Latest / A Heart That Beats for Home / 16. Nurturing and Prioritizing Marriage

Transcript

16. Nurturing and Prioritizing Marriage · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to another week.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Today we are going to jump into part three of a marriage series that we have been working on.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We have worked through already the last two weeks how to manage expectations and emotions in your marriage.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Then last week we dove into communication and how that can either greatly harm or help the state of your marriage.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And then today we're going to dive into how to make your relationship a priority, how to make it the most important relationship that you are in.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I know that's not always the case when we talk about our marriages.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It might be what we want and what our heart's desire is, but actions don't always back that up.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And so just going to walk through a couple of things to really help us prioritize that relationship with our spouse above all other earthly relationships that we have, so jumping right into it, the first thing I think we have to talk about and I can say that coming today to you, having been married for two and a half decades and having to prioritize this relationship through a lot of different stages, I'll share a little bit more transparently towards the end about some of the more difficult stages of our marriage and what that looked like, but really having to make a choice to make the relationship a priority.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: There are definitely times in your marriage where the feelings are all matching your desire to have that be the priority, and then there are times where you just feel like you don't have what it takes to give effort to it or to really make it what it needs to be and how to navigate through that and just to consistently have your eyes set on making sure that you are pouring into your marriage so that you get out of it what you're putting in, and so often we want a lot out and we're not willing to put a lot in and that causes a lot of conflict and unmet expectations and disappointment.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And so just going to kind of work through some practical things, share some personal stories, some questions that you can ask yourself to really see if you are prioritizing that relationship, and hopefully you'll walk away just with some good takeaways to help implement right away.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So I feel like we can't dive into a healthy relationship and prioritizing that relationship unless we take a second to just kind of talk about the reality that healthy people make healthy relationships and because any one of us can look at ourselves and say, well, I'm healthy in some areas, I'm not healthy in other, and that means that we're bringing unhealthy people in a lot of ways to a relationship trying to have this I don't wanna say perfect marriage, but a very good, fruitful marriage.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: What I have learned really, especially over the last five to six years I've really kind of been diving deep into this is that until I get myself healthy and when I mean healthy I mean specifically emotionally and mentally and spiritually healthy that I'm operating from a good place, that I'm not working in a place of hurt.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: If your relationship feels unhealthy, there's a lot of times that you can look inward and say where in my life am I also not healthy?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And by chance, is that playing into the breakdown in my marriage relationship?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I know for me there were some things that just kept getting me caught up, and it was things that now I've learned over the last six months.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I've been going to weekly therapy for almost I don't know maybe 24 weeks now, which is crazy, something I thought I would never do, because I didn't have this big explosive issue that happened or this huge thing that I had to work through.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But I just could start to sense that there were some things that were definitely trigger points for me, that brought out insecurities that caused me to overreact to situations that didn't demand that kind of a reaction or a cycle that I couldn't seem to get myself out of, and so I decided to dive in.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Now that my kids are a little bit older, I had given myself all the reasons in the book why I couldn't do these things before and just really felt like it was time for me to do some deep work into digging in and seeing where some of these insecurities were coming from, and working on how to communicate effectively, how to be a good listener, how to move past some trauma things, how to not believe things that had been spoken over me that had kept me stuck.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I had a couple of situations relationally that had been really really difficult and just kept coming back to those, and they were definitely impacting the health of my marriage, because I was coming to my marriage with brokenness, and so I think it's super important you know the saying I've heard it before that mom can only be as happy as her least happy child, and although I do believe that there is a lot of truth in that, I think it's also one of the reasons that it's so important that we base our joy and our happiness in the relationship and the truth that we have with the Lord, but in just real life application, I do think it's true If you have a mom who has a child that is just in a hard place or really struggling, it's hard for a mom to be more joyful than her child that is struggling the most.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And I think the same thing is true is that in our marriages, we can only be as healthy as the least healthy spouse.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that we can't be taking steps to work towards a healthy marriage, but until we get healthy as individuals, until we deal with stuff in the past, until we deal with hurt, until we realize the traumas that we have stored up and how they make us react or shut down or whatever it is that it's bringing to the relationship, until we both work on really getting healthy individually, it's hard to come into that marriage and not have unhealthy parts, and so I just want to encourage you that, if there's places in your life where you seem to see cycles of just the same getting stuck whether that be around brokenness that you carry or lies that you have had, heartbreak maybe it's traumas that have happened I want to encourage you, if your heart and your goal is really to have the healthiest marriage possible, to start doing the work that you need to do individually so that you can come to your marriage the healthiest marriage possible.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: To start doing the work that you need to do individually so that you can come to your marriage the healthiest version of yourself and realizing that we're on the same team, we're not fighting against each other, we're fighting for each other really helps us in this reality of needing to prioritize our relationship, and our own brokenness often brings us to our marriage relationship fighting against each other instead of for each other, because natural mechanism is to I want to protect.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I need to stuff down this hurt that I have, or I feel these things being triggered.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And so, instead of admitting that I have these things that are really difficult in my life, that I haven't dealt with or that I'm afraid of, or that are just things that are really difficult in my life, that I haven't dealt with or that I'm afraid of, or that are just things that, when they get poked out, they expose a lot of insecurities.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: It just impacts the health of our relationship.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And so, first and foremost, I think it's super, super important that we do a good job coming to our marriages as the healthiest version of ourselves.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So if you feel like that's something that you need to work on, I want to encourage you Talk to your spouse about it, go to therapy, go to your church and ask for somebody to help walk you through some of these things, but really work on getting emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy so that that can overflow into your relationship.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So three questions I think we can ask right off the bat to see if we are really prioritizing our marriage above other relationships are the three following questions.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Number one do I sacrifice and fight for my marriage in the same way I sacrifice and fight for my job or my kids or my hobbies?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that there's no relationship or thing in your life that's worth fighting for and sacrificing for more than your marriage.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So how do you answer that question?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Do I sacrifice or fight for my marriage like I do my job, my kids or my hobbies?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Number two how do I talk about my marriage and my spouse with others?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I think this is a really good indicator of the value that our marriage holds.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And this doesn't mean that we can't have a confidant or a really good friend, that we're able to be transparent.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: But if you are always talking about your marriage and your spouse in a negative he said, she said, he did, she did, they always, she always then it's, I think, a good indicator of the intimacy or lack of intimacy in that marriage and whether or not that marriage is a priority.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: And the third one is am I putting in what is required for the output that I want?
