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It's a season that we're in and I've spoken to a lot of other, other people that have had long term relationships, specifically older, older people that have, you know, kids that, that are, that are now out of the house. And, you know, they, they make it clear like these seasons and phases will change and they will go up and down and, and the number one goal and the number one priority for long term relationships while in these seasons is communication.
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What's going on? Podcast Family. My name is Michael Chernow and this is the Creatures of Habit podcast. Our habits will make us or they will break us. I've lived on both sides of the tracks and have experienced some of the best and the worst that habits have in store. The decisions we make on a consistent basis truly define who we are as human beings. This episode will be a solo episode where traditionally I interview guests. This is a solo episode where I share with you guys experiences that I've had, things that are relevant in my life today that I think could potentially be interesting for you to hear, things that I simply just want to share or quotes or activities that I've done over the last few weeks that have inspired me. So sit back, relax, and get out your pen and paper because what you hear in this podcast could potentially make.
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Some big changes in your life. Let's go, creatures that have a community Monday moment once again. Here we go. Happy Monday. If you're listening to this on a Monday, if you're not listening to this on a Monday, happy whatever day you're listening to this on. I want to talk about long term relationships and seasons. So I am celebrating this month. We are in the month of June. I think this will come out in June, maybe early July. I am celebrating 18 years of marriage on June 16. 18 years of marriage. I've been with my wife together in a relationship for 20 years. We celebrated 20 years in April we were together and 18 years of marriage this month. I feel like I could call myself at this point expert in marriage. I mean, I've been doing it for two decades. It's the longest thing, it's the longest successful thing I've had in my life, my marriage. So I feel super comfortable talking about marriage, relationships. You do anything for 20 years, you can kind of consider yourself well versed. And relationships are something that I love more than anything on the planet. I am a relationships guy. For me, my superpower, my passion, my motivation in life is connecting with humans at scale, in business, at scale, in my personal life, just connecting with humans. I love connecting with human beings. It is what I am on this planet to do. And I've met my soulmate, right, Donna is my soulmate. And I believe that. And that doesn't mean it doesn't, you know, come without challenge, difficult times, seasons. So I just want to share about that. So relationships, specifically an intimate relationship, a marriage, a partnership, engagement, boyfriend, girlfriend, wherever you are, whatever phase you are in. There's so many incredible assets and components to having someone that you genuinely love and they love you back and you are aligned. There's so much wonder. There's. It's just, it's just a wonderful thing. But there's also issues because when you really think about it, you've got two different brains that have to agree on a lot of the same things in order for this relationship to work out. And it doesn't always work out that way. It doesn't always. That's not always going to be the case, right? You've got two different brains, two different upbringings, two different perspectives, two different opinions, and you're hoping that you can see eye to eye on enough stuff to make it awesome. Because that's what it requires, right? You have to see eye to eye on enough stuff to make it feel awesome. And then there also obviously has to be a physical connection. So the first, you know, handful of years of a relationship tend to be hot and heavy. You know, you see your partner walk across the room naked and all you want to do is run over there and grab them, be with them intimately. And I'm not saying that that goes away, but I'm telling you that that changes for most people. Maybe some people have that intense hot and heavy romance for the life of their, their. Their relationship. And God bless them, I mean, that's their. I know that there are people out there that have that. I would say the vast majority of intimate relationships have this, like, probably two to five year period of time where it's hot and heavy and then the relationship changes a little bit. It becomes less about how sexy you are to each other and more about how much joy you have being with the person. There's still that intimacy part. And I think that's necessary for all relationships to succeed long term. But I have found in this relationship, and this has been a very successful relationship. I mean, there's been moments where we've both had issues, of course, where we dip in and out of therapy at times. But I would call this relationship a very, very successful marriage. It's not all about how hot my wife is, how sexy my wife Is you go, there's different phases. And so we're in a phase right now where we have two kids that are 10 and 7. And you know, when you have kids in a marriage, especially in that