(00:00) I’d love to invite you to a free reclaimed woman masterclass on June 5th so this is for all my ladies who have followed the good independent girl rules and who still feel overwhelmed resentful and disappointed in their lives you may think that you need to practice or learn or study how to be more soft and slow and abundant and pleasur le as a feminine woman or maybe you think you have to be brave and courageous and finally stand up for what’s yours but the truth is that chasing femininity and fighting for power just leave you more
(00:40) wired judgmental and disconnected I know what you need because I have walked this path into a deep love affair with myself I know that you need a huge permission field clear manageable steps and perhaps my fairy dust to help you remember who you are your femininity will naturally and spontaneously emerge when you feel safe so learn how to give this safety to yourself and to attract those who offer it I’ll be teaching the three most important ways to turn pain into pleasure including the source of all suffering and how to identify it the
(01:21) only spiritual practice you’ll ever need and the key to True power as a woman I want you to imagine what it would feel like to be safe in your body and in your world no couples counseling therapy or International treaties required to have clear intuitive signs in your body that you can trust to experience creativity that inspires you to tears to feel resilient in the face of judgment criticism and life curveballs so join me for this free reclaimed woman masterclass on June 5th at noon Eastern there will be a special offer for 40 of
(02:05) the gals on the call I will see you [Music] there I’m Dr Kelly Brogan you may know me as the New York Times bestselling author of a book with an exploding pill on the cover Renegade psychiatrist P dancer or honorary member of the disinformation Dozen what can I say I’m a a born provocator I’ve spent most of my recent life exposing deceptions connecting dots and discovering the secret places my inner victim is still waiting to be liberated and now I feel called to help you reclaim all of your parts your health your sexuality your power and
(02:48) your expression so that you can finally truly own yourself I want to ignite in you that inner knowing and the pulsing Vitality that lives beneath your disempowerment disconnection and resentment so that you can audaciously courageously and playfully alchemize your struggle into the specific pleasure of who you are this is Reclamation radio a soulfire production hi and welcome back to Reclamation radio I am Dr Kelly Brogan and I am so thrilled for this interview today I’ve been looking forward to it for over a year I wasn’t sure I could
(03:27) manifest it and I am really anticipating blowing many a mind today with this conversation but maybe not also because I am here with Laura Doyle and she is the author New York Times bestseller of the surrendered wife which is the first book that I read with just this the title right just the title right and also the empowered wife she has a podcast and on her website she boasts that over 15,000 broken marriages have been fixed better than new she is my go-to resource for literally every single couple I know I’ve become a proz zealot for your work
(04:09) and you have jailbroken me from so many of what I think were a lot of and we’ll get into this like a feminist you know sort of Echoes and as somebody who has been Awakening from a lot of feminist programming and I would say specifically neoliberal feminist programming I also was sort of ripened for your work and your message by many other avenues you know Christian friends that I have and the values that you know they were sharing with me and the way that they were embracing marriage even scientists and researchers and career women
(04:47) choosing to have an experience of their home life that would have been an athema to me you know even five years ago and I was ready to receive that I also have been studying you know David daa’s work and Omar P’s work and it coaches who really encourage men and women to relate through intentional organized energies to really kind of get in their Lane and when I encountered your work it was probably a little over a year ago now and I honestly don’t remember I have like a very mystical experience of books like they just arrive in my hands I I
(05:22) don’t even remember where your book came from and I remember I was sitting on a plane reading the surrendered wife and I felt some degree of self Consciousness even about the title yeah and then I finished it and I was like okay if I’m a controversial woman on the scene how is this woman not burning at the stake like I don’t understand so I am here you know in your corner cheering you on because I think that you you have such not only important message but also the proof I’m an outcomes girl and I listen to your
(05:54) podcast and I hear woman after woman after woman come on and tell stories that would otherwise be unbelievable I think if you didn’t have the actual real live testimonials describing how these marital dynamics that anyone would leave for dead I mean just like totally dysfunctional horrific situations somehow turn around so I want to welcome you Laura and I want to dive in really with your primary credential which is your own marital experience and how you got into the work that you do really Rabel rousing in the you know marital
(06:36) Health if we could call it that space and specifically empowering women to change their experience of romantic relationship so if you could tell us a little bit about your your background your story that would be an amazing place to start well I I was the perfect wife but then I got married right so that that’s the beginning of my sad story definitely not a relationship expert thank you for that beautiful introduction by the way that’s I’m so honored to have you in my corner and reading the surrender wife on a plane so
(07:08) it does take some courage to crack that book with that title so anyway I I was really happy to marry my husband on our wedding day but a few years in I just thought well I’m gonna just improve them a little you know I’m going to show them how to be more romantic and certainly more ambitious and tidier and eat healthier and maybe drive better and things like that and so you know know he was avoiding me and he was more interested in watching reruns than he was in talking to me spending time with me or even making love to me which I
(07:37) thought well that’s just weird definitely there’s something wrong with him so I knew what to do I dragged him to marriage counseling and I remember we went for over a year and we spent many thousands of dollars and I remember sitting on the counselor’s gray couch and realizing like oh this is hopeless I’m going to have to get divorced or else I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a Loveless marriage so I felt like you know that was the the right decision was to get divorced I was going to have to but I was too embarrassed to
(08:07) do that so I decided as a last Stitch effort I was going to ask women with happy marriages who had been married a really really long time which was 15 years what their secrets were because if they could make it for 15 years then they they must know something because I’d only been married a few years and the things they said sounded crazy to me like I didn’t even understand I remember them saying things I’d be like yeah have you got anything else CU like you know and I’m a well-educated feminist myself right so I didn’t want to you know I
(08:36) knew my opinion counted and all that but anyway I started experimenting with their crazy suggestions and it wasn’t that long after that that I walked through the door and my husband’s face lit up he was he was happy to see me again and that had been gone so I knew something was working and it was very exciting because I thought okay now I know what to do to have the kind of marriage I really wanted so badly which was you know playful and passionate and I thought okay I you know I can do this I thought now we’re not going to have those big
