In my Desires Intensive, nearly all of my clients come to the session wanting to improve their romantic relationships. They want more quality time, more connection, more sex.

They feel like they’re currently on autopilot with their spouse; basically high-fiving in the hallway versus having that deep connection or passion that they used to experience. 

And what I find when working with ambitious women is that relationship desires are some of the hardest desires to admit out loud.

And oftentimes, we can’t even admit them to the person we need to (our partner) because there’s so much in the way.

And so when I help someone figure out what they want, I also give them that safe space to finally speak that desire and uncover what it actually is that they want.

The amount of breakthrough that happens in just getting it from the internal into the world is life-transforming.

And then the actual act of talking to your spouse is way easier because you’ve done that initial scary work in that safe space with someone who really understands desire.

But trust me, I know exactly how it feels when your relationship isn’t where you want it to be and to be scared to have those vulnerable conversations. 

My husband and I are going on 12 years of marriage and we’ve spent a lot of time and energy on our relationship, but there’s still stuff that we work through on a regular basis.

For example, even just recently, he sent me a DM on Instagram with this video and told me he misses me.

It made me burst into tears. The truth is, I miss him too.

Although we both work at home, and we’re with our daughter together every night, it’s been challenging to make sure that we have time to connect on a regular basis.

James and I were married for 10+ years before having kids. So it’s always been just us.

But the truth is, there’s also been another thing in our lives that’s been challenging to navigate…

Ambition.

I remember when I was first building my business, I used to stay up late and work on the weekends to get it off the ground.

My husband has always been super supportive; somehow I even talked him into building my first website and taking my first photos 😂 ⬇️…

But as my company grew quickly and I found myself with 27 1:1 clients and constant Zoom calls, I remember telling my coach “I just want to see my husband”.

My growth has not been without sacrifice, and I know James feels the same.

Now, with a little one to look after, I’m navigating new territory and making sure that the sacrifice I make is not going to negatively affect her.

And I must admit, it sometimes comes at the cost of time together.

So what’s a girl to do if she wants the business + the kids + and the relationship of her dreams? 

Although I’m not a relationship therapist, here are a few things that I recommend that have worked for my clients and me. 

1️⃣ Get to Know One Another’s Love Language

During one of the Desires Intensives I hosted with a client a few weeks ago, she was feeling overwhelmed at the idea of working on her relationship because in her words it was “yet another thing to do in her already busy life”.  

So we started simple.

As we talked we both realized that her husband wasn’t feeling loved. So one of the tasks I gave her was to ask her husband what his love language actually was. 

She reported back just a few hours later and told me what she discovered. It was actually the complete opposite of what she thought! Even that simple awareness led to some immediate shifts in their relationship and a better use of nap time than normal! 😉

If you don’t know yours or your partner’s love language, you can take the free test here.

Knowing this info makes a world of difference.

2️⃣ Admiration or TEAM Exercise

Another practice that James and I have implemented for years, is taking the time to share at least one thing that we admire or appreciate about one another from that day. 

There’s also an exercise that you can do called TEAM. (Credit here.)

T – TOUCH: Hold hands or something while talking.
E – EDUCATION: Share one thing that you learned that day. It could be a fact, hard truth, etc.
A – APPRECIATION: Share one thing that you appreciate about your spouse. (Note: It can’t be the same thing every day.)
M – METRICS: If there is something that is bothering you, this is the time to share it. Instead of doing it in the moment, give everyone a cooling down period. Instead, when you get upset, stop, write it down, and keep it for this check in time.

(I’m still deciding if I like having the metrics at the end. I’ve always preferred to end on appreciation but that’s just me. Or you could start with it and make the acronym be MEAT. 😂)

Now a caveat to this is that you aren’t always going to feel like doing this exercise.

Even just last night, I was feeling annoyed about something, and the last thing I wanted to do was to go downstairs and into the kitchen and do this practice with James.

But I encouraged myself to do so.

So I sat at the kitchen table where James was ordering something on Amazon, and I told him how I was feeling.

it did not go well. He was trying to help, and I basically lost my cool and told him I had just wanted him to listen.

In the past, that would have been the end of the evening, but I know that the quicker I can apologize, the quicker we can get to the root of what’s actually going on and come to a solution together. (Remember, you are actually on the same team!)

So after 10 seconds, I apologized and suggested we do the TEAM exercise.

The first step TOUCH meant James put his arms around me and gave me a hug. This opened up the floodgates, and I realized that I’d been holding a lot in. First name / friend, the power of touch is really incredible. Sometimes this is a long hug, other times it’s just holding hands for a few minutes while you do the exercise. 

Then we moved onto APPRECIATION (out of order but it felt right). I told him I was grateful for the gorgeous dinner he made, for how he was playing with Charlotte and making her laugh in the basement when I overheard them together etc.

Then we moved onto EDUCATION or what we learned that day. I remembered that I had forgotten to share something important the day before. (Long story short, I was in a Pilates class and one of the poses made me really sad, and I almost burst into tears.) When I shared this with James, I told him how I recognized that one of my muscles was holding onto emotion. Because of the work he does in the world, he immediately knew that it was the psoas muscle (which apparently holds more emotion than any other muscle) and he went to our bookshelf to grab a book on it. 😂

that’s why I love this exercise so much. That was such an unexpected moment of connection.

And the really amazing thing is that when we got to the METRIC section, I was able to uncover what was actually bothering me, not what it had been masking as before, and we talked it out.

So I went to bed feeling loved, supported and connected, which would not have happened naturally that day because of the state of mind I had been in. 

3️⃣ Be Honest and Ask for What You Want/Need

This is a big one. As I mentioned above, so many women have trouble with this. But as our former relationship coach Marla Mattenson talks about, relationships require exquisite honesty. 

I’ve had clients get so anxious about talking to their spouse. And it makes me so sad to see so many women trapped in their own minds, unable to express what they actually want.

So if this is hard for you too, just know that you’re not alone. And I’m not telling you that you need to blurt every single thing on your mind…you can start small.

For example, in one of my desires intensives, I encouraged my client to send her husband a text asking him if they could spend time together that evening. 

I know that for so many people that simple act can bring up a lot. Maybe even thinking about that makes you worried about how your spouse will react. Will he think you’re saying that you don’t spend enough time together. Or feel unappreciated. Trust me, I get it.

But nothing’s going to change unless you take a step in the direction of what you want. And there’s a way to express it that feels loving and exciting. (Who doesn’t want to hear that the person they love wants to be around them more often?!)

I hope this is helpful today. You deserve the relationship of your dreams. It’s not about being perfect but you can use these tools to take a step in the direction of what you desire today.