Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 247 | Biggest frustrations in marriage and parenting

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Today we wanted to dive into our biggest frustrations in marriage and parenting, not to dwell on the negative but to encourage you all that you’re not alone in what you’re facing day-to-day and to say we’re all in this together!  AND….big news! We’ve *officially* launched the product we’ve been working on perfecting for over a year and that’s an all-in-one superpowder for kids! Andrew and I co-founded Beam Kids with all the pickiest eaters in mind :) Check out the link below to get your own and let us know what you think, we can’t wait for you to try it!  Love you guys, Shawn and Andrew Beam Kids is now available online at shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS. Take advantage of our early access price of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Subscribe to our newsletter  ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram  ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Today we might get in another argument. Who knows? We're going to be talking about our biggest frustrations in marriage, parenting, maybe even life in general. Yeah. I will say when we tend to do episodes like this where we're like looking at something kind of negative, it usually doesn't end well.

Well, let me preface it by saying, I'm not viewing this as something negative. What my goal is is for us to talk about maybe some things we otherwise would. wouldn't talk about in a way that would lead to some solutions. Okay. I'm approaching this optimistically and curiously. I'm on the edge of my seat. And we're opening up the discussion. So if you all have solutions to some of our frustrations or frustrations of your own that

you're looking for solutions for, go ahead and share them in the comments. Like a giant vent session, which is kind of my favorite. No, I'm not viewing this as a vent session. It's my vent session. I'm going to vent away. Let me reiterate, not event. vent session for me. This is a...

Let's do some life updates first, though. Okay. Because a lot's going on. A lot of good things. So much is going on. So much is going on that my brain can't organize into filing cabinets. And so I feel like... You know that episode, Bruce Almighty,

where all the filing cabinets just kind of explode? Yeah, I do know that. That's what my brain feels like. I have too many tabs open. And I forgot where some of the tabs are. It'll be okay. Hopefully they're not important tabs. Can I give you a little, a little piece of advice?

Yeah. There's a time in life many times as a wife where like when wives vent, the last thing we want to hear is going to be okay. I want you to be like, you know what? It's time to panic. Oh, that sucks. Time to panic. Time to panic.

Everybody, it's time to freak out. It is not going to be okay. I'll be like, you know what? I've felt that way. There's a lot going on. Well, I wasn't expecting to start the episode right now, and we won't. But maybe that's one of each other's biggest frustrations is sometimes I'm too optimistic and you're too pessimistic. It's like, you know what?

Maybe there's a light at the end of the time. That's why we got married. That's right. We have one of the things is the Beam Kids All in One Super Powder has launched. This has been such a fun project to work on dialing in the flavors, the ingredients, making sure that. It is top of the line in every way. And I think we've done it. I think we've done it too.

And I'm really proud of this. It's four kids. It is essentially a greens powder, a multivitamin, a probiotic, and a prebiotic. So like almost four, if not five different supplements you would buy for your kid. All in one. And it tastes like chocolate milk. It's so good. Sean has really poured her heart and soul into this.

And you know we love our all-on-one multivitamins. we wanted us something for our kids to taste and take that tasted good how about all that for teas and i think we've done it so if you're interested you could check out the links down below and get your own but we're also working on this remodel project you're building a house yeah that's a big that's that's a big project yeah do i love it no am i trying to be as uninvolved as possible yeah i'm trying to stay in my lane i think we're doing a good job I'm trying to stay in my lane. You're doing a good job.

I feel like we are less overwhelmed than the last time we did this. I think I agree. I don't agree. I disagree. It's been more stressful for me for sure. Good. I'm sorry. Something really cool, though, is we actually got to go to the showroom for Tisdil,

and they showed us all the appliances that were ordering for our house and taught us how to use them. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. I went in thinking, like, okay, there are appliances. Like, what? And this is like Sub Zero Wolf and Cove. And it was so cool. We got to work with a private chef.

