Episode 86: Stop The Mediocre Marriage

Stop Settling for a Mediocre Marriage

You don't have to be miserable to want more. Your marriage can be good, and you can still want it to be extraordinary.

The mediocre marriage is sneaky.

Nobody's cheating. Nobody's packing a suitcase. You're still going to soccer games together, paying the mortgage, coordinating the kids' schedules, and occasionally going on a date night. Your household functions. Your family is intact. From the outside, everything looks fine.

But somewhere along the way, you stopped asking a very important question:

How good could this actually be?

You love your husband, but he annoys you. You're committed to each other, but you're not particularly excited about each other. You talk about schedules, responsibilities, and whatever fires need to be put out next. Maybe you touch, but genuine affection has become less common. Maybe sex feels like a chore, or you've stopped wanting it altogether. You take vacations together but spend half the time irritated with each other.

You're not necessarily unhappy enough to do anything about it. You're just not especially happy, either.

And because nothing is technically wrong, you assume this is what marriage becomes.

I want to challenge that assumption.

You didn't get married hoping to become efficient roommates. You didn't stand at the altar dreaming of successfully dividing household responsibilities and occasionally having sex. You were imagining a life together. You were excited about the person standing beside you. You believed the two of you could take on the world.

You wanted a beautiful life.

So what happened between your wedding day and today?

When “Fine” Becomes the Standard

I love weddings. But what I love even more is the idea of carrying that wedding-day energy into everyday life.

Think about how you felt when you were getting married. You were hopeful. You were excited. You were imagining everything you would build together: a family, a home, a garden, a business, adventures, memories, and a lifetime of experiences.

There was so much possibility.

Then life happened.

Kids came. Bills came. Careers demanded more of you. Laundry multiplied. Sleep became a luxury. Stress accumulated. Resentments developed. Somewhere between the school pickups, work deadlines, and dirty underwear on the floor, your expectations began to change.

Instead of believing you were going to create an incredible life together, you started telling yourself that your marriage was fine.

Fine is a dangerous word.

Fine means the marriage is functional enough that you don't feel compelled to change anything. Fine means you have learned to live with the distance, the lack of affection, the repetitive conversations, or the absence of excitement. Fine means you've stopped noticing what is missing because you've become accustomed to its absence.

And when you have children, it becomes especially easy to let your marriage slide down the priority list. The kids need you. Work needs you. The house needs you. There are a thousand things demanding your attention, and your marriage can start to feel like one more responsibility to manage.

You tell yourself that this is simply what happens after fifteen years of marriage. That everyone gets comfortable. That the butterflies disappear. That being a good couple means staying together, raising your children, paying your bills, and getting through life without too much trouble.

But staying married and having an extraordinary marriage are not automatically the same thing.

I think about my grandparents, who were together from the time they were twelve years old. My grandmother, Gigi, used to joke about wondering what it would be like to be with another man because she had never kissed or been with anyone else. They spent decades together, and I think their relationship was beautiful.

I also think about my other grandparents, who had their own recliners in the living room. When they were choosing their headstone, my grandfather even decided which side each of them would occupy based on where their chairs had been.

There's something sweet about that kind of familiarity. There's something beautiful about building a life with someone for so long that even your favorite chair becomes part of your shared history.

But looking at the marriages around us can teach us more than one thing. We can appreciate what we admire, notice what we would do differently, and decide what we want to create in our own relationships.

We don't have to judge other people's marriages to ask ourselves whether we want something different.

Maybe you want more than simply staying together.

Maybe you want to feel wildly alive inside your marriage.

You've Stopped Asking What You Want

One of the biggest reasons marriages become mediocre is that we stop desiring.

We forget to ask ourselves what we want because we become so focused on what is realistic, what we can afford, what our husbands will agree to, and what marriage is supposed to look like at this stage of life.

We start asking, “What's normal after fifteen years?”

Instead, I want you to ask, “What do I want?”

