Episode Description - Drowning in Disappointment: Breathing New Life into Your Marriage
When your marriage isn’t going well, it’s easy to believe divorce is your only option. But what if the answer isn’t leaving, but breathing new life into your marriage?
Cristie Cerniglia, a certified relationship coach, shares her hard-earned wisdom on how women can shift their approach to love and marriage—without devaluing themselves or waiting for their husbands to change. Having transformed her own 30-year marriage, Cristie helps women rediscover the romance and joy in their relationships, even when their spouse seems to be disengaged and their marriage feels like it's beyond repair.
In this podcast episode, Cristie reveals the small but powerful shifts that changed everything in her marriage. She explains why many women unknowingly push their partners away and how a simple mindset shift can bring them closer. She shares how embracing authentic femininity can be empowering and can create a magnetic pull that reinvigorates your marriage.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything in your marriage and still not getting what you need from your partner, Cristie’s insights offers a hopeful, practical path forward.
Show Notes
About Cristie
Cristie Cerniglia is a ridiculously happy wife after 30 years of marriage. Mom of 4 and Kiki to 3, she is passionate about helping women rewind their relationships back to the fun and romance of dating (with or without their husband's efforts)! Cristie is a certified Laura Doyle Relationship Coach - with a passion for inspiring and coaching women back in to magnetic marriages.
When following Cristie’s map to a magnetic marriage you can expect to learn six practical skills you can apply from day one that will change your perspectives, your responses and ultimately your marriage.
Connect with Cristie
You can connect with Cristie on Facebook at Relationships With A Map and follow her on Instagram at Relationships With A Map and on YouTube at Relationships With A Map. You can find out more about Cristie’s work by visiting her website at Relationships With A Map.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Cristie
- Cristie Cerniglia is a certified Laura Doyle relationship coach who helps women improve their marriages after experiencing her own transformation in a 30-year marriage.
- Cristie grew up watching her parents' seemingly perfect marriage end suddenly when her father left, which made her initially vow never to marry.
- After meeting her husband, she found herself falling into patterns of criticism, control, and complaining that damaged their relationship.
- She discovered that expressing desires positively ("I would love a clean car") rather than complaining or criticizing produced much better results from her husband.
- Cristie emphasizes the importance of gratitude and recognition for what husbands do contribute, rather than focusing on what they don't do or how they could do things better.
- She suggests that women ask themselves if they think they're "smarter than their husband" as a way to identify when they're being controlling or disrespectful.
- Cristie recommends that women take responsibility for their own happiness through self-care rather than expecting their husbands to make them happy.
- She discusses the power of femininity, defined partly as being able to receive compliments, help, and gifts graciously without deflection or criticism.
- For women in leadership positions, she suggests "taking off the boss hat" at home to create a different dynamic with their spouse.
- Cristie believes women have significant influence in their marriages and that by changing their own behavior first, they can create positive changes in the relationship without waiting for their husband to change.
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Transcript
Drowning in Disappointment: Breathing New Life into Your Marriage
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
relationship skills, respect, happiness, responsibility
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Cristie Cerniglia
Karen Covy Host
00:02
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making to try to figure out what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how do we get unstuck. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur.
With me today I have the pleasure of speaking with Cristie Cerniglia, and Cristie is a certified Laura Doyle relationship coach and a ridiculously happy wife. After 30 years of marriage, she's mama to four and kiki to three. She is passionate about helping women rewind their relationships back to the fun and the romance of dating, with or without their husband's efforts. Cristie, thank you so much for being on the show.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
00:50
Oh, I'm glad to be here, Karen. Thanks for the invitation.
Karen Covy Host
00:53
You're welcome and I'm excited because you represent the yin to my yang. Okay, whereas I work with a lot of people whose marriages are at the end of their useful life, so to speak, and things are going down the toilet, but yet you now have a 30-year marriage and work with people more on the marriage end of it and staying married. So I'm really excited to have this conversation because a lot of my clients will ask it's like how do I know if there's any hope? What can I do? And I think you might have answers to some of those questions. But before we start with all of that, I'd love to hear your story. You've been married 30 years. Has everything all been sun shine and kittens? Start wherever you want to start.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
01:40
Just perfect from the very beginning. Never a problem or a challenge of any sort. That's great. I'm a unicorn. No, my husband and I met. I was in college and he sold me tires at the tire store. So my mom takes credit for the whole thing. She's the one who sent me to that particular tire store. And, of course, this was back in the day when we had to write a check and he said I'm going to need your phone number on that check. That was that was the line that he used to get my phone number.
