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WifeSavers Podcast
WifeSavers Podcast episodes
- Ep 46: What To Do When He Works Too Much
Working excessively for a brief or limited period of time may occasionally be necessary, but if it’s one spouse’s defacto year after year, divorce, infidelity, or a health crisis is practically inevitable.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, What To Do When He Works Too Much, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband of 43+ years, Dale, discuss what to do when one spouse is spending so much time on work, the other feels undesirable, neglected, or resentful.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “Basically, my husband works too hard. We’ve talked about it many times, but whenever he agrees to try and make things better, it doesn’t last more than a week or two and then he’s right back to work. I can’t help feeling sad and a little insecure, honestly. Help!”
Key points in the podcast:
- The balance between accommodating his career and her needs
- A 16-point self-evaluation: “You may be a workaholic if…”
- The reasons a person feels compelled to overwork
- The three dangers in being married to a workaholic
- The things a neglected spouse should absolutely not do
- 5 things the neglected spouse should do
- Communicating concerns effectively to the workaholic
- 6 actions and 6 boundaries you can both agree to
- How to know if your solutions will actually work and stick
“They are so so fun to listen to! I feel like I’m in their living room just listening to them talk. I love the male perspective from Dale. Thank you for a life-giving podcast! ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcast listener
Related episodes:
Episode 32: Not Enough Time for Quality Couple Time
Episode 26: When He’s Traveling for Business
Episode 24: Tech and Relationships: Husband and Kids
Episode 2: Getting Your Husband To Prioritize Your Needs Too
1 hr 6 min - Ep 45: Creating Happy Holidays in Spite of 2020 (or a Grinchy Husband)
It’s no secret that 2020 has changed almost everything, including the way we’re approaching the holidays. Wives and mothers are feeling apprehensive about what’s ahead this month. Is it even possible to follow through on your traditions and to orchestrate a season of memories for the family this year? On top of all that, what if your husband’s attitude is turning out to be more “Grinch” than “Santa” after all the stress?
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, Creating Happy Holidays in Spite of 2020 (or a Grinchy Husband), multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie and her team of expert wives offer some concrete strategies to an overwhelmed mom looking for a little support.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: I feel creating family memories falls on me: Christmas prep, fun outings. He doesn't participate or only grumpily. What can I do?
Listen and learn how to recruit the engagement you need from him to make this holiday season one that will fill your heart--without overwhelming his.
Key Topics:
- Why you may be meeting some resistance to your best-laid holiday plans
- Appreciating the differences in how you and your husband approach the holidays
- Dealing with trauma and crisis near the holidays
- A simple method to help you sort through and prioritize expectations
- How to word and time your request for his engagement and support
- Creating your own personal happy holiday
- The comparisons (to be wary of) that can mar your holiday joy
“With WifeSavers advice, I save my sanity and make time and energy to fill my own happy bucket being creative and learning!” ✭✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
When He’s Overwhelmed By Family Life
Dealing with Extended Family Over the Holidays
How To Help Your Husband With His Emotions During the Crisis
1 hr - Ep 44: How to Keep Calm and Carry On
Who hasn’t had a sleepless night or two lately? The world is getting more and more frantic, more and more frenetic, and yet and somehow, in the midst of so much we cannot control, wives and mothers are supposed to take care of business as usual.
If you’re feeling rudderless or disconnected these days, hounded by a constant sense of anxiety and distress, you’re not alone. Women everywhere are dealing with record-high levels of stress as they worry over their family’s health, finances, and future. And you know that a nervous undercurrent like that hurts not only your own heart but disrupts (and even damages) the relationships you count on most, including your marriage.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, How to Keep Calm and Carry On, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband, Dale, help a wife who is feeling especially anxious and fearful over current events in the world.
Listen and learn how to replace stress with a steady calm that restores creativity and productivity in your life. Feel empowered and prepared for whatever comes next!
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “I feel like I’m wasting my life right now. My anxiety over what’s going to happen the rest of this year is overwhelming and I’m spinning my wheels. Going crazy. Help.”
