In this week's episode of the Date Your Wife podcast, co-hosts Garrett J and Danielle K White are coming to you from the 38th-floor inside a corner suite of the Four Seasons in Las Vegas where they are celebrating Danielle's 36th birthday. This week's conversation is about how the unification of your standards with your spouse builds the ultimate standard, and how you can't pull that off unless you have actually connected with your own standard.

Every week married couple Danielle and Garrett J White share insights and perspectives from within their own lives regarding the following topics discussed each month: Week 1: Sex Week 2: Money Week 3: Parenting Week 4: Communication In This Week's Podcast…COMMUNICATION Point #1: Standards

• One of the gifts of being married is that we each come into it with radically different standards for life. We have standards about sexuality, parenting, making money, how we spend our time, etc., based upon our past, how we were raised, and our mindsets.
• Danielle: I do have a high standard based upon how I was raised but what I also notice is that I'm an extremely experience-based, detailed person which makes me hold things to a different level or standard than most people.

QUESTION

What are some standards you hold yourself to?

Point #2: Tolerance

• We tolerate what our standards are. Where this ends up in collision is inside of marriage due to the different standards of each spouse.
• Garrett has a standard of emotional connection, which is leaving people better than when you first meet them, something that comes very natural for him. Danielle, on the other hand, will tolerate almost no communication with other people.

QUESTION

What are some of the differing standards inside your marriage which have been a source for collision?

Point #3: It Takes Two to Tango

• Garrett: Without my standards for communication, Danielle would have limited her communication. She never would have launched a podcast in the hair industry, nor would have launched her own salon or training company.
• Danielle: I hold the standard of where we live and what we wear. When I push to get nicer things in life, we push more in business. And when we push more in business, it not only affects our family but it also creates multiple job opportunities for multiple families.

QUESTION

What have your differing standards created inside of your world?

Point #4: Own Your Standards

• Garrett: We take a stand for each individual to own their identity, where neither one is a doormat or a steamroller but where we both come to terms with who we are. My standards say we do one thing and Danielle's standards say we do another.
• As you come to own your standards, it allows you to actually embrace the standards of other people. Together, you create this ultimate standard as a couple. You begin to be more committed to each other, and out of that is birthed something deeper than love, which is respect.

QUESTION

How has owning your individual standards created the ultimate standard inside your marriage?

Point #5: Co-creation

• Garrett: The standards across both sides of co-creation have allowed for Danielle and I to build our brands, our businesses, and our family. The unique side about all of this is there are very few powerful couples taking a stand for marriage that works, which requires you to be clear in your standards.
• Danielle: I'm realizing that in managing our own empires and managing a marriage – and managing it well – it's kind of unheard of. We each have huge visions for our brands and we're proving that it can be done; that we can have those individual standards but also come together to create more as a couple.

QUESTION

What have you been able to co-create as a couple that you most likely never would have on your own?

Communication Challenge:

Where can you push in your relationship to become more together, to grow together, and unite as a couple?

Date Night Topic:

What can you create as a couple by uniting your individual standards?

Quote of the Week:

"The mix of standards between a married couple blend together to create the ultimate cocktail of creation."

—Garrett J White

"I think we push each other in all the right ways. I think that's what a relationship is supposed to be: pushing one another to a healthy place."

—Danielle K White