first probably, I mean, my experience now is the first 10 years at least, the relationship between mom and dad changes and it becomes the relationship that we both have with our kids. It's about, it is really about the kids. No matter how much you want to, how much you try to make an effort to have that connection between mom and dad, the fact of the matter is it is really, it's, it's focus. The focus of the relationship in this phase, in this season is the children. It's the children. It just is. And I'm cool with that. Even though there are times where I want to be like, boop, boop, boop, hey, hey, I'm still here. But it's a season that we're in and I've spoken to a lot of other, other people that have had long term relationships, specifically older, older people that have, you know, kids that, that are, that are now out of the house. And you know, they make it clear like these seasons and phases will change and they will go up and down. And the number one goal and the number one priority for long term relationships while in these seasons is communication. Are you talking about what you're feeling? Are you talking about what you, what you feel like you're missing in the relationship? Not to say that everything is going to just revert back to what it was at one time or everything's going to change overnight, but super important to talk about it. It's so important to talk about it. Especially even the uncomfortable stuff. The stuff that is uncomfortable, right? You're not having sex as much as you want to. You're, you're, you're nervous to ask your partner to engage in sexual activity because you don't want to get rejected because you know that potentially maybe they're not in the mood for it. And so you just don't ask for it. Right? You gotta talk about that stuff. You gotta bring it up. You were having date night consistently and it was going great. And then you just stopped having date night. And you haven't been on a date with your partner in months and months. You gotta talk about that stuff. You should re engage those things. So the first 10 years of our relationship, we didn't have kids, we traveled a lot. Donna was working a lot, I was working a lot. I had created a business, she was modeling all over the world. We Supported each other that way. And then we decided to have kids. And, you know, we're in this, this, this season now, which is so wonderful. There's so, like, like I, I literally pinch myself at times being like, God damn, I love this life. And then of course, there are moments where I'm like, where's my wife? I wish, you know, or, or, or I'm sure she's like, where's my husband? You know, the name of the game is communication. And you might play that game in your head of being like, oh man, is this right? Is this going the right way? You know, are, is this the right person? You know, we're human. It's natural and normal to think that way. But I will also say that the grass is most likely not greener on the other side. Unless you're in a toxic, not healthy relationship, which, if you're listening to this, and that is you, I highly urge you to have the courage to step out of that relationship. But if you're just dealing with the woes of long term relationship stuff, sometimes you gotta clean out the cobwebs. You know, it's not about, it's not that you have lost interest in your partner or your partner has lost interest in you. It is maybe that there are other things that are going on in your life that are taking priority to that. And guess what? That is just part of it. Hills and valleys. It is just the truth. This is my experience. I can't talk about anybody else's experience. I don't talk about anybody else's experience. On this podcast, I share with you what I think I would, I know to be true in my life, right? That would be off. That would be the definition of authenticity. And so I am so happy to be like, you know, I'm 45 year old. I'm going to be 45 years old. I'll be married 20 years. I got married at 25. I mean, that's young for a New York City kid, that's for sure. And I'm so lucky because I apply to my marriage the way I apply to, you know, how I apply my dedication, discipline and commitment to other things in my life. But my marriage was first. I met Donna seven months after I got sober. So it was first sobriety. That's where I learned about commitment. And then I met Donna and really understood commitment. So, anyway, I hope this podcast resonated. If you're going through a hard time in your relationship right now, just know that that's okay. You can beat yourself up all day long you can, you know, go to the dark side immediately the worst case scenario of what, what could potentially be happening or you can take a breath, make a decision of whether you want to be in it or not, communicate with your partner the things that you're not happy about and the things that you are super happy about because like most things there's gonna be good days and bad days. Sometimes those good days string along for weeks, months. Sometimes those bad days string along for weeks and months and that is truly just the way life is. Life is hard. It's, it's harder than it is easy especially if you're gunning for greatness. And so I just wanted to talk about this idea that long term relationships have seasons, have phases and it's okay, you're not alone. Trust, trust in a friend here. You're not alone. Communicate, tell them you love them often. Until the next one y' all. Peace.