21 Years of Marriage… and the One Thing I’ve Learned After Kids

scottie  0:00  
Scott, welcome to the momplex Podcast. I am your host. Scotty durrette, my passion and purpose is to help other moms just like me rediscover their joy and step into their confidence as their kids grow up. Join me as I share my own experiences, my own mistakes and aha moments as I navigate this incredible journey of motherhood while trying not to lose my identity. If you are a modern day mama who is ready to live for herself, not just for her kids, and knows that is the best possible gift you could give, then you are in the right place. This is momplex.

Scottie Durrett  0:42  
You Alex, hello, my beautiful mama, welcome back to mom. Plex, now that you're a mom, I am gonna take a guess that you have been pouring all of your time and energy into your kids, your house, your work, the schedule, the color coded calendar, the never ending to do list, basically everything has been going into your kids and building this life, building this dream life of a family, right? But what's fallen to the bottom of the list probably you, your health and probably your relationship, your adult relationship, your marriage, your partnership. If you're like me, you read basically every book on the planet on how to be the best mom. But I haven't read one relationship book. I mean, I can barely read it, and I'm so tired. Who has the energy to crack open anything at night when you can barely keep your eyes long enough, plus my brain is just full. I think at that moment I don't even want my brain to work when I lay in bed, I'm going to Amazon Prime. I'm clicking on Brit box, the Chelsea detective law and order. Recently, this summer, I turned pretty but I get asked a lot clients call me and ask me for help with their marriage, their disconnection. And when I'm on podcasts all the time, I'm asked about this and marriage after kids is completely uncharted territory for you and your partner, because y'all have never existed. There is no step by step, by step by step. You guys are individual humans, beautiful souls that are in your bodies. There is no exact formula, there's no handbook, no cheat sheet, no Pinterest board or Instagram carousel that can really prepare you for it. You just get dropped into it one day, and you're incredibly sleep deprived. You're touched out, and you're trying to keep tiny humans alive. You're trying to keep teenagers from taking fentanyl, and somehow you're trying to keep your relationship alive and keep you physically feeling like you even want to make out so marriage after kids, it's the way I think about it, you're you're a team sport. You know, you guys are running the show, but you're trying to run the show on zero sleep, with a constantly changing routine, and sometimes your your partner, you feel like y'all are living parallel lives. You don't even get each other. You're not even seeing the world the same way, right? You're standing in the kitchen, washing those dishes, trying to answer 1000 emails and help your kids get out the door, while your partner is literally walking to the car to go leave, and he's stepping over all the blankets and the toys and the mess that's left on the floor. But today, I'm sharing the one thing that has kept my 21 year marriage, alive and actually fun, even through three kids, five moves, countless jobs, covid and way too many clogged sinks and poopy diapers and no, it is not perfect communication. It is not being 10 pounds lighter. It is not wearing lingerie every day, even though my husband does love that. It's not about getting your hair done and your nails done and shaving your legs. It's this, you guys are on the same team. You're still on the same team. Because when you forget that, the whole game falls apart. And I want to tell you when you do remember that you do have a partner in crime here, that you are not alone, that you have somebody who agreed to this with you, who said, I want what you want. Let's go for it. When you remember that everything changes, not only for yourself, but for them too. Because I think one of the biggest disconnects between a mom and a dad or the caretaker and the person going out of the house to earn the money is that the one at home feels like they have to shoulder it all by themselves, and the one who's not at home feels useless. They don't know how to help us. They don't know how to support us. And I think. When you remember? No, I know when you remember. And you look at each other and you say, you matter to me. You're important to me. I think of you as a teammate. I'm counting on you. We're still in this together. Everybody feels important, everybody feels seen, and all those juices are reignited to Yes, this is why we're doing this. Everything changes. Like the other night, my husband looked at me totally deadpan and said, Babe, I did the laundry. Now look, 22 year old me would have rolled my eyes, eyes and been like, Well, you probably did it wrong. But 21 years married me, I nearly jumped him right there in the family room, because at this stage of marriage, that, to me, is foreplay, that's love, that's teamwork, that's looking at what we need to do to build our life, and doing it, picking up the slack, stepping in when it's not even when it's not our turn. So let's talk about how to keep your team strong, and why that one shift can make all the difference in your marriage, you will feel so clear by at the end of this episode with all of that, but I want to rewind first to February of 2001

Scottie Durrett  6:22  
you I had just driven cross country with my boyfriend at the time, shocker, he didn't make it to the credits of the story. We arrived in San Francisco. I was so fired up, I was full of life. I just packed up. I literally packed up my entire bedroom, loaded my car, and driven from New Orleans to San Francisco, made my boyfriend at the time drive me, and I was ready to go. I said I was I showed up in town. I was like, You know what? This is a new chapter. I'm going to say yes to every invite, and I'm just going to like, this is going to be a full body jump in the deep end kind of vibe, like we are not going to miss out on anything, and that's what I did. And then one night at Club 238 now, which is now Larry Flint's hustlers club, and yes, my husband and I pointed that out to our kids, but we did not go inside. But one night, February 2001 I saw him across the dance floor. He was wearing his high school baseball jersey, terrible lighting. His head was shaved. He had these like tiny little rim glasses and sideburns that went all the way down his face. And for me, it was boom, lightning, love at first sight. I was with two friends who actually knew him, so I knew that he was not a serial killer, they gave me the green light and said, Nope, he's