Latest / YOUR AVERAGE DELTON / Episode 13: What if the Family is Perfect - But the Marriage is Not
Transcript
- DELTON DEAL: Hey guys, welcome back to the Average Zone. This is the place where we discuss real life, real loss, and the things we carry that most people never see. No filters, no pretending, just truth. I want you to think about something today. Think about the phone's library for a second. Think about the last family picture you took. Everyone is smiling, the outfits match, the lighting is just right. On paper, on screen, everything looks perfect. The kids are thriving, school is going well, the calendar is packed with activities. But what happens when you look just slightly to the left or right of that frame? What happens when the camera is off? Welcome to today's episode, guys. Today I'm asking one question, one that sits quietly in the back of so many minivans. busy schedules and late-night kitchen cleanups. What if the family is perfect but the marriage is not? It is so easy to build a beautiful life and somewhere along the way forget the person you built it with. We pour years and years and hours of daily energy in being managers, chauffeurs, coaches, caretakers, cheerleaders for our children. we give them our absolute best. But what is left over at 9 p.m.? Usually the exhaustion, the transactional conversations, who's picking them up tomorrow. Did you sign the permission slip? What time is practice? And then finally, two people sitting on opposite sides of the couch, scrolling through their phone. We tell ourselves it's just the season. We say the kids come first. And of course our children matter deeply. You know, but what we need to ask ourselves is something uncomfortable. What if the greatest gift we can give our children isn't a perfect curated childhood, but parents who are genuinely alive in their love for one another? Now, fast forward ten, fifteen, even twenty years, the kids grow up, they leave home, they build lives of their own. And eventually they began looking back at their childhood with adult eyes. What if one day they look at those flawless family photos and realize something painful? What if they realized behind some of the beautiful pictures of mom and dad had stopped fully loving each other? The house was warm, family dinners happened, the vacations happened, the birthday pictures were taken. But the marriage was freezing. Now you know children are emotional detectives. They watch everything. They don't just watch how we treat them. They watch how we treat each other. They notice the tones of our voices. They notice when affection disappears. They notice the lack of eye contact. They notice when laughter becomes rare. They notice when mom and dad function perfectly as parents. But barely connect as husband and wives. whether we realize it or not, they are learning what love looks like. Not from what we tell them, from what we show them. So if you're giving your child a perfect family at the expense of a loving marriage, what are we actually teaching them about love? Are we teaching them that marriage is simply a business partnership? An alliance designed to raise children? Two people sharing a house, a calendar, a bank account? Are we showing them something different? That intimacy matters, that vulnerability matters, that friendship matters, that laughter matters, and that love is something worth protecting even when life gets incredibly busy. You know, maybe the very definition of a perfect family needs to change. Maybe the foundation of a thriving home isn't the soccer schedule, isn't the report card, isn't the perfectly decorated house, or the picture perfect family photograph? Maybe the foundation is much simpler. Maybe it's the relationship between two people who created the home. What would happen if we worked just as hard on our marriage? As we are managing our household? if we schedule time to reconnect with our spouse with the same determination that we schedule for everything else? What if we stopped waiting until the marriage was in crisis before we started paying attention to it? and what would it feel like to look across the dinner table and remember this is the person I chose before the chaos began, before the school schedules, before practice, before the bills, before the endless responsibilities. This was the person I fell in love with. And maybe that person is still there. Maybe they're just tired. Maybe you are too. We don't have all the answers today because every marriage is different. Every family is different. Every kitchen table has its own story and every quiet evening carries things that nobody else can see. but as we close today, I want to leave you with a few thoughts to carry into your evening. Tonight, when the house is finally quiet, the kids have gone to sleep. Look at your other. Don't look at them as a co-parent. Don't look at them as the person responsible for the grocery list or the mortgage or tomorrow's carpool. For just one moment, look at them as a person. The person you chose, the person you once couldn't wait to see, the person whose hand you once reached for without thinking. When was the last time we really saw each other? not just past each other in the hallway, not just exchanged information, not just talked about the children. When was the last time we laughed until it hurt? When was the last time we sat together without a screen between us? When was the last time we put down the roads of mom and dad and simply became us? Because maybe the best thing you can do for your children tomorrow isn't to give them another activity, another achievement, another perfect vacation. Maybe the best thing you can give them. It is to love their other parent a little louder, a little deeper, a little more intentional, a little more honest. Because one day the children will grow up, the photographs will remain, the house will become quiet. And what matters most isn't whether the family looked perfect from the outside. It may be whether the people inside the family truly loved each other. So tonight, take a moment, put down the phone, lock it in the fridge, look across the room and remember the person you chose. Take care of each other. Thanks for listening, guys. And if this episode made you think, it's not too late. Just look up and start. You remember who they used to be. You remember why you chose them. Start with that. And please remember: your life is the only sermon some people will ever hear. So make it loud. And as you're looking at them, remember this. I've been alone with you inside my And in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times. I sometimes hear you pass outside my door. Hello? Is it me you're looking for? Cause I wonder where you are. And I wonder what you do. Are you somewhere feeling lonely? Is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, cause I haven't got a clue. But won't you let me start by saying I love you? I'm your average Delton Out.