Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 273 | The Hardest Times in Our Relationship (and What Helped Us Through)

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Today’s episode was a vulnerable one. Andrew and I have walked through some hard times in our marriage that, at the time, were honestly really rough. Looking back now, they have brought us so much closer together and we’re better for it. Today we’re sharing some of the hardest seasons of our marriage in hopes that it encourages anyone out there to feel less alone. NOBODY has a perfect marriage and the more open we can be with each other about the struggles, the more we can support each other to keep fighting the good fight. If you’re going through a hard time in marriage just remember, It’s never too late to ask for help or bring people in to walk with you through it. Love you guys, Shawn & Andrew Branch Basics ▶ Head to https://www.BranchBasics.com to shop their Premium Starter Kit and save 15% off with code EASTFAM CHOMPS ▶ Get 15% off plus free shipping on your next order of Chomps meat sticks at https://www.Chomps.com with code SHAWN Beam Kids is now available online at https://www.shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS Take advantage of our exclusive discount of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletterFollow 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 #Marriage #Hardship #Relationships #Vulnerability #ShawnAndAndrewPods (00:00) argument or good conversation(00:32) open diary about marriage(02:30) comment of the week(04:50) life updates(07:15) challenging things in marriage(08:40) when we moved to nashville(19:40) first year of marriage and balancing careers(27:30) navigating career transitions(30:19) pursuing youtube(31:21) our miscarriage(38:40) new season after kids(42:43) grieving and navigating each new season through communication 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're going to talk about this is probably going to be an interesting conversation. It'll either end in an argument or be a good conversation. I don't know. But the most challenging times in our marriage. That's right.

And you may notice that we're in a different seating arrangement today. And it's a little weird for me too. We've been doing a lot of podcasts lately and I can't keep looking right. I need to change it up. I need to balance out the muscles here. All right. Hey, I'm curious, Sean, from your perspective, if someone's just now listening to this show for the first time, how would you describe our podcast? An open diary about marriage and why we think it's the best thing out there. I agree. Yeah, I agree.

We started this podcast because I got really tired of reading headlines about divorce. divorce and failed marriages and how if you find the right person it should be easy and here's the recipe for success and we just kind of show you guys our lives we bring in professionals to talk about things tips and tricks and hacks to to relationships but we just try to show you that marriage is hard and you have to work at it but it can also be the most beautiful thing in life no you're the most beautiful thing in life no you are I do. I love this show, mostly because it's an excuse to spend more time with you. And the fact that we have, uh, greater than zero listeners is a real benefit as well. Well, less than. That's just a cherry on top. But less than a few. But when we talk about things like the most challenging times in our marriage, it is with, it's not, it's not like a pouty vibe that we're going for. It's more of like a, hey, we did this hard thing so we could probably handle whatever next hard thing.

thing is coming our way. And also, maybe as we discuss each issue, there's something that you learn or take away from how we navigated that. Either, wow, they did that really great or while they did that really badly. And so if we find ourselves in something like that, we'll do it differently. So that's our hope. And we actually have a blast doing it. We love hearing your feedback. We're grateful for your feedback. Speaking of feedback, we have a comment of the week. This is from ASEC Mimosas 4-5-3-6, who says... A second Mamosa. Oh, gotcha.

Thank you. Yeah. I really love the first podcast segment, and I think it's so true. When I think of what is family made and what do Sean and Andrew do, they create pro-family propaganda. The word propaganda has a negative connotation. Here I mean it entirely neutrally. Propaganda is any information or media used to promulgate a worldview.

There's so much anti-family propaganda. out there. And the worst thing is that it's often dressed up as realism when in fact shows either only show a small portion of reality or a distorted form of it. Exactly. So this is like a diary. I'm not done yet. We continue. Pro-family propaganda is necessary. We can talk about it on a societal level for sustaining the economy and flourishing or on a national level for continued American prosperity. But even on a personal level, family confers tremendous values to individuals, value that may not be taught exists today. I'm not sure about that.

It might not otherwise seek out and be benefited by. Wow. I did not actually know when I asked you that question about our show. I did not know that was a comment of the week. She seems like a philosophical person. I like it. Thank you, Mimosis. She also seems like she's down for, you know, a brunch beverage.