Not what does your best friend want. Not what does your mother think a good marriage looks like. Not what do other couples your age do. What do you want?

Maybe you want more sex, more pleasure, and more intimacy. Maybe you want to laugh until your stomach hurts. Maybe you want to travel internationally, have more adventures, or feel more financially free.

Maybe you want more help around the house. You want to hire the nanny or the assistant so you can stop trying to hold every responsibility yourself.

Maybe you want more affection. You want your husband to hug you when he walks through the door, kiss you in the kitchen, or reach for your hand when you're sitting together. Maybe you want to feel like he's your best friend again.

Maybe you want more quiet mornings, more freedom, more time with your children, or more presence in the life you're already living.

You might want more than one of these things. You might want all of them.

The point is not to make an endless list of things you don't have. It's to give yourself permission to acknowledge what you desire without immediately judging it.

Women are often incredibly good at editing their desires before they even let themselves feel them.

We think, That's unrealistic.

We can't afford that.

My husband would never go for it.

That's not what people do at our age.

I should be happy with what I have.

And just like that, the desire disappears beneath a pile of reasons it supposedly shouldn't exist.

But how can you create a life you love if you refuse to admit what you want from it?

Stop deciding whether your desires are reasonable before you have even acknowledged them. Let yourself want more friendship, more pleasure, more laughter, more adventure, more connection, and more freedom.

You don't have to know exactly how you're going to create those things yet.

Start by admitting that you want them.

Your Marriage Can Be a Place of Expansion

Here's where this gets interesting.

Most people think they need to improve themselves so they can improve their marriage. And there is truth in that. The work we do on ourselves matters. Learning to communicate, regulate our emotions, be honest, and show up with love can change a relationship.

But what if we also looked at marriage as a place where we get to become more of ourselves?

Your marriage reveals things about you that you might not notice anywhere else.

It shows you where you're controlling. Where you're afraid to trust. Where you people-please. Where you're afraid to be seen. Where you struggle to ask for what you want or receive what someone offers you.

It reveals where you shut down, withhold affection, perform for approval, or expect someone else to regulate your emotions.

These aren't necessarily comfortable discoveries. But they're opportunities to grow.

Marriage can become a kind of laboratory for becoming the woman you want to be. It's a place to practice being more loving, courageous, honest, playful, receptive, grounded, and vulnerable.

You don't have to wait until you've perfected yourself to create a better relationship. You can grow through the relationship itself.

And that growth doesn't stay confined to your marriage.

When you become more confident in expressing your needs, you may show up differently in your business. When you become more comfortable receiving support, you may lead your team differently. When you learn to navigate conflict without immediately resorting to blame, you may find that your relationships with your children and other people change, too.

You become a different parent, professional, leader, and friend.

The process begins with recognizing where you are, identifying what you desire, and becoming the person who can help create that experience.

Your marriage isn't necessarily standing in the way of your growth.

It can be where that growth happens.

Stop Waiting for Him to Change First

This is where I want to challenge you.

One of the reasons women stay in mediocre marriages is that they keep looking across the table, waiting for their husbands to make things better.

He should plan more dates.

He should initiate more affection.

He should communicate better.

He should be more romantic, spend less time on his phone, be more ambitious, or understand what I need without me having to explain it.

The list can go on forever.

And sometimes, yes, your husband really does need to change something. Relationships require effort from both people. You are not responsible for the entire marriage, and taking ownership of your part does not mean accepting mistreatment, tolerating harmful behavior, or pretending that your partner's choices don't matter.

But there's a difference between recognizing that your husband has room to grow and making your happiness entirely dependent on whether he grows first.

When you spend all your energy focusing on what he isn't doing, you lose sight of what you can do.

You get caught in the familiar loop of deciding whose fault everything is. Either it's your fault or his fault. Either you need to work harder or he needs to become a different person.

What if you stepped out of that loop?

What if you took responsibility for the part that belongs to you, without taking responsibility for everything?

