00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:29
Unknown
Hi. Welcome to an episode of Marriage on a Tightrope. I'm Katie. I'm Alan, and we're still married. That's cute. It is cute. So it's our tag, our tagline, our catchphrase. It's only been our tagline for five years. Well, I think every marriage can say with certainty if you've made it five years, you're going to make it forever. Is that right?
00:00:23:01 - 00:01:02:01
Unknown
Maybe. Sure. That's. Yes, We're getting the YouTube channel started off on a falsified global note. That's okay. That's all right. That's always the best way to start your very first episode, Alan. That's right. We're excited to be with you. We are Alan and Katie Mount. We are the hosts of this channel and podcast Marriage on a Tightrope. We've been around for almost it's been five and a half years already, and this is the first we've done a number of video podcasts on other people's screens, but this is the official launch of the Marriage on a Tight Rope video podcast for your viewing pleasure where video can be found.
00:01:02:01 - 00:01:28:14
Unknown
YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Omega, all you have the voice. I don't have the voice, but you have the face and the body and my getting awkward already. Don't. But that's okay because we're just a bunch of middle age that's adults. And at this point we're just happy that we're so here. Like alive or married? I mean, both. Love a bit of both.
00:01:28:14 - 00:01:55:14
Unknown
Yes. Well, what is this marriage on a tightrope? Yeah, let me explain it. So about five and a half years ago, like Alan said, we started a podcast and the tagline, opening tagline of our podcast. In those days, we we had this, I think for like two years on our episodes it was Marriage and A Tightrope explores how couples can strengthen their relationship.
00:01:55:16 - 00:02:23:29
Unknown
When one partner experiences a shift in religious belief that the short version of what we are who we are. Now we may know a little bit about that. We might know because we went through this ourselves. And then that's why we're talking from experience. And we are not experts in this field, but we are experts in this relationship.
00:02:24:00 - 00:02:54:17
Unknown
We are experts in the relationship. We do not have a doctorate or a masters. I barely got a bachelors in any anatomy. No, no. DS get degrees. Got degrees, baby. I'm in. I'm in sales. Can you. Can you tell? Anyway, we wanted to just tell you in this first introductory episode, just a little bit about our story and what we've built as far as a mixed faith marriage and a tightrope community up to this point and what to expect from the channel.
00:02:54:17 - 00:03:15:03
Unknown
So buckle in, turn it to 1.5 speed and we'll see on the flip flop. You know, I don't even recognize myself on normal speed anymore. I it's true. Well, I don't listen to my two hour episodes, but every once in a while when I when I pull one up, I always listen to it. I'm like 1.5 speed. And it just sounds so much better.
00:03:15:04 - 00:03:39:28
Unknown
That's right. That's right. So, Katie, first, maybe I think a good place to start is maybe you can not quite see behind us because it's getting a little dark, but we are in the beautifully green area of Utah, in northern Utah. That may tell you a little bit about the religious background that we were raised in. Right. So tell tell the wonderful people of YouTube, Facebook and know Miguel where what is.
00:03:39:28 - 00:04:00:29
Unknown
Oh, Miguel, it's a place where you go to, like randomly meet people and you click next and then a random person connects to you. It's it's stupid and it's horrifying. And no, it is. Apparently you just see a lot of male genitalia. But let's move on. So and I'm sorry, are we going to be censored for that? We may be demonetized on our first episode, but that's okay.
00:04:01:02 - 00:04:29:25
Unknown
So, Katie, tell everybody kind of how we met and what got this whole mix facing going. Sure. Okay. So Alan and I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's how we were both raised. The mom and the Mormons. Yes. And we both served a mission for. And mission is I mean, if any of you have seen those missionaries with a white shirt and black pants and a little plaque on them.
00:04:30:02 - 00:04:52:01
Unknown
Hello, my name is Elder Man. That is the probably the most popular you've seen, the Book of Mormon musical. We were missionaries not together, meaning we weren't missionary companions, but we did meet in the missionary training center that does exist outside of the Book of Mormon musical in Provo, Utah, about 40 minutes south of us, where we currently are studied.
00:04:52:04 - 00:05:16:18
Unknown
And we both went to Barcelona, Spain on that mission, Barcelona. And so I think that it adds a little bit of a layer of difficulty going through what we went through. And we'll get to that because we knew each other on the mission. We taught people, we brought them to Christ, or at least we we that's what we were thinking we were doing.
