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In this episode, Amberly interviews Dr. Kara Shade, a relationship coach. They talk about what relationship coaching is and how it can benefit couples in various seasons of life. Kara shares experiences from her time working with couples as well as from her own personal life.
Kara asked that I share a clarification on a statistic shared in this episode. I added a one minute clarification at the end of the episode but wanted to share that here in the notes as well. In the episode, we talk about couples getting divorced by seven years. The way it’s stated sounds like half of all couples are getting divorced by that point in their marriage. The statistic is that half of couples who end up getting divorced are getting divorced by year seven of their marriage. You’ll see an infographic from The Gottman Institute after these show notes.
Kara Shade, Relationship Coach and Owner of Grounded in Good, LLC
Bio: Dr. Kara is a wife, a mom of 3, and an award-winning relationship coach. She earned her master’s in dispute resolution and a PhD in family studies, and she’s blogged on relationships for Psychology Today. For more than a decade, couples have let her peek behind the curtain into their relationships to offer encouragement and guidance. Dr. Kara believes showing up well for our people is probably the hardest, most important work we’ll ever do. She hopes her offerings and resources can offer a roadmap for doing just that.
Infographic from The Gottman Institute
This episode’s transcript looks different than most of the other Prioritize Your Marriage transcript. Each speaker is noted in italics when the speaker switches. Some pieces of the transcript read dry or odd and those parts may be better listened to due to how the back and forth sounds, especially with tone of voice.
Amberly: Hey everyone, I’m really excited because as I have been teasing today is my first “expert interview” is what I’m going to call them. And I’m excited because today I have Dr. Kara Shade with me. She is a relationship coach and the owner of Grounded in Good. She has a PhD in family studies and she blogs for Psychology Today. She just released her first book and she does a lot of marriage coaching with couples, which is why I have invited her on today. Is there anything else you want to share about yourself, Kara?
Kara: I am a wife. I’ve got three crazy little kids and I love chocolate. That’s all. We’ll keep it short.
Amberly: You got one kid more than me. I stopped at two. Kudos to you.
Kara: I don’t, I don’t know what to say to that. Thank you!
Amberly: Congratulations!
I interned with Kara when I was doing my master’s degree. She was working for PREP, and I worked with you, doing the social media for PREP. And I got to become certified as a facilitator for PREP 2.0. I love what Kara does because she has made family life education her career, and she does couples coaching. She does a lot of pre marriage marriage prep, relationship coaching, but she does some couple checkups for couples in later stages of life. So tell us a little bit about how you work with couples in the various stages of life, and why that is such a passion of yours.
Kara: So, when my husband and I were engaged, he wanted to do a premarital course. And I felt the way that a lot of my couples feel, which is, ‘Why, why do we need this? Why do we, why do we need to do this? We’re getting married. We’re in love. We’re so excited.’ And, I agreed to do it. And halfway through that course, I went up to the person teaching the course and I was like, “How do you get your job?” And he was like, “What?” And I said, “You know, this is the best blend of psychology, communication, personality styles.” Like all these things that I really loved and had an interest in from college, even back to high school. I had just never heard of relationship education. I’d heard of therapy, but I didn’t know prevention work with couples was even an option.
So my master’s degree had been in dispute resolution, and I focused on families there, doing family mediation. But that was often during the divorce process, helping people divide up custody and split up their assets. And I found in a lot of those mediations that at least one person still wanted to make that relationship work. And usually one person had moved on or had their foot out the door. And my role then wasn’t to fix these marriages, my role was just to have an amicable split. But I started to really wonder, ‘What if you reach couples sooner?’
So then when we had that experience, I said, “I’m going to look into this now that I know prevention for couples is a thing.” And I thought maybe I’d take a job as a weekend facilitator. I ended up getting a full time job and I came back from our honeymoon to a nonprofit and started working in this field, and that’s been almost 12 years ago now. That nonprofit got me into working with engaged couples because we had grant funding and that was kind of the audience we were serving. We were newlyweds ourselves, I could relate to that stage, that was something we were going through actively. It was an easy group for me to identify with.
And as we’ve kind of aged in our relationship and have added kids and stuff, I’ve kind of done the same with my couples by adding these couple checkups of, yeah, I saw you when you were engaged and maybe it was a year ago, maybe it was five years ago. And now maybe you’re transitioning to parenthood or you’re moving across the country or you’re starting a new job or, you know, a year later, maybe they’re finally getting around to merging their finances. And that’s often when I see couples, is just these early relationship transitions. Seeing a lot of those same couples who come back years later and say, okay, you know, we got this great foundation as a marriage prep, but now we need more. Because now we’re in a new stage and a new season and we have new challenges and then I can kind of meet them wherever they are and we tackle that together.
