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The 3 Fundamentals of Family Team Marriages with Rhett and Angela Barbour · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Romance can't be the foundation. Romance is so important that we find ways to stir that up. There could be moments, whole seasons where that's a problem. And so if you don't have that foundation, this is why marriages just spectacularly fail.
• 0:15
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams Podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family. Thank you.
• 0:33
  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. We are talking all about romantic partnerships this month. That is the month of March for the family team's accelerator. And so we want to give you guys in the podcast kind of a deep dive into some of the things we're going into all month in the accelerator. So April and I talked through a few elements of the playbook that is all about how to build a romantic partnership. We sent you guys a little download. You guys want to get that free download on 7-1-1-1-1.
• 1:01
  tips for date night, you can go to familyteams.com slash date. And, um, for each of these monthly themes, we are bringing on board a community coach couple, and I'm really excited that Rhett and Ang Barber, uh, have decided to jump into this. We've been friends for what? 20 at least years. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. You guys were so, such a cute little couple, no kids when I first met you guys.
• 1:30
  Didn't want to have any kids, wanted to travel the world. Now you're out here, build this giant multi-generational team. We were all a lot cuter and younger 20 years ago, right?
• 1:41
  Yes. You know, yes. Well, the years have been kind to all of us, especially with regards to our marriages, which is what this is all about. Like it's not worth it if this is not going to last. So, so there's kind of three big themes that we're exploring in this whole romantic partnership thing. The foundations, like what is this covenant all about? There's something so unique about the way God set this up. So we want to really drive into the.
• 2:07
  And not only what that is theologically, but really practically, like how does that work in a marriage? And then there's this romantic side, like how do you make love the center? And then how do you actually partner on things? So those are the three kind of, you know, big themes or categories we're drilling into the sub points under the larger theme. So
• 2:24
  Yeah, I, we're going to dive into each of those before we do. So Ange actually, she now works for family teams. So if you guys ever go to an email support, which has been awesome, awesome for, for all of us family teams that have Ange on board. It's been amazing. Rhett just jumped into integrated. So those of you guys who are a part of that, you're going to get to meet Rhett and I'm trying to get him to do like a presentation at our big meetup in Franklin, Tennessee. Ange and Rhett are going to become an increasing part of the larger family teams community here.
• 2:51
  Why don't you guys, before we dive into the topics, I'd love for you to introduce yourselves a little bit, your family, where you live, all that fun stuff, what you do. So we have five children. We live in Northern Kentucky, right on the Licking River. So one of a few rivers that flows north in our hemisphere, actually. So we live here, five kids, aged nine through 16, and we've started a few businesses. I started my career as a high school math teacher. I was a mental health counselor.
• 3:21
  So we were on that trajectory going, as Jeremy kind of mentioned earlier, headed toward doctoral programs and thinking about going overseas to teach in college. And then the Lord kind of grabbed our hearts toward family and opened our eyes to that world. And we've been kind of pouring into that vision ever since.
• 3:41
  All right. So we're going to hit each of these themes. And the first one is the covenant. So I'd love to hear for you guys, when you think about the foundation of your marriage, what your understanding is of the way that God built this, what's been the most helpful thing for you guys or one of the helpful things about keeping your marriage covenant kind of at the foundation of your relationship?
• 4:03
  Yeah. It's a really interesting reality for us specifically. So I don't know how much everybody gets into the personality types and different things, but we are not supposed to exist together at any point, right? Which I think in some sense has been a blessing. Yes. In that we never really were tempted to depend on
• 4:27
  Fleeting feelings or just like perfect, beautiful, romantic, picturesque love for one another that just comes naturally and you don't have to work out. We tend to have a fairly conflictual relationship. But again, even early on as we were dating, what that I think caused. And again, I'm very logical.
