Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - navigating the happy and hard seasons of marriage

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Learn more about the Freemans here ▶ https://www.meetthefreemans.com/links Today we had the privilege of sitting down in-person with Jocelyn and Aaron Freeman, better known as the Freemans by their loyal following! Jocelyn and Aaron have been sought-after marriage coaches for 9 years and both hold a Master's Degrees in Psychology. Not to mention, they’ve sold out over 55 in-person couples workshops across the U.S. and are known for creating viral marriage resources that reach 8–10 million couples per month. This couple is amazing and their insights into relationships has helped improve and save marriages around the world! 🔹 Key Topics Covered: ✔️ The biggest communication mistakes that cause disconnection ✔️ How to stay emotionally connected during busy and stressful seasons ✔️ Why marriage is both challenging and rewarding—and how to embrace its meaning Whether you're newlyweds, parents balancing family life, or a couple looking to strengthen your relationship, this conversation is filled with practical advice to help you grow together! 🔔 Subscribe for more real conversations on marriage, family, and parenting! Learn More about the Freemans ▶ https://www.meetthefreemans.com/ Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter 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 #Family #Parenting #Communication #Relationships #ShawnAndAndrewPods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Couple Things interviews with Sean and Andrew. Today we have the treat of sitting down with Jocelyn and Aaron Freeman. You may know them from their empowered couples podcast. They're marriage coaches that have helped over 40,000 people with their marriage workshops. And we had such a fun time sitting down with them in person here in Nashville. It was a wonderful conversation. We really just talked about everything marriage, how to get through the seasons, the ups and downs, how to be intentional with your marriage and make sure that you are in it for the long haul and how to get through the long haul in the best possible way. I could have conversations on this topic until the sun sets.

Same. The hour won't buy way too fast. I know. And I learned a lot. I'm glad to be connected to Jocelyn and Aaron. And if you're interested in learning more about what they do, checking out their podcast or their workshops. We'll link that down below.

But Jocelyn Aaron, thank you so much for coming to visit us. And it was also fun. We've got to meet their little niece, Cora, who's a gymnast. Sean is a background of her phone. It was like, I think she cried at one point. I'd be wishing her the best in the gymnastics world. It was really special. So anyway, great to meet you Freeman's.

I hope you all enjoy this one with Jocelyn and Aaron. Let's get to it. Jocelyn and Aaron Freeman, welcome to the show. It's good to have you. Thank you so much for having us. We're very excited to talk to you guys. Our entire team is huge fans of your work, your content. The amount of times we are circulating your stuff through our business is.

That's awesome. I think we have very similar topics. We love marriage. We love learning about it. We love trying to get better. And we love everything that you guys share. Well, I think we've resonated so much with just your guys's lifestyle as well, too. So we've wanted to be on the show for a little while.

That's great. Well, glad to make it happen. Funny side story. We have a friend Stephen Miller who they're in the YouTube space as well. But he sent us a screenshot. Yes, two days ago? Yeah, he's like, have you guys ever heard of the Freeman's? You should have them on.

We're like, they're on that way here. He's too. Oh, he did? Yeah. That's great. You should meet him. He's awesome. In our followers guest.

and they're like, we can't wait to hear on a couple things. They listen to you guys. So I think there's a lot of crossover, which is awesome. Well, thank you for being here. Yeah. Welcome to Nashville. Nashville. How did you all get into being marriage coaches?

It really started off first with us not knowing how to do marriage, really? And we discovered that actually before we even got engaged. And when we were dating. Well, certainly, I tried to break up with you early on. He tried to break up with me. That's a funny story. You know, it was really from fear. He was afraid of commitment, afraid of being hurt.

he had been hurt in the past. I had just before meeting him started my self-development journey. And so I was like maybe a year or so into working on myself. I finally got to this place of actually loving myself, not needing a relationship for validation, which is how it always was before. I was much more codependent in relationships before. So I was really ready for a healthy relationship. And when I met him, he had not done any self-development, was afraid of commitment, almost breaking up with me. But once he got past that fear, because what I said to him was,

that doesn't work for me when he tried to break up. The funny thing about that is, so I couldn't have told you, if you're like, what do you think you need to hear from this person to feel like you're really committed? I wouldn't have had an answer. It was something about that phrase

that subconsciously just clicked to where it was, I don't have to fear being rejected by this person. This person wants to have my back, has my back I can be safe but just to say that doesn't work for me just hit at such a subconscious level

that I'm like well obviously I'm back in so from then on actually I take back what I said I'm good we're good yeah there was like more for me to work through I think because I only had a few relationships you know growing up was on the receiving end of like being cheated on

and they were very short even at that and so I just didn't feel prepared You know, it's like I really want this to work and be successful. And so it was almost like anything, right? Whether it's some sport, something in business, it's like, let me really learn what I need to. It just, that just was obvious to us if we're going to get married. We got to seek out some real skills that we can practice, we can implement. I could see objectively, I can get better here.

And that's just really how it all started. And a lot of it, too, came from us realizing how vastly different our upbringings were. like my parents went through a really tumultuous divorce and then his are still married five decades in never saw conflict growing up which in some regards is a good thing but it also meant he didn't know how to have difficult conversations or repair so it's like we were completely opposite ends and had to be like okay but what kind of a marriage do we want to create because we don't want to recreate the past and how it was and we also need to find a way to meet in the middle so it was about all right what do we want to build together and learn how to do that

There's a million different ways I can go with this. So I'm going to hopefully remember all of them. This has been a topic of conversation between Andrew and I recently where we get so frustrated because we have quite a few friends right now who are in that phase of life where they are desperate to get married. They're looking for their spouse. But they're not desperate enough to actually commit, which is really funny because we've seen over and over again friends of ours find wonderful partners or like wonderful

partners that would make wonderful spouses but it comes down to I should feel like I want to get married and there must be something wrong or it must not like that must not mean you know they're the perfect partner and it causes them to start over and be like oh we're looking for something better and something more intriguing how do you teach that because we're even like just propose like you'll make it work it's a wonderful person I can only imagine being in the dating space now. Like, I mean, you know, we're married, our 10 years. I could not imagine.

