From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Duffy's Revisit Tips For A Healthy Marriage

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

On this episode, Sean and Rachel revisit a conversation about their tips for maintaining a healthy marriage after over twenty years and nine children together. They share the key to their successful marriage as they prioritize their friendship and find little moments together without their children. Rachel and Sean also emphasize that a good marriage takes hard work but is worth the effort. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, but also my partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy.

Thank you, Sean. Welcome back to another round of our conversations from the kitchen table. And this one's really exciting. By the way, no guests. It's just you and I today. Wow. It's just you and I, because we're going to talk about marriage. And I had come up, I'd found an article about New Year's resolutions for marriage. And I'm like, oh, this would be great. Let's look at all the different things let's invite this person who wrote the article and talk about it and then i started to look deeper at the resolutions and i was like wait a minute that's not what i would do that's not what we would do that's not what keeps our marriage healthy so we decided to come up with our own list of what keeps our relationship going. And I do think it's appropriate to do

here in January because we had a podcast, which is really good on resolutions. And mine was definitely about trying to get back in shape. But truthfully, nothing is more important than working on your relationship. Right. Because if you don't have a good relationship or if your relationship or marriage falls apart, you really kind of have your whole life crumble in front of you. And so we've been married for 23 years. It's been pretty good. I would say we've been pretty productive. Ups and downs, but like everybody else. Nine kids. And so, yes, we thought we would share kind of what our advice is on marriage and marriage success and what we do to have a healthy life together and a healthy home and a healthy family.

I mean, a lot of young people do come to us and ask us like, hey, what's the key here? Just a side note. I was like, how long? We've been married for 23 years. It seems like it's not 23 years. It seems like it's- No. Actually, that's a good sign. Like six or seven years of marriage. I'm like 23. I agree. That's a good sign. I can't be that old. So, all right, let's talk about our advice. Okay, so the first thing that we sat down, we had a really big, nice discussion about

what we thought has been the key to our success. And I think the first thing is that we prioritize our marriage. I think anyone who knows us sees that that's the most important thing to us. And that includes our friendship. You're my best friend. We just keep the friendship going. And so this is one that I think all the other ones kind of encompass, but we do prioritize our marriage in the sense that we will always rebalance and recheck with each other. If someone has a problem, we'll sit down and talk about it. We spend time together because it's a priority for us. And if it's not a priority, because listen,

in life today, there's a whole bunch of things that can pull us away from our marriage, whether it's our jobs, our workout, our phones, our social media, our kids, our friends. I mean, there's a lot of distractions that can pull us away from the most important relationship in our lives. And a lot of people do get distracted from that. But I think we always have to rebalance and recenter and say, this is the most important relationship that I have. Because again, when I love my kids, my kids are important to me, but my kids have a lot of stress in their life if my relationship with them doesn't work out well, right? Their lives will be a lot worse if ours is not going well. I have stress in my job if my relationship with you

doesn't go well. I can't imagine what kind of posts I put on social media if my relationship with you doesn't go very well. So again, we realize that our most important thing in our lives is our relationship and our faith, which we're going to get to in a little while as well. Yeah. I mean, people spend a lot of time mapping out their career courses and mapping out a lot of things. And this is truly the most important relationship that you have in your life. And you said, Sean, if it doesn't go well, everything else sort of crumbles. And so I think the next things we talk about is how do we prioritize our marriage? And some of the advice we have- Can I just, before we move on to that, we've rearranged our lives in order to prioritize our

marriage. So when Sean was in Congress, for years, there reached a point where we were like, this is not the right balance. We talked about it. We deliberated about it. We prayed about it. And eventually, we made a very difficult life change so that we could prioritize our marriage and our family. But that was a big part of it. It was. Listen, I lived in Wisconsin my whole life, 50 years. I was a member of Congress from Wisconsin. I love Wisconsin. That's in my blood. That's who I am. I'm a military brat. I moved around a lot. I've never lived anywhere else in my life but Wisconsin. And you got the Fox & Friends weekend

job. And we did that for a couple of months where you were leaving on the weekend. There was a few times during the week that I had to leave. And it was me who said, listen, this does not work for our relationship. It doesn't work for our family. And so though I love this place, I love you more. I love my family more. And we moved out to New Jersey. So you could be closer to your job and we could all be together. And again, that's not prioritizing. My whole family lives in Wisconsin for the most part. My parents and my siblings.

