Married People Podcast

Today we hear from the person who posed and answers that question - Dr. Les Parrott. Les works with his wife, Leslie, to empower marriages all over the world. Dr. Parrott is a renewed psychologist, his wife is a marriage and family therapist and they’re both New York Times bestselling authors. They’ve been featured in USA Today, The New York Times and many others. Les is brilliant on so many levels, this is going to be a great conversation!    Interview:   You’ve been interviewed a lot, but what people really want to know is what it was like to be on Oprah (1:18) What’s it like for two psychologists to be married? (3:31) What does this season look like for you and Leslie? (6:47) What are some of the things you’re seeing with couples that is unique to this season we’re going through? (8:47) What are some of the positive things you’ve seen couples experience during this time? (12:34) You brought up the question - how do I lower my chances of divorce by 31% and increase happiness by a third?  Can you dive into that? (15:03) Is this assessment one of those moments where the truth will set you free? (21:28) An action plan comes with the Better Love assessment. Tell us about that. (25:16) Each week we leave people with one simple thing. What would you tell them to do? (31:35)   RESOURCES: Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts Better Love   We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

I’ve invited my friend Ron Deal to tackle this question with us. Ron is a licensed marriage and family therapist and is one of the most widely read experts on blended families in the country. He’s the founder of Smart Step Families, the director of Family Life Blended and the creator and author of numerous books on step family living. He and his wife, Nan, have three sons and live in Little Rock, Arkansas. Ron Deal is a wealth of knowledge and has an amazing heart. Join us for this conversation     Interview:   What has COVID looked like at the Deal house? (1:42) How many families or marriages are impacted by being blended families? (2:54) You did not grow up in a step family. Where did your passion for this come from? (5:08) We need to get real on the tension. When we hear ‘blended family’ we often think Brady Bunch. Is that how they work? (6:40) What are some of the common family dilemmas a blended family may be facing? (11:45) A lot of divorced parents get remarried and they’re doing well. But the kids are the ones feeling like they’re tossed all over the place. Talk to that family. (17:38) I read in your book with Gary Chapman - The 7 Blended Family Principles For Loving Well. Can you share those with us? (26:40) As a step child, what is it like for their parent to take up for the step-parent? (32:04) What are some other blended family principles? (36:57) What is one simple thing blended families could do in the middle of chaos? (45:19) We’re going to give some books away - leave your info in the comments! (47:47)   RESOURCES: The Smart Step Family Building Love Together in Blended Families Smart Stepfamilies Family Life Blended Ron Deal’s website     We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

To help us explore this question, I interview Tim and Pam Elmore. Tim has written a book called The Pandemic Population. Dr. Tim Elmore is the founder and president of Growing Leaders. While Tim was becoming an expert in how to lead the next generation, Pam was putting in the hours in the field of leading their two kids. Tim and Pam have an amazing way of taking research and making it practical and hopeful. I know this is going to really enlighten you.    Interview:   What does it look like at the Elmore house during pandemic times? (1:23) You say there’s some amazing research about why this is such a tough time for couples. What are you finding in your research? (2:24) Tim, what’s going on in our brains right now? (4:08) Do you ever feel like you’re having moments of an out of body experience? (5:18) Pam, do you have a story for our neuroscientist friends? (7:20) What do you guys think about all the structure that’s been removed - does that play any role in this? (11:34) Give me a couple examples of what these things could look like for couples (15:40) What’s the difference between accepting that these are tough times and normalizing it, versus not taking action? (18:50) Pam, it also feels like guys are fixers and I keep forgetting that during this time. Are you that way - do you just want to feel this instead of being ‘guided’? (20:45) Things are so emotional right now, I think if we can figure out how to practice marriage right now we can have opportunities to try things again. We haven’t had this much tension back-to-back in a long time (25:40) From a faith perspective, how do you see God in the middle of all this chaos? (27:32) We always want to make marriage real, fun and simple. Can you guys speak to the folks listening who don’t have hope right now? (33:30) It feels like we’re triggering each other a lot during these days. Talk to those of us who are in flight or fight mode - what do they do in that moment when they get triggered that will lead to growth later and not damage? (39:36)   RESOURCES: Growing Leaders The Pandemic Population: Eight Strategies to Help Generation Z Rediscover Hope After Coronavirus     We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

This may be one of the most sensitive questions we’ve tackled on this podcast. But let me give you some good news when it comes to handling faith and politics in this conversation with Sarah Anderson on her view and approach to this topic. Regardless of where you land politically, I’m so excited she’s able to have that conversation with us. Sarah is a writer and speaker and she currently lives in Roswell, GA with her husband and two boys. Because we’re a podcast devoted to marriage, I’ve invited her husband Rodney to join us for this conversation.    Interview:   Sarah, talk a little bit about your story - where you grew up and all that stuff (2:34) Rodney, what about you? Give us a little about your growing up (4:13) I know what people are wanting to know now - politically are you two on the same page? (6:21) Sarah, your story is unique and this attitude I hear from you is so fresh and countercultural. But this was birthed long ago when your views started evolving and changing. Take us back to the story of when you started shifting away from your family of origin (9:45) You hit a point of crisis where you didn’t know if you could vote or not vote and you called your parents. (12:37) I’ll ask you this - you said you felt like you had to tell them. What was that birthed out of? (16:15) What is the Jesus-like response in the moments where your convictions take you to anger? (25:32) What’s the line between people who are not going to listen and people who are just brutal. What do you say to those folks? (30:15) What about those listening who say, “this feels really complicated - I’m never going to change their mind and they’re not going to change mine. Why bring it up?” (33:13) You guys share a story I’d love for you to share - about a moment you had about whether to wrap Santa gifts or not to wrap Santa gifts (36:23) I feel like what you’re talking about is throughout the whole book - let’s keep the relationship the most important thing (43:12)     RESOURCES: The Space Between Us: How Jesus Teaches Us To Live Together When Politics And Religion Tear Us Apart   We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

There is no one on the planet I’d rather you hear from on this question than Dr. Jim Burns. Jim is the president of Homeword He speaks all over the world and wrote the book Doing Life With Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut & The Welcome Mat Out. Jim and his wife Cathy live in Southern California and have three grown daughters and two grandchildren. Whether you’re an empty nester or not, you’re going to get a lot of encouragement out of this conversation with Dr. Jim Burns.    Interview:   One of the questions we get is that people hear a lot about navigating life with littles or teens, but there’s not a ton of stuff out there about empty nesters. Talk to us a little about the tensions empty nesters feel (2:10) I’ve heard you say before that you and Cathy have a “high maintenance marriage”. What does that mean and how does that tie into being an empty nester? (4:37) Speak to the empty nesters where the kids have left and they’re trying to find their way as a couple (8:46) What are some of the questions or topics you would give to an empty nester couple to ask each other? (14:53) We talk a lot on this podcast about ‘micro moves’ - tiny things that mean big things. It may even be asking if you’ve affirmed your spouse lately (22:06) Our question is “how does parenting adult children impact my empty nester marriage?” How does parenting adult children create tensions? (25:36) I’ve seen a lot of couples need permission to not bring things up or to let things go (28:58) How does having your kids move back in with you impact couples? (30:36) I’ve heard you say that adult children hear opinions as advice - is that right? (34:40) What do you say to the couple who says they made an agreement with the kids, and they see their spouse become lenient about it (or the other way around)? (35:51) You have so many principles and you’ve talked about so many amazing things but if you’re speaking to empty nesters, what is one simple thing they could do today? (40:08) If you were to point empty nesters to one of your resources, which one would that be? (41:19)       RESOURCES: Doing Life With Your Adult Children    We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

What do we do when our spouse is doing something that’s driving us crazy? One of the definitions we found is, "minor complaint or irritation that’s more annoying to you than anyone else." We’re not talking about deeper level things, just those little things that drive you nuts.   We found a list of the most common pet peeves:   Toilet seat left up Driving distracted by electronic devices Empty cartons put back in the fridge Leaving clothes on the floor or on a chair in the bedroom Whistling Your spouse telling the same joke over and over and expecting you to laugh Leaving trash in the car Not asking for directions or using the GPS Falling asleep on the sofa instead of going to bed Not putting your keys in the place where you go to get the keys Chewing with your mouth open at the table Chronic lateness Taking the covers at night Squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong part of the tube Leaving stuff in your clothes pockets when it goes to the laundry   Ted and Nancie Lowe Text Exchange Ted: We are talking about pet peeves on the podcast tomorrow. What is something I do that drives you nuts? This is the minor stuff, not the big stuff. Nancie: That sounds like a question designed to hurt somebody’s feelings (especially mine). Ted: You don’t have any and I’m not mentioning them. But I can mention my own.... so what are they my love. Nancie: You break rules. Ted: That hurts my feelings.   So what do we actually do with pet peeves?   A lot of times there is ‘Misattribution’ - This is when you attribute something to the wrong thing or person. You aren’t really the frustration with your spouse; you are frustrated by work and yet attribute to your spouse. It’s thinking, “I feel all this because of them”, not realizing your ‘tank of frustration’ may already be full and it comes out on these small things. On the opposite side is ‘Affective Association’. They did a study where they brought in couples over a few weeks and showed one group images of their spouse interspersed with beautiful things. The other group saw their spouse and then a slide show of neutral images. All the people who saw the first slide show ranked their marriage higher than when they started.     The Truth: How we handle pet peeves matters because silly fights can cause serious damage.   Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”   You can choose to let a pet peeve go or you can talk to them in a way that is loving and encouraging.  We all know we do some things that drive our spouse crazy and we want to be treated this way. How you do this depends on your relationship – it may be playful or more serious. For some people, the humor really helps. For others it may just be talking about it in a softer way.   Your one simple thing for this week: When it comes to your spouse’s pet peeves, there are some things you can drop and some things you have to say. But do both in truth and grace. You could start by asking your spouse for one thing that you do that drives them crazy. Then be brave enough to take it.   Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better.   We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.   Finally, we hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

Nancie and I adopted a few years ago and we’re not alone. 6-10 million Americans have had personal experience with adoption and 100 million people in the U.S. have adoption in their immediate family. On any given day there are 428,000 children in foster care. Unfortunately, more than 60% of those kids spend 2-5 years in the system before being adopted. We want to say thank you for caring for the ‘least of these’ and for using your home to provide stability for children who don’t have it. We also know that adoption can put a lot of strain on a marriage and we’re going to dive into that today.    Interview:   Today my interview is with Ben and Kim Nunes (1:25) I’d love for you to share a little bit about your story (3:00) So you guys were struggling in your marriage, what are some of the things that shifted? (4:33) At what point were you in this process before adoption becomes a consideration? (7:33) You guys are filling out the applications, talking to agencies, then what happens? (9:53) How was this impacting you as a couple? Was it drawing you together? Pushing you apart? (13:42) So you get the call. How long from then until he was home at your house? (19:17) So what does this do to you guys as a couple and in your marriage?  (21:22) Ben, was it hard for you to see your wife going through the roughest time of her life? (23:39) So Kim, you’re going through all these things. I watched with Nancie that her struggles were all paired with guilt. Did you feel those things? (27:54) You’re sitting across from a couple and they’re considering fostering or adoption. What is one thing you’d tell them to do? (32:13) Now talk to someone who has just brought a foster child home (32:41) What is one simple thing couples can do when life is chaotic? (35:23) Kim, talk a little about the work you’re doing in the foster and adoption space (38:01) How can people find out more about what you’re doing and how they can learn some of these things? (39:38)     RESOURCES: TBRI The Connected Child     We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

On the day of this podcast recording, we’re still in the middle of a lot of chaos. There are so many stressors and changes all at once, so it’s understandable that there may be tension in your marriage. Or maybe you’ve used this time to get closer and you’re loving the togetherness. Or maybe this time has helped you remember how important your marriage is. But no matter where you find your marriage, the struggles are real during all this. Let’s talk about this question with our guests - Montell and Kristin Jordan. You may remember them from he #1 hit song, “This Is How We Do It”. You’re going to love these two as they share their story and answer the question How Do We Keep Our Marriage Together When The World’s Falling Apart?   Interview:   Montell and Kristin Jordan are my guests on the podcast today (1:16) Tell people a little about your story (4:46) So you guys met pre-Jesus, fast forward us to when you’re a producer and he’s a recording artist (7:53) Talk a little about the song, “This Is How We Do It”. That was a huge success and a moment for you guys. (10:10) You guys went from recording artists to pastors - what was that journey like? (13:08) I want to rewind a little bit and talk about this idea of the counterfeit lifestyle (18:33) You guys are very transparent - what were some of the trials in your marriage during this time? (23:18) What was the turning point for you guys? (28:04) Talk a little about what God has done through this decision to lay it all down (33:43) What is one simple thing people can do right now? (41:40) Tell people where they can find out more about you (47:50)   RESOURCES: This Is How We Do It Book montellandkristin.com  Instagram Facebook     We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

Today Ted Cunningham joins us to talk about this question. Ted is a pastor, speaker, comedian and author. He has been married to his wife, Amy, for 21 years and they have two teenagers. When it comes to having fun in your marriage, I don't think there’s a better expert in the country than Ted. The things Ted encourages you to aren’t big things, but they make a big difference!   Interview:   The thing I’ve loved about being friends with you over the years is that we are both fans of laughter and fun in marriage. Can you talk a little about that? (1:54) Was laughter something that brought you and Amy together? (3:48) Why do you think some couples choose to laugh about things and others live in tension all the time? What’s the difference between those couples? (8:50) Talk to people who feel like it’s inappropriate to be silly or fun right now (14:17) The biggest thing I hear from couples is, “We can’t have fun because we have an unresolved issue.” What would you say to that couple? (18:40) I know there are people who feel like they don’t even know what fun is even more. If you could tell couples one thing to go and do, what would you say? (22:11) Ted, thank you for your work. Tell people where to find you and what book they should read of yours (32:22)   RESOURCES: A Love That Laughs Book Fun Loving You Book Woodhills Church     We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.   We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

Today’s topic is actually the subtitle of André and Jeff Shinabarger’s book called Love Or Work. This book and interview led to some great questions for myself (Ted) and my wife Nancie and I’m sure it will for you and your spouse! Join us as we dive in on this topic. Interview: I would love if you would tell our listeners a little about yourselves (1:00) The thing that excited me about this book is that you guys got specific on a topic that couples may not even know they need to talk about. What was the tension in your own story that made you want to write this book? (2:21) So someone called you and said, “Come get an Airstream”. Tell us a little about that story and how that connects to the idea of love and work (7:22) André, talk a little about your passion as an individual (11:34) You guys had so many tweetable moments in this book. Talk a little about the journey to get to where you are today that is so healthy (15:18) Your communication style seems to be blunt. How do you start having these types of  conversations? (18:35) You guys talk a lot in the book about affirming each other’s giftedness. Share a little about that (21:26) André, there’s a point in the book when you talk about encouraging Jeff to do the next thing and it meant a lot to Jeff. Can you describe that a little bit? (24:30) When you saw the research, what were a couple things that our listeners should know or wouldn’t have seen coming? (27:00) Why do you think so many people have a hard time being for their spouse? (30:15) I imagine that a lot of people are where you guys are - they both have big dreams. Talk a little bit to couples who are in different places with their dreams (33:30) I see some things in my wife that she is so great at but she doesn’t necessarily see. What do you say to that? (44:50) Tell people where they can find out more about you and the book (49:49) If you could have couples do one thing, what would it be? (50:20) RESOURCES: Love Or Work Book Love Or Work Instagram We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook! This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership. We hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

When it comes to serving people in ministry, Stuart and Kellee are a power couple. They wouldn’t want us to say that but it’s true! Stuart serves as the Director of Student Leadership for Orange. He deeply desires to fuel the next generation and speaks to a ton of students, leaders, coaches and parents. Kellee Hall is the founder and director of The Echo Group. Kellee and Stuart are the parents of three adult children. They are some of the most genuine people and we’re so happy for you to hear from them. Join us as we hear their story.  RESOURCES: The Seven Checkpoints For Student Leaders Max Q Student Journal We’d love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook!   This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.

The real truth for black couples is that racism has an impact on everything, including marriage. Jackie and Stephana Bledsoe join us to share their stories of the racism growing up and even now as they raise their own family. They also share the hope of what happens when we stand for and with people of color.  

You may have googled your way to this podcast because you want to protect your marriage from “all this.” Good job, we have good news. 