Our 10 year wedding anniversary is later this year. I was saying this with my men's group too. I want to hear that. And we're all like, I don't want to date right now. I'm subscribed. People are so much more like, it's fast. It's in five seconds, can I figure out if you're for me or not? And I think people have a lot of more fear around commitment.

And it's like fast food dating. You know, it's just like it's so fast pace. Whereas for us, it was. not that way. I mean, there were apps, but it wasn't the culture that there is now. And so, I mean, we don't really focus on that, like, dating stage, but when people just hear our story, I think we talk about really discovering, like, is it because you aren't actually aligned for each other? Like, there's maybe some concern you have of our values clashing or can this person really go the long haul with me? Like, do we have the skills? Are we equipped? Or is it really just

the unknown? And you don't really know, like, what does marriage mean? And I think it's really important to have an empowering view of marriage. You know, like when people use those phrases of, oh, the ball and chain or I'm losing my commitment. It's like, that is so not what I feel about marriage. It's to me such a gift. And of course, there's, we talk a lot about challenges and the hard moments, but I would not want to not be married. I love what marriage provides. I just came up with an analogy. You guys have the same birthday. Wait, let's go. I love analogies. Love analogies. That's That was weird. I was like, oh my gosh, there's two of you.

Way better than any of mine ever have been. Let's hear it. So when you do a backflip on a beam, wow. You can't really wait till you're ready. You have to just commit. Yeah. And then trust that you've done the work, right?

Mm-hmm. So I don't know if that really landed on. It was on brand. Also a little pun with the landed there. Yeah. That is good. He's on a roll. But I do think that is like a flaw right now.

Maybe in society and like how we're teaching people. people. But I even remember for us, even back in the day, when we're 24 getting married, we could have gone through a list of things that were like, uh, I don't know. Like I don't, this isn't perfect or like, will this work? But we actually made an active decision to be like, there's probably a lot of people we could have gotten married to over the span of our life. But with this person, I'm going to actively try to make it work for the rest of my life. Yeah. And I don't think people are doing that right now they're literally trying to find the perfect person like that word yeah is so important because I think a lot of people are either not ready for that work or they

don't want to it's like oh I just I like the honeymoon stage like that's why I want to just keep repeating the honeymoon stage and it's like marriage does take work I think if we were to add anything for that stage you want to get aligned on a vision that the life you want to create with this person is similar and like we know from psychology too right we're not actually attracted to our differences. We're actually attracted to what we have similar. Then we have different personality traits. So that's where you kind of have to navigate like the differences part and you don't want someone to be exactly the same person. But you like set out to, hey, this is the kind of life we think we want to create lifestyle, experiences. And does that align? Does that the life

you want to create too? It's like, okay, yes. Then I think you can get to like values. Like, all right, well, what do we value? You know, it could be about experiences. It could be about family. It could be about adventure. And I think if you land on those things and then you've got, you know, these mix of personality traits that kind of work well enough, then you just commit. I think to what you're saying, what are we committed to, right? Then you have to be committed to the growth.

Because one of the things we've been talking about a lot recently is one of the biggest issues with the kind of fast-paced society, slightly individualistic, the little bit more impulsive is that we act too much on fleeting feelings and not the consistent commitment. I think that's really to your point, right? It's like if we got the vision and the values together, then we're going to commit, knowing that sometimes I'm not going to feel great. Sometimes I'm going to feel disrespected or controlled or dominated, disconnected. You got to check in, am I acting from what I'm committed to or am I acting on this impulse? And I think that's a lot of times where people then go different ways.

Like, it's just more of impulsive, not based on, oh, we're not aligned on vision or values. I don't feel good right now, so I'm just going to choose to exit. Yeah, it's such a battle to always fight that, though, because there's seasons that might last a day or months, you know. And it's like after babies for us was always four or five months of season where you're like, all right, is this a feeling or is this like a real thing

that there's like a deep rooted issue. Yeah. And I think there's for sure maybe a sequence that you could follow to help flush that out of like, okay, what's the best way to navigate around this? We went to counseling, which then kind of gave us a new perspective. We sought counsel from our friends and family. And it's like, okay, what are you doing? As opposed to just having an automatic pull the shoot or whatever the next impulsive thing is.

It's like, let's at least. do the diligence of let's work through these steps. I'm glad you mentioned the word seasons because we use that term a lot in our content as well. And I think people lose perspective on that. Like they think marriage is supposed to be kind of like just always the same pace or always the same feeling. And I appreciate because we also in the newborn stage, I mean, your intimacy's not popping. You know, you're not like going on date nights three times a week and taking long trips, right? It's a very special and challenging season, but I appreciate those differences. And I mean, our hardest year ever in our marriage was when our daughter was a baby.

So this was back in 2020. Yeah, 22. She was just a few months old. And not only is the newborn stage a whole transition, we almost lost everything financially in an investment where the guy like totally did not help us at all. I'll just put it lightly, right? I mean, it went really. downhill and lost other investments that we had put into like they all lost it once right and I was struggling to heal after birth and things like that so it was like a perfect storm of all these things and it was really really hard and so I think what I'm getting at is I appreciate those seasons because I think how we're bonded is really important you know like even teams or people who go to the army like you're going to go through really hard things and it's about how

you handle those as a couple of whether your bond becomes stronger or weaker. And so anyway, I think for you guys and for all of us, it's like if we can zoom ahead a few decades and look back, we'll be like, wow, aren't we proud of us? Like we worked through that. It was really hard. And a lot of ways it sucked. A lot of people would have pulled the shoot and said this is too much. But it's like we're like hand in hand, even more connected, even more, have more respect for

each other, I think. That's my context for it is I think embracing those those. hard seasons makes the happy ones even more special too yeah the other interesting thing uh you mentioned that i find very fascinating is like the male psyche and digging into the book ancient anxious generation or another one like fighting shadows kind of the the unique challenges that men have i think it's probably more stereotypical for a man to not be ready to commit even though they're simultaneously fighting this desire to like you said i want this so bad i want it to work so bad but i'm not ready to commit and it's like it's so interesting how men are more drawn to

like the isolation it seems the shame of whatever context they're coming from and then um trying to like get them to the point where they are ready to commit and i don't know if that's that is uniquely male or what but it does seem to be the trend where it's the man that's like pumping the brakes and the woman is more ready to pursue. You're saying that even before they like get engaged. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

In that process. But anyway, I know you guys are predominantly marriage. I just find that fascinating. So I would love you. You guys have been hosting marriage workshops for years. Yeah. Is it nine years? Is that right?