good people. So the next day, with my friend, we tracked down his number, and the first thing I did was invite him to Vegas with me and seven of my friends. We were going the next weekend, and he said, Yes, our first date was basically the hangover, but without Mike Tyson or cutting off our fingers and no face tattoos, but it was awesome, and he was a perfect gentleman, and we had the best time ever. Fast forward, we fell really fast. We got engaged and married in New Orleans by 2004 so we met 2001 we were married by 2004 and from day one, it felt different from any other relationship I had ever had. I felt more on eye level with him than any other person I had ever dated. I felt like we were teammates. We were in this together. We were helping each other out from the beginning. We were surviving apartment moves in the city, business school, 911, having $0 in the bank, business school, unknown, where we were going to end up buying our first house together and eventually kids, because that's what a relationship really is. That's what a marriage is, one long road trip where you keep choosing to stay together in the same car together. Since then, we've done it all. We've lived in like four or five cities. I can't even keep track. We are raising three kids. We have lost three dogs, which, if I talk about it for too long, I'll start crying right now. We've rescued two. We survived the 2007 Lehman Brothers crash. We have supported each other through countless family drama, sleepless nights, scary events with kids, scary events with family. You know, all ups and downs, helping each other with our aging parents, helping me build my new business, helping him grow his business, and now we're launching one kid into college. And through it all, I feel like more than anything, he makes me laugh every day. We have kept a sense of humor. We even French kiss last weekend. So I'm just gonna say, hell, we still got it. He still calls me at the worst possible time of day, 530 I don't know why that's the time he travels all the time, but he grills me line by line on the credit card bill. He asks the pickup time for the kids like it's brand new information every. Single week, and yes, I still buy unnecessary random crap on Amazon, which drives him completely crazy. But none of that breaks us because we're on the same team and teammates annoy each other. I bet if you go into any dugout, any NFL locker room, any rooming situation, you're gonna find even besties who are going to say, I love this person, but they drive me crazy. Teammates mess up, but at the end of the day, they're still playing for the same win, the same goal. When my husband and I had kids, I didn't know it at the time, but looking back on it, I realized that immediately we started living parallel lives. I was staying at home with the kids. He was going out to try and make us some money so we could afford the kids. And when he came home from work, there was like this weird hour of time where we just didn't even know each other, and we were trying to understand what the other person had just went through. And it was kind of like wading through a battlefield, like I was so spent, I'd probably have been knees, you know, up to my knees, in dirty diapers. He'd probably been making 1000 cold calls. We were just in a really tough time of life. I wanted him to read my mind, to just get it and spoil it. He never was able to do that. And that's when I realized, if you don't actually remember your teammates, you'll start feeling like opponents the first Mother's Day, for example, we were living in Chicago, and I was tapped out. I was exhausted, and he didn't do anything special for me. I didn't tell him I wanted anything special, but he didn't actually think outside the box and do anything special. And so across the table, he said, babe, why don't you go get yourself a mani pedi today? And I started crying, and he was like, Oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? At that moment, I felt so disconnected from him. I didn't know that at the time, but I wanted him to just like, go and save me. I wanted him to have known that I needed a special moment, right? It's a very normal interaction, but you're not taught how to navigate that, right? That's not what I'm taught by my parents when it's time to have a kid, they're just trying to teach you sleep schedules, nap schedules. You want to get your kid on this kind of routine. But no one really came in and ever said like, Hey, this is going to put a strain on your marriage. You guys are going to be you're not going to recognize each other for a little bit. So make sure that you guys don't ever stop recognizing each other, even in the little moments. Like, I love you. I see you. How was your day? Give me a hug. Romance changes when you have kids. Romance changes regardless if you have kids or not, if you've just been together for a long time. There's always a new language that you guys have. There's a new dance. There's like a new rhythm that you have to learn. And one of the things that is really difficult is that one person might learn the dance much faster than the other, and it takes time for the other person to catch up. But it doesn't mean they won't catch up. But romance changes. Your libido changes. Your lust cools, your energy changes. Stress builds. One of you passes out on the sofa at 745 because you're bone tired. So it's not always going to look and feel like it did when you first got together, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're not supposed to be together anymore, but when you do feel disconnected, where has the communication stopped? Where Have y'all stopped seeing each other? Because teamwork is always available. It never expires. And every stage of marriage has its own version of sexy. You know, the like I said, like some of the hottest texts I get now is like, Babe, I already fed the dogs. When he unloads the dishwasher, makes the coffee that, to me, is like the best hug in the world. You know when I order all these Amazon boxes, and he helps me unpack them and break them down and takes them to the recycling bin like that, to me, is like, yes, we still have each other's back. We're still building this life together. And when you grab each other's ass, when you sneak that little hug, even when the kids are like, ooh, when you take 10 minutes to make out when the house is empty, that's love. That means you guys are on the same team. That's that's communication. That's the new dance. That's the new language. You can stay teammates if you choose to stay teammates. But I do want to give you a couple of tips that will help keep your marriage alive and help keep it fun, even after kids, these moves will help you feel like teammates again, and help you feel connected and help you feel seen.

