Episode 1332: Interview with Laura Doyle About Working with Wives to End Divorce

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode

[00:00:01] 1,332 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Laura Doyle: I'm Laura Doyle. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to understand the secret of loving your spouse is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:43] But I could focus on my own happiness. It's sort of like being stuck in traffic, right? Like you might wish the traffic would move, but you can't make it move. But you could decide like, I'm gonna talk, uh, on the phone to my friend, or I'm gonna listen to music I love, or I'm gonna listen to a show that I love, a podcast we love.

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] And, and then you could even be grateful for that time that you're stuck in track, right? Instead of

[00:01:07] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true column.

[00:01:22] In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:38] In today's podcast episode, I interview Laura Doyle. I asked Laura to share with you her journey to launch a movement to help wives learn how to have a happy marriage and end divorce. Laura shares with you her keys to finding happiness in marriage despite the fact that the world says it's impossible.

[00:01:54] And I also ask Laura about her faith and how that played a role in her discovery of the [00:02:00] principles she teaches. One reason I like to bring

[00:02:02] Laura Doyle: you great interviews like the one you're gonna hear today

[00:02:05] Scott Maderer: is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books.

[00:02:13] But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read, and that's why today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there.

[00:02:41] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. New York Times bestselling Arthur Laura Doyle was the perfect wife until she actually got married. When she told her husband

[00:02:57] Laura Doyle: how to be a

[00:02:57] Scott Maderer: tidier, more romantic and more [00:03:00] ambitious, he avoided her.

[00:03:01] So she dragged him to marriage counseling and nearly divorced him in desperation. She asked happily married women for their secrets, and that's when she got her miracle. The man who had wooed her returned Laura's books had been translated into 19 languages in 30 countries and accidentally started a worldwide movement.

[00:03:18] Laura's mission is to end world divorce. She is the founder of the International Relationship Coach Training School, Laura Doyle Connect the star of Empowered Wives on Amazon Prime, the creator of their ridiculously Happy Wife Program and the host of the Empowered Wife Podcast. And she has appeared on the Today Show.

[00:03:36] Good Morning America and The View. She's helped over 15,000 women fix their relationships, even the hopeless ones without their husband's effort. But the thing that Laura is most proud of is her gratifying 31 year marriage with her hilarious husband John, who's been dressing himself since before

[00:03:53] Laura Doyle: she was born.

[00:03:53] Welcome to the show, Laura. Thanks for having me, Scott. It's great to be here. Absolutely. I'm [00:04:00] excited to have you on and have you share with the listeners a little bit. So I shared some in the intro, but like any introduction, it probably, it leaves a lot of stuff out. That's always the truth.

[00:04:11] Could you share a little bit more about your own journey and

[00:04:16] Scott Maderer: what puts you on this quest to

[00:04:18] Laura Doyle: end divorce and help folks in those relationships and do the work that you do? Yeah, that last part about ending world divorce that is, was an accident. I was just trying to save my own marriage, which was in a ditch big time.

[00:04:34] We had been married for probably six or seven years and my husband just didn't wanna spend any time with me. He. He was really interested in watching like reruns on TV more than he would be in talking to me or even making love to me. And I knew something was terribly wrong cuz we had wall towa, house hostility and or we had Cold Wars, which is no talking for right several days.

[00:04:58] Just very tense around the [00:05:00] house. Like awkward roommates. And so I knew what to do though. I knew that meant that I needed to take him to marriage counseling cuz everyone knows that's what you're supposed to do. And then the counselor could fix him and then I could finally be happy and have the kind of marriage I really wanted, which I did want a really good marriage.

[00:05:18] I wanted that really bad. But it just wasn't happening. So we went to marriage counseling. No, he was broken. He was broken, Scott, thank you. That's exactly what was going on. And so it was clearly him, all, him and the counselors even validated that Yep, yep. He, it's him. And we went for years, over a year and we spent like $9,000.

[00:05:40] And at the end of that, I remember I was sitting on the marriage counselor's great couch when I realized this is hopeless and he's never gonna change and we're too far apart. So I knew I could either live the rest of my life in a loveless marriage or else I was gonna have to get divorced. And so I decided I would get divorced.[00:06:00]

[00:06:01] The only problem was I was too embarrassed to get divorced. I didn't wanna lose status. People had been to the wedding not that long before that. So in my desperation, I decided I was gonna ask women who'd been happily married for what seemed like an eternity, which is 15 years. What their secrets were, what did, how did they.

[00:06:21] Have a happy marriage and I thought they were gonna say you gotta marry the right guy. And maybe you didn't, but they didn't say that. Instead they said things that sounded pretty crazy as a guy, I'll say it out loud, there are no right guys. We're, but by the way, there are no right women either, so it's okay.

[00:06:38] That's right. That's exactly right. And we I do see there seem to be some big differences. So anyway so then I thought I'm gonna try these crazy ideas they've given me. Even though I think they're crazy because I've got nothing else, what? Why not? You got nothing else to lose. I got nothing to lose.

[00:06:55] So I started experimenting with some of the things that they said, and it [00:07:00] was not even that long afterwards that I walked through the door to our house. My husband was already home. He looked up, he saw me and his face lit up. He smiled, he's happy to see me again. And that had been gone. So I thought, something's working here.

[00:07:16] And I was very excited because I thought now I'm finally gonna be able to have that marriage that I dreamed of having when I stood at the altar and said, I do. And because I know what to do. And it's made sense and everything so then not that long after that, we're in the car and we had this big blow up, like where I was saying horrible things to him and he was being horrible right back.

