Cheri Timko - Be successful and Have a Good Marriage

[00:00:00] Wendy Manganaro: Hi everyone. My name's Wendy Manganaro and I am the Host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us. And if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. 

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[00:00:38] Wendy: Hi everyone. As always excited to have a new guest today, joining us is Cheri Timko, and our topic is Entrepreneurship and marriage. Be Successful and Have a Good Marriage. 

I'm gonna read her bio and we're gonna get right into the show. Cheri Timko helps seasoned couples ditch the disappointment so they can dare to date again, everyone lets down their partner and feels let down at some point in their relationship. When the disappointment, frustration, and hurt builds up, it kills the feeling of being in love.

She helps release the resentment so they can rekindle the romance, work as partners and have fun again. Welcome, Cheri. 

[00:01:18] Cheri Timko: Oh, thank you so much for having me. 

[00:01:20] Wendy: Thank you. I'm really excited about this topic cuz being somebody who's been married for a long time, have gone through every phase of said relationship as an entrepreneur, I think there is a different dynamic when it comes to entrepreneurship and relationship.

So I'd love to know from you, just to start off the questions, in your experience, what does a healthy marriage look like? 

I could tell you a lot of things that I think most couples should have, but the healthiest marriage is the intersection of two personalities. So it is a marriage that meets the needs of both people, their individual personal needs.

Now, that doesn't mean that your partner meets every single need that you ever have, but it means that you come up with agreements that fit the two of you, even if they wouldn't fit anyone else, any other couple on the planet. 

I like that you said that they don't have to meet every need, but there is a base need that you begin to meet and from your experience in that

is that something that's learned within the marriage as you get married, or is this something that you think that innately people who match up at first? Kind of like that we're match made in heaven from the beginning? I don't know if that's true or does it take work to get there? 

[00:02:43] Cheri Timko: Even a match made in heaven is gonna have some really tough points. You can't be married for very long without running into personality differences and stress from all sorts of different places. So, maybe it's a little bit easier if you're a match made in heaven.

Maybe it's easier if you grew up with really good role models about how to have a good marriage, but I've never met anybody who didn't have to work at their relationship. 

[00:03:13] Wendy: That brings up another good question is how much do you think couples bring their upbringing into the marriage, and what can that really do to a marriage if it's really polar opposites. 

[00:03:25] Cheri Timko: Yeah, I know that I have brought a lot from my own childhood into my marriage. My husband has as well. There are times when that fits together pretty well, but usually for most couples there are lots of points where they still have to figure it out. Probably the worst thing a couple can do is blindly take what they grew up with and assume that's what

their marriage is gonna look like. Most couples need to work that stuff out. There's a lot of rough edges that they have to figure out how they're going to solve problems and how they're gonna communicate in a way that they both walk away from that conversation having heard the same things. And how to deal with when they're not at their best.

[00:04:10] Wendy: So what areas do you find that they most, especially because of upbringing, have sticking points in a marriage? 

[00:04:22] Cheri Timko: The biggest problems that I see couples have are either with working through problems, they get into conflict or disconnection. Now, sometimes you can have both, but a lot of that comes with

the training that you have from childhood, and a lot of couples get really irritable with each other. I don't know if you've had this experience. My husband and I get into it sometimes and nothing's really wrong. We're just a little bit agitated, probably stress from other things, and then we come together and we get into it over the stupidest.

Most trivial detail and really it's just we're both feeling agitated or frustrated or irritable, and then we don't deal with that well with each other. 

[00:05:14] Wendy: And I've heard, and I don't know if this is true, is that because it's your husband and your spouse, it's safer to do that there, than anywhere else.

Is there truth to that? 

[00:05:28] Cheri Timko: Yeah. If you've already committed to your partner, they've already chosen you and they chose you for better or worse, your colleagues at work or your friends, they don't have that same level of commitment to you, in most relationships. So we do tend to bring all of that frustration back to the relationship and we assume that it can absorb it.

The costs though is that we give up most of the fun parts of the relat. We start out this relationship, we're excited and we have fun, and we go on exciting dates and we share things at this deep level, and then we get into daily life and we just stop doing all that stuff that brought us together.

[00:06:13] Wendy: This is a good time to ask this question. How did you get into working with couples specifically? 

[00:06:17] Cheri Timko: Well, I will tell you the story of how I got here. I was in college and I started working with teenagers and I loved working with teenagers, but so much of the work came down to teaching them how to live within their circumstances and be patient for when they could leave the house.

