Marriage Lab
Aaron and Jenna have been married for over a decade and love talking to people about their relationships, the messiness, the struggle and the victories in all of it. If you're married or planning on it, you can expect 1) Tools for the growth of your marriage and you personally 2) Hope for a healthy marriage no matter what you've experienced up to this point 3) Laughter and comfort when you say, "That's totally us!" and "We've been there!" If you've enjoyed our podcasts, would you consider financially supporting the show?We set-up a secure way for you to do that. This helps t...
Date Fail Debrief: Control Freak & Shut Down
What do you get when you mix a paddleboard, high expectations, and two humans with emotions?
Definitely not the relaxing date we envisioned. But maybe... a deeper kind of win?
This was not our best date… but maybe it was one of our best recoveries.
We went on a paddleboard date thinking it’d be relaxing and fun—but being stuck on the same board triggered us both in different ways.
Instead of letting the day spiral, we each practiced managing our own emotions without blaming the other.
It...
You, Me &… Nobody Else?- isolation in marriage
In this episode, we’re tackling a subtle but serious issue in marriage: isolation.
What happens when your spouse becomes your only source of connection?
Spoiler: it doesn’t lead to thriving.
We talk about:
Why consistent, same-gender friendships are crucial—especially for accountability, encouragement, and emotional healthHow couples slowly drift into “island mode” without realizing itThe specific ways isolation often impacts men vs. womenWhy expecting your spouse to meet all your relational needs (outside of Jesus) is too heavy—and how to shift that dynamicIf you’ve been feeling discon...
16 Questions for your next date night
🎉 It’s our 16th anniversary, and apparently our marriage is now old enough to get its driver’s license. 😅
But let’s be real—
Even after 16 years, date night convo doesn’t always flow naturally (especially when we’re tired or parenting has fried our brains).
So we decided to change that.
💬 In this episode, we:
Answer 16 intentional + fun questions—one for each year we’ve been marriedShare laughs, real talk, and a few surprise answersInvite you to ask the same questions on your next date night📝 Want the fu...
Slow Miracles
Not all breakthroughs come in a flash. In this episode, we talk about the kind of transformation that happens slowly—over months or even years. The kind you don’t always see until you look back and realize, we’re not where we used to be.
We fully believe in sudden miracles. We’ve seen God move in dramatic ways.
But in our own marriage, most of the lasting change has come through showing up when things felt stuck… choosing connection in the face of apathy… and staying present when it would’ve been easier to pull away.
Welcome back, now what?
In this episode, we talk about the often-overlooked rhythm of re-entry—what it looks like when one spouse returns from a trip and the home dynamic shifts again.
We share how we’ve learned to treat that adjustment period with extra care, tweak our habits, and give each other grace instead of expecting a seamless snap-back to normal.
If you’ve ever had a rocky re-entry, this one’s for you.
You just might walk away with a few new habits to try next time one of you heads out on a solo trip.<...
Avoiding Birthday Blues & Blowouts
Birthdays—love them or dread them, they can be a surprisingly tense topic in marriage. 🎂 From unspoken expectations to last-minute letdowns, these special days often carry more emotional weight than we realize. In this episode, we’re diving into the highs and lows of celebrating birthdays with your spouse, sharing our own birthday wins and major misses over the years.
You’ll hear about:
✅ The silent pressure & expectations that often ruin birthdays
✅ Why no one should be the designated party planner for life 🎉
✅ How to openly communicate what you actually want for your birthday (without disappointme...
You're Blocking Your Own Connection (Without Even Realizing It)
In this episode, we’re tackling the hidden ways we sabotage our own connection in marriage—especially when we expect our spouse to read our minds. No matter what it is, waiting for them to magically meet our unspoken needs is a passive approach that creates distance instead of intimacy. We’ll explore why taking the risk to express what we truly need leads to deeper belonging, even when it feels vulnerable. Join us as we break down how to move past the fear of rejection and start building the connection you actually want.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is lik...
Internal vs External Processing Styles
In this episode, we talk about our respective styles of processing how we are feeling. Aaron is an external processor, needing to externalize what's he's feeling in order to understand it. Jenna is an internal processor, needing time to internally mull over what she's feeling in order to understand it. These two different styles can make conflict unnecessarily difficult unless you know how to work with them. We'll share the growth paths for each to avoid the common pitfalls in relationship.
Links from episode:
Attachment Styles Episode
That's What She...