[00:07:43] We were just going, I knew I was gonna regret these things I was saying, and I thought we say 'em anyway. Yeah. Say 'em anyway. Yeah. Oh yeah. It just came out like it's almost involuntary. It was like before I could even go, whoa and I thought, oh, I thought this wasn't gonna happen anymore, and now here it, [00:08:00] it's happening some more.

[00:08:01] So I knew I needed something else. So I had this idea that if I could get my girlfriends that were complaining about their marriages, if I get them to do this with me, we could have a little support group. Maybe that would gimme the encouragement, I call it encouragement and supervision. Kinda like accountability to make the changes that I needed to make.

[00:08:22] And the new way wasn't so hard, it was just new, right? So I did that. I got four of my girlfriends and we met in my living room and we, they were seeing miracles. We were all seeing miracles in our relationship. So we're, we knew we were onto something like one of 'em, her husband won the sales contest at work and took her on the most romantic getaway of their lives.

[00:08:41] And another one said, you guys aren't gonna think this is a miracle, but believe me it is. We've been arguing for months about him painting the family room and he got up and he painted the family room. He did it with a smile. This is a miracle. So we're like yeah that's pretty. And then one of 'em, oh no we talk about painting.

[00:08:58] It doesn't that count.[00:09:00] He get partial credit for that, Scott, but not really. No. She wanted the family room painted. She wanted it actually what wanted actual paint on the walls. She wanted actual paint on the walls and not on the floors and things like that. And so she caught that.

[00:09:14] So then one of 'em said to me, could you write down what we're doing for my cousin in Florida because we're in California? And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna write that out. And I did, and that became my first book. And a dateline came and did an investigative report. There were no murders at the time. They just did other things besides murders, mysteries.

[00:09:32] But and the next day they followed one of my workshop participants around and stuff. And the next day I woke up and my book was number one on all of Amazon. Everybody wanted to get their hands on this these six intimacy skills that we were using. And the, we became a New York Times bestseller, ended up being translated into 19 languages, 30 countries.

[00:09:55] And now there's this whole worldwide movement of women who. Think that marriage is [00:10:00] important because it is, and they're willing to invest in learning and developing themselves to have a stronger one so we can have stronger families. Cuz the world depends on that. And so now, and now I'm on this mission to end world divorce.

[00:10:15] We have a coaching programs, a I train coaches. I have well over a hundred coaches all over the world who help women implement these six intimacy skills who provide that. Encouragement and supervision so that they can improve their marriages. And it's really fun. We've helped thousands of women now fix their marriages and become playful and passionate.

[00:10:40] So

[00:10:41] Scott Maderer: let me ask you a couple of,

[00:10:42] Laura Doyle: I've got other questions to ask too but some follow up questions come to mind. And the first one is let's stop, bury the lead. We won't necessarily give away details on everything of all of 'em, just because we don't have time to go into everything on all of 'em.

[00:10:58] But can you share [00:11:00] a top two or three? What are some of the things that you saw that were were life changing, were shifts that you made? As the wife in the relationship that began to move things in the right direction. There's one especially that I just would love to give to absolutely.

[00:11:17] Every woman needs this and I just wanna share the formula for it. And I'll, there's a little embarrassing story that kind of goes along with it, which is that my husband took us on a romantic getaway to Hawaii. And I was super excited about that cause I thought, oh, I'm gonna, we're gonna go to the beach.

[00:11:32] I can't wait to go to the beach. I would love to go to the beach. And but instead of saying that, I said to him what would you like to do today? And he said, let's go see a volcano. And I was like oh, a volcano. But I didn't wanna have any conflict. I really just wanted to be close. So I said, okay, I'm just gonna suck it up and we'll go see this volcano.

[00:11:53] So we're driving. We'll go to the beach tomorrow. Yeah, we'll go to the beach tomorrow. We're gonna be here for a while but we're driving in the rental [00:12:00] car and it's a drive. We just, there's no volcano for a long time. Just little molten rocks on the side of the road. And I started to think, God we could have been at the beach right now.

[00:12:09] And he's is anything. Is everything okay? You know something wrong. I was like, did you think this would be fun? Cause I don't think it's fun at all. I think it's really stupid. You didn't even ask me what I wanted to do. I wanted the, she said

[00:12:30] early in our man, we don't anymore. We've been married. Seven years. So we don't have that conversation anymore. We've grown past it, but been really on. Thank you. Yeah, good. Yeah, unfortunately this was not the only conversation we had where I used that particular tone of voice and I feel so sad for that earlier version of me, cuz I had no idea how to say what I wanted.

[00:12:53] And if you can't say what you want, you're never gonna get what you want. So I have a formula now that I much prefer to [00:13:00] use. And do you know, actually my hu my husband took me to the beach right after that. We never did see the volcano. He turned the car around? Yeah. Yeah. He turned the car around. He was like, oh, you wanna go to the beach?

[00:13:11] Okay. That's what we're doing. He just wanted me to be happy. And I used to do this, like with the dishes and stuff. I would say John, this kitchen is a disaster area. And I thought he was gonna jump off the couch, turn off the tv, and then come in and clean the kitchen. And that never happened.

[00:13:25] But if I, if he actually would look at it and go, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. What am I supposed to do about it? And I thought I was communicating what I wanted, but I wasn't. I was just complaining. So he didn't even know what I wanted. Finally, I think he probably couldn't even hear me.

