The 3 Shifts That Transformed Our Marriage in the Chaos of Parenting

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Besties, I am so glad you are here today. This is a very special episode because it is the first episode of Dina's maternity leave. I miss you, Dina, already. And in lieu of Dina, we have my husband, VP Hype Squad fan favorite, Tyler over here. Hello, Tyler. Hey. Hey. And today we're pulling the curtain back. The real messy, hilarious, sometimes hard truth of what it looks like to raise kids and try to stay married and sane. Are we doing a good job of either of those? Yeah, I think we're doing a really good job of all of them. That's nice. Bestie, by the end of this episode, you'll walk away with five things that have truly kept us afloat.

0:51Probably a few laughs that make you feel way less alone in the chaos. I need that for myself, honestly. Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins. The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right. We're Kristen. And Dina. Child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of Big Little Feelings. And we're not here to give you more pressure or perfect parenting energy. Nope. We're here to tell the truth. The unfiltered, beautiful, brutal truth about what it means to raise kids and re-raise ourselves in the process. Because parenting isn't just about sleep schedules and snack hacks.

1:30It's about healing. It's about breaking cycles. It's about becoming the kind of adult you want your kids to grow up to be. This is the place where we say the quiet parts out loud, and we're so glad that you're here. Okay, before we get started, I'm going to say something to the besties. Can we just say, you bestie are a badass. even pressing play on today's episode. Like really think about that. You have kids, you have work, or maybe the kids in the home is your work because that is a full-time job bill. You have life, laundry piles, and you still carved out time to listen to this parenting podcast.

2:08That already makes you different than 99 % of the people out there. So you should be really proud of yourself. VP Hype Squad, hello. Welcome. How are you? I'm good. But you know what's really bothering me? what i'm trying to buy a shampoo right now literally right now by the way besties literally this episode i just want you to know is going to be a real glimpse in our marriage because you're looking at shampoos while we're doing this podcast yeah you would think i don't need it because i'm bald but i need it for my beard but nevertheless so i'm looking for shampoo i feel like 80 of shampoos are food related like the last one i just saw was birthday cake And this is not kid shampoo.

2:51This is adult shampoo. Is it adult man shampoo or is it like unisex? Listen, I don't discriminate one shampoo to another. That's nice. Why would I want birthday cake shampoo? Who is that for? You know, it's like the body washes. It's like vanilla cupcake and stuff. I'm not into it. So that's something that we align on in our marriage. That's nice. That's something nice. I guess, you know, I guess some people want to be like, you know, desirable in a food way. Did you say yummy? Yeah, they want to smell yummy. Huh. Yeah. You know, like there's deodorant that smells like birthday cake and all of those.

3:25There's even candles. We're not big on the sweet candles either. We're not big on food smells outside of food. If it's going to smell like food, I want to be able to eat it. Maybe that's what it is. Is that our thing? That we have? Is this like a big people thing? Is this a big people thing? People love vanilla candles. Because then they can't eat it. So they can smell it, but then, you know, there's no temptation to eat it. This is a really interesting hypothesis. I need Dr. Ruth. Who's Dr. Ruth? Isn't she the old lady that answers questions? I don't know. Anyways, besties, my current favorite smell is cashmere and rain.

4:02Of the deodorant? Nope, don't say it. Of deodorant. If they want to come do a sponsorship, I'm happy to do that for them. Cashmere and rain though. I want to smell like rain. Yeah, that's actually one of my favorites too. Also, the other one is juniper and something. yeah and they have a coconut vanilla one i'm not afraid to smell sweet just not edible this is the worst cold open i think we've ever had but it's the most relatable is it yeah i don't know if it is okay um dina had her baby that's what i wanted to talk about was the baby dina i love you so stoked for you baby number three in the house oh my god he's rush rush dina fraternity right now the three boys even the dog is a boy oh my god he's so cute super cute the one that she sent yesterday the picture of him he's his bestie she sent a picture and the baby's laying on the little swaddle and he's naked and he's so cute it's a cute baby okay tyler when we sat down before we started recording do you want to share what you said yeah sure why not i said thank god i don't have a newborn baby.

