Hey friends, and welcome back to the podcast.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today I'm going to dig into a few of the things I've learned after being married for 26 years this week.

So whether you are married or whether you're starting a new relationship, we hope some of the things that I share may help you or reflect on your own relationship and what we can all do to keep growing and thriving and just reconnecting in our own relationships.

My husband and I are getting ready to head up into the mountains and we are going to stay at a house up in the mountains for a couple nights just to get away and reconnect when we don't have all of our regular daily obligations, work, you know, taking care of things around here, making dinner for the, our young adult sons and things like that.

So that's going to be a great break for us.

And that is one thing I've learned is that we have to make time, you know, here and there to reconnect and kind of get out of our routine.

But today I'm hoping to share with you, I guess, about five things that I've learned and that I think have allowed us to keep strengthening our marriage.

And I do want to say with that it does not mean that we don't have, you know, frustrations or get irritated with each other or so I remember it like it was yesterday.

Let's see, in 2008, I believe it was, my sister was getting married and she decided to have her wedding in Nicaragua.

And the reason was, is she was working in a, on a three month contract for the Orphan Network down in Nicaragua at an orphanage.

She was going to translate.

And so she decided, right, it was just going to be for the most part, immediate family members for coming to this wedding.

And as we're talking about the wedding, as I'm talking about the wedding with my husband, he, I could just see his face.

He looked really kind of like, wait, Nicaragua.

And he just kept looking at me, you know, kind of stressed or strangely.

And so as we're talking about this, you know, I'm just assuming I'm going to go to this wedding.

It's my sister's wedding, my only sister and I have three brothers.

And so he's kind of like, I, I don't know, I don't think you should go to Nicaragua.

And you know, it's not safe, it's.

That sounds dangerous.

And we had three sons.

We have three sons.

But at the time they were pretty young.

I don't remember the exact ages.

Well, let's see.

So I mean, they would have been like 2, 4 and 6 or somewhere in there.

And so we start talking about this and he does doesn't want me to go and I want to go, right?

And I'm thinking from my perspective, it's my sister, I'm not missing her wedding no matter where it was in the world.

And my husband's thinking, this doesn't sound safe.

And so we were at a crossroads and we were pretty frustrated with each other because neither of us wanted to compromise in this case and you know, align with the other.

But it was, it was for two different reasons, right?

He was coming from a place of concern and worrying about my safety and I was coming from a place of wanting to be there for my sister and to participate in her marriage.

And so anyways, as we talked through it, one of the questions I asked, whether it was the right or wrong question, I don't know.

This was, you know, a while ago, was if I go, are you gonna hold this against me?

You know, like, are you going to be resentful of me?

And then I thought the same, I asked myself the same question about if I didn't go.

And his response was, no, no, I'm not going to be upset with you.

I'm not going to resent you or hold that against you.

I, I am just worried, right?

Like, I'm just worried if this is a good idea.

And then I said, well, I'm afraid if I don't go because of your.

You're afraid for me to go, that I am going to resent this decision.

Like it might, it might, in some way I might hold it against him.

Right.

At least then.

I mean, I'm not saying I couldn't have gotten over it, but.

So as we talked through, was determined I was going to go to the wedding, he was going to stay home with the kids.

And we checked, you know, the advisory for Nicaragua, where I'd be in, where we're staying, where my family was staying, and so made him feel better.

And then I was traveling down there with one of my brothers.

And then my dad and mom separately were traveling down as well, but they were on the same flight with us.

My parents were divorced at that point and they're both remarried.

But my point is, I had the most beautiful experience being there with my sister and my mom, two of my brothers, my dad and then my brother in law's family, the experience of helping her go and get her dress after it was altered and getting ready.

And then they had this beautiful Ceremony.

It was on this property that, you know, overlooked the mountains from a, from a point.

But what was even more beautiful is that they decided her and her husband to invite all the orphans that she had been working with, I think it was about 100 kids to the wedding.

And it was, it was just a breathtaking, magical thing to see these young kids that have maybe never been to something like this, right?

A bigger event at this fancy.

I mean they, it wasn't a fancy venue.

It was a.

They made it look, you know, beautiful with all the flowers and the food and everything.

And they were all blowing bubbles right after they got married and running around this, the ceremony or I mean, the reception.

And it was just one of those once in a lifetime things.

And I was so grateful that I got to go and experience that and be part of it.

But I would have missed that if my husband and I had not been able to.

