Episode 9 – Small Moments of Generosity

Summary of this Episode

In this episode of the Generous Marriage Podcast we discuss:

• The story of Lily and John who felt like they couldn’t say anything to each other without it becoming a fight, and how making small acts of generosity with each other helped them recover their emotional bank account and remember their love and friendship.

  The Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor used by Dr. John Gottman to describe the connection partners have. When you turn towards your partner and try to connect – you deposit in your emotional bank account. When you turn away from your partner or when you miss a bid for connection your partner made, you withdraw from the emotional bank account. The currency is connection.

  When the bank account has a lot of money couples are generous with each other, and love is flowing.

  When the bank account is low on funds every little thing becomes an argument or a fight.

  When the bank account is in the red, it seems like the couple can’t interact at all without it becoming a huge fight. That’s when therapy is an emergency, or you might break up.

   

• The tool of daily acts of generosity.We created The Generous Marriage Restaurant Game that you can use for fun inspiration to help you be generous with each other. You can download the game below, at the bonus section. 
• Research by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia that found that couples with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were “very happy” in their marriages.That was especially true for couples with children: 50 percent of parents who reported above average scores of marital generosity, reported being “very happy” together. While only about 14 percent of those with lower generosity scores, claimed to be “very happy”.
  That’s more than 3 times happier for the generous couples. So if you want to be very happy in your marriage make sure to keep the generosity flowing between you and your partner.

   

 

Bonus Game: The Generous Marriage Restaurant

We created a fun game that you can use to help you be more generous with your partner and deposit into your emotional bank account.

To download the game click the button below:

The Full Script of the Show:

Welcome to the generous marriage podcast. Fight less, feel appreciated and have a deeper connection with your spouse and now your host Shachar Erez and Ziv Raviv.

Hello and welcome to the generous marriage podcast, where we work together as a team on helping you become better at connecting with your spouse or improving your relationship, your communication and also getting the benefits of having a better relationship through intimacy. And I am here as your cohost my name is Ziv Raviv. Together with me is our expert on the topic of what is a generous marriage and that is Shachar Erez. Hello Shachar. Hi Ziv! Hello everybody. Great to be here. This is the last episode of the season. I’m thrilled I the I’m, I’m excited as well and we have prepared you know the entire season is full of many goodies and I can meet my wife water. We are already in the process of actually doing some quality assurance and testing the different bonus materials that we prepared for each episode. And this is really fun because a does many games there and it has many that you’ve been using Shachar, with your the couples that come to you as a counselor.

And so today is going to be actually something extra special. Because it’s the end of the season, Shacha you and me we we really dialed in on this one and I dare say double down on on the preparation and we want it to be special for you as well. The end of season one of the generous marriage podcast. As always, we will start with a story about the couple that is actually going through a lot. So you might find yourself relating to some of the things. But or maybe even to one of the problems that are going through. But you can also imagine how hard it is because we all have those times where it’s really heavy to be inside a relationship and inside the marriage even. And after talking about the story Shachar, you will share with us a tool. A tool that can help you in your journey within your marriage to make your marriage something that is based on the values and the principles and the benefits of having a generous marriage. And we will also have a research that backs up the importance of the tool that we will share. But there will also be a little bit of, you know, a final words of summary from summarizing this actual season of the generous marriage podcast. Still a lot to look out to look out for, especially the ending. I mean guys, you really want to listen all the way today specifically because the ending is life changing. With that said, Shachar take it away. Let us know what we’re going to meet today.

Facing Challenges and Marital Distress

So today we’re going to meet Julie and Josh. Who are seeking therapy because they had a fight over a house project she asks him to do. He was a postponing, it sounds like a small issue and it caused huge marital distress. As I was, uh, listening to their story and learning about them, I understood that this was just a, just one piece of many challenges they were struggling with. They were going through in the last couple of years. They immigrated, they moved from London to San Francisco Bay area. He got a new job with a lot of responsibility that was a little bit over his head or at least very challenging. She, well both of them, but she gave birth, they had a new baby. They had already two children and they had a new baby in the house. His father died unexpectedly and he was connected to him. So it was hard on him emotionally. And it also started some ugly fight with his siblings. Just too many challenges in, in to such a short time, you know, in a couple of years. Well they were out of resources.