It's a place that we had a home and a cabin and our friends. But the most important thing is our relationship. And so we moved out here so we could be together more often. Listen, that was a big choice that we made. But I think it's the right choice because we prioritize being together. And if we don't spend time together, again, you're in New York for the weekend and I'm going to DCL still a little bit during the week. We spend less time and I think you grow apart.

There's an option to start living separate lives. That's another one of our tips. We'll get to that one in a minute. I'm sorry. So let me move this along. Let me move this along. So the other thing I think that you and I have done well in our relationship

is we found little moments. We always try to find little moments. Is this one of our other topics now, little moments? Little moments, yes. So it could be the kids just went to school and we're going to have a cup of coffee together. We're really good about, we do a lot of coffees together.

I have more coffee than I do. And now we go, okay, we're going to- I have multiple cups. Yeah. And be, you know, find that little time when we're up at the cabin in Northern Wisconsin, we'll, you know, organize the kids at the end of the day. You know, we spend the whole day, like Sean's taking them water skiing and we're doing this with them.

We're doing that with them. And then at the end, we're like, all right, you guys are in charge of these kids. And even if it's just for 15 minutes, we're going to go on a boat ride alone. And a lot of times they're like, please take us with, and we have to go, no, this time is just for us. Or in the morning, we'll wake up and go out to the end of the dock and have a cup of coffee. And it's time that we just get to talk about what's going on, what's on our mind, what's going well, what isn't, what we're doing for the day. But those special moments are important in the connection. And I think, which is another thing we're going to talk about is the friendship that you build with your spouse through those times.

Even, listen, sometimes we'll find ridiculous movies sometimes to watch late at night when the kids are going to bed. Well, we find a series that we like. We both love Yellowstone. Now we're into 1886. Obviously, we don't watch that with our kids. Not appropriate. So we steal away. We find that time that that's just our time. And I think that- We'll analyze the movie after the series after. Yeah. I'm actually going to write an article about this because we might do a podcast about it because I have some issues there. But anyway, we do. We find that time, whether it's a cup of coffee, a series that we watch, moments we catch, sunset, whatever it is, got to find those little moments.

But you also, and Sean, you're better at this than me. This is my next point. You also need to find big moments. Right. And the big moment is, yeah, you can steal away for a cup of coffee and yeah, maybe you go for a walk. Maybe you go on a boat. Or a drive. But the big moment is, I think there's times that you just have to get away more than a cup of coffee. So last year, Rachel and I had been just going hard. And I was like, you and I have to get away. Let's go on a vacation. And she kept saying no to me. I said no because we had so much to do. I kept thinking about the kids and we had to do this. We have to do that. Finally, you got mad at me. I got mad. I'm like, listen. He's like, what? You don't want to go away with me? I had planned a great vacation. I had planned

something that I really want to do that we've never done. She actually, I know, wanted to do it. And she kept saying no to me. And I got angry. I'm like, listen, we never get away. This is a perfect trip. Do you not want to go on vacation with me? What the hell is going on? I know. And then she felt bad. And then she said yes. And we went on this great vacation in the Caribbean.

And then we ended up staying a couple days longer. Yeah, it was so good that we actually had to call our babysitter and go, can you stay an extra day? And then we called again. We're like, can you stay one more day? And finally, Sean's like, Rachel, we got to go home. And for us, it's hard because we have a lot of kids. And so to navigate and manage a getaway is... It's not easy. It's not easy for just... But it was so important. And I was so lame. A parent just can't come over and watch the kids for a couple nights because you got one or two.

