Episode 12: Elevating Your Marriage: Strengthening Bonds and Breaking Patterns with Special Guest Kameran Thompson Al-Areqi

Kayla: Hey Cameron, how’s it going?

Kameran: Hey, great, how are you?

Kayla: I’m doing well. It’s hot, which I’m sure when we put this out, it will not be hot. But yeah, how’s the weather over there?

Kameran: We’re in Houston so it’s hot all the time. We have summer and hell’s front porch for season. So you know, unless you’re putting this out in February, it will still be hot.

Kayla: Yeah, maybe not February, but maybe in like December, january, it will still be, hot, we’ll see. Oh yeah, I know, I know. Remember when Christmas it was like you were wearing shorts on like Christmas, and you’re like, oh, it doesn’t feel like Christmas because it’s hot, even though that’s how it is all the time. I’ve lived in Texas almost my whole life, so I don’t know why I keep telling myself well, it doesn’t feel like Christmas, even though Christmas is usually like this.

Kameran: See, we haven’t. We live, we’ve only been in tech. Well, so I’m originally from Kansas, my husband’s from Egypt, so he doesn’t know any different. But for me, like I grew up with seasons and so like it’s almost depressing for me to be around Christmas and it’s still 87 degrees, because that’s not Christmas to me, so it’s a struggle.

Kayla: I get it, but before we continue talking because I know we can, I know we can’t, so let me introduce you. Yeah, so this is Cameron Thompson. She’s a pilot wife, mom of two boys and a Gottman certified marriage coach. She’s helped hundreds of couples save and better their marriage and prides herself and being authentic, accessible and having a 93% success rate with her clients and connecting with friends.

Thanks so much again for joining and I’m so excited that we were going to be able to talk about relationships today because, other than the topic of motherhood, relationships and helping people create better relationships and healthy relationships is one of my greatest passions, because I love love and I love people being happy in their relationships, and it’s also a big part of motherhood.

Kameran: You know you can’t be the best. I mean, being a mom is exhausting and even more draining when your marriage or your relationship is struggling, and so by bettering your marriage, it also helps you become a better mom too.

Kayla: Absolutely so. One of the things that I don’t know people realize is that seeking help in your marriage is not a. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with y’all as people Not at all, and one of the reasons why I bring this up is because people wait too long before seeking out help. I had recently read a statistic that people couples wait six years before even reaching out for help, and by that time it’s not that it’s hopeless, but it’s harder than if you would have came in when you started noticing the problem really getting in the way.

Kameran: The way that I explain it to my clients is when they first start with me is that when you like, as you grow up, you have this suitcase that you’re always taking with you, right? And so you’re packing all of your experiences and your education and you know just everything that happens to you in life. You’re packing it into this suitcase and then and your partner wherever they are in the world, before you meet them, they’re doing the exact same thing.

And then you guys meet and you get married and you move in together and you basically dump out your suitcase in the middle of the living room floor and then you spend the rest of your life sorting through it, saying do we throw this away? Do we keep this? Do we put this on a shelf to actually, you know, display for people as they come over, or do we hide this in a closet, like, what are we doing with all of these experiences?

And a lot of times so like. For me, I wasn’t taught money. Money was not really something that was discussed a lot. I didn’t know much about it. So when I got married, that was something my husband was really good at, so I had to really start accepting his influence on that too, and a lot of times people are so stuck in their ways and so stubborn and, honestly, it’s an immature thing that they are like, no, I’m not letting go of this and yeah, so six years, that could be an experience.

Maybe you had a bad experience with therapy as a child and so your automatic go to is while coaching and therapy are one in the same, and so I don’t want to, I don’t want to get help. You know, we’ll just, and a lot of the things that I hear is we can just fix this on our own. Well, if you could, you already would have.

So you only know what you know, and if you didn’t have a good experience with your parents’ marriage, or you didn’t have a lot of good, healthy examples of what marriage is growing up, you’re not going to know any different. You’re not going to do anything different, and so it’s just going to be completely repeating the cycles and everything. Everything goes back to our childhood.

Kayla: Oh yeah, I completely agree with that, absolutely, and especially I like that you said you only know what you know, because I say that a lot we are not perfect people and oftentimes our, our parents or caregivers, or that all the relationships in our lives that we’ve seen, they probably were doing the best that they could with the information they had.

Oh sure, and so we took that information and now we’re only doing, or we’re doing, the best that we can with the information and knowledge that we have on being in a relationship, yep, and sometimes you don’t really have anything but what you’ve seen on TV or what you’ve seen in the movies. Sure.

