Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, it's Rog here. And this episode is a little bit different. It's our 100th episode and we just want to say a massive thank you to all of you who've been listening, sharing and doing the work in your own relationships. We see you. And today we've got big news. For the first time ever, we're launching something we've been building quietly behind the scenes for years. It's something for couples who care about their relationship, who want to feel more connected, growing more in sync and more like a team. And as loyal listeners, you're the first to know. We can't wait to finally share it with you. Let's dive in.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: People were always telling us, you guys are such a team. And we began to realise this just isn't the case for most couples.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: But we knew from our own experience of turning our relationship into a team that change isn't just possible, it's inevitable. All you need is a little direction.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: So that's what we do on this show. We steer you in the right direction.
We keep it simple. We show you why relationship struggles show up and how you can start changing your relationship today.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: And we bring the good stuff by turning information from leading relationship experts and evidence based research into easy to understand skills and tools that anyone can use.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: We also share insights from our own 23 years of experience together. And we chat with some incredible couples who offer their wisdom on relationships.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: If a better relationship is what you want, then get comfy in whatever tickles your pickle. And as we prepare to dive into all things team, We're Kim and Rog.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: And this is the Living the Team Life podcast.
Usually when we get on here and deliver a podcast for you guys, it's general relationship guidance, stories from ourselves, other couples, we have research from experts, all sorts of information.
But today we want to do something a little different.
Today we want to get personal. Today we want to talk to you specifically about your relationship.
Because we see you, we see that you still care deeply about your partner, but the connection feels harder to find. Lately, we see that you still talk, but it's mostly logistics.
We see that when things are going well for you, things are good. But as soon as life gets hard and life seems to be getting harder more often, your relationship is starting to feel like quicksand. No matter what move you make, you're sinking.
No matter how much you love each other, you keep having the same fights. No matter how much you want to pull together, the distance keeps growing.
And in all of this, you just can't find the path forward.
But we also know it doesn't have to be this way.
You can have a better relationship.
We have a better relationship than what we once did.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah, Kim and I met when we were 18. We were just babes. And like most relationships, those first couple of years were, they were awesome. We were in sync. We were so, so in love and we'd literally do anything for each other.
I don't know if I was romantic or what romance looked like, but you know, we felt the passion, we felt the excitement, and we felt the love.
Now fast forward to when we were 28, you know, nearly 10 or so years later, things weren't so rosy. And although we lived together, we still had a bit of fun.
You know, we'd started to drift apart. We were a bit more disconnected and really was almost living like roommates.
We didn't talk about the real stuff. In fact, often when we did talk or did try to talk about the real stuff, we just spiral into the same sort of arguments.
And this is fairly common in long term relationships, especially your first really big long term relationship.
And you get to a point where you're like, is this what a relationship's supposed to be like?
Well, you know, maybe we're just not meant for each other.
Maybe, maybe we'll just never supposed to be together.
And Kim and I were at that point of our relationship, should we stay or should we go?
But we loved each other. You know, we really, really loved each other.
We just didn't understand why we weren't working, why us wasn't working, our relationship wasn't working.
And so we wanted to change, but we wanted to change for each other.
And so Kim and I did what we do when pretty much anytime there's a brick wall in our path, whenever there's something that we really want and it seems hard, it seems unattainable, we went to work. We started looking for answers because we wanted to make a change.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we did a lot of work.
Boy, did we work. For years we, we really dove into the idea of, or committed to the idea that change was possible.
And we just had to find the path forward. We, we didn't know what that path was and we were going to try everything we could to find that path forward. And we read psychology books on relationships. We read relationship books on relationships written from different perspectives. We learned about the practical implication of different behaviors in relations.
We overlaid the lens I had through my masters of counseling. The, a lot of psych work in that, A lot of conceptual work in that we.
