133. 5 Things We Did in 2024 That Changed the Game for Our 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 marriage. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
In this episode, I share 5 things that my husband and I did last year as a married couple that really changed the dynamic of our marriage.
These 5 simple things helped us get on the same page and become better partners and parents.
I hope these ideas inspire you as you evaluate and fortify your own marriage.
Click the link to listen, and let me know what you think - I’d love to hear from you!
If this episode hits home and you’re ready to work with me, book a call so we can chat. On the call, you’ll share what’s going on, what you’ve tried, and I’ll share how I can help. Can’t wait to connect!
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos, welcome back to the Relationship Reset with me, your host, Karina F. Daves marriage expert, speaker and podcast host of this dope podcast. This episode is going to be called five things we did in 2024 that changed the game for our marriage. And this is actually a spin-off of or an extension of a post that I did earlier this year that really talked about, you know, what we did as a married couple that really changed the dynamic, changed communication, just changed a lot for our marriage.
And one of the things, if you've been following me for a long time, is that I've been talking about marriage since 2021 or maybe the end of 2020. But what I'll say is that most of the things that I share are testimonies, meaning that they've already happened. The lesson has already been learned. So plenty of times the deeper things that we're going through or testing and trying out won't be shared till it becomes a testimony. And that's out of the privacy of my own marriage and also because I want to make sure that my husband is okay with, right? ⁓ Which is why if you've also been following me for a long time, in the beginning, many of the things that were shared were mainly me as the wife. And I believe really continue to be as well. So let's dive right in.
These are five. Listen, I think that they were simple. Some cost us some money, but I think that they were simple once you both became on the same page. So the first one is that we stopped limiting intimacy to the bedroom. And I know what you're thinking. Like, Karina, I don't understand. Like we're, that's disgusting. We're literally going, you know, to do all these things all over the house. Yeah. Cause you pay for every square footage of it when you pay your rent or your mortgage. Right. And part of that thrill, that newness, that thrill is what you're missing right now in your marriage. And being intimate outside of the bedroom is going to give you that thrill, right? So like, I don't know, I'm making places up in the laundry room, in the bathroom, in the kitchen. I don't know, right? But there are so many different ways to be intimate. And I'm talking about sexual intercourse that you can do these things outside of the bedroom, right? I mean, how many of us have especially when you're first dating your partner, that thrill of like, making out in the car or, you know, I don't know, doing something just out of bounds. And it takes two seconds to decide together that we're not going to do it in the bedroom this evening or this morning. Does that make sense? That helped us so much bring back that thrill that many marriages are missing.
Two, we hired support. So Terrence and I have actually been through six ⁓ nannies at this point. And I know it seems like a lot and it is. And I'll just say that the people that had affected the most was our kids. ⁓ Initially, we just needed somebody to help us take our kids to school. And really quickly that role turned into we need somebody to just also get them ready in the morning or actually then it became breakfast. And then we're like, we actually need somebody to get them ready, make breakfast and take them to school. And so we went through about six different nannies and some of some of them didn't work out for the mere fact that, you know, they either ghosted us or that it just no longer was a fit. Right. Getting to her house at six a.m. isn't for everybody. And that was the need that we had. ⁓ And this year, by the grace of God, we finally found our nanny that's been with us for over a year now. And it's interesting because I think in my mind, I always thought that our support needed to be somebody that didn't have a family, but ⁓ everybody up to this point didn't have a family. were mainly, you know, I've been on the, on, I would say the younger side wasn't really married or established, but more so just, you know, finishing up college or things of that nature. And looking back now, I would hire somebody that has been more established, has a family and really understands children dynamics. And so that was very hard for us because you need to trust a lot. so Terrence and I spent a significant amount of time watching our nanny. And what's interesting is we're actually in the process of installing ⁓ more surveillance in our home just to help us to help to ease some of that. But originally, we just wanted her to take the kids to school and then we started trusting her more with cooking and then we trusted her more with, you know, getting them ready in the morning. And that took some time, right? That was that did not happen on the first day, especially because they're not babies. They're kids that can talk. But this allowed us to have the liberty of being able to take back our morning routine, like to just get ourselves ready to just have an extra hand. now, or any also, went from mainly taking care of the children. She also comes twice a week in the evenings to assist us with ⁓ dinner, to start dinner. And that helps so much because she's here for two and a half hours. And in those two and a half hours, not only does she make dinner and sometimes I cheat and I'll just start dinner and she'll just finish it. And, she'll put in a load of laundry. She'll fold some clothes. She'll vacuum the other day. She ⁓ didn't have anything to do because dinner was done and it was easy. So she cleaned the top of the cabinets in the kitchen. things like that, I'm not even thinking about. So she eased a lot of that.
Number three, and this is a big one for many people, we stopped worrying who was going to plan date night, who was going to be the initiator. We only worried about having a good time.
I think we don't have enough grace for our partners being in their own worlds and understanding that not everybody is a planner. Not everybody is going to be as creative and things of that nature. But I think the difference is that when, you invite your partner and you plan everything and they still don't have a good time or they don't want to go or they complain, then we have a problem.
