Her husband would not get clean. So she left, took the baby, and told him: this family is drug free, and you are invited. Was that manipulation? Or was it the thing that saved both of them? In this episode Patrick and Maddie Martinez break down what a boundary actually is, and what it is not. When a marriage is in crisis, most advice you find is written for couples who are not on fire. This is for the ones who are.

Before you can grow anything, you have to stop watering the weeds. They cover why boundaries are freedom and not a cage, how the same approach works with your kids, the boundaries they hold each other to in their own marriage, and the story of two friends whose wedding had an entire front row of empty chairs. This episode is drawn from Lesson 4 of Survive & Thrive, Patrick's ten lesson, 42 day guided course for couples in crisis. Get the full course at PatrickEMartinez.com/relationship-rescue 

Part 2 turns into the argument the whole story was actually about: whether your body gets to make your decisions for you. She has a panic attack and reads it as her answer. Maddie, who has lived with anxiety and panic attacks most of her life, makes the case that a nervous system response is conditioned rather than true, and that the real question is whether your reaction to a situation is actually logical. Then there is the prayer, the sign she went looking for, and one line near the end that reframes the entire story.

Part 2 of 2. Start with Part 1.

Courses, blog and free 15 minute call at PatrickEMartinez.com

A woman posts a story time about why she left her husband. It gets millions of views and a comment section full of people telling her she did the right thing. Patrick and Maddie Martinez watch the whole thing and keep running into the same problem: almost none of the story is actually there.

Patrick is a relationship coach, and his first move with any client is an hour of questions before a single piece of advice. So that is what this episode is. What did he actually say. What did she actually hear. Why did he not want her staying at her parents' house. What does the word abuse mean, and does anything described here meet it. Maddie takes the friend's side of it: how do you listen to someone in pain without either dismissing them or handing them a divorce.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome, and the viral TikTok we are reacting to

00:15 Her story: gallbladder surgery and a week and a half away

02:46 What is missing from this story

03:14 The questions a real friend would ask

04:43 Patrick's coaching call: 50 minutes of listening first

05:50 Why you need to hear his side too

07:21 Judging a marriage on one person's account

08:43 What respect actually means

10:38 When concern gets heard as criticism

12:38 He failed in the moment, and what he should have said

13:21 A communication problem, not a divorce problem

14:01 Choosing to love when you want to withdraw

16:40 The problem with "love wouldn't do this"

17:34 260,000 likes and one side of the story

19:49 She calls it abuse, and Patrick defines the word

21:55 "You would have to be the one to leave me"

22:53 Rewriting the marriage after you have already decided

24:51 Praying for direction and hearing what you want

26:15 Disrespect: never asking why he objected

27:38 The panic attack in the car

30:08 Wrapping up

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Tenacity Podcast is hosted by Patrick Martinez, relationship coach, with his wife and co-host Maddie Martinez. Marriage, relationships, and the work of staying in it.

Free course, Should We Stay Together?, and the full Survive & Thrive program are both at PatrickEMartinez.com/relationship-rescue

#marriage #divorce #relationshipadvice #marriageadvice #tenacitypodcast

Patrick and Maddie wrote eight rules, framed them, and hung them on the wall. This is the story of the Martinez family code, where it came from, and what actually changed in the house after they started living by it.

This is a special episode of The Tenacity Podcast, cut from Lesson 3 of the Survive & Thrive course.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Talk to your kids first

0:54 The morning that is already won by nine

2:43 The Martinez family code, all eight rules

5:25 Before the pills, check sleep food and movement

7:25 What actually changed in our house

8:44 My ten year old called the cookies poison

THE MARTINEZ FAMILY CODE

1. We listen to our consciences and serve the Lord

2. We respect each other

3. We control our emotions and don't speak in anger

4. We are thankful and don't complain

5. We exercise and care for our bodies and minds

6. We eat healthy foods

7. We protect each other

8. We do hard things

IN THIS EPISODE

Why safeguarding your family starts with talking to your kids rather than handing them rules. What a Martinez homeschool morning looks like, stretching and a short discussion based Bible study, and why by nine in the morning the important things are already done. Where the family code came from. What Patrick thinks parents should check before reaching for a prescription. What changed in their youngest daughter once the routine held. And what happened when she walked in, looked at a box of Girl Scout cookies on the counter, and asked her dad what it was.

The code came out of reading The Way of the Warrior Kid by Jocko Willink together as a family, a chapter a night, which is where the idea of writing your own code came from.

Patrick Martinez is a life coach and the host of The Tenacity Podcast. He and his wife Maddie work with couples in crisis.

Survive & Thrive is the full paid course this episode is cut from.

PatrickEMartinez.com

She found a divorce lawyer, told her husband she was done, and he finally started showing up. Now he packs the lunches, runs the school drop-offs, coaches the sports and volunteers to bring the snacks without being asked. Everybody in the comments called it a win.

