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5 Key Concepts to Build a Strong Foundation for a Lasting Relationship
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Feb 6, 2025
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! “Hindsight,” “grass is greener,” “love is all you need” and other adages aside, you might be curious what makes a relationship strong and long? What can you do to help ensure your relationship stays strong and happy — even through the rough stuff? Here's 5 Key Concepts to help build a strong foundation for a lasting relationship. I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing! I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all. -- Links -- https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/ https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/ https://5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hold-me-tight-workshop-tickets-829023921867?aff=oddtdtcreator
View Video Transcript
0:06
hi everyone I'm Kell ooro and this is adaptable Behavior explained hi
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everybody thanks for tuning in today I have with me my husband Pat ooro and we're going to talk about five tips and
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tricks that have been foundational to our strong marriage but before we dig in I'd just like to ask you to subscribe if
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you like our content and perhaps like or share the video if you find it helpful to some that you know so I'd like to
0:31
introduce my husband Pat Uh tell us a little bit about yourself uh I am a clinical mental health counselor here at
0:38
infinite healing and wellness a survivor of complex BTSD so I'm in my
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post-traumatic growth phase and uh really eager to share uh the possibilities of growth with others so
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uh let's talk a little bit about some of the things that we've employed in our ma our marriage to strengthen over the last
0:59
24 years years and you know Pat why don't you tell us some of the first things that we did um so when we met um
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you know your faith was really important to you at the time and while I had been baptized i' never really uh practice
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Catholicism and so I had to go to catechism and we had to ask permission to to be married and I had to get
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confirmed and one of the requirements of our frier that married us was that we went to an Engaged encounter and I was
1:28
really surprised about that that event you know it was a whole weekend where we were dedicated to um we dug in we dug
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into the hard questions you know sex money parents holidays like how do you want to navigate parenting like we
1:42
really dug in in that engaged encounter yeah and I thought for me you know going into it I thought it was going to be like really churchy and it really wasn't
1:48
it was a a younger couple and a couple that had been together a long time just sharing anecdotes about navigating in
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their relationship and then they would say Hey you know separate you know do some thinking do some writing come
1:59
together and share it and so we did get to explore a lot of those hard topics and I remember watching several couples
2:05
break up during that weekend right because it's kind of the region beta Paradox where you know you just keep
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taking one step and the region beta Paradox that comes from a paper called The Peculiar longevity of things not so
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bad and I think a lot of couples go into marriage go into relationships thinking that it's the next step on a journey
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that isn't built on a foundation of stability and trust and principles and values and so this caused us to explore
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that it caused other people to explore it and I think for some people that was their region beta Paradox where they go
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oh you know I really have to make a choice and for us I I found it really
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invigorating you know I I thought that we were able to really find that the principles of our relationship how we
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wanted to build a family navigate life were kicking off you know the engaged
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encounter taught us we were on the same page of a lot of heavy hitter topics and not that it was going to be easy but
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that we were going to uh need to proactively work on some things so our first year I I'll tell everybody about
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you know the first thing that's important for a foundational topic with any relationship but specifically a
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strong marriage is communication so we made a promise to one another that we would do one thing every single year uh
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towards the proactive growth uh of our marriage and we went to a workshop on
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the base and it was called speaker listener and so we did this class where
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we learned about open honest communication uh and how that was a key to a healthy relationship and it was
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like about making sure that we're actively listening expressing that we heard the person and then feeding back
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that information to the people and there was this tile that they would say and it had all these rules about healthy
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communication and we were meant to pass the tile when it was our turn to talk and I can remember we were just like you
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know it was so hard right because you talk unless you're holding the tile so
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you know it's this practice and active listening and also in self-responsible statements which was really key and I
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remember I'm finally remember you know my first attempt at a self-responsible
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statement was like I feel like you so right and it was kind of a joke right but that's not really a self-responsible
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statement right so I think it was even though we we didn't have the tools right that we were learning how to take dull
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tools and sharpen them right and and really invest in that so that was good
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and it's a practice that we've continued to invest in and learn about and and what we didn't learn in that Workshop
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but for the sake of our listeners today I'm going to just give you a little bit of a schematic on on actually an appropriate healthy way to communicate a
4:44
need assertively and they have to have a few components so one of the components is we have to reflect what it is that we
4:50
see happening so for example when you put your cup on the table you know and I have asked you not to the story I make