The Compassion Cup vs. The Identity Cup: A Marriage Game-Changer
In this episode, we continue our conversation about changing how we show up in conflict by focusing on the choice we have in how we respond to our spouse’s pain. When your spouse shares hurt, are you holding out your compassion cup, or are you holding out your identity cup? We explore how defensiveness often signals that we’re interpreting their pain through the lens of our own identity and fears, rather than listening with genuine compassion. The truth is, we can only find our identity in God, not in how our spouse’s emotions reflect on us. Tune i...
Ditch the "Courtroom" tactics in conflict
Most people use Courtroom tactic when in conflict in their marriage or in other relationships.
In this episode we unpack why this strategy is ineffective for real transformation. We get stuck "lawyering up" and end up adding pain to the initial incident.
In this episode, we talk about where the real power is for transforming your marriage. It's found in the counter-intuitive grace and mercy in the Kingdom and out of the courtroom.
Do you really believe The Kingdom Jesus pitched in the sermon on the mount- has the power He claimed? If so- why...
What to do when your spouse is triggered
This episode is the third in a series on being triggered. So what do we do when our spouse is triggered? Well, we certainly don't tell them they're triggered. That never helps. Instead we get to offer our own peace and calm as we approach them with curiosity and compassion. And when we know we won't have that available to give, we use the "pause" that we would've agreed to back when we were both in a regulated state.
Link to Order of Operation Episode
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
The Four Typical Triggered Responses
Following up the last episode titled, "The Science of 'Triggered'", we talk about what the four most common triggered responses are (Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn), what they look like in action and ultimately what growth and healing looks like
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
➡️ Buy the course [clic
...
The Science of "Triggered"
"Triggered" has become a buzzword in our culture in recent and it's been commonly used to describe an experience for which someone else is responsible and therefore someone else's responsibility to manage.
In this episode, we break down the science of what's happening physiologically when we get triggered and the truth about what we're invited to into when it happens, especially in relationship to our spouses.
Our self-awareness around our own triggered states is the first step to treating the people closest to us like Jesus would: in self-controlled, vulnerable love that is not full of...
What You Feed Grows: how our small choices are creating big spiritual transformation
In this episode we talk about how our connection with Jesus has grown and been shaped over the past year through small, consistent action.
How to Build a Bible Habit That Sticks! - Video
Crisis of Faith episode - Marriage Lab
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
➡️ Buy the...
Scientist vs Judge: Curiosity over Contempt
In this episode we talk about one of the central tenets to experiencing life-long sustainable change both within yourself and within your relationships: learning to engage your inner scientist instead of your judge. The judge is your inner critic focusing on the results, casting judgement and contempt towards who you are based on your behavior. The scientist is your inner curiosity focusing on the variables, looking for creative solutions for the underlying reasons behind your behavior.
When we learn to choose curiosity over contempt, we find more solutions, but even better, we learn to engage ourselves and...
Peaceful holiday plans for couples with different opinions
In this episode we talk over how we intentionally plan for a peaceful holiday season when you both have different ideas about what that means. If you would like an assist in your planning grab a copy of Jenna's Peaceful Christmas Planner
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To learn more about Jenna's HABIT REBOOT, click here:
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When Logic Turns to Emotion
In this episode we discuss how often our logical conversations can turn into emotional ones and what to do when that happens.
Refer to our episode: How to stop fighting over stupid stuff
For the Peaceful Christmas Planner, email zintmarriagelab@gmail.com.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
<...The Best Way to be Heard by Your Spouse
In this episode, we dive deep into the art of sharing pain with vulnerability and compassion. We also address the common challenge of feeling a deficit after sharing and how to turn to the Lord to fill those emotional gaps. This episode is packed with practical exercises and guidance to help you speak your pain effectively while maintaining love and connection in your relationship. Tune in for powerful strategies that can transform how you and your spouse communicate during difficult moments.
Previous episode links:
The Successful Order of Navigating Conflict
How many times has conflict in your marriage led to a huge blow up? One person starts off by trying to share their heart and an hour later you're both left with more hurt than where it started? There's a reason this happens. Most of the time it can be found when the order of operation is broken.
The order of operation in math states that to find the correct answer to an equation, you must know what order to solve it in. When our conflicts go awry, there was likely a break in the proper order w...
Connection for Empty Nesters
In this episode, we interview Jill & Mitch Martin who’ve been empty nesters for the past 7 years and what connection has looked like for them before and after their kids left the house.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
➡️ Buy the course [clic
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To learn more about Jenna's H...
