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Breaking Free from Busyness - How to Reconnect in Your Marriage Pt 1 (Marriage Reset Series) - 255 · Marriage Life and More and Bible Study

0:06
Daniel Moore: Our marriages are actually supposed to be something that refreshes us on a daily basis.
0:12
Daniel Moore: You know if we are in a point of exhaustion because of work or because of life in general, or you know we're in a season of super busyness and maybe we feel like we're losing grip on life to an extent just because so much is going on and we're losing grip on life to an extent just because so much is going on and we're trying to juggle so much In all reality.
0:29
Daniel Moore: When we come home to our spouses and we come back home to our marriages and the life that we have at home in all reality, that should be a spot that we can go to, that's safe, that we can actually re-energize ourselves and get that energy back into our relationship and our life and get re-juiced back up and ready to go defeat the world tomorrow.
0:52
Daniel Moore: This week, on Marriage Life and More, we get into Episode 3 of our series on Marriage Reset Roommates to Soulmates in your Marriage.
1:03
Daniel Moore: We'll be back with that episode right after this.
1:40
Daniel Moore: Welcome to Marriage Life and More.
1:42
Daniel Moore: This is a podcast about marriage, bible and book studies, and we occasionally interview people that have inspiring stories.
1:48
Daniel Moore: I'm Daniel Moore, your host and over, sitting next to me across the table is my beautiful co-host, my wife Michelle Moore.
1:55
Michelle Moore: Hey, hey.
1:56
Daniel Moore: Thank you, guys for joining us this week.
1:58
Daniel Moore: If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website at marriagelifeandmore.
2:00
Daniel Moore: com.
2:01
Daniel Moore: Our platforms there are YouTube and Rumble links and we're also on the Christian podcasting app, edify.
2:06
Daniel Moore: We're also on your Alexa and Google smart devices.
2:09
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2:14
Daniel Moore: If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe.
2:16
Daniel Moore: Feel free to leave a comment on our platforms and give us a thumbs up or a five-star review in Apple podcast and an Apple podcast, and we'd be eternally grateful to you for doing that.
2:24
Daniel Moore: We do have a few people that's left some things on Apple for reviews and gave us some five stars, so we do appreciate those of you that have done that and those of you that listen on Apple.
2:35
Daniel Moore: We'd be appreciative of you if you would do that.
2:37
Daniel Moore: That helps our algorithm and helps this podcast to get out to the people that need to hear it, and each week, Michelle and I are constantly hearing from people that are, you know, putting these marriage episodes to the test and it's really helping their marriages and that's what this is all about, and we're just thankful for the doors that God has opened and we just plan on keeping sharing as we go through this new series here this week, as I said, we're in episode three and of course we've been breaking these episodes into two parts up to this point here, and we're going to start this week's episode.
3:12
Daniel Moore: This one's entitled Breaking Free from Busyness how to Reconnect in your Marriage.
3:28
Daniel Moore: Michelle and I, we love comfort food, whether if it's fried chicken, mashed potatoes or mac and cheese.
3:35
Daniel Moore: There's something about Southern cooking that soothes the soul.
3:38
Daniel Moore: So when we found ourselves near Paula Deen's Family Kitchen in Branson, missouri, we knew exactly what our next excursion would be.
3:46
Daniel Moore: Like kids heading into a candy store, we were thrilled at the idea of diving into biscuits and gravy and all the stick-to-your-ribs goodness that that place is known for.
3:55
Daniel Moore: More exciting than that, it was all-you-can-eat yes, unlimited southern comfort food in a warm and welcoming restaurant straight out of the home cooking dream.
4:06
Daniel Moore: The hostess welcomed us with a smile and from our very first bite of butter laced corn casserole we knew we were in for a legendary night.
4:13
Daniel Moore: It was as if all the guardian angels of Southern cuisine had gathered in our honor, ladling out fried okra, creamy mac and cheese and lip smacking barbecue pork like it was their holy duty okra, creamy mac and cheese and lip-smacking barbecue pork, like it was their holy duty.
4:28
Daniel Moore: Michelle and I, and our family that was with us were having the best time laughing, sharing bites and marveling at how each dish seemed better than the last one.
4:35
Daniel Moore: Every time our server stopped by we ordered another round.
4:38
Daniel Moore: It felt more like an adventure than a meal.
4:40
Daniel Moore: Well, somewhere around four helpings or so we started to get that familiar fulfilling.
4:46
Daniel Moore: But there was still ooey gooey butter cake to be had.
4:51
Daniel Moore: And I mean, can you really turn down ooey gooey butter cake when it's Paula Deen style?
4:56
Daniel Moore: However, we're not professional eaters.
5:00
Daniel Moore: We overestimated our abilities in the face of bottomless fried chicken.
5:05
Daniel Moore: When our feast was winding down, we realized we had a full plate of untouched food still on the table.
5:10
Daniel Moore: But no problem, we just get a to-go container and enjoy comfort food leftovers for the next few days.
5:18
Daniel Moore: I mean, that's a win-win right.
