yeah let's do it all right hello everyone and welcome to today's podcast I am very excited that I get to speak to Sammy today uh and we're talking about relationships so instead of relationship ending we're going to talk about maybe trying to save a relationship and obviously when I talk about that it's with the exclusion of DV if it's domestic violence let's not take that into consideration But if that's not involved and you're interested in saving your relationship, the advice that Semi has hopefully will help you. So Semi, do you want to start off with just introducing who you are? Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Yes, Semi Yeager and I co-host the Date Forever podcast with my husband, Nathan. We've had the show coming up almost five years now, two hundred and something episodes. Yeah, and I got curious about relationships and in particular romantic relationships around twenty nineteen when I experienced some burnout. I was about to turn thirty and I quit my job, my big girl job with no plan and kind of went about redesigning my life from scratch. I realized that what I'd created was not what I wanted to continue living. And I started getting really curious about what makes a great life. And one of the things that I learned was about how the quality of our relationships dramatically impacts the quality of our life. There's an incredible study on human happiness and development done by Harvard. It's more than seven years old and it still continues today. But that was one of the things I learned is about the impact that our relationships can have on our happiness and our wellbeing and our physical health. So that was kind of one of the insights and then teamed with that was around the same sort of time Nathan and I had sort of recently celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and we had seen a lot of our close friends go through separations and breakups and in some instances divorce. which was really hard to see, especially for friends that we just were so surprised. We had no idea what had been going on, like below the surface. And it kind of got Nathan and I chatting about, well, where do you actually go for a relationship education before things are a bit shit? And we started looking for like, well, if you've not been modeled a healthy, happy, thriving relationship at home, which we know that the divorce rates are what you probably know the exact number, but it's around half, right? So most of us, yeah. So most of us, um, have seen a, a relationship core relationship breakdown. Um, yeah. So we just got curious about, well, if you weren't modeled it at home, where on earth do you actually go to learn those relationship skills? And we really couldn't find anything. There was a lot of things for like once you'd already hit turbulence or maybe once you'd introduced children to the relationship and that kind of wasn't what you were expecting or there'd been career issues or that kind of thing. But very little in the relationship education space to go from good to great. So we just got curious and thought, how are we going to do this and make it free? So we started a podcast and have had some incredible conversations with some incredible experts, but also just everyday couples talking about what they've found, the tools, tips and tricks to keep a relationship fueled up. That's so awesome. So when you're talking about stats, before I ran like my separation webinar on Thursday, I think it was, and I was just trying to get some updated stats. So the life expectancy of a marriage in Australia is eight years. um divorce rate is kind of like hanging around thirty but that doesn't take into de facto couples because de facto couples don't divorce because they're not married so that start is probably double and I did a podcast with sharon a few months ago who's like an amazing adhd coach and when you add additional needs into a relationship that divorce skyrockets like eighty ninety percent so like the odds are like stacked against you like massively, whether you have like, you know, kids or whether you have like kids with high needs, like it's just, it's just, yeah, it blew my mind. and that doesn't consider that those who stay married are actually happy either yeah right yeah um it was just amazing and I said to you before before we went live was I honestly would rather save a relationship than have to deal with you deal with you it's the wrong word but then have to help you through your separation because um sometimes it's just common threads as to why um people separate and obviously like I said DV is excluded so anytime I say save a relationship if you're in a DV relationship just know that that's not what I'm referring to um I'll try to catch myself but sometimes I don't so DV whole other story keep yourself safe that's your priority um but yeah so there's usually threads and sometimes like we've gone through like a whole family law process And then in the end, the clients would be like, hey, just so just let you know, we got back together like three months ago, but we're too scared to tell you. And like one of the first questions we ask is like, can we save this relationship? Like, is this something that we can do? um so that's like our first go-to question um and you mentioned like the big motivator was I mean you guys have been married like for ages like you do heaps of stuff together so obviously what you guys are doing is like working for you um you know there's a lot of people that you weren't expecting had separated um so I'd love to do an episode on