… and couples who get stuck in a rut of unresolved arguments and the day-to-day routine of the good ol’ married roommate life?
(even during lockdown!)
What’s the difference between happy couples who keep falling more deeply in love every single day…
With the right tools and a bit of work, you can have the marriage of your dreams.
And I promise I’ll be there to support you through every step of the way.
Genuine love is a decision, not a feeling.
Because the truth is,
Even though things are hard right now, you can nurture your marriage. You can create a home that you both can’t wait to come home to.
In fact, there might never be a time as good as now to reconnect with both the amazing person you married, and yourself. Because there’s nothing more love-affirming than making it through a crisis together. And it’s completely possible for you to transform your marriage if you have some support.
You deserve to feel seen, heard, respected, and cherished. Your intellectual, emotional, and physical needs should feel completely fulfilled. And you should feel proud of the example you’re setting for your children.
Sure, there’s no such thing as happily ever after. But there is such a thing as a healthy relationship filled with loving communication and support.
There is such a thing as life-long companionship. And there is such a thing as lovingly ever after.
But you made a commitment to your spouse, yourself, and God when you got married. And getting a divorce will not bring you any closer to the marriage of your dreams.
It’s not because they never ever fight — that’s not really even possible or healthy, friend!
It’s not because they had perfect “Leave It to Beaver” parents and showed up to their marriage with zero baggage.
And it’s definitely not because they’re just lucky or favored by heaven!
Because even if you say your prayers each night, go to church every Sunday, and come from a supportive family.
Even if you’ve got enough money to never stress about paying for your kids’ college or a new Cadillac Escalade when you need it.
Even if you’ve always had a deep, soul felt connection…
… it’s still so easy to end up angry, depressed, resentful and confused.
Like you’re alone in your marriage and your spouse has become nothing more than a roommate.
Someone to do the laundry, help the kids with their schooling, bring home the bacon — then cook it, and take out the trash.
And you can still end up feeling lonely and unsupported. Lost without connection, affection and true intimacy.
Frustrated and fed up. Contemplating the D-word.
Lord knows dealing with quarantine and the uncertainty of this crazy state of the world doesn’t make any of this any easier…
Know exactly what to do to make sure you keep falling more and more deeply in love
Step back into solid trust and commitment
Learn how to own your own junk and help your spouse through theirs
Rekindle your emotional and physical intimacy
Come to understand how your marriage got to this place—and what to do about it
Understand how to speak (and listen to!) each other’s love languages
Learn how to communicate better with your spouse.
Do this work for just 10 minutes a day and you will transform your marriage.
Even if your spouse won't do it with you.
For real!
Join now!
Over the last five years, I’ve helped dozens of couples like you — so caught up in day-to-day tasks and responsibilities that they’ve forgotten how to connect — transform their marriages.
By teaching them to understand their core values, communicate openly, own their own junk, and practice radical acceptance (for themselves and each other), I’ve helped them divorce-proof their marriage.
And when you enroll in Spark course, I’ll do the same for you.
- Erik Balodis
And I feel so much freer and so much better in life.
We realized that we’re a team. A team working together for this relationship.
And it’s a journey. It’s baby steps. And that’s what you allowed us to take: baby steps.
I could not be more happy. I could not be more on fire.
We’ve been able to manage our conflict and realize that the bedroom is not for arguments. It’s for our passion and it’s our chance to talk and bond, hold, and be like a piece of iron together as we merge each other’s life.
There was this special thing we did at our wedding, called God’s Knot. Three pieces of rope: white, gold, and purple, that we braided together.
I remember I was holding one end, my wife the other, and the idea is that you’re braiding the man and the woman around God and tying the knot. So that you realize God is here, we’re here, and we’re all together.
I see it hanging in our home now, and I feel it again.
We’re with God and that’s what I’m starting to feel here from this course.
We’re turning towards each other instead of away.
We talk about things. We don’t hold things.
I’m just, I’m very blessed and I’m very thankful.
“Our children see a difference in us, my friends see a difference."
- Stephanie Fryar
And we've been dating and not just like, "Hey, I'm bored, you're bored. Let's go do something."
We're holding hands, blowing kisses, like when we first started dating 26 years ago.
We're both very intellectual people. We know what the problems are and we even know what we have to do to fix them.
We've talked about them over the years till we're literally blue in the face.
But what we sucked at, plain and simple, was the being. Just being with each other. And that's what we've been doing.
We've started being kinda spontaneous and that's what we had been missing and he's been loving it.
I’ve changed, but I really do feel like there's been so much change in him.
And what's crazy is he hasn't done the course.
