Imagine Yourself Uncovering What Makes a Relationship Last

We are stirring up a secret sauce for love in honor of Valentine’s Day! The things that we’re adding to this recipe of romance won’t be the things you would ever expect.

Communication, passion, and money are three things that people like to focus on when they talk about building strong relationships. Yes, we do need to communicate our thoughts and feelings while also remembering to verbally express our love for our partner. Of course, we need some chemistry and passion to get and keep our relationships rolling. And, we’ve all heard that many marriages fail because of money issues.

However, these are not the things we discuss in this week’s episode. We wanted to dig deeper and explore some crucial areas that are often overlooked, and we hit the motherload of relationships.

We dedicate this episode to anyone who is looking for love or looking to hold on to their love. Listen in, and elevate your romance game!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sandy Kovach [00:00:01]:

Life can throw a lot at you, but imagine if your life were different, better, not because of what's coming at you, but because of what's coming from you. Let's get there together, join us, and imagine yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:14]:

Hello. I'm Lanee.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:16]:

What? I'm not are you trying to, like, be really, sultry? Is that what you're trying to do?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:25]:

That's what I was trying to do. Did I not accomplish that?

Sandy Kovach [00:00:27]:

I can't be the judge of that, Lanee. So you're starting with a sultry introduction because?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:33]:

Because we are imagining a little romance rolling through here today. Imagine yourself with Barry White filtering through the atmosphere.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:43]:

Can't get enough of your love, babe. Exactly. What's the first line of that song? I've heard people say,

Lanée Blaise [00:00:50]:

too much of anything is not good for you, baby. But still today's episode is really meant to stir up love and romance, Whether you are in a relationship or looking for a relationship, we wanna get the conversation started about what does it take to make love flow. Because Valentine's Day is right around the corner, Sandy.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:12]:

It is. And there are people that love Valentine's Day, and there are people that just wish it would go away. But we're gonna talk about concentrating on 2 different things. Right? If you're in a relationship, what are some of the things you can do to make that flourish and also hitting on if you are not in a relationship and looking for love? Am I right? Is this where we're going?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:35]:

This is where we're going. I think we can translate it all to cooking and just kinda mention what ingredients are needed to put together a recipe of lasting love, regardless if you have a Valentine already in your mist or if you're gonna meet some wonderful person and lock eyes at Walgreens or the grocery store later today. Either way, what ingredients are needed to stir up love?

Sandy Kovach [00:02:00]:

So first of all, I think we need to say that the whole idea of romance and watching chick flicks with love stories and romcoms or whatever you wanna call them gives us a wrong idea of what love is like. Maybe in the beginning when you first meet somebody, but having a lasting relationship takes a lot more than just the initial romance and feelings of falling in love. Am I right?

Lanée Blaise [00:02:23]:

Absolutely. Makes me think of, like, Snow White where her one true love just gives her a kiss and they wake up and go off and live happily ever after. She didn't even know that man.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:35]:

You know? Or like Romeo and Juliet. I don't think they knew each other for very long either. They did not. And they were teenagers.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:41]:

Yeah. Could you imagine? My son is doing that story in English right now and he's like, mom, I think Romeo was really just trying to get with her at any means. I'll marry you. I'll do whatever it takes. And they did eventually fall in love and then everything just went really, really badly.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:56]:

For a

Lanée Blaise [00:02:56]:

lot of people. Yeah. No. We don't we don't want any of those ingredients in our stew today.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:01]:

No. No. I mean, anybody can do the fall in love and be excited at the beginning of the relationship, and we all want those feelings, and it's great.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:11]:

Sandy, I wanna make sure we don't let the sizzle fizzle.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:15]:

Oh, I like that.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:17]:

That's actually the first ingredient is the chemistry and the spice and the romance and the intimacy. That's how it is in the beginning just like you said, but maintaining it.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:26]:

So the sizzle fizzle. Is that like a Snoop Dogg thing or

Lanée Blaise [00:03:30]:

No. I made that up myself. I was just thinking about cooking and get that pot simmering and sizzling Lanee I don't know. I just feel like, don't you think, Sandy, that every once in a while For shizzle. I'm sorry. I was hoping You

Sandy Kovach [00:03:42]:

were waiting for snoop, really? You were waiting for snoop really. I was waiting. Okay. For shizzle.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:48]:

We'll go with that. What are some other ingredients you wanna add to this stew?