We practiced on ourselves, we adjusted, we adapted, we evolved, and we continued to learn. And what happened was we started to see changes in our relationship. We started to see that we were now able to talk with each other and not end up busting up in a big fight all the time, or if things did go to that next level, we did get a bit more messy in an argument we were able to repair in a way that was constructive and kind. We had. We wouldn't take ourselves to a place where things were irretrievable. They were so damaged and we were so nasty. We would. We would. We would be focused all of a sudden on working back towards each other rather than getting our point across to each other. We started to see that we were dreaming about life. We were planning life again together, planning for what our future looked like, not just letting life come at us. And we could really see that what we were learning was starting to have an impact in our relationship. And one of the really beautiful things that we noticed in this period, these years of learning that we committed to our relationship was there were big things we learned. There were big foundational, moving things we learned. But one of the things we. We really learned. One of the skills we really learned, because everything we learned was just skills was all just skills. One of the skills we learned was that it was in the little moments that our relationship was truly built. It was in showing up for each other every day with kindness, with empathy, with consideration, with compassion. Those little moments where we started connecting together, we created little rituals. Things that we would do as a ritual is repeatedly in. In the same sort of way. And we discovered that when things got hard, which they inevitably did in the relationship, we had this foundation that would hold us strong even in the worst weeks. Those little rituals, for example, would remind us, oh, we are a team. We are focused on each other. We do have joy together. It's not every day. It's not every moment of every day, but it's there. And we started to see all of the work we put in paying off.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, things were really good.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: You know, we. We talked more, we were more intimate.
We got more out of life, which I think is something that often gets missed. We were just. We were just killing it in life. We were doing awesome, and we had each other to thank for that. And.
But of course, as things do, just as everything's going great, life throws a curveball at you, and.
And that's what it did to us. And I can, hand on heart today say that if you and I hadn't made the change, put in the work, learnt the skills and tools and continually and constantly showing up for each other that we probably wouldn't be here talking on this podcast, let alone together today.
Because six or seven years ago our world crumbled when our, our little girl was diagnosed with autism and some other really, I guess, full on health complications.
And the outcome of that was that she would likely need full time care for the rest of her life.
So you know, many of us will have moments in our life where overnight your reality changes and that's what happened to us. And overnight what happened also to us is that the chances of Kim and I getting divorced doubled.
So typical couples in a relationship who are married, there's about a 40% chance the research tells us that they'll end up in divorce. For us again, overnight became 80%.
And this was another pivotal moment in Kim and Kim and my life. In our relationship, we had another decision to make. As our world crumble, we could put the individual first, go into self preservation mode and protect what little I guess capacity or energy or I guess future dream we had for our life.
Or we could double down on our relationship, we could double down on us. We could go harder on us and use everything we'd learned, use the power of our team to find a path forward and actually build an awesome life together in our new world and our new reality.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean as we talk about this, it probably sounds smoother than it was at the time.
It, it was, it was, it was a big decision. It was very, very difficult to lean into choosing us. It's not when the pressure comes on, when, when it, when everything is on top of you and your world is changing at this rapid fire pace, it is so hard to pull yourself up and think about what's going to be the best course of action going forward and how best to approach this.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: You feel like you've got nothing left to give.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: You've got nothing. And so your natural inclination is survival. And survival tells us look after ourselves.
But because we had been working so hard on our relationship in, by then it was like five years before we'd started the work. We'd started. Sorry, we'd started the work five years before that point. Somewhere around that sort of period we had built these skills already. They were living there. And so even though the, the, even with all these skills, even though the pressure was telling us go inward on yourself, survive, survive this, this huge challenge, this, this, there's no other way to describe it. It was a traumatic event. Our Life as we knew it. We lived in a different country, we owned a different home, we had different jobs, our, our future, and it was dead ended overnight. And even though we were pulled towards survival, those foundational relationship skills like thankfully so thankfully still lived there. And when we did what we knew best to do, which was walk and talk about what our options were, we, we naturally moved towards the choice of going in on the relationship and working together rather than pulling apart.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Not just let's solve this problem, it's like let's solve this problem together as a team.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Exactly. So even the problem of I'm in survival mode, you're in survival mode, we discussed that as a team because we had learned the skills to do it. And it became, it had become our natural way of approaching things, being a team, even in amongst it all the little, all the little habits we'd built, the rituals we'd built, the way we engaged each other, those skills, those core skills we'd build, they lived there even in the hard days. And so as a result, we went harder in on our, our relationship. We doubled down on, on who we were as a couple and on doing everything together. We made the choice to raise our child 50, 50 in terms of the workload of the mental load, the caretaker load, and, and we made hard decisions. You quit your job, you quit your career so that we could share that load because we agreed for our team unit that was going to be the best decision.