00:05:16:22 - 00:05:45:06
Unknown
That's what I thought I was doing. We don't know if that's actually was the result of any of the works or equipment. You were you were a vessel. Yes. So that's kind of a little bit about us. We got married in 2004 and just started having our family. And it wasn't until about 2017. So we've been married a good amount of time before some things started happening.
00:05:45:08 - 00:06:12:27
Unknown
That's right. In 2017. We will share more details about this in future episodes. But in 2017 is when I experienced some very heavy doubts based on initially some additional information that I was learning about the church, specifically about church history. And that led me to do a lot more than just educate myself, but really think hard and go through my own little spiritual journey.
00:06:12:29 - 00:06:28:25
Unknown
And I came out of it no longer believing in the truth. Claims of the LDS Church. That was a difficult year for us. That was our dark year. That was a dark year. I remember when we first got married, there was like a little old lady who said, I can tell you the good years and the bad years.
00:06:28:28 - 00:06:51:29
Unknown
And I thought, That's weird. Like, why would you have an entirely bad year? And this 2017 was an entirely bad year. It was a tough one. It was a really hard one. So. That's right. That's the advice I give now to everyone who gets married. Right. And you're going to have bad years in a bad year. Papa Martinelli's or Champagne, depending on if you're LDS or not at the New Year.
00:06:51:29 - 00:07:20:29
Unknown
And we'll see what happens January 1st, because what happened at the beginning of 2018. Yeah. So tell it. Yeah, tell everyone what led to marriage on a tightrope, how that got started. Sure. So there was an experience that we had where I hadn't told my family, I hadn't told any of my friends what was going on. I think that when you are in a struggle in your relationship, it's for me it was more natural to just sort of like figure it out and come to a conclusion.
00:07:21:01 - 00:07:41:13
Unknown
And then we would tell people. But it also meant that I was very, very lonely and I didn't have anyone to talk to. There weren't any resources that I could find at the time, and that just left me in a really dark place. And I was having a conversation with a leader in our church and he was really trying to help me.
00:07:41:13 - 00:08:04:22
Unknown
And I said to him, Can you think of anyone and the whole area that we live in that you're over? Can you think of anyone that would be able to talk to me about this? Because I don't know anyone in a mixed faith relationship. The only people I had heard of were people that were divorced and I wanted to stay in my marriage.
00:08:04:22 - 00:08:25:28
Unknown
And because we still had a very loving relationship. And he thought for a minute and I said, If you need to take some time to think about it and come back to me, that's fine too. And after a few, like kind of awkward moments, like minutes just sitting there, he said, Nope, there's no one that you can talk to.
00:08:26:01 - 00:09:03:05
Unknown
And that was I think that that's what kind of fueled me to to think, I don't believe you. I, I thought to myself, there has got to be more than just us going through this. And it's either because one, people are lying about it because they feel shame around it or they don't they don't have a community to turn to, or that they are just silently slipping out, transitioning out because there's just no support.
00:09:03:07 - 00:09:25:01
Unknown
So that's when they went to Alan and Alan had had some experience in doing podcasts. I did a janky video game podcast with my brother. You did make up your own songs. We did over 100 video game based parodies, a minute of which too are are worth mentioning on this on this podcast. Why are we even like you haven't done that yet.
00:09:25:02 - 00:09:53:05
Unknown
Why haven't you written that parody song for us? Yeah, a marriage parody song. Hey, let's joke about trauma. Next up, I'll write a song about my dead dad. That's that's kind of cool. You didn't write one about your dead dad, and he performed it at his funeral. Good point to show you. Well, okay. Anyway, going back to what I said, so I said to Alan, Hey, let's what if we did a podcast and I wasn't expecting anything from it, but I don't.
00:09:53:08 - 00:10:18:05
Unknown
From there it kind of just skyrocketed. And it did. We found an audience very quickly and it was overwhelming in very good ways. Immediately we found our our email box message on a tightrope at gmail.com, just inundated with other mixed faith couples saying almost exactly the same thing every single time. And we still get this email to this day.
00:10:18:07 - 00:10:40:01
Unknown
I cannot believe and I cannot be. I'm so thankful I found you. I thought we were the only ones. Yeah. And so, like Katie's entire reason for doing this so that others wouldn't feel alone, we that was validated within minutes of releasing our first episode. And the entire purpose of the podcast was just to tell our story. Like that is really what we wanted.
