September 2, 2025 • 13 mins
Conflict and differences in marriage don't mean you married the wrong person; they simply mean you're two human beings from different backgrounds working together to build a life. Statistics show "incompatibility" is the leading cause of divorce, but what couples often interpret as irreconcilable differences are actually normal variations in perspective.
• Differences between spouses are normal and healthy, not red flags
• The idea that real love should feel effortless is a damaging myth
• Conflict isn't a sign of incompatibility but an opportunity for growth
• Working through differences builds intimacy and connection
• My husband and I had completely opposite backgrounds regarding travel and dining out
• Early conversations about money and lifestyle were extremely strained
• It took a decade to find solutions that worked for both of us
• We created unique approaches to travel and date nights that blend both perspectives
• Successful couples don't agree on everything - they collaborate creatively
• Turning differences into strengths makes marriages unbreakable
My book "Bad Marriage Advice: Debunking Myths That Will Make You Miserable And What To Do Instead" launches October 1st. Email me at moni@monicatanner.com if you'd like to join the launch team and help get it into as many hands as possible.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 0 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever
After podcast.
I'm your host, monica Tanner,and today's episode is a little
bit vulnerable because I'm goingto be talking about my own
marriage.
So first to set it up, have youever looked at your spouse and
thought how are we even together?
Like when you realized you grewup eating out every single
(00:22):
Friday night as a family andyour spouse feels like going out
is just for special occasionslike birthdays, or when you're
planning a vacation and you'reused to getting on a flight,
going to the beach, going skiing, and they're like well, why
don't we just go visit familyone state over, right?
Today I'm busting one of thesneakiest marriage myths of all,
(00:47):
and that's if you're notgetting along, you probably
picked the wrong person.
Spoiler alert that is not true.
Conflict and differences do notmean that you're incompatible.
They just mean that you're twohuman beings from different
backgrounds working together tobuild a life.
(01:07):
And if you've ever felt likeyour differences were proof that
you married the wrong person,today's episode is going to set
you free and hopefully I'll makeyou laugh a little bit, even
uncomfortably, because I'm goingto give you the inside scoop on
how my marriage started.
So here is why believing thatif you're not getting along, you
(01:30):
probably married the wrongperson is a very tempting thing
to believe, because when thingsfeel hard, our brains go
straight to this idea that itshouldn't be this hard.
Maybe we're just not right foreach other.
Maybe I made a mistake.
We see perfectly editedrelationships on Instagram,
(01:50):
right?
People post their highlightreels.
It's not like they're talkingabout when they're disagreeing
or not seeing eye to eye.
And then we watch movies wherethe right person just magically
understands everything.
These couples are perfectlycompatible and they live a
beautiful life together, or evenif there's a disagreement,
(02:10):
everything is worked out withinthe episode, right.
So we suddenly think that reallove should feel effortless.
But here's the truthDifferences are normal.
No two people are created alikeand conflict is normal.
Working through conflict isactually what builds intimacy.
(02:34):
So the truth is is that you'renot incompatible.
It's that you need to learn theskills of collaboration.
So here's a few statistics thatI looked up before recording
this episode.
A survey of certified divorcefinancial analyst professionals
found that basic incompatibilitywas cited as the leading cause
(02:55):
of divorce in 43% of cases, morethan infidelity and more than
money issues.
In a separate study, 31% ofdivorcing couples reported
incompatibility, often termedirreconcilable differences, in
the courts as their reason fordivorce.
Interestingly, among couplesdivorcing within the first year,
(03:18):
the number skyrockets to 59%,citing irreconcilable
differences, suggesting thatearly stage mismatches are a
common trigger for divorce.
More broadly, a 2025 overviewnoted that incompatibility
remains the leading cause ofdivorce in the United States,
(03:41):
confirming its prevalence acrossmultiple sources.
These numbers reinforce thatincompatibility is not just
common.
It's often seen as the primaryreason why marriages end.
This makes busting myths likedifferences, equal
incompatibility even morecrucial to understand, because
(04:04):
too many couples mistakenlyinterpret normal growth and
divergence as deal breakers.
So if you listened to lastweek's episode, I told you that
my husband and I couldn't havegrown up more differently, and I
promised in this episode that Iwould give you a picture of
what early stages of ourmarriage was like.
(04:24):
Now, this is something wedidn't discuss in depth before
we got married and somethingthat we had to deal with very
early on in our marriage.
