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Amanda:  Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. So happy to have you here. I have a really great interview with my friend Monica Tanner today, so let’s get to it. 

Alright everyone, I have a special treat for you today. My friend Monica Tanner is here and she and I have had many conversations over the years about marriage and sex and all the good stuff, and she has written a book and I am so excited to have her on today to talk about her book.

So welcome Monica. 

Monica: Thank you so  much for having me, Amanda. This is so fun.

Amanda:  Well, why don’t you just introduce yourself a little bit for my audience. 

Monica:  Yeah, absolutely. So I have been coaching couples for about six years, and a couple of years ago I went through Terry Reels RLT certification. So I am now a relational life practitioner, which has absolutely transformed the way I do couples coaching.

I’ve seen amazing results and I absolutely love it. So that is my professional kind of bio, but I’m a podcaster. I am a mother of four. I’ve been happily married for 23 years. My oldest son just got married and the book that I just wrote, Bad Marriage Advice, was for him and his wife. So it kind of started as you know, he told me he wanted to get married and they were so young and I thought, oh my gosh, I have so much to share.

And so I sat down to write him a little note from my heart and it turned into like a full on book. So that’s what I’ve been doing. 

Amanda:  That’s so great. Okay, so your book is called Bad Marriage Advice and you wrote it for your son. Okay. So what was your experience when you first got married? Did you get any ridiculous advice from people? 

Monica:  Absolutely. So I remember when I got married, I was very aware that my knowledge of good marriage, like my template was very limited. So my parents divorced, my grandparents divorced. A lot of my friends’ parents were divorced. So I knew that I didn’t have like a really great template for what a good, great marriage was supposed to look like.

And I kind of dedicated myself to finding good marriage mentors. And so when I was getting married, if there was a couple who had been married for a long period of time and they had advice for me, I was like a sponge. I was like, please, yes, I will take all the good advice. And I clung to it early in our marriage and I realized that a lot of that well-meaning advice, a lot of times we get the advice and you know, it seems logical and it seems romantic and it’s all very well-meaning. Nobody’s trying to destroy your first few years together. But I realized that a lot of that advice was very bad. 

Amanda:  Yes, I know. I remember at my bridal shower for my first marriage that they had everybody do like some advice on a three by five card. And then they put it like, you know, on a little ring for me and I still have it actually in my cedar chest. And I went through it a few years ago and I was like, what in the world? Like this is terrible advice. And these are from like seasoned people? I mean, some of the advice from my mom and my grandmas and my aunts, who have all been married forever, was terrible advice.

A few years later, I remember I was at a women’s conference with my mom and my grandma and it was that women’s conference with President Hinckley years ago where he, you know, talked up women and how women are so great and stuff, and we walked out of that meeting and my grandma turned to me and she said, “You know what? One of the worst things I ever did being married?”

And I said, “What grandma?”

And she’s like, “I cleaned the house every day while he was gone. And so when he got home, he just thought it magically happened. He had no idea how much work I put in.” 

Monica:  That’s awesome. 

Amanda: And I was  like, you know what? I totally see that because my mom had even said to me a few years before that, when my now ex-husband got up to help me with the dishes, she was like, “Amanda, what are you doing letting him help you with the dishes? That’s so emasculating for a man.” And I was like, “Mom, we actually usually do the dishes together because it’s more time we can spend together.” 

And she looked at me like I was crazy!

Monica:  It’s interesting because you just nailed it on the head because I think a lot of times this advice, it probably worked a long time ago, but we have so many different expectations for modern marriage now. It’s so different. We have so many resources. You know, there’s so many time saving things that it’s like modern marriage doesn’t look like marriage used to look. So sometimes when you ask the older generation for their advice, they’ll give it to you and you’re like, Oh no, that’s not going to work anymore.

Amanda: That is not going to work. I know you’re right. I mean, it’s so much more egalitarian now. I look at the marriage that my husband and I have built. So my daughter got married in January and what she and her husband are building, and it’s so different than the marriage that my grandparents and my parents built.

Okay. So you tackle 15 different myths in the book. Can you share a few of the biggest offenders and why they’re so harmful? 

