Ep. 61: Happy Couple Files for Divorce at 10 Years

Patrick Cullinane is a serial entrepreneur who has started and sold multiple businesses and developed several software applications in the logistics and supply chain industries. Patrick also helps run a men’s mastermind group of over 150 members and serves on the board of 1Life Fully Lived, a non-profit geared towards helping young people find their passion through the entrepreneurial spirit and to dream, plan and live their best lives.

Sam Cullinane began her career climbing corporate ladders to achieve the rank of Chief of Staff to the President of an international five billion dollar company. Eventually she also took to entrepreneurial endeavors – starting a few businesses and then joining Patrick to build and sell his largest business. Sam completely switched gears in 2015 and is now a National iTunes charting songwriter and recording artist who has been invited to open for Jewel and has a song in a film released October 2017. Sam also serves as the President of a women’s mastermind, Symmetry7.

Sam and Patrick have been married for over twenty years and they would tell you they are one of the happiest couples they know. But they weren’t always this happy. In fact, after ten years of marriage, they were ready to sign the divorce papers.

During the first ten years of their marriage, they struggled through like most people do: trying to navigate life together without any real tools, realizing they were in many ways opposites, fighting often, having sex less and less, distrust and jealousy rearing their ugly heads, and what they believed was falling out of love. They were under tremendous pressure, as many families are these days, raising their two children and each of them pursuing their rigorous careers. In their tenth year of marriage they decided to call it quits and filed for divorce.

After a year apart, against all odds, they decided to get back together. This time they came with new insights including recognition of the things each of them brought to the relationship – good and bad. Both made the necessary changes to successfully start their next chapter.

For the last ten years they’ve grown their love, their bond, and created an amazing life together. They became students of love and they never looked back. Their book, released July 2017, Bigger Love – How to Have the Love of Your Life for the Rest of Your Life is their story along with tips, tools and tricks for taking your relationship to a higher, deeper, more satisfying level.

JJ Flizanes is an Empowerment Strategist and the host of several podcast shows including Fit 2 Love and Spirit, Purpose & Energy. She is the Director of Invisible Fitness, an Amazon best-selling author of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life, and author of Knack Absolute Abs: Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. She was named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles for 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine. JJ has been featured in many national magazines, including Shape, Fitness, Muscle and Fitness HERS, Elegant Bride, and Women’s Health as well as appeared on NBC, CBS, Fox 11, the CW and KTLA. Her newest book, The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame debuted at #2 on the Amazon Best Seller List for Women’s Health and #2 as a Hot New Release on May 18th 2017.