Episode 53: How Moving to Portugal Changed Our Marriage

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to As the Dinason's Turn, where we chronicle the adventures of the Dinoson family, a seemingly ordinary family from Iowa who decided, hey, you only live once, so let's move to Portugal. And now your hosts, Jason and Tracy Dynason.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Welcome to another As the Dinoson's Turn. This time around, our episode is about marriage. How has marriage and our relationship changed since we moved to Portugal?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Well, I don't know. What do you think? I'm going to make you do some of the talking more.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

I think that it's better now than it was in the US. And I think it's because we have time to focus on not just on each other, but family has gotten better too in terms of relationship with our children, too. I feel is a lot better now than it was in the US.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

I think that it's hard to have a solid relationship when you're struggling mentally the entire time and you're so burned out and exhausted. And so that's a lot of what has changed. Like we're no longer burned out, we're not exhausted all of the time. We're no longer running from thing to thing to thing to thing without a purposeful stop. And I think that's very helpful. And so that made a huge difference in our ability to be present and to actually be purposeful in how we spend our time. But I'd also say that because there's so many things that we had to build and rebuild and do all over again in systems that make zero sense, we became an even stronger team. Yeah. And that hasn't always been easy when we're not together working on those things together, right? And I think we're doing all of this and navigating all these things together. I think that helps a lot. I think we're better communicators, or I'm a better communicator because I am more willing to put out there what I need and what might be missing, or when I'm feeling overwhelmed, or putting all of these things out there ahead of time before we get to burnout mode or get into a situation where mental health isn't good. And we've both worked on that. But those are things that I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yeah, I think in the US, I don't think that it's easy to put into words the way that we felt in the US with the burnout that we had. We've done four or five episodes over the years on burnout, but I've always felt like it's hard to even put it into words in a way that people can understand the mental state that I think we both were in in the United States. And that has fallout not just on relationship with each other, but on just everything. Relationship with children, relationship with other people. I mean, ironically, I think that some of the connections and friends and such in the United States, the relationship is better, even though it's all virtual now because of where we are. I actually think that it's easier to stay in touch, it's easier to be a good friend, it's easier to do a lot of things, I think, than what we were experiencing when we moved.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Well, and I think that a large piece of that is the self-care, the space that you have for yourself, the decision fatigue, the getting through the day and not gonna let you have anything left. As somebody who has a chronic illness, I get through a day and I can only do so much, and then I've run out of the ability to do anything more. And yet the thing that gets sacrificed is our relationship or our family or all of those things because I'm spending all of this time working on other things. And I feel like we have kind of shifted focus where the areas where we're spending the time or we're spending energy is here first, but other things second in a lot of cases. And I think that's been very helpful. And when you move to a completely new place and you know not a soul and you don't know how systems work, and you're trying to figure them out, you wind up, I guess, finding your best friend again and your partner in all of those things. And I think that's helpful. We've always had a good teamwork experience. We've worked pretty good as a teen.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

We actually do, don't we? I mean, some people want to kill each other when they do projects together or something. And I guess maybe it's not every moment is sunshine and roses, but I think that at the end of the day, we work pretty well together, and we really always have.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Absolutely. We know when we can see when the other person's getting frustrated and say, okay, let's just take a minute, take a deep breath. I had to focus.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

I had to remind you to eat today. So you actually that actually feeds into a offshoot of the discussion is finding things that we love and things that we enjoy and ways to feed our soul. And you definitely have with is it pottery or ceramics? I always just say both. You're working on your pottery and ceramics, but I I don't know which one is is which. But anyway, you've been working on that well a lot, but today you too.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, well, you know, there's a large piece of what I found. I love making things with my hands. And when I make things with my hands, I really get under flow. Um, and time disappears. So I started at maybe 10 this morning. I don't know. I have no idea what time I started. It was early. I hadn't really done anything else. I got ready for the day and I was like, okay, cool, I'm gonna go do this for a little while. Took a break to take the dogs for a walk and then went back at it. And it's like three o'clock in the afternoon, and I haven't eaten lunch. I haven't eaten today because I'm just into what I'm doing. And what happens is I spend a lot of time making these pieces, but the creative piece and the piece where I get into flow is not just in the making, but in the finishing things. So I'm taking all of these little parts and then putting them together in new and different ways. And it takes a lot of focus and a lot of energy. And my hands are sore because I'm doing wire work today. And so it's like, oh, and I like that every day is different and that I create something new or I can have a vision of I need this, I'm gonna make this thing, and then I can do that. And that I really have enjoyed. Even today, I'm taking leftover cardboard from like the you buy packs of milk and you put cardboard in the middle to stabilize it. I took them and I cut out templates for a project that I had planned. So yeah, apparently I'm a little bit obsessed, but in good ways, and I think that's been helpful. But to make space for that in my day and not feel guilty about it, that's a huge thing for me as a wife and a mom. I felt guilty all the time. And like I was never doing anything enough. And I was always being selfish or the worst thing ever. Like I was making all these bad decisions, and you all need my time. And I think at the same time, I don't know if you would have reminded me or been aware enough as to what was going on or what I was doing to know if I'd eaten or not before.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I mean the the fact that you knew I was out there and you're like, oh, okay, you'd eaten, and everybody else had eaten, and then you're like, you haven't eaten lunch yet. I'm like, oh, no wonder I'm kind of hungry.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

