In this week's episode of the Date Your Wife podcast, Danielle and Garrett get down to the nitty-gritty details of the behaviors, patterns, and stories both men and women exhibit and live in when it comes to the topic of money. The White's speak boldly and honestly about their experiences as a married couple inside the Game of Money - where men are typically driven by sex, and women by security - and share what they did that led them out of the throes of divorce and into a thriving and expanding relationship.
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.... MONEY
Point #1: Safety, Security, and Sex
- Garrett: We're discussing the fact that men typically use money to control women, and women use sex to control men. But there's this cross-over game specifically on the topic of money where a woman wants a man to produce, and yet inside of that, one of the challenges that happens is that the woman continues to cut the balls off the man as a Producer.
- Danielle: Money creates safety and security for a woman, even if you're a powerful woman. I'm a very independent person and have always been one to want to take care of myself. Inside of that, I also want to be taken care of. So it's like this double-edged sword. In the end, we want to be taken care of but we can't expect to be taken care of we keep fighting for the throne. It's a balancing game and surrender on both ends.
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" Ctxt_color="#ffffff"]QUESTION[/mks_pullquote]
How does this ring true in your relationship?
Point #2: No Money, No Trust
- Danielle: At one point, Garrett wasn't producing, so I decided to put on the man hat and figure it out on my own. When everything got stripped from us, I wasn't feeling connected to Garrett. I didn't know if I really wanted to be married, especially since we didn't have any money. It wasn't like I was trying to cut Garrett's balls off; from a female perspective, I was just trying to survive. "You were the provider, you stripped that, so fuck you, you've lost my trust."
- Garrett: We're sitting in this situation where I've built something and then I've lost it. I've also lost the trust of my wife. As I'm climbing out of the Pit to create financial results again, what I didn't expect to happen was to be tested by the queen over and over and over. I would speak to the possibility of what I was going to go do and then not do it. She didn't respond with something like "Oh hon, you're amazing." There was no cheerleading, "Hey you got this." Danielle was scorned and had no trust in me.
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" txt_color="#ffffff"]QUESTION[/mks_pullquote]
When trust has been lost in your marriage, how do you both regain it?
Point #3: Preparing for War
- Garrett: I struggled with this. I interpreted everything she was saying and doing as "She doesn't want me, she doesn't care about me, she doesn't support me." Add to that, our sex life goes to hell in a hen basket. Not only do I have some blue balls going on, now I have bloody blue balls, and I'm having to protect my balls from being cut off every single day. I didn't know how to deal with this.
- What I didn't know and understand was that she was actually preparing me to go back to war, to go back outside the wall of the destroyed kingdom to rebuild and repair our lives, to pay the bills, to build us out of scarcity and into abundance, and to create.
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" txt_color="#ffffff"]QUESTION[/mks_pullquote]
Gentlemen, describe how your wife has been preparing you to go back to war.
Point #4: Balls of Steel
- Garrett: When I finally mastered the game of being able to go into collision with my wife, particularly in the conversation of money, there was a shift that took place. I got to this point where my balls became as steel. "Woman, go ahead and hack at those balls because all you'll do is break your knife." At that point, life started to shift and Danielle started to trust.
- Danielle: I felt like Garrett was taking back the throne. Part of me was resistant, and a part of me was thinking "it's about fucking time." When I started to see that happen, I began backing down and decided I was going to stay in my own lane. There were two years where we just stayed in our own lanes; we weren't at war anymore, and the trust was building on both sides.
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" txt_color="#ffffff"]QUESTION[/mks_pullquote]
What does collision look like in your marriage?
Point #5: Daggers and Triggers
- Garrett: Gentlemen, stop interpreting your wife's "criticism" as an attack. Stop the process of making your wife out to be the villain and the monster who is attacking you. You have to find a new decision and a new path that says, "Listen, my wife is not attacking me, my wife is triggering me to grow.
- Danielle: A lot of times, I felt like I was throwing daggers at Garrett. I wasn't trying to trigger him, I wanted him to be the man I knew he could be. But I couldn't say that, so it became a song and a dance for us to figure out how to communicate with each other.
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" txt_color="#ffffff"]QUESTION[/mks_pullquote]
What does your song and dance look like?
Communication Challenge:
Have a candid conversation around the premise that men typically use money to control women, and women use sex to control men. How has this affected your individual behavior as well as your overall relationship?
Date Night Topic:
Gratitude: As you go on your date this week, share three things about your spouse or partner that you are grateful for.
Quote of the Week:
"This has nothing to do with your wife not being a producer. My wife is an ultra producer and out-produces most men I know. Inside of that place, we each have clear roles and responsibilities as a couple which allow us to both experience the growth and the possibility of being a couple. My responsibility is the King, and hers is not that role."
--Garrett J White
"When women ask me how we did this, it's like they're wanting a checklist. I tell them to "put a mirror in front of your face and take a good look." It's the hard shit that women don't want to face, and it's usually the stuff not on the checklist that's tucked under the mattress, or under the rug; it's consistently doing the "little things" in the relationship that make a big difference."
--Danielle K White
