Nurturing Your Marriage, with special guest Lesli Doares

Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. And today's guest, you guys, is Leslie Doris. She's a marriage and family therapist turned couples coach. She's going to share with us why nurturing your relationship with your spouse is important to our kids, why it's good for our kids to see that life is not all about them.

And she even goes as far as to say having kids is the worst thing to happen to a marriage. Say what? Hey, a quick note that while today's episode is focused on married couples, Leslie also is the founder of the Hero Husband Project. So for all you dads, you're going to want to check out how you can learn more about that in the show notes.

And for those of you parents who have endured a divorce, I just shared a free event specifically for moms who have gone through divorce on my Facebook page. So if that's you, get on Facebook and search for at Hello World Attach to learn more about that free event. And finally, for all of you single parents, no worries. I've got you covered too. There's an episode coming up just for you.

All right, for now, let's get to my interview with Ms. Leslie Doris. welcome leslie i'm so excited to have you on the show today and especially curious about one of the things that you say in your coaching is that kids are the worst things to happen in a marriage so i can't wait to get into that but first i want to share with our listeners a little bit of background about you you're a marriage and family therapist turned marriage coach so why don't you just give us a little bit of background on your journey with that. Sure. In my early days of being a licensed marriage and family therapist, one of my first clients was a little girl who was brought to me and she was six and I couldn't really help her because how many tools can you give a six-year-old?

And so that's really what got me to work with their, with the parents, with, you know, and, and understanding that what most children want is their parents to have a solid relationship. So that's how I got into doing therapy. And then I moved into coaching because I found that a lot of people, you know, a lot of people in terms of therapy, especially if insurance pays for it, you actually have to have a mental disorder diagnosis.

and most of what I deal with isn't serious illness it's actually just the normal stuff that comes with a marriage the you know challenging challenges of communicating balancing your time you know how do you stay connected as a couple I mean you know all these just normal things that people run into nobody's sick nobody's bad we just don't know so that's That's so coaching just felt much more appropriate for what I'm doing.

I love that. And that's actually our stories are similar in that with our careers. I was a 20-year counselor and I really loved counseling. I loved counseling the kids.

And same kind of thing, insurance paid and we had to have a diagnosis. The kids had to have some sort of mental health diagnosis, which sometimes they did. And sometimes they really didn't. And I wanted to reach more parents.

I wanted to teach the parents how to help their kids. So, you know, I left that world to become a parent coach. So, you know, I too could help them in the day to day, day in, day out communication struggles and, you know, all things behaviors. So, all right.

So, so you made that move to marriage coaching. Another thing that just in getting to know you, you talk about dads and what is your specialty or what is your niche with those dads? My niche is actually to work with the dads, work with the husbands, work with the men. There's a lot of information, not all of it accurate, but there's a lot of information out there for women.

And, you know, I truly believe that most men are good guys who love their wives, love their families, want it all to work. They just don't know how. And a lot of this, you know, and if they go in search of, it's all, you know, it's all information for their wives. And so I actually come at it because I don't think we can leave 50% of the population behind if we want all this stuff to work.

So great. I love that. And we're going to talk more about how they can get in touch with you, you know, at the end of the show. So let's then get into this, this bold statement that you've made that children are the worst things to happen to a marriage. What on earth do you mean?

Well, it's actually not just me. The research, because there are actually people who do research marriage, right? I mean, there are professors and researchers out there who look at it. And marital satisfaction takes a hit when children come on the scene.

and if you know and it makes perfect sense because before babies it's just the two of you you know and babies come with a whole lot more to do and no extra time and babies do not understand wait a minute even a mommy minute um they need you know their needs their needs need to be met immediately and, you know, for at least the first year and probably into the first two years. And so the time has to come from someplace. And most of the time, the time comes from the marriage because you have 24 hours in a day, no more extra time, but a lot more extra work. And so that's really where the problem lies. And that makes perfect sense because if you don't have any more time to give and you've got to pull from, you know, another resource or another chunk of time,

typically you can't pull it from work. You can't be using your PTO or your sick days or whatever. And so you're pulling it from the time that you would normally spend with your spouse. So how do you keep your marriage thriving while raising kids? What are some things we can do?