Amberly: I love that. What is your favorite thing to teach couples? Something you’re teaching those marriage prep couples, those couples that are engaged, so in love, ready to spend the rest of their lives together. Or if you’re reaching them at that couple checkup point. Or if, hypothetically, you were to go back to those couples that they’re dissolving their marriage. What is something you would say to all of them that could make their marriage better? Whether they’re madly in love, or they’re in the mess of life, but they still want to make this work or they’re on their way out the door, but if they had one last step for hope, is there something that you would say, try this out, try this out and see if that helps your relationship.
Kara: So I would say my favorite thing to teach has always been communication and conflict resolution. And I think because of my background before this in the mediation and the conflict resolution side of things. I wish more people knew that conflict isn’t a dirty word, and it’s a thing you can do well or a thing you can do poorly. So couples can have really destructive conflict that tears apart their relationship, that tears each other, you know, belittling each other, tearing each other down. But conflict can also be a really important way to connect with your partner and to deepen your relationship. I think a lot of the couples that I see are conflict averse and they feel like, well, I don’t want to bring up my needs and my concerns because I don’t want to start a fight. I don’t want to upset them. I don’t want to make them mad. And that’s one thing I wish people knew is, we can teach you strategies to bring things up in a more non-defensive way. There are formulas and things you can kind of follow to bring something up non-defensively. It doesn’t mean the person won’t get defensive, but it can make it easier.
So one example might be, that your anniversary is coming up. And last year you feel like your partner really dropped the ball. So you can choose to say something like, “Well, our anniversary is coming up. So are we going to do anything or is it just going to be like last year? And it’s just an afterthought and you know, you’re just going to forget it.” That’s not a really great way to bring up this need or this concern or this issue. Versus, you know, we can be talking about the exact same issue, but we can frame it in a positive, either building on past success that this partner has had planning other dates and other experiences. Or we, we focus on the positive on something we would like to enjoy together, bringing your partner in.
So this idea of an invitation versus an accusation, I’m going to invite you in to be a part of the solution and a teammate instead of like your public enemy, number one here, and this is your fault and I’m blaming you and you have to fix it. So that might look like, “Hey, do you remember our first anniversary when we did that weekend getaway or we went to that great restaurant. And I loved when we went ice skating and we did this spontaneous fun stuff together and you surprised me with all of it. I would love to do that again. Do you think for our anniversary, you could plan something special like that again? Cause that would be really fun to do together.” You hear that so differently. It’s building on a success where they’re like, “Oh, you think I did something right. You think I did something well. You enjoyed doing something with me.” versus a guilt trip of like, “You failed last year. You better make it up to me. All these other husbands do better than you.” And then your partner’s not motivated in that moment to rise to the occasion. They’re just upset. They feel like you kind of trampled all over them. You kind of, you know, sucker punched them. So if they do something, it’s coming from a place of a guilt trip and not from a place of genuine like connection and closeness and mutual excitement over this anniversary, that is both of your anniversary, that should be fun for both of you.
So I think that idea of a lot of people bury their needs and their concerns and never articulate them and give their partner a chance to meet them. That’s a big problem. And then on the other side of the spectrum, some people just dump their needs and concerns on their partners in a way that’s really hard to process and really hard to hear. And I think that’s the source of a lot of dissatisfaction because it’s like they should just know what I need. They should just anticipate what I need. And a lot of times we can’t. We need our partner to tell us what’s in their head and we can’t expect them to read our mind. And a lot of people that are like, “Well, I said it was fine. They should know that I’m not fine.” Some people will just take you at your word, and if you say you’re fine, then they assume you’re fine. Expecting the subtext, expecting people to read 20 layers below the surface. Sometimes we just have to be very clear with what we need, but present it in a way. It’s not manipulation, but I tell couples all the time, you will get more of what you want and need when you position it in a way that your partner can hear it and receive it better. The packaging matters. I also teach them to look past the packaging and at what the message is, because sometimes the packaging is going to suck. But ideally, if you have a message or a need you want to convey, finding a way that your unique partner at a time, at a place, in a way that they are going to receive it better is going to give you a lot better chance of getting more of what you want and need out of that relationship.