She showed us, like, all the different things we've never utilized when it comes to an oven or a skillet. And it was really fun. It was really cool. I'm a big tech gadget guy. And so to see kitchen tech was really awesome. But also, it's kind of timeless. Like Wolf has been around forever. and so but to see how they iterated on these things yeah the steam oven was sweet and on top of that

it was like a taste test so we pretty much just got to eat all this delicious food that had been cooked and all this kitchen appliances it's great shout out to tisdl that was so cool you made something really cool that's right yeah uh Sean's still been grinding in the gym yep beast you set a you set that PR I did lift in 215. You did snatches today. Wow. Feeling strong.

Still doing sourdough. Still doing sourdough. I've crossed quite a few things off of our annual goals already. Good for you. My personal annual goals. Yeah. We did hit a slight speed bump on the sourdough. Sean made her first love if she wasn't pleased with.

Two, back to back. I said keep push. I mean, no, you don't like to hear that. I said, it's terrible, babe. It's not going to be okay. This is not okay. That's what you want to hear, right? Good, good, good, good.

You know what, Andrew? What? You're perfect just the way you are. Thank you. Keep doing it. Thank you. I'll keep complaining. About my encouragement.

That's good. I love you. But with that as a foundation, let's do today's episode. So today we are going to talk about some of the things that you have likely experienced yourself. if you've been married or parenting for any amount of time, you have your kids of your own, you know, there are some frustrations that come around every now and then.

And I actually think I have personally reframed these frustrations to being really something I dread when they come around to something where I'm like, this is a gut check. This is more about me than it is about the frustration. I used to try to like navigate around the thing. But now it's like these kids books we read where it's, You can't go over it, you can't go under it.

You've got to go through it, right? I'm really interested and intrigued because I haven't read this one. You've read this one. Yeah. I want to know what they are. I was in the middle of a metaphor there, of the analogy, though, of going through it, like the kid's book. And you just got to go through the frustration.

That's how you learned the lesson. That was a cue, Andrew. That was, oh, to move on. Yeah, yeah. Great. All right, so despite the frustrations, though, it is important as we talk about this to also realize that parenting and marriage are the biggest blessings in life.

Yeah. There's a lot of good ways to do life. We think marriage and parenting is one way. For us, our marriage and parenting experience has been our biggest blessing. Don't wait too long to enjoy it. Yeah. So I don't want you, I don't, my worst fear is for us to get 20 years down the road

and be like, oh, I wish we would have enjoyed it a little bit more. No, enjoy it now. It's such a challenge to hold the frustrations and the joy together, though. right but it's an ancient concept you look at like yin and yang or you look at all the conversations we've had on the podcast joy and pain go together yeah but the deepest the deepest joy comes after the darkest nights so we're going to talk about our frustrations let's go ahead and kick into it babe so that you can just roll on with your day deepest joys come out of the darkest night that's right

okay so let's start a book on one-liners from andro this is one of this is one of the frustrations we've recently experienced, and that is the winter sickness when you have young children. Amen. The amount of runny noses and the amount of snot coming out of those runny noses for, what is it, six to eight weeks from December to end of January, is appalling. The winter sickness is brutal. Yeah. Absolutely brutal. And I don't feel like there's any way to get around it. You're stuck inside. You're trying to figure out activities. You either hibernate and like never see a soul or you go out and your kids get sick the amount of antibiotics ear infections coughs that last all night it's really frustrating it's a lot and several of our kids were sick

for quite a while and you're trying to send them to school do the right thing inevitably there's a bug that's going around and everybody catches the bug or you go home for Christmas this has happened four of the last five Christmases for our family like we had the Nora virus at one year which was total carnage it was like no one

you didn't even end up seeing the family because you just were all sick locked in the room there were only two people who didn't get it do you remember me and Andrea oh man so we were the ones

picking up puke for a week and I actually think that's why this is one of my biggest frustrations is because it's a time where I expect to spend the most time with my loved ones and then it ends up getting derailed by sickness

Well, you also have to think, so like you have your winter illnesses to begin with, which are always not fun because you're not getting your fresh air, you're not getting your vitamin D, you're not getting like out in the sun, you're cooped up. So it's already just worse. But then, especially for holidays, we're all traveling in from all over, bringing different thicknesses from different parts of the country, different ages. And there's how many kids now? And they all over, they all stay under one roof. and they're all coughing and touching and loving on each other. Yeah. Yeah. It just isn't great. And then you compound that with the subtle slow burn frustration of giving your kids antibiotics, which is like at some point you give your kids so many antibiotics. You're like, I don't think this is good for them anymore.

