Reverence Restored - with Special Guests Kevin and Bree Bailey

In this conversation, Kevin and Bree Bailey discuss their journey through marriage, the challenges they faced, and how they founded their marriage coaching service, Reverence Restored. They emphasize the importance of unconditional love, respect, and vulnerability in relationships, while also addressing the impact of generational perspectives on marriage. The Baileys share insights on effective communication, the baggage that couples bring into their marriages, and the significance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations. They also touch on parenting dynamics and the importance of building a legacy of love and faith for future generations. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the complexities of marriage, emphasizing the importance of communication, prioritizing faith, and understanding the dynamics of emotional and logical perspectives in relationships. They share personal experiences and insights on coaching couples, the significance of aligning individual goals with a shared vision, and the transformative power of faith in marriage. The discussion also touches on the challenges of pride, the necessity of seeking help, and the hope for those who have experienced divorce. 

Chapters

 00:00 Introduction to Marriage Coaching

 01:48 The Birth of Reverence Restored 

04:42 Navigating Early Marriage Challenges 

07:52 Generational Perspectives on Marriage 

10:49 Understanding Vulnerability in Relationships 

13:46 The Role of Communication in Marriage 

16:52 Baggage and Its Impact on Marriage 

19:58 Creating Safe Spaces for Vulnerability 

22:58 The Importance of Supportive Friendships 

25:38 Fighting for Your Marriage 

28:53 Conclusion and Key Takeaways 

31:16 The Power of Words and Love 

34:31 Vulnerability and Authenticity in Relationships 

38:40 Discipline and Parenting Strategies 

43:11 Prioritizing Faith and Family 

52:07 Communication as the Foundation of Relationships 

01:00:35 Understanding Relationship Breakdowns 

01:01:59 The Role of Spiritual Maturity in Marriage 

01:04:38 Navigating Individual Growth in Relationships 

01:07:48 The Misuse of Grace in Marriage 

01:09:52 Success Stories in Marriage Restoration 

01:14:48 The Importance of Humility in Relationships 

01:16:54 Advice for Hesitant Couples Seeking Help 

01:20:56 The Ripple Effect of Divorce 

01:23:47 Finding Hope After Divorce 

To learn more about Reverence Restored please visit:

www.reverencerestored.com or @kevinandbree on YouTube, Instagram and Face Book 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Cowboys, not Eggheads. Home of the brave, not home of the fearful. The world needs more cowboys and fewer eggheads. We're everywhere podcasts are found. So tell your fellow cowboys. And let's keep the conversation alive on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Remember to subscribe, rate, review, and share. And now, Cowboys, Not Eggheads with Sam Fisher.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

I'm pleased today to welcome two friends of mine onto the podcast, Kevin and Bree Bailey. Kevin has been on. See the episode The Emasculation of Men, which is perhaps one of the most context-heavy, heavy podcasts I've ever had in my life. So we can, I don't know how deep we're going to go today, but boy, that took a lot out of me.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

And uh they have, I've been wanting to get them on the podcast for a long time, and they have a marriage coaching service, not counseling, coaching. We're gonna talk about the difference here in a second, uh, called Reverence Restored. And before I forget, we'll let listeners know on the front end of this thing, if you are interested in seeking some more information about marriage coaching or being coached through marriage, check out reverenceored.com. Yep. Right? And they have a contact page on there and they can get hold of you. That's right. That's the best way to do it. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

That or just hit us up on any social platforms under Kevin and Bree.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Okay. Uh, so that's what it is at Kevin and Bree and B-R-E-E.

SPEAKER_06 1:44

You got it.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

All right. So, what is Reverence Restored? What is it? Why would someone want to go to Reverence Restored? What is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Man, so Reverence Restored was really birthed out of our chaos of a season of marriage. So we've been married, thankfully, by the grace of God, for 22 years now.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Congratulations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

So there's there's always somebody more, but unfortunately, there's a lot of people that are less. And that was almost our story as well. Year 12 for us is where we really hit that rough patch. And I will say that 12 is when it really got bad. It was leading up to that. We had been in and out of counseling for seven years, ultimately, for a counselor to tell us the best decision. Seven years. Yeah. We spent seven years with a long time. It was. I mean, we we desperately wanted to do marriage the right way. We just didn't know how, Sam. How old were you guys when you were married? Brie question.

SPEAKER_06 2:37

I was 23 and Kevin was almost 25.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

And you're now obviously not 23 and 25, you're in your early 40s, I think. Yeah, mid-40s. Okay. And so how do you view the age 23 and 25 now in your early 40s?

SPEAKER_06 2:53

Well, speaking specifically to Brie as a 23-year-old and Kevin as a 25-year-old, we just kind of like to say we loved each other. We were ready to get married. I mean, from a next step.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

How long have you been dated?

SPEAKER_06 3:07

We had dated two years, got engaged, and had gotten married three years after we met.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Okay.

unknown 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

So it wasn't that it wasn't a rush. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Yeah. It was that time really when we were both finishing college, both having a career. And so that was the next step for us. We love each other. Let's get married. Then that next summer, you know, what's that age where all you know, every single one of your friends? I think that next summer we had like eight weddings that we were in between two of us. Oh, it's crazy. And so yeah, we I would say it was the next step.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

Um, so uh why did you start it?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, because as I was saying that seven years of counseling, ultimately, for a counselor to tell us the best decision for best decision for us was to separate. So we did. We spent 10 months separated, one week away from a finalized divorce. I was involved with another relationship during that process, complete chaos in our lives. And I went the way of the world, Brie went the way of the word. Just dove into God, what God had in store for her, wasn't willing to give up on our marriage, continued to fight for it. And I was out doing my thing, right? Like just being a complete bonehead, living life the way of the world. Thankfully, her prayers were answered, had amazing people around her. And one week before our divorce was to be finalized, we decided to put our marriage back together. And as we went on that two-year journey of learning what that looked like, placing God at the center of our marriage, which was something we had never done before. We had a desire to, but we didn't know what it looked like. We really felt like there was going to be an opportunity for us to help couples that were in a similar season to us or the one that we had gone through. So for me, I know you referenced the podcast we were on before. I mean, my view of a man was the world's view of a man, not God's word of a man. I didn't know what it looked like to truly have God-fearing masculinity and do it the right way. And as God taught me how to do that, I saw the need for other men to be able to experience what I had experienced, and then other couples to be able to experience what we had experienced.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Whose idea was it to start this?