Yeah. We're going on. So we're in 2020. Yeah. We're going on nine years. Yeah. At what point where you're like, I'm ready to dawn the, the responsibility of being a marriage coach?

I mean, it started off at first more like mission-based, right? It was really, we didn't actually set out for it to be a business at first. It was more like we were sharing what we were learning and what we were up to and people would ask us for advice and it was more informal. And then, of course, I think you guys probably have those experience of where like things just pick up momentum and it truly felt like a purpose. It was just like this moment of like, why didn't I know this all along that I, you know, that this is what I was supposed to get into and how passionate I am about just like people

and psychology and relationships and I think even a lot of my upbringing and my parents' divorce planted this purpose of I'm uniquely positioned to talk about what it's like to have to unlearn a lot of what you see growing up

and then also becoming a parent now but we've been doing this work. Especially for you. Yes, yeah. I think just being able to break cycles. I don't want to say because, I mean, I love our daughter. So it's for Jocelyn's

passed and what she went through at around 11 to see the level that the divorce went through and now to be you know mom yourself it's just so so powerful to see that you've taken up this banner like once again like I am not going to let my daughter go through the same things I went through you know a lot of her aunts very similar past too and she's like it's not going to happen And so, yeah, we've been having this conversation. There's something that's really been lit up in her since having our daughter. I still love the work, but, you know, I don't. Because it's a different place.

Yeah, my past is pretty easy, you know, mostly. It was, we didn't even talk about conflict. It was just my parents had something and then they walked away. And the next thing I knew we were like playing something in the backyard. It's like, oh, I guess everything was fine. I think for me, I just, and we have done this work even before, we had our daughter, so we've always been passionate about marriage and then having her like a hundred X, the passion. And here's the thing, though, I think it's important that kids don't just see couples stay together, right? Which I think is some of what prior generations would do, right? It's like, no, no, you don't get divorced. We're just sticking it out. But it's equally important that they see love. They see real happiness. And so that's what we've been talking a lot about is like not only showing them a healthy relationship, but happy one and that takes work and it takes like I think of the moments where he and I start getting a little tense and you know we could if we didn't have the skills get into this huge fight

but I see her watching us she's literally I mean your kids probably like they literally pick up on every change in energy every change in body language and I'm like this is a teaching moment and that's like that commitment that I anchor back to like he said feelings oh what I feel right now is pissed right i want to say that thing so bad but my commitment you know i'm more committed to what she's going to learn from this moment what outcome i want for us at the end of the day it's and then we you know we try to model like the you know developmentally appropriate we try to model repair to her let us see you know that we hug we break the physical touch barrier um you know we do our apology take responsibility then we even sit down with her and kind of talk like

you know how was that for you how do you feel yeah i think that's that's the you know the main difference it's not like oh we're just not going to fight so that our kids don't see and then you don't ever repair with your spouse and you're just now staying in it thinking that it's good for the kids when it's not fulfilling for you yeah that's the main thing we've also been kind of culminating on is a marriage needs to be fulfilling for you and good for your kids at the same time yeah a lot of like the parenting stuff their marriages didn't go that great but they're just talking about parenting a lot of marriage books sick to marriage things love account repair and aren't necessarily talking about how do you make sure that it's good both for the kids and still

fulfilling for you gosh it just strikes me and floors me every time I think about this idea that family is simultaneously like the greatest source of the deepest joy and meaning in life but also I'm sitting in a men's group two nights ago, and it's, we're all talking about parenting. Some have kids that are 25, and there's this deep wound that all these fathers are talking about they still have with their dads, a grown men, like 40, 50 years old, and then how they're trying to navigate these wounds with their kids, too. So it's like, gosh, it is how it is worth putting time and thought and money into investing in this so that I don't think anyone makes it out unscades from the family situation,

but it's like, can you build awareness over these things, you know? Because it is so meaningful and it provides such a wonderful structure and kind of sandbox from which to go out and explore other things. Yeah, and there is no perfect family either, right? There's like they need to see hard days. They're going to learn skills from every lesson. So I always remind myself of like, I'm not trying to show her this picture perfect marriage. I actually want her to show her to see the work.

I want her to see like how, you know, how do we navigate these real moments that occur in marriage? But, yeah, I think all humans have something that they're like, and I always laugh about this too. Like imagine our daughter. We're like so intentional. We're teaching her these things. And then in 20 years she's in therapy. And she's like, my parents were always trying to teach me. I love it.

It's always something. Yeah, they're going to be this stuff for something. kids can i mean we can all internalize things differently yeah do you guys think a lot about your kids and like what they're learning and picking up i'm yeah i'm crippled by it are you that's all i think about every single day is just like how is that argument that we had going to affect her like we apologized and we talked to her and i explained it but did she internalize it differently like oh i i think about it every second of the day probably too much okay that's probably my therapy that i need like why do i think about it that much but I want so desperately to be so intentional with our kids. And I think it's that feeling that a lot of parents have is our generation, more than any ever. It has so much access to all this education now and, like, awareness of intentionality and, like, the educating kids. And with everything that we go through, I'm like, I need to educate her. I need to tell her about it.

I need to, like, keep myself in check. I need to keep my husband and party. Oh, shoot, we have all this work. and then it gets overwhelming and I'm like I don't know if I'm doing any of this right so it's just yeah it is funny where we can almost be overly aware it's like sometimes I wish I had less awareness at times where I could be like a little bit more you know allude for but once you're aware you're aware yeah you can't know it and see it and so I think having grace for ourselves is really important too yes like we're not going to be perfect ever so I invite you to have

some grace for yourself thank you it is interesting though that I guess a science effect of all the information that we have access to now is it kind of does yeah create this feeling of well I should know this yeah I did it wrong and thus it's my fault you know like it's on me right for not executing the discipline system that we have with our family well but I uh I don't I do not suffer from that that as much worry I'm really big on just kind of the thought that like you know the kids are going to go to therapy at some point for whatever like it could be it could be because my dad was too loving yeah whatever it's so nice to me I don't know how to there's a million yeah there's millions of yeah there was actually a real making fun of that I was like a kid like my dad like hugged me every day

and he asked me how I was doing he showed up at every event I was ever at yeah and it was just like you know making fun of like yeah we're gonna internalize something and yeah we can't control it so you don't worry about it as much but are you still motivated by the fact that your kids are watching and learning? One, I'm really grateful for our team dynamics. She'll usually, like, do all the research. Like, I learned this at the other. And I'm like, all right, sweet, I'll take this. I'll ditch that.