It's just been a few conversations we've had about things that I found interesting that I brought up, or that I wanted his perspective on, or things like that.
Your course worked without him even doing it.
I'm not saying we're perfect. Our marriage isn't a hundred percent, maybe. But man, oh man.
In a short period of time, we're so much closer than we've ever been and closer than I actually think we ever would have been.
“We're already doing better and communicating."
- Challey Rochelle Fox
There's been a lot of times since we started the course where we've come back and said, "You know what? I'm sorry." And it's not followed by a "but!”
Normally it's, "I'm sorry, but you da da da da da..." Whatever. It was a big issue.
So recently it's come down to, "I'm sorry." And that's the end of it.
And the way we address each other changes.
There's no continuation and escalation of the previous issues.
I feel like instead of working against each other, now we're working as a team because of this course.
I actually completed the course. My husband has yet to complete all of it, but what he did get out of it was beneficial to us. It put us back on the same page, working for the same goal.
The other thing with the course that I absolutely adore is that Amy is real.
You can see her, you can speak to her, you have access to her.
It is an absolute all-in course. I think I got more out of this than I did going to a marriage retreat. It was wonderful.
“We’ve learned to find the friendship in our marriage and find a way to communicate where we don't explode on each other."
You believe that you have too much baggage to really make your marriage work.
You believe that you’re a failure as a husband or wife.
You believe that going through hard times means your marriage is never going to last.
You believe that it might be extra hard for you to have the marriage of your dreams because your parents weren’t exactly perfect role models.
You believe that nothing will change if your spouse doesn’t do this work with you.
Oh, I get it, believe me. You’re tired of having to do all the work.
And it seems like every time you bring up the problems in your relationship, your spouse gets defensive and withdrawn. Sometimes it feels like you can’t talk to them about anything other than household tasks without them getting upset or closing off.
Even if you just…
…need a hug after a long day with the kids.
…Or need someone to listen as you work through the feedback your boss gave you on your latest project.
…Or the fear that you’ve started harboring on the daily as you watch what feels like half of your company get laid off every quarter.
It feels like your spouse takes everything you say as a personal attack. And you’ve become afraid of sharing.
Or like you’re walking on eggshells and that there’s no way anything will ever change if they don’t start taking personal responsibility for the way they’re reacting to your pleas for love and support.
Sure, it takes two to tango — but it also takes two to tangle.
Chances are you’re so fed up with the state of your marriage, so lost in your despair, that you’re having trouble asking for what you need without shaming or blaming your spouse.
What you need?
A deep understanding of exactly what’s missing for you to feel heard, respected and cherished in your relationship. And some actionable insights and tools to help you express these needs from a place that makes your spouse feel receptive, not defensive, to your calls for help.
Trust me, when you learn to let go of your negative expectations and change the way you speak, everything else is going to change. And chances are very high that your spouse is going to get on board.
You believe that nothing will change if your spouse doesn’t do this work with you.
Yes, your parents are amazing people.
But when you look back into your childhood, you have a lot of trouble picturing your father most days. He worked long hours and it kind of felt like that old Cat’s In the Cradle song: “When you comin’ home, Dad? I don’t know when. But we’ll get together then, you know we’ll have a good time then.”
Your mom was lonely and sad.
Sure, she put on her happy face for you kids. And always had good things to say about your dad at church on Sundays. But you could feel how hard life was for her. You heard them arguing late at night.
And you knew you didn’t want to grow up to be just like them.
Or maybe you didn’t have two parents at home. Maybe you only saw your dad every second weekend. Or your amazing mama passed away when you were so young.
It’s hard to nurture a healthy relationship when you’ve never seen one in action. And lord knows that TV shows like Leave It to Beaver, Full House, or ( yes) This Is Us can make even the best of us feel totally inadequate.
But nobody is perfect. Not your parents. Not you and your spouse. Not even the Pearson’s.
What you need?
The tools to learn to forgive yourself, your family and your spouse (!!!) for not being perfect. Because aside from God, nobody is. And nobody is meant to be. We’re here on this earth to learn lessons and support each other. We are here to express and walk in love.
You don’t need to model your relationship on some perfect example of what marriage is supposed to be. You need to learn the techniques to forgive and move forward.
Because every enduring marriage involves an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.
And when your kids see you unconditionally loving the imperfections of your spouse, they’ll learn that they are also completely deserving of deep unconditional love. And they’ll learn how to offer the same to their own partner and children one day.
You believe that it might be extra hard for you to have the marriage of your dreams because your parents weren’t exactly perfect role models.
Honey, I hear you.
When you’re stuck in quarantine, dealing with never-ending arguments followed by the cold shoulder, it can feel like nothing will ever change.