Yeah. Every now and then. Yeah. I do think I think the highest correlation between high performing business people actually you probably have a higher correlation of if you're a high performing father or mother at home

you probably have your professional life in order as well and you see all these people talking about hey here's how you can buy your next big house or your next big car or go on this big vacation or make big money and it's like that's not the best part of life the best part of life is this yeah making eye contact with your wife playing with your kids this is it so the more we can contribute that conversation the better anyway now that being the backdrop we wanted to get real and talk about a lot of the challenging things that we've been through because it's just an inevitable fact of life that you're going to go through hard seasons.

Before we do that, let's do some life updates. Kids are about to start school, which I'm really sentimental about. I'm not going to lie, I've been effed up. I know. I got all these transitions happening, and I am like an emotional hairball, tangled up and confused. We are in a phase of life openly where there are so many transitions going on. There's a bunch of transitions at work happening, a bunch of transitions with our kids going to a new school, full-time school, Drews in kindergarten, a lot of transitions with our homes, like my parents' house being sold and our house and moving and just like new neighbors.

And like there's so much change happening right now, which can be very, very beautiful. But we're both feeling it. We're also transitioning out of summer, which was such a beautiful time where we traveled the world with our kids. And now we're seeing that like summertime, intimate and tense time with our kids, like kind of changing. There's certain times during the summer where we're like, I'm ready for summer to be over. But then summer comes to the close. You're like, dang. Yeah, I really don't want summer to be over.

And I've always been a guy who throughout life when there's not enough change or transition. I've created it. I've self-inflicted it. No way. But now all I want is not that. And I just want to like predictably get a wake up and hang with the kids and predictably spend time with my wife and like control the controllables kind of thing. Yeah.

I also feel like it feels like a huge transition for us because up until this year, there's always, this is going to sound weird, but there's always been like a baby on the horizon, pregnancy or a baby. We can do it again. No. This is the first year now. Bayer is going to go off to a mom's day out program for a couple days a week. And it just really feels like a new phase of life, which is really confusing because you are trying to find your place in it. But like also very beautiful.

Yeah. So it is kind of a low-key challenging season of life. But we want to talk about some of the real challenging seasons in our marriage and since we've known each other because you're just inevitably going to have those in your life personally and in your marriage. And I would say maybe it's promised in marriage. But the beauty is that you can actually come out stronger on the other side. And that's my hunch as we go through the next seat. That's a fun thing about getting older. You kind of like start stacking experiences and those experiences give you a different perspective when a new experience.

comes about and you're like, oh, I've maybe been through something like this and can learn or like predict the ending a little better where it's like, oh, frick, okay, this is a hard thing. It's going to be some conflict. We're going to have some struggles. But if we're able to push through, it's probably going to be beautiful. So I hope that's what these stories show. And it is never fun to go through a hard season, especially in a relationship, especially in a relationship as close as marriage, because we all know that the hard times are consuming and it sometimes feel like things won't get better, but, uh, anyway, have hope and take heart because it will. So that's my encouragement to keep fighting and keep fighting for what

matters most. So first one, we're going to take you back to, so this is outside of marriage as well, but we're going to walk you through what these were and why they felt difficult, hoping to like you guys can relate to some of them, find hope in some of them, get some, yeah, tips and tricks how to get through them. That's right.

But the first one who read on here was when I moved to Nashville, Andrew. That was a young form of difficult and challenging. So to paint the picture for you guys, Andrew and I started dating in July of 2013, and I moved to Nashville in October. of 2013. So four months later,

four months into dating, I moved from Iowa all the way out to Nashville, enrolled in Vanderbilt, which you were there, kind of went from being this like long distance, separated relationship

to almost feeling like something very serious, very fast, in very close proximity. Yeah. And we wanted it that way. We wanted to be serious very fast. but did we because someone freaked out about it okay and it wasn't me well dating shot has been so

interesting because who has the flexibility at age 22 or 21 to make a move like that and here I was about to start business school my fourth year of Andy I had five roommates I was playing football had a full schedule you had you had comfortably laid your foundation in in your college for sure yeah but this was hard because sean said hey i'm going to move to nashville and i i think in a failed attempt to set expectations well uh sent an email to her saying i can't wait to spend more time with you i'm very excited i did just want to let you know don't just move for me you know what i'm saying like no you were having a freak out why don't you just finally acknowledge that that it wasn't just setting expectations you were panicking it was definitely a step up in the in

the relationship that i'd never really it was like such a finite decision yeah of like yes we're taking things seriously and when you're in high school or when you're dating a girl in college and she's just there already yeah it's not like yeah i'm gonna uproot my whole life to come be with you so it was, it was jarring of like, dang, okay, am I as serious about this as she is? Only four months it. And I also, you know, I'm freaking crazy about you. So. I would hope so. No, no, I am currently too.