(09:10) blowups in the car or the cold Wars with no talking that last for days and and it wasn’t that long after that we had a big blow up in the car again and I thought oh okay I know what to do and I’m not doing it and like how sad would that be because before I just thought this is hopeless but now I know where my power Li I know some things that I can do but I couldn’t get myself to do them consistently so I had the idea that I was going to recruit some of my girlfriends who were also complaining about their marriages I’m like okay I’ll
(09:40) get them to do this with me and we had a little support group in my living room there were five of us and that worked we were getting together and they were reporting Miracles one of them was like my husband won the sales contest at work and he took her on the most romantic getaway of their lives another one said you guys aren’t going to think this is that big but my husband painted the family room and we’ve been arguing about him painting the family room for months and he got not only did he do it he did it with a smile he was happy to do it so
(10:09) we knew something was working and someone said can you write this all down what we’re doing for my cousin in Florida and I was like oh yeah I’ll do that we’re in California and that became my first book that became the surrendered wife which and I was in my own little world I thought this is a beautiful title because surrendering is it doesn’t mean doormat or we or wussy it just means like when you’re driving in traffic might wish the traffic would move but you can’t make it move but you could decide to listen to a podcast or
(10:40) music you love you could end up being grateful for the time and just a surrender wife just know she can’t control her husband she doesn’t tell him what to eat for lunch or you know when to call his mom or go to the doctors or buy his underwear and in turn she just she just focuses on her own happiness and that and it actually Improv proves the intimacy and the connection and the playfulness and it all comes back roaring back to how it was when you first fell in love in my experience and now you know when dayline did a expose
(11:11) they didn’t always just do murders they investigated my workshop on the surrendered wife and they did an in-depth investigation of it and the book with surrender wife went to number one on all of Amazon the next day it’s been published in 19 languages in 30 countries it started a worldwide movement I was just trying to fix my own marriage and I knew I needed those other women to help me do that and so anyway I’ve been able to distill the techniques into six intimacy skills that’s what’s in the empowered wife and so my
(11:41) credentials are just you know I am married now for nearly sry 35th wedding anniversary in September and it’s the man of my dreams and we I have the marriage I always wanted he grabs me in the hallway and just brings me in for a kiss and it’s staying in this conversation and talking about about how to apply the intimacy skills and really just become my best self you know I I no longer nag or shriek or rage at him to get the things that I want in my relationship and he’s just always going so far out of his way to make sure I’m
(12:16) happy he just wants to be my hero and I want to be the princess and that’s what we’re doing so I’m just loving it exactly so I had a practice a psychiatric practice in Manhattan for a decade and I noted I was happily married throughout and I noted that I had an almost 100% divorce rate in my patients from beginning to end of work with me now my work was in helping women to come off of psychiatric medications so I sort of figured well it was you know they were one woman when they started the meds and now that they’re off they’ve
(12:50) they’ve changed and it’s just meant to dissolve I didn’t know what to make of the phenomenon then I went on to have an experience of a wild pride of a lifetime and went through not one but two divorces so I am now twice divorced and in my past couple of years of celibacy I have dedicated myself to understanding what healthy love is to learning how to love myself and perhaps readying at some point in the future after my kids are out of the house for another shot at it right but what I have come to appreciate
(13:25) is really the sacred nature of the Covenant of marriage and I don’t mean necessarily the legal license I mean what it is to come together in service of this iggor this third entity God if you will or or whatever it is that you are dedicating to that represents that Union right so the some greater than the parts and I’ve heard you say you know that you can have control or you can have intimacy and that is exactly what I have observed is the nature of the shift from victim Consciousness which is a lot of what study into Sovereign
(14:01) Consciousness or mature adult Consciousness that allows you to actually connect you know with what is around you let alone you know this partner so I watch now so many women as I know you do in these dynamics that are essentially Warfare based right like there are zero sum games and and we have this inculturation to make you know our partners wrong so that we can feel right but trouble is then you’re married to somebody who is fundamentally wrong it doesn’t work and I love the traffic analogy because when you know you’re
(14:38) externalized in your locus of control it is really a root of so much suffering because you’re in your childlike Consciousness so I wonder what you think because I have all sorts of theories about how we got into this situation as women but I wonder what you think about the core problem right because if I think you and I agree that marriage serves women it serves women it serves children it is fundamentally you know a covenant that has been maligned by so much of the feminist impulse and I do think there is an opportunity to reclaim
(15:12) it yeah so what do you imagine is at the core of I’ve heard statistics I don’t know you probably know better 70% of women leaving their marriages I left both you know what do you think is going on what do you think is the problem well I remember there was a study at the University of Toronto and what they discovered is that women are more emotional than men and I’m glad you’re sitting down well I tell you this right because shocker and I mean that was research money well spent right but I know for me I was I mean I am I am an
(15:46) emotional creature I I I consider it a gift we have emotional Brilliance as women and I know for me I had a lot of fear coming into my marriage that it wasn’t rearing its head as much when I was first falling in love but it was it was a part of me that I had long before I met my husband and one of my big fears I think we all have our own themes right our own little fear friends one of mine was fear of financial insecurity so I had a subscription to fear of financial insecurity daily and I actually got it like five times a day and I would read
(16:18) it and it would freak out every single time like oh my gosh you know and then and my fear was what was underlying my control so I would say to my husband like you know I think you should ask for a race or I think you should try to get a better job or I think you should try to get more money somehow and all of that was my fear coming out right like before that I had you know I trusted him as he’d been a good provider anyway and now all of a sudden I was really choosing that fear and that was coming out of his control and really what he
(16:50) heard was um you don’t make enough money that was the subtext and I’m such a powerful manifestor you know the man quit his job he stop making any money cuz that’s what I was focused on was you don’t make enough and then I was livid I was beyond resentful because now I’m the sole provider for the family and it was unbearable you know I just couldn’t believe and then because of the Dynamics we were having you know he also wouldn’t do any houseworks I was like what do I even need him for like how is this even benefiting my life so that control was
