I Feel Like My Marriage Isn’t Going Anywhere

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on enhancing emotional connection in a healthy marriage by shifting language from "need" to "want" when expressing desires. It emphasizes the importance of intentionality and vulnerability in communication, encouraging couples to articulate their wants for deeper emotional intimacy without framing it as a critical demand.

Key takeaways

• Communication isn't just about needs; transform them into wants to foster connection without burden.
• Emotional connection isn’t just another task—it's the warm hug your marriage needs to keep thriving.
• Growth isn’t infinite; aim for intentional, meaningful progress or risk burnout and the chaos of unrestrained ambition.
• Moms in the guilt factory need more than 'doing'; they deserve moments to just be, sans responsibilities.
• The marriage dynamic often reveals a cycle: women feel guilty, while men wrestle with failure. Break the loop!

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Together, Texas Tech
2. 12:00 – 15:00: Together
3. 15:00 – 18:00: Together
4. 18:00 – 18:48: Together

Notable quotes from "I Feel Like My Marriage Isn’t Going Anywhere"

• Me take it say it this way. if somebody on the street needed you. One time I was walking into the college of education building at Texas Tech and this woman had been these two…

  about Texas Tech · at 1:34

• If you want to build a better marriage, but you don't know where to start, I want you to try my new app called Together. You'll get daily action steps to help you have a fun, connected,.

  about Together · at 18:27

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Places & events

• Texas Tech — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 1:43
  Mentioned as the location where a story about helping a stranger took place.

Sponsors

• Together — Product · Sponsor · 6 mentions · first at 0:03
  The app is promoted as a tool to help couples build better marriages through daily action steps.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:03 brought to you by Together, my daily marriage app. How do I communicate my desire to grow in my relationship um and stay emotionally connecting connected without it sounding like criticism?

0:15 What does growth mean? I think um it's more like intentionality in our marriage. Um I our marriage is great, honestly. Like it's healthy, it's strong, we set goals. Um, but I have come to know of myself just from past relationships that I need emotional connection to feel safe. And so I feel like I need that a little bit more consistently.

0:45 So let's take away the word need for a second. Okay. And I want to use the word want.

0:52 Yes. I'm hearing a lot of the word need thrown around all and I I slip into it and use it too sometimes. But when we tell somebody, especially our spouse that's inside of a great marriage that y'all are working hard, y'all are doing things, y'all are being intentional, all that stuff. I need you to X, Y, and Z to make me feel a certain way. What we're doing is we're taking a cinder block out of our chest and we're handing it to them and saying, you have to do this otherwise I drown. And I think that that sets up sometimes a false reality.

1:29 So I wanted to use what is scarier, more vulnerable language because cuz like let me take it say it this way. if somebody on the street needed you. One time I was walking into um the college of education building at Texas Tech and this woman had been these two women were on a run and this woman was going into a diabetic coma and she's like she needs candy now. I didn't know them but I got up and went to work, right? I went inside, got like got a uh one of the vending machines, got a candy bar out and ran outside, right?

2:06 We would do anything for somebody who needs something, even strangers. Scarier question. What do you want from your husband?

2:15 Um, oh gosh, that's a good question. That's probably a question I should should have asked myself. Um, I think like maybe just a moment where we connect on a daily basis.

2:32 Keep going. Because I think you want more than a moment. Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong, but I most people want more than a moment.

2:47 Um I think yeah, probably more than a moment. I think that um we're just so busy in our lives and everybody's busy. Um,

2:56 nope. Now you're starting to like Now you're starting to feel the weight of want and you're like I mean but it's okay and everyone like just just hold it with me. Okay. Want is a scary thing. What do you want?

3:11 I want to take time for just ourselves. Okay. What else do you want? Or let me ask you this. What will more time for yourselves get you?

3:29 I think the closeness that I'm wanting. Okay. Not just the um partnership that we have but

3:38 building that friendship. I mean, we have friendship that but a closer friendship.

3:44 I heard a little baby in the background. Do you have little ones? Yeah, I have three kids.

3:48 Three kids. How old are they? Uh 7, five, and one. Holy smokes. So, you're in it right now, right?

3:55 Oh, yeah. Okay. Take this husband off the table for a second. Tell me about the feeling that you're losing you.

4:11 Um, yeah. Sorry. I didn't think I'd get emotional. Um, no, you're good. You're good.

4:17 I think that oftenimes I just give and give and give. Um, I work in healthcare, so that's kind of just my go-to. Um, and sometimes, yeah, I just feel like I need

4:33 time to be me or time to be us without having to give. You want somebody to take care of you like you take care of everybody else.

4:46 Yeah. But I feel guilty for saying that because my husband already does so much. Like he's amazing.

4:55 The American guilt factory for the young mom. You feel guilty for asking anything. Is that why you're in healthcare?