• 4:49
  not all feeling you will if you know ang you will know exactly what she's feeling and experiencing at any point in time and you'll never know for me still trying to figure that out
• 5:01
  So, you know, instead of kind of looking at that as a really difficult reality, though it has been, and we'd be glad to share all the nitty gritty of that. I think what the Lord began to show us over the years and what we learned together was that we couldn't depend on.
• 5:21
  just feelings to have a healthy relationship. We had to fight for something bigger. So then you start to ask, well, if it's not that, if it's not what Hollywood presents or even what books or stories present, it's not this like always this honeymoon vibe. Then speaking of which, our honeymoon, we realized this really on our honeymoon when we spent 11 days on a seven mile island. I think we're as close to divorce as we've ever been. But yeah,
• 5:48
  we kind of recognize that it takes a choice, not a feeling. And so I can remember we began to develop some of that language and feel free to jump in at any point, but you were struggling, Andrew struggling with, you know, just some identity issues with like, man, who am I as a mother? I was on this career path. I,
• 6:09
  How do I, where's my value? You know, there's a lot of stuff that I think is pretty normal and common to kind of like deal with and work through as a mother of many kids. And I got this work from the Lord just to say to her, like, and she asked me this question. So this will get somewhere. She said, why did you marry me?
• 6:32
  And what she was looking for, again, I'm telling your story. Like what I over time realized she was looking for was, was me to tell her things that I liked about her. And I, I drew a very, this, I don't know if this is good marriage advice or not, but I just felt like the Lord impressed upon me very clearly in that season, in that moment, kind of like, don't give into this.
• 7:01
  And don't give in to the temptation to just abundantly tell her things that make you like being with her or like her. And instead, let the foundation, the future of your marriage be.
• 7:18
  I kind of looked her in the face and I said, it's not about things that you are. I chose you. I'm choosing you. And I will always choose. And this kind of past, present and future reality that, you know, I think God was leading us. And since then, I was probably about 10 years ago since then. And we're 20 years into marriage now.
• 7:41
  I feel like that's been a very mutual kind of perspective we've been growing in. Yeah, I feel like we each have moments or have had moments where we've had to come back to that on both sides. And like Brett was alluding to with our personalities, thankfully, we agree on pretty much all of the big things like the what and the why. We usually are only disagreeing on the how.
• 8:06
  So I think that that's really helpful. And so our hearts are for the same things. We're about going after the same things. We just kind of get locked up in the communication of how we're going to go about it. And so for me, in that season that he was specifically talking about, it was like, that was a reason where I was just feeling a lack.
• 8:23
  in life, right? In kind of, like he said, my identity at that time of like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? I need some affirmation to kind of help point me in the right direction. I felt like at that time, like the husband's supposed to love as Jesus loved the church. And I felt like it took me some time emotionally because I'm like, I want this right now. I want my ego to be stroked right now because I kind of need that. So it took me
• 8:46
  you know, a good day or two to come around and go, oh, I actually think that is the better way because that is what God says, right? Like, it's not about what we do that we're chosen. It is about just being his, you know? And I, what was crazy, I mean, we all have these moments where
• 9:02
  What was going on in my heart between us was actually what was going on, you know, vertically, my heart with the Lord. And so when I was able to wrap my mind around like, oh, Red is choosing me. He has chosen me. He will continue to choose me. It was actually what I needed to hear about God in that moment too, right? Like he chose me. I haven't done anything where he's going to be like, I'm kicking off my team. I'm not satisfied with you anymore. But because it wasn't about my action, it was about his heart.
• 9:30
  So, yeah, we've had to kind of come to those moments a couple of different times in our marriage. I remember early on, you know, there was a season of life where maybe there were a little more romantic feelings early on leading up to our wedding. But I remember us also having a really impactful moment going, OK, let's take the next three days.
• 9:50
  And I don't even think we saw each other. And we just sat and decided this has to be a decision. Like, let's take our hearts off the table and let's make a decision about, am I ready to step into this covenant? Because it's forever. And I think that that was super valuable for us. That's something that we try to speak about with our kids all the time as we're starting to have romantic conversations with them in their own lives. That's so good.
