Perfect Couples Online Make Real Marriage Harder

0:03 Welcome everyone to Hi fam with Avital and we have been talking all about marriage and all about how Instagram or Netflix or mom's groups have ruined my marriage and everybody else's marriage and you guys have left me some incredible questions which I am going to answer today. So before I do just so you know my course married to you is open right now. Go to marry-youu.com and sign up today to get the early bird bonus which is going away shortly. And a huge welcome to everyone who's already joined so far. Okay, so let me know if you are here live. Say hi in the comments and leave me your questions because I will go live and answer them as I am doing now. And today I'm actually going to be answering a question from Luz Moral who wrote, "Hi Avital, thank you for this first vid video and thank you for addressing such an important topic. I agree with everything you say about the dangers of comparison, dopamine and so on.

1:04 Listening to you raised a question for me. I think the responsibility for not being affected by these comparisons goes in both directions. The responsibility of those who create the content and the responsibility of those who consume it. I agree, Liz. I um I agree with everything you say about performative content and about people who present their lives as some kind of reality show. But my question is what would be the right way to show the goodness and the beauty of marriage, motherhood and so on if such a way exists and is even possible? I think showing this is necessary too especially because of the idea of overcoming evil with an abundance of good. Social media and platforms in general already have a lot of content that drags you down. It is good to show the that the other side exists as well. So the question is how do we do that in a way that actually fulfills the purpose of informing and inspiring others without making them feel discouraged by comparison. Maybe by focusing more on theoretical principles than on personal testimonies. And yet I think we don't just need theory. We also need to see that the theory can actually be lived out in real life. What do you think? Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, Liz, I think you're tapping into a really very important question here, which is when we uh when I speak about the fact that, you know, these idealized couples on social media are performing and they often end up getting divorced or, you know, maybe their behind the scenes is not as great as it appears in their, you know, highlight reel and you shouldn't compare yourself to them. Liz is saying, "Yeah, but Avital, there's also a lot of people husband bashing, complaining about their marriages, you know, pathologizing and diagnosing and, you know, glamorizing divorce and all the bad side of marriage as well online.

2:41 Don't we need to see positive examples? Isn't it good to see couples who are in love, couples who have romance, couples who have a lot of fun together so that we can learn from positive examples?" And it's not just good enough to hear, you know, the theories and ideas. is I actually want to see real life examples so that I'm inspired. So I think Liz, my answers are often really not super sexy because I talk a lot about balance. I talk a lot about yes and a lot about walking the middle road, the radical middle, okay, the middle path. I think on the one hand online we see performance, we see idealization, we see highlight reel, we see unattainable standards, right? you see the the Tradife videos where she's wearing, you know, an $8,000 dress and mixing, you know, gummy bears from scratch because her husband felt like it. And it just seems like this, you know, completely ridiculous magazine production, glossy, unattainable, you know, a ridiculous standard that none of us could reach and that doesn't, you know, look like real life. And we see the perfect husbands and the idealized couples and the women who are saying like all the amazing things that my husband does that a loweffort man would, you know, it would put a loweffort man into a coma if he saw what my husband does. those uh clickbait uh sensationalized over-the-top uh performances and advertisements and kind of productions um of marriage and romance and home life I think are damaging because they go to the extreme not because they're positive. It's good to see positive examples. I love to see couples who are, you know, respectful, who are mutually adoring, who are supportive of each other, who solve problems well, who co-parent well, uh, you know, that I think is really inspiring. But when you see couples that just gloss over all of the challenges, that make it seem like this just all comes so naturally to them, that compare themselves to others and are kind of trying to appear like, you know, this power couple, this king and queen, uh, where no harm can come between them and they're always so loveydvey and so perfect. That is usually an illusion and that is usually an unfair comparison to our real lives, to our real marriages. So that's on the one hand, right? On the one hand, we have the highlight reel that's very, very edited and curated. And on the other hand, you are right that the couples that air all their dirty laundry out, that just complain all the time about their husbands, that are diagnosing them online, that are going online in order to complain about the personal things that are happening inside their intimate relationship.

5:28 Right? We discussed the woman who's lying in bed and sharing on Tik Tok that her husband isn't, you know, keeping the children quiet outside her door. Why are you going to Tik Tok? Why are you taking your personal, you know, issues that you need to solve and discuss and communicate about to the internet, right? Why are you uh taking to the internet to celebrate things like uh you know, oh my husband sucks, my husband's a jerk. That's called win playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes. And that's called airing dirty laundry in public and public shaming and reputation destruction and character assassination and gossip. And that's not good either.