And then, like, we talk about this. And we've created a really nice kind of operating system for the family. But then I'm also really big on, like, the culture of what makes an east in east, right? And it's like, we're going to do this really well. We're going to just. And we know that that comes at the cost of X, Y, and Z, you know? but it's worth the cost it's like you're not going to do it perfectly

so at least do something all in I would challenge that a little bit as your wife I would only expect it I would only expect it this is us we're a mirror that I don't think

he thinks he's as obsessed with it as I am but the amount of intentionality you put towards teaching our kids character and values and like traditions and stuff is like this forethought that you have of like being intentional you're thinking about it all the time maybe other aspects of like it's like you guys are well-rounded what you think about she thinks more like the meta high level we need to be doing xyz and i'm like let's talk about the fundamentals yeah anyway

i think it's awful how do you guys navigate that well i mean i think we each are conscientious of I think we really align on the same kind of character and values. We want to model for her, for example, really. I have a good example. Oh, yeah, you got one? Go ahead. Let's go. This is probably the best thing I can think of right now.

She, you know, would get, she's three. So she would have the bigger feelings and she'd be expressing them. And she would want space, but she would maybe like start pushing me away. And so we just started to tell her, like, hey, if you just need space, just tell us. and maybe I can say this was part because she observes us because I think we use that language it didn't take long

until she started saying Daddy or mommy I just need space I was like wow no problem great thanks for asking I'll give you space I think we really value one of the things we really align on

it from just things we've learned is just being able to label our feelings being able to ask for what we want and need Like, that's one thing we say to each other, right? We really, that's what assertiveness is, right? Is being able to express how you feel and what you need. Instead of making each other, like, what I used to do in relationships was like, well, I hope they pick up on my huffs and my puffs and my body language with

I'm upset. You know, I hope they pick up the memo. And it's like, no, okay, healthy communication. Let's be assertive and ask for what we want. And same thing with her. We'll say, hey, what do you need or want right now? Tell us. We'll honor that as long as it's nothing extreme or unsafe, right?

One thing I'm interested for you guys, too, is how much. you feel like you balance play well because i feel like you know i'm very structured i'm very intentional to i even feel like my own work part of my inner child really wants to just have fun and be so just out with people and playful but something in me over all my all my years has kind of even diminished that within myself i'm like not like the most playful dad and i'm really trying to i would challenge you too like she did okay I think you're in credit. I smile watching you guys.

I feel like, honestly, I know this is cheesy, but like having our daughter made me fall more in love with him because it brought out more of that playful side and, like, cracked your heart open. Being a girl dad, like, just cracked his heart open. And so I see your playful side all the time. I think you're really good at setting aside kind of the logical brain or like action-oriented.

That's one thing we also, maybe you guys also have to think of this as entrepreneurs is, all right, when are we in family mode versus like not, you know, trying to be on our devices or working. Obviously, still always a work in progress, but that's something we want to teach her being present in the moment. So I don't know that there's so much a balance as in we just ongoingly debrief. So in our work with couples, not all of them are parents, but I'd say like 95% tend to be because we are. So we attract people who are. And parenting can be a big source of conflict, right? Whether they don't align on discipline philosophies or they think they don't. When

they do, they just haven't like honed in the skills, right? Like maybe one struggles to regulate their emotions. And so they are like they want to implement the parenting philosophy, but they struggle with getting frustrated. But regardless, they think they don't align on parenting or they disagree on it. And so what happens a lot is they'll coach each other in the moment. And that feels even more triggering, right? It's like, you're not doing, am I giving advice now? I love it. We need all of this. This is a new concept. Oh, really? Yeah, we're good. Giving each other advice in the moment or like even getting, you know, upset at the parent, like, don't talk to them that way or don't raise your voice. Whereas we, you know, of course,

if anything went beyond a certain limit, one of us might step in and be like, hey, let me take over. But we debrief. You know, we really trust each other. And it's like, of course of, you know, within limits here. But all right, you're getting a little frustrated. I don't want to intervene right now. I want to really show up as being on the same team. We don't want to disregulate each other further because that could happen. And so we debrief after, hey, do we think we could have done better? And having that same team mindset, we're on the same team. We really do align on how we want to raise our children. At least 99% were aligned. And we, all right, we didn't handle that perfectly. How could we be better? Because we're on the same team. We're on the same team. We're

We both want to be better. We're not, you know, attacking each other. So that same team mindset is crucial. I think it's great. I think it took us four years of parenting for me to start any of these debriefing things with the realization that like, oh my gosh, we really are on the same page with so many things. And how much of a blessing is at? Yeah.

It's like, and then we have these issues that might come up weekly or something. Not really that often with the millions of moments that happen every day that we need to sort through. But like, overall, we're pretty aligned. I think the hard part that we've been trying to figure out more recently is we've been doing the parenting thing for six years and with each kid we've gotten to learn more and we've gotten better at regulating everything and like teaching and the education and the intentionality and like how do you deal with these and I feel like our daughter got the hardest of it because we were new and didn't understand and then our second got a little bit better and then our third a little bit better. but like the hard part for us is having three drastically different phases of kids happening at the same time and being as intentional as possible with each one trying to put our almost six year old to bed at a six year old developmental like developmentally appropriate level and then jumping over to a three year old who's screaming crying for another bar and having to like go down to

his level a little bit but then the baby starts crying and trying to like respect all of those and respect each other at the same time is really difficult it's like you're wearing five different hats all at once and you guys aren't overachievers or anything like you're not like you don't excel for like perfection or anything so do you guys have do you have grace for yourselves and each other no for myself never for us yes no no grace for anybody right uh that's something that I always work on. Like, I will remember every moment in my life with my kids. Like, something that I did wrong.