We've also found time to go do our own things too. I mean, you on Saturdays go to the market to sell your wares and I go with you. And we do a lot of those sorts of things where even if it's just running errands or something, we can go together.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

And that makes a big difference. And honestly, the fact that I never run errands by myself. I either go with you or the kids go with me. I never go by myself. And before I would want to go by myself so I can have five minutes peace of like just quiet. Like nobody wanted anything or needed anything from me. Whereas here it's more of a let's go and do something. Let's do this thing together. I don't know. It's a definite shift.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Yeah. I guess that's all. Maybe that's all there is to say about how the relationship has changed because I think we've always had a decent relationship, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, but I'd also say we talked about me finding things that feed my soul. What I love is work feeds your soul. But radio, enduring radio feeds your soul, and you've gotten to do lots of that, more helping and stepping in and doing these things that you weren't able to do before. And when I'm doing my stuff at the market, you're over in the office doing your work, and then we get lunch, and I'll say, I need a coke, they need to dye a Coke, and he'll bring it over to me. He can tell when I'm hangry via text, like all of those things. So it's good.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

It is work, but it's a different kind of work, I think. To me, it's almost like what you do with your pottery, which is also technically work because you do sell those things.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

I think I've just found things that feed my soul also a lot more than what I was doing in the US.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, I think that those are good things. And uh we both have made space to take care of our own mental health to make sure that we're doing those things through self-care and therapy and all of that as well. And I think that taking care of our mental and physical health has helped a lot too, because we've been working on undoing a lot of the things that we had done to ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Our physical health too light years different. I've lost 21 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I think that what we've what we've got is also we've got space and more resources, you know. And I think that that's that's the big thing. You know, I'm down 30, 32 kilograms.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

70 or 71 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

70.5.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I think that, and you know, you can you can see the difference, but I think that it's also that we've got the resources and the support to do a lot of the things that we've been putting up to get help with all of the things that we put off too. And I think that makes a big difference. It's easier to feel like I can take care of my health when I know it's not going to I know what it's gonna actually cost and not that it's gonna be all of these additional things that makes a big difference for me because I didn't ever want to take away any resources from family or from budget or any of those things. And I still struggle with that, buying expensive medications and all of those things. It's like, oh God. But I think that we've actually set this as part of the priority, and that's a good thing, and that could be move and it could all just so be midlife realities of growing up and taking care of yourselves, and then kids are teenagers and life is getting busier and looking up, and I've just turned 50 and going, okay, well, I've got to quit doing all of the things that I've done before because I don't want to get to 70 or 80 and struggle with X, Y, and Z. And so we've been pretty purposeful of doing that. I also love that our break is taking the dogs for a walk. Because that's like a full body activity because they love walking so much and they're not very well trained. We won't own that, but they're just so excited. And our dogs are not the only dogs in the building that act that way. When they go on walks, they just bark the whole way down and are just like, oh, I'm so happy to go on a walk. But getting out and taking that time and making sure that we're actually outside and in the sunshine or the rain, whatever it is, to make sure that that gets done, I think is an important thing. I think that we're learning and every step is a step in the right direction. But I can't believe that we've got an 18-year-old. So we've been married now almost for 19 years and together for almost 20, and it doesn't feel like it. Um well, I don't think it feels like it. You have a snacky thing to say, a comment, but it doesn't feel like it's in 20 years almost. It goes fast.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

It does go fast. Speaking of which, I think this episode is over. So join us again next time on As the Dinoson's Turn.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

You've been listening to As the Dinoson's Turn, a podcast presented by Dinoson Media Ventures. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and catch us again next time for another episode!

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Media Ventures.