5:20
Daniel Moore: Well, that was until we asked our server for a to-go box and she gently pointed to the fine print at the bottom of the menu.
5:27
Daniel Moore: It said no leftovers may be taken from the restaurant with the all-you-can-eat option and eating food will be charged accordingly.
5:35
Daniel Moore: Our hearts sank.
5:38
Daniel Moore: It was like someone had yanked the last deviled egg off of our picnic plate, michelle and I exchanged a look that said we're in deep gravy.
5:46
Daniel Moore: Well, I tried playing the oops we didn't read the fine print card, tossing in a joke about how my eyes were too distracted by the fried green tomatoes to read anything similar or smaller than a headline.
5:57
Daniel Moore: But no luck.
5:58
Daniel Moore: The policy was the policy.
6:00
Daniel Moore: We faced a dilemma.
6:02
Daniel Moore: Should we argue our way out?
6:04
Daniel Moore: Nope, that was too messy.
6:08
Daniel Moore: Michelle whispered something about faking a food allergy and I considered pretending to pass out from better overload.
6:13
Daniel Moore: But in the end there was only one honorable and mildly insane option Just power through it.
6:20
Daniel Moore: Already on the brink of a food coma, we picked up our forks and went back into the ring like culinary gladiators.
6:25
Daniel Moore: Bite after bite, we fought the good fight, but with only a few spoons of mashed potatoes and half a biscuit remaining, we waved the white napkin.
6:34
Daniel Moore: We were stuffed, defeated not by flavor but by fullness.
6:39
Daniel Moore: We paid the price that day, physically and, yep, we paid for it on the receipt.
6:45
Daniel Moore: But now it's a fun story to tell.
6:48
Daniel Moore: If we ever go back to Paula Deen's, we're going to pace ourselves.
6:52
Daniel Moore: Now you have to laugh every time you think about a mountain of food heading to a wide-eyed table of tourists, oblivious to the fine print, waiting at the bottom of the menu.
7:01
Daniel Moore: And deep down we salute them, for we too once flew too close to the sun on wings made of the menu.
7:06
Daniel Moore: And deep down we salute them, for we too once flew too close to the sun on wings made of fried chicken.
7:12
Michelle Moore: I'm telling you, when I'm reading this, I'm dying.
7:15
Michelle Moore: I'm like that is the writer in Daniel.
7:17
Michelle Moore: I'm like I don't recall all this happening.
7:21
Daniel Moore: Well, all that probably didn't really happen.
7:24
Michelle Moore: I'm like you write so well I'm like and it sounds so great so it's like that that I don't remember all of that.
7:31
Daniel Moore: So my wife doesn't call me a liar.
7:33
Daniel Moore: Here's the truth.
7:36
Michelle Moore: We did go to paula dean's we did and we ate, and we did eat way too much and we did get the fine print of.
7:41
Michelle Moore: We did find out that you can't take that yeah and that was so disappointing.
7:45
Daniel Moore: We had all this food left sitting there on the table and we couldn't take it.
7:49
Daniel Moore: We thought she was joking.
7:50
Daniel Moore: We're like.
7:51
Daniel Moore: There's no way that you can't take your leftovers home.
7:55
Daniel Moore: So if you haven't been to Paula Deen's yet, this is your warning.
7:57
Daniel Moore: If you're going to go there to eat, it's all you can eat and they'll bring you out all this food and everything.
8:05
Daniel Moore: But if you don't eat it all, you're paying for food that's getting left there on the table and it's going in the trash.
8:08
Michelle Moore: I have to commend you.
8:09
Michelle Moore: That almost sounds like a Christmas night story Pretty close.
8:13
Michelle Moore: You did a pretty good job.
8:14
Daniel Moore: We may use that this Christmas to read it all of our grandkids.
8:18
Michelle Moore: I think your kids would call you liars, because I don't think they remember it that way either.
8:23
Daniel Moore: Probably so.
8:24
Michelle Moore: But that was really good hey.
8:27
Daniel Moore: I enjoyed delivering it.
8:28
Daniel Moore: It was good entertainment here for about the first seven minutes of our podcast and, truthfully, there is a reason that I wrote that little story there.
8:38
Michelle Moore: Most of it was true.
8:39
Daniel Moore: Most of it.
8:40
Daniel Moore: Yes, so here's the point of that whole story.
8:44
Daniel Moore: Yes, so here's the point of that whole story, besides the fact that we were so overly full that we could barely waddle out of the building when we were done.
8:54
Daniel Moore: This week's podcast is about busyness and just being busy in our lives and how that can actually get in the way of our marriage.
8:58
Daniel Moore: And you know, a lot of times, as we, as I just shared this story with you busyness can be a lot like an overflowing plate of fried chicken after you've eaten your fill.
9:13
Daniel Moore: What I mean by that is does it ever seem like answering with busy has become our default response when someone asks how we're doing.
9:17
Daniel Moore: We talked about this a couple weeks ago when we first introduced this series about how a lot of times when people say, oh you know, I haven't seen you in a while or haven't talked to you in a while, and our first response is what?