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It's very easy for us to have all these expectations of what we want our marriage to look like and we see all these glamorous versions of marriage on TV and in movies, or maybe the way things are portrayed on social media, and we think that is what I want.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: But then you have to ask yourself am I putting in what would be required to get that result?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: If you have a couple maybe in your life that you look up to, when you look at that relationship, you can see the evidence of the work that's being put in.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You can see the time that's taken, the getting away from the crowd and the noise to go focus on that relationship, the intentionality, the respect and how they talk to each other, the way that they hold each other up and the way that they communicate in public all of these things.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You can see that there's work that's being done to get the result that they have.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And so you have to ask yourself am I putting in what would be required to get what it is that I want out?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And in kind of thinking through these questions, over the weekend I was spending a ton of time outside.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: It's spring, Everything is turning green and flowers are coming out outside.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: It's my very favorite thing in the world to be out in the yard and doing all my planting, and I really love every single year turning our backyard into an oasis.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I just absolutely love it.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And as I was doing a lot of this work in the garden and in those planters this weekend, I kind of had this epiphany of what's the difference between having an oasis and somebody who just kind of puts some things in a planter and kind of hopes for the difference between having an oasis and somebody who just kind of puts some things in a planter and kind of hopes for the best.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: In the same way, if I want a beautiful oasis in my backyard, the things that I have to do to take care of those plants to make that happen is very similar as to me as a spouse saying I want to have this oasis in my marriage that is fruitful and it's overflowing and it's beautiful, and therefore I'm going to have to do a lot of things to get that result in my marriage.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: The same way, I have to do those things when I'm in the backyard working on these planters and so some of the things that I was thinking that are the fun parts picking out the flowers and browsing the greenhouse and when they start to bloom and how they smell beautiful, and all of the work that I put in.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: When I sit down, specifically towards the end of summer, early fall, when things are just huge and they're blooming and the hydrangea bushes are up eight foot tall and it's just stunning, it brings me so much joy.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: But this last weekend, as I was out there it was the first day post-winter getting everything ready I had to do a lot of the stuff that I don't like doing, the parts that are my least favorite parts of creating that oasis, the things that are required now for me to get the results that I want for the next three, four, five months in that backyard, results that I want for the next three, four, five months in that backyard and it's things like heavy lifting and taking and working and digging out oversaturated pots that had water sitting in them, that smell awful and have gotten rotted and have gotten some mold, and having to get rid of that and put in new, healthy dirt.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: It was a ton of stubborn roots that had gone really deep into my plants and having to use a lot of physical force to get down there and to dig and to pull up the roots, that if I leave them there, the roots of old plants that are now dead.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: If I left those in there, they would choke out or not allow my new plants to grow.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I had to pull a lot of weeds, I had to get rid of plants that had died and if I wasn't willing to do those things, that aren't fun, those things don't produce anything exciting on the end of that day.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Planting day is certainly more fun than prep day, because at the end of that day all I have is a ton of pots with a bunch of dirt.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: But the things that I did getting rid of the weeds and the roots and getting the soil healthy are the very foundation that when I go back now and I plant and I get to do the fun parts of gardening are going to be the reason that I get to create this oasis.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And I think so often in our marriages we can approach it the same way.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We want the beautiful, glamorous, fancy, healthy marriage, but we only want to do the fun part, but we don't want to do the hard stuff.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe, if you're not a gardener, maybe you're a husband listening and you're super into hunting or fishing or golfing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think about things that my husband and son love to do.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And these boys, man, they spend time preparing.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And these boys, man, they spend time preparing the amount of special clothing and the gear and just all of the research that goes into any of those hunting, fishing or golfing and the preparation for days and days before it's time to go out for the big hunt or the big fishing trip or the big golf tournament that you know you have the right clubs and you've taken the lessons and you've gone and you've practiced and you've researched equipment and you've talked to other fishermen.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And we spend all of this time you just obsess over making sure that you're prepared to do this hobby really well.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes we get frustrated and we think, well, why is my marriage not good?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying you can't have a super healthy marriage and have all these hobbies, that's not it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: What I'm trying to contrast is are you willing to invest the money, the time and the effort into your marriage that you're investing into those hobbies?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Are you willing to do the hard things in your marriage, the things that aren't fun, that are part of pruning and growing that relationship, in the same way that I have to do the unfun things in creating an oasis in my backyard to get the results I want.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: What do you need to invest in your marriage right now to have it be the marriage that you want?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: We're so quick to spend money on the toys and the cars and the decor for our homes and the clothes and the shoes, but then we are so, so quick to say, well, I don't have money for a sitter, I can't go on date night because it's too expensive or we can't get away, or I can't afford the therapy.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on and on, and it's about prioritizing.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about prioritizing relationship and there are going to be times when we have to make sacrifices of time, of finances, of personal opinions to be able to move our marriage to the place that we want to get it to.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: It's going to take sacrifice and prioritizing.