Karen Covy Host
02:18
That's actually pretty brilliant. That's very creative. Yes, so he gets points for that.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
02:24
Yes, yes and so yeah, at that point, listen, when I was a senior in high school, my parents divorced suddenly out of the blue. They had to be apart for a time. While my dad went to start a new job, my mom stayed back, finished up the school year with me and sold the house. When we got there, after three months the summer time he had been there, there was something not right, and later we discovered that he had gotten involved with another woman. And so this perfect beaver, cleaver, you know, uh, household people would tease us literally about being so, you know, perfect, looking on the outside, and my parents truly were happy in their marriage, but there was a breakdown and all at once, the Christmas time, my junior year of high school, my dad said he was leaving and my mom and I were just devastated. My brother was away at college. It was a terrible, painful time, and so, by the time I meet my husband, I've already declared to everyone who will listen that I am never getting married and that I am going to go to college, get my degree, make lots of money and never depend on a man for anything.
Karen Covy Host
03:48
How did that work for you?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
03:49
No, the Lord had really different plans for me. So, yeah, because my mom had never worked and so when my dad left, she didn't know how to get us a place to live. She didn't know how to get us a place to live. She didn't know how to pay the bills, she didn't know, you know, I mean we were really in a hard place. And so I saw all of that and it impacted me and I thought I never want that to happen. They had been married for 21 years. I said why would I get married so that a man, after 21 years, can leave me high and dry with these kids and run off with someone else? I just thought I want no part of that. And so I went on about my way. But you know what, when I met my husband, there was just something different and something special and something clicked and I was like I've got to have him.
04:54
Karen Covy Host
It sounds like he felt the same way about you.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
Yeah, he did. And so we did get married and my family was surprised because they all really liked him too. So they were surprised that I had done it, and they were surprised I made a good choice, I think. And so, yeah, and it was tricky right away because and I'm sure you are familiar that men and women are really different, and so we had different ways of doing things and we had different levels of cleanliness in the house, right, and we had different versions of how to clean the house and just all of those things of living together were really tricky at first. And I did a lot of criticizing and I did a lot of going back behind him and redoing what he had done, and that doesn't go over real big. And so he flat out told me he said, listen, I'm going to do it my way, and if you don't like my way, then you can do everything. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't want that. So I had to learn to tone it down a little bit.
Karen Covy Host
05:58
Wow. And you know what, though Good for him for saying that. At least he, you know, he made it known to you that he didn't like what you were doing. He didn't appreciate it. And what I have found in working with a lot of clients, what happens? The marriage starts to break down when they're not honest with each other, when they don't have the courage to say I don't like what you're doing, let's talk about it, or please stop, or you can do it. You know, whatever the conversation is, but to have a conversation and to say honestly this is how I feel so many people are afraid to do that.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
06:39
Yes, and that was my experience growing up is that everything was good, good, good, good, good. And then he was gone and initially we didn't know there was another woman and I really resented that that someone would leave without saying here's the things I'm unhappy about. Let's see if we can make some changes. And so I had always told my husband I said we need to be open about what's going well and what's not going well, because if there are changes that need to be made, I said we need to be open about what's going well and what's not going well, because if there are changes that need to be made, I want to make them. You know, I want us to not just stay married, and that's what I tell my clients. I don't just want you to stay married so you can say, oh, we did it. I want you to thrive and enjoy your marriage, you know, and there are things that we can do differently that can help that process along.
Karen Covy Host
07:26
Well, let's talk about that because you know so you started out. Things were a little rocky, Sounds like you got them on level ground, but like any other couple, I would assume that you've had your ups and downs over the years. You've learned a thing or two, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about some of the down times and the mistakes you've seen your clients make and how you help them turn things around.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
07:54
Yeah, there's so many things where to start, but you know what? Here's the thing no one has ever taught us how to be successful in love and marriage, so we shouldn't really be surprised when we have struggles, because, you know, we get taught different things about other areas of life. Right, we're busy practicing geometry when we probably should be talking about the skills of love and marriage, because there are some and I didn't know them. I did not find these skills until three years ago. So I've been married 27 years and I was doing a lot of things wrong, and I'm thankful that I have a husband who's patient and long suffering and loving, and certainly has his own set of faults, right. But what I have found is that when I began to look at myself and make some changes in me, he really started responding to me differently and I began to get a lot of the things that I had been wanting from him, but I was going about it in the wrong way.
