The Marriage365 Podcast

Between work, kids, responsibilities, phones, and everyday stress, it’s easy for couples to go days without having a meaningful moment together. But rebuilding connection in your marriage doesn’t always require a date night, a weekend away, or a two-hour conversation. Sometimes, 30 seconds is enough to change the tone of your entire day.
In this episode Casey and Meygan Caston are breaking down simple, realistic ways to create quick connections with your spouse, even when life is busy and you feel disconnected.

Resources in this episode:
Learn more about the 60 Second Blessing or our book 365 Connecting Questions for Couples.
Book a coaching session with Casey, Meygan, or one of the Marriage365 coaches here.
Get access to videos, worksheets, challenges, and more free resources in Marriage365 membership.

Want more practical tools for your marriage? Follow Marriage365 on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host
Casey Caston
Host
Meygan Caston

What is The Marriage365 Podcast?

The Marriage365 Podcast is hosted by marriage coaches Casey and Meygan Caston, who share honest conversations and practical tools you can use in your relationship today. Each episode is designed to help you communicate better, work through conflict, rebuild trust, deepen intimacy, and feel connected again.

Whether your marriage is thriving, struggling, or stuck in the roommate phase, you’ll walk away with clear, practical steps toward a healthier, stronger marriage.

Because a great marriage doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built one choice, one conversation, and one day at a time.

Meygan:

The average couple spends less than two minutes a day emotionally connecting, which means half of couples are spending less than that. Relationships, especially marriage, require quality and quantity of time. So in this episode, we are gonna give you some great ideas to use in your marriage to keep that connection strong even in the really busy and chaotic seasons.

Casey:

Welcome to the Marriage365 Podcast. We cut through the confusion around love, relationships, and marriage. I'm Casey Caston. I'm here with my wife and cofounder and cohost, Meygan. And for the past fifteen years, it's really been our privilege to give couples clarity and tools, healthy mindsets for the confidence to build a connected and thriving marriage.

Meygan:

So let's start here. I think most couples have the wrong picture of what connection even is. Don't you agree?

Casey:

Mhmm.

Meygan:

I think we hear a lot of people say things like, well, we need to connect more. And then they instantly go to great another date night where we're spending hundreds of dollars. You know? Oh, we need to sit on the couch for two hour, two hours and have these deep conversations, and we're just so exhausted. And so if you're defining connection that big, well, of course, it feels impossible.

Meygan:

Right? You're comparing yourself to some kind of Pinterest version of marriage or two people who have no lives and just all the time in the world. And let's be honest, all of us are busy.

Casey:

Yeah. That... I... Sounds... I'm already overwhelmed.

Meygan:

Yeah. Right? But we're gonna challenge you here. That's not actually what connection is made up of. Connection is made of tiny repeated moments, like eye contact or a hand on the back as you walk by.

Meygan:

A genuine like, hey, babe, I love you or how are you? It's not the size of the moment or a grand gesture.

Casey:

I thought you were gonna say something else.

Meygan:

The size

Casey:

not the size that matters.

Meygan:

Thing going on. It's not the size that matters. No. But really, it's just the presence. It's small.

Meygan:

It's physical. It's attention. It's being intentional.

Casey:

When size matters, you usually want it to be bigger. We're actually gonna be talking about it needs to be smaller.

Meygan:

Okay. Except if you're a woman and sometimes size, you want it to be smaller.

Casey:

Oh my gosh. Okay. We're way off the rails. I think there's... Here's a common scenario for a lot of couples.

Casey:

You know, they get married and then it's like off to the races. They're building their careers or having babies, being social, spending time with their families and we get super busy to the point that, you know, we stop all those common courtesies that we once gave each other during the dating years. Right? Mhmm. Like think about it.

Casey:

Just actually funny enough, last night I opened up the door for you.

Meygan:

The car door?

Casey:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I don't do that as often as I probably should be.

Meygan:

But you did for all the years when we were dating.

Casey:

Of course. Yeah. Right? I mean, like, even the text throughout the day, instead it feels like, why are you bothering me?

Meygan:

Or it's like logistical text. Right?