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: And so if you invest in your marriage the same way that you do to your hobby or your favorite show or the games that you play on your phone or the Xbox, would there be improvement in your marriage If you gave it the same time and attention?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: We aren't born good spouses.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, we talked about when you get a marriage certificate.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: It's not like and now you're an expert I have always said that the marriage certificate is like kind of welcome to the class and we have to learn to be good spouses and ways that we can do that are endless.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: There's, first and foremost, the Bible, and there are so many great Bible studies on the Bible app I can the YouVersion I'll link some in the show notes for all of these things that I'm talking about here.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: But the Bible app, the YouVersion are you, if your marriage is struggling or if you feel like there's points of contention, are you putting in the time to learn and to go to the Bible and to learn about healthy relationship and learn about dying to self and learning about wisdom and how to communicate and what roles we each play?
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Are you doing that the same way that you would research a hobby?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Are you praying about your marriage?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: If there are points, I mean regardless if you have the healthiest marriage or not you should be praying over your marriage.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: A book that I absolutely love is called Praying the Scriptures for your Marriage by Jodi Berndt, and she has them for praying the scriptures for your children, for your young adult children, for your teens, for your marriage and they are literal scripture that have been written as a prayer, where you can insert your spouse's name and you can go look through the book and you can read through specific challenges.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's organized in a way that you can pray for all different parts of your marriage.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It's an awesome tool.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Are you in community that's helping your marriage grow?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Are you in a small group with your church?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Are you in a women's Bible study?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Are you in a men's accountability group?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Are you around people who value marriage and who are calling you to a higher level, a higher investment, a higher commitment when it comes to your marriage?
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Who you hang out with is what you can expect in your life.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So if you're hanging out with a bunch of people who don't value their marriage, who don't make it a priority, who talk horribly about their spouse, who are always complaining about what he or she is not doing, expect that for your marriage.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: If you want your marriage to get better, hang around people who have marriages that you would hope and pray for.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Hang around people that aren't going to let you become complacent, that aren't going to let you get lazy in how you show up to your marriage.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Are you listening to podcasts?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: There are so many podcasts out there, so many good Bible-based podcasts that talk about marriage.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to link one specifically by Pastor Craig Groeschel that's really great in the show notes.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So if you just need to be listening when you're driving, when you're playing outside, when you're taking walks, instead of just listening to the latest country station, be intentional about doing things that are gonna strengthen your marriage when information is coming in.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Are you reading books the same way that you would research, or read books on gardening or golfing or hunting?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Are you spending time becoming a good student of the very thing that you want to see growth in?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And so the reality is, friends, we are human.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: We only have so much to give.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: There is a point where you're like I've given everything I can give for the day, but in your life you're going to disappoint people.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's just the reality.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Every day, I'm sure there is a group of people that I disappoint or I let down.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I try to make it a point in my day, in my life, that, knowing I'm going to disappoint people, the people that I want to disappoint the least amount of time is my spouse and my children.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I do not want my spouse and children to feel like they're the ones that always get the leftovers of me, that they're the ones that I spend so much time investing in my job and in my hobbies and in the clubs that I'm in and on the boards that I sit on, that I just I don't.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: You don't understand.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I don't have any time to invest in marriage.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for marriage books.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for marriage podcasts or for marriage Bible studies.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I just don't.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I'm tapped out.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Then I'm going to beg you to get rid of something else that's taking up time, that's not feeding your marriage, that's not feeding your family and your parenting.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Because if you're on every board and you have all of the commitments and it makes you look good and fancy to the world and a lot of these things are good, good things you can be involved in things that are good, that are stealing you away from the very thing that you've been called to, the highest level of commitment to, which is your family.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And there are seasons, specifically when you have lots of little kids, there are seasons where I believe it is so wise to say no to outside things for a period.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Life is in these segments of blocks of times where there are different sacrifices that we're going to have to make at different times of your life to prioritize the relationship of your marriage and your parenting.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And when you do that well and you take that time that you were giving to something else that was important and you intentionally invest that into your marriage, I guarantee you you will start to see the fruits of that labor.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So how can we prioritize our schedule so that we make our marriages a priority?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I will tell you that now, having been married through all of our 20s, all of our 30s, half of our 40s, that I can say honestly that I think the hardest stage of marriage that we walked through was in our late 20s and maybe all of our 30s, at least the first half of our 30s.