The #1 COUPLES EXERCISE That Can SAVE Your Relationship (Even If You’re Barely Talking)

[00:00:00] In the next 30 minutes, I’m gonna give you a simple tool to make your marriage better. It doesn’t matter if your relationship is great or if it’s struggling or somewhere in between. I promise. If you give me to the end of this episode, I’ll give you a single tool that will start moving your marriage in a more positive direction if you choose to use it.

Now, we all want a strong marriage. You didn’t get married with the intention of not. Having your marriage work because if you did just jump off the episode. Now. This isn’t for you, but if you feel like your marriage could improve, then it absolutely can. You could explore a lot of different ways to grow your marriage.

We’ve covered several over the course of almost 400 episodes, but if you look or looking for a serious game changer because you need things to start moving now, this is your episode. Now first we have to eat the elephant in the room. Your communication sucks. Now, let me be clear. You may have decent or good communication skills.

Personally, though most people don’t. But the communication in your marriage sucks. And I’ll tell you why. [00:01:00] Because life is busy and the further you get into life, it gets harder to communicate, especially the important things with your spouse. Not because you don’t want to communicate with her, but because life is busy.

You both have a job or jobs, sometimes you have more than one. You have social things like friends, volunteer work, SchoolWorks, church functions. You’re trying to take care of your health. Your kids have things going on that take you to all kinds of different directions. Then you have the minutiae of just living every day.

You gotta cook, you gotta clean, you gotta do laundry. You gotta take care of everyone’s schedule and more. You rarely ever have a quiet moment with just the two of you where you’re not too worn out to actually have real quality communication. For example, I just got back from taking a simple camping trip with my family in four days.

I had two, one-on-one conversations. Of any significant nature with my wife the rest of the time, we are constantly doing something with the rest of our family. One of those conversations only happened because I had an [00:02:00] allergic reaction to something. The other one, I had a 10 minute conversation with her where we actually discussed real things about our future, our direction, the direction with our company, and important things that couples should talk about.

That’s it. And I focus more on communicating with my wife than a lot of men do because I know I need to be intentional about it. So I try to be very intentional about it, and I still have to work very hard to be intentional about communicating with my wife on a regular basis, including the really important stuff.

The fact is, as life takes off, we stop talking about things together, and that’s where things really start to unravel. So today I’m gonna share with you a tool that will help you know where to focus even when you don’t get to communicate the way you want to. We’re gonna take one minute for our sponsor, MyPillow, and that leaves me 21 minutes to radically improve your marriage right after this message from our sponsors, gents, we’re a MyPillow household.

[00:03:00] I have dozens of MyPillow products I use every single day because they don’t just make pillows, they make beddings. They make linens, they even make slippers and all kinds of things. I told you we just got back from a camping trip. We all took our MyPillow travel pillow roll and go travel pillows with us and that’s what we slept on and it was amazing.

We’re proud to have Mike Lindell MyPillow sponsors of the show and you can go to mypillow.com and use the code Thrive for up to 80% off your order and free shipping for our list for our listeners with orders over $75. They’re a great American company, and every time you shop at MyPillow, not only do you support an American, uh, employee owned business, you also support our podcast and help us keep making shows like this.

So go to mypillow.com and use promo code Thrive for up to 80% off your order. Now back to our show, the Driven 2 Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving, purpose-filled intentional lives. Welcome to The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and [00:04:00] lasting impact for men.

I’m your host, Brent Dowlen, and we help men go from living to thriving purpose-filled intentional lives. Today we’re identifying. You and your spouses. Four primary relationship values. Now, this is an exercise I learned from Susan Bratton. You can look her up you want. We did an interview with her several years ago on the podcast.

And this one, one exercise, it’s a huge game changer that will change your relationship in just one afternoon. Your relationship values are critical to your relationship, and if they aren’t present and focused on. Something will usually fell off in your relationship. Values are the qualities, benefits, standards, and codes of behavior that are important to you and they inform your decisions and your choices and they’re intrinsic to who you are and they’re often developed by early impressions from your parents and the life you grew up with.

Values are intangible. We’re not talking about money or position. They’re non-tangible or intangible [00:05:00] properties. Examples of personal values are honesty, variety, faith, adventure. Knowing your relationship values give you and your partner a map to love each other in the most unique, personalized, and fulfilling way possible.