Casey:

Yeah. Yeah. I think saying I miss you.

Meygan:

Yeah. And I think that's what happens. I think we start to feel more like roommates. We're managing logistics. Right?

Meygan:

Who's picking up the kids? What's for dinner? We were just having a conversation before this about what's for dinner. Right? And there's no us in that moment.

Meygan:

And like, it it just feels so roommate. I don't know if there's a better way to describe it. And I think if you're finding yourself where you're in the same room, you're physically together, right, doing the dishes, watching TV, putting the kids to bed, but mentally and emotionally, you're somewhere else. And that's where that disconnection happens. And I think we don't intentionally wake up thinking, I'm gonna disconnect from my spouse today.

Meygan:

It's the chaos and the busyness of life.

Casey:

Yeah. It it, it feels like we're a team of co parents and roommates running a household, but not necessarily that, like, seated sense of, like, you got my back or I feel connected and emotional and close to you.

Meygan:

Which is what we all felt when we were dating and we're like, this feels good. Let's this forever, baby.

Casey:

Yeah. So I think what happens is the cup... Couples feel that disconnection and then to make up for it, they do these big things like a fancy dinner to make up for all the small connecting points that they missed.

Meygan:

Mhmm.

Casey:

So they're like, well, let's go big. Maybe I'll get more points on the board. Now, if I described your marriage like that and it feels familiar, you're actually in the right place because what I'm about to do is I'm gonna save you thousands of dollars on that trip to Paris. Yay. Okay?

Casey:

That's... Because that's... Like you said earlier, that's not what builds a thriving marriage. It's really the collective sum of all the small thing... Small things that adds up to huge numbers.

Meygan:

Yeah. We actually call them micro connections. So I want you to adopt that phrase, micro connections. Alright?

Casey:

Okay. What is that?

Meygan:

And we're gonna give you a list and a ton of ideas of things that you can do that are under five minutes. Some of these are seconds, you guys, some of these are less than thirty seconds. But really, it changes the emotional temperature of the marriage. It's just the small simple things we're talking about. So a six second kiss, Either whether, you're leaving the house for work or coming home from work or before bed, but not a quick peck.

Meygan:

Actually, like in your head count for six seconds. It's very meaningful.

Casey:

We tested this. We tried this out. I'm like, let's do a six second kiss.

Meygan:

And you pulled back at four seconds, and I was like, wait. Hold on. I'm counting. And you're like, oh, you are? I'm like, yeah.

Casey:

Oh, yeah.

Meygan:

But it feels different. Right?

Casey:

It did. It was...

Meygan:

And we weren't like using tongue. It was just a peck, but it was a long extended one. Six seconds. Just try it.

Casey:

That's interesting that a form of love is we're gonna push our lips together and just hold it.

Meygan:

Yep. So try it. Okay. Alright. Another idea.

Meygan:

A thinking of you text in the middle of the day randomly. You're at work or you're with the kids or you're traveling, whatever. Just take ten seconds to send a thoughtful text. It lands so big, you guys. Just wow, you're so sexy.

Meygan:

I can't believe I get to be married to you. I love blank, blank, blank about your personality, whatever that is. It's free. Send a text message. Alright.

Meygan:

We're all about the voice texts.

Casey:

Yeah. We we exchange a lot of voice texts. Yes. Excuse

Meygan:

me. We... These didn't exist a long time ago, so I love that this technology exists now. These are wonderful, by the way, if you are first responders or shift workers or you travel for work, because there's just a little bit more intimacy when you can hear the voice versus you can't hear through just a regular text message. But send a thirty second voice text telling your spouse, you know, something that you love about them.

Meygan:

Hey, babe, I was thinking about you. I saw this. It... Again, these are micro connections. And then initiate a sixty second blessing.

Casey:

Yeah. A a lot of people know us for the sixty second blessing. What this is is you're spending sixty seconds using your words to share your love, to be able to express something that you love about your spouse and attribute something that they did, maybe a body part, thanks for you know, an act of service and for sixty seconds, you're just basically bragging about your spouse to them. And then hopefully, it gets returned back to you. So a great way that you could do this in a busy moment is, hey babe, I'm gonna just leave you a sixty second blessing and do that for them and hopefully they'll exchange that back.