The first was that in my family, traveling was very normal.
We went to the beach for acouple of weeks every summer and
we went skiing for a couple ofweeks every summer and we went
skiing for a couple of weeksevery winter.
(04:46):
A trip for our family of fourmeant airline tickets, hotel
rooms, eating nice dinners,exploring new places and
spending lots of money.
Also, we regularly ate out as afamily, meaning every single
week we went out to dinner, ourfamily of four, and later, after
(05:07):
my parents divorced, our newfamily of six went out to eat
once a week.
I also grew up seeing myparents go out together once a
week on a regular basis.
That means that in a seven-dayweek my family ate out twice a
week.
Now my husband's family wasvery different.
(05:30):
Funds and their family werevery tight when he was growing
up.
In fact he remembers onSaturday they would go to the
store, pick out one candy barand split it among the six
children and that was theirtreat for the week.
When they would travel, itmeant loading into the car to go
stay with a family membersomewhere for a family event.
(05:54):
When they did have to eat outon their road trips, each kid
would order two things from thedollar menu at McDonald's or
Taco Bell.
And eating out for my husband'sfamily growing up was something
reserved for special occasionslike a birthday once in a while.
Now imagine we get married andwe're combining our two
(06:16):
experiences and trying to figureout what would be normal for us
together, and I guarantee youthere was a lot of conflict in
these discussions.
Our early conversations aboutmoney and budgeting and what a
vacation would look like werevery strained, and my idea of a
(06:37):
date night meaning going out todinner once a week was not
something that he had everconsidered to be normal.
We clashed about this regularlyand it was not pretty.
I will tell you that thebreakthrough on this did not
happen all at once.
It took at least a decade to beable to come up with something
(07:00):
that both of us could live with,and when I think about this now
, I laugh at some of the awkwardsituations that we put each
other in because we disagreed sostrongly over this.
Because we disagreed so stronglyover this, in fact, I was just
telling my children a storyabout when we were on vacation
(07:21):
with two other couples and wewere staying in an all-inclusive
, meaning all of our meals wereprovided when we paid to book
the vacation.
Now, the two other couples thatwe were traveling with wanted
to eat somewhere that wasn't apart of the resort we were
staying at, so my husband wasalready super grumpy about the
(07:42):
fact that we had paid the moneyfor the vacation.
All the meals were included andthese guys wanted to go off
site and spent money for dinner.
In order to help the situation,I offered to split a meal with
my husband so that we were onlypaying for one dinner.
But the straw that broke thecamel's back was when we stopped
for ice cream on the way backto the resort.
(08:02):
I can tell you it was one ofthe most awkward situations I
had been in, when they wereordering ice cream and my
husband was sitting with thegrumpiest look on his face just
daring me to order.
Not really, I didn't order icecream, and the two of us just
sat there with grumpy looks onour faces as the two other
couples enjoyed their ice creamtogether.
(08:24):
Now listen, my husband isamazing and I think working
through all of these ideas abouttraveling and eating out have
strengthened our marriage in somany ways.
Now we love to travel.
If you follow us on socialmedia, you will see that we take
several trips a year.
(08:45):
In fact, when it's been toolong since we've been anywhere,
my husband will say I'm itchingto get out, it's time to go on a
vacation, and we eat out mostweeks.
Now I will tell you that manytimes we share a meal.
We don't go to super nicerestaurants every single week
and a lot of weeks we'll just goget a treat, like our favorite
(09:07):
drink or our favorite dessert,and we'll do something for date
night that doesn't cost anymoney.
I love these dates way morethan eating out an expensive
restaurant.
Why?
Because it defines us as afamily.
It was a collaboration and anegotiation that my husband and
I worked hard to make it, sothat I get all of the things
(09:29):
that I want each week and hegets all of the things that he
wants each week, the things thatare important to both of us.
We've combined them and we'vemade it ours.
The same thing for when wetravel.
We take really cool trips andwe've taken our kids to some
very cool places, but a lot oftimes we will pack peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches for thedrive or the flight.
(09:50):
Couples who know us well and whohave traveled with us laugh at
some of the things we do, butthey are uniquely ours and it's
part of the reason why I love myhusband so much and we have so
much fun together because we canlook back at our history and
working these things out and theawkward moments that we've
(10:11):
overcome, and we can just laughand appreciate each other and
appreciate how far both of ushave come in order to create
something that is uniquely ours.