5:07Yeah. Because truly, thank God I don't have a newborn baby right now. Like no offense, Dina. And anybody listening. And anybody listening. Well, a lot of people, probably a lot of people with newborn babies. Listen, I have nothing against newborn babies. Personally, I have nothing against newborn babies. I have no beef, no beef with babies. I'm just glad I don't have to take care of one right now. Yeah. I don't have the capacity for that. You know, what's interesting and says a lot about me and also our relationship is when you said that well first of all you said it in a pretty what's the word adamant what's the word like a real like it was it was factual and then and then you said that sounds terrible and so my instinct was to be like what a dick and like he has no heart and like he doesn't look at that little baby and have an inkling of wanting a baby but i'm gonna call myself out right now because yesterday I was at Barry's boot camp and Dina sent me the picture of the baby and I was immediately like oh my god he's so cute and blah blah blah and then a few minutes later when I was working out and I was doing my thing and I knew afterwards I was gonna get a coffee and yada yada I was like wow this is interesting because I'm pretty happy I don't have a newborn too can't go to Barry's with a newborn.

6:24Dina probably could. Dina probably could. It's too loud for a baby. You need the headphones. You're just like, can you guys turn down the music a little bit? Dina would do that, by the way. Very forward. Baby headphones. Dina sent me a video of herself working out harder than I've ever worked out in my life. Truly, that's not an exaggeration. It was the day that she gave birth. It was the same day. And I'm so impressed by her. It's like, bravo. I'm so impressed. My knee hurts a little bit. And I'm like, well, noodles staying home today. No walk today. No, she's so impressive. She did it at home in her bathtub.

7:04I'm not going to give the story away. She worked out in her bathtub? Okay. No, she gave birth. She gave birth in her bathtub at home. And it looked absolutely beautiful and amazing. And I'm so proud of her. I love that for you. I love that for her. And I'm good. But are you excited to see this little baby, though? because it's not ours and like you know what I mean this is like the granddad effect I can come over load this baby up with espresso and then leave espresso candy whatever I don't know that you give babies either of those things and just like give him some love like I'm excited to just let him snuggle you're talking about like three years old enough yeah Dina I'll see your baby in four years okay yeah you know it does fill me with like some sort of feeling when you say that but then I know it's logical like you guys if I may are you talking about autistic people you say you guys I'm not I would never besties that's not an autism joke okay some people in the reviews are like they make fun of autistic people it's okay to make fun of myself Tyler has autism diagnosed no that's not what I meant I meant you men like men you guys men have a harder time in the newborn phase and that's okay and so now you know when they turn three or you turn a corner people are so focused on making a collar for dogs that you can translate dog barks into voice technology is that not a thing is that just cartoons what are you talking about they need that for babies because i have no idea what they need i see that's why it's so hard and you have to hold them the whole time that's hard yeah it's a lot of attachment do it but it's a lot.

8:45Yeah. Okay. Congratulations, Dina and anyone listening with a newborn. Dina, we love you. We miss you. We miss you. So let's segue into today's episode. We're going to talk about our marriage. I'm down. Marriage in general. I'm down. Okay. Let's do it. Hello. Your children eat vitamins. Mine do. But did you know most vitamins contain at least five grams of sugar per serving? That's why Haya created a super powered chewable vitamin that is made with zero sugar and zero gummy additives, yet it tastes great and is perfect for picky eaters. Made with the help of pediatricians and nutritional experts, Haya is a vitamin that is packed with fruits, veggies, and supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals that your growing kid needs.

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10:46My God, I don't have time. I feel like my self-care, if you want to call it that, but really what I mean is taking care of myself has fallen completely to the wayside. I honestly before back to school, just the entire summer going into back to school, the taking care of myself has fallen off. But here is one thing that has not fallen off. It is my 10 minutes a day that I use my Bond Charge red light face mask. My skin is still glowing. I might be a hot mess. I might be running all over the place. I might be forgetting school teacher forms, but my skin is looking good. And you know why? It's because it is so easy to do that.