Amberly: I love that. I don’t know if you listened to the episode that went live this weekend on Prioritize Your Marriage, but that just continues a conversation I had. I had talked about considering your partner and also sharing how you would like to be considered. Everything you shared there, just like, “amen”d that conversation and took it to the next level. I’m not even going to add to that, I think it was so perfect. And as you were saying that I was thinking about, how I listen to the podcast Marriage Therapy Radio with Laura Heck and Zach Brittle. Something they talked about one time is that a lot of couples, when they come into therapy, which I’m going to get to this in a second, they’re to that point of no return, kind of where you talked about. They’re dissolving their marriage, and I’m just here to make sure it goes well, that there’s a conflict resolution. What you just said can play a role in whether they’re madly in love, they’re still wanting to make this work but life is hard, We’re on our last straw and is there any hope, but also as they’re dissolving that if that didn’t work out that the way that they conflict resolve. Zach and Laura talked about how a lot of couples therapists end up doing divorce therapy almost. But it’s, how do you continue to function as partners in the pieces of life that you’re still going to have to be partners in, especially co-parenting? Or if you’re just dissolving those assets, whatever that looks like without it becoming so toxic and just turning into hate and having that respect and understanding of each other still.
I’m a family life educator as well. I love the relationship education. But kind of like you talked about in the beginning, a lot of couples are like, “Well, why, why do we need to take a marriage prep course?” And I have people in my life getting married that I’m like, “Hey, these are some really good marriage prep options. If you’re willing to pay, here are some really great options.” And I send them your way. “Or an online course if you don’t want to talk to someone.” Or “here are some free options that you can take. And then it gets you a discount on your marriage license,” which I know you have on your website. But, some aren’t willing to do that. They’re like, we don’t need that. What would you say to those couples?
A lot of religions, if they’re going to get married in a specific church, that is a requirement to meet with the pastor or the clergy and do that. But for someone that’s just like, I don’t really need to do that and I’m not going to. What would you say to them? What is the benefit of doing that marriage prep when they think they’re so in love and they’ve got everything figured out, nothing is going to break them. What is the, what is the buy in for that?
Kara: I had a couple in a review call what I do “professional development for love”. I am not a therapist, so I am a relationship coach. I work in prevention and education. I am like a teacher, a coach, facilitator around relationship topics. So I would argue whatever you do for a living, would you just show up to do that with no training? Would you just say well, I’d really like to be a nurse and I can just be a nurse now because I want to be. And I would love to be a plumber and I’m sure I can figure it out. Just you know, give me a plunger right? Like that’s all I need to know right? Like I got this. And I think anything important in life where you have a degree of responsibility for something and investment in something, you get trained, you study, you talk to other people who are in that profession or that role, or who do that thing, you want to up your knowledge and your skill sets to meet the task that’s ahead of you.
So I think it’s in a lot of ways, Oh, I’m committing to this person for the rest of my life. Based on, you know, maybe you’ve known each other six months, maybe you’ve known each other six years, maybe you’ve known each other since you were babies, whatever it is, that’s great. And the longer you’ve been together, the more experiences you’ve seen each other in. I think that’s all really great information. We have no clue what’s coming next. We have no clue what’s around the corner. We don’t know if we’ll miscarry a child. Nobody thinks they will. We don’t think we’re going to lose a job. Nobody thinks they will. We don’t think we’re going to lose our parents at a young age. Nobody thinks they will. And we go into marriage, I think with a lot of these just optimistic rose-colored glasses of it’s great today, so it will always be great. And I think all the marrieds in the room are laughing at that because it’s like, okay, that’s really naive and that’s really sweet. But the love will keep us together idea is it is love and it is work and it is commitment and it is sacrifice. There are so many dimensions beyond just, we have so much fun hanging out and we have a lot in common. And when a couple comes in and tells me, yeah, we don’t fight at all. And I’m like, we have a problem. We have a problem. So this idea of being conflict-free, being so in love, being whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I want the couples to be happy and be excited for this chapter together and be ready.
But at the same time, I really appreciate the couples who say, Hey, one or both of us came from divorced parents and we don’t want that so we want to make sure we’ve done everything we can do proactively. Or “Hey, you know, we’ve talked about a lot of stuff, but we don’t know what we’ve missed. We don’t know if there are some big things we haven’t talked about. We don’t know if we’re talking about them in the right way, or if we have some unresolved stuff.” I worked with a couple recently and they have very different religious backgrounds and practices and their big thing in premarital was, is this a deal breaker for us as a couple, or can we find a way to mesh these cultural differences and religious differences in a way that we can build a life together?