just like let's not get to the separation let's like maybe incorporate maybe little things that we can do in a relationship uh so we don't end up in that separation route um but yeah I mean you said there was nothing kind of out there for relationship advice um do you have a perspective on how or why most people separate has that come across you since you've done the podcast yeah I I mean a lot of the like I feel like there's two kind of trains of thought, right? It's like the big asteroid thing hits, like you mentioned, whether or not it's a diagnosis of some kind that has unforeseen circumstances. um, the infidelity thing or, um, or money seems to be, you know, if someone, um, is made redundant or fired or bad business decisions or any of those kind of like big asteroid things. But I think the other side of that is the erosion of trust, um, and these tiny little micro moments of eroding the foundation of, of a relationship. Um, and I think the, a common story that we've heard or had therapists share with us too in in terms of common amongst their clients is that the woman in a heterosexual relationship has been waving the flag for sometimes years saying I've got unmet needs or this isn't working for me and that really being unseen unheard potentially for for a long time and then that resulting in them being like no more that's it I'm out tapping out and then the in again in a heterosexual relationship the male being like what I didn't this is blindsided me didn't see this coming at all totally unexpected hasn't actually been hearing their partner for a long time yeah so I think there's the big things and the little things Yeah, addiction's another one. So we kind of obviously see life. And without over-treading, it's like, okay, can a relationship be saved? Yes or no? Is there a cause as to why you're separated that we can deal with? Addiction's another one. So whether, you know, it's like drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, like there's a whole pile of things. So addiction's another big one that we see. We've, like... think things have like stacked like so you said like it's like you know possibly going unnoticed like for years but it's not necessarily like one event either like there could just be piles of like little things like building up building up building up to the point it's like you know like done type thing um which isn't healthy so the only reason the relationship's becoming unhealthy is because like there's no communication and stuff would be assuming is there what tips So when you had all your friends separating, you and Nate were obviously like, hey, we don't want to end up there. What did you implement from there on to make sure that you guys didn't go in that situation? Yeah. So I want to preface this, that this is just what works for us. And this is what we've learned from a lot of conversations from our own personal development and growth and learning. So I'm sharing this from the lens of my lived experience of my marriage. And I know that that doesn't represent everybody's marriage. um so we we kind of have six big things that we do um so starting at an annual level um around the end of november we take a weekend two days to do our annual game plan so we normally go away or book a room or whatever um to very intentionally step out of our day-to-day life um take a look at the year that was um what worked for us what didn't what hurdles did we come up across did we hit the goals and do the things that we had set out to and then make a plan for the upcoming twelve months. What are our priorities? What are our you know, what are the things that need to be front and centre? What are we saying yes to? What are we saying no to? What are we expecting from this this year to sort of be about? So that's kind of the annual level. And then once a quarter. So at the change of the season, we get back together and look at the last days or so and have we done what we committed to doing, whether or not it's for ourselves, our own individual goals or our shared goals. And then we set our intentions for the next ninety days, which is really great, too, because both of us do a little bit of travel for work. We don't live in the same state as our family. So it's very normal for one of us to be traveling in that sort of window of time. So we get to kind of look up on the horizon and check that things are what's coming up. And then once a month we have like a little same page get together where we check our eight fuel tanks. So the eight different things that kind of contribute to our own lives and then our shared life staying filled up. So relationship with self, our own romantic relationship, our relationship and network, humming household, career and business, wealth and lifestyle, the world and the future. So once a month we check in on those eight things and have a conversation about if one of us is ranking that high and the other one's ranking it low, like what's going on there? Why is there disparity in that? And then we get to get the opportunity to kind of like let air out of the balloon before it pops. Right. Cause we're having those conversations so regularly and it helps us like be far more proactive about problem solving. So like humming household, like the, the domestic, like, project management of running a household is huge and we don't have kids so I can only imagine how many additional things people need to hold in their brains and on their to-do lists to make their humming household run so that's kind of at that monthly level we check in on those things