And We Are Still Becoming One

Welcome to Season 4 of Still Becoming One. We are excited to continue our own journey of growth and to bring all of you along with us. 

So What happens when high school sweethearts get married and realize they need to seriously address their struggles? That was our journey that eventually led to the creation of the Still Becoming One podcast. With roots that trace back to our One Flesh Marriage blog.

In this episode, we wanted to reintroduce ourselves to all of our fantastic audience. We dive into the transformative power of story work, we talk candidly about raising four children, both biological and adopted, and the profound impact trauma has on family dynamics and relationships. Discover how Aldrich Ministries and our coaching network aim to enhance relationships through kindness, understanding, and continual growth.

Still Becoming One
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Transcript

Brad Aldrich 0:04

Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast. We are Brad and Kate.

Kate Aldrich 0:10

In our more than 20 years of marriage, we've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.

Brad Aldrich 0:15

Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.

Kate Aldrich 0:23

We invite you to journey with us, as we are Still Becoming One.

Brad Aldrich 0:27

Let's start the conversation. Welcome everybody.

Kate Aldrich 0:34

Yes, welcome back to Still Becoming One.

Brad Aldrich 0:37

Yes, this is our first episode of our fourth season of Still Becoming One.

Kate Aldrich 0:43

Yeah, we're excited to be here because it's been a while.

Brad Aldrich 0:46

It has been a little while. We took a break for a little bit of time just over vacation and winter, so we've taken a little bit of a break from recording and yet we keep kind of going oh, we need to talk about that on the podcast, and we need to talk about that on the podcast, and we need to talk about that on the podcast.

Kate Aldrich 1:07

So we have a whole list for you yeah, and the cool thing was we never actually talked about taking a break, we just took it, and because this is how you should communicate in marriage and then we both were just like, um, it's probably time to get back at that yes and so there you go, here we are it happens.

Brad Aldrich 1:25

You know we definitely it started over, kind of over christmas, christmas break and with our extra kids home and everything so yeah, that was awesome we had some.

Kate Aldrich 1:36

We had some kiddos stay through like mid-january home from break, so like we just definitely wanted to spend our extra time with them, which was awesome so we thought we would start our fourth season by just reintroducing ourselves. And what still becoming one even means yes, because maybe you've never listened to our first season or you're just getting introduced to us the first episode we did where we kind of talked about what we were doing and why we were doing.

Kate Aldrich 2:14

It was a really long time ago, I mean sometimes it feels like centuries ago and then other times it doesn't feel long ago at all. Well, and I think in the grand scheme of our ministry it's not that long ago, and so I think sometimes my brain goes to that as opposed to like how much we've changed in those four years. Yeah, four years, yeah, that's crazy.

Brad Aldrich 2:38

So Kate and I started the Still Becoming One podcast because we really felt like there were still things that we wanted to say as Christian marriage ministry and to the Christian marriage community. We had had a voice into that community man for I don't know eight, nine years.

Kate Aldrich 3:02

Yeah, since 2010.

Brad Aldrich 3:03

Yeah, as One Flesh Marriage we wrote the blog One Flesh Marriage. Don't bother searching for that. Now A hacker took the liberty of taking it offline and we just kind of let it die because, it was old and nobody really reads blogs anymore. So we let that kind of go and are kind of re-exploring what does it mean to still become one?

Kate Aldrich 3:33

in a marriage, yeah.

Brad Aldrich 3:35

And so that was kind of our motivation to keep doing this work and keep talking about things. I guess we should probably give a little bit of our marriage journey in history oh, should we.

Kate Aldrich 3:50

Okay, here we go go for it. Um, yeah, I always. I think every time I tell this is a little different, but that's okay. Brad and I were high school sweethearts and oh, I had to add this.

Kate Aldrich 4:07

I'm thankful that we were. This is the challenge. Do I give this with the story work that we've done or do I give it without it? I think in many ways we were a way out from both of our families, so that would be some of the story work. And yet, like it wasn't just that, like Brad and I really enjoyed each other, were attracted to each other all the things that you want in a marriage and we went to separate colleges, got married six years later, but found ourselves in the first year of marriage very confused, very disappointed, I don't know. Lots of emotions, not many of them good or where we thought we would be.

Brad Aldrich 4:53

And so we certainly not what we were hoping after or expecting after six years of dating. We were super excited to be married together and then, once we were, it kind of hit this like wait, is this what it was supposed to be? Like Kind of space.

