I don’t even know how many times I have told myself this about my mixed faith marriage.

It is so hard to talk about religion

It is so hard to decide how to teach the kids

It is so hard to connect

It is so hard to understand him/her

It is so hard to communicate

I have had to ask myself and my clients –  Why is hard a problem?

Was it easy before? My marriage was not. It is just a different kind of hard.

What is wrong with hard? People climb mountains and go on challenging hikes and get advanced degrees all the time precisely because they are hard.

Why do we think marriage should be easy?

Easy is kind of boring. Easy isn’t the part of life we savor and remember and talk about.

Its not easy to reach out when we are hurting in our marriage, its hard, but it can be amazing.

It is not easy to reach out for help when we need it, its hard, but it can help.

It is not easy to be patient and communicate, its hard, but is can build a relationship.

Its not easy to talk about hard things, its hard, but it can open doors to greater connection.

Maybe we want our marriage to be hard. Maybe hard is good. Maybe we would be well served to stop making hard a problem and just accept what is.

Do you need help in your mixed faith marriage? It can be hard, but is can also be amazing. Do you want an amazing marriage? My group program starting in Feb 2022 could be perfect for you. In it I teach you the tools needed to have a GREAT mixed faith marriage. Reach out and grab your free call to meet with me and see if we are a good fit.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com

Do you believe that a mixed faith marriage is not an ideal marriage? If you do, you are not alone.

I hear this statement from many of my clients. This is not what I wanted. This is not ever going to be ok. This is not what I signed up for.

What is an ideal marriage? What does that really mean?

Is that definition helping the actual marriage you have?

Is your desire for an ideal marriage (that you think you do not have) causing you to not enjoy the marriage you do have?

I have seen this happen in my marriage in in the marriage of my clients. We think if we cannot have the ideal marriage then we believe cannot have a good marriage or a happy marriage or a healthy marriage. True, we may not have a “temple marriage” in the same way we once did. But that does not mean we cannot have a good marriage or a happy marriage or a healthy marriage. Those types of marriages are NOT mutually exclusive.

It may be helpful to write out all the characteristics of an ideal marriage.

kindess

respect

love

compassion

gentleness

fun

humor

All those things can be part of any marriage. They can be part of your mixed faith marriage. You may be blocking them by believing that your marriage is not ideal and thus not a good marriage.

You can have  good mixed faith marriage. You can have  great mixed faith marriage. You can have a healthy and thriving mixed faith marriage. It all depends on what you believe is possible for your marriage.

What if I were to tell you that you could choose to believe that a mixed faith marriage was ideal? Does that sound crazy? It may be, but it also may help you create a great mixed faith marriage.

Do you need help believing in your marriage and its potential?

Join my group program – Strengthening Your Mixed Faith Marriage. This 12 week program starts in Feb 2022 and will teach you all the tools to help you believe that your marriage can be great so you can then create a great mixed faith marriage. (Cause that is how it works!)

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com

Does it seem like every time you talk about church it ends up in a fight?

I had a client come to me and ask – how can I communicate without anger?

I remember being at a restaurant where we were talking church and faith transition. It was not pretty, even the waiter was uncomfortable. I chuckle now, but at the time no one was chuckling.

First, it is possible. Let me offer you a few ideas to help if this is your pattern of behavior in your relationship.

Get curious about why are are angry. Do you feel attacked? Or defensive? Or both? Why do you feel attacked or defensive or afraid? Sometimes anger is what surfaces when we are sad. Many people respond to sadness with anger, as anger can feel better than sadness.

Stop blaming. Often our first response to a fight is to blame the other person. Its their fault for saying ____, or doing_____ ,or looking at me a certain way, or speaking in a certain tone. Brene Brown says, “Its so much easier to cause pain then to feel pain.” Blame is a way we deflect our own pain or emotional turmoil onto another . It makes us the victim and our spouse the perpetrator. It makes us powerless. It solves nothing.

Take responsibility for your emotions. This is BIG. This is also often a new skill for many of us. My youngest is in kindergarten and he is taught so many emotional coping skills . If your education was like mine, that was NOT part of your kindergarten curriculum These are things I am just figuring out 40+. Taking responsibility means to allow yourself to feel your feelings. Allow the sadness, the hurt, the frustration. Emotions are not problems, They are not to be ignored or discounted. They are to be felt and to be experienced. This does not mean you need to ACT sad or hurt or frustrated. Feeling and acting are different. Feeling is key to dealing with life and communicating effectively . When we are emotionally flooded and not actively feeling the emotions we turn off our pre frontal cortex and act like animals. Literally we are now being run on flight/fight/freeze. this is why so many of our conversations about church end up in a fight. We stop thinking rationally and let our limbic system take over.

Do you need help to stop fighting about church. I did. let’s talk and see if coaching is what you need to stop the pattern of fighting in your mixed faith marriage.

In my group coaching program – Strengthening Your Mixed Faith Marriage – we talk A LOT about communication, emotional responsibility and how to really stop blaming. When you get these things figured out, you have so much space to just enjoy your marriage. Get on my calendar and schedule a free call with me to see if you are good fit for coaching.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH BROOKE

Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach
BrookeBoothCoaching.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com