Episode 179 | Two Powerful Marriage Stories - That Might Change How You View Your Marriage

We can all  learn from our successes and failures that we experience in our own marriages. But possibly the most powerful way to learn, is through the marriages of others, who are succeeding! Marriage advice abounds in the lives of those who have chosen commitment and vows over wishful thinking or giving up and walking away.

Join hosts, Travis and Dawn Rosinger, as they share their individual experiences of hearing the stories of two very different marriages that both had a profound impact on them. This episode is a chance to learn from those marriage stories and the attitudes that can bring all of our marriages success! Grab a bowl of popcorn, jump on a treadmill, or just go for a walk as you listen to this incredibly relatable episode! You won’t regret it!

Travis and Dawn Rosinger are the Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast Hosts and Authors of the books, Verbalosity - 7 Steps to a Verbally Generous and More Fulfilling Marriage and their newest book, Gripping -  What Matters Most | A Life and Relationships That Hold on to You

For more information about Travis and Dawn Rosinger go to Loving The Fight

Transcript

Dawn Rosinger 0:12

Well, hey everyone. I want to welcome you to the Love and the Fight Marriage Podcast. My name is Dawn and I'm sitting here with my husband and my co-host, travis.

Travis Rosinger 0:20

Yeah, we're so glad that you guys are joining us. It's good to be here with you, dawn, and just to have a chance to connect with everyone who's listening. We think it's so special that you guys have tuned in but also to talk about marriage, right, one of the easiest relationships in the world, one of the toughest, absolutely one of the most difficult Relationships in the world.

Dawn Rosinger 0:45

Why did you look at me that way when you said that I'm totally kidding, totally kidding, but it is tough.

Travis Rosinger 0:47

I'm tough sometimes, you're tough, but man is it good to really think through. Oh wow, what could our marriage need and how can we implement that and really make things get better?

Dawn Rosinger 0:58

And, at the end of the day, we just want to remind you and ourselves to keep loving the fight.

Travis Rosinger 1:03

Oh man, keep it up, keep loving it and keep fighting Right, yeah, don't give up.

Dawn Rosinger 1:09

Today is an extra good day because today we woke up and we were feeling great, oh my gosh, so good. And the reason that we can say that is because last week, on our days off, we woke up and we had three days off. We were so excited and I woke up and I'm like, oh, I don't feel so well.

Travis Rosinger 1:27

Yeah, I think I felt like death.

Dawn Rosinger 1:29

It was not the greatest I'm like man, my stomach is hurting. I feel achy. I felt like we kind of had a fever. I'm like I looked at you, I'm like I don't feel good. So that actually determined our next couple of days. We laid low to the best of our ability because there were some things we had to do, but to the best of our ability we laid low and just hung out, watched a lot of house hunters. We love those shows on HGTV.

Travis Rosinger 1:55

That was so fun yeah.

Dawn Rosinger 1:57

Took two different naps actually, which was a lot for a day, and sure enough, that third day we woke up feeling much better. So today, on our day off, it's so exciting to go, we feel great. You can totally tell when you're sick versus when you're not sick and I thank you, jesus, for health Like I don't like to feel nauseous or sick.

Travis Rosinger 2:16

Right, right, yeah, waking up and getting a good workout in and eating a healthy breakfast and just feeling alive, not feeling like somebody you know just stuck a knife in my stomach and twisted it.

Dawn Rosinger 2:28

We never threw up. We never threw up and maybe that would have been better. But I'm like oh, but things went south, if you know what I mean.

Travis Rosinger 2:35

we didn't throw up, but we went to the bathroom a lot and that was pretty rough, but so glad that's behind us. Excuse the pun, but it's gone.

Dawn Rosinger 2:44

Yes, literally it is gone, which is great and whatever virus or bug was in our stomach is gone as well. But it's cool because the third day we woke up and then we were able to go the following day and celebrate a birthday. Like we went to a birthday party and it was so much fun. I love birthday parties, oh it's great. And such a great turnout. Everybody was in a good mood, the decor birthday parties.

