The Work Behind the Vows

Words & Julanda Taylor

We're just two whole people who are on a journey of healing. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Visit https://theworkbehindthevows.com/5-day-intensive to join The Work Behind The Vows Intensive. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

  1. What “The Work” in Marriage Really Is | The Assignment Behind Healthy Love

    6d ago

    What “The Work” in Marriage Really Is | The Assignment Behind Healthy Love

    Everyone wants a strong marriage. Few people are willing to do the work required to build one. In this episode Words and Julanda dive into one of the biggest misconceptions in marriage: the belief that healthy relationships are built on a perfect 50/50 split. The reality? Marriage isn't about keeping score. It's about two whole people continually showing up, growing, communicating, healing, and serving one another through every season. You'll hear practical conversations about communication, personal responsibility, partnership, spiritual growth, emotional maturity, and why trying to change your spouse often creates more resistance than transformation. If you've ever felt frustrated, unseen, overwhelmed, or stuck in your marriage, this episode will challenge you to stop focusing on what your spouse needs to fix and start asking what God is calling you to work on. Because the strongest marriages aren't built by perfect people. They're built by people willing to do the work. In This Episode✔ Why marriage is not 50/50 ✔ The difference between wishes and work ✔ Why correction without conversation creates resistance ✔ How resentment quietly grows in relationships ✔ Why your spouse's contribution may be more valuable than you realize ✔ The importance of personal growth in marriage ✔ How God develops individuals while strengthening a marriage ✔ Practical examples of partnership in everyday life ✔ A powerful "Who's At Fault?" relationship scenario Join The Conversation💬 What’s one conversation couples tend to avoid that actually needs to happen more often? 📲 Share this episode with someone who’s learning how to communicate more honestly in their relationship. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Visit https://theworkbehindthevows.com/ to Claim Your Marriage Golden Ticket and start the journey back to each other. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle #TheWorkBehindTheVows #HealingIsALyfestyle #KingdomMarriage #ChristianMarriage #MarriageAdvice #MarriagePodcast #FaithAndMarriage #RelationshipGoals #BiblicalMarriage #MarriageMatters

    1h 2m
  2. How Your Past Shapes Your Marriage Today | Identifying Patterns & Breaking Cycles

    May 18

    How Your Past Shapes Your Marriage Today | Identifying Patterns & Breaking Cycles

    Episode 11 of The Work Behind The Vows is one of the deepest conversations yet. Not every marriage problem starts with cheating, betrayal, or some huge explosive moment. Oftentimes, the real damage starts with the conversations couples never have. In this episode, Words and Julanda unpack what happens when spouses stop being emotionally honest in their marriage. They talk about the pressure to “keep the peace,” the fear of conflict, and how silence can quietly turn into resentment over time. Whether people realize it or not, Most couples aren’t just arguing with each other. They’re also wrestling with old patterns, old fears, old survival mechanisms, and emotional conditioning they learned years before the relationship even existed. That’s why this episode centers around five major ways the past can show up inside your marriage. Attachment Styles: The way you learned to give, receive, protect, or withhold love based on your earliest relationships.Communication Defaults: The habits and emotional responses you fall back on when it’s time to express needs, frustrations, disappointment, or vulnerability.Conflict Scripts: The way you instinctively respond to conflict or high-stress interactions, especially when tension, rejection, or emotional discomfort enters the room.Emotional Triggers: The unresolved wounds, fears, insecurities, and sensitivities that can make present-day moments feel heavier than they actually are.Learned Behaviors: Patterns modeled and normalized during childhood that quietly follow you into adulthood and eventually into your marriage. Words and Julanda reflect on how childhood experiences, emotional shutdown, and fear of vulnerability can shape the way people communicate in marriage. They also discuss how easy it is to normalize surface-level connections while deeper issues remain untouched underneath. The conversation also touches on accountability, emotional maturity, and why healthy communication requires both people to stop treating vulnerability like weakness. Marriage will eventually expose the things you’ve been avoiding, whether you talk about them or not. That’s why, instead of mending disconnection, silence usually feeds it. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is finally say the thing you’ve been holding in. That’s the work behind the vows. Join The Conversation💬 What’s one conversation couples tend to avoid that actually needs to happen more often? 📲 Share this episode with someone who’s learning how to communicate more honestly in their relationship. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Visit https://theworkbehindthevows.com/ to Claim Your Marriage Golden Ticket and start the journey back to each other. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