• 10:14
  Yeah, there's a few things that that really stirs up for me. One is that if it's about the things, then that just makes your spouse endlessly in competition with everyone else. Because, oh my gosh, they have more of that thing that, you know, my husband or my wife likes about me than I do. Like, what does that, all of a sudden what just happened to our relationship makes everyone else a threat, you know, unless they're weaker or in every area. It's like, that's not good.
• 10:38
  And I really love, you know, the idea that to not say just I chose you, but I'm choosing you, I will choose you like that, that this is rooted in the decision made in the past, but it is being constantly re-decided.
• 10:55
  And it's not that I'm going to decide differently, but it's that I'm going to constantly reaffirm that decision in the present. And I will continue to reaffirm that decision in the future. There's a phrase that for me has, and again, these things for a lot of people, they don't sound romantic. And I think the thing that's so dangerous about the culture of romance is that if you really study it,
• 11:20
  It is transitory. And that's what makes it difficult. That when these two things come in collision, the covenant has to be the foundation. The romance can't be the foundation. Romance is so important that we find ways to stir that up and that we're constant. But there could be moments, whole seasons where that's a problem. And so...
• 11:40
  If you don't have that foundation, this is why marriages just spectacularly fail. And so I always, I think about it, you know, again, it doesn't sound romantic, but I'm like, like, that's the deal we made. I made a deal with you. You know, I've said this to April before, I made a deal. Like, I'm going to stay with you for life. I will be faithful to you for life.
• 12:00
  And that's a deal that I made that I'm making that I will always make. But, you know, you can rest in this relationship, completely rest that I will stay committed to you because it's a decision at the end of the day that we made. And that decision had terms, it had elements to it. And I am going to keep my side of that deal we made. Um,
• 12:22
  And man, it's a beautiful deal that allows them for romance to, to be, you know, a part and to, to come and go and that, that you can focus on that and grow that. But man, yeah, I think that's such a critical and I think incredibly counter-cultural message.
• 12:37
  Yeah, I think it allows for acceptance, right? Like I had to accept the reality that, and like we know this at a logical level, but at a deep heart level of I'm not perfect. I'm not going to be the perfect person that he would draw maybe on board. And also accepting he's not perfect for me, like in that way, like we're just not going to perfectly meet each other's needs or desires all the time, right? We felt like two years ago,
• 13:06
  So at year 18, I guess, that was probably our worst year of marriage ever. And it wasn't because we had trauma and difficulties in our family. There was none of that at that time. It was just like a lot of the romantic feelings were gone. And we were just like, well...
• 13:24
  We're still doing this thing. And like being able to come back to, okay, I'm trusting this. We agreed to this. We said this. This is where we stand. And then what was really amazing is after we worked through that, last year was our best year of marriage.
• 13:40
  That's so cool. Yeah. There's something, you said, Jerry, it's about ordering, right? What's the foundation? What are you building on? Whether it's a marriage or a business partnership or friendship or relationships in general, I think come down to what is your foundation that's going to be so significant to how much you can build on it. And that analogy might be cliche at this point, but it's because it's true.
• 14:08
  Yeah, there's something down there at the foundation. And when everything breaks, you land on it. And you're like, I hope it's really, really solid. And what people are doing is they're building their marriages on very flimsy foundations. And it works great when everything is you're living upstairs. But once you fall through and hit the basement.
• 14:24
  If your basement is fragile, man, you're in trouble. Okay, so we're going to transition to the romance side. So we've talked about how that's not the foundation, but we need this, right? We need to find ways to stoke this element of our marriages. We're talking a lot in the playbook and in the free download about date night. And I think of date night very much as like...
• 14:46
  training wheels or romance. And sometimes, you know, sometimes the training wheels work so good that you just keep going. And April and I have been really dedicated to a date night. And it has been so helpful to us that, you know, we've studied it and have tried to work on it. But you guys, I think, have kind of gone past some of those training wheels and have discovered some other things that are like, wow, this actually works better for us. And so I'd love for you to share some of those tools that have been really helpful in creating and stoking that romance for you guys.