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14:38You keep it on the railroad track around here. And I love that because those don't exist where I come from. It is Tokyo Drift where I come from in my brain. And you are a railroad track. You are Burlington, Northern Santa Fe through here. Train joke for all you people out there. I appreciate that. And I like that you're acknowledging that. And that feels nice. And then B, I'm trying really hard right now to think of something positive back because I love a lot of things about you. And to be very, very honest, being the railroad track conductor isn't always like the most fun job. And a lot of us women have resentment that keeping everything on track has to fall on them.

15:33Yeah, I get that. I definitely get that. That's something I'm working on is like creating my own railroad tracks. Fun fact, when I was in high school I was required to lay down railroad tracks for a project for our school. It was very interesting. Child abuse-y? Well, I went to school in the south and they had us laying down railroad track for an actual train which now that I think about it is kind of fucked up. You go to Provo? Is it in Utah? Is that the south? Are you okay? You can blink twice if you need something. Honestly, that's probably one of the better parts of my childhood. There's so much to unpack.

16:09I don't know if we should pivot this episode. No, back to where we were. Wow. So my resentment. Go ahead. You're a great wife. You have tons of resentment because you are a train conductor. I love that about you. And I also want to contribute to the train conducting. And you know what? I will say that something that I love about you is that you have always and continue to have a very strong desire and opinion about being 50%. And while sometimes the load starts to slowly shift over to me and we have to recalibrate and that's just part of our marriage and part of a lot of people's marriage. What I really appreciate is that desire to be a 50 % partner, a 50 % parent.

17:00That's not always the case for so many people's marriages and partnerships. And you know what? I appreciate getting credit for trying, number one. Yes. But number two, yeah, I try to be open to course correcting. Like, how can I come back to my 50 % of things and both of us acknowledging what the other is doing like we're not doing things in the dark what does that mean well we like acknowledge what each other is doing like our tasks our day-to-days that might seem they just happen so they don't get acknowledged but we try to acknowledge those things that happen throughout the day the week the month that just happen and they don't happen without one of us doing them yeah absolutely we appreciate each other we appreciate each other That's good.

17:45I mean, so far, this is like a really good episode. I mean, we're two minutes in. So give it time. We're like really the perfect couple. Are we Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds right now? Do you think Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have fights? Yeah. You think so? She bakes a lot. She bakes a lot? Yeah. Does that do something? I feel like I have this very unrealistic picture that if I were or when someone is a perfect quote unquote wife, then their marriage is perfect. And that's definitely not true. But what instinctually came up is like, oh, well, she's very pretty. She's married, keeps herself together.

18:23She bakes a lot. You know, she's probably very maternal. And so they have a great marriage. You've been patriarch, dog. You're thinking of the 1950s. You're thinking of Mad Men. You're thinking of Betty when she's falling behind on all the uppers and downers. Marriages suck. If she could just be on more uppers and bake more, Dawn would be better. You should bake more. I want to know what bake is, is bacon. I think she shares that sometimes. You know who else bakes a lot is Taylor Swift. Does she? Yeah. It makes me feel kind of bad about myself. Congrats to Taylor, by the way. Oh my God. Taylor's engaged.

18:59She's engaged. Oh, I'm so happy for them. I love love. Our kids are so happy for them. Our kids are stoked. when I told them this morning, I feel like I took away joy from you for not telling them. Oh, it's okay. Because the last time they were that happy is when we got noodle as a puppy. There's no joke there. They love love. They love love. And they love Taylor. They love Taylor. Who doesn't love Taylor? Okay. I feel like I keep the podcast on the tracks in terms of time, but Dina keeps us on track in terms of the topics. Does that feel accurate? I'm just a fucking tornado rolling through here.

19:34Not one point. That brings me to my first point. Okay, good job. That's the first point I was supposed to make. You're welcome, man. Thank you. Is that, first of all, all marriages are not what they seem like. So even our marriage online, quote unquote, what we share is, it probably seems a whole lot more perfect than it is. We're not sharing, you know, the fights. We're not sharing the miscommunications. We're not sharing the bickering. Like anybody that you follow, anybody that you see, we're all having battles over giving the kids popsicles for dinner, for example. I would go a step further.

