139. Marriage Is a Partnership, Not a Project
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.
Are you treating your marriage like a partnership or a project?
I see so many people, especially high achieving partners, become hyper focused on their next goal or milestone. Over time that fixation rarely allows couples to stop and enjoy the fruits of what they are building.
Learn what problems can arise when you treat your marriage like a project, and why you should actually treat it like a true partnership.
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 and host of this dope podcast.
Today's episode is going to have you question whether your marriage is a project or a partnership. One of the things that I've shared before in the past was that in the beginning of my marriage, while I love my husband, and I married him because our values aligned, I saw so many patterns, not potential but more so patterns that he had as a man, as a father and as a partner, even when I think back to why I married him, I realized that in the beginning of our marriage, I rushed for it to be perfect. And I began treating my husband like a project rather than my partner.
And that this happens a lot, I'll say, especially as a marriage expert having coached many couples through this. see many high achieving partners do this and high achieving. Here we go. That's me - obsessed with the next goal. And our marriage became so hyper focused on what was the next goal? What was the next milestone? What was the next fix? What was the next problem? What was the next gap in our lives? And over time that fixation rarely allowed us to stop and enjoy the fruits of what we were building. And I've said this to my husband recently where one of the things that attracts me to him is that he has a backbone. He is very big on telling me no and very big on telling me we're not moving forward with this. And I think that if it wasn't for his grace coupled with his ability to say no, the marriage could have basically be led by me.
And I've coached so many couples through that where one partner leads so much. And, you know, even though there might be laughter or joy, the relationship and marriage is based on their partner agreeing.
And then you have a partner that gets upset and pissed off when the other partner forgets or doesn't do something, you know, and it turns into, you know, feeling like the partner in the big group project isn't doing their side of things. And the reality is that you don't actually enjoy your marriage. You become more like your partner's parent than, in my case, his wife.
I became more like this micromanaging, overbearing, correcting, directing type of wife. And I didn't realize how much I hated it. It became so difficult because I was having a hard time separating work from home. I was in these positions in my career where I was directing and making sure that we had plans and assigning teams and everybody go and then we circle back and then I would get home and didn't realize for years, for years, I did not realize I was treating my husband more like a project than I was my partner.
Correcting him, managing him, directing him. I was more like his parent and then I. Fantasized about the moments where we could just laugh and relax right and I would say yeah like everything's going great because we have all these moments were like we laugh and we enjoy the beach and we go on vacations but like outside of those 5 to 7 days or outside of those date nights. It was me saying - this is the next project. This is what we need to do. And I started to feel as a result, super unseen, super unheard. I felt like nothing, you know, he ever did was right. And interestingly enough, he started to feel the same exact way. He started to feel unseen. He started to feel unheard. He started to feel like nothing that he did was right. And that's when it hit me. My husband isn't supposed to be a project, he's supposed to be my partner. And I had to make this very difficult decision, which I would say was one of the very first times in a romantic relationship where I grabbed my ego and I said, sit right here for a second. Literally, I remember feeling that multiple times.
It was so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable, not leading and not saying what needed to happen. It was sort of like I tricked myself into believing that I was this safe space and amazing wife because I made sure things got done.
And the reality was that things did get done, but joy was low. It was momentarily high, but in the span of the time we were together, we had to stretch out that joy and I had to keep fantasizing back to those moments to remind myself like we are happy, but then to realize like, nah, like we actually aren't happy. I'm not happy leading like this and he's not happy being with someone that doesn't let him lead. And then I'm complaining about wanting him to lead. And so when I decided to put my ego aside, It's exactly the moment when I had to decide to stop managing my husband and I had to start partnering with him. And one of the very very first things that came back was our friendship. Our friendship came back, our marriage started to soften up and we became us again. We became us and it didn't happen overnight, okay?
But I promise you many couples are struggling with this hardenedness that exists in their marriage because there is an obsession with goal setting and getting things done and schedules.
People look at Terrence and I and ask like, how do you guys do all those things? Like how do you guys have this sort of relationship where you're working off one another and you're tapping each other in and there's calendars and whatnot. I think many couples start with systems and
hope that through the systems, the love and the grace will come. But it's the other way around. You got to start with the love and the grace and the forgiveness first. And then the systems will be seamless. We tried our best to introduce the systems first, thinking that that would decrease a lot, but it only reared our egos, ugly heads at the end of the day.
And this is exactly the shift that I now help couples make from managing each other to finally partnering again, because the reality is that when you stop treating each other like projects, it's going to start the healing. It's going to begin the healing of the resentment and start building finally the intimacy that lasts. So if you're listening to this episode and you're tired of managing your marriage, you want to start enjoying it, then we need to work together. Okay.
Go to link in my bio and book a call so we can talk about everything that's happened so far, what you tried and how I can help. I want to help you enjoy your marriage. I cannot force you to make your partner remember to take out the trash, but I can teach you how to have those conversations when you become pissed off about the imbalance, when you become pissed off about the grace that doesn't exist. You understand? Okay, let me pray for you.
Father God, I thank you so much for the gift of marriage. Thank you so much that for everybody that's listening and in a relationship or in a marriage or looking for a marriage, I thank you that their heart desires marriage because marriage is one of the ultimate forms of unity. ⁓ I pray over the listeners right now and these families right now that wherever in their lives, even if it's not romantic and friendships at work where there are significant others, especially as the holiday seasons enter that they be reminded that unity is going to be one of the very first things that the enemy comes to attack. And so I pray over their lives right now, Father God, that unity be at the center of it all. And to be reminded that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have unity. You just need to spend time. Amen. All right, listen.
My name is Karina F Daves. I'm a marriage expert and podcast host of this dope podcast. I want to say thank you so much for coming back for another week. My episodes are always straight and to the point because I know my listeners got to get back to living their lives and I just want to say thank you one more time. Love you. All right. See you next week. Bye.
