Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, and more, all featuring Dr Finlayson Fife.

Hello, hello. Welcome everyone to today's episode. I am so excited that today I have a special guest and I am thrilled that she decided to come and do this

podcast with me because she's a big shot. Let me tell you a little bit about my my guest today. My guest is Dr. Jennifer

Finlinson 5. She's an LDS relationship and sexuality coach Coach with a PhD in Counseling Psychology.

The reason why I wanted to talk about the topic we're going to cover today is because I'm going to start with a statistic 57.7% of

marriages and because of conflict and it reconcilable differences and among those differences are religion.

Ding, ding, ding!

And I wanted to talk about that.

And so I wanted to talk about that with you.

I wanted to see your perspective, your tools, your knowledge on how you help couples with this because whether you

you marry and you both have the same beliefs you never know if that can last. I have heard

so many couples where one or the other like one of the two decide to leave their religion while they're married and that can cause so much strain in the marriage if you don't know how to handle it.

Definitely. I'll tell you a little bit about my my situation and as many of my

followers may know but if you're new to my podcast I married my husband when I was younger I thought I was going to marry someone that had all the check boxes that my mom told me to check off right returned missionary right get married in the temple where we get married in our church, and he had to be a member of the same church as I do.

I, it's like, I mentally went completely the opposite. He had no religion. He was raised by her

grandma teaching him some religion but he never practiced anything. He had no idea. So he was like, I don't need it. He was fine, not, and here I was on the opposite side of the spectrum I it's my religion is everything is what I do every day how it guides my daily life every action so for me the first 11 years was me trying to make him or

convince him that my side was better. For 11 years I used my religion as a way to separate us. I didn't know. I thought I was doing it right. I thought I was helping him. I thought I was helping him I thought I knew better you're trying to get him

onto the right path yeah I have something good for you like look I have candy this is sweet this is awesome your life can be so much better on this side

but he didn't want to see it because he didn't need it that was and so finally after 11 years I was like my religion is more

important than our marriage. Essentially I did not see it that way obviously I was like I want to be strong in my marriage in my

religion and you're not helping me you're making you're pulling me down that's that's in my women think that way right? Yes. Yes. Right. So well we were divorced three years and after three years we got back together.

The grass is not always greener on the other side. Yes, yes.

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