Cynic Meets Sunshine Podcast
Join us, Andre and Tanisha, a married couple of 26 years, as we share practical advice, honest stories, and plenty of laughs about building a strong and fulfilling relationship. With five kids, three grandkids, and nearly three decades of ups and downs, we’ve learned a lot about love, life, and weathering storms together. Tune in for real talk, relatable insights, and actionable tips to strengthen your own relationships—because nobody’s perfect, but together, we can all get better.
Cynic Meets Sunshine Podcast
Committed to Connection: Tools for Thriving Relationships
Relationships evolve, but are you nurturing yours or just coasting along? In our latest episode, we explore the real meaning of commitment in partnerships and why it's essential for long-lasting love. Join us as we dive into practical strategies that help you cultivate a vibrant and fulfilling relationship with your partner.
We open the dialogue on the importance of commitment as a daily choice—a choice that involves actively engaging with your loved one rather than settling for routine interactions. Our hosts, Andre and Tanisha, share personal anecdotes that highlight the need for meaningful communication, emphasizing the necessity of going beyond small talk to foster deeper connections.
Quality time is another pillar we examine, showcasing how intentional moments together can help nourish love and joy. With modern distractions at every turn, both partners must prioritize their connection. Whether it's through fun date nights or dedicating uninterrupted time to each other, these experiences create lasting memories and strengthen the bond.
We also delve into shared goals and love languages, explaining how understanding each other's needs can enhance the relationship's depth. The episode rounds off with fun couples’ challenges designed to spark adventure and rekindle the excitement in your partnership. Expect to laugh, reflect, and possibly look at your relationship in a new light.
Want to reignite the passion? Tune in now! And don’t forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes. Your relationship deserves the effort—let’s stay committed together!
Tanisha's Contact Info
Tanisha@CynicMeetsSunshine.com
Andre's Contact Info
... nope
Chapters
00:04:15 Strategies for Staying Committed
00:04:27 Open Communication
00:05:41 Prioritizing Quality Time
00:05:30 Defining Commitment: More Than Just Staying
00:10:35 Shared Vision & Goals
00:11:48 Learn Each Other's Love Languages
00:13:15 Shared Adventures to Combat Boredom
00:16:23 Fun Couples Challenges to Reignite Connection
00:18:26 Memory Lane Night
00:20:21 Try Something New together
00:21:48 Tanisha's Takeaway for today's discussion
00:22:41 Coming Back from Roommate Zone
00:22:58 Tanisha Offers Emotional Support (per the usual)
Hey everybody, welcome to Cynic Meets Sunshine. We are your hosts. I'm Andre. This is my beautiful wife, tanisha hey, and we're going to be talking to you today about something we feel is foundational in any relationship that you want to be long lasting, that is, staying committed and connected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And by staying committed, we'll explain a little bit more about what we mean. By staying committed, we'll explain a little bit more about what we mean, because we don't mean just saying I do, just showing up and being there and, like you know, I'm committed, so I'm going to be here for the next 90 years. By committed, we mean choosing your partner daily, choosing to have a vibrant, flourishing, happy relationship.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of distractions in the world that we live in today. So anything from your career aspirations, work, social media everything's trying to get in the way and those things will keep you from being connected. So we want to give you some tools to combat that.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned because later in the episode we are going to be giving you guys some fun couples challenges. I'm so excited about these. I hope they try them out. It's going to be fun stuff.
Speaker 1:So that's coming up good stuff we thought we would start by defining what we mean by staying committed. I know couples that have been married 10, 20, 30 years, some of them, and they are in a lifeless relationship. We're not talking about that. While that takes commitment to do, we're talking about the commitment that it takes to have a vibrant, alive relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Living your best life together. That's not the kind of life anybody wants, right when you come home, and you just basically have this roommate. You know you have this partner and, while it is great and essential to be partners and to help each other accomplish all the daily tasks, that's not the kind of marriage you want to survive in. You want to come home and have this be your safe place. Come home and be with your partner and have this be the person who brings you joy, who you have fun with, you share your dreams and aspirations with, and that takes work right.
