Bad Marriage Advice: Why “Happy Wife, Happy Life” Is Quietly Ruining Marriages

Common Marriage Myths Debunked and the Roots of Bad Marriage Advice

Dr. Diane: Hey, Libido Lounge listeners, welcome back to another episode. We’re going to talk about bad marriage advice. Today I’m here with Monica Tanner, who is a relationship life therapy certified relationship coach and who also has her own podcast, The Secrets of Happily Ever After. She really works to transform marriages. She works with communication, conflict regulation, and communication strategies. And we’re going to work with her today and talk with her about myths of marriages, about advice that people have been getting over and over and over again from online forums they’re reading, from relationship coaches, etc. That really is not the right advice. And we’re going to dig into why on all of that. So you’ve got a super juicy episode ahead of you. Remember, I am filming these in two parts. So if you want the second part, which is going to come out next week, make sure you do subscribe so you do not miss that. Without further ado, welcome to the lounge, Monica.

Monica Tanner: Thank you, Dr. Diane. I’m so excited to be here with you.

Dr. Diane: Yeah, I am too. I am too. It’s such juicy material. Let’s get right into it today. So in reading about some of what you talk about in your work on your website, it sounds like you’ve spent about 15 yearsish really saying that you were believing the wrong things about love, right? And so I’m really curious to just understand your work and the motivation behind it. Like, was there a turning point that made you realize that the advice you’ve been following was actually hurting your marriage? Like what was that key to say like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been like listening to this advice and it’s all wrong.”

Monica Tanner: Yeah, it’s such a great question. I would say the beginning point for me was when my parents divorced when I was 12 years old. I grew up as a little girl just believing in fairy tale type love. And I thought my parents had it actually. And when I was 12 years old, they sat us down and explained to us that they loved each other very, very much, but they didn’t want to be married anymore. And from that moment, I was like, “Wait a second.” I knew that marriage was important. And I believed that my parents truly did love each other. They didn’t fight a lot. They had been friends from the time they were 16 years old. And they truly believed that they could be happier separated than happier together, right? And so I was like, well, I definitely don’t want that to happen to me. So from a very young age, I started really studying people who were in relationships with each other. I knew it was important. And I also knew that the majority of people that I was looking at, especially from that young age, they just didn’t seem very happy together. They were like kind of doing the work of marriage. Like, you know, I had one friend whose dad worked at night and so we didn’t see him very often, and so it was like mom was on during the day and we always had to be really quiet because dad was sleeping. And that just kind of was the hallmark of it. It was kind of like really creating a life together but not really sharing a life together. It’s what it felt like to me. And I knew I wanted something different for my own life. And so I studied marriage for a long time. Then I got married to the man of my dreams. And what I started to realize was it was much harder to implement the things that I thought were right in a real marriage. And so for the last 25 years, I’ve basically used my own marriage as kind of a learning lab. And 10 years ago, I started working with couples. And so I feel like I’ve really had firsthand access to what do couples really, really struggle with. Last year my oldest son got married. And that was the impetus behind my book because I wanted to set him up for success. And you know, he got married actually on my 23rd wedding anniversary. So it’s so cool. We have the same anniversary, but I was like, I have 23 years of experience here. I got so much advice when I first got married. And over the last 23 years, some of it has turned out to be really bad. And so that is kind of how my book was born. And I wrote it for him and gave him an advanced copy for his wedding but I had no idea how long it actually took to publish a book so it wasn’t actually ready on his wedding date but we got real close.

Dr. Diane: It’s so cool right the ability to pass that down to children. Both my partner and I are divorced and I’m now stepmom to his three children and it’s been really interesting to kind of take this approach of sharing with them some things that bidirectionally we both did wrong in our previous marriages and how we are changing the story and changing the script and what we’re doing different to keep our relationships strong. And it’s just such an amazing thing what you’re doing to be able to pass down that type of information to the future generations. I’m curious, was there anything like specific happening in your own marriage that pushed you to this? Was that part of the thing or was it more around hey, we’re just trying to prevent what would happen to your parents and just make sure it stays strong?