Sometimes you have a couple that comes in and like, oh, yeah, we’re great on everything, we’re great on everything, but they want kids and I don’t want kids. And I’m like, so what have you guys agreed on, half a kid or like, what is the agreement that you’ve reached here? Because that for a lot of people is a deal breaker of we either want a life that involves children or we don’t want a life that involves children. And sometimes you do want that life and then for different reasons with fertility and other things, it doesn’t happen and you have to change course. But when a couple comes in for premarital and they are not aligned on some of these big things as far as their morals, the direction of life, their core values, those are things we explore together. And I think a lot of people would just say, I’m like a third party. I’m a person they can bounce stuff off of that isn’t their family or friends where you don’t want to spill all your personal stuff to family or friends. And frankly, you may have some good family and friends giving you good advice, but they may not know why it’s good advice. And a lot of times they’re giving you advice from their specific relationship, which may or may not apply to most couples, which may or may not apply to your relationship. So I think it’s just a good exercise in getting used to talking to somebody else about your relationship in a candid and honest way.
I am not a therapist, so I think that helps at this stage when I’m telling people I don’t work with couples in distress. I don’t work with couples who have X Y Z type of challenges going on. This is prevention. This is education. This is like signing up for Excel classes for the computer, and I want to earn a certification for, you know, this or that thing. You’re showing up to learn more about love and what it takes to sustain a relationship through the good, the bad, the ugly, you’re equipping yourself with new tools. Because Amberly, you know this, schools are not teaching, overwhelmingly schools are not teaching these skills. I had great role models, but a lot of people didn’t, of what a good healthy marriage looks like. So we know what we saw and we either want to do more of that or we want to do less of that. But for people who did not have a good role model, they don’t have a find and replace here. It’s like, well, I know that didn’t work, or I know I don’t want that, but what do I do instead? Or how do I avoid that happening? So having somebody who is a family life educator or a trained marriage coach or somebody who can speak into that space and say, Okay, here are research-based tools and insights and practices that will help you if you want to avoid that, replace it with this. These are things to do instead. Somebody who has the knowledge and the skills who can kind of do that.
I think that idea of just equipping yourself for the task and the task is massive of, this is going to be the foundation of my adult relationships. I’m building a life with this person. This isn’t just a job I can quit in a year if I don’t like it and find something else. We’re signing on for a lifelong commitment, and I would like to know everything I need to know before I do that. And the funny thing is couples are a lot more scared about a first child. Cause I think couples are like terrified and they’re like, I need breastfeeding class, I need CPR class, and we need to learn how to swaddle and we need to watch all these YouTube videos and we need all the books about sleep training. And that triggers a fear response I think, because people realize, Oh, I’m going to be parenting a small child. What a huge responsibility. I don’t have tools for this. I need to be equipped, because I’m going to have to do this. And I don’t think marriage triggers the fear response for a lot of people in the same way where it’s like I need to get equipped. It might be a fear response like I’m going to get cold feet or I’m not ready, I’m not ready and I’m stalling. Or I’m afraid of that commitment, but it doesn’t push a lot of people to want to be equipped. But I would argue it’s just the same type of huge life transition that you don’t want to go into blindly.
Amberly: I love that, idea that you’re preparing for something, like you need the skills to do something. I loved when you talked about being a plumber and how you could just take a plunger and you could fix all the toilet problems, right? And maybe you could figure that one out, but it would be a lot harder, without the knowledge and those skills.
Like you mentioned, you do coaching, not therapy. You don’t work with couples in distress. Can a couple have some distress and come work with you and get, setting that distress aside, good skills to move forward? Do you recommend because of your experience and your expertise and everything that you have taken on in life, that they also see a therapist? Or is there a point when you’re like, hey, this coaching isn’t going to work for you? This is obviously going beyond the marriage prep. Those couples that come to you for couple checkups. Or even if there’s a couple coming in for marriage prep that is that way, is there a point where you’re like, you need a little bit more? Not saying that this is hopeless and this isn’t going to work, but I recommend X, Y, and Z, and we can do this in addition, and come back to me, or instead.
Kara: As premarital goes, I know you mentioned earlier about like a lot of people doing it through a church or a pastor or an officiant, sometimes requiring it. Because my premarital stuff is not faith-based explicitly. I’m a person of faith, but it’s not faith-based premarital stuff, it’s research-based. So in those cases, I kind of say, what I do is separate and distinct, but it’s complimentary to what you might do in a church setting or synagogue or mosque or wherever your place of worship is. Nothing I’m going to teach you is going to be at odds with like the golden rule and loving your neighbor and treating people well and all that stuff. But if you want a deep dive into the biblical roles of husband and wife or any different faith-based tradition, that would have to come from someone else and we would be partners in that. So I think from the therapy side, it’s similar. I have a lot of disclaimers on my website and then I have couples sign a disclaimer before we work together, just acknowledging if there’s abuse if there’s addiction if there are serious mental health concerns for either of you that I’m not gonna be a fit for those types of issues. But I have a referral list, I have resources and recommendations to help those people if I’m not the right fit and I’m not qualified to handle those issues.