Kate Aldrich 5:13

We were really struggling. We were really struggling to communicate, we were struggling to understand each other, all kinds of things and that, you know, continued for the next couple years. I don't think it was as bad. I think the first two years were really really hard, but year five rolled around, we had one of our kiddos. We have four total. We'll get to that but we had one at the time and we really did hit a phase where we were like, okay, we either have to deal with this or we're not going to make it or we're just going to continue to just be miserable in the

Brad Aldrich 5:57

same space Right yeah, some definitely things hit the fan and we needed to deal with and make changes, and that was in the period of time where I was going to grad school to become a marriage and family therapist. Yeah, that was working really well Fix us at all. But you know it was really really good education. It just, you know, didn't really tell me what to do different in my own marriage.

Kate Aldrich 6:26

Well, you always wanted to be a counselor, a therapist, but did you I've never thought about this Did you choose marriage and family because we were struggling?

Brad Aldrich 6:36

No.

Kate Aldrich 6:36

Okay.

Brad Aldrich 6:38

No, I chose marriage and family because I wanted to figure myself out.

Kate Aldrich 6:41

Right, Well, I knew that was your main goal. I've known that for a long time. I just didn't know if there was that piece of like oh, if I go this route, maybe I can figure us out.

Brad Aldrich 6:53

No no it was not, it wasn't about that at all.

Kate Aldrich 6:57

Guys, this is still becoming one live questions of, I've never asked that before, and I'm a little afraid of the answer. I've never asked that before and I'm a little afraid of the answer.

Brad Aldrich 7:06

But here you go. For me, it was the difference between an individual approach and a systems approach that, just looked at the things that define a person, make a person is more than just the biology of the person.

Kate Aldrich 7:22

Right that they're impacted by their families.

Brad Aldrich 7:26

And their relationships, and so we need to look at the larger relationship stuff. That's what I was attracted to from the very beginning of seeking out counseling, so that's why I went that direction. But so doing that but it certainly, you know, I think at least woke me up to some unhealthy patterns in our marriage.

Brad Aldrich 7:49

Not that I knew how to change them right, like, yeah, it didn't, doesn't work that way so yeah, I wish but it helps, you help other people well, and I'm just teasing, I mean there are certainly things from my education that I apply to us, but here's the reality.

Kate Aldrich 8:09

Now we're getting into.

Brad Aldrich 8:10

Okay, but this is one of those truths that we talk about all the time. Right, it is so easy to sit in the chair and go oh, here's the things the other person needs to change. It takes hard introspection and humility to go oh, here's the things I need to change. It takes hard introspection and humility to go oh, here's the things I need to change, and that usually takes somebody kind of challenging you to actually do it.

Kate Aldrich 8:36

Yeah, as we work with people, this is a side note from our story. This is a side note and doesn't really have anything to do with our story, but I know, when I talk with clients, it's really easy for me to say something and then I'm like oh. I do it all the time where then I'm like, oh wait, but am.

Brad Aldrich 8:56

I doing that? Am I applying that all the time I'm meeting with couples or talking with couples and going, okay, wait, I need to remember that same principle that I just encouraged them to think about.

Kate Aldrich 9:12

Yeah. So anyways, back to our story. Like we were able to get ourselves in a better space after five years, but and that was super helpful Like I think we would have been able to survive. I'm not sure about thrive, and so we always kind of say our marriage happened in stages. I think year 10 for us, the Lord did some really amazing things in our hearts that opened us up to a space that we didn't even know existed. But I think we hoped, yeah, potentially it did that's the thing, right.

Brad Aldrich 9:52

The next five years were okay and better I thought we thought they were a lot better and life was starting to move differently. But then, year 10, we just really saw a significant kind of change, as we were both working on ourselves. We both, I think, took some steps towards each other in readiness to go to that next place and and whatever.

Brad Aldrich 10:22

And so we started exploring really a different depth of marriage I think we had been hoping for all along definitely and that's kind of started, um, you know, through some challenges and through some things that we were going through a year 10, but um, and we really started connecting on a different level.

Kate Aldrich 10:47

And that started us well living differently and honestly, people started asking what was different about us, which was kind of ironic. We always joke because we thought and I think many church couples do we thought we were portraying something of like a good marriage and doing well, but apparently well people saw the difference just how we talked to each other, how we were around each other.

Brad Aldrich 11:20

they saw something more than it was before. And so, yeah, people started asking, okay, what's different, how did you get there? And you know, really, we started the One Flesh Marriage blog out of a place of well, let's think through that and talk about it a little bit, mostly for us and a few friends, and we started talking about healthy relationships, growing together, caring for each other, healthy emotional intimacy and healthy sexual intimacy. And I think, somewhat because of that last one, there was not a whole lot of people talking about healthy sexuality from a Christian perspective and it just exploded.

