84. Top 3 Things I Learned About Marriage
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
In this week’s episode, we’re discussing the top three things I learned about marriage.
Marriage is a lot of work, but it’s not hard if you’re paying attention to your partner. Your partner is the love of your life, but they’re also their own person. They have their own wants and needs, their own hobbies you won’t understand, and their own way of needing space. And a marriage works best when you can understand these lessons and respect them.
Over the years, I’ve learned how to respect our differences and respect our roles in the relationship. The top three things I learned about marriage are:
I’m not always right
Support doesn't mean they have to understand what you're doing
Space looks completely different for everybody
Check out this week's episode to learn more about these lessons and how I use them to help my clients do the work and create a more compassionate marriage.
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos. Welcome back to this podcast Relationships. You understand? with your host, me, Karina F. Dave's relationship expert and speaker. And you're probably thinking girl, it's like four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, it is. Like four o'clock in the morning and I wanted to create an episode today called Top Three Things I Learned while Being married.
And this is going to be a very quick episode. Um, as a relationship expert, I help women stop arguing with their partners so that they can have more sex. And today I wanted to share my personal testimony as to how that. Not how that happened for me, but the top three things that I learned in my marriage so that we can have more intimacy at the end of this episode.
I'm also going to answer questions, uh, that were DM to me, left me on my reels, and that will sort of be what you should expect in the next upcoming episodes where I'm answering your questions. So if you have questions that you want me to answer on this podcast, I can totally keep it anonymous. Um, just DM me, leave it on my comments, or even email me at team.
Team at Karina F. Dave's dot com. Okay. All right. Top three things. I learned while being married. You ready? Number one. I ain't always right. Yeah. You heard that. One of the top things I learned about marriage is that I Ain't always right. What you need to understand is that I am a very independent, can't nobody tell me anything.
And I was raised by very strict parents. And so when I went to college and really started just getting more into my independence, more into like having the three jobs I did and being able to support myself and, you know, do a lot of things, especially as a daughter of immigrants, do a lot of things on my own.
I was very much in the space that like, can't nobody tell me anything. And I know what's best. I'm always right because I had a habit of always having to make those decisions for myself even though I desired a partnership even though I desired being married and Spending the rest of my life with my husband Terrence.
I was still very much showing up to my marriage as a Independent. Can't nobody tell me nothing. I'm always right. And one of the top three things I learned about marriage is that I'm not always right. And I needed to really, I needed to really tell myself that now there was this other person that I was in a relationship with that also had an opinion.
And their opinion held as much weight as mine did. You understand? And plenty of times, we don't give our partner's opinion an equal amount of weight. We give our point of view the most amount of weight. And it makes your partner feel like their opinion ain't it? It's not really worth listening to what they have to say because you're always right.
You understand? Okay. The second thing I learned about being married over a decade is that support doesn't mean that they have to understand what it is that you're doing. You and your partner will have an intense amount of ideas, dreams, and visions of what you want to do for your life, your career, a new business, a hobby, you will think of things that you will want to do, and because.
You're married to your best friend, you are going to want this person to really understand the entire scope of what it is that you're doing. And what I'm here to offer you is that support doesn't mean they have to fully understand. For example, my husband is a race car driver. I have no idea what that means, what that entails, the different parts that it entails, the meets that he has to go to, the races, like, I just don't understand that world.
But you best believe that I am my husband's biggest cheerleader, biggest supporter, biggest anything that you want to call it. I am right there by his side. Whatever he needs. So I may not be able to turn a wrench or I may not be able to diagnose the car. But you best believe that I am there supporting him and supporting him doesn't mean that I have to understand.
Same goes for me and my business. My husband doesn't watch my reels, doesn't listen to my podcast, doesn't understand. the business that I'm building, but he supports me because he understands his position. And plenty of times in our marriage, we confuse our position with needing to fully understand what our partner is doing in order to support them.
And I came today to tell you that you don't, you do not need to understand every single intricacy of what your partner is doing in order to be there for them. You understand? And the last thing, excuse me, the last top lesson that I learned while being married is that space looks completely different for everybody.
Okay? And what I mean by that is that you and your partner are going to get into heated arguments. And one of you is going to say, I would need space. I need to stop and you're going to want to just keep going. And the reason why you're going, going to want to keep going is because you want to resolve this issue right now.
I get it. I get exactly where you're coming from, but what you're not realizing is the necessity to respect. Your partner's request for space because what will happen in the next five minutes if you don't give your partner the space that they requested is that they will say something that they regret and then guess what you become upset about the thing that they said and they regret the thing that they said and now you both are stuck arguing about a whole different topic When you could have prevented that by just giving them space that you desire.
In my marriage, my husband and I have obviously argued a lot. Our arguments look a lot different and a lot more respectful than they did the first three to five years of our marriage. I realized that the main reason why my husband needed space was because he needed time to collect his thoughts. Not because I was quicker than him or because I could just talk about things very quickly or very fast.
But my husband truly needed time to process what it was that I just said to him to process the feelings that he was having. Because if he stayed in the argument, he was going to react in a way that was unregulated. He was going to react in a way that was Disregulated in a way that wasn't sober minded you and your partner when you are arguing are not sober You are drunk on emotions.
You are drunk on your anger You are not sober at all and space is the very gift that God is trying to give you in your relationship especially during your arguments You understand? Okay, these are the top three things I learned while being married for over a decade. Number one, I'm not always right.