(17:25) really that’s what got us into the ditch in a big way and it didn’t seem Poss so then I would complain to my girlfriends right like oh my gosh my husband’s such a loser McLoy pants who’s not even working and not even making money and I remember around that time I had listened to Lee miltier and learned about I call it a spous fulfilling prophecy and she talked about how what you say to other people has a great deal to do with how they respond to you and I that concept kind of blew my mind but I was like what
(17:56) do I have to lose and I I remember coming up with my own spous fulfilling prophecy for my husband John I said you know you’ve always been a good provider and then just for fun I started also calling him Mr Moneybags because why not and this kind of felt like it felt like a stretch certainly maybe a lie really because he wasn’t providing at that time but I started saying that like well you’ve always been a good provider and you know and he’d you know get a check or something I’d say oh look at Mr moneybag and then I remember around that
(18:24) time he started his own company and it was like right in his wheelhouse he’s a video guy and he had a video company and he was so successful he was more successful with that company than he had been at any of his previous jobs and it then it didn’t seem like stretch at all anymore to just call him Mr Moneybags and you know see him as a great provider so I I just got my own demonstration of like wow my my words what I’m focusing on has so much power so I could have gone with the fear and just left him and said well I’ve got to find a guy who’s
(18:56) more ambitious and harder working or whatever it really it was all up to me but the journey that I went on that I think is is so relevant to what you’re talking about is really addressing that instead of just letting the malware run in my brain like oh my gosh we’re not gonna have enough money to pay the rent or not you know I won’t be able to pay the car registration or whatever we’re going to be homeless to really arrest that malware and figure out how to focus on really finding my faith it is kind of a spiritual journey in a way but
(19:26) focusing on the experience I wanted to have instead of the one one I didn’t want to have because what we focus on increases I would love to explore a little bit more about your perspective on how couples best manage finances because I think there is so much that makes extraordinary sense and that I think does raise a lot of fear especially for women who have been raised in you know waves of feminism that suggest if you are not financially independent and we have all of these egalitarian Dynamics we have women who
(20:01) are you know more than half I think the latest statistic of women in marriages are Breadwinners and you suggest that we consider relinquishing control over the finances and really you know you have this message woven throughout your work which is to allow men to fail right like to to allow them to potentially not be perfect allow them as you described you know allow him his moment of iing his right to be wrong right yes exactly so in in your mind what does it look like when a couple is properly harmonized around finances like practically like
(20:41) who’s balancing the checkbook who’s paying the bills who’s pulling out the credit card is it different if a woman is working right because I’ve become a Believer as you know somebody who’s been the bread winner been the single woman earner I am a believer in masculine providership I believe that women are designed to be provided for and if you want to be a seven figure boss babe at the same time wonderful because your creative energy is not going to pay the bills and keep the lights on and I don’t think that’s how it was designed as
(21:10) somebody who does that literally on a daily basis so I wonder how you think we are best expressed you know in in this diad when it comes to finances well I just know for me right you know when when I first met my husband he was working he had a good job and I was a full-time student who was broke and so he was taking me out and and was that provider and I remember having this really embarrassing conversation where I was like oh my gosh I have so much credit card debt and he was like okay how much and I was like
(21:39) $700 he’s like how about if I pay that for you and I was like really you know so we that was certainly part of our courtship was him being like I will take care of you and that was romantic it was that was exciting and then once we got married I think even before that I think even as as we were living together before that I was like okay I’m going to here I’ll I’ll I’m going to jugle all these bills I’m going to balance this I’m going to make sure we spend on the right things and I would tell them like hey don’t buy a coke at the restaurant
(22:09) you know we’d be out to dinner like don’t order a Coke that is a ripoff and that’s where the restaurants make their biggest profit or whatever it’s like so embarrassing but I so I got really controlling about the money and I was trying to economize and juggle and it was it was not that fun we really lost something in that whole you know I’ll be your hero and then I would get to feel taken care of and so for me it was like a journey to coming back to like you know what I really loved that feeling of being provided for I I desire that and
(22:40) honoring that desire and also kind of honoring that it stressed me out it stressed me out to look at the money all the time and try to juggle it and figure it out and also him not really knowing the score let’s say right like in a basketball game if he didn’t see what was coming in and or going out like he was just kind of riding along I felt like the mom and he was my little boy and that’s not a good sexual dynamic in your marriage for sure it was hurting us for sure and so for me it was just the scariest thing in the world since that
(23:11) is my fear friend is financial insecurity right but it was also such an incredible I don’t know Adventure I guess to relinquish control the finances I wasn’t very good at it at first but I was like you know I’m too stressed I can’t do this and he’s he was like okay you know I’ll do it and and it was awkward first because he knew I didn’t really trust him to do that at first and I I am a big earner I always have been a pretty good earner myself so it wasn’t about I can’t make money it was just about wanting to yeah wanting to feel
(23:44) taken care of trigger his hero jeene and that’s what relinquishing control the finances did for us is all of a sudden like when he started that business right he he got so much more motiv that was going on at the same time he got so much more motivated like oh I can and really provide for Laura and I could also express my desires to him and you know for whatever it was I I want to go to Hawaii or I want to whatever and then he got like oh I’m gonna make that happen I’m gonna I’m gonna be her hero and so if it required money he’s like no
(24:16) problem I’ll go out and make some of that money so that she can have oh she wants this bigger house or whatever so that became very inspiring to him so it’s just a much nicer Dynamic at our house so it’s something that I recommend that women experiment with if they’re willing I mean all the intimacy skills are experiments and that’s probably for me it was one of the more terrifying ones was relinquish and control the finances we we did have like a bumpy road we got the electricity turned off twice I remember but then I realized
(24:46) like oh he can like learn about that he can have life lessons instead of wife lessons and he did like he figured it all out now it’s great so it’s something that you know it’s not for the faint of heart you got to be courageous to do a lot of the intimacy skills but for me that’s the exciting part of it is really figuring out what you’re afraid of and making a different decision to experiment a little bit and then finding out like oh you know you did actually make a wise choice when you married this man you were smart back then you weren’t
(25:18) an idiot and neither was he and let’s go back to acting the way I did when I first fell in love and he was showing up that way and see if he shows up the way he did when he wooed you and that’s certainly what happened for us and for you know so many thousands of women who have started using the intimacy skills I love that I do think it is the great yearning of the feminine heart to trust and respect the man that we choose and if we are the interference you know that is being run between our lived experience and our our you know that