[00:13:42] He probably was like, John, blah, blah. Like the peanuts parents or something. So I finally said John, I would love a clean kitchen. And he is okay. He goes, I'll clean it. And he did. And it was like, I was like, this is great. And that was I. Over 20 years ago. He's been cleaning the [00:14:00] kitchen ever since because it makes his wife happy.

[00:14:04] And it turns out I've asked thousands of men this question. Now I'll say, how important is it to you that your wife is happy? And Scott, maybe I'll put you on the spot. Very What? Very, okay. You just gave the same answer. They all give, they say it's very important. It's the most important thing. They say it's everything.

[00:14:22] In the UK they say it's imperative. Yeah. This is a universal quality wonderful universal quality that we find in husbands all over, but they need to know what it is we desire. So I have that formula and I said it just now. It went by pretty quick though, but I wanna just give it to everybody and write this down if you can.

[00:14:41] Because I use it not just with my husband, but I use it with my team. I use it with a customer service rep, with a contractor with I use it with my friends. I use it just all over town. And that formula for expressing your desires in a way that inspires is I would love. And then just [00:15:00] the final outcome.

[00:15:01] I remember I had a student who said I would love for him to make more money, which is not, that's not a final outcome whatsoever. It's control actually. And then she said, I said what would you have that you don't have now if he made more money? She said I could buy myself things.

[00:15:16] And that's, I think she first said she'd have more money and money's not even a means, it's a means to an end. It's not specific. She could buy herself things and then I said, what would you buy? And then she said, I would I need some new boots. So for her it was just, I would love new boots and no need to go into how that happens.

[00:15:36] You need to go make more money. Or I used to say things like, okay, I want a new dress for my birthday. But and there's, I want the blue one at the win in the window at Macy's. It's the three, three quarter sleeves, but it's going on sale next week, so don't buy it until it goes on. And by this time it's he's no.

[00:15:51] I'm not inspired at all. I just, sorry. I stopped listening about, he stopped listening a long time.

[00:15:58] What were you talking about again? [00:16:00] So just, and you have to, there's some trust involved. It's a little bit vulnerable in a way because if you say, I would love, and just the final outcome, he's gonna make it happen his own way. I've had women say, I would love a clean kitchen and the husband says, okay, kids.

[00:16:14] Let's clean the kitchen. Mom wants it clean, right? And so maybe she thought he was gonna clean it and she's want maybe not gonna get the same quality job that she got, but the end result is the same, right? So you can just receive graciously that he was trying to make your desires come true. And one of the, yeah, so my wife and I actually had a conversation fairly early

[00:16:36] Scott Maderer: in our marriage and I think you will recognize

[00:16:38] Laura Doyle: this one where I actually stopped her and I said, okay.

[00:16:43] You can ask me to

[00:16:44] Scott Maderer: do something or you can tell me how to do

[00:16:47] Laura Doyle: something. It's very bothersome to me when you do both. Yeah. It's really important to you that it be done a certain way. Then tell me how to do it. Because [00:17:00] I need to know it's, it actually matters how I do it, because there is a particular way you want it done.

[00:17:07] For us it was not loading the dishwasher, but I know for a lot of people it is. It, but that kind of thing. On the other hand, if it's just you want the outcome,

[00:17:18] Scott Maderer: Yeah. You want the dish

[00:17:19] Laura Doyle: waterer loaded, then leave me alone and let me load it my own way. Yeah. And be okay with that, yeah. And it is that it's a subtle thing, but it's really not. There's it is frustrating it feels micromanaging. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I know that's all where it comes from, but that's what it feels like. No, how helpful to know that. I think one of the things I didn't realize in my early days of our marriage, is that helpful in wife language we're giving helpful instructions is critical.

[00:17:51] It has been like, it feels critical. Yeah. Feels critical. So see, thanks for validating that. So that's still to my female brain, but no, I'm just trying to help. But it [00:18:00] doesn't matter. You still come off like. His mother. Mother and men are not physically attracted to their mothers, sexually attracted to their mothers, and women are sexually attracted to their sons. So this can be a, have a very chilling effect on the romantic part of relationship. Yeah. And I I love what you're sharing and by the way, I'll say this out loud just for any of the guys that are listening and go, Hey, we're talking about the wives here.

[00:18:27] First off, obviously if you're in a relationship, whether or not your wife is happy, is an important part

[00:18:34] Scott Maderer: of your relationship.

[00:18:36] Laura Doyle: She will also be happier if she learns these things. But I would also say for the guys, there's a learning piece on our side too, and there are things that we can do and ways we can communicate.

[00:18:46] Like I have learned to look at my wife and say, you're sharing right now, do you want my help or are you just sharing? I'm just sharing. Okay. Then I can listen because now I know the rules[00:19:00] I'm just supposed to listen. That's it. Okay, good. I got it. That's so nice. I'm good at that.

[00:19:04] I can do that. I love it on the love it hand. If she wants help and wants advice. Okay, I can do that too. The problem is, I think sometimes we think they want one when they actually want the other. They just wanna share. They just.

[00:19:18] Scott Maderer: Don't guess ask,

[00:19:20] Laura Doyle: It makes so much sense and one of the things that I discovered early on too, when I when I had, I was a stroke of genius really, when I realized I needed other women to support me in this journey. And part of it is because it turns out I need other women to support me to this day. Absolutely. And I've got some pretty good habits now. If I wanna just talk endlessly about stuff, then I've got girlfriends and sisters that'll that'll do that with me, my niece, but, but if I wanna do that with my husband, I'm gonna be disappointed eventually because there's this, I think there was a study that said, I'm gonna get the numbers wrong, but it was something like, [00:20:00] Women have more than have 15,000 days, I'm sorry, 15,000 words a day more that they use in general than men.