Karen Covy Host
08:54
Well, let's talk about that. Can you make this a little bit more concrete? Like what did you find that you were doing in the, in your marriage, that ended up being counterproductive and being the opposite of what you needed to do to get what you wanted?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
09:10
Yes, a lot. Most of the women who come to me, one of their complaints is that their husbands are always gone. They're either overworking or they're playing video games, or they're out with the guys, they're playing golf. Whatever they're gone and they're not around and the women feel lonely and they want their partner Right. And I had that with my husband. My husband's thing was TV. He loved to sit in front of the television and I'm like you know. So I resented that and I complained about it a lot. Now, if you had asked me, Cristie, are you a complainer? I would have said no. If you had asked me, Cristie, are you a respectful wife? I would have said yes, I respect my husband very much, but I was not showing up as a respectful wife and I was doing a lot of complaining. That was kind of going under the radar and it was kind of my blind spot. I didn't know that's what was happening and that's where coaching is so helpful, where my coach was able to come along and say do you see this, do you hear this? How do you think this came across to him?
10:16
One of the areas that I complained a lot about was my car. We would take my car on the weekends and taking the kids to soccer games and basketball and all of the events right. And by the time Sunday rolled around, my car was trashed. And I'm a neat freak, I like things neat. So there was water bottles and there was wrappers and there was fast food and all of this business, and so on the way home from church, I would give what I considered a motivational speech, right, and it went something like this Everybody needs to get their crap out of my car. I'm sick of cleaning up after you guys. Get your stuff and get it out.
Karen Covy Host
10:59
I love that motivational speech.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
11:01
And you'll be shocked to find out that no one was motivated. Everyone just scattered and it was like oh, mom's in a mood, get away from mom, right, I had that effect on people and, um, what I found when I started getting coaching and learning these six intimacy skills is that there was. I could express my desire in a way that inspires, and so, underneath my complaint that my car was dirty was a desire, and the desire was a clean car, and so the way I did it was I just simply said I would love a clean car. That's all I had to say, and you know what my husband said.
11:45
I'll take it and get it cleaned right now. It was that simple. He so much, and this is what I find. Husbands want their wives to be happy and all they need is just a little bit of information on how to do that. And they don't get that information. From my complaining, all they hear is that, and all they want to do is retreat and avoid and get away from all of that. Right, and that's what was happening. But when I told him I'd love to have a clean car and I let go of how that happened maybe he was going to clean it. Maybe he was going to pay one of the kids to clean it. Maybe he was going to take it to get it cleaned. That's none of my business. The fact is, when he heard how to make me happy, he took the car and got it cleaned. Well, I made another mistake. I'm full of mistakes and you can learn from my mistakes. When he came back from getting the car cleaned, I thought I'm going to show up with gratitude. Right, that's a good thing.
12:47
So I run out to the car and I open up the door. I'm like thank you so much for getting my car cleaned. And then I notice there's still some stuff on the road, so I start picking it out, I start they didn't get this, they didn't get that right. I look up at my husband and he's like this he was crushed husband and he's like this.
13:14
He was crushed. Yeah, I think that I am complaining against these workers and that they didn't do a good job. My husband is receiving it as. What does this woman want? Is she ever going to be happy? Can I do anything right?
Karen Covy Host
13:26
You know I can't begin to tell you the number of, because I work with men and women right, and the number of guys I have worked with who have said exactly that I can't do anything right. I can never make her happy. I'm at my wits end, I don't know what to do.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
13:43
And that's the key right. All they want is to make her happy. When their wife is happy, the man feels successful. He's doing his job well as a husband. When the wife is not happy, he is down in the dumps. He feels like a failure as a man. He's not able to go out in the world and do all that he's been created to do. When women get coaching and they learn these skills I find so many of them their husbands begin to make more money. Their husbands begin to get promotions and things. They get that fulfillment and that confidence from home. They see their wife's happy. They think I got it, I'm doing this thing, and they go out and do more. And I've seen that with my own husband. It's amazing the ripple effect.