You want more playfulness? Start being playful.

You want more honesty? Start telling the truth about what you're feeling and what you need.

You want more affection? Begin offering affection freely, rather than withholding it until he does something you approve of.

You want more pleasure? Start exploring what pleasure means to you, communicating what feels good, and making space for intimacy that isn't simply another obligation.

You want more adventure? Start creating opportunities for adventure.

You want more connection? Practice connecting.

Not because you have to carry the marriage on your back. You don't.

But because you don't need to wait for someone else to give you permission to begin creating the life you want.

You can take the first step without taking every step.

And sometimes, when you change the way you show up, you create space for your husband to show up differently, too.

Wanting More Doesn't Mean You're Ungrateful

This is an important distinction.

You can love your marriage and still want it to grow.

You can be grateful for your husband and still desire more connection, affection, pleasure, adventure, and shared experiences.

Wanting more doesn't automatically mean what you have isn't enough.

Think about your house. You can love your home, appreciate the front porch, enjoy the attached garage, and be grateful for the office where you work. You can genuinely love the place you live while also being excited to remodel the bathroom, paint a room, or finally fix that leaky faucet.

You don't have to hate your house to want to improve it.

In fact, you might want to improve it because you love it.

Your marriage can be the same way.

You can look at your husband and think, I'm so grateful for this man. I'm grateful for the life we've built. I'm grateful for the ways he supports me.

And you can also think, I want more laughter. I want more intimacy. I want more adventures together. I want us to keep discovering new things about each other.

Those thoughts aren't contradictory.

They're an expression of abundance.

When you love something, it's natural to want more of what makes it wonderful. When you have a delicious meal, you don't ask for another helping because the first one was terrible. You ask because you enjoyed it.

What if you approached your marriage with that same energy?

Not, My marriage isn't good enough.

But, I love what we have, and I want to experience even more of it.

More love. More laughter. More memories. More pleasure. More trips. More meaningful conversations. More life.

Gratitude doesn't require you to stop growing.

And desire doesn't require you to reject what you already have.

You can hold both.

What If the Wedding Was the Beginning?

We tend to think of marriage as a progression.

You meet someone. You date. You get engaged. You plan the wedding. You get married.

And then, in some unspoken way, the love story is supposed to settle into its permanent form.

For some couples, the wedding day becomes the highlight. Everything leading up to it is exciting, and everything afterward is about maintaining what they've built.

But what if the wedding wasn't the climax of your love story?

What if it was the beginning?

You chose your person. Now you get to create something together.

What experiences do you want to have? What conversations do you want to share? What kind of intimacy do you want to cultivate? What family culture do you want to create? What adventures do you want to take? What memories do you want your children to have of the two of you?

And perhaps the most important question: Who do you want to become because you chose each other?

Marriage brings two people together who have different experiences, perspectives, histories, and beliefs. Even when you come from similar backgrounds, you will never see everything in exactly the same way.

That difference can be frustrating. It can challenge what you've always believed and force you to reconsider assumptions you didn't even know you had.

But it can also expand your world.

My husband, Jeffrey, has introduced me to perspectives and experiences I might never have encountered in the same way on my own. Through him, I've learned to see things differently in areas like religion, politics, parenting, and how we interact with the world around us.

Our differences have given me opportunities to question my assumptions, broaden my understanding, and experience life through another person's eyes.

That's one of the beautiful things about building a life with someone who isn't exactly like you.

You get to grow beyond the limits of your own perspective.

You get to discover new ways of thinking, loving, and experiencing the world. You get to build something neither of you could have created in precisely the same way alone.

Your marriage can be a playground for that kind of expansion.

Not a place where you simply maintain a household, but a place where you continually discover what the two of you are capable of creating together.

Conduct a Mediocre Marriage Audit

Before you rush off to create a ten-step marriage improvement plan, I want you to slow down and get honest about where you are.

Not judgmental. Not critical. Just honest.

Where have you settled for “fine” in your marriage?