[00:20:08] And it's it's six o'clock at night it's the same all over and the men are outta words. And the women are like, still we got say yeah, I wanna talk some more. So yeah they. So we really do need a community of other women. I think women, it's an average of 12 to 15,000 words a day with gust and burst up to 20,000 occasionally gusts up to 20.

[00:20:29] Clever. That's right. And men, it's around 10, it's around eight to 10,000. And most of those, a lot of times, depending on what they do for a living, they've legit use them up by the time they get home at the end of the day. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I talk all day. This is part of what I do and my wife.

[00:20:48] Knows that. And so we do have I get a certain amount of time to recharge the battery a little bit. And then if we need to have a conversation, we're gonna have a conversation. That's fine. I can [00:21:00] do it. We have to give that space. And again, it's, I guess you are, you're addressing the female side.

[00:21:07] And I guess my point is just like you started with You felt like he was broken and someone needed to fix him. I have seen guys

[00:21:15] feel that way about their wives, and I guess what I'm saying out loud is no, this is on both of our sides. Yeah,

[00:21:22] Scott Maderer: no, but someone has to own it and

[00:21:23] Laura Doyle: start. That's true.

[00:21:26] And I also think in some ways I'd love this wonderful quality about Ben that you just validated when I said how important is it to you that your wife is happy? And you said, oh, very. So that's fantastic because I. There's this thing about men where they just really care deeply about us being happy.

[00:21:45] And I know for me, I also thought that it was my husband's job to make me happy. Ah, yeah. Which of course, no, nobody else can do. I have to be responsible for my own happiness and I was afraid that if I. Showed up [00:22:00] happy. That would mean he thought, oh, everything he's doing is okay.

[00:22:03] When it, when I didn't think it was, I thought having this to our face all the time you're not making me happy. That was gonna somehow motivate him to change or straighten him up. I don't know what I thought he was gonna do, but that didn't work. So it was really important for both of our sakes that I ended up.

[00:22:21] Figuring out that my own happiness had to come first. It turns out, and this was like, this was a mind blowing, I'm gonna say it and it's gonna sound like, yeah duh, but only happy people have happy relationships. You like, drop the mic, boom. Oh, really? I actually think that's more insightful than you think.

[00:22:44] Ok. Ok. But it. It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't obvious. And when I wasn't making myself happy, I thought it was because of my relationship problems that I was unhappy. And then it turns out it's what if you just got [00:23:00] happy first? What? And this is the very first the very first intimacy skill that we direct all our students to when they arrive on our campus.

[00:23:08] And it's actually. It's a challenging one for a lot of women because I think a lot of times we've forgotten that we are girls who just wanna have fun. Like Cindy Lauper's, incredible anthem that she wrote. And we haven't seen her in a while because we got concerned with the making, paying the bills, and raising the kids and going to work and doing all the chores.

[00:23:29] And we forgot what makes us happy? What do I wanna do? What's frivolous fun for me? What brings me joy? So we ask 'em to make a list of 20 things along those lines. And a lot of times people like get to three and they're like, I can't think of anything. I forget what makes me happy. Just say 20 would be a h tough number to come up with for most people, I would imagine.

[00:23:48] Some of them can be small and then they can be simple, right? I know for me like I just love to play my wordle on my phone or words with friends or something, and. [00:24:00] I love to go for a walk or listen to a podcast or, and those things can fill me up, right? There's other, there's bigger, I love to play volleyball.

[00:24:06] There's bigger things too, right? Maybe, it's oh I wanna travel Or travel. Travel. Yeah. Yeah. There's lots of things. And then if you can commit to doing, At least three of those things a day. I loved this specificity of this because there's a lot of gosh, you gotta love yourself first to have a good relationship, or what, I never really understood what that meant.

[00:24:28] It's should I hug myself or I didn't know, but I knew if I was doing three things a day to make myself happy, then I could give myself a check mark, which I really love getting check marks. And then I would be like, okay I worked on my marriage today, and if anybody asks why I'm laying by the pool, reading a book and drinking lemonade, it's.

[00:24:47] I'm doing this for my marriage I'm working on my marriage, trying to make it happier by becoming a happier person myself.

[00:24:52] Scott Maderer: But I think that's fundamentally what you're pointing out is that you had

[00:24:58] Laura Doyle: to own your [00:25:00] own

[00:25:00] Scott Maderer: happiness. You needed to stop looking

[00:25:03] Laura Doyle: for that to come from outside, so to speak.

[00:25:08] Your husband specifically but even other thing, I think sometimes we chase happiness. All sorts of ways and including some very unhealthy ones sometimes. That we set ourselves up for failure because we're looking for something outside to always be that thing that again,

[00:25:27] Scott Maderer: well.

[00:25:28] If he would just, or if she would just Yeah. Is the beginning

[00:25:31] of

[00:25:31] Laura Doyle: a lot of sentences. That's right. It really is. Yeah. I had a student once where when she came, she was really in a bad way. She had five kids and their marriage had been really struggling for 19 of the 20 years, and she even had said, I feel like I wanna just die.

[00:25:48] I just don't. My marriage is really, My husband has said he wished we don't, we didn't have kids and he should have never married me and he doesn't love me anymore. And he's flirting with other women and just really a [00:26:00] mess. And then she, one of the things so we asked her to do this self-care piece, right?