For this episode, we’re exploring a slightly unusual question—why should you move into a van with your spouse? And that’s our topic because Ted recently had a conversation with a couple who recently uprooted their lives and now live in a decked-out Sprinter van traveling all over the country. They’ve learned some important things about their marriage and we can all learn from their experience. Links Let’s Be Us website: https://letsbe.us Let’s Be Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsbe_us/ Chris on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrispochiba/ Sara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sara_aho/ Chris’ website: https://chrispochiba.com/ Sara’s website: https://www.saraaho.com/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/letsbe_us Holy Hustle: https://holyhustle.co/ Interview Can you tell us how you met? Chris: We met five years ago when we were both bicycling across America. We were biking from Seattle to New York City to raise money for refugees in Thailand. We fell in love—you know, because of all the spandex. We were team leaders and with all the other people there we didn’t want them to know there were feelings growing so we kept it a secret. Sara: I was still living in Athens, GA and Chris was in Raleigh, NC. After I graduated, I moved up to Raleigh and we dated another year and then got married. Why did you guys decide to elope instead of having a big wedding? We wanted to move out west to Seattle, where we officially met. Both Sara and I like big parties and don’t like big parties at the same time. So eloping felt right to us. It felt intimate. We climbed a mountain in our wedding clothes with a photographer. There’s a lake at the top of the mountain and we baptized each other there to start off the marriage. We missed having our families there but it was very us. Can you tell us about your current living arrangements? We live in a van, but not down by the river. We transitioned from living in a stationary apartment to an 80 square feet Mercedes Sprinter van. It looks like a FedEx truck on the outside. We do need to make it clear—it’s by choice, not by lack of work or something like that. What made you guys decide to live in a van? We’d been saving money for a while; some of it had been for wedding money. We’d been in Seattle for a while but had landlord issues and we weren’t buying there anytime soon. We’d been talking about doing this and we just bit the bullet and did it. What about your personalities played into your decision? Chris: We’re both adventurous and like trying new things. We weren’t ready to settle down and buy a house. From an Enneagram standpoint, Sara is a 7, the adventurous type. I’m a 9, which is the peacemaker. I think that compliments each other—she’s always pushing and it gets me out of my comfort zone. Sara: And he keeps me level headed and makes sure we’re grounded. How did you get rid of enough stuff to move into a van? Chris: We moved before that Netflix show, Marie Kondo, came out. Everything we had brought us joy, for me at least. We went through and made a designated area of essential items. The rest we decided to sell and make some money. Sara: We didn’t know how long the van thing was going to last, so some of our bigger items we put in storage. We also kept all of our books. If there was any tension, it’s because I’m a big collectible guy and we compromised on those things. How are you continuing to work from the road? Chris: A lot of savings ahead of time. But we also work full time from the road. I do a lot of branding and graphic design and have been able to work from anywhere. My work allows me to travel and the van just put that to the test. Sara: Before we lived in a van, I was growing a photography business. It’s been hard in the van, but in some ways it’s allowed us to grow our business jointly. I’ve been using those skills to grow our YouTube channel. Why did you decide to document your journey on YouTube? We had been on the road a few months and we were at a campground at Disney World. An older couple was there who had a YouTube channel about following their dog around on their travels. If they had one, we needed one, too. We recorded our first episode that day, and now we’ve surpassed 2.5 million views. What have been some of your favorite experiences? We actually have a YouTube video going up today about our favorite experiences so far. This summer we drove up to Alaska and at the end we drove up to the Arctic Ocean. It was like 500 miles each way on a gravel road and we saw grizzlies. It was a really fun adventure. In the town of Bellingham in Washington, the director of the downtown association reached out to us to offer a tour. We went out and had coffee with him and for the next three days he gave us a behind the scenes tour. Our impression of a town after we leave always comes down to how the people were. One place that stands out is that we really like the people in Maine—it was an awesome experience for us. What has been peoples’ reaction when you tell them you live in a van? Sara: I think we were more nervous about Chris’s family. My family took us van shopping when they found out.  But everyone has been really supportive and not that surprised. How has this living situation impacted your marriage? The thing about living in a van is you have really high highs and really low lows. Alaska for us was just awful. It was fun but for us relationally it was not great. When we were driving back and decided to go to the Arctic Ocean, it was the complete opposite. We’d never been more supportive of each other. In Alaska, we had really high expectations because there’s a lot of hype around Alaska. The weather was rough and the mosquitos were out of control. It was all these little things adding up. We did enjoy the state but the produce from the grocery store would be rotten by the time we tried to eat it. It was all these elements adding up and it was tense—a combination of circumstances and expectations. What principles have you learned no matter where you live? There are other ways you can do cool things without having to live in a van. You can take it one step at a time. You both have to be on the same page no matter what the adventure is. It’s natural to have one person be more balanced, but if one of you is all in and the other is not, it’s not going to be healthy for your marriage. You guys are a team and that’s what it comes down to—playing as a team. Your one simple thing this week Chris: Put down the phone (or whatever you’re working on) and make eye contact with your spouse while you’re talking. Sara: Be intentional to seek new experiences together that only you can share. Show Closing This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it—all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.

This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. One of the cool things about the membership is at-home date nights. Isn’t that great? Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership. This week on the podcast, we’re talking about wedding anniversaries. What do we do with them? How do we make the most of them? There’s always some pressure when it comes to our anniversary regarding how much to spend, expectations, etc. What do you do for your anniversary? Afton: Every anniversary we go on a trip and that is the gift. Then we write each other a card but sometimes I forget the card. CJ: We do the same thing, but I try not to forget the card. We take a trip every October. Ted: I try to do a fun little gift for every anniversary or a short trip. But let me tell you about our worst anniversary. I was working with a church doing marriage retreats and planned one for April 22nd, which is our anniversary. It didn’t hit me until I was about to walk on stage and I told her, “I forgot our anniversary” and she replied, “I did, too.”. So I got that one pass but it still makes me twitch.  Tips For a Great Anniversary 1. Don’t forget it Put it on your calendar and set a reminder for a few weeks before. 2. Plan ahead Don’t wait until the last minute to plan a trip or buy a gift. 3. Agree on expectations For some couples an anniversary means a trip and for some it means pizza. They’re both great as long as you agree on expectations ahead of time. 4. Get lucky Intimacy means different things at different stages, but it’s a time to connect romantically. 5. Reminisce about your wedding Take some time to think back on your wedding day and other memories. Pull out your wedding album or re-watch your wedding video. 6. Start a tradition Are there little fun things you’re always going to do? Watch the same movie, go back to where you got married, put your best memory from the year in a box. Your one simple thing this week Choose one tradition or one surprise and get ahead of it for your anniversary. Want even more ideas? Read this blog article about making the most of your anniversary. Show Closing We’d love to know your traditions or your #anniversaryfails – let us know on Instagram or Facebook! This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.

When marriage is stale, it’s not fun for anyone. We all know what it’s like when your marriage gets into a rut. So how do we keep our marriage from getting there? How do you know when your marriage is getting stale? Afton: My husband loves routine. When things are out of whack that’s when he’s most miserable and makes him anxious. CJ: I would agree—we have a routine in our marriage. But when we’re stuck in that routine too long or start skipping things that are usually in our marriage routine we get in a rut. Ted: For us it’s when we’re too busy and haven’t had any fun. When we got married we wanted to have a great, full marriage. Then life happens. There’s work, home, kids, differences. Married people get serious and things get more complicated and often people don’t think to work on their marriage unless it’s broken. Replace the word marriage with something else First, the word ‘marriage’ often comes with baggage. What if we replaced the word ‘marriage’ with ‘love’? And what does that have to do with keeping our marriage from getting stale? The reputation of marriage is that it is stale. But what would it look like if we went back to what we wanted before we got married? Your one simple thing this week: For the next seven days, do one small loving thing for them each day… or just pick one and do that. You may have your own ideas, if not, here are a few to get you started: Monday: Leave a love note your spouse will find when you are not around Tuesday: Ask your spouse, “What is one thing I can do to help you today?” Then do it Wednesday: Pay your spouse a compliment Thursday: Buy them a small gift Friday: Say something great about your spouse in front of someone else Saturday: Do one chore your spouse normally does Sunday: Make a list of five things that make your spouse great Warning: Believe it or not, these things can start a fight—especially if you do it expecting them to reciprocate. Do it because you are committed and not because you expect anything back. Show Closing We’d love to know what you decided to do for your spouse – let us know on Instagram or Facebook! This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price.

This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new discussion questions, date nights, studies, graphics, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership. For this episode, we’re not talking about big, weighty issues. We’re talking about little points of tension or mistakes and how that impacts your marriage. How we respond to those things is so important to set the tone of our relationships.  Examples of Silly Mistakes Breaking a dish or decorative nick knack Spilling a drink in the car Putting an empty milk jug back in the refrigerator Getting a story or joke wrong Coming home from work later than they told you Forgetting to bring your son’s baseball glove to practice Misplacing their phone for the 100th time Forgetting to stop by the grocery store on the way home Buying the wrong type of deodorant CJ: For us, a silly mistake is how much space I leave between dishes in the dishwasher. Teri told me she has to redo it every time. Afton: Every time we go to an Airbnb, there’s no dishwasher so we have to hand wash the dishes. And every time, Hudson breaks a glass. Ted: I’m the one who does all the things on this list.  What is the right way to handle these mistakes? Here is why this is important: The way we respond to our spouse’s mistakes sets the tone for the deeper issues It determines if our spouse is going to know grace on a daily basis.  Questions to ask yourself When it comes to how you respond to your spouses’ silly mistakes, would you want to be married to you? Is this is an issue of heart or habit? Colossians 3:13 (NLT) “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”  Your one simple thing this week: Either ask your spouse, “what is one thing I do that bothers you?” Or when your spouse does something that annoys you ask yourself, “Is this an issue of heart or habit?” Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. We’d love for you to go on Instagram or Facebook and let us know what you think!

Chances are you have experienced this: you and your spouse have an exchange that leads to hurt feelings and conflict. At the end of that exchange, you find yourself thinking: ‘my spouse took that completely out of context. I feel totally misunderstood. What just happened?’ Opposites often attract, but sometimes when opposites get married they clash. There are a lot of dynamics that fuel disagreements, but personality differences are toward the top of the list. We thought it might be fun for our listeners to wrap their brains around the personality continuum and where you and your spouse are on the spectrum. 1. Perceiving This is how you perceive the things that come toward you in life.  Here are the two ends of the spectrum:  Minimizer Few things are a big deal to them. When troubles come they think, “Oh well, it will just pass.” The disadvantage of being a Minimizer is that things have to be really big or bad for them to take action. The advantage of being a Minimizer is that they are easy going, tending not to create unnecessary drama or chaos. Maximizer They tend to make everything a big deal. Using words like “everything,” “never” and “always.” Typically they want more of something—more love, more passion, more everything. The disadvantage of being a Maximizer is that can create unnecessary tension. The advantage is that nothing slips up on a maximizer. They want to take care of problems as they come. 2. Processing This personality type is how your process information and come to conclusions. Here are the two ends of the spectrum: Insider They are very contemplative and thoughtful. The disadvantage of being an Insider is they think they have shared more than they have. Saying things like, “I thought I told you that.” The advantage of Insiders is that actually think more than they speak, which I’m pretty sure is biblical.  Outsider They think out loud. They talk to think. The disadvantage of being an Outsider is that they say hurtful things they really don’t mean. The advantage of Outsiders is that they want to talk things out and get things out in the open. 3. Responding This personality type is how you respond to information. Here are the two ends of the spectrum: Satisfier Wants to keep connected with their spouse by telling them what they think they want to hear. The disadvantage of being a Satisifer is that they can be passive aggressive. The mouth may be saying yes, but their heart is saying no, and one day it shows up, often in unproductive ways. The advantage of being a Satisifer is they are outwardly focused, because they have to really listen to their spouse’s needs to know how to satisfy them. Resister When they hear new information, they say, “Whoa, what do you mean by that?” Another term for the Resister is a “devil’s advocate.” The disadvantage of being is a Resister is they often make their spouse feel rejected. The advantage of being a Resister is that tend to want to make more balanced decisions by looking at both sides of the issue. They aren’t always saying no, it just takes them a while to get to the yes. Your one simple thing this week When you encounter the disadvantage of your spouse’s personality traits, you can take it a little less personally. Also, the next time you encounter the advantages of your spouse’s personality type, you can affirm them.  As for your own personality traits, I suggest you try to pull yourself somewhere nearer the middle of the spectrum, especially if you spouse has the opposite of that trait. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We’d love for you to go on Instagram or Facebook and let us know what you think! This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it—all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.

We’ve got a special guest lined up for this episode—the CEO of Fabrik, Dana Spinola. She’s helping us answer the question: ‘How can I have a passion for my career and my spouse?’  Fabrik is a clothing boutique based in Atlanta, with over 40 stores around the country. Dana started the company in 2002. She and her husband Angelo have four children, including their daughter, who they adopted from Ethiopia. She’s also published a book called Love What You Do about finding passion and purpose in your work and life.  Interview How did you and your husband meet? I was out celebrating the start Fabrik. My girlfriends had taken me out and I was just coming off a breakup. I look across the restaurant and saw this guy out with ten other guys—it was like lawyers night out. I went across the room to his group and said “Excuse me, I’m going to marry you.” He says that there was something attractive about the confidence I had when I approached him with marriage. We dated for a few years before we got married. We decided to get married the first night, but our years of dating validated that.  Where did your love of fashion begin? It’s crazy to think that one of the best gifts my parents gave me was not having a lot of money. My mom made our clothing growing up. So our Saturdays were spent at the fabric store. She was also an interior designer, so she sometimes picked up sofas on the side of the road to take home and recover. My dad was the same, he was always painting and creating. Why did you found your company, Fabrik? The name is literally from the dictionary—it’s just the phonetic spelling of fabric. I love the essence of it being fabric, because that’s what clothing starts from. The other thing that was really important to me was everything being under $100. I had never been able to shop in a boutique growing up and the idea of walking in and being able to purchase anything was off my radar. So I thought, what if I could create a place that everyone could shop at? I wanted to have really incredible clothing, but keep it affordable. I think that’s why it grew so much. I had no plans of opening more than one store, but my customers were asking for me to open one here and there. I think it was about the high-end experience with affordable prices.  What do you think fashion means for women and men? When I watch a woman put on something that makes her feel beautiful, it changes her whole energy and spirit. They’re not judging themselves against anything else, they’re just seeing themselves the way God made them. You can watch that happen. There’s something innate in your own style that you’ve got to find. Why is philanthropy such an important part of Fabrik? I started this business because I wanted to have a clothing store. I didn’t jump into this for God’s purpose. As I started growing and it started becoming successful, I was also having. People would come up all the time and say, “Congratulations”. They would say that everything was coming together for me. And it hit me—I was growing this personal kingdom and didn’t see how I was helping our world. We were in church one day and they said something about a mission trip to Haiti. I told my husband that we should go. We slowed down enough to take that trip and left our boys, my company, and my husband’s practice at home. Our hearts would never be the same. We realized that not only would be we adopting but we had to do things that weren’t just our own personal passions. We started our journey to figure out how we could help. We then took a mission trip to Africa and I took my company. I was journaling on a bus and I wrote down “high style with heart” and I didn’t know what it meant but I knew it would mean something really big. We started our Asher clothing line (named after my daughter) and the proceeds go to orphans in Africa. We’re contributing to them being matched with families. One of the coolest things has been during job interviews, the biggest question used to be “what’s the clothing discount?” But now it’s, “do I get to volunteer and go on the Africa trips?” To me, it means our heartbeat came alive. What was the process for adopting your daughter? Adoption is a crazy process; we started in so many different countries to end up in Ethiopia. My little girl was between 6-8 months and was found wrapped in blankets and left on the side of the road. The police officer who found her said she was screaming and they didn’t know how long she’d been screaming for. That used to make me cry, but now I see someone who didn’t give up. How have you made a great marriage in the middle of career success? The coolest thing that I look back on is that Angelo has been a stable force in what he believes God has done with Fabrik. He’s watched what God has done through Fabrik and has always had his arms around it in a big way.  His hands have been open the whole time. The other we’ve done well is bobbed and weaved with each other. When he was working to become a partner at his law firm, and was working until 2 am every night, I was starting the company and we had a newborn. But we’ve been OK because we’ve both had times we’ve had to tap out. It reminds me of those relay races. Now, he has our son’s football practice on his calendar at 4pm as a meeting. We’ve had to schedule things and that’s OK. How do you schedule time during the week? I don’t know about you, but organic does not work for us. We’ve scheduled a day date on the calendar every month for the next year and a half. We do have a date during the day because the night gets taken up by life. It is so small, but it’s a game changer. What was the catalyst in deciding to go to counseling? The reason we go to counseling is because he’s a man and I’m a woman. I love the idea of someone teaching us how to communicate better! We’re from two different worlds and two different lives and we want to be closer. And sometimes we can’t figure that out on our own. Your one simple thing this week: Know the little things that make your spouse happy and do one of them! Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, eBooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it—all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership. For more from Dana, check out her website, Instagram or Love What You Do book. You can find out more about Fabrik on their site.

Last year in the US, we spent $72 billion on wedding ceremonies. While wedding days are special days, marriage is not really about the big day, it's about the every day. But think about it: we promise our spouse some pretty amazing things in our wedding vows: for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better for worse, till death do us part. We convince another person that they could trust us with their heart for life. But if our spouse is really going to know kindness on a daily basis, we have to choose to be kind. If our spouse is going to know grace on a daily basis, we have to choose to give them grace. If they're going to know thoughtfulness, laughter, intimacy, and protection, we have to choose to give them these things. We have to practice what we promise. The great news is that this plays itself out in really practical ways. If your spouse loves gifts, buy them one. If your spouse tends to like sex more often than you, have more sex. If your spouse loves words of encouragement, write them a note. If your spouse loves affection, be affectionate with them. If your spouse wants you to spend time with them, carve out the time. Whatever it is that speaks love to your spouse, speak it. When we love our spouse, even when they're irrational, even when their baggage creates an unfair tension, even when they're simply not that lovable, it is so powerful for a marriage. It is so powerful to help us to become our best us.

As married couples, we can find ourselves in negative cycles of conflict. We argue, and can't seem to get past it. It's easy to think that the answer lies within the details of who was right and who was wrong, but typically, we're not really arguing about what we're arguing about. It's not really about the towel being left on the floor again. It's not really about her coming home late from work again. It's about something deeper. Paul reveals this deeper dynamic in Ephesians 5. In verse 22, married couples are commanded to mutually respect each other, because both men and women need and crave respect from their spouse. Later in the chapter, Paul speaks to wives and husbands separately. Wives are called to unconditionally respect their husbands, and husbands are called to unconditionally love their wives. Without respect, husbands tend to react without love. Without love, wives tend to react without respect, and around and around we go. That's a negative chase that married couples get into often. The great news is there's a positive chase. When wives feel loved, they tend to react with respect. When men feel respected, they tend to react with love, and around and around they go. This is a positive chase of respect and love, and it can help us to become our best us.