SPEAKER_06 5:15

Both of us fell the leading, I think, the the calling.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

Yeah. Um, we had done marriage ministry and it was awesome for a a couple of years before that. And it was a specific program and we loved it. But that specific one, we really felt both the man and the woman had to be on board with the Lord. Um, so we really wanted to try to bridge that gap from secular counseling to all in faith ministry and kind of do a hybrid. We wanted to attract the couples initially. It was really to attract the couples that we were before. We weren't bad people before, you know, according to good and bad with the world. We were good. Um, we just didn't have a strong marriage. Our foundation was really making each other happy. And that only goes so far until some expectations really fall short.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

So that doesn't last long.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, it was very very conditional, right? Scoreboard, and we can we can talk about what all of those things look like, all those fancy trigger words that that get people hyped up, but we kept score in our marriage all of the time. So it was, I did this, now you need to do this for me, whether that was earnings, work, kids, chores, all of it. Big mistake. Yeah. And we had to we had to learn how to remove the scoreboard out of our marriage and really start focusing on unconditional love and respect for one another, regardless of if the other person deserved it in that moment. Because most of the time we don't.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah. So marriage, I think you're uh, I think we talked about this a little bit in the other podcast. Uh it it it's you know, I always I got my examples from my parents and grandparents, and I I wrote down a couple of things about that because I I had to think about what were the examples or what did I see. I don't know if they're examples, but just what did I see from their marriages? And they uh both my uh both sets of grandparents are deceased, my parents are deceased, but they they were all married 50 plus, you know. I don't know, my parents were married for well, my mom died and my dad got remarried, but um they were married for 40, you know, 40 and 60 years respectively, long time. And my mom, I remember when I got married, my mom told me I was 27, Heather was 25. My mom told me the path is now wider. I always thought of it's like someone is standing right beside you, and the path is wider. So you're walking with someone down this path, and you're both equal, and you know, the path is wider. So I that's what I got on my mom. She's a super smart lady. Um, and then my dad, all I can think about is him talking about people they get married to young. And he said, and he my dad, I'm gonna do an imitation, my dad, but my dad, grab my voice, and he sounded exactly like this. And he would say, he said, uh, when you're 21, and he'd get right in your face, when you're 21, you know who the hell you are, let alone the other person. And so that's that's my mom and dad's. That's a the that's a baby boomers that was them. The greatest generation, my grandparents, very interesting. My grandfather, who's in that picture right there with me and my dad and his mother. Yeah. Um he was a uh he ran the show. He was uh he was a cowboy, absolute cowboy, had an eighth-grade graduation uh education. Uh, and when he died, he had two ranches to his name, worked hard all his life, loved being a cowboy, who married uh my grandmother, who was older, and she was uh she was educated. She went to Columbia University, she had her master's degree, and so she became like she followed in the steps of her mother, who also married a rebel, a guy by the name of Frank Barber, whose best buddy was a guy by the name of Buffalo Bill Cody. But his her mother was also very educated and proper, but they had this calling or desire or adventure nature that they wanted to follow this man into the pioneer. I mean, this we're talking about years ago, right? And so my grandma was very quiet. My my granddad was loud and boy'd be in her face, and we talked and we talked like this, and you know, and and um she was very quiet. My grandma was very quiet, and I I I never really saw her like uh I won't say I didn't see her laugh, but she didn't she would chuckle, and we found out later she had narcolepsy, so you actually that's where you actually it's an inability to laugh. Oh wow, but anyway, um she's very quiet, very proper, no curse, like my grandfather curse, curse, curse, curse, curse. He's a cowboy, right? And my grandmother, no way, man. Everything was proper, like like a traditional grandmother. And I saw them get an argument once. Um, just a verbal, you know, we all get in arguments, right? Verbal confrontation. And she raised his voice to him, and he it was over. He he she shut him down like that. And I'm just like, whoa, that was powerful. You know, it was really crazy to see. Now, my other that's my dad's dad and mom, my mom's dad and mom, it was opposite. My grandmother was kind of the feisty one, kind of the one that was kind of in the lead. My and and and my grandfather was more quiet, more of a peacemaker like my mom. Um, very quiet. Same thing. Grandma, sometimes she would go on and on and on. Like it was like, okay, you know, enough. And I saw it once, only once, where he shut her down, like Billy, that's enough. Her name was Wilmeda and there she went by, so I had a grandma Billy. Um Billy, that's enough. Over. It was just a fascinating dynamic.