Well, you really have to be intentional about it. Just like anything else that matters to us, we actually have to put time and attention towards it. And anybody in my profession worth their salt talks about date nights. And now I have a very specific definition of what a date night is.

a date night is not going out to the same restaurant every week and rehashing everything that's, you know, just talking about the kids, rehashing everything that's wrong in your marriage is like, oh yeah, please sign me up for that. I want to be there. No. In fact, actually when I'm at restaurants, I want to fling my cards on the other tables because I know that's what they're doing. Date nights are specifically for the two of you to have fun together as a couple.

And you can even do it now, you know, you can do it without leaving the privacy of your home. Now, it does take a little bit of planning, but we have all these wonderful things that can entertain our children. My husband and I used to have a weekly dinner, candlelit dinner in our dining room. And our children were set.

Okay, we would put in the movie back in the VCR days back before, you know, we put in the movie and we basically say, do not come into the dining room unless the house is on fire or somebody is bleeding. Right. And so we would have 90 minutes to two hours, depending on how long the movie was, to be able to just interact with each other. And people can play card games.

They can do anything. But my definition of a date night is it has to be fun and you have to be able to talk to each other. So if you're going to watch a movie, then you actually have to have like dessert or something where you actually will then talk. You can't just be sitting in the same place and not interacting with each other, right?

And it's stuff that's fun. Staying necessarily away from unpleasant topics, but just fun stuff. Because when we're with somebody, we make the assumption that we know them. My husband and I have been together for 36 years.

Sometimes I look at him and go, who are you? Where did that come from? because either one somehow in 36 years we never talked about it or two you know his opinion you know something has changed right and but we just assume that because we talk about the same superficial things every day we know what's going on you know you know in their head so you could ask you know what was your favorite christmas what was your best birthday you know what was who was your favorite teacher in school? All kinds of things that are just kind of openings to who this person is and how they're, how they're being in the world right now.

I love that. And I also, I love the idea of, of bringing up the things that you would, that you did when you were dating, I guess, more of the things or, or first married, you know, pre-kid. Right. And so I'm also really curious about, is it more common for the woman to initiate these date nights? Do you have a suggestion for who should or? Oh, I've got a great suggestion. I talk about having date jars, right? Little jars or whatever, where when one of you thinks about something that you'd like to do, you write it down on a slip of paper and you put it in the date jar. Now, you can have indoor date jars and outdoor date jars, because if you want to go out, you know, if you're planning on doing something outside and the weather isn't cooperating, you want to have something else in. And then you trade off. So one week,

it's one person's job. And then the next week, it's the next person's job. So that one person isn't always responsible, right? And if you don't know what to do, You just go to the date jar and you pull out something and whatever it is, provided it's possible due to the weather, you do it.

You don't get to put the slip back. And you do have to make sure that there are certain things that you can say to your partner off limits. I'm not a big fan of heights, although I have jumped out of an airplane and that's a whole other story. but so so if my husband wanted to to go rock climbing but honey i love you not happening right if somebody's afraid of something or it really makes them uncomfortable then you have to make an agreement these that this doesn't go into the date jar but whatever else shows up in the date jar we do then we're not squeaky the squeaky wheel is going to get the attention so that's Kids are squeaky household chores because yes, we do have to have food.

And, you know, there's other things that always take precedence, but the more we put the relationship on the back burner, the more at risk it becomes. Cause I talk about BC before children and AD after departure that when, that when our children grow up, we want to still be connected to the person who's sitting across the kitchen table from us. And the only way to do that is to make time. And I'm also a big proponent, when we're all allowed out, of taking vacations alone with your partner, whether it's a long weekend, whether it's something else, but to really make time to, on a regular basis, so that you are just alone with your partner, you get to take off the mommy and daddy hat for a while.

And that can be really difficult for people to do because they feel like their kids are going to miss out. And that brings up a funny story because my husband and I, I've danced on and off most of my life. And so where I live, we've got a professional ballet company. And my husband, the year that they came up, my husband says, what do you want for your anniversary?

And I said, season tickets to the ballet. And so one of our date nights is we get dressed up. My husband actually puts on a tuxedo. I mean, we get all dressed up, we go out to dinner and we go to the ballet.