Most of us think that the quality of our marriage depends solely on our relationship with our spouse. And this is logical, because this is true for most of us. The condition of our marriage tends to go up and down depending on how well that we're managing our marriage. Obviously, the dynamics between the two of you are important. But there's another relationship that matters even more—your individual relationship with God. And quite simply, connection with God makes us better spouses. Things come out of us that even surprise us. Things come out of us that surprise our spouse. What are those things? What happens when we love God first and our spouse second? Galatians 5:22-23 contains a list of the fruit we bear in our lives when we love God first. These are called the fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those things describe the spouse that most of us want to be. And spending time with God, just like you're doing right now at this moment. . . well done, by the way. . . changes something inside of you that radically impacts what comes out of you. Putting God first allows you to love your spouse in a way that you could never ever love them on your own. And that helps you to become your best us.

Having fun and intimacy in your marriage—is it essential or is it extra? Sure, we all like fun and intimacy, but it's easy to think that other things in our lives are more important. Things like work, or kids, or chores. But here's the good news, God views fun and intimacy in our marriage as essential. We find these views in Proverbs 5, which was authored by Solomon. But Solomon's wisdom is not based on his human ability. In fact, Solomon's own life wasn't a great example of marriage. But the principles and the truths that God spoke through Solomon are wise all the same. In Proverbs 5, Solomon is warning his son to protect himself and his marriage by staying away from adultery. For 17 verses, Solomon tried to scare the pants on his son. He gave him all the don'ts, but then he gave him a couple of to-do's. Solomon encourages his son to be captivated by his wife, to rejoice in her always, to be delighted in her. In other words, one of the best ways to protect your marriage is to enjoy it. The good news is that fun and intimacy is not extra for your marriage. It's essential because it helps you to become your best us.

Your marital habits either lead to the connection or disconnection of your us. How does that statement sit with you? For many of us, it leaves us feeling discouraged. We've had other habits that we've tried to change before and then we've been unsuccessful. Exercising, eating right, staying healthy, or getting organized. But marital habits are different, because they're relational, which means they're emotional. And therein lies the answer. For instance, when you decide to laugh off something trivial instead of picking a fight, that's emotional and that matters. When you choose to be tender, when you want to be harsh, that's emotional and that matters. When you thank your spouse for providing for the family, that's emotional and that matters. When you pause in the morning to pray for your spouse, that's emotional and that matters. For almost every couple, an unexpected moment of laughter or gentleness, respect, affirmation, or a sexual connection, can trigger a great day for your marriage. Even in tough situations. When you're intentional about creating these moments on a regular basis, you create marriage habits that can make your marriage better and take it in the right direction. That can help you to become your best us.

You and your spouse are unique. There's never been another us just like the two of you. You may be thinking, "Oh, we're like a marital snowflake. How romantic." Or you may be thinking, "Thank God there's not another marriage just like ours, because we are a hot mess." Well, no matter where you're currently finding your us, you can experience more moments of awesome, and less moments of awful, because God gives us clear directions and instructions for our marriage. When you dive in to see with the Bible has to say about marriage, you find verses that have how-tos and ‘ahas’. When we trust God and follow His instructions for our marriage, we can start to create habits that connect us as a couple. Maybe your spouse is not really willing or open to do marriage God's way. Be encouraged. While it always takes two to keep a negative cycle going, it often just takes one to stop it. Here's the great news, you're not the only one who really wants you to have a great marriage. God wants that for you even more. He gives us great instructions on how to have a great us, helping us to have more moments of awesome, and less moments of awful, helping us to become our best us.

We're trying something new this summer—a shorter episode format that we call the Married People Minute. For the next few weeks, we're releasing some shorter episodes with one simple thing you can do for a better marriage.

Aboutt our Guest On this episode of the podcast, we’re talking about making your marriage an adventure. Whether you’re preparing to go on an adventure with your spouse or just want to make every day a little more adventurous, you’re going to enjoy this episode. For the first time ever on the podcast, we’ve got a repeat guest—Dr. Matt Turvey, the director of Winshape Marriage. If you listen to the previous episode with Dr. Turvey, you’ll remember he mentioned number of different retreats they have at Winshape. One of their most exciting programs is called Marriage Adventures, and for this episode Matt draws on his experience leading those adventures to tell us a little bit more about how we can create more adventures in our own marriage. Interview Why do you think couples stop having fun when they get married? Life just happens. Kids happen. I love my kids, but they take a lot of work. Your schedule happens and you forget to prioritize fun. So much happens when you’re having fun with your spouse. You’ve got to be pretty intentional to make it happen. Why do couples feel guilty about leaving their kids at home? We want to be so connected so we sometimes think presence is connection. Sometimes you have to be more intentional in how you craft an experience with your kids or spouse. Sometimes parents focus too much on the kids and let the kids make too many decisions. If you give your kids the ability to make the decisions for your family, it’s probably a lot of stress on the kid. Give them choices they can handle: “Do you want to go here to eat or there to eat?” Sometimes we give our kids so much power and influence in the relationship that we lose power in the relationship. Why is it important for kids to see their parents having fun? My wife and I have done a pretty good job of getting away when we need to. It lets our kids know that we are safe, that mom and dad are a team and we’re going to last. What is the benefit for a couple to go on a retreat or vacation? Getting away reminds us what’s important. You got married for a reason; you had amazing experiences in the early days when you were dating and newlyweds. Getting away sometimes helps us get a little taste again of the honeymoon. It reminds you that you’re with the right person. Why is having fun essential to a marriage? Relationships don’t happen in vacuums, you have to have a relationship face-to-face. Your relationship will be a mirror of how much time and effort you put into it. Couples that spend good time together—whether that’s conversation, date nights, adventure, vacations—are building up that bank account. I can tell you from experience that when my wife and I have time away together we show up better for each other, for the kids, for the Lord. Can you tell us about the Marriage Adventures you lead? At Winshape Marriage, we do three main things—intensives for couples who want a breakthrough, retreats for couples who want a weekend away, and the adventures are the big experiences. They’re typically a week long and places anywhere around the world. These adventures have an element of journey and an element of challenge. Every day is crafted intentionally around your marriage. It’s an intentional time for you and your spouse to ask questions about each other, to have conversations with each other, and have experiences together you need to have. How have these adventures helped couples? A lot of the curriculum around our marriage adventures go back to ancient Christian principles around spiritual direction. The job of adventures is to get couples outside in creation to ask those important questions. We talk about six core principles: a vision for your marriage, truth in your marriage, having a posture of discovery, unity, constancy, and celebration. Who are the adventures for? They are not for couples in crisis. If you’re in crisis and you’re hiking a mountain in the Andes, that might push you over the edge. But if you’re in transition or you want to invest in your marriage, it’s a great way to invest in your marriage. We want couples to walk away different from the experience. What does psychological research say about adventures? When you get outside your schedule, your body has a biological reset. You get rested, even in the midst of challenge. You get that sense of disequilibrium and you want to figure it out. But we make it so you solve challenges together. When you’re in ‘the flow’, it’s kind of like a runners’ high. Imagine being in ‘the zone’ with your spouse. It helps you remember things better. Your one simple thing this week: When it comes to adventure, couples can just do it. Be intentional about being adventurous with your spouse even in daily things. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better. For more from Dr. Matt Turvey, check out his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can find more about Winshape Marriage on their website and the adventures on their site.

About Our Guest For today’s episode, Ted sat down with Nina Schmidgall, the author of Praying Circles Around Your Marriage. Nina serves as Director of Family Ministry at National Community Church (NCC) in Washington DC. Nina’s husband, Joel, is the Executive Pastor at the church. Nina and Joel have been married for 15 years and live on Capitol Hill with their three kids. I think most of us understand that purpose can be a powerfully important thing in any marriage. But it can be difficult to understand what that means for us practically. So to get a better idea of the role purpose can play in our marriage, take a listen to the conversation with Ted and Nina. Interview Can you tell our listeners about yourself? I’m from Washington DC and work at National Community Church. I’m The Director of Family Ministry so I oversee ministry from birth to graduation and support parents as they’re intentional about faith in the home. My husband, Joel, is our executive pastor and together we do work with the couples we walk with. There are a lot of young professionals in DC so for a long time our church was a lot of singles and young professionals. Now, many of them are getting married. So not only do we get to walk with couples as they prepare for marriage, but also as they run into things in marriage and are looking to navigate them. I came to DC to work for Congress. Most people don’t realize how young the people who are running our country are. I worked on legislative issues advising the member that I worked for. I always worked on issues that affect the home—the family and education and things that families care about. I did that for almost a decade and at the same time was part of this tiny church. Over time, as we launched locations and grew, I stepped out of my work in the government. But in some ways my work is very similar, I just do it through the church instead of the legislative system. What’s unique about doing church and marriage ministry in DC? Anything that any church or community is facing all over America—you magnify that and make it much louder in DC. Very passionate people live in DC and they carry that into a marriage. What we’ve found is many are hesitant about marriage because they fear it might keep them from doing what they’re passionate about. Or, they step into marriage with another passionate person and that eventually starts to pull against each other. Another thing that’s unique about DC is that most people who live there are away from their own families. That creates something really beautiful for our church because the community that our church can offer is really beautiful. How did you and your husband meet? I grew up in an un-churched home. I had a blended home with a lot of remarriage and broken marriage. From a young age, I had a desire for a lifelong marriage. As I got to dating age, I was unsure if I had the tools for a healthy marriage. On the other hand, Joel was a pastor’s kid and his parents had an incredible marriage. He had examples all around him of lifelong committed marriages. We dated for three years and did a lot of work on the front end. We did pre-engagement counseling, not just pre-marriage counseling. We did that to work through our differences in background and history, but also our differences in personality. We are as different as night and day. We stepped into marriage as very different people with very different backgrounds that we had to work through.  What’s it like for a couple to have competing visions? For one, it’s just the schedules. Recently, Joel sat down with a couple that was struggling. They had a young child at home and they had made the duel career thing work. But becoming parents put a lot of pressure on them. The Dance Circle is a chapter that uses the metaphor about the partner dance—it’s about the counter balance where you lean away from the other and offer your weight or support so they can be set up for the next move. The whole idea is about how you can position your spouse to be used by God. A larger shared calling and a persistent commitment to one another allows us to work through difficult things. That’s my hope for couples—is that they can get a vision generationally for their marriage. How do you create a united purpose in marriage? Quite often the root about what is actually dividing a couple is actually different visions: different visions about parent a child, the role family should play, work life balance. I’ve had to ask God for a unified vision and that looks different at different times. Just like everyone has a unique thumbprint, we believe that you have a unique ‘marriage print.’ God has brought you together in a way that he could never do with any other couple. So how do we ask Him to reveal that to us? We believe it’s through prayer, and it sometimes takes time but he’ll reveal it to us. Joel and I started by identifying some common values. What are the things we both care a lot about? We started telling stories about values passed in our family and we realized we could pre-decide those for our kids. Those kind of evolved into more of a mantra/sentence. We say we want to give more than we receive. It looks different for different couples, but we identified them into a sentence we could say to each other. Over time, it evolved into a purpose. We say that a shared way of seeing leads to a shared way of doing. We highly encourage a regular purpose or vision retreat. We go every year for a few days of intentional prayer, planning and purpose. We have a resource for this for couples as well. What does praying together look like in a practical sense? First of all, Joel and I are way better at ‘praying for’ than ‘praying together’. Part of it is between just you and God. I think trying to increase your prayer over your spouse is a healthy first step. We also recommend some sort of a weekly touch point. For us, it’s been a Sunday night check in. We put a few key questions in our book to help with this. Then throughout the week it provides you opportunities for prayer over your spouse. Just start with some intentional questions. If it’s not comfortable to pray right there, don’t do that right away. It’d also be an incredible experiment for couples this week. Try every day to be much more intentional about giving eye contact or putting your hand on the arm of your spouse and see what happens. It’s very hard to remain angry when you’re looking into their eyes. Your one simple thing this week Try some intentional questions with your spouse and see what happens. You can start with, “Is there anything I can do this week that would help me care for you better?” Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. This episode was brought to you by the Married People Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that provides married couples like you a ton of great resources every month to help you do marriage better. That means new date nights, videos, ebooks, messages, and more available to you when you need it - all in one place at one low price. Go to our website to find out more about the Married People Membership.

We’re asking a slightly different question this week—what should I work on instead of my marriage problems? Because we all have marriage problems and it seems like we can get stuck on working those out instead of actually enjoying the time with our spouse. For this discussion, we invited Mike Foster to the podcast. Mike is an author, speaker, and host of the Fun Therapy podcast. Through his books, workshops, and best-selling group curriculum, Mike teaches people how to crush shame and live each day as God's beloved. Mike lives in San Diego, California with his wife, Jennifer.  Interview Can you tell us a little about yourself? I help individuals and couples build strong relationships. My wife and I published a book a year ago called Five Dates, which is a his and her guide to help couples create togetherness. We also created a video series called Extraordinary Couples. We like to think of it as little protein bars for your relationship. Our whole strategy for couples and marriages is to be very simple, very action oriented and take micro steps toward change.  What made you go from the classic way to working on the more positive stuff? There’s a lot of resources that say you have to work on your problems. The research shows that most successful couples have ongoing, chronic problems in their relationship. It’s OK to have problems and not to have a perfect marriage. Both my wife and I were the victims of trying to work on our problems and we failed miserably. We realized even though we have problems in our relationship, we’d work to fix them and they’d only get worse. Sometimes trying to work on problems can lead to even bigger problems. There are problems in relationships that need to be worked on, but usually they involve a third party. If you have big problems, get in to see a counselor.  We tend to see our spouse as the problem and spend a lot of time trying to fix that person. We’re big believers that ‘healthy people make healthy relationships’. My advice is usually to start working on your own heart. I’ve realized I can’t change my wife—I’ve tried. Reorienting the energy we put away from the problems and the fixing and trying to get our spouse to change. Instead, let’s focus on our togetherness. What are problems we need to let go of, and problems we need to take to counseling? There are a few things that would certainly pop up right away—addiction, infidelity, anything where there’s strong breaks in trust. You’d certainly want to bring a third party in.  Also, the trending of the relationship in general—if you’re on a path that just keeps getting worse and worse and you see an outcome that’s not going to end well, I’d certainly reach out to a counselor. Why did your problems get worse when you tried to work on them? Years ago, Jennifer and I went to a marriage retreat. We were married seven or eight years at the time and had young kids. We’re not doing well and she comes up with an idea to go to a marriage retreat in the mountains. It was a complete disaster for us. The speakers were well meaning, but as we sat in this retreat they talked about things that were so idealistic. We went to work on our marriage and I felt more frustrated, irritated, and angry. It led to one of the biggest fights of our marriage. I think we got connected to the wrong tool. We want to create a lot of room and freedom to use the tools we create as they would benefit you in your context. When we talk about ‘dating,’ that could be a fancy dinner or it could be on your back porch. We always encourage couples to find the things that work for you and start small.  Why do you encourage couples to go to counseling? For the past 15 years, I’ve been counseling people in all kinds of situations. Typically, the problems in our relationships stem from the problems in our own heart. We transfer our pain to our spouse instead of doing our own work. When I’m counseling couples, there’s a lot about the relationship, but there’s more about your personal work. One of the things we talk about in Five Dates is family of origin. So many of the problems in our relationships has nothing to do with what’s going on today and so much to do with what happened in the family we grew up in. You have to have two healthy people in order to have a healthy relationship. Why do people think the problem lies with their spouse? Brene Brown says, “Blame is a quick way to discharge pain.” When I try to fix my wife, that’s a quick, easy solution for me to feel less pain in my life. The reality is, it’s easier for me to blame, point fingers and have an external focus for why I’m unhappy than doing the inner work. Sometimes we talk about marriage as something we work on and that’s the narrative. But we forget that working on yourself is even more important than working on your marriage. What happens when people take ownership of their own problems? Unfortunately, there are a lot of stories are where people have not gotten it. The thing Jennifer and I love to see is when people have permission to know that it’s very normal stuff—having issues or conflict. The permission to start small. It brings us great joy to see couples engaging and trying. The worst thing you can do as a couple is to do nothing. What is the difference between working on your problems and working on togetherness? I could sit down with Jennifer and we could dive into a problem. That problem could be not clearly defined or there’s layers to that problem that both of us are confused by and not even qualified to deal with the real truth. Working on togetherness is developing a rhythm where you hug your spouse three times a day for twenty to thirty seconds. Physiologically, your body will start releasing hormones and chemicals into your body at about the twenty second spot where you will feel more connecting and loving toward your spouse. That is a perfect example of a togetherness strategy. We could talk about problems or we could talk about things we’re grateful for. Both involve words, both involve talking, both involve sitting down and making time for this conversation. But which conversation would you rather have? Why aren’t couples usually qualified to talk about their problems? Part of the couple’s problem is they have static energy. There’s no momentum in the relationship. Then they use the energy they have to work on a problem, which sends them backwards instead of hugging, having gratitude, going on dates, or other small things. That’s going to create momentum and positive energy in a relationship. One of the things we saw is we had several couples in our friendship group who raised their kids, sent them off to college, and after twenty plus years they get a divorce. They put the marriage on hold for 18 or 19 years while they raised kids and then tried to pick it back up. I encourage couples to start small—my wife and I will grab a Starbucks for thirty minutes during a busy week to spend a few minutes together. Show Closing If you want more from Mike Foster, you can find his Five Dates at fivedates.co, his guided video series at extraordinarycouples.net or his website mikefoster.tv. Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out the Married People membership or Ted’s book Your Best Us.  

