97. Girls Trips Saved My Marriage Pt 1: Why you need it
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.
Welcome to our new podcast series - Girls Trips Saved My Marriage. In this 2 part series, I explain why girls trips with the right people are essential. I share how girls trips saved my marriage, and how to make girls trips work for you.
In Part 1, I share part of my secret sauce of keeping my marriage interesting, adventurous, and still fun. Girls trips are a part of that recipe.
I break down the 3 R’s of what girls trips do for you, and for your marriage.
Hear why girls trips are necessary, how they impact you, and how they can save your marriage.
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to work with me during this season of your life, then I invite you to book a call for us to connect and chat.
During this call, you will share what is going on in your life, what you have tried so far, and I will share how I can help. I can't wait to meet you.
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos, como estan? Welcome back to Relationships.You Understand? as we start this series called Girls Trips Saved My Marriage. This will be part one. It'll be a two part series. And my name is Karina F. Daves, podcast host, relationship expert and speaker. And as you know, these episodes are always super quick, because I know you don't have a lot of time, and neither do I. Happy Fourth of July for those watching this episode, being recorded live. I hope that you all enjoy this holiday, and I just want to thank you so much for continually coming back, indulging and being committed to this community. It means so much to me and listen, if you're up for chatting, if you have questions about your relationship, I want you to DM them to me, as I will spend some of the time of my podcast answering them.
Okay, all right, here we go. Girls trips saved my marriage. So today I'm going to share with you part of my secret sauce of keeping my marriage interesting, keeping my marriage adventurous and still fun. Girls trips are a part of that recipe. Okay, when I think of girls trips, I have to go way back, back into the archives, to my very first girl trip that I remember taking in college. It was about 15 or 17 of us that went to Miami, all of us that took JetBlue for like $200 to Miami during spring break in college, I was one of them. And why we decided to fit eight people into a clearly three bedroom apartment, I have no idea, but I remember feeling this intense sense of joy being around other women that shared very similar values, and sure, this was before I was saved, and so there was a lot of clubbing and alcohol and tanning topless and eating a lot and possibly doing a lot of things that I wouldn't do now, but I remember just feeling so happy, so good. I remember feeling around, feeling being around such good energy, such good women, and feeling like when I came back to college, I was re-energized to go back. And felt like this very big boost of energy to finish what I had started right like to the finish line that I so desperately didn't even know I needed. And this happened a couple of times while I was in graduate school and whatnot.
Now, when I got married in 2012 I remember not getting invited to girls trips that my inner circle was having, and I didn't have that many. Was probably like maybe three or four people in my inner circle, and I remember approaching them about it, and them sharing very honestly that since I was married, they really didn't think that I would want to attend, or really didn't want to put me in an awkward position to have to decide whether I leave my marriage or go on these girls trips. And I had to make it clear that I totally wanted to attend the girls trips like I craved. It, and I saw it as something essential, of things that I needed to do. And so then I remember saying to them, like having brunch on Sundays or seeing y'all once a month isn't enough for me, like I still very much need my community. And ever since then, it got cleared up and we decided to continue going on our girls trips.
And so I would say that girls trips became a significant recipe in my marriage, where we go on our couples trips once a year. We do our family get-togethers once a year. My husband goes on a guy's trip once a year. And I do my annual girls trips. I actually have my annual girls trips coming up this August, which I'm so freaking excited about. And usually when I do these girls trips, we have business to attend. So this will be the first girls trips where we don't actually have to do anything business or, you know, a conference to attend otherwise.
So when I discovered that girls trips were essential to my marriage, I want you to understand a couple of things about girls trips, and so I'm going to break them down to why they're important into three R's. But before I do, I want to preface this by saying that girls trips are only vital, girls trips are only essential, girl strips are only necessary, if they are with sober minded people. You understand me, they have to be with the right people that align with your values, that align with what it is that you feel like God is calling you to do that align with your values in your marriage, you, the people that you spend this time with, okay, have to be sober minded. Have to also pour into you. And I will spend a little bit of the next episode, or even the end of this episode, kind of breaking that down for you. But first I care about you, okay, and I want to remind you why girls trips are essential, and these are the three R's that I want you to think about and what they did for me and what I know that they're going to do for you.
Number one, girls trips resurface emotions that you haven't had time to process yet. Number two, girls trips help you rediscover who you are. And number three, girl strips help you reset and reenergize for your marriage again.
