In episode 45 of The Authentic Wife Show, you’ll learn why creating marriage health is good parenting and the huge mistake that many conscious parents make while raising their children. We’ll also discuss the importance of acceptance and how this is pivotal in creating marriage health

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Welcome back, beautiful, authentic wife and of you’re new here. Big hugs and welcome to you and I’m very happy that you’ve [00:01:00] joined me today. I am going to try to answer the question, why is marriage health good parenting? Because I know that it is like with every fiber of my being, I know that it is. But when you first get that question, it’s like, well, why is it When we think about relationships, we like when, when I just hear the word relationship, the first thing that comes to my mind is just, you know, a romantic relationship. When we think about friendships, the first word or the first thing that comes to my mind is relationships with.

Other females or other like non-romantic relationships. When we think about parenting, I think we often forget that parenting is just another relationship. [00:02:00] It is the connection between two people. Of course, you can have many children and you have a connection with each of them. And so, I think that’s confusing because.

Many of us grew up thinking that parenting was like this power over kind of thing, an authoritarian kind of thing that, oh, we have to be tough parents and mold and shape these kids and raise them up. Right? And thank God it has finally changed. It has shifted. In the nine plus years that I have been a parent and I am so thankful that it has, where now we are in a power with relationship with our children and you know, one of my friends says, I.

When she was raising her children, one of the things she always reminded herself was relationship [00:03:00] first, which means pay attention to the relationship before any kind of correction or anything. And parenting is just a relationship. It is two people figuring out how to do life together, being connected.

There might be some meeting of needs in the parenting relationship. The difference is that these children are dependent on us, and we do have to, number one, protect them, and number two, make sure their needs are met. They’re growing toward independence every day. They’re individuating from us every day.

But it’s still a relationship. We’re not just here to serve them. They’re not just here to serve us. It’s not a transactional kind of thing. You know, they’re not our little laborers here to clean the house or. Anything. And I think we’re finally realizing that our children are not here to make us [00:04:00] happy, not here to fill us up, not here to give us a love that we never got before they, they’re, they’re here as other humans and it’s a relationship so, I think that we miss that and then we think of marriage as something other than a relationship too.

We confuse what is supposed to be a relationship with some kind of transactional weird agreement. We sign this contract to like serve each other. And it gets kind of m like in the muck because we’re also trying to survive and we do come together with this one person in order to pool resources, you know, our inner resources like our energy, our mind, our bodies.

With, you know, these outer resources, [00:05:00] money belongings, house, there’s definitely a survival element to it, but the relationship itself has to be first. That has to be the foundation that the partnership rests on, and we have to have this beautiful, tight, trusting relationship before we’re even willing to share.

All those resources, and that’s what my new book On Boundaries really highlights and talks about is that marriage is this agreement of a sharing of resources, but it is not signing away. Your own resources to the other person. And specifically where that gets confusing is that like your husband does not own your body.

He doesn’t have a right to sleep with you whenever he wants. You know, you, you still have a say in how that goes. And just like he couldn’t you know, a lot of times men are the providers and you don’t have [00:06:00] a right to. All that money that usually there’s an a fair agreement where you’re putting into the home and to the family and stuff, and he’s putting in maybe the financial resources or his time and energy as well, but there’s some kind of fair agreement there and you’re still individuals inside of that sharing agreement so you don’t lose your individuality, your autonomy, that kind of thing.

The marriage is a relationship first. It is connection. It is respect. It is love, it is support. If you know me, you know that love is that energy that we feel. It’s unconditional positive regard for the other person. It is none of the neediness, attachment dependence meet needs kind of thing. That is care.

We’ve talked about that quite a bit. It’s a relationship. [00:07:00] So here we are in a relationship with our children and we try to compartmentalize our marriage as being something different. So, which is really what my journey was, was understanding how to be a conscious parent meant I learned different relationship skills and I was like, Wait a minute.

Why am I not just applying this to the relationship I have with my husband? Why is he off in some little box thinking that the way we would interact would be any different? What I was learning were basic human skills that apply to every human relationship, emotional intelligence, communication.

Empathy, understanding needs, understanding who somebody really is. Acceptance. These are [00:08:00] all just human skills. These are just re the relationships are our life. Right? That’s a essential human skill. You can’t, with rare exception, you can’t live on earth and. Not be in relationship with somebody somewhere at some point in time.