Kameran: Absolutely, in fact. So I don’t know how well-versed you are in attachment styles, but so back in the 80s, when the attachment styles really came with like they were really starting to be studied, right, it was something like somewhere around 75 to 80% of people had a secure attachment. Well, if you think about it, the decades before that, moms were staying home with their kids. They were more emotionally available. You know that was mom’s purposes, right? Like I’m going to raise these babies and that’s my job, okay. Well then the 80s, that’s when moms started entering the workforce again after, like that was when it really became heavy.

Kayla: Yeah.

Kameran: Now the generations that were born like 80s and 90s and then on into the 2000s, it has flip-flopped. So now, where 75% of people had a secure attachment, now almost 75% of people have an insecure attachment, and it’s because when we were kids, we weren’t getting the emotional, the emotional needs that we had met.

And that’s where I see a lot of issues too, is that? And usually like not to throw the avoidance under the bus, but it’s usually them that say great childhood, there wasn’t anything wrong with my childhood. Well, that’s probably true, like physically, you know, you had shoes on your feet, clothes on your back, food in your belly. But what about your emotional needs? Were your emotional needs met? Probably not, because if they were, you wouldn’t be avoidant. So yeah, it’s everything. Everything relates back to childhood.

Kayla: Sometimes the things are just not as obvious, and it’s not to say that you didn’t have a good childhood, just that there are things that could have been done better. And how can you learn that now so that if you have children, they can be better also in the future?

Kameran: Absolutely, Absolutely. It’s that and honestly, that’s something that I warn my clients about when they start to is that this is like the internal work that you have to do on yourself to become secure in your attachment style, to have healthier fight styles, to you know, to do what you need to do to be the best spouse that you can possibly be.

It’s some of the hardest work that you will ever do and also the most rewarding, Because then you are giving your kids a good example of what perseverance looks like, what working on yourself looks like, what you know. You’re developing that emotional intelligence that kids aren’t being taught in schools, so now you’re able to teach it to them, Whereas if you don’t do the work, then you know the cycle repeats for generations to come, and it will. It will.

Kayla: Absolutely, but I wanted to mention that I loved that metaphor about the suitcase because it’s so true and you’re always sifting.

It’s like the sifting never stops Never. You’re always sifting through that suitcase because you’re always finding new things about your partner and it’s because maybe this paper got stuck onto one of your papers or maybe it’s something that they just realized was important to them.

Kameran: Well, or even I mean, and even though, like the day you get married, you being to that suitcase doesn’t stop, because then you’re having new experiences. You know you become a mom, maybe you change a job, you move to a different city, like all of those experiences still keep happening because you’re still living. So you’re still adding to the pile that you’re sifting through and like there’s there’s always just more to sift through.

Kayla: Yeah, yeah. So what are, or what would you say are, the top three things a marriage needs to thrive in? If you could break down those things.

Kameran: Yeah. So you mentioned in the beginning that I am Gottman certified, so we I love their diagram. If you will, it’s called the sound house method or sound relationship method. So if you look at a house, the two pillars on the outside like holding your marriage together, if you will is the first one is commitment and the second one is trust, and then what fills up the house is friendship. Okay, now, everything else can basically be fit into one of those three categories, for example, commitment.

The one reason that marriages like the marriage, the divorce rate, keeps climbing it’s not even 50%, I think the last I checked a few months ago, it was like 54% now and the reason that it continues to increase is because less and less people have commitment when they make those marriage vows. It’s not really a vow anymore. It’s not like it was meant to be a covenant between you and your spouse and God and so like.

And your family and friends are witnessing this to say, when your marriage gets hard and you go to them that way, they can say, nope, you took these vows like you meant it for better or worse, like that’s what this means, and instead what we’re having is the friends and family that witnessed you getting married are like, girl, you need to leave him, because that is unacceptable.

You know things like that. I’m not talking like abuse and all of that, but just when marriage gets hard because inevitably it will, there’s seasons, and so, like we were talking before, instead of waiting six years to get help and learn a different way, that’s where your friend says what if you tried going to get coaching? What if you, you know, let me watch your kids for a weekend so you can have a marriage intensive, let me you know what I mean. Like, how can we help you? Here’s what worked for our marriage. You know what if you go talk to a pastor or something like that? So there’s that commitment is that people just aren’t as committed as what they need to be to have thriving marriages.

The second one is trust, and the first one and this is something that you’re going to, that you’re starting to see a lot more of, thankfully, in the coaching and marriages and all of the people that are, you know, putting out content is safety. It’s not just physical safety, it’s emotional safety. Are you a safe place for your partner to come talk to you every day, for you to? You know when they come and say, hey, I have, you know this is a big struggle. Are you meeting them with a solution immediately? Or are you listening to understand and say, yeah, you know I, that’s completely valid, like I would feel that way too. Or you know here, you know I’m sorry that I, you know, hurt your feeling is, or I’m sorry that I said this or this. You know like being that safe place, being trustworthy.

