Ep 368 The Hard Work of Staying Together: Tarah & EJ’s Story

Marriage Therapy Radio

MTR

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Therapy, Health & Fitness, Marriage, Relationships, Mental Health, Education

4.6 • 690 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this vulnerable and powerful episode, Zach is joined by Tarah and EJ Kerwin, a married therapist duo and co-founders of Relationship Renovation, a counseling center and podcast dedicated to helping couples reconnect and rebuild. With honesty, warmth, and even some tears, Tarah and EJ take us behind the scenes of their own marriage—from honeymoon bliss to total overwhelm, from avoidance and trauma to healing and deep emotional presence.

They share how the birth of their twins shifted their entire dynamic, how ketamine-assisted therapy helped Tarah reconnect with forgotten trauma, and how they both committed to doing the inner work to stay together, grow together, and model safety for their blended family.

This episode is a window into the real, raw, and redemptive process of building a resilient marriage, even when both partners are therapists.

Key Takeaways

The Before & After of Parenting

Going from 0 to 4 kids (including twins with colic) rocked their nervous systems—and their connection.
The honeymoon phase disappeared overnight, and they had to rebuild their emotional infrastructure from scratch.

Healing Through Ketamine Therapy

A supervised ketamine protocol opened the door for deep trauma processing, revealing forgotten abuse and emotional blockages.
It became a turning point for compassion, communication, and reconnection in their marriage.

Authenticity Over Perfection

As therapists, they felt pressure to “walk the talk,” but real healing came when they dropped the performance and embraced their own messy growth.
“The best marriages aren’t perfect—they’re honest and evolving.”

Relearning Safety Together

Tarah’s trauma responses affected their intimacy and communication, and EJ had to learn not to retreat during conflict.
Over time, they created a marriage where all parts of themselves could show up and be seen.

The Power of Staying

Instead of giving up, they chose to double down—on themselves, their love, and their mission to help others.
Their counseling center now helps hundreds of couples every week, born from the lessons of their hardest moments.

Guest Info

Tarah & EJ Kerwin

Podcast: Relationship Renovation

Website: relationshiprenovation.com

Instagram: @relationship.renovation

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome. And thank you for listening to this episode of Marriage Therapy Radio.
0:05.8	My name is Zach Brittle. I'm here today with Tara and E.J. Kerwin. And I could not be more excited to
0:12.1	share this interview with you. These guys are very cool. They're very transparent. I want to be
0:17.8	friends with them. I think you're going to dig them too. They happen to be the host of a podcast called Relationship Renovation. They also run a counseling center together out of Arizona, but we don't really talk about any of that. We just talk about them, their story, what they've been through, how they make it work, how they don't. They are vulnerable and transparent. And it was really exciting for me to learn from them. I think you'll enjoy it too. Before we get started, I want to remind you about a new feature that I've been rolling out over at our Patreon page. Turns out I have a handful of sort of go-to stories that I rely on in my client sessions to help illustrate certain points of view that I have. I've started to record them and post them behind the scenes over at Patreon. So if that's something that's of interest to you and you just want to kind of grab a nugget that you can use in your personal life or maybe in your professional practice, if you are also a therapist, you can find out more about that over at patreon.com slash marriage therapy radio. You can also go to marriage therapy radio.com and click on the Patreon banner. Again, I remain
1:11.4	grateful for those of you who are investing in keeping Marriage Therapy on the air. Those of you who are chipping in monthly, just know that it means so very much to me. And now there's some extra treats for you behind the scenes. So go ahead and check that out if you haven't already. And I'm going to have a lot more stories coming up for you from the road. I'm speaking a ton this spring. I'm speaking in Orlando. I'm speaking in Indiana. I'm speaking in California. And I'm also going to Dallas twice because one of my kids is graduated from college and I get to go see her performance one weekend. And then we get to go see her actually walk another weekend. So coming into a super busy
1:44.5	time, I'm excited to share things that come up for me. But for now, I'm going to let you get to know Tara and E.J. Kerwin, this is a very cool conversation. Stick around. Thanks for coming on. E.J. Tara, you guys are in Arizona. We are. How's Arizona? Is it hot? It's already It's already like almost 100 degrees yesterday.
2:02.9	It's not okay.
2:04.0	Is that hot? It's already, freaking hot. It's already like almost
2:01.8	100 degrees yesterday. It's not okay. Is that normal? Has that been that way for like 10 years, 20 years,
2:07.7	30 years, 100 years? We've been in drought since like the late 80s. Yeah. Yeah.
2:12.8	It's yeah. So it's it's hotter. It rains less. But normally 90s don't happen until May. So it's hotter. It rains less.
2:20.5	But normally 90s don't happen until May.
2:22.6	So it's just been a brutal.
2:24.3	It rained once.
2:26.5	Usually we have two rainy seasons.
2:28.5	We have like the monsoons during the summer.
2:31.8	And then we have a rainy season in December, January. And it rained once during that second rainy season. I think I'm learning how to ask questions of folks our age. I'm assuming that we're all about the same age. I'm 51. 48. 52. I'm learning how to like. I'm the baby here. Okay, I'll stop. Well, but, you know, even at 48, you're old enough, and this is the thing that I've
2:51.2	been realizing, like, I'm old enough to remember things that were a lifetime ago and I was an adult during that time. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's not like, oh, that was a lifetime ago when I was in high school. It was like, that was a lifetime ago when I was 30. Yeah. The 90s are a trippy time right now because that's like nostalgic and like, you know,
3:12.2	like dazed and confused-esque for younger people.
3:16.1	Yeah, I saw a meme or something about how if Marty McFly went back in time in the equivalent
3:21.5	situation from now, it would be 1995.
3:25.4	Like he would go back to 1995. That's screwed up. How did it happen? So who are you guys? You're E.J. and Tara and your
	...

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