Karen Covy Host
14:32
That is so interesting. So one of the things that step number one that you talk about is not to and I would put criticizing in the same category as complaining. I don't know, maybe it's on separate thing but not criticize and complain, but make your needs known in a positive way, is that? Would that be a good way to reframe it?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
14:53
Yeah, and all you have to do is say I would love, and then fill in your end result. If I said I would love some new boots, I'm not. I can't say that they're at Macy's in the third row from the left, they're on sale tomorrow, so you have to be there between four and eight and blah, blah, blah. Right, I just get to say I would love some new boots, right? Because when I add all the other things on, then I'm getting into that controlling, and that was one of the other big mistakes that I was making. I was doing a lot of controlling, I didn't know. I had something to say about everything here where we went to eat, how the kids were dressed, what my husband wore, what he did with his free time. I had a list of things I wanted him to do with his free time. Well, who enjoys that?
Karen Covy Host
15:48
That's true, that is. That's a very, very good point.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
15:52
Lots of controlling.
Karen Covy Host
15:54
So how could you? What should some woman do? Because I would expect that if I would have met you years ago, when you were in controlling mode, you would have denied it, right, you would have said I'm not controlling, what are you talking about, right? Yes, so if someone is out there listening or watching, how do you have a tool that they could use or something that they could use to try to figure out in their own behavior? Are they being more controlling than they think they are?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
16:23
Yeah, oh, I have a great question that I would ask them Are you smarter than your husband?
Karen Covy Host
16:32
That's interesting. Now, why that question?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
16:35
Because I think that that's our tendency as women is we meet them, we fall in love with them, we think they hung the moon. Then we start to live with them and we see the way they do things and we're like this guy's a total idiot, right, because he doesn't load the dishwasher. Right, he doesn't hang up the clothes the way we want him to, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, right. So we're just losing respect minute by minute, and we start to think I really am the superior adult in this household. If I don't tell him how to do it, he's going to do it wrong and the whole dynamic shifts and it's a recipe for disaster and we don't recognize it.
Karen Covy Host
17:25
That's so interesting. You said that. I read random fact here somewhere. I don't know if I heard it on a podcast or read it somewhere. Somebody did a study which makes me wonder like who funds these things? But someone did a study on dishwashing and found out that there is something like 104 different ways to wash the dishes, all of which result in clean dishes, but all of which are very, very different, and we all have a tendency as humans to think that our way, in other words, the way we've been taught to do it, ours is the right way and everybody else is wrong.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
17:57
So true.
Karen Covy Host
17:58
So how do you? But how do you start to see that in your own behavior? Okay, you can ask am I smarter than my husband? What else can you do? Is there a way you can start to see what you're doing? Because everybody sees what the husband is doing. They see what their partner is doing, but they can't. It's like you can't hold the mirror to yourself. You're too in the forest to see the trees. So are there any other things that they could look for in their own behavior that might tip them off?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
18:32
Coaching is really helpful for helping you to see the things that you can't see, obviously, but on your own. I mean, if your marriage is in trouble, if you feel that your husband is avoiding you, some of these things could be true, and it certainly won't hurt anything to experiment with the things that I'm talking about today. But one of the things that I think would be really helpful to all the people who are listening is it's really easy for us to focus on the negative, right? It's really easy for me to focus on what my husband isn't doing or what I wish he was doing. That he's not doing, okay, and as long as I do that, that issue is just going to grow and expand, right. But when I take my eyes off of that for a minute and move over here and think about what are all the things I love about him? Why did I fall in love with him in the first place? What does he do today? That makes my life easier? And you know what, when I start with new clients, there's many times that they are in a struggle to find those things and we have to go real small, like does he mow the lawn, does he take out the trash? Does he go to work. You know what I mean. But if he drives your kids to soccer practice, that's something that's helpful in your life that you don't have to do. We really need to focus on what we want to grow, which is the positive me.
19:56
But it wasn't what I had in mind, so I just disregarded it. Right, he would take my car and fill it up with gas and I, okay, you know whatever, I didn't say anything, I didn't feel anything. Now, when my husband takes my car and fills it up with gas, I go, oh, that's love, that's him taking care of me, that's him loving me. I want to receive that so that I don't feel that lonely and unloved feeling that I used to feel. I want to receive it and I want to show up with gratitude and recognize what he's doing. Thank you so much for doing that. I feel so taken care of when you fill my tank up with gas, especially when there's snow outside, like there is now. So I really want to look at the good and the positive and I want to recognize it and build it up, not only in my husband, in my kids, in my grandkids, in my friends, right?