Your values are so deep inside you that oftentimes you may not be. Consciously aware of them except when they’re challenged. And that’s where a lot of fights and marriages originate is we have this relationship value that we, we don’t even know it’s there necessarily, but something has offended that in this exercise you’re gonna have to do a little bit of er, soul searching.

But we have some tools that will make that easier now. Here’s how it works. You have a lot of sub values and there are a lot to choose from, so we’re gonna distill it down to a core four in this exercise, Y four, because [00:06:00] if you go any bigger or more than that, you’re really just casting the net too wide.

And honestly, if you get this Core four, it’s gonna be more than enough. You’re not gonna run out of good stuff to work with. So there’s no point in overcomplicating it by trying to tackle more things than that. So step one, you and your spouse are gonna write down all of your core relationship values you identify with.

Now you can think them up yourself, or if it helps you, you can go to the episode page for this podcast episode on my website. There is a free, no opt-in, no email required companion download for this episode. That’s right. I’m not asking anything. You don’t have to gimme an email or anything. It just goes with this episode because on that page, it has over a hundred relationship value words listed on it.

Now, see, I struggled in for the past with thinking up my own words when I’m trying to do an exercise like this, right? You feel the pressure and you’re like, oh, [00:07:00] I, I don’t, I don’t know what a value or it is, right? At least that is, that’s what I do. So I went ahead and put together a list of over a hundred value relationship, relationship value words for you, free download.

That way you don’t feel that awkward and you’re like not trying to scramble. It’s a good place to start. It doesn’t have every relationship value word that’s possible on it, but it’s got way over a hundred. And even if you don’t use those values, it will help you understand. What we’re talking about here and have clarity on that.

So when you start thinking of your list, you have a better idea of what you wanna put down. So this is for people like me, probably people like you that work better with some ideas in front of them to help get those users floating. But I want you to take all of those value words, relationship value, words.

That actually really register with you and write them down on a separate sheet of paper, asking yourself if they’re really [00:08:00] important to you. Word of caution, because it is a big list. You’re gonna like, oh yeah, that’s good, and that’s good. That’s good. Well, you’re gonna pair these down. So really make sure it really resonates with you before you write it down, because in step two, you’re gonna have to go through and separate these out.

So in step two, once you’ve written down all these. Value words to you, relationship values. You’re gonna prioritize and rank all these. What are the most important. You might write down 20 words off that a hundred word list. You might have several you think of that aren’t on there and have 15 to 30 words on there.

So you had to start sorting, ranking, and figuring out what. Is actually important to you in a relationship, what can you not do without Now, as that list gets tighter and tighter and harder to pare down and you’re like, oh, I, I, I write ’cause I do that, that’s [00:09:00] me, right? I write this. So I would understand these instructions, guys.

So I, I know you’re probably pretty, pretty brilliant. I’m not always so. As the list gets smaller. When I did this exercise, like, oh, I, but I want this one. I don’t want this, I want, ’cause we want it all. And the fact is, you can’t have it. All right, we’re gonna get down to four. So as the LI list gets tighter and harder to pare it down, use the following question to help you parrot down more.

Would I be in a relationship if I couldn’t have this in that relationship? The end result should be you have four must have non-negotiable relationship values that you absolutely would not be interested in being in a relationship with and would not be involved in a relationship where that was not a possibility.

Your spouse may not exemplify those four things, but you see it in them and you know it’s possible with them are you wouldn’t be in this relationship at all. So identify those [00:10:00] four must-haves now. This next step is really critical for this process to work on a separate piece of paper. For each of your four values, you are going to write out this is the value, and then you’re gonna explain how it would look, sound, feel.

If your partner fully embraced and supported your relationship values, what does that value mean to you? At a personal level, how do you recognize when your partner is meaning those values? What signs or behaviors indicate that those values are being honored in your life? How do you feel when you see those values values reflected back to you in the everyday interactions?

The more ideas, the more examples you can offer your partner about what it’s like when your values are met, the more satisfaction you’re both gonna receive. Now guys, don’t rush through this process. This podcast episode is gonna be short. It’s gonna equip you, [00:11:00] but don’t rush through doing this. Give it honest thought.

The more you can explain this, the more you can paint a picture for your partner of exactly what it looks like. When these relationship values that are important to you are honored, the easier this will be as you guys try and work with them. Now, remember, you’re making this for your partner so they can understand your point of view.