  This week, we’re excited to be focusing on a subject that we’ve mentioned quite a few times already on this podcast—the Enneagram. For those of you who haven’t been swept up in the Enneagram mania yet, it’s sort of like a personality test. But it actually goes deeper than that to show the motivations behind our actions and thoughts. To help us with this complex topic, we brought in a couple who knows the Enneagram well—Beth and Jeff McCord. Beth is the creator of Your Enneagram Coach, which helps introduce people to the Enneagram and connect them with a personal Enneagram coach. Her husband, Jeff, is the executive pastor at Southpointe Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Beth and Jeff have been married for over 20 years have two adult children. Interview Can you tell us about yourselves and how you got into the Enneagram? We’ve been married almost 24 years and have two kids in college. We started learning about the Enneagram in the early 2000’s. We were in the stage of life with little kids when you’re trying to live like Christ, but find your internal world derailing all the time. I wanted to be at my healthiest but was struggling. That’s when someone showed us the Enneagram and it helped me understand why I veer off course and what my healthiest was. We felt whatever tool we found had to be paired with the gospel. The Enneagram will tell you why you think, feel and behave in particular ways. Can you explain what the Enneagram is? The Enneagram has been around for thousands of years and used in lots of different sectors. It’s become more modernized with psychology since the 70’s and we’ve looked at how the tool can help illuminate our heart condition. I want people to realize that the Enneagram is a great tool, but the gospel is what transforms us. We’re always safe and secure in our identity in Christ, but sometimes we have times we’re not doing well. We want it to be a wakeup call to the patterns that aren’t best for or your relationships. Jeff, can you tell us about your role? I’m an executive pastor. I’ve been pastoring in the local church since 2002. When we started using the Enneagram as a couple, we started in the local church at our dining room table. Even back then, we would bring the insight of the Enneagram and apply the gospel to see hearts change. My beautiful bride is a type 9, who had a tendency to hide her talents, but she brought the depth to that conversation. How do your two Enneagram types interact? Jeff: Let’s start by talking about my love for ice—I love ice and cold drinks. Beth: We have a great ice story. I’m a 9 and our thought process is that we don’t matter—our voice doesn’t matter, our presence doesn’t matter. It’s a common theme for 9s. Jeff: I’m a type 6 and there’s a roaring committee of thoughts in my head all the time. Beth: For the 9, who feels like their presence doesn’t matter, when I do talk I want his full attention. When he looks at his phone what happens instantly in my mind is, “see, my voice doesn’t matter”. If I’m healthy I can navigate around that. Jeff: I often get a little impatient with her pace—9s meander in storytelling. So as she was telling a story one day, I decided to take a little break while listening. Beth: Jeff got up to get some water behind me and has a 32oz glass. The fridge is crushing ice into his Yeti and I’m still talking. He is getting his ice and I’m thinking: “see, he doesn’t want to listen to me”. Ordinarily I would shut down and stop talking and we start this dance and start to spiral. But that’s when the Holy Spirit came in and he’s told me time and time again that he is listening. So while he was still crushing ice, I’m thinking” “He loves me, we’re best friends, he’s just getting ice and it doesn’t have to spiral out of control”. And we’re able to move forward. Jeff: There are four things we hear from people as we talk to them about their dances: I didn’t understand my spouse and now I have clarity It’s compassion – I’m so sorry that’s what you’re feeling I understand our dance and our dynamics The Enneagram gives us great language to able to talk about it How does the Enneagram reveal both people’s strengths and weaknesses? The Enneagram is going to tell you like it is—blunt and straightforward. You’re going to see some things that are really hard to swallow. But if you’re able to recognize that Christ has already taken care of things, you can see these trouble spots and not be overcome with self-condemnation, fear and shame. You have to own it and ask for forgiveness but you’re able to do that because you’re already free. What are the benefits and challenges of each of your types? Jeff: There’s a book out there that talks about how we marry people who bring out a good we desire for ourselves. There’s something about Beth’s peacefulness, steadiness and sincerity that is very safe to me. Beth attunes to me in a way that brings peace and rest to my heart. I appreciate her strength, resolve, quiet perseveres and the attention she gives to me and our home. I want to be better at that because I’m not naturally at rest. Beth: The strengths that Jeff brings is absolute commitment and loyalty, hard work and being able to see what I miss. When you use this in marriage, your spouse cannot come through for you in the way you long for but Christ did. Everything has to hinge on Christ or you’ll be back in the ditch again. What have you learned about Jeff being a 6? Beth: 6s really need safety and security. They’re not all the same—my mom is a 6 and wants physical security (food, money, health). Jeff is more relational security. When we are in an argument and I withdraw, that is only saying to him “abandonment”. I’m not intending to do that to him. When I feel myself starting to check out I can say to him, “I know this is important, but I need some time to settle down and process”. That’s so much more helpful to me and communicates to him that I know safety and security are important to him. Jeff: The work for me is to believe it—that after 15 or 30 minutes she’s going to re-engage. And even if she doesn’t, I’m still secure in my relationship with Christ. It ends up creating a very hospitable dance between us. What resources do you have available for people who want to learn more? Jeff: This is going to be a big year for us. We’ve written a book called, Becoming Us: Using the Enneagram to Create a Thriving Gospel-Centered Marriage. It’s really the foundation to a number of other resources. We’re going to be releasing a new marriage assessment in June to help couples get an introduction to their dance and what they think about their dance and that’s going to be free. We’re also going to be doing date night events throughout the United States beginning in June. Those are going to be fantastic opportunities where we’re going to introduce the idea of the dance. Beth: We are developing 45 marriage courses. The reason there’s 45 is because there are 45 couple types. So there’s a course for you and your spouse and we’re going to specifically talk about your dance and get into your kitchen. Not only will we show you the negative parts of your dance but also the redeeming factors of Christ and what He brings. That will be coming out in June. We also have a free assessment if you don’t know your type. And then we also have Discovering You which is a cliff notes version of the Enneagram if you’re new to the Enneagram. If you know your type you can do Exploring You where I do pre-recorded coaching sessions where I break down your personality type into bite sized lessons. We’ll have 9 more books coming out in December—one on each of the types. Your One Simple Thing this week Get your Becoming Us marriage course and get insight into yourself and your spouse. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out the MarriedPeople membership or Ted’s book Your Best Us.  You can find more from Beth and Jeff at Your Enneagram Coach.

It’s no surprise that we all carry some baggage into our marriage and that can spill into our marriage. To talk about this we interviewed Dr. Matt Turvey.  Matt is the director of Winshape Marriage, a retreat and conference center located in North Georgia. Matt holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and has been married to his wife Nicole for 22 years and they have four kids. Interview Can you tell us a little about yourself? I’ve been married to my wife Nicole for a little over 22 years. We have four kids—ages 17, 15, 12 and six.  Seven or eight years ago, we moved to Lima, Peru to do counseling for missionaries. My dad found out that House Hunters was filming, so we applied. The show came to Peru and shot us for a few days. We were international superstars for a few minutes. What is Winshape? Winshape started about 35 years ago by Truett Cathy, the owner of Chick-Fil-A. It started with a college leadership program and has branched into foster homes, a retreat center, teen ministry, and camps around the country. The latest is Winshape Marriage, which started about 16 years ago. I get to direct that, and it’s so fun. We serve couples at whatever stage they’re in—whether they’re trying to get ready for marriage, looking for encouragement, a blended family, or have a kid with special needs. We have things around sexual intimacy, empty nesters, and couples who are really stuck. We have deep dive intensives to look at what is keeping couples from having the marriage they want to have. Most people think of a ‘capital ‘T’ Trauma’ as a rape or seeing something life threatening or tragic. The ‘little-t traumas’ are the ones where you’re there and not quite sure what you experienced – messages you got from your parents that you interpreted wrongly. Most people have parents who care for them in the best way they know how and they bring their own ‘little ‘t’ traumas’ to the table and act the best out of what they know.  How does the need to perform in marriage have an impact? Because I wanted to be such a good husband, I did everything I could to be a good husband. It got me by for about ten years and we realized that more than trying to have a deep relationship we were trying to have a relationship free of conflict. I was doing my graduate work for Gary Smalley and attended my first marriage intensive. I realized for the first time that I had never let my wife have a negative emotion around me because it meant I was a failure.  When I saw it in this process, I realized I had squashed her. I came home and tried to see her comments (eg. the yard needs to be mowed) as not being about me. I was turning the fingers around at her and always had an accusatory posture that belittled her. How does our personal baggage come into marriage? A philosopher once said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” If you don’t examine and take the deep dive into stuff that you bring to the table, you’re just going to repeat patterns. In some ways, we’ve just learned to survive and it may not be the best way. People bring the old stuff into marriage and it works for a while, but you’re not really succeeding in a safe, deep, intimate way with your spouse. When we look and see how we’re connecting with our spouse, we need to ask if there is a better way. When people ask those questions, they may be surprised at the answer sometimes. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll find a new level of intimacy in your marriage. How do we properly deal with trauma in marriage? I remember the first time I went to counseling for stuff I recognized as a problem for my marriage, it literally felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down. There was the other side of the cliff that was health, and I had no idea how to get there.  I didn’t know there was a safety net and when I took the first step of faith God had me. As I got deeper and deeper into my wounds, I realized that I liked myself and could trust myself. There were some truths about myself and who God created me to be that helped me come to my marriage from a place of health. How often do struggling couples have unresolved problems? You start out as an individual in marriage so probably the vast majority of stuff is individual. The difference between your expectations and reality is where the disappointment is. But far and away when I start looking at things from a different lens in my marriage, 95% of stuff gets taken care of. How often are responses directed at the spouse instead of what they can improve? I get calls from people who want to come to intensives and they’re not saying it so much but they’re basically saying, “My spouse is nuts, can you fix them”. We have to start with ourselves first. If we can help individuals look at what they bring to the table and then we show up out of a place of health and wholeness you’re really able to grow. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that most of us in our marriage actually have what it takes. I believe in people who come to counseling. I believe in the innate ability of people to show up and remove the junk that overlays their heart—deep down we were created to love and be attached to other people and our savior. We want to set the stage for that to happen. What is the Prodigal Love program? This is the first time we’ve done a marriage experience for individuals. Our marriage retreats for years have been you and your spouse come together—that works and that’s awesome. But like we’ve been talking about, you need to do your own stuff first.  Prodigal Love is all about that. We’re bringing in a program with some Christian therapists. We call it a personal growth intensive. It helps folks slow down, get rid of their cell phone, and be in a small group setting where you have the chance to take that dive off the cliff. It sounds like a scary experience but the people who are walking you through it are extremely safe. When you get in that process you’re going to find some healing. If you trust the process, change will happen. I’ve been through it myself and I can tell you it was the first time in my life where I felt the grace of Jesus in my gut, in a way I had never experienced before. It was powerful and I’m hoping we can recreate a sense of that experience for people who come. What transformation have you seen from programs like this? I went through a process very similar to Prodigal Love. About six years ago, we adopted a beautiful little girl from China. When she came home I was an angry man at a beautiful little two and a half year old girl from China and I had no idea why. In the process I found Onsite, the process we use in Prodigal Love. And not once in the process did we talk about me as a dad. We started going back and looking at the messages I had received in life early on. What we began to realize was me being loved for performance was there. In one exercise we did called a psychodrama where you ask people to play a role for you and you talk to them. That exercise changed everything for me. I experienced the grace of Jesus and heard him say, “I delight in you”. When I experienced that grace. I became a better father, husband, and boss. Your one simple thing this week: I hope people recognize that the struggle with God is okay. Don’t run from it, look at it and ask what it is. Ask for wisdom when you need it. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better.  We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out the MarriedPeople membership.   For more from Dr. Matt Turvey, check out his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can find more about Winshape on their website and the Prodigal Love Retreat on their website. Finally, we hope you’ll join us for next week’s episode!

We all probably have different definitions of what high performance means, but we can probably all agree that we want our marriage to perform well. And there are even a few simple tactics than any couple can implement to make their marriage work even better. Meet out Guests For this discussion, we’ve brought in a high performance couple, Kate and Steve Dahlin. The Dahlins are marriage mentors at the Two-To-One marriage ministry through North Point Church in Atlanta. Kate is also a life coach, who writes her own blog called Creating Exceptional. If you read the MarriedPeople blog, you’ll likely read some of Kate and Steve’s posts on marriage. The Dahlins live in Alpharatta, Ga., with their two young children.  A reminder for our listeners - we have a new resource we’ve created called MarriedPeople Membership. It’s an online library for married couples just like you. And it only costs $8/month or $80/year to get access to all of our premium resources in one place. The Interview Tell us a little about yourselves. Steve: Kate and I have been married for 11 years. We met in college on the beach and got married the weekend after graduation. We honeymooned, got married, and got our first jobs all in the same month. God has blessed us with two great kids, ages five and three. Kate: I started in the dancing and arts world late in life. I was with a company in Alabama and went up to New York in the summer with this group who brought in kids to see what your life would look like if you did that. I learned that my heart was in the teaching world. How do you use your marriage to pour into other people? Steve: We both had separate ministries up until we got married. Kate was with women’s groups, teaching, and kids ministry. I have a music background, so mine was in music. We really wanted to do something together. When we started attending Buckhead Church, they made an announcement around the pre-marriage mentoring, and we both felt a prick in our heart. We were so passionate and they had such a need. Kate: At the same time, I was growing my lifestyle coaching business. When we got married, I went from dancing straight into being a mom and was comfortable there. I was playing it safe and felt God nudging me that there was more I needed to be doing. That turned into writing and lifestyle coaching, which dove tailed into the marriage mentoring. Did you guys grow up seeing healthy marriages in the home? Kate: Yes. My parents are married today, love each other to death. They have five kids and were a great role model. I think it was very rare because we both came to the table with that. Steve: My parents have been married for 40 years this year. They both grew up in a religious background, but found Jesus together around the time I was born. We both benefited a lot from the upbringing. It’s very rare nowadays. What did you guys see in their marriages that made them successful? Kate: They learned to grow together as a team. For our grandparents, there was just this level of consistency. They were going to stick it out, it’s what you did. There was no other option. They truly loved doing life together and being a team. Steve: For me, the spiritual foundation is crucial. My parents were not on the same page when they got married, and once the alignment came and they started building that platform on Christ, everything changed. We’ve had some family drama just like every other family, but you can see that spiritual foundation woven through. What have you guys seen in your parents that you wanted to do in your marriage? Kate: They were very open communicators. When I was younger, there was a little fear seeing them fight it out, but we learned how to work it out. Even as kids, they’d tell us they love each other, they just had to work it out. Steve: Respect is what stands out in my mind. The recognition of each party and what they bring to the table. That mutual respect is what I took away. How has your life coaching impacted your marriage? Kate: I was a stay-at-home mom and God laid it on my heart that it was time to do more. I started seeking him on what I’d done in my past that I could leverage for the future. Teaching someone really resonates with me and the business just evolved over time. It started out with fitness and personal training—ballet, health, and exercise. It was easy for me to do that as a side gig. As I started doing that with women, it began encompassing whole health. Once they started getting their fitness and health under control, I you could see that effect all areas of their life. So it grew from there. What’s the difference between an exceptional life and the perfect life? Kate: For us it’s about bucking the status quo. I’m a high achiever, Type A, oldest child. It’s not perfection, it’s about excellence. I had a mentor say, “It’s not about excess, it’s about excellence.” Steve: An exceptional lifestyle is not about performance—it’s about the outcome. When you think about people getting wrapped up in trying to perform, that’s not what this is about. It marriage, life, and career you’re going to have ups and downs and you can’t avoid those. But you can control how you’re going to respond to those. What do you mean by a ‘high-performance marriage’? Kate: The definition for high performance is that you’re producing superior results. It’s not about perfection, but you’re definitely not the norm or average. Steve: In my sales background, they pull the top sales rep up on stage and ask how they’re doing it. For us, that is going to be the outcome of a high performance marriage. People are going to see something in you that’s different. They’re going to want to know what your secret is. What’s the first characteristic of a high-performance marriage? Kate: The first characteristic is dreaming, which is about perspective. We like to take a positive spin on the relationship. No matter where you are, the dreaming aspect gets you out of the daily ground and answer the question, “where are we going?” One of the biggest things for us is an adventure you can go on together. The best advice we would give someone is to go and travel. To get away and pull back from the daily grind. We try to get away every single year. Sometimes it’s just a hotel down the road for one night just to sleep. We encourage couples to start this tradition of getting away every year. Steve: We’ve found when you do this, you can start dreaming about other areas of your life that matter. Your dating life, even your sex life. It’s a great opportunity to connect as a couple. What happens to you as parents when you spend time just as a couple? Kate: You’re recharged and you can dream. When you’re in the daily grind of work and schedules and school, and it can just get busy. When you get away and pull back, you can have rest and the opportunity to think bigger. Steve: I’m always drawn to the movers and shakers in life. A lot of them have to get up early to make space and function. You look at Jesus—how many times did he retreat and pull away so he could come back recharged? From a marriage perspective, if you’re not doing that you’re going to burn out. Do you have a system for dreaming together, or does it happen organically? Steve: For us, vacation is vacation. We make sure we’re going away just us. We’ve done a couple trips with other people or visiting aunts and uncles. But making sure it’s just the two of us is important. Even the kids are starting to understand that. There have been times there was a book or podcast we wanted to pull in and talk about. But most of the time it’s amazing what comes out in that dead time. I’m in sales, so I could talk forever. For some people it may be harder to start. We’ve tried to do some things around creating conversation and it’s amazing what happens. Kate: The things to consider are: date, place, position, goal. What’s a date you’ve never done before? Where’s a place you want to go? Position has to do with your sex life. For goal: pick something really big you want to accomplish as a team. The second characteristic is dating. How often do you go on dates? Kate: We do date night every single week. Twice a month we actually go out. We get a babysitter; it’s in our budget. The other dates are home dates. We’ll feed the kids chicken nuggets, we’ll cook, play games. Making it a priority helps make it happen. When you call it ‘date night,’ you treat it differently. We treat it like a business meeting—we minimize distractions. We try not to talk about the kids or vent about the week. And we silence our cell phones. Steve: Early on, I confused hanging out all the time with dating. Then, a mentor asked how much I spent every month on car payments. Without missing a beat, he then asked how much I was spending dating my life. It’s not about the dollar amount. My focus on dating completely changed. Kate: If you don’t have the finances for a babysitter, you can swap time with another couple with kids. Just make it a habit. Don’t allow the busyness to squeeze this out. The third characteristic is growing. How do you grow together? Steve: I love the verse in Ecclesiastes that says two is better than one. This talks about the couple, but also the network you begin to build around you as you grow as a couple. You’ve got to find people in your phase of life who can walk beside you. The next step is to find a couple a few steps around you who have already walked that road. For us, it’s creating that environment with peers and people ahead of you. Next, it’s looking to the next generation. You grow a lot as a couple when you start pulling up the next generation. Having that network around you is so crucial to growth. Your one simple thing this week Pick one of the three characteristics of a high-performance marriage and work on it together. Dream: Write down one goal that you want to accomplish in your marriage during the next 10 years. Grow: Pray together so you can grow deeper as a couple. Date: Do something you’ve never done before on a date night. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better.  We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out the MarriedPeople membership.  You can find more from Kate on her blog or site.