(25:55) yearning becoming a reality it means we have have you know these opportunities and it does not mean they’re going to be comfortable necessarily and I love how you articulate and I I say this to my girlfriends all the time who you know we have this habit of I call it commiseration connection we have this habit as women of you know complaining about the men in our lives not just our partners and I always say you know get you know off the fence right if you’re if you’re choosing to be with this man here are these skills and I always you
(26:28) know share your work that you can begin to play with to see what the potential is and to see whether or not you can have an experience of respecting and trusting this man that you chose if you don’t choose him any longer you know there’s the door but pick you know pick uh the link and so you know you said that you weren’t so great at finances I have a lot of girlfriends and myself you know I have a lot of competencies I’ve developed a lot of these what I would call masculine comp competencies and I have a lot of friends who are frankly
(27:01) better at doing a lot of these life skills than their Partners or so they think right and that seems like the obvious shortcut is like I’ll do it because I can do it better and I know that you’ve experienced that extending into all arenas of life you know all of the details like you said whether it’s you know what to eat or how to dress or how to you know how to do how to paint the the side of the garage and you talk about how helping is one of the great symptoms of you know an unhappy marriage when you imagine that you are there to
(27:35) help your partner but if if some of us do recognize that we have a role in supporting our husband right what would you describe as the difference right so what is that sort of mommy likee control-based helping and what is serving and supporting like if you bring him a sandwich because you imagine he’s hungry does that count what about the you know we’ve already discussed not necessarily paying the bills just because you might be better at it so how do you sort of make that distinction yeah I mean I love I love that example
(28:09) well this is still okay I gotta tell you a quick story about Kathy Murray who her second marriage was in a bad way they were sleeping in separate beds for six months and it looked like they were just about to get divorced too they had a blended family and she read the surrendered wife uh right when it came out and she decided she was going to experiment with this phrase whatever you think and she was the CFO of a private school so she was to say she’s good at money right she managed like a $30 million budget at work or something and
(28:39) and so she was trying to help her husband be better with finances too and anyway she decided she was gonna just go home and like experiment with relinquishing control and not being so helpful I guess we would say because helpful in wife language like I need a mic to drop for this helpful in life wife language is critical in husband language it turns out so so she went home and he said oh you got to help me figure out what to do with the cell phone we need a new cell phone plan so what do you want to do and she goes oh
(29:10) you know what what do we think and he was like what like this is not normal for my wife like he was like skeptical he was mistrustful of this so he’s like no I need you to tell me what you want me to do because he didn’t want to get in trouble for doing it wrong and she just stucked to her gun she said whatever you think I trust you and he was like all right and he went away and made the decision about the cell phone plan and she was afraid he was going to mess it up and he did fine so that night that very night he came over he put his
(29:39) hand on her shoulder and he said you are so nice today and tears just rolled down her cheek and they slept in the same bed for the first time in six months and then she’d been going to marriage counseling for a what for a year by herself complaining about her husband every week and nobody ever got happier that way by complaining about their spouse for an hour a week as you know from your practice in Manhattan right but she so anyway she she started training with me the next day so it’s that’s over 20 years ago and she still
(30:08) gets tears in her eyes when she talks about how tragic it would have been to throw away Doug the the love of her life because she was so intent on helping him so now that said I mean Around Here I Am the reheater and server of food at the very least sometimes I cook but you know like to make him a sandwich or something I actually enjoy I love just I love beating my husband or I remember one time he called me on the way home from work and he was telling me about his day and he said no I’m gonna come home and
(30:38) you’re gonna pour me a beer and I was like oh yes I am like it was kind of he had this Swagger about him right I’m like that’s sexy so I mean you always get to do whatever you want to do in your marriage as helpful as you want to be now you know would I buy my husband’s underwear make his doctor’s appointments absolutely not because I don’t want to be in that mother role so I mean this is where everybody gets to be the expert on their own lives and decide what fits for them and even with the control right sometimes I’ll realize like I’m about to
(31:05) say something that’s controlling and that’s going to cost me the intimacy because you could have one or the other but you can’t have both and sometimes I’m like yeah that’s worth it right now you know I’m gonna just that’s what I want so I’m never going to be perfect as far as not being controlling I’m pretty good I’m better I’m a lot better sometimes I have to apologize for being disrespectful for what I said but I just think this the the news flash that a lot of my helpfulness was based in fear and control and being
(31:32) able to experiment with not being so helpful was I mean that made my head explode but it became a superpower to make that choice to maybe let him provide for me let him support me let him do for me you know he just he made my cup of tea here this morning and so I like to receive help and I think as a woman I know I’m built to receive physically I consider that a metaphor for receiving a lots of things I feel like I’m meant to receive gifts help compliments special treatment yeah I speak a lot about the victim triangle and the role of The
(32:09) Rescuer or Savior and so this doesn’t just apply to marital Dynamics because whenever we think that it’s our job to help especially when we have not explicitly been asked to do so it is discharging discomfort that we can’t hold in our own system and it’s infantilizing Ing and reifying the victim consciousness of the person who we imagine we need to save right so that’s probably the last thing you want to bring into this Dynamic and the fine line between you know helping because you you need to control the situation
(32:44) and you imagine you can do something better than the man who you are with because of his masculine competence right like that is a virtue in a man is his competence his capability his execution his you know action-oriented life for course you know it’s quite a different thing than feeling into how you can support him to you know be a better man so maybe you’ve gotten the memo that our food and soil is depleted of minerals and Trace elements and you’re wondering how to best supplement with those so I personally take and have for
(33:20) years something called Kinton which is from Quicksilver scientific and it is plasma seawater it has over 78 bioavailable minerals and Trace elements and you can either take isotonic or hypertonic preparations depending on your needs there’s nothing else in it no additives nothing else no sugar and I personally feel the difference when I take it so if you want to check it out you can head over to show notes or go to Quicksilver scientific.