Your relationship values may not actually overlap at all. Guess what? That’s okay. Your four and your partner’s relationship values don’t need to match. In fact, it’s actually really great if they don’t because you can really compliment each other pretty well. Marrying someone who has the exact same identical structures to you.

It can lead to a pretty boring marriage ’cause you’re missing the input. We actually compliment each other when we’re not perfectly aligned in all of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. So it’s okay if they don’t match. [00:12:00] There’s nothing wrong with you. You are not broken. But paint the picture just as clear as you can because in step four we’re gonna swap lists.

Step four is exactly that, swapping this list, but you’re gonna sit down. With your spouse, and you’re gonna talk through these, you’re gonna explain it. As your spouse reads the list, you’re gonna answer their questions and help them fill in that picture so they have a clear understanding. Talk through them.

Listen Attenti, lead to your partner. Make sure you both deeply understand each list. Now guys, this is where the magic actually happens. If you can paint this clearly for your spouse, you are effectively communicating. Deep core values that will make your world better when they’re met. By doing that, by making sure your spouse understands that you can increase the quality of your relationship exponentially.[00:13:00]

So step five, this is where the real magic happens, is now you guys are going to focus on meeting those four relationship values for each other. If you and your spouse are dedicated to meeting these needs for each other in your relationship, your satisfaction in your relationship will escalate every single day when you can clearly see.

Your spouse is focused and working towards honoring your relationship values, you’ll feel satisfaction, you’ll feel a deeper connection. Your communication will op, uh, open up more. You’ll be in sync better, and even on days when you don’t have a good chance to communicate. When you guys have just been busy, you know that partner is aware of these four core values for you.

Is working towards them and that will help carry you through to the next steps. You likely had no idea what these four values were for yourself, [00:14:00] let alone your spouse. When you started this episode, if I had just walked up to you and said, what are your four relationship core values? You’d be like, uh, I dunno what you’re talking about.

Much less. Do you know your spouses? This is not your love languages, which is a very valuable tool and I highly recommend you follow up with that. I’ve done the videos on that. This is not your communication styles. This is a separate thing entirely because your communication sucks. You didn’t know this about yourself or your spouse.

The longer you’ve been married, the less you believe air quotes. You have to communicate things like this or anything else because you assume your partner’s been married to you long enough that they know and you’re wrong. You’re absolutely wrong. Some of you don’t know that. I used to be a minister. Some of you do, and I’ve done marriage counseling before, [00:15:00] guys with young couples, and one of the things I have found repeatedly.

With most couples in the modern era is they don’t communicate near enough before they say I do. And it puts them in a world of hurt afterwards because there’s a lot of resentment because you assumed you understood these things about the person. You thought you knew these things, but there are a lot of things you don’t think to talk about.

Well, that happens even after you get married, as your marriage goes on, as life continues. You assume that the other person just knows, which is not fair to either of you in the relationship. It’s not fair to either partner to assume that they know all these things. These are deep things you probably didn’t know about yourself.

So do this exercise with your spouse. Take action based on the. Commit to the next three months, working every day towards meeting those [00:16:00] relationship value needs for your spouse. Come back to me in three months. Thank me in the comment section. Later, after you’ve done this, I promise this is gonna move the needle on your relationship in such a positive way that it’s gonna absolutely blow you away at what it does to your marriage.

You’re welcome guys. Share this with someone who needs it. Be better tomorrow because what you do today, and we’ll see you on the next one. The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose-filled intentional lives. Gentlemen, if your relationships are not where you want ’em to be, I want you to know I got you.

Relationships take a lot of work and they can fall on the back burner pretty easily. As you empire building in your life, men often suffer damage to their relationships while they’re trying to provide and grow. Professionally and make more money. A lot of the importance of why we’re doing it. The people tend to fall on the back burner.

Well, I help men with skills, techniques, and solutions to [00:17:00] rebuild thriving relationships with the people they love. Even if you’ve struggled with being the husband or father that you want to be in the past. It’s not too late, and we can absolutely help equip you with all this stuff you need to make your relationships thrive.

Reach out and schedule your free discovery. Call at purpose-driven men.com to learn the skills you need. To connect deeply with the people who matter the most.