This is why it's so important to go on girl strips if you're in a relationship, okay? When we talk about resurfacing emotions that you know need to be processed again. I want you to understand that there are so many emotions inside of you that you have used things like work, business, money, food, whatever it is to numb your true feelings about this. You've pushed these emotions down to the bottom so that you don't have to deal with them you understand. You may even feel like there are people around you that you can't even talk to about these things because they may not understand you the way that your inner crew does, you understand? And so you need someone that is going to brainstorm with you, hold a safe space for you and give you a plan on how to move forward. I need you to see girls trips as free group therapy. You understand me literally. It's an opportunity for everybody to come forth and come forward with the very things that they've pushed down and allow it to come out, you need girls trips. Okay? They are essential for you to release things that you necessarily don't have the opportunity or don't manage well on your everyday life, girls trips allows you the safe space to not just release that, but tell your brain and your emotions. Dang, like we can't continue to keep things bottled up anymore. You understand me. Okay?
Number two, girls trips help you rediscover who you are. Girls trips will help you rediscover who you are, because you will get caught up in the business owner role. You will get caught up in the employee nine to five role, you will get caught up in the mom role, you will get caught up in the wife role, you will get caught up in the sister role, the daughter role, the taxi driver role. You will get caught up in all of these roles in your life and figure out, or tell yourselves that none of this is a problem, right? And I'm saying to you like it isn't right, all of these roles that you have in your life. Life are not a problem, but the fact that you use them to numb so many things that you need to rediscover about yourself, or you use them to numb so many things that you need to process about yourself, is the problem. I need you to utilize girls trips as a form to rediscover who you are and who you want to be. You need that you cannot just continue to ignore who you are at your core. Okay? And I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna say this very heavily, I usually say lightly. If you don't go on girls trips, you will lose yourself if you don't have community, you will lose yourself if you don't give your mind, body and soul An opportunity to reset, release, rediscover, refresh, you will lose who you are. You will become off course to the plan that God has for you. You understand me? You will wake up one day, just as even your parents did. You will wake up one day, once the kids have moved out, once you've been at that job for over a decade and they gave you a fancy watch for being there for 10 years, you will look to your left and you will look to your right, and then you will look in the mirror, and you will not recognize who you see. And girls trip is a form of medicine to give to yourself to be able to continue the course of knowing who you are, what you want and how you want it. You understand me? Because you will never know how far gone you are if you don't have opportunities to slow down, reset and have people tell you about yourself that you trust. Okay, okay, like I said, that wasn't me. That was the Holy Spirit.
Number three, reset and reenergize. When you give your body the opportunity to reset your mind, to reset the actions that you were about to take will either become confirmed or you will receive another strategy. I can't tell you how many times I'm on girls trips and I'm just talking away like, yeah, I was thinking about doing this and this and this, and because I trust the people that I'm on this trip with, and because they know that they can share things with me, they'll offer things like, Hey, can I offer something? And I'll say, Sure, I don't know if that's the best way or actually, you go, girl, you continue doing that. It's confirmation. You understand, God uses people as confirmation. So why wouldn't you take the time to reset and re-energize? All of this is going to give you, is energy to come back to your life, to your family, to your goals, all of the above. Okay, it's going to basically tell yourself, dang, I don't really like this about myself. Dang, I don't really like this about my marriage. Dang, I don't really like this about the way that I'm managing my life, my friends, my job, okay, you need to be on the other side to even tell you how to manage what's going on in your everyday life. Also the biggest revelation that you will have, as well as things that you feel like need to change, is you will also have the revelation of, dang, I'm really grateful for my life. Because, believe it or not, nobody's gonna tell you this thing. You gonna be on this girl's trip, and somebody gonna say something that's like, dang, they going through that? Well, I'm happy. I'm happy that I'm in my situation. Like, you know, I know that God will bless them. They're gonna get through this storm, but praise God for my situation. You need that it's not being judgy is God showing you like you're good, because sometimes you're so locked up in your situation, thinking to yourself, like I'm struggling, I'm struggling. And then you go around your girls and you realize I'm not really struggling. Things are actually okay. I've had that revelation many of times. I'm telling you, no relationship experts go and tell you about this. No relationship experts gonna tell you, go be around people so that you can feel better about your life. Okay, it's, it's the truth. I'm being I'm always transparent and honest with you. It's happened to me several times where I'm like, I just wish my husband did this. And then I go around people and people that I love, and I'm like. Hey, I don't want to be in that situation. Maybe I should really stop fronting and stop, you know, annoying my husband about this thing that really doesn't matter. I I'll never forget, there was this season where I was pushing my husband to listen to NPR more, to listen to the news, so that we could have a conversation. And I, I I mean, I rode that for about a couple of months. It was annoying. Now, looking back, Karina, you were annoying. Okay, let your husband be. And then I remember going on a girls trip and think and hearing stories about other people's relationships being like, I'm I'm dumb. I'm dumb for trying to push my partner, you know, in in in this direction when it's not even that serious, because the man loves me. He's committed to God. He's committed to this relationship, and he's a good guy. If you don't want to listen to NPR, that's his business. He gonna be fine. We gonna be fine if he don't listen to NPR, you understand?