There's only a few people that can handle our brood for that period of time. But I'm so glad when I look back on that time, and that time was so special. It was so great. And by the way, I'm glad we took as long as we did out there because when your lives are busy, it takes a long time to decompress, but we managed to do it. You were super flexible when I was like, I'm so relaxed. Please don't make me go back. And we stayed those extra two days. And I mean, I just want to kick myself to think that I almost blew this whole thing up and didn't go. And I want just a point want to kick myself to think that I almost blew this whole thing up and didn't go. And I want just a point of reference. We didn't do a lot of time away

together like that. When you were in Congress, it was impossible. Eight years we went and we would do political events. We would do events around work, but never did you and I just take a vacation where you and I went off. It had been a long time. We used to do that before you were in Congress. We did. We'd take the kids down to my parents' house and then he and I would go off. But once he got into Congress, we sort of lost track of that. And that was so, so important. We want to go camping. We want to go get a hotel room for a couple of nights and get away together where you can have dinner and hang out and have an extended period of time together. We're going you build the bond

of the marriage and it doesn't have to be every month, but once a year, once every year and a half, you need to get away together. Because if you don't, again, I think you just have the hardship of, again, with us, we're just kids. There's a lot of managing of kids and life and house that can consume you as opposed to the reason you got married. It can wear you down. It can wear you down. And again, I think it's important, especially for- Rachel doesn't wear me down, but- No, but I think that you do get into the grind. You do get onto that hamster wheel of being a taskmaster and taking care of everything. And then you feel bad, right? You feel like, well,

maybe we should just bring all the kids. And I think that's the wrong- Sometimes it's okay to bring the kids, but- Of course, obviously wrong. I think it's a good course. Obviously, you want to take family vacations, but there has to be a time where you go just with your spouse and you also acknowledge that that time that you're spending with your spouse alone, those four to eight days is actually a gift to your kids. It's actually a gift to your kids. You have to keep reminding yourself. I know a lot for a lot of moms, that's hard to process because you feel like, oh, you feel guilty, but you just got to do it. Okay. So I'm going to move us along. The next thing we talked about was that danger of starting to lead separate lives. And you and I, and I have to give you a lot of credit, Sean, because you

have been the best about this. For 10 years of our lives, Sean was in Congress and four days out of three weeks a month, he was gone in DC. Four days a week. Four days a week for three weeks out of the month, at least. And then other times he was traveling and doing, he was just gone a lot. And Sean was so good about staying in touch with me and filling me into my day. And you see in Congress, a lot of relationships get strained. And I think ours really thrived despite all the pressures.

And I give you a lot of credit for this, Sean, is that you were really, really good about saying, I'm going to take every moment. If I'm walking to a vote, I'm going to call Rachel and catch up with her and fill her in on what's going on. I was not like that. When I would go to New York, when I first started going to New York, once a month, once every couple of months, for me, it felt like, oh, I was stressed until I left. And then once I left, I wanted to unplug from everybody. And that really hurt your feelings. And I had to kind of once I left, I wanted to unplug from everybody. And that really hurt your feelings. And I had to kind of go, well, I mean, at first I was kind of like, hey, what's the

problem? I'm back. I'm here. But I think you were so right about insisting, A, that you continue to stay in touch with me so we don't lead separate lives, and that you insist that I afford you that same respect. If I stopped calling you... again, so in Congress, it's busy. I mean, you have meetings every 15 minutes. You're going to the House floor to vote. You've got committee hearings. But there's always time to call your spouse. And again, it might only be for three minutes.

It might be for 10 minutes. And you might be on the call and someone approaches me. I'm like, I got to go and I got to hang up. And the same thing would happen to you in New York when you'd go out for Fox. We were very flexible if someone had to just quickly jump off the phone. But I was sharing who I was seeing, what meetings I was having, what boats were going through, what issues or good things were happening with my staff in the office. And I wanted the same from you.

And I just wanted to sit in my hotel room and have no one bother me. I'd sleep alone in my hotel bed. No one would pee on me. No kids would pee on me. No one would kick you. I was so happy in a hotel room. So I would tell Rachel, you want to put me on the shelf and go off and just put us there. But you were right.