    59 min
  3. Why Your Unhealed Wounds Will Destroy Your Marriage

    May 11

    Why Your Unhealed Wounds Will Destroy Your Marriage

    What if the biggest struggles in your marriage didn’t actually start in your marriage? In Episode 10 of The Work Behind The Vows, Words and Julanda unpack the lessons marriage taught them that nobody prepared them for — lessons about healing, communication, accountability, grace, vulnerability, and purpose. This conversation goes far beyond surface-level relationship advice. They explore how childhood experiences, emotional wounds, learned behaviors, and unresolved pain quietly follow people into marriage and eventually get exposed through conflict, disconnection, and unmet expectations. One of the biggest truths they unpack: Healing is personal before it becomes relational. They discuss: Why marriage counseling alone doesn’t always solve relational problemsHow individual healing impacts communication and connectionThe difference between talking and truly feeling connectedWhy accountability is uncomfortable but necessary for growthHow ego quietly damages intimacy and communicationWhat grace practically looks like inside a marriageWhy vulnerability requires emotional safetyHow purpose helps sustain marriage during difficult seasonsThe role therapy played in their reconciliation processEmotional cheating, boundaries, and unmet emotional needsWhy many couples are unintentionally triggering each other’s unresolved wounds The episode also includes another honest “Who’s At Fault?” segment centered around emotional boundaries in marriage and how emotional connections outside of a relationship can slowly create distance inside of one. At the center of this entire conversation is a simple but powerful truth: Healthy marriages are not built on perfection. They are built on healing, humility, grace, accountability, and intentional work. Because marriage doesn’t just reveal love. It reveals patterns. And if those patterns remain unhealed, they eventually shape the relationship. That’s the work behind the vows. 👇🏾 Join the Conversation What’s one lesson marriage taught you that nobody prepared you for? 🎧 Subscribe for weekly conversations on marriage, healing, communication, faith, and relationships.

    58 min
  4. Why Most Couples Never Heal - The Work You Must Do Before Fixing the Marriage

    May 4

    Why Most Couples Never Heal - The Work You Must Do Before Fixing the Marriage

    Most couples struggle because they’re working from the wrong blueprint. That’s where this conversation begins. In this episode, Words and Julanda introduce a new series focused on one central question: Why do couples say they want healing… but avoid the work required to get it? And the answer isn’t surface-level. It’s rooted in the beliefs people bring into marriage, especially the beliefs that sound good, feel right, and are often reinforced by culture. The problem is, those beliefs and customs don’t always hold up in real life. You can’t build a healthy marriage on a broken foundation. So instead of starting with solutions, Words and Julanda start by tearing down the myths. They unpack five of the most common misconceptions around healing in relationships: “If it’s meant to be, it should be easy.”Why ease is often the result of work (and not the absence of it) and how preparation, discipline, and intentional effort shape what eventually looks “natural.”“My spouse is the problem.”How blame keeps couples stuck, why self-reflection is the real starting point for healing, and what it looks like to take ownership without waiting on your partner to change first.“Talking is the same as working.”Why conversations without action create false progress, and how real change requires consistency, follow-through, and lived-out agreement.“Time heals all wounds.”How avoidance, silence, and delay actually deepen resentment, and why unresolved issues compound instead of disappearing.“Love is enough.”Why love isn’t just a feeling, why feelings fluctuate, and how sustainable marriage requires something deeper than emotion—consistent action, commitment, and a source that doesn’t run dry. As the conversation unfolds, one theme keeps surfacing: Most people want the rewards of healing… without the responsibility that comes with it. And that gap is where marriages start to break down. They also address what healing actually requires: self-awareness, accountability, effective communication, and a willingness to confront personal triggers rather than avoiding them. Healing isn’t just about what your spouse does. It’s also about how you show up, how you respond, and how willing you are to grow, even when it’s uncomfortable. The episode closes with a real-life scenario that highlights how these myths play out in everyday marriage while balancing work, family, emotional connections, and unmet expectations. And the takeaway is clear: It’s the lack of communication, clarity, and shared responsibility that creates tension. This episode sets the foundation for everything that follows in the series. Before you can do the work… You have to unlearn what’s been keeping you from it. That’s The Work Behind The Vows. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Visit https://theworkbehindthevows.com/ to Claim Your Marriage Golden Ticket and start the journey back to each other. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