9:31
Michelle Moore: I'm busy.
9:31
Daniel Moore: I'm busy, I've been busy, it's just been so busy.
9:34
Daniel Moore: We've been busy with the kids, it's been busy with work, and that's always our go to and in all reality we probably spent five of the last seven evenings sitting on the couch watching TV.
9:45
Daniel Moore: You know it's not totally true, but we can get by with that a lot of times when we're just talking to regular everyday people.
9:55
Daniel Moore: But when we start using those excuses with our spouses and we start letting that get in the front of our marriage and causing problems, it becomes a huge issue.
10:05
Daniel Moore: And it's not something that we can mess around with and if it happens we need to fix it.
10:10
Daniel Moore: You know it's almost like it's either a badge of productivity or a subtle cry for help Whenever we say that we're busy like that.
10:20
Daniel Moore: Honestly, if our life together could be summed up in a single image, it might just be a table loaded with endless comfort food at Paula Deen's, with plates piling up faster than we can eat.
10:28
Daniel Moore: If life were a competitive eating event, michelle and I probably would have been headliners that day when we were trying to put all that food down.
10:35
Daniel Moore: But the real twist we signed up for this ourselves.
10:39
Daniel Moore: We created this pace, we made those choices and built this full, bustling life, and we're not complaining.
10:44
Daniel Moore: We made those choices and built this full, bustling life and we're not complaining.
10:48
Daniel Moore: We usually don't complain about any of that kind of thing.
10:51
Daniel Moore: We're just being candid about our calendar chaos and the ever-expanding to-do list.
10:55
Daniel Moore: Sometimes we feel like that sweet, smiling server is hovering nearby with a polite but firm reminder Keep going or pay for what you left behind.
11:05
Daniel Moore: And so we just keep going, bite after bite of everything life is offering.
11:10
Daniel Moore: Yet that's not how it is for everyone.
11:13
Daniel Moore: Some couples didn't overfill their plates on purpose.
11:16
Daniel Moore: Life handed it to them preloaded.
11:19
Daniel Moore: Certain seasons bring demands that we can't avoid shifting jobs, sick parents, special needs or three kids in different activities across different zip codes.
11:27
Daniel Moore: Whether busy by design or by necessity, the impact is usually the same.
11:32
Daniel Moore: It's incredibly difficult to find meaningful time and energy to pour into each other.
11:37
Daniel Moore: The kind of busyness that we're referring to here is born from managing the complexities of life together.
11:43
Daniel Moore: Most couples aren't avoiding each other out of spite or falling out of love.
11:47
Daniel Moore: They really, truly do care.
11:49
Daniel Moore: But somewhere along the way their lives became so full that they can't seem to find space for each other.
11:55
Daniel Moore: Does that sound familiar to you?
11:57
Daniel Moore: Maybe you're feeling more like roommates exchanging schedules than romantic partners.
12:02
Daniel Moore: Maybe meaningful moments together now come with a side of guilt or calendar reminders.
12:08
Daniel Moore: And I think a lot of times, you know, with the statistics like they are today, especially with second marriages, as I was going through this episode and putting it together, I think sometimes you know, I got to thinking about that A lot of marriages that are second or third marriages or whatever they usually come pre-made families.
12:28
Michelle Moore: Yeah.
12:29
Daniel Moore: You know they already have kids, either on one side or on both sides.
12:32
Daniel Moore: They might be infants, they might be middle schoolers, they might be high schoolers.
12:37
Daniel Moore: You just never know.
12:38
Daniel Moore: When you look at the family life as being really busy, I think a lot of times, especially in those situations, you can automatically start off your marriage full of busyness already.
12:52
Daniel Moore: Yeah, just right off the get go.
12:54
Daniel Moore: How do you feel about that?
13:07
Michelle Moore: I'd agree with that, especially when being married.
13:08
Michelle Moore: Fit all that and coordinate it all in the calendar, so it makes you even more busy.
13:12
Michelle Moore: I know that as a mother and that's how I felt.
13:15
Daniel Moore: Yeah, yeah.
13:16
Daniel Moore: And if your kids are, you know, high school age for sure, and the two come together and you're bringing high school kids together.
13:22
Daniel Moore: Those sports are very demanding If they're playing football or if they're cheering or some of that kind of stuff.
13:30
Daniel Moore: You know you're looking at lots and lots of time on the practice field.
13:33
Michelle Moore: I feel like though, as they're older, they can really kind of take care of themselves.
13:36
Michelle Moore: I felt like it was when they were younger and that's probably true.
13:39
Michelle Moore: You had peewee football, you had cheer.
13:41
Daniel Moore: You had to stay there, you had to stay there for practices.
13:44
Michelle Moore: You know, and you know whether it's an hour, hour and a half or whatever.
13:48
Michelle Moore: You're rushing after work to get change, get your kids fixed, fed, and then, if you're not fed, get them to the practice, get them fed afterwards, baths taken.
13:56
Michelle Moore: I mean, I feel like there was a lot more responsibility when they were younger versus as they got older, because then you could say pack your stuff, and if you didn't pack it, it's like when you pack it that's your fault.