These are the, this is like, uh, the fact that they had this fight over a project in the house that was seriously like the tip of the iceberg. Yup. And they’ve been through, you know, immigration, which is changing your entire life. Basically having a baby, which is again, very, very challenging. You don’t sleep much and you need to to adjust them. The, I guess the older kids were having a problem to, to adjust to that. And that’s also a challenge. And then suddenly to have, you know, to, to in parallel to that too as a man to go through a new career and one that is extremely challenging for you. Like we all have this, this idea, especially in the corporate world where some people actually get promoted. One promotion too much, right? Sometimes it really feels like someone is, he has to deal with a world that is very challenging. It just feels too much. It might be not, it might be that later on they practice and they get better. But it is, uh, it, it fills your head with fear and then suddenly to have, you know, on top of everything to have that death in the family. It’s tragedy with your parents. And then to go into a dispute with your brothers and sisters about that, about heritage and, and money in that. Oh man, that’s pretty, really rough. Yup. Yup. And, and, and, you know, a lot of the therapy was about getting their life together. It wasn’t so much about therapy, it wasn’t so much about their issues as a couple in the dynamic and all the other stuff we talked about. Even though we, we touched on those topics with them. But it was a lot about, eh, getting grief over his job and learning to delegate and finding ways to, even though it was so hard to, to be more at home and help the family with the changes and finding, you know, he needed self-care extremely. Like he was way out of a resource. So it was about scheduling time to do stuff that he liked, like playing basketball and doing yoga and the things that fill him up. He was riding on the Zillow tank basically. He was like not able to be generous in that situation.

How to Become Powerful Warrior in Overcoming Challenges

Yeah. He had nothing to give. Yeah. And we also had to process the death of his father. You know, that’s a big thing. Of course, it’s huge. And they got some consultancy to help him with his siblings and resolve all of those, you know, ugly issues. It’s really ugly when you fight with your siblings. Yeah. A lot to do. It took time. It took more than two years. It took a couple of years of going through hell in a way. It was really challenging. Oh Man. They like, they rolled the dice and every time it was like against them. Like they didn’t finish one problem and then another one and another one. It’s uh, it’s, it feels sometimes like that in life where the problem is just the don’t stop coming at your door. Right. And it happens, you know, it happens in life like that. And we will call this episode today overcoming challenges because yeah, it was amazing to see them after, you know, after those two, three years when things finally got settled and these job and they felt at home and they had the community and the family issues with his siblings got resolved.

They became a power couple! You know, then you, they can overcome any challenge. They were so powerful. Their relationship really transformed and strengthened and I was so impressed to see them. Really impressed. Wow. How did you, like, how fast was the change in terms of the reason why they came to you? Like they came on in house projects problem. How fast was that resolved? Not Fast. I mean, it wasn’t a house project, Eh, it wasn’t to complete. We, we, we processed it, but it wasn’t completely resolved because there were other issues and there were just issues coming up all the time. It took time. It was very, it was a very challenging process. Uh, you know, sometimes in therapy, most of the time couples therapy is actually quite short. Like five to 20 sessions is more than enough for most couples. Usually just a few months, six months, and they’re out of the process. These guys, the universe was, eh, seriously challenging them. So it took a while. It took like two years with me and maybe, uh, maybe a year and a half with me and another two years before they came to me off. Rough, rough time.

Wow. Yeah. And again, that inspiring moments at the end of this process, well, you will see them working together and being ready for, you know, any, anything that comes their way. And that is something that that can be created after those long stretches of challenging years. And I I think that in a way they wouldn’t just unlucky. They’re also having something very special. First of all, they had, you know, the decision, the decision to change their marriage, they didn’t give up on their marriage. They’ve decided to come and ask for help. That by itself is a brave thing to do. But it also was there for them as something that holds them together because they really eventually struggled with making it work. Yeah, and this is an especially exceptional because in our society, in the Western society these days, it’s very individualistic. Marriages are not supported anymore the way they used to in. In the past, the marriage used to be held by the community and by the wider family and it was, you know, people didn’t get divorced much. These days like in San Francisco, the divorce rate is more than 50% it’s huge. It’s like a bigger chance that we’ll get divorced. So a couple of like this, that with all the challenges they decide we’re gonna get through this.