Kate Aldrich 12:12

Well, the church we're pretty open here on Still Becoming One about our struggles with Big C Church and how they've handled these things, these topics for marriages, and how they've handled these things, these topics for marriages. You know, the church should be where we can go and get good resources and often it has perpetuated toxic practices, really harmful messages about sexual intimacy, about pornography, about all kinds of things. Really.

Brad Aldrich 12:42

About who a man's supposed to be in sex, who a woman's supposed to be in sex, all of the things.

The Power of Story Work

Kate Aldrich 12:48

Yeah, and so yeah, we're just open and honest about those things. Brad and I love Jesus. He is the reason we are here, but church has led to some hurtful things for lots of people and we give them space to honor that, and that's been true for us as well. So, yeah, but we continue to talk about marriage and relationships. We have branched out a little bit. It's not always just specifically marriage here at.

Brad Aldrich 13:20

Study Coming One. No, we talk a lot of healthy parenting things and even healthy dating relationship stuff.

Kate Aldrich 13:30

Yeah, just relationships in general, because we are parents of four kiddos. We've talked also about trauma and hard things that we experience and how they impact our relationships, because we've had that for ourselves. We've also had that with our kiddos. We have two biological, two adopted, and not just the adopted ones ones right. Everyone has some trauma of course, because we are broken people and no matter how much we want to love our kids, well, we're going to miss them.

Brad Aldrich 14:10

At times we're going to cause harm and hurt, and so we process lots of of those different angles here so if you stick around here at Still Becoming One, what you will hear is us talking a lot about how we grow in our relationships, how we take care of ourselves, how we walk in greater kindness and understanding, and many of those ideas come from Dan Allender and the Allender School of Theology. There are a lot of people out there who are talking about some of these things.

Brad Aldrich 14:50

I think probably the podcast that many people might be familiar with is the Place we Find Ourselves with. Adam Young Talks also from the Allender training and Allender perspective. Kate and I have both done some of that. The Allender training. The Allender training yeah.

Brad Aldrich 15:11

And as we kind of grew career-wise, we've done all the different things. We um I was working at a christian counseling center and then was the director of that center went and worked at a large church, eventually as the pastor of marriage and family. Kate also worked at a church as a youth pastor and then as a youth director and then as assistant to the pastor of marriage and family.

Kate Aldrich 15:44

That would have been Brad. That sounded really weird. I'm just trying to follow your timeline.

Brad Aldrich 15:50

for me it's more one of those. I should have stood up and said no, you're not just an assistant, you are definitely more than that. It's just the title you were given.

Kate Aldrich 15:59

That's okay. But I've also yes, like I've been a youth pastor, which is what I went to school for, but was able to stay home with our kiddos when they were young, which was such a blessing. I've done many. I've worn many different hats.

Brad Aldrich 16:14

Oh lots.

Kate Aldrich 16:15

But now, after doing our Allender training, in this stage of life, when we still have, we have two kiddos out of the house. Two kiddos in the house, not because we've made them stay outside, because they moved on to better things. And so, in this stage of life, I love that I get to meet with people and talk about their stories and talk about how those are playing out today and how we can understand them better.

Brad Aldrich 16:45

Yep. So back in 2013,. Actually, we formed Aldrich Ministries as an overall organization and then we started doing more direct coaching from that back in 2019. And starting in 2020, that grew well with the pandemic, quite significantly, and we continued to grow Aldrich Ministries to be now a coaching network.

Brad Aldrich 17:31

It's what Kate and I do full time now working with people honestly around the world who are looking to grow in their relationships, and we try to offer some support and encouragement and maybe a different way to look at things than many people come at them, and we have now built a team of people who are like-minded, who are in the marriage ministry space Also, many of them Allender trained, who are also offering coaching alongside us to lots of different people. So it is a ministry that's rapidly growing and, yeah, we're just really excited to be able to continue to see people grow and change as they're on this journey of still becoming one together.

Kate Aldrich 18:19

Yeah, so that's us. We're a lot more fun than that makes us sound.

Brad Aldrich 18:24

Okay, yes, kate's the one who wants to bring humor.

Kate Aldrich 18:29

I like to laugh. You do too.

Brad Aldrich 18:31

I do.

Kate Aldrich 18:32

You're just more reluctant to laugh. I don't know why.