Meygan:

If you wanna, like, watch us do a sixty second blessing, you can just go on our YouTube channel, type in sixty second blessing. And that video went viral, I mean, over a decade ago. It's so popular. And it's just this two minute habit. You don't have to have your spouse on board.

Meygan:

Obviously, it's great if they are, but it's wonderful.

Casey:

And here's here's the thing that's cool. I will explain this. I always say this is making love. And what I mean by that is we're actually being very intentional with the way that we use our words to make love. We create love where there wasn't love in that one moment, you use your words and you create something, a positive affection for your relationship.

Casey:

You know, our words are way more powerful than we give it credit. Mhmm. Your words have the power to give life or to give death. Or the way I love to explain it is either you're sowing weed seeds or fruit trees in your garden of marriage. Right?

Casey:

Weed seeds choke out all the the beautiful flowers Mhmm. And the the beauty of your garden. Whereas fruit trees, when you plant those, it's something that grows and you get to enjoy the fruit.

Meygan:

Nothing. I mean, we just... We have a lime tree.

Casey:

Oh my gosh.

Meygan:

Booming right now. And we cut it up and we squeeze lime in our drinks and tacos and there's nothing better than a delicious fruit. Right? Alright. Another micro connection is twenty seconds of eye contact.

Meygan:

This is very intimate. I... A lot of people will giggle because it's uncomfortable. But if you just sit there and make full eye contact for twenty seconds, no phones, no multitasking, just look at each other, very connecting and very vulnerable.

Casey:

The kids are like, what are guys doing?

Meygan:

Staring into each other's eyes. But listen, we did this when we were dating.

Casey:

So this isn't glaring. This isn't glaring at each other.

Meygan:

Yeah. Not glaring at each other. But didn't we... I remember we would just stare at each other's eyes. Yeah.

Meygan:

So do it again.

Casey:

Okay. And the last one we wanna give you is as an idea for micro connection is to ask a question from our 365 connecting questions for couples book, which you can find on Amazon. This book, it's it's not a book you read. This is a tool. It's offering questions for you to ask each other that can generate conversations that you might not be able to do on your own.

Casey:

This was kinda born from a problem.

Meygan:

Am I complaining to you?

Casey:

My problem.

Meygan:

Stop asking me the same questions every day.

Casey:

I come home, I'm like, hey, babe, how was your day? Get through that quickly. What's for dinner?

Meygan:

How are the kids?

Casey:

Did you burn dinner?

Meygan:

I always burn dinner.

Casey:

Yeah. And then can we have sex? Yeah. So those same three questions, same three beats every single day. It got old and you were like, I need you to ask me different questions.

Casey:

And I think this book is loved by husbands because we all wanna connect with our partner and our wives, but we don't know how to generate that question

Meygan:

that's A new question or or after you work for eight, nine, ten hours that you're gonna come home and think of a creative question? No. That's unrealistic. Okay. So can we shift now?

Meygan:

That was our micro connections. Those were small, really simple moments. Let's go to a couple of ideas that are about five to fifteen minutes. So if you're in a chaotic life stage, you... You've got just lots of busyness, schedule.

Meygan:

If you're like, well, I've got more than, like, twenty seconds of eye contact or a six second kiss. I wanna bump it up a little bit more. We've got you covered. Okay? So let's start with highs and lows.

Meygan:

So Casey and I do something, and we've actually done this with our our kids too. But it's like, what was your high from the day and what was your low of the day? Now you can extend it. There's also a version called high low buffalo, and buffalo is like anything. It's like a random fact.

Meygan:

But you can do this over coffee, you know, like, before after you're brushing your teeth or before you go to sleep. But each each of you shares the high point of your day and the low point of your day, and it's just no phones, few minutes of talking.

Casey:

Alright. This next idea is one of my favorites and that is take a walk around the block. No destination, no agenda, just the two of you, fifteen minutes just walking. Meygan, we've had some incredible conversations and even storytelling or let me catch you up on other people's lives and talking about our relationship and our future by walking. And there's something this is...