This is hard time, but we are determined. We are gonna to rescue our relationship and our family and the other side is just so yummy, so powerful. Their, their friendship became stronger. The way they knew how to cooperate was amazing. I was very inspired by them. Here’s what I, uh, I find inspiring. Like Josh came to you with so such a mess in his life with this feeling that is, uh, the one that makes us most shameful. Which is as, as men, which is that he’s not powerful enough. That he’s weak. He’s, he’s being, you know, attacked again and again, but by everything, by his brothers, by his, you know, he’s dad, died unfortunately. And, and at the same time, he’s, wife is obviously going through a lot with Beth. But with the, with the baby and, and with, uh, with, with Josh not being allowed because of his new job and everything. And, and at the same time he was courageous enough to say yes, not just for, you know, working on them on the marriage and other connection and, and the working together as a team through the help of the counseling of fuel. But also to say yes to what he needs. Like working on his body is a and do some yoga or do some basketball. Those things actually now one of the keys, right? And that is something that is very inspiring for me to be able to say “I need to make sure that I take care of me, of myself so that I can come back to my family and be there for them and support them”. And not be out of energy because I don’t do anything with my body at all. And I don’t do anything for myself at all.

Right. It was actually a multilevel, a operation in a way, you know. It was about taking care of himself through exercise and through good nutrition or better nutrition. And uh, and finding ways to support the family and getting more paid help to support her and the family. And finding another mediator to help with his siblings and all of that issue. And, and on the relationship level I gave them the tool. The tool that we’re going to talk about it later, which is a daily stress reducing conversation. Oh Man. I, I just, uh, you know, the more we talk about it, the more I understand why you prescribe that specific tool to these specific copper because they have, they have been going through a lot. So like if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking to yourself like, Oh man, you’re going through a lot too, then these tools specifically might be a lifesaver. Now, we still might be also good for you if you only have one reason to have stress in your life. But these couple had a lot of challenges and that stress as we will discuss in the end of this episode. Uh, like in the research phase, step stress is not so good for you. I mean, oh man, stress can be dangerous. Yeah. We live in, in the age of stress. So these guys had, wow, unbelievable stress. But a all of us these days, or most of us these days live stressful lives and stress is the research, the two, it’s not bad for your health, it’s, it’s bad for your health, it’s bad for so many things. It’s really influences your, your body and mind.

I can just imagine that with all of that stress, you know, being in this new hall. He’s in his business, in his corporate job, you can’t really, you know, be the best version of yourself and be creative and productive and gets results and inspire people around you. Maybe because it’s matic you know, with a team that you are and so on when all they see is like a shell of a man that is so stressed. Yeah. You know, and then coming back home and being a good father, which was important to him and bring a good partner, which hey was failing at but for good reasons. Wow. You know, they say stretched thin. He then is not thin enough to to describe a situation. Yeah. I’m really, I’m really happy for them that they stick into it. Like these days we people, we replace our mobile phone like every, I don’t know, nine months or I dunno, three years if you, if, if, if you got lucky.

And we spend time with our phones probably sometimes more than we do with our partners and we think in this way, well, uh, it’s maybe a little bit broken. Let’s replace it. Many people don’t feel like, let’s fix it. Let’s, we can fix this. Right. But they were having the all whole life, you know, was breaking apart. Having all sorts of problems and they didn’t replace, you know, they didn’t say, okay, I’m going to quit my job. I’m going to, I dunno, I’m going to move back to London. I’m going to, uh, do you go through divorce or whatnot? Over, some, some house projects, but today they decided to fix the problems and overcoming the stress was one step in the process. It wasn’t that the stress relief was something that totally fixed the lives. They still had problems to fix. Talked about the habits last episode they think. And that’s also a lot of what we did there together. Implementing rituals of connection. Doing this, a stress reducing conversation daily. Having weekly day, prioritizing sex, finding time to play together with all this, uh, uh, stress on them and just, you know, generally trying to turn towards each other as much as possible. Yeah. So it was wow, they hit to do so many things to get out of this nightmare. But when they were finally out of it, they were powerful. Two warriors, you know?