6:08 And what I want to recommend, suggest, advertise, you know, advocate for is a middle-of the road path that is neither of those things. I don't think it's healthy to idealize an uninformed uh unrealistic model of marriage, right? This picture perfect plastic rendition of marriage that none of us can ever attain. If a couple says we never have conflict, you know, it just all it all flows naturally. We're just soulmates. we just complete each other. You know, my Spidey senses go up. I'm skeptical about that.

6:40 I I I worry about it a little bit. You know, I'm sure there are couples like that, but on the whole, I'm gonna say a little bit of conflict is inevitable. There's a growth trajectory that couples have to go through that takes several years. There's a um power struggle phase that couples have to go through before they can earn their secure attachment that most of them do need to go through and that most of us go through. And I think pretending that that doesn't exist in your relationship, pretending that everything is such smooth sailing and so hunky and just completely natural sets the rest of us up for failure. And I think is also just probably not true.

7:15 It's probably just not the way things are going behind closed doors. And that's why we often see those com those couples disintegrating in the end. Um and I and that's the one path that I reject. And the other path that I reject is, you know, demonizing your partner is uh is shame and blame and all the public shaming and the reputation destruction. What I would like to see and what we do inside of Married You and we do have a community there and people do share their struggles. I would like to see the ability to hold both things at once.

7:47 That yes, marriage is a privilege. That yes, you know, if you're married to a good person and you have a decent, stable relationship, but it's unsatisfactory, but there is conflict, then that's inevitable and that's part of growing, that there's something you can do about it, that there's a proactive solutionsoriented attitude towards it. So, for example, if a woman did feel really frustrated or really upset with her husband about something, okay, I'll talk about myself. All right?

8:14 I've been in those situations. We've had plenty of fights. We've had plenty of situations where we feel really distant or really disconnected. I think it's perfectly legitimate to seek advice, to seek support from your girlfriends, to share the story, but there needs to be guard rails around how we do it, right? We don't want to assassinate his character. We don't want to bring him down in the eye of the people who love and care for him and are in his community and are his friends. We need our kind of venting and ranting to have limits to it that we don't just vent and rant and go off on the guy. But the point of the conversation is to actually bring us in the end closer. Is to actually solve it. Is for actually my girlfriends to say, "Huh? Hm. Have you thought about this? Maybe that, you know, maybe he didn't mean to be late.

9:08 Maybe he didn't read your message on time. Uh maybe you were overreacting, like maybe you were cold and moody all day and that's why he responded that way. I need them to push back on me so that the conversation is fruitful. The conversation leads somewhere. So inside of married you, do people come with their issues? Of course they do. They come with their issues. But the point is that we are all pro their marriage succeeding. We are pro- their home strengthening and gaining only more momentum and only more harmony and only more conflict resolution and better communication and more passion and more desire and better chemistry. We want to help her to hold his goodness to light to solve the problems together to move forward to heal to repair to feel better about him and not worse about him. So if you take your issues to, you know, I I've got a friend who always tells me about the Pelaton mom's group and how everybody is there is just diagnosing, right? They're the comment section therapists that I discussed. They are the people who are quickly going to show you the exit route. He's not the guy. He doesn't even love you. He probably hates you. It sounds like he's a narcissist, right?

10:15 They're immediately going to run to those diagnoses. Whereas in married you, we have very clear, you know, expectations and guidelines as a community that that's not what we're here for. that that's not what we're we're trying to do. We're trying to help you maintain, save, strengthen your marriage, not to edge you on, egg you on, agitate you more, and be like, "Yeah, yeah, he sucks. He's a jerk. You should leave." Right? So, that's on the one hand is yes, we complain about our marriages. We talk about real conflict.