Even though it was a hard conversation and it was only hard because we didn't have the same opinion about something.

I could have missed that experience and he could have missed like telling me why he was not wanting me to go.

Right.

And so that's just one example of what it looks like in marriage, right.

There's a lot of compromises or there's a lot of give and take.

There are times where we might not like the decision, right, that we come to.

You know, we may not both agree on the decision, but at some point a decision has to be made.

There's other times where we're going to have to compromise, right, in a marriage and there are times where we're probably going to upset each other whether we meant to or not, right.

Sometimes we say things and it can hurt the other person or sometimes the tone is just wrong and it comes across wrong.

Or sometimes both of us or you know, whomever's in a marriage are so worn out from the day or what's gone on and the stress is getting higher, then we can be short tempered with each other.

And actually I want to share a idea or a tip with you that I heard from Brene Brown that I think is a fantastic idea that we can use when, you know, for the most part, I'm calling it a daily energy check in.

She talks about how she's basically when her and her, I believe it's her husband come home from the day, right, when they've been gone, they come home, they say they kind of quantify where they're at.

And so.

But basically what it is is this when you come home from the day or one of you is coming home, you know, you might both work outside or one of you might be home or work remote or whatever, but when you come home, so you're both together, you're at the house, or it could be on the weekends, but you just do an energy check in.

And what it is, is you let each other know, hey, what's your level at?

And it's 0 to 100.

And the level that you're telling your spouse is what is your energy, Your ability to invest, right.

And the rest of the evening and us and like, what we need to get done here.

Your level of ability to be kind and to have patience.

Right?

So it's basically like, are you near, like filling your mat?

Like, like your max for the day?

Like you don't have anything else left to give or you have a lot left to give, right?

And so you basically both share a number.

Like, oh, I, I have, I'm, I'm at 80, meaning that I'm still pretty full.

Or you might say, I'm at.

I only have 10 left.

I have 20 left.

And so the idea is once you get the number, if the number is below under 100 combined, then this is what, what Brene Brown says.

She says, we know we have to sit down at the table anytime we are under 100 combined and come up with a kindness plan towards each other so we don't hurt each other.

And this is an amazing idea.

And I've only, I only knew about this in the last year, so this is not something I've been doing in my marriage for forever, but I have done this a little bit.

It has not become a daily practice for us, although I'd like it to.

But what she basically says is like, she might say, I'm sorry, she might say, I got 20.

And her husband might say, I'll cover you, I'll pull the 80.

But why this is so amazing is this daily check in allows you to give each other grace because you're starting off before 30 minutes or an hour pass and you don't know that your significant other is almost maxed out, right?

They're almost tapped out.

They're done.

They literally have no mental energy, no physical energy left for anything.

Okay.

So you're also immediately able to be aware of the energy levels and how to navigate those when you need, when you might need a different plan for the night or the week or the season.

So some examples of this would be you're both worn out in the evening, right.

And you both know that you're both like, I only got like 30 left.

So maybe you order out dinner or heat something from the freezer up instead of making dinner.

Maybe one of you needs to cancel evening plans so you can recharge.

Maybe you're the one that typically picks the kids up if your kids are younger, from practice.

But the other one said they had more capacity.

And so they say, you know what?

I'll get the kids tonight.

And so the other one can slow down or recharge, but I think it's just a beautiful thing.

And she talks about Marriage is never 50.

50.

Right.

In other words, she's like.

Because there's always different give and takes.

There's different capacities that we're able to handle based on everything going on in our lives.

And she says, a partner works because you can carry each other.

I think that's so beautiful.

But I think naturally, a lot of marriages do this anyways, but we do it without maybe using these, these.

This language or those numbers.

But I love this because it's a really clear indication.

Whereas there's some nights where, when we haven't done this sort of thing, normally in the evening, my husband and I, our nights go fine.

You know, we communicate okay and all that, but there are other times where I say something and I think I said it perfectly nice and I was coming from a place of love.

And it is taken differently.

Right.

Maybe my tone was different than I realized, but if we had started out with this conversation, this check in, then I might have found out that my husband had a really stressful day before we've even gotten into kind of how our days were.

And I could realize that maybe I needed to not say that or hold off or wait till he had more downtime because he had a really busy, stressful day.

So I think it is a really good idea to.

To do something like this in our marriages because it helps us know where each other's at before there's a chance to miscommunicate or a chance that the person's going to bubble over.

Right.