SPEAKER_05 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

So that's what I just thought I'd share. That's what I saw in marriage. Um the two things that I think I know. We talk about you know, do you believe, do you think, do you feel? I think I know. Of course, big guy's the only one that really knows, but but uh about marriage is that women, and we talked about this the last time, but it was worth repeating. Women hold on to things long time. They have they they hold on to little. Well, what we think is little, you and I think it's little. Long time. File that way. It's very hard to let it, you know, the it's it's in the I mean, my wife can repeat things that I said 20 years ago. I mean, no joke. Yep. And I've I've forgotten more than I know, you know what I mean? And men are easier to let things go, I think. However, I wonder if women aren't quicker to forgive than men. So those that's one observation about marriage that I have. And the second is men do not listen. I do not listen. It's my worst trait, it's the worst fault of our marriage is the fact that I I I don't listen. If I don't want to hear it, I'm not going to hear it intentionally. That's the way it is. Um, and they're also not vulnerable. And for me to even say the word vulnerable is taking a hundred some five episodes to even talk about. But it's true, we're not that's not women are women are not naturally vulnerable, men are not. And so those are the two things in marriage that I've noticed, and um that's my observation about marriage. Yep. So tell me I'm wrong or tell me I'm right, let's discuss.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Well, I mean, I think I think there's a lot of you just you touched on so many good things there. I uh there's so much gold in that in that statement and that what you were describing. But I think as a whole, we all have these stories of what we saw marriage look like, good, bad, or indifferent. And those are what start to build the patterns of what we think marriage should be like. You're talking about generational stuff here, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Way back when my grandparents were bore, you know, married in the 30s. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, probably born in early 1900s or late 1800s. Yeah, 1905, 1912. Exactly. So significant generational things have happened since that time that have really changed the way that we look at marriage. No doubt. Right? Like no social media back then. It was literally this view of what you saw from a family member, and that those are legacy-defining moments, and I love that. That's really what we're trying to do now is help people build a legacy that will last. These are things that we should be taught from parents, grandparents, and so continue down the line. But in a world that we live in today, that's almost impossible, especially when you look at how many people have gone through divorce. But does that mean we still can't get it right? Absolutely not. That's why we just say, man, let's just go to God's word. Like, what's God's word say that marriage is supposed to look like? And Ephesians is very clear with this. I mean, Colossians, it's it's all throughout the New Testament. You can even go back to Old Testament and see where it is of like there is this leadership role that needs to take place in it with the male predominantly being the spiritual leader. But where we get this wrong, in the word submission, at least from our viewpoint, is why would a woman submit to a man that's not submitted to Christ? I've got to be submitted to Christ before she can submit to me. Otherwise, I'm not gonna lead her in the right path. So, men in this moment of like whether we're barking out in fear or whatever it is, like uh we just completely don't we live that for so many years where it was more of the the hierarchy of what you see within a business model of boss. No, I'm not her boss. I get the chance to be the spiritual leader for her. So if I'm submitted to Christ, that means I'm under his submission. Now she can easily follow behind me in the submission path because I'm gonna be led by Christ. But in those moments when I'm not, that's where she gets this opportunity to say, pump the brakes, dude. Time out. You're yelling, you're using language you shouldn't be using, you're speaking out of line, you're talking down on the kids, you're talking down on me in this moment. This is not what we do. And now I've got this opportunity to say, humble myself, which is very hard to do, and say, Whoa, you're right, man. Thank you so much for bringing that to my attention. Or you don't get a chance to talk to me like that. And it's like, whoa. Thank your spouse. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So that's one perspective. I'll let Bree touch on that. But then from a vulnerability standpoint, like it is it's so tough to anybody listening and all of the audience and you and all of us, like, that's the last thing I want to do is be vulnerable. I have zero desire to do that. But if I don't I agree, yeah, all right, if I don't with her, I'm robbing her of something that she has an opportunity to minister to me.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

And that's really Rob is the key verb there.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

I'm robbing her of the ability to minister to my robber, do you?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Absolutely not. It's like sometimes the things that uh, and I don't I intentionally am not gonna talk about my marriage because my wife is an extraordinarily private person, but um I have found in marriage also that sometimes my intention is never my intention, like if anyone mess with my wife, you better damn well bring your freaking helmet. Right, you know, my intention is to protect it. Let's go. Um however, there are times when my intention was to, I don't know, whatever she received from me was a complete opposite. It was freaking opposite of my intention.

SPEAKER_05 17:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:14

Well there's so many generalizations about what a good marriage is. And so many people can have a good marriage on the outside, but on the inside, it's a disaster.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Well, look at all these homes, right? Everybody everybody's just, we're all just happy. No, I don't think so. Right.

SPEAKER_06 17:35

And if that's the way it is, let's go. I want it to be like that. But for us, we can only really speak for ourselves. And this is not to say that if you have a good-looking marriage on the outside, it's a mess on the inside. That's not what I'm saying. But for us, we had for the first 12 years of our marriage what looked like, I think at least, a great marriage. We were both working, had a decent house. We had two to three kids at the time. But at the end of 12 years, we had three kids together. We still do. And things maybe looked great on the outside.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Maybe Beverly Jones is pretty good there, huh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:12

Yeah. And even if that's not the intention, that's kind of how society is. What do you have, what vacations. This was before social media was really crazy where you compared, you know, the Instagram highlight reels. But I would say we also bought into the lie that our marriage was pretty good. We just had some stuff that we couldn't fix on the inside. And so um, after a while, we got tired of going through the same argument again, the the same heartbreaks again. We had um things that we learned later that we had brought into our marriage, hurt, pain, bitterness from even before we even met. So here we are. Kevin does a great job, but we had these two suitcases. Anyone who gets married has, you know, two suitcases that baggage that they bring into the marriage. My dad loved that word.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Did he? He did.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

And so we bring this baggage, this suitcase into the marriage. And then we all of a sudden think, well, we're married now. And so you have to fix me. I got to fix you. You know, if those are your issues, you figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

We just You don't know who the hell you are, let alone another person.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Dad was right. I think one of the best ways to explain this is like what we're just describing. I think the visual that you can use is like when you go on vacation, you you both have your suitcase, one puts it in one spot, one puts it in the other spot. Well, when you get married, you take those suitcases and you literally throw the clothes in the bed. You're just unpacking them all and laying them on the bed. Guess what? Now you're gonna start sleeping in that bed with the clothes that are in that suitcase for the rest of your lives.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

There's some tainted clothes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

And over time you start to roll over and you're like, ooh, man, what's that shirt that's like underneath my side as I'm sleeping? Can I move that out? And you start to pull out and you're reminded in that moment of like, oh man, I had this on when this happened to me. And it's that triggering moment of, I felt like crap. And it it matches exactly how this person that's sleeping next to me feels. And then they've got their own piece of like, ooh, man, what's this shoe underneath me right now? And oh, I had this on when this happened to me. And that's all the way back to early age. I mean, you talked about early on how women remember all of these things. It's such a true statement because men are more compartmentalized, right? Move on to the next thing. We're task-oriented. Tell me my project, give me the goal, and I will go achieve it. Men have brains like waffles, women have brains like spaghetti. It's all just going around on the inside. Doesn't mean that one's right and one's wrong. It's just they're different.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Wired.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, we're wired differently. So, like, that's why I said to Brie, Brie, what are the dates of this at the very beginning? I don't know what that, I barely remember the date today. Right. Like, I don't know those things, but she can nail every day, every moment, all of those of what happened when. So now I've got this opportunity of when that shirt comes out and we roll over it. Are we going to be vulnerable enough to talk about what happened when we had that shirt on with one another? That doesn't mean that I go out on the street corner and talk about all of our problems, unleash all of my weaknesses, all of my vulnerabilities.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