And it's like, don't move your whole life for me, because I'm probably going to be a letdown. As you know, I'm still a letdown to this day. But, you know what I'm saying? This is literally what the email was saying, though, too. I want you to have good friends. I want you to have family around. And I want you to know how, and if you move for me. Which I would have none of that.

So the hard time was I sent the email and then Sean sent a clapback email of like, I'm not just moving for you. We still have these emails, by the way. Pretty hilarious. And to paint a picture on my side. So Andrew had kind of like latest foundation at college and this was very jarring. And it was very fast. But on my side, I was blessed with the flexibility to be able to do something like this.

I was getting ready to start college. I deferred college for five years. I wasn't really sure what I was doing next in life. This is after the Olympics and I was working. I had saved up enough and been kind of like self-sufficient to where I was trying to figure out what my life looked like from here on. I had fallen in love with you. And I just remember having this realization of as I'm in Iowa, the best chances of success in figuring out if you and I are going to work long term

and like end in marriage or not is to be in the same place. Like long distance was very difficult. I was flying back and forth every other week. Just trying to like really get to know each other on like the deepest part possible was very difficult since you were full time in college and I was just in Iowa. So I said, you know what, I have this flexibility to invest within our relationship. Let's see if I can get into Vandy. Which you did?

Let's see if I can find a place and find my own world and separate from everything that I knew in Iowa. And I was like, I'm moving there, and I'm going to see if this can work. How's it working out so far? I think it worked out just fine. But yeah, it was a ballsy move. And it put a lot of strain on us for a little bit because it went from being like this fun thing that would happen on the weekends

to being like, okay, how do we figure out how to have a relationship that's only four months in and get to know each other further. But yet we live a block apart. Yeah, I'm really grateful for it. I'm grateful because it forced us to have like a real serious defining their relationship.

And it wasn't, it wasn't a situation where you could just, like, kick that conversation down the road. It was like, okay, yeah, we're serious about it. And then once we were both in, that was really it. It was like, we're off to the races. Yeah. I mean, we really knew that on our third date. And this was a continuation of that. And it kind of comes in milestones, I feel like.

And that was a big one. But I'm grateful for that. Yeah. I will say a big thing that I learned early on. in making that decision and I feel like we've advised friends before in similar positions whether they were within marriage or seriously dating is at the end of the day 50 years from now if your goal in life is like to be married and have your significant other with you and you want to be able to prioritize that over all of the material items around you your job your money your things

then you have to kind of start practicing that at an early age and a lot of times people I think reverse it they're like I'm going to prioritize my work and I'm going to prioritize my career and my dreams now and then go find the person and I think if you aren't in the

practice of that that becomes almost impossible yeah I just remember practicing early on thinking my end dream and goal is to have a family and I got to almost to a certain extent make sacrifices now but there is a maturation that's required to be able to do that well and that's what I'm just continually impressed by you with is like you had experienced all of the things in life where you're like no that's actually really what I want is to have a family yeah so you you're much churdy there put you on the fast track i was 20 yeah no i was 21 it was 21 but that so it makes me think that we put down this list because that was really a make-a-break conversation that we had yeah

and we almost that almost ended the whole relationship so in that sense it was difficult but i i do feel like it's different to say things are difficult versus things are hard So I'm trying to think what makes a difficult time in marriage? Is it when we're not aligned? Is it when one of us is really struggling? Is it when some extrinsic thing happens to us? But you know what I'm saying? I think it's when two styles collide.

Well, I'm curious to see your take on the rest of this list. Because I truly feel like in that scenario, honestly, I think it has to do with exactly where we're at in life right now and what we were talking about with transitions, I think anything that goes against your everyday comfortable routine poses a difficult time in your life because you're like, how are you going to respond to it? How are you going to change to it? It's uncomfortable.

