As a child growing up in a police family, Katherine Boyle didn't really understand what her dad did for a living. To her, it was just her life. Looking back, she sees the things that she thinks her dad did right for her to feel safe and for them to have a close relationship to this day. Katherine is the “Lt’s daughter”. She's making waves on social media and on podcasts, sharing her and her dad's story and impacting our community by sharing those lessons. Today, she shares those lessons with us.  

On Thursday, September 1st of last year (2022), I had decided to work at the office for a couple of hours.  I was texting with my husband and we were joking around as I was packing up.  Then, he said, I don’t feel right.  Get HOME.  I immediately got in the car and started driving the 17 miles home.  At a stop light in town, I got a text that said, “Call 911?”  I said Sure.  I had no idea what was wrong. 

I got on the highway that led to the house and drove about 85 miles and hour to the house. 

Maybe this will sound familiar to you. You haven't seen each other for a while because you are working shifts and missing each other due to schedules, stress with family, work, and kids. You finally get a small amount of time together and one of you wants to make the most of this time to have sex, but as soon as you start trying to make the moves, the other one of you starts to push back saying, how can I have sex when we haven't connected? The other one of you says, but I feel connected when we have sex. Maybe this has happened so much that you feel stuck on how you move the pattern forward. Dr. Laurie Watson is a certified sex therapist, the author of Wanting Sex Again: How to Rediscover Desire and Heal Sexual Marriages , and the co-host of the Foreplay Radio podcast and is going to talk to us about how to unstick the pattern and make sex our ordinary holiday.  

You finish a call, and it went well, but something's not sitting right. You feel bad, kind of guilty, or maybe even a little shameful. You see your friend that was just involved in an officer involved shooting recently, and people are going by and letting them know that it was a good shot, you know, it was a good shot. He's even been cleared. But you realize that in all the congratulations, he doesn't seem to be as pleased with himself as everybody else is pleased with him. Maybe your spouse comes home after an incident and you think, thank goodness she's alive, but she's stuck thinking about what choices she should have made that you think would've put her at risk. All of these people may be struggling with a moral injury left unaddressed. Moral injuries can lead to struggles at work and at home. Today, Lisa Duez and I talk about the types of moral injuries, what to watch for in your department and at home, and how to address them.  

There are some people I encounter that I immediately get a good vibe from.  I met John Monaghan virtually on a call we were both on and he subtly mentioned that he had overcome an addiction to alcohol and spoke with passion about officer mental health and the impact on the family.  I mentioned something about vulnerability and taking off emotional armor on the call and he wrote in the chat that he loved Brene Brown.  I thought to myself…. Who is this guy?!?!  Then I found his TEDx talk about police reform starting in the therapist’s office.  The more I read about this retired police chief and former state trooper, the more I wanted him to come on and share his story.  Today, I speak with John and his wife Tricia, about his recognition of his problem with alcohol and the growth that came from recovery individually and as a couple.   

If you’re an officer, you may find yourself using compartmentalization to stay focused and act in stressful situations. As spouses, we want our officers and first responders to be able to utilize this skill because it keeps them attentive and safe. However, compartmentalization can have some unintended fallout in terms of the ability to feel present and connected in our relationships. Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Rose Kormanyos, works with medical couples helping them to understand the benefit of compartmentalization and how to reengage with their emotions in order to increase connection and intimacy in their relationships. Rose shares how she does this so you can compartmentalize when you need to at work and be able to come home and connect. 

The most popular idea that couples have regarding relationships seems to be the five love languages. I've heard many couples talk about knowing their own love languages and some even know their partner's love language. If each other’s love languages are known, one would think your relationship’s needs would be met, but that is not always the case. What the heck could be the problem? It's true that if we pay attention to each other's love language, it positively impacts our relationship. It becomes a problem when they become transactional. Let's talk about how this happens and what to do about it.

All right, raise your hand if you sometimes find yourself scrolling on Amazon and adding a few things to your cart. Or maybe you find yourself really focused on wanting to take that next big trip or get that new gun or fishing pole. Maybe you just get tired of cooking and order takeout, maybe a little too much. Some of those impulse decisions can lead to money stress later on. Law enforcement couples deal with a ton of stress from the job and when finances aren't managed in a healthy way, this can add additional stress and bleed over into the job and be distracting for officers.  

