I can’t improve my marriage because my spouse is not interesting in seeking help.

I hear this a lot.

Here is what I would tell you if you were my client:

1. It only takes one person to materially improve a relationship.

I know you may think I am crazy to suggest this. But consider it may be true. Your relationship is what you think about the other person. You can think anything you want. If you start to think differently and feel differently and act differently – you WILL get different results.

2. You cannot change another person. If you could, I would teach you how. But it is not possible. Your point of power is in you. You doing your own work on yourself is ALL you can do and it is ENOUGH.

3. Boundaries are what you will use if someone violates your health and safety. You hear  a lot of talk about needing boundaries. What people usually mean is needing others to change so they can feel better. Refusing to go together to therapy or to coaching is not a boundary violation. You can request your spouse attend with you, but they get to choose if they want to participate.

Each individual has to decide if they are willing  and how they will work on the relationship. Your approach may look different than your spouse’s approach. You have to decide that you doing the work will be enough and not choose to indulge in resentment that he/she is getting a free pass. You have to decide if you are willing to go all in because it is worth it. Then you have to remind yourself (like 100 times) of that decision.

I did the work on me and my marriage improved like150%. AND I knew that I had truly tried.

Is is time to go all in? Is is time to give it 150%? Let’s talk . One person is enough to make SERIOUS changes.

Are you ready to be that person?

Let’s set up a free call where we talk about your marriage and what you want to create and see if coaching is the right solution for you.

 

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE YOUR FREE CALL

Talk to you soon,

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

This used to be how my husband and I approached our marriage. We were taught this and it sounded good, right? It is very common marriage advice in LDS marriages. At least it was for us.

Over time, we have both come to realize that this idea was not necessarily working in our favor, especially in the face of a mixed faith  marriage. Here are some of our realizations:

• When divorce was not an option, we realized there was the tendency to feel stuck, like we had no choice. It most definitely felt like a life sentence and less like a the kind of marriage we had hoped for. It also felt like we were at the mercy of our 20 something selves.

• When we see divorce as an option it means we choose regularly to stay. We choose to do the work to make this marriage work so we want to stay.

• For me, it meant that I was staying because I wanted to. Not because I had to for financial or child care reasons. It helped me see the marriage as more than a social contract or a transaction.

• It also meant that we can reinvent the marriage. Two years ago we went on a trip we called our second honeymoon. We were celebrating our new relationship. We were recognizing that we were no longer the same people we married and where choosing again to be in a relationship with each other as who we were now and who we were 20 years ago.

• It gives us the courage to communicate about the issues that need to be discussed and not to avoid them indefinitely because they are ‘uncomfortable”. (Number one reason this idea can hurt a mixed faith marriage)

Now we tell each other that divorce is an option and today we are choosing to stay together. It may sound scary to some, but it really makes our marriage more real and more enjoyable. It creates a space for more honesty and more commitment.

Feeling stuck in your marriage? Feeling like you can’t or won’t talk about the hard stuff? You need coaching. I can help. It only takes one person to make a change in a relationship. Let’ talk.

Just CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE YOUR FREE CALL. 

Talk to you soon,

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

Church has been a pretty low key affair for the past 13 months in our house. We still do not have in person church yet (at least not full time and only if you sign up). This has meant that Sundays have been kind of nice for us because it simplifies our weekends. My husband puts in his earbuds and attends his meetings while he makes the kids breakfast.  

We also know that this will most likely one day end. Just the other day my husband looked at me and said something  like – this will all change once church starts back up again. We both looked at each other with a kind of knowing that COVID has been a reprieve but not a solution. 

For many with COVID restrictions lifting it brings up several things: how to negotiate Sunday and family time vs church time, how to deal with the decisions that were very conveniently but aside around the children and their church experience. Put another way, if you stay home and they go to church – what to do with the kids??? For many this feels like a kind of tug of war. Where someone loses and someone wins and both usually leave with a bad taste in their mouth. 

What is the solution? This is what many of my clients come to me seeking. How do we do this? 

I have lots of ideas. I have lots of suggestions. None of them really matter unless and until you do one thing first. CLEAN UP YOUR THINKING around parenting and around your relationship with the your spouse. 

When I say clean up your thinking I mean take a honest look at where you coming from around parenting and where you think your spouse is and close up that gap (sometimes it is really big).That gap is usually full of fear, frustration, confusion, and worry.

You can have the perfect action plan, you can say all the right things, but if you are deeply frustrated, afraid, worried and confused you will feel terrible and most likely not get a great result as you negotiate. Your conversations, will seem to always be fraught with tension and defensiveness.  

You may say things in a clumsy way or without being articulate, but if you have closed that gap and removed fear, worry, frustration and confusion you will have such a better chance of success. 

Are you ready to close the gap? Are you ready to have the talk with your spouse about what to do with the kids when it comes to church actives or church teachings? Do you need help figuring out how to close the gap? You need a coach. I offer a few free calls each month. Sign up for yours and lets find out what is going on in your mixed faith marriage and learn if coaching is right for you. 

 

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR A FREE CALL

 

Regards,

Brooke Booth, JD

Certified Life Coach

I have complied my own list here. Here I will share a list of resources for teaching kids character and values from a more secular point of view.

Before I go there I want to offer a few ideas to consider:

FIRST: It is totally possible to raise good kids from a religious viewpoint AND from a secular viewpoint. It is also totally possible to shame and demean kids from a religious viewpoint AND a secular viewpoint.

You know REALLY good people who were not raised in the context of the LDS church and its values and principles. You also know REALLY good people who were raised in the LDS church. My point is raising really good kids is not contingent on one or the other.