Karen Covy Host
20:58
Yeah, doesn't everybody want to be recognized for what they're contributing 100%, and I think that you've hit on something that's so very important. It's the recognition part. Not that we need public recognition, not that somebody's doing something just so that you can say, oh, you're such a good person, because if it's not honest, if it's not genuine, it rings false and that could be more harmful to the relationship. But I've just noticed how much farther you get just by saying thank you, thank you for doing this thing, instead of well, of course you're doing that. You're my husband, you're supposed to do that.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
21:42
Exactly, and you know I would. My husband would clean up the kitchen and I would say I'm glad you cleaned up the kitchen, but next time can you wipe off the counters too? Oh ouch, and I would have called that helpful. So that's another question that we could ask wives Do you find yourself being helpful and teaching your husband things like honey? This is the way we do this. This is the way you know and I found, when my kids were little. My kids are big now, but when they were little, my oldest daughter would say things to my husband like that's not the way mommy does it. Mommy does it like this. And I go oh, I would hear things like that and go oh, she thinks my way is the only way. I need to teach her that, yes, daddy, does it different and it's good too.
Karen Covy Host
22:37
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
22:39
We can be different. I'm glad we're different, right? If we were the same, what would that be? And what I find is that when I show up as my feminine self, it causes him to show up in his really masculine self. And guess what? That's like a magnet that is drawn together. Yeah, I don't want to be the same.
Karen Covy Host
23:00
You know they say opposites attract and usually people take that to mean something different. But there's such a thing of polarity, right, and the male and female energy. When they are polarized in a good way, not in the way that so many things are polarized today, but when you've got that difference in energy, that's what causes the attraction and makes it grow. But when you talk about I'm curious, when you talk about being in your feminine, what does that mean to you? Because I think right now the conversation around feminine, masculine men, women, like it's all gotten kind of crazy in so many different ways. So I'm interested in what does being feminine mean to you and why would you want to do that?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
23:47
What does being feminine mean to you and why would you want to do that? It is confusing now, isn't it? And when we first started talking about this, even in coach training, I was like, hmm, I really have to think about this because it's different than it used to be, but it's still real. And one of the things that I teach about femininity is receiving. So I am able to receive compliments, I'm able to receive help and I'm able to receive um gifts and I used to not be good at any of those, really. So, um compliments, have you ever maybe you've seen this or experienced it, right?
24:26
Somebody says, oh, Cristie, I love your hair, and I go, oh gosh, I haven't washed it in a week, you know. Or somebody says I like your sweater, and I go, oh, I got this at Walmart for a dollar 99. Yeah, like, why am I pushing the compliments away? I need to receive those and take those in and believe those and say thank you. All I have to do is say thank you, and that makes me that's a feminine quality, okay. So when the grocery person asked me if I want help out to my car, what do we say? Oh no, I've got it.
Karen Covy Host
25:01
Exactly. Every single time.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
25:03
I'm strong and capable, I am woman hear me roar. Why? Why would I not accept the help? Sure, I would love it. You know why? When, and from my husband too, he wants to help me with something, why do I have to prove some kind of capability? I want to show up feminine and I love when he takes care of me. So I'm going to say thank you. And when he gives me gifts, my husband used to buy me flowers. Every date that we went on, for like the first year, he would stop at the gas station and buy a rose and bring it to me. And that was so lovely. But you know what, After we got married, I started worrying about money and I started wanting to be frugal and I would say those flowers cost this much money and we could have done this or that with it, right?
25:52
So, guess what? I stopped getting flowers. I stopped getting a lot of different gifts. Women tell me all the time that they don't even get Christmas gifts from their husbands anymore because they have returned or criticized so many gifts that their husbands are afraid they don't even. They feel hopeless, helpless to even buy them anything.