And so when my kids were little, there was a favorite restaurant of my son who loves food. And we would go and he said, well, where are you going to dinner tonight? And we tell him, he'd get really mad because we go, we're going, you know, to Bistro 604 and you're not going. And it would make it, but you know, they saw us, here's the reason why it's not children missing out because what they see is they see mom and dad being together as a couple which is going to give them the you know our first teachers are our parents and so they will see what a what a husband and a wife are and they will see here's this relationship that makes us safe and mom and dad are taking care of it and yes in the moment like my son they're going to pout but but the point is, is that they need to see that it's not all about them. And if they, you know, if they don't get to go to the restaurant that they want to go to this time, or they don't get to go on the bike ride, or wherever it is, you know, you guys decide to go, they will be fine.

Okay, that leads me into the next kind of segues me into the next topic of the conversation. is it possible to balance parenting and partnering effectively? Like how do we talk with each other, with our kids, and reach real solutions without arguing our tears, as you'd say? Yeah.

Well, you know, a huge factor in that is how we approach those conversations. A lot of times people don't have these conversations because they view them as conflict. And there's no way to put a positive spin on the word conflict. And oh, by the way, if I think we're going to have a conflict, I'm going to go to the closet and pull out my sword and my shield and my armor because in my head, I'm going to battle.

So first off, how we approach it really makes a difference. Most of the time, it's merely a difference of opinion, right? And this is, we need to get right and wrong out of it. I am you know I grew up in Los Angeles my body temperature is set at 68 degrees I crack my husband up because I know when the thermostat drops to 67 and my husband you know for years people didn't think he owned a pair of pants because all he ever wore were shorts because you know and so we don't have the same body temperature so who's right and who's wrong, right? It's 67 degrees. I'm cold. He's fine. Okay. That's a truism, right?

Nope. But we want our opinion to be right. And so when we're discussing opinions, that's all they are. I look at the world this way. You look at the world the other way. It's the same thing with our kids, right? And when we can be respectful of those opinions and be curious about them, not why do you think this way or you know prove that your position is is is an appropriate one it's like oh how interesting tell me more about that and can it just be can can you know your 67 degree cold and his 67 degree what's the what's the problem can it can that just be yeah i mean we have to argue about it no I just go get the blanket I mean it's just you know it's like I'm cold I want the blanket right and and my husband wants me to be comfortable so you know um and you know now you can have conversations about what do we want the thermostat set and I get that um and you know and then it's but it's coming at it from a place of love and that's really where we have to take a step back and and go what is it that i want to get from having this conversation with my partner do i want if i want to reach a positive outcome then what do i need to have in place and the first thing i need to have in place is that i not be upset and i can't listen i can spew but I actually can't hear my partner's position and and that's really tough because a lot of times we bring things up when we are upset somebody just said or did something

and my anger just went out of control and now I want to fix it and I want it you know but I'm not in any position to talk and this is where how we end up in fights is because we're not paying attention to our own emotional temperature. So what are your some some suggestions for that and how to how to delay that conversation that's a lot of what I teach right delay that conversation till you're both in a microsecond of a good mood and you can be prepared to actually talk about it versus defend yourself. Well there are a couple of things that I suggest and one you know I suggest having what I call a marriage meeting where once a week you get together and you each get a topic and you, by the way, you tell your partner the topic at least 24 hours ahead of time so that they're, so that they know it's coming, not caught off guard. And we, we, we set times aside to have maybe some of the bigger, harder conversations. And they only last an hour, by the way, which drives people crazy when I tell them this, because the, the goal isn't to get to a fast solution.

It's to get to a solution that you both can embrace and implement. And so sometimes that takes more than one time of talking. The other thing I tell people to do is to use an emotional temperature scale of one to 10. With one is everything is calm, peaceful.

Life could not be better. To 10, somebody is going out the second story window and I don't know who it is. If you are higher than a three, you have to keep your mouth shut. Wow, higher than a three.

Yep. Now I tell people you can, during a conversation, you can ebb up to a six, but you have to, but you have to come back down. But if you start going higher than a six, you've got to take a timeout. And my six may not match your six, but if I tell somebody, if I tell my husband, honey, I'm at a nine, he doesn't want to talk to me.

I was like, okay, honey, please go away. And, and if I'm that hot, my sole job is to get myself down to a three and you could, and we could say, you know, we could say, I'm still at, I'm at a seven, but I'm coming down, you know, to, because we don't want to have these conversations when we are emotionally upset. That's when we end up in a fight. And by the way, this is great for kids too because you know um you know if i if i would tell my kids you know mommy mommy's at a 10 she's going to time out right they would go oh okay um because because what they see is oh mommy and daddy can can get hot but they can also bring it back down and so we're showing by example with each other. But what happens is, is somebody wants to resolve this right now.