Travis Rosinger 3:03

Oh, it was great. And such a great turnout. Everybody was in a good mood, the decor was amazing.

Dawn Rosinger 3:08

We helped with the decor. We helped, and it was our granddaughter's birthday, her first birthday, so we helped our daughter blow up this big balloon arch.

Travis Rosinger 3:16

A hundred balloons, but we weren't the designers. We can't take credit. No, we just had to use our air. Yeah, we just had to use our air.

Dawn Rosinger 3:22

Yeah, to use our fingers to tie balloons and she's incredible at designing things.

Travis Rosinger 3:25

Yeah, it was beautiful, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, it looked so good, but such a fun atmosphere and they had a raging fire in their basement and just tons and tons of great food like snack food and delicious sweets, and then, of course, the birthday cake, which was spectacular.

Dawn Rosinger 3:41

I love birthday parties. I love people. I the birthday cake, which was spectacular. I love birthday parties. I love people. I love the energy man. I wish we could have a party every day, but we should just have one every day in our house.

Travis Rosinger 3:54

We should. We're married, we're surviving, we should celebrate that every day A birthday party without the feeling of death and without getting older.

Dawn Rosinger 3:58

I mean, every day we get older, but I wouldn't want to get a year older every day.

Travis Rosinger 4:01

That's true. That would be intense. No yeah, In like a week I'd be using a cane. That would be rough. Well, hey guys, the title of this episode today is two powerful marriage stories that just might make you change the way you think about your marriage.

Dawn Rosinger 4:17

I love the title but it's kind of long. It's a mouthful, but it's great. Yeah, I like what you're trying to say.

Travis Rosinger 4:23

I think it's just, you should say, two powerful marriage stories, but it did change the way that we think, or at least reinforced what we think and believe, and also gave us a slightly different perspective from two different people. That we are not we're not them, and they shared some really really cool things.

Dawn Rosinger 4:41

And it happened about a week apart from each other and I remember you shared your story with me and I shared my story with you and I'm like these are really powerful stories.

Two Powerful Marriage Stories

Travis Rosinger 4:48

Really powerful, completely have to do with marriage and we're like we need to share these stories, yeah, and I think partly we wanted to share them was because there were those conversations where the person's sharing their story and all of a sudden it's like whoa, like a light bulb from God just gets flipped on and you're like no, no, no, I need to listen to this. This is a powerful moment, and so I think God was speaking to me, speaking to you, dawn, but we also wanted to make sure we could share it with you guys. So it's not necessarily our content, it's just an experience that we had. So, basically, two conversations started with me. I was talking to a lady about two weeks ago and just asking questions about her and her life and her husband and their marriage, and so I just said, hey, how long have you guys been married? And she said 38 years and I was like oh my gosh, that's a long time.

Travis Rosinger 5:40

I high-fived her. I'm like way to go, keep that up, you guys are doing great. But then she kind of, you know, got a little more vulnerable and told me a little bit more about their story, how they had gone through some ups and downs, and then she made this statement and it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. She said I don't want God to restore my marriage back to what it was like the first 10 years of our marriage, when it was amazing. She said no, back to what it was like the first 10 years of our marriage, when it was amazing. She said no, I want God to give me a brand new one with my husband.

Dawn Rosinger 6:09

Wow, that's an amazing perspective.

Travis Rosinger 6:12

It was so cool. It's not exactly the way that I would have thought anybody would have said it, cause I was like, well, I thought, you know, having your marriage restored, you know, to the way that it was, you know, um, it's a positive thing, it's a good thing, yeah, yeah. But really what she was trying to communicate was she didn't want the old one restored, she wanted an even better one, a new one, one that would be way better than, like the first 10 years of their marriage when things were going great. And I just thought, wow, that's so cool. And then we continued to talk and she said, yeah, people come up to me all the time.