It's new. It's scary. And every single thing in my life was changing. Every single thing in your life was changing. And every single thing in our collective relationship was changing. So it was like this explosion of transitions And we didn't know how it was going to end And I think in a relationship

If you can get used to dealing with transitions In big changes in life as a team Then it's almost like there aren't many things you can't handle It's interesting The way you describe that was like stylistic differences And I was just thinking about almost like waves this and then if if we're out of sync with those waves then these challenging situations one are beneficial because they identify places where you're out of sync and two provide

motivation to get in sync just like the moving hey are we gonna are we going to get serious about this or not it's like that was an opportunity for us like oh hey what's your take on this or how serious are you and then let's have this conversation that we didn't know we needed to have and then bang like yeah no we're now we're both in sync and so you're more you're more of a team and if you're dating it it very quickly exposes if it's going to work or not what the way you're able to have those conversations or because because we have much different styles in a lot of different areas of life but like i think the way we come back together and mesh those styles is something we do decently well i also mean it in the sense of like four months was early in our relationship like that's that's an

early timeline to make such a big decision but yet it very quickly exposed if we were both willing to to invest more in the relationship yeah like that very quickly could have ended anybody's relationship and been like okay great let's move on to the next one let's go see if like this isn't going to end across finish line so yeah it's good i think you described that beautifully thank you next one oh gosh well hold on i'm just adding these to the bottom as they come to mind the difficult things that we've gone through the next one on my list is our first year of marriage 2016 we got married april 2016 and i had just been released by the seahawks via Twitter.

That's how I found out. And I had just gotten picked up the week of our wedding to the Oakland Raiders. And so there's a lot of transitions happening then. Obviously, we're in the middle of our wedding planning season as this is all going on. Then we get married. And the morning after we get married, we had to fly to Oakland for my first practice. And then it was 2016 that the Rio Olympics happened. And so Sean was in Brazil for four weeks.

yeah and then the gymnastics tour happened and you were on the road for four months and fast forward to september 2016 i got released by the raiders and i was at home trying to figure out of the road until the end of november yes so when i think of when our styles were most out of sink that might be the number one season that comes to life that was the worst you agree yeah that was the worst same one there are just so many things that play there that weren't we are early on and obviously our marriage brand new and so it was the first realization that uh marriage is the starting line and not a finish line. So we became married and then set off on to two massively new career paths for both of us. Yeah. In opposite directions, which was also very new

for us. Up until that point, we spent every waking second together. I went with you to your jobs and you went to me with my jobs. That was the first time we went in separate directions. It was also new in our life of like we were a married family and the roles of like providing and money and paying bills and like taking jobs was an interesting thing we weren't synced as a husband and wife yet in the sense of like figuring all of our stuff out um but picture this yeah no keep on I was just dealing with really I was trying to handle a lot of things on my own that I wasn't telling you about. Picture this. I'm at home jobless, sad, you know, nervous about what I'm going to do in life. And Sean is in sold out arenas in L.A. in front of.

80,000 people with paparazzi and freaking fans and all this stuff. It was like such drastic ends of the spectrum of like, wow, what do you do here? You were very gracious during that. And ultimately, are you okay? Yeah, I just hated it. And we heard the analogy before of there was a kite and there's a kite holder. any given time in a relationship. And I realized how fun it is to be your kite holder

and to watch you soar and to play that role. So that was pivotal. I'm grateful for that season. It made me stronger. ours has been an exaggerated experience of that hey someone needs to go do their thing or pursue their dream or go do the ambitious part of life or the career part of life and we were in a phase where we could do that and that was like such a good foundation to set of like oh wow this is like i'm going to support shan whatever way i can

and you supported me in a wonderful way you gave me a five-year runway to make the nfl when most people have three months and we did the dream you know but like it's kind of been a back and forth of supporting each other in that way and that was a drastic example of that where I don't know maybe just now I'm realizing how much we need to do that in our relationship but how much I enjoy it I feel like for me it was just a very hard learning experience beautiful in the long run but very hard learning experience of like I feel like I prioritized everybody but I've I I I believed I was prioritizing our marriage at first

but in doing so I sacrificed everything if that makes sense in trying to protect the marriage does that make sense just I don't know I

I it was like after all that whole year instead of listening to anybody else, I was like, I'm going to, it's just me and my husband now. I'm grateful. Anyway, that was 2016. If you're like me and you want to make some non-toxic swaps for your home, but you don't