Monica:  Yeah, so let’s start with maybe the one that I think probably affects our mutual audience the most. And I think it’s this idea that divorce is not an option. Like we take divorce off the table no matter what, come hell or high water, we are in this together and there’s no getting out of it. And I think that that idea, while it seems so romantic, we’re locked in and it seems like it would breed commitment and all of those things. It can be very, very destructive to a growing, evolving marriage where both partners actually choose to be there.

And so I think that affects a lot of my couples actually. In fact, I have a couple that I’m working with right now. And I say couple, but it’s just the husband and he’s very disillusioned and he’s unhappy and he said in 25 years, my wife has never apologized for anything. She’s never taken accountability for anything. She refuses to come to therapy or work on the marriage in any way, shape, or form, and she will give nothing. Right? And so he is like, so in this really terrible place. And I was like, well, okay, well what if, you know, you started pulling away like, Hey, if you’re not willing to come to therapy with me or make some of these changes, I’m, you know, not going to share my paycheck with you anymore or something like that. And he’s like, Oh, I couldn’t do that. And I’m like, why? And I’m like, you know, you might have to make some difficult decisions. Like maybe you’re going to leave the marriage if she’s not willing to work on it. And he’s like, Oh no, I can’t do that. Divorce is not an option. I’m locked in. 

And I’m like, well what motivation does she have to give you anything? And so I’m like, if you want a marriage that you’re building together that’s based on choice, where you know you both really give yourselves to like, how can we make ourselves more pleasing? How can we make this relationship better for both of us? 

If divorce is not an option and you’re locked in, I don’t know what motivation she has to change anything. Right. 

Amanda:  Well, and I think when you have that idea that divorce is not an option, you end up feeling stuck and trapped and that’s never a good place to be in a marriage.

Monica:  Exactly. Exactly. And it’s interesting ’cause I’ve heard this idea of like every year this couple will, like, they make a contract for a year and they’re like, every year we reevaluate and we’re like, how are we doing? Do we want to renew? And I’m like, whoa, that’s kind of intense. But also at the same time, my husband, without saying it that way, we kind of do the same thing. We take a trip every year, close to our anniversary, and we’re like, how are we doing? Like what could we be doing better? Like how can we make this a really great situation that both us really want to be here. And that’s not to say we haven’t had challenges and we haven’t like come to that, you know, yearly meeting with like, uh, you’re really hard to live with and you know, like maybe I don’t want to renew this thing, but like, of course we have the commitment, but it’s based on choice. It’s based on we both want to be here. And if the marriage isn’t someplace where we both want to be, like, what can we do to fix that? It’s not like we’re locked in and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

Amanda:  Well, and even at that point, even if it’s not going well, if it’s a choice, then you go, we also have the choice to work to build it. Rebuild it. Make different choices. Make it great. I mean, it’s not like you stay married and miserable or you divorce. There’s a third option in there where you actually get to work on it. 

Monica: So good.

Amanda:  Yeah. My husband and I go away together quite often. That’s one of the, I say that’s one of the perks of our divorce. Right. Our kids, which our youngest kids at home are going to be seniors this next year. So we only have a year left before we’re empty nesters. 

Monica: Yeah.

Amanda:  But we have half the week with no kids usually because they go to their other parents.

And so we spend most of our weekends away together. And, but usually around our anniversary, we’ll go for maybe a little bit longer trip. And I’m like, how are we doing? What do we need to work on? What do we need to change? You know, how are you feeling? And it’s that check-in piece, that choice piece that really makes the difference.

Monica:  Yeah, and you talk a lot about sex, right? And so a marriage based on choice and sex based on choice is always going to be superior than something based on obligation, right? You’re never going to have great sex and you’re never going to have great emotional intimacy if you are obligated to be there.

Amanda:  Absolutely. I mean, I can’t tell you how many women I talk to that their husband is like, you’re not meeting my needs. We need to have sex three to four times a week. I don’t want touch unless it’s sexual touch. All these things that she has to do to make him happy. And she’s miserable. The last thing she wants to do is have sex with him. That’s not fun. That’s all obligation and that does not create intimacy or connection, desire. Like, yeah, you might like get an orgasm out of it, but even then, it’s pretty cheap. 

So one of the ones that you mentioned when we were prepping for this is the lie of “Happy Wife, Happy Life.”

It’s such a classic. 