And it come out at us, if you will.

So I love that idea, and I did want to share that with you because I think that's a great tool to put in our toolboxes if we're not doing something like that.

Okay, so what else about marriage?

Well, I think the.

The first thing is in this studies talk about this, but I also find it true when, if you want to keep strengthening your marriage, we have to cherish each other and then show each other respect and that may be self explanatory, but it's just, you know, keep telling your spouse and showing your spouse that you're picking them and that you, you really do appreciate them and you appreciate the things they do, right?

But show them that they truly matter to you.

Right?

So that could be small things like giving each other a hug or, you know, a kiss.

It can be doing kind things for each other, but it's, it's continuing to show them that you're not just on autopilot with each other, which is very easy to get into that habit, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

Okay.

The next is sometimes it's easy to start focusing on the one thing that is frustrating us about our spouses or they're not picking up their clothes or their, maybe how they talked or, you know, something.

So what I've found is when I start getting focused in on something that's maybe less than ideal, but it's not a big deal.

So we're not talking about like something major.

These are more minor things that I need to remind myself to look for the good and keep remembering why I love my husband.

And I usually do do that.

But sometimes, right, there's something that'll start bothering me.

And what I've found is then I can get really focused in on that and then it starts making things worse, right?

It kind of snowballs and not in a good way.

And so what I found is if I start reminding myself, like, oh my gosh, like, look, he just spent, like, for instance, this Sunday, he just spent six hours helping our youngest son put a new car play radio, slash, backup camera in his car.

But, you know, they had to do all the wiring and everything.

And they've never done this before.

But like, seeing that and how much he's willing to invest in helping me and our sons and then all of our family members, extended family members, on Saturday, he just put in a garden irrigation system into all of our raised beds, right?

So he is always willing to do things for each other.

So, you know, I need to start focusing on all the good he's doing and be reminded that that's one of the ways that he's showing his love.

And so that's the other thing I'd say is just like, look for the good, don't focus on the bad.

Because as the saying goes, what you look for, you will see, you will find proof of it.

So we can either choose to look for the things that we.

We can either look towards the little things or look for complaints and we're going to then complain.

Or we can look for the upside, right?

We can look for the good.

And I do want to say I have a good marriage.

Obviously, there.

It's always a ebb and a flow.

There's always going to be little things because two people being together for, you know, whether it's five years, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more years you're together, that things change.

And so do our daily stresses, right?

Create different environment when we're together or in our home.

So that being said, I.

If you are someone that's in a marriage that's less than ideal, that there's some real struggles, some real crisis, some really big issues or concerns, that is absolutely the time to get help or find support if you need it.

And I am definitely not somebody that's going to tell you you should stay in a marriage if it's a really bad situation.

Well, I mean, bad at all.

You know.

So just to be clear, this is for people that are just looking for some insight into being married or things that, you know, I've found or lessons that I've learned in my own specific marriage.

But for anybody that's walking through divorce or has left a really difficult, bad marriage or relationship, just know that we see you.

And that is so hard.

That is not my own story, but that is so hard.

And just know that all of us that haven't walked through that we see how hard that is and that we just send you all the love because that is not an easy thing to walk through and then come out the other side and just rebuild your life.

And so all the love to you.

Okay, So I think the next thing is.

And this can be hard for people, but we need, for both ourselves, but also our marriage, we need to get out of our routine sometimes.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, days can become really monotonous, right?

Like you work all day or you take care of the home or do both, and then you have a little time with your spouse.

But if you never do anything, like to reconnect or you don't do something that's fun and light, sometimes the relationship, especially as there's more things going on, right?

Maybe it's a sick parent or a diagnosis or health issues or your kids are struggling, whatever there might be going on, if you don't have those connection points, if you don't have those times to kind of like let loose or just really relax without all the obligation, then it can strain your marriage.

And I'm not saying we have Time, you know, to do that all the time.

But there has to be those opportunities sometimes.

And of course, when our kids are tiny or we have an ill parent that we're caring for or whatever it might be, we're going to have less of those opportunities.

And absolutely that is true.

So for instance, some of the things that my husband and I do to get out of our regular routine is, is we will go on little bike rides in the neighborhood and they're not necessarily very long.

It might be 15 to 30 minutes, but it's just a little break.

And we'll chit chat, you know, on our bikes.

And maybe then we'll come home and have dinner or we'll go out to dinner or whatever it might be.

But it's just a.