And then the process of actually giving them the antibiotics is also with like a one-year-old who doesn't want the medicine and spits it out all over your face every time you try to do it, then you've got to lock him in the arm and say it just becomes like it's a lot to navigate I'll never forget seeing your face you had bear of locked in one arm and you're trying to give him his antibiotic and he literally went yeah and just like blew it on your face yeah he wasn't about it he was not about your reaction was great I will also say let me add to the winner another frustration okay adding to the winter sickness us as parents are Our philosophy is kind of like everything in moderation.

So we try to eat healthy. We try to teach our kids healthy habits. We try to like, you know, limit screen time and limit sugar and stuff. But when it comes to life, it's everything in moderation. We're still going to go out and get ice cream and have a treat every once in a while. But on top of just your average every other weekend kind of like birthday party that you're celebrating for a friend or whatever. going from Halloween straight into Thanksgiving

straight into Christmas straight into New Year's with the candy and the sugar and the desserts with kids I just want to be like no more it's kind of like a testing ground

that season of how are you going to navigate this what your real parenting style is because like there's all the are you going to spoil them with a ton of gifts or not how you can navigate that You give them anything they want to eat or not.

How do you navigate that? The family time and the different family styles. It really is like a, it's a stealing phase. But if their immunity is already knocked down, we're just funneling on my sugar? Yeah. I'm like, come on. I know I said I'm going to try to have like an optimistic takeaway with each of these. I'm trying to find one here.

Trying to find one here. I guess you walk out of there with better immune system. Wow. Yeah. I want to talk about another frustration. The next one. as a married couple. This is something I thought we would be able to find a system for

and then it would just be smooth sailing from then on out. But Sean and I's approach to scheduling and our expectations for calendar usage and planning are so different that it's always like pushing the rock up the hill. And I used to, no, no, that's not a bad thing. It's always like pushing a rock up a hill. Me trying to. It's always grinding.

such a grind it is it's tough because i'm like dang i don't i don't want to let you down this does not come naturally and then no matter how i'm trying to navigate through it it's like okay i got to like what how do i do this if what's the right way for me to communicate this and also i just got invited last second and i don't know all the details and sean wants all these details and then and then when i communicate and without all the details you're frustrated even though i'm trying to help communicate what I do know so that we can get as much ahead of the game as possible. You know what I'm saying? I think he's

venting. No, I'm not vending. I think you're vending. I'm not. I'm not. I'm just trying to explain that I'm trying my hardest and I know I'm still falling up short. I'm vending about myself and my own shortcoming. Same. I expect too much. I don't think. I actually don't agree with you on that. I will say,

having to get on the same page is that the one we're doing or managing expectations yeah yeah yeah it's this idea of like it can be very frustrating and hard to have two completely different human beings try to agree and be on the same page with every single thing in life and as you like are into the marriage thing longer it just becomes more and more things not just like how you live in a house it's like where do you want to live do you get along with in-laws finances and it's kids and it's their sleep schedule and their nutrition and their schools and how do you do discipline and like it's all these things spending habits and like the roles that you're each playing it does it gets nuanced but this is what i'm saying my optimistic takeaway on this one is

I am so grateful that you've had the patience with me to stick around as I've personally grown to learn how to communicate better, you know what I'm saying? And plan better and be more considerate with my time and intentional with our time. You know what I'm saying? So my takeaway is like,

it's helping me improve, which then improves our marriage and our family. And I think that's the real fun canvas that family and marriage presents. I think our marriage is helping me not be so uptight. You're helping me not be uptight. I'm helping you tighten up a little bit. Tight up, tighten up.