About Our Guest Our host Ted Lowe sat down for an interview with Ron Deal, the director of FamilyLife Blended and the author of several books, including The Smart Stepfamily Marriage. Ron is a licensed marriage and family therapist and he conducts marriage and family seminars all over the country. Ron and his wife Nan have been married since 1986 and have three sons. Interview Can you tell our listeners a little about yourself? I don’t come from a blended family and I don’t live in one now. So people naturally ask how I got into working with blended families. I’ve been in ministry my entire life—marriage and family ministry specifically. I’m also a licensed marriage and family therapist and have spent a good amount of my career working for local churches and trying to save marriages as a therapist. You can’t do that and not work with some blended families. When I started in ministry over thirty years ago, I wanted to be able to minister to all families no matter what their story was. I found myself working with stepfamilies and very interested in the subject. There was a need and we kept developing resources and materials and people found out about it. Today, I have my own ministry called Smart Stepfamilies where I speak and do conferences around the country. That blossomed into me joining the team at FamilyLife Blended here in Arkansas. On a personal note, Nan and I have been married for 33 years and we have three boys. We’re empty nesters at this season—my youngest is a sophomore in college.. How do divorced people feel in the local church? The average divorced person today feels put down by their local church. This isn’t me putting down the local church—I know we inadvertently say the wrong thing sometimes and we’re not meaning to. But the truth is, divorced people do feel marginalized. Sometimes blended family couples come back to church and they hope no one will ask them about their past. It’s really stifling for people because they feel they have to hide their story. I think that’s really sad and gets in the way of God really redeeming their story. Not everyone has been through a divorce who is in a blended family—you could be widowed and getting remarried for the first time. Lots of people find themselves in blended families. The trend today is a first marriage where one of the adults has children by two other partners. We can’t always assume there’s a divorce narrative, but frequently that is the case. What are some of the wrong things we say to blended families? It’s inadvertent most of the time, but we accidentally step on people’s toes. The term “broken family” implies a lot and it implies things we don’t mean to say. I think often when a pastor talks about a “broken family” he means “fractured family”. A fractured family is now a complex family, but when we say “broken” it implies less than. One of my biggest pet peeves is saying “God hates divorce.” First of all, there are so many scholars who make the point that’s not what Malachi 2 says. Most translations don’t say “God hates divorce”. It’s really about a man who hates his wife and puts her away—it’s about the man who is mistreating his wife and divorcing her. We say “God hates divorce” because we’re trying to get people to stay married, but you don’t get someone to do something by bashing the other side. In the process, we beat up people who are divorced, not realizing we make them feel less than. That’s not God’s intent or the heart of the passage. We need to remember these families are there. Over 100 million Americans have a step relationship right now. The estimate is that half of us will be in a blended family in our lifetime. This is not a small story. Forty percent of all families raising children right now are blended families, but the average marriage ministry provides half of what blended couples really need to have a strong marriage and family. There is great reason to say, “Who is in our audience”? We can’t do ministry the way we used to. My new phrase is, “nontraditional is the new traditional”. How can we be inclusive for blended families? We want to uphold God’s blueprints for the family because there is blessing built into the design God built for us. However, we serve a redemptive God and nobody has a perfect life. We’re all trying to respond to sin in our life and our world—that’s true of all families. We’re applying the same blood of Jesus to families who have found themselves in a structure that is different than what God designed. Structure does not equal worthiness to God. Most of the Old Testament families don’t look anything like what God designed a family to be. The structure of our home does not determine our worthiness to God. There are advantages to family structure, but we need to get past the structure and help people do the best they can today. Blended ministry does not give up on this ideal. Research shows that healthy blended families are a change agent to help the next generation go back to God. Children raised in a blended family choose better spouses and have more of a chance of a long-term relationship that lasts. But blended families that are unhealthy create more chaos in peoples’ lives. Somehow people have gotten the idea that if God hates divorce, he hates divorced. That’s never been God’s story. Jesus encountered the woman at the well and used her physical thirst to talk to her about her relational thirst. God doesn’t say that she couldn’t speak for him because she’d been divorced five times. What are some things that blended families need? In a typical marriage ministry, we deal with the couple—what’s going on between the husband and wife. That is also helpful for blended family couples, but the stressors that blended family couples often have are triadic—what’s going on around them. That may be a former spouse who is the source of real heartache in their marriage. That’s a high stressor for a couple. It could be parenting and step-parenting. There’s a big intersection between Parenting Street and Marriage Avenue. Those things intersect big time for blended family couples in ways that do not happen with biological parents raising their own children. There are so many different relationships going on—the spouses’ expectation of the stepparent, the kids expectations, the former spouses’ expectation. That’s highly stressful and not as much about being a married couple as it is about being a step-parent. It always ripples into the marriage. The average training program on marriage doesn’t deal with that at all, but that’s what we do—we help people make sense of that. Do you have a blended family who we can all learn from? I’m thinking of a couple who got remarried later in life. They were both widowed and their kids were adults. Adult kids may be fine with it, but they’re going to have to make as many adjustments as kids who are 15 or five because everything is changing in their family system. This couple found themselves wrestling as they were driving away on their honeymoon. They both got calls from their adult kids about the chaos behind the scenes after the wedding. We were able to step in and give them some resources that speak to adult children. Through that process over a period of time, it moved them in a better direction. After many years, they’re in a better place. Your one simple thing this week: For Couples: Go out of your way to find unity even in the smallest moments. For Stepparents: Learn your place as a stepparent and how to function within the home. For Biological Parents who are co-parenting: Work with your new spouse on a posture that is cooperative with the other house. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out the MarriedPeople membership. For more from Ron Deal, visit the FamilyLife Blended website, the Blended and Blessed event and the free 14-day sample PDF of Ron’s new book: Daily Encouragement for the Smart Stepfamily.

  So much of our culture is focused on parenting and kids. But what happens to your marriage when those move out and move on? To discuss this important topic with us Ted Lowe sat down for an interview with Brian and Amy Bloye. They’ve recently become empty nesters now that their two sons have grown up. Not only that, but the Bloyes have also been helping married couples for many years as founders of West Ridge Church in Dallas, Ga. They also help plant other churches across the country through the Launch Network. The Bloyes have some incredible insights on how the local church can help marriages and how couples can navigate the tricky season of being an empty nester. We hope you enjoy the conversation!  A reminder for our listeners—we have a new resource we’ve created called MarriedPeople Membership. It’s an online library for married couples just like you. And it only costs $8/month or $80/year to get access to all of our premium resources in one place. The Interview Tell us a little about yourselves. Brian: Amy and I have been married for almost 26 years. I’ve been in ministry for almost 30 years and was in student ministry for nine years. In 1997, we moved with our two-year-old son to Georgia and started West Ridge Church. Now, we’re in a new season of our lives where we’re doing more conferences and traveling together. We’re finding life with our kids out of the home and we’ve written a book and done a few other things together in the last year. How have you kept a great marriage while planting churches and pouring into others? One of the things we’re passionate about is healthy marriage and family in ministry. But we focus on couples who have started churches and are pastoring them. Pastors are often ones who need the most help in their marriages. What are some common struggles with marriages in a church plant? You’re invested all in. When you move to a new city to start a church (or even start a business together), you’re all in.  It’s a personal thing for you, your spouse and your kids. You’re taking a step of faith together and it impacts every part of your life. Churches are just like kids—they have different stages of life and you have to adjust to the phases of the organization and your family. It puts a lot of strain on your marriage and family. We see some unhealthy things sneak in and we want to help couples during those times. How do you set the limits on work to keep it from impacting your family? We encourage couples to build healthiness in from the very beginning. A lot of people don’t take time off because they’re going to rest ‘when this happens’. But that rarely ever happens. So we encourage people to build in rest at the beginning. You have to build in the rest and health rhythms, and you have to put boundaries around your home life. Usually, driven people start churches and organizations, so they start one thing and move on to the next thing. And they have driven children. Brian: To be honest, we didn’t do very well with this early on. I’ll tell you how things changed for us. I came from a student ministry world that was very busy. We kept a crazy pace going that continued to our church plant. We ran at such a heavy pace that it was impacting the behavior of our oldest son. When our second son was born, he copied the behavior of his brother. I sat down with Andy Stanley and asked him how I keep the church moving forward without losing my marriage and kids. Andy said, “You have to choose to cheat”. He told me I had to cheat the church on behalf of my family. He told me that God never promises to make up for misguided priorities. He helped me see what it’d look like to go from 75-80 hours a week down to 45-50 hours. I realized there was such a lack of boundaries and rhythms in people’s homes and family life. We became passionate about bringing that into our own home and helping others. Amy: If you can cheat the church and focus on your marriage and family, when you become an empty nester you can be healthy. You’re going to cheat something, just make sure you’re not cheating at home. How did you feel in that season of extreme busyness? Amy: I was so committed to make this work with Brian; we were so committed to what we were doing. I got to the point where I felt like we were just holding on. We were so excited about what we felt God had called us to do, we thought we’d do whatever it takes. But we were so unhealthy in our thinking, we didn’t know we should be valuing time margins. You can do so much more if you have margin in your life so you can be spontaneous and hang out with your kids. And they know they’re more important to us than the work. How could you tell the pace was impacting your kids? Brian: Obviously, their behavior. They’re both very driven, high spirited kids and we love that about them. I wasn’t around enough to be the consistent person who brought stability. I’ve learned over the years that time and talking is so important. Back then, every time the phone rang, I would pick it up—no matter what I was doing. I remember one time, I was on the floor playing with Taylor and about three times it rang and I picked it up. When I came back, he wasn’t there. Amy told me I was sending a message to him—that whoever was on the phone was more important than him. Why is taking a day off so important for your marriage? Amy: Brian takes Fridays off and so does the entire staff, unless something crazy happens. They close the church building. We usually go out to a movie, go to lunch and get refueled. We go really hard Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we know rest is coming. Couples always need to have something to look forward to together—a trip or just a day off. Brian: I heard this phrase yesterday from someone who said to “always have a mountain in front of you that scares you just a little bit”. We always try to have something in front of us that we’re looking to together – whether it’s traveling together or speaking together, a challenge. Amy is speaking into spouses and raising healthy kids. Getting this off the ground is a huge challenge we’re tackling together. We’ve also started taking our missionaries from all over the world and getting them together and speaking to them. We also always look at the next place we want to travel to together. What do you guys think about seeking marriage counseling? Amy: Brian brought a counselor to our staff when we went through a difficult time as a church. The counselor had some open slots. And Brian asked if we wanted to meet with him. By the time we got in there, both of us were in tears. He had unpacked stuff we didn’t realize we had. Everyone has issues and if we can make our marriage healthier—it’s something we don’t want to miss out on. We all have junk we bring into our marriage and bring our baggage in. Sometimes, it feels like it could get better but we’re afraid of the pain or of things blowing up. But you have to go through pain sometimes for things to get better but it’s worth it. If you make the commitment that you’re not going to give up on it, you can get anywhere. If you’re willing to stay in it and get through the pain, it’s so worth it. We’re so much healthier as a result of it. What was it like when your first son moved out of the house? Brian: I remember when we took our oldest son to college. People told us it’d be tough and it was just as tough as people said. Our oldest son actually came back and is living with us again. He plays pro baseball and is with us in the off-season. There are big adjustments at every level. You almost have to learn how to re-parent. We have to figure out how to put boundaries and see where they’re asking for advice and where we have to stop giving it.  A few years ago, I interviewed Andy Stanley and asked how you know you’ve done well as a parent. He said if they want to come back home and hang out with you. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high for empty-nesters? Amy: So many of our friends have poured themselves completely into their kids. I sat on the bleachers for so many years with baseball moms and then when the last season was over and the kids left and went to college, some of those parents didn’t know each other. When our boys were little, we would go on a trip or go somewhere overnight or go on date night and leave the kids with a babysitter. I remember them being so upset, but as they got older they realized we were modeling for them what it’s like for our family not to revolve around the kids and their schedule. They’re an important part, but not the center of the family. I would encourage people to focus on the marriage and have fun together so when the kids are gone you’re still having fun together. Your one simple thing this week Have fun together and take time off to rest together. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us. To find more from Brian and Amy Bloye, you can check out their book It’s Personal: Surviving and Thriving on the Journey of Church Planting.

This is one of the more difficult, but important conversations we’ve had on this podcast. We had a lot of discussions leading up to this episode because we all have our own opinions on this topic. Unfortunately, nearly everyone has been impacted by unfaithfulness in marriage—whether our own, someone close to us, or a someone we look up to. Unfaithfulness is a big topic, which is why we wanted to discuss it on the podcast. The Tension Given the right situation, infidelity is possible for anyone.  So, the question we’re wrestling with today is do guardrails and boundaries help to prevent affairs? Is that even possible? Afton: I don’t think they do. In my marriage, I wake up every day and choose Hudson. CJ: If there’s even a 5% chance that some boundaries would help, why wouldn’t you? Ted: I had a professor in seminary who said that given the right situation, infidelity is possible for anyone. I thought that was ridiculous and told him so. He said that was the exact attitude that could allow an affair to happen in the future. Truth 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” Affairs don’t start big; they start with the first little red flag. Run from the first little red flag. You can’t affair-proof a marriage, but you can have guardrails and boundaries to help. Our time with our spouse is important. But so is what we do during the time that we’re not with our spouse. You have to choose what boundaries will help protect your marriage and will build trust. Be aware of where you are, who you are with. If you feel a red flag, remove yourself. Not having meals or riding in the car with the opposite gender Give your spouse access to your accounts—email, Facebook, etc. Here are some examples of red flags that you should watch out for: You find yourself excited to see this person. You talk about personal things more than you talk about work. You tell them something your spouse wouldn’t want you to. You say something even remotely negative about your spouse. You find them increasingly attractive. You go to lunch to talk business, but you never talk about business. Bottom Line When I am NOT with my spouse, I need to make sure my marriage is protected and connected. One Simple Thing Ask yourself: When I’m not with my spouse… What is one way I can protect my marriage? What is one way I can stay connected? Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We’d love to hear what you and your spouse do to protect your marriage! Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our new resource—the MarriedPeople Membership. It’s videos, date nights, marriage tools, and much more to help out couples just like you. If you like the podcast, then you’ll love the membership!