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percent off with code EastFam at branchbasics.com. That's 15% off your new branch basics premium starter kit at branch basics.com with promo code EastFam. Make the change today because you and your family deserve better. 2017. I would also say before the miscarriage in 2016 and this whole, this whole phase that we just went through of Sean, I mean, retired from gymnastics, but then doing gymnastics and not really being into it like she wanted to be is what forced us into

like figuring out career transitions you know and I was jobless so I started getting into making videos and the hardware and the software and all the stuff and the culture and how do you make a good YouTube video or whatever and uh but that transition career wise was difficult

because Sean was just trying to make sure that you know she was the only one who was earning paycheck because I was bouncing from team to team to team what was it nine teams in five years which I'm so proud of you and uh don't make that small it made it was like heck of an adventure and how many friends did we make and then it ended up being something that we could make YouTube videos out of so we made we made lemonade out of lemons you know what I'm saying and uh but I was super into it and Sean was like I'm not that into YouTube I'm and it's pulling me away from what is earning us money you know and so there was tension

there. I remember we had one big conversation in the living room of that house. And it was like, just give me three months to see if we can make YouTube work. And I wasn't doing anything in gymnastics anymore by then. I really walked away from that. So my career at this time, when we are trying to transition into YouTube, I was doing public speaking. I was working as an ambassador for a bunch of companies. Gymnastics has since been rebuilt by new leadership. that I think is absolutely beautiful. And I remember going back to, like, my first competition and taking Drew with me

and, like, being able to build a new relationship with the sport that I fell in love with that I loved. So, to close that. Okay, so. Now I was talking about the Miscuit. So I was like, give me three months for the YouTube thing. Pass forward, now we've been doing it for nine years.

and it worked out but there was a difference in excitement or trust of moving into the next thing it's almost like one of us wanted to take a new job I guess that the other one wasn't so sure about but we gave each other a finite window and it worked out

we had so much fun with it wow this is really taking a turn I thought this This is going to be a chill. I don't know how to edit this. It's really confusing me now. YouTube was a blessing. It was terrifying because in the moment, it was a huge transition.

It was almost like all of our security that we had in our, like, life, as far as, like, financially was potentially, like, up for interpretation. Anything in the reserves was kind of gone for us by then. And so this was truly like, are we going to give up this stable speaking world that I have and try something new or are we just going to stick with what we know? And so we gave ourselves a finite time, really dove head first into it and fell in love with it. It was something that bonded you and I a lot closer and gave us a lot of joy and freedom to go

do what we loved in a whole new world. and I think it ended up bringing our marriage like super a lot closer. Yeah, me too. So then fast forward to fall of 2017. We got pregnant for the first time. Crazy story. I am bouncing around from team to team to team.

Literally that weekend that you found out we're pregnant. You were in... You had three tryouts back to back to back. It was Detroit and then it was New York Giants. And then I think I was going West Coast somewhere. For like a birthday party or something. Yeah. And then you were in New York.

Doing a press tour for a show I had just filmed called Adventure Capitalists. I was with a really close friend. He's like a big brother to us, Jeremy Bloom, at the time. We were doing the press tour together. And I had found out I was pregnant the day we were together when I found out. but you were packing your bags and leaving for the airport for these tryouts and I snuck away to a bathroom because like it had been a couple of weeks and I was like what is happening and I was like I need to take pregnancy test so I found out while we were

technically still together in our apartment in L.A. And you're literally packing up walking out the door and I was like I can't I cannot tell you now as you're headed I didn't know you found out then yeah but as you're headed off to these tryouts that mean a lot to you i can't just like throw this on you and so i was like okay i'll wait to tell you when you get back but i knew you had these two tryouts and then you're going to go do something for fun and so i had flown off to new york and i was like okay when i get to new york which is a couple days later i'll take more tests just like verify and i think it took like six and all positive so i was like okay

I'm pregnant. So then your two tryouts had finished. By then I had told Jeremy Bloom, he was the one helping me through it all. He by then had so many nieces and nephews, his dad's a doctor. And we were doing this press tour like 12 hours a day for a couple of days

and I was really sick. So he was like covering my back. Jeez. Trying to help. Whatever. But I had texted you and I was like as soon as your tryouts were done I was like can you

skip the birthday party and come home I don't remember what ridiculous reason I gave you but I was just trying to get you home and all like God's timing I'd finally convinced you to come home instead of going to this birthday party or whatever you're going to and I told you when I walked in

this is crazy timing the more I think about this we had a really really good cry Yeah, we were terrified I had no idea what life held for us because this is not how we were like planning it and then it was literally

the next morning. Yeah. I miss Carrie. We went to the doctor that day. Which was so wild because like that was traumatic in itself. I was bleeding a lot. I didn't know how to handle this. I didn't have a doctor there.