Speaker 1:So we have to give into it every day Something you just said survive the marriage. We don't want you to survive, we don't want you to endure, we want it to be something that you're having a ball in, yeah Fun a great time. That's what we're looking for, and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And not to say that any relationship or marriage will be perfect and fun 24 seven. However, it can be the majority of the time. A lot of fun. You're going to have to use the other tools that we gave you to about working through conflict, fighting fair, all of those things but you can absolutely have an amazing, connected relationship if you deploy some of these tools and you put in the work every day.
Speaker 1:So we have defined what we mean when we say commitment. We're talking about a vibrant, alive, flourishing relationship. Not just roommates not just being present live flourishing relationship, not just roommates, not just being present. We want to give you guys tools that you can use to stay committed, stay connected and flourish in your relationships.
Speaker 2:I also think that people need to keep in mind that when you're committed to something you are willing to put in energy and effort Like if you have something really important to you, a promotion or something you're working on you're going to put in effort and make sure that you take all the steps necessary so that you can achieve that goal. So the same thing with your marriage. There should be nothing more important to you than succeeding with this person that you've chose for life. You should, without a doubt, be willing to put in energy to this person and choose daily to see how you can make this relationship be at its best, because we want that for you and we want that for us.
Speaker 2:We have some really great strategies for you all, for staying committed.
Speaker 1:The first strategy is communication, open communication, real communication, not that surface level. We want to get in-depth, and a great way to do that is check-ins. If it's the afternoon and I'm at work and I haven't heard from her, I'll check in. Hey, how are you doing? But that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Something a little bit more in-depth right.
Speaker 1:In-depth. How do you feel? But that's not what we're talking about something a little bit more in depth, right? How do you feel? What's going on in the relationship you've seen a little distant in the last few days? Are you? Are you okay? Is there anything you need from me?
Speaker 2:even specific questions, like you know. I hope you know. I appreciate you. Are you feeling appreciated? Okay you know, these are like health checks in the marriage and kind of giving your partner even a safe space to be like. Oh, I'm really glad you brought that up, because I actually was wanting to talk to you about this. And I'm not feeling great about this, and this opens the door for healing and for you to say, oh well, let's switch this up.
Speaker 1:I can recall a few times when you've asked that you kind of checked on me. It wasn't one of those situations where I was holding onto it and I was looking for the right time. It was literally until you asked the question I hadn't thought, well, am I doing all right? Is this particular area Okay? And it spawned discussion and we were able to come to a resolution or a path discussion forward because of your open communication.
Speaker 2:That's really great to hear because that will encourage you, that sometimes people don't even know what's bothering them until you bring it up. So they're just kind of walking along day by day, maybe not in the best space and not even understanding why, and that shows care and commitment on your part for checking in with your partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, communication. We will always have communication on most of our lists.
Speaker 2:At the top.
Speaker 1:It should be at the top of most of our lists because if you fix communication, if you're doing well in communication as a couple, you're probably going to be doing well in general.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think a lot of you know couples that I hear will ask me for advice or ask me questions. It's like well, have you told your partner that?
Speaker 1:Have you talked to them? Have you said that to them?
Speaker 2:And a lot of times they have not, and you know that is literally the first step feeling open enough to talk to each other. If you can talk to your friend about it, you should be able to talk to your person for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, number two also a pillar in the porterhouse is prioritizing quality time this is a must.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about that. Um, we've never had a problem prioritizing quality time because we always prioritize one another. Early on in our marriage, it was like us against the world. It was just you and I. You were all I had, I was all you had. So we were going to do it and we were going to do it together. Prioritizing quality time started early on for us, yeah, and it never took a backseat started early on for us and it never took a backseat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, there were like seasons in our life where things got busier and the way that we would divide our time was a little crazy, and that's when check-ins were key, because we found out like, okay, we need to actually chill out here and here and we need to get things back in order and make sure quality time is at the top.
Speaker 1:You thinking about when you were ignoring me?
Speaker 2:Not purposely ignoring you but that was the first time that you had experienced me working so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you were not used to sharing my time. Hey, michelle, give me my wife back, I don't want to share her time. But I do agree with Andre we absolutely prioritize each other and prioritize quality time and it's essential because with all that we have going on in life jobs, you know, hobbies, children, chores, day-to-day things investing in each other and having this uninterrupted time is huge because, you know, we can't even really get a few minutes of quiet around the house, which is fine, of quiet around the house, which is fine, but it means we have to prioritize that quality time where we get away, where we have a date.
Speaker 1:Unplug no phones, no social media.
