Tenacity

Month five of the crisis. Nothing has gotten better. Their daughters are still gone, the court is still the court, and the longer it goes the worse it looks on paper. What changed is Maddie's response to it. This is Part 2 of a three-part series on anxiety and depression in the midst of a crisis. Patrick and Maddie talk about suffering with a purpose instead of pointlessly, why a crisis magnif...

Maddie has been anxious since she was a kid. Then the crisis hit: five and a half months without their daughters, another round of false accusations, court dates, attorney bills. The anxiety turned into a skin infection that three months of antibiotics could not clear, because the thing keeping it alive was stress. This is Part 1 of a three-part series on anxiety and depression in the midst of a c...

People quote Hebrews 10 at Patrick and Maddie: do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Patrick's answer is that the verse is about community, and that a church where you cannot question a doctrine without being removed is not offering community. So they went and found it elsewhere. A fathers' group in Tulsa. An AA meeting, though Patrick has never been an addict. The mats at...

Patrick was a pastor for seven years. Maddie came to faith as an adult. They found a church they loved, with the best preacher Patrick had ever heard, and they told the pastors their entire history before they ever volunteered for anything. The criminal trial. The false accusations. The not-guilty verdict. Every pastor there knew, and every one of them said it would not be a problem. Then one coup...

We launched this podcast on April 1, 2026. That was the last day we saw our girls. Their mother filed a notice suspending visitation and named this show as the cause. No police report, no doctor’s note, no counselor, no teacher, no evidence the children ever watched a single full episode. Because they never did. Patrick and Maddie walk through the whole case: the two earlier rounds of false allega...

Her husband would not get clean. So she left, took the baby, and told him: this family is drug free, and you are invited. Was that manipulation? Or was it the thing that saved both of them? In this episode Patrick and Maddie Martinez break down what a boundary actually is, and what it is not. When a marriage is in crisis, most advice you find is written for couples who are not on fire. This is for...

Part 2 turns into the argument the whole story was actually about: whether your body gets to make your decisions for you. She has a panic attack and reads it as her answer. Maddie, who has lived with anxiety and panic attacks most of her life, makes the case that a nervous system response is conditioned rather than true, and that the real question is whether your reaction to a situation is actuall...

A woman posts a story time about why she left her husband. It gets millions of views and a comment section full of people telling her she did the right thing. Patrick and Maddie Martinez watch the whole thing and keep running into the same problem: almost none of the story is actually there. Patrick is a relationship coach, and his first move with any client is an hour of questions before a single...

Patrick and Maddie wrote eight rules, framed them, and hung them on the wall. This is the story of the Martinez family code, where it came from, and what actually changed in the house after they started living by it. This is a special episode of The Tenacity Podcast, cut from Lesson 3 of the Survive & Thrive course. CHAPTERS 0:00 Talk to your kids first 0:54 The morning that is already won by...

She found a divorce lawyer, told her husband she was done, and he finally started showing up. Now he packs the lunches, runs the school drop-offs, coaches the sports and volunteers to bring the snacks without being asked. Everybody in the comments called it a win. In Part 2, Patrick and Maddie Martinez get into what that story actually shows. Whether a man who changes because he is terrified of lo...

Patrick and Maddie Martinez react to the viral TikTok where a woman says threatening divorce saved her marriage. They break down why an ultimatum is manipulation instead of partnership, how it can backfire fast, and the honest way to fix an unfair workload at home. Part 1. Chapters:0:00 The viral "divorce saved my marriage" video0:39 "I threatened divorce and it was the best thing I ever did"2:02...

Compatibility is not chemistry. Here are the five things you have to resolve before you marry someone. Patrick and Maddie walk through the issues that will not sink a relationship on their own, but will absolutely wreck a marriage if you ignore them going in. These are not the deal breakers. They are the things you have to understand, address, and reach a real working agreement on before you say y...

Compatibility is not chemistry. Here are the five things you have to resolve before you marry someone. Patrick and Maddie walk through the issues that will not sink a relationship on their own, but will absolutely wreck a marriage if you ignore them going in. These are not the deal breakers. They are the things you have to understand, address, and reach a real working agreement on before you say y...