And, and you know, a few years on, we were able to look back and see the fruit of, of what, of our decisions. We were able to recognize that we had actually become even stronger as a couple through this hardship, we, we truly had an even better relationship that even though our life felt very hard a lot of the time because it is navigating this crazy foreign world that is very difficult.
Even though our life felt hard, we thrived in ways together as a couple and we thrived in life as a family. Not all the time, but we definitely found times to thrive because you and I had chose to go in on the relationship, chosen to go in on the relationship. And people noticed this about us, our friends noticed this about us. You know, we were aware, you know, vice versa. We noticed about them that they didn't seem to have this connection we had. And, and as we've spoken about before, we were aware that our connection was, was different to other people's. Our focus on our team unit, our, our respect for each other, our, the behaviors that we set, set up in our household, the way we engaged Each other, the way we supported each other, the way we showed up for each other was different to what our friends had. And they would say to us, you know, how. How are you guys under so much pressure and more connected. You guys are more. I mean, it was always the same word. You're more of a team. And we just realized that those skills that we had built, the foundational relationship, skills we'd spent time building before this all happened, had made us this way.
They had given us a bedrock of a. Of a foundation that was unshakable. And in fact, the practice was so deliberate that we worked as a unit and that we were a team that even in the most difficult of situations, we actually went further in on each other. And we realized that was a very unique set of skills that we. I don't want to Liam, nice in this, but we had a very unique set of skills.
And I'll find you and I will relate to you.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: But I will communicate with you and I will love you every day. Sorry, don't think that was a very good American accent.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: I think that's the notebook.
But yeah, I think that's the truth, babe. No one, no one ever teaches you this stuff.
And, and society doesn't teach you this.
And there's no class on this.
And so you learn from your parents and they're generally not great role models in relationships. Some are, but many up because they've never been taught, you know, and they're carrying a lot of old school stereotypes as well. And again, societies, society's telling you don't go all in on the relationship, you've got to protect yourself.
But that's not what the research says. That wasn't our experience. And I think that's another key. A key thing here is that when no one's really teaching you this, when you don't have somewhere to look to find this information, to learn this information, well, what do you do? And yeah, there are gurus out there. We know, we've read their stuff, we followed their programs and they're brilliant.
They know relationships, but they're not always easy to understand.
They've got tons of different books, research papers, and these psychological frameworks don't always work for a busy couple who are just really bursting at the seams and trying to get through the day. And although they want a strong relationship, they don't see how they're going to give more of themselves, more of their time with all the pressures of day to day life, all the pressures that are on them every single day.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's something we really wanted other people to have was what we had.
And we realized when we started talking and noticing that we had a specific skill set that others didn't seem to have, we talked about how we'd gotten it and how much work had been involved.
And we realized that that's just not practical for parents. It's not practical for people with busy lives because when we did all this work, we were in our late 20s with no children and very few obligations we didn't create on our own. And so we were able to do this deep dive work. But we could see that our friends who were commenting to us, you know, how are you guys such a great team? The answer wasn't simple because the work had, was deep. And we had done it for a long time. We're like, well, we've worked really hard.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: We built a whole podcast we've been working for, for the last several years on based on relationships, getting those learnings.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: It's 100, Roger. It's a lot of work we've put in. And what we realized is there needed to be. There's a gap out there for teaching people relationship skills in a way that they can learn them in the, in the life they live today, in the reality of our practical, busy lives. We're up, we're moving, we're doing all the time.
There is a gap for, for how people, they don't necessarily have the time to go to therapy, they don't necessarily have the focus to read the books.