So that's a frustrating place to be. So I started working with the parents as well. I started doing family therapy and I was like, great, this is fantastic. Now I can impact the whole family system. The parents get along better, they can better address their kids' needs and then I fell into just meeting with the parents.

And what I realized is that through couples therapy and couples coaching, I can impact the kids' lives without the kids even being there. So I can teach the parents how to get along with each other, how to work through problems, get on the same page, and actually have a really good relationship. That is a good example for their kids.

The kids' lives get better because of that. So you could say I work with couples for the kids.

[00:07:36] Wendy: I love that. And I think there's so much truth, cuz I think about that as a role model for my two sons and I always think of it as a far as as my entrepreneurship and things that my husband has done, based on our communication, but also, I'm always like, what am I showing my sons ?

Am I showing that entrepreneurship is miserable and nobody wants to do this? And it's very stressful. And it can be all of those things at any time, , depending on where you're at yourself. But on the other side is am I showing them all the good parts of why I do it? And how I got into it.

And that it's safe to do that. And I guess that it's, and this, it's the same thing with relationships is showing them. What it looks like to be in a stable relationship so that there's better communication in the home. 

[00:08:21] Cheri Timko: Yeah, and the next step to that is that a good marriage is a springboard to everything else.

It becomes the basis that you can build this really good business, be really good parents. Be a good example to family and friends. So when you have that good, solid base, really you can do all of the other things from that base. 

[00:08:46] Wendy: And I wanna ask this to and then we'll get into specific for entrepreneurs, but I'm going on 20 years married. Now, I know staying married isn't for everybody cuz I don't know their background, but it feels to me like something has culturally changed.

 And I remember when I got married, the lady who married us, she is a very good friend of mine who happened to be a reverend . And she said to me, you realize there's no out. And it really has helped to remember that when we've gone through difficult times. And the other thing she said is always treat him as a gift.

If you always treat him as a gift, the conflict will work itself out. and those two tools we've used in our marriage but it's a relationship , so it's not been perfect. There's been ups and downs, there's been all sorts of things, but those are the two tools that we've used to stay committed to our relationship.

 But in your view, what's the catalyst for this isn't gonna work? 

[00:09:36] Cheri Timko: I always come down on the side of marriage. This is what I believe in. I also know that, a lot of times people will fantasize what it will be like to get divorced, and then they start down that path and they realize that path is complicated and painful and often as hard or harder than actually fixing the problems in the relationship.

That being said, there are certainly times where it is unsafe to stay in the relationship and that can be physically unsafe, but that also can be emotionally unsafe. It's really hard for couples to grow together, particularly when they think they need to be in lockstep so that they grow at exactly the same pace.

And couples don't grow that way. They one will get ahead and then the other needs to catch up. And sometimes it feels like you're tugging your partner along with you as you're going on your own personal growth process. So it's so individual, like each person has to act according to their values according to

their goals in life and there aren't any hard and fast rules about when it's time. I have a lot of faith and a lot of hope in marriage, and I've seen couples come back from some of the worst possible disasters they could be in. But even more importantly, I've seen couples come back from just feeling like they're roommates.

 Or that they've lost that spark and that connection. And I think that's probably the problem that more couples face than being in a crisis. 

[00:11:21] Wendy: And that's interesting you said that because that's some of the things that me and my husband have gone through is feeling like we're roommates because, we come back from individual things that we do and we're like, okay.

And really making sure that there's date nights that there's fun for us to have so that we're not completely in two different worlds. And yet be independent. Cuz that was the other thing that we had, we had to learn that it's okay to be independent and come back so I think I like that you said that and I like that.

You're talking about that everybody is individual cuz that's the truth of a matter too, and there are times when it is dangerous. What I really like you said, is that people don't really understand how hard divorce is because I have watched friends go through it and they think that they're gonna get this instant relief and they do not know the emotional toll that's going to take on them. Many think now that the marriage is over, it'll just go away. But they still have all of the core issues that they had or received as a result of marriage, depending on the situation. And I see my friends who've gone through that and I feel for them cuz I'm always like my mother used to tell me, My mother and father were divorced, takes five years to get over a divorce, and none of my girlfriends ever, believe me when I tell, I'm like, it's gonna take you at least five years.