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up is that you don't care about me or my needs and about that I feel you know
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disappointed hurt and frustrated and what I want is for you to show me that
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you care by not leaving the cup on the table so even though it sounds a little robotic and it sounds heady it's
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important to learn how to do that because we have to take responsibility for our emotional experience we have to
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say explicitly what it is that we're seeing or needing to communicate and then we have to make sure we talk about
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what we need coming going forward because otherwise it creates in our listener so many things that are
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maladaptive or unhealthy so communication super important we want to do it healthfully and if I can add to
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that you know that's great on the speaker side right it's like boundaries 101 um but for the listener it was a
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challenge because the focus was on active listening right but not a big focus on what happens when the
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defensiveness comes up and how do I move through that and get to empathy where I can let you have your experience not not
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become offensive or defensive right I can take perspective put myself in your
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shoes relate to those that emotional experience and just validate it whether
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it's my Truth Or Not My Truth and I think that over time you know we learned those other more advanced skills um but
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it was you know the 101 course on on how to start that practice which I think was
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good because both of us tend to be right want our way you know all of those
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things are of you know our natural dispositions and so this gave us some rules that you both have to matter
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equally and you both need to be heard equally so we got communication obviously but not everybody is very
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skillful with that so highly recommend digging into communication strategies that improve your
6:48
relationship uh we received from our wedding uh why don't you tell us about
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one of our wedding gifts that we got so one of the wedding gifts that we got was a series of work by John Gray Menor for
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Mars Women Are from Venus and uh what I learned from that was that we're
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inherently different in our roles and responsibilities and our perspectives and the way that we see the world and so
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that led us to want to explore how can we learn more about that and so we found a Love Languages group and what I
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learned in Love Languages um was really not just about the five styles of Love Languages but really what motivates each
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individual and that our motivations can be different and that they're informed um by our past and and different things
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right and and I would say that kind of goes into the second foundational piece that we're going to talk about today
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which is showing appreciation we have to learn how to show appreciation and love in the way that our partner needs to be
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loved and I I can remember that I at first thought it was just total I'm like why do I need so so let me back
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up so you know they um you know acts of service words of affirmation quality
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time gifts and physical touch for those of you who don't know and there's all kinds of really great quizzes online you
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can take and actually we'll drop a quiz in the description below for you if you want to know what your five love languages are but anyways uh one of
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Pat's five love languages that were that was important to him was words of affirmation and I wasn't someone who
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needed a lot of that and he just kept saying you know you don't tell me what I you don't tell me how I'm great you
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don't tell me what I'm doing that's helpful to you and um that you appreciate about appreciate about what I
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do to serve as your as your spouse and I can remember feeling so willful and so stubborn and like why do I have to have
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a party CU he takes the trash out you know like it's his trash too and it's his kids too I'm like why is this such a
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big deal that we need to celebrate and give him affirmation that I appreciate it because it just needs to get done and
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I I just I found that to be marriage changing because as soon as I thought
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about it and realized if I can just give him what what he needs then he has more
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in his love tank and then he's refueled and if I really say that I love him and I care about him then why would it be so
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hard to show him love in the way that he needs it shown to him and not just to show love in the way that I want it
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which in my time was Acts of service because we had little kids and I felt like I was never caught up and I just
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wanted you to do things do things to show me that you know you loved me and so I think that this was so important as
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far as showing appreciation how about you yeah I think for me what I learned and continue to learn in that is
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that you know we have a primary love language right so a balanced person kind of has a little bit of all of it but we
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have a primary that's informed by what our needs are um for me I really needed
9:46
some external validation right and um for you you needed help you felt overwhelmed by life and so you know
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again it goes to motivation where I'm motivated to do acts of service to for you right so that you get what you need
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and and you know the appreciation would be like hey thanks for doing that and
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you had this really pessimistic approach to that which was like man up and do the