(33:49) com kellyb and you can use the code kellyb at checkout to save 15% off your purchase you mentioned coup’s counseling I’d love to talk about this I think this is mind-blowing for a lot of folks you know because what do people do when right they’re in the C got to go to marriage counseling youve got counseling right and I’ve done it myself in fact I worked with my first husband for a period of time with one of the best in the business Esther Perell uh I actually really love her and think she’s brilliant and I think the model
(34:22) itself is fundamentally emasculating at best right so you came to this realization and now you’ve operationalized this through your you know your coaching practice which is where I sent folks which is that couples’s Counseling doesn’t ever in your experience restore the marital Dynamic and its health and vibrancy and why do you think that is I know for me I wasn’t there to look at how I could be a better wife I just knew he was 99% of the problem at least and I was just there so she could fix so what a hypocrite right I was just very arrogant
(35:01) but I I I do think it’s a little bit of a hideout for Hypocrites if there’s two of you in the room a lots of blaming can go on lots of hurtful things and that in the short term that just feels so you know like it’s going to feel so satisfying to just tell somebody everything he’s doing wrong and have them confront him on why he’s acting like that and tell him to straighten up but it’s it was not it wasn’t that wasn’t satisfying it wasn’t yeah it didn’t didn’t help us get closer it didn’t never get me the marriage I
(35:28) really wanted and besides that though there’s also this other piece that I had no concept of which is the piece about respect I mean I thought I was respectful of course because you know I was I would let him know where I was you know if I went out or whatever I I didn’t leave a mess or I’d reheat his dinner if he came home late right like I was I was thoughtful and I was respectful of everything except for you know the way he dressed and the way he drove and a bunch of things so so I had no concept of it but I think one of the
(35:56) most disrespectful things you can Poss do is go into a stranger’s office sit on the couch and in front of your husband tell him everything he’s not doing right including like things in the bedroom that he’s not doing right or or like all of that so I felt like we started off you start off with this deficit this defensiveness of like being so disrespectful and respect Is Like Oxygen for husbands so that and then I mean I think our coaching organization we have hundreds of coaches and we only solely women and that’s because we I you know I
(36:30) believe that women are the keepers of the relationship I had the power the whole time just like Dorothy didn’t realize it and when you can support the woman really experimenting with the skills and becoming her best self and feeling empowered and getting her desires and being you know knowing what respect looks like understanding the difference and then feeling inspired and motivated to be respectful of the man she married or to be vulnerable with him to to be grateful for things that he does that is when we just it’s like it’s
(37:05) like lightning it like in a couple weeks she’s like I feel like I have a new husband so and that is not what’s going on in couples counseling right there’s a lot of complaining criticizing I mean not across the board I and I think couples counselors are good people like Esther PRL right good people that got in for the right reasons but I think the structure has been historically somewhat flawed and so there’s just there’s a better way we don’t have to focus on your childhood on the past on everything that went
(37:33) wrong we can focus on the experience you want to be having now and creating your vision what’s the kind of marriage you want to have you know if you have a a magic wand and you can wave it and we do you know this is this why we call the coaches very godmothers right because they really have special powers to help you create your dream relationship with the man you have and I just want to reiterate for the people in the back that your outcomes and I’d love to invite you if you have one top of mine because I know you have so many to
(38:04) choose from I mean I listen to a podcast that was of yours that was a woman who was literally being I know this is not typical but physically abused while she was pregnant okay so like if there are grounds for like this should end and the entire marriage turned around in none of these cases I think involve the man reading books taking special healing classes doing trauma work doing plant medicine none of these instances involve his participation at all and through one lens that’s saying wow we’re already having a bad experience and now you’re
(38:40) expecting us to do all the freaking work like how is this supportive of women and through another lens which is one I recognize from my own work it’s we have the power the entire time we are Alchemists and it just requires a reframe and an opportunity to walk through a maturational portal into our adult Consciousness so that it’s not necessarily altruism right like so that we can have the experience that we say we want as women this is the way so that is revolutionary because if if it only takes the woman to change the marriage
(39:22) and it actually takes these relatively basic skills and catchphrases I use I just said it to my Gardener downstairs I said whatever you think about the color of the mulch okay but it just comes out once you Orient towards how this becomes a safer world for us as women when we respect men show them appreciation and take opportunities to authentically express admiration we create a safer world and that’s to me that is the origin of our pain suffering and struggle as women is unsafety so if we’re trying to create a safer world
(39:56) this is one of the ways and it it just takes a little practice like you said sometimes weeks and I’ve had girlfriends who’ve operationalized and implemented your teachings and they say the same thing within weeks but it’s humbling it’s very humbling right very so I wonder if you could share you know an outcome or two just off the top of your head of a story of what is possible Right like what is possible when it comes to you know turning a marriage around you said you know you have 15,000 probably even more examples because the
(40:32) ones I’ve seen haven’t been cataloged on your right so there are there are probably even more out there but what’s an example of a woman using these what you call the intimacy skills we’ve touched on a couple to turn the marriage around without the active participation or her direction right because that’s part of the flawed premise of couple’s therapy who initiates couple therapy it’s always always the wife right so you’re already directing yeah you’re already in your masculine you’re already part of the problem even
(41:03) just initiating the solution so how could the solution ever come from that framework right so so yeah if you have any stories that illustrate what is possible when the woman takes this Initiative for herself let alone for her partner I’d love to I’d love to share those well I I mean I do love this story I think I know the story you’re referencing actually of she was a physician and she ended up in the ER from a physical fight with her husband while she was pregnant and the EMT said to her oh you’ve got to leave I come and
(41:35) get nice girls like you all the time and you know this time you know you just have some bruises but you know next time you’ll be dead so you have to leave him was her message and she was in med school at the time and you know she’s holding these pamphlets of these women’s shelters she could go to and she’s thinking but you know having a baby with my husband and I’m in medical school and if I you know if I go live in a shelter right now like you know what’s going to happen to me so she she went home and continued to have not such a physically
(42:07) violent relationship so much but they certainly had a lot of conflict and they had two daughters she was pregnant with her first so and what’s so remarkable about her story was so she decided to focus on some other things about her husband about why she had chosen him and she had chosen him she had very much said him hey let’s get married when they first met and fell in love and he was like okay and then she called her parents and said hey we’re going to get married and and then she had picked him for a reason so she decided to just go
