Lindsay (00:00)
we just got married. And I cannot believe that the man that I just married is the very same man that I used to feel like I was walking on eggshells around. And I say that knowing that he also used to feel that same way about me.
And today I just want to share a bit about our journey because it has been one week since we got married and I have been reflecting a lot on what it took to get us to this place where we entered into this marriage knowing that it just gets to keep getting better when years ago it was so terrible and awful and what people would call toxic for sure.
in our relationship. So I am Lindsay. This is Loving With Intention. We're diving right in. No script today. I just want to share from my heart because I mean one, I'm very excited and two, this just feels really important to share and I know, you know, I know that there are a lot of people who watch these videos and who search out content like this on YouTube because they are not feeling good in their relationships and I know that because A, let's see you here and B, I used to be that person.
I literally still have, from nine years ago the things that I used to screenshot on Instagram about our relationship to try to help me change things,
you know, the things that I would screenshot to just say, okay, I am justified. This does make sense. This isn't okay. This shouldn't be happening. I literally still have those screenshots. And I remember feeling that hopeless back then.
I know if you've been here before, you've heard some of my story, but I want to share more of it today. And again, just the things that I've been reflecting on. So we've been engaged for almost three years. And the main reason that we didn't get married is because we are not big planners. So the engagement, very exciting. We've been very happy about that. And it's just, we just did not want a big wedding.
So in January we decided that, okay, we're just gonna get married and like just over a week, let's do it, lock in the date, found somebody online to marry us. She was legit in our town and
We just decided to whip together a teeny tiny little wedding. And I mean a teeny tiny little wedding in just over a week. I got a beautiful dress in 90 minutes and we yeah, we didn't have a lot of like traditional wedding things and it was literally perfect. So.
I want to talk about how hard things used to be. So we've been together for 10 years. Beginning of our relationship was amazing. And I've shared that I literally used to tell my friends, I could never see us fighting. Like, he's so chill. I feel so chill around him. We just like say yes to whatever we want to do. Of course, now I know that that's the romance stage. That's the honeymoon phase. That's what I share with all of my clients. It is a beautiful stage that feels like so fun and, you know.
it does come to an end. So it absolutely comes to an end and that's normal. But when you're in it, you're not really thinking that. You are literally blinded by love drugs and everything just feels so good. So for us, those first two months of our relationship, it was just so fun and so easy and just like riding this high. And at the two month mark, and you know, I still have photos on my phone of the day after we had our first fight. And I can just like viscerally remember being in that first argument and
feeling so confused and so duped, you know, I felt like, what was all of this a lie? In that moment, I wasn't really thinking about the ways that I had contributed to what we were fighting about and the ways that I was showing up within that fight that were not very helpful. All I was thinking about then was, I can't believe that he's changed. I can't believe he can act like this.
I'm not thinking about all of the things that I was saying and doing too. Hindsight and all the learning has helped me see my role as well, even back to that very first argument. And I remember it, like these moments, they shape us. It was 10 years ago. I can tell you exactly what it was about. I won't, but I can tell you exactly what it was about, what was said, where we were, all of the things. So.
that fight, as I always say, it opened the door to all of the fighting. It was like the seal was broken and now, yes, we would have fun moments and all of the things that we had felt tension around sort of came up in that fight. So all of the things that we maybe had concerns around for our relationship, you know, our two-month-old relationship, all those things that we had concerns around, worries about, stressors about, didn't like, they all sort of came out or a lot of them came out in that fight.
And now it was just like fair game and those things were getting poked and triggered on the regular. So immediately things shifted and it just started to feel like there was just this underlying feeling of tension. Like there was an elephant in the room. Like we didn't know when we were going to fight. I definitely felt like I was walking on eggshells. I didn't know what was going to trigger him.
and end up in a fight. And he used to say, he used to tell me, I would tell him that too, but he used to tell me that he felt like he was walking on eggshells. And I literally thought, that's crazy. Like this doesn't make sense. You I probably thought back then without knowing the word gaslighting, like you're gaslighting me and this isn't okay. And the reality was looking back, of course he felt like he was walking on eggshells because I was getting triggered so often and then my mood would change or I would get mad or I would get...
upset or you know, all of these things that I would launch into, I would get really defensive. You know, he could say something totally neutral and I would jump into defensiveness. I would jump into my role. So of course he felt like he was walking on eggshells because both of us, we could literally go from enjoying our day to one of us making a comment, a whole downward spiral. So many road trips ended up this way where we would just be like having fun, listening to music, and then one thing would happen, we would end up getting into an argument.