Travis Rosinger 6:45

You know, 38 years of marriage and I'll be talking to a friend who's a lady. And she said, you know, some of them will say, hey, you're lucky, you're still married, you're lucky. And she said I look at them usually and I tell them there is no luck in marriage. It takes hard work to have a great marriage. There's no getting around. That, she said, and I just love that. It's like she's really blunt and she's just like boom. This is what I believe and it's true. You know, some people who maybe aren't married any longer, you know, would look at somebody like her and say, oh, you're just lucky.

Travis Rosinger 7:19

You're just lucky, you just got the perfect husband, or you're the perfect wife for the perfect marriage, and I just loved her candor her honesty. She's like nope, there's no luck involved at all. It's all hard work.

Dawn Rosinger 7:37

Why would you give the credit to? A good marriage to luck. I know marriage takes time. Like I want the credit I don't want you know, obviously God, god gets the credit, but I don't want luck to have the credit and that is so true.

Travis Rosinger 7:44

I mean, you know she, she's just really um wanting to say, hey, my marriage is in the best place it's ever been and I can't credit luck to it so well, hey, these were moments that just really made me stop and think.

Travis Rosinger 7:59

And so some things that I learned from this conversation with this lady who was married to her husband for 38 years. These things that she said reminded me of truths that we all need to remember. And again, what did she say? She said I don't want God to restore what I once had. I want a better one, I want a new one. And so what did I learn? It made me realize again that we need to stop asking God for the wrong thing. What does that mean? It means we should be asking God to do a new thing every day, saying God, give me a new marriage, a better marriage. Why ask God to restore something that is old and broken? I mean, it's a bad idea to ask God to restore something that just didn't measure up and was never quite as good as you would want it to be Especially yeah when in the Bible it says that God's mercies are new.

Dawn Rosinger 8:47

Every morning we get a new day. Why not ask for something new even in our marriage, every single day?

Travis Rosinger 8:51

Yeah, and I agree, Dawn, because that's who we can go to and he's good for it. But in our marriage, every single day, yeah, and and I agree, don, because that's who we can go to and he's good for it. But in our culture, I mean, you know, basically we think that the only way to start over and get something new or better is to find another person.

Dawn Rosinger 9:04

Get rid of the old and bring in the new.

Travis Rosinger 9:06

Oh, he wasn't what I wanted, or she didn't, you know, help me to have a good enough marriage, so I just need to start over. Well, that's not true. We sometimes just need to let the past die and start with the same person, and that's really what she was getting at yes, something new, something better.

Lessons Learned From Them

Travis Rosinger 9:24

And it also reminded me that we need to start believing God for something new, having that faith and that was what she was and is continuing to do, and I could see this in her smile and I could hear it in her voice, and it's really what Isaiah, chapter 43, verse 18 and 19. It's what the prophet is getting at when he's talking about a characteristic of God giving us new things. Here's what it says Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. That's an amazing verse. It's incredible. God is doing a new thing, and the picture it gives us is that God is going to bring streams in a desert, in a wilderness, and so I just love that part. But again, what else did I learn from that conversation? She said there's no luck in marriage, and just some reminders a perfect marriage is a facade. She's right.

Dawn Rosinger 10:25

Right, there is no perfect marriage. It's not true at all. It doesn't exist.

Travis Rosinger 10:29

Yeah, we hear from couples sometimes. They'll say we never fight, you know, and that's great. But let's be honest, their marriage still isn't perfect.

Dawn Rosinger 10:38

There's still flaws or issues somewhere somehow they might just have more self-control. Maybe aren't saying the things that they want to say, but honestly, I look at those and I'm like is there communication there if you're never fighting, Right?

Travis Rosinger 10:50

Yeah, are they getting past some of the hurdles that they should have gotten past 10 years?