10:43 I talk about real conflict in my marriage. My marriage is not perfect. And we have many things. We had a long power struggle phase that was very painful to be brutally honest and very difficult and involved a lot of personal growth and we both had to do tremendous you know strides to make changes to that. Um and and I would like you to leapfrog over my years of frustration and my mistakes. Learn from my mistakes. Don't repeat them. Don't spend a decade wasted like I did you know in a marriage and instead uh learn the skills that I have packaged up for you in a neat bingeable really beautiful package right um so that you don't have to go through that yourself so that's the on the one hand is that the ar the the the dark side needs to come forward we need to discuss it we need to be honest about it but we need to be honest about it in the service of solutions okay and then on the other side okay in married you. We often celebrate wins. We often say to each other, "Wow, I'm so touched. My husband actually remembered that I wanted this necklace from two years ago and he went out and got it and he surprised me with it." And I I I have to tell you guys, like 5 years ago, if you'd have told me he'd have done that, I would never have believed you. It just wasn't the way things were going with us. Okay? Or we might say, "You know what, guys? This is unbelievable. We actually just had a Valentine's Day where I didn't walk out feeling deflated and depressed and disappointed about how it went." Right? We celebrate those wins and we show each other that it is possible. You know, often someone will be stuck with a husband who's say addicted to his phone, right? Oh, he's always on his phone and I just can't get him off it. And the other women in the community will say, I was in your shoes.

12:25 My husband was also addicted to his phone. It was so difficult and here's what we did and here's how I, you know, solved it and it actually really resolved. And it will give each other hope and inspiration and proactive steps they can take. But it's all in the service of the marriage succeeding, right? So if they are celebrating their wins, if they're bragging as it were, about, you know, being happily married, about things going well, about having a great sex life or, you know, really aligning on parenting at this point, then we are in their corner. We're not there to tear them down. We're not bitter. We're not jealous. You know, we're excited for them. We're happy for them. That's the point. And it's kind of like, you know, going to a gym or being part of a yoga group where everybody really wants each other to make healthy choices. Everybody's helping each other to stay on track with their goals.

13:13 Everybody's saying, "Hey, you know what? Show up to the to the training session today. You'll you'll thank yourself later. Come on, let's do it together." Right? And it's an accountability system where instead of influencing each other, you know, with over pathologizing and diagnosing, with glamorizing the exit route, uh with saying, "Well, my marriage is perfect. I don't know why your marriage is such a mess." Right? Instead of those voices that we hear online all the time, uh what I'm advocating for and building and what we have inside of Married You is voices that are mutually supportive. We're all there in the same goal. We all have the same value of being pro- family, of stability, of uh loyalty, of growth, of love, of deeper deeper connection, better communication, healthier marriages. Okay? So I I I my answer to you, Liz, is yeah, we do need to see good examples, but we also need to be careful what culture idealizes, right?

14:09 If you go to the movies, if you go if you watch, you know, the TV shows, if you read popular books, it's not about the couples who stuck it through. We don't see the women who stayed as heroes. We don't see the women who stay as brave. We don't see couples who make it through to their 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond as our models, as our role models for what marriage could and should be.

14:40 We don't try to decode how they manage to make that happen. But that's what we should be decoding. That's what we should be looking up to. Those should be the epic stories and the big romances that we are idealizing. And so if you're asking me how can we see these positive models? Well, first of all, our culture could be showing that and should be showing that and should be telling those stories. You know, right now what you see is we actually see a glamorization of estrangement even between parents and children. I just saw an a segment, maybe it was on Oprah, I think just before Christmas, that was saying, you know, how wonderful it is that some kids are brave enough to walk away from their families, to never call their parents again, to be estranged from their family because, you know, good for you. No one, you don't owe anyone anything. No one owns you. You don't have to belong if you don't like the family vibe. You know, it's fine. Now, these are the types of things that used to be reserved for really, you know, really extreme cases, like abusive cases. But today, it's just like, oh, I don't like who my parents voted for, or, you know, they don't follow my same dietary preferences, or I just don't enjoy the table conversation, so I never want to see them again. Um, and that's indicative, that's symptomatic of a culture that doesn't value long-term relationships, right? Relationships have become disposable and we feel that inside of our marriages as the exit route is always tantalizing and is always seductive and and marketed to us and that's the type of thing we have to actually counteract with the environments we put ourselves in. So one of the reasons people join married you is because of the course. They want to see the materials. They want to learn the skills. They want to get the download into their brain of how do I do this? But the other reason is to surround themselves with like-minded individuals who are inspired by the adventure of a lifelong marriage, who care about the longevity of their marriage, who think that it does matter that we stay stable and loyal and connected and give our children a two parent household to grow up in, who want that for themselves, and who realize that it's not always available. Not everybody can always hack it. There's sometimes real disturbances, real disruptions, real pain, and yeah, divorce happens. But the goal here is for that to become the last resort. And further, I just want to say further, the goal is to have a beautiful, amazing marriage that makes you glow from the inside out, that you know, that energizes you, that becomes your force for good, that is uh uh that fills your batteries. And a draining marriage, a marriage that is constantly conflict ridden, where you're always feeling dissatisfied, where you're always resentful, where there's a lot of bickering, where there's a lot of hesitancy and doubt about the decision of the marriage altogether, like was this the right person? Are we even compatible? That type of marriage will be a drain on your energy every single day. You'll be a worse, you know, sister, mother, colleague, daughter, friend for it. I know that in the years that I felt that my marriage was a drain on my energy, I felt that I was just not showing up to my life with full vitality, with my full force, you know, because I was distracted and in pain and frustrated and dissatisfied by a core foundational really aspect of my life.