14:07
Michelle Moore: You know it's like when they're kids.
14:08
Michelle Moore: You know, as a mother, you and I know there's fathers out there too that do the same thing.
14:13
Michelle Moore: But I do feel the business busyness of life is busier when they're younger.
14:19
Daniel Moore: Yeah, and that's just kids.
14:21
Daniel Moore: There's other things that you know come into that case for busyness also with work and church and friends, and just there's a whole scope of things.
14:30
Michelle Moore: You can actually see how my life rolled around.
14:32
Michelle Moore: It was the children.
14:33
Daniel Moore: Yeah, pretty much.
14:34
Daniel Moore: Yeah, we dealt a lot with that.
14:36
Daniel Moore: That definitely.
14:37
Daniel Moore: You know gotten, and we've explained that before, talked about that in previous episodes, how we did put our kids before us.
14:44
Daniel Moore: It's easy to do.
14:46
Daniel Moore: But you're right, it could be multiple different things.
14:48
Daniel Moore: Multiple things, yeah so I'm gonna have you continue here.
15:02
Daniel Moore: There's, you know, sometimes we feel like we're living on fast forward and, you know, life just seems like everything's just double time.
15:12
Daniel Moore: You know and share with us a little bit on that.
15:15
Michelle Moore: Yeah.
15:16
Michelle Moore: So the problem with living on fast forward is twofold it is not only do we feel drained, as discussed earlier, but our connection suffers.
15:27
Michelle Moore: Take Ben and Rachel, for example.
15:29
Michelle Moore: Married for 16 years, they have three kids a teenage daughter busy with drama club and youth club, a middle schooler who loves science camps and guitar lessons, and a youngest child who just discovered a passion for baseball.
15:45
Michelle Moore: They live in a growing suburb not far from a major city.
15:49
Michelle Moore: Ben runs a local coffee shop that seems to demand more and more of his time as it becomes increasingly popular.
15:58
Michelle Moore: Rachel is a pediatric nurse who often pulls evening shifts.
16:01
Michelle Moore: He helps out leading worship at church, while she mentors a group of young moms on Saturday mornings.
16:08
Michelle Moore: Between work, ministry and their children's jam-packed schedules, their weeks are a blur.
16:15
Michelle Moore: Their daughter often has rehearsals and late-night performances.
16:20
Michelle Moore: The middle child has lessons across town and weekend competitions.
16:25
Michelle Moore: Their youngest just joined a travel team with practices across state lines.
16:31
Michelle Moore: Weeknights look like this Ben rushes in, tossing car keys on the table as he yells for someone to grab cleats.
16:38
Michelle Moore: Rachel arrives moments later, exhausted, juggling her scrubs, the mail and tomorrow's mail prep concerns.
16:47
Michelle Moore: They both tag team transportation every night and often not seeing each other until bedtime, if at all.
16:55
Michelle Moore: They hastily scarf down drive-thru dinners or leftover casserole before falling into bed.
17:01
Michelle Moore: Ben might try to finish some payroll while Rachel preps for a presentation for new nurses.
17:07
Michelle Moore: They adore each other but are streamrolled by survival mode.
17:12
Michelle Moore: There's no time for folly or flirtation, just managing what's urgent.
17:19
Michelle Moore: And though they long to change things, they feel stuck in the rhythm.
17:25
Michelle Moore: The real danger for couples like Ben and Rachel isn't just physical exhaustion, it's emotional drift.
17:32
Michelle Moore: It's been said that marriage is just dating with paperwork or cohabitating with a contract, but that's not it at all.
17:41
Michelle Moore: There's deep richness in the covenant of marriage benefits, beyond the legalities or tax breaks.
17:49
Michelle Moore: Studies even show that committed marriages foster the most fulfilling intimacy, emotionally and physically.
17:58
Michelle Moore: Intimacy emotionally and physically.
18:03
Michelle Moore: But what makes this relationship truly distinct is the sacred level of intimacy found in that lifelong bond.
18:08
Michelle Moore: Paul said in Ephesians that two become one flesh, calling it a mystery, and we agree.
18:14
Michelle Moore: The kind of trust and unity, that sacred blending of heart, mind and soul can only happen in the safe space created by shared vows and forever promises.
18:27
Michelle Moore: Of course, not every couple instantly reaches that death or always lives that vulnerable.
18:33
Michelle Moore: But it's the potential that's unique and priceless.
18:38
Michelle Moore: That's the connection we need to guard carefully.
18:41
Michelle Moore: It's what the enemy would love to unravel in your marriage, because when our schedules overload our souls and we neglect our true intimacy, we risk drifting from the very relationship designed to refresh and ground us.
18:56
Michelle Moore: The solution isn't about doing less necessarily.
19:01
Michelle Moore: It's about being more intentional with what we've got, finding the connection again in a small moments, protecting the sacredness of us even in the busyness of life.
19:14
Daniel Moore: OK.
19:14
Daniel Moore: So with that little story, I think a lot of people probably can relate to that, and that's probably we probably just read a lot of people's mail when you shared that story.