Sandy Kovach [00:03:53]:

Found a love blogger named Mark Manson. And he asked people who have been married 10 years or more, what the keys to their relationship were, what are the most important things. And he said he got, like, 1500 responses, and he boiled them down to 12 things.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:13]:

Yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:04:13]:

And one of the things that they said was, everybody talks about how important communication is. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:04:18]:

They do. Everybody agrees on that. But what did he say about that?

Sandy Kovach [00:04:22]:

He said, more so than communication is respect. Yes. Is respecting your spouse or girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:31]:

Aretha Franklin tried to explain that to us many years ago that all she was asking was for a little respect because so I don't have a PhD in love ology, but I have been happily married for 20 years. So like we said, of course, there's additional attraction and love and passion, all that good stuff. But then once you're living with this person or in this person's face every day, respect is so important. And do you know Sandy, I had to learn that from my husband. Really? My husband set a few ground rules right from the beginning. He said, besides like, I don't want you to be like just straight up crazy or anything, I wanna make sure that you understand we are not going to, in this relationship, scream and yell at each other during arguments. We are not going to argue in front of other people. We are not going to throw each other under the bus.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:21]:

Talk bad about each other behind each other's back. Hit below the belt. Push those anger buttons. We're not going to disrespect one another. And here's also one was you're not gonna disrespect my mama. But, you know Oh. That's always important too.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:36]:

There you go.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:36]:

And respect seems like common sense. Okay. Right. It it seems like something, but it is a little bit harder to implement it in your relationship. It is hard to sometimes bite your tongue or choose your words wisely and treat that other person with respect.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:53]:

Absolutely. Whether you're talking about a fight between the 2 of you or like you mentioned, not talking badly about that person in public. You should have your partner's back and be their cheerleader and whatever problems that you're going through. I mean, unless there's some serious issues and then that's when you're seeking help or or something. But I just mean general day to day stuff.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:15]:

Yeah. You want to lift them up and you hope they are over there lifting you up as well because respect fosters trust. Yeah. How can you trust someone who you know doesn't respect your like you said, doesn't have your back? When you feel like somebody is on your team, when you're married or you're in a relationship. You guys are

Sandy Kovach [00:06:36]:

a team. You're a partnership. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:06:39]:

And you would never want to in a football game or something like that. Go ahead and just hand the ball off to someone on the other side. No. That's that's sabotaging your team.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:50]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:51]:

So you you've got I feel like that is huge.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:54]:

So respect and playing fair. Let's go to fighting a little bit. Because one of the things that this guy said that a lot of people were saying is you gotta be good at fighting. Okay? That sounds wrong, but you hit on something your husband said. And my husband's the same way. He doesn't like raised voices.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:10]:

Yes. I like raised voices, but my husband does not.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:13]:

I yeah. I am a total drama queen. I've tamped that down a bit since I've been married.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:18]:

Me too.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:18]:

I've had to.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:19]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:19]:

Because, you know, we give and take with our relationships and it's not necessary to be a drama queen. In fact, that doesn't end well for anybody.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:27]:

It does not. You end up saying things that you wish you had not said. And like you said, hurting and destroying that bond and that trust that you should be spending time building. And like I said, I do like raising my voice. I don't know. So, you know, when I get really I have never let you raise you. You've never really made me mad though. You know, like,

Sandy Kovach [00:07:47]:

you never try to tell

Lanée Blaise [00:07:49]:

me I can't do this. You know, it just pops up and it is something that is I don't know. My parents didn't do a lot of yelling, but it is something that I just came here like that. The level just rises up.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:01]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:01]:

And my husband gently looks at me like, we're not gonna yell. Oh.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:05]:

Right. And that's good that, our husbands were both made in a way that they didn't like yelling because it really doesn't help in an argument. Doesn't mean you bottle up your emotions. You just find a different way to communicate that. And to that end too, when you're fighting to not insult the person and their character. You didn't like something your husband said or he didn't do something that he said he was or whatever. I mean, we Mhmm. Pick at each other for different things.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:33]:

Right? You're not gonna say, hey. You're stupid. Or Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:35]:

Because that to me is, again, hitting below the belt or pushing those buttons because we also know what buttons are really going to inflame someone. And that's the part, like I said, you know, Sandy, you've never really made me upset. If you ever really want to make me upset, you can call me lazy or you can call me a liar. Oh. And I will lose it.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:55]:

Those are buttons for you.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:56]:

Those are my buttons. And my husband knows that those are my buttons. And family members and stuff, thank God, they don't push that. Yeah. Unless they really wanna see a show. Alright. So everybody has them though. Right? Everybody has their particular buttons that just don't go there.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:14]:

And when you're married to somebody and you live with somebody over the years and especially, like, if you've had probably very intimate conversations with your significant other, and they know things about you that no one else knows. That they know your vulnerabilities. And so once somebody let's say you're fighting and they hit on one of those vulnerabilities. I mean, not only does it make you feel bad, but the trust. It's like, okay. Well, I'm never gonna talk to you about x y z

Lanée Blaise [00:09:42]:

Exactly. Anymore. Exactly. And that's the part where again, we're talking to people who are not necessarily in a relationship right now too. It is very important to be mindful of the way you if you're just meeting someone or just getting to know someone, some of these elements too. Some of these components can show a lot about a person early on.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:03]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:03]:

And they're very good to watch for. How does this person talk to you? How do they talk to others actually too? How do they talk to the server at the restaurant? Because it's very possible that they may talk to you that way one day.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:16]:

That's right. So as we flip it a little bit from us being married to let's look at people who are looking for that special person. Or maybe they're dating someone and they're trying to assess it. Or Mhmm. Maybe they're just out there on Tinder or whatever. You know? Thank goodness Tinder wasn't out there when, I think match.com might have been out there back in the day, but definitely not Tinder.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:36]:

Yeah. It's like

Sandy Kovach [00:10:37]:

a whole new level. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:10:38]:

It really is. It makes navigating things a little more difficult because people will try to show you their best side and you'll try to see the best in a person and all that is good, but just watch for some of the little delicate intricacies. They will tell a lot too. Yeah. So this is something actually I was just telling my son last night. He's in high school. We were watching a show on TV. I said, Jay, every day, these people get upset with each other.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:08]:

Every episode, they're upset. And this is the beginning of their relationship. The the show, by the way, was The Good Doctor on ABC. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:14]:

I haven't seen that one. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:15]:

But I just realized, I said, Jay, please, I want you to understand if you're getting in a relationship, the beginning is supposed to be the happiest, most fun part. If you find that you both are arguing and having issues from jump, maybe you need to cut your losses and start fresh because there will definitely be good times and bad times and ups and downs and good and bad patches but you wanna look at the whole thing overall and say that it's worth it. That there's definitely more good to it and positives than negatives. And again, at the very beginning, I just don't see why it would need to be so frustrating. So again, things to look for when you're starting out. Yeah. And in college too, with our kids, we really are hopefully trying to equip them for with the the best of our ability, because like you said, everything is changing with the way that dating apps and things like that are. We really wanna make sure that they are ready for who's out there.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:11]:

And the culture is so different. Yeah. I mean, not to date ourselves, but, boy,

Lanée Blaise [00:12:15]:

I look around and I think I would not wanna be trying to date somebody right now. And that part is, I gotta say, to be fair dating ourselves though, for people our age, it still might be a little bit more familiar because there are plenty of other people out there who are thinking that they remember the way it was back in our day and they kinda liked that. And so there are still good folks to find. Now I don't want to be my age dating someone who's like 18 because

Sandy Kovach [00:12:47]:

Well, I hope not. For lots of reasons. But also Madonna

Lanée Blaise [00:12:49]:

. Yeah. Oh, man. See? But because the the not just the age gap, but like like you said, the way dating goes, I can't really navigate in that world, but it is still possible for people our age to date other people our age even in the environment. I truly believe that. I feel

Sandy Kovach [00:13:04]:

like I'm not marriages or just they haven't found the right person yet or

Lanée Blaise [00:13:09]:

Yeah. Because you're not because I feel like a lot of people are thinking, I'm still not used to this. But there are plenty of other people that are thinking the same thing right now, especially if they're our age.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:18]:

Right. And you mentioned meeting somebody at the drug store.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:21]:

Yeah. That still happens. It does. And my part about I have a cousin, you know, they live in the same city. How about if I introduce you to that still happens too.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:29]:

So People meet at work all the time.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:32]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:32]:

That's where I met my husband. So

Lanée Blaise [00:13:34]:

There's still hope. Just putting that out there. There's still hope.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:36]:

You don't have to be on Tinder.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:38]:

There's another thing that I want everyone to think about, and this is just good helpful advice regardless. It is kind of another ingredient in a way. Sandy, you ever heard that thing like, oh, it's not you. It's me.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:53]:

Oh, yeah. Like on Seinfeld? Yeah. Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:57]:

And it's not always about you, but this particular one, this time it is about you. The third ingredient I believe is self reflection. Everyone whether like again, whether you're in a relationship or you're looking for 1 needs to do some self reflection. You need to question yourself. You need to think about some things that might be hanging over you. For example, do you have a hard time communicating your feelings and you expect others to be able to read your mind and you get mad when they can't read your mind?

Sandy Kovach [00:14:31]:

Like being passive aggressive a little bit sort of goes with that.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:34]:

That get the seat. That could be a little hang up. Yeah. What about do you have grudges? Do you hold grudges? Do you have trouble forgiving and letting go of things, especially some of the little things?

Sandy Kovach [00:14:45]:

Yeah. That's big too.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:46]:

Do you have trouble apologizing when you have hurt someone's feelings even if you weren't actually wrong, but you did hurt the other person's feelings? Can you apologize for that? Yeah. There's a million questions that you could ask yourself. But if you start to see and look back at maybe some patterns that were just not working for you, maybe it's time for self reflection.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:09]:

Yeah. Especially if you found that you have the same thing happening over and over again in relationships. You might need to point the finger back at yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:18]:

Yeah. Because I have one. I have a bad one. Uh-oh. Confession time. Confession time. I tend to act kind of hardcore. There are these times where I act like I'm me.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:32]:

I'm gonna do whatever I wanna do. Nobody tell me nothing type of attitude. I realized it was something when I was a child, I had vowed to myself, I am never gonna have anyone try to control me. And so I was overcompensating and my poor husband, who was never trying to control me, had to eventually try to show me and have me trust that he was not trying to control me. That was never his agenda. He wanted to share his life with me and wanted me to share my life with him, but to this day he has never tried to make me do something I didn't wanna do or prevented me from doing something I wanted to do, but that was my hang up. Oh. And I was putting it on him.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:14]:

And like I said, it was from my childhood and something that I had just decided back when I was a teenager and it had just pushed out in a bad way. And that was something that I had to realize I need to stop that because it's putting a barrier between us. He's not trying to control me, but I'm trying to act all hardcore. It just isn't working.

Sandy Kovach [00:16:34]:

Oh, that is a pretty deep revelation. I've got something a little similar. It's not a control thing per se. It's more of a defensiveness thing. But I think it's kinda based on the same thing. I mean, both of you and I have pretty strong personalities, and that's great. But when you're in a relationship, you have to compromise and you have to account for other people's personalities. So my husband is an engineer, and he's always trying to think of the best way to do things.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:01]:

And by the best way, down to the smallest minutiae of how to extend the lifetime of, I don't know, a washing machine or a dishwasher or something like that. And if somebody is doing something wrong, they may be causing something to wear out faster than it needs to. So nothing wrong with that. But then you come across me and I've been doing things the same way for a long time, and they've been working out just fine. Thank you very much. So I get super defensive where it's not necessary. But on the other hand, just as I'm working on tamping down my defensiveness, he is also trying to realize that not everything is, you know, life and death. And we can let things slide occasionally, maybe even a lot.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:43]:

And it's not personal.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:45]:

That's the other part too. Right? It's not personal.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:47]:

Mean it as an attack on you. It's just in a way, he's almost trying to maybe bless you with a a great way to do something, and and I don't want that.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:57]:

Well, here okay. So I'm in a second marriage, and my husband and I have been married for over 10 years. So I think I, you know You've got them credentials. Style of credential, but also had a marriage that did not work. So, you know, I have things to look back on on that. And that was a very short marriage. And I spent a lot of time while my son was growing up as a single mom.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:17]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:17]:

His dad was very much in his life, and I was not abandoned in any way. But what I'm saying is there are a lot of years before I met my husband that I had to form habits. Yes. Habits in parenting, habits in doing stuff around the house. And I was a pretty competent adult and made my own living and all of that stuff. So I'm feeling like, okay. Here comes this guy, and he's never been married. And he's never been a parent.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:42]:

And he's gonna tell me x, y, and z. Now he may have had some great ideas, but I wasn't hearing it.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:47]:

Yeah. It's hard to reconcile that sometimes when you you have 2 fully grown adults trying to work together, live together, and make decisions together.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:58]:

Yeah. It's a And then you're a team. Back to the thing is you're a team and you have to respect each other. And quite honestly, he brought a lot of good ideas and balance to the table because we could not be more different. And isn't that true of a lot of relationships that About the opposite situation. And your partner are not the same at

Lanée Blaise [00:19:19]:

all. That is absolutely true. And even you may have some things in common, but we were brought up differently. Mhmm. We have, whether that be just the way our parents raised us or what region we're from or what culture we're from, there's so many things that can make it different. The way we're wired, like you said, the engineering mind or the more relaxed way of doing things, but it is doable with love, with respect, with self reflection. And I got the 4th one, Sandy.

Sandy Kovach [00:19:47]:

What's your 4th one?

Lanée Blaise [00:19:48]:

Humor. Oh, we

Sandy Kovach [00:19:50]:

do have that. We do have that. Yeah. Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:52]:

Humor is and so we still didn't even do the big one, which is always everyone says communication. But I guess it is the way that you communicate in a loving way. But I tell you, humor is really my favorite one. There's a quote by a man named Lanee Klein who said he tried to start a therapeutic humor movement, but he said humor can be one of our greatest survival tools and there is a power to humor that is truly underestimated. It can make a bad day lift up. It can make hard times or hard relationship blossom. Humor is so important. Sometimes you have to, like, like Taylor Swift said, just shake it off or just laugh it off.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:32]:

There's really importance to that in any relationship, whether it's romantic relationship, work relationship, any sometimes laugh at yourself.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:41]:

Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:41]:

Laugh at some of your own little silly mistakes.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:44]:

If we didn't have two things in our relationship, my husband and I, one is humor and the other is pets because our pets are so funny, you know, and so it ties in.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:55]:

You've got good pets though too.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:56]:

Yeah. We have good pets.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:57]:

Cat and dog. Yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:59]:

But boy, it's gotten us through some tough times. And that's the other thing. I pushed through or we, I should say, pushed through like, in the beginning, it was really rough. Because, again, coming together Blended family. Blending and blended family. My husband inherited not just me, but my son Yeah. And my animals.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:19]:

And you gotta give a little grace and credit for that too. Right? Because it's the whole package. So grateful, appreciative, and laughing.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:30]:

Lacking some of

Lanée Blaise [00:21:30]:

that mess off, some of those little silly things.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:34]:

No. I absolutely agree. And communication is like you said, we didn't really touch on it too much, but that is to go without saying. Now let me ask you a question because this dude I was reading, his blog, he's saying, oh, tell your spouse everything. But I don't necessarily think that if they ask you a question, absolutely be honest. But do you think you need to, like, drag every little thing and every little problem? Nope. Nope. Okay.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:00]:

You agree with me?

Lanée Blaise [00:22:01]:

I agree with you. And then also to another one is sometimes keeping your some opinions to yourself, especially if it's not that big a deal. Yeah. Does everybody need to know exactly that that particular shirt is just not working for you? Yeah. Let let the person wear the shirt and be happy. You know? Yeah. It's not life or death. And like you said, you want to be mindful of what you're saying and bringing to the person.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:29]:

And remember, that's why sometimes why you have girlfriends to hang out with and vent some of the stuff that needs to be vented, but doesn't necessarily need to be vented with your relationship partner.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:40]:

Now other relationships may be different, and certain couples may feel like they want to be that person, and they want every intimate detail. So I think maybe for some relationships, that's good. But for other relationships, like, I can tell if I bring up some stuff. My husband just starts cringing, and it's like, okay, bye bye.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:57]:

And we've kind of talked about this before, even as far as like, and this is maybe making it trivial, but even as far as TV shows, there are some TV shows that he probably cringes when you say, oh, let's watch this or movies that Not every single thing has to be shared with that one person. Like you said, unless you're in a relationship where that is just really part of the flow. But I think a little space sometimes can be good.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:22]:

Giving them space. Giving them space for their hobbies. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:25]:

Not resentment space, not spiteful space, but happy, pleasant space.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:31]:

Yeah. And there are certain times they're gonna wanna be away from you. Yeah. And they're gonna wanna go out golfing or they're gonna wanna, or whatever. You don't wanna be together all the time. You

Lanée Blaise [00:23:40]:

know? It seems wonderful at the beginning. Again, at the beginning of the relationship, you wanna spend all your time together. And then over time, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Yeah. You don't want it to be too long of a stretch, but you do want a little space.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:56]:

And back to where we started, that makes those romance, you know, bring the sizzle for the fizzle. No. Wait a minute. What was it again?

Lanée Blaise [00:24:03]:

Don't let the sizzle fizzle.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:04]:

This is what now I was trying to do Snoop. Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:09]:

Don't let the sizzle fizzle. If that's the last thing you Lanee from today, you've learned something.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:14]:

In the shizzle. Awesome. Can we do that? Yes. At least make it in the shizzle. Please.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:18]:

That makes you remember it better.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:20]:

Alright. So you say it. You say it better than me.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:23]:

Don't let the sizzle fizzle.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:25]:

In the shizzle.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:26]:

Boom. No. You're gonna say the whole thing. You need the combination of Sandy, Lynette, because We're in a relationship. Okay. So on that note, you ready for takeaway time? Yeah. What you got? My partner. Takeaway time.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:42]:

Remember these ingredients for the secret sauce to love.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:47]:

Okay, Barry.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:47]:

Oh, yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:48]:

Barry Lanee. Wait. No. Lanee White.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:51]:

All of that. Yeah. We just had a couple of episodes on fitness and health and nutrition, and we had one on finances. When we're talking about love and romance, can we be intentional? Can we think about the things that we need to focus on to help love blossom as opposed to the idea that, oh, we're in love. We've been together. Just let it ride out. Can we sometimes be intentional about our hashtag relationship goals?

Sandy Kovach [00:25:20]:

Yes. Can we do that? It's not just everything on Instagram. Right? That you see all that and looks so nice and

Lanée Blaise [00:25:26]:

No. It takes our own little spices to keep it going. Everybody knows the vows of love, honor, cherish. That's supposed to mean something. It's also supposed to mean something when you say for better, for worse, in sickness and health, for richer, for poorer. You have to understand that there will be these highs and lows in the relationship and there will be compromise and forgiveness because nobody's perfect. You're not perfect. They're not perfect.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:54]:

Some days you might have to ask yourself or remind yourself, what is it that I do love about this person?

Sandy Kovach [00:26:00]:

And

Lanée Blaise [00:26:01]:

really like actively think about that and concentrate on that as opposed to what they have done to make you upset. Think about why you love them.

Sandy Kovach [00:26:08]:

Remember the good. Don't concentrate on the bad. Amen.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:12]:

Also, the bible verse. Everybody thinks about the first part. Love is patient. Love is kind. But does anybody remember the rest of it where it says, love is not proud?

Sandy Kovach [00:26:21]:

Long suffering.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:22]:

It's not yeah. See? It's not rude. It's not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Mhmm. Love never fails. That is what we're trying to push out as Valentine week.

Sandy Kovach [00:26:42]:

I love it. It's a good way to end. There's many more things that we could say, and I think maybe in a future episode, we'll bring in a love expert.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:51]:

I like that idea because we've touched on a few things just to get there, but I think you can dig deeper and deeper. The more committed you are to really looking into these things in your life and in your relationship or future relationships, the more we can talk about it. So I definitely think that's a great strategy. But in the meantime, imagine yourself loving yourself and loving others well.

Sandy Kovach [00:27:16]:

Thanks for listening. Now we'd like to hear from you. Got an idea for the show? Want to share your story or just say hello? Make sure you connect with us. You can do that at imagine yourself podcast.com, and we'll talk to you again next time when we have something new to imagine.

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