Man that sounds like pretty much you practice towards whatever you want to achieve in life. So they practiced on the hardest of the conditions that possibly can happen to them. And they had to use multiple tools on the overall other tools that we’ve already mentioned in the season as well in order to overcome the situation. But now that they’ve practiced so much, they’ve like graduated from from the military or capitals, so whatnot, and now they were like top ranking officers. So really, really exciting. Couple, work starting with this tool that we’re going to mention because the stool will, first of all, it’s free. So you know, you listen to this, you can already know what to do. Uh, and we will give you some extra tips in the generous marriage.com site. And at the same time, it is a tool that actually creates some quality time, right? It’s creates connection and uh, it strikes and the love maps to understanding of each other and how, uh, what, what makes them move and what makes them stress and what makes them bombed and what they like. And it’s pretty simple.

How to Reduce Stress in Marriage

So we’ll give you two to us. How can they walk on their stress and reduce it? What is the stress of using compensation? It’s pretty simple. It’s actually taking turns at venting. So each partner gets 15 minutes. They can just vent and talk about whatever is bothering them. Other than the relationship, they don’t complain about each other or about the marriage or about their relationship. Just about other things. Their boss, their workers, the neighbors, the, the school, the, the, the, the siblings, you know, those brothers and sisters he had and everything. But each other. And the other person, you know, one partner is venting for 15 minutes and the other partner is just listening and showing support and asking questions and not giving advice to fix the problem. And not trying to fix the problem, right? Exactly. Unless they’re, they’re asked for an advice, but it’s not about the, it’s not an advice conversation is just about venting and letting stress off. And usually after this 30 minutes because each partner gets 15 minutes. It’s, it’s Cathartic and sometimes it’s even funny. You know, after 15 minutes is a long time to vent, after you went 15 minutes at some point, uh, after enough conversations like this, you start taking it more lightly. Yeah. It brings some humor to the situation. You don’t feel so much like a victim anymore. Especially if you run out of topics to vent about and then you are forced to like find more things to vent. That by itself will make it funny.

Right. Exactly. Plus uh, you know, I’m, I’m just, I would do an optimization on if I do this with my partner wrote them. I would actually let her be fast then vents. Uh, I don’t know if it’s allowed to according to the rules of the tool, but vent for five minutes and use the remaining 10 minutes for something else together. Yeah, no, that’s cool what you’re saying because sometimes I invite other couples to do this and I’ve seen some versions of this and like one couple, they felt that it takes them to their problems too much. So they would vent five minutes or I dunno, seven and a half minutes and then the rest of the time they would do gratitude.Love it. Love it. But I have to ask you a question just to clarify because I see a mine in this tool that I don’t want to fall into when we practice this. Uh, so what do we do when the spouse is venting and complaining and bitching around about stuff that actually, you know, it’s not about you but it’s about something that was affected by you. Like, maybe the house I needed to fix this. I needed to clean that and everyone a missing the house and like you and me personally.

But I believe a lot of men here this and they can relate. Like we her criticism very easily, especially when our love tank is low. Everything’s, we hear feels like criticism even if it’s not related directly to us you about related to like the, the, the household. What do you say about that? That it’s a good point. But that’s why the structure actually helps when you know that it’s 15 minutes about letting your partner a event. You can listen with other set of ears and not get so triggered and just be compassionate and remember that they’re talking about themselves and yeah. Maybe you had some impact on this and maybe later you’re gonna take responsibility and do your part. But really something in this press structure that you know, that you’re just listening now and just being a compassionate and uh, trying to understand your partner. Usually helps to not get triggered or if you do get triggered to to do something with it and open your heart again and not take it so personally. Cause we, we get triggered when we get it, when we get, when we think it’s when we take things personally. So if you can, uh, take another perspective and just see that it’s your partner venting, it really makes a difference.