You know it’s great that we can get a lot of content on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, whatever, also podcasts. But also are you taking that to a next level and following people that you shouldn’t be following? Are you talking to people that you shouldn’t be talking to? Are you disrespecting, like if your wife or your husband were to look at your social media, would they be okay or would they be upset, would they be feel disrespected or would they feel like you have loyalty?

And in the middle and this is what I think, because we live in such a busy society and it’s almost like people wear busyness as a Medal of Honor that we’re not letting each other into and also because of that lack of safety, we’re not letting each other into our worlds. You know, how have you changed in the last year. What do you like now that you didn’t like before? You know we’re not. We’re having conversations around information sharing and like, well, you know, kid number three has a dentist appointment this week, are you taking MRI? So, like, you know these teamwork conversations, but we share that vulnerability less. We are talking less about our intimate expressions and like, hey, I really liked this that you did the other night. Not so much on this, that kind of thing. Are we, you know, talking about?

One thing that I see a lot is less and less conflict resolution. We’re not talking about our conflicts and saying, you know, when you say this, it makes me feel this way, or it makes me think this way, or because when I was a kid, you know my dad used to yell, or this, you know, my mom was really critical, or something like that. We’re not having those conversations because we’re exhausted, and a lot of that is because of lack of boundaries and a lot of it is also because we’re so busy. We just don’t make the time emotional laziness, to be honest.

So then, like, without that friendship and those three things, you can’t build on that and actually manage the conflict and have dreams and goals together. And then, you know, create that we’re sitting on a front porch together drinking sweet tea, watching the sunset and our grandkids playing the yard kind of vision. No, no, and that’s just commitment, trust and friendship.

Kayla: Thanks for that, and there are so many bits that I want to unpack a little bit. Yeah, so the first thing was, let me think, when you said are you listening? Are you listening to?

Kameran: connect.

Kayla: Yes, are you listening to understand, because this is such a big deal? A lot of us will be listening but not actually hearing what your partner is saying, because we’re in the either I want to fix it mode or how can I win mode or how can I make this better, and not actually hearing what your partner is saying or what they need Absolutely.

Kameran: It’s also a case of it’s. There’s so many fundamental differences between men and women and how we’re wired, and also that anxious versus, versus avoidant attachment to where a lot of times I will, you know, like as women. Typically, you know, these are blanket statements, but typically a woman is more emotional and the man is more logical and analytical.

And so what will happen is, you know, we go to, you know well, like I think in our house right now is we have a 14 year old and a three year old basically the same emotions, just on different scales. It’s, it’s got big emotions in this house a lot.

So I’ll go to my husband and say the teenagers being a jerk again, you know like blah, blah, blah and I’m emotional about it, and he’s like, Okay, we’ll take away a phone. Like he just immediately meets me with a logical answer and I’m like, yeah, I don’t need help there. I need you to say it’s okay, babe, you’re still, you’re still a good mom like I. You know, you’ve got this, we’ve. You know, do you want me to talk to him? What do we need?

to do like do you want to send him to military school today? Like you know what I mean, like what, what would make you feel better? And, at the end of the day, like I have the solution, need you to give me a solution? I just need you to be there and I just need you to validate me that I am not crazy and that I am not the worst mom in the world because I’ve been told that three times today by him. I mean things like that. So it’s that kind of stuff that a lot of times, are you listening to understand, or you listening just to give a response so that I’ll shut up, kind of thing.

Kayla: Yeah, yeah, and there are ways to not fix. I don’t want to say fix it, but change those perspectives and learn how to tune into their partners.

Kameran: Absolutely it’s. It’s emotional intelligence, it’s all emotional intelligence and unfortunately, a lot of people think that that is something you’re born with, just like your regular IQ. Eq is learned. Emotional quotient is learned. It is not just given to you.

Kayla: Mm. Hmm, yeah, yeah it is, and it’s usually learned by what was modeled to you when absolutely child. Yep, yeah.

Kameran: What were some of the other things that you wanted to unpack? And yeah, so the other one, trust, and friendship.

Kayla: Oh well, one of the things I wanted to bring up was you had mentioned we’re not prioritizing and sometimes I think people expect or they don’t recognize how much work does actually need to go into making your relationship Stay healthy, mm, hmm, because maybe it started off in a good place when you were first married and in the first few years.