Tide up. All right, so do we want to talk about this one? The sleep frustration. It's still somewhat of a sort of a subject. We've gotten in a groove. I think we're doing a great job. You guys, we've officially launched our big project. Andrew and I co-created Beam Kids as a solution to get your kids

40 plus essential ingredients including greens, probiotics, prebiotics, fruits, and vitamins. Even the pickiest eaters will love Beam Kids. Because it comes in a chocolate milk flavor, all kids love. It's the perfect combination of health for kids and less stress for parents. Our kids are obsessed with it, and we've heard amazing feedback so far. We cannot wait for you to try it as well. Every supplement we previously found for our kids was always missing something. We found greens without probiotics, probiotics without vitamins or vitamins without a kid-friendly flavor.

There just wasn't a single product that brought it all together. But now we just mix one scoop of Beam Kids with water milk, shake it up, and let our kids enjoy what they think is chocolate milk, but we know is packed with vitamins. beam kids is now available online at shopbeam.com forward slash couple things because you're a listener to our show you can take advantage of our early access price of up to 40% off plus a free reusable cup and travel pack using code couple things get your kids all in one super powder and your free gift by heading over to shop beam that's b e a m dot com slash couple things enter the code couple things again that's shop beam dot com slash couple things and use code couple things for up to 40% off A huge frustration amongst us. Maybe not amongst other people, but I would be surprised. It's just dealing with sleep when it comes to babies. And marriage, to be honest. Sleep when, I'm snoring every now and then, you know?

And you don't really like that. So then you wake me up and then I don't really like that. And then you had the kids on there and when they wake up. Okay, so this is kind of the heart of the issue for Sean and I. Sean wakes up if you're if you're making any noise at all she will wake up and I'm creeping around the house and you know trying to be quiet when there's no kids

still wakes her up but when there's a baby crying it will wake her up she wakes up immediately and like needs to take care of it absolutely because anytime a baby's crying too the other thing is your urgency is so high baby crying I need to get there right now think about what you just said yes if they're in their crib

it's not like an injury cry it's like oh they're up and that's just what babies do okay I'm not then hold on hold your horses me on the other hand

I don't wake up easy so a baby could be crying right next to me for five minutes before I become conscious Sean thinks I'm like taking it or something like she's like why don't you just wake up and I'm like I don't know if you know how sleep works

but I'm not like... No, that's not the frustration. The frustration is Andrew will finally... I'm nervous. I'm nervous. Andrew will finally wake up. And I'll be like, babe, you said you were gonna go get him. And you, like, you said this was your night.

You took, like, you're supposed to be taken care of him. Like, we alternate whose night it is, whatever. And I'm like, you said you were gonna take care of him. And you will say, you will say, you'll be like, He's literally been crying for like 0.2 seconds. Because I just woke up because I just went up. And I would be like, he has not. He has been crying.

Oh, man. This sounds awful. Our kids don't go ever longer than maybe a couple of minutes. The couple of minutes it takes us to get up there. Yeah. But I'm, if you say it's your night, then man up and wake up. What do you mean when you? say wake up we're gonna man up and wake up okay okay what do you mean this is what I mean this is

what I mean remember when your baby brother had to get to like school yeah do you remember that and he kept oversleeping and over sleeping and not hearing his alarm and not hearing the phone ring and not hearing people knock on the door and not hearing his Uber driver knock on the window and you were like that's a great story and you literally said be a mature man and figure it out. Figure out whatever you need to wake yourself up to take care of business. This is not a pre-planned event, though, that I set an alarm for or two alarm or however many alarms I need. It happens every night.

Oh, my God. So we could come up with a system at some point, we're six years in, at some point, you could figure out a system that wakes you up. If you know of something to bring me out of sleep, out of the hibernating state. I'm going to invent as soon as a baby cries on the phone or on the nannet, a swinging lever arm is just going to go straight to your face. Right into your nuts. I'm glad we talked about this because for a second I thought there's some miscommunication of, I don't know if I'm understanding her frustration well, but I do understand it and I just disagree with it totally.

But we've settled into a good little cadence. How can you hear the baby brother story? And you're like, he just needs to be a man. He had school. He had school every day. Yeah. You have a child every day. We've got to add that to the best story series because that's a great story.