Where have you stopped asking for what you want?

What do you miss about the two of you? Think back to when you were dating, engaged, or newly married. What felt exciting then? What did you love about spending time together? What parts of that connection have you stopped making room for?

What would make your marriage feel genuinely exciting to you again?

How do you want to feel when you're around your husband?

Maybe you want to feel desired. Maybe you want to feel understood, supported, safe, playful, or deeply connected. Maybe you want to be the couple who still kisses in the kitchen, reaches for each other throughout the day, and makes the children roll their eyes because their parents are still so affectionate.

Maybe you want to become a more confident lover, a more open communicator, or a woman who feels comfortable expressing her desires without shame.

Whatever it is, let yourself name it.

Then choose one small thing you can do this week to bring a little more life into your marriage.

Not a complete relationship overhaul. Not a dramatic conversation that has to fix every problem you've accumulated over the last decade.

Just one thing.

More laughter. More kissing. More honesty. More time together. More affection. More pleasure. More adventure.

What would make your marriage feel five percent more alive?

Start there.

Small changes matter because they interrupt the assumption that nothing can be different. They remind you that your relationship is something you can participate in creating, rather than something you simply endure.

You don't have to wait until your marriage is in crisis to invest in it.

You don't have to wait until your husband changes to begin changing your own experience.

And you don't have to settle for a relationship that merely gets the job done.

Build a Marriage That Helps You Both Soar

I've been married for sixteen years and with my husband for nineteen. And I still want more.

I want to be the older couple who are retired, traveling the world together, enjoying each other's company, and still reaching for each other as they walk past. I want us to keep laughing, exploring, discovering, and having fun together long after the early years of marriage have passed.

I don't want our relationship to become something we simply maintain while we pursue everything else that matters to us.

I want our marriage to elevate our lives.

For a long time, my husband sometimes felt as though he was tagging along while I pursued my dreams. I'm a big dreamer, and I can get excited about a hundred different possibilities at once.

But over time, I realized that my husband had also been my anchor. He helped ground me, and that grounding gave me the freedom to fly.

And eventually, I began to see the relationship shift in the other direction, too.

Over dinner one night, my husband started sharing some of his own dreams with me. It struck me because he hadn't always been comfortable expressing what he wanted or what he imagined for himself.

I realized that our relationship had become a place where he could feel safe enough to dream out loud.

I can't take all the credit for that. But I do believe there's something powerful about knowing that the person beside you loves you unconditionally. That they're there whether you fail miserably or accomplish something extraordinary. That you can share what you want without being judged or diminished.

When two people feel that kind of safety with each other, they can begin to soar.

Your marriage can be that place for both of you.

It can be the place where you feel supported enough to pursue your ambitions, honest enough to express your desires, and secure enough to become more of who you are.

And you can offer that same kind of space to your husband.

This is why I don't want women to think they have to choose between their marriages and their dreams. A healthy, supportive marriage doesn't have to be the thing you drag behind you while you build an amazing life.

It can be part of what makes that life possible.

The more love, connection, support, and resources we have, the more capacity we can develop to contribute to our families, our businesses, our communities, and the world around us.

You don't have to make yourself smaller to protect your marriage. And you don't have to neglect your marriage to become a bigger version of yourself.

You can grow together.

You can support each other's dreams.

You can keep choosing each other while continuing to discover what you're capable of.

But it starts with being honest about what you want.

Stop settling for “fine” simply because it's familiar. Stop assuming that a long marriage must inevitably become a mediocre one. Stop editing your desires before you've even given yourself permission to acknowledge them.

You can love what you have and still want more.

You can take responsibility for your part without carrying the entire relationship.

You can start creating more connection, more affection, more adventure, and more joy without waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect partner.

Women who know what they want are better positioned to create it.

Your marriage doesn't have to compete with your dreams. It can support them.

And the life you're building together doesn't have to be something you simply maintain.

It can be something you continue to fall in love with.