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chores take the trash out and things like that and it hurt my feelings right and it demotivates so I think you know
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it's important to you know what I learned was that we tend to give what we need and it's
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important to communicate with our partner to explore within our ourselves how we're motivated and what our needs
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are and then to work on that to not belittle the other one um you know if if
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you're a gifts person maybe it's flowers or maybe you know it's making the cup of coffee in the morning or um if it's
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words of affirmation just saying I appreciate you or you know a light touch on the back or a touch on the elbow to
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just say you know you're not alone and so learning your partner's love language and I found this not just in
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relationships primary relationships I even use at work right I have co-workers and they're they're coin operated
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they're motivated by gifts and money and so if I can prioritize that for them if they know that um that I care that they
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receive the gifts um that they want and that I'm partnering with them to do that
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then then we're working together right and so it's the same thing in a relationship absolutely and it goes for with our kids too you know learning what
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makes them tick absolutely you know addressing their unmet needs through their love language is is the magic key
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to behavioral improvements in our in our Offspring so that's another piece and there's a couple of books that I highly
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recommend checking out on the topic of Love Languages and showing appreciation for people that matter in your life so
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another thing that probably seems obvious but in today's world we absolutely deprioritize quality time
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spending time together and I know that in times in our marriage our um our we
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call them the Peaks and valleys in in marriage and it's not always that we're on top of the mountain but we end up in
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lulls where things are really hard and often times this third thing spending
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quality time together is so critical for a healthy marriage and so we have always
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tried to prioritize it but with the busy lives of lots of children and busy jobs and things like that that's been an area
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that we've struggled with so yeah I remember early in our marriage we were in the car once and talking about the um
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about love what what it is to to love someone or to feel in love and I
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remember you saying oh you know chemistry kind of wears off and then you're just kind of in the grind or the doldrum of marriage right you're working
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together because you care for someone but you know you lose that chemistry and I really disagreed with that and I
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thought that that's only a reflection of how much you nurture your relationship you know the grass is greener where you
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water it and so for me you know quality time was not calendar time time on the
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clock you know at this time we sit in front of a TV with a bowl of popcorn and watch right it's that we cultivate in
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intentional intentionally right that that we're connecting and that we
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observe the more basic requirements that each of us needs in order to do that
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right whether it's kids needs and screaming kids or the laundry list of things that I need to do at work in my
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head or finances like you know we have to be able to not just compartmentalize those things but address them and then
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also allocate time and space to where we can be present in that connection so a couple of ideas that we did that that
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even in the chaos before we even knew a lot about this is we almost every night sat down and had dinner together with
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our family uh we tended to tuck in kids together we did those sorts of things
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together and we did tend to sit and watch you know television at night after the day's tasks were done and early in
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our marriage we used to get up together and we would go to the gym so even though it wasn't so intentional it was definitely time that we boxed where it
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was special for us uh and and for us we also always plan a vacation every year
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we took a week to go reconnect and figure out how do we get through how
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hard our lives are and how do we remember that we really matter to one another and vacation was so so important
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would love to qualify that that I think there's a difference between a family trip and a vacation right we we have a
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lot of children and a you know while it was a quality time with family right as
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far as nurturing our relationship it's been those vacations where even it's the station just the two of us just the two
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of us with intention and really connecting that we're the reinvigorating ones and and for those who don't have
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time or finances or things like that there's so many things that we can do we can play cards we can you know play
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pickle ball there's just you know you can go to the public park and play tennis there's so many things that we can do to intentionally plan for quality
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time this year our 2024 goal has been I'll just I won't go into it too deeply because uh it's not necessary but we
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have a nice little um routine now in the morning that's specifically for quality
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time and it's before we kick off our day we have set the alarm 30 minutes of cuddling for our oy kin boost which
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increases dopamine we are cold plunging for 3 minutes uh up to 11 or 12 minutes