5:06 Because you've been taking care of everybody your whole life. Yeah, pretty much.

5:13 So the the reason I'm asking these questions is I want to get to the bottom of it. And I've said this on other shows, but growth is a word I hear. We I just want to keep growing. I just want to keep growing. Unrestrained growth is cancer. Those are cells that won't stop dividing. So growing just to try to grow your way out of a problem is not always the solution. Growing towards a thing. I want to get in better shape. I want to have more sex. I want to be the wild, fun girl, wife, woman that I used to be. Those are all great, but just indefinitely growing is like running a marathon and right when you get to mile 26, you move the finish line another 20 miles. And that's a recipe for burnout.

5:57 Or it's a recipe for some doctor comes by and looks at you in the hospital and says, "I think you're beautiful." Or, "Your jokes are hilarious." And you find yourself doing things that you would never do.

6:12 Yeah. I think I to me growing or striving for something has always been yeah I guess I just never sit and rest.

6:25 Okay. What does peace feel like? Calm. Lack of chaos. Yeah. Which is really hard to come by with a seven, five, and a one-year-old. There is no calm, right?

6:42 Oh, right. Oh, I love that. I love hearing that. It's one of my favorite noises in the whole world. I love it. I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Um, just that babbling of a one-year-old. I love it. So, how do you end up communicating to your husband, "Hey, I miss you. I miss us." like how do I do it now or

7:11 Yeah, I don't. Okay, so what I hear a lot and this might not be your house and so push back on me is

7:21 women live in a guilt factory. They don't do anything well enough and men live in a failure factory. They come home and they didn't do this right, they didn't do that right, and there's not a thing they can do to make their wife feel less guilty about any of the circumstances. And it just gets in this big figure eight loop where you chase and you hide and you chase and you hide and then things blow up like you always have your phone or you never do this and it just turns into everybody chasing and then they throw needs at each other.

8:02 Well, I need more sex. Well, I need this and I need this. And then the weight of that just gets real heavy and so people just start dropping it instead of saying and this is hard. It's scary because most of us have never done this. I want our house to feel like this when you get home. When I get home, how do we create that? And I want to be striving, but right now I have three little humans that I co-created. And so my striving is going to be for a good night's sleep for a season. My striving is going to be for 30 minutes of screens off. We're playing dominoes. We're talking about our day.

8:47 We're making out again like we used to. We're sneaking away for a burger even though that's not healthy and whatever. We're just going to do it.

9:01 Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. Tell me if I'm way out to lunch. No, you're right. I think that um it definitely will turn into moments of I hold in all that and explode with anger. I have a lot of rage inside

9:26 and it's not fair to him that I'm not expressing what I want and it's coming out as that.

9:34 Gotcha. And then you become somebody you don't want to be. And then you feel guilty about that. So then it starts the cycle over. I'm going to hold it. I'm going to hold it. I'm going to hold it. I'm going to hold it. And then he gets home and plops down on the couch and turns the game on and grabs his phone. And then and now we start over again.

9:53 Yep. Pretty accurate picture there. And so there's something powerful about clearing the deck and saying, "Hey, we have a brand new marriage and I love you forever. How do we want this house to feel? And this is where it gets scary and not everybody's in on this and I hate that for them, but they're not. And that is I have to see you that you're a person. I got to know you. What are you into these days? I've got to celebrate you. I have to be the biggest cheerleader in the world. And then we can start the challenging part. You got to put your phone down, man.

10:32 And like you have actual needs, too, by the way, which is there's this many lunches that have to be made and this much food that has to be cooked and this much sleep I need because I'm still breastfeeding and being a full-time hospital employee and being a like all those things are true. Like there's actual things that have to get checked off a list, but what does it look like to swipe the deck and say, "We have never been married with three kids. Let's build something awesome. How can I love you in this season? And that's him getting to know you again and you saying, "Here's how you can love me in this season."

11:15 Yeah, that sounds nice. Is it realistic or are you just like placating me and being like trying to make peace? No, no, it does sound realistic and absolutely like he's any time I've asked for anything, he's immediately on board. And I guess that's where the guilt comes into is he never asks for anything.

11:37 Everything's hunky dory on his end. And so maybe, maybe not. But maybe some guys are complex, some guys are pretty simple.

11:49 Yeah. and you asking him, "How can I love you in this season?" is giving him permission to put it on the table and say, "Well, this would be kind of awesome." Or he might look at you and say, "I see how much you're doing. You're doing so much. Like, I have everything I want in this season." And you have to make peace with that. that you're worth being loved even when you're not quoteunquote striving for whatever.

12:21 Yeah. So, give me two or three things besides just a minute of connection. I just don't think that's enough. What would peace feel like in your house right now?

12:39 I think it would be like I don't know like kind of like you were saying like when you when either one of us come home from work that there's some time where we just ask each other about our day and you know connect together outside of the kids.