Monica Tanner: You know, there’s a little bit of all of that all wrapped up together. I mean, there was definitely things we were doing that weren’t working. There was definitely preventative measures that I was trying to take and some of those preventative measures came from really well-meaning older married couples that I respected. And so I was like very much like this, you know, if they say this is the secret to a happy marriage, we got to do this. And we were like pushing pushing so hard to do it. And it really wasn’t working. So you know, there was kind of all of that wrapped into one. The reality is that all of our marriages are different. So there’s not like a one-size-fits-all advice, which is part of the reason why there’s so much bad marriage advice is because we all try to make our own unique scenarios fit into a quippy little, you know, happy wife, happy life type of horrible, horrible marriage advice. So that’s part of it. But the other thing is I think Hollywood and just our culture has romanticized this idea that you find your soulmate and love should be enough and it will carry you through all of the hard times. And when that isn’t working, people get very disillusioned and say dumb stuff like, “Oh, marriage is you shouldn’t get married. It’s better not to get married.” Like all these people lose hope quickly when the things that they grew up on don’t work. And so that’s all of those reasons I wanted to write this book is to give people real actionable skill sets to develop that will create better expectations of what marriage really is.

The Happy Wife Happy Life Myth and Marriage Advice That Doesn’t Work

Dr. Diane: Yeah. When I was looking at your book and some of the myths you debunk, one of the couple that came up that I thought just personally pertinent just because there are things that I have talked to my partner about around like this is just so ridiculous and the happy wife happy life is absolutely one of them. I could go on a soap box myself with why that is a problem. But I would love to hear from you like what is it about that statement that leads to so many problems and why is that not an accurate statement?

Monica Tanner: Yeah, it’s so interesting because that one probably has like the most legs of all of the advice in my book. That’s probably the most common. I feel like it’s handed down from either father-in-law to son or father to son. It’s like one of those pieces of advice that you get when you’re standing at the altar. You know, it’s like, listen, as long as you know your wife is happy or you know she’s the boss or whatever, you’ll be fine. It’s funny. It’s quippy. It sounds really romantic, but in practice, it’s terrible advice. And I wrote the whole chapter in my book about it, and even since I’ve even evolved past that. So in the book, I mean, if you think about it, happy wife, happy life. You have a relationship with two people in it. One person bends around the other person and exhausts themselves trying to create something that’s not even possible anyways. We’re all human. We’re all going to be happy about 50% of the time if you just take the reality of human nature. And so if your guiding principle of whether or not you’re doing a good job in your relationship is if you are keeping your partner happy all the time, then you’re going to be so disappointed. Also, at some point, you give up. And that’s where you get all of these people that come into counseling with me and say, “She’s never happy. No matter what I do, it’s not enough.” Because if you’re measuring your value or efficacy as a husband on whether or not your wife is happy, it’s a horrible measure. So that in and of itself. So in the book I corrected happy wife, happy life to happy spouse, happy house, which at least now you have the goal to have two happy people instead of just one. But even still beyond that, it’s not even if you think that it’s your job to keep your spouse happy, you’re going to have a very very hard time in your marriage. The reality is that happiness is an inside job. I’m the only one that can decide whether or not I’m happy. And I can have a husband who’s phenomenally amazing at doing all the things that I think will make me happy and still have to choose to be happy. So, you know, happy wife, happy life is terrible. Happy spouse, happy house is a little bit better. But the best recipe for success in marriage is happiness is an inside job. It’s my job to make me happy. I can definitely make requests of my spouse and teach them how to love me well and hope that they’ll teach me how to love them well. Like that’s a very mutual exchange of how can we do this in a way that works for both of us. But at the end of the day, I have to choose to be happy and my spouse has to choose to be happy.

Dr. Diane: I wanted to take a quick break from our podcast to say, did you know that arousal and desire are different for women and men? Many women think they are no longer interested in sex, for example, because they are waiting for their brain to think about having sex when they need to get into their body first. So often we think we are sexually incompatible or there’s desire discrepancy simply because we do not know the differences in how men’s and women’s brains are programmed around sex and how to work them to our advantage. In addition, communication breakdown, busyness, habits, routines, boredom, lack of novelty, and so many things drive people to have passionless or less passionate long-term relationships than they used to have. This is fixable. And I show you how to do all of this and more in my hot monogamy society. You can find links in the show notes below. I hope you will join me to discover and explore how to bring passion back. And you can do this as a couple, but know that even if it is just one of you that is interested in joining us, there’s so much magic that can happen, so much change and improvement by one person taking the initiative to bring passion back into the relationship. Now, let’s get back to our episode.