Anyway, the optimistic silver lining to this one is when the kids do wake up in the middle the night and you get the midnight cuddles it's the best there is nothing like it it is a magical holy time may i i i just think holding the baby while they're sleeping in your arms there's nowhere else that you could rather be there's no there's nothing happening anywhere else in the world this is a whole thing is you holding the baby that is precious i'll take that all day every day as long as I can wake up. You just think it's frustrating? What?

It's cute and we get it. But the whole like bedtime routine we're like every night at the same time we're doing the bedtime routine with the kids and to see as they get older they're little clever like oh mom, mom, hey mom

can have a bar? The last ditch efforts to not be allowed. Can I go potty? Can I have a water? It's cute. It's pretty cute. Let's do this one because it ties into several of the previous ones. So picky eating, I have journaled and written a note about it being a rather soft spot for Sean.

I think she's concerned about their overall nutrition, their approach and perspective of food. Sean, to her credit, will put so much time and effort and thought into getting the food that the kids. want preparing the food the way the kids want it putting it on the plates how the kids like it and then you know an hour goes by of her putting an effort like this she puts the plate down and the kids say they don't like that anymore they don't want that they're not hungry Sean it'll be the top it's the bane of my existence she pops the top she you said existential crisis the other day yeah I was like this is an exigent existential crisis uh um I just don't it It is wrapped in so many layers.

I come from such an unhealthy background with food to where I took it to such an extreme. So in my mind, I'm fighting that every single day to, like, how can I raise them with the healthiest views on food? And, like, when I put so much effort into it, and I'm like, make sure, maybe we should try some broccoli. And then Drew's like, no, thank you. And she's like, I'm full. And I'll try to encourage it and be like, that's great. Listen to your body, baby. And then she'll turn around and be like, I want ice cream.

A whole bowl, the whole thing. I'm like, so you're not full. And she's like, I'm full for broccoli. It makes me want to bang my head against a wall. The amount of narratives that you have going on in your brain that are conflicting with each other, is astounding to me. Because when you say healthiest approach to food

or relationship to food, you're not talking about eating healthy food per se, though that is part of it. It's more of a not thinking too much or too little about food or like obsessing about it, you know? And it's like we live in this generation where we're over analyzing our upbringing so much of I watch and follow so many like child psychiatrists

and like food behavioral behavioral. list and like whatever all those doctors all the people and they're always like don't force them to finish their meal don't force them to eat don't say you have to eat your broccoli in order to get ice cream make sure you put dessert on the table with them or tell them oh actually you don't get a snack today or if they don't want to eat they don't get to have the bar before they go to bed but in the back of my mind I'm like well if they don't eat before they go to bed and their belly is hungry and they wake up in the middle of the night they're not going to sleep if they don't sleep they're going to be in a bad mood. If they wake up in a bad mood, we're going to have a bad morning.

They're not going to want to go school. Literally, how my brain works. That's how a mom's brain works. Meanwhile, I'm over here eating my dinner the whole time. I'm literally just like, this is a good birthday. Thank you for that generous impression. I'm sorry. No, that's good. But we found out that like us, actually 75% of parents are worried about their kids not getting enough nutrition that they that they need this is literally why i started being kids yeah literally to give the multivitamins the prebiotics probiotics all of the good things fruits and veggies to the kids in a in a way that they like eating it yeah which is in a chocolate milk it's not a replacement but it is like it's an all-in-one i explained it the other day beam kids was first

founded upon this idea like we're sitting at the dinner table and her kids are so frustrated and they don't want to eat more broccoli and they don't want to eat protein pasta again they just want chocolate milk or apple juice and I'm like you know what I'm tired of giving you empty calories that aren't doing anything for your body or for your development or your your health so I kind of fooled them and turned their chocolate milk into macronutrients probiotics probiotics and prebiotics. And it's like, you know what? Have your freaking chocolate milk.

And they love it. And we love it, frankly. It tastes so delicious. And if you're interested in trying it, for you or your kids, you can check out the link below. We'll include it. It's amazing. There's this whole principle of sitting at this dinner table and be like, sucker.