When you go to bed each night with your back turned to your spouse, a lump in your throat, tears in your eyes and what feels like indigestion but is actually deep sadness, it can be hard to imagine a life of lovingly ever after.
When your marriage is frozen in despair it can feel impossible to imagine it thawing into friendship, let alone being lit up with passion and love.
But the very fact that you’re here, reading this, means that you have what it takes to make a change. The fact that you want to work on your relationship means that you have a very real chance to grow in love and create the sort of beautiful marriage that you imagined when you first said “I do.”
What you need?
Perspective.
When you get stuck in negative patterns it can be very hard to move past them. But they don’t have to be forever.
You need insights to see where your patterns are holding you back from moving forward towards your dream marriage. You need tools that will help you move through your negativity together with your spouse. And you need to understand that you are not alone.
There are so many couples out there hiding the dysfunctional parts of their relationship behind the closed curtains of their living rooms. There are so many couples who are pretending to be perfect in public but who suffer at home.
You’re not alone in your despair and you DO NOT have to fix this alone.
You believe that going through hard times means your marriage is never going to last.
You’ve been living that roommate life and it’s been awhile since you put noticeable effort into romancing your spouse. Sure, you think of them. You’re even (almost!) positive that you still love them. But it’s become hard to feel in love.
So you spend some time and plan a secret date night.
You make reservations at your spouse’s favorite restaurant. You book a romantic hotel room. You set your kids up with a sleepover with their cousins. You get tickets to watch Sunday Night Football live. You even secretly pack your spouse’s bags.
But when you finally invite them out for the Big Date, they explode at you.
They’re too tired. Upset at the little things that you haven’t been dealing with together. Fed up and angry. And they don’t even realize all of the effort you put in to create a special night out for them.
They don’t even realize how hard you worked to bring a little romance into your marriage.
So you drop the kids off, cancel the dinner resos, take the hit on your credit card for that hotel room and invite your best buddy to the football game.
You try to make the best of it but you feel like a total failure. And you’re just about ready to give up on your marriage.
I mean, what’s the point of trying if your spouse isn’t even going to let you love them up a little bit, right?
What you need?
Better communication tools and sustained effort. Because romance is a relationship, not an event. Romance consists of regularly doing the little things that makes your spouse feel loved and appreciated.
It isn’t about creating big spectacles on special occasions.
It’s about learning to really listen when your spouse is speaking. It’s about noticing the little ways that they’re there for you. Then lovingly letting them know you’re noticing. It’s about whispering sweet nothings — because those little nothings add up into the big something that thaws even the most frozen of marriages.
Those little nothings spark the fire of your passion.
When your spouse no longer feels the need to question that you care about them, they’ll be so much more receptive to the unique ways that you show love. And once you’re both able to give and receive love, you’ll realize that your marriage will never fail.
You’ll divorce-proof your marriage.
You believe that you’re a failure as a husband or wife.
I know this because I am this.
Or rather, I was this. I don’t just come from a dysfunctional background. I grew up in the sort of family that makes you run away when you’re 18 years old. Even if you have to live in your car.
(Which I did. For months.)
This is about you, so I’m not going to go into it here. But rest assured that I feel you. And that your marriage doesn’t have to end because of it.
Because the truth is, our traumas come up in relationship because we heal in relationship. Even if you were to get a d-word, your traumas won’t go away.
No, the best way to work through your traumas is with your spouse.
(And a good counselor — which I’m totally happy to help you find, by the way. Whether you’re close enough to access the amazing therapists at Amy Wine Counseling or whether you’re across the country, drop me a line and we’ll sort you out.)
My husband is an only child who was slightly spoiled by his also-only-children parents. When my traumas started coming up, he really didn’t know what to do with them. But he refused to let my hardships ruin our marriage. No matter how hard I pushed. Even though he had no idea how to really support me. Even though he was a little bit selfish.
Eventually, through my education and our willingness to do the work, we were able to overcome my triggers together.
And you and your spouse can too.
What you need?
Support. Tools. And actionable insights.
When you learn to recognize that some of the anger, sadness and despair you are feeling in your marriage comes from old, unresolved wounds, you’re better able to move through those emotions and be more present in your marriage.
When your partner learns how to hold you through your triggers, you’re both better able to feel secure and stable in your love. You’re more able to support each other through anything that life throws at you. And you’re better at recognizing negative patterns that come from habitual tendencies and old wounds.
Which means that you can stop living in the past and start creating the loving present and ever-lasting future that you totally deserve.
You believe that you have too much baggage to really make your marriage work.
If you’ve made it this far it’s because your marriage means the world to you and you’re ready to do what it takes to get past this married roommates stage.