But at some point you probably stopped connecting. Yeah, because things got in the way life started happening. Maybe you had kids, or maybe you started a new job, or maybe you were working through a promotion and we think like, oh well, once I get to this level, then we’ll have more time. Or once we have this much money, then we’ll have more time. But the reality is there’s always going to be something that’s going to get in the way, unless you make connecting a priority.

Kameran: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, that’s actually something that I’m seeing more and more in couples that I’m coaching right now, even in new couples that come to me that say we’re just like, the spark just isn’t there anymore. I’m not. You know, when you, when I hear things like the spark just isn’t there anymore, I don’t find her attractive, I’m not in love with him.

The bedroom life, your, your life in the bedroom is a direct reflection of your life outside the bedroom, so, like, and it all comes down to one thing and that is connection. We’re born as babies, like. We are literally born into this world needing connection, and if babies don’t get that physical connection they die. Partners don’t get that physical connection. That’s when, you know, our love tank, if you will, literally just starts draining and connection, again, it’s one of those fundamental differences between men and women.

So men again blanket statements but men typically find connection in shoulder to shoulder friendship activities go carting, you know, playing a sport together, going on a walk at night, you know doing things like that. Whereas women, we find connection in those deeper, open ended conversations, and I actually I don’t even want to say deeper, because it could be things like, you know, used to be that your favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip. Is that still the case? Or do you like something else? Oh well, actually I like rainbow sprinkles now, like you know what I mean.

So it’s those conversations. It doesn’t have to be super deep, but it can be. It can be, you know, questions like what’s your biggest burden right now, what’s your biggest stressor and how can I help you through that. Things like that. That’s how women typically can feel connected is through those conversations.

And this is I was actually working with a couple not too long ago where he said he goes when I ask you to come out and I’m working on the lawnmower or something, I just want you to sit there. I don’t necessarily need you to help me, I just want you to sit there and be there with me, and she’s like that’s so irritating and he goes. You know what, when you ask me all those questions on a road trip, those are irritating too. So the way that we connect with our partners is usually kind of irritating, but it’s also what they need in order to connect.

And disconnection this is also a very big misconception about disconnection. People think that conflict causes the disconnection and it’s actually the other way around the disconnection is causing more conflict. So when you are connected, that’s when you’re lessening your conflict you have more emotional intimacy, more emotional connection, so you have better physical intimacy.

You feel like you’re a team, and when things do arise that maybe, in a more disconnected time, would have thrown you off track, when life throws you those lemons, you’re actually able to make that lemonade for the cliche, it’s true though You’re actually able to do something with it instead of just feeling like, well, it’s just lemons, so I got nothing for this. You know what I mean. So you’re a lot better in your marriage when little things arise, or even big things.

Kayla: Yeah, and I know with the Gottman method because I also base my own therapy with couples on the Gottman method that they talk a lot about the bids for connection and turning towards your partner and how that’s important for having the conflict stay lower. Yes, absolutely, and do you want to talk a little bit about bids of connection?

Kameran: Yeah, so bids of connection? I don’t think people. You were talking earlier about the different stages of life, right, and when we’re dating, when we’re in that first stage, the romance stage, we don’t really think about. You know, when our partner says something like, oh, you know, what do you think about ice cream? Oh, I love ice cream, do you want to get some? Right now, like you’re turning towards your partner without even thinking about it.

But then you know you enter into the power struggle stage and this is usually the stage that makes or breaks a couple and it can last anywhere from a few months to decades in your marriage. And so when you’re in that power struggle stage and you’re like, like you said, like life gets busy and you know you’ve got things coming at you, you’ve got things changing, moving or different jobs or kids or whatever, that’s when things get hard, and that’s also again because of the disconnection.

Your partner’s looking out the window and they’re like, oh, I think it might rain today. And you either turn towards them and you’re like, oh really, I didn’t see that on the news this morning, or I didn’t see the radar, I looked outside, or whatever you know. Or yeah, we definitely need some rain, Something like that, versus just completely ignoring what they say or being like huh, like there’s no, there’s no response there.

So you either miss the bid for connection or you completely reject it. And it’s those little micro rejections over time that make you feel even more disconnected. And then they’re starting to be replaced with tiny Lego bricks of resentment and once the resentment builds up too high, you’ve basically just got a wall between you and your partner with no window, no door, no access, and then that’s when you end up calling it quits.

So, with those bids kit for connection, like they’re so important and what, what I thought was interesting when I was going through all my training was that a couple can actually bid for each other’s connection over a hundred times in a single meal. And it’s things like, yeah, a single meal, a hundred times.