13:02 So here's a thing we created in my house. It's called grown-up time when my kids were really young. And they knew that when I walked in the door, mom and dad went in the back bedroom and shut the door. And they got a message from early on that the most important thing in my life was my wife and vice versa. And we would just call it grown-up time. And both kids would go and but they knew it. And sometimes there'd be a temper tantrum because they're five. They're supposed to throw temper tantrums. I'm not going to lose sleep over that. And y'all can't do that fully because you're going to be holding a one-year-old, right? You can't just drop a one year off old off in the middle of the couch and be like, "Here's the remote kid."

13:45 You can't do that. Right. Right. But that's where chores can be helpful. That's where coloring time, they can go do stuff and they learn to be bored and they learn to self-regulate. But in a weird way, that gives them the single most stable thing in the world, which is a mom and dad. They're on the same team.

14:09 Yeah, I like that. That was a great idea. But you're going to have to weather a storm. If you got a seven-year-old and a 5-year-old and they've never done that, they're going to push on it and see if it will hold. But all of us, don't don't do this peace meal, though. Don't be like, "Hey, when you get home, we're going to start this new thing." Cuz it will last about 4 days, okay? And you can leave the dishes on the sink. He can leave the dishes on the sink. There can be trash that's not taken out yet. But as a part of who do we want to be in this new marriage, in this new season, every day you walk in the door or I walk in the door, I want to everything put everything goes down and we go in our bedroom, we shut the door. We might have the one-year-old with us. That's fine.

14:52 But I just want to hug for 30 seconds and I want you to put your hands on my face and just put your forehead on my forehead and tell me that you love me. And sometimes 20 minutes of walking in the door and just being together and 20 more minutes of mad dash. Are the water bottles filled? Are the lunches for tomorrow made? Is the laundry is one thing in the laundry in the washing machine instead of doing 5 hours of laundry on the weekend? Can we just throw one in? If you have a washing machine and a dryer in your house, like 20. Yeah, you're talking 40 minutes and the whole house is different.

15:36 And then some nights, like last night, my wife said, "Hey, I just need to watch The Office. Come sit by me." Okay. I stopped what I was doing, came down downstairs, and sat on the couch. We watched The Office together. We laughed. It was fun. She went to bed. I went back to what I was doing.

16:00 I guess what I'm going to tell you is this. If you all two decide we come first, that will give you infinitely more margin to take care of them. You just have to be honest about what does coming first, what do we want when we say that? And if you have a husband that loves you, that shows up, that works hard for your family, that's doing his part on on like the chores side of things, right? um and your body starts to quote unquote feel unsafe, be honest about what your body is saying to you, because it may not be telling you the truth. Or it may be, but it may not be. You get what I'm saying?

16:48 There may be a season where you exhale and say, "No, he loves me." Or there may be a season where it's like, "I need some girlfriends, which means once a week, husband, you're on your own with all three of these wild cats. I'm out of here." Right.

17:03 Right. Yeah. Hang on the line. I'm going to hook you up with the together app. And I want you and your husband to log in and use it. And it will it it will learn you guys over time. And it will give y'all one or two tasks a day. Sometimes three tasks a day that y'all co-create together that will do a thing towards each other. But I want y'all to go out this weekend if possible. Maybe not because it's short notice. Maybe next weekend. clear the deck and say, "All right, we've never been married with three kids before.

17:34 Let's build a new marriage. How do you want this house to feel when we both walk in? What are the things we have to do? We got to pay bills. We got to make dinner. We got to get diapers out." Blah, all that stuff. Kids got to get ba bathed. What are the things we have to do? How do we split this up? And then what does connection look like? And I'll I'll say connection works best when for everybody when somebody walks through the door and husband and or wife makes a beline for their partner and we stop and the kids know it's grown-up time. Y'all get out.

18:06 Y'all get out. Grown-up time. And they'll fight you on it, but man, their nervous systems will rest. They'll rest. I love your word intentional. Let's try to use the word want instead of need. Let's go down that rabbit hole. If you want to build a better marriage, but you don't know where to start, I want you to try my new app called Together. You'll get daily action steps to help you have a fun, connected, onfire relationship. It's just six bucks a month and your marriage is worth it. Click the link in the show notes or search together in the app store.

Questions about this episode

What is "I Feel Like My Marriage Isn’t Going Anywhere" about?

The discussion focuses on enhancing emotional connection in a healthy marriage by shifting language from "need" to "want" when expressing desires. It emphasizes the importance of intentionality and vulnerability in communication, encouraging couples to articulate their wants for deeper emotional intimacy without framing it as a critical demand.

What is mentioned in this The Dr. John Delony Show episode?

2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Texas Tech. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "I Feel Like My Marriage Isn’t Going Anywhere"?

The episode runs 19 min; the transcript is about 3,007 words in 51 timestamped sections.

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