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a week and then we're meditating following the cold plunge for 20 to 30 minutes every single day before we kick
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off our day and I have just absolutely loved that yeah I for me too quity time
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I would expand on that right because quality time is different than time right right so if I think earlier in our
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relationship the I'm not a morning person so the getting up to the workout to do the things that didn't feel like
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quality time to me and it didn't recharge my capacity so I think this
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agreement that we have now which is you know what do we need right for me it was a slower start it was actually
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connecting it was not having a a task list right so for for many that might be just like scheduling hey we're going to
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have 10 minutes we're going to have a coffee together or we're just going to sit you know in the quiet together but
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but an emphasis on quality right put our phones down putting everything yeah I totally appreciate that so so that's
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been kind of for us the quality time piece and spending time together so critical the the next thing that we're
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going to talk about is affection so the way that everybody shows affection and needs affection is different especially
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based on your attachment system and what you were shown as a child where there are deficits and so but in every human
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relationship affection is really critical to a strong and healthy experience and so uh whether that's
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holding hands or with someone's hair back rubs it's not just about physical
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uh not about sexual intimacy but it's about all the other touches that are so subtle that we have to really prioritize
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and make sure and depending on someone's trauma story that may feel really uncomfortable so one of our
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responsibilities in our marriages is if if if you have a partner who is sexually abused or something and they are uh
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reluctant to be physically close because of their neurobiology from threat as a child that's their responsibility to
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really work on and try to make improvements through their own trauma therapy so they can move safely toward
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in affectionate ways in their marriage um and so that's that can be something that we have to address and really
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communicating with our partners what good touch is is so so critical I know
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that I uh our our you know our love languages actually change and I'm not as
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much service anymore as I am physical touch and quality time I really am much more needy for like hugs and kisses and
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Connection in that way than I was when when our kids were small and I always felt overwhelmed with the tasks and I
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think I would add to that that uh it's you know when it comes to affection it's quality affection Right it it doesn't
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mean forced intimacy so I know for me in my nervous system you know if I felt
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triggered or I felt vulnerable it was often very hard for me to be in in that
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space and then I feel like I'm failing cuz I'm not being affected right so
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diagnostically looking at like boundaries and and rights is is moving into that space is respecting that space
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and appreciating that it's not rejection of the other partner right but it's an
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it's a lack of attachment to self right so for a lot of our marriage I was hard
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to pet right hard to hug a porcupine yeah it we used to use that term like
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sometimes I'm in a porcupine Moon Mood and it and it's and it can be a little bit difficult so affection changes right
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affection could be recognizing that and being able to just be a you know tolerate our own discomfort to give the
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partner a little bit of space while still you know remaining connected I really love that you said that I think
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that's so necessary and important um so tell me when you realized that we had
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different paths uh and different values about certain ideals uh because you and
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I are very different and we buted heads for the first long time in our marriage and so share with
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our audience something that you realized in your journey I think for me uh you
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know it's been a journey and perspective taking so U my counselor I worked with for over a decade on my own trauma story
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and one of her mentors was a forensic psychologist Dr Smith and um so she had
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suggested I do kind of a personality profile workout to just learn who I was was and how I ticked so I think we did
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like uh I did the Myers Briggs and enig mmpi and mmpi right so we I do all of
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these assessments and she sends them off to Dr Smith and he comes back with this write up that was just spoton about kind
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of what how I was motivated and what made me tick and what my value system seemed to be and the interesting thing
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was that because it was so spot-on and enlightening um we had you do it as well
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and then he did them for us as a couple and one one of the things I you know I listen to those recordings annually just
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to remind myself and you know the thing that really stuck out was that we are
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Polar Opposites on every Spectrum introvert extrovert like our personality
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like what motivates us we're exact opposites and he was puzzled by like you
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know we must have a shared value shared principles shared you know motivation or life goals that kept us together um plus
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you know a good sprinkling of chemistry because on paper we were just total opposites and the way I have really