It’s things like a look that you shoot your partner from across the room or you know that’s like, hey, it’s time to bail, like I’m done with these people. Or it’s a look that says, hey, you want to go Because you’re looking pretty great in that dress. Like it’s those things, it’s a touch of the hand, it’s the little questions that you ask that are meaningless, like, hey, did you lock the door? I know you lock the door. It’s the job that you do every night, like you know what I mean when. And a lot of people get irritated with their partner for asking those little things and they don’t realize that it is a bid for connection.

Kayla: Yeah, or even just talking about the way the food tastes, sure, or whether or not it met their expectations. This was not what I expected today. I was expecting this. Those are all good connections as well. Yeah, they’re not obvious, like hey, pay attention to me, or hey, I’m missing connecting with you. They’re not always that obvious. Oftentimes they’re not obvious at all.

Kameran: They’re a lot more subtle. Most of the time they are more subtle.

Kayla: Yeah, or even the oh my gosh. Did you hear about what happened to so and so the other day, or did you hear what happened? There was a I don’t know a police chase or something. Something.

Kameran: Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. Those conversations that we you know, and it goes back to that friendship, you know. Are you treating your partner like a friend? If a friend came up to you and said, oh hey, you know, have you tried out such and such restaurant? Would you be like no and just walk off? Would you be like, oh no, I haven’t, you know, did. Have you tried it? Did you like it? What did your wife think about it? I mean, you’re going to have a conversation about it, right, and so thinking about your partner in that same regard, are you respecting them the way that you would a friend? Are you responding to them the way that you would a friend? Is your tone the same as you would use with a friend? It all goes back to that friendship.

Kayla: Oh yeah, I remember reading in in the seven principles of making marriage work by John Gottman, who’s one of the founders of the Gottman method. There was a story of this, I think the couple the husband, I think was a surgeon and he was like really mean to his wife but then no one would ever know because he was the nicest person at work, he was patient, and when you think of a surgeon or the way surgeons are portrayed on TV, they’re usually mean and snarky and just like right One answer.

Kameran: I’m not trying to generalize surgeons, but that’s how they are portrayed on the TV.

Kayla: But he was nice, and so when they realized that there was some disconnection here, they found that, or one of the things that they mentioned is oftentimes we are, so we give our friends so much slack. Sure, then we do our partner. Yeah, why wouldn’t we give our partner more slack than our friends who we’re not interacting with every day or who didn’t make the same commitment that our partner made?

Kameran: Sure. So that comes down to actually twofold. The first one is that we project because our partners are the closest to us. We like it’s almost like we stop valuing that and treating our marriage as a privilege. We don’t realize, like finding love and keeping love is so rare I mean it’s 46% now, whereas 54% you get divorced. So 46% chance that you that you find that love and that you keep it. I think I read it study the other day that said that marriages over 30 years old it’s only like 25% of marriages last past 30 years. That was astounding to me.

So it’s that it’s the projection. And also that projection comes in from from you, like how do you talk to yourself? And it goes back to your childhood, because your mom’s or your dad’s voice is the one that’s in your, in your subconscious. That’s the voice that you hear when you mess up, when you don’t meet those expectations. Is that a kind voice or is that a voice that is critical?

If you are critical of yourself, you are definitely going to be critical of your spouse, and you may not even know it, you know. So it’s that it’s the whole. You know how do you talk to yourself, how do you talk to your spouse, and then it’s also giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

There’s so many times that you those micro rejections, the small hurts, the not meeting each other’s expectations, and then you start building that resentment instead of repairing after those conflicts and so it ends up building that wall. So you know it’s two fold there with you know the emotional bids and and then that like how you treat your, your spouse.

Kayla: Yeah, and so you brought up giving your partner the benefit of the doubt, like those paying attention to those bids of connection or responding to them are only going to help you, to help you and your partner have that positive influence, that Absolutely. And then there’s also the ability to have the benefit of the doubt.

Kameran: Yeah, the other part of it, honestly and I really don’t think people understand how big this is is that repair. When they’re repairing conflict so many couples and and again it’s something that you watch do it. My parents were the same way, you know. My parents would fight and then they wouldn’t talk to each other for four or five days and then it was just like, oh, okay, well, we’re back to normal. And there was no like that. I saw there was never a discussion. There was never, and I’m sorry there was. You know there was never a five step apology, none of that.

So with that, you know, if you’re sweeping those, those conflicts under the rug and it’s you’re just moving on, it’s harder for you to give your partner the benefit of the doubt because you’re still remembering historical events and being like but last time they did this, this and this, and now I’m seeing a pattern and so it’s harder for me to forgive, so I’m going to hold it against you instead.