So when we travel, we drive alot to see family, for family
get togethers and events.
Sometimes these trips are superquick and we do it in a very
(10:32):
cheap way, but that also allowsus the budget to be able to take
our family on really coolvacations as well.
It's the best of both worlds,and we certainly couldn't have
come up with it any other way,besides collaborating in the way
that I talk about in my newbook Bad Marriage Advice
debunking myths that will makeyou miserable and what to do
(10:54):
instead.
So I want to take a moment tojust reiterate the big takeaway,
and that is that conflict anddifferences of opinion are not
red flags, they are buildingblocks.
Every couple has differences,whether you're talking about
money, habits, family traditions, the way you parent, even how
(11:17):
you load the dishwasher.
You're coming from twodifferent backgrounds, two
different experiences, twodifferent preferences, and if
both of you are showing up, thenthere's going to be conflict.
The couples who thrive are notthe ones who agree on everything
.
Couples who thrive are not theones who agree on everything.
They're the ones who say thisis your background, this is mine
(11:38):
.
How do we create something newtogether that both of us love?
That shift changes everything.
You stop looking at each otheras opponents or annoying people
that think differently than wedo, and you start playing on the
same team.
You start taking the best ofwhat your partner brings and the
(12:00):
best of what you bring, and youput it together into a winning
combination.
So the next time you bump upagainst a difference and that
little voice inside your headwhispers maybe we're just not
meant to be, maybe we've made ahuge mistake.
Remind yourselves thatdifferences do not mean
(12:20):
incompatibility orirreconcilable differences.
They mean that you have anopportunity to collaborate, to
get curious and get creative andcooperate on something that
becomes uniquely yours.
If this episode resonated withyou, you are going to love Bad
(12:41):
Marriage Advice.
It is full of myths that we'veall heard and many of us believe
or even cling to, just likethis one, but it's also filled
with the truths that makemarriage stronger, healthier and
a lot more fun.
It's available October 1st andif you want to be on the launch
(13:03):
team, meaning the team thathelps get it out into the world
and into as many hands ashumanly possible.
Make sure you email me at moniat monicatanercom.
Let me know you're in for thebook launch and I will send you
all the information that youneed.
I am so grateful that you spentthis time with me.
(13:25):
I'm grateful to be able to tellthe story of how our
differences almost broke us, buthow learning how to navigate
them with skill and respectactually has made us unbreakable
.
And this is what I want sobadly for anyone who's listening
.
Don't fall prey to the ideathat you just have
(13:47):
irreconcilable differences.
Take those differences and makethem the strength of your
marriage and join me same time,same place next week.
And until then, happymarriaging.
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever
After podcast.
I'm your host, monica Tanner,and today's episode is a little
bit vulnerable because I'm goingto be talking about my own
marriage.
So first to set it up, have youever looked at your spouse and
thought how are we even together?
Like when you realized you grewup eating out every single
(00:22):
Friday night as a family andyour spouse feels like going out
is just for special occasionslike birthdays, or when you're
planning a vacation and you'reused to getting on a flight,
going to the beach, going skiing, and they're like well, why
don't we just go visit familyone state over, right?
Today I'm busting one of thesneakiest marriage myths of all,
(00:47):
and that's if you're notgetting along, you probably
picked the wrong person.
Spoiler alert that is not true.
Conflict and differences do notmean that you're incompatible.
They just mean that you're twohuman beings from different
backgrounds working together tobuild a life.
(01:07):
And if you've ever felt likeyour differences were proof that
you married the wrong person,today's episode is going to set
you free and hopefully I'll makeyou laugh a little bit, even
uncomfortably, because I'm goingto give you the inside scoop on
how my marriage started.
So here is why believing thatif you're not getting along, you
(01:30):
probably married the wrongperson is a very tempting thing
to believe, because when thingsfeel hard, our brains go
straight to this idea that itshouldn't be this hard.
Maybe we're just not right foreach other.
Maybe I made a mistake.
We see perfectly editedrelationships on Instagram,
(01:50):
right?
People post their highlightreels.
It's not like they're talkingabout when they're disagreeing
or not seeing eye to eye.
And then we watch movies wherethe right person just magically
understands everything.
These couples are perfectlycompatible and they live a
beautiful life together, or evenif there's a disagreement,
(02:10):
everything is worked out withinthe episode, right.