and then once a week we have a happy hour chat so we normally do it on a Sunday night and that came from One of our podcast guests, they were doing it in their relationship. It had been prescribed to them by their therapist. And that was a game changer for us, like having that weekly check-in chat. So we do talk about sex, talk about money, talk about the calendar, what's going on. We do some active appreciation, like if there's something that we're both giving, like, hey, I really want to thank you for X, Y, Z, or asking for, hey, I felt like you didn't appreciate when I went out of my way to ABC, whatever the thing might be. But also to apologize, like, hey, is there anything you'd like me to apologize for this week? And sometimes they catch me off guard where yeah, Nate's been harboring something that I'm like, oh, I didn't realize that got under your skin. And it might be a one-off thing or it could be a pattern of behavior, any of that kind of stuff. So we kind of talk about that at a weekly level. And then we have a daily gratitude practice as well. So that we do that at night. We've had that for a really long time. I read The Happiness Advantage, which really hit me and helped me understand how much a daily active gratitude practice can shape the way that we see the world. And it is also kind of like a nice temperature check because sometimes gratitude doesn't come so easily and you're feeling really frustrated or overwhelmed or all of those things. But other times it comes really easy. So that's a nice little temperature check. So sorry, that's five of the six. And the sixth one I want to sort of talk about that we do is our, our date nights. So this is something that I think couples need to find the right rhythm and pulse and heartbeat for them. Like I said, we're child free by choice. So we probably have a little bit more double income, no kids than people who have made a different lifestyle choice. But we, yeah, and flexibility, all of that stuff. So for us, we take two very intentional dates in a month. Nath organizes the one in the first half of the month and I organize one in the second half of the month. So we just draw a line right down the middle. And we've got some kind of guidelines around that. Like it needs to go in the calendar. It needs to be in advance. And the person who's, you know, it's their half of the month, they need to organize it. So no mental load on the other person. So those are kind of the big six that we do in our relationship to keep it fueled up. That is a shit ton. I was like running a business. Yeah. I can't put this in my Monday board to plan. Yeah, yeah. But like you say that though, but it's like two days a year, a couple of like, like probably an hour a week for our happy hour chat, a couple of minutes a day for a gratitude practice. And then like maybe, maybe two or three hours at the change of the season. And it's like, it's chill. We go to the coffee shop or do it over lunch or like, yeah. So I don't know. We invest in our relationship for sure. But, I think the reward for that for me is that my marriage is like the most certain thing in my life. It's like one of the easiest parts of my life. And it also allows me to weather so much more uncertainty in every other aspect of my life because I know that we're rock solid. We're a team. The space between us is clean. We take really good care of ourselves and each other, which means that if I have a shitty week, month, quarter, year in business, it's way easier to weather when our romantic relationship's in a good place. Yeah. So I'll come back to like, was it like six, seven things that you do to go back to the start of that when you and I decided, all right, our friends are separating. We're blindsided by that. Something's going to happen. Yeah. Were you on the same page with that or did someone instigate that conversation first? Like, so way back. And obviously you were together for a certain amount of time. Yeah. So how did that come about? Yeah, we got married in twenty twelve. Um, and we were babies, like, I think I was twenty three, um, nate twenty four. Um, and yeah, like five years later, like we're mid late twenties and watching friends go through this stuff. Like I would say we, the level of intention in the first like five years of our marriage was like, hardly any, it was like, we're just same of the pants, like, you know, but that's probably also reflective of the age that we were, um, when we got married too. Um, but watching our friends go through separations and breakups, like, and dividing assets and stuff and, and friends, like friends choosing sides and, um, some, some were no fault and some were definitely, you know, someone went about exploding that marriage or that relationship as opposed to like carefully deconstructing it with care and respect. Um, so I like that with care and respect. I like that. And I, one of my best friends did this maybe like four years ago. And I just think like, if she was the blueprint for how to like back out of a relationship, I learned so much from her and they, you know, they had a child together and they are phenomenal co-parents, um, they're on the same team, but they did, they did it with so much care and respect and honesty and no one blew anything up. Um, yeah which is you know yeah we have this skill set right that we have and yeah we can invest in um yeah in developing those things and having the hard conversations and they are they're hard relationship conversations can be really freaking hard um yeah and I think that's why like just