Casey:

Ladies, make sure you hear this one. Men don't wanna necessarily sit across the table over cup of tea and share their heart. They need to be doing something. Mhmm. And walking is one of those great ways that gets you active And for some reason, I I feel like I just process better while I'm doing something.

Meygan:

Most men are much more chatty when they're doing activities, which is why they love going golfing with other men. They actually connect with men that way because they're out on the green, there's no WiFi, They're, you know, they're just in nature. I'm gonna I'm gonna add to this idea. If you have any kind of religion or faith, we've done prayer walks around the block where we've just kind of popcorn... We call it popcorn prayer, like, I'll say something and pray for someone.

Meygan:

And then Casey says a prayer for someone. But we've done prayers, around the block. That's also a great way to connect.

Casey:

Alright. So if you got more time to connect than just those micro connections, why don't you just ask another connecting question? Mhmm. Like I know some couples, you know, they're like, well, what are supposed to do when we ask the question of the date? Like, just jump around the book.

Casey:

There's a... And ask another question like, hey, pick a April and then you pick a number, you know, sixteenth and then ask that question. We've flipped through them or sometimes we'll just open up a page and just ask all the questions on that page. So that again is just another idea to keep you guys talking.

Meygan:

All right. We have an incredible membership if you didn't know this. And we actually have a section on our homepage, just like Netflix, where it says ten minutes or less. So if you don't have a ton of time, but you wanna do something, we have dozens of videos, dozens and dozens, and we add new ones all of the time that are less than ten minutes long. And so watch a video together.

Meygan:

And then we always have with our videos connecting questions. So if you're like, well, that was only a five minute video and we have five more minutes, then pull out the connecting questions and talk about it. And it's it's taking what you learned on the video Mhmm. And making it and putting it in real time into your relationship.

Casey:

For those of you that don't know what our membership is, it is... Think Netflix for your marriage. Right? Videos, courses, worksheets, all these are tools to help solve problems in relationships that we've pulled from our own marriage as well from our coaching practice. But I will tell you the real transformational moment is, you know, when couples are learning together, they're growing together.

Casey:

Mhmm. Don't you want to be more efficient in your marriage? Like for any of you that are listening and you're like, man, marriage is tough. I just wanna say to you lovingly, it's because you're doing it wrong. When you learn how to do marriage the right way, it becomes so much more easier to connect.

Casey:

It doesn't feel like a grind.

Meygan:

It really does. It's actually enjoyable. Okay. Another idea. This might not be for everybody, but we added it because we like to do this together, but do a chore together.

Meygan:

We love to fold laundry together. And we'll just talk about our day, talk about whatever. And we're doing something again, doing activities with gentlemen, you know. But we we just kind of... It's a great way to catch up even if it's only five minutes and I just dump the laundry basket on our bed and we just go for it.

Meygan:

Right?

Casey:

Every four months, five months, babe, we have to clean the the globes in the kitchen.

Meygan:

Oh, yeah. The lighting. The lighting globes that are way up tall.

Casey:

And we're talking.

Meygan:

And we're just talking. It's like a forty five minute project. But doing a chore together, just side by side doing it together, yes, it can feel like a roommate thing. But if you take that conversation, maybe open our book of connecting questions, ask the question, and then start folding laundry.

Casey:

There you go. Okay. Last one is phones in a basket. I like this one. You know, our phones, the offer a lot of great benefits and a lot of terrible things.

Meygan:

And distractions. So much distractions.

Casey:

So put your phone in a basket and say, hey, we're gonna spend fifteen minutes intentionally having no touching of the phones. Just just us.

Meygan:

Just touching each other. Not the phones.

Casey:

Yeah. So... And and bonus points, you should sit in the known position when you do this.

Meygan:

If you don't know what the known position is, you have to get our book, The Marriage Habit. It's what we're known... It's what we're known for. It's not a sex position. Yeah.

Meygan:

Not a sex tease there. If you have our membership, we have a video where we model the known position. But if you've been to one of our marriage retreats or you've done a marriage intensive with us or you've done coaching with us, you know very well what the known position is for.