19:28
Daniel Moore: Probably, and I do like here, though, that what you just shared there here in the last paragraph or so our marriages are actually supposed to be something that refreshes us on a daily basis.
19:42
Daniel Moore: You know, if we are in a point of exhaustion because of work or because of life in general, or you know, we're in a season of super busyness and maybe we feel like we're losing grip on life to an extent just because so much is going on and we're trying to juggle so much going on and we're trying to juggle so much in all reality.
20:03
Daniel Moore: When we come home to our spouses and we come back home to our marriages and the life that we have at home in all reality, that should be a spot that we can go to, that's safe, that we can actually re-energize ourselves and get that energy back into our relationship and our life and get rejuiced back up and ready to go defeat the world tomorrow, you know, but I think what's you know, what's disappointing about this scenario here and how this relates with feeling like that you're a roommate after you've been married for a while and you just you don't see the romantic flares anymore, you don't feel the feelings that you used to feel and a lot of this stuff has slid to the side and now when we come home it almost feels like it's part of the burden.
20:49
Daniel Moore: It can get very dangerous when it gets to that point because we have to have somewhere.
20:55
Daniel Moore: We obviously want to keep God in our life as a recharging point, obviously, but we've got to have somewhere just within our relationship that's close to us, where we can be grounded, somewhere where we can come back and recharge our lives and have that safe anymore, because we're so distracted by everything that's going on around us, then we truly do lose sight of each other and I know that.
21:29
Daniel Moore: You know, in our relationship, as we've talked before, when we had our kids still growing up and everything you know I can remember there were times when we felt this way up and everything you know I can remember there were times when we felt this way and it seemed like that we were just constantly running every which direction and we really didn't have a lot of time for us, and you know when that time was was taking place and everything.
21:51
Daniel Moore: Uh, do you feel like that you had an awareness that it was happening?
21:57
Daniel Moore: Nope, it was you.
21:59
Daniel Moore: I think you're kind of like me, probably.
22:01
Michelle Moore: I didn't even notice it.
22:03
Daniel Moore: Yeah.
22:03
Michelle Moore: I mean in all reality, I mean as I read this, and it was when it says finding the connection again in the small moments, I was like man, you know, small moments, those were hard and very far and few between you know, because of the busyness in our life, and I wish I would have recognized that, but no, I didn't even notice it.
22:29
Daniel Moore: I didn't, I didn't either.
22:30
Michelle Moore: But I was thinking though, if you really think about it, if you're so busy in life and you're not taking that small time for your husband where's that time for God, and I mean here.
22:42
Michelle Moore: I am speaking to myself, because it's like sometimes we just get so busy and I think when you go start doing that, you do get in the mundane of things and sorry, our dog is whining but you do get in the mundane of things and you slowly start slipping from God and you don't even see that you start slipping from your marriage, of not trying to make that intimacy, but intimacy is actually.
23:15
Michelle Moore: I mean you start with God.
23:18
Michelle Moore: Yeah, I mean you start with God.
23:19
Michelle Moore: Yeah, so you have to make that time for him and you have to make that time for your husband.
23:28
Daniel Moore: Yeah, that is a good point, because if we don't have time for us, then you know good and well that there's a lot of times that those couples probably they don't have their God time and I know that that's something that we slacked on.
23:41
Daniel Moore: Oh, 100% me, I think in the long run, I think the combination between your and my failure in our relationship to keep ourselves the important part of it.
23:53
Daniel Moore: We also did that to God.
23:56
Michelle Moore: Oh, 100%, we didn't even include God.
23:58
Michelle Moore: Oh, 100%, we didn't even include God.
23:59
Michelle Moore: I mean, even then, when we renewed our vows and we put God before us, and you know even the healing process of the years and to where we're at now, there can be times, the busyness of life, I mean I get busy and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, stop.
24:16
Michelle Moore: I can feel myself not having that intimacy with not just Christ but you as well.
24:22
Michelle Moore: And so and that's the I circled true intimacy, because I thought to myself, where does true intimacy begin with?
24:29
Michelle Moore: So it's like you have to be careful with the busyness of life that you don't just lose yourself with your husband, but your relationship with Christ as well.
24:41
Daniel Moore: Yeah, as you know, the heart of a strong marriage and the real vitality that holds it together, it's not just shared responsibility or mutual goals.
24:51
Daniel Moore: You know, and a lot of times you know, you and I, we had a lot of goals.
24:55
Michelle Moore: Yeah.
24:55
Daniel Moore: But we weren't the goal.
24:56
Daniel Moore: It's like everything else, but us was part of that goal.
25:00
Daniel Moore: But the heart of a strong marriage is connection and, just like you just said just a while ago, it's deep intimacy.
25:06
Daniel Moore: It's the ability to truly know and be known by your spouse across every layer of life.
25:11
Daniel Moore: But the relentless pace of life has a way of stealing that connection right out from under us.
25:17
Daniel Moore: When we get overwhelmed and overloaded, emotional and physical distance starts to grow and with it comes confusion, insecurity and disconnection.