[00:26:04] And she said I've been waiting around every weekend. To see what plans he's gonna make. And I feel like a statue sometimes, cuz I'm like, is he gonna, does he wanna be with me and the kids? Or what's he gonna, and then of course he never planned the things that she wanted to do cuz he didn't know what she wanted to do cuz she was just waiting around like a statue.

[00:26:21] So she started doing this, she started doing her three things a day and making herself happier. And she said I feel like. Even if this doesn't work on my marriage, I'm already winning. Cuz I, I do feel happier. And then one time she was folding the laundry, but she was listening to a podcast she loves.

[00:26:36] So she was listening and she was smiling and she was happy. All of a sudden her husband comes over, he wants to have a conversation with her and she's I'm listening to my podcast right now. And then she's oh wait, no I always wanted him to do this. And so he was just interested to talk to her.

[00:26:52] And I think we do become more attractive when I think we're never hotter, actually, than when we're laughing, smiling, dancing, singing [00:27:00] in the kitchen. Oh, absolutely. That's when we become irresistible magnets. And so nobody wants to be around as a sourpuss all the time. No, that's right. That's right. We wanna be around happy people.

[00:27:11] At work, in our relationships at play. Whatever. That's one of the reasons we all wanna kill our

[00:27:18] Scott Maderer: chil teenage children. Oh. Cause they're sour puss. They're sour pusses for a few years and then they grow out of it. They can be. That's right. Yeah, that's true. Then they grow out of it and then they're better.

[00:27:29] Laura Doyle: Yeah. And then they're better. Yeah. So

[00:27:33] Scott Maderer: there's a lot of different

[00:27:34] Laura Doyle: directions we could go and I'm gonna try to explore some of 'em, but also keep us on

[00:27:38] Scott Maderer: On track a little

[00:27:39] Laura Doyle: bit. So how did your faith journey, because that's part of what I like to explore with people is how did faith affect,

[00:27:48] Scott Maderer: and how was it affected by

[00:27:50] Laura Doyle: That kind of journey you were on with your marriage?

[00:27:53] It was huge, Scott. It's such a, that's such a great question and I don't get asked that very much. And it really was such an [00:28:00] incredible spiritual journey because in some ways my husband was like a metaphor for God. I didn't trust my husband and I thought I knew better and I wanted to run the show.

[00:28:14] And by really. Surrendering, really identifying that. I couldn't change my husband, right? I couldn't tell him not effective, have it be effective. I couldn't tell him how to dress or what to do at work or what to eat for lunch. That, that would really hurt the intimacy between us. But I could focus on my own happiness.

[00:28:38] It's like being stuck in traffic, right? Like you might wish the traffic would move, but you can't make it move. But you could decide I'm gonna talk on the phone to my friend, or I'm gonna listen to music I love, or I'm gonna listen to a show that I love, a podcast I love. And then you could even be grateful for that time that you're stuck in traffic, right?

[00:28:56] Instead of fuming and fretting about it. So this concept of [00:29:00] surrendering, if it hadn't been for the wisdom of no escape, like I was either gonna lose face by getting divorced or I was stuck. I was stuck in this marriage as far as I could tell I don't think I ever would've gone through.

[00:29:13] The door marked introspection self-reflection, and really seeing that I was lacking in some of the qualities that I. That I re, I admire that I desire to have the qu quality of being a respectful wife. I thought I was respectful except for the way he dressed and the way he drove.

[00:29:34] And how he ate so much junk, right? So it's like I wasn't respectful at all. Didn't have that quality, I thought. And then the way I demonstrated how I would rage at him sometimes like I did in Hawaii. But that was not a good quality to have. But I didn't know. I didn't know how to get out of it.

[00:29:54] And my marriage ended up being that the dojo, I guess [00:30:00] you'd say the place where the work happened that I got those edges smoothed off and became a better version of myself by developing some of those virtu virtues. Some of those Ask some of the spiritual virtues that I'm so proud and happy to say that I have developed now and this was the way that I did it.

[00:30:24] Scott Maderer: So why do you think if you had to sum

[00:30:30] Laura Doyle: it up as the root cause, you

[00:30:33] Scott Maderer: know, why,

[00:30:33] Laura Doyle: why is there so much Unh it it's almost a joke, right? You know that every marriage is an unhappy marriage. That's the it almost

[00:30:42] Scott Maderer: becomes the. The rule

[00:30:44] Laura Doyle: in a way, e even though that obviously fundamentally cannot possibly be true, but it still, that becomes the joke, the punchline.

[00:30:52] Why do you think that is in our society? What's the

[00:30:56] Scott Maderer: root cause of that unhappiness?

[00:30:59] Laura Doyle: [00:31:00] I do think that I know for me, I had this expectation. That my husband and I should see the world the same way, like we should. That agreement meant sameness. And and we're not the same.

[00:31:14] Scott, and I don't, I know only little, I only know about my marriage and I've been sharing my experience with thousands of women. I've had a wonderful chance to sit have a, like a ringside seat to a lot of the things that go on in other marriages. And I see that we aren't the same.

[00:31:32] In fact one of the things I, I love to as an, as a metaphor for it, is this idea of yin and yang. So if you take a coffee cup, for example this, the, every object even has this yin and yang, this masculine feminine part. So the coffee cup, the ceramic part, and the handle, that's the yang.