Monica:  It’s such a classic. It’s so cliche. And when I polled my audience about like, what’s the worst advice you’ve ever gotten? It’s that one.

And  when you watch social media, there’s always like, you know, the guy who’s out interviewing couples, and he’ll like see this older couple and he’ll be like, what’s your best advice? You know? And it’s always like the man will like look over at his wife and be like, she’s the boss. She wears the pants. As long as she’s happy, we’re all happy. And I’m like, no, no. It is the worst advice ever. Like how can you have a mutually fulfilling relationship where only one person gets what they want? Like that doesn’t even make sense when you really think about it. 

Amanda:  No. Well, and just in the man that you were coaching, like what you described. She’s getting everything she wants. And he’s miserable. 

Monica:  Exactly. And so what’s her motivation? Nothing. She’s like, I’m getting everything I want. I’m cool.

Amanda:  Yes. I mean, in the words of Terry Real, that’s a one up and one down relationship if I’ve ever heard one. 

Monica:  Yes. And that’s never ever, ever going to work out in your favor. I mean, at the very best, you’re going to have a husband who’s just completely withdrawn. Right? And at the worst he is going to walk away and like, he’s like, if I can’t get what I want out of this relationship, I’m going to get it somewhere else.

So it’s actually just a really bad setup, this “Happy Wife, Happy Life.” But you hear it all the time. I’ve been to weddings where the dad’s like, make sure she’s happy, you know? And it’s like a romantic sentiment. You go, oh, that’s so sweet. And then you think about it and you’re like, wait a second.

Amanda:  Right. Well, and the reverse is also true. If she is conforming everything in her life to try and make him happy, she completely loses herself. Like she’s not going to be happy either. 

Monica:  Yeah. So you’ve gotta be differentiated. And that’s the goal. And like when a couple gets married, there’s always going to be like a level of like, oh, we’ve gotta melt into each other, become one. You know, all of that. But eventually you have to be able to organize yourself as two individuals who choose to be together. And that is not one member of the partnership gets everything that they want. It’s never going to look like that. 

Amanda:  Absolutely not. 

Okay. Another one you mentioned was “Never Go to Bed Angry.”

That felt so noble. 

Monica:  I lost so much sleep in the beginning of my marriage. Because this is the one where you’re like, you know, what advice did you get? That was the one where I was like, no, these guys told us we couldn’t go to bed angry. And my husband, he could just roll over and start snoring and like two seconds, right?

And I’m like, Ah. And I’m like sitting up and I’m like the loud sobs, you know? Like maybe it’ll wake him up and he’ll want to talk to me or like I journal, or I just like would like rouse him awake. I’m like, no, we can’t go to bed. Angry. And I just remember my husband being like, Monica, I cannot talk to you about this right now, I need to sleep. And I would feel like he doesn’t love me and like in my head, I would spiral out of control and he was just going to wake up and pack his bags and be gone. 

Amanda:  Yeah, I think that’s where our brain, that anxiety and our brain goes, right? 

Monica:  I mean, and I had huge abandonment issues. So for me it just was very triggering that I was like, how can you lay there and sleep when I’m so distraught? You know, like, do you even love me? It just was like so triggering to me, and it wasn’t until I finally was like, “Love. When you do this, I feel so abandoned. Like I spiral out of control.” 

And we just came up with this little like, you know, he’s like, okay, so what do you need from me?

And I’m like, well clearly, I mean, after years and years and years of this, I’m like, clearly we’re not going to come up with a good solution. So like, maybe if you could just say, I love you. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s talk about this in the morning. And so some variation of that will help me, like calm my nervous system and just like go to sleep.

And he meant it. And years, you know, like after a couple decades of being married, now I don’t even need him to say that. I’m like, if we’re upset with each other at night, most of the time it’s because we’re so tired that we just like, you know, I’m like, let’s just not let, let’s just go to sleep and tomorrow will look better.

And it’s funny because early in our marriage I was getting really worried. I was like, this guy doesn’t apologize ever. Like it was me, always, I was a fixer. And so like that was part of my conditioning and part of my fears and, you know, all that triggering. So like, if something wasn’t absolutely going well between us, I was like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. How do I fix it? How can I make this better? And so I started to get really nervous. I’m like, this guy doesn’t ever apologize. But I was actually never giving him the opportunity. And what happened was when I started actually being able to go to sleep is that without fail, he would wake up before me, roll over, cuddle me and be like, I’m so sorry I was mean last night. 