    1h 1m
  5. From Screens to Stillness: Restoring Connection Offline

    Apr 27

    From Screens to Stillness: Restoring Connection Offline

    Disconnection doesn’t always look like conflict. Sometimes it looks like silence. Like proximity without presence. Like two people sitting right next to each other…both mentally somewhere else. That’s where this conversation lives. In this episode, Words and Julanda wrap up the series by focusing on what it actually takes to move from constant digital engagement to real, intentional connection. Their secret is not just avoiding the phone, but replacing it with something that actually pulls you closer. The truth is that phones don’t just distract from your marriage. In fact, if you’re not careful, those devices can compete with Conversations. Attention. Intimacy. And with the everyday moments that quietly build (or break) your connection. And if nothing interrupts that pattern, it becomes normal. Words and Julanda explore what this shift looks like in real life: Being in the same bed, both scrolling. Going out on date night, but still checking notifications. Trying to have a conversation while one person is half-listening. These disconnections aren’t necessarily because there’s a lack of love. But they definitely indicate a lack of presence. And over time, that distance starts to erode the connection between spouses. They explore: How constant phone use creates subtle but consistent disconnectionThe emotional impact of not feeling heard, seen, or fully engagedHow different digital habits and algorithms can create tension inside a marriageWhy being “around each other” isn’t the same as actually connectingThe quiet resentment that can build when attention feels divided The conversation then shifts from awareness to action. Because once you recognize the disconnect, the question becomes: What do you replace it with? They break down the intentional choices they’ve made to reconnect consistently in real life, even if it’s not picture perfect in the moment. Things like: Creating tech-free spaces and routines inside the homePutting phones down during conversations as a sign of respectEstablishing family rhythms that make screens less relevantBeing intentional about date nights, shared activities, and daily interactionChoosing presence even in silence When connection is strong, the phone naturally loses its grip. But when connection is weak, the phone fills the gap. And one of the biggest takeaways from this episode is simple, but powerful: You don’t fix disconnection by removing the phone. You fix it by making connection more valuable than the phone. They also get into the real tension of modern life, including how hard it actually is to unplug, the fear of missing out, and the ways social media can start to feel like a substitute for real connection if you’re not careful. And still, the conclusion stays the same: You don’t need more access. You need more intention. They close with a challenge—not to go extreme, but to start small. To create one moment this week where connection is the priority. Where the phone isn’t the default And presence is chosen on purpose. At the end of the day, your marriage won’t be built on what you consumed. It will be built on what you shared. That’s the work behind the vows. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

    55 min
  6. Social Media, Privacy & Boundaries: Drawing Lines in the Digital Ages

    Apr 20

    Social Media, Privacy & Boundaries: Drawing Lines in the Digital Ages

    Every couple talks about trust and why it’s a non-negotiable. But not every couple talks about what actually protects that trust. That’s exactly where this conversation picks up. In this episode, Words and Julanda dig into one word that can either strengthen a marriage or slowly break it down: Boundaries. This episode kicks off with real-life moments that most couples recognize but don’t always address: Who has access to what? What’s okay to share and what crosses a line? When does something go from harmless to questionable? From early relationship dynamics with exes and passwords to how those boundaries evolved in marriage, they walk through how trust isn’t automatic, but how it’s built, tested, and reinforced through consistent decisions. And then the conversation goes deeper. Words and Julanda break down the difference between privacy and secrecy in a way that’s undeniably simple: Privacy is when nothing is being hidden. Secrecy is when something needs to be. Privacy looks like: Taking space to process or Needing room to recharge without interference. But secrecy is different. Secrecy shows up when there’s something you feel the need to hide. A late-night call. A DM that feels a little too personal. A conversation you wouldn’t bring up unless you were asked. And that’s where things start to shift. Most breakdowns don’t start with something obvious. They start small. A late-night conversation that “means nothing.” A DM that feels harmless. A moment where you feel seen in a way you haven’t felt at home. Individually, it might not seem like much, But over time, those moments create space. And if there’s already distance in the marriage? That’s where a dangerous door opens. They walk through how emotional gaps, unmet needs, and unresolved tension can make outside attention feel appealing, even if that was never the intention. Not because someone set out to cross a line. But because they never defined where the line was in the first place. Words and Julanda shift into what healthy boundaries actually look like and how they evolve. The couple closes with a subtle, but powerful reminder: Boundaries don’t push love away. They give it room to breathe. That’s the work behind the vows. 🎧 Subscribe For New Episodes 🔔 Turn On Notifications so you don’t miss the next conversation 📲 Follow Words & Julanda on socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

    1h 12m
  7. Healing Your Marriage While Everyone Watches | Should Couples Share Everything Online?