Whereas with a friend, usually you know you’ll talk about it and you’re a lot more careful. You know you’re not going to get to know that relationship and so you’re a lot more careful with how you treat that friend, whereas with our partners. We’re not as careful, and it’s sad, honestly, yeah.

Kayla: And I think this also really highlights the importance of because I’ve heard people talk about how they don’t ever want to fight in front of their kids and to some extent, you want to be able to see your kid, you want your kids to be able to see you have conflict and argument Absolutely yes, so important. Yeah, it’s not a bad thing, especially if you go and learn how to do these repairs. Yes, conflict there’s nothing wrong with conflict. It happens. It’s a healthy part of relationships, but it’s. Can you manage this conflict in a healthy and appropriate way? And if you can, your kids should be able to see that.

Kayla: I remember hearing a story. I can’t remember her name, but her husband is Dax Shepard and, yes, kristen Bell. I remember hearing an interview where they said that if they were ever having an argument in front of their kids, whether or not they finished that argument in front of their kids, they always came back and did the repair in front of them, whether they did the exact same repair or they, like, made up a repair so that they could see them resolving the conflict.

Kameran: And I thought that I love it. It’s so genius. Yes, and I’ll tell you why.

So real life example my sister-in-law grew up with her parents never having any conflict, no arguments, no, nothing in front of the kids. My brother and my other siblings and I, we all grew up with our parents having conflict in front of us. And so my brother and my sister-in-law get married and my sister-in-law, like the first time that they ever had an argument in front of my nephew, like she freaked out and she was like we can’t be doing this, we can’t do this. And of course, my brother’s like what’s the big deal? Like I don’t understand. She didn’t like because she had grown up, she didn’t have that, she didn’t know how to have a healthy conflict in front of the kids. And so, like she did, she had that idea that, like you just can’t have conflict in front of the kids.

And that’s where my brother was like, well then, how are they supposed to learn? And so, yeah, so they did have to learn how to do healthy conflict management, because that was one thing that my family did not have. And then they were able to, and that’s part of going through that suitcase, right? What do we put out on the shelf? What do we do? What do we throw away? Like, how do we mesh these ideas together? So the way that they meshed it was okay. We do have conflict in front of the kids, but we also learn how to have healthy conflict in front of the kids and learn to repair in front of them. So, yeah, that’s really important.

Kayla: Yeah, and he been like if because we’re not perfect, people right.

Kameran: So nobody is.

Kayla: To some extent, we’re not always going to have the best conflict management. Sometimes we’re going to be just so stressed out we couldn’t contain ourselves. Sure, that’s why the repairs are so helpful. It’s not. I remember the the Gottmans. Part of their research was it wasn’t even necessarily the couples that had the worst conflict that ended in divorce. It was no, as long as they came back and repaired in their own way, that worked for them, that saved them.

Kameran: Absolutely and in fact so it’s the happiest couples. The happiest couples still have conflict. They report having conflict, but that’s that was the study that you’re talking about is is the happiest couples. They still report being very happy and very satisfied with their marriage, and they’re having conflict every single day. As long as they repair it every single day.

Kayla: Yeah, and that that wouldn’t be uncommon to have conflict every single day.

Kameran: I think, think that yeah, Things that we’re dealing with and the stress and the yeah, trying to do all the things and, like I said, wearing busyness as a metal. Like no, the conflict every day of some sort would be very easy to have.

Kayla: Yeah, yeah, but I know that someone hearing that could be like conflict every day. Oh my gosh, it sounds horrible, but it’s. It’s little things, like approaching your husband that they forgot to take out the trash again. Yeah, this week, or I don’t know. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Kameran: That’s a person, there’s so many things complaining about the kids, and will you always complain? Do something about it. You know insecurities, you know yeah, you forgot to do this, you forgot to do that, the teamwork thing. One of the biggest things in marriages that that creates conflict is division of household labor and the mental load of things. You know, like there’s again content that’s starting to be put out there that’s really beneficial. It’s beneficial, but it is it’s mental load and division of housework that is one of the biggest predictors of divorce or one of the biggest causes.

Kayla: Yeah, and that makes me remember that book by you brought fair play. Fair play, yeah, yes, yeah, that book, it really dives into that, that division and the mental load, and you could do a whole episode or more, just on yeah, easily, easily, easily. Yeah.

Kameran: There’s a couple of. There’s an Instagram and Facebook. His name is Zach. I Think his last name is Watson, but he talks a lot about. He calls himself a recovering man child and he’s always like. He gives really good examples from his own marriage of He’ll say like one of them is I can’t just go to my wife and say, hey, I’m gonna make dinner, what would you like me to make, because it’s that, what would you like me to make?