You're actually eating your broccoli. There's an old principle of hiding the vegetables, meaning, you know, we used to eat broccoli with cheese smothered all over it. And that's how I would eat my veggies. How do you deliver the healthy stuff in a tasty way? And I think you've done a great job. To your credit, babe. So check that out.

Beam Kids, all in one super powder. It's delicious. Our kids actually pretty much formulated the flavor. So they themselves tested like 14 different flavors. And they chose their favorite one. And it's, they literally ask for it every single day. It's been a fun project. Yeah.

All right. Next up. Another frustration is energy management. Let me call it. I feel like the kids, the kids are always so hyped to do something, which is so amazing. They love doing science experiments and bike rides and trampolines and play sets and swimming and coloring and playing in the toy room and reading. And then you're also, those are the things they want to do. And then there's the things that you feel like you need to do as a parent, which is teach them all the things, the alphabet, the colors, teach them all the daily chores of,

this is what it means to be responsible and let's put the dishes away and do this and that and put your clothes away, tidy up your room. But then on top of it, you have to have time for yourself and you have to work a full day like a full day's job and you have to keep your house clean and do all the adulting stuff and keeping up that energy to truly make life special for your kids. It's not frustrating. It's just like... If only there were 7,286 hours in a day.

But beyond just the hours, it's the, you don't want to show up at home after a full day's work and be just too puckered out to do anything fun, to have to say no to your kids when they want to go play in the snow or whatever. It's like you want to get home, you want to work so that you can have a fun and exciting home life in my mind and so how do you not toast yourself during the day and burn yourself out so you don't have anything left at the end of the day it's like so hard i've just tried to in my mind anytime the kids ask to do like an outdoor activity specifically yes i'm going to say yes and if it's like even if even if i'm like i don't got it i'm going to find it you know it's dig a little deeper i will say

I do think our roles there is a slight added layer of frustration that I should deal with internally because I always want to be the mom that says yes

Drew will just be like mom we come play with me outside and I'm like yes but you did just ask me to make you a snack and I know we're going to go outside and you're going to be hungry and you're going to expect mommy to bring you a snack but mommy needs to also play with you

it's like I feel like if I just stayed at the kitchen counter I'd be fulfilling all of the demands the kids have in a day yeah they it's it's it is fascinating the kids relationship to you versus me I also think I it's our roles it's fine yeah I have tried to strategically implement like a no but or a yes yes here like here's when we can do it so and it's almost like distracting so that so that I'm not saying no to them all the time by the way we're not we're not trying to never say no to our kids we're talking about specifically engaging with them in activities right we don't like to say no we can't come play with you right now right um which maybe we're wrong on that I'm actually not sure this is just the age I love interacting with our kids and usually

if I'm not playing with them I'm not doing something better with my time it's usually wasting my time. And so it's like I should be playing with them. But I think you could implement a little more. I'm not going to give you tips. I'm not here to give you tips. No, I'm done. That's what we're here for or no? Yeah. Do it. These narratives that you stay. No, no, I'm not going to. Next, the The discipline style with kids gets me going. I am 1,000% of disciplinarian. What do you mean when you say that? What do you mean when you say that?

I don't know. Do you pop your top more than I do? Yes. Does that mean discipline? No. I feel like I'm usually the one who's able to deliver. Here's how you discipline as the process of of redeeming a bad choice

teaching a lesson through the best I think what do you think what do you think what do you think I think I think I have less leniency when it comes to

I agree with that to disobedience or Yeah Disrespect Yeah Here's an optimistic silver lining on this One

Thank goodness we did start We started a discipline system Early on with Drew our oldest When she was one years old Works amazingly well One two three magic We could tell you more about that if you're curious I'm not saying that's the