It's just a little way to, you know, step out of the house where we're not having to, you know, do one more thing here in the evening.

But also we'll do other things.

Like we usually for our anniversary, not always, but we go away.

So it might be just for a long week, it's usually for a long weekend.

And when the kids were younger, we did not do this every year.

We did it on some, some of the bigger milestone anniversaries.

But we're going to into the mountains this week to stay in a house, you know, kind of looking at the panoramic views.

And we're just gonna have four days to slow down, do some fun things that are right near where we're staying, get out into nature and just reconnect.

Right.

We'll bring a game or two for the evenings and we're gonna sit and watch the sunset and things like that.

So.

And then on occasion we'll go to the beach together, maybe meet friends, maybe ourselves or, you know, well, of course we'll go out to dinner some, but.

So we do all different types of things, but it's going to new places or it's maybe on occasion trying something new or going, you know, meeting some new, newer friends or something.

So I think it's important to get out of routine so that you can reconnect and that you can connect in fun and light ways.

I think that's really important because you've probably heard the saying like that you can get in a rut and that can be about a relationship or about just life and how you're feeling about your life.

But I think it's important that we keep, you know, growing and stretching ourselves and we do that in our relationship, in our own lives by doing new Things and then kind of getting out of our daily routine.

All right.

Oh, actually, and I wanted to share something with you about that.

Let me see if I can find this.

Hold on one second.

Okay, so there was an interesting data point that Mark Batterson shared in his book.

Please.

Sorry.

Thanks.

That was from a research study or survey.

Excuse me, but it said married couples spend qu.

I'm sorry, they spend.

It was either 24 or 27 minutes in deeper or meaningful conversation.

But that's not per day.

That's per week, you guys.

That is a little teeny, tiny bit of time.

And that number's kind of depressing, but I can kind of see it.

Like, there are plenty of days where we're so busy that my husband and I will catch up a little bit.

But it's not always deep, meaningful, which I'm not saying it always has to be those kind of conversations.

But my point is that's a really crazy data point, but.

Oh, and he also shared that people absolutely are touching your phones more than you're touching your spouses.

So that is definitely something I think we all need to be aware of and make sure we are being present.

We're setting down our phones, we're not getting on our computers so that we have quality time together.

So I'm not saying you can't do those things.

You can't get on your screen.

What I'm saying is let's make sure we're present for each other and we give each other the quality time and then we can go and get on those things.

I tell my husband all the time, like if he, if he's on his phone, which he'll say, well, I haven't been on it all day at work.

Absolutely, I get that.

But sometimes it's just communicating.

Hey, I need to check this real quick.

Or I wanted to kind of, you know, do a 15 minute catch up on my phone and then I'm ready to hang out.

Or in other words, just give each other an expectation of what you're doing and make sure that it won't be that you're on something, you know, the phone, the computer, whatever, all night.

But I do much better if I understand a clear, you know, that there's a, there is a separation point, right, of like doing this and then moving into something else.

So I did want to share with you because I think that's really good or important for us to think about.

Then the other thing that Mark Batterson says in this book that I think is.

Is worth sharing about this topic Is this.

He says marriage is one of the most effective ways of combating our built in selfishness.

Its purpose is not just happiness, it's holiness.

Marriage is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.

You vow to love each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.

In sickness and in health.

You switch pronouns from me to we.

If marriage doesn't dismantle our selfishness, God gives some of us kids fun.

Fact.

The word diaper spelled backwards is repaid.

When you have children, you start appreciating your parents, don't you?

They made more sacrifices like feeding you in the middle of the night than you were aware of.

And he just says, what does any of this have to do with sorry?

He says, marriage is a master class in the art of apologizing.

You might as well get good at it because you're.

You'll be doing it the rest of your marriage.

The same goes for parenting.

And I just, I think that's so good because absolutely one of the things we have to do in marriage is like admit when we're wrong, right?

Like, like he said, say we're sorry and mean it.

And not with explanation, but just like, I'm sorry I made you feel that way or I'm sorry I snapped at you.

Right?

Like sometimes we just have to reflect and realize what our part was in something.

Or that even if we didn't intend something to be a certain way, our spouse took it that way.

Right?

We have to acknowledge that it's.

It's not just about one thing.

It's also about how we make each other feel.

And on the note about our phones or looking at other things, not being fully present sometimes with our spouse, which, like I said, I understand, all of us have things to get done, so we're not going to be fully present all the time when we're both together.

