Our secrets for a healthy & lasting marriage (10 tips we wish we knew)

If you're thinking about getting married at 23 like we did, don't do it. Don't do it. Wait to get married. So it's been a minute since we've done an Ask Jen and Ben video. We've been married for 16 years now, if you can believe it. I don't want to be the person who's like, Oh, we don't look as old as we are because there's so many people. Flaming people our age being like, Oh, you guys do look your age. But I like to think that we have a youthful energy. I'm about turning 40 this year. So being that we have been married for the entire amount of someone who can drive now, we thought it would be really fun to go through and just give you our best juicy marriage survival tips. Well thought of. Meditated on this for like days. At least five minutes. Five minutes. I'm just kidding. Days. No, it took us a while. We really put some heart and soul into these tips and I really think they will be helpful and applicable to anybody who's in a long term relationship, marriage, even in like a regular dating relationship. It could be really helpful. You're just going to be ahead of the curve. Let's go ahead and jump right into it. Tip number one, your relationship comes first. When you're married, you quickly find there are other relationships that will try to take priority. Once you have kids, your kids become your whole world and it's easy to lose sight of the foundation that you have. I don't know if any of you guys have ever experienced this shifting in relationships when you're bestie, all of a sudden has a boyfriend and then like you don't see them anymore. Communication gets kind of weird. It could just be a little strange. So once you're married, everything between you and your spouse has to be number one. It's really about establishing good boundaries. I think a good example of this is when we were first married, our apartment was extremely close to where my parents live. My mom kept showing up kind of unannounced. She would do really amazing, good, generous things like bring over food. But then when she was over, she would also criticize like if we hadn't washed all of the dishes yet, she would start washing the dishes, but then also like making comments about it. And if one of us got sick, we would hear a lot of like disparaging comments that made a big strain on the relationship. We're trying to be like newlyweds and figure out how to have a household together. It made it difficult. When you have kids and you decide, okay, you're going to sleep in your bedroom and you and your spouse are going to sleep in your own room. A lot of times kids try to like squeak in the bed. I'm not here to judge how anybody else parents as Koreans, like we were all raised sleeping with our parents, with our moms. But I think that from the beginning for us, it was just a boundary that we said, okay, we still want to have our own sleeping arrangement, our own bed. The kids need to learn how to sleep in their own beds to give them independence, but then to us also have our own separate room to ourselves as well. You know, when they come in, we'll just like help them go back to their bed because we get better sleep. They get better sleep. It's all about boundaries. Number two, never stop chasing the other person. I know people say like never stop dating. Even after you're married, make sure you go on dates. But I think for us, it goes kind of beyond that. Our version of that is looking inward at ourselves, at our own insecurities, the things that we feel like don't make us feel like 100. That could be skincare, hair, fashion, working out, how you eat, just the things that we kind of feel self-conscious about. If we actively work on those things to try to level ourselves up, it makes us feel more attractive. Like we're doing that for the other person. And I think that we recognize our self-confidence that comes out of it feels like we're putting in that effort for the other person as well. Like I know I feel a lot of love when you started doing like your daily skincare routine. Are you still putting in effort into your appearance even though you've been with each other a long time? I think the answer should be yes. It shows that you still care about the other person being attracted to you. It doesn't matter how long you've been together. I hope that we never stop trying to level ourselves up for each other. I feel like this is the perfect place to share with you guys about the iRestore Elite device. They're sponsoring this video, which we are so thankful for. So the iRestore Elite device is a low-level laser therapy device. It has LEDs and red light lasers within this and it helps stimulate your hair follicles. It's really good for hair growth. I was using it for my hair literally as soon as we got it. I feel like your eyes got little stars in them. Family history of thin hair. I wanted to do something about it. It's been four months now, I think. I actually noticed I lose way less hair in the shower now. It's been really convenient because I can just still do 99% of the tasks while I'm walking around. I really wanted to see if there was anything out there that