Speaker 2:Pay attention to each other intentionally.
Speaker 1:Tell the kids don't call, we are going to be away for the evening. Or just leave our phones in the car or at dinner or something.
Speaker 2:Quality time is huge. I am going to give you guys a little date night tip for quality time. Uh, one way that we really really enjoyed spending quality time is hotel dates. Okay, this became like a thing for us, especially having young children, and we could not like get away out of the city or take a weekend away or anything always. And we could not like get away out of the city or take a weekend away or anything always. But we would get a hotel in our own city, somewhere fun, and we would literally just like get room service, cuddle, watch a movie uninterrupted, completely just consumed in each other, and maybe for one night. And then we would come home in the morning and it just had us totally refreshed and renewed this quality time and then we could jump right back into our crazy daily routine. But it was like we were reconnected, that fire was there and we were excited because we knew that we would prioritize time again together soon.
Speaker 1:I think if we're not doing that, the time in between those dates, they allow us to drift apart, but when we have those sessions we come back together and then it'll allow for a little drifting and then we'll have a date and we'll reconnect so that's why I think it's important imagine if we weren't doing that it would just be a constant drift where we're not as connected as we could be by coming together and being like, okay, that we just prioritized each other and now we're good.
Speaker 2:We can get through these next week or two until we have a date night again, and it doesn't have to be that elaborate where you get away. But I think that is a really great, especially if you have children and it's hard to get a moment of peace.
Speaker 1:I mean it was just he and I, no distractions, no things I have to do around the house, have sex as loud as we wanted to, I mean, do all the things with no interruptions, and it was just really really nice. Yes.
Speaker 2:But don't underestimate honestly. Just like half an hour of alone time, like go have a coffee date with no one around and just talk to each other, shut your phones off, you know, give each other unexpected affection, just walk in the kitchen and hug, kiss, these things mean a lot. Yeah, that's 24-7 here.
Speaker 1:All right. Number three shared vision and goals. I might have individual goals, she might have individual goals, but it's not to say that we all have to have the same shared goals. But I need to know your goals so that I can help you and support you in them, and vice versa.
Speaker 2:That is a way to show your partner that you care. It's a way to be committed to their happiness and to your happiness. It's like if you are attaining the things that you want in life and reaching the goals you want to reach. It makes you happy, it makes me happy, so it's really important we are on the same page there. So again, you know, when you're checking in with your partner, communicating, be sure that you're asking questions about you know what they want and what they need.
Speaker 1:Not to say that everyone needs to have a life where you do everything together, like you and I. But I think if, as a couple, if you have separate lives, it's so much easier to become disconnected.
Speaker 2:So try to have things intertwined as much as possible, while some alone time and doing things necessary your own hobbies are healthy yes but try to be intertwined in as many places as possible because, like he said, if you find yourself having too many avenues in your life that are separate, you are going to find that you're more distant number four learn each other's love languages.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what your person's or your love language is, you should definitely learn that first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're online everywhere. Take the little test, look it up, read them what are they real quick go over them. There is like gifts and surprises, quality acts of service, physical touch words of affirmation.
Speaker 1:That's the five. And why is this important?
Speaker 2:So this is important because often we will show love to our partner through our own love language just as like a default. So you know if words of affirmation are my love language and it's not mine and I'm affirming him. Affirming him, affirming him that's sweet, and I'm sure he thinks that's sweet, but he might be feeling unappreciated or unseen or not receiving love in the way that he would like.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because his love language is acts of service. So I had to take time to find out what my partner's love languages were. He took the time to find out what my partner's love languages were. He took the time to find out what my love languages are. And we show each other love in the way that each of us need individually, and that's very important. While it is sweet to give love in all the different ways, it's really important to know what's received best by your partner, and it also shows that you care.
Speaker 1:That was number four. Learn each other's love languages. Number five is combat boredom. In today's society, it's very easy to get stuck in a routine. You've heard of the seven-year-age just a couple that's consistently just doing what they need to. They're roommates. I drop the kids off and you need to pick them up because I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to go to my trainer at the gym for three hours and you get stuck in a routine, so this is something you can do to combat boredom, and it is shared adventure shared adventure like really rekindle some spark in your relationship.