Financial stress is one of the largest stressors in marriage and relationships. Stressors from money and debt can impact our own emotional health. When couples work together as a team and open up conversations about money, they start to create control around finances and use money to create their ideal life instead of causing stress. Today, Courtney from Heroes Financial Coaching talks to us about how to do just that.  

Many of you know that I'm not a parent. Even though I wasn't able to have the personal experience of raising a child in a law enforcement family, I often feel confident when fielding questions regarding the impact on children. However, I do seek out people that have firsthand knowledge, experience, stories, and expertise so that you as a parent can feel seen and connected with others. Lisa Duez is a law enforcement spouse, mom, and mental health clinician. Today, Lisa and I chat casually about how being a law enforcement family can impact children and some of her parenting experiences along the way.  

My husband and I often have struggles, frustrations, and miscommunication. When we're talking, we may miss what the other person is wanting or needing in order to connect. Many times, I want to go deeper into something, and he tells me there's not anything deeper to be said. He will sometimes make what I think is a controversial statement and my response is to kind of roll my eyes. What I didn't know until this interview is that we're trying to connect in a way that's typical for our gender and the way we're cultured. In the limited time we have as law enforcement couples, it's always beneficial to see the signs that your spouse is trying to connect.

Kristal DeSantis talks about the concept of the four positions of conversation which can greatly enhance communication and strengthen relationships among first responders and their partners.

There are all kinds of challenges in our relationships as law enforcement and first responder couples. The time away from each other can cause our insecurities to arise and create negative stories about why your spouse really isn't answering the phone, what they're doing with their time away from you, or why that connection just doesn't feel as strong as it once did. Our stories impact the emotional trust between us and can become toxins that create conflict and disconnection. Today I talk with Kristal DeSantis, author of Strong, A Relationship Field Guide for the Modern Man. Kristal brings to us her experience as a first responder spouse of 13 years, as well as her system for building a proactive approach to increase trust in your relationship through her Four S's to create relationship safety.  

In the first responder world, the spouse is most often the one left at home to pick up the pieces while the officer is on shift. The impact of the career can force a spouse to become fiercely independent in unexpected areas of a relationship. Between shift work, extra duty jobs, and on call shifts, there isn’t much of a choice, BUT independence doesn’t mean disconnection! Does this independence and its accompanied behaviors spillover into the relationship much like the spillover from the job? The answer is yes, however, there is a way to combat both types of spillover.  This is about being warriors for our relationships and I know by the end of the podcast, Dana will leave you with something to apply in your relationship. 

In our everyday interactions, communication plays a vital role in how we connect with others. It shapes our relationships, influences our understanding, and defines our experiences. At times, we can find ourselves in situations where we struggle to convey our thoughts, emotions, and needs effectively to others. Add in the conditioning from the job and communication at home becomes even more difficult. 

Developing effective communication skills is more than just words, active listening, and validating feelings. It’s understanding what is going on in our brains and why we do some of the things we do when we are not heard.  

Today, Adam Neff discusses why developing communication skills to increase relationship outcomes is essential, and how our experiences in emergency services impact our ability to communicate. 

Do you ever feel like you are walking on eggshells at home to avoid conflict in your first responder relationship? Your eggshells may grow and layer on top of each other until both people address the conflict AND the eggshells. We need to learn how to get past those eggshells and what your role and responsibility in creating that for your relationship can be. 

In Brene Brown’s book, Rising Strong, she talks about living B.I.G. "What boundaries do I need to set and follow, to work and act from a place of integrity so that I extend the greatest generosity when it comes to interpreting others' intentions and actions."

In this encore episode, let’s apply this concept to eggshells.