This episode, we’re talking about how to choose battles in our marriages. When two people are living together under the same roof, inevitably there will inevitably be some disagreements and conflicts. But you can’t confront every single battle. What was the last battle you fought for in your marriage? Afton: Making the bed this morning. I should probably cut the tags off our quilt, but whenever Hudson makes the bed, those tags are right by my face. So we have to turn the quilt around to the right way. CJ: We’re navigating a family vacation with Teri’s family right now. We have a newborn at home and Teri is a peacemaker. She’s trying to make peace with her whole family. We want to go, but have to figure out what’s best for us, too. Ted: Nancie is sensitive and I would often hurt her with my approach to communication. Truth We have to be slow and we have be smart. Proverbs 12:8 says, “Careless words stab like a sword, but wise words lead to healing.” Choose a time of day that’s best to talk. Sometimes you have to put it on the back burner and come back later when you’re able to focus on the conversation without getting upset. Focus on the what, not the who. Remember when to H.A.L.T. If you’re: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, don’t try to argue. Bottom Line My spouse needs to know he/she is more important than what we are talking about. Based on what I know about myself and my spouse, how do I choose my approach in my marriage?  One Simple Thing Take your latest conflict. Run it through this filter What was your approach? Where were you careless with your words? What did you say that hurt your spouse? What words do you now regret? What would have been the wiser way to approach your spouse? How could you have said it with more care? Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better. Today’s podcast was sponsored by the new MarriedPeople Membership—an affordable, monthly subscription that gives married couples a ton of great resources like date night guides, videos, ebooks, messages, podcasts, and other great tools from leading marriage. We are so excited about this resource. You can even give it as an anniversary gift to your spouse, or another couple whose marriage you want to pour into. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Last week, we talked to our friend Karen Stubbs about being a great mom and a great wife. If you missed that episode, be sure to go back and give it a listen. This week, we’re talking more about the men’s side of the marriage equation. To help us tackle this subject, Ted interviewed Kenny Luck—founder of Every Man Ministries, which is seeks to revolutionize how men’s ministry is done at local churches nationwide. They’ve got a bunch of online resources, which includes a blog and podcast.  Kenny is also a pastor at Crossline Church in California, and has written several books. He and his wife, Chrissy, have three grown children. Before we dive into the conversation, we wanted to let you guys know about a new resource that we’ve created called the MarriedPeople Membership. It’s an online platform for married couples just like you. And it only costs $8/month or $80/year to get access to all of our premium resources in one place. Interview Tell us a little about yourself. I was a Navy brat and the last of seven kids—five boys and two girls, so it was an interesting upbringing. When you have five boys all in one house, trouble is going to start. My mom is a pacific islander, so I have that island vibe in me. Chrissy and I have been married for 30 years and we have three awesome millennial kids.  How did you get started working in men’s ministry? My pastor and good friend, Rick Warren, started Saddleback Church with a profile of a person. He knew that if you reach the man, you reach the family. The church began to grow and we asked how we could reach men in a more intentional way. There wasn’t a very clear ecosystem to get a guy into a relationship with God, community with other men, and strong in his family. Rick asked me to do that and I went all in. Out of that work, we birthed Every Man Ministries.  What does men’s ministry look like strategically? We made a decision to go after the pain in men’s’ lives. If the stats are correct, 9 of out 10 men have an issue in their lives they’d love help with—usually involving a relationship. We built our men’s outreach based on purpose, pain, and people. Those are three resonators with men. When we launched this at Saddleback, it was built around what was already there—a hunger for purpose, to resolve private pain/temptation, and to do relationships right. That’s why it exploded.  The clarity and transparency seemed to be the secret sauce. Be clear with men and relevant.  Men want to resolve things. They would show up to make the pain factor in their lives go down and out of a spiritual desire to please God. The commission to all the ministry leaders at Saddleback was to get the kinks out and teach the world how to do it. Launching Every Man Ministries was intended to train the local church how to do men’s ministry. For some reason, there wasn’t an identity strong enough to pull men away from worldly identities. We knew we’re competing with those identities. What are the issues facing men today? The attack on male strength is something that’s a current challenge. Strength is not the issue—the issue is strength without character or compassion. When you have power, influence, strength, but don’t have character and compassion guiding that strength, people suffer. Men are built to be strong but if they lack the character and compassion to guide that strength, it ends up becoming self-centered and abusive. What forms the inside of men is what guides their strength.  Why do you think it’s important for kids to see healthy marriages? The family is the first community of acceptance. It’s responsible for the emotional and relational formation of children. If there aren’t healthy models, they will find a second community of acceptance outside the family to belong in. Many times, it’s doing something unhealthy to be accepted in that second community. We’re talking about an all out war for the soul of your child and how they perceive themselves, which will cause them to be either secure or insecure on the inside. Modeling is the strongest form of teaching in a family unit. If mom and dad model a spiritual life and a love for God, your child will absorb it. They’re waiting to see if you’re the real deal. You’re training them without even training them. Much of parenting is a projection of our own stuff. You have to be on a journey of emotional and spiritual growth and health or it has a long-term consequence for how they’re forming. You can’t over-emphasize the importance of modeling in marriage for the health and development of children.  Did you and your wife grow up in homes where healthy marriages were modeled? My wife, Chrissy, grew up in a reasonably healthy model. Her mom loved her dad and they spent time with kids. There was a healthy spiritual foundation and a focus on God and family. I grew up getting thrown to the wolves. My dad was deployed all the time and my mom was handling seven children. If you throw in alcoholism, it adds another thing to dance around. There was a strong pull for me to find the second communities of acceptance, because the dominant feeling in my first community was ‘ignored’. Chrissy grew up in a securely connected family where there was presence, love, affirmation. She wasn’t in deficit when it came to personal worth, self-esteem. I grew up in a family where that was not there. When Chrissy and I started dating, her family was a gospel witness to me of what it’s supposed to be like. We need mentors and models. If you love Jesus, your husband and have a reasonably healthy family, that family has tremendous power to witness to kids in your community like me, who don’t have a vision of what a healthy family looks like. How can couples prioritize marriage in the midst of the crazy schedules and kids? Like all parents, depending on what season you’re in you have different things going on. You have to be a maximizer of moments and say ‘no’ to say ‘yes’. There were activities I could say ‘yes’ to, but I’d have to say ‘no’ to my marriage to do those.  When you have a lot of activities in your home, the first thing to go is time with your spouse. We had to invest financially in date nights and babysitters. We had to send the message to our kids that our relationship is important. Whatever season you’re in, you have to have the snacks (the dates), the meals (a weekend here or there), and banquets (where you really go celebrate your relationship with your spouse). You can’t call it quality if you’re not slowing down to know the other person. You have to slow to know. Tell us a little about the Dangerous Good Movement. The movement started when Jesus said these words, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me and he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, sight to the blind, relief to the oppressed, release to the captive.” Translation: God’s spirit is in me to be dangerous with goodness. Jesus stepped in to protect and defend women, to bless the children, and not pre-qualify people on the basis of race. He walked into a broken masculinity. The Dangerous Good Movement is a movement that is empowered by the spirit of Jesus Christ. It’s men who are in relationship with Him and one another. They’re focused on being like him and behaving like him. It’s my new book that just came out and the curriculum comes out in early 2019 and the conferences are coming to a city near you. Your one simple thing for this week: You’ve got to keep dating. Think about what you did when you were dating. Figure out something your spouse likes and make it a part of your routine. I get my wife her favorite coffee and leave her a note. Second, learn something they desire or want and do that with or for them. For example, I heard my wife talking about how she’d love a shelf over the washer/dryer, so I built one for her while she was out. It doesn’t take a lot! Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better. And be sure to check out the brand new Married People Membership. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Links Birds on a Wire website Wire Talk podcast 80 Tips on Motherhood by Karen Stubbs Birds on a Wire on Facebook Birds on a Wire on Instagram About Our Guest On this episode, we’re joined by Karen Stubbs—the founder of Birds on a Wire, a ministry designed to equip moms through truth, encouragement, and community. Karen has also written three books on motherhood. She and her husband, Greg, have four grown children and reside in Cumming, Ga. After graduating from Auburn University, she and Greg moved to Virginia Beach where Greg served in the Navy as a fighter pilot. It was during those early years that Karen, as a young mom gained her passion for motherhood. She is passionate about challenging moms to experience motherhood in the way God intended it for them and their families. Interview Tell our listeners about Birds on a Wire. Years ago, when I worked at North Point Community Church, I started noticing moms who were struggling. I thought I could pour into some of these young moms, so I started a small group in my basement. That grew until I left the church to start Birds on a Wire in 2011. What does Birds on a Wire offer? We have small group curriculums. I have a 365-day devotional for moms, my weekly podcast, and conferences. The conference is called Soar, where we help moms soar in life. I do a weekly encouraging email with tips on motherhood—moms can go to our website to check us out. Where did the name Birds on a Wire come from? Back when I hosted the small group in my basement, one of the group members was an artist. And the group commissioned her to do a painting of all these birds sitting on a wire. I asked her the inspiration for the painting. She said it was Matthew 6:26 where Jesus says: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Moms are anxious, but we don’t need to be—God is going to take care of us and our children. I brought my friends together and told them I wanted to name the ministry based on the verse and the painting. One member kept talking about ‘birds on a wire,’ so that became the name! How did you meet your husband Greg? We met at a college camp that Dr. Charles Stanley was doing. We met in the dinner line and he kept following me around camp. 32 years later and we’re still married! He went to flight school as a Navy pilot and ended up travelling a lot. Why do you think that healthy marriages are important for kids to see? I don’t think people think about this enough. It’s important that children see a strong marriage because that’s what brings them security. You have the marriage that they’re looking at all the time, and that is their safety zone. You need to create a marriage that is loving, honest, and where children can count on their parents. How can couples prioritize marriage in the midst of raising kids? In order to prioritize marriage, you have to be intentional in your marriage. It’s not going to just happen. The thing that always stood out to me in my marriage to Greg was making him a priority even over my children. If you do, the children will feel more secure and more loved. I have a great relationship with my kids and my spouse. One day your kids are going to leave the house and you still have that relationship with your spouse.  When we dropped off our youngest at college, we went to Italy for three weeks to celebrate. How can couples who have recently become new parents still prioritize their marriage? When you’re in those younger years, you are just exhausted. You get in bed at night—forget about sex, it’s just “good night”. Just keep in mind that it’s a season and it’s not going to last forever. In that season try to always give your partner the benefit of the doubt. He’s tired just like you are; it’s not a competition. Try to stay as civil as possible during that season. When my kids were little, there was a desk in the kitchen that was a catch all. My husband likes a nice, neat house. He would always focus on that desk and he asked me to clean it up. It made me so mad that he was focusing on the desk. I called my pastor and he told me to just clean the desk. That made me so mad too! I started cleaning it out of spite, and you know what? Greg noticed and started changing. He started helping me. The more he helped me, the softer I was to him, and the sweeter he was to me. It all started with me putting his needs above mine and cleaning that desk. How does marriage look different when the kids are older? The elementary years for me were easier. Middle school and high school you have to be involved and zoned in. We encouraged our teenagers to bring friends over, so nights were not our own anymore. We had Fridays off at the church, so Greg and I would go on dates on Friday. We had to get creative—Mexican food and a movie always worked for me. But if you’re not intentional, it’ll never happen. How do you keep up with each other as things change? Greg and I mentor engaged couples, and we encourage them to make a ‘wish list’ of what they wish the other person would do. They have to start with either: “I wish you would do this” or “I wish you would not do that”. The catch is the person listening cannot defend themselves, they just have to practice active listening. What have your kids learned from your marriage? I asked my girls that are married this question and I was pleasantly surprised. They said: When you argue, argue in private Marriage is first; children are second. Don’t put children above your spouse. Family mealtime around the table is very important Date your spouse How did you stay connected when Greg was in the military? A lot of prayer—­and I do not say that lightly. Greg was a really good husband and I had a tendency to look to him to meet my needs. But he wasn’t around to meet my needs and I sort of fell apart. God was there to meet my needs and I started to look to. If you’re in the same situation, go to God— I mean it sincerely. He is what makes marriages strong. I would go to God and tell him my needs and He mets them in ways you can’t imagine. Your one simple thing this week Put your spouse above yourself. If you do that, you’ll never go wrong. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

We’re excited to be talking about how we make decisions in our marriage! There is a spectrum of decisions to make—everything from who is getting the groceries, to whether or not to make a cross-country move. The Tension: Decisions are tough for many couples Some decisions are really big ones and a lot hangs in the balance. Some decisions matter more to one spouse than the other. There’s the question of how should a decision should be made—how quickly do we make the decision, whose advice do we take, etc.? Sometimes you simply disagree about what decision should be made. The common denominator is that, in the middle of these decisions, someone doesn’t feel loved and someone doesn’t feel respected. Which can often happen when we don’t feel heard or understood and take it personally. Truth: Most decisions aren’t life and death, but they do bring life or death to our relationship At the end of the day, ask yourself, “does my spouse feel heard?” Proverbs 18:1-2 says “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” This all takes a level of awareness and humility to approach your spouses in a way that helps them. Do they just need to talk it out? Do they need help solving a problem? Your one simple thing for this week: Use a scale to help understand how important a decision is to your spouse. On a scale of 1-10 do you: Hate it or love it? Don’t care or really care?  Show Closing We have a favor to ask of you—the same favor every podcast asks of you. Leave us a five-star review on iTunes. These reviews give the podcast more visibility and ultimately more listeners. So if you do want other people to know about it, rate it. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes as well! We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Quick update for our listeners: we'll be taking a break for the rest of 2018, but will be back with new episodes in 2019. Thanks for listening to the podcast!

Before we jump into our topic this week, we have a PSA for you—we would love for you to leave us a review on iTunes. These reviews give the podcast more visibility, and ultimately help us reach more listeners. So if you want other people to know about us, rate the podcast! What are some Christmas traditions you had growing up? Afton: We made puppy chow and ate it all the time. We always kicked off the Christmas season the night after Thanksgiving by watching Christmas Vacation and Home Alone. Ted: We would go to my great-grandfather’s farm and cut down a tree. Then, my mom would have my brother and I decorate it—she would let us do whatever we wanted to do. CJ: We didn’t have a ton of traditions, but we always had spaghetti for dinner on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we’d have sausage casserole and our grandparents would come over for dinner. Now, Teri and I go to Chili’s on Christmas Eve—it’s the best people watching ever. What assumptions did you make going into marriage about Christmas? Afton: I assumed we would get a real Christmas tree. That was not an assumption that Hudson had—he wanted to use a cheap fake one so we didn’t have to spend money every year. So our first year of marriage, he got out the fake tree AND we got a real tree and used them both. Ted: We do a fake tree, too. Christmas ornaments have to mean something. So every time we’d travel, we’d get an ornament. Not one ornament is the same as another. But some of our tension started when we had to travel home and decide what family to see when. CJ: I don’t know that I had a whole lot of expectations that first Christmas. I think we pictured Christmas our way and with our own families. You don’t picture the part with your in-laws, and that’s where some of the expectations come in. What are the stressors you feel when it comes to Christmas? Afton: I still feel the stress of having to figure out the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day situation. We also have split custody with my step son, Julian, so we have to figure that out every year. It’s a logistical challenge for us. I also feel the pressure of making sure everyone else has a great Christmas. Ted: Some of those logistical things have ironed themselves out for us. But what to get the kids for Christmas is a stressor. I want to celebrate, but some of it seems excessive. CJ: This year, Teri is due with our first kid on Christmas day. As excited as we are, there’s also a lot of stress—who is coming in, who is staying with us. Some of the most common stressors that people have around Christmas: lack of time lack of money—Americans spend an average of $750 a year on Christmas. pressure to give or receive gifts where and who to spend the holidays with. The results of increased stress can make a couple feel exhausted, disconnected, and have less interest in connecting as a couple. It’s important for couples to pause and remember what’s important. Paying attention to the heart of Christmas can help couples simplify and get back to what a big deal this holiday is for our faith. There are a lot of ways this can be true for you. It could be creating experiences instead of just stuff. It’s asking what you want for yourself and your kids and having experiences with your spouse. Your one simple thing for this week Talk about Christmas traditions before Christmas. Ask each other: What does Christmas mean to you? How did you celebrate Christmas growing up? What your favorite Christmas memory as a kid? If you could create the perfect Christmas traditions, what would they be? How is the way you see Christmas different from me? How is the way you see Christmas the same as me? How do we compromise? Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Links Peach State Pride Derek on Instagram Kari Beth on Instagram Peach State Pride on Instagram About our Guests Derek and Kari Beth Chitwood work together every day in a business Derek founded in 2009—Peach State Pride. It’s a clothing and merchandise company that represents the history, heritage and people of Georgia. The Chitwoods live right outside Athens, Ga., where Peach State Pride is headquartered. We love the way they talk to and about each other. Let’s dive in and hear from two people who know how to work together and love together. Interview How did you guys meet? Derek: We got married in spring of 2013. We grew up in the same county, different towns and we were in the same school system. We never actually met in high school; she was three years younger than me but I knew her older sister. Kari Beth went on to Georgia Tech where she was a cheerleader. I would go to the games and I figured out who she was. When she was a senior, I reached out and we went on a date and have been together ever since. How did you start your business? Derek: I started the clothing brand that promotes the state of Georgia in 2009. At the time, I was working for a company that built playgrounds in South Carolina and I kept seeing the palm tree crescent moon—which is on their state flag and has a ton of history. It’s an abstract logo that unifies the state of South Carolina. I was so proud of being from Georgia but we didn’t have anything like that. I went home and drew up a logo and started dreaming about it being the logo for the state of Georgia. My roommates suggested I make some t-shirts and hats so I did. One of my friends started carrying them at an Ace Hardware. And it took off. I had no business background, so I had to figure that out. Kari Beth, what did you study in school? Kari Beth: I was a management major and got a certificate in marketing. After I graduated, I went and worked for a company in Buckhead doing marketing. After a couple years I decided I didn’t want to work in business anymore, I wanted to be a teacher. So I quit my job and went back to grad school to teach. When I finished my masters we were getting married and opening our first store and we needed to hire someone with my skill set so that’s when I came on full time. How did you help with the business while you were dating? Kari Beth: I did as much as I could. I was the one he would bounce ideas off of and I would come home from work and help as much as I could. It was fun, but I definitely thought Derek was crazy—I didn’t fully get it. Derek: Her personality is that she wants to help when there’s an issue. I was asking for help and she was willing to give help. Our skill sets are so different; I needed help and support in areas she was good at. From the beginning of our relationship, we complemented each other. What are some of the biggest challenges of you guys working together as a couple? Kari Beth: Turning work off is a challenge. We have our own way of doing it now, but we can really wear ourselves out when we work together all day and continue talking about issues at the end of the day. We go for a walk every evening with our dog to get our thoughts out and try to leave it at that. We’re also really connected because of that. If I had a bad day, usually Derek did, too. We have disagreements sometimes, but at the end of the day, I see this as Derek’s business. If he wants to make a decision, I need to respect that. With that said, he fully understands and recognizes the things I’m good at—the operational things and structure of the business. Why have you been able to work well together? Kari Beth: So much comes down to pride. Derek is very self-aware and we try to be that way about ourselves and our business. Because Derek has adopted this attitude, he’s not threatened by my strengths. That can be tough for couples working together—when there is a power struggle. It’s putting the relationship first, whether with us or our employees. Derek: The thing I always tell people about Kari Beth is that she always takes the high road. Because she’s willing to do that, I’m more willing to do that too. This is really all we’ve ever known. From the moment we got married, we have worked together every single day. Because of that, we’ve never known anything different. We also remind ourselves how lucky we really are. Do you have any advice for couples that are working together and struggling? Derek: A really practical thing to do is take a personality test. You can really hone in on understanding your spouse in a more tangible way. Kari Beth: Our faith plays a huge role in our business. We start every day with a prayer and end every day with a prayer. When we’ve had to let someone go we’ve stopped to pray. Those small things don’t always feel powerful in the moment but I think God honors that. Your one simple thing for this week: Always put your marriage first. Don’t let success or pride get in the way of that. We have cut off spots that allows us to turn off work and never let anger or arguments fester. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the MarriedPeople Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review—they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