20:13Not only are the marriages you see online, not what they actually are in real life. The couples that are married that you know in real life are not displaying their full marriage. So any of your friends that you're like, oh, Stephen, Jessica, they have the best marriage. They never fight. Blah, blah, blah. Are you talking about the Stephen and Jessica that we know? Do we know a Steven? I just made those names up. She's going to listen to this. Who's Steven Jessica? You know Steven Jessica? I really don't. You really do. Oh boy. Yeah, go ahead. They don't have a perfect marriage either. They seem like they have a perfect marriage.

20:42So that's a good analogy. That's a really good analogy. But also let's say that it doesn't mean that every marriage is falling apart. I just want to normalize that every single one of us. I've been watching this show, Couples Therapy. I'm obsessed with it. Tyler has watched me become obsessed with it. And it just shows you every single time that you start to bicker with your husband, your wife, your partner. It just shows you that this is what marriage is. Like it is it's not picture perfect for anybody. It doesn't mean all of us are on the brink of divorce, but really normalizing the struggles because they're very, very real and they're part of it.

21:15What I was trying to say to circle it all the way back to ADHD and going off of the rails is that we learned that we actually have a neurodiverse marriage and household. And that takes into a lot of our struggles, our resentments, a lot of it. So Tyler found out that he has ADHD and autism. We always thought that we both had ADHD. And then I was diagnosed with ADHD. And having a neuro spicy household is no joke. No jokes. There's a lot of jokes, but the neurodiversity itself is not a joke. And so it's miscommunication. It's mess. It's sensory overload. It's all these layers that make marriage and normal life and life with kids and all of the tasks and all of the things that come with it.

22:08It's just a whole nother layer of things that we're working through in our marriage this year. So that said, we've been working really hard on our marriage because you have to. It's not something that just comes naturally. It's like personal mental health or physical health. We actively are trying to work on our marriage. And here are five things that has saved our partnership so far. Number one, define lanes instead of just relying on dividing and conquering. Okay, here's what I mean. At first we thought, okay, divide and conquer. So you do bedtime, I'll do the dishes and you're just kind of willy nilly through the day.

22:50Like I know I'll do this. So like, obviously he's going to pick this up since I'm doing this or vice versa. And what really happened was we'd both assume that the other one was doing something and then surprise, no one did it and it caused resentment and it caused explosion. So the thing that saved us was defining lanes, taking whole categories and knowing that this person owns that category. So school lunches, you know, every single day that Tyler owns school lunches or doctor's appointments. That was one thing that I gave to Tyler as well. He owns the bills. I own drop off. So he's not helping even a little bit with drop off.

23:36And that's just something that works in our house. But completely separating out the categories, it can help the mental load so much. And this is such a big source of resentment. I know in my marriage, but also most people's marriages, it usually falls so much on the woman, on the mom and dividing up these categories. It makes it so that no one is guessing. No one is going like, well, he didn't do this or he didn't do that. I think it's really great to have that kind of clarity because then I don't have to feel bad about the things I'm not doing. If you need help with something, you can be like, hey, can you jump in on this?

24:14Otherwise, if not, I'm going to assume you got it. Yeah. And knowing that you can rely on this person to do those things and then remove it entirely from your brain is a game changer. Like if I could take one category out of my brain, oh my God. And it makes me a happier, looser, more fun parent and wife. And honestly, when it starts to slide, because it does, I'll be very honest, it slides. We have to sit down. We have to meet again and divide it up again and talk about how where it's falling back onto me. All of a sudden, I noticed that I start to become the angry, bitter, resentful wife. And so I just got to talk about it.

24:57Have those check-ins. And this also ties into the second point that has helped save our marriage, which is when he owns something or when he's doing something, he gets to do it his way. So when we first had kids, oh, I'm going to call myself out here, okay? I needed them to have a vegetable on the plate with every single thing. They had to have fresh food with every single thing. They had to be in bed, on time, on the dot, whether I was there or not, whether it affected me or not. Everything had to go perfectly. And it's the dishwasher theory. If someone else is loading the dishwasher, you don't get to comment on how they're loading the dishwasher.