Listening to Your Partner Express Generosity

And I, I think the generosity in this tool coming from different angles. Like first of all just listening for 15 minutes. That by itself is a generous thing to do. But listening to someone that is complaining that is also something that is also, that that is a great thing to do. A very generous, but there’s one other thing that is very, that that allows the two partners to express generosity. That is the, the rule where you can only complain about staph if they are not one of the couples like complain and vent about other stuff. It also is an act of generosity because that way, you know, the spouse, the partner, the, the, the, the dudes in the partnership can actually feel for my point of view, uh, I can actually feel safe. You know, he’s not under the attack here. There is no attacking over here of your kingdom. You’re just listening. That’s it. It’s what she needs you to do right now. And she will vent and she will feel great about it later on. And when she vents everything, did you give her those 15 minutes? That just, that’s an amazing act of generosity of, of a big heart.

But I have to warn you guys, make sure like, you measure the time. Like I, I, I don’t want you to be in a situation where your spouse is going on for more than 15 minutes and your frustrated and it will be a fair thing to do to, to, to, to strive to those 15 minutes in that it’s more than fair thing to do. It’s really important because otherwise you a, you know, they were already, couples that do this are already stressed. When you know it’s for 15 minutes, it makes it easier when you don’t know when it ends. You feel like you’re being flooded, complaints, the structure of 15 minutes and you don’t really have to do it 15 minutes. If 10 minutes is what works for your 20 minutes, that’s fine. You know the golden rule of the 15 minutes. But to find this, set the time, set an alarm clock that it’s clear, 15 minutes done, boom. Enough for today. We’ll do it again tomorrow or we’ll do it again next week. Whatever works for you and your partnership.

Yeah. I would actually be afraid if I was told like, and you need to listen for, for 27 minutes. So get you need to listen to vent. I would like, I would say no, I can’t do that, but 15 minutes. Yeah, I can. I can listen for 15 minutes. That’s pretty much what I can do. Not more than that. It’s true. I do think that 15 minutes is the right time to do it. But, uh, you know, people should try it out, but something 15 minutes is not too long and it’s a long enough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So these tool, was, was helpful for Josh and Julie. To a degree, you know, they need as much more help but it was helpful for them and I think they actually talked about it at the end, you know, after they went through all of this that they mentioned this tool a lot because it helped them through the, how it helped them connect in the hardest days. Know they knew when he was struggling at work and she was struggling at home with the kids and the baby and all the challenges and the new community and stuff.

They knew at the end of the day they’re connecting and they have a safe haven, someone that wants criticize them and just be on their side and listen to all of this stress. And it really gave them a point of light in the day. Even though it was about complaining, it was much more than complaining. It was actually about connecting and feeling safe with your partner through all these challenges. With all these challenges. Despite of this challenges, you know? Yup. And it also helps to maybe put things into perspective. You know, um, you, you know that you’re allowed to vent. You know that it’s okay, but you also know that whatever is the reason, sometimes the reason is something, this might seem small and sometimes there isn’t something that might seem huge. But you always have the same place. This say, hey safe haven, like you said. Uh, and that the fact that the safety comes from your partnership with your spouse, that’s such a huge, such a huge, uh, resource. Yes. They saw some bliss even in, in this tool. So I love it. Uh, was, was it researched that it’s important to reduce stress?

How to Manage Stress 

Super, super. A research, I’m, today I’m going to show just one research, but eh, Eh, we’ll live in the age of stress. So stress is very research and how it affects the immune system and the cognitive abilities and the potential to get sick. So this, so specifically this research I’m going to show it today was done in 1967 a while ago. Yup. And two psychiatrist examined the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients. And they wanted to know if stressful events might cause illnesses. So they made the list of 40 something events and gave, each of them are relative score, like how bad is the event? It got more points and then they ask these a five or they asked these 5,000 people to, to go through the list and rate themselves and they found that yes, there is a link between stress and stressful events too in this, the higher the score was higher was the potential to get sick.

And since then it’s what, 50 years since then? I don’t know, I think 50 something years since then. It was used in many, many different ways and uh, it became clear that stress is related to a lot of uh, problems. And we’re going to put a link to this, a quiz in a way you can fill out this quiz and assess how stressful you are. And there are three levels of Eh answers and if you have minimum stress, you’re lucky, you’re fine, you’re good. If you’re in the medium or high stress levels, you should stop and see what you can do to help yourself more self-care and maybe get a counselor, maybe get a mediator maybe find ways to help you connect to your partner. But you really should really stop and do whatever you can to reduce stress. Because you don’t want to get sick and you don’t want to hurt your relationship and you don’t want to die early. I want to live happily and healthily with a lot of vitality and stress is effecting all of this is affecting all of this.

