Episode 200 - Newlyweds All Over Again (Replay)
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If you have been married for a few years, and you're "in the trenches," this one's for you.
This week Kayla focuses on the next stage of marriage and gives us a few tips to help us during this more complicated stage in the relationship.
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This episode is for my listeners and clients who have been married longer than a year but are still wanting inspiration and improved connection with their spouses.
WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:
Tips on how to bring the "newlywed vibe" back to your marriage
Why the 4-7 year phase can be tricky
Tips on setting up your marriage for the long haul. (By the way, newlyweds, you should listen too and gain some tips for what's to come!)
FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE:
Want to take this work further? I would love to coach you inside my coaching program, How to Glow. It's a no-commitment monthly program where you can get coached every week and be part of an amazing community of women. Ready to give it a try? Join today at kaylalevin.com/coaching
Please keep sending in your feedback, questions, and stories--I love to hear from you!
Ep 200 - Newlyweds All Over Again! (Summer Replay) ===
<00:00:00> Kayla Levin: Welcome to the summer series oldies playlist. Don't stress about remembering all the foundations or figuring out what old episodes you should go back to. If you're new here, we've cultivated the best of the originals back when the podcast was still First Year Married for your summer listening pleasure.
<00:00:16> Kayla Levin: Enjoy.
<00:00:17> Kayla Levin: Episode 9, newlyweds all over again.
<00:00:34> Kayla Levin: Welcome to the First Year Married Podcast, where we get real about building the marriage of your dreams. I'm marriage coach Kayla Levin, and I take newly married and engaged women from anxious and insecure to confident and connected through practical tips, real life inspiration, and more than a little self awareness along the way.
<00:00:57> Kayla Levin: Hello again. Thank you so much for coming back to the First Year Married podcast. I'm really excited about today's class. Unexpectedly, a good proportion of the women in my courses have been women who are in the four to eight year married range, right? So my, my program is called First Year Married. My business is called First Year Married.
<00:01:17> Kayla Levin: So generally I attract the newly red crowd, but. And for one reason or another, we've had a lot of women who are opting into the course to give themselves a marital reboot, I guess. They do tend to be right around that range. We've had some women married longer than eight years and of course married less than four years, but I'm seeing sort of a cluster there in that four to eight year married range.
<00:01:39> Kayla Levin: And it's really cool because this is a group of women that first of all, I just really love working with. And also they bring this really beautiful compliment to the course. and for my newlyweds. So, you know, you have the newlyweds who are coming in and they may be starting to see some things that they're concerned about, but then you've got those 48 year marriages and they're kind of like in the trenches, right?
<00:02:02> Kayla Levin: They're really doing the work. They're rolling up their sleeves. They're like, I'm in it to win it. I'm going to make this marriage work. I'm ready to do the work. I'm ready to rethink everything. The questions are bigger. And often heavier, not, not all the time, but a lot of the time. And I think it just really brings this beautiful depth to the program for everybody.
<00:02:22> Kayla Levin: Well, we're doing all the group coaching and so it's just been really such a pleasure. One of my concerns about niching down so much to first year married, well, on the one hand, I'm obviously very passionate about getting marriages off in a healthy way and off to a good start at the same time. We don't really realize that we need that boost until we've been married a couple years and life does start to get a little more complicated.
<00:02:45> Kayla Levin: And so I'm so, so excited and inspired by these women who've just decided that they're going to become newlyweds all over again. So that's why that's the title for the podcast this week. So the first and most important thing that I wanted to do with this podcast was really just to start a conversation.
<00:03:03> Kayla Levin: I want to tell you that I see you out there. Every once in a while, somebody who knows me will say, I just want you to know I've been listening to your podcast, even though I've been married for nine years. I actually love that. I think that's fabulous. I know the name could be misleading, but I want you to know that you are not alone.
<00:03:21> Kayla Levin: I'm hearing from a lot of women who've been married for longer. Not only am I excited that you're here and that you're listening and that you're inspired and you're, you're using this material and you're improving your marriages. But also your questions and your, what you're looking for to get from this podcast is just as relevant.
<00:03:39> Kayla Levin: So I want to hear from you too. So please don't feel that you can't send in your questions and you can't engage just because you're not officially newlyweds. I do want to take some time to talk about. Um, the unique struggles that happen at this phase, right? So why are these women sort of popping up all of a sudden around four to eight years married, wanting to reinvest, wanting to focus more on their marriage?
<00:04:03> Kayla Levin: You know, we hear a lot about the idea of the seven year itch. Four years is also reported as a spike in divorce rates, sort of around there. So what is going on here? Why is it that this is a phase where It sort of starts to be a little more complicated. People are taking more time. They're ready to invest.
