Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora
Drew’s back on the mic after a few years away! 💛 We’ve been married for fourteen years, together for half of our lives, and we’re standing at this interesting threshold where both girls are finally in school full-time. We’re asking ourselves what comes next, not in a panicked way but in this open-handed, curious way that feels like we’re rediscovering who we are.
This is a real conversation between two people doing the work and figuring it out as we go.
Chickens, Gardens, and Going Back to Roots
Drew describes this stage as finding ourselves again in the simple things: the garden, the chickens, the bees, going back to roots. I have this image of Coco and me in the greenhouse, Drew and Quinn in the garden with chickens running around and dogs chasing on the perimeter.
Drew never thought he’d have chickens but now he’s obsessed, out there farming and grabbing eggs. Our kids are being raised where this is their norm, and every time they talk about what they’re thankful for, it’s chickens, bees, garden, greenhouse.
Why I’m Actually an Introvert
Drew says I’m very introverted and need my cave space, that sometimes I don’t leave the house and I’m totally fine with it. People probably don’t believe I’m an introvert because I do things like this, but I absolutely positively recharge alone. I hate small talk but could talk for hours about deep soul-level stuff.
What people wouldn’t know about Drew is he’s literally the biggest softie. This morning Coco came prancing in at six a.m. with a sticker drawing and he was so tender with her. Under that buff exterior is this soft little mushy heart.
Starting Therapy as a Couple
Drew just started therapy a few months ago and it’s been transformative. Our therapist Julia has been opening doors he’s always slammed shut. He never grew up talking about emotions or dealing with hard situations, so diving in and asking what can I learn from this has been something he never wanted to try and now he’s like when’s my next phone call.
After a few couples coaching calls, Drew brought up that he needed to do this on his own too. Now we’re not only working on growing together but taking responsibility to grow individually.
How We’ve Figured Out Our Marriage Roles
We’ve figured out our roles and stuck to them with confidence. Drew told me early on he wanted to be a stay-at-home dad and he’d never held a baby before, but it’s been beautiful and we’ve stayed steadfast in figuring out what works for us as a team.
In a world where traditional roles are coming back up to the surface, it’s been powerful for us to just say here’s what works for us and it can change at any time if we need it to evolve.
What We’re Still Working On
Drew wants to lead more in our relationship, taking bigger decisions off my plate. This timing is interesting because we’ve been through two seven-year cycles: the first getting my business off the ground, the second in parenthood. This year has felt like the beginning of dreaming about what we want next.
I’ve always been the vision caster but for the first time in a long time I’m leaving the vision open a little bit. We’re rediscovering who we are outside of our roles and what we want, and it’s a clean slate and we’re not rushing it.
Intuition as a Secret Superpower
Drew says my secret superpower is my intuition. He’s the ones and zeros guy who thinks with his brain, and I’m the one who can have a gut feeling and go with it. It’s worked probably one hundred percent of the time, though it always takes him a little while to admit I’m right.
Drew’s secret superpower is he’s constantly running behind the scenes tidying, keeping things moving, keeping me organized. He’s the infrastructure, the foundation, and we operate like a well-oiled machine.
What I’d Tell My Twenty-Four-Year-Old Self
If I could go back and tell twenty-four-year-old me anything, I’d say it’s all going to work out but it’s not going to look anything like you think. You’re gonna make a lot of money but it’s not going to fix anything, and the thing that will change your life the most is learning to pause and ask the harder questions.
The biggest luxuries are convenience and choice. When I went to Nashville for Onsite, I was the only person from the Midwest and everyone else lived in massive cities. At the end you put a pin in a map and LA was exploding, New York was exploding, and here’s my little pin in Duluth, Minnesota. We’ve lived a really big life while keeping our feet in a small town.
Dreams for the Next Chapter
Drew wants more traveling with the family, taking them out of school for periods to travel to Europe or Australia. Kids remember trips so vividly, and Coco can fire off everywhere we went this year but has no idea what she got for Christmas.
I see a lot of community service and activism, teaching our kids how to be involved and aware. They’ve been at the soup kitchen with us and we led a food drive for their school, so they’re learning so much in the process.
Looking Ten Years Ahead
Drew hopes he’s taking the lead more and that when I travel alone I won’t have so much shame and guilt around it. In seven years since Coco was born, I’ve probably been gone twenty days total. I hope our garden has greatly expanded and we have an orchard, and in ten years Coco would be seventeen, so I hope we’ve raised confident, courageous, brave, kind kids.
Drew hopes we’re still able to look at our flaws and work on ourselves, that we’re still as madly in love, and that our respect level which has always been our foundation stays strong. I hope we’re still enjoying life together and awake to the blessings, and this stage of life is really a time to expand ourselves and go for more depth in all the things we do.
The Small Moments That Matter
Drew’s answer: my vibration plate that I got for the bedroom. He makes fun of all my biohacking things then secretly uses them all. Mine is when everybody piles into bed and we’re all just together and we’re not in a rush, with Coco writing songs and books between five and seven a.m.
This stage feels like we graduated from the trenches of parenthood. At Thanksgiving our kids disappeared with their cousins and we realized we’d had ten minutes of uninterrupted adult conversation, which felt like a stage graduation.
Advice for Partners of Ambitious Women
Take a step back and if they’re passionate, let them be the driver. Don’t be the one saying I don’t know if this is going to work, just trust that they know the right thing and be there to support them. Women have really strong intuitions and men do too, they just don’t tap into it as much.
We’re not in a rush, we’re genuinely just loving being a family, and every stage has been our favorite stage yet. Yes, we’re still married and our life is very simple and we love that.
Thank you to our Goal Digger Sponsors
- Sign up for your $1/month Shopify trial period.
- Find an Airbnb co-host today.
- Check out What Should I Do With My Money? from Morgan Stanley. Click here to listen now!
- Learn how you can get Business Internet Free Forever.
- Experience the power of a Dell PC with Intel Inside®, backed by Dell’s price match guarantee. Click here to shop now.
- Your dream wardrobe’s one click away. Get 15% off your first order with code GOALDIGGER.
