully and then follow through. Brene Brown's work on vulnerability shows that when you feel emotionally safe, physical intimacy becomes an extension of friendship instead of a separate chore. And many couples that I coach tell me that this progression feels like dating each other again. But it's better because you already have the history and the commitment. One of the reasons that I absolutely love coaching is that I get to see the progression of couples. They come to me, they're struggling, they're not having sex, they're not friends. And then by the time they're done with me, in six, seven months, their best friends, having sex three to four times a week, whether it be because I will assign that for homework and it will stick, but also because they get the tools and the help that they need in order to feel like best friends again. It is that having a sleepover with your best friend every single night energy. I have lived the reality of watching friendships slip under the weight of parenting two boys, running two businesses, all of your daily demands. And every single time I chose these small intentional practices, just like I preach, spotlighting fondness, repairing quickly using a five-finger apology, anchoring myself emotionally and having emotional sobriety, letting friendship lead the way, being kind, compassionate, and respectful, letting all of that lead the way to intimacy, the connection comes back stronger. Even if you feel right now like you don't like your partner, like you're not attracted to them, you don't have a friendship, your marriage is quote unquote too far gone. Those are lies. Those are lies that the enemy feeds you. Your marriage is never too far gone if both of you want to work on it. The connection, the attraction, all of it can come back even stronger than it ever was before. And the the hundreds of couples that I have coached over the last eight years with again a 93% success rate have seen the exact same thing happen. So here's the thing, friend, rebuilding friendship doesn't require a total life reset. As with everything that I teach, it requires intention. Small, consistent choices that remind you that your spouse is still your favorite person. You have the tools. Start with whichever one feels easiest this week and watch what happens. If this episode hit home and you are thinking, man, we really need some personalized guidance to make this stick fast. I would love to help you. I work with individuals who are wanting to better their marriage, but maybe their partner really isn't on board yet, or they're wanting to work through things before bringing their partner on board, totally fine. I also work with couples. If that is you, if you are in either one of those spots, head down to the show notes. There is a link in there to book a free consultation. No pressure, just a real conversation about whether this would work for you or not, whether you're in a place to actually move forward with that or not. Your marriage is the most important earthly relationship that you will ever have. Keep showing up, keep being consistent, keep being intentional. And watch how the ripple effect of that grows. Until next week, stay married and connected. We've all seen it. The messy social media messages, the public tea spilling, and the absolute embarrassment of finding out that your life is a lie through a Facebook post or an Instagram message that your spouse thought was hidden. What if it didn't have to be like that though? What if you could find out before their affair got too deep? Statistics show that over 20% of marriages deal with infidelity. And most affairs last for years because they thrive in the dark. It's time to turn the lights on. Verified.com is the world's first searchable relationship registry. It's not just an app, it's a digital boundary for your marriage. When you register your spouse on verified, you are claiming your relationship on a global scale, whether you're talking, you're dating, or you're married. If another man or woman is being told your spouse is single or divorced and they search for your spouse on the registry, they find you instead. Now here's the game changer. Verified allows you to speak one-on-one and directly with that other person. No gaslighting from your spouse. No, he said, she said, no, oh my God, you went through my phone. How could you betray my trust like that? And zero social media drama. Just the truth, person to person, before things go too far. Don't wait for that gut feeling to become a nightmare. Because even if you think your spouse would never, there's an even better chance that you just never know. Register your spouse today using the link in the show notes and lock in your legacy to protect your peace. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional counseling or therapy. Every couple story is unique, so take what's helpful and leave the rest. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge that neither I, Cameron Thompson Al Ricky, married and connected, or recognizing potential coaching are responsible for any outcomes related to what you apply from this show. Especially if you are not a client of mine.