That? Well, she’s still having to figure it out and then she’s looking for it. Like you may be cooking it, but the mental load is what is he making? Do we have the ingredients for it? If we don’t, then what do I need to go to the store to get? Or what do I need to send him to get? And if he goes, do I need to write out name, brands of things and you know quantities of things and all of that, or can he just go, like that kind of thing? Yeah, it’s a.

It’s a struggle, one of the things that Our marriage, when Mo and I got married. They don’t have dryers in the Middle East and so they basically just line dry their clothes out on, you know, out on the balcony, because the Sun, it’ll dry in 15 minutes, unless it’s winter, and then it literally takes all day for one load of clothes to dry. But yeah, it’s ridiculous. But when he came he was like a dryer, cool, I’ll just throw free thing in the dryer. I lost so many sweaters, bra’s, like all of these things that I’m like you cannot try these.

And so, yeah, the mental load. Every time he did the laundry I was like no, yeah, I ended up taking an expo marker and just writing on the outside of the dryer. There was a list of like 30 things and I was like before you dry it, you check the list to see if this is on there. And so, yeah, he learned eventually. But yeah, there, it was rough there at the beginning and that mental load was a lot harder Just because he didn’t know mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, and I think that’s also Like you gave your husband the benefit of the doubt,

like you.

Kameran: like you.

They don’t have dishwashers over there, so you know him like teaching him to load the dishwasher, the mail, they don’t have mail over there. So, like he loved getting the mail, but then Learning how to mail things like where you put okay, like you can’t shove packages in the out, go in the out box, that doesn’t work. You know, like things like that, I mean things that we take for granted because we learned it.

But then he had to have patients with me over things like money, because I was a hot freakin mess. I didn’t know how to balance my. That was clear back when we use checkbooks a lot, but I didn’t know how to balance that. Sucker. I never had money in my account savings no, we did not have a savings, like you know, like things like that.

And so as much as it was irritating for me to have to teach him certain things, it was minor compared to what he had to teach me. So you know, and that’s and that’s the whole goal of marriage.

People think that getting married, the whole goal is to be happy. It’s not. It’s not because happiness is a you thing, it’s not your partner. So if you’re not happy, that’s on you Like that’s, that’s not your partner’s job. And if you’re, if you’re asking your partner to make you happy, you’re selfishly asking them to do something that you’re not willing to do for yourself.

So it’s not about being happy. It’s about growing together, doing the growth to actually have a marriage that works for you, that works for your family, learning each other constantly, because you’re you’re both always changing through those experiences that you’re having. So it’s about growth. That’s what you know. Who can you grow with and who’s going to help you Truly be the best version of yourself?

Kayla: Yeah, yeah, I love that you said that, because that’s so true. Your partner is not there to Complete you. At least, I don’t think of it that way there’s either elevate, you elevate each other.

Kameran: The marriage takes two whole people, mm-hmm. And if you feel like you’re broken, you’re not. You may not be completely whole, in that you are Secure in your attachment that you’re. You know that you’ve worked through some of the things that you need to work through and again, that’s on you, but a marriage can only be as healthy as the least healthy person in it.

So if that’s you, you have to do something to make sure that you are not dragging your partner back with you. And so, yeah, like it’s all about two whole people coming together To create a team, to create a you like, yeah, being a coach, I’m very team oriented. How can we make the team work?

So yeah, yeah, and it’s not about Go ahead, it’s just I was just gonna reiterate like it’s not about Happiness or or it’s just about growing as an individual and as a couple mm-hmm.

Kayla: And as we run out of time, one of the last things that I want to talk about before I give you a chance to Talk about a little bit more about what you do. But what so? When you said teamwork, it’s about making the team better, that just made me think oh, if someone was resistant To going into either working with a coach for couples or couples therapy, that would be such a great Line to use. You know, it’s not that we’re here to air out our journey laundry. It’s about figuring out how can we make our team better. Yeah, but what? What have you seen is helpful when one of the partners is resistant and seeking treats.

Kameran: So, yeah, so it goes back to that commitment right that you know you have to have the commitment first If you’re partner. Now I will be just using my own experience here. I’ll just you know I’m like I said, I’m very authentic and vulnerable. I have no problem being that way. We struggled, Mo and I struggled really bad in the first years of our marriage.

I Wasn’t happy. I was struggling really bad. I didn’t have a purpose. I was teaching but I I hated it honestly. I knew it wasn’t my purpose. I was good at it, but I, I didn’t like it. I didn’t. You know, it wasn’t what I was meant to do. So we struggled because I was the least healthy person in our marriage and so I went and got help for myself.