I totally agree. I think that stress in a way, it’s like driving in a car. Well your mileage that you’re getting out of the fuel is just mmm. Horrible. So like every single mile bends more fuel than usually, now. The problem here is that the fuel is the fuel that you can buy in a gas station. It’s actually, you know, the connection fuel, your, your love tank and your connection love tank. If you in life due to stress, you’ll keep you keep burning all of your repository of, of love. And connection with the people around you. You burn it so fast. All those points that all those deposits that have been putting into the relationship with you totally burned because you’re under so much stress and then then you know, well if you do thinks to deposit to other people and they deposited back to you and you, you walk on your love, then can do on your connection.

Then can you just bring yourself to a point where you have more fuel to tackle life into, to go overcome some of those stressful situations? Because some of those stressful situations in the list of statements that you will answer in the quiz, you cannot change them. They are effect of life. Sometimes you go through those things that are very stressful, but what you can change is the way that you behave in the way that you act. So the trigger, the trigger out there, we talked about it, they are going to invoke some emotion in you and that emotion might be hard and and stress invokes a lot of emotions like that. But you can choose to be different type of a man or a woman and that type is the type to take action to type that chooses two, be generous with them, with their marriage to build up the habits so that they can actually refuel fast enough to overcome the stress. Yeah. You know, I want to say another thing about they say quiz that I thought is interesting to us.

Happy and Healthy Relationship Makes More Money

The three points that got the highest score are all related to relationship so that the worst thing that can happen to you from a state stress point of view is the death of your spouse. The second is divorced, the third is marital separation. You’re not quite amazing. Higher than jail term or death of a close family member or personal injury or getting fired. Yeah. It’s quite amazing how this research shows that are main relationship, eh, it’s so important for reducing stress, for being healthy. It is amazing. It just shows the importance of working on your partnership with your spouse and actually actually caring about it.

You, you’re, you don’t need to care about it only because it will make your life better with, you know, less fights in more sex and some room for yourself to build yourself to achieve your goals together with your spouse. But also it will make you healthier. Like this is life changing and life life affecting like people get sick with some pretty hard diseases because of stress and having your spouse with you is actually better. Like if you’re, if you’re considering a divorce, that’s okay to consider divorce. Sometimes it’s needed. Yeah. But sometimes you can fix it. You can actually transform your relationship into something that you, you never had before and that is meaningful and powerful. Yeah. I would say most of the time you can fix it and you should really give it a try. Serious try, get counseling. listen to good podcasts like this one, you know? Get any help you can because it’s worth it. There’s another research that, uh, people, uh, in happy relationships make more money. I have stronger immune systems and, and live longer.

Understanding Generous Marriage Tool 

Yup. You know, we keep showing throughout the season, Shachar we keep showing researchers research research that actually, you know, proves again and again. That people that are uh, married successfully like day to day use generous marriage tools and they, they, um, walk well together through walls, through actual effort on the partnership. Those people, they are successful, they’re healthy, they’re happy. You know, through the gratitude there was a research about how showing gratitude to your spouse will make you your brain change. Actually your brain will operate in a better way and we’ll be, you know, the further yes. And then you know, here is the stick. Like we showed the carrot throughout the season and here’s the steak. It’s where if you don’t walk on your marriage and you end up with one of those three horrible situations in life, then your stress level is going to be over the hoof and you’re willing to be in risk.