(42:39) back to what are those reasons and you know why did I think he was so special and and she had remembered like oh he’s been through so much and he has been so courageous and you know been so successful in his life even through these incredible challenges he’s been through and she admired that and respected that and then she she learned some of the skills like she learned about how to resist bait so bait is anything that your husband might say that’s gonna invite you to do that old dance that that same argument you’ve had
(43:10) millions of times right thousands of times and you don’t want to have it anymore so she she learned some techniques and she she’s so cute she had this little song she had in her head when he said something where she would feel like I’ve got to defend myself or I’ve got to I’ve got to correct him she would just sing to her just keep swimming just keep swimming that was her little song swim past the bait and she said that her marriage transformed so much and that she was able to have so much peace in her home that it became like a playful relaxed
(43:42) environment we play and laugh when we feel secure when you’re scared you can’t laugh you’re not joking so anyway so she was talking about that and then because it her marriage transformed so much she’s now training to become a Laura Doyle relationship coach she’s she wants to be an expert on the six intimacy skills and help and she’s a physician she’s got a big career already very successful but this made such a big difference in her marriage and to and to her daughters she was so relieved as a mom to be able to provide that homec
(44:13) court advantage of two parents who love each other so so she just felt like she was no longer in to focus on this incident this you know we’d call it domestic violence it was domestic violence basically where she ended up in the hospital and she instead was going to focus on on the wonderful qualities about her husband and now that’s who she lives with so it does it sounds like unbelievable right it sounds fake like thank goodness I have the podcast I have them telling the stories in their own voices yeah because so much of it you’re
(44:39) like that can’t be right and people say oh she’s a domestic violence apologizer people yeah you’re enabling I’m enabling and I have to say you know when I first wrote the surrend wife I was afraid too I told people yeah if he’s physically abusive you got to leave and like I was the expert on their life right so I was sad about that because because I chose my fear instead of my faith and I had to write a mopa later on like you know what I I don’t know I I didn’t experience that every woman is the expert on her
(45:07) own life and she gets to decide what fits for her and women have taught me when their husbands are having Affairs they’re living with the other woman they’ve moved out they’ve said that this is I’m getting divorced there’s no hope I remember Cindy Cindy’s a good example of that where her husband and she she said we were Christians I never expected this to happen so it could happen to anybody but he started he took up with another woman then he moved out and he was living with the other woman and everybody knew about it and she went to
(45:34) marriage counseling for a long time and the counselor said well we can’t do anything until he ends that Affair he’s got to stop first and then she found the intimacy skills and started practicing those and she really regretted she’s like oh I wish I would didn’t waste all that time in marriage counseling just waiting for him to become accountable and you know own his part and end that affair because she was able to become her best self she did she practiced all the intimacy skills and magnetized him back attracted him back I remember how
(46:06) big we all celebrated it took a couple years he was gone and we all celebrated so big when she said like well you know he’s moving back and then it’s like oh my gosh he’s home and then like oh my gosh we have a good marriage again and so those stories never get old to me you know I’m always just so moved because of the courage and the commitment that it takes to save a marriage when it seems like like it’s beyond the pale so a lot of my friends want me to ask you about kids right so I know that you don’t have
(46:36) children but a I’m still the perfect mother yes yes yes and right exactly it hasn’t been contaminated a lot of your clients are mothers right and you just describe this situation where where these two you know these two children were in the house that could have been described you know as an abusive situation and it sounds like that marriage was restored I have become a fierce advocate for parents of children doing whatever it takes to stay together because I’ve raised you know my children in the setting of divorce I’m blessed to
(47:10) have chosen an extraordinary father you know their dad Andy and I get along very well and we have about as good as it can be and it is still a wound that I could cry about in 10 seconds you know that I don’t think it’ll ever feel something other than that and if I just sometimes wonder right like I’ve had a like I mentioned a wild Magic Carpet Ride of a life and it’s all been perfect and exactly what it needed to be for me to actualize and individuate and awaken and ignite all of these different aspects of myself and I
(47:44) just wonder you know like what could have been possible had I known what I know now about the role that a woman can play as a wife and so if we are on the same page about encouraging mothers to do whatever it takes to keep you know the marriage to the father of their children intact and everybody knows who’s raised especially young kids that it’s like an all Hands-On deck situation it’s not an easy polarity to nurture right where you know you’re concerning yourself even on a daily basis about how to nurture the marriage because there’s
(48:22) so much focus on just like getting the done that needs to get done and taking care of the basic Logistics and you become these really kind of like egalitarian Partners in a business you know when you are both parents so I wonder what you’ve observed and learned about how the skills translate in the setting of or if there are any modifications or adjustments or caveats you know in the setting of a household where you know the woman is the wife is a mother yeah well I I know for me that anytime I should do something like I’m
(48:54) so contrary I’m such a rebel like I don’t want to do what I should do I want what I want which is to feel desired feel taken care to feel adored to feel cherished so for me like I guess I I would never say to a mom like hey you you’ve got to stay married for the kids I what I would say to her is like yeah it really sucks to be in a struggling marriage I still remember how hard it was how stressful it was and you know what I want for her is for her to feel desired taken care of and cherished and I think she can have that and I know
(49:30) that every mother really wants the world for her child right that’s Universal and you know is having that homec court advantage of two parents who love each other is it you know is that a way to give them the world I think so I certainly think that I think most women want to give them that right and and want the husbands to be or you know want the fathers to be the best fathers that they can possibly be right so I think it’s just I think the really delightful part about this is her finding out like how much influence she has over that
(50:05) relationship and how you know I love the stories like once I remember one woman was trying to get out of the way of she had a you know it’s her her second husband so it was a stepfather to her 17-year-old son and she heard the the husband swearing at the sun like being super harsh inappropriate and it just broke her mama bear heart and she wanted to run in and protect the 17-year-old boy and she decided to experiment with that a little bit she decided to not interfere because she wanted to see what would happen differently she was
(50:37) experimenting with the intimacy skills and so she didn’t and she said she just went into her room to try to like stay out of it and she was so shocked a few minutes later she heard them both in the kids bedroom they were both apologizing to each other he was the father had apologized then the son apologized to the stepfather then they were both crying they were both crying and it just melted her like oh my gosh when I stay out of this relationship they find their own way and it’s maybe not going to look the way you think it’s going to look so