And that's about the worst thing. That's behind the don't go to bed angry. It's like, oh, good. Let's stay up and fight about this until three o'clock in the morning.

That's a really good idea. Not. It's, you know, it's figuring out what is it about this that made me upset. And then sometimes I can go back to my partner and say, hey, last Saturday when we were talking about this and my temperature scale, I blew the top off the temperature scale, here's what happened. Here's what's really hard for me. When we talk about it, can we do it a different way, right? And one of those different ways that I tell people is don't use the word you in the first three words of a sentence, unless it's, I love you. You're wonderful. I'm glad you're in my life. Then you may use you with your heart content, but why did you, you did you always, you never now that now, now we're headed towards a fight because I'm going to get defensive.

That is so great. I, yeah, I've heard it before and I think we all try our best in those moments, but I do like the temperature scale. I think that's, that's super great to incorporate in your conversations with your spouse. And I also love the idea of a marriage meeting versus a date night. Like they are two very different things. Absolutely. Do not solve problems. Try to talk about your relationship issues when you're on a date night. Oh my God, don't do that. But you have to have this separate time. And I tell people, you have your marriage meeting and you have it at the same time every week, just like you would at your business, whatever your weekly manager meeting is, there's an agenda.

You each get one. And you do not move this meeting unless act of God or once in a lifetime activity like grandma's turning 100. And then if you do have to move it, you reschedule it, right? And the thing that also is important, and because I know a lot of people say this, it's like, well, if I let my partner leave a conversation, they won't come back.

so another rule is if I call for a timeout I have to provide another time when we will come back and pick this up because if I don't my partner's never going to let me go and we're just going to keep in this loop and you know and and something else that's really important that we don't do is to ask our partners hey I would like to talk about this subject is now a good time yeah that's really important too right it could be when one of you just got in the door from a long day and the other one's just been waiting for that spouse to come through the door because they are whether i mean it could be really good exciting news too it could be just this phenomenal phenomenal you know activity or something that happened exciting exciting thing that happened and they get they feel bombarded right it's like well like give me five to chill out you know right so that's really great too all right let's let's finish up with this last question here what is the danger of having a child-focused family what do you think what would you say is is the biggest danger in having a child-focused family well first off if well there are a couple of different reasons and first off the world when when our i actually was talking with a colleague of mine about this um he has a book called scream free parenting and he's also done scream free marriage and and how how ron goes his name and he said we are not raising children we're raising

adults and when we have when we put all the focus on our children and try to bubble wrap them and protect them, we're actually doing them a disservice. Because when they're 25, when they're 30 years old, the boss isn't going to do that. So one of the things is it sets our kids up to fail, which I know people don't think, right? But if our children don't know how to handle disappointment, little disappointment like, oh, you're not going to the restaurant with mommy and daddy, they're ill prepared to handle big disappointments the other reason is again nothing thrives on neglect and marriage is the same so if we still want to be married once our children leave home then we need to at least spend some time taking care of that marriage which if everything is always about the kids and oh by the way i also say there has to be room for each person as an individual, right? Mom has to be able to do some things just for her. Dad has to be able to do some things just for him. We have to spend time as a couple and then we spend time as a family.

And, you know, it's, it really, I mean, there's no perfect balance because it's going to change with the age of the kids and what kind of job people have. But the idea is we're carving up some time for each thing. We have, we all get 168 hours a week. Nobody gets more time. I don't care how much money you have. You cannot buy more time. And how we divide up that 168 hours is really important. So true. And I just think it's one of the most difficult things is taking the time to make the time and actually sticking to those date nights or those marriage nights. So thank you so much, Leslie, for joining us today. If you want to learn more about Leslie and the services that she offers, you can find her in a couple of places. You can go to foundationscoachingnc.com or as I mentioned in the intro of this podcast, Leslie also has something called the Hero Husband Project. She shows men how to win back themselves, their wives, and their marriages. So you can go to theherohusbandproject.com and learn more about that. All of Leslie's information is in the show notes. And again, thanks Leslie so much for joining us. And Hey parents, if you're enjoying this show, please feel free to subscribe, leave a quick review. And if you're feeling super generous,

maybe take a screenshot of the podcast, share it on your Instagram, Facebook, or other social media. I appreciate you helping me to spread the word so that I can reach more parents.