• 15:16
  Yeah, I would say from an early season, right? Early on in our marriage, we've heard that idea from other couples that are further down, you know, first thing to do, even before you have kids, get the date night, get that rhythm going. We have a neighbor here to us that's been married over 50 years. And every time we run into him, he's asking, how's your how's your weekly date night? And we're like, well, yeah.
• 15:38
  We're dating each other a lot, just maybe not in the weekly format that people would think. And I don't know, we just found for, again, our personalities, maybe our seasons of life, especially in that season, right? When you have lots of little kids and it's kind of like figuring out child care for one more thing just felt more daunting and overwhelming. And so we had to learn how to become creative. Yeah. And I think really what we're talking about.
• 16:05
  I think another word, that's not a replacement, but another word to describe what we're talking about here is like presence, right? To be emotionally and physically present with emotions.
• 16:17
  the person that you have chosen to live the rest of your life with. Right. That's what, that's what, when we're like, what is romance? You know, we get these different pictures. Romance to me is saying like, all right, we're going to be intentional about saying I, if I've chosen you, right. If I'm going to potentially spend 70 years of my life, which means almost all of it with you. Like I can remember the time where, when the amount of time we'd been together was more than half of the amount of time we'd been alive. And I was like, it blew my mind as possible.
• 16:47
  But then you have to ask, all right, what am I going to do to actually be intentionally present emotionally and physically? So that's romance as a working definition. And so we actually found ourselves liking each other enough and choosing to pour into this enough that we said, flip from some couples we know, we almost have a date night every night of them.
• 17:14
  which is kind of crazy. And by date night, what I don't mean is like, we're not going out to a restaurant. We're not getting childcare. We're not... Watching a movie or... Yeah, it's maybe less special one weekly, but more often just present with one. And so the operating procedure we've kind of come up with as a family that we love is pretty much like...
• 17:41
  And this bedtime for the kids is obviously as they've aged has increased and increased to later and later potentially. But every night, the assumption, it's not a must, it's not on the calendar, but every night of the week, I mean, literally seven nights a week. If we're at home as a family, which is pretty often, the assumption is the kids go to bed and we are together. We're playing big boggle.
• 18:05
  Maybe we're watching a show. Maybe we've had seasons where we've listened to podcasts together. Maybe we're... Just going to walk. Yeah. We, you know, were blessed in this new house five years ago to have a hot tub. You know, like what... Just finding the things that make presence more light. So think about... Again, I just think sometimes we get caught up in what we've been told something has to be. But if you were just hanging out with your buddies or your gals...
• 18:34
  You'd have a glass of wine and some chocolate and it's like, oh, that fosters press emotional and physical presence with one another. So you have the sitting, you know, the sitting next to each other and kind of sometimes doing stuff together, but you also have the just time where we're sitting across each other in the hot tub, just talking and catching up and saying, how are you? How are you? I mean, that question, if you're willing to be honest, is such a powerful question because
• 19:00
  And you don't have to wait for a date night for that to happen. So in one sense, we break the mold and do it more often and more intense potentially than like a weekly date night. But the other side to kind of go to what do we do to foster that presence is like, okay, but hey, weeks do get crazy. Hey, as life gets more and more busy with kids and any activities they have and ministry and work and businesses,
• 19:25
  we need some stopgaps in place. Similar to this idea of one of the purposes of Shabbat, right? It's like the stopgap in a week, which obviously that would be helpful for a weekly date night. But for us, we found monthly was really helpful. And instead of weekly date night where we take two hours and...
• 19:45
  pay for childcare for two hours. And we're kind of like stressed out of work to get there and getting back early because we've just said, we are going to do an extended presence day together once a month. Not to mention some of the quarterly and annual rhythms that we have together, but really we call it Saturday. So that's a date and it's all day Saturday. So we kind of wrap Shabbat up a little earlier once a month, like around lunchtime.