So what I want you to what I want you to take away from, from from this podcast episode, is the three R's. Okay, girls trips are going to save your marriage. You understand me? They're going to give you an opportunity to rediscover things about yourself that you haven't in a while. They're going to give you the opportunity to reset and re energize, and they're going to give you the opportunity to resurface emotions that you haven't processed yet. Okay?
And if you're sitting here listening and thinking like, girls trips are dangerous to my marriage, all right, I'll say that again. If you're sitting here thinking to yourself, girls trips are dangerous to my marriage, then you got the wrong friends, or you're in the wrong marriage, plain and simple. If you're sitting here thinking that girls trips are dangerous to your marriage, you either have the wrong friends or you're in the wrong marriage. I'm gonna tell you straight up, because we don't have time to lose you need. You need to have a partner that is going to allow you to be independent of the marriage, to be able to have space to rejuvenate yourself. And if you don't, then we need to talk. And if you feel like you don't have the right friends to go on girls trips with, then we need to work together. We need to work on that that is literally a relationship issue, not just because of the lack of friends, but relationship issue with yourself. Same goes for your marriage. If you're not in a marriage that embraces girls trips, you're we need to talk about your marriage. Okay, I want to help you do this work with you, because you can listen to this podcast episode all you want, take notes and have ah ha moments, but if you're not in a space to do the work or have guidance to do the work, you ain't go move the needle. So what I need you to do is go to link in my bio on Instagram and book a sales call. Okay, I want to help you resolve the number one conflict in your relationship, whether it be in your marriage or conflict relationship with your friendships or comfort relationship with yourself, so that you can show up as a partner that you desire to be, or so that you can just be the person that you desire to be, that you feel God is calling you to be. You understand me? You can even go to my website, Karinafdaves.com, and book a sales call there. Okay, we need to do this work together. It's it's serious.
Okay, alright, listen, let me pray for you, Father, God. I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for the opportunity for us to commune together. I ask that, in this very moment, that you send those angels of support. So many of us feel like we don't have the right friends, or we don't have friends at all. I ask in this very moment, that you replace the loneliness spirit that you that we feel with encouragement and hope, that people will come into our lives, that we should pray for them, that we will pray for them, that you will send the people necessary to guide us, and that you will also prune the people that don't belong there anymore. Lord, you are such a sovereign God, such a powerful God, and you move in ways that don't make sense to me. I will be honest with you. You, you sometimes take a long time and it is annoying, and I won't be real with you. I'm stubborn, and as a child of God, I know my place, and I know that you're God, and I know that I'm your child, but I gotta be honest with you that sometimes it just takes a really long time. And I just asked in this very moment that for us that are waiting for the storm to pass, would you just give us an insight on what is happening, or even give us some hope that we just need to hold strong, some faith that we need to hold strong, allow us to be more faithful in Jesus name, amen.
Okay, name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert, speaker and podcast. This is this dope podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, I want you to subscribe to it, share it with all of your amigos, and we actually have a little bit of time to answer a question. Here we go. So I'll keep it anonymous, but the question is, I'm married and love my wife and love my baby mama, and can't choose between. Help me. Okay, that is, that is interesting. So first of all, the question I have for you is, are you with both of them actively now? It's interesting, because infidelity is hard, and so the first step that I would say, in helping choose is to stop the infidelity. Is to stop the cheating. The second thing is to confess to both parties about what is happening, and step three about choosing what needs to happen. That's something that is not going to depend on love, but is going to depend on your values. And again, I'm not judging you at all. I'm giving you very sober advice here. I also have a cheating series on my podcast. It's more for the person that was cheated on, but I still recommend listening to it as the cheater, because it will help you navigate this and so to the person that send this question, I hope that answer helped. And I wish you the best. And if you want to work with me, I got you.
Alright, listen, I love you so much. Happy Fourth of July. I hope that you enjoy your time with your family, your time with your friends, your time with whomever, even with yourself. Okay, again. My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert, and I hope that you enjoy this episode on Relationships. You understand? Okay, I love you so much. Bye.
And what I mean by that is if X happens, then what will you do if Y happens? Then what are you going to do? What next steps will you take if they start acting fishy again? What next steps will you take if they cheat on you again? What will you do? I don't want you tracking them, you know, clocking them, figuring out this figuring out their every move. This is going to exhaust you. Let me explain this again.
I do not want after you figure out, after you discover that your partner has stepped out on your relationship and you make the decision to stay and work it out. I do not want you then to become exhausted by having to clock them and hold them accountable for every single thing that they do or say. This will deplete you. This will exhaust you.
This will change 100 % the dynamic of the relationship. It will change the vibe. It will change the values. It will change the purpose. It will no longer be fun. Instead of holding them accountable, what I want you to do is hold yourself accountable for what you will do if they do X, if they do Y, if they do Z. What will be your next step?