Now our moods are completely wrecked. I had a really hard time switching out of that because we didn't repair.
You know, we didn't take that time to chill out, let our nervous systems relax and then come back to the conversation and say like, yeah, I know this was my role and I'm really sorry for this and I was wrong to say this and I shouldn't have done that and I don't actually think this. None of that was happening because if we did bring it up again, we would just end up in another fight. So we would try to sweep it under the rug. But then, you know, you know, maybe we're out on a hike and I'm just feeling absolutely miserable.
So that's just impacting our whole time together and he's feeling whatever he's feeling, too. It just didn't feel good.
And there were so many times when I just thought like, I'm done, I can't keep doing this anymore. I would sit there and I would cry and I would look in the mirror because I feel like that's just a classic thing to do is cry and look in the mirror. But I did it so often just thinking like, why are we doing this? How I know that we love each other. How does this keep happening? And then we would have these conversations where it would be like, okay.
I will change. know this needs to change. And if this doesn't change, maybe we shouldn't be together. But then we would go right back to doing what we always did. Sometimes within hours, other times within days, but it would always come back and it would feel even more hopeless when that would happen because it be like, we just said we weren't going to do this and now we're doing it again. This has to be hopeless.
And we did end up breaking up at a year and a half into our relationship and thank goodness we got back together. But in that time and space apart,
I really realized the things that I had been doing that had been hurting us a lot. And that didn't erase, you know, my hurt feelings around what he had been doing, but it just gave me the whole picture. It allowed me to zoom out and go, ā I actually have a role here.
And again, if you've been here before, you've heard me share that I went all in like podcasts, reading the books, courses online, the Instagram, the YouTube videos, like everything for us to try to have a different relationship. And I still, you know, I was seeing changes. There were little changes that were happening. I was in therapy. I was like doubling down on therapy. There were changes that were happening because we didn't want to go back to the way things were. But we also didn't really know how to really, really actively, truly change patterns.
and when I got a relationship coach in a group program without my partner for eight weeks and I dove in fully with my whole heart that was when things dramatically changed. That was when I realized that I had been reading all of the books and all the things through the lens of how do I change him or through the lens of confirming yes he is doing this thing and that's really bad for our relationship he needs to change that.
That was basically where I was coming from. Under the guise that I was the one, only one who was trying. I was the one who was trying to change myself and change things. That relationship coach helped me see, my gosh, the focus was in the wrong spot. I needed to focus on myself. And that was when I started to show up so much differently in our relationship. So working on my nervous system and knowing what my triggers were.
seeing my role, being able to zoom out after an argument and be like, ā that's the point where I could have done something differently. But instead I jumped in with defensiveness or instead I started justifying or instead I just completely shut down. But right there I could have changed what that whole dance looked like. I had no idea that I could do that before.
but I was doing it, I was committed, I was like 100 % all in
And within three weeks, he started showing interest in the things that I was doing
When before, he was not interested, he said no to joining the program with me. It wasn't because he actually wasn't interested or that he didn't care. It was because I was trying to blame him, shame him, make him wrong for not wanting to do any of the things that I wanted to do.
I'm sure he could feel that I just want you in this program so that you can see all the things that you're doing wrong that you need to change. That is not a very inviting thing to jump into and I realize that now. Bless my heart. We never learn any of this stuff. We don't learn, my gosh, you don't know it until you know it. And then once you know it, you get to keep diving in so it stays really present. So cut to, you know, over time, things just getting better and better and better and better
I've been a registered nurse for 16, 17 years and my passion is relationships. My passion is personal growth. It always has been. And I was like, I need to follow my heart here. I need to support other people because I can't believe the kind of relationship that we can have. And even four years ago, I could not believe how drastically, I mean, before that too, but I'm just like reflecting back like four years ago, I would have been like, we are in a thriving relationship now. Things feel absolutely amazing.