Sometimes I’m working with a couple, premarital work, and we will hit on a certain topic or a certain issue, and this is pushing beyond my scope of what I do. And I’ll tell them that and have to redirect them and say, okay, you know, I have some people that you could talk to about that. I can send you some stuff after our session. Or hey, that issue that you’re bringing up that you’re kind of stuck on, that’s not something I’m really an expert at, but I bet some people on this list would be better equipped to help you deal with this thing or that thing. So it really depends. If the issue is a non-starter for me, something where the relationship has abuse or addictions or some of those things, that’s an immediate referral for me. If it’s something where that person may be struggling with depression or anxiety, or they have just a mental health challenge of their own. Sometimes they are seeing a therapist already, or they’re like, yeah, I’ve already seen a therapist for my PTSD or for my postpartum depression or for whatever. And that’s just a candid part of the conversation is I’ve had these types of issues and I’ve seen someone or I’m seeing someone.
If I feel that they’re able to engage in the process with me, in good faith, and that I think it’s going to make a difference, then we’ll do it. If we can compartmentalize those issues and they’re going to handle the other issues with a therapist, then I can still work with them as a couple. If it is a type of mental health issue or a challenge that’s so pervasive that we’re not going to make progress here until you deal with X, Y, or Z, and then maybe come back after that. That doesn’t happen often because of I think all the disclaimers and all the things I talk to people about. If they were just in survival mode in a different area of life and they hadn’t processed it and worked through it, then I would probably recommend they see a therapist and work through those issues first. And then when they’re ready for just this educational enrichment opportunity when they’re kind of out of survival mode or out of that deep distressing period. But it’s hard to be in enrichment and in survival mode sometimes at the same time.
Amberly: I feel like that’s helpful to know. Kind of on the same lines, but different, you told me about 90 percent of what you do is marriage prep. And you kind of told me the transitions when you see couples. But if you were to give an ideal scenario of, I would love to see you for marriage prep, and then when you hit these transitions in life. or if you come upon these maybe not common transitions, like having kids, but something that happens like this, come back for a couple’s checkup, and that’s going to benefit you the most. Where would you tell couples to fit those couple checkups in their life to really set themselves up for success? Cause I talk on A Prioritized Marriage about, as you shift into different stages and seasons of life, and that could be something that’s going to last a week or something unexpected that’s going to last the rest of your life, that you’re looking at your marriage and where you need to make those adjustments and adjusting as needed. But if you could tell couples from the beginning, do marriage prep, prep yourself for that, and come back and do it at this and this and this time, and that’s going to help you to prevent those problems later on, I wouldn’t say a hundred percent prevent, but that’s going to put up that barrier of hopefully preventing those problems later on.
Kara: So I think this is going to be very individual to each couple. I think something big, like the transition to parenthood, I think is an obvious one because the research is very clear. Almost overwhelmingly, like half to two-thirds of couples have a huge decline in their marital or relationship satisfaction after they bring that first baby home. So we know something like that and say, wow, okay, this is a big adjustment of roles, transitions, our physical hormones, body, and all these things that get wrapped up in this transition. Finances, who’s staying home, childcare, all the endless laundry and dishes and bottles and feedings, and all these things. So I think that’s an obvious one when couples probably look for extra support.
I’ve had couples come back when they’re considering having a child or another child, but they’re working through, how will we make the money work? How will we make it work with childcare? And they’re wanting to just spitball and talk through the logistics of how we could make that transition. It’s a thing that we want, and it’s a goal that we have, but we’re kind of stuck on these things and we need some help figuring out where we are with it and processing it.
I think for me, I feel like transitions are usually a period where conflict picks up, where intimacy can wane, and there’s just so much change, and we’re kind of finding our footing again. That really, anytime you’re going through a transition, if you feel like you don’t know how to handle it, or you’re not handling it well, that can be a good time to just get some resources and some support and some third party guidance on that kind of thing.
Some couples come back every year around their anniversary because they want a state of the union. They just want it on the calendar either at the new year or their anniversary. What are our goals for our relationship or what are the unique challenges this year that are going on? Where’s an area we need refreshing? And kind of like going to an annual at your doctor to like do your blood work and how are things looking and where do we need to make some tweaks and shifts? I really liken what I do in prevention to like your general practice doctor, like the one you go to for an annual visit. Versus if you’re in cardiac arrest, like you go to a therapist and your relationship, not if you’re in cardiac arrest, you’d go to the emergency room. But that is a level of intervention.