No, because it's between you two. It's between us.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

It's your business. And the close people that we bring in, because that's a big piece of it as well. Like we've got trusted advisors now in our marriage, in our lives, that we can sit around and be vulnerable because we're not just vulnerable with what we have. There's times where like there's something I'm not ready to talk to her about. Well, if I can't go sit with another dude and be like, hey man, I'm struggling with my wife in this area right now. And he can't point, if he can't point me back to what God says and how we're supposed to operate with us together, then I've got the wrong circle around me. I need guys that are gonna speak truth into me. She needs women that are gonna speak truth into her. Say, you know what? Just because you had that shirt on in that moment, God's got bigger plans for you.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Isn't it interesting though, your friend group? You can have you ever shopped for the answer you were looking for with different friends.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Oh, yeah. Advice shopping, man. People do it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah. We get like I like how. Hey, I want this advice. I want this buddy to affirm that you're right.

SPEAKER_06 22:03

Validate.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

But what you're talking about is something completely different.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

I mean, Sam, it's the difference of our story. When we, when we went through the, when we started to go through the worst season of it, and I went the way of the world, and she went the way of the word, she surrounded herself with women that were going to speak truth into her. And when somebody said, Hey, I think you should go on a date with this other with this guy, your marriage is over. There was somebody else to say, Heck no, you're not dating anybody. You're still fighting for your marriage.

SPEAKER_06 22:33

You're still married for some.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Yeah, dude, let's go party and make yourself happy. Make yourself happy. Follow your heart. It's like, dude, no, the heart's deceitful amongst all things. Like it's the it's the one thing that messes with us more than anything.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

So that's the heart. Yeah.

unknown 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I'm starting to find out though.

SPEAKER_06 22:53

Well, and and I want to touch on something else. You had said women are are more vulnerable, possibly. That might be how we've been conditioned since we were little. You know, I know I'm I'm working with, or I have worked with women who's like, man, their husbands aren't open and vulnerable. And it's not because they have a character flaw, it's because maybe some of the experiences they grew up with, they they weren't allowed to show their feelings. Or, you know, talk about generational stuff, showing your feelings and crying was a sign of weakness. And so talk about us in in our marriage during that time, the times where he tried to be vulnerable with me or show his feelings or be real from whatever was going on inside of me, a lot of times I use that against him. And so here he is, he's trusting his wife, someone who is supposed to be there. You know, all the vows that we take for for sickness and health and better or worse and richer for poor and all those things that we just kind of just roll off our tongue at the altar. We hurt each other. And so then we start building up walls and we start building up fences around us for protection. And so it's like, man, if that didn't work out that time, do you think he's gonna be vulnerable with me again? Probably not. But guess what I'm gonna shame him on? Well, you never talk. You're never open and honest. Well, yeah, because maybe sometimes where he had been, I didn't facilitate that. You know, I had a lot of friends as well, and we weren't always I wasn't always maybe you weren't ready for it.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

I mean, again, I don't want to talk about my own marriage, but I mean there I've been vulnerable in our marriage, and it's I don't want to say that surprised Heather, but it's surprised. I mean, it it was don't don't get to see that every day. And so it was like almost a shock.

SPEAKER_06 24:44

Yeah. But it's what you do with the information that you have. And so um now, you know, we can go through all the different things of of how we were before, but now, but now if one of us wants to come to each other and be vulnerable, we may have to say, Hey, do you have a minute? Can I share a few things with you just to prepare the other person's heart? And that may be a given to a lot of people. We didn't know that. And so I didn't know until you just said, but giving somebody, you know, just giving a heads up, hey, can I talk to you about something tonight? I got something on my heart, I got something that's been bothering me, whatever language you want to use, invite that other person in so they can know, so they can be distraction-free and they can give you their full attention.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 25:27

And it may mean if I'm gonna share something with him, it may mean he doesn't need to have a solution for me. He can just listen so I can trust him with information and then we can move forward together. But I think when things were really rough with us, we didn't share. We were busy, we were doing stuff with kids, we were working, we were doing the best we could, but we didn't have anybody pouring into us to tell us a different way of thinking because the path that we were thinking and going down was the wrong one.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Different people start getting divorced, that seems like an option. It's pretty prevalent. And so there's no shame on people who have been through a divorce, or but it's like, man, I did not want that to be our story. And so when we were faced with destruction, infidelity, broken trust, um, hurt, pain, bitterness from over the years, I am so thankful that God moved on my heart and said, Don't you dare give up.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Well, and and and and and because of that, you were willing to fight for each other.

SPEAKER_06 26:32

Well, I was willing to fight for him. He was done with me.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

But he came around.