And we have been knowing relationships all wrong and there’s plenty of books, and even the Bible, Jesus came here to talk about, Hey, you were freaking doing relationship wrong. There is a better way to do it. And he said, be like a child. He said that over and over again. Have respect for children and be like a child, and be like a child, means that you come without judgment, without wounds, without your pain, without the rejection.

For who people are. [00:09:00] Children come to us and they’re just beautiful, loving beings who don’t have any of that conditioning and stuff built in until we give it to them. They are they’re present in the moment. They’re not worried about the past, worried about the future. They feel their feelings right in the spot.

They don’t pretend that they don’t have them. They don’t shove them down or impress them. So be like a child, have relationships better. You know I used to only feel comfortable with children, truly like, truly comfortable with children because I knew that I was entering a space where I wasn’t gonna be judged, wasn’t gonna be criticized, wasn’t going to be shamed.

Children are just so beautiful and so we’ve been told by all these gurus, be like a child, be present in the moment and have unconditional positive regard for other people. This is what you need to live a good life. You need to have human [00:10:00] skills. These relationship skills, we need to do it better. And so when you are committed to doing this for your children and to being a conscious parent, you cannot isolate your husband, your marriage, that relationship in an unconscious box.

You, you can’t pretend that it’s different. Then the relationship that you have with your children. You cannot pretend that because your husband is much taller, he is suddenly not worthy of empathy, not worthy of connection, not worthy of your unconditional positive regard. He’s not, we can’t say that he’s not able to make mistakes.

We can’t say that he’s unacceptable, just like we do with children. We can inhibit toxic behavior because some behavior is [00:11:00] unacceptable, but the person doing it is always acceptable. We have to separate behavior. From the person. And that is our goal. You know, if we have, if we do have a role as parents, it’s to not ever squash our children or put them in a box or condition them with fear.

But just to make sure that they’re not going down a path where they do behavior that’s unacceptable. And the way that we do that is by not doing it with them ourselves. So we don’t violate their boundaries. We don’t shame them. We don’t spank them. We don’t punish them. We don’t make fun of them. We don’t.

Dump our emotional stuff onto them. We recognize them as perfectly capable of learning how to manage those things themselves. So really the parenting role is just to make sure that we’re not effing [00:12:00] them up. We’re not giving them all these boundary violations and all these things that will cause them to then have toxic behavior traits.

And so we are adults and we have already been messed up by our parents in some way, shape, or form. And so now we need to do this growing up process kind of all over again. Because now we need to inhibit the toxic behavior, and it happens in ourselves first, the judgemental voice in your head, the one that criticizes you and tells you you’re doing everything wrong.

That voice needs to be eliminated. It’s not surfing you. The way that you violate your own boundaries by not taking care of yourself. And I mean like self care, like loving yourself meditating, getting mental rest, meeting your spiritual needs, meeting [00:13:00] your emotional needs, doing what I call emotional hygiene.

Getting enough sleep, getting enough water, those physical things that we do need to do, we violate those boundaries ourselves first. So we need to stop doing that, right? And then anything that we do that violates another person’s boundaries, so insulting their thoughts, feelings, ideas, we can’t do that.

Letting people. Like giving too much to people, not having actual agreements. It’s the boundaries I talk about all the time, creating fair agreements, but those making sure we’re respecting other people by not doing more for them than what we’ve agreed to do. So not taking on other people’s stuff as our own.

Not trying to fix things for them or heal them or solve all their problems. Take away any of their discomfort. This work is an internal process first, where we inhibit our [00:14:00] own toxic behavior. And then because we know how to do that, then we can begin to do it with other people, especially with our husbands or your spouse.

Then you make sure that they are not the one criticizing you, that they are not the one taking up too much of your resources. That if you have unfair agreements, now you change those and find fairness. Not equality, but fairness. You’re already equal people, but I mean your agreements will not be perfectly equal.

Like you’re not gonna both do 50% of the trash, right? Like you’re gonna find an actual agreement of the way that you both utilize your resources that is fair for you. Of course, you are equal as humans, so it’s all relationships. It’s, that’s, that’s all it is. So p good parenting and good marriage are one and the same because it just means [00:15:00] that you’re good at relationships, that you have these basic human skills, you know how to relate to another person.

So those are like, The actual skills that I teach in the second half of my program where you learn how to be empathetic and you learn how to protect your boundaries. You learn how to communicate. But they’re also these just skills of not, not really skills, but just a way of being, shifting into love of healing, all the stuff that hurt you of taking ownership.