So we suddenly think that reallove should feel effortless.
But here's the truthDifferences are normal.
No two people are created alikeand conflict is normal.
Working through conflict isactually what builds intimacy.
(02:34):
So the truth is is that you'renot incompatible.
It's that you need to learn theskills of collaboration.
So here's a few statistics thatI looked up before recording
this episode.
A survey of certified divorcefinancial analyst professionals
found that basic incompatibilitywas cited as the leading cause
(02:55):
of divorce in 43% of cases, morethan infidelity and more than
money issues.
In a separate study, 31% ofdivorcing couples reported
incompatibility, often termedirreconcilable differences, in
the courts as their reason fordivorce.
Interestingly, among couplesdivorcing within the first year,
(03:18):
the number skyrockets to 59%,citing irreconcilable
differences, suggesting thatearly stage mismatches are a
common trigger for divorce.
More broadly, a 2025 overviewnoted that incompatibility
remains the leading cause ofdivorce in the United States,
(03:41):
confirming its prevalence acrossmultiple sources.
These numbers reinforce thatincompatibility is not just
common.
It's often seen as the primaryreason why marriages end.
This makes busting myths likedifferences, equal
incompatibility even morecrucial to understand, because
(04:04):
too many couples mistakenlyinterpret normal growth and
divergence as deal breakers.
So if you listened to lastweek's episode, I told you that
my husband and I couldn't havegrown up more differently, and I
promised in this episode that Iwould give you a picture of
what early stages of ourmarriage was like.
(04:24):
Now, this is something wedidn't discuss in depth before
we got married and somethingthat we had to deal with very
early on in our marriage.
The first was that in my family, traveling was very normal.
We went to the beach for acouple of weeks every summer and
we went skiing for a couple ofweeks every summer and we went
skiing for a couple of weeksevery winter.
(04:46):
A trip for our family of fourmeant airline tickets, hotel
rooms, eating nice dinners,exploring new places and
spending lots of money.
Also, we regularly ate out as afamily, meaning every single
week we went out to dinner, ourfamily of four, and later, after
(05:07):
my parents divorced, our newfamily of six went out to eat
once a week.
I also grew up seeing myparents go out together once a
week on a regular basis.
That means that in a seven-dayweek my family ate out twice a
week.
Now my husband's family wasvery different.
(05:30):
Funds and their family werevery tight when he was growing
up.
In fact he remembers onSaturday they would go to the
store, pick out one candy barand split it among the six
children and that was theirtreat for the week.
When they would travel, itmeant loading into the car to go
stay with a family membersomewhere for a family event.
(05:54):
When they did have to eat outon their road trips, each kid
would order two things from thedollar menu at McDonald's or
Taco Bell.
And eating out for my husband'sfamily growing up was something
reserved for special occasionslike a birthday once in a while.
Now imagine we get married andwe're combining our two
(06:16):
experiences and trying to figureout what would be normal for us
together, and I guarantee youthere was a lot of conflict in
these discussions.
Our early conversations aboutmoney and budgeting and what a
vacation would look like werevery strained, and my idea of a
(06:37):
date night meaning going out todinner once a week was not
something that he had everconsidered to be normal.
We clashed about this regularlyand it was not pretty.
I will tell you that thebreakthrough on this did not
happen all at once.
It took at least a decade to beable to come up with something
(07:00):
that both of us could live with,and when I think about this now
, I laugh at some of the awkwardsituations that we put each
other in because we disagreed sostrongly over this.
Because we disagreed so stronglyover this, in fact, I was just
telling my children a storyabout when we were on vacation
(07:21):
with two other couples and wewere staying in an all-inclusive
, meaning all of our meals wereprovided when we paid to book
the vacation.
Now, the two other couples thatwe were traveling with wanted
to eat somewhere that wasn't apart of the resort we were
staying at, so my husband wasalready super grumpy about the
(07:42):
fact that we had paid the moneyfor the vacation.
All the meals were included andthese guys wanted to go off
site and spent money for dinner.
In order to help the situation,I offered to split a meal with
my husband so that we were onlypaying for one dinner.
But the straw that broke thecamel's back was when we stopped
for ice cream on the way backto the resort.
(08:02):
I can tell you it was one ofthe most awkward situations I
had been in, when they wereordering ice cream and my
husband was sitting with thegrumpiest look on his face just
daring me to order.