On today’s episode we’ve got another Ted Lowe interview, this time with Lee and Martika Jenkins. Lee is an author, pastor, and a former college and NFL football player. He spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry before planting Eagles Nest Church in Atlanta, Ga. Lee and Martika have been married for 30 years and have three grown children. Interview  Can you tell us a little about yourselves? Lee: I’m Lee and in about two weeks I’ll be celebrating 30 years of marriage to this incredible woman. I spent 25 years in the investment business. But six years ago, I got out of the business world because the Lord was calling me into full-time ministry. The two topics I’m most excited about are marriage and money. We have three children who are grown adults and we love being empty nesters. Tell us a little about being empty nesters. Our children are now 28, 26, and 23. It was a joy raising them. And now it’s a joy to have them out of the house! How do you have different personalities when it comes to money? Lee: When we first got married, we were completely opposite. We were the classic spender/saver dynamic. I was the saver and she was the spender. When I wanted something, I bought it with cash. But Martika borrowed her way through school. Martika: Back in the 80’s, you could sign one time and get five different credit cards. And I was so excited to have those cards. Lee: When my sister introduced me to Martika, I went over to her apartment. I looked through her photo album and they have photos of Hawaii and all these places. And I thought not only was she beautiful and loves the Lord, she was rich, too! Little did I know that I’d pay for those trips later. How did you meet? Martika: We met the weekend that I quit my job to move to Atlanta. Lee helped me find a place to live when I got here and our relationship blossomed from there.  How did money impact the first years of your marriage? Martika: It was tough because our money personalities were so opposite. Lee had to tighten me up and I had to loosen him up. He was so cheap it was ridiculous. We didn’t have a lot of money, but as the Lord blessed us financially it really helped our relationship to grow and become more intimate. Lee: It was frustrating at first, but we had to wrestle with some of our philosophies and history. When you marry someone you marry their habits and what they’ve been taught. But it was very complementary even though we were financial opposites. We made a lot of the classic mistakes that young couples make. What issues did you see with couples while working in the financial industry? Lee: It’s a sensitive issue. Couples don’t realize that they need to work together. In order for the two to become one, it takes a lot of work. It’s difficult for some couples to get on the same team because you have to compromise. One of the reasons couples aren’t successful financially is because they don’t understand the biblical basis of marriage. They’re selfish, and you can’t be selfish when it comes to this area. How did this play itself out in terms of decisions and purchases? Martika: When we first got married, Lee was on 100% commission. We had to talk about money more than most because we didn’t know how much was coming in each month. We had Money Monday’s where we had to sit and talk it all out. We had restrictions on how much we could spend without the other’s approval and agreement. Because we were so tight, we had to communicate a lot. It helped our marriage because it helped us be more vulnerable. What money advice would you give to a younger couple? Lee: When you’re young, you have to talk about it a lot. Like Martika said, we’d meet every Monday. When you come into agreement, it helps your marriage in every area. Don’t stay away from this subject—fight through the discomfort. Once you break through the first initial meetings it will become something that’s fun. Do you recommend combining finances when you get married? Lee: When two become one, that means everything. When you separate your money on purpose, you’re missing out on some deep intimacy and communication. One of the beauties of combining your money and doing things together is that it really forces you to talk. During that process, you get to know your spouse better. How do you compromise when one of you is a saver and the other is a saver? Lee: Some of my biggest regrets are looking back and seeing how cheap I was with things like furniture. Some of our early things had to be thrown out and re-purchased because I was so tight about everything. I learned from that because I actually ended up spending more money in the long run. Recently Martika noticed I was stressed with things going on. She told me we were going on vacation. It was the best, but had she asked me I probably would have said no. She’s helping me to loosen up and the more I do that the better it makes our marriage. The 10 Principles of Money and Marriage We have the 10 principles and we usually say there are some you may be doing and two or three you really need to do. Here they are: Develop a spending plan: Some people call this a budget, but we like the word ‘spending’ better. Live within your means: Learn to be content with what you have and resist the temptation to want more and bigger. Avoid becoming a slave to debt: It’s important that your first inclination should be a debit card or cash. That way you’re spending what you have and not what you don’t have. Pay attention to your credit score. Find multiple sources of income: Don’t let your job be your only source of income. Save and invest for the future: Give to God first. Start saving second. Then, live off the rest. Be adequately insured: What would you want to have happen for your family if you woke up tomorrow in heaven? Honor God with your wealth: Be a generous giver! Honor God first and not last. Teach your children about money. Develop an estate plan: This can get complicated depending on your assets. But make sure you have an updated will. Your one simple thing for this week: Pick one thing from this list of 10 to talk about with your spouse. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Links Fierce Marriage Fierce Marriage podcast On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram About Ryan & Selena Frederick We’ve got an awesome interview ready for you because Ted talked to Ryan and Selena Frederick, the founders of Fierce Marriage. Fierce Marriage is an online marriage platform., which includes a blog, a podcast, social media channels, and several books written by Ryan and Selena. They’ve been married for over 15 years and live in Tacoma, Wa., with their two daughters. Let’s dive into Ted’s interview with Ryan and Selena. Interview  How did you first meet? Ryan: I remember it so clearly—the first time I saw Selena was in 8th grade. My mom was an educator and was interviewing at a Christian school. I went along to her interview and walked into the gym and saw Selena and my stomach dropped. I went to the school and didn’t talk to her for a year. We became friends and then it turned in a romance. The summer after our sophomore year, we started dating and dated for four years. We got married pretty young—20 and 21. In hindsight, it was young, but I couldn’t wait any longer. What were the first surprises once you got married? Ryan: As a young Christian guy in that generation of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, I’m thinking sex was going to be everything I want and more. But you get married and your expectation has to adjust. That was the biggest reality check for me. Selena: It’s learning to manage those expectations as a wife. But you can’t uphold all those things and carry it all. And that’s OK. We were learning to do this together, so we had to grow in our intimacy. It’s gotten better with time. Ryan: I would say to the young couple listening that it’s just the beginning of a long adventure of learning to love each other. What were the marriages like in your families? Selena: I came from a divorced home. My parents divorced when I was about eight. So I didn’t really know what a marriage looked like. I heard the arguing and messes of my parents and saw the high and low but not the in-between. Ryan: My parents have been together my whole life. They’re amazing, but not necessarily healthy in every season. My dad had two ultimatums for me growing up—no tattoos and don’t have sex before you get married. So marriage has always had a level of importance in my own mind. Selena: I grew up in the church and it was monumental to my growth and view of marriage. I knew once I got married I wouldn’t consider a divorce. What made you want to pour into marriages? Ryan: I would call it a quarter life crisis. About 7 years ago, I was working with our web development company—designing and writing code myself. We launched the business 10 years ago and had gotten these clients that I thought would be the Holy Grail. I thought we were living the dream but I was working long hours and hated it. I started wondering why I was doing it. I was OK at it, but not great at it. I started asking God what He had for us and we wanted to do it God’s way. I had also done a lot of work with publishers and started wondering what if we started a marriage ministry. We had also seen a lot of our friends go through their first five or seven years of marriage and divorce. We started asking why ours was working and we wanted to be together still. As clear as day, it was just Jesus. There’s no other reason we’re together. But knowing Christ and how we’re loved in Him is why we’re still together. We realized there’s something to be said in this space. We don’t know it all, but what we do know we’ll share openly and transparently. I spent a month or so building out the plan and we launched a few months later. Why do you think some of your friends were getting divorced? There’s a lot going on before marriage that could be brought in as baggage. If you’ve had other sexual partners and Christ hasn’t helped you walk through that, for example. The theme is the softness of heart and respect for each other that comes from wanting to hear God’s word and bend my will to it. It’s why we say it always comes back to Jesus. I don’t know how to make sense of love outside of Chris. When I look at Him it all becomes clear and the standard. Christ empowers us to be able to love each other and have the hard conversations in the marriage covenant. If we’re not able to really walk through things from pre-marriage with Christ, it’s hard to continue walking together. We build walls and don’t want to be vulnerable. What do you say to someone listening who isn’t a believer and is hearing things like ‘covenant’ and ‘Jesus is Lord’? For someone who doesn’t know what it means to love Jesus, it’s the grace of God that you’re listening to this. This is an opportunity to start that journey. Whether you call yourself a Christian or not, we don’t assume you know what it means to experience the true Gospel. We do them a disservice if we don’t at least create a framework where they can start getting answers to their questions. In our book we released this last April, we spent a whole chapter on Gospel, Love and Covenant. We found that couples who understand truth about love and covenant will always have the behavior they want. But if we just try to give them tips for the behavior, that’s just behavior modification. At the core of it, our mission is to point people to Christ. What differences do you see in millennial marriages? The biggest thing we always say is: step one is to not assume what people believe or their worldview. Step two is to not be afraid to point them to Jesus. People want a relationship that lasts for life and is transparent. And we know how to get that and it’s Jesus. What are the things you hear millennials are struggling with? One of them would be finding true community where you’re known and knowing others. Having those people you can do life with and be transparent is so important. The second is to understand longevity and stability with a true long-term vision in mind. It allows you to table issues and rely on your covenant. Let love mature. The third one is our generation can tend to get scared of conflict. It’s why we want to live on Instagram. It’s mainly because we haven’t been taught how to resolve conflict so we walk away from it. Talk about being married and working together. How do you make that work? Selena: We’ve become a pretty good team. Ryan handles a lot of the day-to-day work of keeping Fierce Marriage running. I handle our children and the day-to-day home life, but we’re both trying to bring Jesus into these situations. Ryan: It’s understanding that we’re a team even though she’s not on a laptop next to me. It’s learning generosity and to be generous with your appreciation. Me working from home has been another transition for us. Bt seeing it as an opportunity to really serve each other. I’ll come down and relieve her if the kids are acting up. Your one simple thing for this week: Ryan: Fight naked—literally and figuratively. It’s hard to get mad when someone is disrobing and figuratively don’t go into a fight with your armor on, stay vulnerable. Selena: Find an adventure you’ve been wanting to do and do it together. It doesn’t have to be big; it could be finding a park or a new trail. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

What do we do when our spouse does something that drives us crazy? A definition of a pet peeve is: “a minor complaint or irritation that’s more annoying to you than anyone else." We’re not talking about deeper level things, just those little things that drive you nuts.  Some of the most common pet peeves: Leaving the toilet seat up Driving distracted by electronic devices Putting empty cartons back in the fridge Leaving clothes on the floor Whistling Telling the same joke over and over, expecting you to laugh Leaving trash in the car Not asking for directions or using the GPS Falling asleep on the sofa instead of going to bed Not putting your keys in the place where you go to get the keys Chewing with your mouth open at the table Always being late Taking the covers at night Squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong part of the tube Leaving stuff in your clothes pockets when it goes to the laundry In preparation for this episode, Ted text his wife, Nancie, to ask about her pet peeves. Here’s how that went down.  Ted: We are talking about pet peeves on the podcast tomorrow. What is something I do that drives you nuts? This is the minor stuff, not the big stuff. Nancie: That sounds like a question designed to hurt somebody’s feelings (especially mine). Ted: You don’t have any and I’m not mentioning them. But I can mention my own. . . so what are they my love. Nancie: You break rules. Ted: That hurts my feelings. What causes pet peeves? Misattribution Many times, there is misattribution. This is when you attribute something to the wrong thing or person. You aren’t really the frustration with your spouse; you are frustrated by work, but attribute that frustration to your spouse. It’s thinking, “I feel all this because of them”, not realizing your ‘tank of frustration’ may already be full and it comes out on these small things.  Affective Association On the opposite side is ‘Affective Association’. One scientific study broke married couples into two groups. The researchers showed one group images of their spouse interspersed with beautiful things. The other group saw their spouse and then images of neutral images. All the people who saw the first slide show ranked their marriage higher than when they started.  The Truth: How we handle pet peeves matters because silly fights can cause serious damage. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” You can choose to let a pet peeve go or you can talk to them in a way that is loving and encouraging.  We all know we do some things that drive our spouse crazy and we want to be treated this way. How you do this depends on your relationship. It may be playful or more serious. For some people, the humor really helps. For others it may just be talking about it in a softer way.  Your one simple thing for this week When it comes to your spouse’s pet peeves, there are some things you can drop and some things you have to say. But do both in truth and grace. You could start by asking your spouse for one thing that you do that drives them crazy. Then be brave enough to take it. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Links Scott’s website Watermark Church Scott on Twitter Scott on Instagram Ready or Knot book About Scott Kedersha To talk about the importance of starting marriage well, Ted got an interview with Scott Kedersha, the director of Marriage Ministry at Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas. Scott has recently written a book called Ready or Knot, which is specifically for engaged and newlywed couples—they’ll talk about it more during the episode. Scott and his wife Kristen have been married for 17 years and live in Dallas with their four sons. Now sit back and enjoy this interview with Ted and Scott Kedersha. Interview  Tell us a little about you and your family. I have been married to Kristen for 17 years and we have four boys—twins who are teenagers, a 12 year old, and 10 year old. We live in Dallas and I work at a church called Watermark as a marriage pastor. I work with everyone along the relational spectrum and it forces me to work hard on my own marriage. How did you meet your wife? Kristen was one of my instructors in grad school. It was love at first sight for me, but took her four years. She comes from a military family with parents who are still married. My dad died when I was six years old. My mom remarried, so I have one brother and a few step-siblings. My step-dad just passed away almost two years ago now. We came from very different families. She is the stable, steady one. I’m the drama queen—up and down, more emotional. We just don’t like the gender stereotypes, because we break almost all of them. We have very different personalities but love being married to each other. Has that always been the case? We’re really fortunate. Kristen is as laid back as they come and handles a house with four boys really well. We just like each other a lot. It hasn’t been easy—our toughest season was when the twins were born. No money, no sleep. But for the most part we’ve done really well. Being low maintenance doesn’t come naturally; we do work hard to get our marriage to a place where we enjoy being together. What are some little things you’ve done recently to improve your marriage? We have twins in high school and one of them runs cross-country. He has to get up at 5:45am to be at the school by 6:15am. One of us has to get up early to wake him and get him to school. We both race to the opportunity to do that to better serve one another.  What are the tensions people don’t see coming when preparing for marriage? There’s been a little bit of a shift. We used to have to tell people that marriage is hard, but somewhere over the last 12 years, we don’t have to convince people of that anymore. They’ve grown up in broken homes, so I don’t have to convince them—they know marriage is hard. We need to convince them that marriage is amazing. Apart from my relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Kristen is the best thing in my world. People are hungry—they can Google and find information, but they want to be in this thing together. We want people to see that marriage is fun and relationships are fun. It doesn’t have to be a stuffy class. We provide an experience for couples where they can understand they’re struggling with the same things. What are some of the things that distinguishes a successful marriage? Our church surveyed over 400 leaders over the years to see characteristics of couples who do marriage well. A few things came out. They’re open in their relationship, honest, transparent, teachable, and humble. We try to tell real stories about disagreements we had 25 minutes ago. What would you say to a couple who is thinking about getting married? First, the marriage relationship is unique. While you’re dating, you can break up, move, switch jobs. But marriage is designed as a unique relationship. Before you enter in, you need to know what you’re committing to. I tell couples that life is better when you’re with others. When you look over time, you see God work in the context of community. Marriage is worth fighting for—it’s a relationship that affects more than just one man and one woman but the community around you. There’s generational impact. So what’re you going to do with this relationship? What’re some other things that people can do to help their marriage? In the newlywed period, it’s so fun and exciting. We’ll see couples decide to go buy a house, and they’ll make the decision on their own. The lender tells them to max out what they buy and they come into marriage with college and car debt. They make this big decision and don’t process with others. But I would say to process decisions with others. If you’re friends with someone making a big decision, help them with that. Friends don’t let friends make decisions on their own. How does co-habitation impact marriage? Studies show 60-80% of couples live together before they’re married. It’s so normal and everyone (parents, friends) is telling them to move in together. But what it often does is build up the idea that they can be together and enjoy the benefits of marriage with no commitment. As soon as things get difficult, they want to run away and be with the next person. It gives them the idea that once things are hard they can get out. It’s not the stable foundation you want in your relationship. It becomes all about me. Marriage calls us to the opposite. Selfishness gets in the way and causes fights and quarrels among us. How has your work with marriages impacted your community? When I started in this job in 2006, my boss pulled me aside and asked what if we set an audacious goal to help marriage in Dallas. We wanted 10% of all couples who got married in our county to go through our pre-marital ministry. Our big goal was to reach 1,400 couples and do everything we could to prepare them for marriage. We thought if we could change the marriage relationships, it’d change everything. Every year, we’ve chipped away. This year we’ll have over 1,000 couples go through the ministry and more than half of them don’t go to our church. How can a couple build a solid foundation in their marriage? If you look at Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about all these big topics. Then he gets to the end and says you have two choices with what I’ve given you: you either build your house on the rock or on the sand. Trials are going to come and we get to help couples build it right. I would encourage every couple to be building their home on the right, solid foundation. Your one simple thing for this week For the pre-marital couple, go into marriage asking how you can put the needs of your spouse before your own. For the rest of couples, we all have things we hate to do around the house. Ask your spouse what they hate to do and then you do it. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better.  We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us. If you want more from Scott, you can check out his book Ready or Knot, available for pre-order.