SPEAKER_06 26:37

He came around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

I mean, will you fight for her? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_06 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

I get it. That the like you're prefacing, like, hey, I need to have a conversation, and and it's gonna be tough, or it's gonna be, I just need, you know, it's like, hey, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, um like this is important. Listen up, Bucko.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah, you know? It's so, it's so like com you can't check communication, is one of the the main reasons why people people get divorced, but it it's it's what it comes down to. I reconcile. It's irreconcilable differences. Well, the differences are because we lack communication on on how to work through these things together. So it without creating that, one of the things we share is to be clear as kind. And we want to be extremely clear with one another, and we want to set expectations, we want to set the other person up for success. So, what Bree's alluding to is this moment of like creating the safe place and the safe space for us to have a conversation. Doesn't mean it's always going to be extremely emotional, extremely vulnerable, extreme, extremely in-depth. It could be as simple as like, hey, like what we talk about is soul care. We do something called soul care, which is very simple. No judgment, no, no rationalization, no justification. It's four simple questions that we ask one another where the other person can't really defend themselves in that moment. And it's super easy. Where did we win in marriage today? Let's just ask ourselves. We each ask that question, hey, where did we win in marriage today? She responds, I respond. Where could I have shown you more love today? Man, it really sucked when you rolled your eyes at me today and I felt like you were just like being a complete jerk. You you dismissed me. I don't get to say anything other than, man, I'm sorry that I made you feel that way in that moment. That's it. I don't get to say, well, you you you sent me a text in the middle of the day. I was in a meeting with somebody else, I was busy. That's why I did it. Doesn't matter why I did it. She felt crappy when I did that, whatever it was. It goes the other way. How could I have shown you more respect? The other one is, how can I help you today? Is there any, or or another way to phrase, is there anything I can do for you today? Very simple. Right now, in this moment. And then the other one is, is there anything you need from me today? We don't rationalize again. We don't justify this is an argument. It's one-way feedback. What do you what do you answer to that sometimes? I mean if you're interested in that.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Because if if he if my wife asked me, what do you need today? Yeah, I guess I would have an answer. Yeah. I don't need a lecture.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need you to lecture me. And that could be an area where, like, hey, how did I, how did you, how could I have or how could you have how could I have shown you more respect today? You know, when I brought something to you, you just kind of lectured me in that moment. I felt like you were my mom coming down on me in that moment. That sucked. It took away my respect.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

All these big words like felt and feeling. Yeah, I know, man. Man, it's so hard. But it is hard, but it's so important. It's really hard for me. It's even more hard for me, I think. And it's it's and obviously, I think this podcast has been kind of my my psychiatric self-sight, yeah, self-awareness thing. But I mean, I mean, I grew up on a cowboy. See, that's me with my dad. Uh, I grew up, and that's a tough environment. And it's very uh as JD Krauss talked about, it's very, it's very masculine. Like you don't, you don't cry, you don't show emotion, and I'm German, I'm taboot. Yep, so we just don't do those things. And so these are all big words to me. Like feel and like ask your like what you're talking about is not only communication, but it's awareness. It's a heightened, I would describe it as a heightened, uber heightened sense of awareness of what you're what you're that's what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

And when you say I don't do these things, well, the only reason you don't do them is because that's it's it's not that's not a it's not an excuse, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

And it like it's hard. It's hard. I'm trying to get you to understand my perspective. I get it.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

I grew up, I my dad, a Vietnam veteran, hers as well. My dad was on the 101st Air Division Division. Oh, right. Served on Hamburger Hill. I saw her cry one time, and that's when his dad died.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Well, you remembered it, though.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

That's it. That's the only time I ever shrimp cry. Yep. I he threw his keys mad because they had left the hospital when he got home. There's no cell phones at this time. He got the call at home that his father had passed away. They thought he was going to be okay or get out of the hospital, so they left. That's the only time I ever saw my dad cry. He said, I love you one time that I remember, and that was when he was dying. That was it. Like on the bed in front of us and brought us all together and said, You guys are my family. I love you guys. Those are the moments. So I could sit here as much as I want and say, I grew up in this very tough environment where we didn't do those things. But at the end of the day, when God came into my life, I had a Bible placed in front of me. Jesus wept. Jesus shared his emotion. Jesus shared these things with other people. So that's my model. Back to your center. Yeah. I'm getting back to the model of what his word says is true. And I 100% know everybody does not, but I believe in his word. Did your parents ever tell you that they loved you? My mother did. I I really, I'm sure my dad did, but I certainly don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

We didn't use those words. Yes. Yeah. But I guarantee you, sir, 100%. They knew all where they stood with me, and vice versa. Without a doubt. And so it's it is a word. I'm I I I guess I'm very de uh I don't want to say I'm defensive about that, but uh sometimes, particularly in social media, I think words are thrown around without any authenticity.

SPEAKER_05 32:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

And my family, um, there was authentic love, but we didn't go around talking about it. Yep. And it's but what you're saying is, you know, Heather and I always, you know, every night before we go to bed, we tell each other we love each other. And it and I still struggle with it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_06 32:23

And that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

I I struggle with it because it's like, well, we've said this through, you know, how many days we've been married, like you don't know that by now. I mean, that's my attitude. 100%, well, it's horrendous. See, all right, we're getting to it.

SPEAKER_06 32:36

It's the it's okay. It's it's the thing where we're, you know, sometimes women are just, and I'm not speci specifically speaking for your wife, but it a lot of women and girls are just longing for that love and longing for that. Like God gave women the desire to be loved. Yes, God gave men the desire to be respected. Guess what the hardest thing for men to do sometimes is is to say, I love you, to show I love you in private or public. You know, what's the joke that says a man said, I said I loved you on the altar. Isn't that good enough? You know, when they got married, yeah, they should remember it.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

I don't have that attitude, by the way.

SPEAKER_06 33:12

Well, no, but I get it. Yeah, but so saying it's like, man, I I knew Kevin's dad and mom. Well, his mom's still living, but I knew his dad. We had been together, gosh, about 12 and a half or married. He died while we were separated, but I got to be there right before he died. He was an amazing man. He loved Kevin so much. And so it's this kind of perception, you know, like, well, how many times did I grow up hearing that? Well, I knew he loved me. Yeah, he provided, he was amazing. Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:45

And trust me, when times when you you needed that it was I guess to me, it was it was always it was always shown. It was we, we, we yeah. Yeah, it wasn't said, right?

SPEAKER_06 33:58

Yeah. So going forward though, it's like, man, I did grow up hearing that all the time. We both had great families growing up and both went to church, did Sunday school, all the different things, but your faith journey is your own. And so just like I can't continue to bank on my parents, all the things my parents did, we have to grow up and have our own faith walk. And for us, I re found that and surrendered fully during our separation. That opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

And so aren't you lucky, but yeah, holy.