go to therapy go get someone to facilitate a third party conversation if you're having a hard time communicating how you feel what you want what you need like in invest in the support because if you could figure it out on your own you would have already I've done it yeah and as you said before like it's how you grow up as well so you kind of see like how yeah, how that was growing up. And then that's kind of like embed in your head. It's like, right, that's a relationship. And you know, that can come from a DV. Okay. Like dad bashes mom. Okay. That's just how it is. So like, even that's off the cycle, how that happens as well. And clearly I'm not saying that's right. And then some of those conversations, just having that conversation can be really hard in that, hey, so go back to the start, like where you and Nate have come together saying we have to do something. The courage of one person to have that conversation is like also really, really hard as well to acknowledge because it's probably something that you haven't experienced growing up. It's probably like your friend group or who you surround yourself with, like they're probably not having those conversations as well. um like that was a really big part hey like for one couple in particular we were quite blindsided like really just like we're so shocked um and that really rocked me in my relationship with my friend because I was like how could you have been going through all of this and not said anything and how was I not a safe person to open up to And it really made me look at myself and the way that I was showing up and the willingness of my vulnerability to share the shitty stuff. Or whether or not I had been presenting that, you know, mine and Nath's marriage was happy roses, unicorns, sunshine, all day, every day, year in, year out. And I was like, well, actually, I don't think that I do share very openly or honestly when we're going through hardship. So that was a really conscious decision for me to start leaning in and sharing some of the messy middle more with not everybody deserves that level of intimacy not everybody I don't want everybody in the backstage of my life there's some people who should stay in the nose lead section but yeah that that was really confronting for me and I it's maybe a better person like having sat next to my friend and had her share all of this stuff that had happened and that she'd been experiencing for quite some time. Yeah. So do you think that not only the change between you and Nate, but having experienced some of your friends go through a separation, do you think that has changed the way you approach your friendship, like it's like obviously all this stuff happening for us to still be friends, we need to like have a monthly girls date or something so we can like all still stuff out. Is that kind of something maybe coming from that? So I'm really lucky. I've got a couple of different groups of girlfriends and each kind of group has their own like, I guess, culture of how we communicate. But one one group in particular, we've been friends since high school, like, twenty years or more. And we have, for years, I reckon more than five years now, sent very regular kind of little summary vlogs of life, like, little life updates. And it's very common for one of us to be crying and spilling our deepest, darkest secrets. Probably be terrifying if the group chat ever got leaked. But, yeah, we've really fostered that. in that particular group of girlfriends um others it's we more I more one-on-one kind of conversations than that um those those check-in kind of things but yeah I it's one of the greatest things that I learned and I'm so grateful to have learned it in my twenties um that yeah if I want vulnerability and openness and honesty in my relationship I need to be willing to go first sometimes and show some leadership and create that safety in those relationships too. And how, for somebody that's not used to doing that or like they're not in leadership positions, I'm about to ask, how do you build yourself up to have the courage to do that and not be afraid for that other person to say, you're a fucking idiot, don't be stupid, or that's not what relationships are. Like how do you be an initiator? I think a lot of this comes back to that relationship with self-peace and a lot of that quality of relationship with self starts with the self-awareness. And I think a lot of us don't actually have a good hygiene or good practice around checking in with ourselves to see, like, how do I actually feel? How do I, you know, what went well in that situation? What was a bit of a curveball? What didn't? go so well what would I like to do differently um so I think it's really about fostering that honesty with yourself because there's literally no way you're going to be able to communicate your feelings just to another human being or how you experience something if you actually don't know so I think one of the my like early pieces of this like personal development developing the skill set to even identify what it was that I was feeling was quite literally downloading the feelings wheel and being like, okay, cool. We've got happy, sad, disgust, like, and then going, okay, what's the tear outside of that? Okay. So am I actually angry or am I embarrassed? Like, or, and getting that literacy of feelings, like there's thousands of them. And yet we probably default to, yeah, I'm good. I'm nuts, bit shit. Like, no, we've got a whole range of vocab that we can use, but, um, yeah I think it starts with self starts with being