A lot of times, like you mentioned earlier, the last stats I had seen were usually six years in and half of couples were getting divorced seven years in. So by the time a lot of couples are finally willing to go get help and talk to someone, a lot of times that relationship, one person, both people have one foot out the door. There’s just so much hurt, so much stuff built up. You view it like your house. So if you own a home and it’s lovely and you move in and you never do anything. You don’t mow the lawn, you don’t do routine maintenance. Eventually, that house falls apart. It’s infested with something, it’s got damage of some kind. So if we’re not putting a fresh coat of paint, we’re not keeping the grass trimmed, we’re not doing this, that, and the other. That beautiful home that we started with very quickly regresses into just total disarray.
So relationship-wise, that beautiful marriage, that relationship on our wedding day, if we don’t cultivate it and nurture it and maintain it and improve it even through all the ups and downs of life. If we slowly get detached or if we start fighting and it becomes more hostile and all these things start to happen. And then six years in, you’re like, fine, I guess we need to go to therapy. Well, we’ve had six years of hurt, potentially six years of stuff that’s built up for a lot of couples, maybe longer. And then you’re throwing the whole kitchen sink at a poor therapist saying, these are all the problems, 87 issues that we need to handle, or I’m done. And that therapist is like, I have 50 minutes to address 87 issues, and you only want one session or two sessions. Then it’s a long road. It’s a long commitment at that point to working with someone and being invested to try to undo and kind of repair a lot of what’s happened. So I feel like the earlier you can see somebody if you feel like things are getting sideways. If you’re like, you know, I’ve talked to my partner about it, but I don’t like the way that we talk to each other, or I don’t feel like our issues are getting resolved in a way that works for us. I feel like we’re not connected. We haven’t been intimate in a long time. You know, whatever it is, if there are things in your relationship that are starting to concern you, then I think that’s a good time to talk to somebody.
And maybe it’s a therapist and maybe it’s an educator. It probably depends how long it’s been and just what the scope of the problem is. But I think one good thing about couples who do marriage prep is they are a lot more open to getting help earlier. They kind of understand what it’s like to work with another person and have a third party that they talk to about their relationship. They kind of know red flags and warning signs to be looking out for. So that as those things happen, or they feel the wheels kind of coming off, they either call me and they say, Hey, can we come back for such and such? And depending on what it is, I either say, sure, let’s do a checkup. Or I say, it sounds like we’re here now and this is more a therapist thing, but here’s a list and here are some people. And I become just a resource to them ongoing of helping them figure out what type of problem it is and whether I’m the right person to help them or not.
Amberly: I loved when you compared yourself to your general practice doctor for relationships. Because it got me thinking about right now I go to my doctor twice a year because of a health problem we’re trying to keep from becoming a bigger health problem, so it might look like more regularly. Or if I’ve had a health problem and they refer me to a specialist, they still can like, Oh, Hey, this has been a past problem specialist fixed it, managed it, but then I still might go see that specialist to for more specific in depth. I think that helps define between like a relationship education and coaching side versus a therapy side.
And I think therapy can sometimes fill that role as well. If couples decide to do that route, and I do know some, some couples who say, we just have our therapist on speed dial, we go see him every 3 months and check in and there’s not any problems. But it comes, with a stigma and I’m wondering if you would, maybe address that stigma. What do you say for couples who have that stigma? How do you address that stigma when you’re talking to people, maybe just out in the general public, or if you have a couple that comes in and one of them is not fully on board?
Kara: I think a lot of times one partner is driving them coming to me and the other one is just like, okay, fine. Or they come kind of just dragging their feet and that’s fine. I feel like that’s my job in the first two minutes of talking to them to make them feel comfortable and make them laugh, help them trust me, help them know I’m on their team. I’m not judging you. I’m not evaluating you. I’m not writing any prescriptions. I’m not diagnosing anything. It’s like, Hey, like, you want to have a great relationship? Cool. Let’s talk about it. Let’s have a conversation. So I really try to have fun with the couples that I work with. You get into heavy topics and stuff that’s deep, but I really try to infuse it with as many like jokes and just levity and stuff that makes it not feel like. You’re judging us and are we going to make it or not? And this and this that’s just never been my, my approach.
