Coach Jola

From Business Partners to Passionate Lovers

Dating and the first five years of our marriage were bliss. I had no one else to take care of but my husband and myself. I would do everything during the day at home and the office to make sure that when my husband got home, I could show him how much work I had done. I enjoyed it. I received a tremendous amount of gratitude and affirmations from him. We built a very successful business together.

Then things started changing. The scope of work shifted from office management to software creation and we went from no kids to three kids in three years. Our relationship took a downturn.

For the next seven years, I went to a marriage therapist who told me to divorce my husband immediately, to a family counselor who allowed us to point fingers at each other, to numerous coaching sessions with coaches who had no clue how to help.

Needless to say, it cost a lot of time and money.

We were exhausted, so mad at each other and disappointed. Work was not going well. We still worked together, but I resented every second of it. I cried every time we sat together at the computer. I wondered how he could not see that. I was doing things I did not enjoy or feel qualified to do. He was mad that I wasn’t supporting him enough.

In my eyes, everything he said to our employees was wrong. I was on the other side “protecting” them from my husband as if he were out to hurt them. I was looking at his criticism of them as criticism of me: that I didn’t do a good job or I would have to do more work. He kept saying, “You are on their side,” and I didn’t see it at all.

Our tenth wedding anniversary was the worst day of my life. It was the day my husband told me that I had ruined his life. That it was 100% my fault. We were in a beautiful, very expensive restaurant arguing.

I truly felt like a victim. I had spent years in life coaching. Instead of improving myself and growing the business, family, etc., I kept trying to fix our marriage and figure out a way we COULD work together.

Nothing was really working.

They were not relationship coaches; they were life coaches who knew how to achieve goals but not necessarily fix a marriage. I had some very short-term results and then would go back to the beginning.

Then finally, one day my life coach told me about the book Surrendered Wives Empowered Women. I listened to it over two days. I was in shock! I felt so empowered! Pictures of all the times I’d put him down in front of others as a payback for him “making me” work on the software flashed before my eyes.

Just a few days before that happened, we were interviewing two relationship coaches to coach us on our marriage. Then when I read the book, I apologized to my husband and said, “We don’t need any coaches—I got this.”

In disbelief and shock, he asked, “What do I need to change about myself?”

I responded, “Nothing. I love you just the way you are.”

That was the beginning of recovering our marriage.

Then the day came when I started Relationship Coach Training. On the call, Laura asked me, “If you had a magic wand, what would you do? How would you see your situation?”

For the first time, I let the words come out from my mouth and I said, “We wouldn’t work together at all…”

That was the moment when I realized I needed to step away from the business. It was so scary, as I had nothing in common with my husband except for talking about the business. Even though we started working together after we got married, I felt that we practically had a business relationship.

We didn’t really know each other. We had family, but because there was so much hurt and resentment, we couldn’t talk about the kids either. Everything seemed like an attack on me. Everything I did was met with criticism, at least so I thought, and subsequently tears on my side.

Through Coach Training, I learned a lot about application of the tools. I learned how to listen and be heard.

Four months into the program, I was on top of the world. I stepped away from the business, took dancing classes, restarted my modeling career, started to pay more attention to the kids and my husband. We became more intimate. Life was good.

Then one day, my husband told me, “None of this Laura stuff works! You may be happy but I’m not. This is not working for me. You need to drop this program ASAP. You left me and the business.” I felt soooo sad and defeated. Here I thought we were doing so well, and now everything seemed a waste.

We entered a cold war for about three weeks. I could not believe that we had gone from such a great place and what I thought was a better relationship to nothing.

Fortunately, I had my group of coaches who helped me get through this dip. I also, for the first time in years, had a preview of what a beautiful relationship could be like, so I had hope and something to look forward to.

Now, my husband, who never used to open doors for me, does it with a smile on his face. He buys me flowers and talks to me for hours.

Before, he tried to get me to listen to the news so I could stay current and be able to talk to him. Now he listens to everything about polarity between men and women, where the world is going in respect to that, and updates me on the news. He talks to me about the things that really interest me. In return, now I want to learn things that interest him.

Recently, lying in bed, he looked at me with loving eyes and said, “Thank you for taking care of our family. I’d much rather have you here [in my arms] than in the office.”

Those were the most beautiful words I could ever hear. Acceptance, love, admiration, intimacy—all I’d ever dreamed of.

Our fourteenth wedding anniversary turned out to be the most beautiful day of my life. We were hugging in the kitchen, just looking lovingly in each other’s eyes, when our kids (7, 5, and 4) started coming up to us and hugging us. They looked up at us with loving eyes of safety and peace.

That picture is forever engraved in my mind. And it was all possible because of the Six Intimacy Skills™.