Coach Michelle

From Tears to Intimacy: Romance Reawakened

In December 2021, I was in my marital bedroom, a room meant to be filled with love and laughter. Instead, it was often filled with hostility and harshness because that is where my husband and I typically fought.

I was sitting on the edge of my king-size bed under a warm, fuzzy purple blanket, tears streaming down my face when the door slammed. My husband had just stormed out after hours of me trying to use words, guilt, accusations, and pity to convince him to love me the way I wanted. These conversations were not new, and they always seemed to end the same way: with me crying and alone.

The draft from the door slamming gave me a chill. Or was it the way he had looked at me with a mix of sadness, disgust, and loathing? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I was shattered, depleted, devastated, and hopeless.  I couldn’t understand why asking him to spend time with me or make love to me would always end with him so angry and us living in silence and cold wars for months at a time.

I curled up under my cozy purple blanket in the fetal position and sobbed. Big, ugly, mascara-running, snot-coming-out-of-my-nose sobbing.

I finally got up, blew my nose, wiped my tears, and looked in the mirror. The same disgust that had been in my husband’s eyes was reflected back at me in my own. I didn’t know who this person was, and worse, I didn’t think I liked her very much.

How did I get here?

We had met at work twenty-six years earlier. I fell madly in love with him BEFORE we had even gone on a single date! Our relationship was amazing and dreamy—more than I had ever imagined. It was filled with laughter, joy, and A LOT of really. Hot. Steamy. Passion.

Yet, it didn’t take long for those starry-eyed young lovers to begin facing challenges.

We dated for five months, married, and found out we were having a baby six weeks after our wedding.

Our bundle of joy was born with severe colic and cried almost nonstop the first nine months of his life—literally.

I quickly became overwhelmed… Work, stress, home, marriage, post-baby body issues, no sleep—it was all too much.

Life was moving so fast, and I could feel my fairy-tale love story slipping away like beautiful fall leaves drying up and gliding to the ground in slow motion.

I tried so hard to fix us. It always seemed like my efforts just made it worse.

I dictated family activities, household chores, vacations, how to raise our kids, sex, finances, all with the intent to make us happy again based on my ideal definition of what that should look like. If he tried to resist, I would use logic to show him why I was right. If logic didn’t work, I would demand, cry, pout, sometimes beg…

I was like the maestro of a dysfunctional orchestra, and I couldn’t understand why my masterpiece just couldn’t get into harmony.

As the years passed, I became increasingly discouraged.  Nothing seemed to help for long. I just couldn’t fix us no matter how hard I tried.

Devastatingly, in the fall of 2020 my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary came and went without a celebration.

I felt unseen, cast aside, neglected, and emotionally and physically abandoned, and so, so incredibly sad.

I always tried to control my emotions, but…

Ultimately, the dam would unexpectedly break, and A LOT of ugly complaining, blaming, and criticizing would come pouring out of me like hot molten lava from a volcano aimed straight at my husband. It was so undignified, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from going there.

Behind all my complaining, criticism, and control…all I really wanted was for him to look at me again with love and affection instead of trying to avoid me.

Standing in front of that mirror as the ugly memories flowed like a slow-motion movie, I recalled the lessons from Laura Doyle’s 5-Day Adored Wife Challenge I had participated in just weeks earlier. Looking through the lens of the 6 Intimacy Skills™, I could see years of disrespect and control woven all throughout my marriage. I realized I was accountable for much of the misery I was living in. I felt ashamed and guilty…

And then I realized that if I had created it, I could fix it. At that moment, I decided to go all in practicing the Intimacy Skills.

For over a year, I absorbed everything Laura Doyle I could find as if a doctor had prescribed the Intimacy Skills as medicine to fix my marriage. I dug deep, found all the disrespect I could remember, and issued twenty-six years’ worth of Laura Doyle apologies.

I looked for and expressed gratitude daily. I worked on my self-care and relinquished control of papers not my own. Duct tape became my cherished friend. I allowed myself to dream and hope again, and I wrote, recorded, and listened to my vision daily.

In short order, my life and marriage improved drastically. I am happy again. I smile and laugh.

My home is loving and peaceful, with no more silence or cold wars!

My husband seeks me out, holds me, tells me I am beautiful. He comes into the room where I am throughout the day, lifts my hair, and kisses my neck until I squirm. We flirt and tease, go on amazing dates, and he frequently tells me how much he likes my behind in my yoga pants as I sashay down the hall teasing him.

Our relationship is full of fun, love, intimacy, and hope.

I am so grateful for the Intimacy Skills and optimistic about the future. In just over one year of consistency, they changed the entire dynamic of a twenty-seven year marriage, and things just keep getting better.

I feel so blessed and alive, and my heart just wants to share the joy and hope the Intimacy Skills have given me with other ladies seeking to once again become a magnet in their relationships.