Not really, I didn't order icecream, and the two of us just
sat there with grumpy looks onour faces as the two other
couples enjoyed their ice creamtogether.
(08:24):
Now listen, my husband isamazing and I think working
through all of these ideas abouttraveling and eating out have
strengthened our marriage in somany ways.
Now we love to travel.
If you follow us on socialmedia, you will see that we take
several trips a year.
(08:45):
In fact, when it's been toolong since we've been anywhere,
my husband will say I'm itchingto get out, it's time to go on a
vacation, and we eat out mostweeks.
Now I will tell you that manytimes we share a meal.
We don't go to super nicerestaurants every single week
and a lot of weeks we'll just goget a treat, like our favorite
(09:07):
drink or our favorite dessert,and we'll do something for date
night that doesn't cost anymoney.
I love these dates way morethan eating out an expensive
restaurant.
Why?
Because it defines us as afamily.
It was a collaboration and anegotiation that my husband and
I worked hard to make it, sothat I get all of the things
(09:29):
that I want each week and hegets all of the things that he
wants each week, the things thatare important to both of us.
We've combined them and we'vemade it ours.
The same thing for when wetravel.
We take really cool trips andwe've taken our kids to some
very cool places, but a lot oftimes we will pack peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches for thedrive or the flight.
(09:50):
Couples who know us well and whohave traveled with us laugh at
some of the things we do, butthey are uniquely ours and it's
part of the reason why I love myhusband so much and we have so
much fun together because we canlook back at our history and
working these things out and theawkward moments that we've
(10:11):
overcome, and we can just laughand appreciate each other and
appreciate how far both of ushave come in order to create
something that is uniquely ours.
So when we travel, we drive alot to see family, for family
get togethers and events.
Sometimes these trips are superquick and we do it in a very
(10:32):
cheap way, but that also allowsus the budget to be able to take
our family on really coolvacations as well.
It's the best of both worlds,and we certainly couldn't have
come up with it any other way,besides collaborating in the way
that I talk about in my newbook Bad Marriage Advice
debunking myths that will makeyou miserable and what to do
(10:54):
instead.
So I want to take a moment tojust reiterate the big takeaway,
and that is that conflict anddifferences of opinion are not
red flags, they are buildingblocks.
Every couple has differences,whether you're talking about
money, habits, family traditions, the way you parent, even how
(11:17):
you load the dishwasher.
You're coming from twodifferent backgrounds, two
different experiences, twodifferent preferences, and if
both of you are showing up, thenthere's going to be conflict.
The couples who thrive are notthe ones who agree on everything
.
Couples who thrive are not theones who agree on everything.
They're the ones who say thisis your background, this is mine
(11:38):
.
How do we create something newtogether that both of us love?
That shift changes everything.
You stop looking at each otheras opponents or annoying people
that think differently than wedo, and you start playing on the
same team.
You start taking the best ofwhat your partner brings and the
(12:00):
best of what you bring, and youput it together into a winning
combination.
So the next time you bump upagainst a difference and that
little voice inside your headwhispers maybe we're just not
meant to be, maybe we've made ahuge mistake.
Remind yourselves thatdifferences do not mean
(12:20):
incompatibility orirreconcilable differences.
They mean that you have anopportunity to collaborate, to
get curious and get creative andcooperate on something that
becomes uniquely yours.
If this episode resonated withyou, you are going to love Bad
(12:41):
Marriage Advice.
It is full of myths that we'veall heard and many of us believe
or even cling to, just likethis one, but it's also filled
with the truths that makemarriage stronger, healthier and
a lot more fun.
It's available October 1st andif you want to be on the launch
(13:03):
team, meaning the team thathelps get it out into the world
and into as many hands ashumanly possible.
Make sure you email me at moniat monicatanercom.
Let me know you're in for thebook launch and I will send you
all the information that youneed.
I am so grateful that you spentthis time with me.
(13:25):
I'm grateful to be able to tellthe story of how our
differences almost broke us, buthow learning how to navigate
them with skill and respectactually has made us unbreakable
.
And this is what I want sobadly for anyone who's listening
.
Don't fall prey to the ideathat you just have
(13:47):
irreconcilable differences.
Take those differences and makethem the strength of your
marriage and join me same time,same place next week.
And until then, happymarriaging.
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