I’m like, oh, this is cool. So now I’m like, maybe I pick a fight late at night because then I get this awesome apology and cuddling in the morning. So, yeah, I mean, you learn things about each other, but one of the things that I learned was that, you know, that I had these major abandonment issues and that I can trust that my husband, when he says, let’s talk about this in the morning, he’s going to wake up and talk about it in the morning. And sometimes it’s not even necessary. Right? Sometimes it’s just like, I’m sorry, I just was grumpy. 

Amanda:  Yes, yes. I totally get that. 

Okay. What does “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” get wrong about marriage?

Monica:  Oh, this one is such a good one. Because that’s so cliche too, right? You hear that all the time. But don’t sweat the small stuff? Where do you think the big stuff comes from? Right? Do we want to tackle the seed or do we want to tackle the weed? Right? So like if we’re constantly letting go of the small stuff, not sweating it, pushing it down and being like, this is so annoying, this is so annoying, this is so annoying. And then it just comes out sideways. Like this is a big thing that’s been bothering me for three years and I’m finally just now wanting to talk about it. Right? So like, no, you can learn skillful ways to bring up little things that get on your nerves. And it doesn’t have to be a big to-do. It can be just like, you know, like let’s say … here’s a big one in our marriage. The way my husband would put on the toilet paper, like I am an over girl, right? And he would always put it on under and it was like making me a little bit crazy and I realized I never said anything about it. So I was like, Honey, I love that you are willing to replace the toilet paper because most men don’t. You know, they don’t need as much toilet paper as we do. So I was like, I love that you’re willing to replace the toilet paper, but it would work better for me if when you do it you could just do it, you know, make it so that the toilet comes over the top.

And he was like, cool, I can do that. Like he had no idea. But if I had let it go for years and years and years, I probably would’ve been super resentful and like so upset over this toilet paper that I had never brought up. So don’t sweat the small stuff is not good advice. There are skillful ways to bring up the little things that, you know, get on your nerves before they become big, massive weeds and start choking out the good in your relationship. 

Amanda:  I love that. 

So you mentioned that there’s a lot of bad advice about sex in marriage, and since this is the Sex for Saints Podcast, I thought open for sure we had to, you know, deal with that one. So what are some of the worst offenders? 

Monica:  Yeah, so the one I title in the book, there’s only one chapter on all of this together, but, and the chapter is, A good woman keeps her husband satisfied. And I start with that quote by Laura Schlesinger. I can’t say her name, but I grew up listening to her.

Yes, me too. My stepmom used to have it on like in the, you know, radiating throughout the house. And I remember when I was getting ready to get married, I read that book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. So it like reduced down a wife’s duty to like make sure he has enough sex and make sure he gets fed, right, and then your husband will just be happy and everything will magically be okay.

Worst advice. That is the worst advice, right? Like, it’s like, just, I mean, I’m sure we could list a hundred ways why that just is the worst advice, right? Like, it is not our job to keep our husband satisfied. Like, that is awful. But then there’s also, I mean, women grow up with so much bad messaging about sex, right?

It’s like the, you know, a good woman doesn’t want or need sex or, you know. Sex is, is very dangerous. We have to make sure that we keep our husbands reigned in or else they can get out of control or, you know, so many variations of this. It’s our job to be the gatekeeper of our husband’s sexuality, which… 

Amanda:  So many problems. I mean, that’s why I have a job. 

Monica:  Exactly. Exactly. And like more so for these conservative Christian households. We also grow up kind of taking in our parents’ attitude about sex. And so when they’re so guarded or, you know, they get so nervous about bringing it up or talking about it, or, I remember this is when one of my younger sister-in-laws was getting married, we were having this conversation in the kitchen and my sister-in-law asked my mother-in-law about her wedding night and she said, oh, she said somebody left a bunch of fruit on our doorstep. And so I went in and I started making jam and you know, my new husband went in and fell asleep on the bed, and I’m like, wait a second. What? I’m like that is not what happened on your wedding night. Like I was just so disappointed. I’m like, don’t tell, like that’s the worst. And I’m like, I never met my father-in-law. I know he was an amazing man, but I’m like, he produced my husband so I know he didn’t just go fall asleep on the bed. Like I’m pretty sure he was ready for whatever was going to happen on their wedding night. And they had six kids. So you know, it’s just like we pick up those attitudes about sex that our parents kind of carry with them, and a lot of times it’s very toxic. 