And we hope that if you hold the two of them, the carrot and the stick and understand, hey, some people are going through the same stuff that you’re going through. And you are, you don’t have to go through this alone. There are other people that are like you that will be happy to share with you their story and we’ll help. We’ll be happy to listen to you. And that is even people like you shachar, that in counselors you can find them everywhere, you know, that can help you overcome this bill that you’re going through. And I know it’s not easy because I’ve been through this myself.  So Shachar you all are the nowadays because you know us. Yeah. And what I meant me, we had to go through something that was shocking to both of us and that was a situation where I was sexting with another lady for like a few months in. I actually started to become paranoid. I was thinking what was doing something of the salt to, I was suspicious all the time. I actually woke up in the middle of the night to spy on my wife’s phone. I mean, I was an unrecognizable. I was a shell of myself in the way that I was behaving. And uh, I had a wake up call with, you know, the world’s, the world was coming to me and saying, look, it doesn’t make sense. Your, your spending so much energy on building your business, building your, your kink them around you so that your spouse and kids will be happier and we’ll have, you know, their own, uh, their own happy dad that managed to fulfill many of his dreams. And at the same time you are like obsessed with this silly relationship. It doesn’t make any sense. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that where when you are sexting your actually your betraying. Because if the, if the other person was there, you wouldn’t be sending the text message, you would do something.

So I feel like this is serious, you know, it was that understanding that hey, I cannot hide behind, you know, behind the technology any more. I need to come clean with this. And I went, I need to start a new chapter in my relationship. And so, you know, after consulting about it and thinking this through, I came to them and I opened everything. I just did. She didn’t, you know, catch me or something like that. I came on my own accord. I told her, look, we have a lot to talk about. We went through, you know, many of the things that were troubling us back then. And we decided to walk together and it was through tools like the many tools that we shared in the season, generous related tools. Um, we’ve been transforming our relationship to something totally different. We have a connection. We have, uh, the, the actual structure of the, the meetings, the date nights, the, the second date night at home to just talk about stuff and synchronize our, our schedules that are very hard because I do a lot of online webinars and online schools in businesses.

And so I needed to, to have that extra synchronization with my wife and, and giving priority to communication, and all of those things that we share, those tools, those things, they create a new reality. This was something that totally saved my marriage and saved my life. And here’s, here’s the one thing that I, I’m really proud of and it’s funny. It’s the fact that I have prioritized saving my marriage that made me way more successful in business. Like I was so obsessed about becoming more successful in business and all of the time they didn’t realize how, you know, how’s how it affected me. The fact that I don’t have a strong enough back because I’m not working enough on, on, on my balance with my family. And only after starting to see, you know, Eh, an improvement in the connection with my spouse with autumn, that’s, that’s exactly when the breakthroughs will start to show up in my businesses and that, that that was something.

That was huge. Two to see two, this great first formation and it’s all about the, the clarity of knowing hat is your purpose knowing why are you working so hard? It’s for your family many times or for something even very specific with your family in my case. And that is, it’s not a coincidence that I’m, the stress factors are related to marriage on the first three. It’s on both sides. If you walk or with a good marriage, if you work with the generous marriage principles and the, the layout that we’ve been sharing with you on all of those episodes, you can actually grow as a human being and not just as a couple. Yeah. Wow. Thanks David. Thanks for sharing this story. And I want to say this from my side. I, I just love seeing you together. I think you are the busiest person I know and still you have the one of the best relationships I know as well. And you spend time playing together and you spent time together and you spend time with the kids and it’s very inspiring to see you guys and how you overcame this challenge and what has become of you guys.

Thank you so much. It’s really is a matter of having that uh, that last time not to empty all the time when the last thing he that is full or he’s like in the gray green area, there’s so much flexibility that you will be surprised the guys of how much flexibility your spouse can, can, can show  you. Generosity, it sticks to one another. You show generosity and do it, who will come back eventually and it will come back big time. Beautiful. So I want to thank you Shachar, how you’ve been really working hard on making these podcasts happen and doing the research and finding the fine tuning the tools in all sorts of ways. And I know how hard you work on, on everything you do like that just as a counselor and as a father and a husband who Judy but also on, on trying to make a lot of people lives better through the tools that we are sharing and generous marriage.com site.