When you came home, I'm like, no, we're never off the shelf. That's right. We're never off the shelf. That's right. We're never off the shelf. And again, and I would say I've seen in other people's and other marriages, I saw women who their best friend, the person they confided to was somebody else, maybe somebody from work, maybe their best friend, maybe a girlfriend of theirs. And I think the key to our success is we truly are each other's best friends. And so if something happens in my life, whatever it is, it could be the smallest thing, like I tripped and fell, or I just got this amazing phone call about this job offer or

whatever it is. The first thing I want to talk to, the first person I want to talk to, the only person I need to tell, it's like it didn't even happen until I tell Sean. And that is how our relationship is. And I think that that friendship grows. And I think if you allow other people to take that place in your marriage, what you will start to see is that you will grow apart. And you will see too, Sean, you read the tabloids and you see these celebrity relationships where everything's hot and heavy and you're like, oh my God, they're the perfect couple. And then a year and a half later, they're divorced. And part of that is that celebrities often go work on a movie somewhere and they're separated. And I think if you are not on those times that you're on work trips or

whatever, if you're not 100% in touch with as much as you can with your spouse, if you allow somebody else to take that intimate friend, confidant spot of your spouse, I think things break down. The reason this is such a dangerous point for marriages, I think, is because, again, you have two parents oftentimes working, you're going off, you have your own job, your own colleagues, each of you have that. And then you're coming home and you're managing kids and you don't want to have a life that's outside the life of your wife or your husband. And so sharing the things that happen in the office and who you're seeing and in contact with the office and who the players are in your life, that's really important. So we're, again, sharing the things that are happening during our day.

So I don't have a group of people. It's like, I can't tell you because you don't know, you don't understand them, Rachel, or you don't know who they are. Right. I know everybody that's in your circle. You know everybody that I know. That's right. And that's really important. And again, I think a lot of couples don't do that and therefore they grow apart and can lead a separate life. And again, we don't want to lead any other life in one together. And that's what's, I think, so important in making sure you share the life with your spouse, no matter what it is, the big and the small.

I stubbed my toe on the way home. Oh, great. Thanks for sharing, Sean. We'll be back with much more after this. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data with much more after this. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. isn't built on as much as possible. Obviously, relationships are never 50-50 every single time, but there should be some balance and there has to be a level of compromise. And I mean, Sean's pretty easygoing, so you make it really easy. There's very few things that Sean puts his foot down on. And when he does, he means it. But other things like decorating the house, he's like, do your thing. I love that about you, by the way. It's what I love about you. And I think even because we just came out of Christmas, there was compromise.

This is maybe a dumb example, but Christmas movies, Rachel likes old movies. And I've started to like a couple of them. I like It's a Wonderful Life. That's a classic. White Christmas. White Christmas is awesome. I don't like Holiday Inn so much, but I might go, well, I want to watch as a Christmas movie, Die Hard, right? Obviously, Rachel's not going to go for that. My daughter's fiance would love to watch Die Hard as a Christmas movie with me. We're guys, but we compromise on kind of what we'll watch. We agree on Elf. We do. But even in our fights, I think you always can't be right.

And even if I disagree- Sometimes I think I'm always right. Rachel does. Well, again, I would say if I get 20% in this relationship, I'm a winner. That's my compromise. Can I tell everybody what the best thing, when I get on? So I'm very, I'm a kind of a neat freak. And so I think one of the things that we probably argue the most about is the division of labor in the house.

So I'm very much like, I like things to be nice and clean. And sometimes I want Sean to do things the way I do. Like one of my frustrations is if I go off to the office, go to work, and then I come back, if Sean goes to work and comes back, there's like homemade soup on the stove. Everything's clean. If I come home work and comes back, there's homemade soup on the stove. Everything's clean. The kids are all tidy. If I come home, it's not like that. And it will just drive me crazy. I'm like, God, I can't. I just got back from work. The last thing I want to do is see this mess. And then Sean will say, are you sure you really wanted to marry yourself?

That's the best answer. I don't do it to her standard, but I still- Did you want to marry yourself? I will clean the house. Sometimes, yes. But you're right. I put my expectation on you and I need to compromise. There's other things that Sean does that I can't do. And sometimes it's, how worth it is it to me? Do I really want to dig into this and fight on this one? I'm like, you know what? I don't care enough. I'll let it go. And there's other things I'm like, listen, I'm sorry. I'm not going to let this one go. It's like, I mean, I think you're wrong. I can tell when we get in a fight about something that you're really... There's a certain point where I'm like, okay, I'm not going to win

this one. He doesn't dig his heels in much on this one. There's an injustice in this and I have to fight, but I can't give up. Can I tell you something else that's happened in our fight? So early in our marriage, I would win all the fights because I'm Latin and I know how to fight. And then little by little, Sean started... So A, I started to learn to compromise more because Sean comes from a really huge giant family of like 10. He's the 10th of 10th of 11. And so there's, I think he grew up having to see people compromise more. I think that's actually been a benefit for you. I hope that's a benefit for our kids, but also like he also picked up some bad Hispanic habits for me. And sometimes I have to say there is only room for one Latina in this family. And by the way,