SECOND: How your kids “turn out” is not dependent on your parenting. You can do all the “right things” and and they won’t turn out, and vice versa. I want to pause here and talk about what it even means to “turn out.” Often that is just an idea of our kids acting similar to us and making similar choices. It may be other kinds of arbitrary standards that maybe do not correlate to our kids and who they are. I think it can be helpful to pause and look at your goals in parenting.


With that said, if you choose to approach your parenting from a more secular perspective – and there are many reasons to do this if you are in a mixed faith marriage or have gone through a faith transition, I wanted to compile a few resources for you to have as you parent your kids.

Resources for teaching kids values from a secular viewpoint

Note: These are all ones I have personally vetted. I know there are many more resources, these are just my top favorites.

–American Girl Doll books

Care and Keeping of You series

A Smart Girl’s Guide series

The Feelings Book

My comment: These are excellent. While they are aimed at girls, you can use them for ideas and sound principles to teach to any child.

-Dr. Shefali Tsbari’s parenting books such as The Conscious Parent.

My comment: This book is about a whole approach to parenting that I feel honors the child. When I child feels honored and seen then they are open to our teachings.

–Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson -No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

My comment: This was recommend to me by our daughter’s therapist. It was full of practical good advice. I think having a solid groundwork around our parenting makes teaching moments more effective. That is why I list these types of books as basics before actually teaching values.

-Brooke Castillo- The Life Coach School Podcast

My comment: This is a gold mine of resources for ideas to teach children. She is teaching adults, but I have taken her concepts and adapted them for my kids with a great deal of success. It covers topics like how to feel better, how to set goals, how to love, how to set boundaries, why change is hard, accepting pain, emotional processing, and on and on.

-Caroline Dweck – Mindset

My comment: Caroline is brilliant. She teaches about growth and fixed mindset and how to teach our kids to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is all about being wiling to keep trying, being wiling to show up and how handle hard things.


-Hire a coach/therapist

My comment – This has helped me so much in showing up with my kids and teaching them from a good place, free of shame, manipulation and fear.

-Your own imagination and your own example

My comment – This is your most valuable resource. You know your kids best and what engages them and what does not. You know what lessons they struggle with and what ones they get. We often underestimate our own gifts and knowing regarding our kids because we are afraid of doing it wrong or missing something important. What if you could set aside the fear of messing up and just lean into love and doing what you can for your kids and really let that guide you? You will do AMAZING.


Also, your own modeling of living a life based on values and goodness is more powerful than any lesson plan or talk. What you do is louder than what you say.

Do you need extra help figuring this out. Does it seem like you can’t seem to agree on the most important things with your spouse on parenting? We need to talk.

CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE A FREE CALL WITH ME. 

I offer only a few each month. Grab yours now!

Brooke Booth, JD
Certified Life Coach

In my work as a coach for Mormons in mixed faith marriages I am doing a multi part series on teaching kids in a mixed faith marriage. This is a topic that causes a lot of contention, uncertainty and stress. 

The issue I want to tackle here is – how to deal with your spouse teaching or talking about things that you do not agree with. This usually comes up in the context of teaching about gospel topics such as the law of chastity, modesty, priesthood, leadership, authority,  obedience, one true church, history (really I could go on and on). I have also seen it arise over whether one spouse wants a child to participate at all in church activities or in a youth program. 

Full confession, this happens a lot in our house. 

My husband has different political, social and religious views than me so this comes up in many fronts. 

I realized recently that one thing that tends to get me acting defensive, attacking or even just feeling annoyed is when I think my husband is confusing the kids. Which is the same as saying I don’t like how he is teaching them or talking about issues (church or otherwise). I find I try to jump in right then and there and counter whatever he is saying. This is often perceived as rude (maybe because it is) and often derails the conversation and leaves our kids feeling like they have to take sides. 

So when I find myself in that space where I wish he would just shut up or I am tempted to start pontificating – Here is what I do instead. I have to have a little conversation with myself that goes something like this. 

You are annoyed because you think he is going to confuse the kids. Or you think  they are going to one day disagree with your choice to step away from church. Or you think that they will walk the same path of frustration and conforming you did and unnecessarily. Or maybe you are afraid you might be wrong here and they will be confused or make choices that may be challenging for them and you. 

Take a deep breath. He is their father and gets to teach his kids what ever he wants. I get to teach them what ever I want too. But right now its his teaching/interacting time and not mine. I have plenty of opportunities to interact and share my ideas and opinions. 

I wouldn’t want him to counter everything I say to them and I can give him that same gift. Even if he does counter what I say, that is not how I want to show up in this marriage and in this family. I do not want to create a him versus me dynamic here. The kids are not choosing his philosophy or mine, they are choosing their own.

I want my kids to have lots of view points presented to them and that is exactly what is going on now. I want them to think and make their own decisions and they can’t do that without understanding and hearing several viewpoints. 

This type of conversation helps me calm down and often prevents me from sabotaging an otherwise enjoyable evening with my family. 

Let me point out the key aspects of my little chat with myself: 

1. We both get to teach whatever we want to the kids. We are both adults who have that autonomy. I do not want mine hedged and I don’t want to hedge him.

2. Kids are smart and they get to make their own decisions anyway (just like I did). 

3. I get honest with my self and ask, “How do I want to show up in this marriage?” Its not as someone who is petty or tit for tat, I want to be supportive and generous. I would rather be happy than right in this regard. 

I find when I can approach issues like this, then a lot of the details work themselves out. Solutions present themselves where we couldn’t see them before. When I don’t sabotage my husband’s interactions with the kids then there is more respect and kindness in my marriage. I feel better, so I act better. 

Do you need help balancing your beliefs with your spouse’s in your mixed faith marriage? You need a coach. 

 

CLICK HERE TO  SCHEDULE  YOUR FREE CALL WIITH LIFE ME.

 

Brooke Booth, JD

Certified Life Coach