25:25
Daniel Moore: Couples begin to pull away from each other.
25:27
Daniel Moore: And this isn't always an intentional thing, you know.
25:30
Daniel Moore: Just like we just discussed, there's a lot of things we did that we just were not aware of the damage that we was doing to our relationship, because we thought we were doing everything for the good of the family that we was doing to our relationship, because we thought we were doing everything for the good of the family.
25:41
Daniel Moore: And so it's not intentionally, but it's a gradual pulling away until a quiet loneliness starts to set in.
25:47
Daniel Moore: And this pattern is what relationship expert Dr John Gottman identifies as the distance and isolation cascade.
25:55
Daniel Moore: It can quietly take root in any busy household.
25:58
Daniel Moore: Love can't survive on autopilot.
26:00
Daniel Moore: It needs fuel, it needs time, it needs attention, intentional moments of togetherness.
26:06
Daniel Moore: Lots of couples, they think that their love is going to naturally carry them through the chaos of raising kids or navigating careers.
26:13
Daniel Moore: I mean, you know where's that saying come from Just going to live on love.
26:17
Daniel Moore: I heard lots of people say that.
26:18
Daniel Moore: I say it now let's just live on love.
26:19
Daniel Moore: Remember, I heard lots of people say that.
26:20
Michelle Moore: I say it now.
26:20
Michelle Moore: Let's just live on love.
26:22
Michelle Moore: That is not going to happen.
26:23
Michelle Moore: Just go for it.
26:25
Daniel Moore: Yeah, you know they assume that they'll pick things back up later.
26:28
Daniel Moore: After all, the chaos has happened once things calm down.
26:32
Daniel Moore: But the reality you're not the same people you were when that busy season began.
26:36
Daniel Moore: Over time, routine set in and emotional distance becomes the norm.
26:41
Daniel Moore: Eventually, when the house is quiet again, many couples look across the table and wonder who's actually sitting over there?
26:49
Daniel Moore: Who am I sitting at this table with?
26:51
Michelle Moore: And I really, you know, I really really like that, because, back to the paragraph that you were reading before, you know, when you're talking about not being intentional, but a quiet loneliness sets in the distance and isolation cascade by Dr John Gropp Gottman, you don't even really think about it.
27:11
Michelle Moore: Like you don't the loneliness that I mean.
27:16
Michelle Moore: What is that?
27:17
Michelle Moore: That's not.
27:17
Michelle Moore: That's Satan.
27:19
Daniel Moore: Yeah.
27:20
Michelle Moore: And how easy is it for us to be so busy that that sets in and you don't even realize we've opened the door to the enemy.
27:30
Daniel Moore: Well, this is another place where that kind of mirrors our relationship with God.
27:33
Daniel Moore: Because what does Satan want us to feel like in our relationship with God?
27:36
Daniel Moore: He wants us to feel like we're by ourself.
27:38
Daniel Moore: He wants us to feel like that, no matter all these problems that we have in life and the things that we, the roadblocks that we come up against, that we're fighting them on our own.
27:46
Daniel Moore: He doesn't want us to remember that God's there and he's got his angels watching over us and that we can call a legion of angels at any time to come protect us and help us.
27:55
Daniel Moore: He wants us to forget that.
27:56
Daniel Moore: And then here we are, now in our marriages, doing the same exact thing.
28:00
Daniel Moore: We're allowing Satan to come in, put all this busyness in place.
28:04
Daniel Moore: All of these little things happen that we just talked about and, like we said, you know you look across the table and who is that sitting over there?
28:10
Daniel Moore: All of a sudden, we feel lonely.
28:11
Daniel Moore: That's what Satan wants.
28:13
Daniel Moore: He wants us to feel lonely, and you know it's something that has to be fixed when that happens, and you can't expect it to come back full circle later either.
28:24
Daniel Moore: I think a lot of people do fall for that lie.
28:26
Daniel Moore: They're like well, we're in a season right now.
28:28
Daniel Moore: We fell in love once before at one point in time in our life, so I'm sure that if damage is done or whatever, I think we can get this pulled back together later, once all this slows down and all this calms down.
28:39
Daniel Moore: But then you're doing damage control.
28:43
Daniel Moore: When you first fell in love the first time, you didn't have a lot of this stuff in your way the busyness and the chaos and all the things that you're trying to work through.
28:52
Daniel Moore: You were just creating a pure love between each other.
28:55
Daniel Moore: Well now, if you ignore all of that and let all this stuff happen and damage your relationship to the point where you feel lonely, you really think you can come back later and refix all of that like you did the first time.
29:06
Michelle Moore: I'm going to say you probably disagree with me on this, but I'm a positive thinker.
29:11
Daniel Moore: Well, I know you can with God.
29:12
Daniel Moore: Yes, definitely.
29:14
Michelle Moore: I mean, I think there has to be a lot of grace within that, because if both of the spouses are the ones that are constantly busy and you're trying to do damage control because I know for a fact if you believe in your marriage, even though you have done things and you've had the busyness of life, and you're looking across the table thinking who is that person?