And they're like, no, it's not. But there's a lot of emotional baggage that goes with that. 

[00:12:39] Cheri Timko: And I wonder how many people would really leave their marriage if they understood what they were deciding on when they decided to get divorced. And not that it's not okay to get divorced.

I think that sometimes you just need to get divorced, but I don't think we look at it like apples to apples. We don't really look at what it would take to fix the relationship versus what it would really take to leave that relationship and start over. 

[00:13:07] Wendy: Yeah, I agree with you there. 

 Like I said, some of them were in a dangerous situation.

They needed to get divorced, but even those, then you still have to deal with you. And I think that's part of what it is we are bringing ourselves into the marriage. And if there's something wrong with us when we talk about self-care, that kind of thing, are we taking care of ourselves so that we show up better?

And we are more understanding in that relationship than vice versa, as opposed to trying to do this complete individual trying to meet each other's needs in a way that's not healthy. So I think there's that too. When it comes to entrepreneurship though, in marriages, what are the warning signs that the entrepreneur is starting to choose between the relationship or the business?

But there can be a jealousy when you start a business in a relationship that people don't expect to have or don't realize that they may have.

[00:13:55] Cheri Timko: I'm running two businesses now. I had a business in the past that switched, moved on from, and so having a new business is like having a newborn. And I think we're just as protective and involved as when we have that newborn baby come home from the hospital and we are all consumed with it.

The things to watch out for are feeling disconnected from your partner, believing that they don't really know what's going on in your business, in your entrepreneurial process. Now, that doesn't mean that you need to tell them everything that happens. It doesn't mean that you even need to ask their opinion about things.

My husband and I sometimes get into this tug of war if I ask his opinion about things. But feeling like it's set aside and that you go over to your business and you do all of that and then you come home and there's no interconnection between those two. So those, also keeping a pulse on what's happening for your partner.

When you start to feel like roommates, there's that chance that you're gonna feel lonely, or maybe it's not a chance, maybe it's a guarantee. And when people feel lonely, then they start to fill in the gaps with other things, and it does really set a relationship up for a crisis. So those are probably the main

things that most couples would face. There is jealousy. There is that question about do you love your business more than you love me? So that's part of the growing pains of both the marriage and the entrepreneurship. 

[00:15:43] Wendy: The other thing, and I wonder, and, I guess it would be under the realm of jealousy, but

an entrepreneur starts making more than their spouse. I'm sure that causes conflict too. If one has chosen to be like, oh, I'm gonna stay here. So there's consistency in a job and the other one has left, and I'm sure that there's, there could be some feeling of

 Jealousy, but I think that one's a little bit more than. 

[00:16:13] Cheri Timko: Yeah, that's a shake up in the structure of the relationship. We come together, we have these ideas about how our marriage is gonna go, but then life events happen and it means that we have to go back and renegotiate some of those agreements.

Having kids is shake up. Having kids leave is another shake up. Changing careers can be a shake up and certainly when your business grows to a certain point where, it's hard to be the c e o at work and then come home and be someone's partner or even be in a slightly down position if they're the head of the household.

And so there's a lot of that, we need to figure this out. We need to see how we need to adjust. We need to figure out if one of us needs more support in order to have this change. And that happens at all of those different points. 

[00:17:11] Wendy: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The other thing I was gonna ask you is, as far as that goes, when you're trying to renegotiate what that kind of looks like in this, does one make more money or one stay home?

Because I've seen this a lot where the husband then, a wife's business starts to go, which is great, and then their husband starts to work with them because it makes sense in a lot of relationships. They see that this is a fabulous thing and they come to work with them.

I can't imagine though, the dynamic of when you're used to working outside of the home. Your wife has a business or he has a business and the other one comes. And how do you keep that structure together so that, you have a separation between relationship and business, because that's a big one.

And then B, how do you implement them into the business without feeling one or the other is taking over or trying to change everything. 

[00:18:11] Cheri Timko: Yeah. And that's a big transition. What I have found is that couples either work well together and love working together and it's the best thing that ever happened to their relationship or it's a disaster and they should absolutely not work together under any circumstances.

 Now that's after you get over that first transition because the transition to working together, that's gonna be bumpy. You've gotta renegotiate. And if you're used to. For instance, the husband being the head of the household at home. But then you come into work and you are in charge of your business and that puts your husband in that position where he needs to follow along and do what you tell 'em to do.

