Today we are recapping our Kickass Couples Podcast episode with husband and wife duo Steph and Brandon Tuss. This couple took their love of teaching and forged an unbreakable bond together as successful business partners and best friends for life.
In today’s recap edition of their episode, we will share our key takeaways from our interview with this dynamic couple and will break down concepts relationship qualities, and key pillar points that they’ve used to build their rock-solid relationship that will stand the test of time.
Steph and Brandon are fellow air streamers and we had a lot of fun interviewing them and our Airstream trailer!
We’d be here for over an hour if we tried to go into this whole episode and recap it because there’s so much meat on the bone from both Brandon and Steph. They are self-help junkies and we really loved that about both of them. They shared so many good things with us.
They began by talking about their background and both shared some experiences that made them look more at what they didn’t want based on their families of origin. For example. Steph’s dad was an alcoholic until she was 16 and she said her mom expressed love, but it was conditional love.
The idea of conditional love or unconditional love is a big one. In your number one romantic and human relationship, you’ve got to have unconditional love. If there are strings attached, then you never know where you stand, you’re always wondering what you or your spouse has to do next to make you happy, fulfilled, and content. That is a horrible way to live in a relationship. The challenge these two had after their childhood experiences was to figure out how to take their two backgrounds and make them into a winning relationship together. They managed to do it beautifully!
We really liked what they had to say about melding together and making sure that there weren’t conditional strings attached to their own relationship. They also took it one step further and consciously raised their daughters to make sure that they also felt unconditional love. Not only did Brandon and Steph learn to freely express their love to each other, but they raised their children in that environment too.
Commitment was another topic we covered with this couple. They shared with us that they have an agreement-based relationship. For example, if they have a disagreement they will revisit the conversation and then make an agreement on how they’ll approach the conversation differently in the future. We love this approach because you’re always going to be experiencing and coming across new things. Sweeping things under the carpet never works, but having a plan and an agreement on how to move forward does!
Steph had a great quote, she said, “Either we are for each other, or we’re against each other. There’s nothing in between. There are going to be rough spots, but if you agree that you’re for each other you’re not going to intentionally do things that are damaging and hurtful to your partner, or if it does happen you can figure out what agreement you have to have to talk about so it doesn’t happen again. You can learn from those mistakes.”
This interview allowed us to see how this couple approaches everything as a team. They have shared values and they really come at things together with like-mindedness. They work together at everything that they do and they’re always striving to create a strong bond in their relationship.
Steph or Brandon shared that for a successful marriage you’ve got to focus on the positives and the solutions, instead of all the things that could be wrong. What’s your perspective? Are you looking for the wrong and magnifying that or are you looking for the good, trying to magnify that and make that the reality you have in your relationship?
They’re committed to getting things right. They’re always bettering their best and have a mantra that they use within their home “we’re always bettering our best”.
We think that’s a great mantra to live by! How can you better your best with your partner? Do you have a mantra that you use within your family or relationship? If not, maybe this is a great opportunity to create one!
Until next time. Remember, happily ever after doesn’t just happen. It’s on purpose.