[00:31:52] That's the masculine and the yin is the part that receives the coffee and. Without the ability to receive coffee, [00:32:00] a coffee cup has no purpose. So as the feminine, Me being receptive gives my husband purpose. So even when I express that desire I would love a clean kitchen. Like all of a sudden he gets purpose.

[00:32:15] He's and then he gets the chance to be my hero. And he cleans the kitchen and I go, oh my gosh, this kitchen is so clean. I love this. And he feels proud and I feel taken care of. I felt adored and cherished. And it's a beautiful, complimentary system, but I think we've gotten away from it. I think we forget that was how it was set up to begin with.

[00:32:35] And all the beauty that happens when you do that, when you trust your husband. Yeah, I remember one of my students when she first got her hands on this work, She she was in a bad way. They'd been sleeping in separate beds for six months and it was her second marriage, blended family.

[00:32:54] And it looked like they were gonna get divorced too. She'd been going to marriage counseling for every [00:33:00] week by herself cuz he wouldn't go. And she was just complaining to the counselor. About her husband for an hour a week, which never made anybody happier. Turns out, I think it's gonna work, but it, that never works.

[00:33:10] Anyway, she read the book and she decided to use one of the cheap phrases he, he said to her and she was the chief financial officer of a big private school. So she knew how to manage money and stuff like that. And she was trying to help her husband, which we already determined to criticize her husband, be better with money. And he said you gotta tell me what you want me to do with the cell phone plan. And so she used this little cheat phrase that we real, it's one of many cheap phrases that we use that are kinda like the way you teach children to say, please and thank you to cultivate a gro grateful heart.

[00:33:44] So the cheap phrase that she fell to was oh, whatever you think, Doug. Whatever you think. And he goes, no, I'm gonna need you to tell me cuz he didn't wanna be in trouble later or doing work. That I will tell you, for most guys, that's a dangerous phrase because it's like, it's dangerous. Yeah. Whatever you think.

[00:33:59] All [00:34:00] right. Yeah. And it usually means we're about to do something stupid and be in trouble. Exactly. You're be trouble for it. You're to do something stupid. Yeah. But she really wanted to do this experiment just to see what would happen. So she just repeated herself, she said, no, whatever you think, Doug.

[00:34:16] And then she added. I trust you. I trust you. Now, that's a big difference. That's a big difference, right? So he went off and he took care of the cell phone plan, and she was worried he was gonna mess it up, but he did fine. Everything was fine. She didn't marry an idiot, right? He's a competent guy. And then that night he went over to her, he put his hand on her shoulder and said, You were so nice today, and tears just ran down her cheeks.

[00:34:44] They, she crawled into their same bed for the first time in six months that night, and that was over 20 years ago. She still gives tears in her eyes when she talks about how wonderful her marriage is now and how tragic it would've been to throw it away if she hadn't learned. The [00:35:00] intimacy skills to make the man who it turns out to be the man low of her life to have the kind of marriage that they have now where they it doesn't feel like such hard work.

[00:35:10] It's not a bad marriage, right? It's not, it defies that the myth that all marriages are bad. It's now Like I described mine, it's like my soft place to land is to find out that I'm beautiful and I'm wonderful and I'm special. And and we all need that.

[00:35:28] We all want that. And I want every woman to have that. And that's why I'm on this mission to get every woman these skills in her hands so we can end world divorce.

[00:35:38] Scott Maderer: And part of it

[00:35:39] Laura Doyle: too, I think it's an interesting thing in a way. It's almost giving up on perfection

[00:35:44] Scott Maderer: so that you can have.

[00:35:47] I don't know what word to put

[00:35:48] Laura Doyle: in there because it's not perfect, but it's not, it's definitely not imperfect either, if that makes sense. It's not perfect, but it is wonderful. Wonderful. That's what I would say. That's why there's the word I would, I use [00:36:00] that one. Yeah. To feel loved, to know how to love and be loved in return is gosh, I can't think of anything.

[00:36:05] I think is more important now. But I I just, my parents are divorced, so that wasn't modeled. For me, so well I'm just doing the same thing I saw them doing and I was gonna get those same results until yeah. I feel so fortunate. Yeah. So blessed Yeah. That I got my hands on these six intimacy skills and it, yeah, giving up on that idea of I have to have, everything has to be perfect that, that.

[00:36:33] Because here's the truth, even if you micromanage and try to control everything, it's still not perfect. In fact, it's less perfect. And it's more exhausting and it's very tiring. So much more exhausting. Yeah. Wait, you mean having two adults actually work together and love each other is easier than one person being the adult trying to do it for everybody, right?

[00:36:56] It's. When you're in that moment and [00:37:00] but, and usually it's the wife that ends up being the adult. If that's the relationship, I will be 100% honest on that one. That's, I think there's a lot to be said for I think when you, once you have a baby, once you become a mother, that mom and bear energy, I. We think we know best we do. And and that's understandable, right? That brought that little thing into the world. You both did, but you did especially you were both there at the beginning, but you did a lot of heavy lifting. You remember one, one husband saying yeah, we just had a baby.

[00:37:35] He's I can't even wash the bottles correctly. So she's gotta do everything. And then of course she was resentful that she was doing everything, but she didn't. We don't always, but you didn't realize that you don't realize, you don't, that, that you've created your own, Yeah.

[00:37:52] Created your own monster, so to speak. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You've made your bad and now you have to lie in it and whatever. That's right. Wanna use. Yeah. But [00:38:00] it's not intentional. I don't, no, it's definitely not. It's out of the best intentions. And it if no one ever showed you the intimacy skills, how are you supposed to know how to use them?