Ending

And it was a pleasure working with you on the season and now we are going through uh, working on building some surprises for you guys, the listeners of this show. And I’m talking about things that will actually make the entire process of implementing the generous marriage structure and, and, and strategies and tactics into your life. Making that way, way easier. And I cannot share all the details right now, but we have something that will have been cooking that is going to be available on generousmarriage.com. And that something is going to be on one hand useful for couples that needs that extra “oomph!” and support in building an amazing date night, over and over and over again. In a way that will actually force you to go through the generous marriage principles in a fun way and in a way that will practice all of your generous, uh, muscles. And on the other hand, we, we are working on helping, uh, those of you that needs a little bit more personal touch. Because sometimes you just need someone that can listen and identify what is the best thing that you can do and find the solution for you, with you. And so we together as a family of people that care about relationships, we care together about your partnership with your spouse and we want to help you implement the generous marriage principles in a way that is fast and easy and fun. You’ll just have a new set of amour that will help you to tackle the worlds together. Yeah, yeah. I’m super excited for this new offerings and that will come up on our website, and I want to thank you. This has been such a fun project to do with you and it’s happened a lot, a lot because of you, so thank you very much.

Thank you. Um, and we’re going to be waiting for you guys on generousmarriage.com. That’s the only thing you need to do today. Just go to generousmarriage.com and see the surprises waiting for you there in, uh, enough said guys, we’ve been the generous marriage podcast for 12 episodes doing season one. We’ve been sharing on every single episode something useful, on how to improve your marriage in your partnership. If this is the first time you’re listening to the generous marriage podcast, you definitely want to check out the others, other episodes in this season. Um, your bonus for this episode specifically with an explanation about how to conduct the stress reducing conversation. Plus!, some extra tips and advices on what to do when the world seems to break on top of you and on top of your relationship in sometimes those, the, this extra bit of a of information can really help you understand how to implement this.

And then I want to say that even the research will be the bonus because it’s actually a tool as well. It’s not just the research and each a tool that you can do and assess your stress levels and uh, take, take better care of yourself. And when we, when we mentioned all of those, uh, documents that you can download, it’s actually very easy. All you need to do is go to the generous marriage.com website. Head over to the podcast tab, find the podcast of today, which is episode 12. And there’s a big pink button that you can press and you put inside your email and your name and you can download it for free. And that way you can explore deeper, um, and learn the research, learn the tool, you know, improve your partnership. And usually it takes five minutes, five minutes of your time to just read it and get ready. And then you can start to have the fun and to have the benefits of actually, uh, adding these entirely new layer of, of generosity on top of your existing marriage. Is it worth it, Shachar to actually work on your marriage and not just give up totally worth. I stayed with my clients all the time. I’ve seen it in my own relationship. You know, we’ve been to therapy at least twice in this 13 years we’ve been together and a happy relationship is so nourishing. It’s so good for you. It’s really worth investing in it.

And even when the problem seems so big, like I got lucky in a sense because my big problem was something that could have been way worse. It was still very bad. But you might listen to this and think, well that’s all lies, but my problem is harder and bigger. Well, Shachar has been counseling to people with, you know, with a lot of problems. Yeah. And it’s not like you, the comparison waltz help you, right? If you have a bigger problem or a smaller problem that will not help you feel better, what will help you? Easy if you walk on it, if you actually decide to not give up. And even, I dare say even if you did some mistakes, some big mistakes, because even the hardest of the mistakes, like a adultery and, and sex outside of the marriage and all of that jazz, actually you can even overcome these and have a very brave and meaningful and rewarding marriage. Through work through implementing generous marriage too. All right.

Throw, turning towards each other and daring to connect again and again and daring to be vulnerable again and again. Yeah, so you can heal shame, you can heal your relationship and you can improve your life. All right. And it’s curious us are the childhood ones you had that, that’s one of the potentials of a happy relationship to heal once that happened in your family of origin. It’s just worth it on any from any perspective. You look at it, it’s worth it. Yeah. I’ll just remind that, you know, my business has been blooming. Oh my God. Ever since we’ve been, uh, you know, going through those breakthroughs. So, uh, really a worth checking out what we shared on generous managed not to come. The bonuses, the, the new stuff is going to pop up. Uh, so when you come in and listen, you will find it. And I wanted to say thank you again and see you in the next season of the generous marriage podcast. Thank you, Shachar. Thank you Ziv. Thank you everybody. See you in our next offerings and in our next season. This was fun. 

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