26:13
My husband bought me a purse a while back. I have started receiving gifts again because I'm a good receiver now. And he bought me a purse, and it wasn't exactly what I would have bought. It wasn't what I had in mind, but I was determined to be a good receiver. I said thank you, I began to carry the purse and guess what? I've gotten more compliments on that purse, and so I found that it gives me an opportunity to step outside of my norm and, of course, I always pick out the same purse time after time after time. Now I have something really new and interesting and it's from my husband and he loves me to buy it for me. So I'm going to just take all of that in and all of those things I think cause us to show up feminine and beautiful and allow him to feel like my hero and like he's in his masculine Okay, let me play devil's advocate here for a second.
Karen Covy Host
27:10
I mean, especially in the world today, there seems to be a big push for women to be strong, women to be in their masculine side. And all of us to be clear, all of us have both masculine and feminine energy in us, right? It's just a question of which one you allow to be dominant, so shouldn't. Isn't the what you're talking about women doing? Doesn't that make women lower or put them down or strip away their power? I mean, this sounds like the 1950s housewife, and isn't that a bad thing?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
27:45
Yeah, oh, I can see people where people would say that. But you know what I'm capable? I can open my own door, I can fill up my own gas tank. It's not that I can't do it, but I don't have to. It makes me feel special and loved and cared for, and he likes to do it for me. I just think it's a wonderful gift to receive and yet I still have my capability.
28:11
So a lot of the women we're talking to today are probably have really important jobs and they may walk into their job and they may put on their masculine hat and lead the company. Okay, hat and lead the company okay. But what I'm suggesting is that when they come home, that they take that hat off and replace it with this soft, feminine wife and mom hat. That is different than how she showed up to be the boss at work, because I know for me, I did high-powered work for a time and then I stayed home for 20 years and mothered kids and I homeschooled and that was a supervisory position, right. I was telling those kids you do this and you go there and you clean that and all those things. My husband would come home and I would stay in that mode and start bossing him like he was one of the kids. That was not an intimacy builder for my marriage. I had to learn how to take off that boss dominant hat and be his lover and attract him to me, be attractive, you know, by being feminine and soft.
Karen Covy Host
29:32
How does someone do that? Let's say there's someone and you know there's a woman listening to the podcast and she's struggling in her marriage and she can start to see, or she's curious, because really all it takes is the ability to be open and curious and say, well, maybe I'm doing that and I don't realize it. How do you have any tips for how she can start to take off that hat? Because a lot of us, like I've worked, you know, I've had a career my entire life. You know, and you get to the point where you're used to you have to show up and be in charge or you don't get anything done Right. So when a woman is used to doing that all day, how does she just flip the switch when she walks in the door to show up differently?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
30:22
Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? And, like any new skill, it takes practice, and I mean, I still mess up doing these skills. The great news is I know how to clean up my mess. Now I'm able to apologize. Now, do you know? I don't know if I apologize to the first 25 years of marriage. I mean, I was off, I was like the Fonz, I couldn't even say the words, you know. So I know how to clean things up. Now I know how to apologize.
30:52
But one of the ways that, um, one of the things I usually start off with my clients on is talking about self-care, because so many of us, as women, have give, we give, give, give, give, give, give. Take care of everybody, take care of everybody, and by the end of the day, we're frazzled, we're grumpy, we're overwhelmed. Right, and who can blame us? Because we've done everything Right. The reasons we did everything is because nobody else could do it the way we wanted it done, and so we need to do some things that make us happy. So, whether that, and when you say self-care to women, a lot of times they think, oh, you mean, I have to go out and get a $150 massage. No, no, what makes you happy? Do you like to read mysteries? Do you like to go for a walk and listen to a podcast? Do you like to meet a friend for coffee? Do you want to call your sister? And Because, guess what?
31:58
I'm going to be a much better wife, mom, businesswoman, everything when, I have joy when I have filled my cup myself, and then I'm not demanding that my husband make me happy. Right, I'm already happy.