What's more important than holding them accountable in this relationship is holding yourself accountable on what next moves you will make based on how they move. So for example, if they decide to, you know, be at the bar late at night and hang out with people that you find inappropriate to your relationship and that goes against your values, what will you do? What will you do? Instead of making it all about holding them accountable,
I need you in the dedication part to dedicate the accountability part towards yourself and your moves. You understand? That's the most important part of this episode. If you just came in is figuring out how you can hold yourself accountable after finding out that your partner has stepped out in this relationship, because I promise you it will exhaust you to clock them and hold yourself accountable and be in this mighty role of like, you need to, you know, win back my respect, which they do.
They know that we need to create trust all over again. Yes, I totally get that. But you holding them accountable every single part of the way will exhaust you, will change you and will turn you into a person that you don't want to be. You understand me? You don't want to be that person. Okay. The next thing that I want you to do is the last dedication is the dedication to this relationship.
I want you to focus on what you want for this relationship. Where do you see it going, right? What do you want it to look like? Dedicate getting support for this relationship in whatever manner you think works, seeking wise counsel, like perhaps getting another partner that y 'all trust to mentor you guys through this stage or possibly some, a church community or marriage therapist or a marriage coach like me, whatever it is, I want you to dedicate your time.
to rebuilding the trust that is necessary for this relationship and being able to come up with the exact communication strategies, unpacking your new values. This is exactly the work that I wanna do with you by the way, okay? Because at the end of the day, y 'all are going to need, as part of dedicating, having a dedication to the relationship requires y 'all getting some type of support, okay? No matter how much y 'all decide that we're gonna work on this,
we're gonna put our heads together and we're gonna make this work. You are going to need somebody, because after you journal everything that you all your dreams for this relationship and after you have these long conversations and after you make a vision board for your relationship, you are going to need support. You are going to need somebody that's going to walk you through unpacking the things that your partner has said, unpacking the attitude that your partner has. And you're like wondering, why are they having an attitude? They're the ones that stepped out. You are going to need support.
to be able to come up with the exact communication strategies it's going to take to heal your marriage, to heal your relationship when something as devastating as this has happened in your relationship. You understand? This is exactly the work that I do with my clients. I've worked with several clients that have gone through this same thing, which is cheating. And I'll give you the honest truth. Some clients decide to remain together and work it out. And some clients decide that they are better apart. At the end of the day, my promise is this, you will either grow together or you will grow apart, but you will always, always grow. You understand me? Okay, listen, if you haven't listened to the rest of the episodes, all right, of the cheating series, I highly urge you to go back to episodes one, two, three, and four, where I talk about the discovery, the decision, and deconstruction, okay? Listen, if right now,
you and your partner are struggling with something difficult, difficult news, difficult situation, difficult circumstances, I wanna help you overcome the number one conflict in your relationship so that you could stop spinning out and stop arguing and putting yourself in circles. Right now, y 'all could communicate till the cows come home. I hope that's how the saying goes. But if y 'all don't understand something about each other, y 'all don't actually start comprehending each other, you ain't gonna get nowhere and communication is just gonna go right at the window, okay?
I'm going to be able to help you decode what your partner is trying to say when they say things like, okay, or I forgot, or I don't know. I'm going to break down exactly what they mean so that y 'all can start being on the same page, so that they can start feeling safe to really tell you what their deep truest feelings are, and so that you could start feeling heard. You understand me? Okay, go to link my bio and book a sales call so we can start working. I wanna help you heal and transform your marriage. I only have a few spots left to work with me.
and I can't wait to do this work with you. Okay, can I pray for you? All right, Father God, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for your light. I thank you for your sovereignty. I thank you for the hand that you have over our lives and over our relationships. I know that not every single relationship is meant to work out, but I still am grateful for the relationships that you put into our lives to show us everything that you want to show us through people, because that's how you work. You use people as conduits, and I appreciate that.
No matter how much we fall short, I thank you for always being there for us. Really, God, I really do. I ask that you continue blessing our families, protecting our children, as many of them graduate this month, as many of them end and go into summer camps. Father God, protect our kids during this time, okay? Protect our household and may no weapon formed against us ever prosper. Lord, protect us. Protect us, Lord. Jesus' name, amen. Okay.
I love you. All my episodes are super short. If you enjoyed this episode, I want you to follow me, subscribe to it, share it with all of your amigos. And listen, if right now you are struggling in your relationship, I want you to know that you can book a sales call even if your partner isn't ready to do this work. There is so much power in just one. All it takes is one. It takes two to do a lot of this pain and hurt and even
bring together and do the work, but it only takes one person to start. You understand? Okay. My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert, coach and speaker and podcast host of this dope podcast relationships. You understand. I can't wait to see y 'all soon. Okay. Love you. Bye.