Yeah. But it's okay. I'm working on it. Yeah. I did not know that about nighttime. That's how you're approaching it. To me, I'm just like, wrestle kids. That's how I, that's how I'm working bedtime.

That's the definition of women and men. Wrestle them, get them as stimulated as possible and be like, oh, well, it's time to go to bed now. Yeah. It's interesting. You're talking about playfulness with the kids. I found it easier to play with other people's, like, when we have friends over. It's like, I'm more prone to be in the playful.

mood than I am with our kids because I'm always like, I need to be a father today. Oh, really? Yeah. So I guess I do resonate with when you say that. You play with our kids better than I can play with our kids. Yeah, but I still think I get like more playful when the friends

are over, you know? I have a very hard time playing. Why do you think that is? I'm an only child. Oh, so we were going to ask you something. Oh, yes. Because we think our daughter will likely be an only child. Yeah. Our vision, we never envisioned ourselves, like having a big family. In fact, he didn't even know for really if he wanted kids at all and I knew that when we were dating yeah we're going

also way back to the field I didn't think I was going to get married I didn't think I was even ever gonna have sex with anyone yeah let alone have kids I mean my past was like I guess I'm on my own he had a book when we were dating that said it was titled we still have it just for we kept it as a keep saying it's called redeeming singlehood and it was all about like singleness okay well because I was just putting it away actually yeah and so he legitimately thought he was going to be single for his life and not a father and we eventually just got to this place where we were seven years into marriage almost and we were like I feel like we're ready for like the next chapter I feel something you know that we're ready for but why would I oh we'd never envisioned a big family

think she probably will be an only child people obviously all the time are like she needs a sibling how do you feel about being I absolutely loved my childhood I would not change it my parents were my best friends I did everything with them they are still they're at our house every single day they moved across the country for us they traveled i mean it was us three so i wouldn't change that at all um i think it does say something that now as an adult i want a big family yeah because the only thing that i noticed as an adult is a lot of my close friends had such strong bonds that never went away with siblings but like my friendships would move across the country or go back to their families and so that was something that I saw with my with Andrew that I aspired to have but my parents

also aren't super close with their families so like I never saw that dynamic um but going back to like the playing thing being an only child was wonderful I truly don't feel like I was missing out on anything as a kid but I was always in the company of adults so I didn't have that like care free free to be messy go play with the kids lifestyle because I was always with adults yeah which is great yeah but it's just different it's just different so like now seeing all these kids that are like stomping in mud together and like doing like I was like I didn't have that childhood that was not my I was like coloring with adults at the like adult table yeah um so now seeing that with our kids our daughter has the most tendency to be like the only child style because she wasn't

only child for a while but learning how to like for me to play with them yeah oh interesting i see the connection then okay because like because you played so much alone i can like meticulously play in an organized fashion but not like and i don't know i don't know how to play like truly be a young child's play okay just to imagine things and like go on adventures and makeup not really because I was never in such a group setting where it was more childlike than it was adult-like. So everything was kind of always adult-ish.

Your childhood is wild. I mean, you think about your peer group even when you were with other kids is like high-achieving gymnasts. Yeah. Turn pro at 12. Yeah. And gymnastics, that's not a normal child.

It's not a normal childhood. Yeah. So that's, it probably instilled. Was it, because, like, gymnastics to me is, really like such a playful and artistic thing but the competition part of it I would imagine would be very serious so did you feel like it was just very serious even though you enjoyed it no no it was very fun um it's just I feel like because of the settings I was in it was always very organized in every category of the sense. So like in gymnastics, I was a kid and I would play. That's kind of where I found my childhood

was like in the gym because I was with other kids. But even in gymnastics, it's very like type A, you have to follow the rules so you don't get hurt. You like you do all these things. It was not this like carefree wellness. Yeah. It's way different than us opening the back door. The kids run out. They go dig holes. Very different. So I'm still learning that. And I, my perfectionist side, gets caught up and like, I didn't give that to my daughter. I gave it a little bit more to my, our second. Now I'm giving it the most to our third, like trying to figure that up. Now that you have a child, three-year-old daughter, what would you tell yourselves when

you were in the peak mode of, I don't think we're going to have kids? You know, I mean, I think I really appreciate that we were married so long before we had our daughter. I think in some sense, some people like almost feel like an urgency, like, No, two years in, like, let's have kids. And, of course, people have this whole clock, right, that I feel is less and less true. I was just shy of being a geriatric mother, like, you know, in the medical, the hospital, geriatric, right? I was just shy, high-risk pregnancy.

I feel like they need to redo the data on that because, like, the average human is so much healthier now than when they did those studies. Right. Yeah. Yeah. At least using the biological age now, right? Yeah. Not, oh, what's your age? Your chronological age?

Oh, you're geriatric. It's like, no. You haven't even done one test. I'm probably healthier than a 20-some-year-old having a kid. Yeah, keep going. And so I think I am glad we had our years of just traveling and growing up a lot together. I feel like we really welcomed her on this super solid foundation. Like we had been through several hard seasons already.

So we saw how we handled them. We had, yeah, I mean, we just grew up so much together. And so I'm really glad at the timing that we did. And I'm also like, wow, what did I do with time? We all wonder, right? Like, what did I do with that time? I just really appreciate going back to that word seasons. I appreciate that season.