Scottie Durrett  14:59  
You. Number one, it's micro moments over grand gestures. Don't wait for the perfect vacation or anniversary, 10 seconds of eye contact or a butt grab in the kitchen or a hug, a real hug, a two armed like chest to chest hug. There's nothing like that that is going to be more electric. In fact, they say hugging has so many kinetic energies and healing properties, and it just is one of the most quick, powerful ways to connect. And that's similar to advice for a mom. It's like, don't wait for the vacation or Mother's Day before you take care of yourself. Take care of yourself in those micro moments, same with your relationship number two, flirt, flirt, flirt, flirt. Send the dumb flirty text. Send the shot of you in the lingerie. Send the I can't wait to see you when you get home. Message. Just pick up the phone when you're driving and just say, I love you. I'm thinking about you. And then those inside jokes, where you laugh till you can't breathe, sit on the sofa and watch a movie that y'all want to snuggle, hold hands, even if it's for five seconds. Redefine foreplay. Number three, you're not 22 anymore. You are parents raising kids who are busy and tapped out and touched out. What does foreplay look like now? What do you have the capacity for? What feels good to you? What is sustainable? It maybe it looks like somebody's cleaning the kitchen without being asked, hot and helpful and then squeeze in a quickie when you can. Doesn't mean that you have to have rose petals on the bed. It doesn't mean that it has to be this like drawn out thing. Maybe it's five minutes in the bathroom, maybe it's a little sneaky sneak in the shower. Maybe it's making out in the back seat of your car. I talk to my clients about this all the time. With movement, I think we hold ourselves to these standards that we need and have to move like we did when we were 25 and we wait till we can do that again, and so then we end up not moving. Foreplay is the same thing, making out with your partners. The same thing, it can't look and feel like it did when you're 25 so what can it look like, and how can it feel now? And do that keep your own spark alive when you feel good in your own body and soul, you can then bring more confidence and love and energy to the team. If you are feeling not comfortable in your own skin, if you are having vaginal dryness, if your body is not responding to you in the way that you're used to, if you have less libido, don't just stay there. Those are all signals that your body is saying something's out of whack. You can get help to find the balance. Look into naturopaths. Look into your doctor, look into gynecologist. Look into HRT and other things to help your body keep your spark alive, and it will help you keep the spark alive in your marriage number five, let each other be each other. It's okay if they have some annoying habits, you probably have some too. Forgive them of that. Let them just be who they need to be in this moment right now. Love them for the good and the bad. If they make you go through the credit card bill at 10 o'clock at night and you're over shopping on Amazon. Let them if it becomes a persistent problem, yeah, have a conversation about it. But don't write them off because they've done something that you don't think is right. Let them be. Let yourself be. That's part of the growth, that's part of the new language. That's part of the love language, Amazon Prime. That's part of my love language. I still order stuff at 2am he rolls his eyes, and then he unloads the box. Work the boxes for me, teamwork. Now I would love to hear from you. I want to know what is the funniest fight you've ever had with your partner? I want to know what is the sexiest thing they do for you right now. Is it taking out the trash or switching the laundry? And then what is your one thing that you've learned about marriage after kids that's really resonated and something that you can share with other moms. DM me on Instagram, email me, let's laugh and learn from each other, because I do think that really maintaining a strong relationship after having kids takes work. You can have the greatest relationship in the world, but it is going to take intentional, hard work. We don't just want to forget, to fan the fire of our relationship and allow the relationship, the definition of the relationship, to change and evolve. 21 years in, here's what I know. Marriage for us is not about grand gestures or perfect communication. It's about choosing each other, seeing each other even when you'd rather choose sleep, because at the end of the day, you guys are the original team. So whether it's going for a drive to get. Together, having a cup of coffee in the morning together, clinking wine glasses on the sofa or sneaking in a kitchen grab while your kids scream, ooh, remember the one thing that matters the most? You guys are still a team. You're still on the same team. I'm here for you. I'm going through it too. So if there's an area in this relationship where you're feeling a little stuck, shoot me a message. You can go to my website, which is scottydirette.com there's a way for you to subscribe to my newsletter. You can also send me an email. What I want more than anything is for us to continue to throw our hat in the ring. Tell your partner every day, you know what? Today I'm throwing my hat in the ring for you. We're still on the same team, and I love you. Hey, Mama, thank you so much for listening before you dive back into the beautiful chaos of your life. Please take this with you. You're doing better than you think. You are not alone, and you do not have to do this on autopilot. If this episode helped you in any way, please share with a mom who needs to hear it, because we grow faster when we do it together. And if you have a second leaving a five star review helps momplex reach more mamas who need this kind of real talk and support. If you want more support and guidance or just someone in your corner. Be sure to visit scottydirt.com to learn more. Get in touch with me or dive deeper into this work until next time. Mom, Trust yourself, trust your gut. You already know what to do, and you are exactly the mama your kids need. I love you. I'll see you next time you.