• 20:15
  So we spend a full morning with the kiddos, do our stuff, hang out, be present with them and the whole crew. And then we'll exit and spend the next 10 to 12 hours together having relational time, like connection, presence, emotional, physical presence that way. And...
• 20:34
  then this might kind of step into the part three that you're going to get into, Jeremy, potentially. But we also then tie in usually a business meeting into that same day, right? After we've connected relationally, after we've been present with one another, then we're way more open to going business mode and not going at each other, but being for each other.
• 20:56
  Yeah, and a lot of that Saturday stemmed from as our lives got busier, as our kids got older, and they had more things going on, we noticed a need. We need to kind of put our business hat on more in our family than we were. But every time we tried to do a traditional date night, which is great if it works out for people again, it just wasn't clicking for us, we would come and literally be so exhausted from our days that we'd show up at the table and be like,
• 21:23
  I don't even remember what I needed to talk to you about, or I don't have the bandwidth emotionally to even process that right now. And it was like, we were always at our worst when we came to the table. And so I know in the guide. I would say also we found again, because of the amount of time, the date night typically was that like two, two and a half hour timeline. And it was almost just like, just about the time that we were finally like exiting the,
• 21:49
  Whatever we were, we're back in reality or, you know, back with the kids or back with solving some other problem that was real time. So that's where the extended date day really became and doing that once a week would be really tough. So we were like, oh, what's the balance? Let's do that monthly.
• 22:06
  And so we had a friend who's a single friend that's kind of like an extra aunt to our kids, and she gifted us those Saturdays. So we literally would work out with her like, hey, here's the date we want. Does that work for you? And she blocked that out. So it eliminated difficulty with childcare. Our kids were being fed into by like this aunt figure that they loved and had fun with. So it felt like no one was lacking. Instead, we were actually all winning. And then what was great...
• 22:32
  is after those Saturdays, Rhett and I were able to walk away for the next month feeling like we just had this massive, amazing whiteboard session. And so when we touched points in these shorter moments throughout the month, it was like, oh yeah, don't forget, we had that thing. How are you doing with that? Sweet. We could have easier touch points on the business side, but then have these better touch points after kids were in bed or whatever and we're just sitting on the porch.
• 22:55
  Very good. I love kind of your description of, look, let's break down what this is down to first principles. We want romance, but what are the components of that? I think that can be a little bit different in terms of like what goes into that recipe for different people. And so some people, I think that presence is such a huge percentage of it. And maybe as a part of the presence, it's...
• 23:19
  like that, like open-ended sharing and that they find that I need a certain amount of time to be able to really open up in that way, then that could be way more important than, you know, for other couples. Maybe the date night is really important to them because novelty is something that's really hard on them. Sometimes people struggle with their marriages because of the long-term nature of it.
• 23:42
  And they find themselves wanting variety in different ways. And so getting dressed up and going to different restaurants and like getting to experience that kind of thing feeds a certain part of their personality and lets them experience that with their spouse so that there isn't sort of a fatigue that sets in. I think it's just know what the first principles are. I love what you're describing, Rhett. First principle is, you know, is this connection through presence. What gives you that? And, you know, understand those elements and then rhythmically do that. And so for you guys, there's a daily and a monthly rhythm.
• 24:11
  For a lot of people, it can be a weekly rhythm, but whatever it is, yeah, that's what we're trying to capture. And we're doing that intentionally. We're not going to accidentally experience that. We have to protect that time. You guys have done a great job, by the way. I love the enfolding singles into trying to figure out how to make this work for your family. You guys have done that ever since I've known you. I think a huge topic for a lot of people, especially with larger families that we need that kind of help. We've certainly used that as well. All right.
• 24:41
  That was really helpful. So that's the romance side. Now I want to get into the partnership. You guys are both gifted organizational leaders. And I think that part of what our culture just sort of assumes all of that's going to happen in our careers and that our marriages and our families, they don't need any kind of organizational leadership.