In Part 2, Patrick and Maddie Martinez get into what that story actually shows. Whether a man who changes because he is terrified of losing custody has really changed. Whether she could have gotten the same result without ever saying the word divorce. What happened when they laid out a deck of cards and she ended up holding 73 of them and he held four. And why swapping the imbalance instead of solving it puts a couple right back in the same fight two years later with the names reversed.

The core of it: stop trying to make the list even. Divide it by who is faster, who is better at it, and who actually has the time this week. The goal is a household with less stress in it, not a scoreboard that comes out tied.

If you missed Part 1, watch that first.

More from Patrick and Maddie at PatrickEMartinez.com. Online courses are up now, and Patrick's book is out this summer.

New episodes every week. Subscribe so the next one finds you.

Patrick and Maddie Martinez react to the viral TikTok where a woman says threatening divorce saved her marriage. They break down why an ultimatum is manipulation instead of partnership, how it can backfire fast, and the honest way to fix an unfair workload at home. Part 1.

Chapters:0:00 The viral "divorce saved my marriage" video0:39 "I threatened divorce and it was the best thing I ever did"2:02 First reactions4:21 Why it's a dangerous play6:02 The honest way to ask for change8:36 Three days off, but half the time with your kids10:45 Patrick's 2015 divorce and the baby in the box14:07 What divorce really does to kids and adults

Free course: "Should We Stay Together?" at PatrickEMartinez.com

Subscribe for new episodes of The Tenacity Podcast.

Compatibility is not chemistry. Here are the five things you have to resolve before you marry someone.Patrick and Maddie walk through the issues that will not sink a relationship on their own, but will absolutely wreck a marriage if you ignore them going in. These are not the deal breakers. They are the things you have to understand, address, and reach a real working agreement on before you say yes.They cover knowing yourself well enough to know what you actually bring and what you actually need, finding someone whose values genuinely line up with yours, setting appropriate boundaries with family and friends, being honest about sexual attraction and where it fits, and handling a personality that clashes with yours instead of pretending it will sort itself out later.If you resolve these now, you save yourself the fight later. If you skip them, you inherit them.Take the course to go deeper: patrickemartinez.com/relationship-rescue/Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen. Search The Tenacity Podcast.The Tenacity Podcast is hosted by Patrick and Maddie Martinez, helping couples move from crisis to a thriving relationship. New episodes weekly.#Marriage #RelationshipAdvice #TenacityPodcast #PremaritalCounseling #MarriageCoach #DatingAdvice #ChristianMarriage

Compatibility is not chemistry. Here are the five things you have to resolve before you marry someone.Patrick and Maddie walk through the issues that will not sink a relationship on their own, but will absolutely wreck a marriage if you ignore them going in. These are not the deal breakers. They are the things you have to understand, address, and reach a real working agreement on before you say yes.They cover knowing yourself well enough to know what you actually bring and what you actually need, finding someone whose values genuinely line up with yours, setting appropriate boundaries with family and friends, being honest about sexual attraction and where it fits, and handling a personality that clashes with yours instead of pretending it will sort itself out later.If you resolve these now, you save yourself the fight later. If you skip them, you inherit them.Take the course to go deeper: patrickemartinez.com/relationship-rescue/Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen. Search The Tenacity Podcast.The Tenacity Podcast is hosted by Patrick and Maddie Martinez, helping couples move from crisis to a thriving relationship. New episodes weekly.#Marriage #RelationshipAdvice #TenacityPodcast #PremaritalCounseling #MarriageCoach #DatingAdvice #ChristianMarriage

Chemistry fades. These eight qualities are what actually hold a marriage together.In this episode, Patrick and Maddie break down the eight qualities that actually matter when you are evaluating someone as a spouse, not just a partner. They split them into two tiers. Tier one covers the non negotiables: honesty as the foundation everything else is built on, humility, respect, and knowing yourself well enough to know what you actually need in a partner. Tier two rounds out the list: compatible values, appropriate boundaries with family and friends, sexual attraction, and personality compatibility, including how to work through the clashes instead of ignoring them.Take the course to go deeper: patrickemartinez.com/relationship-rescue/Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen. Search The Tenacity Podcast.The Tenacity Podcast is hosted by Patrick and Maddie Martinez, helping couples move from crisis to a thriving relationship. New episodes weekly.#Marriage #RelationshipAdvice #TenacityPodcast #PremaritalCounseling #MarriageCoach #DatingAdvice #ChristianMarriage

In this one, Maddie and I talk about something people ask us all the time. How did you two actually become best friends, not just husband and wife?

So we break it down. What it took to get there, why you have to choose your spouse's company over everyone else's, and why the differences didn't matter nearly as much as we thought they would. I even bring up watching our oldest daughter build that same kind of friendship with her best friend, and how much it looks exactly like what Maddie and I built over the years without even realizing we were doing it.

If you want that with your spouse, I don't think it happens by accident. You build it.