That's the best or the only disciplinarian system What I am saying is having a system and process in place so that so that when your child misbehaves it's not it's not you you know throwing up your emotions and frustrations on the kids it's a it's a process where you can control your response in a level-headed way and teach the kid that they did something wrong in a respectful way and it's just consistency yeah like we have stuck to it we have stayed true to it and they just know

all we have to do is you know if they start being disrespectful we've repeated it and warned them to a certain extent you can say you know what shit that was one and he he shapes that real quick it is amazing

and just because it's ingrained to them they know what to expect it's great and it's worked I think we have a well-behaved children I'm not sure what percentage of that We can credit to one to three magic. The other silver lining is our different styles have led to a beautiful compromise where I think the result that we've landed on has been somewhat refined, whereas both of our systems have pros and cons to them,

but now they're a little more balanced of our natural tendencies to relate to our kids in. So I'm thankful to have you as a teammate. Thank you for the hobby as a teammate Well, co-parent We do a lot together We do everything together Best friends Co-workers

Co-parents What do we do? Co-travellers, adventures Our spouses We're married We're married We are married We're married

Cohabitants We are roommates Yeah Gosh we're together all the time Stop. Say it was a little more enthusiasm. I'm glad you're feeling cheeky today because I am too. Here's another frustration.

Maybe you should talk about this one. You want to talk about that one? Yeah. Do you know what that says? What does it say? Oh, it says learning to not over commit. Man. Huh.

This is my favorite fault. What is that word mean, Andrew? This is my absolute favorite wrong thing to do. Yeah. you do it a lot i'm a yes man i'm like a i'm a yes man and if there's something fun that pops up or something i get invited to and i i see on the calendar that i only have 15 minutes but by golly you want to play nine holes of golf let's freaking go it's already started you'll still be like yeah i'm there so you're saying there's a chance you know it's an underdog mentality

at the same time you've got like a keynote across town it's really it's really a prove-em-wrong mentality it's like uh we can make it happen you know and we have honestly i love i love our city that we're in i love our friend group so anytime one of our friends asks us to do something i'm like yeah i got to see you this is going to be lifelong memory big memory guy my one of my slogans in life is it's all part of the experience you know this is living is another one making memories is another one. Yolo kind of vibe. I've never known this about you. Yolo is not. Yolo's your life motto.

But they used to call me bro, you know. And the bros are there. Bros are there for you. You're on a heater. I would say we have gotten better at this. Especially with kids because overcommitting means not having time with our kids.

Or over committing our kids or us as a family. Tires everybody out to the point where you're not really having quality time. That's super true. Here's my optimistic silver lining. It's kind of sad. I think it took kids for me to realize how much I do this. And I wish I would have learned the lesson sooner when we were married with no kids or dating.

Because I think I miss some times with you. And that's the, that is the peak memory, you know? Thank you. round of applause round of applause or my zone no that's good I finally found a steady workout

and healthy eating routine that has me feeling better than I have in years but it took me time to find my groove now that I'm in a good routine I'm making sure to stay on top of my daily supplements that I know keep me feeling healthy and strong and that's things like AG1

you look great babe you always have and Sean and I drink our AG1 first thing in the morning mixed in with water one quick glass of AG1 in the morning to make sure our bodies are ready to take on a day of parenting, work, travel, or whatever the day has to offer. It's such a simple way to get all of your daily vitamins and probiotics, especially this time of year when it seems like everybody is getting sick.

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your new year on a healthier note. This is an interesting episode. Do you like it? Yeah. What's interesting to you about it? We're just getting giggles about the hard part. of life and I like it. I know.

It's nervous giggles to me. It is. Oh, I'm like. We're slipping. Um, okay. I think the next one that we could talk about, feel free to skip over any of these that you don't want to talk about. Okay.

The seasons, okay, so we're a team as a married, married couple. I think one of the, it's not even a frustration really is not the right word, but it's like a sad result. is sometimes Sean will be on a high and maybe I'm in a tough phase of life or having a tough day and then how do you deal with that, you know? I don't know, even when we went through the miscarriage

or losing my dad, there was a lot of different pages happening or different seasons that we were going through. And it's like the person that's doing better than the other It doesn't really want to rub it in that person's face. The other person doesn't want to bring the person that's doing better down. But then you're like, okay, do we just not talk? Or let's, I don't know.