Amanda:  Yes. I can attest to that for sure.

So do you think this kind of advice, especially when it’s rooted in shame or like we talked about earlier, obligation, impacts couples sexual connection long term? 

Monica:   I mean, absolutely. Yeah. I mean that’s why you have a job. But that’s also why, I mean, it’s interesting because I would say 99% of the couples that come to see me, they’re like, we struggle with communication. And so I’m like, okay, so that’s where the conversation starts. But after a session or two and they feel a little more comfortable, they’re like, really, we don’t talk about sex and we have a big problem in our sex lives, right? 

It definitely long-term affects the dynamic that you get into both emotionally and physically and sexually, those dynamics are in place for so long.

And so a lot of the couples that I see have been married for 20, 25 years, they’re hitting this empty nest phase. And they’re looking at each other like, I don’t know, like, do we really want to spend the rest of our lives together, or do we want to go like, you know, try it again with somebody else? And most of the time that comes down to we don’t enjoy each other emotionally, physically, or sexually. And so there’s a lot that goes into breaking down and reorganizing those dynamics that have been formed for decades. 

Amanda:  Yeah, I know. I actually just wrote a Facebook post, so my husband and I went away for Memorial Day recently and we were gone for like a long weekend together and we have so much fun when we’re together. And of course, you know, I mean it’s a second marriage for both of us. We haven’t been married 20 plus years at this point, but we’re, you know, we’re getting to 13 this year. So it’s not like, you know, we haven’t been married for a bit, but we’ve got these two kids that are going to be seniors this coming year and then we’re going to be empty nesters.

And I think about my clients and so many of them are in that phase of life where they’re just like, oh my gosh, the kids are going to be gone and we’re not going to have that buffer. And like, is it time to just end it right here? Because it’s just no fun. And I’m like, I’m so excited to be empty nesters. And spend even more time with him, just the two of us. Like I am so excited for that phase of life, and it makes me so sad when other people aren’t, but we’ve put the work in too, right? And that’s the whole point, is we’re constantly talking and working through issues and putting that work in to make it great.

It’s not happening just, you know, on its own. It takes intention and purpose. 

Monica:  Totally, totally. And I think it’s just kind of natural to build your family around the kids, even if you’re not trying to. Newborns are so all encompassing, right. And they become kids and teenagers and I will tell you, I love the teenage phase, but I’m like, they’re up early. They have friends over late at night and like, you know, it’s exhausting in a whole different way than newborns are. But if you are not intentional and like my husband and I would like, if we thought about it, I’m like, we have teenagers at our house all the time and we’re like, okay, is it our responsibility to like always be chaperoning these teenagers? And so what we’ll do is like, we’ll go like if date night is at a time when there’s like a whole bunch of girls and boys at our house, we’re not just going to leave them unattended for like a really long time, but we’ll just go on a walk that we do just close to our house or around our neighborhood and we’ll just go for a walk.

There is no way that we’re going to let our emotional, physical connection dwindle. 

Because of, you know, the circumstances. I’m like, we love these kids and you know, we love having them at our house, but we’re going make some time for each other. And if that means finding the end of a cul-de-sac where we can, you know, make out in the car for a little bit, we’re going to do it.

Amanda:  Absolutely. Absolutely. 

So many of my listeners have adult children who are preparing for or newly into marriage. What advice would you give them about how to support their kids without handing them a script full of these myths? 

Monica:  Okay. I love this question and I would say that the best advice I could give to engaged and newlywed couples is to establish yourself with a good coach or counselor.

Because here’s the thing, when you’re, you know, in that so in love and all the promise and hope of like this amazing future that you’re going to build together, that you’re like, what could ever go wrong? Right? But you are already establishing dynamics at this point, and so having a couple, two or three sessions with a really good coach who can give you some skills like how to go from your activated, you know, like amygdala to your prefrontal cortex, like get your wise adult back online, and then how to just make some simple requests, repair after conflict.