But we do need to be careful of this.

And I love what Bob Goff says in his book Undistracted about this.

He says most people hope they'll find happiness at home, but the hard truth is they aren't around long enough to experience what's already waiting for them there.

Simple and complicated distractions take us away from the people we love.

When this occurs, the result is both subtle and toxic.

We start to settle for proximity rather than presence with each other.

Know what I mean?

You will know this is happening if you only listen for the highlights on your loved one's conversation without taking note of the emotions and body language that are also present in the room.

These Distractions are masked in familiar disguises like career appointments and promotions.

They invade our homes and come dressed as extracurricular activities, sports and electronic screens.

They look like business calls and video games and zoom conferences and television shows in committees and meetings and sometimes even churches.

If we want to live more undistracted lives, we need to get real and admit that busyness is actually hijacking our joy.

Here's the good news.

We can fix all this just as easily as we messed it up.

Do this with some urgency, too.

You don't have as much time as you think you have.

If you fill your days with trivial stuff, you will look up one day a year or a decade or a half a century and wonder, where has the time passed?

Don't wait until you're old to ask yourself, what have I done with all this time?

And he's not saying that work and career and appointments and activities aren't good things.

Right?

What he's saying is, don't let that overtake your life.

In other words, we have to have.

I know the word balance is a odd one, but we have to have time and then we have to prioritize and then be intentional in our relationships.

If we say that being married is important, we have to make sure that we're investing in that relationship.

And that is what he's talking about.

He's saying, don't let us fill all of our hours and then realize that we never put time into our marriage, right?

Or into our other relationships.

And so I think it is easy in today's day and age for this to happen.

But it's because literally the devices in social media and everything else, they are literally designed to suck us in.

They're designed to keep us holding and looking at that screen.

And I'm as guilty as the next.

I definitely find myself clicking on my phone too much now.

There's times where I set it down.

And of course, if I'm usually with people, if I'm at dinner or we're having dinner together or we're chatting, I absolutely put my phone away or aside and I flip it over and I don't have my ringer on for my text messages or anything.

So I'm very good at that when I'm with people.

But when I'm not with people, I do find myself going touching it more than I should.

Even though I'm not staying on social media all the time, I am clicking around at things and truly I'm wasting time.

So this is something that we all have to be aware of in the day and age that most of us are living now, some of you are quite exceptional and you don't use social media and you're not on a smartphone.

And I commend you because that is truly a revolutionary act at this point and I love that.

I don't really know what this falls under, but I think an important aspect of being married and really putting our marriage, like putting it first is two things.

And I'm going to talk about praying for our spouse.

And obviously if you're, if you can also pray with your spouse, that is fantastic.

My husband and I have different ways.

We practice faith, same faith.

I mean, we're both Christians and so that isn't something we do so much, but absolutely.

I know it's the most so powerful.

But I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

But before I do, I just wanted to mention that sometimes it's not just like getting out of routine and keep cherishing and picking each other.

We also need to keep seeing, you know, our marriage, seeing our spouse as this ever changing gift and just be in awe of them.

Right.

Like keep wanting to know more about them, to kind of uncover and discover who they are and what they love and, you know, what lights them up.

And in his book, Mark Batterson, which I already shared a little bit of.

Please, sorry, thanks.

He says two things or shares two things that I want to share with you about this.

So the first is by MJ Ryan that he shares and it says, the secret to love and the sense of joy and gratitude towards all of life is to see, feel and hear as if for the first time before the scales of the habitual clouded the brilliant blue sky outside your office window, the tangy juiciness of an orange or the softness of your loved one's hands before you got so used to her kind words, his musical laughter, that they became invisible.

And Mark says, may you fall in love all over again.

With what?

With everything, with everyone.

And then he shares what John o' Donoghue said, which is relationships suffer immense numbing through the mechanism of familiarization.

The Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said about his wife Mercedes, I now know her so well that I haven't the slightest idea of what she is really like.

What?

You guys, come on now, we have got to do better than that.

And let's really know what our spouse's preferences are.

Let's, you know, know what they love doing.

And let's do those little things that make a big difference.

Let's see.

I'm just Seeing if this was, oh yeah, this last thing I want to share.

And then he shares in the book.

Every day we change.

Every day we change as individuals based on our experiences of that day, said Scott and Jill Bolender.

In order to build a growing relationship as a couple, then we must make time to daily reintroduce ourselves to each other.

That idea of daily introduction is powerful and it applies to a thousand things.