able to hear yourself notice um when you're feeling something and you don't know what it is observing like where am I feeling this is it in my face is it in my chest is it in my hands is it in my back like where where is it that I'm actually experiencing some kind of feeling and do I know what it is and do I know what triggered it and if not how can I sit with that and question it lots of different modalities to do that stuff right whether or not it's like just reflection sitting quietly with your own thoughts whether or not it's um a guided meditation or journaling or whether or not you need to work with a coach to ask you those questions um maybe you need to voice memo back to yourself so that you can verbally process which is totally cool you don't have to send it to anyone um but yeah that vulnerability piece like I don't I'm not going to pretend that that's easy at all yeah and then it comes easier with practice yeah um so we're coming up to like the the harper mark already um so there's a couple just more things I want to finish off with so towards the start you said that you you had read a book what were the other so I forgot what the book was they can like we mentioned that I think the author was but was there anything at the start that you and nath used that definitely helped you paid the way to how you are now? Or was it like, you know, Googling like a chat? Yeah, it wasn't around back then. But were there sources back then that you can recommend to people who, you know, there's one person in a relationship thinking, OK, maybe this is what we need to do. Like what? Yeah. Is there something that you can suggest to somebody that you guys used early on in the pace to start like thinking about how to approach this with a partner? Yeah. so our our relationship journey where we kind of moved from like a reactive state to a far more proactive state um that our annual game plan thing was the thing that actually came first um that was became the pillar um and that happened again because we've been living so reactively that we'd had maybe two years of back-to-back visitors from interstate staying with us. We had a lot of weddings, a lot of hens parties, bucks parties, those kind of things that we didn't want to miss out on. And then when we got to the end of the year, we were both exhausted and we both weren't that happy with how we had spent our time, money and energy. We had flown, I don't know, eight or nine times interstate and which then made us quite challenging to foster new relationships in the state that we had moved to. So we knew that something sort of needed to change there. Um, so one of the first resources that we, we use was some, um, like, I think we just Googled honestly, like how to do a, an annual review. Um, we've got a pretty dialed in, uh, process now, um, which we share for free. You can grab it on my website, um, samiaga.com forward slash A G P so annual game plan. Um, slow as well. So you can find it. Yeah, that's where we started. But then like I, you know, like you said, um, that sounds like a lot of the things that we were doing, they didn't all come at once. Like those two days came first. And then I read, um, the happiness advantage, um, which talks about, uh, the idea that happiness precedes success. It's not the other way around. Success won't make you happy, but happiness will create success. um sean aker and if you if you're not a big reader he's got a fantastic ted talk which crams that idea into you know twelve minutes um but yeah that was a really you know and then we layered on top of that um I uh had a I started my career in project management specializing in events so one of the things that was going on in my innate relationship was that I was the default organizer for our social calendar for our romantic um, like our dates, like it was always me finding the event, buying the tickets, putting it in the calendar, organizing whatever needed to be organized. So there was things there that we, um, uh, our approach of the two by two by two, like date night, like we found that on a Reddit thread of like, Hey, did someone's figured out that maybe we should go on a date twice a month, take a holiday every two years. Yeah. So, we pulled resources from all all sorts of different places but I think um the first part is to just get curious and probably not try and fix everything at once like um I it's probably a little bit backwards in going forwards but I think yeah it's starting with that relationship itself but then something like getting some systems and processes set up in your humming household can then free up time to be like okay cool rather than two hours on a Saturday to do grocery shopping we now can go for a walk and talk on the beach together how great because we sat down for twenty minutes one night and ordered our groceries online like there's things that you can do to choose how you spend that time money and energy Yeah, so I know you said, I said like it was a lot, you said it wasn't. That is a lot, especially for someone that has kids. But I suppose to wrap up, And you've kind of already, like, had said it. So if there was somebody there who is concerned that their marriage or their relationship is going to end because life gets in the way and, like, now there's kids and all of that stuff, what would be, like, the one thing that you would suggest? I kind of feel like you're going, like, the nightingale route, but I think for somebody that's, for a relationship that's going to end, anything like that I feel like even that is going to be like