    Apr 13

    Healing Your Marriage While Everyone Watches | Should Couples Share Everything Online?

    Being married online comes with a question nobody really prepares you for: What do you share… and what do you keep for yourselves? In this episode, Words and Julanda give real life instead of a perfect formula. They start with the everyday tension most couples feel, but don’t always talk about: One person wants to post the moment. The other is wondering why it’s even being recorded. From unapproved screenshots to “this should’ve stayed in the camera roll,” they unpack how even small decisions around posting can impact trust, comfort, and connection. Then the conversation shifts into something deeper. They walk through a real “intense fellowship” that started with ants at a campsite and quickly turned into frustration, miscommunication, and two completely different perspectives trying to coexist in the same moment. And that’s where the real lesson shows up: In the middle of that tension, there was zero space for social media. Not because they didn’t have something to say… But because it wasn’t time…yet. They break down why posting in the middle of conflict can: Invite outside opinions before resolution happensValidate emotions that haven’t been processed yetMake reconciliation harder instead of easier And most importantly, how easy it is to say something publicly that creates a deeper wound privately. But they don’t stop there. They also talk about what happens after the moment is healed. How those same experiences can become teaching moments. How growth can be shared without exposing the raw version of it. And how timing matters just as much as honesty. The conversation also challenges a common assumption: Posting doesn’t prove love. It can… But it doesn’t have to. Because love that only lives online starts to create unnecessary pressure, especially if what’s posted doesn’t match what’s happening at home. They explore: Why authenticity removes pressure, but performance creates itHow posting can invite accountability or false intimacyThe difference between documenting your life and trying to prove it And they land on something that feels simple, but isn’t always easy to practice: You don’t have to share everything to have something real. Some of the strongest parts of a marriage will never be posted. Not because they’re being hidden… But because they’re being protected. Bottom line: Not every moment is meant for content. Some are meant for growth, healing, and connection off camera. That’s the work behind the vows.

    59 min
  8. Filtered Love: How Social Media Warps Expectations in Marriage

    Apr 7

    Filtered Love: How Social Media Warps Expectations in Marriage

    Filtered love isn’t real—it’s a curated experience for show. In this episode, Words and Julanda break down how social media creates unrealistic expectations and how those expectations quietly impact real marriages. They explore: The difference between real love and curated “highlight reel” loveHow comparison steals joy, gratitude, and contentmentWhy social media often shows practiced, posed, or strategic moments instead of everyday realityThe pressure couples feel to present a polished image instead of being honestHow early insecurities and unhealed experiences make us more vulnerable to comparison The conversation then shifts to what filtered love actually does inside a marriage and why it’s more dangerous than it looks. They break down: How comparison leads to coveting other people’s lives and relationshipsThe danger of trying to alter your spouse, or yourself, to match what you see onlineWhy “couple goals” can create unrealistic expectations and disappointmentHow lifestyle content can either inspire growth or fuel insecurity depending on your mindsetThe importance of checking your internal response to what you consume They also address a hard truth: Social media isn’t forcing anyone to be fake, but our desire for validation and perception is what drives performance. And when couples perform instead of connect, the gap between who they are and who they pretend to be only gets wider. Words and Julanda close by bringing the focus back to what actually builds a strong marriage—real, intentional action. They emphasize: Love is built through action, not appearanceConnection is created through consistency, not comparisonYou can build the relationship you desire in real life without performing it onlineAuthenticity creates peace, while performance creates pressure Bottom line: Filtered love creates unrealistic expectations. Real love is built through intentional action, honesty, and growth. That’s the work behind the vows.

    1h 3m

Ratings & Reviews

About

We're just two whole people who are on a journey of healing. Stay Connected on Socials The Work Behind The Vows: https://www.instagram.com/theworkbehindthevowspodcast/ Words: https://www.instagram.com/wordstaylor/ @WordsTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Julanda: https://www.instagram.com/msjulandataylor/ @MsJulandaTaylor on Instagram and TikTok Visit https://theworkbehindthevows.com/5-day-intensive to join The Work Behind The Vows Intensive. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, Healing is a Lifestyle, for the latest episodes and visuals! https://www.youtube.com/@healingisalyfestyle

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