00:10:40:08 - 00:11:06:13
Unknown
We weren't looking to make new friends, we weren't looking to build a community. Yeah, but what happened is that because of all these people reaching out, we realized the map outside of Utah as well is in and the U.S. is just peppered with these couples that think they're the only ones. And so not long after we launched the the audio podcast Marriage on a Tightrope, we started a Facebook group called Marriage on a Tightrope.
00:11:06:16 - 00:11:20:03
Unknown
We're always late to the game because I think it was like a year or two. It was it was like a year later we were like, Oh, I think maybe we should do this. It was like an Instagram. And then, oh, maybe we should do a Facebook group. That's right. We made a MySpace page. No, we didn't know.
00:11:20:04 - 00:11:40:12
Unknown
So we didn't think you can make those anymore. But we did make a Facebook group and the membership of that group ballooned very quickly and is still alive and very, very active today. And you can join that group if you're in a mixed faith marriage and need some support that that group in and of itself is super, super impressive and not because of us.
00:11:40:12 - 00:12:04:26
Unknown
It's because it has blossomed into a bunch of mini communities, which is where it's at, because geographically you need to find people that are close to you so that you can go and like go to dinner and talk to someone that that underst stands you. I can't tell you how many times we've talked to couples where we literally don't know their full names, but we know how they handled alcohol in their marriage.
00:12:04:29 - 00:12:33:07
Unknown
It's just it happens so quickly because you can get into it because you have this shared experience. That Facebook group spawned other mini groups like I talked about, but also Marco Polo groups, which are extremely active to this day for every cohort of belief and non-belief and whether you are the husband or the wife in the marriage, the men's non believing group, for lack of a better term, is the most active of them all.
00:12:33:07 - 00:12:55:24
Unknown
And it's so cool to see things. Well, yeah, that's actually women. I shouldn't say that. And it's not a competition. We're glad that both are super super active because you just it's, it's so healing to hear other people talking about something that you're going through, even if it's a difficult thing. And so that was one of the things that we saw right away is the need for community.
00:12:55:26 - 00:13:21:20
Unknown
And through the Facebook group, through Marco Polo, through a lot of different avenues these people have been able to meet and to form friendships and groups and retreats, and it has all been driven by them. But we get to facilitate that and it has been completely rewarding to do that. And we're not just in our own little Mormon bubble, as we would say.
00:13:21:20 - 00:13:41:15
Unknown
That's it's good point. We do. We have expanded out and we have groups of Jehovah Witnesses that have joined us, Evangelicals. Just if anyone is in a mixed faith space, they have been able to find us. And what are some of the ways that they found us? I think that there's like a list of things that we've done.
00:13:41:18 - 00:14:07:03
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, there's there's everything from the New York Times article that we were interviewed for, and we've gone to different conferences and spoke. We've been on a number of different podcasts and interviewed on the Mormon Stories podcast, the Mormon Discussions Podcast. Listen, Learn Love with Richard Osler. I provided the audio narration for the book Bridges ministering to those who Question by David Osler.
00:14:07:03 - 00:14:26:21
Unknown
They also are brothers like us, apparently, and because they've hosted us a few times. And on the Sunstone podcast, Katie, you are on the Still Growing podcast, which is a very popular podcast. Yeah, take three. Is that another one? What's the take? Three and 33 and 30 podcast. The three and three podcast. I was also on that. That's right.
00:14:26:26 - 00:14:53:05
Unknown
So we've just been able to, to branch out and, and really find people through a bunch of different methods. And now a lot of her followers have nothing to do with Mormonism at all, which is great to see because that kind of leads to why we have gone this route to go. The video route is because we want to keep finding those specks on the map that think they're alone, but they're not.
00:14:53:08 - 00:15:15:10
Unknown
They're not. They need to find a community. And we're just trying to provide one of them. Right. And in addition to the community, we have, we put together a course for mixed faith marriage. And it's a six week course with a therapist that we run. And we've done nine sessions. Is that right? Over 200 couples have been through the course.
00:15:15:10 - 00:15:51:28
Unknown
Right. And one of the best things about the course is the couples get to know one another and again, make the connection. It's very healing to hear other people's stories, to see how people are doing their marriage and sort of how they can work through their own differences and difficulties and their communication styles in the way they practice religion, especially coming from these high demand religions where it can literally change the way your whole family operates.