I look at pictures. I'm like, oh, we were such babies. And, you know, the life we had. And I appreciate this season now. And I'm, I just, I love that life is about experiencing different things. And then when we're much older, we're looking back and being like, wow, we experience so much together. What would you say to yourself? similar i think i just want to give myself some reassurance that dude it's it's like going to be a lot

of fun and you're also going to be a good dad you know and just to know that everything that i focus on on myself like that's going to you know make a difference for her and mostly just reassurance like you're going to be able to do this you're going to be able to do it well it'll be funer than you think and it's just going to be challenging too and that's you know that's that's that's really where we've gotten for our marriage in the past couple of years is that this is an evolution, like everything else in life. And there are these seasons, and it's just really about your own growth. And then you get to grow with a partner. And then you get to translate that growth to a human being. And I think once, like if I could just really give myself that, like,

just understand the evolution that all of it is of your soul, of the life that we're living, of your own personal development that it's just another one and that would probably have me feel like I could really step into it I think. I think just to add one thing is like I think couples a lot of times in their language will be like I want to go back to how it was in our marriage right whether they mean

early in their relationship or before they had kids not that they don't want their kids but how their marriage was and the sobering truth is like you can't go back and nor are you meant to that's just like to Aaron's point like life is an evolution and so I think anyone who's listening who's like oh we were just we had so much fun you know in the first few years it's like okay but you're not there so how can you be connected and fulfilled and embrace this season of marriage now because we all know that what you

resist persists so it's embrace okay we're in the chaotic stage right now we are raising human beings we're we're going to have to connect differently but let's embrace it let's not compare or wish we were somewhere else in this sense season what will make us be connected have us feel connected in the season what is our relationship need i just think it's really important to embrace where we're at right now yeah i think a big part of that is what you said earlier about just being present and it's like all right you can think about the past all day long you could think about the future fears that you may have but what if you just what if you were just like right here you know and the okay the bottle was spilled this morning

This morning we had a kid poop on the kitchen. Oh, yes. Hilarious. Yeah. I didn't put a diaper on. He comes in hands with me, our one-year-old this morning. And it looked like his ones he was on, but it also looked like it was dangling. And I like, grabbed him.

I was like, oh, we're diaperless. Great. Little baby butts, which are the best. And he's like, I just feel like he needs to, like, air out a little bit. He's always in a diaper. And I was like, okay. and literally a minute later he pooped on the kitchen floor

and does it make you laugh it makes me laugh she's stressed okay I didn't think you did a great job thank you I've been working this is a fun thing where I'm so glad we have this athletic background where it's like a very tangible application of the idea of like challenge leads to reward

it's like the workouts the practices all like the blood so and tears you put into it it's like that's for it will turn into something great and I think we've gotten a lot of reps at that and anyway it's taken reps at parenting to realize like wow this does this does lead to something really great yes I also think having the awareness because I keep having this question in my mind but it's like having this awareness of what is your flaw that you always need to be constantly working on mine's like the perfectionism and I came from such a controlled life and not in a bad way but like

gymnastics and professional athletics and like perfectionism that that's what I have to fight every single day to not like lose my temper or lose my frustration just because something doesn't go exactly how I pictured it but my question that I keep thinking of is what are our floss well I would love to share it um but it's like in psychologically speaking I'm thinking of like friends who are still looking for a spouse and friends who have turbulent marriages and is the psychological part in someone's mind that's like how i even voice it is everyone capable of change or do you actively have to have a different wiring that makes you the type of person that can endure a marriage and endure the seasons is that something you're given at birth that you just have to tap into or can you truly change your makeup i i think it's such a great question too i think it's always possible for people and the reason I say that however people think that sometimes it takes an external event yeah so when you see something tragic happen with someone yeah the paradigm will shift really fast so it means to me that the ability right like the neuroplasticity it could have changed

I think the point is I don't know is someone going to have the inherent desire and awareness to make that happen on their own, or for some, is it going to require that external? So I think the capability is there. Now, to your point, like, you know, my soul came here to learn some lessons, some particular growth things. And so maybe for some, I don't know,

maybe that's in the plan. Maybe what you were choosing to learn through in this life was going to take you to that it was going to have to be external. Well, no, but, yeah, to answer your question, I think it's always possible, but it's like then comes down to the question of like the choice is it going to be from actual choice or is it going to be from this paradigm shifting external kind of grief or trauma i agree with all that and i think too it's also people's context around change you know some people who have a a perspective of oh if my partner's saying there's things i need to work on that that means i'm not good enough right or it triggers shame rather than the context that we have is that yeah we're here to evolve that growth isn't a part of life and that we all have things that we can improve so we have an empowering context around it and I think to your point what we talk a lot about is there's definitely a large threshold of what we're capable of

changing like in particular with our patterns right how I engage in conflict which I learned from growing up was a learned behavior it's not who I am right raising my voice and cussing is not jocelyn that's a pattern and now that I'm aware of what I value and what my commitment is, oh, that's a pattern I don't want to carry forward. So this was us early in the marriage. Okay. So that's something I want to actively change. And that's through repetition, right?

And being able to do that work in the present moment of regulating ourselves. And so there's all that, those patterns we can choose to change. And then there's this part of acceptance that we need to have in a relationship, too. I was thinking about this this morning of how I'm really grateful that Aaron accepts me. I'm an assertive woman. Like I haven't necessarily when I was younger. I also need that though. Yeah, I was saying to our men's group too the other day that just without her,

I just really wouldn't have done much with my life. It would have just been very average. Sort of how I grew up Midwest, get a job. I had an engineering degree working as an engineer. And I could have just literally seen that that would have been my life until I had someone a fire starter yeah I think it took her seeing that there was like other potential and then once it actually goes to your question too I'm just realizing this she introduced me to personal development and then I went to it wasn't like I went to her you be my personal

development no she introduced me to it and then over there something was like rebirthed in me and then I learned like I loved public speaking after that I'm like I that's the person that I am so then I almost became like this different person but I could without you I could have easily seen myself as just but there's these things to accept like so for oh you would have but thank you very average we really inspire each other like motivate each other in different ways but I think to the assertiveness point is like I was self-conscious really self-conscious when I was younger so I didn't totally have my voice but once I found my voice this was in my 20s There was even a partner before Aaron that I thought he was like, oh, this is like the person because he had a lot of the traits, right? Oh, like, smart, successful, funny, the attractive, like those traits, but he didn't accept me fully for who I was. He would resist my assertiveness, right? He'd, like, and I'm not saying I'm assertive as I'm aggressive. It's just like, I'm a vocal person.

I ask for what I want and I need, right? And I'm open to heart, difficult conversations. and he would always resist that and be like, can you be less of that? Like, be more like funny or like lighthearted. And I'm like, I'm a thoughtful person. I would want to have these deep conversations like, can't you just be lighthearted? So it really occurred to me in that time of how all these traits can sometimes like overshadow or we lose sight of that we need to accept some of those quirks, those differences. Like no matter how much self-development, like I'm not going to become like dainty, you know, like I'm not going to lose my voice.