SPEAKER_06 34:33

I mean, really, I mean, I'm like our kids, our our families, just everything has been changed because of that. And um, so for us, it's like I want couples to say, okay, this may be how I grew up, this may be how you grew up. What do we want for our family? What do we want to show our kids? How, you know, how can we speak love and show love over them? And it's going to be blending everything that we've experienced. And then we get to do that. So saying that, it's like, man, we do share love with our kids. We do, you know, sometimes it's tough love. Sometimes it's verbal. Sometimes it's, you know, touch and you know, hugs and that sort of thing. The difference, I would say, in Kevin on this side of our marriage being restored is that he is more vulnerable. We've been able, thank God, we've been able to provide safe opportunities in private where he and I can just be vulnerable and real with each other, and then we're united forces against and for our kids. So that's kind of, you know, if we can go down about that.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

I'm sorry to jump in. I'm curious. Your your kids, um, like my mom and I think this is this is a sign of love. Uh, as you just said, it is. Uh, I like you discipline your kid, like there, there isn't any deal making with mom and dad, is there? When it comes to discipline. Like, mom says this, like my mom and dad, like they were so like it was like one was talking to the other. There was no like, oh, mom will be soft on this, and dad'll be tough on that. No, no, no, no, no. It was it was equal. And to me, that to to me that was a sign of love from them. They didn't have to tell me they loved me, but I I I knew it. I knew that if I talked to dad, it'd be exactly what mom was gonna say, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_06 36:19

Yeah. What's funny is that that all sounds really good until you're hurt and bitter and you're in a fight and you're angry, right? And then maybe they went to dad and I didn't know about it. And kids can be manipulative, you know, it's just it's scared of manipulation. And so, you know, then it's like, okay, maybe I don't know that. And if we don't have this great solid communication, then I may say, you know what, I, you know, we we can go down different paths, and then it's it's it's heartache and it's confusion for not only the kids, for us, or whatever. But I wanted to say you had mentioned earlier, um we had just learned recently intention perception gap. Am I saying that right?

SPEAKER_04 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:00

Intention perception gap. So often what we had talked about in some of our counseling before marriage or but before our separation was well, that was not my intention. I'm I'm doing these things. That's not my intention. That's good to say one time. I don't want to use that as an excuse. But guess what? I did all the time. Well, that's not my intention to disrespect you. That's not my intention. That's just your perception. Okay, let's take it a step further. So when I'm thinking that though, it's like, okay, now, for example, if I do something that he feels disrespected or he's hurt by it, instead of saying, You're such a this, you always disrespect me, you never listen to me, you never honor me, whatever it is. He can say something along the lines where, hey, I know that wasn't your intention to hurt me or disrespect me, but I want to share with you how I feel. This is how I perceived it.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Here's how I received it.

SPEAKER_06 38:04

And then it's like, okay, it's it's diffusing. Like I don't have to have a big argument. Most of the time now I'm gonna be like, man, I'm that's you know, that was my last. I I do not want to treat you that way. That's not what I meant.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Missed the mark on that one.

SPEAKER_06 38:17

Yeah, but it shows humility, and I can be just as prideful as the next person and say, Well, that's your perception, sorry. Quit being so sensitive, or you know, whatever it is. Um, but yeah, that intention perception gap, I want to narrow that down because I want us to be able to communicate extremely well together.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Absolutely. Very, very important point. You were talking about discipline, and I wanted to pull this up because, like in those moments when you were talking about kids, we we learned after the fact how to discipline our children the the right way. Biblical way biblical way. And that took some time to get to. And I'm sure knowing your background, this will be okay in most of your audience, but we did use a rod of discipline in our home. There was actually a spoon that we had, a wooden spoon, and we would sit down with them, never do it in ang in anger, never yelling. We would give them a choice of always saying, and we learned this from our pastors, which was just great wisdom of like, hey, you've got a choice in this moment. The path you're going down, going down is not honoring to God and it's not honoring to your parents. So you have a choice. You can either step off of that path or there will be discipline for the decisions that you're making. And if they were like, okay, I went off the path, great. God's grace, our grace, okay, love you. Thank you so much for making the right choice. But most of the time, now now they do, but for a season, our son specifically just didn't. He would always pick the path of I'm gonna stay on this crazy cycle right now. So we would sit down. I would never take his pants off of him. I would always have him do them himself, do it himself. We'd step into a private room and I would say, son, I'm going to give you the rod of discipline, and here's why. And I would read from pro I would get the Bible out before I would do Proverbs 13, 24. Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them. I would read that to him in this moment. Once he would calm down, and then I would say, You're going to get the rod of discipline for your choice. And it wasn't going to be angry, it wasn't going to be me yelling at him. It would just be a simple smack on the backside. Do you understand why this just happened? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. The next time we're in this situation, we have a choice to make. We can either pick to get off the path, and there's going to be grace, there's going to be blessings for your choice, or there will be the route of discipline. That only takes a few times. But again, never in anger, never an embarrassment, never a moment of like, hey, you're a bad kid. It was always like, dude, we've got a choice to make in this moment. And that same thing applies to us, of the way we're going through things. We've got a choice to make in what Brie was just describing. I've got what you just said to me sucked. You said it the wrong way. I didn't hear it right. It hurt. Okay. I've got a choice where I can either humble myself and say, man, this person's sharing something with me. I can get super defensive. I can fight back. I can push back. I can try to explain everything I've just done, why I did it. None of those things matter in that moment. The only thing that matters is she feels hurt and I've got a choice to make. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:16

And I'll say Kevin was way better at discipline than me as a mom. I did it out of anger, frustration sometimes. I would spank, you know, and I'm not, this isn't about child discipline, but it's like, man, you talk to someone else about it, and they may say, Oh, that's abuse, or, you know, that's that's this or this. It's like, okay, that's this generation. But guess what? I got spanked growing up. And it usually deterred me from doing again until I found a different way to do it. No one then why I was always like, oh man, Kevin is such a better parent than me because he's so great in this disciplinary. But even then, we would lean on each other and get help with that from each other because raising kids is hard.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

And you're not always gonna that I don't know, but I I can observe.