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embodied that is I'm I'm visual so I almost see like the yin and yang symbol
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where we're equal um but opposite but we're fluid in that we can give and take
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and make room for the other but there's also part of each other with within us and being able to take that perspective
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when we would go into conflict right is I could not just go why don't you see it my way but of course you're seeing it
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from 180° out because that's how we're wired but the focus on that we're always
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looking at the same goal or destination so if I can have appreciation for your perspective and you can have
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appreciation for mine and our values and our skills and our abilities right that
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we are an ultimate team right that we have the ingredients to be a master couple I remember the first day that I
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really saw that so concretely and it was you know we would argue about every
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little stupid thing from you know where are you parking the car I mean I would have something to say if you were
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parking somewhere that I didn't agree with and from the passenger seat and you would do the same if I were driving you
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know and so you know the metaphor or the I guess the experience in that moment was you were parking somewhere so that
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the door didn't get dinked which is really reasonable and rational and I would want to park in a place that
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didn't get the steering wheel hot from the sun because it was Midsummer in Arizona and we both had a reason for
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wanting to park in a different space that was considered prior to making the decision and knowing that it's like okay
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then let's park where a car won't ding us and the steering wheel won't be on fire so it's like now that we know how
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to better hear one another and have perspective uh and communicate those different those different um Vantage
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points we have far fewer arguments and I think we appreciate each other for our
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differences in the that we have yeah and appreciation for perspective right so if you want to learn more about your
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differences in your marriage there are awesome online free resources we we were lucky enough to have an analyst but you
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can go online and do a dis assessment you can do a Love Languages assessment you can do the um enag test which is
23:19
awesome and that if you do those tests with your partner and then discuss the differences it'll give you a nice
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foundation on which to build and discuss ways that we can show appreciation for one another and communicate those needs
23:32
the fifth topic that we're going to talk about in all marriages that's needed is to be supportive of one another and that
23:38
includes growing together I know that one of the things that we talked about early on in that first weekend even was
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about I don't expect to be uh set in stone at this point I
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expect to grow in change I'm 22 years old I don't know what I'm going to look like in you know 5 10 15 years and so
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are you are you down to to grow and unpack our luggage together and you were
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because we both didn't know what that should look like but I didn't think we should plan on being stagnant that we
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should plan on changing and growing together and so one of the things that we we did was go to gotman so why don't
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you talk to us about gotman and our plan of support and growing old together yeah in in a nutshell I think it's important
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you know words are important we don't say let's become old together we say let's grow old together and so the Gman
24:31
Workshop uh and a lot of the skills that they have are not just analyzing you know what's positive and negative about
24:37
your relationship style uh your communication Styles and things like that but it's future planning it's
24:43
future proofing and saying how do I take time to make sure in a supportive way
24:48
that my partner as an individual human walking the Earth gets to accomplish and achieve the things that they want in
24:55
their life alongside me as an indiv idual and how I walk the wor Earth and
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and what I want to gain and so you know there's this kind of approach to
25:06
exploring what we want out of life and then devising a plan to make sure that we both get to experience it uh together
25:13
without having to completely sacrifice who we are and what we want to be and what we want to do and so this year that
25:19
we did that that was the thing or the workshop that we went to and it wasn't even that we were needing it at that
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point it was just like this is the thing we're going to do this year and uh I can remember uh pulling out you know one of
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the questions was like what do you want your life to look like when you're ready to retire you know and it's Beach or is
25:36
it mountains or is it this or is it that or is it grandkids like what what's the future need to look like for you and we
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checked all of that out and we we were really effective I think we did a great job uh I I we we'll have a whole show
25:49
about this but we ended up changing the whole trajectory about where we lived and how we lived because of this
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workshop and I think that it is really been an amazing experience and that we changed our house and we bought a boat
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and we now have a second place that we can spend more quality time together and be close to the water and all of that un
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unraveled because of the workshop which was not even on our radar to do in that
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time so I think that it's so critical to look at how to grow old together and be supportive of each other's desires and
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future goals so for me it's not just about lifestyle as well right it's about
26:28
feeling accomplished right so just like we went you know in our engaged encounter and exploring like what's
26:34
important to us it's not losing sight of those things right and falling into a role uh within the relationship over