[00:38:11] And it does take some, it takes some courage, it takes these Sure. It takes courage, it takes commitment. Of course you're gonna be vulnerable implementing some of these intimacy skills. They're gonna feel scary. And that's why I like to do 'em in a group. Cuz if all the cool kids are doing it, then it seems a little more normal if you're gonna do it too.

[00:38:30] Versus nobody, everyone has saying a lot of women come to our campus and the situation has gotten very dire. He's already moved out, he's having an affair he's drinking. Way too much, or he's even domestic violence, we've even have domestic violence's situations and I'm always like, oh my gosh I don't know what to tell you, but I'm not there to tell them what to do.

[00:38:55] I'm only there to share my experience and they inspire me with what [00:39:00] they're able to create out of learning the skills to love and be loved in return. So I've got a few questions that I like

[00:39:10] to ask all of my guests, but before I ask that, is there anything else about the skills that you teach or the work you do that you'd like to,

[00:39:18] Scott Maderer: to share with

[00:39:19] Laura Doyle: the listener?

[00:39:20] Yeah. There's just one other thing that I feel like is so important and so valuable and that is the spouse fulfilling prophecy. So I just would love to share about that. Sure. If we've got time. Absolutely. Oh and I learned, I first learned about this from Li Mill tier who taught a course on, she called it auto suggestion, which I think we'd call affirmations today.

[00:39:43] And. She taught this course and a woman went to the course and left it realizing I've been I've been auto suggesting things to my husband that maybe don't serve me and I'm gonna experiment with it. I'm gonna change it up. So she had been saying you lose your temper [00:40:00] all the time.

[00:40:00] It's just like you always lose your temper. So she left there and she said I'm gonna wait for him to lose his temper. And and so she did and she didn't have to wait that long. And then she said that's not like you to lose your temper. And he just looked at her funny what are you talking about?

[00:40:17] And their 12 year old son said, yes, it is mom. He, this is his temper, right? So she in care, she just said, I'm gonna stick to this cause what if I got to lose, kinda like with me, with my experiments. And so she kept saying, that's not like you. That's not like you. And then not too long after that, they went to a restaurant and the service was slow and her husband started to fume and he is, Work getting himself worked out.

[00:40:39] And he's I have a man mine called the manager over here in London, how long we've been waiting. And then he stopped himself and he said it's not like me to lose my temper, is it? And she just about fell on the floor. Like what? So it really made a difference the way she was expecting him to turn up.

[00:40:59] [00:41:00] She was, he rose to those expectations. They were more positive and he rose to those. So I had a little thing going in my marriage where I would say to my husband, you know what, see if you can get a razor, maybe you could try to get a promotion. Maybe you could try to get a better job.

[00:41:16] Maybe you could make more money. And what he heard was, you don't make enough money. Your failure. Rightly you're a failure. You're a failure. That's what heed you're failing as being a provider. That's what he, you failing is being, which is an important job for any man. Yeah.

[00:41:31] Such an important job. Yeah. So it was a horrible thing to say. But I listened to li email, TE's story, and I got the same insight I'm gotta, I gotta change this app. So I decided to start saying, and you nailed it. I started saying, you've always been a good provider. And then I thought, I'm also gonna start calling him Mr.

[00:41:50] Money bags, just for the fun of it, cuz why not? So I started doing that. I would say you're such a good provider, you've always been a good provider. And around that time and by the way, I'm such a good [00:42:00] manifestor with my powerful words, that my husband quit his job and he was making no money.

[00:42:04] And I was seething with resentment. It was not pretty. But then I started affirming that he'd been a good provider and he started his own company and it was More successful financially than he'd been at any of his previous jobs. And it was also right in his wheelhouse.

[00:42:21] It was something he is really passionate about and enjoys. And he had that company for gosh, I don't know, 15 years or something. He did. He he sold it and closed it down just a couple of years ago, but I it was very easy to call Mr. Moneyback. He'd get these big checks in the mail and I'd say, Mr.

[00:42:39] Moneyback, you could take me out to Sushi tonight. And he'd be like, all right. And it was much nicer than saying, why don't you try to make us more money? Or, you're a failure as a provider. So we see, and so this power of this spousal fulfilling prophecy is to really take that complaint and just flip it upside down.

[00:42:55] What is the experience you wanna be having and what evidence can you find? [00:43:00] Cuz nobody's all black or white. But what we focus on really increases. We have a lot of power to expect the best from our partners and see that's how they begin to show

[00:43:10] Scott Maderer: up. Yeah. The again, it's that idea of in communication, the

[00:43:21] Laura Doyle: words that we use the language that we use has tremendous power.

[00:43:27] Because there's always a subtext to it. There's always

[00:43:30] Scott Maderer: a you said a certain thing. You meant a

[00:43:34] Laura Doyle: certain thing, but that doesn't mean that's what was received. And that work again, works both ways. We do this in any conversation. Yes. It works at work too. It's, it, we do it at work too.

[00:43:47] We do, we say things to our employees, to our coworkers to each other all the time. But it's that idea of recognizing, huh. I say that a little different. It's received a little different. [00:44:00] It's really true. I had a student who was a teacher, start using it on a kid and the kid had a terrible time transitioning, just always wanted to stay in the old activity.

[00:44:10] So she started calling him the transition master. She'd say, you're so good at transitioning. Look at you. You're the transition master. And then not too long after that, she noticed he just. Put away the stuff from the previous project and was leading the charge over to the new thing they were supposed to do.