Key Topics:
- How “triangulation” can steady emotions and ready us for action
- Two powerful means of putting current events into context
- What we should be preparing for during uncertain times
- What “rehearsing” means and how it mitigates fear
- Five immediately actionable tactics for de-escalating anxiety
- The four powerful benefits of prayer or meditation
“A gift to all marriages. So grateful for these people and wisdom!!!” ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
Don’t Let a Crisis Sink Your Marriage
Feeling Burnt Out After Too Much Stress
How To Help Your Husband With His Emotions During the Crisis
56 min - Ep 43: Talking Politics in Marriage
Struggling to convince your loved one that your political perspective is the right one? Or is he expecting you to come around to his way of seeing things? Do your discussions turn into debates that leave you feeling frustrated, even alienated from one another? Maybe you’ve decided to stuff your opinion just to avoid the conflict.
In a world where countries and communities are being torn apart by the political divide, how do you keep your own relationship tight and intact? Will your marriage withstand the pressure? Is it possible to live and work together from opposite sides of the fence?
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, Talking Politics in Marriage, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband, Dale, help a wife who is worried that political divisiveness is affecting her marriage.
Listen and learn how to keep political issues from turning into marriage issues.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: My husband and I have different political views. How should I handle this?
Key Topics:
- Why you shouldn’t feel alone in this predicament
- How today’s politics of personal destruction is invading relationships
- How to relieve the pressure with a “politics-free zone”
- 6 guidelines that will help replace heated debate with helpful dialogue
- How “relationship maintenance” can save a politically-mixed marriage or relationship
- Practical advice from real political rivals who are happily married
“How I love this podcast!! The principles, examples, and how-to information that Ramona and Dale share help me every day as a wife and in all my relationships!” ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
When Faith is an Issue in Your Marriage
His Criticism Hurts: What to Do When He’s Unkind or Unfair
Seeing Eye to Eye: What to Do When You Don’t
43 min - Why you shouldn’t feel alone in this predicament
- Ep 42: When Faith is an Issue in Your Marriage
Is your husband uninterested (or less interested than you are) in spiritual matters? Are you wishing he’d step up and lead your family in religious practice? Perhaps he’s even expressing (or exhibiting) antagonism toward God or religion in general.
If you are a woman of faith, whatever your religion or personal practice, feeling disconnected from your husband on a spiritual plane is difficult. What do you do with your disappointment and loneliness? How can you reach or motivate him when you’re feeling frustrated and resentful?
Throw Me a WifeSaver: “We don't hold up on our spiritual traditions as much as we used to unless I lead the way. I feel like I carry most of the family unity and spiritual engagement. Why can’t he?”
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, When Faith is an Issue, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie and her husband, Dale, answer four different wives who are each despairing of their husband’s level of spiritual enthusiasm and commitment.
Listen and learn how to turn spiritual disparity to the positive and feel more peace in your home.
Key Topics:
- Possible reasons for his lack of interest or leadership
- Why pushing, pulling, hinting, or convicting him don’t work
- The true test or measurement of his “spiritual leadership”
- 4 things to consider that will help mitigate your frustration
- Why his approach to spirituality may be different than yours
- How his male fears plus your expectations play into his choices
- Your best chance of winning him over
- The Four “P’s”: solutions to the dilemma of spiritual disparity
“I am loving the overall philosophy Ramona and Dale have on marriage. They are so consistent in their message and everything feels digestible and succinct, something I like in a podcast. I am already seeing improvements in my relationship with my husband! ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
When He’s Overwhelmed by Family Life
It’s Not Fair (but who’s keeping score)
Seeing Eye to Eye: What To Do When You Don’t
1 hr 2 min - Ep 41: The Best of the WifeSavers Podcast: Turning Negative Communication With Your Husband to the Positive
Are too many conversations with your husband leaving both of you feeling frustrated? It may be that what you are saying is being heard very differently than you intend.
Ramona and her husband, Dale, answer a wife who doesn’t mean to come across as negative and unloving but is afraid that’s exactly how she’s being received. Listen and learn how with a few tweaks in approach and wording a wife can completely alter the outcome of almost any conversation with her husband to the positive.
