The Relationship Skills Nobody Taught You Before You Said “I Do”
Show notes
You can lead a team, build a business, and handle a crisis before lunch. So why can one conversation at home leave you feeling like you’ve lost your footing?
On this episode of the Sisterhood of S.W.E.A.T., Linda Mitchell talks with Michelle, founder of Monarch for Love and a Certified Marriage Transformation Coach. Michelle shares the personal transformation behind her business and introduces Love Literacy™, her framework for learning relationship skills many of us missed growing up.
Linda and Michelle explore what recurring arguments can reveal, how to ask for shared effort when you’re tired of carrying the emotional work, and what to say when you want to repair a conversation that went sideways. They also talk about the leadership habits that follow us home and what it means to define success in a way that includes the people we love.
In this episode
- How Michelle turned hard-earned relationship lessons into Monarch for Love
- What a fight about phones, chores, or money might be trying to tell you
- How to ask your partner to share the work of improving your relationship
- What to say when you get defensive and want to start the conversation again
- How emotional intelligence shows up in business, marriage, and family life
Connect with Michelle
Monarch for Love · Monarch for Love Podcast · Love Literacy™
Connect with Linda
Sisterhood of S.W.E.A.T. · @sisterhoodofsweat on Instagram
content type
interview
primary goal
educational
guest name
Michelle Hayes
summary
Linda Mitchell speaks with Michelle Hayes, founder of Monarch for Love and a marriage transformation coach, about practical relationship skills for couples caught in recurring conflict. Hayes explains her love literacy framework, emotional regulation and repair tools, emotional safety, and how to protect connection while balancing business and home life.
Key Topics
Why couples repeat painful arguments: many people never learned how to express needs, listen through defensiveness, or reconnect.
The phone-at-dinner example shows how turning a complaint into a clear request can reduce defensiveness and invite connection.
Hayes explains her 3D emotional reset: define the deeper feeling, delay the immediate reaction, and decide how you want to show up.
Emotional safety means being able to express feelings without fear of a partner's reaction; listening and validation may matter more than immediate solutions.
Couples can agree on fair-fight ground rules before conflict, including no name-calling, taking pauses, and using phrases like “Help me understand.”
Hayes shares how vulnerability and family-of-origin messages can reveal the meaning behind conflicts about chores and household standards.
She distinguishes ordinary communication struggles from frightening or physically intimidating behavior and urges people who feel afraid to seek help.
Repair can begin with acknowledging emotional activation and saying, “I would never intentionally hurt you.”
Hayes describes reserving Friday through Sunday for her marriage and creating smaller moments of connection during the week.
For a reconnection conversation, she suggests starting with “I really miss you” and asking curious, non-blaming questions.
Takeaways
We were not taught the skills that we need to navigate our challenges.
The answer is curiosity.
Invite a request rather than a demand.
Define the feeling, delay the reaction, and decide how you're gonna show up.
Emotional safety is when you can express yourself to your partner without the fear of their reaction.
Sometimes we don't want them to solve things. We want someone to listen and validate us.
You have to talk about when you're not activated... what your steps are gonna be when you both get activated.
Help me understand what you're feeling right now because I don't understand.
Just because you don't feel loved does not mean you are not loved.
I really miss you. I miss the way we used to laugh together and I want to get back to that.
Key Frameworks
Love literacy
3D emotional reset: define the feeling, delay the reaction, decide how to show up
Action Items
When triggered, identify the deeper feeling, pause before reacting, and choose how you want to show up.
Replace a blame-filled complaint with a specific request, such as asking to put phones away during dinner.
When your partner shares a problem, ask whether they want listening and validation rather than solutions.
Agree on fair-fight ground rules while calm, including no name-calling and taking a pause when flooded.
Try a reconnection opener: “I miss you” or “I miss us,” followed by a curious question.
Protect recurring time for the relationship and discuss a win-win approach to work and home commitments.
Sound Bites
"The answer is curiosity."
"We invite a request rather than a demand."
"I would never intentionally hurt you."
Chapters
00:00 Meet Michelle Hayes and the idea of love literacy
03:12 Why couples get trapped in recurring arguments
05:07 Turn the phone-at-dinner complaint into a request
06:57 The 3D emotional reset: identify, pause, choose
11:11 Emotional safety, vulnerability, and listening without fixing
18:10 Agree on fair-fight rules before conflict starts
22:25 When conflict crosses into intimidation and danger
26:08 Repair after hurtful words and rebuild trust
28:09 Love languages, changing bodies, and emotional intimacy
31:35 Leadership instincts, softness, and household power struggles
38:27 Protecting marriage time while growing a business
40:48 A simple conversation starter for reconnecting
42:43 Monarch for Love and the marriage expectations study
resources
Monarch for Love - https://monarchforlove.com
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