18:01 And and I've come to really believe and and think that marriage uh really is kind of ground zero. It's really our foundation relationship and when it's right, when it's healthy, okay, it's always going to have some conflict and it's, you know, it's a organic thing. It grows and changes and and certainly has to deal with maintenance and with challenges along the way, but when it's foundationally good, it charges your batteries for everything else. You can spring forward from there. You go out into the world with a pep in your step, with broad shoulders, with a stiff spine, with a smile on your face because you feel deeply cherished, adored, safe, secure, loved, uh, and satisfied. And then you can be better at all the other things. You know, I make better food choices. I do my workout better. I sleep better at night. I'm a much better mom, you know, when I'm in a solid, healthy uh marriage than when I'm not. Everybody is. And so this really radiates out to every aspect of our life. And that's why it's so important. And so it's not enough to me to just help you to avoid divorce, right? Or to save the marriage.

19:07 I really want to help you uplevel it. And that's why inside married you, we have upgrades, right? We go from being uh kind of maybe roommates to really romantic, right? We go from feeling maybe undermined to feeling really aligned with each other. We go uh from maybe having arguments about finances and time management to being great partners together. And we go from having maybe arguments about parenting styles to being fantastic co-parents. Those elevations of becoming the best friends, lovers, partners uh that you can become and co-parents of course that is the biggest lifestyle upgrade you can have, right? Because when your um core relationship, when the foundational relationship that then radiates out to your parenting, to your job, to your health, to everything else, when that's in place, when that's locked in and it feels great and it feels aligned and energized, you know, really everything springs from there in my opinion.

20:10 So, do we want to see good examples? Yeah, we want to see good examples, Liz. We really want to see good examples, but we don't want fake examples. We don't want uh you know kind of airbrushed examples. We don't want examples of marriages that are just naturally amazing and just you know always on, always performing, always on the show. And and it's really really important that when we see these examples, we see the breakdown. And I want to explain what I mean. If you see someone who's just so fit, right? They just, you know, they they look like a a bodybuilder, okay? They're like so extra fit and they're just like, I was just born this way. I don't do anything for it. I just am. And they're just always flexing and posing and they look amazing and the lighting's perfect and everything's ultra prodduced and airbrushed and edited. It's like, wow, I don't look like that. That's I don't I guess I just take myself and put myself in the trash because I can't compare. I can't compete. I can't learn anything from you. It's not a role model that helps me. Okay. But when you see someone who's gone on a journey, you see someone who before was overweight, before was uh, you know, out of shape. Okay. And you see someone who's improved, who's worked on it, you see their before and after, that's when they become an inspiring role model. That's when the story can be helpful to you. That's when the story can be like, "Oh, if they could do it, I can do it, too." And that's what I want to provide for you. I want to tell you, we didn't start off just clickity clickity, everything's perfect. We didn't start off just zero conflict, soulmates forever, hashtag blessed.

21:41 That's not where I started my journey. That's not where anyone inside the marriage you course starts their journey. We have pros, we have cons, we have things that are going for us in our marriages and things that are challenging in our marriages. The point is that then we improve, you know, piece by piece, step by step over the long haul consistently. And just like those gym transformations that you see online, the rapid transformations where you see, you know, someone starting off really out of shape, can't even do one squat, and then by the end they're they're built and you see their gains and you see their work and they're like, "Yeah, this took three years." You're like, "Wow, but that was worth it." And you really put it all in and you really did so well with that.