You’re ready to amp up your efforts and soften your ego.
You’re ready to
… remember why you married your spouse in the first place…
… recognize your own value systems and own your own habitual patterns (or as I like to call it: your junk!)…
And you’re ready to learn
… how to stop avoiding your marital problems…
… how to decrease the yelling, attacking and withdrawing in your marriage…
… how to have healthy, productive conversations…
… and how to become more open to physical and emotional intimacy.
I’m a small town Oklahoma gal, living the big city life in Houston, Texas.
When I’m not running my three time award-winning counseling clinic, raising my three amazing (almost-adult!) human children (and four fur babies), trying to figure out how to make gluten-free baking delicious or chasing after my labradoodle puppy, Mollie, I’m devouring everything that I can to help you divorce-proof your marriage.
I’m a life-long learner with:
•A Master’s Degree in Counseling from the Houston Graduate School of Theology
•A Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Liberty University, and
•Associates Degrees in both Liberal Arts and Early Childhood Education from Lone Star College.
I’m also a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Clinical Trauma Professional.
I’ve studied with Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Sue Johnson, read more than 40 marriage books and have helped dozens of couples transform their relationships from married roommate status to a marriage on fire.
And my own 21 year marriage started with one big lie! He was 27, I was 19. But for some reason, without really even thinking about it, I told him I was 22. And we lived as roommates for a decade. Until I started doing the work, of course…
I’m obsessed with keeping it real and started out my practice working with children. It was super gratifying but somewhere along the line I realized that if I really wanted to help kids, I needed to start at the top. By helping their parents.
Because this world DOES NOT need more divorces.
It needs more couples who are committed to their marriages. It needs more human beings like you: willing to put in the work to move through your habitual patterns and choose love. It needs strong families who can provide loving homes for the children who are going to change our world for the better.
And I am absolutely committed to helping you get through the hard times so that you can get back to loving your spouse without resentment.
Heck, I’m committed to helping you light your marriage up so much that you’re even more passionately in love than you were when you said “I do.”
You’ll immediately start clarifying your core values. And you’ll remember why you married your spouse.
Even if you’re not feeling the warm and fuzzies right now, you’ll be able to understand what it was that made you fall in love in the first place.
And from this softer place you’ll learn...
• How to accept where you are now, no matter how bad things feel
• How to own your own junk and take responsibility for the ways you’re making things harder on both yourself and your spouse
• How to connect by putting yourself in their shoes
• How to focus on yourself again, even if you never have before
You’ll also learn the antidotes to Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling, so that you can come to any discussion from a gentle place of love — not a place of resentful anger.
How Did We Get Here?
Communication
In module 2, you’ll take all of that clarity and self-work and learn how to share with your spouse in ways that make them feel receptive, not defensive. So that you can stop avoiding conflict and start finding heart-felt resolution.
You’ll learn how to stop dancing around the elephant in the room and you’ll stop feeling like you have to walk on eggshells. By recognizing when you’ve become flooded by emotions and learning:
• The keys to effectively communicate with your spouse
• How to forgive yourself and your spouse
• How to practice gratitude, even when it doesn’t feel like there’s anything to be thankful for
• How to step into radical acceptance of each other and your situation (which doesn’t mean that you don’t get to work on changing it, just that you’ll learn how to figure out what you can change and what you can’t)
•How to stop dancing around the problem and become vulnerable with your spouse.
•How to ask for what you need and set loving boundaries
And…
• How to fight fair by learning to listen to understand, not to respond. Because arguing is not always bad!
Intimacy
Ohhhh, intimacy! Such a touchy but important subject, am I right?
When we stop feeling close to our spouses, when we stop hearing those sweet little nothings, stop holding hands, sending sneaky little loving texts, and really caring about how each other’s days went, that’s when things get really hard.
That’s when we start falling asleep with our backs to each other. Or on the couch. Or even in our own bedrooms.
That’s when we really start to feel lonely in partnership.
And I’m going to show you exactly how to reignite the physical and emotional intimacy in your marriage.
You’ll learn how to deal with differing sex drives, identify your own role in the dance (because it is a dance–let’s call it a tango… or the salsa!), and how to transform your relationship from roommate status back into soulmate status!
So there’s nothing chill about the next time you decide to “Netflix and chill…”
Trust and Commitment
Oh yeah, this is what marriage is all about!
In this module you’ll figure out exactly what commitment and trust mean to you. And you’ll be able to use the tools from Modules 1, 2, and 3 to communicate it to your spouse in a loving and intimate way.
You’ll solidify your commitment to each other and your marriage by learning…
• What commitment really means
• The types of trust and how to rebuild them (this is not easy, but it’s entirely possible and I will show you exactly how to do it!)