Our co-host Ted Lowe sat down for an interview with friend of the podcast, Todd Graham. Todd is a speaker, author and the family pastor at Eastside Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga. He’s got many years of experience leading marriage and family ministries at a few different churches across the country. Todd has been married for 19 years and has three kids. Todd has also been very involved with MarriedPeople over the years. He’s written for our blog, spoken at our conferences, and been a tremendous leader behind the scenes. But perhaps our favorite thing about Todd is his transparency. Todd gives so much hope through what he does by being real about the tough stuff. Todd shares about his struggle with depression, the impact it has had on his marriage, and how he has learned to handle his depression in a way that is actually helpful and empowering to his marriage.  It’s important to note that Todd is talking about people who experience every day, common depression tendencies vs. those who need legit professional help.   Interview You were a first responder before being a pastor. Talk a little about that. While I was pastoring I was a police officer in a county just north of Atlanta for several years and I’ve also worked on their fire department and part time in the trauma department at the children’s hospital. How has depression impacted you personally as a husband and dad? As a pastor, I see it all the time. The thing about depression is that it never just impacts one person—it also impacts their marriage. It’s a lonely thing because it can be a taboo topic. I’ve struggled with it for years—probably most of my life. It’s amazing how many leaders deal with it. Why do you think people suffer in silence with this? Why don’t we talk about it? Most of the people I talk with that are dealing with it ask the same thing. Things like diabetes or other illnesses are provable—you can document and put them on paper and there are clear action steps to take care of them. But the emotional or mental conditions are more difficult. And there are so many different types. I think a lot of people don’t even realize they’re dealing with it.  What would you say to people who don’t understand the struggle? That is one of the biggest struggles that makes people who are dealing with it not want to talk about it. Depression is not something you can just turn off or turn on. It takes them over and they don’t know how to deal with it. You often don’t know how to deal with it and don’t even want to because nothing can fix it right away. It’s a multi-faceted thing that takes you over physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. How do you respond to Christians who say “Isn’t Jesus enough”? That’s just one more reason people won’t talk about it. So many people come into my office hurt by statements like that. Christ is supposed to be our joy. But the thing is that things aren’t working right in your head. If you’re having a hard time figuring that out, it doesn’t mean you’re broken or that there’s anything wrong with your relationship with Jesus. What’s the difference between sadness and depression? Everyone experiences sadness, but one of the biggest myths about depression is that it’s sadness. Sadness is just a byproduct. Depression is when the passion of life actually fades—your desire to do things that make life what it is goes away. You become cynical and feel drained. You can get numb without being sad. What are the differences with people you see who are in depression? Guys have a tendency to get angrier about it. In general, men are fixers. When they can’t fix it, they tend to get angry. Women tend to be sadder, because they’re sad that they’re sad and can’t figure out why. Other clues are that little things will get you disproportionately angry or frustrated. Or things that are a big deal aren’t a big deal anymore and you stop taking care of things. Passion in life fades and things you usually like to do don’t excite you anymore. Some people start sleeping more to get away from it. Laughter is often replaced with cynicism and productivity drops. Those are all hints when you get into a cycle or become constant. What does this look like for people who are married to someone with depression? A lot of times people don’t know. It can be very difficult for the person who is dealing with depression to communicate how dark it gets on the inside. If your spouse is trying to explain this to you, realize the effort that took to explain to you. Many times, it can be hard to separate between marital issues and depression. When it doesn’t feel like one of the spouses is energized by the relationship, it can feel like something is wrong between them. Which is often not the case. It really has nothing to do with the other person, but it can be hard not to feel like it’s about you. How do people usually respond to a spouse with depression? Men in particular are fixers and they want to press a button and fix their spouse. If you love the person you’re going to want to fix it to help them feel better. But with depression, another person can’t fix you. At this point, it’s common for both spouses to want to fix it. But just to have someone understand helps a lot. When your spouse is dealing with something like this and fixing doesn’t work, the spouse not dealing with it runs out of ideas and feels like they’ve done their best. They can internalize it and feel like they’re broken. It’s easy to get defensive when you’ve done your very best and putting all your effort into marriage and there’s nothing positive coming out of it. It can feel like they aren’t enough for the other spouse.   Do you see a change with how the church is handling depression? Yes, we are talking about it more and we need to talk about it. There are so many different levels of depression/burnout that a lot of it could be stopped before it gets intense by just talking about it. There’s a big difference between clinical depression and ‘regular everyday’ depression that’s being triggered by anxiety. We can do something about that second part, and if people dealing with the first part get more comfortable talking about it they can get the help they need. How have you handled your own depression? I didn’t know I was dealing with it for a while. One day, I read a blog post by Carey Nieuwhof and he was listing the top clues to know you’re burning out. I read that article and realized I was all of them. It explained what was happening. No one had ever talked about it. That was my wakeup call. For me, I pick one thing physically, mentally and spiritually to do every day. If nothing else happens for the day, at least I did one thing. I’m a runner and I’ll get in over 1,000 miles this year. Most of those are to prevent the darkness from taking me over. Get outside and do something physically. How do you get yourself up off the couch when you’re struggling with depression? The first step is getting out the door. Go for a walk. Last night, I was planning on going on a long run and I went for a mile walk instead. The enemy of depression is doing something, because when it’s eating at you, you want to do nothing. Start with one meal and choose something grown from the ground instead of produced. Everything counts, no matter how big or small it is. The physical stuff is a game changer.  What are some other solutions for dealing with depression? I always do something mentally every day. I’m a reader because I know it betters me and makes my mind stronger. Any kind of book you can read will activate the part of your brain that’s not is not wanting to function and will help kick start you out of the cycle. I also use The 5 Minute Journal. It starts out with three things you’re grateful for and closes you out with one thing that happened during the day that you’re grateful for. There’s a lot of research on it and how it keeps you in a positive headspace. Spiritually, I try to do one thing every day—get into a devotional to keep me connected. Just knowing that God loves you and believing that Jesus came and died for you, that’s great. But it doesn’t fix things around you. It gives you a new perspective on how to deal with things. Knowing who Jesus is isn’t the answer, but adding him back into the equation in your daily life is. These aren’t quick fixes but they are the road for keeping your head about you and keep the dark times from staying so dark. What are your views on depression medication? God designed the brain so incredibly. When you’re in a space where you can handle and manage yourself, you should do everything in your power to do that. But there are cases where people need help, and God placed doctors who can help us. Medication scan be incredibly important for people who need them. Anyone who says people shouldn’t take medication are speaking out of ignorance. I don’t think they’re trying to be mean, but they don’t understand. Sometimes we need some help and that’s the route to go. What should people do if they’re feeling hopeless? Those are people listening to the lies in their head. The dream is that they would experience life fully every day. But if you’re not there right now, take it moment-by-moment. You’re here and you’ve brought a smile to someone’s face or changed someone’s day. It’s hard to find hope in that dark space because you don’t feel you have value but that’s just not true. You can go prove it by doing something for someone. How important is community and letting people in? Isolation is what kills a lot of relationships. One of the difficult things about depression is that you do feel isolated. It’s why talking about it helps so tremendously—you find out it’s not just you. You are not the only person who is dealing with this. I say the same thing to spouses—you’re not the only person in this position. Keep up the work and know you’re not alone in this. Your one simple thing: For those struggling with depression, pick one thing physically, mentally or spiritually (or all three) and do that each day. For the spouse, don’t take it personal. Keep answering your spouse’s question (for men: “Do I have what it takes?” and for women: “Would you pick me again?) and you’ve done your best. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better.  We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Today’s question is pretty heavy, but it’s a part of marriage for a lot of couples. We talked to Sandy Wise (Episodes 25 & 26) about what to do when you lose your spouse and that was an amazing conversation. This week, our discussion is about what to do when your spouse has lost a loved one. Most people don’t think about what to do until they’re in the middle of it. It’s never easy, but there are ways to process. The Tension There will be times in our marriage when our spouse will experience a big loss. Ted: I do have some experience with loss. I lost my mom when I was 10, suddenly. After going through that, I thought I had “paid off the grim reaper” and it wouldn’t happen again. My dad raised us, but my mom’s sister helped raise us after my mom passed away. She had a son who struggled with drugs and alcohol starting at 14 years old. In his mid-twenties, he overdosed and passed away. He was more like a brother than a cousin to me. Then a couple years later, the same aunt got an odd infection and passed away. I didn’t do so well. I was very quiet and withdrawn. I wept a lot and did odd things, like call her phone and leave her messages. But I could do all those things with Nancie. A lot of times, well-meaning people and spouses do things that unintentionally hurt the other person. But Nancie would just tell me she was sorry, that it was crazy and that she couldn’t believe it. That helped me, and it drew us together The Truth How you handle their loss can connect you or disconnect you from your spouse? Listen and don’t fix. People say, “I don’t know what to say.” Good. Don't worry about what you say. Just listen and sit there. Run from clichés. They don’t help at all. Stick to a couple of phrases: “I’m so sorry” and, “For what it’s worth, I’m praying for you.” Realize every day is different. Grief is like an ocean more than it is steps. It still hits me (Ted) at weird times—like when my son graduated high school. Let them grieve in weird ways. I (Ted) would call my Aunt’s cell phone and leave messages. Stand in the gaps—for example, take the kids where they need to go for them. Be their advocate. Let them cry. Let them repeat themselves. Take care of you. It will drain you when you have to be selfless for your spouse through this. Make sure you have a friend you can share with too.  Your one simple thing If your spouse is in the middle of this, there’s one question you can ask, “How are you doing?” Then, just listen. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

Our personality something that plays a major role in our marriages. Typically, it seems like we’re drawn to someone different than ourselves. Though it’s not always true, most of the people we know are different than their spouses in this way. Introversion vs. Extroversion First, let’s define the difference between introvert and extrovert: Introverts get energy from being alone. Extroverts get energy from being with other people. Afton: I think it is a common misconception that when you’re the life of the party around people or you’re charismatic, you’re extroverted. But I’m often drained after lots of time with people and need alone time. CJ: I am definitely introverted and probably fit the stereotype. Teri was an extrovert in college and I think she’s moved a little more toward being an introvert. Ted: Nancie is really comfortable on stage and in front of people. So it seems like she’s an extrovert, but she’s really not. What is an ambivert? The confusion is that people often think it’s about how you interact with people, but it’s really more about where you get your energy. There is also a third category: An ambivert is someone who exhibits both qualities of introversion and extroversion- depending on the situation and the people involved. One half to two thirds of people say they’re an ambivert. Here are some questions to help you know: Do you crave alone time but also love people? Do certain situations/people make you feel outgoing while other situations/people make you quiet and reserved? Do you struggle with the labels introverts and extroverts? What this means Truth: Personality differences are great opportunities to communicate unconditional love.  We can get so frustrated with a spouse if we haven’t processed who they are and celebrated who they are. How do we make this practical? If you're an extrovert married to an introvert: Introverts often need time to process. When they speak, it’s been thought out. So you start the conversation, knowing they may need to come back later to finish it. They really do want to talk about themselves, but you may need to be a better listener. Know that your introverted spouse needing time alone is not a personal slam towards you. Talk about when it is best for them to get alone time and when you need to reconnect as a couple. Many introverts don’t mind talking about themselves. They just need some time to process it and often times an invitation. Don’t spring social surprises on your introverted spouse. Saying, “hey, I invited my new friends over for dinner” can be a nightmare for your introverted spouse. It’s OK to have people over, but introverts typically like to have more warning. Ask them: what situations/scenes do you dislike the most? Figure out the times that are most draining. Is it big gatherings, medium size gatherings, small gatherings? Ask them: when we are in these situations, what do you need from me? Do you want me to pull you out of the corner at partiers or let you stay there? Support who they are by giving them time at the end of the day or whenever they need it most. But it is OK to say I love being with you so can we some set time when we are together and you are not alone? If you're an introverts married to an extrovert: Your extroverted spouse processes issues and problems through talking them out. Giving them time to do that with you is a gift to them. Introverts: since you tend to keep things more to yourself, check yourself for being passive aggressive. Ask your extroverted spouse: Where is your favorite place to get a ‘people fix’? What people give you the most energy? What are the times that you want me to be with you the most? The key is to work together and not use your extrovert or introvert personality to give you an excuse to do the things that cause division between you. For example, you shouldn’t say, “I don’t want to be around your family cause I’m an introvert” or “I don’t care if people are over during dinner cause I’m an extrovert”. Finally, when you feel frustrated with your spouse’s differences, think about specific benefits those differences bring to their lives. Your one simple thing for this week Figure out which category you and your spouse fall into. If you already know what category they fall into, ask them the high and low of falling into that category. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.

In a previous episode, we had a conversation about how to have a great relationship with your in-laws. This is the other side of that conversation—how you can be great in-laws when you’ve got grown kids who are married.  About the guests On this episode, we interviewed Jana and Stephen Guynn, who have been married for 27 years. They have two adult children, Dalton and Quincy. Dalton has been married for just a couple of years and Quincy just got engaged. The Guynns have been marriage mentors to our co-host, Ted Lowe and his wife Nancie for the last 15 years. Ted interviewed the Guynns about how they have navigated the new world of being parents-in-law. Interview with Stephen & Jana Guynn Can you introduce yourselves and tell us a little about you? We’ll have been married 27 years here soon and have two great kids. A 25-year-old son named Dalton and 23-year-old daughter Quincy. Dalton has been married for two years to the love of his life and Quincy just got engaged over the weekend.  Talk a little about what you do professionally. I (Stephen) work for a local IT company and am a proposal response manager. Up until about four years ago, I was in IT sales and wasn’t wired for it all. God opened this door up and I’m enjoying what I’m doing for a change. I (Jana) have been with North Point Ministries for 15 years, most of it working in marriage ministry or production—producing the main services. I’ve recently taken on some duties to shepherd the people who get baptized as well. How do you act as each other’s biggest champions? We are flawed and have struggled but we’ve stepped into being each other’s biggest cheerleaders. It is the best feeling in the world when your kids are employed and are taking care of themselves, working in the groove God created them to work in. We high five each other every now and then. We were pretty purposeful about raising our kids to be fully functional adults. We had people in our lives who were ahead of us and we were able to go to those people for advice. How have you downsized since becoming empty nesters? We went from five bedrooms down to two when we moved into a smaller house. We got rid of two-thirds of things we owned. It was the most freeing thing we’ve ever done. It was difficult for me (Stephen) because I didn’t realize how much I identified myself with what I had. But it is freeing not to have all this stuff. It has freed us up to live our life and it has made us better for each other. Why is it difficult for people to be great parent-in-laws? I think it boils down to trust. You have to trust your children enough to know they are picking a great person to date. From the minute they started dating, we would invite that person into our family. We really believe that if God put this teenager in our family for a season, we were going to love on them. We’ve been intentional about creating an easy space to hang out. I wish I (Stephen) had a dollar for every time Jana told our kids, “God has a plan and a purpose for you.” By instilling that, it causes your kids to recognize that it’s not just about their little box but God has something more out there for them to do. Hopefully by later high school, your kids have a sense of who they are and whose they are. So when they do get into that serious relationship they can step into that clearly. How did you guys talk to your kids about their future spouse when they were growing up? One important thing we’ve seen play out now with Dalton as an adult. He was a very sensitive kid and we used to pray over and with him to thank God for his sensitive heart. As a boy, he thought he shouldn’t have a sensitive heart, but we kept encouraging him that God was going to use that to be a great caretaker and husband to his wife. He loves his wife, Emily, dearly. As you parent and lead your children toward whose they are. And it sets us up to be great parent-in-laws. It starts early. What are the challenges for people who want to be a great parent-in-law? If you have a strained relationship with someone that your child is married to, you have to own your own part in it. As a parent, you can be a benevolent dictator, but as an in-law you just have to be benevolent. You have to want the best for that person, give the most generous explanation for that person’s behavior. What I mean by ‘benevolent dictator’ is that when you’re raising your children, you are in charge of their schedules, their phone, who they’re hanging out with, etc. When they are adults, you just become benevolent and love on them. When they’re adults with jobs, we speak into their life when they ask. But if we’re not asked, we don’t speak into it. When our kids went off to college, we took more of an advisory role with them. We let them experience the consequences when they messed up. It’s important to let them fail and then help them figure out how to move forward. How do you form a good relationship with your child-in-law? You don’t know what your child-in-law might be bringing into the marriage. It may not be all about you—it may be something going on with your child-in-law. The thing there is to try to figure out what’s going on at the heart of the issue with a strained relationship. We’ve raised our kids to have their first thought be for their spouse. They should go to them first with their good news, their hurts. We should always take the back seat. We want to be the easy in-laws. We want to be the ones who make things easy for them. That’s one thing we learned early in our marriage. When I (Stephen) first married Jana, I was still a momma’s boy. The life lesson we learned was how important it is to go to your spouse first before going to your parent. Jana felt second best in the relationship, and that’s not how it should have been. The challenge is to raise your child to leave and cleave. How do you take the route of being the ‘easy’ in-laws? People are inherently selfish. I know I am! It’s something we battle all the time. But as a really good in-law, you have to continually put yourself in your own place. I’d much rather put myself in my place than my son have to sit me down and say I offended his wife. How do you build a relationship with your child-in-law’s family? We were already good friends with Emily’s parents when she and Dalton started dating. We were thrilled, but also treated the situation like they may break up. Thankfully, they never did. Our daughter met her fiancé on a high school mission trip, so we met his parents thinking it wouldn’t last. But we’ve always invited them into our life and gotten along. The challenge in our marriage is that Jana’s mom is in North Carolina and Stephen’s family is here (in Georgia). We always felt pulled in different directions for holidays and we were always determined we wouldn’t let that happen with our kids. How do you fix a strained relationship with your in-laws? If it’s your fault, you have to be the one who goes to them to repair the situation. You need to own your responsibility, and then be purposeful in treating them better than you even treat your own child. I take Emily out shopping or to lunch without Dalton. She loves my son—so why wouldn’t I do everything I can to love on her? Talking about the other side of it. It takes some maturity on the parent’s part to take a step back and realize it may not be about you. Your child-in-law may be trying to manage their own wound and without realizing it you may be poking a wound. Is the challenge more important than the relationship? Ask loving, non-invasive questions to nurture a relationship. Your one simple thing for this week. Stephen: Remember that you’re not only gaining a child-in-law but also potentially a son or daughter and you have the opportunity to love them like that. You gain a potential source of joy. They married this person for a reason; jump on the train with them! Jana: The simple, fun takeaway is to love that child.  Love them the best you can—find out things that are fun for them and do those things with them. Show Closing Thanks for joining us for the Married People Podcast. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave a review – they help us make the podcast better. We want to hear from you. Share with us on Facebook, Instagram or our site.  If you want more resources, check out Your Best Us.