was drug-free, surgery-free. I know results, not instantaneous, but I'm excited to see what I can get out of it. If you're interested in checking out the Elite device, I will have that information in the info box down below. I'm gonna add my code to the screen right here. It'll save you $625 on this device. It also has, I think, a 12-month return guarantee. So if it doesn't work out for you, you can just return it. We'll try to keep you guys updated on our progress as well. Oh, yeah. Tip three. You need to say one more thing I was looking down. Tip three. Always be building trust. Really think hard about what that means. What does it take to build trust? Honesty, being very brutally honest, where you're being very vulnerable and real, but over the course of time. In our household, the whole honesty thing is like a really, really huge priority, at least it is for me. I want to be able to give like 100,000% trust in you so that in the times when I'm struggling, I know I can depend on you. Like I have no doubt in my mind. I'm not just gonna play the kid card, but I think that there are certain milestones in your life that you go through as a couple that really expose a lot of very sensitive, emotional things about yourself. Like the broken parts, the shameful parts, the scary parts. And that, I don't want to say can make or break a relationship. For us, that really helped us go to the next level in terms of asking for help, in terms of being really, really honest with how we're feeling. But it takes a lot of humility, and that's something that we're not all equipped to do right away. I think you were there a lot faster than I was there. It took me years, I think, to get to that point. I mean, I've also had more therapy than you. That is true. And I probably also came in with more trauma than you. That is true. Child of immigrants. But just, yeah, just remember that honesty is an invaluable currency, and it really cannot be replaced by anything else. It doesn't matter how many gifts you give someone. It doesn't matter how many promises, how much security you think they're going to give you. It's something that has to be built up into your like soul bank, you know? Your trust fund. All right, we can delete that. No, that was amazing. I'm probably the first dad that's ever thought of that joke, I'm sure. It was beautiful, honestly. French. Wait, French? That's chef's kiss. French kiss. Wow. I didn't know it was going to be that kind of video. Number four. You were looking down when I said this. It's a communication. Nice. It's important to communicate and talk often about how you feel, and this is kind of relating to what we had just mentioned. It's important to share the things that are your personal sore spots, your personal traumas, your personal triggers. It's different for everyone, and you cannot expect, even after like a decade of being married to someone, that they will know what those things are unless you're super blatant and pretty frequent in talking about those things. Communication is one of the only ways to build trust. Especially when you're parents. You find that it's the end of the week, you guys were super busy taking care of the kids, working, doing all of the millions of obligations you have to do, and then you just realize, oh my gosh, I have all of this built up stress and anxiety, and we never got to just sit down and talk like friends. When it's hardest for us, we don't just take that time. Five. Never stop showing appreciation. Out of all of these, this is the one that doesn't go too deep. Saying things like, oh thanks for cooking dinner, thanks for vacuuming, thanks for defurminating Oreo for the 10th time this week because he's shedding like crazy. Just even everyday things like, thank you for washing the dishes. Instead of feeling complacent, we're so comfortable, we don't need to say those things, that's just stuff that we're supposed to do. It's like always validating them and giving them compliments and like recognizing that you don't take them for granted. It's like when you do your makeup, I will still sometimes be like, oh I really like that eye shadow, or like, yeah, I really like how you did your blush today. Yeah, he notices. You've done your makeup a million times. When I cook something different and you're like, oh this is the best you've made it, I'm like, maybe I should open a restaurant. It just makes you feel really loved and appreciated to not take the little things for granted. Six. Be on the same team. This is specifically when you're like arguing. Before you're married, your natural instinct is just self-preservation. Your first priority is just to respond with like defensiveness and try to explain your side, to try to say no, like I was right, you're wrong, this is why you're wrong, this is the list of reasons why you're wrong. You try to logic your way through it, but you kind of have to step back away from you guys being the only two people and kind of look at it from a third perspective and say, okay, what are you actually gaining if you win the argument? It's no longer thinking about it like a friend or a roommate, it's like you both have the same long-term