Number two, support doesn't mean that they have to understand. And number three, space looks different for everybody else. Okay? Now, if this is something that you want to work on in your relationship right now, I want you to go to the link of my bio and book a sales call so we can work together to create the best communication strategies that your partner needs to be able to finally comprehend you because you both are just running in the hamster wheel of communication, but you're over communicating.
Communication requires a resolution. And if you're not Getting to the resolution part. You're not really communicating, you're just arguing and talking. And I want to help you and your partner stop this arguing, stop this cycle of talking over and over again and actually get to the stage of comprehension.
You understand? And this is what I'll say, the last thing I'll say about this. You don't have to do this work with your partner to start doing the work. You can do the work alone with me. Okay, I've worked with plenty of women and plenty of men and clients that are doing the work first within themselves because you've become lost and getting caught up and trying to fix this relationship rather than Figuring out what it is that you want for yourself and for this relationship Okay, so this is the part where I'm gonna answer a question that was dm'd to me.
All right, you're ready So now listen if you have a question about your relationship, I want you to dm it to me Tell me if you want me to keep it private Um, you can email it to me. You can leave it on my reels. Whatever it is. Just put podcast question and I got you Okay, here we go. My boyfriend put a hold on our relationship He says I should go heal He said going forward, he'll only be civil with me and treat me like anyone else on the planet.
But he also added that if I'm already into someone, good luck. If in the process I meet someone, good luck is what he says. Does this seem like a hold on the relationship or a complete breakup? I miss him. Okay. Because I got to go get ready for work. I'm going to just give it to you straight. Okay, this question was submitted in the DMs about a hold on the relationship.
I think that there is a big difference between needing space in a relationship and taking a very long break.
As a relationship expert, here are a couple of things. Let's just answer her question first. Does this seem like a hold or is this a complete breakout girl? This is a breakup. This is a breakup. He's breaking up with you. When you are given these options, it's closer to the breakup than it is. We're on a break.
Okay. Here's, here's the thing. Even if you were to take a small break, like a small, you know, let's just give each other some space and time, which I'm going to give you my opinion on. But if you were to do that during that period, you are setting expectations for that space. You are setting like we're not dating anybody.
We are just taking this time and space to really regroup because things have just gotten dicey. Okay. That's what I can advise you to do. If you decide to do a break. The second aspect that I'm telling you is for as a relationship expert, Breaks don't work. They don't work. Well, what should happen is y'all should just break up.
And here's the thing. Y'all should just break up because during that breakup, it will be a complete release of both parties. And then y'all will come back to each other and be together if necessary. But if y'all just take the break that we just mentioned that I know that some people love to take which is fine I'm not judging y'all.
There are so many Additional questions during that time that cloud you while you're trying to quote unquote heal It is very difficult to heal during a break because you're thinking about what the other person is doing You're thinking about if the other person is taking their time to heal you're thinking about if the other person Is maybe, you know, dating other people.
You're so caught up. And now this new set of a break of what the other person is doing, that it takes away energy. From you healing, right? Which is why I say, if you want to go that route, I tell my clients this, you can do whatever you want, but what I'm suggesting that you do is not take the break and just break up, right?
Because if both of y'all, you, you have two options. You either decide to work through this together. Right and actively work on your relationship and figure out and maybe get some support or figure out new strategies Whatever it is, or you decide this isn't working We've actually realized why it's not working and we move on and if God wants to bring us back together He will do that.
But in my opinion Rakes don't work. Okay. The second thing is Let me just break down what he's actually telling her. He says, Going forward, he'll only be civil with me and treat me like anyone else on the planet. But he also added that if I'm already into someone, good luck. If in the process I meet someone, good luck.
He's covering his ass. He's covering his ass in that moment. He's just saying like we're going on a break, but if you meet someone good for you So he's also trying to be kind about this break and he's also covering his own What I want to say like kind of like guarding and protecting his own emotions so that he doesn't get hurt But girl, this is a breakup.
This is not a break, okay? There's no conditions here. Usually people that go on a break, there's conditions. That, the condition is, we're on a break and if you meet someone, good luck. That, that's not, that's not a healthy relationship. That's a straight up breakup. Okay. All right. Listen, it's five o'clock in the morning.
I got to go get ready for work. I love you so much. Let me just quickly pray for you. Father God, I thank you so much for everybody that is on this call now and the future people that will get to listen to this. I ask that you protect us, our babies. Our partners, our drive to work, our bodies, the things that we put in our bodies, the relationships around us.
I ask for a hedge of protection over anybody listening in this moment right now. Lord, there are so many things going on in this world that we need to be protected from, and you're the only person that can do that. Please protect us from the very things that don't work for us anymore and allow us to have the discernment to see what isn't working, what thoughts aren't working, what people aren't working, what spaces aren't working, what purchases aren't working, what is not working, allow us to see that today.
We love you so much in your name we pray. Amen. Okay. My name is Karina F days. I'm a relationship expert, a speaker and the podcast host of this dope podcast relationships. You understand if you enjoy this episode, please go to apple iTunes, save it, share with all of your amigos. Please leave me a written review.
And if you are interested in my email series, please go to the link of my bio on Instagram, where I primarily live and sign up for my relationship email series called, um, relationships. You understand that's not actually what it's called. Give me a second. Um, release your relationship. Is what my email series called where I share weekly gems on how to release and surrender your partner.
Okay I love you so much If you have questions that you want me to answer at the end of this podcast you dm it to me You do whatever it is that you Smoke signal whatever it is that you want and I also just want to say one more thing Um, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening.
I don't take Um, we're granted a community that, uh, we've built together. All right. I love you so much. All right. Bye.