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: When I look back, we laugh sometimes and I'm like does that whole stage feel like a blur to you?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: And I just want to encourage you specifically if you're a mama in this stage it is very easy to get just blinders on and it just feels like I am just barely surviving.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: This was a stage for us.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: We got married at 21, lost a first baby at 23, had our first daughter at 24, had another at 26, had another at 31.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And this was that same stage where I was chasing a career, my husband was chasing a career.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I was doing it from home.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I was working from home.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I had closed my interior design firm to be able to be more available at home and started a business out of my home completely so that I could have flexibility.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I was working super hard to build this because it was important to me, and also being at home raising these kids.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: My husband had taken on a new job and was traveling 100 plus nights a year and so I had these little two.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: At the time when he started that, I had a two-year-old and a two-month-old and he was gone 100 nights a year.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to build my career and be this mom and I was lonely and I felt like I was wandering and trying to find my place in the world and he was exhausted and trying to prove himself in his career and I just think like holy moly, that was for sure, I really believe, the hardest period of our marriage that we went through.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when you think about the seven-year itch and you hear that that's like I was doing some research on when marriages fail and that seven to 11 year mark is really where most marriages fail and, in reality, most marriages in that timeframe.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: If they're having children and they get married in their twenties or early thirties, all of that is happening at the same time.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It's when you're trying to prove yourself in the workforce, you're becoming a parent, you're newly married.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: It just is so much happening all at once, so much that takes so much from you.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And it's this having to figure out how to prioritize this.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: How do I show up as a mom?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: How do I show up as a business person?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: How do I build this career and show them that I'm super serious but also make my family a priority and be willing to put up boundaries?
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: And it is a learning process.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I know my husband would say that it took him a decade probably, maybe a little bit more, to figure out what that balance looks like.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I think it is harder for men to be able to walk away from that job and to kind of immerse themselves into the family and just the importance of being able to set up parameters around.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I need to disconnect, there has to be boundaries, there has to be parameters where there is a time of the day where I'm not on my phone, I'm not on my computer, I'm not willing to take the phone calls for work, and I am just honed in to the needs of my family, to the needs of my wife, who has maybe been here all day or who is also walking in from a demanding job but automatically has to dive into dinner and bath time and kids and just being willing both partners to say there has to be boundaries around what my career and my job get from me, and again, that's going to come in seasons, and communication and expectations that we talked about earlier are so huge in helping this go smoothly and being able to be on the same page.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Instead of fighting against each other, we're working with each other towards the common goals that we've set out, because when you know where you're going, it's so much easier to be on the same page with yes, that's a good yes, or no, that's a hard no, because we know where we're going.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And so I just I need you to know that there has been different stages of what this looks like in our marriage, some practical things that we've done over the last 25 years.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Right now, we're in a season where our kids are all teens and adults, and so it is wild.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: It is this stage where if he's traveling, he still travels a decent amount for work that I find myself home alone.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I've never been home alone.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: In 22 years of parenting, I have never been home alone.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: We homeschool.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I literally have kids with me all the time, and I'm in this stage now where the only one that is home that I'm responsible for on a daily basis is my 14-year-old son, who is unbelievably independent, who loves golfing, who goes fishing with his friends and hunting with his dad on the weekends, and I am finding myself home alone with no one to have to care for.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And so right now we're in this fun stage where I probably eight months ago, we have a shared Google calendar and I just put a reoccurring weekly date for Wednesday night for date night.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Our son goes to youth group from 630 to nine and I just know that if my husband is not traveling and I am home, wednesday night is going to be date night, and some nights that looks like going out to dinner.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Some nights that looks like going to sit at Starbucks.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Some nights it means let's drive around and go look at land that's for sale, because they're dreaming of hunting land and building in the country.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So some nights it's just driving around and looking at land, holding hands in the car and talking about the future.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Other times last night, wednesday night, date night was we watched two of our favorite show on the couch because it was raining and it was gloomy and our daughter was going to pick up our son on the way home from youth group, so we didn't have to go back out and so we snuggled up on the couch, ate dinner on the couch and watched our favorite shows, just spending that time together.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be fancy, and planning it makes it a priority.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: What you put on your calendar typically is what happens, and so you have to be intentional.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And some people would say well, that feels so impersonal.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I don't want to schedule.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: We live in a day and age that what you don't schedule doesn't happen.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: So schedule in the things that are important.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: There's been other times for us where it has looked just like a walk in the neighborhood, because our kids maybe were at that middle school age where they could be left home alone for a half an hour, 45 minutes.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But we needed to be close and so we could leave them inside with tasks to do, or watching a show or watching a movie, and we could go walk around the neighborhood where we were never five or 10 minutes away from the house.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it's at night, when you've put the little kids down and you have a 15 to 20 minute recap where you have a glass of tea or a glass of wine and you sit on the couch and you talk about the day.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Or maybe, if you're morning people, it's that morning coffee.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And even if it's that time in the morning where there's a lot of kids and people around, if there's traditions that you can do, like we're going to brew that cup of coffee and we're going to stand together in the kitchen and we're going to make the kids lunches together and we're going to talk about the plans for the day.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: It's just these little connection points that make all of the difference.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Another thing is learning to communicate in the love language of your spouse.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a whole episode in May to talk about that, so I'm not going to go into that now, but learning how to communicate in a voice or a language that your spouse hears and receives.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And then another just really simple thing to help prioritize your spouse and let them know that you're prioritizing them.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: This came to me from a mentor Back when I was a super young mom.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I was in a group called MOPS Mothers of Preschoolers and we had what they called mentor moms and we would meet with them and discuss questions every week and I had a mentor mom who just gave the best tip.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: It's been probably 15, 18 years since I heard this and I still think about it all the time.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And she said so often we have an idea of what we think our spouse in my case, our husbands want from us and we put all of these expectations on us.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And I had this vision that when my husband came home, when I was staying home with the kids and also trying to work and that was my role that when he came home, when I was staying home with the kids and also trying to work and you know that was my role that when he came home, he probably had these expectations of I want a nice dinner and I want the house to be clean.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I was telling this mentor mom that I'm just exhausted, like trying to make sure that those things are happening and she said hey, have you ever asked him if there was three things that I could guarantee were done for you every day.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: What would they be that would really show you that I love you and I prioritize you.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And I was like no, I had just made the assumption that a clean house and well-behaved kids and dinner on the table is what he would want as a man.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: So I went home and I asked my husband.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, take some time and think about this.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: But if there was three things that I could do for you every day, that would just mean so much to you, what would it be?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: You guys, I nearly died when he came back with his answers.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: It is so comical now to think about how our expectations can be so different and what we think people want from us might not even remotely be true, and when we have conversations and we can take feedback, how everything changes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: You guys, the three things he said would be amazing were matched socks in his drawer, because he spent so much time looking for socks in the morning as he was trying to get out the door.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Clean underwear and for me to be happy OK, hello, clean underwear, match socks.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And for his wife to be happy.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: He's like if those things happened it would be amazing, because in the morning it would be super easy for me not to be looking for socks.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: The other part of this that I laugh about is now I don't know that he hasn't had those things for a couple you know 15 years now done, because, just again, different stages of life.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: But that was in a stage of life where I literally took the laundry out of the washer and the dryer and it was in a pile or it was sitting on our couch or half of it was upstairs and half of it was downstairs and there was bags of socks, because literally I could not get enough stuff done.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: But when he said that I was like so what you're telling me is, if I just like, wash your underwear and socks and they're in your drawer and I'm smiling and happy when you get home, that nothing else matters.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Like you don't care if we have a frozen pizza, you don't care if the house is falling apart, you don't care if the kids look like little rugrats and they look homeless and their hair is a mess and their outfits are mismatched and they've got all their toys out.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: He's like I don't care about any of that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: He's like I know how hard it is to be at home all day with these kids.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I don't need you to cook and to freak out about the house being clean.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: You guys, that blew my mind, and so have you ever asked your spouse that?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Have you ever said if I could do three things a day, what would it be for you and for him to know that about me and so that we can talk in those love languages of those top three desires or priorities?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: If socks and underwear being clean are truly what makes my husband feel cared for, do you know how much weight was taken off of my back to not stress about all the other things that I was stressing about and to let him know that he's a priority because those things are done?
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Ask your spouse that.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: If you don't know the answer to that question, ask your spouse that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Ask your spouse that.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: If you don't know the answer to that question, ask your spouse that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Another really good tip on prioritizing is the 1-1-1-1 method that I learned years ago.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Number one is one connection a day with your spouse.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So, whether that's a kiss on the way out the door, it's a hug, it's an embrace for more than two seconds, take that 30 seconds to stand in that hug before they leave or when they come home, or even just a short conversation If it has to be on the phone when he's driving home from work, because you know with all these littles, the second he walks in there's not gonna be that time.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Does it mean on lunch break?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Every day he steps outside of the office and he calls you?
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: What are the little habits that you can do to make sure that you have one connection a day?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: The second one is one solid hour a week alone, just the two of you, whether that's a long walk or a date night or a late night or early morning chat.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Where you're planning in that time, maybe Wednesday mornings, you say you know what, we're both going to get up early.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: We're both going to on Wednesdays, get up at 530 and have a cup of coffee from 530 to 630 until the kids come, just to kind of catch up, to check in on the week, to check in on each other.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a late night that most nights when the kids go to bed we just fall into bed and we're exhausted or we just turn the TV on because that feels easy.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: But what about if every Thursday night at 8.30 when the kids are in bed, we just make a commitment to come together to sit on the back patio, to sit in the living room and spend that hour just intentionally talking with each other about how we're doing our highs, our lows, the things that are stressing us out, the things that are giving us joy just to spend that one hour a week.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Connecting the third one is one day a month that we're spending together and I like to say for that it's four plus hours.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: So it's a little bit more than going out to dinner or taking a walk.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: It's four plus hours where you can just be together.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: You can go, maybe explore somewhere else, or you can go to a town an hour away on the lake and have a meal and take a walk and just have a chunk of time where you get to be together.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And again our brains immediately go to well, if only I don't have a sitter, I don't have money.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: That sounds expensive, you guys.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Again our brains immediately go to well, if only I don't have a sitter, I don't have money.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: That sounds expensive, you guys.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Again there are opportunities that you would make this happen for in a heartbeat.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: The same person that would say I don't have the ability to do that If somebody walks to your door and said I have backstage passes to the Morgan Wallen concert and you can go on Thursday for 150 bucks, there are not very many people that wouldn't say sign me up, I will figure it out, I will figure out the babysitter, I will do whatever I have to do to make that happen.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And it is so important that we have that same kind of commitment and dedication to making it work in our marriage.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Do you have family in town that you could say four hours a month, is there a time where you could take the kids?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it's another couple, maybe you have a friend group where there's a handful of moms and you could just put a message out that says, hey, I really, really want to be intentional about building into my marriage and making it a priority, and this stage is sucking the life out of me, but I know I have to plan for this.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I know I have to do it.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Is there another mom that would want to switch kids four hours a month?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So maybe this Friday night I take your kids and then the next one we swap the other way.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I did this with a girlfriend for a couple of years where on Thursdays, during the day we would swap.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: So on one Thursday I would have her son, the next Thursday she would have my son.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: And we did this because it guaranteed a chunk of time for us.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: It was more to go do the things that we needed to do as moms and business women, but it was amazing and it was guaranteed time where I could schedule out.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I promise you, I promise you, if you start asking around, there are other couples that want the exact same thing, that have the exact same obstacles, and having that agreement that every other Friday we swap, or just two Fridays a month, once I have your kids, once you have mine, that you know your kids are having fun, your kids look forward to it and it gives you that four hours, that chunk of time, to just go do something.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, is one weekend or a week a year, and in full transparency.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: This was much harder.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: This did not happen as regularly as it did as our kids got older.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Now we have a lot more flexibility to take off and leave and to do longer, extended trips without our children.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: But here's my suggestion to you Go through and just look at your calendar for the next 12 months and say is there a weekend If a week is impossible?
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Is there a weekend, is there a Friday night through a Sunday night where we could get away in six months from now and just putting those things on your calendar to be able to look forward to brings so much life and in the same way as the one day a month thing.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: If you schedule this out in the same way that we schedule out a month thing, if you schedule this out in the same way that we schedule out our Wednesday night date night.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I know, when I schedule that out for 52 weeks a year, I know that maybe 30 weeks out of the year that's going to happen, because the other 22 holidays, kids programs, sporting events, my husband traveling but what I can promise you is if I didn't schedule out 52 dates on the calendar, we might have five, we might have five, and so scheduling 52 and accomplishing 30 is probably 25 more.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: That would have happened if I didn't do it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: So if you think Friday morning coffee is the best time for you and your husband to connect, I want to encourage you to.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Just on your Google calendar, if you share a calendar or if you have a household calendar, just write Friday morning 6 am marriage meetup, call it whatever you want.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: He'll get excited.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: He'll think it's more than coffee.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is more than coffee.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: If there's more than coffee, he'll probably be really diligent in showing up.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So there's a free tip for you.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Tip for you, but schedule it out for 52 weeks and if it happens, 25 or 30, if that is 25 or 30, more meaningful connections that happen in the next 12 months of your marriage than happened the year before.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I promise you there will be benefit.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I promise you there will be good that comes from it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And you know what else?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I'll promise you that some mornings you'll walk away in tears because you had conflict or you had a fight.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: And the more regular we get at these meetups, the less conflict we will have.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And this is me speaking from experience In the times where our marriage has been so low on the priority because of all the things happening.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: When we get that time away, you feel like there's so much that you have to talk about, or there's just a distance because you've just been coexisting and you come to the table and then conflict happens and tears happen and you feel like this is miserable.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: The reality is you have to be okay to go through some of those stages to get to the point that you're not coming to that morning meetup with eight months worth of resentment because you just talked last week and it's this week by week.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like I refer to it as the pressure cooker.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: If you have a pressure cooker in your house, you know how dangerous it is when you uncap the thing at first and the steam just comes billowing out and if you were close to it you could burn yourself and it would be bad.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what happens when you start these meetings, like it's all of the steam starts to come out and it can be a little bit dangerous, but as you have that top unscrewed, it's not so tight.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Everything isn't so pressed down in, as that pressure cooker lid is open.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Every week that you get together, it's just a little bit of steam, just that little bit of steam that comes out.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: That doesn't hurt you.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: It's just part of the process and it allows you to not have that crazy buildup.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Friends, in marriage the title doesn't make us an expert.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: The time that we invest is what makes us an expert, and so if you are not willing to put the time in your title of wife.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Your title of married it's just a title and so you have to be willing to invest the time into those things, and deep connection takes great work and I really believe that if you can get good at doing this in your relationship, anything that you can do to build deep roots, to have it be more than we're just two humans, that we're married but we really work more like business partners and it's come and go, it's two ships in the night.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: He does this part of the life, I do this part, and we just we're just making it work.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Because it's just that crazy.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: It is worth sitting down and evaluating, like what are the priorities in our life?
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: What do we want our life to look like now, in five years, in 10 years, in 25 years?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: As someone who's coming into the empty nest stages, I want you to know that the thing that I am most grateful for is that we worked on our marriage for the entire duration of our years together, because I'm not dreading being home alone with my husband.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I am looking forward to with great expectation although I know there will be parts that are painful and hard as our kids leave the nest and as my role changes and what my family needs from me ebbs and flows very differently than what I've known my entire adult life.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: There will be hard parts, but the part that I am most excited about is the next chapter of life, with my husband, with my best friend, with somebody who I love to travel with.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: That I laugh.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: With that I can talk easily, with who I can be honest with, because we have invested over and over and over through the last 25 years and we've done the not pretty part of building the garden.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: We've dug down and gotten the roots out, we've cried things out, we've hashed things out.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: We've had to come back and combat and wrestle through hard things, and not one second of it do I wish I hadn't invested in, not one sacrifice where I didn't do something for the kids because I chose to do it for my husband, or when I left for a weekend and I felt guilty as a mom leaving.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: There is not one thing that I have done to invest in my marriage, not a book that I've read, not a Bible study that I've attended that I think that was a waste of time.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And the other thing I will tell you is that there are going to be hard things in life.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: We all know that there are going to be hard things in life.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: We all know that there are going to be hard things.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: If you are married, if you have children, if you have a job.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: There are going to be things in life, the hard things that try to erode your connection.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Satan would love nothing more than to throw obstacle after obstacle after obstacle into your life and let that be a reason that your marriage erodes.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: And we see it all the time, and it is heartbreaking where horrible trauma happens, a death of a child or just crazy life circumstances, and the marriage cannot survive.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: And I will not for a second pretend to understand what some of those struggles would be, but what I do know is that tall trees need strong, deep roots, and if you want your tree of your marriage to be able to be the strong oak in the forest, that is, the one that can survive the storm and the wind and the rain, then you have to build deep, strong roots now.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: You cannot have a shallow foundation in your marriage and expect it to weather the storms.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And so what are you doing now to sure up your relationship so that, when there's hospitalizations and health scares and closed doors and career changes and overwhelming conflict and trauma that your marriage is ready to withstand, that.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I love the quote that says Noah didn't wait to build the ark until the storm came.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: He built the ark so that when the storm came he was ready, and we can apply that to so many things in our life.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: But I know for a fact in our marriage I could do podcast after podcast over the traumas that we have walked through through the illnesses of children and the nights in the hospital and my husband's heart attack and his pulmonary embolisms and my surgeries and career changes and closed doors and heartache and overwhelm and all of those things.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I believe that we had been building the arc of our marriage so that it was ready to sustain and to be able to go through the storms that were coming.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And so what are you doing in your marriage right now to build the arc so that when the storm comes you aren't knocked out by the flood, that you have your lifeboat, you have your life raft.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Your marriage is strong and it's ready for the storm, and I don't want to at all minimize for anybody that's listening, that I know that there are deep hurts.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I know that in marriage there can be things that hurt greater than anything else we experience in our life, because marriage is the closest human relationship that we get to experience.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: And close human relationship means that when there's lack of trust or hurtful words or infidelity or addictions or neglect, that they hurt deeper than any other relationship hurts us and I don't want to minimize that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: But what I do want to say is that if you're trying to come out of those things alone, if those are realities in your relationship deep, deep wounds and you just keep getting stuck and you can't move past it and you're trying to do it alone number one I say this all the time seek help.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: You need community around you.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You need professionals who can help you.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: It is real.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Relationships are hard and there are times where you have to swallow your pride and call in the experts to help walk you through it Again.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: The healthier you can get yourself, the healthier you can come to a marriage.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And also, I just want to encourage you to give it to Jesus, because I know that natural human instinct for me is to be a fixer and a fighter and I'm going to push through and I'm strong and I don't need to admit defeat and I don't need to admit hurt, and the Bible is very clear.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: The two verses that I want to share is number one, matthew 11, 28 through 30, and it says come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: And I just believe that Jesus wants to remove any heavy burden or guilt or hopelessness that you have in your life.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: But you have to be willing to go to him, to give it to him and to find rest in him.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: And the second one comes from Psalms 55, 22, and it says cast your burdens on the Lord and he shall sustain you.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: He shall never permit the righteous to be moved, and I believe that's just true to the fact that God is happy, he's thrilled, he's glad to carry your burdens and to give you the strength that you need.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: But you can't do it alone, and maybe this whole concept of Jesus is foreign to you.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Maybe religion or relationship with the Lord is something that you've heard about, maybe you've had bad experience with, but I just want to tell you if you're up against a wall, my personal life, I can say this has been my saving grace.