Marriage Essentials

Marriage Essentials Equipping your relationship for any challenge it faces. You don't need to stuggle alone.

Through tools, education, resources, and products Marraige Essentials is here to provide everything you need to have the best relationship possible.

02/26/2026

Longings aren't a problem to solve.

They're an invitation to connect. ✨

This might be the most important shift you make in your marriage. ❤️

02/20/2026

Hurt people hurt people. 💔

Not because they want to, but because they're protecting something soft underneath.

What if the way your spouse is showing up isn't who they are—but what they're covering?

Understanding this changes everything. ✨

02/18/2026

The biggest mistake I see: Someone's partner is struggling, so they stop showing up healthy too.

➡️ "If they're not trying, why should I?"
➡️ "If they won't regulate, I'm not going to either."
➡️ "They don't deserve my effort right now."

I get it. But now you have two people in protection mode. Two people dysregulated. Two people making it worse.

Here's what actually works: You stay healthy regardless. 🙌

Not because they deserve it, but because YOU deserve to show up as the person you want to be.

This doesn't mean being a doormat. Boundaries matter. But you can hold boundaries AND still regulate yourself. You can hold boundaries AND still own your part. You can hold boundaries AND still offer repair.

That's leadership. ✨

And in my experience working with thousands of couples, when one person consistently leads with health, the relationship often shifts. The other person feels safer. They start to soften. Not always. But often.

Even when they don't, you get to look yourself in the mirror knowing you didn't let their struggle turn you into someone you're not.

You stayed you. ❤️

02/12/2026

In long term relationships, connection has nothing to do with avoiding problems. It's everything to do with how you solve them. ✨

Dr. Sue Johnson's research is clear: Secure couples aren't the ones who never have conflict. They're the ones who know how to navigate through conflict to a place of repair.

Every relationship has ruptures. Someone says something that lands wrong. Feelings get hurt. One person pulls away. The other gets defensive...

And conflict for couples can look completely different. 🙌

Dr. Gottman studied thousands of couples and found three completely different conflict styles.

1️⃣ Accommodators - They minimize disagreement. Agree to disagree. Adjust their expectations and stay content. They find peace and reconnect quietly.
2️⃣ Negotiators - They compromise. Work through issues clearly. Find middle ground through conversation.
3️⃣ Protestors - They have passionate, intense arguments. Big debates. But they also repair with equal passion.

All three styles work. All three can build secure relationships.
All three styles can also leave the relationship disconnected.

Here's the thing that matters: Healthy couples—no matter their style—have a process to come back together after conflict. ❤️

Struggling relationships don't. They avoid and never repair. Or they fight and never truly resolve. The ruptures pile up. One after another. One after another. Until you're walking on eggshells waiting for the next explosion. Or you've stopped trying altogether.

Without a repair process, every single conflict leaves a scar. With one, conflict becomes the pathway to deeper connection. 🔑

The good news? This is a learnable skill. And a skill worth mastering.

02/06/2026

When you're not connected, you think solving the logistics is the path to reconnection. 📍

It isn't.

Here's what actually works: First, you regulate yourself. Get out of protection mode. Move from anger or defensiveness to what's underneath—The hurt, the fear, the loneliness.

Then, you repair. Not with an apology that deflects, but with vulnerability that reconnects. ❤️

"I'm sorry I got defensive. What you think of me matters to me and sometimes I worry that you are disappointed with me. I want to navigate through those moments better."

That's the relationship work. ✨

Once you solve the relationship problem...you can then together solve the logistics. Those answers come easy when you feel safe and valued.

The fix? Repair the connection first.

When you can reestablish that connection—when you're on the same team again—then tackle the task. 🙌

01/30/2026

Keeping the peace doesn’t mean staying connected. 💔

For years, I thought avoiding conflict made me a good partner. Turns out, I was choosing peaceful distance over real intimacy.

When something bothered me, I'd stay quiet. No fight = healthy relationship, right? Wrong. 🙅‍♂️

Here's what I've learned (both personally and working with couples): Your partner doesn't see you "letting things go". They just feel you pulling away. The distance, the emotional withdrawal…and they internalize it.