How can they learn relationship skills with their partner? Because doing it with their partner as well is critical to the learning.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: No, this can't be one sided. Right? If you want to make change in your relationship, yeah, you can be the change, but it takes two to tango.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Exactly. We saw that gap and we decided that we're going to fill it because we want other people to have what we have. And so we started when we started this podcast, and we did not tell you guys because we didn't know how long it would take us to build. Turns out a lot longer than I had anticipated.
But we started building a relationship course for real people in the real world.
And we have done that. We have just finished building our relationship course three years later for you guys. It is a practical relationship course that will give you all of those foundational relationship skills that we have that give us the strength, the commitment, the connection, the joy in our relationship in just six weeks.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Because we know many of you want to make a change, but you don't know where to start.
So that's why we built this course, so you can start making changes in your relationship together. Because this is a course built by us, built by a real couple, for real couples. You know, we built this for you and your partner to do together. Not to just read, not to just think about, but to actually do.
And it only takes an hour a week.
In this hour, you'll watch short videos of Kim and I guiding you through learning one skill at a time. There's a heap of fun activities to do together.
And also you'll learn tools from day one in that first session that you can start using right there and then. And they're, and look, they're simple, they're easy to access and we believe anyone can do them.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah. We were really clear when we set out to start building this course that we wanted it to be a practical course. Right, Rogue. We wanted people to experience the work together as they did the course. There's no point in giving you guys tons of stuff to read and then not getting you to practice the actual skill together in a supported way. We wanted it to be simple, practical, doable. And we wanted, within that six week course period, we were very deliberate for you guys to experience the change because as we've taught you, when we experience change, when we change our habits and we experience the change, it motivates us. This is, this was one of the, you know, this comes back to change making in the psychology of change making.
Seeing change motivates you and keeps you on that track. You get that reward from it. And so one of the things that we really, really focused on with this course was the practical nature of it. You, you watch videos which are really digestible for the two of you together. Really simple. You'll see slides with those videos so you'll get a nice easy way to absorb the information visually and you will get practical weekly activities that you do together whilst you're in that space.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Whether it's over a glass of wine, over breakfast, you just, just need to carve out that hour a week and make it your time and you will get. And you will have a better relationship.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And we, look, we're so pumped today.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we're super excited.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: We're trying to be really calm here. We're trying to, we're trying to be calm, cool, collected. But the reality is this has been three years in the making.
We believe so firmly in what we're doing.
We're going to release this course on the 27th of August and we're actually Going to open up a wait list for you guys today. As of this podcast, as you're hearing it, you our 100th episode, our 100th podcast, which we are super proud of, by the way. No small achievement for two people who are busy parents like you guys to set out a goal of delivering this course and bringing change to people's relationships. And starting that goal with delivering podcasts for you guys that you can access for free every week with change making information in them.
So we, we are opening up the wait list today. You can find it anywhere you find us. Instagram, Face, Facebook, kimandroj.com our website. We'll throw up a link on. Rog, can you throw up a link on Apple and Spotify?
[00:24:12] Speaker A: That's right, babe.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Just pass it over to the tech guy. Yeah, somewhere around there. We'll travel.
We. He will throw up a link for you and you guys can join the wait list. And then on the 27th of August, which is very, very soon, we will be opening the doors for enrollment to the Relationship Playbook, our six week core relationship skills course.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: And, and Kim and I believe that you guys can do this.
We believe that any couple has it in them to learn the skills and tools to have a better relationship. It's not magic. And contrary to popular belief, Kim and I aren't that special. We're just like you.
We wanted more from our relationship. We wanted more out of life, and we just needed someone to show us how to do it. And that's what Kim and I are trying. That's what we want to do here.
Because in all honesty, when Kim and I started putting our relationship first, started doubling down on relationships, started working as a team, started working on our relationship and being proud of the work we're putting into our relationship, it changed our life. It, it changed our life for the better. So the, the, the, the hard moments became easier and the good moments became great.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: It's.
I'm, I'm really struggling to contain myself because I want this so bad for people.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: And you know this, Roggie, you know, this comes from my heart.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Well, this is part of our mission, babe.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: It is part of our mission. We want to do work in life. We have an agreement. We do some, we do different types of work. This is one of the things we do. We have an agreement. Our work must be purposeful.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: It must leave this world better than we found it. That's our agreement. And when you have a great relationship, you get to feel emotionally safe.