SPEAKER_06 42:05

Yeah. But just to say it's like, man, another reason why we go back to God's word. Yeah. For us, that's what is so important.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Colossians 3 20 is the only Bible verse I remembered as a kid. You know, tell me children obey your parents, for this is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_06 42:22

It's good.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

It's funny that's the one you remember. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

I just remember it. Obey your parents in all things, for this is the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

I think right in front of that.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Boy, I hope I've got that right.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Well, so it's close, but like Colossians three is um I was thinking 313. It's all about like it's starting, and I I love this. This is a whole nother tangent, but it's it's so true because it speaks to marriage. Colossians three is where we're getting the direction of okay, I've got to get right first. When I get right with the Lord, the next thing it talks about is to wives and it talks about submission. Yes. The next one is to husbands, the next one is to parents, and then after that it talks about slaves. And that's giving us the view of the way that God views the priority level. One, my relationship with Him, two, the marriage, three, the kids, for the marketplace. And that's one of the things that so many people get out of whack, and we got out of whack for so long. One of the biggest challenges today in marriage that we see, at least in our space, is kids are taking precedent over spouse. Scheduling all of the priorities, all of the other things going on. We divide and conquer, and there's a season for that for sure. But one of the things we've done is like Sunday mornings, our kids, when they have sports, like they're not gonna be able to participate on a Sunday morning. Why? Most of most of the time, we are going to church as a family. So if you want to schedule these events on Sunday mornings, I'm so sorry. Our son is not going to be able to be at the baseball game until after that. It just happens. Even Mother's Day. I mean, we were just talking about on Mother's Day, all of the sporting events that were going on on Sunday on Mother's Day, and our recitals and our I was like, this is the last thing I would want to do today. I want to honor you today, man. What can we do? But we get that wrong. And we've got to make sure that there's an alignment with us. And Colossians 3 does a great job of explaining that of one, let's get us right. So it's this whole mindset thing. What fix our focus on him? Then let's get our marriage right. Let's make sure the kids are next. Children obey your parents. And then it's in into the marketplace of the priority level. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

You see that through the audio platform listeners, Bree just uh nodded. She looked it up, and the video people can see that she said uh was looking up, and that was in fact the the verse.

SPEAKER_06 44:35

I know, right? When you said Colossians 3 20, I was like, man, is that the one that we were but there's like yeah, Colossians 3 is so good.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

In that in that wild, that's the one verse that I remember honestly ever.

SPEAKER_06 44:47

Yeah, but well, I mean the one growing up that I remembered was John 3.16. You know, I could say that. And then the more you know, I started reading it and trying to memorize it, it can seem daunting at first, and it can seem, oh, I don't know anything, but I bet you do if you go through it, I bet you do uh remember more. I want to say this right leading up to that one, what you were alluding to was Colossians 3.18. In the New Living Translation, it says, Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. In other words, submit to your husband out of reverence for Christ.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 45:24

Not because I want to, not because he's demanding it.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Told me to do some P. Diddy thing that we're hearing about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:30

But um Right, right. And no, and that's a whole nother thing.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

That's a whole different thing.

SPEAKER_06 45:34

Yeah. And then it in 19 it says, husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. And then 20, children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. And then it goes into the other things.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

But you know, playing slavery, but we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Well, I mean, that's just representation of marketplace at that time, right? Yeah. Slaves obey your masters. And there's no different than having to work for somebody. Right. Obey your boss, right, is essentially what that's saying there.

SPEAKER_06 46:02

But for us, what it goes back to is we have a blueprint for how we want to do things. We're still going to get it wrong. And even talking about Sundays, there's sometimes where we make an exception. But you know what's crazy is so you have the Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, you know, 4th of July, all the different ones, Christmas and Easter. Um, we have some, there's a volleyball tournament, and this is not a knock on volleyball, but it's like, man, there's volleyball tournaments specifically that I know of that are qualifying for regionals, and they're on Easter weekend.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:37

And they have been, you know, and so that's a whole scheduling thing. That's a society thing, but it's like, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Isn't it? Yeah. That's crazy. It has been. We just I just I I I would have guessed this if I had had trivia, but um, just the other day we heard it because it was Mother's Day. Mother's Day is the third most attendance. Third Christmas and Easter. Okay, yeah. Christmas and Easter are number one for church, and then Mother's Day is number three. Father's Day is one of the least for attendance. For attendance at church.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Because dad doesn't want to go to church.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Dad wants to go golf. Dad wants to go do something else. Dad wants to do his thing.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Mother's Day is the third, and Father's Day is one of the least.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

And this is a good one. Talk about society.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Yeah. So you like let's look at the data. There's people that are going to be emotional thinkers and think people that are going to be logical people. Look at the look at the logic. Look at the data with that. Yeah. Men don't want to spiritually lead because it's hard. It's uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Vulnerable. Vulnerable. Emotional.

SPEAKER_04 47:35

Feelings. It's real. Feelings.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

We're getting into all of the things faces. People have told me men don't do this.