The stigma with therapy is there. I think a lot, a lot of people go to therapy. I think whether they would admit it or not, probably at least half or more than half of your social circle or the people that you work with, it’s probably much higher than that. But I think the rates of anxiety and depression are really through the roof. I think a lot of this stuff is real-life stuff. But we all just know on a basic level, like life is really stressful and demanding and there are a lot of distractions. And there are a lot of things to worry about in the world generally, and all the messages were bombarded with and are my kids eating the healthiest kind of bread and are they doing enough extracurricular activities? And do I spend enough quality time with my husband? You know, all these things to stress and worry about. But, it’s not a deficiency. I have an episode on my podcast. It’s on grief and it’s talking about this idea of getting help is not a deficiency, acknowledging that there are some things that are just too big for one person or for you and your partner. And sometimes something does mushroom and snowball and it gets to be okay if we had handled it when it was a pea or a golf ball, maybe, but now that it’s the size of a pumpkin or the size of an avalanche, we need to call in reinforcements. I don’t know, how to de-stigmatize it except to say that a lot more people than you probably realize are seeing a therapist and it’s not a deficiency on your part at all.
I would argue anyone who is willing to do work on themselves or their relationships, they should be commended, they should have their own little cheering section. When a couple comes in and says, Hey, we just want to make our marriage the best it can be, or we really want to start our marriage on a good foot. I’m like, good for you, good for you. It’s not my officiant made me or my parents made me. It’s we just think this is important and we want to invest our money and our time in it. I’m like, good for you. Like keeping the first things first.
Amberly: I love that you just said invest, like, are you investing? It’s investing in your relationship, whether you’re doing therapy or you’re doing coaching or education that you’re investing. And it might not be money. Maybe they’re just following us on social media and reading your, your blogs and listening to your podcast. That you’re still investing time and effort and attention, and then applying that.
Kara: And that’s exactly it. I would just add one thing. It’s not that you have to go see someone every year to have a good marriage. I’m not arguing to like fill my doors here at all. I think if you’re willing to buy, spend 20 bucks that year and buy a relationship book and talk through it together. Or you want to watch some videos on YouTube or follow someone on social media who has great content. There are tons of reputable therapists and psychologists and people. I think of Dr. Morgan Cutlip has a lot of great stuff. Liz Earnshaw has a lot of great stuff with Liz Listens. So there are a lot of really good trusted voices, putting good information and reminders and tips out there that you can follow on a regular basis.
And I think just having the intention and the eye toward wanting to continue learning and growing and then just scanning. Maybe there is no issue and nothing needs to be done. Great. And then you scan again in a month or six months or a year. Oh, okay, this is starting to develop or let me keep an eye on that or let me put a little time and energy into that. Just having your head on a swivel and continuing to learn. I think that’s a lot of it.
Amberly: Yeah, and applying what you learn to.
Kara: Yes!
Amberly: You have that intention. You want to do it. You’re making that effort. So make that effort work for you take action. And it’s not always going to be perfect, but you’re making the effort and that will make a difference. We’re not trying to reach the perfection spot in our relationships. We’re just trying to make it better and have something that’s going to last.
You talked about how a lot of your marriage prep science will come back for those marriage checkups. Can a couple come to you for a marriage checkup if they haven’t done marriage prep with you? That’s my big loaded question. As I’m sharing all your stuff, is that something they could do?
Kara: I have recently started offering that. For a long time, the answer was no. For a long time, it was like door number one is marriage prep. And then door number two for a couple checkups was only available to those couples. Of late, I have kind of expanded my website so that those checkups can be for any couple. And I have some that are related to the transition to parenthood, some that are just, we want a two-hour state of the union check-in for our marriage.
My challenge, like I told you, is always making sure that the couples I see, on the prevention and education side, are really in a prevention and education stage. So I’m totally open and happy to work with couples that haven’t done marriage prep with me. It’s just making sure that they’re going to be a good fit for the type of stuff that I offer, knowing that I’m not a therapist and I can’t help if they’re, you know, we’re 10 years in and we’re in distress versus, well, we’re 10 years in and we have a good relationship and we’re looking for enrichment. I can help one of you, but I couldn’t help the other kind of thing.
Amberly: Going on that same question, while we’re talking about it, if they wanted to do a checkup with you, they can go to your website. Is it like they fill out a form and you decide? What does that process look like? What does that look like? So couples know.
Kara: So everybody will do this differently for me. I just have a contact form on my website and you can just, it’s just like two things, like put your name and put your email and then it has a comment box. And usually people will just write a few sentences there of whatever they’re looking for, if they’re engaged or if they’re saying, hey, you know, “We’ve been married seven years and such and such is going on, and we’d love to schedule a checkup with you”. And then I would just email them back and we would kind of just talk that way. I’d kind of ask more questions, tell them what I could do, see if it was a fit. And then if it was, then you would figure out the scheduling and the payments and that kind of stuff. I try to vet people on the front end and ask those questions and let them, them ask me questions to make sure what they’re looking for is what I can do before we ever get to a point of scheduling and taking money and anything like that.