Sean thinks he's Puerto Rican because they made him an honorary citizen of Puerto Rico because of his work. And I have to remind him, I'm like, you know, you are Irish. You're not Puerto Rican. You're not allowed to get feisty like that. But to this point, again, if you kind of go, I love you and we can work this out. And there are, I mean, I might fully disagree with you, but I can at least see what you're saying. I'm like, you're not crazy. I get why you think this. I think you're wrong, but at can at least see what you're saying. I'm like, you're not crazy. I get why you think this.

I think you're wrong, but at least can understand where you're coming from. I think that's actually a really healthy point that we get to in our relationship. And just finding time to talk it out. I mean, the silent stuff, it doesn't help. You just have to kind of go, can we talk about it? Make that time to talk about it. go, can we talk about it? Make that time to talk about it. If you get into this habit of just simmering and holding grudges, you just have to go, we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about it. I hear this advice, never go to bed angry. I 100% disagree with that.

That's because you're not good at night. You're tired. I'm not going to resolve anything at night when I'm exhausted. I wish we could. And I'm like, listen, it's not going to go well. Listen, it's going to get worse. If we want to keep talking about it tonight, it's going to get bad. Let's wait. And then by about midday the next day, it's like, I'm ready. And then I'm stewing all night.

And I'm really mad. I'm okay with that. She can stew. I'm going to sleep. And the next day, we'll resolve it. So I disagree with those who say, don't go to bed angry. Sometimes you have to. And then you have to fix it the next day we'll resolve it. So I disagree with those who say, don't go to bed angry. Sometimes you have to, and then you have to fix it the next day when you're rested. So another thing that I think has been good for our marriage is periodically we look back

on where we come from. So we recently put all of our movies on like, what is it? Legacy Box. But even so before we got that, we would look back on pictures, look back on videos. Sean was so good about recording stuff in the early part of our marriage. I wish we were a little better at that. But in any case, going back, looking back, seeing where you started, how far you've come. How little the kids were.

How little the kids were. How much fun it was. How much you've invested in this marriage. And so that when you hit those snags, those rough patches, you're like, I'm not going to throw all in this marriage. And so that when you hit those snags, those rough patches, you're like, I'm not going to throw all of this away for, for this fight.

Like, I think that's so important because we've created a life together. This is a journey. That's, you know, that's actually more than 23 years old because we met a year and a half before that. So it's going on 25 years, quarter of a century. That is a lot that we've built on and a lot that we've created and a lot that we've done.

And I think looking back on that and really sort of honoring that and acknowledging what we've gone through, what we've built, I think gives you that strength and that appreciation to go, I'm not going to let this stupid fight about how you never clean out the sink from the little basket at the bottom of the sink. Sean lets the food sit there. It just drives me nuts. I'm not going to let that ruin it. But I think what's important is to go, you have a lot of history together, a lot of great time together. And this is a reminder of how much history, how many great, whether it's you two as a couple that went away together or with the kids. And again, I think when you are able to look at that history, you're able to see past whatever fight you're in and try to go, listen, this is really great. And let's continue. And that's why

it's so important. Again, take video, take pictures. Sometimes when you're younger, you think you're going to remember all this stuff. I guarantee you, you will forget it. And you look back at these videos or pictures and be like, I can't remember that happening. And it's so funny and so fun. And the kids love it when they're older. So I do think that's important. And then you look back and you go, I look so thin.

Why was I so down on myself? I think I look fat now. I look so thin. Why was I so down on myself? Okay. So the last thing I think is probably the most important and that's faith. And so for Sean and I, when we got married in the Catholic church, it's a sacrament. And what that means is that Sean and I aren't the only ones that got married that day. There were three people that got married that day. It was Sean, myself, and God. And so every time that we go through struggles, or we have fights, or we have difficult moments, and even the happy moments, the idea is that we're in this with somebody else. And so I know some people will loosely throw around, I'm getting divorced. I mean, in the Catholic Church, they don't even allow for divorce technically.

