November 30, 2025 • 12 mins
If you're feeling anxious in your marriage, you're probably not being authentic.
The only way to enjoy an authentic marriage where you can relax and be yourself is through honesty.
In this episode, I tell you about my journey of becoming an honest person (cause I used to not be one) and why it's so important to choose authenticity over anxiety.
My group, MASTER YOUR MARRIAGE AND YOUR MIND, is re-opening in December! If you're ready to learn advanced communication skills and get coached on all your marital fears, this group is for you. Get in touch with me through email or on IG for more info.
Free Resources:
FREE Masterclass: 5 Ways to Deepen the Connection with Your Partner
21 Questions That Will Bring You and Your Partner Closer Than Ever!
4-Step Guide To Self-Empowerment, Better Communication and Deeper Intimacy With Your Partner
IG: @partnershipaligned
Elana@partnershipaligned.com
Book your free consult and start improving your relationship today!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
Hey everybody, welcome back to Partnership
Aligned Podcast.
So before I get into today'scontent, I just wanted to let
you all know that I am reopeningmy group called Master Your
Marriage and Your Mind.
Okay.
This is something that I do fora few months out of the year
where you get to join and learncommunication skills.
(00:56):
You get to overcome your fear oftalking to your partner in an
authentic, honest way.
You get to bond with other womenwho are working on the same
thing.
And you get to get coached everysingle week and also hear other
women get coached on theirmarriage as well.
It is highly powerful.
The results that you get are outof this world.
(01:17):
And I am so excited to reopenthis group.
So we are starting again in justa few weeks.
If you're interested, you canemail me elana e-l-a-n-a at
partnershipaligned.com, or youcan send me a DM on Instagram.
My handle is atpartnershipaligned.
All right, so let's get into it.
(01:39):
Today we are moving on to ournext spiritual characteristic
that will improve your marriage.
And that is actually the onethat is nearest and dearest to
me, which is honesty.
I actually used to be a verydishonest person.
I am in recovery, and so myaddiction played a big part into
(01:59):
that.
But even outside of addiction, Ialways exaggerated.
I always told stories in a waythat were bigger than they were.
I omitted information.
Like I just didn't presentmyself in an honest, authentic
way.
And now that I'm so far removedfrom that, now that I am a very
(02:22):
honest and authentic person, Ilook back on that and I ask
myself, why, right?
Hindsight is 2020.
And maybe you'll resonate withthis if you're struggling with
honesty in your relationships.
For me, it was a couple ofthings.
Number one, um, if I am nottotally honest with you, then
that means that you can't gettoo close to me, right?
(02:42):
And then like I get to live overhere in my bubble in like
separation from others.
The other thing that it was isif I am not totally honest with
you, then I'm not exposed.
You won't see me for who Ireally am.
And I never really thought ofmyself as a bad person or
unworthy or anything like that.
Thank God I had a mom whoinstilled really great
self-esteem in me.
(03:03):
But I did think that there wereparts of me that other people
just wouldn't approve of.
And instead of taking a look atthose parts, instead of deciding
whether I approve of thosethings or not, I just decided to
hide them from the world, uh,including my, you know, my
husband at the time, uh,friends, other romantic
relationships.
(03:24):
And what I found was that I waswasn't able to have the kind of
fulfillment and intimacy that Iwanted to have in my romantic
relationships because I wouldn'tlet my partner see who I really
was.
What I learned over time afterworking on becoming a more
honest person is that the partsof me that I wanted to hide are
(03:45):
exactly the same parts thateverybody else is trying to hide
about themselves.
Like I am not a specialsnowflake, and neither are you.
And I mean that in the best waypossible, right?
Whatever your insecurities are,whatever you have, some like bad
habits, whatever some of yourthoughts are that are less than
kind, like whatever it is, itreally just makes you human, and
(04:06):
we all have that, right?
Now, let's take this uh tendencyto be dishonest or to hide
ourselves, and then let's moveit over into marriage, right?
Because that's what we talkabout here.
What I find when I'm workingwith women, men as well, but
especially with women, is thatthey cannot be honest about how
(04:27):
they are feeling about theirpartner to their partner.
They have a very hard timespeaking up about what it is
that they need and how they'refeeling about the lack of what
they're getting.
And I think there's a fewreasons for this.