<00:04:20> Kayla Levin: They want to focus more on their marriage. There can be a lot of factors going into it, right? And there's obviously a lot of people who have opinions. So some that I found to be very compelling from my research, one is that In a lot of cases, and of course this is going to be different for every couple, but for a lot of cases, the careers can still be new.
<00:04:38> Kayla Levin: So around that phase, you might have chosen your career path and your husband might have chosen his career path, but you're not really up and running. You're not, you know, at the head of the company. You don't really get to relax in your career yet. So there's still that pressure. And so that is something that You know, when you're first married, you kind of have that, the excitement and you're very young, but four years in, you're starting to kind of want to do a little more adulting and maybe your friends are moving into a house, but money is still tight.
<00:05:08> Kayla Levin: And so it can just create kind of this little perfect storm for added stress. And I realized that that's outside of the marriage itself, but of course those things affect it. Another one that comes up a lot, a lot, and you've probably already guessed this one. around that time. And again, not for everyone, but for a lot of people, they're adjusting to parenthood.
<00:05:28> Kayla Levin: So whether that's their very first child or maybe it's a couple children in where they start to realize, wow, I've just been so hyper focused on becoming a mother and becoming a father. The marriage has taken a backseat, right? That's one thing that happens. The marriage takes a backseat and they're kind of like, I don't even know who this person is anymore.
<00:05:45> Kayla Levin: Or just the general good feelings and all that goodness is kind of not there the way that it was last time they picks up their head and looked around. And also adjusting to parenthood and having little children is very challenging. People are functioning on less sleep, right? They have extra pressures, more things to schedule and focus on.
<00:06:04> Kayla Levin: Babies get sick and all those things. And so anytime you're adding more pressure to the outside environment, it can come and it can seep into the way that those spouses are treating each other, the way that they're making space and time for each other. Of course, that's something to be taking into consideration.
<00:06:19> Kayla Levin: Another thing that comes up a lot in terms of adjusting to parenthood that I just want to mention because I do see this with my clients is when the person you marry doesn't parent the way that you expected them to. That's really fascinating to work on, and I love using the model for that because we really have a lot of beliefs and a lot of preconceived notions about what parenting should look like and what our child needs to experience and what's best for them and what he should be doing.
<00:06:47> Kayla Levin: And when we start to sort of wiggle those loose a little bit and question those and start to challenge a little bit here and there, we start to be able to appreciate our partner in a in a very, very new way. Finally, I think another really big one that comes up around this phase is that that momentum has dissipated.
<00:07:06> Kayla Levin: So I alluded to this a little bit before, but when you first go into that newlywed phase and you've got all that energy and you maybe even have some cash from the wedding that people gave you, or you've got a lot of debt from the wedding, that's also possible. And you are going in Um, with that enthusiasm of being newly married and you're so in love with being married that the actual marriage itself doesn't need to do a whole lot of work.
<00:07:29> Kayla Levin: It's so exciting to be married that whatever he's doing, you still get to be married now. And then of course, being married becomes the norm. And so now. We're looking at our spouse and trying to see, am I getting what I think I need from that relationship? Finally, the last one is the idea of money in the bank.
<00:07:47> Kayla Levin: Now, this is a metaphor that I find so powerful in all relationships, particularly in marriage and parenting. And that is that at the end of the day, you have to think of your interactions as money in the bank and all the positive interactions are deposits into the bank and all those negative ones are withdrawals.
<00:08:06> Kayla Levin: And they don't have to be, you know, sometimes the deposit will be very big. Sometimes the withdrawal will be little. They all add up. If we're never putting anything in and every once in a while we throw something into the bank, that doesn't really work. We need to be making consistent and regular deposits into the bank.
<00:08:22> Kayla Levin: And the truth is that at four years married, you really don't have that much.
<00:08:31> Kayla Levin: It really, it, it feels like, okay, we don't feel like newlyweds anymore and it feels like we've been doing this a long time, but there isn't necessarily that feeling of we've, we really, really have come to trust each other. We've really come to rely on each other. We've been through hard times and we've come out the other side in some ways.
<00:08:49> Kayla Levin: Yes. But as you're married longer, you really have more of that feeling of. Um, look what we've been through together and you see yourselves more as sort of a formed unit against the world, when the world needs to be something that we're against, as opposed to against one another. And every time you overcome a struggle or an obstacle, whether it's between the two of you or between you and the world, you really, really do sort Fuse and create that confidence in the relationship.
<00:09:16> Kayla Levin: Speaking from my own experience and what I have for my clients, this is not something that's, you know, a psychological study, but what I see a lot is that at four years there's still sort of this underlying feeling of insecurity about the relationship itself. It's just still little. A four year old is little, right?