A couple of episodes ago, I introduced you to wellness coach and law enforcement wife Katie Ouzounian with Episode 106: Are Values Driving Your Relationship? During one of our chats, she mentioned words to me that made me cringe. Self-care. Try telling an LEO spouse who is managing two to three kids, working full-time, has a spouse working undercover night shifts, investigation, or on call 24/7 that they need to “take time for themselves and practice self-care” Try telling an officer who is working their regular duties and picking up extra duty shifts to “take some time out.”  This lifestyle is not cut out for bubble baths, massages, yoga kind of self-care lifestyle. When Katie told me she wanted to talk about a different approach to self-care, I said to “bring it on” as a challenge for her to convince me otherwise. She did just that.  

As a law enforcement officer or spouse, you know that trauma has the potential to impact you as a parent. When raising a child in this lifestyle you are aware that they will be impacted as well. However, when children are impacted, they can't always communicate or understand what's going on. Situations that may not impact us as adults with adult brains can impact children in greater ways or ways that we might not be aware of. 

Today, Chad Bruckner talks about his mission to help officers and law enforcement families understand how this lifestyle is impacting families and their children. 

You may have heard me talk about how if we don't pay attention, we can wind up off course in this lifestyle. The sacrifices that you make as an officer or as a spouse are more than just your time. We wind up slipping away from our values. Family is number one, yet there is so much time away from the family and when we are together, the impact from the job spills over and still keeps us disconnected. We want to get outdoors, but to our exhaustion, we just watch tv. We want to be adventuresome, but dealing with people sounds horrible and anxiety provoking.  

I strongly believe that we have to keep our values in focus, or we wind up being people that we don't recognize or like and being a couple that we don't intend to be. Today, wellness coach and law enforcement spouse, Katie Ouzounian and I talk about how understanding and staying in alignment with your values, has an impact on your mental well-being. 

Many times, couples, officers, or spouses, have different aspects that drive our lives and at times, we can let the job drive us instead of us being in the driver's seat. This can impact values and wellness.   

“Everything’s going to be so much better when you retire.” 

Toward the end of an officer’s career, phrases like “Everything’s going to be better after retirement” or “It’s going to be a huge relief” are often thought about and said among couples.  The initial stages of retirement can feel like a vacation or time for decompression for both officers and spouses. Then you get settled and realize there is more to retirement than feeling "normal” or having “freedom.” There is an absence of anything.  Officers are used to being directed, told what to do, and moments of high adrenaline.  All that is gone and it can be confusing and unsettling for the brain to have that void.  

Today I talk with psychologist, department doc, and spouse of a retired officer, Medina Baumgart about transitioning into retirement from a professional and a personal perspective. We talk about what retirement is like for both officers and spouses, how spouses can help with the transition, and how you can make sure as a couple that you are surviving and thriving through retirement.   

“All officers will have PTSD”  

One misconception about PTSD is that if you do police work long enough, you're inevitably going to have post-traumatic stress disorder or post-traumatic stress injury. This is simply not true. Trauma reactions are like a funnel where every LEO will experience trauma, a smaller amount will experience acute stress and then an even smaller amount are going to experience PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder is five times higher in the police community than in the general public. About 35% of police officers meet the criteria for PTSD and a little over 7% of the general public meets the criteria for PTSD.  

Treatment for PTSD has come a long way. There are multiple types of treatments that are evidence-based that can help resolve PTSD without years of therapy. Evidence shows that the impact of trauma is less when you address it timely, but even old traumas can heal with effective therapy. 

Today I am speaking with Johanna Wender, who specializes in working with law enforcement and PTSD. We talk about trauma, PTSD, and the treatment options available for you to heal quickly from trauma or a critical incident.  

A couple of episodes ago, I gave you the first part of my interview with Kelli Lowe. We talked about how Kelli showed up as an advocate in her local community and department after the events of Ferguson occurred. She is also a national advocate for policing and goes to Washington DC with other wives to lobby for benefits and legislation to protect our officers and blue family.  

As spouses, we need to be aware of legislation on a national level that could affect our departments on a local level. Reading through political jargon to understand bills and laws can be difficult. Add in stress from a critical incident or the impact of the career and they become impossible to decipher. 

In this interview, Kelli shares some of the legislation in the works and motivates us to show up as a community to make change happen. 

In this interview, Kelli shares some of the legislation in the works and motivates us to show up as a community to make change happen.