I really want to show people that there's so much hope even when it feels hopeless because I used to cry myself to sleep for so many nights. I used to call in sick to work because I was upset or we'd been fighting or things weren't feeling good. There were so many things in our relationship that felt like this could never get better. I used to have this vision of us getting married. I used to have this vision of us being like old together one day and just sitting on a patio, just like swinging on some chairs. This was the vision. And it felt so far off and it felt like...
Maybe I was a bit delusional. And now when I think of that, I'm like, 10,000 percent that's what's going to happen because it just gets to keep getting better now.
And now that I've seen through my work with individuals and couples, I've seen them experience the same transformation that I had. And it looks different for everyone, but when you start feeling that hope again, the hope that you didn't know that you needed to feel, things can really start to change.
And in my reflections this past week, I just feel so grateful. I feel so grateful that we're married now. I feel so grateful that we entered into this marriage from the place that we did and that we continue to prioritize our relationship and
our relationship is our number one priority. And, you know, often people will ask me, is he as obsessed or like all into relationship growth like you are? And the answer is no, that's okay, because I'm pretty next level when it comes to just wanting to work on this and like wanting to see the patterns and understanding what's going on underneath everything. you know, I would talk through things all day.
But it's not necessary. We don't need to. And I don't need him to be as obsessed with things as I am. He is the perfect amount of all in. He's willing to have the conversations. We always repair now. When it used to be really scary to come back to a conversation because we just end up fighting. We can do that now. And it can be like two minutes. He just said sorry to me the other day after something happened.
He did something, I felt hurt by it. Within minutes, he apologized in my apology language because we know those for each other and that makes all the difference in the world. So he said that he was sorry and my response was, amazing, cool, totally gone, completely fine, I get it. Like literally we moved through it in minutes where before that moment would have spiraled into, oh my gosh, just a ginormous fight and days of, I mean, months of disconnection.
it would have just piled onto the disconnection that was already there. And there wouldn't have been that apology. It wouldn't have felt as ease-filled. He wouldn't have had a safe space to apologize because I would have come back and, you know, brought up a whole bunch of stuff. But there isn't a whole bunch of stuff to bring up now because we move through it in a different way. And again, I am just so grateful.
that I share this all today is because I literally couldn't have imagined that this could be us. Like that this could be those same two people from nine years ago that were struggling so much that things did not feel good at all, that they had so many unhealthy patterns that they were bringing and not taking accountability for any of those things. And of course, we definitely still fight. Like we still fight, we still argue, whatever you want to call it. It still happens. We still annoy each other. We still piss each other off. We are human and that is okay.
The goal is not to have no conflict. The goal is to know how to move through it in a healthier way.
Our relationship now has undertones of respect, looking for each other's best intentions. And in our triggered moments, we're not always doing that. We're not always doing that. I can tell the old stories that come up in my head. And it's about knowing that, okay, but now I'm gonna recommit to the process. Now I'm gonna recommit to doing what it takes to get back to feeling good. And that's the difference between, you know, back then and now. Now I know the five stages of a thriving relationship. I know that when we hit power struggle-y stuff, so romance stage,
That is gone. Long gone. And I know that when we hit the power struggle, to get out of that, it doesn't mean I stay and be annoyed and pissed off at the things that he did or that I wish that he would change. I can wish he would change. That's okay. I would love for us to have zero unhealthy patterns, but it's not going to happen. But I know that that now means I get to jump back into commitment, which is looking at how did I contribute to what wasn't working? How can I change and grow? How can I help our relationship thrive? I can jump back into that.
get back into growth, use the tools, do the things, reconnect, and then we're thriving again. That is the goal when you're looking at the five stages. When you create a thriving relationship, it becomes so much easier to quickly move through these stages, whereas before, that would have taken a really, really long time when something hard would come up. But the key here is recommitting again and again and again, and I feel so confident that we are in that together. And that
And sometimes we might need support. Just two years ago, we ended up seeing a relationship coach for two sessions because we were just having something that every time it came up, we just couldn't talk through it. were ended up getting in arguments. It wasn't feeling good. And I was like, maybe we should just talk to somebody about this. He was on board literally two sessions and we moved through something that felt really, really heavy and completely turned it around. Absolutely turned around. She was incredible. We both showed up fully with our hearts and it allowed us.