<00:09:33> Kayla Levin: So still a little kid. It's the same thing with your marriage. Four years. It's still young. And so what do we do about that? That's ties us right into the, the solution, what we want to look into. So the first thing is you want to take the long view. You're looking to be married to this person for decades.
<00:09:52> Kayla Levin: So four years is a very, very little bit. And like I always say to my newlyweds when they say to me, how could we be fighting? We just got married. The answer is It's the opposite. How could you have any solutions? You just got married. You're still figuring each other out. You think you know a lot. You have no idea the depths of this person that you're married to and how much you're going to discover and how you're going to learn to work together.
<00:10:16> Kayla Levin: If you're looking at the long view and you see that you are 4, 6, 8, even 10 years married. You realize that you're just beginning to scratch the surface of this relationship, of this confidence, of the, of everything that you're going to have as a couple, the relationship becoming an entity in and of itself.
<00:10:36> Kayla Levin: You're just in the very beginning. And so in some ways that, I mean, for me, for sure. And I think for my clients also, it's a huge relief. What it feels like at four years in, and I hear this a lot, Oh my gosh, is this what it's going to be like for the rest of my life? Right? But instead, if you looked at it, you said, would you think you look at a four year old, would you say to them like, Oh, at, at 20, you're still not going to be able to write in complete sentences.
<00:11:01> Kayla Levin: No, we know that from four to 20, natural growth is going to occur. It's the same thing if you're staying engaged, if you're staying committed, if you're staying involved in the relationship, you will naturally grow. You're going to be experiencing life together and where you're going to be 10 years from now with just awareness and a positive.
<00:11:21> Kayla Levin: Intention in the marriage is light years from where you are right now. So you can relax and know that growth is happening even if you don't see it, even if it's hard. Right now I have a four year old and I think like as happy as my four year old is, his life is very frustrating sometimes because he's still getting all the like manual dexterity down, like.
<00:11:42> Kayla Levin: buttoning things and he can't reach a lot of things. It's a beautiful, exciting time, but there's a lot of just technical frustration in his life. And it's kind of like that for these, for these four year married also. So the first thing I gave you is take the long view. The second thing I want to give you is to take care of yourself, okay?
<00:12:04> Kayla Levin: So especially in this phase when life starts to feel like a pressure cooker if you're relating to any of this with you know The house struggles or the friend struggles or the child struggles or the career struggles or the finance struggles any of that you want to make sure that you're really aware of what's going on with you because ultimately if you're showing up to the relationship resentful and Frustrated and really just dried up you have nothing to give you have nothing going in that's feeding you Then you have nothing to contribute back to the relationship And I don't mean take care of yourself means run up a crazy credit card bill and go to the spa.
<00:12:43> Kayla Levin: It doesn't need to be that. And we've talked before. We talked to a recent podcast about baseline self care and the higher level self care as we go into it very much in detail in the course. But To give you a basic idea, you've got the things that you want to be doing on a regular basis, and then you have the things that really connect you on a deep soul level that you want to make sure you're getting to every couple of years or so.
<00:13:05> Kayla Levin: Pull that out for yourself. What are the things that I really need? Also another possibility for you, if you're. And I guess the podcast episode on zero based scheduling. That will give you an idea of how to sort of see how to work these things back into your life. Okay, first was take the long view second take care of yourself third pay attention to your mind.
<00:13:28> Kayla Levin: If you didn't know I was going to say this. You haven't been paying attention. Maybe you're new to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. You got to pay attention to what is going on in your mind. Four years in, you have probably developed some super speed highways in your brain. You see his sock on the floor.
<00:13:45> Kayla Levin: You are already. Off to the races with all the thoughts that that means and all the feelings that you're feeling and all the things you're going to do about it. You are not even conscious of the action going through your brain of, I saw something and I had a thought about it and now I'm feeling and acting like this.
<00:14:03> Kayla Levin: You've been around each other long enough that these frustrations can start to go onto like a loop in your mind. So that is why it is so critical that you're paying attention to your mind. And that's very, very simple. It's very simple. All that means is You get one of those things going off where you're like, this is really annoying.
<00:14:24> Kayla Levin: This is really frustrating. Or a thought that I hear a lot of clients thinking, can I live like this the rest of my life? And it can be big. It doesn't have to be a sock on the floor. It can be a big, big issue. And what you need to do is you need to write down literally what is going on with no interpretation.
<00:14:42> Kayla Levin: And then what are you making that mean? And then you want to start challenging everything about what you're making that mean. How is the opposite also true? How is it true in a different way? Ask questions about the opposite answer. Um, it's hard to, to give examples of that, like one right in front of me, but you just start to sort of wiggle that idea loose that you have in your brain and start to see how you are going to feel very, very differently when you're less attached.