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: My relationship with Jesus has been my saving grace to be able to take my burdens and cast them on him because he cares for me.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: To say this is too heavy for me.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give it to you because you've already died.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: It's already nailed to the cross that all the things that my spouse has done, or the hurt from my past, or the insecurities or the lies that have been spoken over me, you've already died on the cross for them, nailed and sealed.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: You took them so that I don't have to, and I need your help to get through.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I need your help to be able to navigate.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I need your help to be able to put on humility and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, because they are not natural for us.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: They are supernatural and they come from a relationship that is rooted in the Lord, and so if that is foreign to you, friends, I want to talk to you about it.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I want you to reach out.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to find me on the link in the show notes on Instagram and send me a private message and we can connect on phone or we can send email or we can communicate through social media.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: But if you have questions about what it looks like to cast your cares on the Lord, to be able to say to him I need you to take control.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I can't do it.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It's been years and years and years and I can't do it.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: My spouse can't do it, and so I have to call on something that is bigger than me, that's bigger than us, because this marriage is a priority.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: My life looking different is a priority.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: The legacy that we're leaving for our children and our grandchildren is important enough that even things that feel scary and unknown to me, I'm willing to pursue them.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to have conversation because what we're doing isn't working and my soul is telling me there is something else, there is something bigger, there is something better to help us navigate through this hard time.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: It feels natural when things get hard to pull back.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: These last three weeks, we've talked about three things that I think are huge when we're dealing with marriage, and it's that cycle of unmet expectations and then conflict and distance, lack of communication or bad communication, and then greater distance.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: And when we can really be intentional and work on having healthy expectations, communicating expectations, being able to communicate in a healthy, life-giving way that gets towards resolution and not more hurt, and being able to prioritize our marriage and draw close to our spouse and cover each other's weaknesses.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I believe that's when we'll start to see things shift in our home.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: That's when we'll start to see peace come in and healing be able to take place.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And so, lastly, to end this, I want to ask you who can you tell about your struggles and who can you ask to pray for your marriage?
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to again put so many resources in the show notes for you guys that you can dig into, but who do you have in your life?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Who's that person that you say man?
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I really admire that couple's marriage.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I really admire the way I see them act with one another.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: They seem to really be in love, they seem to be able to communicate well and laugh and have fun, and their family just feels healthy.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Who is that for you, and can you reach out to them and tell them I'm struggling and I'm going to ask you to pray for my marriage.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you to pray for my family.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Prayer is our most powerful tool, and prayer goes to places that we cannot.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: If you have a spouse that you feel like man, they are just, they're so unhealthy and they're not willing to get healthy.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: And here I am trying, I'm trying so hard to work on our marriage.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I'm trying so hard to work on myself, I'm trying to prioritize and I'm trying to do dates and they just they don't care, they're checked out.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: I'm a one man show on this two person relationship.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Friends, I just want to encourage you to pray.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Get on your knees, get the book Praying Prayers of Scripture over your marriage and start praying, because your prayers will go places that you cannot.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: When you get God in the mix, you can allow God to work on the heart of your spouse as you just keep working on your own heart and your own life to move towards place of health.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And so, again, check the show notes for all of this the more you invest in your marriage, the more valuable it becomes, and it is a gift that gives for years, that outlives us.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I believe the health of a marriage outlives our own life because of what it does for our children and our grandchildren.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I just appreciate you guys being here.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: This has been three weeks Marriage series has been hard for me to come to you with.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: It feels exposed, it feels vulnerable, but I know that it is something that is so important that we talk about.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: This has been longer than we typically go on the podcast, but, just as you can tell, something that my heart is just super passionate about is building strong families, and we can't cultivate strong families unless we start with strong marriages, and so I just pray that there's something that you take out of this.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I pray that there's something that you can be encouraged by, that you can start working on, and that, ultimately, that if you have not come to a place where you have just placed the burden of the hardship on the Lord and said here, I need you to take this, I pray that this would be a time that you would do that.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: If you are wanting to connect, to stay a little bit more in communication than just through your AirPods here on the podcast, I would love for you to go find me on Instagram.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: The link is directly in the show notes.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Come follow me there and we can continue to build a relationship.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: It's a great place for us to be able to communicate and just get to know each other a little bit better.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: So with that we're gonna wrap it up.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Until next week, friends, take care.