goal. If you made a vow to be there forever, you have a lot invested with them. There's some things we disagree on, but there's a lot of things that we have to set aside pride for a second to try to figure out how to fix something. We have some different emotional wavelengths sometimes, like I'm a very emotional person, I cry easily, I have a lot of tones in my emotional spectrum. Ben is a little bit more what you see is what you get, he really wears his emotions on his sleeve. When he's angry, he's angry, when he's happy, he's happy, and we always joke about this. Ben has times when he's just smooth brain, and that doesn't exist for me. Yeah, I will openly admit, we're arguing and Jen's like, I thought you were doing this, I'm like, no, there's smooth brain, there's no deeper alternative motive. So I think that when we're arguing, you kind of have to realize, sometimes it's just that your pitch is different, and you're not going to end up seeing eye to eye, so you just have to kind of step back and say, okay, it's better to resolve however we're feeling than to be right, than to be the winner of the argument. Right. This is like a golden rule for us, if there's a little thing that you're trying not to laugh at, just laugh, just smile. It always makes it better, like it never makes it worse. If your sole purpose in the argument is to win, your relationship doesn't win. That's such a beautiful way of putting it, I like that. I'm really good with words. And pick and choose your battles, because resolving is way more important than winning. Every little battle, like it doesn't have to be the hill you die on, and even between us, we still squabble like pretty frequently, they just never become big problems, because we just like figure it out right away. Seven. Practice empathy. And I'm almost saying this to myself, because I'm the one that needs to practice it the most. No, I think we both do. You're being so sweet, but no. You guys, like he is the one who has read the Brene Brown books, and like will share this information with me. Something I was dealing with a lot was like the first person syndrome of like, if I have a lot going on in my brain, that doesn't mean that you also don't have that. That doesn't mean that you are just like there waiting to hear about how frustrated I am or how mad I am. Also, a lot of how I'm acting is really reflecting in how you're feeling. And so yeah, I'm super sensitive to his moods. I try not to be, but like I'm just the kind of person where I'm always trying to like take care of everybody else's feelings and like making sure everybody's okay. It was eye-opening to think that like, if I'm upset and I'm slamming stuff around, that's gonna make you upset. It does. I need to think outside the box of like my own reaction chamber. Again, as a parent, you were forced into this position whether you want to or not, because your kid will not wait for you to manage your own feelings before you just have to take care of theirs and care about how they feel, respond to their big emotions. But like rewind before you even get to kids. If you're just like in a marriage without kids or if you never want kids, it's a muscle that you practice. Yeah. I really believe that. Empathy is a big part of emotional intelligence that you have to work on to get stronger. And just for like a crash course, Brené Brown has a great TED Talk out there. If you're struggling with it or... I don't want to say if empathy is new to you, but like if it's... If you've never learned about it, then you think you know what it means to be empathetic. But when you really like research and put a little bit more of your time into understanding what the other person needs in an empathetic situation and not just what you want to give them, I think that you learn a lot more what it really means to be empathetic. So somebody's sad and upset and they're hurting and the person that is trying to fix it by doing like an act of service says like, oh, do you want a sandwich? My mom does that one all the time. But the person doesn't want a sandwich. There's another example of someone who is too emotionally connected with a person who is upset and gets upset themselves and starts crying more. You're taking on your own thing and that's kind of detracting from the person who's trying to figure out their own issues. I think the long and short of being empathetic is really understanding how to listen to the other person's feelings and validate them and just say, look, it sounds like you're going through a really hard time and I am here for you. I don't necessarily know how to take away your pain, but I am here to be with you, sit next to you and listen. Point eight, learn how to respond to emotional crises. Listen without judgment, be able to learn how to validate without making it about you and being supportive without trying to criticize or like direct what they should be doing, which is I think also a tricky thing. I think we're all familiar with sorry, not sorry. I'm sorry, but... Yeah, and if you're trying to resolve something, if you're trying to fix something, doing that kind of half-hearted stuff, your partner is smart enough to