25:48We're in a fight. There is a right way and a wrong way to load the dishwasher. According to you. According to me, which is the right way. Back to your point, though, about letting each other do things the way we see fit and then trying not to comment. Number one, I love not getting feedback. There's a lot of feedback over there. I love. A lot of feedback. Number one, no feedback. I have so much feedback. I'm a Virgo. I'm a woman. I'm a CEO. I can see how things can be better and easier. A great example of this is something like bedtime, let's say. And when it doesn't affect me at all and he's the one who's going to be affected, he's the one who's going to let bedtime slide back and back.

26:36And then he's like, oh, I didn't get to have my me time until this. I used to jump in and I would have all of these solutions and I can see it so clearly. And now it's like, you know what? This isn't my job. Kids are going to be fine. I mean, I'd rather they get to bed on time, of course, but, you know, they're going to be OK. Listen, I know I have work to do on bedtime because I don't care. Do I suffer the consequences? I'll admit that there are consequences and I do suffer them. Consequences for you, though. I've released control. I've released the feedback. I've released the micromanaging. It helps me, honestly, because then I'm not resentful about one more thing because I'm like, you know what?

27:15This has nothing to do with me. You were doing bedtime your way and you've got this. You are owning it. I'd rather put them to bed late and deal with them going absolutely psychotic. In a good way? It could depend. OK. Or them going nuts with you giving feedback at the same time. Oh, yeah. So that's a good point. Dina, where are you? Dina. Dina, I need the details. I need the details. Okay. Next tip. Laugh or die. Why is it titled that in my document? Laugh or die? Because our marriage dies. You love to have everything be so intense. Yeah. There's only intensity. Totally. Everything I do is intense.

27:55I think the besties know that, right? It's either incredibly chill or incredibly tense. I'm either basically asleep and or dead, like flatlined, you know, in a bed, dark, like I'm shut down or I'm sending it, you know? It's true, though. Yeah. Like we're either doing it or we're not. You're either fast asleep or planning an eight hour day at the beach. Yeah. With a potty training child. Yeah. You send it. It was a great day. So laughing. That's the point we're getting to here. I love to laugh. I think that's what keeps our marriage strong. It is. It is. We have a good time. We like to laugh when things get too serious is when things start to fall off the rails we're fucking bickering about the goddamn dishes or the diapers or the things that like don't matter and they do matter by the way like if everything falls onto my plate and we're talking about that yeah that matters but sometimes we can find ourselves so in the details that we need to just laugh our asses off and honestly when you have three kids and it's just utter chaos and you have noodle who eats everything but an older dog and he pees inside and he poops inside and we have a potty training toddler there's just like pee and poop and screaming everywhere you have to just laugh in the middle of it you have to because when you go clean up poop in the yard you never know what you're going to find in noodles poop oh man that's a you job and it's like oh that's where that went yeah i wish i was kidding noodle just turned one happy birthday noodle happy birthday noodle please stop eating everything stop eating my airpods our daughter's glasses the toys puzzles you don't even have to specify because it's everything the stairs just the corner of the stairs okay the last thing that has saved our marriage is repair is better than perfection this is the biggest one tyler knows how important this is for the kids to see.

29:56But it is also something that is so, so, so critical to my closeness to you is the power of apologizing. And that is not just for something big that happens, but how much closer we can become when a very small thing happens and going, sorry, my bad, babe, or sorry, I was just overstimulated, or sorry, just a real quick sorry. It matters so much. And it's not about having no fights and having no bickering because that's impossible, but it's actually all about the repair. Besties, I know a lot of you are like me, and repair is so fucking hard. It's so hard for you. I have the hardest time saying sorry.

30:50I know I'm not the only one. I know so many of you out there are just like, I can't do it. I didn't do anything wrong. Why would I apologize right now? I have no reason to apologize. I'm not seeking an apology myself, but I know I didn't do anything wrong. And one of the biggest lessons I've had recently was that it doesn't matter if I think I'm wrong. Something I did hurt Kristen. not apologizing for the action itself which if if it's needed apologize for that but what i'm apologizing for is the way i made kristen feel and that is the repair part and that's the part that's like okay you know we're not dealing with anything else the only thing i'm dealing with right now is how i made kristen feel and that is the apology and repair i'm looking for and like Kristen said, if the fight or whatever conflict happened in front of the kids, that repair should happen in front of the kids too, even if it's super, super hard.