And so that's just not an option for us. It's not an option for us. We made a commitment with God to see this through. And we're just going to work it out. We're going to figure it out. And I think when you have that as the overriding feeling, then there's no out. You just got to work it out. And I think both of us have been really blessed. Neither of our parents' marriages are perfect, but they're both still together. And I think that's been an amazing example for

both of us. Yeah. And I think it is. And again, we've seen our parents work through struggles. Listen, every marriage has issues. And I know some couples that'll be like, we never fight. And it's like- I always go, ooh, they're going to get divorced soon. Yeah. Because I mean, everybody-

When I hear that, I'm like, that one's not going to last. You're going to fight. You're going to argue. You're going to have hard times. And when I have new couples, I'm like, so how's it going after the first year? And you almost got a chuckle because- Sean, our first year was the worst, wasn't it? I honestly did not think we would make it. Can I just tell a quick story about our first year of marriage? So within the first few months, I was like, oh my God, I think I made a mistake. And I called my mom and I said,

I made a mistake. And I called my mom and I said, mom, I was crying. I was upset. I was like, I don't think I was, I think I made a mistake. I need, I'm coming home. And my mom, she's like this tough Spanish woman. And she said, I'm sorry, you no longer have a home here. Work it out with your husband. Click. And I'll tell you- I never heard that story. Yeah. Oh, yes, you have. She's heard it a million times. So that was the best lesson ever because I didn't have an escape hatch. I had to work it out. I thought for us, the first year was the hardest because it required a lot of adjusting and losing your freedom and losing your patterns of life. But it has been up from there, man. But it's hard to live with someone. It's hard to compromise with someone when you're used to

having that autonomy and freedom yourself. And it gets to be really challenging. And again, if you fight it out, if you work it out, you argue it out, you love it out, you find yourself in a place where marriage is really great. Marriage is one of the, it is the greatest institution. It's wonderful. It's the foundation of society. But again, nothing that's great comes easy. Getting a gold medal in the Olympics, winning the Stanley Cup, that's great, but it didn't come easy. It took a lot of work to get there and marriage is great, but like every great thing, it takes a lot of work and sacrifice and time. And I think that's the overall theme. But it can be fun, Sean. It's fun too, if you make sure that you add these things that we're talking about. You can have 95% of it fun and 5% bad, and that 5% bad can ruin everything.

And that's why you have to work through that 5% or 10% that's bad. And remind yourself of the 95% that's so great. Remind yourself why I actually fell in love with this person. And I think for us, we're good friends. We're good friends. We're best friends. There's no one else that I share more with than I share with you. I share my whole life with you. And sometimes the nitty gritty, stupid stuff we share together. And I think that's what's key. And again, we can get consumed by our jobs, but also by the kids who I can hear screaming outside our door right now. But we know that if we don't build this and bond this and have friendship and time, it won't work. And again, when we have that time and that friendship and those good moments, it makes it easier to work through the harder times that we have. times that we have. And again, every marriage has them and you're able to get through them better because of all the work you've done through the good times of sharing the cup of coffee, of doing that every year, get away for a day or a week to, again, build upon the strength of the marriage.

And it's also a gift to your kids, not just because a strong marriage is good for kids, but also because I think that kids need to know that marriage can work and that it can be fun and that it's not a slog or it's not going to tie you down or anything like that. I mean, I think our kids look at our marriage and it's not perfect. They've definitely seen us angry at each other, but they also see us make up. And I think that's important. I think that's a big reason why her daughter is only, she's 22 years old and she's planning on getting married this year. I think when you model that for them, I think they see that marriage can be a good thing.

Well, I think they do get to see some of the hard times, but also, I mean, most of it is great times and they see, oh, I want to have this in my life as well. This seems like it's a great- Our parents are still friends. Yeah, the friendship and the fun and all that. So, no, you're right. It's a great modeling for our kids. We'll be right back with much more after this.