Dr. Diane: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think too with that constant serving the other person there’s like a loss of boundaries and who a man is because it’s all about just serving the wife and never about oh these are my own boundaries and I think that kind of erodes the masculinity of the man and when that happens there’s this shift in the polarity between the man and the woman where it’s almost like she wears the pants instead of they both wear whatever they need to wear to both be equal partners in it and it really I think with that shift in polarity too like that’s where I see also the sex life the intimate life starts to falter because that polarity is really lost and that is really related even to the intimate life. Do you see that as well in couples you work with?

Monica Tanner: A thousand percent. I mean, here’s a quotable, right? Caretaking is not sexy. So if you’re the man and your job is to always make your wife happy, which is the inverse and I think what happens in a lot of sexual relationships. I think that most women were kind of raised to feel like it was their job to make their husband happy sexually. Neither of those scenarios in any part of life is sexy. Look, what is sexy is teamwork. I have a partner. We both put into this relationship and we both get out of this relationship. Not it is my job to care for you. So if you have like that dynamic anywhere in your marriage, it’s not conducive to a really healthy thriving sex life.

Why Compromise Fails in Relationships and Compromise vs Collaboration in Marriage

Dr. Diane: Yeah, it’s well said. What about another one which I also really agree with and I’m also very curious of your take on it which is the idea around compromise because this is something that we’re often told in relationships and in relationship advice around like okay just compromise like that’s just like compromise is the secret to a happy marriage right and I feel like that is one of the top things that I’ve heard in my life and I would love to hear why you push back on that one.

Monica Tanner: Yeah. Well, let me ask you. When you think of the word compromise, what does it stir up for you? What do you imagine?

Dr. Diane: Well, the reason why I don’t like it is because it feels like everybody’s going to lose. Like that’s what it stirs up around nobody is going to get their needs met. Like sacrifice against oneself for the sake of the other, right? And so that’s my biggest thing around like well we’re setting ourselves up for a lose-lose if everybody’s always not stating their truth, not putting their boundaries around not. And it really comes down to the sacrifice of oneself versus saying like how can we actually work together to find ways that we can both be creative to solve things to get our own needs met in a way where I’m not sacrificing myself because that’s what I hear in compromise is we both have to make sacrifices.

Monica Tanner: Yes, you nailed it. It’s completely that right. We think of sacrifice we think that’s discouraging. And it’s like just giving up things here and there to meet in the middle, which is just not a very hopeful, exciting way to frame it. And so I get push back on this all the time because again, it’s well-meaning advice. You’ve got older couples that have been married for long periods of time and they go, “You just got to learn to sacrifice.” And that just doesn’t sound exciting to these brand newlyweds who are envisioning this amazing life they’re going to create together. They’re not going, well, I mean, if I just give up enough stuff and we meet in the middle, that will be great, right? And so I teach the concept I teach instead of compromise is collaboration. It’s much more creative. It’s much more teamwork focused. And really what it is, it requires curiosity. It requires both partners to really think about in whatever you’re talking about, whether it’s where you’re going to eat dinner or how you’re going to educate your children, what you’re going to do for work, who’s going to work and how that’s going to work, right? All of those things. If you get really curious like what do I value most about this? What means the most to me? What do I care about? And what am I not willing to sacrifice? Right? Like for me, if you go really small with eating dinner, right? I don’t want a menu of spicy things. I don’t like eating spicy. And my husband does. I love seafood and like expensive meals and nice ambiance. My husband could care less about any of that. He values an inexpensive meal. Like food to him is fuel. To me, it’s an experience, right? And so that’s a small thing like where we’re going to eat dinner every weekend for date night or whatever, but there’s huge things like who’s going to work, who’s going to stay home with the kids, who’s going to handle this part of our marriage or that part of our marriage or whatever. And again, it’s important to look inside and go, what is most important to me in this? Like I want to be at the crossroads when my kids leave for school and come home from school. Making enough money to be able to support our lifestyle is important to me. There’s so many things that I specifically value and my husband specifically values. And they’re different things. And so in order to create a life that really works well for both of us, I have to know not only what’s important to me, but also what’s important to him and why those things are important to us. Then we can put our heads together and get really creative about how do we create something that works really great for both of us that takes into consideration what we both really value and how can we implement these things when we’re on our own because that’s another thing about compromise is it creates a lot of scorekeeping. There’s a lot of like backbiting. You know, when you’re compromising on a lot of things, your kids will drive a wedge between you because it’s their job to exploit the places where they can get more of what they want, even if they pit you against each other. So if you have a good understanding of what is important to your spouse and why, so I’ll give you a really good example. We have very different ideas about technology use in our household. I have one idea and it’s on this end of the spectrum and my husband has an idea that’s on the opposite end of the spectrum. I think technology is a tool. I use it for my business. I think it’s important that our kids understand it and have a good relationship with it. My husband thinks we should like strike it from the earth. He does not want our kids to have any access to technology. And I’m going, okay, well, they grow up and at some point they have to use it. And so I would rather help them figure out how to have a good relationship with it and teach them about it rather than just throw them out on their own when they’re 18. So both of our positions on it are important and we both have really good arguments for our specific values and positions there. So what we do is we’re constantly talking about it and coming to not something in the middle which would be compromise. We’re coming to something better than either of us could have come up with on our own. That’s collaboration.