Like if you sit down for just a few sessions with a good coach or counselor that can help you and guide you and give you some of these really important skills. Then a couple of things happen. One, when you do hit like a big roadblock down the line, you don’t have to start from scratch. You already feel comfortable with this person. They already know a lot about you and your relationship, and you can just dive right in. Right. And so it’s not so painful. You’re not like looking around for somebody that you trust. You’re not like second guessing, like, do we need help? Do we not need help? It’s like you just go revisit this safe place where you’ve already established yourselves.

And two, it’s much quicker to be able to work through whatever conflict is ’cause she, I’m saying she, it could be a, he as well already knows what your dynamics are, what your weaknesses are, what your losing strategies are, and how to help you. So I think there’s nothing better that you could do for your adult children who are getting married than to get them into some couples coaching or counseling early, early, early in the marriage.

I just think there’s like nothing better than you can do to give them the best head start possible than to just get them in and they can ask their questions about sex. All of those things with a really good coach or counselor.

Amanda:  Yeah, my Engaged Couples Course comes with a monthly coaching session for 12 months.

Monica: That’s awesome. 

Amanda: Like it’s a screaming deal. So, because they’ll like do the course and they’ll have some questions before they get married about, okay, what’s, you know, we have, we’ve done the course now we still have these questions, but then they still have, you know, more coaching sessions after they get married when things inevitably come up.

Monica:  Yeah, it’s so good. So I just recently talked about this, is that first few months of marriage, like you think it’s like all like you’re so in love, right? But you like already start like noticing your partner’s weaknesses. But you’re like, no, I love him so much, it doesn’t matter. 

Like the thing with the toilet paper or they’re leave their socks on the floor or like you’re not getting very much time together or whatever it is. Right. Like when Ben and I got married, we went directly to sell pest control for the summer. And I worked like seven to seven and he worked like 11 to 11.

So our schedules were completely off. And here I am like this is not how I pictured our marriage. Like he would come home late at night and I was exhausted and he certainly wasn’t waking up early with me. And so like I felt like I wasn’t getting any attention. We weren’t spending any time together. We weren’t doing anything fun together. And I was like, this is not what I signed up for. So that first three months was like hellish. And we did not have the communication skills or the repair skills to like work through that skillfully. So it was a mess. Like I would start crying and he’d be like, whoa, I’m out of here.

And so I like, it was just like we fumbled through that and it was really hard and I like if we had just a good like coach or counselor that we could have gone to, that would’ve been so much less painful. 

Amanda:  Okay. So. What myth do you think your son rolled his eyes at and which do you think that he’ll come back and say, okay, mom, you’re totally right.

Monica:  Oh, I have never been asked that question before. That is really, really good. I am so excited to see their reaction. Like, I hope that they’ll give me a little bit of feedback. My guess is that he will roll his eyes at the last myth, which is that “Happily Ever After” does exist. Because I think that he sees it. We have a great marriage, but we work really hard at it. And the family that he married into, they are awesome. He has incredible in-laws. And so I’m sure that when I’m saying like, you know, most people don’t think that happily ever after exists and they lower their standards or whatever, he’ll roll his eyes. Because he’s like, oh no. Of course it does. I’ve seen it. 

But we work very, very hard. It’s that same thing, like don’t clean the house when he is not there because he won’t see the work. Like, I think that my oldest son in particular has seen the work that we’ve done because we were a mess when he was little and he probably has some pretty dang good stories about knockdown drag outs, like big fights, right? So I think that he has seen, and I do say at the end of the book, like, I hope that you all will create, you know, your happily ever afters and you’ll know the intention and the amount of work that your dad and I put in to model that for you. So I think he’ll roll his eyes at that one.

And then the one that he’ll come back and say yes is the whole, I talk a lot about the differentiation. And just, I mean, they’ve only been married for like, I don’t know, a month. And I’ve spent a couple of weeks with them and I do see how like lovey-dovey and like, I love you. No, I love you more. I love you more.

And the whole like, you know, kind of folding into each other. Like, I think at some point they’ll start to be like, alright, we need some space, and individuality. And, maybe my opinion is different than yours. So, I think that will be maybe a good chapter for them. 