Fortunately, I think our volatility in that sense has decreased in some senses. We still go through seasons, but we're a little more finessed with it. Because we don't have an infant anymore, this way. Yeah. Oh, that's true. That was tough seasons. I remember the, I feel like the volatility of emotions was kind of up and down in a more mild sense before kids.

And then it really peaked every time we had an infant. You're dealing with postpartum. You're dealing with identity crisis. You're dealing with your lifestyle is being drastically changed and you have to become a different person. you're putting tension on a marriage. So I think with every infant, it spiked the volatility,

and then it kind of leveled out, and then we'd have another infant, and it kind of happened again. But I would say the thing that frustrates me about that, or not frustrates, but it was the hardest, is after Drew, we learned it. We learned the volatility.

I don't mean, we also don't mean volatility. in a wild way. Yeah, and like an aggressive way towards each other. Just different seasons. Yeah, on different ends of the spectrums. Yeah. But the hard part for me going into like the second kid and third kid was knowing it was coming.

And knowing like we're about to hit a crazy roller coaster again that's going to level out in a year. But it's going to be a year of like figuring it out again. Yeah. I think our takeaway from this, I'm not really had this thought until you're speaking right now. This is why when we talk about, like there's a night date nights or the bev time that we have where we'll each put a kid down

and then inevitably one person will be downstairs and finish with that process before the other person. And there's pretty much an explicit expectation now that we have talked about where it's no, if I come downstairs after you, I expect there to be no phone, you know, just like you expect me to have no phone. And that be a time where we can just like be together. So all these different rigid rhythms that we've established, the liturgy of our day,

it doesn't ensure connection or it doesn't create connection, but it gives us the highest possible probability of there being any type of connection. Because if we don't make that, that time regularly we're just there will always be a miss you know what i'm saying you're just like randomly hoping that we would connect and that applies to like intimacy emotional connection availability for dates whatever it's like that's why i think our rhythms have become so valuable and boy we have gotten super rigid with them as we've had more kids yeah and i'm so thankful for that I'm like, I really am a fly-by-the-seater-pants kind of guy.

But now I depend on that type of stuff. So, yeah, here's my big takeaway. We can close the episode. I think what I've learned in our marriage counseling course was 16 weeks, two hours in-person a week, two hours of homework a week, every week. It's pretty much like school. You had a textbook and everything is a beautiful outcome of life is peace.

And the best way to achieve peace is the process of realizing it's not what happens to you. It's how you respond to what happens to you. And so my close to this episode is I'm glad that a lot of these things that used to be frustration, are now almost like we can giggle about them you know they're I have peace throughout them if you just endure through them yeah and and you equip yourself with tools psychologically and faith-wise and both and then you give yourself a team and the relationships and friends to help make you through it like your help get you through it it really becomes like Like, just part of the experience, you know?

That's my takeaway. I like it. I liked our little venting session. Yeah, it was good. I'm glad we could laugh through it. But it is fun. Like, everything we talked about can be frustrating, but it's also like the joy of life. It is.

And I don't want to dwell on the hard things about marriage and parenting. I hope that's not the vibe of this episode. No. Hopefully it was rather to encourage you that. We're all in this together. Maybe you're experiencing some of the similar things. Sean and I are being nine years in a marriage, having three young kids. There's a lot of shared experiences, which is what makes this whole process of us sharing videos online and doing these podcasts so much fun is we get to do this all together with like a group of people like you who are also doing it.

And you have encouraged us so much. My gosh. So thank you. And I hope that you know. The marriage and family are hard, but my gosh, they are worth pursuing. So keep on, keeping on. You got this. And like Sean said, nothing worthwhile comes easy.

So, thanks for listening. If you made it this far, subscribe to the show. Let us know your thoughts on this. What frustrations are you experiencing that we might have missed? There are a lot of things to be frustrated about in life, you know, but you don't have to be frustrated by them. Yes. But nevertheless, let us know your thoughts. responses. Also, if you're interested in being kids, I will link it in the show notes down below.

I hope you guys love it. Right talking. We'll see you next week. Bye.