But for us, it was less about that and more about we had spent such a significant amount of time saying like, no, you plan it. No, you plan it that you plan it that in 2024, we were kind of like, who cares? Who cares who plans it as long as we go out and do something. And in 2024, it's very interesting because I would say that it was 60 % me planning it and the 40 % was him planning it. And a lot of that was because I got invited to a lot of things. And so I would say, honey, let's go. Right, but not caring who plans date nights, but just caring that you guys want to have a good time and you want to enjoy company. Like I remember when we got married, my husband said to me, just so you know, I am down for whatever. He didn't say like, I'm going to plan whatever or everything. He said, I am down for whatever. And this year after, you know, 13 years, it hit me. Like this guy literally said he's down for whatever. And here I am complaining that he's, you know, that, that he's not the one playing the date night. So that really alleviated a lot of tension for us.
The fourth thing, I think as you can tell, I'm a very social person, which means I like hosting. And the fourth thing we needed to let go was hosting. So we were very big into huge birthday celebrations, having everybody over all the time. If my kid's tooth fell out, if somebody got a promotion, like we were just very big on like, everybody come over. And it became taxing. I mean, we were hosting probably anywhere between six to 10 barbecues in the summer, which each are probably around $1,200 to $1,500. I mean, we're not just doing hot dogs and burgers. We're doing steaks. There's alcohol. And even though you tell people, yeah, bring whatever you want, or you bring this or you bring that, you're still the host. You have to have something. So we stopped hosting as much as we have this year, excuse me, in 2024. And we started doing celebratory dinner. So everybody's birthday was acknowledged, but with a dinner, not a huge birthday party. And man, that not only helped our energies, but it helped our ⁓ pockets. And I think that plenty of us think that memories always have to come in form of a big celebration or a big party. But so many memories come from just a dinner where, you know, I remember my mom and dad took me out to dinner and you know, I got to choose the restaurant and they were hugging me and we played Uno at the dinner table and it was just us four and intimate and especially coming from a Hispanic background, like we're just used to partying for everything. I'll just say my family is. And so I think I just came from a place of like you go big or, you go home. And this year I really had to scale a lot of that mentality back and realize how much of that hosting was really depleting our marriage.
The last thing that we did in 2024 that changed our marriage was we became aligned on parenting. You know, we really got to the point in our parenting where our kids were really testing us to see who they could get on their side. And regardless of that was going on, if they were doing some shady business, like we at first didn't really respond well to it. And we would communicate in front of the kids of what to do as opposed to what we do now, which is like, ask, say, you know, give us a minute, daddy and I will talk about it later or we'll get right back to you. But I think that there were a couple of instances in, in 2023 where my husband felt like, and I also had some of those where we both felt like, you know, we were stepping on each other's toes and the kids felt like they could get one over on us. And so for us, we had to remember like, yo, we were here first.
Like for real. ⁓ So we started to become more aligned on parenting and the two things that we did was one, ⁓ valued never discussing what we were gonna do about the kids in front of the kids and two, never interrupting whatever parenting the parent, initial parent that's handling the situation was implementing. Now, I'll give you an example that literally just happened where my husband was talking to my son about something that he did that he wasn't supposed to do. And my son was whining about it. And he, you he was talking to him about how like, you know, you're going to have to transition from whining to learning how to regulate yourself. And he's like, I'm not trying to like shut down your feelings, but you're going to have to learn how, how like, you're not five anymore. You're going to be 11.
And so he walked away from that conversation, then like, I, with my lips, I was like, say, love you. Say, I love you. And he was like, what? And I was like, say, love you. And he's like, oh yeah. So he went back and was like, I just want to let you know, I love you. And they hugged. And so you see like, I didn't scream like, tell him you love him. Or like, you need to say you love him because that emasculates him and emasculates his role as a dad. So.
Those are quick five things that I shared that we did in 2024 that really changed the game for our marriage. I'm actually curious to hear one thing that y'all did in your marriage that really changed the game. You can email it to me at team@KarinaFdaves.com or you can send me a DM, whatever works for you. I'm with it. I really, really enjoyed just sharing a little bit more about the intricacies and sort of like our living testimonies and these top five things I have them on this post that like this is my script. These top five things I wouldn't share with you if they really didn't change my marriage. ⁓ But they did. And I think one of the things that you're here that you're gonna hear in 2026 is how we argue differently. ⁓ It's so interesting being married for this long. But anyways, let me pray for you.
Father God, I thank you so much for this day. thank you so much for your love. And I'm so sorry for not praying before this episode. ⁓ But I ask that your hand be over it. And I ask that this be received by the homes and hearts that really need it. Father God, I think that change is something that many of us ⁓ tend to not want to do, but don't realize how much your hand is over that change and how much of that is being initiated by you, how many lessons we can learn through that change and how we must embrace change in order to do the very thing that you want us to do, which is to grow closer to you. I thank you so much for your word and I love you. Amen.
Okay, well, if you've enjoyed listening to this episode, make sure you like it, save it, share it with all of your amigos. And I think you once again, for joining me on the Relationship Reset Podcast. All right, love you so much. Bye.