Throw Me a WifeSaver: “Sometimes when I respond negatively to things with my husband, I know right away that I've gone about it all wrong. I definitely don't want to handle things in an unloving way it just seems to come out in a burst of emotions sometimes before I even know how to package it in a more positive way. Any suggestions?”
The most listened to WifeSavers Podcast episode ever!
Key Topics:
- Why his perceptions may be formed or based on the words and phrases you are using
- Identifying seven characteristics of negative language that you may be unaware of
- What actual messages you may be sending inadvertently
- Mindset or paradigm shifts that will undergird permanent changes in your communication style
- Three simple but powerful linguistic approaches that will lessen confusion and leave you both feeling better
"Love the practical applications Dale and Ramona describe and actually MODEL so well in their podcasts! I find it especially valuable hearing what a conversation SHOULD sound like -- much different than I hear in my life otherwise. I think of it like learning a foreign language! ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
Wanting to Change the Boss Lady - In You!
He Doesn't Really Listen: How to Communicate So He'll Care
51 min - Ep. 40: When There’s No Place Other THAN Home, You Need More of THIS
Is “there’s no place like home” getting tested in your home like never before? During current shelter-in orders—and with the days and weeks ahead still a big question mark—how will your family manage the strain on your relationships over the long haul? Bringing everything down to just four simple but powerful practices will make all the difference.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, When There’s No Place Other THAN Home, You Need More of THIS, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband of 40+ years, Dale, discuss how you and your family can feel happy with each other day after day, for as long as it takes, inside your own four walls.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “I’m the kind of person that will obey all the rules and not mind not going out. I’ve REALLY enjoyed being home for the past few weeks. But the truth is all the worry over the virus and groceries and toilet paper is starting to wear on me, and the kids are getting cabin fever and my husband is getting edgy. What can I do?”
Key points in this podcast:
- What is required to “flatten” the “negativity curve”
- What “shedding” is and how it calms and strengthens a family
- The 4 vital dynamics you all need MORE of during this stressful time
- How to combat “sameness”
- Critical approaches to “too much” togetherness
- The science of touch including the dangers of “skin hunger”
- Strategies for increasing the primary hormones that alleviate stress
- What children know and do that will help everyone in the family
“... a wonderful blend of insights and wisdom...perfect blend of fun and information. ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcasts listener
Related episodes:
How to Help Your Husband With Emotions During the Crisis
Don’t Let a Crisis Sink Your Marriage
56 min - Ep 39: How to Help Your Husband With His Emotions During the Crisis
Couples everywhere are having to deal with financial strains, upended routines, extra parenting responsibilities, new expectations of one another, and worrisome health scares. Whether a husband is sheltering-in, or on the front lines, employed, or suddenly unemployed, there’s a good chance that his wife’s most tangible and immediate source of stress is her concern about how the global crisis is impacting her man directly.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, How to Help Your Husband With His Emotions During the Crisis, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband of 40+ years, Dale, delve into brain science and biology to understand how today’s atmosphere of intense anxiety may be affecting men, what a concerned partner can do alleviate her man’s tension, and the ways intelligent, proactive engagement between husband and wife mitigates negative repercussions on the family.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “How do I help my husband right now? He seems full of anxiety with the COVID crisis. I worry about what he is feeling inside as he tries to be strong for others, and I worry that the balance of positive to negative in our interactions is tipping in the wrong direction.”