And so I think that's so important.

Just like that daily energy check in, which could be a great tool for a lot of us also having a daily reintroduction, right?

That's having a little time together, catching up on the day, but not getting stuck in sharing the same thing or thinking that there's nothing new to share because there's so many new things to share.

I remember trying this out before, but it's, and I don't remember the acronym now, but it's basically have several things that you, when you kind of get, you have time to sit together or eat dinner or whatever it is that you're going to do in the evenings.

It's not just a check in, like, oh, how was your day?

Right?

Because it can easy to be like, oh, it was fine, yeah.

Or it is the same as it always is, right.

But we're not getting any deeper when that happens.

So instead ask like have the check in that's like this, what's something that, what was something good that happened to you today?

Or it can be something good or bad and then what is something new that you learned or something interesting that you read or listened to a podcast on?

What's one thing that's been on your mind?

In other words, go deeper by having some check in or some catch up questions that you guys kind of just go through and answer.

So one of the things that I'll ask my husband on a regular basis is, oh, have you listened to any good podcasts lately, you know, or heard anything interesting in the podcast you're listening to?

And sometimes he has, has listened to one that it's really interesting and I, you know, I'm like, oh, I haven't heard that yet, you know, and then he'll tell me about it or vice versa.

Now sometimes he listens to podcasts that aren't of interest to me as much.

He likes a lot of the, like some comedy ones and while I'm sure they're good, that's just not my go to type of thing.

So we're going to have differences, right, in marriage and we don't have to like, and do all the same things.

My husband loves sports, so he plays on adult volleyball and soccer teams.

I enjoy getting together with my girlfriends or going paddle boarding, going on a walk with girlfriends.

So that's all fine and good.

But we do want to make sure we get deeper than just surface level niceties after we've been gone the whole day.

So I think that's really important as well.

Okay.

And then let's.

Let's talk about praying for our spouse for a minute.

I think it's so important, and I can tell you, over the years or decades, the more I've done that, I'm not saying I haven't always prayed for my kids and my spouse.

I have, but there's times where I more specifically prayed for my spouse.

Right.

Like, not just prayers of protection and safety, but, you know, prayers that I thought maybe is what I was seeing.

Right.

So whatever it might be.

But like, so for instance, I might have been, you know, praying to soften his heart about something or whatever.

And so if you aren't praying for your spouse right now, I definitely encourage you to do that.

And if you need a little help in that area, there's a lot of really good books that are like, the Praying Wife.

And then there's even couples devotionals that you can get.

And I have lots of those if you're looking for a recommendation.

But those are a great place to start if you're kind of at a loss for words about, well, how can I go deeper right.

In praying for my spouse?

And the data is really powerful for couples that pray together.

They say, I can't remember the exact data point because I haven't shared it in a year or year and a half.

But couples that pray regularly together, the percent of couples that do that, that stay together, it's.

It's like astronomical compared to couples that don't.

So it is a really powerful thing for your marriage.

Right.

I mean, it's.

It's spiritual, but it's.

It's so much deeper.

It connects you in a different way on the spiritual realm, but also, I don't know how to say that, but in a different way.

So I absolutely encourage you to do that.

And I can say it can be uncomfortable if it's both of you didn't come together where you had the same prayer practice or that you are comfortable praying out loud.

Because I know all sorts of couples.

Some of them pray together, and some of them, they don't really do it like that, or at least not out loud.

I mean, I've done a couple's Bible study before.

That's not typically what we do.

Usually if I do Bible study, I do it with just other women.

That's more my thing than my husband's speed.

But once again, we have differences and we also have to respect each other's differences and how he practices his faith and how I practice it, because not everybody is at the exact same place in their faith journeys, even if you're married.

Okay, so the last thing as we wrap up that I just want to share is I think it's just being honest with each other, but obviously doing it in a loving way.

And what I mean by that is sometimes we maybe hesitate to share something.

Maybe it's either because we think our spouse will get upset, or when I say upset, I mean like they'll feel more stressed out or they'll think that it's a criticism when really you're just trying to be open.

Right.

And vulnerable with them.

And so I think it's just navigating those things probably can be some of the harder things.

Knowing what the stressors are in your own marriage.

Right.

For a lot of people, they can be financial stressors, they can be family, like extended family.

That's not the case for us.

But there are people, right, that their strain is some of their external relationships in their marriage.

But really it's just like be curious about your spouse.