Dr. Diane: It’s so well said and such an important distinction. And you know, I think there’s something to be named to say like, yeah, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to get 100% of what we want in every situation every time. I know that’s not what you’re talking about, but you’re going to get a lot closer to it when you understand the logic behind each of your positions.

Monica Tanner: Yeah, absolutely. And it to me it’s like a lot of my work is always talking to people about like how do we get back on the same team again, right? And that’s what I hear and what you’re describing is like rather than being like okay we’re on like two different sides of the boardroom trying to have a meeting and like okay I will win or you will win, we’re actually like back on the same team, right? And that’s how a huge thing to create a healthy relationship is is being on the same team again. Realize that we have ultimately probably very very similar common goals like we both want happiness. We both want connection, we both want our kids to thrive, we both want a happy household.

Dr. Diane: Exactly. Yes. Yes. And you gain a lot more respect for each other when you understand that like he sees things from a very different point of view than I do. It’s kind of like when you’re talking about same team, offense and defense, your jobs are very different. You also have a very different perspective of what’s going on on the field. You need both. Like you’re not gonna win a game with all offense or all defense.

Monica Tanner: Exact. It’s so important to know these things about each other rather than just toss it in be like, well, I’ll just play in the middle of the field.

Dr. Diane: Exactly. And we’re going to talk about more of this in part two, everybody. We’re going to get into some areas of Monica’s expertise around roommate syndrome and resentment, which I know comes up for so many people in their long-term relationship. So we’re going to get into all of that and more. Remember, if you want to hear from some of our expert guests as well as get our year-long program in hot monogamy, you can join that by the link below. And I want to make sure you know about Monica’s work as well as she has a freebie for you guys, which is really exciting. So, Monica, can you tell us a little bit about your freebie, your 50 connecting questions to ask your spouse, as well as how people work with you?

Monica Tanner: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah, so the free gift that I have for you is 50 connecting questions. The reality is that a connected, loving, passionate, intimate marriage isn’t going to happen by accident. You have to create it one conversation at a time. And so these questions are really good questions not only to get to know each other better, but also to understand each other’s values so that you can collaborate like we’ve been talking about. So yes, these are 50 questions designed specifically even if you’ve been married for decades to help you understand each other better.

Dr. Diane: Amazing. And then you work with couples most of the time, right? And in a like a counseling type of setting, correct?

Monica Tanner: Absolutely. Yes, I do couples coaching, both weekly coaching as well as intensive format, which is like we spend a weekend together. Knock it all out. So yes, and you can learn all about that at my website, monikatanner.com. And we’ll have all of those links below the show notes.

Dr. Diane: As always, everybody, make sure you do subscribe if you haven’t yet, so we can get part two. We’re going to go into roommate syndrome, resentment, and more. Like I said, please share this with your spouse, your friends, your girlfriends, your man friends, anybody that you think could use this advice, and we’ll see you all again in another episode. Thank you, Monica.

Monica Tanner: Thank you.

Dr. Diane: Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don’t keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, and check out our Modern Libido Club for so much more!