29:37
Daniel Moore: Yeah.
29:38
Michelle Moore: You had a first love at one time.
29:40
Michelle Moore: Go back to the first time, that when you fell in love with them, and just start all over again.
29:46
Daniel Moore: Yeah that's a risky thing to take because a lot of couples can't figure that out.
30:03
Daniel Moore: I mean, how many couples do we have now that's in church that are struggling because they've forgotten that they need to go back to where it started, and this is part of our series later and we've talked about this.
30:10
Daniel Moore: I think we talked about this in our four laws of love too, about going to where it started, and this is part of our series later and we've talked about this.
30:13
Daniel Moore: I think we talked about this in our four laws of love too, about going back where it began, because it kicks over into revelation, you know, with our, the churches and Christ.
30:22
Daniel Moore: When he's coming back, and you know he's talking to the seven churches, he's like you know he told one of them you need to come back to your first love, you've lost it.
30:29
Daniel Moore: You know you've lost it.
30:39
Daniel Moore: You know you, you put it out there somewhere, forgot all about that and that, uh, that concept actually works in marriages also.
30:42
Daniel Moore: But a lot of times after we've been through all this mess and we're left, sitting there thinking okay, what do I do now?
30:44
Daniel Moore: We forget that.
30:45
Daniel Moore: Well, you go back to the basics.
30:47
Daniel Moore: You know you got to start over.
30:48
Daniel Moore: If that's what that's going to take, I think some people are smart enough to do that, but I think it takes God a lot of times to be in the middle of it.
30:56
Daniel Moore: Also, to the Holy Spirit to you know, prick you and to remind you of those things.
31:02
Daniel Moore: But if you choose to still leave God out of it, because we just as we discussed a while ago, a lot of times, if our marriage is in this spot where we're feeling lonely, we've probably already put God on the back burner.
31:12
Daniel Moore: Also, we've already put him up on the top shelf.
31:15
Daniel Moore: And so I think a lot of times, you know, we kind of have a tendency probably still to forget about God, even when it comes time to try to put it back together.
31:24
Daniel Moore: You and I are probably we're probably a rare occurrence in some ways because we were so far gone in our relationship.
31:34
Daniel Moore: We've told many people the only reason we're together is because of God.
31:38
Daniel Moore: We've shared that on this podcast, and but if you and I had not came to the point where we allowed God to come back in it, then we wouldn't have fixed it.
31:47
Daniel Moore: You know we probably we would have kept trying to do that on our own and the possibility is very high there that you may have went ahead and moved out.
31:55
Michelle Moore: I would agree with that.
31:56
Daniel Moore: But because God got in the middle of that, in the middle of our mess, and he kicked us around a few times and told us to straighten up.
32:04
Michelle Moore: You know, I look where we're at now.
32:06
Daniel Moore: To be able to use our testimony to glorify him and what he's done, and especially in marriages, you know, I mean, I just yeah, it's definitely something, and I think God knew, even in the chaos that you and I had created, because we're going to we're going to take the blame for this.
32:26
Daniel Moore: You know it's nothing.
32:28
Daniel Moore: God didn't put us in the position where we were when our marriage crashed Me and you chose to do that, just like we talked about at the very beginning of this episode, I think.
32:38
Daniel Moore: Still, when we got through all of that and got to the end of it, god wanted to use all of that for a purpose and he did put a calling on our life and I'm thankful for that Absolutely.
32:50
Daniel Moore: I'm thankful he rescued us, because now we're in a great place with our marriage and we're in a great place with helping other couples, and you know it takes people that's been through things and have learned lessons and have allowed God to work and to change things in a dramatic way.
33:08
Daniel Moore: Sometimes it takes people like that to be difference makers in other people's chaos, and I'm so thankful that God's given us this opportunity, and so we're going to go ahead here and close up with this for today, and we'll come back next week and finish this episode as we leave today.
33:28
Daniel Moore: Marriage isn't a vehicle that you can leave coasting and cruise control while you manage everything else.
33:34
Daniel Moore: Relationships don't thrive on neglect.
33:37
Daniel Moore: When we stop investing, stop nurturing and connecting, you're going to slowly drift apart.
33:43
Daniel Moore: You know, think back to your wedding day.
33:45
Daniel Moore: Can you honestly remember standing there holding hands dreaming that one day your relationship would merely be functional?
33:52
Daniel Moore: You didn't commit just to get by.
33:55
Daniel Moore: You promised to fully give yourselves to each other to build something meaningful and lasting.
34:02
Daniel Moore: And it kind of goes back to what we were saying about thinking about going back to the beginning, you know, to try to remember where all this was at and where it all began.
34:09
Daniel Moore: We want to get back to that point.
34:11
Daniel Moore: So, in the middle of all this madness, how do you move closer instead of further apart?
34:19
Daniel Moore: I'm sure that those of you that are stuck in this routine right now that we're talking about today, you're probably thinking okay, let's get to the solve the problem here.
34:25
Daniel Moore: You know what do we do.