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19 plus. Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. You know, when I was single, I remember I asked my mom, you know, what's the most important thing in marriage? And my mom, as I've told you, she just always surprises me with the things she said. She said, just make sure he's really good looking because that'll help you get through the hard times. And honestly, I do think attraction is really important. And to that note, I want to add to our list that taking care of yourself is important. I had about 10 years where I didn't. Congress, thanks a lot for making my marriage harder.

Thanks. It's tough. You're traveling and you're in meetings. They're giving you rubber chicken dinners and take out on the road. That's right. No time to work out. You're in good shape now. But I do think keeping yourself feeling good, looking good, working out.

Working out together, if you can, it's a great way to, to spend time together. Um, but yeah, I think that's important too. And we didn't mention that earlier, but I think that's an important part. I want to make one last point and just, I believe this for our marriage. I think we help each other a lot. I help you, you help me, we build each other's careers. And I just know from my perspective, I wouldn't have done most of the things I've done in my life. it hadn't been for you. We have different skill sets and you lend me yours and I have different skill sets than you and I lend you mine. Like I can't balance a checkbook.

We are good partners. But also sometimes when you were doing Fox and Friends, I'd be like, okay, I'll get up at three in the morning with you. Yeah. When I was first learning to do it, listen, Fox and Friends is one of the hardest shows to learn how to do. And Sean would get up at like, you know, three in the morning and help me figure out how to do it and kind of be my guide. Or remember when I first, the first time I got to do primetime, I was so flipping nervous and you dropped everything you were doing and you had a lot on your plate, and you stayed the week with me in New York and helped me get my sea legs. I called you my emotional support animal because you really were that week. That's how helpful I was. I was the emotional support animal.

It was stressful for me. And I don't think, honest to God, I could not have made it through that week had you not said, this is important to Rachel. I'm going to take a week off and I'm going to do that. And I think also, you talk about how we bring different skill sets to the marriage and we use that skill set to help each other. That's sort of a Catholic concept too, the complementarity of the sexes, that there are things that I do better than you do, which is why you always go, do you want to marry yourself? No. You know what? In the end, I don't want to marry myself. I want someone who will compliment me, who can bring something into the marriage that I'm not good at and that we can learn from each other. And I think acknowledging that we're two different people, that we bring different skill sets,

and using those skill sets to lift each other up, to help each other achieve their dreams. A lot of people have asked you, Sean, I mean, it's not a secret that a lot of people wanted you to run for governor of Wisconsin, including President Trump trying to set this ball in motion. And in the end, you said no. And I think part of it was you wanted to prioritize our family, our kids, our marriage. But also, you were very open about that you wanted to support me in what I was doing at Fox and that for 10 years, I was home kind of tending to things and supporting you in your effort. And now you were going to give me that time to fulfill what I

needed to do. That's what marriage is about. And again, I think in every marriage, we all have different skill sets and you got to be generous with yours. You want to give them to your wife and have her give them to you, right? I mean, you, you want, are you trying to make another baby shot? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Okay. Um, with that, with that, this has been a great podcast. After nine kids, that's going to turn you, make you blush a little bit. it does. Maybe it shouldn't. But again, I think, again, these are just kind of our thoughts on our marriage and our relationship. And I think if you do, we should just recap and then we'll let everyone go.

He's totally still frazzled. Okay, go, Rachel. I know. Listen, I hope when we post this that people will give us their ideas. I mean, every marriage, as you said, every marriage is different. Every marriage brings strengths and weaknesses to the table and people have to work it out in their own ways. These are the things that we brought.

We brought a lot. Can I just say one of the things that was a big thing that we did? You and I did a lot of time. We spend a lot of time dissecting our own parents' marriage, just not in a negative way, but also in positive ways. Because the truth is we bring everything with us into the marriage, right? And I think you have to go, what are the things that our parents did that were great, that really made that marriage better? What are the things that I want to improve on and change? And what are the patterns that I'm bringing to the marriage? And I guess it goes

back to the original thing we talked about, which is people sit down and they dissect their business plans and their companies and their- And their retirement. And their retirement plans and their finances. And their friend plans. You got to spend that kind of time dissecting and building and improving and analyzing your marriage and your lives and what you brought to the marriage and what you need to work on and what needs to be improved upon. We touch base a lot throughout the week on our family life, on our marriage. And I think that that's really a key to it.