I th well, first of all, it allfalls under the umbrella of
(04:48):
fear, right?
We're afraid that if we say thething that we have been wanting
to say to our partner, a fewthings might happen.
Number one, a fear of rejection,right?
Like either they won't care orthey'll tell us there's
something wrong with us, orthey'll leave, or something like
that.
Then there's a fear of not beingum of not being validated,
right?
(05:09):
A fear of invalidation, of I'mgonna go ahead and speak how I
really feel, which is reallyscary.
And you're going to somehowinvalidate that.
And then I'm going to feel notonly exposed, but again,
rejected, right?
A lot of it comes back torejection.
Um, another reason is I'm afraidof conflict.
(05:30):
That's a big one.
I am afraid of being in conflictwith you, either because I never
win, or because I'm afraid toupset you, or like there are
just so many reasons.
At the end of the day, if youare dishonest within your
marriage, but by the way, thatdoesn't necessarily mean that
you're outright lying, althoughyou might be.
It just means that you are notbeing your full self, right?
(05:52):
It's like you're not beingauthentic, right?
But I think before authenticitycomes honesty, I think that they
relate to each other, butthey're not the same thing.
First, you have to be honest,then you can be authentic.
You cannot be authentic withouthonesty, right?
So I think that one of thethings that comes up the most in
this area is I can't fully behonest with him because I don't
(06:15):
know how to handle thatconversation.
And that is where communicationskills come in.
Communication skills, learninghow to say the hard things in a
way that does feel aligned, thatis the money.
Like that is the secret sauceright there.
And that's something that I helpyou with.
I literally make verbiageprompts for you based on what it
(06:39):
is that you want to say to yourpartner.
So I'll give you an example.
I once had a client who was fiveyears into her marriage, and at
the very, very beginning of therelationship, before they even
got married, she got pregnant.
And when she told him that shewas pregnant, he responded less
than enthusiastically, let'sjust say.
And she never talked to himabout how much that affected
(07:01):
her.
She was with this man, she'sstill with him.
She was with this man for fiveyears when I worked with her and
had never told him how deeplythat had hurt her.
Now, they went on to have thebaby and he loves her very much.
Like it is, but what happenedwas she entered into this
marriage with this deepresentment and also just this
(07:24):
deep fear that like he doesn'treally want to be here, right?
That was kind of what she tookfrom his comments when she said,
I'm pregnant.
Um, he doesn't really want to behere.
And so she lived those fiveyears in marriage with this man,
thinking that he didn't want tobe there.
Now think about it.
If you're in a marriage with aman and you think he doesn't
actually want to be there andyou have a kid and everything,
(07:46):
what are you gonna do?
Well, what she did was sheovercompensated to make sure
that he did want to be there,right?
She made everything super easyon him.
She took care of the kid withoutasking for anything, even though
like he was a good father andwanted to be involved.
Um, she just she took care ofeverything.
She put the world on hershoulders because she didn't
want to inconvenience him, shedidn't want to upset him because
(08:06):
she had this underlying beliefthat he didn't want to be there.
In our work together, what wedid was the first thing that we
did was the inner work.
Okay, spoiler alert,relationship coaching is
self-coaching.
So we really worked on herfears.
Why didn't she say anything?
Where does that come from?
And then we had to ask the bigquestion, which is do you like
(08:27):
your reasons for not beinghonest in your marriage?
Like, are you aligned andcomfortable with never talking
about something that is sodeeply affecting you just out of
fear?
And of course the answer is no,right?
Like fear is never alignment,ever, even though it runs our
life.
And it took us, um, took hermaybe like five months before
(08:50):
she was ready to have thatconversation with him.
We did a ton of prep work.
Uh, she was petrified, man.
She was petrified.
But we worked through it and shedid go and talk to him about it.
And it was this beautiful momentof her like becoming her real
self and saying, like, hey, thisis what's going on for me, man.
Like, I am struggling with this,and I've been struggling with
(09:12):
this, and I know that it affectsthe way that I treat you.
And I know that it affects theway I show up, you know, in the
bedroom and with money and withthe kid and with everything.
I am so affected by thisunderlying belief that you don't
want to be here based on whatyou said five years ago.
And I've never talked to youabout it because I'm that
scared.
And now I'm in a place in mylife where I am more scared not
(09:33):
to be honest than I am to be inconflict with you.