(51:11) I think it’s kind of exciting to think about what’s possible not to stay together for the kids but hey let’s let’s get you everything I mean I think your desires are important right you’re you want to have a hero or you want to feel safe you want to feel beautiful right who doesn’t want to feel feel like the most beautiful woman in the world to their man right to have him just admire her let’s get you that let’s get you all the good stuff in marriage so that it’s not a matter of staying together for the kids it’s a matter of like who would
(51:41) want to leave a relationship like this where it’s playful and passionate all the time like you know sign me up for that you use the phrase duct tape and it’s related to what you were describing you know and even with with sort of like singing yourself a song rather than intervening right and always exercising this impulse to no better you know to feel Superior honestly that’s what a lot of this stems from and to medal I have observed and I think you would agree because you mentioned it already that that driving right is probably one of
(52:19) the most diagnostic experiences that we have in Partnership when you as a woman let’s say you’re in the passenger seat when you cannot suppress your micromanagement of his driving whether it’s directions that used to be a big one for me of course there’s a metaphor in there you know right like knowing that oh no no no no we turn there you know kind of a thing or you’re driving too fast or watch out you know all of this passenger seat driving literally and metaphorically you know that we do and I have like challenged you know the women
(52:53) that I work with and talk to to to observe themselves as they drive with their husbands and to see if it’s possible I mean you’re choosing to get it’s the same thing you’re choosing to get in the car if you don’t feel comfortable getting in the car maybe either you should ask to drive and have that kind of dynamic or I don’t know Uber or whatever right or stay where you are if you’re choosing to get in the car it means that you are implying trust in the navigational capacity of this individual so can you just shut up right
(53:25) like can you just not say anything and put the duct tape on and it sounds like you know this duct tape concept of of simply not saying the thing right so you do give a lot of phrases that are super helpful like whatever you think when you’re asked for your advice because we love to give our advice and we love to feel consulted right so instead you say whatever you think you don’t take the bait of advising your man how to do his life than he would otherwise know but it sounds like there are other situations where you recommend just just not saying
(54:02) anything you if you can speak to that well it’s I mean again it’s like what’s the price of admission here and is it worthwhile it’s kind of funny I’m cringing a little bit as you’re saying this test because I’m still not such a good passenger like it’s it’s not one of my strengths still it’s like I I still get in the call and go oh my gosh aren’t you gonna take the freeway so I Funny of still working on that one and I think we yeah I mean whenever fear comes up I think being a passenger is actually kind of hard you can see everything but you
(54:30) have no control it’s a perfect metaphor so I mean and it’s always there for us I guess you’d say like me being a passenger and opening my and not wearing my duct tape right not controlling myself is gonna have a cost right I think my husband I mean it’s kind of almost a joke now because he’s like oh yeah are you okay you’re gonna are you g to do that now right you GNA tell me what to do I remember one time he picked me up from the airport and I had not done any kind of self-care that I would normally like to do I remember I was had
(55:03) gotten up early so I was sleep deprived I was really hungry just a cranky mess when he picked me up from the airport and I started telling him like no don’t go no don’t go that way no we’re gonna you should go this way and he looked at me and he just was like well it’s nice to see you too and I was so busted right I had to laugh because yeah he was calling me out now he’s used to being respected so if I get controlling like that he knows I’m not that’s not who I want to be and so he can call me out and now I have the ability to just kind of
(55:31) switch in like okay yeah you know I’d rather be the best Laura I can be which is a more respectful like thanks for picking me up thanks for driving me around rather than telling him what to do while we’re in the car so but I think it you know it takes a little Focus to get there if your habit is to be controlling so you and I speak the same language about self-care which was one of the I don’t know if you call it selfcare but the intimacy skills that that really allowed me to see I am in a very resonant space here because I have
(56:05) come to believe that a woman taking care of herself prioritizing her own pleasure her own happiness her own fulfillment and knowing what that is that this is actually the greatest contribution and most disruptive contribution we can make as women and you encourage that you just referenced it and from that self orientation comes an understanding of a relation ship with desire and you talk about expressing pure desire and I thought that was such an incredible reframe for me and actually even teach it to my daughters because our tendency
(56:38) is to really cloak our desire sometimes in an offer sometimes in a suggestion right so we might say you know we should go we should go out to dinner yeah or we should go on vacation or we never maybe it’ll be negative and critical right we never go dancing more when our Birthright is to channel right desire through our hearts as women and that expressing that is very simple right and you talk about how it can be as simple as saying like i’ I’d love right I’d love to go to dinner I’d love to go on vacation I’d love to go dancing and you
(57:17) use this metaphor for the sort of comprehensive experience around this of the restaurant right like ordering a meal at a restaurant and I wonder if you could speak a little bit to how we can really just simplify our relationship to desire when we know what it is that we want which is not always easy and and there’s right so much obscuring that you know how how organizing it can be to stay with pure desire yeah I love so much that you’re teaching your daughters how to express their desires in a way that inspires
(57:50) because for me this is like the number one thing I feel like every woman needs to know this because I spent so many years complaining and saying like you know I remember saying like John this kitchen is a disaster John I cooked so you have to do the dishes or hey John you know why don’t you clean the kitchen how about if you clean the kitchen and like none of it got me a clean kitchen not one time did that ever work until and I don’t even think he could hear me he just heard like John blah blah blah blah blah blah you know and I don’t
(58:18) think anyone can hear us when we’re complaining so it wasn’t until I learned this magical phrase and I feel like if you’re listening just write this down just write it down it’s I would love I would love and then just the final outcome so I just remember said I I would love a clean kitchen and he goes okay I’ll clean it and he did and that was over 20 years ago and he’s been cleaning it ever since and I do not do dishes around here that’s how motivated the man is to make his wife Happ why does he do them every day he knows it
(58:48) makes me happy and it really does make me so happy I don’t have to ever do the dishes so and it was such a big point of contention so being able to express a desire and they do become uncomfortable I remember when I I long long long wanted to have a pool but we don’t have any kids so I couldn’t say I wanted it for the kids I you know like I have to just admit that I want this really like indulgent thing a pool right who who no you don’t need a pool I just want a pool but finally I decided like you know what
(59:20) I’m gonna just honor that desire I’m going to hold it close instead of kind of like oh yeah it’d be great to have a pool or whatever and as soon I did like my husband moved Heaven and Earth we got like we got we have a glorious backyard Resort now and what was stopping me from having a pool me I couldn’t own that desire it was it felt too vulnerable anyway so now I have it and and this is what we see just in fact uh the coaches and I we just had a storytelling meeting on expressing Desires in a way that inspires and everybody’s just you know I