And so that can be a really big transition for couples where they've gotta find new rules about things. They've gotta put some boundaries around the business so that. , it doesn't bleed into home, and then it's just business all the time. And where they both feel like they have a say in things, but there's still that understanding of whose business it is and who gets to make the final decision about things.

[00:19:22] Wendy: That's an interesting time in couple's relationships. . And it's so funny, my father and my stepmom work together and they could never imagine working apart, and my husband and I have done a nonprofit together and, it worked for us because we ran two different sections of it.

So we were able to do that because we both had different ideas. And when we came together it was great, but we both also had our own sections so that we didn't feel like it was overstepping anybody's boundaries. And so that was a key thing is like let's not overstep our boundaries of who's gonna do what and be able to listen to each other.

And I think that's big part too is that, is, I can't imagine it's really goes back to communication. All of this kind of goes back to communication. So if you have a spouse that has a hard time communicating how do you get that spouse to communicate?

[00:20:11] Cheri Timko: So communication is what everybody talks about and miscommunications and how that plays out, and that's the lightning rod for lots and lots of problems. When couples work really well together, they are smarter about their relationship and it then takes a lot of pressure off the communication because things run more smoothly.

One of the things that makes a huge difference when you're running a business, and this doesn't matter whose business it is, when couples have regular touchpoints in their day and there isn't a list that these are the touchpoints that you have to have, but they're the ones that make sense for you.

But they're tiny little things where you each show up and you have this connection with each other. They're things like having a moment in the morning when you say Good morning and you make eye contact and maybe you share some affection or having coffee in the morning where you have a few minutes to talk to each other or eating dinner together, talking at the end of the day.

Having a weekly date night, when you have these little anchors in your relationship, it takes the pressure off of a lot of other situations. If you know that you have your partner's attention and they have your attention for that specific time, then you know that you're gonna catch up on a lot of these things that get miscommunicated or misunderstood because you'll have their full attention.

But it also takes the pressure off the time in between so you can go out and do all these other things and then come back and know that you're gonna share it with your partner. And so they're gonna be up to speed and things aren't gonna get lost. So it just takes care of a lot of the problems.

[00:22:14] Wendy: I like that having intentional touch points so that you were making sure you're communicating, because a lot of our family leave aside of entrepreneurship, a lot of our families are like, go from the morning time they get up and by the time they see their spouse, it's like after the kids have gone to soccer, especially if you have young children and you're not in the realm to always wanna communicate by that time.

So I think that it is important that you have these touchpoints so that you know that you're gonna have that time for that communication. 

[00:22:44] Cheri Timko: So I call these relationship habits. There's something that happens every day. Now, not every time you hit one of these points, these habit points do you connect with your partner, but because it's already on the schedule, you don't have to clear space.

You don't have to negotiate when you guys are gonna connect. You just have to show up at that time with that intention to focus on your partner so it makes everything go more smoothly. And these don't have to be long things. They can be five minutes here and 10 minutes there, but you both know what to expect and when they're gonna happen.

[00:23:26] Wendy: Yeah, that's good. And I like that you cuz now we're going to spend all of this time together. And that may not work in your life where, you still wanna touch base, but it may not be. That you have a lot of time to do it, but sometime can be made intentionally for it.

[00:23:40] Cheri Timko: Yeah, and lots of people think you either wait until you have a vacation and then you really connect and you talk about all the things, or you deprioritize your marriage and you say, there'll come a point when there's time for that. And what happens then is that when you get to that point, you either go on a date or you go on vacation, and then you argue the whole time.

Why did that happen? Because you're not dealing with problems as they come up. And so it all rolls into this time that's supposed to be pleasant and connecting, and instead you're cleaning up all the stuff so that you then can have fun and connect. 

[00:24:20] Wendy: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Or I would imagine if you haven't been communicating at all, suddenly you're like, what do I talk about with you? Because you're out of the practice of talking and sharing. 

[00:24:30] Cheri Timko: Yes. The couples who haven't prioritized this throughout their relationship often. Actually, all of us fall out of the habit of talking at some point.

We just get our head focused on something else and we're just not putting that time and energy into the marriage, but when I say time and energy, it is much better to spend those five minute, 10 minutes that get sprinkled throughout your day every day than to think about it like you need two hours a week.

You don't need two hours a week, but you do, but you sprinkle 'em out. So they're five minutes here and 10 minutes there. 