And it was so beautiful and itended in a really beautiful way.
So that is just one of many,many, many, many, many examples
that I have of a woman not beingtotally honest with her husband,
even though she's not likeoutright lying to him on a daily
basis or anything, but she's notbeing authentic.
(09:55):
She's not showing him what'sgoing on with her.
And so my question to you is areyou being honest in your
marriage?
If I came to your partner rightnow and asked him or her how you
were feeling about the marriageand about them, would they know
the answer?
Would they say, I don't know,because you don't talk to each
(10:16):
other?
Or would they give me an answerthat wasn't true because you put
on a facade?
Or would they say, no, somethingis wrong, but I just don't know
what it is, right?
Because maybe you're passiveaggressive or you give the
silent treatment.
Like, does your partner actuallyknow how you're feeling about
yourself, about them, about themarriage?
(10:36):
If your answer is anything otherthan hell yes, I really want to
invite you to take a look atthat.
You have one life and maybe justone marriage, right?
These days you never know.
But the marriage that you're inright now, it's like, do you
want to live it authentically ordo you want to live it in fear?
Over the past eight years, Ihave become my most authentic
(10:57):
self.
And I want to tell you howunbelievably amazing it feels to
be myself, right?
I'm now in a very alignedrelationship, and I am 100%
myself.
The good, the bad, the ugly.
I talk about how I'm feeling, Italk about my fears, I show the
parts of me that are messy, allof it.
(11:19):
Because at the end of the day, Iam so much more afraid of being
dishonest and misaligned andinauthentic and losing myself in
that way, like I did in mymarriage.
I'm so much more afraid of thatthan I am of somebody judging
me, you know?
And at the end of the day, if mypartner is gonna judge me for
being human, then they'reprobably not the right person
for me.
Or we just need to talk thingsout, right?
(11:40):
We all judge.
So what I want to offer you isthat there is another way,
right?
And you might be saying toyourself, yes, I would love
that, but like, how the hell doI get there?
Well, that's where I come in,all right?
That is what master yourmarriage and your mind is about.
It is a part course, partcoaching, part uh bonding.
(12:02):
It is all of the above.
You come into the room, it's onZoom once a week.
It's a small group.
I always keep it to under fivewomen.
We get to know each other reallywell, we empower each other, and
I teach you how to be yourself.
I teach you how to speak yourtruth.
I teach you how to show up inyour marriage every single day
as your authentic self,unapologetically and without
(12:25):
shame.
If that resonates for you, ifthat's something that you want,
then I am here to show you howto get there.
So get in touch with me andlet's make it happen.
All right, guys.
Thank you so much, and I'll talkto you next time.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Partnership
Aligned Podcast.
So before I get into today'scontent, I just wanted to let
you all know that I am reopeningmy group called Master Your
Marriage and Your Mind.
Okay.
This is something that I do fora few months out of the year
where you get to join and learncommunication skills.
(00:56):
You get to overcome your fear oftalking to your partner in an
authentic, honest way.
You get to bond with other womenwho are working on the same
thing.
And you get to get coached everysingle week and also hear other
women get coached on theirmarriage as well.
It is highly powerful.
The results that you get are outof this world.
(01:17):
And I am so excited to reopenthis group.
So we are starting again in justa few weeks.
If you're interested, you canemail me elana e-l-a-n-a at
partnershipaligned.com, or youcan send me a DM on Instagram.
My handle is atpartnershipaligned.
All right, so let's get into it.
(01:39):
Today we are moving on to ournext spiritual characteristic
that will improve your marriage.
And that is actually the onethat is nearest and dearest to
me, which is honesty.
I actually used to be a verydishonest person.
I am in recovery, and so myaddiction played a big part into
(01:59):
that.
But even outside of addiction, Ialways exaggerated.
I always told stories in a waythat were bigger than they were.
I omitted information.
Like I just didn't presentmyself in an honest, authentic
way.
And now that I'm so far removedfrom that, now that I am a very
(02:22):
honest and authentic person, Ilook back on that and I ask
myself, why, right?
Hindsight is 2020.
And maybe you'll resonate withthis if you're struggling with
honesty in your relationships.
For me, it was a couple ofthings.
Number one, um, if I am nottotally honest with you, then
that means that you can't gettoo close to me, right?
(02:42):
And then like I get to live overhere in my bubble in like
separation from others.