We're still trying to digest like am I pregnant? I this is all new like we're not and we're young we're not sure like what's going out go to the doctor they confirm I miscarried and that sparked a really really hard phase for us a hard couple months probably a few months honestly it's hard because you were scared of are we going to be able to have kids at all no we were scared at the idea of having kids yeah to begin with yeah and it's like you know it's a big thing in life it changes a lot so then that was step one and then the miscarriage happened you're like oh no did all of my

training put me in a spot where I can't have kids now and then there's that fear and then it was your excitement about having another kid and trying as soon as we could and me not really like yeah I was like I'm not sure I'm ready you know I'm still still jobless yeah still trying to figure things out and you were ready it had switched my mind like my mind had changed overnight when i found it i was pregnant to where i was like i went from being so terrified and so scared of like what that meant to like i'm a mom and i want to be a mom i feel like you became a mom in that process oh yeah i didn't fully it's different because you're you're experiencing it for sure in a different way than i absolutely So it took me a little longer to come to that realization.

But then it would have been, we didn't try again for another 18 months or so. At least, yeah. It was a while. We had a lot of tough conversations and tears for the months after that of just trying to get back on the same page, trying to calm those fears that we may have had. And anyway, now we have three beautiful kids. Can you believe that? No.

Put yourself in our shoes and an apartment in L.A. Yeah. And how we could not see through the fog to the other side. And now look where we are. I remember, I think we had told this story before. But it was a few months after that we were having a big argument. We were walking down the Santa Monica strip, like on the ocean. And we weren't like yelling at each other.

It was just like tensions were high. I think I was crying. We're still just trying to figure out, trying to respect each other in the phase of life we were in of knowing we can't have a kid or try for a kid if we're not on the same page, but when is that going to be and how are we going to get there? And I was just very still emotional, just trying to process it all. And there was a homeless guy sitting, like, I think against a tree.

And he must have been watching and like listening, but in like the kindest way. I remember him just like saying, just love each other in like the most beautiful way he's like nothing in life's that serious just love each other and be there for each other

and I remember it like switched things for us amazing it was so great it was an angel it was an angel it probably was but he's stuck with us for a long time I mean to this day yeah

what was hard in 2018 nothing compared to these weekend I feel like 2018 was a growing point financially for us because we moved, because we said, let's get ready to have a kid, so let's buy a house that we can have kids in. And we bought a house that they could not afford. No, that's not true. We just learned some lessons there.

We've had some massive financial strain. No, we just put ourselves in an unnecessary place. And again, we're in a spot where, like, we're. we knew it would be okay, it was just, it was just getting there. But then I feel like, maybe I'm missing something, but I'm trying to think through this chronologically difficult times. I do feel like after each kid that we've had, that's been difficult seasons.

Just a big transition. I think after Drew, it was hard because we went from being, you know, just us to having a kid. So trying to work through what does life look like with another little person in our lives and trying to figure out the new identity shifts of going from husband and wife to mom and dad, which was such a blessing.

We're just trying to figure out what life looked like. And then after Jett, it was grieving this idea of not being able to spend every waking second with just Drew. And what does life look like for her now? Are our heart's going to grow big enough to have two? And what does life look like like that? And then after Bear, I do think there was postpartum depression with Bear, which was hard.

It has nothing to do with a child, by the way. It's not like it had anything to do with Bear. Bear was the greatest blessing of our life. It was just like hormonally I had a really hard time bouncing back from birth and mentally trying to like find myself again. that put a strain in our relationship just trying to figure out I think Andrew trying to figure out how to help and try to like guide me back

to being my normal self and take care of three little humans at the same time. Yeah, there's just a bunch of acclimating that needs done. And it's like a new kid changes, it's not adding a kid

it is changing the entire group dynamic of the family. And so, I don't know. Some people said that, oh, going from one to two was hard, but two to three was easy. Every kid for us was like big transition. So, yeah. I guess we're also talking about here with this whole list, like long periods of time. Yeah. Like a month or so.

of difficulty after kids it's we've always said like four months for the first kid five months for the second six months for the third we felt like we were viving fully i mean yeah it's just hey oh my gosh they're getting a new routine and like rhythm yeah all right let's talk about summer snacks because if your family is anything like hours you're constantly on the move this time we are doing pool days, park days, road trips, tee ball games, you name it. That's why we are obsessed with chomps meat sticks.