(59:50) wanted another baby and you know I just expressed as a pure desire and he’s like okay and next thing you know we’re pregnant or I mean it’s it from little things to you know I would love a cup of coffee to I would love to live closer to my parents I would you know I would love a new car and it just always feels like a miracle when things rearrange one of the coaches was telling a story about how her husband wanted to build a brand new house and she wasn’t that into it and she loved the house they were living
(1:00:17) in and then she said well you know I just would love if we could somehow live in this house while we’re building that house and he was like well financially we can’t do that and she’s like I know but I I would love it so this is a great example of having a desire without control or expectation or or blame or criticism kind of hidden in there she just wanted it and then a realtor called them and said hey I have a customer who wants this kind of house blah blah blah you know your house checks all the boxes are you interested in selling and she’s
(1:00:46) like well I don’t know you know what we wanted to do is live here for six more months anyway they ended up getting to stay in that house for six months after they sold it while they were building the new house so just a complete Miracle like how does that happen and sometimes it’s our husband making those desires come true and sometimes it’s us sometimes we are making our own desires come true or sometimes the universe just rearranges itself in its conspiracy for our greatest happiness and then we get what we always wanted and then our only
(1:01:14) job is to stay fiercely aligned with our own Desire with our own self- nurturance with our own self-fulfillment and to express that and mature Shore Beyond these reflexes that are based in I would say you know childhood psychology and Associated fears and wounds because the nature of the manwoman diad is such that he is literally designed to be fulfilled by solving the problem of your unhappiness like it’s such a beautiful technology and so complimentary yes and that is the nature of complimentarity which is so
(1:01:55) different from the Warfare mentality we’re steeped in and the Zero Sum games that we bring you know to bear in this Dynamic that is is designed for intimacy and I actually have you know all sorts of conspiracy theories about the dismantling of you know the the union and why that would serve so many agendas that can only be played out when we are atomized right when we’re in you know broken homes and children are raised in this kind of situation and women are fending for them M themselves imagining that we have won you know like and are
(1:02:30) enjoying all the fruits of feminism and Meanwhile we’re like exhausted and and flailing and really bere so I think this is is such Vital Information and you know all of the skills you have downloads on your site and they’re all in your book and you have so many resources and so much information it’s quite basic like I find that truth first of all it always feels good and it always feels like a remembrance it’s like oh yeah oh yeah okay you know and it doesn’t mean that it’s not like you said an act of courage to move in the
(1:03:04) direction of holding that vulnerability but you get better at it right like you practice it and you get better at it and I mean you model you modeled it in this hour like you are a woman I I hope that I also am this woman you know who models just taking responsibility like just owning it it’s actually funny right like it’s funny how we can be oh God you’re moral women right yeah takes the piss out of it and ultimately it becomes the channel through which we access you know that which we say that we want so I love
(1:03:35) this I want to ask one one final question just out of curiosity like what is the nature Laura of the the pushback that you’ve gotten you know have you gotten it I’m assuming you have I haven’t been exposed to it I haven’t seen any you know trolling or hate websites set up but I imagine that they they must exist and and there must be some push back I’ve gotten a lot from the neoliberal feminist world and I considered myself you know one of their kind at the beginning of my own you know focus on on women’s empowerment work and
(1:04:06) you know sort of weaving in Traditional Values Etc so I’m just curious you know like what have been the criticisms you mentioned abuse enabling kind of you know sort of framing of of what it is that you’re doing who else has come after you well as you say it you know I mean I just I just know I have my my critics I’m not aware of any hate sight so I’m like that’s pretty I’m doing pretty good I don’t have a hate site I guess or maybe maybe that’s a bad sign like I you know I not enough people have heard about me yet but you know I certainly
(1:04:35) get a lot of love I get so much love every day so I’m grateful for that there’s so many women who have taken up the mission to end World divorce with me you know that they feel called to that as well so yeah I mean and I have this Theory you know that I wasn’t ready to read my book until I wrote it like if someone would have given me this surrendered wife early on my marriage I would have like probably thrown it at them and said you know we talk about everything and I a feminist and whatever like whatever I would have said I wasn’t
(1:05:06) ready yet and so not everybody is ready or interested this is their path and that’s okay you know everybody’s yeah they she gets to be the expert on her life so um this for me the books the the coaching program the podcast you know the empowered wife book is that lays out the six intimacy skills is there for women who who want it who are are wondering what happened to their marriage why is it such a struggle why is it so hard and this is my experience and it might help you too it’s helped you know over 15,000 women fix their
(1:05:40) marriages so but it really just has to be that it just has to be like you know some people are going to like chocolate and some people are gonna like vanilla and so this is um this is an exciting path for me and for you and I think for a lot of women it is it’s because it feels I think empowering is really the right word like you you get in touch with your gifts the the five gifts of the feminine and femininity of the things that you really are meant to provide in your relationship and your relationship depends on and that the
(1:06:09) world depends on for strong families strong communities strong countries strong world so I I think it’s exciting I couldn’t agree more and I also recognize you know because you gather you have memberships and you gather women around each other you know role that we can play in each other’s lives in service of the collective in service of men in service of children and I I’m not sure there’s anything more powerful than that and it requires that we recognize the responsibility that we have I think that’s why you know one of
(1:06:42) the most common criticisms that I’ve gotten is that I am a victim shamer right so that is sometimes the the frame in the dominant Narrative of the you know sort of call to personal responsibility right when we’d rather be coddled when we rather just you know collect all of the the compassion and the you know sort of poor you energy that reifies our powerlessness rather than take responsibility and make changes in the direction of what it is that we say we want so as to resolve that Kink you know I call it of you know
(1:07:18) really fetishized victim Consciousness and it feels good until you know what else is possible and I think you you really have showc ased you’ve showcased that you’ve given the tools and steps they’re easy to learn and recognize maybe challenging on some level to implement but I know they get easier over time I think this you know these skills extend as I’m sure you would agree to so many other Dynamics and experiences as a woman as a mother in life and I’m just so grateful you know for your voice for your humility for you
(1:07:49) know this extraordinary Empire that you’ve grown and you really have an ally in me so thank you for this conversation and I’ll make sure all of the the links are in the the show notes Laura thank you so much Kelly yeah it’s what a pleasure it’s been a treat thanks for having me on your show