Now, if that’s flipped, you know, a lot of times and it did, it flipped later on down the line with me and Mo and at one point Mo and I separated for a little bit and I asked him one time I said, why? Why did you come back? And he said, honestly, cam, he goes. I, I decided that you had done, you were doing the work, you were bettering yourself, and he goes. I was watching that and he goes.

When I left it was because I was intimidated and looked at you when I was like I’m never gonna be able to meet her standards, I’m never gonna be able to get to the point where she’s at, which is a typical avoidance I’m a failure, I’m stupid, it’s never gonna be good enough, that kind of thing.

So we were in what’s called the loop of doom. So I’m questioning, needing validation, blaming, criticizing all of these things because I’m lonely. It’s just basically making him feel like I’m stupid, I’m a failure, all things. So it makes him mad or angry. He numbs out, which then makes me think, oh, he doesn’t care, he’s not committed all of these things. Yeah, I can’t trust him, I’m never gonna be good enough. And so, around and around, like if you’re picturing an infinity Sight symbol around and around, we go. Okay, and he said he goes.

We were in that loop and he goes. I didn’t know how to fix it or what to do, but he goes. I was seeing that you were getting help and that you were doing such a great job and that was bettering you and I wanted what you had. And so he goes. That’s where I decided to go and get help myself.

So all of that to say if you are in a marriage where your partner is like, nope, not getting therapy, nope, not getting help, not gonna read a book, not gonna do this, not gonna do that, you do it. You go get help for yourself. You learn what you need to learn. You try to secure your attachment style as much as possible. Work through that childhood trauma, get as healthy as you can possibly get and, along the way, invite them. Okay, invite them and say I’m going, I’ve scheduled, and here’s the thing. As you go along, there’s steps, right, so do what you can do for yourself. When you’ve cleaned up your side of the street, then you go and you say, listen, I’ve done what I can do.

Kameran: When you’ve cleaned up your side of the street, then you go and you say, listen, I’ve done what I can do.

I’m going to start marriage coaching, marriage therapy, whatever it is. I’m going to start it on this day. I’m going to this person. I really would like you to come with me. And if they don’t, then you go by yourself.

You do what you can do, and then you invite them again, and you keep inviting them. And then eventually, if you’ve done everything that you can do and you’ve cleaned up your side of the street and they’re still not willing to do anything, then you have a decision to make.

But you can’t force somebody to do the work. You can’t force somebody to change. You can’t force somebody to want the marriage as much as you do. All you can do is work on yourself, invite them along, and then decide what you’re willing to accept and what you’re not willing to accept.

Kayla: Yeah. And I love that because it gives people something that they can do instead of feeling like, well, my partner won’t go, so there’s nothing I can do.

Kameran: Exactly. There’s always something you can do. And honestly, when one person starts changing, it changes the dynamic of the relationship because you’re no longer participating in that same cycle in the same way.

So if you’re the anxious one and you’re no longer criticizing and blaming and questioning and constantly looking for validation, then the avoidant partner doesn’t have the same thing to react to. And so that loop starts to change because one person isn’t doing the same dance anymore.

And sometimes that’s enough for the other person to go, wait a second, something’s different here. And then they start getting curious about what you’re doing and why you’re different and why you’re happier or why you’re calmer or why you’re not reacting the same way anymore.

And that’s what happened with us. He saw me changing and he wanted what I had. And then he was willing to go do his own work.

Kayla: Yeah. And I think that’s such an important reminder too that you can go to couples therapy or marriage coaching by yourself.

Kameran: Absolutely. Absolutely. I work with individuals all the time who are married and their spouse isn’t ready yet. And there’s still so much that we can do because you are 50% of the marriage. So if we can work on your 50%, that’s going to change something.

Kayla: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what it looks like to work with you and how people can find you.

Kameran: Yeah. So I do marriage coaching. I work with couples and individuals. I work virtually, so I can work with people anywhere. And like you said in the beginning, I am Gottman certified, so I use a lot of Gottman principles in my coaching.

But I also work a lot with attachment styles and helping people understand their own attachment style and their partner’s attachment style, because that really helps you understand why you react the way that you do and why your partner reacts the way that they do.

And then we work on communication and conflict management and rebuilding the friendship and the connection and the trust and all of those things that we talked about today.

So people can find me on social media. I’m on Instagram and Facebook. And then I also have my website where you can find information about coaching and schedule with me.

Kayla: Awesome. And I’ll make sure that all of that is linked in the show notes too so people can easily find you.

Kameran: Perfect. Thank you.

Kayla: Thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. I feel like we could probably talk about relationships for another three hours.

Kameran: Easily.

Kayla: Easily. But thank you so much for being here and sharing all of this with us.

Kameran: Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.