Speaker 2:So you know, instead of allowing the drift to continue, if you're already in that space, you can reignite the flame. You just have to make a choice.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you have to kind of get the ball rolling on some shared adventures. You know, maybe you've always wanted to try salsa dancing. You know, check it out with your partner, maybe they don't. Maybe a picnic, maybe you guys want to go hiking together. You've never been ziplining.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, or maybe it's simple stuff, but having these shared adventures gives you guys something, not only where you're creating memories together, you're looking forward. It's kind of spicing up life and it's getting you away from like just the normal day to day. I think it's really necessary for you to have a relationship that is like alive.
Speaker 1:Routine and boredom speak to a dead relationship, a lifeless relationship.
Speaker 2:So that's why I think and now I will say too, in some cases, not to give routine a bad name, it's like very helpful like, we have a morning routine with our children and we have this and it keeps things flowing and it is really important. But it's also nice because we know that that's not where it ends. There's routine and there's things we have to do with our family, but that's not all there is to it. We know we're going to have an adventure.
Speaker 2:We know we're going to have a date night, we know we have a trip coming up. We keep things in our life that we look forward to doing together to keep the relationship a lot.
Speaker 1:So earlier when you mentioned shared adventures and you would you start it with salsa dancing. I don't think that was um by chance, but I found myself making a face and like ew on the inside and I realized you probably need to add in here that you should get out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not something that andre wants to do, go salsa dancing but it's something that tanisha wants to do, and it's something we've never done together, so, so let's give it a shot. Get out of your comfort zone is the point I want to make.
Speaker 2:That is a great point and, honestly, you could go and y'all hate it and you laugh about it later. Or you could go and you would love it and you're like, well, that was unexpected. We've done that before, but either way, it's a shared adventure.
Speaker 2:It's a memory you know, give it a shot. These are five excellent strategies that you can use to stay committed. That's right and honestly. If you're putting all of these into action, I think you're gonna find that you're in a happier place, your partner's in a happier place. You want to create fun. You don't want to just have. You know this, this. You want to have somebody that you are growing with continuously and you're excited about life with and why not pour into that every day, like you would anything else that you are excited about?
Speaker 1:in life. I think that's great advice. All right, so that is a great segue into the fun couples challenges. You want to start with some of those. So, uh, we have some fun couples challenges you want to start with some of those?
Speaker 2:well, so we have some fun couples challenges here that we would really like you guys to give a shot. The first one is seven day appreciation challenge. So for seven straight days, nothing. It doesn't have to be elaborate or anything, but you show love, you show appreciation for your partner. It can be a small gesture, kind words, literally just waking up and telling them like I don't know if you know how much I appreciate you. You know it can be doing something for them if acts of service is their love language I'm gonna make your coffee and have these things and help you get off to work today.
Speaker 1:That sounds awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2:You know it can be very small gestures, but just showing your person that you're not just consumed in yourself, your day-to-day and you're part of the routine, but you are showing love and appreciation to that person, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I love that one so seven straight days.
Speaker 2:I challenge you to just do something small and show your appreciation.
Speaker 1:Okay, that one is the first one the seven-day appreciation challenge. Schedule a date night one day of the week. Pick a day of the week Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. Don't wait just for the weekend, by the way, because everything's going to be packed and you won't get in anyway. If you're going out to eat, no phones allowed, just go out on a date. It could be like we discussed earlier Try something you haven't done, but pick a day of the week and go out.
Speaker 2:Yes, weekly date night.
Speaker 1:The kids I can't wait for the weekends. They always were saying I can't wait till the weekend comes. And we told them you realize when you do that you are passing up 70% of the week. So you don't want to pass up 70% of your life and just live for the weekend Like plan some fun things for the middle of the week A random Tuesday date night.
Speaker 2:I encourage you to not let it fall on one person. Yes, so have a weekly date night and take turns. Like this week you plan, next week I'll plan share the load.
Speaker 1:Number three is a memory lane night. This is where you just spend an evening reminiscing, going through pictures, going through love notes, memories, whatever it might be, uming why you two got together, and just reminiscing just looking back Memories you have together and just kind of have fun, laugh, enjoy.
Speaker 2:We love to do this every year on our anniversary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do that.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like our night that we will reminisce.
Speaker 1:It'll start on our anniversary in January and probably fall all the way through February. We were like, oh, look what I found. Look what I found.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's fun and it kind of like brings you back to. It's good to remind yourself and your partner like, hey, we've had a lot of fun. We've had a lot of fun together in the first place.