Amanda:  That’s awesome.

So I was talking with a neighbor the other day and, she didn’t know that I’d been married before. We don’t know each other very well, but, she’s been single for a long time, divorced and single for a long time, you know, she’s dated and stuff. And she was like, okay, you’re, you know, you’re in a second marriage, do you just want to like end it like you did the first one? And I was like, no, we are blissfully happy now. We still have to work really hard at that. Like to have a good marriage, marriage is hard, even in the best of circumstances, but we are blissfully happy. And she’s like, I didn’t think that was even possible.

I’m like, it is.

Monica:  I would say that most of the world probably doesn’t feel like it’s possible. Like they’re kind of like, it’s a pipe dream. Lower your expectations, you know? And I think that’s really sad. 

Amanda:  I know it is really sad, but I was also talking with my 25-year-old son a few weeks ago and we were talking through like, you know, my divorce from his dad and he was like, you know, I don’t really remember, you know, you and dad fighting or anything. And most of it was because we shielded it from him. Like he didn’t see most of it, even though, I mean, he was almost 12 when we divorced. But he said, you know, what you have shown me is that you and dad can have a good relationship and co-parent well, and I mean, being from divorced parents is never easy. But you’ve given us the best possible outcome with having divorced parents. But what I really appreciate is you’ve also shown me what a healthy marriage looks like and what’s possible. 

Monica: That’s really cool. 

Amanda: And I was like, oh, like if I can give my kids that, that is the best thing I can possibly give them.

Monica:  Yeah. I’m pretty certain that as parents, we are all going to screw up our kids like no matter how great a job we do. Like something is going to, you know, they’re going to need therapy about something. And I just feel like the best thing we can do is, for all the parenting mistakes we make is that we show them a really good template for marriage because eventually they’ll go into their own marriages and they’ll heal all their wounds in the bonds of a really great marriage.

Not that their partner is going to heal them, but that they will be able to heal in a loving relationship. And so I think just teaching our kids that, like I’m new at this, I’m going to screw up. I’m sure I’ve screwed you up. But if you can create a really loving, healthy relationship, you’ll be able to heal all of that. And I’ll be right here for you too, right? Like, because I created the wounding, so, you know, I can help you get through it as well. But yeah, I feel like that’s kind of the cycle of life. Like that’s the ideal is that we are able to heal with a loving partner. 

Amanda:  Well, that sounds like a solid truth that they should take on.

Well, thank you so much for being here with me today and telling us about your book. Where can listeners learn more about you and get your book when it comes out?

Monica:  So you can learn more about me, my podcast Secrets of Happily Ever After, and working with me at my website, which is just my name, monicatanner.com.

And then the book has its own website, badmarriageadvice.com, so you can find more about everything in those two places. 

Amanda: Great. And when will it be released? 

Monica: August 12th. I hope I don’t have to take that back, but I think it’ll be August 12th. 

Amanda:  Well, good. Well, they know where to find it when it get comes out. So thanks so much. 

Monica:  Yes. And if you get on the waiting list now you get like a couple goodies from me. One of them is 300 date night ideas, which range from cheap, you know, completely free to expensive for all seasons of the year, and all levels of interest in, you know, adventure, whatever.

So I think date night is, and I think you probably think it’s very important too, and I love coming up with date night ideas. So you get that as a free gift for jumping on the wait list of the book. 

Amanda: So they  should go to badmarriageadvice.com today and get on the list. 

Monica: Yes, absolutely. 

Amanda: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here today with me, Monica. It was great to meet with you. 

Monica:  Yes, thank you. 

Amanda:  Alright my friends. So what bad marriage advice did you get that you are still following today that maybe is detrimental to your relationship? How we know if something is bad or good in our life is by what it creates, right? So if it’s good advice, it creates goodness. If it’s bad advice, it actually doesn’t create goodness. 

So if you are following some bad marriage advice that you got, hoping that it’s going to create goodness, it’s probably not going to. So check in with yourself and see what bad marriage advice you’re still following, and make sure to pick up Monica’s book.

All right, my friends, that’s all I have for you today. Thanks so much for joining me. And remember, love is a journey, not a destination. Stay committed, stay passionate, and stay connected. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.