And with him, one thing to accept, this isn't going to be news for you. Extreme orderliness. Right? Love orderliness. I mean, his eyes, I can see it when it goes to something out of place. And, you know, he will, a lot of times he just takes it on himself, right? Like, he'll do it. But he'll vocalize it from time to time.

Like, why isn't this here or there? This doesn't make sense to put here. And I just have grace for that. Like, I could fight that. I could be like, why do you have to? to you know control that or why you said this it's like that's a quirk i accept about him because i don't want to fight over it that's who he is it gives him peace so it's not a flaw it's a quirk you know just give the we came up with an acronym for this too so for the listeners psa like public service

announcement we believe in this marriage realm you need to first focus on your own perception then with that perception i can inquire you know self-inquire what are the skills So S is skills. So are they conflict skills, communication skills? There's something I can probably do better in my behavior. If I'm doing both of those things, P and S, then I get to the A. Now I can ask for the acceptance of my personal differences, personality traits. But we do see couples too early try to just ask for it.

This is who I am, accept me. I scream at you during conflict, accept this about me. No responsibility for how your interpret. this event being perception and you haven't tried to change your behavior at all so you haven't you have no new skills you're not in the position yet to say this is who i am except me for who i am it's like no you need some p and s then you can get some a i like it uh okay so empowered couples yeah it's kind of the the north star of a lot of your work what is an empowered couple what's the what's the finish line what does that look like i think

it's everything we've been talking about right even that PSA it's like about having that self-awareness it's two people who have that aligned vision aligned values the life they want to build together and then saying who do we need to become in order to fulfill that and it's it's actually an ongoing process there's no arrival that's why we tell couples all the time when they do this work it's like by the way no matter you could be in therapy five years straight and you're still going to be human so you're not looking for some place where you suddenly have nothing to ever work on as a couple but it's we're building something together we both want to become the best versions of ourselves with the grace and the acceptance sprinkled on top right so that's how I would define it

what would you say this might be very applicable to all of us here with all that you know you get to the end I've always wondered about this like personal development and sometimes I think to myself I do not want to grow anymore I'm tired I don't want to grow it's too much right so it's almost like a seriousness or kind of like you were talking about like there can be too much focus on it and we do end up seeing that with couples sometimes that we'll be coaching them and they need to progress in certain things but for certain couples we realize you kind need to take a couple weeks off like you need to fill the love account this needs to feel less significant you need to get some joy some grace some fun in there then we can get back to

the journey, the progress, right? The personal development. So that's one thing for me to always remember since we were talking about play already. I really want to make sure that we're prioritizing the joy, the experience, and it's not always then about be better, be better. You mentioned self-development, personal growth several times.

What does someone who engages in that game look like versus someone who doesn't play the game or go on the journey of self-development? I mean, I think it's ultimately that willingness to look in the mirror, right? It's, it's, there's two ways to live life. We can either look at every situation and frustration like in your marriage, those arguments and just be like, it's you. I wouldn't have done this.

If you didn't this and it's because you disagree with me on this, it's always external. Versus a person who goes into marriage with the mindset of every situation, challenge, anything that we encounter, what is my part in this? Those are two totally different types of people to be with. And when both partners have that outlook, what couldn't you overcome? Now, is it unfair if only one of us is doing that? Of course. It'd be like, if I was always the one, like, looking in the mirror, oh, here's my part.

Here's my part. And he was always like, I'm glad you figured that out because, yeah, it's you. I'd get exhausted at some point. I'd get burned out. But when both partners are willing to say, okay, what's my part in the situation? How could I be better? how do we trigger each other or you know just reinforce these certain patterns you can just overcome anything and so in terms of how it looks it's that willingness to look in the mirror

and then having the methods and the means for it whether people like to see a therapist a coach read books listen to podcasts go to retreats like all the methods can be different but it's just that ongoing mindset of who I'm becoming and balanced with the fun the extent heavy like it's really that balance because it can be all work and no play and then that feels heavy yeah it seems like your friends have really been on your heart today those that you know want to find their partner or have not i think that kind of brings us back to your original question like how do you know when to just commit i think that's probably the last thing they really look for does this partner have that kind of mentality where they're going to be willing to look in the mirror

then I think that's probably the last piece for you to say all right the beam is there I just commit to your backflip I love that I love that and yeah I always think about our friends because we love marriage so much yeah what do you love most about it I love having a best friend to do life with and it's not pretty always and it's not easy but you see all these people searching for like I just want what you have and it's like well if you saw every single day you would probably say no like and it took us 13 years to get here you know and people are in this like endless pursuit of i just have to find that person it's like no you you make that yes you make that that's exactly it you actively choose one day to say this is the person and we're going to figure it out

and it's through figuring it out that you find love greater than anything you'll ever find on like day one yeah i'll have to send you since you like research as well maybe you'll learn it maybe not but I'll learn it through him. One of the interesting, one of my favorite papers that I've read in our studies, it's one of the largest meta-analysis papers on marriage, and they found that there was marriage dissatisfaction peaked at year 10. In other words, people were the least happy about year 10. So was this the hardest year for you guys?

No, we're at 9. We got next year. No, but you've been together more than 10 years. Oh, yeah, yeah. It would have been 10 years. So you would have maybe had your own years? So you thought it's about right. But it also showed that once you get past that hump, you're likely to stay together.

So good job. You made it past those challenges. We did it. I think marriage is so profound, for lack of a better word. It really is, there's all these side effect benefits, like the derivative benefits you get. I was just reading the other day about the fatherhood wage premium, where fathers make. more money than men who are not fathers it's like okay that's interesting and then it kind of gets you thinking about the family situation i personally benefited so much from the family structure

and like i'm best friends with my brothers uh there's something about the security and the identity that then lead you to have confidence to go achieve anything um or like find your your place in the world in some sense um i think i love i love watching like the motivational videos on YouTube and all this stuff which is so cheesy but it's it's all about wake up at 4 a.m. and do the hard things like David Goggin stuff take an ice bath because it sucks you know it's like get in beast mode yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's like go through the hard thing it's like everyone's missing the hardness the difficulties and the challenges of marriage which is like so much more constant and so much more unpredictable and takes you so much more outside your comfort zone because

it's like at some point we're going to have the same conversation with we've had about this parenting issue for the 700th time. Yeah. And it's going to be us button heads, button heads, button heads. And then maybe at some point, I'll realize, holy crap, I could maybe address this a little differently, you know, as opposed to doing it like I have the last 700 times. What if I freaking changed? And then you're like, holy smokes.