Speaker 1:We've had a lot of fun and we've changed so much. You get to look back at how you've changed, so that's always. That's something that's. That's a segment in its own. Everyone you've changed. Well, everyone's going to change over over time with the course of years.
Speaker 2:It's not about changing and growing together, together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's number three. Memory lane night Number four is a love note surprise.
Speaker 2:This is a cute one.
Speaker 1:This was what we used to do. Have you ever done this? I know I did this early in our marriage.
Speaker 2:I used to do um, have you ever done this? I know I. I did this early in our marriage. I used to buy a card and leave it in the freezer. Buy a card and write something, leave it in my glove box. It'd be like random spots that I would find. And let me tell you this small gesture of just a random love note it can really make a huge difference. Like I find this note and I just like lit up my whole day and you just feel like super cared for and loved and I know he's thinking of me and it was just the easiest thing, probably for him to do that made like the biggest difference in my day.
Speaker 2:So that challenge is so simple and it can really affect your partner.
Speaker 1:That is number four, the love note challenge, and the last of our five fun couples challenges.
Speaker 2:We kind of just talked about this, right yeah is try something new together. Try something new together. Adventure will just spark life in the relationship. Am I right? You are right?
Speaker 1:yeah, we have it on both lists, because it's that important.
Speaker 2:Just trying new things. Yeah, Adventures adventures.
Speaker 1:That's literally why we're doing this podcast, why I'm doing the podcast. My part of why we're doing the podcast is because it's a new adventure. Adventure together, yes I mean.
Speaker 2:But there's so many things. Get creative. We've done like painting with a twist, date night, and that was fun. We had the paintings hung in our room. There are, you know, so many wine tasting we've done together before.
Speaker 2:That was so fun yeah, we haven't done that in a long time. We went and got like a cabin and you know there's just a lot of different adventures. You can do this. One kind of goes beyond a date, but plan for some adventures that y'all can have together. These things keep life exciting and I feel like we all need things to look forward to, you know. So these might take some planning in advance, but it's definitely worth it.
Speaker 1:New adventures so those are our five fun couples challenges. We hope you guys try some one, two or many more of them and have a good time.
Speaker 2:Feel free to tag us. If you guys you know go out on a date night, tag us, we'd love to repost. We get really excited interacting with you guys and we guys you know go out on a date night, tag us, We'd love to repost. We get really excited interacting with you guys and we would love to know if you are participating in the challenges, because it's some good stuff.
Speaker 1:So, if there's one takeaway from our little discussion today, what is it that you want the audience to know?
Speaker 2:That commitment is so much more than just being there with your partner every day, and that's not enough to just be. I'm here, look, I haven't gone anywhere. That's the bare minimum. Anything important in your life. You are going to give energy and you're going to pour into it and, in my opinion, there's nothing more important for me to pour my energy into than my family and my husband, because, at the end of the day, you know, my children are going to grow up and have spouses and lives of their own and children, and it's me and you and keeping this connection alive, keeping our marriage flourishing, making sure you're happy, I'm happy. These things are so important because it's me and you till death. Do us part, so pour into your marriage, don't just get stuck in the routine.
Speaker 1:If you are in a roommate's kind of relationship, in a rut, it is possible to get out of it. Try some of our strategies that we gave you guys. Reach out for help if you need it, not to us, but somebody else.
Speaker 2:Well, you can reach out to me. Reach out to Tanisha us, but somebody else, well, you can reach out to me. Reach out to tanisha. Tanisha at cynicmeetsunshinecom. Yes, yes, and speaking of, that please be sure to like subscribe share our content with any of your friends or anyone that you think could really benefit from this, because it's really one of the big reasons why we're doing this is we want to help, so help people the more you guys share our content, the more you guys interact with us.
Speaker 2:It lets us know if we should keep going, what content we should bring so we appreciate y'all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of that gets the podcast out in front of more people and it lets us know what content is doing well, so we can we can plan for the future speaking of the future, do we know what we're going to be talking about next week? We are talking about about TBD next week TBD Surprise, surprise, surprise surprise you guys.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and message us, maybe we can get some, we'll find something but we definitely will.
Speaker 1:Until then, stay committed, stay connected. Have a great day.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.
Speaker 2:Good job, babe. Cheers, that was loud.