[00:44:26] And she goes, look at you're transitioning so well. She was surprised. And he goes, yeah, I'm the transition master. Duh of course I am. So people yeah they love having a positive prophecy spoken over them. Absolutely. It's,

[00:44:46] Scott Maderer: we

[00:44:46] Laura Doyle: speaking into existence sometimes.

[00:44:48] Yes. Has tremendous power of, we don't we limit ourselves sometimes because we haven't spoken that

[00:44:55] Scott Maderer: reality out loud. Yeah.

[00:44:57] Laura Doyle: My brand is inspired stewardship, and I [00:45:00] run things through that lens of stewardship when, and yet I've learned over the years that's one of those words that it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:45:09] So for you, when you hear the word stewardship, what does that mean to you and what does the impact of that understanding

[00:45:15] Scott Maderer: had

[00:45:15] Laura Doyle: on your life? My brand is empowered wife, so everything for me run, runs through this lens of marriage and and. And becoming my best self becoming the woman I really wanna be through marriage.

[00:45:33] And I see myself as the steward of my marriage, meaning the keeper of my marriage. That I'm responsible for the culture in my home. If it's peaceful, if it's passionate, if it's playful versus tense and distant, which I always, if I wanna pick a fight I can always do that also. But today I just love having the option.

[00:45:54] Of knowing that I have like a superpower really to create a [00:46:00] peaceful, passionate, playful. Relationship that I have now, we are, will celebrate 34 years here pretty soon of marriage. And I think that's my proudest accomplishment in the whole world. I've written New York Times bestselling books and made lots of money and have a certain degree of fame.

[00:46:19] But for me that's the part I'm most proud of is being a good steward of my marriage. Awesome. So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute that I could invent this magic machine and with this machine, I could pluck you from where you sit today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 200 years.

[00:46:42] And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life and see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left behind. What

[00:46:51] Scott Maderer: impact do you hope you've

[00:46:52] Laura Doyle: left in the world? Oh my dream, my vision is that [00:47:00] We've ended world divorce that so many women have not only trained themselves in the six intimacy skills, but also become coaches, experts who help become the midwives for other women to fix their marriages, and then who also light up the next generation and train them from the word go on how to Have the kinds of relationships that make strong families where yeah, where everyone's.

[00:47:33] Excelling and feeling taken care of. The husbands are feeling respected, the wives are feeling loved and adored and cherished. And that Dior that we all stand for each other's marriages. That the normal thing to say when someone says, why I am really struggling he was Even if they said he was, he's verbally abusive, or he's he is an alcoholic, that instead of saying [00:48:00] something like you deserve better, you should leave.

[00:48:02] We say, oh my gosh, that must be so painful and so scary. And how can I support you with learning your skill practicing your skills and doing what you can with what you have on your side of the street, right? To clean that up. Because obviously we all stand for marriage here.

[00:48:25] We all support this beautiful arrangement that God's made that should be till death till we part in a beautiful way. Not in, we're seconded up for the kids kind of way until they get old enough, but in a way where who would wanna get divorced from this? Nobody does because we're having so much fun and feeling so good.

[00:48:49] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for you as you continue continue through this year?

[00:48:54] What's on the roadmap?

[00:48:56] Laura Doyle: We I've trained coaches [00:49:00] in lots of countries now besides just the United States. We have coaches all over across the United States and in other countries. And one of the things we're excited about is now having event events.

[00:49:11] Like we have the we had the Cherish for Life weekend in May in Australia. Okay. And also an Empowered Wife workshop in New Zealand in May. And so we're excited about, I think the next one's gonna be in New Jersey, which is domestic still. But we're just excited about. And then, I dunno, I've been in New Jersey.

[00:49:32] I'm not sure if it counts as domestic. He count as inter as the United States. Okay. It's not domestic. All right. Gotcha. Actually New Jersey's beautiful state. I just gotta make fun of it. Of course we do. One of my powerhouse. Coaches, coach Darlene lives in New Jersey and we're always like, that's how they do it in New Jersey.

[00:49:49] She's got her own. Just really excited to spread the it's so wonderful to have that experience like the Cherish for Life weekend, where you're [00:50:00] in that community with women who are like-minded, care deeply about their marriage, about their families are really committed to their own self-development.

[00:50:09] So I'm excited to spread those events far and wide and get some more coaches trained. Two, we're training coaches all the time and we just really yeah, there's just such a big need for coaches. Awesome.

[00:50:24] Scott Maderer: So you can find out

[00:50:25] Laura Doyle: more about Laura over on her website@lauradoyle.org. Dot org, and that's Doyle spelled d o y l e.

[00:50:34] Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Laura, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener? Yeah, there is. We came up with something pretty fun, I think for just for the listeners of inspired stewardship. So if you go to laura doyle.org/stewardship, you'll find there the adored wife roadmap.

[00:50:56] Which you can download for free, the Marriage Success Kit, which you can [00:51:00] also download for free. And a link to one of my favorite episodes of The Empowered Wife Podcast that you can listen to for inspiration, motivation and little ways that you can improve your marriage from wherever it is right now, starting today.

[00:51:15] Awesome. That is a great gift. And of course, I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But thanks so much for doing that for the listeners here. It's my pleasure. I feel like they should have something special for being listeners of inspired stewardship, so that's what we did.

[00:51:35] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen. But act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired [00:52:00] stewardship.com/itunes.

[00:52:02] Rate all one word. iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.