00:15:52:00 - 00:16:22:02
Unknown
And so it's really it's been really near and dear to our hearts to put our heart and soul into this community and just these projects with people. You know, we receive constant emails and messages on social media about how people are meeting community. They're finding that they are no longer in the same place that they used to be, and they are trying to navigate that.
00:16:22:02 - 00:16:48:05
Unknown
And this is the space that we've provided for that. That's right. You know, I think about what you want out of a channel like this and why we are doing it, what to expect moving forward on this channel and on our audio podcast. We we have 135 episodes and there's everything from interviews to here's how we handled this very specific thing.
00:16:48:07 - 00:17:08:19
Unknown
And we're going to do all like just me crying, just, yeah, there's not even word spoken. This is her sobbing, sobbing. It's actually cathartic for some of you. But press play and cry with Katie. You need you need a friend to cry with. Here we go. That's right. So that all of that is going to be included and we will be getting into interviews.
00:17:08:27 - 00:17:32:13
Unknown
But really, what we want to do to start this podcast or this YouTube channel, rather, is to share with all of you the tools that we've learned that have helped us in our marriage. We want to go over those specific things that we have found the most helpful, some of which we did not do well at first, and maybe I never did.
00:17:32:15 - 00:17:55:25
Unknown
Well, that's why we're the best example is because because we screwed up. We made we literally made all of them classic mistakes, right? That you do when you're in this. I killed a guy. So. Well, I wouldn't say that. The classic mistake. I'm kidding. But he lived. It was our child. That's all we have for that. So anyway.
00:17:55:27 - 00:18:35:02
Unknown
But yeah, we have learned a lot. So tools is what we want to share with you for the first ten plus episodes. We also want to expand past that. We have access to incredible therapists, incredible experts in their field to help and share with you something that could potentially help you and your partner. And the other thing that I wanted to say is that, you know, we have wanted to branch out into something like a little bit different to I know you all have seen React videos and some of them are kind of crazy.
00:18:35:02 - 00:18:58:00
Unknown
I will promise that we will not be well, we might be cringing. Well, I think we've already proven that we're comfortable with being fringy. I think the purpose of doing some of those React videos is going to be how do people that think very differently from one another digest and talk about media that is on a touchy subject, right?
00:18:58:04 - 00:19:19:29
Unknown
So the happy shiny people is a is a show that just came out, and I may tie that to the face of my upbringing more readily than Katie does and how do we kind of broach those conversations? Yes, Dear God, it's me, Margaret. Is that what it's called? Is it is a mixed faith movie. I think that just came out our Hello God or something about God and something about many women.
00:19:20:00 - 00:19:48:29
Unknown
But anyway, we just watched it and it was so good. And yes, so really we've gotten to the point where we're able to have a healthy communication about things that we do not agree on. There are things that we absolutely are in step with, but there's also things that we aren't. And so those are those are the types of things we would like to share share with you, because there are ways to go about it respectfully.
00:19:49:02 - 00:20:09:27
Unknown
That's right. We will get you all of the information about our upcoming retreats and workshops and future episodes. This episode, we wanted it to be pretty short and sweet to the point about why we're doing this, who that we are. That stands for heck, by the way. Not not hell. Some of those some of those values, Alan actually usually swears I do.
00:20:09:27 - 00:20:28:22
Unknown
I love swearing. That's one of the my favorite parts of deconstructing. But anyway, we'll get into it. Different people out there that swore beforehand. I want I do want to keep this not being marked as for adults only, but I did say genitalia already. Now I've said it twice. Okay, let's end the podcast of the podcast before we get into too much more trouble.
00:20:28:24 - 00:20:51:25
Unknown
But please like the video, hit the subscribe button. Follow us on this journey so that we can keep producing this content for you. We're excited to get started on the more visual part of marriage on a tight rope, and thanks for bringing us That was more visual. This is the more this camera's working. Oh, yes, more visual. I'm thinking like we're going to transform the way we look while we do it too.
00:20:51:25 - 00:21:03:04
Unknown
I have a wig that I got for work. I could wear the wig one episode. Anyway, we're going off the rails. Thank you for listening and thank you for watching. Comment below. Hit like and subscribe.