Dawn Rosinger 10:54

ago.

Travis Rosinger 10:55

Other things that I learned marriage always takes work, lots of work, and when you have worked on it, you got to work on it some more of course.

Travis Rosinger 11:01

And, of course, you have to make a choice that you won't give up. And that's what she's done, and that's what we're continuing to do, that's what you guys are doing that are listening, and you have to roll up your sleeves and actually do the work on yourself and your marriage to make it better. One of our favorite verses in the world Ecclesiastes 4, 5 through 6 says fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. In other words, they do nothing but better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. And so we don't want to be on those far extremes, you know. We want to be in that middle ground where we're content and we're working on ourselves and our marriage and we're not facing ruin.

Dawn Rosinger 11:44

Well, about a week after that you had that conversation with that lady I met an elderly gentleman who had the most welcoming smile and presence. He was so kind and we just began to chat for a little while and he began to tell me about his wife. You see, he had been married for 67 years and his wife just died about two months ago in his arms at his home. And he kind of began to unpack his story with his wife in the last 67 years and he said now he sits at his kitchen table and he looks at her chair and that empty spot and just wishes that he could hear her voice again and eat with her. He misses her incredibly. It was just the love that you could feel coming from him as he's talking about his wife and what he wished could happen still, he cherished her and wishes he could have her back.

Dawn Rosinger 12:33

He did Well. He went on to tell me that he'd been married for 67 years, but he jumped in as quick as possible, as quick as he said 67 years he's like not all good years, but they stayed together and they worked at it. They didn't give up, and he was so thankful that they never gave up because he was the one who was able to hold her when she died in his arms at their home.

Travis Rosinger 12:56

Incredible oh my gosh.

Dawn Rosinger 12:57

He went on to say that he's so thankful for their faith in Jesus and that he knows that he's going to see her again one day in heaven when he passes. But man just listening to his story and just seeing his eyes just full of love, and it just made me want to cry as he was just telling me.

Travis Rosinger 13:13

I don't know how you didn't, it was just crazy.

Dawn Rosinger 13:15

One of those moments you just time stops and you're listening. You're like I can't believe he's sharing this with me. What an honor to hear his story, but that he was sharing that with me. Well, as I walked away from that conversation and I just began to think about his story, the part that jumped out to me the most in his story and his life was when he said quickly they weren't all good years, that they had to work on their marriage to make it for those 67 years.

Travis Rosinger 13:42

I love that, yeah, like his honesty, his truthfulness, his like transparency and willing to say we had 67 great years, but there wasn't perfection in every last one of them.

Dawn Rosinger 13:54

And he could have went on and just said you know, hey, no, 67 years, they're amazing, they're awesome, but no, he was just honest. That marriage takes work, that marriage is hard. Well, there's a couple of things that I learned from just this gentleman and talking to him. The first thing is this your spouse is irreplaceable. You know what? I could tell that his wife and this gentleman's wife was just a treasure to him and I could tell by how he cared for her and loved her until the end and that was so inspiring to me. He knows she was a treasure and he treated her like that and, honestly, sitting across the table at an empty chair. She's irreplaceable.

Travis Rosinger 14:31

Oh, that's so hard to hear but to know as well. You know that he had 67 years where she sat in that chair, and we don't want to take our spouses for granted because, one day they will leave us or we will leave them. We all leave this earth.

Dawn Rosinger 14:45

Yeah, one day the chair will be empty and hopefully for us. I'm hoping it's together, hopefully we'll go at the same time, but we just never know.

Dawn Rosinger 14:53

But I, man, I just put myself in his shoes and I'm like I don't want to see an empty chair crash from the table, but I know it will one day happen. Something else I learned as I was thinking about this gentleman's story was that perfect marriages don't finish well. Real ones do. He admitted that. You know his marriage wasn't perfect and no marriage is perfect. I know we already said that before and he could have just walked away, but he didn't.