• 24:59
  And man, I think we are getting just decimated. Our marriages are becoming so fruitless. And this is why I've spent so much time trying to understand God's command to the first family to be fruitful, multiply, fills, subdue, and rule. It's so similar to what an organization is designed to do. And you see all throughout history.
• 25:16
  examples of families being households that actually are led like organizations. And so we got to bring some of that stuff into our marriages. And a lot of people are like, ah, that's just so icky and not romantic or whatever. And so I love to hear how have you guys, what's your story, your journey? How have you done that? How have you brought that in? And has that been fruitful? Well, I want to say that, you know, to your intro point, right? Like we, we weren't planning this path that we're on. Like that was the Lord's desire. And so I remember when we were first
• 25:46
  Wanting to have a family. You know, we were at somebody's house and there was a wife there who stayed at home. And I remember when we left her, it was like, I never want you to be a stay-at-home wife. Nope. Which was great. Me either. Oh, but what I...
• 26:05
  What is amazing is I think what struck us at that point in time was like there again, this was our perspective looking in. So there was some judgment and critique for sure in our early 20s, you know, looking in on that. But what we didn't see was whether there was any sort of bigger meaning or bigger role that the wife was playing.
• 26:25
  When we finally started down this journey of family, we saw this vision of like, oh, Ange, you're not just a stay-at-home wife or a stay-at-home mom even. You're actually running and managing the business of the home. And that was a huge shift.
• 26:41
  because it gave us both clear roles. It gave me an understanding of like, hey, when we have our business meeting, I can bring this part to the table so that we can talk about it. And I'm going to have a better perspective of how our kids' hearts are doing or how we homeschool. So how school is going or the functions of their household, because I'm here 24-7 while, you know, Rhett's at his business and working on that. And so not only did it give us clarity of roles, but it gave me actually a greater purpose. And like,
• 27:09
  I can, I can value what I was doing very deeply. Yeah. I think, you know, you talked about first principles of a second ago, Jeremy. I mean, if there's something that, that, that is a summation, at least of my personality, and honestly, it's both of us, it's like, I'm always going like, wait a minute, that doesn't seem to work.
• 27:35
  why, why would you, and I get, I get like lit up about it when I'm like, if I, particularly me, but I'll even see it in other people, you're doing something that's just stupid. And by stupid, I don't mean like, it's a bad idea. It's demonstrating it to yourself to not work. It's like you, if you just look at the fruit and I think, and one of the things we always do, cultures will always do this, right? Whatever you do know,
• 28:00
  That's how we begin to define what you don't understand, right? So at one point in time, way back when, when everyone did understand family and family was seen as this engine for growth and stewardship in the kingdom, I bet people probably took family-based principles and applied them to business in some regard, right? But now that our culture is such a place where...
• 28:21
  Actually, what we've grown more comfortable with and where we ultimately spend a lot more of our time, focus, and energy is in the business world. Then you go, well, now we just got to flip it back and go like, well, what principles about any organization, which is just a group of people that are trying to accomplish something together, I'd be stupid to not try to go, oh, wait a minute.
• 28:45
  There seems to be something functionally working over here where companies are growing and growing bigger than they've ever been. And they're amassing assets and like, oh, could I? Under what conditions could I take some portion of what they might do to create health in an organization? And bring it into a family and say, oh, yeah, maybe I'm CEO. Maybe you're CEO. Maybe we have...
• 29:13
  employees who might be partners one day with the kiddos. And if you think like that, what starts to happen? And so we did enter that journey early on, beginning to go, ah, there's something off about this family just being a place where we all just try to be happy together. That was what it feels like the standard family narrative is, at least in American culture. We
• 29:41
  As we can be. And as long as everyone is smiling and not hating each other, we're winning. And it's like, that's not much of a game to play. There's nothing, what's the end game to that? It's not getting us anywhere, except that we have a smiley place to go do our own thing from. Which is something, but we just caught a vision or something beyond that. And then when you do that, you have to start asking the question.