Brad Aldrich 18:35

Laughing is fun, okay, anyways I was like I just go for the dad jokes.

Kate Aldrich 18:42

Oh, but that's a contradiction though, because dad jokes are not funny, See.

Brad Aldrich 18:47

Right, yeah, exactly.

Kate Aldrich 18:49

Actually he's constantly in our family group chat, sending them to all of our children, and then he's like waiting for them to respond, and if they don't't, he's kind of sad no, that's right, you got to kind of poke the bear a little bit um, but yeah, so we um, we love our family, we there's more to us than just this um, we love our, our community. We enjoy Brad enjoys coffee. I do not, just in case you wanted to know, it's okay, we forgive you.

Brad Aldrich 19:25

Why don't you tell them a little bit about what story work means? Is that something that those terms are going to be, something that people encounter a lot as they listen to us?

Kate Aldrich 19:36

Sure, I think the short answer is that story work is going back into your story, your childhood, your formative years, and talking about the memories, the things that are kind of have stuck with you. We do tend to gear towards for a while the hard things, the things that stick with you that still just kind of hurt, that feel harmful, that feel traumatic in a sense. But we also explore good things, because we are more complex people than just the bad. But the bad is really important because we need to explore what it's told us about ourselves, because, as adults, what it's told us about ourselves is still playing out today.

Brad Aldrich 20:32

I always like to say that those wounds, those traumas, whatever it is that we experienced wounds, those traumas, whatever it is that we experienced big things or little things they ended up writing stuff on our hearts that kind of jumps out when something similar or maybe something totally different happens down the road. We can be in a circumstance and all of a sudden we can be thinking, you know, really negative thoughts about ourselves. We can have some negative self-talk.

Brad Aldrich 21:06

We can oh, I'm such an idiot, kind of you know thing and it's like where did that come from? Where do we start to believe those things about ourselves. Yeah. And they're often based in some woundedness.

Kate Aldrich 21:21

The really interesting thing that I find, too, is when we're talking with couples. I mean, we do story work with individuals who are not in relationships and those that are, but significantly, when you and I are working with a married couple, it's really interesting because we can start to feel like the, the things that we're having conflict about, the things that we butt heads about, hmm is because we have this like what everybody throws around as incompatibility kind of thing, and not every couple sees that we can't work through that. But what Brad and I see really is their stories playing out and how they're bumping up. The stories are bumping up against each other and people will say, oh, so, like you know, if I married someone different, this wouldn't be happening.

Brad Aldrich 22:13

No.

Kate Aldrich 22:14

It doesn't matter who you're married to. Your story is going to play out.

Brad Aldrich 22:17

And I have a really good, simple example of a couple that I was working with the other week where they were talking about a chore that needed done in the house. It was one of those things that just needed to get to. Both of them knew it, both of them had talked about it, but they had not gotten to it yet. And finally the husband kind of was like okay, I'm going to get to it. And they ended up kind of talking about it while he was doing it and you know his thoughts were, you know, every time I saw it I was just kind of frustrated that I hadn't gotten there yet.

Brad Aldrich 23:04

And the wife admitted that every time she saw the chore she had the thought I'm a bad wife, I'm a bad mom. The chore she had the thought I'm a bad wife, I'm a bad mom. And he kind of stopped cleaning up and looked at her and was like why would you think that? Because it had nothing to do with the chore, it had to do with story and expectation and her past and those things that get planted in us. And just in that exchange they were able to kind of see each other a little differently and he was able to kind of walk away with. Okay, I know that if there is something that isn't done, there's this thing ringing inside my wife that says I'm bad, I'm not good enough.

Brad Aldrich 23:50

And the power of knowing. That is then you can really. He can go back and say you know what? I think you're a fantastic wife. Just because we didn't get that done doesn't make that any different, right, you can speak to that negative voice even before it comes out.

Kate Aldrich 24:07

And she can work with her negative voice too, Like it is not just a spouse's responsibility to make it all better. But yeah, when we know that about each other, it can be super helpful. And I think for so many of us we can sometimes identify those messages going on. But sometimes we're really unaware because it happens so fast that it's not really a cognizant thought that you're having, and so being able to pull those apart, separate them and actually recognize what's there is really helpful.

Brad Aldrich 24:44

I don't know about you, but I think many of the men I work with have done one of two things with that kind of negative internal voice. Either they kind of try to ignore it, even though they know it's there. They just try to ignore it as best as possible and it kind of just is constantly there in the background, or they try to use it as motivation. I'm so horrible, I need to go do this. I'm so awful.