So people say, show me your checkbook and I'll show you what you value. Time is money too. So what are you putting your time into? If you're putting your time into this relationship, chances are you're probably going to get something out of it. Right. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And sometimes, like, again, you might, as in a relationship, you kind of can go back and forth. Like sometimes, like we're in a space now where I'm pushing Rachel on a number of different things. She's like, too much information, but I'm pushing her. Oh, no, no. And there's been different times where she was pushing me because there's different needs and we see different things at different times. And again, she's always receptive to it. But I want

to go back to one of the points you made about our family. I just started laughing because I started thinking about, show me your checkbook and I'll show you what you value. And in my head, I kept thinking, TJ Maxx. I must value TJ Maxx. I value Walmart. Go ahead. Oh, and there's some things in our families that we don't want to bring into our marriage and into our family. We want to leave those things behind. And if we do bring them in, if I bring them from my family, you'll remind me to go, hey, listen, I think that's what you're bringing in that we kind of didn't want to have here. And I'll do the same thing to you. And again, we came from great families and there's a lot

of wonderful things we have taken with us from those families, but there's some stuff we don't want. Not the least of the longevity of those marriages. And so again, I think analyzing that, because we are creatures of habit. And patterns and histories. That's right. And you're going to oftentimes do what you saw your parents do. And there's great things maybe there, but there's not so great things. And try to think through and stop the pattern of the bad things or the not so great things from your childhood. Or you can develop patterns just by the nature of the way your life goes. And sometimes you need to go, hey, let's not do that. Do you remember, Sean, early in our marriage when he discovered a book on drinks, on mixology?

And so he started to make brandy old fashions are a big deal in Wisconsin. So he started to make a brandy old fashion. That was kind of fun, right? old fashions are big deal in Wisconsin. So we started to make a brand new old fashion. That was kind of fun. And then time went on and I was noticing it went from one brandy Manhattan before I went to bed to two. And I was like, after a while, I'm like, I really don't want to be married to J.R. Ewing. You remember in Dallas, they just would walk across the room and there would always be some sort of bar area and they'd just pour a drink. I always thought that was so amazing because I never saw that in anybody growing up. But anyway, I was just like, you know what?

I don't want to... That was a bad habit that you started about. And I was like, I don't mind a beer here and there. I don't mind if you make yourself a drink now and then. But I don't want to be married to a double brandy old fashioned every night guy. So we stopped that. So we stopped that one in the bud for sure. So that's that, that, that I only had about two months of that. And then that was, I was like, no, that's not going to work for me. I got used to that early on, but she started that right away. That was like 29, 30. Yeah, that's another tip. Cut the bad habits quick.

Anyway, I hope people like this conversation, kind of free-flowing of what works for us. I hope we end up hearing a lot about what works and doesn't work in other people's marriages. We all can learn from each other. That's right. So share with us what you uh have that works for you and again i think a conversation about marriage and especially at a time when there's an attack on marriage and family we should share the good things uh the great things about our our families and our marriages that make them work make them strong let's make sure we make marriages great again make families great again. I can make a campaign slogan out of that, but it's true. And again, I think everyone who looks at culture the way we do,

we see the attack. And I think if we're going to save the country, we're going to save it through our marriages and our families. Yeah. One marriage, one family at a time. I agree with you. And again, I was in Congress. I couldn't save America. The only thing I truly can save is my family and my marriage. And if all of us do that, we are going to have a great future for this country. And again, it doesn't start with kids. It starts with husbands and wives. And that's why we wanted to talk about this. And that's why we value our relationship so much. So we want to thank you all for joining us today on From the Kitchen Table. That's right. And it's a great conversation. We don't need any guests.

We just need each other, Sean. Maybe this is like a coffee time. Like we're talking through our stuff. Yeah, this is actually our coffee time. This is what it's really like around the Christmas. Have a cup of coffee or do a podcast together, whatever. Go for a walk. Go on a boat ride.

Well, I've enjoyed the conversation, Sean. And by the way, if you did too, let us know. Subscribe, rate, and review this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. We hope to see you around the kitchen table next week. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free

on the Amazon Music app. Listen to the all-new Bret Baier podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Bret Baier favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.