You get to feel connected in life. You get to feel seen, you get to feel heard. You get to feel loved. You get to feel like you're worth it every single day. And these feelings, they will change your life. It's.
It's how you dreamed life would be.
When you have a great relationship, it is literally living out the dream or of how good life can really be.
No one ever showed us how to do that. We figured it out, but we are telling you we can show you how to do that.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not super hard. It's not super complicated. You just need to want to make the change and to put in the work. And we want to give you the tools and skills and resources to help you to do that.
We want you to have the sort of relationship that you had when you first met, but better because. Because I remember when Kim and I first met again when we were 18. We were young and, and full of life.
We met each other at uni and we just think it couldn't get better. We thought that that is the relationship we'd have for the rest of our lives.
But again, you know, 10 years later, that's not the relationship we had. We felt distant, we weren't connected and we just. We were just feeling like that, that. That must be impossible to. To achieve. Like, how. How does anyone. That. That's not. That that dream we had as 18 year olds was not what life is really like. But again, right now, I, you know, hat on heart, you know, I've never loved Kim more. I've never been more satisfied in my relationship and I've never felt more safe and secure in my relationship and more.
More able to go out and hit the world with everything I've got. Because I know that no matter what happens, I've got a safe place to land in.
And you can have this too.
And the truth is that if nothing changes, nothing changes.
And if you don't put in the work, if you don't put in the time, life will just continue on as it is right now.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah. The same things keep happening, right? You keep fighting, going around in circles. You keep feeling alone and unseen.
You keep score against each other ongoing. And the distance builds, the resentment builds.
The sad and difficult thoughts cloud your mind all the time.
And we don't want that for you. We. We want you to know, honest to God, there is another way. There is another. It actually exists.
You can have a great relationship. And if you're thinking, I can't, it's not for me, you really can. Anyone can. It's not your fault. You didn't learn the skills. Nobody did. We had to go and learn them. And now you can learn them. And it will change your life. It will push you forward together as a team, not just to survive, but to thrive in life.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
The relationship playbook really is the best of Kim and I. It's the best of us, the best of our relationship.
It's literally everything we've researched, everything we've learned, everything we've practiced over the last 10 to 15 years.
But backed by real relationship science, backed by relationship experts, the Gottmans, Esther Perel, Stan Tatkin, Terry Real.
It's done in a way that simplifies and makes it accessible to both of you in language that you'll both understand in a way that is practical and simple to digest and actually put into action.
And you don't have to figure it out alone. We're here where in each video, we walk you through how to do it. In each activity, you actually learn how to do it so you remember how to do it. And it's easy to put that change into effect straight away.
And we know if you are willing to put in the effort and you are willing to make a change, you can make it happen. That you have that power to do that right now.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah. It's literally one skill at a time.
Step by step.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: We walk you through it in. In such a digestible, simple way that you will. You'll look at it and you'll. You'll just feel like it makes sense now. It makes sense. Ah, that's what's happening.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Lots of aha moments.
And we've been there. We get it, We've been there. They're. They're like, oh, really? Oh, that makes such sense. But that's not what I heard before. But again, this is backed by relationship science. This is backed by all the work we've done and our 20 plus years together as a couple.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: We built this because we want you guys to live your best lives.
We want you to have the relationship you truly want, the one you truly want, the relationship you've dreamed of before.
And we're so, so excited to be able to share this with you, to show you that a great relationship isn't a mystery. You can have one, anyone can have one. You simply need to commit to doing the work. It's six weeks, one hour a week. And learn the skills that no one taught you. That's the key. That's the big secret right there, guys.
You learn those skills, those basic foundational relationship skills, and it will transform your relationship for life and you will never look back. Your life will open up because when your relationship works, everything else rises with it.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more Living the Team Life relationship insights and conversations, head over to Kim Androge.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: And if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find Find us. It'll make them happy, and it will make us really happy.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