to just sort of have that safe space, that safe container, and also a guide and support. So, you know, we're going to continue doing things like that when things feel hard, because life happens and life does feel hard. But it's about recommitting, and I'm just so grateful that I chose all of those years ago to lean in and that he chose to lean into. And, you know, when I talk about, I don't want it to ever sound like I'm taking all the credit for like...
I was the one who dove into everything, so I changed our relationship. I created him wanting to be in. Absolutely not.
Yes, I started the relationship coaching program without
And so soon after he really did jump in with his heart and we started doing things that felt really uncomfortable in order to work on our relationship together.
You know, when I suggested going to Gary Chapman Live, he said yes. When I suggested going to a couples retreat, he said yes. So he joined in and I know I often share, you know, one person can be the change. You truly can. You can truly create a whole new environment, emotional safety in your marriage before your partner joins in. You can start creating those things. And I'm not saying that you have to do this alone forever. I'm saying the likelihood of your person
joining in to all of this stuff with you is going to dramatically increase if you go all in first. Dramatically increase. The chances of them changing from that ripple effect, I mean one person alone changes the system, changes the dance in your marriage and...
that doesn't mean that, you they're unhealthy patterns or they're not gonna need to do any work. Just the likelihood of you starting to have new conversations, it goes way up when you go all in.
So I just sit here today in gratitude for how far that we have come and just really wanting to share that this took effort and intention. I mean, I work with individuals older than 70 who are all the way in and they're seeing changes in their marriage. So often, you know, I wonder, I'm like, I hope people don't think that...
it's not possible for them if they've got like 20 years, 30 years, 40 years of hard. I work with people who are over 70 who are creating change in these patterns that have been going on for a long time because they know that they don't want to live out the rest of their life in the way that things feel in their marriage. So things can change even if these are well-worn patterns. And I'm just so mind blown by these people just fully diving in.
And I can see that this is what it takes. You know, it takes them opening up the modules again or booking another call or diving full into the love journey process or showing up for the weekly Q &A calls, you know, whatever sort of program that they've decided to be in. It really takes them showing up with consistency. This is what it takes. You're not going to have a garden bloom if you don't keep nurturing it.
So I think that's the message that I want to send today is that so much is possible and it does take intention and the intention, doesn't have to be hard. I mean, sometimes it's hard, but it doesn't have to be all hard. You know, I've had so many clients say that the sessions don't feel heavy. They come, we all feel like friends. We're laughing even when we're working through hard things. So it gets to be.
fun and light at times and we really get to lean in and especially when you start seeing things changing.
And you deserve it, you deserve it, my gosh. You deserve to live this one life with so much love and feeling, all of the things that you want to feel.
And it felt hard back then to take steps without seeing the entire path. You know, I chose, I had this vision of what I wanted for the future and that seemed really far off and I still chose to just take the next aligned step and that's what you get to do.
It's like if you're driving in the dark and you have your headlights on, you can only see to the end of where your headlights go. But as you keep moving forward, more and more of the path becomes clear. That is the same with any sort of healing growth journey that you are on. We never know. We never know what things are going to look
So I'm so grateful that I have a husband now and I'm so grateful that you are here and I am so inspired by you continuing to show up and watch these videos and just holding the vision with you and for you because I know that you want so much more in your marriage and you deserve all of that. So thank you for hearing this and just hearing my heart today and hanging out with me. I'm sending so much love into your day.
And of course, you can comment roadmap for my free love journey roadmap, because it is the perfect place to start if you do want to go all in. There is no better time to start.
And you can check out the video on the screen where I share the four areas that I really dove into back then to really kickstart this change. Thank you so much for being here.
and for celebrating our wedding with me.
Remember that nothing changes if nothing changes. So let's have a super intentional week super intentional year. It is still just the start of 2026. So let's do this. Bye