<00:15:10> Kayla Levin: Because what happens is we have a thought like, he doesn't respect me. And we go about our lives thinking that that thought is true with a capital T. He doesn't respect me. And we call our mother and we're like, I don't know what to do about my husband. He doesn't respect me. And we're talking to our friends.
<00:15:25> Kayla Levin: What do I do? My husband doesn't respect me. And they're like, Oh my gosh, he's a jerk. And then you know what you need to do to get him to respect you. You need to give him a boundary or you need to, uh, show him you need to leave for a week or you need to tell him that you need respect or stop respecting him so much.
<00:15:39> Kayla Levin: Then he'll start respecting you. Like we, we are responding to this. What we're not doing is questioning it. Who says he doesn't respect you? When did we decide on that? Did he sign on the dotted line, I no longer respect my wife? Where did that come from? How are you wrong about that? How is that not true?
<00:15:57> Kayla Levin: How is the opposite thing? How is it that he respects you more than anyone? How is it that you get more respect from him than from anyone else? Your brain will do an amazing amount of research. It's research, research, research. It's like a private investigator. When you ask your brain a question, how is it that he really does respect me in a profound way?
<00:16:19> Kayla Levin: Then all of a sudden your little private investigator mind is going to go to town answering that question for you. You will be amazed. And all those solutions your girlfriends were offering you, all that frustration, all that empathizing, you know, it's lovely, but there's another option. The other option is that that problem didn't exist in the first place.
<00:16:42> Kayla Levin: Okay. Now that doesn't mean that we don't communicate with our spouses. What it means is that when I'm feeling upset, I'm looking into my brain and figuring out why did I get upset? Right. And I'm starting there. My feelings are coming from me. I don't need you to change for me to feel better. Okay. Going down the list again.
<00:17:00> Kayla Levin: First, take the long view. Second, take care of yourself. Third, pay attention to your mind. Fourth, and most importantly, be a newlywed again. So this is the reason I am so inspired. Specifically, inspired by the women who join First Year Married Online. You don't have to do it by joining my course. Of course, I'd love you to do this by joining my course, but you can do this in a lot of ways.
<00:17:26> Kayla Levin: But what that means is if you're starting to feel burned out, and I know this is hard. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but there's nothing that is going to improve your life more than working on your marriage. You really believe that. And there's nothing that drains you like not feeling good about your marriage.
<00:17:45> Kayla Levin: And so if you're feeling like you're just in a slump or you're feeling uninspired or unconnected, take some time for yourself to be a newlywed again. And maybe you're not going to be going to the fancier restaurants that you went to when you were first married, but maybe you can do something. Maybe it's a glass of wine at dinner.
<00:18:02> Kayla Levin: Maybe it's a specific night that's just designated to being together. Maybe it's just putting your phones away and leaving them outside the bedroom. But you want to do something that's breathing oxygen into the relationship. Something that gets you excited, that feeling of being a newlywed. Use that word with yourself.
<00:18:19> Kayla Levin: How can I feel like a newlywed again? Okay. Um, and in some cases it might mean how you're taking care of yourself. Does that mean you want to go shopping and get something that looks pretty on you? Or he wants to do that. Like what, the way that you showed up for each other when you were first married was probably a little bit less super comfortable.
<00:18:38> Kayla Levin: Then when you've been married for longer, right? So do we want to reinvest in that area? It's sometimes that gives us the push, you know, we look for that excitement coming from the other person We look for that person to sort of get us feeling inspired and connected But sometimes when we just do that work on our in our own most I'm say basically all the time When we're just doing that work in our own sphere that excitement happens by itself, right?
<00:19:03> Kayla Levin: Show up like you're a newlywed again, and you will feel that connection. So I want to thank you for, especially those of you who've been married longer, those of you who are still newlyweds or who engaged, I hope you got something from this, sort of a little perspective on what might be coming around the corner.
<00:19:21> Kayla Levin: Maybe it'll be very different for you. Those of you who have been married longer, I want to thank you again for listening, for your questions, for your feedback, for your ratings. I can't believe these reviews on iTunes are just... It's amazing. I read every single one and I really, really, I'm very, very touched by all of them.
<00:19:39> Kayla Levin: Thank you again so, so much for listening in. Have a fantastic week. I will see you back here next week. Bye bye.
<00:19:51> Kayla Levin: Hey there. If you know a newlywed or you are one, we have a wedding gift for you. Go to kaylalevin.com/newlywed to get access to my best selling course "First Year Married" you have got to be in your first six months, so make sure you don't wait. And if you've been married longer than that, but you're looking for some more support or this stuff is just super fun for you.
<00:20:11> Kayla Levin: I'd love to have you join me inside of my membership community, How To Glow. It's for women looking for a fresh take on relationship development. Join us for live coaching calls, signature classes, and anonymous q and a. Let's do it.
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<00:20:30> Kayla Levin: