I still remember the empty hangers.
I was eight years old when my dad sat me down and said something I've never forgotten. Their marriage lasted eleven years. And the divorce was chaos.
"Sayuri, relationships are like flowers. If we don't water them, eventually they'll die."
- My dad, before everything changed
My sister and I went from having a dad who picked us up from school every single day — who had a specific whistle we could hear from anywhere and know: Dad is here — to coming home one afternoon and finding all of his clothes gone from the closet.
I still remember staring at those empty hangers. And in my eight-year-old mind, I kept asking the same question over and over:
That question followed me for the next twenty years. Through seventeen moves before I turned eighteen. Through a new country, a new language, and the slow disappearance of a dad I loved but couldn't reach.
That question is the reason
You & Me Time exists.
And if you're here — if you clicked on this page — I have a feeling you might be carrying a question of your own.
I thought we'd be different. We weren't.
When Julian and I got married, I truly believed we were prepared.
We weren't being naive. We had actually done the work. We did premarital counseling. We went to marriage conferences. We read the books. I even made him a color-coordinated chores chart before the wedding — printed out, organized by daily, weekly, and monthly tasks — so we'd have total clarity about who was doing what.
A friend of mine looked at it and laughed. "Let's see how long that lasts."
It didn't last long.
Within the first year, we were fighting about the trash, the dishes, the laundry. I would wash a load, and it was Julian's turn to fold it and put it away — and that pile would sit there for weeks. I didn't want to nag, because that's what everyone tells you: don't nag. But if I didn't remind him, it wasn't getting done.
So I'd leave the basket there for days, until eventually I'd have to rewash the whole load because everything was wrinkled.
And that unresolved friction started building into something heavier. Frustration. Resentment. The slow, quiet disappearance of the fun and the lightness I thought we were going to have.
We were supposed to be a team. Life was supposed to feel lighter now that it was two of us. None of that was happening.
Then came motherhood — and whatever margin we had left disappeared completely.
Our daughter Camila was born with a lip tie and a tongue tie, which made breastfeeding extremely difficult. She wouldn't take a bottle at all, so after every nursing session, I had to pump and feed her back with a syringe. The mental and physical toll of that left me with nothing extra to give.
Two weeks after our son Liam was born, my mom — my one village — had to leave for two years. I went from having the one person who was my support system, besides Julian, to managing life completely without her.
A newborn. A toddler. My business clients. No village (besides my husband). No margin. Just us.
And Julian was carrying his own weight. He'd been out of work for months after our move. He was struggling with his phone — disappearing into the bathroom scrolling on weekends when we were supposed to be connecting as a family. His pattern of not following through on things he said he'd do was slowly eroding my trust. I felt the heaviness of not only managing my kids' lives, but managing my husband's too.
I know what it feels like to lie in bed next to someone you love and still feel alone.
I know what it feels like to be the one running the entire household in your head — the permission slips, the pediatrician appointments, the meal planning, the backup childcare — while wondering why you're the only one who seems to see what needs to be done.
I know the specific kind of exhaustion that comes from being the default parent, the default planner, and the default worrier — all at the same time — while trying to keep your career alive and your marriage from falling apart.
If any of that feels like your life right now, I need you to hear this:
You are not crazy. You are not asking for too much. And this is not just what marriage with kids looks like.
The day I realized
nobody was coming to save us.
Something had to change. So I went looking for help — and what I found shook me.
When the fighting about roles and responsibilities didn't stop, I went to our pastor. He recommended a marriage therapist. I thought: okay, at least there's someone who can help us see what we're missing.
So Julian and I went. The therapist asked what brought us in. I started sharing — that Julian was very forgetful, that I felt like I was constantly managing him, that it was making my life harder and more stressful.
And the therapist basically minimized everything. Is that what you're here for? Then he told Julian to just buy a planner and start writing things down. He gave us a couple of Bible verses and sent us on our way.
I had already bought Julian a planner every single year. That was clearly not the solution.
"If this is the kind of help couples are getting, this is alarming."
Thank God we were there for something like household friction and not something more severe.
That same day, I started searching. And I found the Gottman Institute — the number one marriage research institute in the world, where every principle is research-backed. They had a Level 1 professional training coming up in Miami just two weeks later.
I signed Julian and me up. We were the only couple in the room who were there purely for ourselves — not because we were professionals. We were surrounded by therapists and counselors.
And when I sat down and started learning, I felt something I didn't expect: shock. Not at the content. At the question that kept rising in me:
"Why is this only being taught to professionals?"
All of us are operating in relationships every single day. But the frameworks, the research, the tools that could actually help couples — they were locked behind professional certifications, expensive therapy sessions, and month-long waitlists.
$150–$300
Per session
therapy cost
75–80%
Of divorcing couples
never tried counseling
That shook something deep inside me. The gap between what was available to professionals and what was available to everyday couples was massive. And it was costing people their marriages, their families, and their kids' sense of security.
I KNEW THEN — WITH EVERYTHING IN ME — THAT WHAT I HAD BEEN BUILDING SINCE I WAS A COLLEGE STUDENT WITH A BUSINESS PLAN AND A BROKEN HEART WASN'T JUST A NICE IDEA. IT WAS NECESSARY.
I didn't find this in a textbook.
I built it at the kitchen island, at the park, and during bath time.
Here's what I know now that I wish someone had told me on my wedding day: the way most couples manage their lives is actually designed to pull them apart.
We call it "divide and conquer." You handle bedtime, I'll clean the kitchen. You take the morning shift, I'll take the night. It sounds efficient. It sounds like teamwork. But it's not. It's two people running parallel lives — getting tasks done in separate rooms, in separate headspaces, never once checking in to ask: How are you? How was today? What do you need from me?
I lived that. Julian and I lived that. And I watched it slowly turn us into roommates.
The breakthrough didn't come from a book or a course. It came from our own kitchen island, our own park bench while the kids played, our own bathtub while Camila and Liam splashed in the water. Julian and I had to find ways to work on our marriage inside the reality of our daily life — because the perfect quiet window to sit down and have a deep conversation? It was never coming.
Tag teaming isn't about doing everything together — it's about being in it together. Knowing what your partner is carrying. Anticipating what they need. Showing up before you're asked.
The moment everything shifted for us.
Instead of dividing and conquering when Julian was spiraling during his unemployment — you go find your job over there while I handle the kids over here — I sat down with him and said, "Let's do this together." I went to Office Depot, bought folders and resume paper. I researched companies. I drove him to interviews so he wasn't walking in alone and feeling rejected. Julian got the job. And what could have been the thing that drifted us apart became the thing that bonded us.
When Julian recognized that his phone addiction was robbing our marriage and his presence from our kids, he made a decision: he switched to a flip phone. To this day, he carries it. That's the kind of marriage we're building — not a perfect one, but one where both partners are willing to do whatever it takes.
Everything I learned from watching my parents' divorce, from being the new girl seventeen times before I turned eighteen, from being mentored by the founder of Chick-fil-A and later immersing myself in their hospitality culture, from the Gottman Institute's research, from becoming a mom to Camila and Liam, from building and breaking and rebuilding alongside Julian — all of it converged into one framework.
I call it
It treats your household and your family as one interconnected system — because your marriage doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's affected by how you divide the housework, how you make decisions, how you handle the bedtime routine, and whether you have any margin left for each other at the end of the day.
The Tag Team Effect isn't a marriage course. It's a home life operating system. And I didn't design it in a lab. I forged it in real life — in my own marriage, my own family, my own pain — and I'm still building it every single day.
FROM A COLLEGE STUDENT'S COLD CALL
to planning a date night for the CEO of Chick-fil-A
I need to tell you how this started — because it's part of why I believe so deeply that God wastes nothing.
When I was twenty-one years old and still in college at Nova Southeastern University, I was praying about who could mentor me as I built You & Me Time. A name came to me: Truett Cathy. I had no idea who he was. I Googled him. Turns out he was the founder of Chick-fil-A.
So I did what most people would never do — I cold-called the Chick-fil-A headquarters and asked to speak with him. I ended up writing him a letter about my vision, flying to Atlanta on my own dime, and sitting across from him at a round table in his office. I was a twenty-one-year-old college student from a broken home, telling the founder of a multi-billion-dollar company about my dream to help couples stay together.
"You know what you're doing? You are turning your pain into purpose, and your bitter experiences into better experiences for others. We serve a good God who turns our scars into stars."
— S. Truett Cathy, Founder of Chick-fil-A
Truett prayed for me that day. He told me to climb with care and confidence. And he became one of the most influential mentors in my life until his passing in September 2014.
That relationship eventually led me to Dan Cathy, Chairman and CEO of Chick-fil-A, who hired me to plan a personalized date night experience for his 41st wedding anniversary with his wife, Rhonda. I flew to Atlanta, booked the private floor of their favorite restaurant in downtown, put together their scrapbook, and created a full You and Me Time experience for them.
"Sometimes somebody has to take your hand and lead you through the process — to get you back on track to the things in your marriage you should have been more guarded about all along. This wasn't a one-time event. I'm going to be a better husband on an ongoing basis because of it."
— Dan Cathy, Chairman & CEO of Chick-fil-A "A Raving fan of You and Me Time"
Dan then sponsored three Chick-fil-A operators to experience it — couples married 25 to 32 years. Here's what they said:
"It was probably one of the best conversations we've had in the last five years. We seldom sit down and talk about our relationship to the point where we're writing down specific needs, wants, and goals. This experience forced us to do exactly that."
— Felix Hodges, married 32 years
"You are the most important person in my life. But my calendar, my time, doesn't always reflect that."
— David Neely, married 25 years
The Training Behind the Framework
Gottman-certified. Dr. Gary Chapman-endorsed. Chick-fil-A trained.
Personal Endorsement from Dr. Gary Chapman
I've met Dr. Gary Chapman — New York Times bestselling author of The Five Love Languages — twice, and received his personal endorsement for the work I do with couples through You & Me Time.
Gottman-Certified, Level 1 & Level 2
I hold Gottman Method Couples Therapy certification at both Level 1 and Level 2 — from the number one marriage research institute in the world.
The same research that informs therapists around the globe is woven into every system I teach.
Plus over two years inside Chick-fil-A's culture as a Restaurant Marketing Director — where I learned the systems, hospitality, and people-first principles that became the backbone of everything I teach.
But the credential that matters most to me? Julian and I are still doing this work — in our own home, with our own two kids, in real time. Every system I teach, we use. Every hard conversation I coach couples through, we've had.
This isn't theory. It's Tuesday night at our house.
If you're reading this at midnight while he sleeps — this is for you
I need you to know something.
I didn't build You & Me Time because I read about your pain in a research paper. I built it because I lived it. Because I am the daughter of a divorce who came home from school and found her dad's closet empty. Because I moved seventeen times before I was eighteen and learned what instability does to a child. Because I married a good man and still ended up fighting about laundry, drowning in the mental load, and wondering how two people who love each other this much could feel this disconnected.
And because I refused to accept that this is just what life with kids looks like.
"I believe — with everything in me — that it is fundamentally wrong for a woman to have to choose between being a present mother, a fulfilled professional, and a loved wife. You should get to be all three. And your marriage should be the thing that makes all of it possible — not the thing that's slowly falling apart underneath it."
You don't need another book to read. You don't need a bubble bath. You need someone who gets it — who has lived it — and who has built a real system to help you and your spouse become the team you were always meant to be.
That's what I'm here to do.
Your marriage doesn't need more willpower.
It needs a system — and a partner who's in it with you.
My dad told me when I was eight that relationships are like flowers. If you don't water them, eventually they'll die.
For a long time, I thought the answer was just to water harder — more date nights, more effort, more trying. But here's what I've learned in my own marriage, in the Gottman research, and in working with real couples: watering isn't enough if your life doesn't have room for it.
You can't pour into your relationship when you're running on empty. You can't connect when every ounce of your energy goes to managing the invisible labor nobody else sees.
First, you need a system. Then you need a team.
That's exactly what The Tag Team Effect gives you.
And it starts with one hour.
Register for the Free Live Masterclass
In this free masterclass, I'll show you exactly why "divide and conquer" is keeping you stuck in survival mode — and walk you through the framework that has helped couples go from exhausted roommates to an intentional, connected team. No cost. No obligation. Just one hour that could change everything.
"I'm going to be a better husband on an ongoing basis because of it." — Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A
Can't Wait? Start Tonight. Start here.
Download The Tag Team Blueprint — a free 3-step guide to stop running separate lives and start moving as one team. If it helps you have even one real conversation this week instead of another night on autopilot? That's a win.
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About Sayuri Chacon — For Press & Media
Sayuri Chacon is the founder of You & Me Time® and creator of The Tag Team Effect — a seven-pillar framework that helps busy couples replace the invisible weight of "divide and conquer" with intentional, strategic partnership. A daughter of divorce who moved seventeen times before she was eighteen, Sayuri has been building toward this mission since she was a college student who cold-called the founder of Chick-fil-A and asked for his mentorship. She holds Gottman Method Couples Therapy certification (Levels 1 & 2), a B.S. in Business and Marketing from Nova Southeastern University, and has been endorsed by Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages. She planned the 41st wedding anniversary experience for Dan Cathy, Chairman and CEO of Chick-fil-A, who called himself "a raving fan of You and Me Time." Sayuri lives in Minneola, Florida, with her husband Julian and their two children, Camila and Liam, where she is building the Tag Team Effect in real time inside her own home.
