Katie Bingner is a counselor in Maryland, a law enforcement spouse, and a communications coach for law enforcement couples. I just assumed that her wife worked in Maryland. I was wrong. She works in Washington, DC. That led me to ask about January 6th and come to find out, her wife was in the thick of it. What started as an interview about connection and communication in law enforcement couples ended up being a conversation about how they were both impacted by the incident on January 6th. Katie ...
Jan 19, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 13
There is a holiday song that always makes my husband and I laugh. It is Bob Rivers singing "The Twelve Pains of Christmas," and it's funny because it is sadly and hilariously true. The lyrics are the first thing about Christmas that's such a pain to me and he goes through a list. The first one is finding a Christmas tree, rigging up the lights, and hangovers. The fourth one is sending Christmas cards, five months of bills, and the sixth one is facing in-laws. He goes through other stressors as w...
Dec 22, 2023•52 min•Ep. 133
You may or may not know who Dr. Ellen Kirschman is, but you’ve certainly been impacted by her. I think of Ellen as the godmother of police psychology. She has paved the way for many counselors and spouses with her books, I Love A Cop and Counseling Cops . She was one of the first, if not the first, to offer workshops for spouses to understand their officer. She's passionate about helping officers heal from trauma and continues to volunteer her time to do just that. In my interview with Ellen, I ...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 132
Before I met Allison Uribe, I came across her book, Cuffs and Coffee: A Devotional for Wives of America's Law Enforcement Officers. When we met in 2019 at a conference in Ohio where we were both speaking, I realized that Allison was not only a lot of fun but that she had grit. She will fess up to not handling situations the best way possible early on in her relationship and that she and her husband haven’t always had smooth sailing in their marriage. What saved her relationship was when she star...
Dec 08, 2023•52 min•Ep. 131
No one I know is more out in our community as a dual law enforcement couple sharing their story than Cathy and Javier Bustos. I interviewed them several years ago on episode 46 when they were both still working in law enforcement and growing with their company, That Peer Support Couple. They shared their unique lens on being an officer and a spouse to each other. Now they've both retired and I wanted to find out what it has been like for them as officers and spouses in retirement. www.cathyandja...
Dec 01, 2023•50 min•Ep. 130
The holiday season can be challenging for any couple. For law enforcement couples, we know that it's going to bring an absence to regularly scheduled events and rituals. What can be kind of nice is the increased need for off-duty officers at shopping centers and churches, or the overtime that comes with having to work events, or the holidays themselves. That extra dump of income can be really nice and helpful, and even make the separation worth it during the holidays. It can also get couples in ...
Nov 17, 2023•33 min
Resilience is one of those words that gets shared in our community. But, what does it mean to be resilient, and how do we get there? Resilience isn’t about “bouncing back” but arriving at the understanding that your life has shifted or changed because of what has occurred. Resilience is about making meaning from what we have experienced. In this episode of the Code4Couples®podcast, Kate Pieper, LMFT, talks about how she took her personal experiences and professional expertise to create a resilie...
Nov 10, 2023•57 min•Ep. 129
As a law enforcement officer, you spend a lot of time helping other families during and after a crisis. You spend much of your time arresting people who are driving drunk, using drugs, stealing, or other illegal activities and you've probably called people who engage in those activities "losers", "idiots", "scumbags" or other derogatory names. Now, put yourself in a situation where, as an officer, those people are your family. Not extended family but your immediate family: your wife, husband, ch...
Nov 03, 2023•55 min•Ep. 128
This week's podcast is a little bit of a spin. Adam Davis interviewed me for a conference he produced early this year. He had some good questions, so the interview was pretty alright. (HA) I asked him if I could share this interview on my podcast. Of course, he said yes. In this interview, I talk about a few ways that the job of law enforcement can spill over and negatively impact our relationship. In this episode, I talk about: What struggles in communication and connection? How does trauma imp...