I don’t see couples ongoing. So if you do marriage prep with me, it’s four, two-hour sessions. And that’s the same for every single couple and it’s a concrete start and end. It’s not like therapy in the sense of just “let me know if you want to come back next week and just let me know”. From the education side, I’m always using a curriculum. I’m using something specific that we’re going to cover that we’re going to work from. If I know you want to do transition to parenthood, then I go get my Gottman bringing baby home curriculum and we’re going to work some of the angles from that.
And if you haven’t worked with me before, then I would say, Hey, it’s going to be a six-hour commitment instead of a three hour, because I haven’t given you the foundation and marriage prep on all these other couple components that I want you to know as a part of the transition to parenthood. So you’d kind of be saying, if you want transition to parenthood, it’s six hours or eight hours and it would be broken into three or four sessions, and each session you would just pay before the session kind of thing.
Amberly: Thanks for sharing that. I know that’s like the technical stuff, but I think people always wonder, what would that look like?
Kara: I would check the websites of whoever, cause some people will say, oh, “I’m going to do an intake with you first and spend an hour and it’s going to cost $300”. I try to give a lot of my time away for free in the sense of not just the free content, like what we create on the podcast or social media. But, when couples come back and they ask me questions via email, I’ll write them back emails. I’m not like a CPA and I’m not gonna send you a bill for the 30 minutes I spent writing the email. And if we take time on the front end to figure out if it’s a good fit and exchange emails, I’m not charging you for that time.
Amberly: Okay. I have a little bit of a personal question. It’s not too personal. Okay. Through the seasons of life that you and your husband have been through together. We know you’ve got three kids, you’re married, you’ve done school, you’ve done your own businesses, things like that. What is something that has worked really well for you? Or what is something you have done to make sure that you continue to make your relationship with each other a priority through those different seasons of life?
Kara: It depends on the season that we’re in. I remember when our first daughter was a baby and we’d have to get up a bunch throughout the night. And a lot of couples had kind of said, Oh, we split the night and one person does this and one person does that. For us, at some point, we just decided we’re going to do all of these together and we’re going to be exhausted together and we would be delirious, but we would be just like laughing. My husband will look back and be like, yeah, those were actually like really fun times in our relationship. And I’m like, it was not so fun. Was it? Like getting up. Five times every night to feed the baby and have no sleep. But I think the rituals that we built around when all the kids were little and we were just going to do that stage together instead of alone, that was a big one for us. It just never worked for us pragmatically to like have one person try to keep sleeping while the baby’s screaming in the other room. For us that didn’t work. So we were both super exhausted. Obviously like if you need to do brain surgery in the morning, then this is not gonna be a good plan for you. But, that’s what worked for us.
But I think with date nights, for us with young kids that often looks like, okay, when the kids go to bed, were we doing takeout when they were little, were we playing games and stuff once they were all tucked in and in bed? Now that they’re getting a little older, it might mean we’re actually going out somewhere sometimes. After our kids go to bed, we’ve kind of built-in for my husband and for me, like I work for about an hour, he’ll go get an hour of either work or downtime, recharging, reading a podcast, exercise, whatever he wants to do. And then we’ll get cleaned up and then it’s like our time. So sometimes that means it’s 8:45 or nine o’clock, but then that hour we may watch a show together, we may talk about stuff, whatever it is, but that’s kind of how we work it so that we get time for both of us individually and together after the kids go to bed, and that’s kind of worked pretty well, generally.
For now, I don’t have any like, miraculous, really great ideas here. It helps that our kids go to bed early. And I know a lot of people whose kids that are little stay up till like nine o’clock at night. And I don’t, that would not work for us. Like for me, I work at night most of the time. If they’re not all in bed at 7:30, like that’s a challenge. So prioritizing sleep became very important early on.
Amberly: I think you said you don’t have anything miraculous, but it’s those simple things, right? That make, they make a big difference. So thanks for sharing that.
We’ve talked about how people can work with you, coaching, if they want to do that. I’ve loved this conversation and I know others will love it. If they want to hear more from you, where can they find you?
Kara: Groundedingood.org is my website. I don’t post a ton on social media, but I am on Instagram at grounded in good. I think I still have a Facebook page, so that’s probably also at grounded in good. I’ve got a newsletter on my website and then the upcoming podcast.
Amberly: When that launches, I will be sure to let everyone know.
Kara: Oh, thank you.
Amberly: Thank you for joining me, Kara. I loved it! Thank you for being my guinea pig for my first interview. It’s been great to chat with you and learn more. So thank you so much!
Kara: It’s been a lot of fun. Thanks.