How to change the culture in your marriage Pt 2
In this episode we talk about the culture shifting power of apologies; offering them freely and frequently. This is different than fawning which is apologizing for anything and everything in an attempt to appease or placate. This also different than admitting guilt or wrongdoing. The kind of freely-given, frequent apologies we're talking about are those that begin with a recognition that my actions affect my spouse. And there are plenty of scenarios in a given day when I miss the mark. Not because I sinned or had ill-intent, but because I'm human. It's an exercise in radical ownership that...
How to change the culture in your marriage Pt 1
This episode shares one of the simplest and yet most profound keys to changing the culture in your marriage. Gratitude. Now hear us out! We will share how gratitude provides one of the greatest ROI's in relationships, how we will face internal resistance to it, what it looks like to create practical habits and real life stories of it at work in our marriage.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real convers...
Change your marriage: what your spouse needs the most
In this episode, Jenna and Aaron share the secret sauce to seeing change in your marriage. It's simpler than you think. Just more humbling.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
➡️ Buy the course [clic
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To learn more about Jenna's HABIT REBOOT, click here:
>...
Is your spouse pushing your buttons? Conflict & Boundaries in Action
In this episode, Jenna and Aaron talk through a conflict they had that morning. This particular one was not a new dynamic in their relationship and had created disconnection many times before. However, this time they successfully paused in dysregulation, intentionally moved towards connection and set some boundaries.
Main takeaways:
Behind the Highlight Reel: not falling for comparison in social media
In this episode we explore the pitfalls of comparing your spouse to others and the negative impact it can have on your relationship. This comparison can create feelings of judgment and inadequacy, leading to a decline in positive affection and increasing resentment. By idealizing other people's spouses, you set unrealistic expectations and can inadvertently foster a sense of longing or even lust for qualities that are not present in your partner. This pattern is dangerous for creating, healing or maintaining connection. The conversation emphasizes the importance of focusing on the positive attributes of your spouse and being mindful of...
Breaking Free from Passivity: Empowering Your Marriage with Intentional Action
Take 10 week to invest in building better habits with
Jenna's Mastery Course
Class starts Oct 1, 2024-
Can passivity be the silent killer in your marriage? In this episode, Aaron and Jenna get real about their own struggles with passivity, sharing how ignoring, avoiding, or delaying discomfort led to feelings of being stuck. Through candid personal stories, they shed light on how this behavior can evolve into rationalizations and bitterness, affecting everything from relationships to personal growth. Aaron also provides insight into his upcoming online small group for porn recovery, where passivity is a...
Reconnecting Through the Everyday: Small Habits, Big Impact
Take 10 week to invest in building better habits with
Jenna's Mastery Course
Class starts Oct 1, 2024-
In this episode of Marriage Lab, Aaron and Jenna dive into the realities of maintaining a strong connection in marriage, especially during transitions and busy seasons. They share personal stories and insights on how small, consistent habits can significantly impact a marriage's health. They discuss how even brief disconnects, like those experienced during family trips or shifts in routines, can affect a relationship. The couple emphasizes the importance of being intentional in creating connection points, even if...
Unmasking Defensiveness: Identify your protective patterns
In this episode, we talk about our tells around defensiveness. What are the signs that we are becoming defensive as a listener, specifically when our spouse is sharing pain? Here are a few we identify within ourselves:
The desire to edit the details of what the other person is sharingInterrupting the speakerJudging the speakers thoughts and/or feelingsFeeling anger (frustration, annoyance)Wanting to explain myselfThese are signs that our defenses our up and our ears and empathy is off.
What are you tells around defensiveness?
Finally, we talk about what to do w...
Will my needs ever get met? w/ Jordan & Claire
In this episode our good friends, Jordan and Claire, share with us how they each grew in the ability to care for each others needs despite the fear that their own would never get met. Jenna and I (Aaron), have done a number of Couples Coaching sessions with them in which we witnessed a masterful use of the communication tools in the midst of processing pain and feeling defensiveness.
They discuss how to properly validate, have compassion and help the other person feel seen and heard before passing "the talking stick". They also share how they've learned...
Control in Marriage
It's been both our experience of ourselves and of many other marriages that we've coached, that there is one spouse who has a propensity towards Control. We define "control" as one person's attempt at manipulating the outcome through managing another person's actions.
In this episode, Jenna talks about how control shows up for her and what is happening on a deeper level, namely with fear. She lays out the growth path for those who are struggling with trying to control their spouse and the pitfalls that line that path. Aaron talks about his experience of being on t...