[00:25:07] Wendy: And that would work better with a lot of modern families. 

So for any female entrepreneur who feels like they have to choose between their marriage or their business. What's the first step to safeguarding their marriage as they build their business.

[00:25:20] Cheri Timko: I am fully on the side of entrepreneurship and I think that women can really change the world with the way they look at things. And so there's huge untapped resources with women and solving problems. That being said, couples put their marriage at the lowest priority. We prioritize our kids, we prioritize our jobs, we prioritize everything else, and we put the last bit

into our marriage. It's often hard to get people to commit to, coaching or to therapy around their marriage because they keep saying, oh there's too many other things, and then they wait until there's a crisis and then everything blows up. So in terms of having the mindset that supports all of these things, you've gotta have a minimum amount of connection with your spouse in order to keep things rolling along.

and then when you have that vacation, you can really have that deep connection. But if you don't have your marriage as enough of a priority, that it gets fed some in between. That's when couples really become disconnected. 

[00:26:45] Wendy: So what's one step that couples can do?

[00:26:48] Cheri Timko: If your relationship is in these cycles where it's good for a while and then everything falls apart, and then something clicks and then it's good again. That is a sign that you've got some systems in your relationship that are not working very well, and most marriages will be fine through that for a while, but eventually that takes a really big toll on the relationship and so whatever level of intervention you're comfortable with, so you can read some articles online.

You can talk to someone who's had a good marriage, who has some good ideas. You can read a book, you can. Do couples coaching, you can do a course or you can work with one, one-on-one. The most intense working on the relationship is therapy. I do both. I do therapy when couples are in crisis and have stuff that they need to heal from the past.

But I also do coaching, which is much more around that disconnection. They're not spending enough time together, not prioritizing each other enough, needing to heal from something, needing to make those repairs. But really it's about let's do this right as we go forward. The first step is noticing when you have these cycles that keep repeating and knowing that's gonna take a toll.

Now most couples don't intervene there. Do you know the research says that couples wait six years of having problems before they get any help. That's six years of hurt feelings and saying things that hurt one another. That's missing opportunities. So by the time they get to six years,

it's not too late for the relationship, but there's a lot of cleanup that needs to be done. So doing something early on saves you a whole lot of pain and a whole lot of work later down the road. 

[00:28:53] Wendy: And I've heard that before, but now I've heard it in the realm of therapy that every couple should enter therapy once they're about to get married.

And I don't know if it always has to be therapy, cuz there is a lot when you get married and suddenly you're independent to, okay, you're living with somebody. The whole dynamic has changed, everything has changed. And by Six years you're both set in your ways in your marriage.

Yeah. So I've just done a couple of, premarital assessments. I love to do them, because it's really setting that couple up for success. And I had a list of things that aren't a problem now. , but are things that they should either address by doing something different now or pay attention to.

And I know that they're gonna go into those first few years of marriage with a lot less of that rockiness. Than if they had just, moved forward without any of that. 

Yeah, I was thinking about a joke, but it's kind of true is all those things that you love about your spouse that doesn't bother you when you first meet.

So I could see where some pre help in those areas would probably be beneficial. 

[00:29:59] Cheri Timko: So if you're saying things like, I just can't live with this anymore. That's probably a sign that you need some help to clean up some stuff so that your marriage works better.

[00:30:12] Wendy: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I know you have an offer for our guests, so if you could let them know what that is and how they can reach you.

[00:30:21] Cheri Timko: I have a free resource for couples around building in these touchpoints. The name is Ho hum to hell

yes. And there are three relationship habits you can start today. And I think it just gets, you started thinking about how you can be much more intentional in your relationship so that you're spending your time more, smarter with one another, and you can keep that foundation that you then can use to go out and do all of these other things, build your business, take care of your kids, knowing that you have that connection that's going to cement the relationship and be that solid base to build on.

My website is cheritimko.com. And I know you'll have that in the liner notes so that they can look that up. And there's a free resource page that also signs you up for a weekly newsletter. I love these simple tips where it's focus on this one thing for a couple of weeks and see what a different it makes, and then see if you need the next one.

But pick the ones that work best for your relationship. 

[00:31:36] Wendy: That's perfect. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. 

[00:31:41] Cheri Timko: It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:31:45] Wendy: If you love what you heard today, please subscribe and write a review.

Have an abundant week everyone.