Travis Rosinger 15:18

No, they stuck with it.

Dawn Rosinger 15:20

No, and it's the real one. That's the one that finishes well. He was able to cross that finish line with her in that moment of marriage, as she was taking her last breath. The last thing that I learned from him and just again just thinking through this whole story is giving up isn't an option in marriage. They didn't give up In those hard times 67 years of hard times, good years and bad years they didn't give up.

Dawn Rosinger 15:45

They fought for their marriage and, honestly, all the work that they put in got them to the finish line. At the end, like we're running this race, we're trying to make it to the finish line. And I was able to see he made it to the finish line with her and it came down to faith. Faith was just so important to them. Honestly, he said that one day he will see her in heaven and he knew he gave a lot of that glory to God and just saying God's the one that helped him get through. But in heaven, and he knew he gave a lot of that glory to God and just saying God's the one that helped him get through. But they're going to make it together now, even though she's already there, you know he's going to be holding her hand one day in heaven.

Travis Rosinger 16:19

Yeah, she's going to be waiting for him. She probably is, and can't wait to give him a hug when he gets there.

Dawn Rosinger 16:24

I found this quote and I was just that's a great quote it's. I'm not not even sure who wrote it, but it said this marriage is meant to keep people together, not just when things are good, but particularly when they are not. That's why we take marriage vows, not wishes. I love the end of that quote. That's why we take marriage vows and not wishes Cause if we did wishes man, we would let each other down all the time.

Travis Rosinger 16:48

Well, that's the mic drop. Yeah, it's not marriage wishes. It's like, no, I'm here till death, do us part. And he lived that he did. She died in his arms and that sounds sad, but it's actually the most romantic thing on the planet to be next to a woman for 67 years, all the way till she breathed her last breath. That's not a marriage wish, it's a vow.

Dawn Rosinger 17:09

And he vowed to stay with her in sickness and in health, and the good and the bad. He didn't give up and it paid off. Marriagecom says there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, because it is made of imperfect people. God is the only one that is perfect, and having him in the middle of your marriage guarantees perfection in all the imperfect circumstances.

Travis Rosinger 17:32

Yeah, yeah, yep.

Dawn Rosinger 17:33

Again marriage is not perfect, but God, he is the one. If he is the center of your marriage, he can guarantee perfection in all the imperfect circumstances. I look at our life, Travis, the last 31 years imperfect circumstances, but God's been in the center and we've been able to take and have so many memories and just continue to fight. And, man, one day we'll be looking at an empty chair.

Travis Rosinger 17:56

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, that's hard to think of honestly after all the years you and I have been together. But man, uh, if it's been imperfect this last 31 years, a half of the reason is because of me. I'm flawed, I'm imperfect. I have good days and Lord knows, you know, I have bad days, and so, anyway, we just want to end with this thought out of the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 10, and this nails it all. Both of these stories kind of weaves them together, binds them together, and that's this be devoted to one another in love. Be devoted to one another in love, be devoted to one another in love.

Travis Rosinger 18:33

Honor one another above yourselves.

Dawn Rosinger 18:36

That's what it takes to have a marriage vow.

Travis Rosinger 18:39

That's an incredible thought, not some kind of marriage wish, but no, I'm going to be devoted to you all the way to the end, through the good times and the bad times.

Dawn Rosinger 18:47

Well, it's just crazy to sit back and think that we weren't looking for those stories. Well, it's just crazy to sit back and think that we weren't looking for those stories. We were just honestly just being friendly, talking to people and man this wealth of wisdom that just flooded our hearts in those stories about marriage and it was just such a fun thing to be a part of such an honor. But people are amazing and I love that they didn't give up they are, and just so encouraging to our marriage to each of us individually?

Dawn Rosinger 19:17

Yeah, for sure. Well, with that, we want to thank you for listening to this episode of the loving the fight marriage podcast. Remember, guys, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time. Thank you.