Casey:

Yeah. Now, all of these ideas that we've been talking about, these, they don't require this like, well, open evening there was nothing's on the calendar so now we can connect. This is couple seconds to fifteen minutes.

Meygan:

Mhmm.

Casey:

And I I really believe that if you were looking at your relationship, you have to make a decision. You have to choose to do this. You cannot just, you know, try to find time. You have to make the time.

Meygan:

Yeah. Because if you have time to doom scroll on social media, you have time for micro connection. If you have time to watch sports, you have time to connect with your spouse. If you have time to play video games, you have time to connect with your spouse because here's what Casey and I want you to know. Please don't wait to feel connected.

Meygan:

The feelings might not come. You're like, I'm too tired. I'm too busy. I can't even think about it. It's a decision.

Meygan:

You create it on purpose in small doses and it compounds. Five minutes a day doesn't sound like much, but honestly, you stack that over year after year, it is a completely different marriage.

Casey:

And you know how you do this is the weekly marriage business meeting. If you also don't know about this tool, this is one of our most powerful tools that Meygan and I use where we are looking at our our calendars and obviously when there's really busy days, we have grace for each other, but we're very intentional to make sure, hey, where are we... When are we gonna take... We... You know, we got a dog Hobie.

Casey:

When do we take Hobie for a walk? When can we play a card game? And sometimes it's just spontaneous too, but you have to make that choice.

Meygan:

Yeah. It's not gonna happen if if you just like go, oh, let's use hope as a strategy. You have to set a reminder. You have to calendar time. And I'm gonna say, for those of you who are thinking, oh my gosh, I love the idea of, like, sending thoughtful texts.

Meygan:

I should do that more. You're not gonna remember to do it. So put it in your phone or write a little Post it on your daily planner and say, send husband flirty text. It's okay that you have to do that. There's no shame, but we've got to be intentional.

Meygan:

And I'm just going to say this to all the husbands listening. Your wife wants you to initiate these things.

Casey:

That's right.

Meygan:

Your wife does not want to be the only one asking, pursuing and initiating connection. Gentlemen, you pursued your wife when you were dating. Please don't stop. Listen to me. I beg of you.

Meygan:

I think like if, if you could do anything this week, that's what I'm going to have you hopefully listen and absorb, initiate connection. That's when she's saying, I want to emotionally connect. We just gave you 10 plus ideas. So don't say, well, I don't know how to do that. Now you have a playbook.

Meygan:

Now you have next steps. That's always what we guarantee at Marriage365.

Casey:

I promise not to get on my soapbox for too long, but gentlemen, initiation is leadership in action and no woman is attracted to an emotionally lazy

Meygan:

husband. Amen.

Casey:

This is like the number one complaint that we hear from wives is he's just not engaged. And when I hear the word engaged, I realize that's the same thing as he's not initiating. So I'll get off the soapbox, but hey, we have a we have a connection challenge for you guys out there. Okay? So to all you listening to this podcast, here's what we want you to do this week.

Casey:

Pick one of these micro connections. Okay? Just one and do it every day for the next seven days, whether that's the six second kiss, maybe it's the phone in the basket, it's picking up the question book, the sixty second blessing. Your choice, you pick. Okay?

Casey:

And then tell us how it went. Tag us on social media, message us, DM us or even comment on the episode because we love hearing these stories and honestly, the the community too loves hearing you putting action to your marriage and it could be the nudge that another couple needs. So if you're listening to this and thinking, man, this sounds all great, but we're way past micro connections. We feel like total strangers and roommates. That's exactly what our Marriage365 coaches are here for.

Casey:

And sometimes couples need more than just a challenge. They need someone to walk them through their issues and have, like, a safe third party person that can be neutral and talk through some of the tougher conversations. Now if things are really bad, connection feels impossible, there's deep resentment at play, you know, an hour session once a week might not be enough. Consider our two day marriage intensive. I mean, husbands love these because over the course of two days, we pack six months of coaching into a very powerful experience.

Meygan:

Head to marriage365.com to check out all of the resources we have for your marriage.