The other thing that it was isif I am not totally honest with
you, then I'm not exposed.
You won't see me for who Ireally am.
And I never really thought ofmyself as a bad person or
unworthy or anything like that.
Thank God I had a mom whoinstilled really great
self-esteem in me.
(03:03):
But I did think that there wereparts of me that other people
just wouldn't approve of.
And instead of taking a look atthose parts, instead of deciding
whether I approve of thosethings or not, I just decided to
hide them from the world, uh,including my, you know, my
husband at the time, uh,friends, other romantic
relationships.
(03:24):
And what I found was that I waswasn't able to have the kind of
fulfillment and intimacy that Iwanted to have in my romantic
relationships because I wouldn'tlet my partner see who I really
was.
What I learned over time afterworking on becoming a more
honest person is that the partsof me that I wanted to hide are
(03:45):
exactly the same parts thateverybody else is trying to hide
about themselves.
Like I am not a specialsnowflake, and neither are you.
And I mean that in the best waypossible, right?
Whatever your insecurities are,whatever you have, some like bad
habits, whatever some of yourthoughts are that are less than
kind, like whatever it is, itreally just makes you human, and
(04:06):
we all have that, right?
Now, let's take this uh tendencyto be dishonest or to hide
ourselves, and then let's moveit over into marriage, right?
Because that's what we talkabout here.
What I find when I'm workingwith women, men as well, but
especially with women, is thatthey cannot be honest about how
(04:27):
they are feeling about theirpartner to their partner.
They have a very hard timespeaking up about what it is
that they need and how they'refeeling about the lack of what
they're getting.
And I think there's a fewreasons for this.
I th well, first of all, it allfalls under the umbrella of
(04:48):
fear, right?
We're afraid that if we say thething that we have been wanting
to say to our partner, a fewthings might happen.
Number one, a fear of rejection,right?
Like either they won't care orthey'll tell us there's
something wrong with us, orthey'll leave, or something like
that.
Then there's a fear of not beingum of not being validated,
right?
(05:09):
A fear of invalidation, of I'mgonna go ahead and speak how I
really feel, which is reallyscary.
And you're going to somehowinvalidate that.
And then I'm going to feel notonly exposed, but again,
rejected, right?
A lot of it comes back torejection.
Um, another reason is I'm afraidof conflict.
(05:30):
That's a big one.
I am afraid of being in conflictwith you, either because I never
win, or because I'm afraid toupset you, or like there are
just so many reasons.
At the end of the day, if youare dishonest within your
marriage, but by the way, thatdoesn't necessarily mean that
you're outright lying, althoughyou might be.
It just means that you are notbeing your full self, right?
(05:52):
It's like you're not beingauthentic, right?
But I think before authenticitycomes honesty, I think that they
relate to each other, butthey're not the same thing.
First, you have to be honest,then you can be authentic.
You cannot be authentic withouthonesty, right?
So I think that one of thethings that comes up the most in
this area is I can't fully behonest with him because I don't
(06:15):
know how to handle thatconversation.
And that is where communicationskills come in.
Communication skills, learninghow to say the hard things in a
way that does feel aligned, thatis the money.
Like that is the secret sauceright there.
And that's something that I helpyou with.
I literally make verbiageprompts for you based on what it
(06:39):
is that you want to say to yourpartner.
So I'll give you an example.
I once had a client who was fiveyears into her marriage, and at
the very, very beginning of therelationship, before they even
got married, she got pregnant.
And when she told him that shewas pregnant, he responded less
than enthusiastically, let'sjust say.
And she never talked to himabout how much that affected
(07:01):
her.
She was with this man, she'sstill with him.
She was with this man for fiveyears when I worked with her and
had never told him how deeplythat had hurt her.
Now, they went on to have thebaby and he loves her very much.
Like it is, but what happenedwas she entered into this
marriage with this deepresentment and also just this
(07:24):
deep fear that like he doesn'treally want to be here, right?
That was kind of what she tookfrom his comments when she said,
I'm pregnant.
Um, he doesn't really want to behere.
And so she lived those fiveyears in marriage with this man,
thinking that he didn't want tobe there.
Now think about it.
If you're in a marriage with aman and you think he doesn't
actually want to be there andyou have a kid and everything,
(07:46):
what are you gonna do?