notice that. In my opinion, that's way many more steps back. That's actually not any kind of step forward. It just makes the argument last way longer, more feelings heard. Their words said sorry, but they're just being defensive. They really just think they're better than me. They really just, you know, think that they're right and I'm wrong. You don't want either of your head spaces to go there. Because again, you want to get back to the situation where you resolve the conflict from the perspective that you're both on the same side. You're both working to help each other fix a problem. Number nine is one of my favorite ones. Be supportive of each other's interests. I feel like Ben at least feigns interest when I talk about the differences between two very interesting pink blushes that are slightly different. The good example for this that you like to talk about is the bird outside the window. The bird outside of the window is there's a couple and one person says, oh, there's an interesting bird outside the window. Does the other person say, oh, wow, that is a really cool looking bird. Look at that interesting looking bird. Or does the other person say, there's lots of birds outside, whatever. It's not about the bird. It's about caring that the other person cares. I think a lot of times when we have different interests in a relationship, like for instance, Ben is like a diehard Star Wars fan. I dig it. I've watched all the movies. I like liking what you like because you like it. Vice versa, you getting into sewing and showing off the different patterns you're trying, the different techniques you learned when you did your first zipper. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was exciting. Well, I thought it was. Obviously, we've been married for 16 years. We dated for seven years before that. There have been plenty of times in our relationship where I was like, look at this cool thing. And you were like, where we, we mutually didn't respond the way we had hoped. But the more that we intentionally care about each other's interests, the more I think it helps feed the interest in our relationship. You have shared interests with me for like playing certain games together or watching movies together. Yeah. I've also read books that you have. He read all of ACOTAR. Did I read Twilight? I think I read Twilight. At least a good portion of it back in the day. I was really into Ender's Gang. And I got you into that. I gobbled that up. That was so fun. In a very non-judgmental way. Number 10. Be super upfront with telling the other person what you need. This is down to personalities as well. But I think sometimes a lot of women are more on the intuitive side and they like want guys to pick up on how they feel and what they need and what they want without having to say it outright. Like I think girls almost sometimes do this as like a test to see if they're really being a good boyfriend or husband, you know? But instead of being like, oh, I'm so cold. And then expecting your husband to go and close the window. You could just say, honey, can you go close the window? I'm feeling a little cold. It's the same thing, but it's not the same thing at all. When I'm cooking dinner, if I start to get overwhelmed, one thing I think is like, man, it's going to take forever just to get this finished up. But if somebody could just come in and put the dish settings out, like that would help so much. But sometimes I don't vocalize that. And so it's just like bottled up stress of like, oh, I need to do all of these different things before we eat. But instead I could just be like, help. Instead of just holding it in and trying to act like you are going to be strong for everyone. You don't have to be strong for everyone. If you just communicate your spouse is there to also help distribute that burden. Remember you're a team. Okay. Well, I guess that's about it for our super fun marriage tips. Oh yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. I realized we forgot to go into why we actually said don't get married at age 23. Because honestly, a lot of these things take time. It takes time and respect and really working on your own pride. Yeah. And I think that when you're 23, it's really hard to do that. I think we happen to be a lucky percentage that like we grew together, you know, like we grew in the same direction. You're always going to be growing and changing as people, as human beings throughout your whole life, whether you try to or not. And you want to make sure you're both on the same page growing together. Because if you're not growing together, you will be growing apart. Period. So make that choice. I guess that's a little bonus. Number 11. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you found these tips at least food for thought. We love you guys so much. Please feel free to hit thumbs up in the comments. Leave us your best like marriage advice tips. Those nuggets that you go to like a wedding. There's always somebody that leaves something that's like sticks with you forever. So leave us one of those. So we can all share our knowledge of how to be happier, healthier couples. We love you guys. Bye.