• 30:07
  Okay, well then what do I need to do to ensure the success of it? Yeah. And so we don't have all the questions answered, but what we do know is that, and we kind of expressed it through our monthly rhythm with Saturday. We have a quarterly rhythm where we have an offsite business meeting and relational connection. But this is the same thing. I remember the first business that I owned, I had a business partnership with one of my best friends.
• 30:31
  And we always, we'd go on a quarterly retreat, but we'd always do fun with business. We would go four-wheeling before we had a six-hour whiteboard session about strategy for the business because it was like we needed to be present with one another.
• 30:46
  And so it just makes sense. And so finding rhythms and finding purpose to say, we're going to ask intentional questions about where we're trying to get, what's hindering us from getting there and what resources we need to accomplish it. Well, and I think, you know, happiness, going after happiness can only last so long, like 20 years maybe, right? Because that's the longevity of your kids at home and where you're building the fun and energy. And I think,
• 31:15
  Our perspective, like, I don't know, Rhett and I are just both able to kind of see things maybe differently than a lot of people our age. We saw our grandparents feeling a lack for their role. And as, you know, as they no longer had kids in their house. And so as we were bringing kids into the family going, oh, man.
• 31:34
  I want to make sure that when I'm married, I have a role, you know? And so like, how can we orchestrate our business, aka our family, so that it's like creating that? And so we early on had this image, Rhett had an image of like us bridging the gap between the generations that were before us that are still here and the generations to come. And so we've been trying to do that. And it takes strategic thought. It takes intentionality, right? Nothing can just be left to wayside to happen the way you want it to. Yeah.
• 32:05
  Yeah, it's crazy. Like you were describing earlier, Red, I think that historically, this was the primary way that people thought about a marriage. It was like, we're going to build stuff together. And this is primarily a partnership. And sometimes so much so that it really squeezed a lot of the romance and the love out of it. Now we have this conception today where we think it's all about emotions and sort of personal independent satisfaction or something. And we don't build anything. We're consuming units. We don't produce
• 32:35
  And I think that that drains the purpose out of a marriage. And a lot of times people, I think, have an impulse in our society that sort of says, well, there's really no danger to drain that out of a marriage. As long as you're really focused on staying together and being romantic, I really think that, man, there's no danger.
• 32:52
  I think it does because it drains purpose. It drains meaning. Like, why am I investing more and more and more in this relationship if it's really difficult? And so one of the things that is amazing in my marriage is that it's incredibly fruitful. Like my favorite things, most meaningful things that I ever experienced in my life are things I'm doing in partnership with my wife.
• 33:13
  And man, that helps our marriage. That helps our covenant. You know, that's, that's not a small thing that helps our romance. Like these things feed each other. And so we've drained the purpose out of marriage. And as, as we've, you know, if you will look at these sort of three components, the covenant, you can hear about the importance of covenant from lots of Christian teachers today and romance. You can go online and there's even secular influencers who will talk very articulately about keeping our spark in your relationship.
• 33:42
  But I know almost nowhere that talks about this topic. The productive partnership element of the marriage that used to be really central to the marriage and this idea that being a team and what you guys were describing, which is to take some of the things that you've learned from maybe sports teams you've been a part of, or if you're part of a successful team within your work life, your career, take the things that are working in that element. And if off-sites are working, if meetings are working,
• 34:11
  You know, if task lists are working, if there are things you're doing in terms of communication platforms that are working and bring some of that into your family and begin to make your family a productive unit. And so that's what we're advocating for. And because that's so rare, a big part of I know we're going to talk about this month and the accelerator is just helping, you know,
• 34:31
  So some of the really basic, maybe initial steps into that, we want to help you guys like, okay, this is maybe casting a new vision for your, for your marriage and for your family. And there's some tools that you're going to need. You're going to need to get out the whiteboard. You're going to need like to actually know how to put together the agenda of a, of a successful meeting.