Well, what she did was sheovercompensated to make sure
that he did want to be there,right?
She made everything super easyon him.
She took care of the kid withoutasking for anything, even though
like he was a good father andwanted to be involved.
Um, she just she took care ofeverything.
She put the world on hershoulders because she didn't
want to inconvenience him, shedidn't want to upset him because
(08:06):
she had this underlying beliefthat he didn't want to be there.
In our work together, what wedid was the first thing that we
did was the inner work.
Okay, spoiler alert,relationship coaching is
self-coaching.
So we really worked on herfears.
Why didn't she say anything?
Where does that come from?
And then we had to ask the bigquestion, which is do you like
(08:27):
your reasons for not beinghonest in your marriage?
Like, are you aligned andcomfortable with never talking
about something that is sodeeply affecting you just out of
fear?
And of course the answer is no,right?
Like fear is never alignment,ever, even though it runs our
life.
And it took us, um, took hermaybe like five months before
(08:50):
she was ready to have thatconversation with him.
We did a ton of prep work.
Uh, she was petrified, man.
She was petrified.
But we worked through it and shedid go and talk to him about it.
And it was this beautiful momentof her like becoming her real
self and saying, like, hey, thisis what's going on for me, man.
Like, I am struggling with this,and I've been struggling with
(09:12):
this, and I know that it affectsthe way that I treat you.
And I know that it affects theway I show up, you know, in the
bedroom and with money and withthe kid and with everything.
I am so affected by thisunderlying belief that you don't
want to be here based on whatyou said five years ago.
And I've never talked to youabout it because I'm that
scared.
And now I'm in a place in mylife where I am more scared not
(09:33):
to be honest than I am to be inconflict with you.
And it was so beautiful and itended in a really beautiful way.
So that is just one of many,many, many, many, many examples
that I have of a woman not beingtotally honest with her husband,
even though she's not likeoutright lying to him on a daily
basis or anything, but she's notbeing authentic.
(09:55):
She's not showing him what'sgoing on with her.
And so my question to you is areyou being honest in your
marriage?
If I came to your partner rightnow and asked him or her how you
were feeling about the marriageand about them, would they know
the answer?
Would they say, I don't know,because you don't talk to each
(10:16):
other?
Or would they give me an answerthat wasn't true because you put
on a facade?
Or would they say, no, somethingis wrong, but I just don't know
what it is, right?
Because maybe you're passiveaggressive or you give the
silent treatment.
Like, does your partner actuallyknow how you're feeling about
yourself, about them, about themarriage?
(10:36):
If your answer is anything otherthan hell yes, I really want to
invite you to take a look atthat.
You have one life and maybe justone marriage, right?
These days you never know.
But the marriage that you're inright now, it's like, do you
want to live it authentically ordo you want to live it in fear?
Over the past eight years, Ihave become my most authentic
(10:57):
self.
And I want to tell you howunbelievably amazing it feels to
be myself, right?
I'm now in a very alignedrelationship, and I am 100%
myself.
The good, the bad, the ugly.
I talk about how I'm feeling, Italk about my fears, I show the
parts of me that are messy, allof it.
(11:19):
Because at the end of the day, Iam so much more afraid of being
dishonest and misaligned andinauthentic and losing myself in
that way, like I did in mymarriage.
I'm so much more afraid of thatthan I am of somebody judging
me, you know?
And at the end of the day, if mypartner is gonna judge me for
being human, then they'reprobably not the right person
for me.
Or we just need to talk thingsout, right?
(11:40):
We all judge.
So what I want to offer you isthat there is another way,
right?
And you might be saying toyourself, yes, I would love
that, but like, how the hell doI get there?
Well, that's where I come in,all right?
That is what master yourmarriage and your mind is about.
It is a part course, partcoaching, part uh bonding.
(12:02):
It is all of the above.
You come into the room, it's onZoom once a week.
It's a small group.
I always keep it to under fivewomen.
We get to know each other reallywell, we empower each other, and
I teach you how to be yourself.
I teach you how to speak yourtruth.
I teach you how to show up inyour marriage every single day
as your authentic self,unapologetically and without
(12:25):
shame.
If that resonates for you, ifthat's something that you want,
then I am here to show you howto get there.
So get in touch with me andlet's make it happen.
All right, guys.
Thank you so much, and I'll talkto you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.