You both end up feeling disconnected, but hey—at least there's no conflict! 😬

The truth? We don't want peaceful disconnection. We want connected peace—the kind that comes AFTER we've worked through something together.

Real intimacy requires us to:

✨ Name what's actually happening 
✨ Navigate the uncomfortable conversations 
✨ Move through conflict, not around it

Because on the other side of that brave conversation? That's where true connection lives.

Are you a peacekeeper or a peace-builder? 👇

01/26/2026

It's around -20° in Minnesota right now, but I've seen even colder marriages. 🥶

Most couples don't wake up one day in a frozen relationship. It happens slowly—like the seasons changing from summer heat to the winter freeze. Hurts accumulate, conflicts go unresolved, and distance creeps in.

And the worst part? Most couples don't even understand what's happening. They just feel the chill and don't know how to warm things back up. 💔

When I work with couples, we don't just identify the problem. We uncover the underlying patterns creating distance and disconnect. Then we chart a path back to each other—back to the warmth, connection, and intimacy they're missing.

Your marriage doesn't have to stay frozen. There's a way through this.

Send me a DM if you’re ready to reconnect within your marriage. 👉

01/22/2026

"Marriage takes work" is only half the truth. 👇

When I got married at 19, everyone warned me about how much WORK marriage would be. And yes, they were right—but no one told me the most important part.

Here's what I've discovered after a decade as a marriage therapist: The couples struggling the most aren't lacking effort, they're actually trying TOO hard...but in the wrong direction. 💔

They love each other and they want it to work, but the more they push to fix things the worse the pain gets.

The real shift happens when you understand:

➡️ WHY conflict creates pain in your relationship
➡️ WHAT dynamic gets triggered when that pain shows up
➡️ HOW to navigate through it in a way that actually brings you closer

It's not about working harder, it's about having the right map and knowing the path forward.

Less grinding. More understanding. Better results. ✨

Have you ever felt like the harder you try, the worse things get? 👇

So much love and so many lessons in 2016. ❤️ Looking back, 2016 wasn't wrong—it was unfinished. I was learning what conn...
01/19/2026

So much love and so many lessons in 2016. ❤️

Looking back, 2016 wasn't wrong—it was unfinished. I was learning what connection really requires, what partnership actually asks of you, and how growth sometimes comes disguised as discomfort.

What I know now came from living through it. 🌱

#2016

01/13/2026

Your marriage problems are NOT about communication. 📢

Telling you to "communicate better" is like teaching someone a better breaststroke when they're stuck in a rip current. 🌊

Here's the thing: You don't have to be a terrific swimmer to get out of a rip current, you just need the right technique.

But great swimmers drown all the time when they can't identify the rip current and attempt to swim out of it.

Same with your marriage.

You're smart. You're capable. You're successful everywhere else. ✨ But if you can't identify the pattern—the current pulling you under—you'll exhaust yourself trying to communicate your way out of it.

You don't need better communication skills. You need to:

1️⃣ Recognize the current (the pattern you're stuck in)
2️⃣ Use the right technique to get out

Once you can do that, everything changes.

If this makes sense, comment PATTERN and I'll send you a breakdown of how to identify the current in your relationship and the technique to get out of it. 👇

01/09/2026

Dr. John Gottman can predict divorce with 90% accuracy, but not based on WHAT couples fight about.

He looks at the PROCESS they use to navigate conflict. ✨

If you keep having the same fight about money, parenting, or intimacy—it's not the topic. It's how you're navigating it.

There's an invisible pattern underneath:

➡️ One person reaches for connection but it comes out as criticism, demands, or questions
➡️ The other feels overwhelmed and shuts down, pulls away, or defends
➡️ the more one pursues, the more the other withdraws

You're both stuck in the cycle.

And if this isn't solved? Distance, disconnect...all the things we don't want. 💔

But once you see the pattern, you can break it.

Comment PATTERN and I'll send you a free video showing you exactly how this looks and the next step to solve it for good. 👇

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