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Dad. Our first real, like... I feel like we obviously had a loss with a miscarriage and felt that. But, like, our first really hard, like, grief was when we lost your father. That was really hard. I don't think that put a strain on our marriage or was, like, hard for our marriage. It was hard as a couple to know, like, me as your wife, it was hard for me to know how to best support you and also grieve on my own and together you did a phenomenal job that was hard

and it's still hard that that was a big transition back to the group dynamics changing the group dynamics are still different yeah so but i don't feel like there's ever been a fortunately i don't think there's ever been like a pouty phase of like a wow we're really knocked off our feet here and incapacitated. You know what I'm saying? I feel like the way I hate to compare this, but I feel like my technique

in that process was very similar and learned by you of how you handled me after each kid. And that's a weird way to parallel to make, but like with you,

all I wanted to do is like be there for you. But in doing that, I almost, not in a creepy way, it was like watching you day in and day out to make sure that you were okay and make sure you didn't dip too far down into grief or depression or to where you weren't coming back out. It was just always trying to take these markers day in and day out of like, how is he handling this? I would ask you little questions. I would try to make you laugh and we would watch funny movies and we would talk about dad and look at pictures

and the beautiful things but it was always just like this gauge as a wife of where is he today and it's okay to have a bad day but are we staying in the bad day is it now five bad days in a row or when to bring in other people there were harder days

that you would have where I would reach out to one of your brothers and say I think today is a really good day to call Andrew and vice versa I mean you guys were doing that for each other or one of your best friends and yeah i'll use this as an example that i can then parlay into closing thoughts but what i am very grateful for is through that whole process of grief

and the first shock that comes with it i think i my first inclination and instinct was to journal or to write or to record the stories that i was hearing from all those people about your dad and I played high school football and you won't believe this or I went to college or there and I wanted to write them all down so I didn't forget them and then and then we got put in a position where we wrote the obituary we wrote the eulogy and so there's a lot of there was a lot of communication and I feel like my natural instinct when it comes to hard times or something that I did that I'm shamed about or a mistake I made or shoot, how am I going to make it through this?

I get all heady and I get I get all tied up in here. And that forces me to isolate myself and to not communicate, including with you. That's been something I've really had to work on. It's like, no, I need to open this up and share this and talk about it. But just like with my dad, the communication that then led to, I don't know, there's something about forming words, whether it's written or spoken, or something about reflecting.

There's something about creating in the midst of that turmoil that that I think carries over into any challenging season where it's like as we've gotten better at going through challenging times our community it's because our communication has gotten better and i just read this book called uh fighting shadows and it's about how men do have this tendency to isolate and to turn in words and to like cut themselves off when they're going through the battle and it's like that is you need to push against that and swim upstream against that because what has when we were at our worst, I feel like it was you wanting to connect through hard times, you wanting to communicate and get closer, and then you would move towards me and I would move away. You know what I'm saying?

And then that causes conflict. You know what I'm saying? And then you start telling yourself stories about, well, does he love me or why is she like this right now? I just want space. And it's like, no, no, no. That's where I think using these challenging times as a canvas to communicate and get better and connect in a deeper way, it's so possible because of these things, not in spite of them. You know what I'm saying? Like these challenging times, whatever that looks like for you, it's like, oh, well, they're challenging because they brought you. They put you outside your comfort zone or it was a big transition or it brought you shame it's like those are all things that if you share with your wife this is what I'm learning if I share those with my wife then now she knows oh he has shame about that or this makes him uncomfortable so I can support him in this and maybe even push him a little bit I don't know dude it's like looking at that list we've learned we've learned a thing or two dude

we have just getting better too nine and a half years yeah of marriage yeah I don't know if you will take anything away from this except for definitely some long awkward pauses of tears

but I say we can get those out no that's good just remember there is a season for everything and seasons come and go so if it's a good one relish it if it's a bad one it's coming to an end

two your team through it and you can get better three give each other space or how you stylistically process the different hard times differently

four I feel like it is easy and hard times to tell yourself lies what absolutely I'm saying like the miscarriage thing the lie of like oh we'll never be able to have kids it's like don't project or construct this false narrative that's why you need to communicate with someone

yeah and uh and yeah now looking on the other side largely I'm grateful for these things I'm grateful to have you to go with them grateful for you baby that's why I made us stronger thanks for listening that was not what i expected to be same that's all we got i'm andrew i'm john