Key points in this podcast:
- What a wife may be feeling as a result of a husband’s behaviors under stress
- Why the fallout from the global pandemic is hitting him so hard
- How to interpret the “male mask”
- Specific ways in which men deal with emotion differently than women
- Why his emotional and problem-solving style can be as valid and as valued as hers
- Seven approaches to gently drawing out her man’s inner thoughts and feelings
- How to optimally treat his feelings once revealed so as to encourage future sharing
- Why a woman’s self-care is key to her partner’s mental health and stability
Related episodes:
Don’t Let a Crisis Sink Your Marriage
Dealing With Your Spouse’s Depression Positively
When He’s Overwhelmed With Family Life
Seeing Eye to Eye: What To Do When You Don’t
1 hr 8 min - Ep. 38: Don’t Let a Crisis Sink Your Marriage
Times of crisis are inevitable. Unexpected circumstances can feel like a sudden attack on your family’s status quo, interrupting plans and draining everyone’s energy. Whether your relationships with each other end up battered and crippled by the storm or deeper and stronger for the voyage depends in large part on how you organize your response.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, Don’t Let a Crisis Sink Your Marriage, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband of 40+ years, Dale, discuss how a couple can avoid breaking on the shoals of a crisis by proactively navigating their family through fear and uncertainty.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “What are some helps for smoothing our relationship in times of crisis? Do you have a trauma kit/advice?!”
Key points in the podcast:
- How a husband may initially react differently to a crisis than his wife
- The 4 things every member of the family needs or craves during a crisis
- An 8 step plan of action for the entire family during a crisis
- The 5 “musts” to keep your marriage on an even keel
- How to “reframe” intense or negative emotion
- How a crisis can be the catalyst for strengthening family bonds and individual growth
“Ramona and Dale share such a unique, wonderful, refreshing, and definitely relevant blend of insights and wisdom gained from their experiences together. It’s a perfect blend of fun and information.” ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcast listener
Related episodes:
Episode 37: Dealing With Your Spouse’s Depression Positively
Episode 11: Turning Negative Communication With Your Husband to the Positive
Episode 10: How Do I Find Balance? A Woman’s Greatest Challenge
Episode 7: Feeling Burned Out After Too Much Stress
1 hr 1 min - Ep 37: How to Deal With Your Spouse’s Depression Positively
When your partner is at their best, they are a positive energy source for you and the whole family: dreaming big, working hard, playing hard. But what happens if they lose that zest for life? What are you supposed to do with their ongoing detachment, despondency, anxiety, anger, or pessimism? Depression is an isolating illness that can negatively impact relationships and leave loved ones feeling helpless and afraid.
In this episode of the WifeSavers Podcast, How to Deal With Your Spouse’s Depression Positively, multi-award-winning marriage author and educator, Ramona Zabriskie, and her husband of 42+ years, Dale, discuss how spouses can come together when that “intangible-something” called depression or anxiety interferes with their ability to work, play, and even love.
THROW ME A WIFESAVER: “My spouse suffers from negativity/depression. I love him, but how do I enjoy time with him & feel connected? How do I even bring up to him that I think he’s depressed? Help!”
Key points in the podcast:
- The difference between depression, grief, and sadness
- The physical manifestations of depression inside the brain
- What depression and anxiety feel like to the person experiencing them
- What it feels like to be their spouse and what is in the spouse’s control
- The possible answers to “why won’t he talk to me?”
- The 4-step approach to a conversation on the subject
- How to explore and execute solutions together
- Real-wife examples of effective coping strategies
“I love, love, LOVE listening to this podcast! This is truly a gift to better understand myself and help him better understand me! If you are looking for a podcast that is uplifting and that will help you better understand--then this podcast is for you! It’s time happily and very well spent! ✮✭✭✭✭” Apple Podcast listener
Related episodes:
Episode 28: When He’s Overwhelmed by Family Life
Episode 11: Turning Negative Communication With Your Husband to the Positive
Episode 7: Feeling Burned Out After Too Much Stress
Episode 10: How Do I Find Balance? A Woman’s Greatest Challenge
1 hr 6 min
About WifeSavers Podcast
From the publisher's feed
Ramona Zabriskie, multi-award-winning author, celebrated marriage mentor and global educator, founder of Wife for Life University and the WifeSavers Education Membership, answers real-wife questions…
alongside her husband of 40+ years, Dale Zabriskie. Their entertaining conversations about the challenges and intricacies of the marriage relationship are full of actual experience and powerful, proven advice. Thousands of wives in over 70 countries are learning how to better resolve their worries and more lovingly relate to their husbands with thrilling results. Email the show at wifesavers.org