That's incredible. And you can also laugh at the moment, too, of like, I mean, there's times where we'll have like a moment and it feels reminiscent to. recent moments and I will sometimes like giggle because I'm like isn't this just funny being human you know there is no arrival it's like aren't we so funny but we're at least doing it together like you said it's like I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else even though we go through hard days it's like having that best friend I wouldn't want to go through these happy moments and hard moments with anyone else right yeah and in the world of AI where it's you can have

all of the greatest knowledge or the most incredible entertainment online and not have to interact with any human, right? That's kind of the dystopian interpretation of that. It's like having someone there by your side to be a witness to and be weird with and like do all that stuff with is really this, it's an incredible thing that you can't really access in any other way. But anyway, y'all hosts the workshops. What does an individual who shows up to those workshops typically look like and what are they

looking for what what could they expect and where can you find the next one yeah for anybody listening so all of our resources are meet the freemans dot com you'll see our workshops books web classes challenges everything we've had over 40,000 couples to our 30 day couples challenges that's awesome world so those are popular but i think our workshops which are in-person events and we absolutely love i mean from i mean some couples come before they're even married to the last workshop was it 50 something years they were married no they were 30 off. That was another couple we coach, but yes, into the multi-decade.

So across the range, but the main thing they want to work on is communication. You know, they really want to. And even the couple that was married three decades was like, it's still a work in progress. And it goes to show you, again, there's no arrival. You're not suddenly like, oh, we're perfect and we have it all figured out. So communication is a big thing they want to focus on. And there's a lot to do that, but we love the workshops. Wow.

Yeah. Is your work or methodology based on any, like, philosophical foundation or is, like, religious background in some sense? We keep ours very skills-based because we have people who come to us of all faiths, and I had a totally different religious upbringing that I've had to kind of work through my own trauma religiously. We're very Christian, and we're Christians ourselves, but we keep our work very skills-based to apply to everyone. Interesting. Yeah. We're big on as athletes. I love the rhythm, routine, the practices.

What do you think, or what, let me just ask, rhythms do you all have on a weekly basis that helps with the communication side of things, since that's such a tough issue? Definitely having a weekly check-in. So for couples who are like newer into doing the work, we give them a specific structure. We call it a weekly family meeting. And it's five questions that they go through. I'm happy to share those now for us because we're 10 years into it. It's more like we're able to do it while we're doing stuff, right?

We're like cooking. And one of the first questions you ask is about where's your love account at on a scale zero to 10, which is we call it a love account to think like a bank account, right? And just like money, it's a sum of your deposits versus your withdrawal. So we check in. And so that helps us be able to catch it when we're at like a 7 instead of a 2. You know, so it's like, hey, I'm at a 7. Okay, all right, what can I do to help raise that score this week, which it could look different

this week than it did last week. And one quick side note, same events can be happening, but it's very relative to where your love account is at. So if your baby poops on the kitchen floor and your love account is at a nine, you naturally offer the grace. If your love account is at a one, you're just going to be much more reactive, there's going be less tolerance and it's not from the events it really is from where your love account is yeah so that we check in on the love account we also make sure we talk about like logistics right

it'd be a time to be like what's ahead you know what are the priorities this week so there's like both the emotional check-in as well as the logistics check-in so that for us is huge you know and it can be we also ask yeah so you have to be you have to be ready for the conversation it's not one just to have been passing because then you also do ask was there anything that you've felt was not repaired from the last week. So we don't, for us, we don't want to be carrying things into, we don't even want to carry things from one day to the next, really. But, you know, sometimes you need some time to process.

But we really want couples to feel like their past is really in their past. Because that will also lead to like landmines and emotional triggers that when things are not resolved for you, it can be unrelated. But that emotion, as you know, like emotion is. what brings up memory. So it can be unrelated, but if you're having the emotion of anger, it's going to bring up memories of other times you're angry. So if that's unresolved, that's why these things get kind of complex. Where did this come from? Yeah, like, all I did was forget to wash that dish and like, why are we now talking about the past? And this seems like way bigger

than that. So we just want to make sure that couples are able to say, hey, you know what? We're in this space. It's intentional. Was there anything for you that was unrepaired from this past weeks. I want to be able to address that. And we have a repair process too. But let's make sure we're repairing these so that we're relieving our backpack, if you will. We're emptying the backpack out and not carrying our backpack forward of resentment to the next week, the next month, the next year. Yeah. I think just so check-in, because I mean, so often a week we all know flies by so fast. But if that compounds and you haven't really checked in in weeks or months, it really does pile up quickly, right? Your love account can be really depleted. You didn't realize it

or the thing's unrepaired and it feels so big when it stacks up rather than if you're just addressing it like little by little every week. And you're getting on the same page about logistics too. Because then you don't have to argue. I didn't know you were going to that on Wednesday. Wait, you didn't tell me. So it just, it covers all the basis. The emotional check in, the logistical check in, making sure you're not carrying things forward. Because then you throw three kids in it. And it's like, you've got, there's a lot, you know. So we got at least do our work because, you know, kids are going to be bringing things. External stresses, jobs are going to be bringing things.

So we've got to really make sure that we're keeping ours clean. Yeah. So we definitely have a couple start with the family check-ins. And you can find all these resources that Meet the Freem. Yep. Yep. The guides are on there. We'll put it all down below.

I'll say meet the freemans.com slash links. Love it. That's a good page. Anybody can put that in the show notes. I could see here for another hour. I know. This is so fun. So easy to talk to you guys.

Thank you for coming, joining the show. It's a pleasure to be connected. I'm excited for what the future holds. This might not be a last conversation. I hope not. I hope not. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.