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decades right so how do I still feel invested in my relationship and feel like that investment helps me live the
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life that I want to live not just with my partner right but but accomplish you know my goals and my Big Five in life
26:55
right so uh just really being proactive about about that in in future planning you know we changed our relationship
27:01
with debt and finances and boundaries with family and all of that so that we could take those steps and oftentimes
27:07
when I talk to couples uh or people that kind of feel stuck so there's this uh
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kind of the misnomer of the midlife crisis and often times that's a result of unaccomplished or unachieved goals
27:19
within life and feeling kind of Trapped or on a path that is too hard to alter
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right and so it's really future planning and future proofing that so that you can set shared goals right and and have
27:32
compromise in those goals so that both people feel fulfilled within the relationship and within life yeah that's
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great so the next year that we uh worked on
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something in a workshop and not just a retreat or or something like that was uh the hold me tight workshop and boy I
27:51
wish we had done that much earlier in our marriage because we learned so much about our own personal negative
27:56
interaction cycle and the dance that we play in our conflict and we really didn't at that point know very well how
28:04
to repair so our communication wasn't excellent about how to repair how to Circle back take accountability and we
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didn't really understand our own attachment wounds to the same degree and how it played into our conflict and so
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that was a really important Workshop that we went to um because we learned a lot about our dance yeah and I continue
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to invest in Sue Johnson's work uh so whether you can read a book or go to that Workshop I highly recommend men but
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um you know that to me isn't just about knowledge it's about a practice right
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and reinforcing that practice to make sure that we don't just get kind of siloed in our perspective or our need
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right but that we realize you know this isn't um a solo dance right that I'm I'm in a partnership with somebody else and
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we step on each other's toes and somebody sometimes somebody needs to lead and sometimes somebody needs to
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give that leader some feedback right so that they can follow and that we need to change those roles and cre space for
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each other so that was really continues to be very rewarding to invest um in in
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her work and recognizing that when we are in Conflict it's not me it's not you it's our cycle that's gotten the best of
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us and I think that helps to untangle and unshame that process and that dance and and to repair and to have a pause
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button right you know and to kind of reset our nervous systems and and get back to our values which is we want to
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be in connection we don't want to be in conflict and we don't want to perpetuate conflict so how do we hit pause how do
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we try to remember that we love each other that we can work through it that we have the skills to do that and then
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and then break that cycle and that that Workshop actually preempted our beginning couples therapy with a with a
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really qualified EFT couples therapist who has taught us oh so much and I think that experience in that first round of
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couples therapy with her really was pivotal in US understanding our dance
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much more intimately and the part that we each played and you know she was able to speak with each of our individual
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therapists and make sure that we were working on things that were directly impacting our conflict in our marriage
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and that was a major metamorphosis in our conflict and our ability to repair and have conflict resolution much faster
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we repair much faster now and circle back much faster which that's that's the thing people are uh make no mistake
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there's no such thing as having close connection and relationships that don't have conflict they're never going to be
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conflict free but we can learn how to resolve Circle back and rep much more quickly and that's really the goal of of
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learning your cycle and things like that yeah I am a I'm a trauma and attachment
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therapist I'm not a couples therapist by trade uh but when I refer my clients to
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couples therapy I I always recommend an EFT an emotionally focused therapy trained uh clinician that helps them
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navigate that deals with the nervous system not just shoulds and supposed do and rules but talks about the attachment
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and co-regulation and I think that's so necessary in in a marriage so thank you so much for for sharing with us and the
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viewers uh your part in our marriage and the things that we've worked on together over the last 25 years to have an even
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stronger marriage than we ever thought we could and uh I think we've now just passed both of our parents as far as how
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long they've made it so we're we're we're doing a pretty good job there I feel proud of our our commitment and our
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hard work together and so hopefully you found some of these things helpful I
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really recommend proactively working on your marriage because our lives change
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and we know the variable of change is 100% guaranteed and so if we proactively
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work on our relationship and the skills that we need to continue to improve and build our connection and strengthen our
31:46
connection we're so much better off for it and everybody in our families are better off for our strengthened communication and connection as well so
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thank you so much for tuning in to this episode I hope that you found it useful helpful and remember to lead with love
32:00
it'll never steer you [Music]
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wrong
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