Oct 27, 2023•32 min•Ep. 127
There are a lot of statistics that go around with law enforcement and domestic violence. "Google 40% in Law Enforcement or maybe just the comment "40%." Those are the comments I sometimes get in my posts or in my reels on Instagram. I know exactly what it means when I read it. They are referring to the popular statistic that 40% of Law Enforcement engage in acts of violence against their spouse or their children. What many people do not know or share to care, is that this statistic is from two r...
Oct 20, 2023•41 min
Garrett TeSlaa, host of the Squad Room podcast and Lieutenant in Southern California, reached out to me and asked if I had done a podcast on "men’s work." I had to give him a hard time about men’s work versus women’s work, and we joked around about it, but what he really meant was what I thought. It’s easier for women to do certain things like read self -help books or talk to other women about growth and development. It’s more socially acceptable to ask for help or go to therapy when something's...
Oct 13, 2023•38 min•Ep. 126
Michael Laidler is an experienced law enforcement officer and a lieutenant with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but when you meet him, he's not LT or Lieutenant. He's Michael Laidler, Lieutenant. Along the way, he has realized that it's incredibly important to remind himself that law enforcement has a role in his life, but it is not his entire life. He believes that everyone in law enforcement needs to put themselves and then their families as a priority. He started speaking on this topic and wro...
Oct 06, 2023•50 min•Ep. 125
Imagine you sustain an injury on the job as an officer, an injury that takes you out of work for a while. Now, imagine what it would be like if no one in the department called to check on you. Imagine being that spouse who is taking care of the officer, still needing to work, picking up all the household duties, and still trying to physically take care of your spouse while emotionally addressing their needs. I don't know about you, but if I were that officer, I'd feel betrayed, and if I were the...
Sep 29, 2023•46 min•Ep. 124
You're going from call to call and there is finally a moment when things slow down. You start to realize you haven't even thought about eating, much less had time to eat on your 12 hour shift that you're now seven hours into. In fact, you're actually really hungry, but you're lunch, dinner, or whatever meal you want to call it is at the PD in the fridge and you want to eat now. Hello, Whataburger! As an officer’s spouse, I tried to pack food as an act of love for my husband. He packed his own lu...
Sep 22, 2023•50 min•Ep. 123
There are some people that just inspire you to be better. Kristofor Healey is one of those people. Kristofor was an award-winning special agent with the government for over 15 years, taking on some of the world's most notorious criminal organizations. He's a keynote speaker, a coach, podcast host, and the author of The Indispensable Man, which he describes as the Tactical Plan for the Modern Man. Kristofor is currently finishing up a second book, which he hopes to have out by October. Today, Kri...
Sep 15, 2023•54 min•Ep. 122
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....
Sep 08, 2023•46 min•Ep. 121
On Thursday, September 1st 2022, I decided to go to work at the office for a couple of hours. I was texting with my husband, and we were joking around as I packed up. Then he said, “I don’t feel right, get home.” I immediately got into the car and started driving the 17 miles home. At a stoplight 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 our house and drove about 85 miles an hour all the way home to the house. The am...
Sep 01, 2023•45 min•Ep. 120
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...
Aug 25, 2023•49 min•Ep. 119
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 com...
Aug 18, 2023•35 min•Ep. 118
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 ...
Aug 11, 2023•52 min
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 th...
Aug 04, 2023•48 min•Ep. 116
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 becom...
Jul 28, 2023•51 min•Ep. 115
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 c...
Jul 21, 2023•45 min•Ep. 114
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 h...
Jul 14, 2023•42 min•Ep. 113
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 ...
Jun 30, 2023•48 min•Ep. 112
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 ...
Jun 23, 2023•48 min•Ep. 111
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? Th...
Jun 16, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 110
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 valida...
Jun 09, 2023•59 min•Ep. 109
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 p...
Jun 02, 2023•35 min
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 work...
May 26, 2023•58 min•Ep. 108