• How to get back to planning for your mutual dreams for the future
• How to make step-by-step plans to achieve your mutual goals
• How to create space for each other’s evolution
• How to keep commitment and trust alive and active
No matter what you’ve been through, your marriage deserves the chance to thrive and the best way for it do so is for you to commit to growing your trust muscle.
Re-Commitment
This is where we put it all together and give you the tools to keep moving your marriage forward. You’ll already be feeling more understood, more heard, more seen and more loved. And in Module 5, I’ll teach you how to keep the momentum going.
Because you and your spouse are always evolving and your marriage needs to grow with you.
You’ll learn…
• How to make your spouse a priority in ways that they can actually see and feel.
• How to make sure that your emotional and physical intimacy can stand the test of time.
• How to calm down anger when it does come up.
• How to connect with your spouse like they’re your bff (because y’all most likely already are best friends, you’re just having trouble feeling it).
You’ll also…
• Set monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals to help you make sure that your love is a priority and you’re both being totally taken care of. With concrete, step-by-step plans to help keep you on track.
By now you already know that the biggest difference between couples that keep falling more and more deeply in love and those that get stuck in that married roommate life comes down to…
Having the actionable insights, tools, and support to make sure that both you and your spouse feel seen, heard, cherished and appreciated.
So if you’re ready to move from that married roommate phase and learn to truly embrace your spouse for who they are…you need Spark.
If you’re ready to experience more love and compassion than you ever thought possible…you need Spark.
And if you’re ready to feel more in love and committed than the day you walked down the aisle and said “I do,” to the love of your life…you need Spark.
You’ve got a half an hour a week to spend learning how to light your marriage up!
You’re ready to reconnect with your core values and figure out how to set your life up around them.
You know that there’s more to this, that you could feel even more in love than before, that your connection could get even deeper and that you both could be even more happy.
You’re afraid of becoming even more disconnected from your spouse.
You’ve done a bit of counseling, met with your pastor, and asked your friends and family for advice. But you’re still not quite getting there.
You’re willing to put in the work to get back that loving feeling.
You love your spouse. Even though it sometimes feels hard to express it.
You’re struggling in your marriage. The day-to-day tasks are getting in the way of your connection and you want to fix this once and for all.
You’re practically a newlywed. Things are going pretty well but you know that your marriage would be AMAZING if you just had the right tools to communicate from a place of loving acceptance.
As you become more aware of your habitual patterns, you’ll notice that it becomes easier and easier to transform them. And soon enough, it’ll take you fewer than 10 minutes a day to totally heal your marriage.
Good question! Especially because I’m a certified marriage counselor and therapist with an award-winning clinic!
One way that this coaching course is different from traditional counseling is that you get to keep your step-by-step video lessons forever. So you can go back to them anytime you need a little marriage-transformation-refresher.
Another way that it differs is that it’s entirely online. Which is pretty great when we’re in the midst of a global pandemic and barely allowed to leave the house to get groceries, am I right?
Heck yes! Jon and I were married for over a decade before I realized that one of the reasons he was always avoiding our problems is because I was pushing him too much.
I’m a pursuer, he’s an avoider. You’ll learn all about this AND how to work with each other no matter how you approach problems in Spark.
Once I was able to recognize my patterns, it became way easier to step out of my comfort zone and approach John from a more positive and less pushy place. Which made him way more receptive to my attempts to work through our problems.
We’re not perfect — nobody is, friend! But we’ve not got a solid foundation to work through anything that life throws at us.
And I’m going to give you the same!
100%!! So many of my Spark beta course members experienced huge transformations in their marriages, even though their partners didn’t actively participate.
The truth is, once you’ve got the tools to communicate better with your spouse, from a place of love, respect, and understanding, things can’t help but get better.
And in my experience, once you start doing the work, your spouse will too. Even if they don’t realize they’re doing it!
It really does just take one person to majorly transform a marriage.
If anything, this course will enable you to handle these crazy times from a healthier place. You’ll get insights into your core values (which become so much more important in times of crisis), learn how to de-stress and self-soothe, how to understand (and speak in!) your spouse’s love languages, and how to set loving boundaries.
You’ll also learn how to ask for what you need from a place of loving understanding. So that you and your spouse are better prepared to support each other through this global transition.
But don’t take my word for it, just ask my new friend and Spark Beta student Stephanie Fryar, whose marriage was deeply on the rocks before she joined the course. She and her husband aren’t just surviving lock-down, they’re thriving!
In fact, she’s not even looking forward to going back to work because the two of them have been “having a blast!” locked up together!