4 tips to move out of "roommate mode" back into an intimate connection with your spouse
In this episode the Zints share about 4 ways to move away from "Roommate mode" and back to intimate connection with your spouse. These include:
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s i...
Resentment vs Investment | What I wish I knew Part 3
Don't be overwhelmed by your summer!
You can balance all that's on your plate- while still hitting your hopes.
Grab Jenna's mini course as your guide to: Set-Up Your Summer
In this episode- Jenna & Aaron talk about how you can do the same thing but with a different motivation- and it can shift everything.
What is your motivation?
Are you telling yourself you are powerless & "have to do XYZ" because of your spouse?
That's your sign your feeding resentment.
What if you simply switched your self...
Love Language User Error | What I Wish I Knew Pt 2
Buy Jenna's mini-course: Setting-up Your Summer.
Dr. Gary Chapman's Love Languages concept and consequent books revolutionized our understanding of how we communicate, hear and receive love, especially in marriage. It became a tool we used constantly to better understand ourselves and our spouse.
And, we commonly misused this tool as a way to better serve ourselves rather than its original intent: to love others better.
This is what we'd call a user error. When the concept of love languages gets weaponized as a measuring stick for how your spouse is fa...
Debunking "Don't go to bed angry" | What I Wish I Knew Pt 1
Buy Jenna's mini-course: Setting-up Your Summer.
Aaron and Jenna begin a series titled "What I wish I knew" sharing what they wish they'd learned early in marriage. This first part dives into the topic of "urgency." Most conflicts in the early stages of relationships feel urgent. They become very high stakes when they don't need to be. Why? Because it's possible to be connected even when there is no resolution to the problem.
This brings us to the scripture from Ephesians 4:26 "...Do not let the sun go down on your an...
Porn Addiction in Marriage Pt 3: the Spouse's Perspective
Link to online small group interest form: HERE
Laughter echoes through even our most challenging times, and this episode kicks off with a tale from a men's retreat that'll have you chuckling along with us. But as our conversation turns, we confront the shadows within marriage—specifically, the silent struggle of porn addiction. We open up about the emotional toll this addiction takes on the non-addicted spouse, illustrating the journey through feelings of betrayal to finding a path towards healing and understanding within the relationship.
Navigating the murky waters of shame and betrayal requires a de...
Porn in Marriage Pt 2: Understanding Porn Addiction
Needing support in walking out of a porn addiction? Join Aaron's Online Small Group which is set up to help men struggling with porn to get connected and begin to bring attention to the areas in their life that makes porn feel like the best and only option.
You can also check out Aaron's book, Numb to Known: the surprising path away from porn.
In this episode, Aaron talks about how most porn addictions start at a young age and are sustained through adulthood through cycles of isolation, passivity and pain. This episode is mostly g...
Porn in Marriage Pt 1: Three Unpopular Opinions About Porn
3 Unpopular Opinions About Porn
Your porn use is not a reflection on your spouse. That is, it's not their faultPorn is not your problem. Porn is the solution you've chosen to the real problemYou and God cannot fix this. It must be you and God and other people.Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marri...
How to Stop Fighting Over Stupid Stuff
Have you ever said, "We got in a big fight about something so small and stupid!" It happens in every marriage when there is emotional pain behind a "small and stupid" logistical problem.
In this episode, Jenna and Aaron reverse engineer their fight about a toothbrusher charger and how something so small and stupid had the potential to create a lot of disconnection but didn't.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversat...
Fairness: The Connection Killer
Do you know what prolongs most conflict? The thing that keeps people stuck in disconnect? The pursuit of fairness.
Why? Because it hinders love itself. Jesus didn't model fairness in His life or sacrifice. He modeled sacrificial love.
Love, as Jesus modeled it, will transform your marriage.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—...
Deconstructing Gender Roles with Megan & Dalen Philp
In this episode, our friends Megan and Dalen Philp (not Philips...woops sorry guys) share the hope they found in their marriage of 20 years after they began to deconstruct the gender roles that they'd held onto so inflexibly for so many years.
Our Pre-Marriage E-course is like coaching from your couch.
What’s inside?
✅ 6 bite-sized video sessions (30 min each)
✅ 50-page workbook to guide real conversations
✅ Topics on communication, conflict, intimacy, money & more
Don’t just plan your wedding—prepare for your marriage!
➡️ Buy the course [c...