Over all the things that are yours and giving back other people ownership over what’s theirs. You, most of us have to go through that process of individuation or differentiation that we didn’t do with our parents. We need to do it now. We need to step into that empowered adult self. And we need to trust [00:16:00] that our husband or our wife can do that as well.

But that requires us pulling back. And so we’re not enmeshed anymore. We’re not attached anymore. We’re not in a unhealthy wound up kind of dependent or codependent relationship, but we give each other ownership back over our lives.

Acceptance of your spouse. Is acceptance of your child, acceptance of you is acceptance of your spouse and your child. I wanna be very clear that we have to be able to accept all the parts of ourselves, all of them. Before we can be in healthy relationship with other people, we are all things, we are nice, we are mean, we are greedy, we are generous, we are liars, we are truth [00:17:00] tellers.

We are needy, we are detached. We are the light, we are the dark, we are all things. We are a full spectrum of human possibility and we have to understand that we choose which of those parts make us who we are. Every day. We choose. Do I wanna go be the light or do I wanna be the dark? But those parts are all still inside of us.

And in your worst moments, your most challenging moments, you are going to see the parts that you dislike come out, but the idea that you reject all those parts of you. Means that you’ll reject them when you see them in other people. And so this comes up in parenting all the time that you begin to see a part of your [00:18:00] child that’s been rejected in you because your parents rejected it.

So for example your. Child doesn’t clean up after themselves. And then you see this lazy, what you wanna call this lazy part of them because that’s what your mother called you. And so you’ve been conditioned with fear to reject laziness, and in your mind, it only looks bad. And so you’re judging it as bad.

And so then your child is in front of you and maybe they’re very creative. And super smart, and they go from one thing to the next because they are so in the moment and so brilliant. And they don’t think to stop and pick up one thing before they move on to the next, but that’s not the part you see in that moment.

The part you see in that moment is the lazy part, and you get afraid because you’ve come in conditioned with fear that [00:19:00] that is so bad. That there’s going to be a withdrawal of love or some other kind of consequence. And so in effort to protect your child, you think you’re protecting your child and to protect little you from feeling unsafe, you then absolutely pass the torch on and start to shame them and judge them and let them know that that’s completely unacceptable.

And listen. I have done this too. It is a very hard cycle to break. I’m not judging anyone who’s doing it. I’m explaining what happens and how this gets passed on. When you see that thing that your husband is doing, that drives you nuts. You are seeing something in yourself that you are either doing or you have rejected as well.

And so it is very hard for my clients to be able to accept their husbands and their entirety until they have [00:20:00] accepted these things in themselves. And guess what happens? As soon as they accept it. In their husband or in themself. Then they start to see it in their child because we are all things, your most triggering child will be the one who is most like you.

So the one who will awaken all the stuff in you that you need to heal is most like you and your husband or your wife are gonna do the same thing. They’re going to awaken you to who you really are and to what you need to heal and to what you need to love and accept in yourself. We can’t reject another without rejecting ourselves, but again, we do reject.

Toxic behavior, the behavior itself [00:21:00] can be unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to shame another person, to judge another person. Shame can be a little tricky one because they can technically do something wrong and you may use shame in a very conscious way, but by wrong, I mean like they could hurt people.

You know, if you go. Murder somebody, you’re probably gonna get shamed and deserve it. But most of the time we use shame as a inauthentic shame for something that they haven’t actually done wrong, but we were shamed for us. We pass on the torch, like I said, and we shame them for it when we reject another person, like if you say the whole of your father is rejectable he, he needs to go.

We’re gonna get divorced. You teach the child that people are rejectable and that who they really are [00:22:00] is worthy of rejection, and you also reject that part in yourself. And because we’re all people because we’re all things, rather, if you go meet somebody new, that part is also going to be in him, in or in her, whoever the new person is.

Because we are all things you have not addressed the root cause problem, the the inner trigger, the inner wound, the core wound. That is the thing, and I think I’ve shared here before, but when my parents divorced, I learned that who I was, because I was similar to my mom in some ways and was similar to my dad in other ways, I learned.

That I was worthy of rejection and really my so it was my dad who asked for the divorce, but then my mom talked about him a lot. And so I really got the messages that all the things that he [00:23:00] was well were bad. So people who were a little bit rigid had really strong boundaries were analytical, like data, thought about things.