that is like really like that's a shit ton so yeah like you know maybe start hey you know if the kids are in bed or had to sleep over or whatever whether that's a well Sunday night when the kids are asleep whatever hey I think we need to touch base with each other once a week and you know like Yeah, because you do assume the role. Like you just said, you were the organiser and that's the reason in a relationship and it's really hard to get that. So I suppose what's the first thing that for somebody looking at maybe implementing this, what would be like from your experience, obviously, everything's not going to suit everybody, what's your one tip? Yeah, I would say start with that weekly conversation, like that weekly, we call it a happy hour check-in. Um, and you can get a copy of that agenda on my website as well. So samiaga.com forward slash happy hour. Um, and that will guide you through those conversations. Um, and like you said, some of those comments, some of those things might be really loaded, like talking about sex or talking about money or talking about organization. Those, those can be really loaded. So maybe start ease up in whichever one, um, you you know, like talking about what's going on for the week. Like hopefully you have enough dialogue to be able to speak and hear your partner in that and figure out where you might be able to better support each other. But I think, yeah, even just starting that cadence of carving out and you don't have to start with a whole hour, start with twenty minutes. And like if you don't have if you don't have twenty minutes for one of the most important people in your life, you got some questions to ask. Yeah. Choose your heart. Choose your heart. yeah and like don't make it so you know you can be sitting on the lounge and you can be like really informal hey right so just I know something I've always done with my kids since they were babies and I can't tell you why someone's obviously told me or I've read it or something and to this day so they're eleven and thirteen and they still expect me to do this daily so they're like right all right kids so today we've got this this and this and this and these and tomorrow we've got this this this and heads up later in the week we have this like I still do that with my kids I've done that like the whole entire lives I can't tell you why they expect it now but they love it because it kind of mentally prepares us cool so Yeah, it's like reset. We've got a busy week this week and whatever. So I know that is really helpful, like something just small like that. So even just starting something small like that, hey, kids, or hey, family, so we've got this and this and this on. It's a bit of a hectic week. We can all work together to do whatever and just build upon that. It's not going to happen overnight, especially if that's something that you're not used to doing whatsoever. But I know for me, just having that, hey, kids, so tomorrow is going to be this, today is going to be this, tomorrow is that, this week is this. Like the girls at the swimming carnival on Monday, hey, so next week is going to be hectic. We've got a swimming carnival. We've got touch. We've got this. But just heads up, that's coming. Just mentally preparing. But that, I think, makes a really big difference as well. And those conversations can get you back on the same team. Yeah, a hundred percent. Like if you, rather than, yeah, versing each other, it's like the two of us against the problem or the opportunity. I'm busier than you. No, I'm busier than you. Like it's not a competition. Yeah, let's work together. Yeah. And sometimes those can be easier places to start. Yeah, don't overwhelm, just start small and build up because that's further along than what you were yesterday. Yeah, and maybe going back even before that, like is making the choice, like are you recommitting to doing the work that's going to be required to get your relationship with yourself and your relationship with your person where you want it? Like because if you're not willing to do the work, and you actually think it's already ship sailed, like maybe that's the kind of thing to communicate. But I think, yeah, starting with like asking yourself, am I committed to this? Yeah, that's really good spot to start. And even that question can be really hard to think. Yeah, because you might not be. Yeah. Yeah, I think that comes back to that self-awareness piece. Like if you're not taking those regular moments to check in with yourself and like, how am I feeling? How do I feel about my life right now? What's going on in my relationships? Yeah, it's hard to get anywhere if you don't know where you are. Yeah, I agree. Well, that's been amazing. Thank you so much. It's good to get on this side of the relationship and not the end where we usually see. But we'll make sure that we've got Sammy's links below so you can go check out her free resources. and a link to her podcast, a nice podcast as well. But thank you so much, Sammy, for jumping on today. I can see us doing more in the future because we have a few things we're going to talk about. We could have gone on all sorts of rabbit holes. Exactly. But thank you very much for your time and congratulations on having such a great and healthy relationship. I'm sure that's, you know, deep down, if that's what you really want, then you're going to do the work. and to make sure you have that relationship no matter, you know, how you're brought up or anything. So that's been great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Emi.