Brad Aldrich 25:17

I need to like you know. So it becomes kind of this stream of beat myself up to make myself do the thing.

Kate Aldrich 25:25

Well, yes, I've. I actually had one of my clients recently say that's when I turned the fear into motivation.

Brad Aldrich 25:33

Yeah.

Kate Aldrich 25:34

Right, and that person was talking about a specific time in their life. However, yes, those things become motivators because we are trying to either have it not happen that way, right, because someone's spoken that over us. So we're kind of trying, we're letting it chase us, correct?

Brad Aldrich 25:55

and that is a motivator correct, right and that, like understanding that and understanding the things that are going on inside of us and how to bring better, better kindness to those places can mean a tremendous change. Yeah. And understanding how those things impact relationships is so important.

Kate Aldrich 26:20

Mm-hmm, people and kindness is so hard and so revolutionary. I mean, we constantly tell our children be kind to others, be kind, be kind. Right, we don't talk a lot about be kind to yourself and I don't know about you. You know, because Brad and I tend to work individually. I tend to work with women, and then Brad and I work with married couples together. I do sometimes work with couples, but for the individual woman it's like well, well, why would I be kind to myself?

Kate Aldrich 26:55

like why, why, and the thing I always remind people is well, these things happen when you're a kid. You didn't ask for it. You didn't create this strategy because you thought it would be helpful, like you did create it because it was helpful, but you you were a kiddo, like your brain is not fully formed, it's trying to figure it out and let's be kind, like you were doing the best you could. So there's lots there and we talk a lot about story.

Brad Aldrich 27:28

But, I think, it also needs to be said that we are not looking at just blaming everything on your past or bashing parents. Yeah, no, definitely we truly believe that most all parents tried their best, tried to take care of us and loved us very much, and we need to honor that and find places of honor in that.

Brad Aldrich 27:54

and yet all parents, including this one, has missed stuff and certainly has missed this one places of you know neat what their children need, which creates wounds, and we can be a part of healing those wounds. But often that's not something parents have been trained or know to do well.

Kate Aldrich 28:19

It brings up their own stories, their own insecurities. It it is something brad and I are passionate about is talking to our kids, our four kids, about what we haven't done well, and hoping that they can know that that's always a place and a space with us and when they come to us, it's our job to listen and validate that. And we've already had some of those difficult conversations, and I don't know about you, but they're not fun. They're not fun.

Kate Aldrich 28:53

But, everything in me wants to not not make excuses but justify my actions, Right, but that's not. That's not what we need to do. And as we, if we as parents can enter into repair differently, we're actually changing the dynamic for future generations to do this differently, Right, yeah?

Brad Aldrich 29:12

So the idea, yep, that's the idea.

Kate Aldrich 29:13

Yep, that's the hope and that's why we enter into story and, as Brad said, it's not to dishonor but it is to actually elevate, for a time, honesty of what was it like for you, and we'll bring honor back in. But we need some space for honesty to have a place.

Brad Aldrich 29:31

Yeah, that's really important, and so that's a little bit about who we are at, still Becoming One, and where we're headed. We're going to talk a lot of different themes of marriage and sex and intimacy and relationships in general, learning from our story and where it grows us.

Kate Aldrich 29:54

And sometimes we'll just be ridiculous, right, honey?

Brad Aldrich 29:57

Of course you always bring the humor. I always say we're gonna have to record these, not in the morning, if you want me to be funny.

Kate Aldrich 30:03

But yes, you are definitely more chatty in the evenings. Morning is not your favorite, unless he's had lots of coffee.

Brad Aldrich 30:10

So, but we are so glad to be on this journey with you. I think, we're going to have a great season and we're excited to be sharing again and just how we can continue on this journey of a healthy relationship. Looking to be more than roommates with our spouse, but really looking towards, what does it mean to become one together? Yeah.

Building a Stronger Marriage Community

Brad Aldrich 30:37

Well, we're glad that you are on this journey with us. We would love to hear from you, check out our information. You can find us on social media at stillbecomingone. You can check out our webpage, stillbecomingonecom and get lots of information about us and our coaching and even ask some questions there. If you have questions for the podcast, we would love to hear from you. Sure, well, that's all for this time on our first one of our fourth season of Still Becoming One Till next time. I'm Brad Aldridge.

Kate Aldrich 31:12

And I'm Kate Aldridge. Be kind and take care of each other.

Brad Aldrich 31:19

Still Becoming One is a production of Aldridge Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldridgeministriescom. For podcasts, podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us to continue your journey on still becoming one.