All these things that I am or can be, I learned were bad. So then, Whether it was directed toward me or not, I began to reject all those parts of me and think there was something wrong with me and I wasn’t good enough and I was unlovable. So when you leave your spouse, you show your kids that something in them is unlovable.

So I want you to think of your family, kind of like a business for a minute. And imagine that you have this business and you and your spouse are, are the, the team running the business your customers are going to feel when that relationship is poor. And I think some of us kind of take this idea and we go, well, our kids are feeling [00:24:00] that it’s not poor and it must be him, or it must be her.

That’s the problem. So we want them to feel better, so they need to go, but that’s not the case because remember, it is the relationship that determines how well the team runs. It is not the person, it is the relationship because a great leader on any team is going to develop their people. They’re gonna inhibit toxic behavior that will not be acceptable, but they’re also going to develop their people.

If there is a skill that needs developing or their needs aren’t getting met, met, so they can’t do their job, the leader is responsible for that, right? They’re going to make sure they have what they need to succeed and encourage them and bring them. To their greatness, and that’s what a family team should do, especially every one of us in a family should be encouraging and inspiring the other to be the best person they possibly can be.

Nobody wants [00:25:00] to work for a boss who beats you down and points out your flaws all the time. That’s the kind of job you leave, right? Immediately. That’s why they say, you know, people leave bosses, not jobs. If you are doing that to your spouse right now, of course you’re not gonna get the best out of them.

Of course not. And if they’re doing it to you, you know, you the best isn’t gonna come outta you either, especially if you believe it. And that’s the problem, is when we believe it and when we don’t stop it, we have the power to stop it. We have the power to say, whoa. Mm-hmm. That’s not okay to talk to me like that.

I’m gonna go over here until you’re ready to talk with, to me with more respect or, you know, you’re judging me pretty harshly right now. And that tells me that you judge yourself this harshly. What’s up with that? Really explore those things the kids need, the stability and [00:26:00] foundation that family or marriage provides.

Imagine. That your business customers have to go to two different places, two different businesses to try to get their needs met. So like you both do the same thing, but customer has to get in the car and go to a whole different location to get their needs fully met. That is your children in divorce.

They’re constantly bouncing between these two businesses. Trying to get their needs met when their needs would most effectively be met by that one stable business where they have both mom and dad. Or whatever the case may be. Their parents there to give them what they need at once, where they feel safe to go about their business because home [00:27:00] is rock solid and supportive and kind and relationship comes first.

You can’t be a conscious parent and have an unconscious marriage. You can’t put your relationship skills in a box like that. Relationships are relationships. It doesn’t matter. The other person on the other end is an adult, is a child, is a stranger, is somebody you know, very deeply. Relationship is relationship and parenting.

Means having a good marriage. That’s part of it. It’s giving your children what they need, making sure their needs are met, having the partnership there to provide for them. Having that [00:28:00] beautiful stability. You almost wanna think of your family as having its own personal brand. And what is that brand? What does it mean to come from your last name, household?

What do you value there? What’s important? Would somebody walking through your door feel safe and loved and respected? Would they see how your relationship is with your kids or with your spouse and know what you’re about? How does each of your relationships reflect on you? What does it say about you? Who are you really?

Because what I did and what you might be doing too, is I was easily authentic with my children and easily inauthentic with my husband, and it wasn’t who I really was and I thought I was his fault but it was me compartmentalizing that relationship and [00:29:00] treating it entirely differently than I treated the relationships with my kids.

Thank you for being here. It’s almost summer. We are going to get some sunshine and vitamin D. Don’t skip on your vitamin D if you’re not on the sunshine. My husband went to the doctor again and his was low. Again, we have this issue over a decade ago. Is low and it feels like he’s out in the sun all the time cuz he golfs and everything, but it was low.

So check your vitamin D levels, especially if you live in the north like us. But check your relationship levels. Take care of your relationships, and they will take care of you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being you and I’ll see you next time.

To Learn More About Using Your Marriage to Become More Authentic, Click Here

Understanding your emotions is really a first step to healing because if you’ve been ignoring their wisdom all of this time, you will feel groundless and unsure of reality. You can start with my free emotion assessment called The Princess and the Peeve, and I highly encourage you to take my emotional mastery course, Royally Guarded.

To start understanding your emotions right now, CLICK HERE to download The Princess & The Peeve Emotion Assessment! 

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