22:21 That's what I want to show you in marriage. I want to show you that if you start at point A, whatever that point is, okay, some doubts, some conflict, some frustration, some dissatisfaction, if you put in the work systematically and consistently as I show you how to do inside of Married You, you will then have an after picture. And the after picture will be beautiful and glowy and exciting, but not airbrushed and produced and perfect. It won't be fake.

22:49 It won't be a performance. It will be something real, something deep, something transformational because your mindset, your behaviors, your patterns, your thoughts, your words, your communication, it will all have changed slowly but surely to become a relationship that is stable, that is strong, that is going to last you your life. And just like going to the gym, this is an investment in yourself, in your health, in your happiness, in your vibrancy, in your vitality, and in your energy. So, uh, if you aren't sure yet how to do so, then I'll just show you.

23:20 Go to marriedwu.com, married-youu and you can read all about the course there. It will explain everything to you. You will learn about the marriage skills that I give you inside the course. You will learn about the curriculum. You will learn about uh all of the extras and bonuses. And there is a very special extra bonus that I am sharing just for the early bird uh signups. And that is called worth the fight. And it's an extra course that you get for free when you join Married You today. And um here it is. It's all about uh how to handle conflicts and minimize conflicts, but also how to grow from your fights so that they don't just become scars, but they actually strengthen you. Okay. I would love to see you on the inside of Married You.

24:10 Today we are going to be having live coaching sessions with me inside there where you get to ask me your most intimate questions just as you are asking me here on YouTube. Uh I will coach you. I will walk you through it. And that's another key aspect of showing the good things online. You can show good things. You can see wow she's so soft and gentle and feminine and he's such a great leader and such a great partner and so attuned and so empathic.

24:37 But if they haven't broken down for you how to do it and if they haven't held you accountability to the change, then it's just going to end up staying in the realm of envy, right? Like, wow, I wish I was like that. That's like just seeing someone stunning, you know, some bodybuilder person and you're like, "Wow, but I don't know how to do that." Joining Married You shows you the steps of how to do that, of how to actually create it in your real life.

25:01 And it gives you the accountability because I'm here. I'm here. My team is here. Our group is here. All of the other married you members are in there. We we meet on Zoom. We actually go through the program together live. So the program is on demand. You can do it whenever you want. You can listen in the car while you're cooking, while you're folding laundry, anytime. But the accountability piece is there for you so that we make sure that you actually walk through it and it doesn't be become just another course that I never took. All right? This is going to be a real transformation for your marriage and something that future you is going to thank you for. So, I want you to ask yourself, what happens to my marriage if I don't take any steps today? Right? If I just leave it as it is, what is the trajectory that we're on? Are things getting better and better, stronger and stronger, smoother and smoother? Am I feeling more and more satisfied, happier, more connected? Or are there struggles, obstacles, challenges that I'm worried that might grow, that if they're unattended, right, if we don't solve them, they might actually fester and become more of a bigger problem in the future. I want you to ask yourself what this is worth to you. What is a solid marriage worth to you? A lifelong marriage worth to you? What is excellent role modeling for your children about partnership and love and romance and connection? What is that worth to you?

26:18 Um what would it be worth for your kids to be able to say, "Wow, I hope I have a mom a marriage like mom and dad. I hope that I can emulate them. I hope I can treat my partner as well as they treat each other." What would it be worth for you for your kids to look at your marriage and feel so safe and so secure and so grateful and so happy and also to want the same for themselves, right? In the future, what would it be worth for you to wake up in the morning and feel like, "Wow, pinch me. Is this real? I'm so lucky. I'm the luckiest girl in the world."

26:52 These things are priceless, right? And people do spend a lot of money on their marriages. They go to therapy. They spend thousands upon thousands of dollars for years and years and years and often make very little headway. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's kind of somewhere in the middle. But Married You has been proven. Okay, we have run this course for seven years now. Okay, this is my seventh goaround on Married You and so it's been very well proven. We have hundreds of testimonials, hundreds of stories. And so I want that for you.

27:27 I want the fast transformation. I don't want 10 years in therapy. I want, you know, 12 weeks on your phone, okay? Just listening, just listening to a few ideas that are going to be absolutely key game changers in your marriage. So once again, join me in marriages.com and I will be coming on live to answer all and every question. So please make sure to send those in as you have been. And meanwhile, have a wonderful, wonderful day. Bye.