You keep wanting to make, like make your relationship stronger.

And if you need to get professional help, then you should get it.

I have so many friends that when they've gone and either individually or together, went to counseling or they went to work with maybe a mentor, they went and talked to their pastor or priest, they were able to kind of release some of the things or let a third party help them navigate through.

Right.

Something that they were walking through.

And so that is so important too.

I will say sometimes spouses, especially husbands, tend to be this way more.

They are hesitant to do counseling because I think they've.

We grow up in a world, a culture that says maybe that that doesn't look as masculine or it seems weak to go and get therapy.

So we also have to understand that from that perspective.

And there's other ways to work on our marriage, right?

There's, there's books, there's podcasts.

I follow some people on Instagram, relationship experts or psychologists, different people, obviously, faith based people that talk about relationships and.

But I get some really great tidbits from there that I can apply a strategy or an idea or a perspective to my own marriage.

And it's really powerful because we don't have to change everything at one time, Right.

We just keep making deposits into the marriage bank, right into the marriage relationship.

And those things pay off, you know, tenfold, if you will.

Oh, actually, I'm going to share this quote with you as we wrap up.

Okay.

It's by Pastor.

Let me see if I can find it here.

Char.

It's Pastor Charles Swindle, I believe.

Yes.

And he shares this.

Each day, God deposits 86,400 seconds into our bank of time, but nothing carries over to the next day.

Spend it well.

And he says, while we often think about wasting time on trivial matters, perhaps the greatest tragedy is investing it in pursuits that matter today but will hold little significance in the light of eternity.

But every day we have an opportunity to invest in our marriage, invest in our spouse and the people we love.

And we just have to be careful that the busyness of work and the busyness of caring for our household and getting dinner on the table and doing the laundry and getting to the volunteer thing or, you know, all the other things we do, fitting in time with other relationships, that it doesn't fill our entire schedule so that we don't have anything left for our spouses.

And also, some people say, why is it that our relationship that should be the most important to us, does it get the least of us or the last of what we have left?

And that is so true if we don't invest the time or if we're not intentional with our time.

Because Monday through Friday, if you're coming home in the evening, then you're getting through dinner, you might have something.

It's true.

It can be really late, and by then, a lot of us are worn out.

So we do need to make sure that we find time, different days or at different times of the day or as early as we can on those nights to invest in each other.

And so I would just encourage you, if you're not finding that time, maybe you need to, if your kids are younger, hire a sitter or get a friend to come over and watch the kids so you can just get a little break or go out back once the kids fall asleep.

My husband and I go outside a ton, and we'll just sit out there.

If, if it's not too hot, we'll do a fire or the fire pit.

And also, it's about compromising.

But it's compromising to be with your significant other.

You're doing it out of love.

And what I mean by that is my husband doesn't he is not as into being out in nature as I am or having a fire or sitting outside, he feels like, oh, it's really hot tonight.

Or I'm just ready to relax and go watch a show.

So we have to compromise.

He knows I'm going to go out there with him or without him.

You know, just have a little downtime, a little time outside, and he'll come out and sit with me for at least some of the time.

So he's doing it because he loves me and because he wants to spend time with me, not because he really wants to be out there.

Just like there's some nights I will later in the evening watch something with him because for him, that is his decompression time.

It's not so much that we're having time to connect during that time, but he.

We're doing it together.

And so for him, that still makes him feel connected to me, even though we're not, you know, having a deep conversation.

And so I think these are all the sort of things it's, it's putting your spouse.

When I say first, I don't mean that you don't care for yourself first.

What I'm saying is you say, it's not only going to be about me.

Just like Mark Batterson said in his book, you learn to not be selfish by being married if you're someone that's committed to having a strong and lasting marriage.

So with that, I just want to encourage you.

I hope that you keep working on loving each other.

Well, if you're in a, you know, a good marriage, obviously if that is not your case, then, you know, you need to do what you need to do to get the support or help you need.

But just know that there are good men and women out there, right.

If you're not married.

But it's, it's really about coming together and finding somebody that's willing to be as committed as you are to living your life together and showing up together and supporting each other.

So I am going to sign off as I'm going to go enjoy.

We're leaving today to go on our trip and I'll definitely be sharing next week a little bit about our trip and just, you know, how what we did and what we gained from that as far as just having that downtime.

But I hope you have a great weekend and I hope you were able to take something from this episode about marriage or relationships in general, and I hope you have a great weekend.