• 34:53
  and work through it in a disciplined manner that is great for both of you. And you're going to need to weave connection into that and not make it all about, you know, just to have this really stark separation. So that's what we're here to really help encourage you guys to do. So any other thoughts before we go today? Love to hear anything else that you would say about the partnership side.
• 35:14
  I want to go first. You know, I think one note that we can maybe take from the world is, and just follow me here, right? Where do most affairs typically happen?
• 35:29
  It's in the workplace, right? And it's like, because you're building something together. And so there is something to this idea of like, like you're saying, when we're in partnership, romantic feelings attach that. Like, I think that's very natural and obviously it gets misplaced often, but we have to remember. So let's do that here in the marriage, right? I think often we forget that it needs to be happening here as well, but we actually should be more pouring more fuel on that fire than elsewhere. I agree with that. What?
• 36:00
  What I was going to say is, you know, I think this, you kind of, you mentioned this in that last little bit, Jeremy, but tools are super valuable, I think, as starting places. And they can be the end place as well. Like if the tool works, use it and swing that hammer forever and ever. But the thing that I always really like to encourage any young family that we have any level of influence over or with is...
• 36:29
  is, hey, really take some tool that we may be suggesting and just play with it. Play with the tool. See if you like that hammer. You might like a hammer that's not as heavy on the... It has different weight balance or whatever. Find the tool. But most importantly, like you said, first principle, why are we going after this? What's the purpose? What are we trying to accomplish? And then...
• 36:55
  Take tools from all over the place. All the tools that Family Teams produces, all the tools that your friends and family, whoever it is, find those tools, start swinging hammers everywhere you can and figure out which ones really fly for your personality, your marriage. And I think that's something I'm proud of in us. Like adaptation of tools and finding ways to still accomplish the end goal together is kind of what we do. Well, and I think...
• 37:21
  You know, early on in your marriage, you're just grabbing the tools that people kind of refer to you and are using those. And when we find that it doesn't work, it's really easy to beat ourselves up, you know, and go, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with us? Why this is working for all these other families? Why not me? And instead of staying in that stuck place going, oh, OK, maybe I just need to put a new grip on this tool to make it work for us or whatever it may be. Exactly.
• 37:45
  Yeah. I love how you guys are describing kind of how you've adapted that kind of offsite, you know, and what you've learned in business. And, okay, we tweak the tool this way and that way it's going to work over and over and over again for our family, for our marriage. Yeah. And so what you just described there, Ant, that's why we do coaching. I mean, I think I hate it when I see couples that are just stuck because there's sort of a lack of like...
• 38:08
  of like coaching to help them find creative solutions. So we want to help you guys. And so Rhett and Andrew are going to jump on and do a coaching call with anyone in the accelerator. So if you guys want to jump on the call with them, get into the accelerator, go to familyteams.com and just click on accelerator. And this month, you can just join for the month or for the year, whatever. This month, what we're going to do is give you guys a playbook in week one, week two. Rhett and Andrew are going to do a call with the
• 38:34
  Those of you guys who are in the accelerator, jump on Zoom, just coach you guys through whatever questions you have. And so if anything that they've said here has really sparked something, then you can jump on that call. And then we're going to do a video the third week that kind of walks you guys through some of the deepest lessons that April and I have learned on this topic. And then we're going to do a family conversation.
• 38:51
  sort of town hall the last week where april i and some of our kids are going to be jumping on there to talk to you guys about how this has worked in our marriages and in our life and kind of what does this look like as a multi-generational family team so any questions you guys have you can ask so anyway jump on the accelerator if you're interested or if you just want to grab some date night tips go to familyteams.com slash date um so retinames thank you guys so much just not just for being here on the podcast but also i'm excited to
• 39:18
  the coaching time you're going to give to the folks in the accelerator. So thank you guys for doing this today. I had to do it. Thank you for listening to the family teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend to stay up to date with our events, new content and products. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at family teams.