Karen Covy Host
32:15
Yeah, I love that and I think it's also. I can't remember I think it was Esther Perel who was talking about how many demands we place on a relationship, on a marriage, these days that back in the day, well I don't know, hundreds of years ago, you were married and you know, the woman expected her husband to provide for the family. The man expected the woman to be home and make the home and take care of the kids, and like there were pretty clear rules. But that was it. Today, not only are you expected to do those things and take care of that role, but you're also you've got to be, you know, the perfect wife, the perfect mother or husband and father. You've got to be the you know amazing in the bedroom, your best friends, your constant allies. You know you're always like there are so many expectations that are placed on a marriage and what you're especially asking is that your spouse make you happy. I love that you're saying that's happiness is an inside job.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
33:19
Yes, we created ourself and I'm going to take 100% responsibility for my happiness. And then I'm going to let my husband pile on the extra right. And it's not his job. I take care of that, you know and I love it. And here's the thing A lot of women who hear from me will say well, why do I have to do everything? You're putting everything on the wife and what does the husband have to do. Well and this and that in order for you to be happy and satisfied in your marriage. And how has that worked for you? It did not work for me. My husband was not changing in the ways that I wanted him to, and I was just continuing to put more and more pressure on him and I was just getting more and more unhappy. And guess what If it's all on him is just getting more and more unhappy. And guess what If it's all on him? I'm hopeless. I'm just a victim. I'm here and I can't be happy until he changes. And he's not changing. So where does that leave me?
34:27
What I'm suggesting to the women is that let's take the power. We are very influential as women. When mama is happy, everybody's happy. So I want to suggest that you have the power to create the kind of marriage and home atmosphere that you want by making the changes within myself. And, like I said, then my husband started to really respond to those changes and we've got the magnetism back. We've got the fun and playfulness back. That's what characterized hey, guess what? I never told my husband what to wear when we were dating, never. I never controlled him. I never told him turn here, park there. I never did that, but I did later into our marriage and it sucked the fun right out and it sucked the fun right out and it sucked the romance right out. So I don't do that anymore. If he wants to drive a mile out of the way on our way somewhere because he's gotten lost, what do I care? I just relax and enjoy, you know.
Karen Covy Host
35:31
Yep, just relax and enjoy the ride. Yes, well, this has been quite a ride. I've really enjoyed our conversation and what I find refreshing about it. It's a different way of looking at things than what we might, what our society in its current state focuses on. You know, we're seeing power, seeing power from like. Power is one thing power as being the masculine power, and women have to take that but there's a softer power that I think could be just as effective and a whole lot easier for us to manage than trying to do things the man's way trying to do things the man's way.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
36:21
The skills I teach are really simple. They just take some practice. But when you start, you see, you start to see results right away, because it's that mirroring between a husband and wife and it's just like you and I. If I showed up to the interview today and I was grumpy and sour, things would be very different.
36:43
It would be a much, much more tricky interview. Let's put it that way we might show up happy with a smile. You respond happy with a smile, we have fun. So I want to be a good wife, mirror, you know.
Karen Covy Host
36:51
Yeah, and it sounds like that's a good mom mirror as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know. I often tell my clients it's like kids learn from what they see, not what you say you can say. I mean, half the time, especially if they're teenagers, they're not paying any attention to you anyway, but they're paying attention to what you do and they're taking it all in. So the fact that you can show up happy has got to make a huge difference on your kids.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
37:18
And letting go of control has not only been super helpful in my marriage, but my kids are adults now and I'm able to relinquish control of their decisions too. They get to make the decisions that are right for them and they get to make the mistakes. I made mistakes and I learned from them, and now they're making mistakes and it's okay.
Karen Covy Host
37:41
That's beautiful. I'm sure they don't like the consequences of the mistake, but that's the point, and mom just gets to be happy. I love it. So, Cristie, if someone is listening, and they want to learn more from you, they want to work with you, they want to find you. Where can they do that? Want to work with you, they want to find you. Where can they do that? Where's the best place for them to find you?
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
38:02
My coaching business is called Relationships with a Map, and so you can find me my website at relationshipswithamap.com, or you can find me on Facebook or Instagram, and I have a private group for ladies on Facebook that people can join, and I always do a free call up front so we can see if it's a good match, if we're right to work together.
Karen Covy Host
38:25
That's beautiful and, for anyone who's listening or watching, everything is going to be linked in the show notes so you will be able to find Cristie if you're interested. So, Cristie, thank you again so much for sharing your perspective and what you do, and I've just really enjoyed the conversation.
Cristie Cerniglia Guest
38:43
Thank you, oh, thank you, Karen, I appreciate it.
Karen Covy Host
38:46
And for those of you out there who are watching or who are listening, if you enjoyed today's conversation, if you want to hear more conversations just like this, do me a big favor. Give this podcast, this episode, a thumbs up like subscribe to the podcast. It helps more than you know and I look forward to talking with you again next time.