Chemistry fades. These eight qualities are what actually hold a marriage together. In this episode, Patrick and Maddie break down the eight qualities that actually matter when you are evaluating someone as a spouse, not just a partner. They split them into two tiers. Tier one covers the non negotiables: honesty as the foundation everything else is built on, humility, respect, and knowing yourself...

In this one, Maddie and I talk about something people ask us all the time. How did you two actually become best friends, not just husband and wife? So we break it down. What it took to get there, why you have to choose your spouse's company over everyone else's, and why the differences didn't matter nearly as much as we thought they would. I even bring up watching our oldest daughter build that sa...

Everyone on your feed has relationship advice. Most of itsounds wise, gets repeated until it feels like fact, and quietly does damage to real marriages. In this episode, Patrick and his wife react to a licensed therapist who “de-influences” the viral takes people keep mistaking for truth, and break down why the most-shared advice is often the most harmful. The trends we fact-check: 1. “If they wan...

Patrick and Maddie Martinez get personal in this one. Whenthey were just dating, Maddie had a serious drinking problem, and Patrick had to decide whether to stay quiet or say something. What he did next, and how he said it, set the tone for their entire relationship. This episode is about boundaries inside the marriage, not with toxic family members, but with your spouse. Patrick breaks down the r...

Patrick and Maddie Martinez share the system they built out of one of the darkest seasons of their marriage. When they were navigating a criminal trial, a custody battle, and family members who were making things worse, they had to get ruthless about who deserved their limited time andenergy. In this episode, Patrick and Maddie walk you through exactlyhow to build your own Family and Friends Tier...

Patrick and Maddie Martinez sit down to react to a viral TikTok from a "Divorce Recovery Coach" racking up millions of views by telling married couples when to walk away. In this episode, Patrick breaks down the critical difference between a crisis of faith and a crisis of trust in marriage, why divorce coaches have no business advising couples who are still trying, and the one type of p...

Not all relationship advice on the internet is created equal. Some of it will save your marriage. Some of it will destroy it. In this episode of the Tenacity Podcast, Patrick and Maddie Martinez break down the viral TikToks everyone is sharing about marriage, divorce, and relationships. They separate the wisdom from the cope and expose the fundamental flaws in the advice that sounds good on social...

Most families have unspoken rules. The Martinez family put theirs on the wall and it changed everything. In this episode of the Tenacity Podcast, Patrick and Maddie Martinez walk through all 8 rules of The Family Code: the framework they built together, live by daily, and use to raise kids who are grounded, resilient, and ready for the real world. This is not a feel-good list of ideals. These are...

In this episode of the Tenacity Podcast, Patrick and Maddie Martinez tackle one of the most complex dynamics in modern families: Parenting a stepchild. Drawing from their own experiences, they discuss the emotional hurdles and the discipline required to blend a family successfully. Patrick emphasizes that while the role of a stepparent is challenging, it requires a unique level of tenacity to buil...

Most couples seek out a relationship coach when they are in the middle of a crisis—hurting, suffering, and just trying to keep their heads above water. While conflict resolution and boundaries are essential for survival, they aren't the end goal. Once you’ve stabilized and learned how to survive the crisis, the real question is: What does it look like to actually thrive? . A thriving marriage is b...

Most of us were raised on the "Golden Rule"—treat others how you want to be treated. But when it comes to marriage, that’s actually a recipe for disaster. In this episode, we dive deep into why your relationship needs the Platinum Rule instead : treating your spouse the way they need to be treated. Conflict resolution isn't just about ending an argument; it’s a vital skill for anyone...

How to Build healthy Boundaries in a Relationship Is your marriage a "Fortress" or a "Fence"? One of the biggest mistakes couples make is thinking that boundaries are meant to keep people out. In reality, proper boundaries in a marriage are designed to keep the relationship safe. If you feel like your partner is constantly trampling over your needs—or if you feel like their bou...