34:27
Daniel Moore: How do we fix this?
34:28
Daniel Moore: You know, how do you carve out intentional time and energy for the person standing beside you when everything else in life is demanding all of your attention?
34:36
Daniel Moore: Well, if you're asking those questions, those questions are the ones that matter, and the answers begin with small, consistent investments into each other, one moment at a time.
34:48
Michelle Moore: I like that.
34:49
Daniel Moore: And we're going to have a cliffhanger.
34:50
Daniel Moore: We're going to leave it with that this week.
34:51
Daniel Moore: I like that and we're going to have a cliffhanger.
34:51
Daniel Moore: We're going to leave it with that this week.
34:54
Daniel Moore: We're pushing our time limit here that we're going to try to stay at for our episodes, but that gives you something to come back to next week.
35:01
Daniel Moore: No-transcript, and we're wanting to solve that problem.
35:22
Daniel Moore: So we'll come back next week with next week's episode and we're going to start unpacking some of the things that you need to do to solve some of these issues.
35:32
Daniel Moore: That's created with being too busy.
35:35
Daniel Moore: And again, you know, as most things are with marriage, typically, when you get into a mess and you get it so deep into a point where it feels like you can't dig yourself back out, a lot of times you can't solve a lot of those problems with one great big thing.
35:52
Daniel Moore: It usually takes a lot of small things that you have to do at a moment, at a time, and that's what we're going to talk about next week.
35:58
Daniel Moore: Just to give you a little spoiler, they're called micro moments.
36:02
Daniel Moore: That's what we're going to talk about next week when we come back on next week's episode.
36:08
Daniel Moore: That's going to give you something to think about.
36:09
Daniel Moore: Is there anything that you'd like to add to this week's before we close it that you wanted to share here before we go?
36:15
Michelle Moore: Yes, this is way off topic, but I guess, since you guys all kind of know me, I'm just way out there anyways and just say things.
36:24
Daniel Moore: I have a fishing pole.
36:25
Daniel Moore: I got a reeler in every once in a while.
36:27
Michelle Moore: Yeah, Well you're going to laugh at this one.
36:30
Michelle Moore: Oh we were driving the truck the other day and this truck is gray and it's a new truck, not like a brand new truck.
36:37
Michelle Moore: But we purchased a newer truck because this other one died, and so we name our vehicles, and so I did what everybody does let's ask AI to give us some names and so I said it was a Chevy four-door silver truck.
37:00
Michelle Moore: It gave me a list of names, and this is our little small intimacy moment.
37:04
Michelle Moore: We start talking about names and we named him.
37:07
Michelle Moore: It's not a her.
37:09
Michelle Moore: I said her, and he said this truck is not a her, it's a him Too tough looking to be a her.
37:14
Michelle Moore: So, in our time of just visiting and having our intimacy moment of just downtime for a little bit, she is now called.
37:26
Daniel Moore: He is called.
37:26
Daniel Moore: You messed it up.
37:28
Daniel Moore: Don't, don't misgender my truck.
37:32
Michelle Moore: He is now called the Silver Stallion.
37:40
Daniel Moore: Boy.
37:41
Michelle Moore: I had to say that because it was pretty cool, because we usually don't have a lot of time to ourselves anymore.
37:50
Daniel Moore: So this is what we do with our time.
37:55
Michelle Moore: I know you all probably think I'm crazy, but so if you ever see Dan, he can say, hey, he's looking good.
38:02
Michelle Moore: The Silver Stallion.
38:03
Daniel Moore: And I'll try not to confuse it with me and my truck, because I might think you're calling me the Silver Stallion.
38:09
Daniel Moore: See, I got you back.
38:16
Michelle Moore: I'm sorry listeners, I'm so sorry.
38:18
Daniel Moore: Yeah, we've got to end this episode before it gets out there.
38:20
Daniel Moore: All right, I think we're going to call this a wrap.
38:25
Daniel Moore: I am never asking her again Does she have anything else to add to these podcasts?
38:30
Daniel Moore: Oh goodness Well.
38:32
Michelle Moore: I hope that this is my life.
38:34
Michelle Moore: I hope that made your day.
38:37
Michelle Moore: Everybody's not weird, it's just me.
38:39
Michelle Moore: So if you ever think you're weird, just listen to this and know you're not.
38:44
Daniel Moore: It's just me.
38:45
Daniel Moore: It'll bring you back to reality.
38:46
Daniel Moore: You're normal.
38:49
Michelle Moore: It's just me Definitely.
38:53
Daniel Moore: Well, since she's mentioned it, maybe I'll slip a picture of my silver stallion on our Facebook sometimes so I can show it off love that thing, oh goodness.
39:03
Daniel Moore: Okay, we're going to call this a wrap and we're going to end this episode this week.
39:07
Daniel Moore: We'll be back next week with our next episode, which is the next half of this one on being busy, and we just pray that you guys have a blessed week as you go through the rest of this week and we pray that after this episode, that your marriage is stronger and your walk with God is closer.
39:25
Daniel Moore: This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries and, once again, we pray that you have a blessed week.