SPEAKER_06 47:44

But for us, we have had, like we have chosen to make it a priority. Yeah. Are we perfect? No. Heck no. Are we ever going to be? No. Jesus is the only one. But we had this opposite.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

My saying is I'll tell you how this a friend of mine, well, it's been told on previous podcasts, but um, people tune in to people tune out, right? It's like a radio show. Uh big guy knows. And it comes from it comes from uh we being in a very high stress what we're in a presidential campaign um uh in in in 2004. And um the the guy who was actually my godfather in CrossFit, Carrie Evans, it's tough to be in campaign because you have to you don't lie necessarily, but you kind of have to like sometimes people want to have some things and you kind of have to tell them they can't have them. I mean, it's you're put in a very difficult position, anyway. So Kerry's Catholic, uh, and and Car's a Louisiana Catholic, also. Not I don't matter what they are, but um uh Kerry got off the phone with someone after he had to tell us basically like another friend of mine you say, I all my job is to tell people no. Like in presidential campaign, your job is to tell people no. And so it was that kind of a thing, or and and and he he had to we don't even remember what it was specifically, but Carrie's like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go to hell. I'm just you know, I can't, you know, and and my my buddy Chris Carr, he's been on podcast before on Crossfish Crawfish Boil, check it out. But he's he's Louisiana Twang. He's like, ah, ah, ah, oh no, no, sir. Big guy knows, big guy knows, and so anyway, I've kind of always adopted that as my uh big guy knows. Yep. So yeah, I mean, no one's gonna be perfect, right? Only big guy knows. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 49:32

Yeah, and we were afforded this amazing opportunity to do marriage a a second time, a way that was God centered. Because again, going back to the very beginning, we were good according to what the world said was good. Cute little family, uh, priorities were off. And so for us now, it's God's spouse, kids, everything else. And so that's a priority that works well for us. And I would say works well for a majority of people. Um I want to have my relationship with Christ first, that's most important. I've been afforded to be a wife. I love him. That's that's next. Third is our kids. And so our kids sometimes are like, you know, think it's horrible or or will uh joke with us. Well, I'm not as important as dad. No, you're not, actually. I love you. And but if it needs, if it has to be a date night that we're desiring or another kid activity, we'll see how we can make them both work. But guess what? It's Godspouse kids. And so if I don't focus on my relationship as being a wife and being a supporter, um, his best friend, our our kids aren't gonna have what they need to need. You can't help them. Right. No.

SPEAKER_03 50:48

It reminds me of being a cop. Like if our officer needed assistance, I was always taught to you're gonna get there as fast as you can, but you gotta get there safely because you can't help anybody if you freaking wreck on the way there. Yeah, good point. Yeah, same thing when you're in a yeah. Same thing. So how are you gonna help your kids if you don't help him? Yep.

SPEAKER_06 51:06

Same thing when you're you know traveling on an airplane. They always say put your own mask on first and then put someone's on it that you're exact same thing. Yep, you know, exact same thing. It's like, okay, what's my lifeline? For us, it's Jesus. And so then we can minister to each other, minister to our kids, and everything else comes next. We didn't have that priority for a long time. Me as a woman, I had a priority of my kids, I had a priority of my friends, of myself, and wherever he fell along is what he got from me. Men, a lot of times, their priority is work and providing, which is amazing. But if they're giving their entire energy to work and they come home depleted every single day, I I mean, I'm getting sloppy seconds, thirds, you know, and I'm gonna feel it.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

And so our priority is over there has three legs, not two, right? Yeah, so a truck fod can't stand out. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's it's it's it's unbalanced. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Yep, yeah, it becomes a teeter-totter.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

Yep, exactly. Exactly. So, what's a common issue that brings couples to reverence restored?

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Gosh, there's so many at the end, let's just focus on the one. It's it's all it's gonna be communication. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be communication. I mean, when you when you start to peel back the layers every time, it just it's always gonna land on communication. There's a communication gap, unmet expectations, uh unmet, um, unmet desires that the other person has and not knowing how to talk about. So, like when we coach people, we make it very simple. We start with the four C's of marriage, and that's communication, conflict resolution, connection, and community. Those first three are all internal. So we don't even step outside of the two of us until we start talking about these these three things, getting communication right, because if we know how to communicate, when we communicate, we know we're gonna be faced with conflict. We just are, we're two different people. No matter what. If that can be me and Bree, that can be you and I, Sam, either one. There will be conflict that comes up when we're starting to talk with people because we're gonna be, we're gonna disagree on things. So if we can communicate about the small things, we know how to work through conflict without it turning into a knockdown, drag out fight, and we've got a good conflict resolution strategy. Now, when we're spending time together, we can actually enjoy that time because we can talk. When conflict comes up, we know how to work through it. Now the connection points that we have together are not gonna be like, that's the last person I want to be with. Are you kidding me? She's gonna want to talk to me about this stuff. We're gonna have a problem. It's just gonna be another fight. She's gonna be critical of me. Those moments are still gonna happen in our marriage. They still do. But when they do, we now know how to get through it. And then the 4C is just really looking at the community around us because we can't do this alone. Even us five years, seven years now into this marriage coaching thing, our marriage at times is still not awesome. But we've got great people around us say, dude, we're struggling right now. Hey, let me help you out. What do you need? How can we pray for you? What like do you guys need to get a break? What's what your regular routines look like? Have you guys had a date night lately? Right. Man, when you think about that, we haven't. Okay, cool. So we've got community around us, and then we start moving into the bigger topics of trust and forgiveness, spiritual, emotional, physical intimacy, healing, all of the big things are kind of after that. The reason being is let's get back and peel back the layers and get to the root issue. We have a communication gap.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

And so just for clarification, or uh it's my understanding that you not only do you counsel, or it's not counsel, it's not the word coach. Yep, coach. Not only do you coach couples, but you also coach men and women. And so is it still the same answer? Is it still communication of both? So how does how does that look from a from a from a man's standpoint? Why are they coming to you? From a woman's standpoint, why are they coming to you?

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah, most of the time when they enter through that path, which actually is about 80 to 85% of the people that we work with. Is that right? Yeah, come through that path. The reason being very similar to the story in the journey of us, one person doesn't want to work on it. They're either done, it's over, infidelity's taken place, broken trust, they're out.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

So the best scenario for us is when one starts to work with us, and then the couple decides, okay, I'm seeing change in this person. I'll let Breeze speak to the to the women's side of it, but for men, we focus on just that man, pastor, protector, provider, pastor overheart, protector of her mind. Yes, not protector of her physical peace. We can all do that. You already mentioned it. If somebody hurts my wife, I'm going after them. Without a doubt. We can we can all physically protect, most of us. So pastor overheart, protect your.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

That's what I think about most across rate workouts, honestly. Like somebody's missing my life. We're there.

SPEAKER_06 55:33

And then I'm like, how do I survive?

SPEAKER_03 55:35

But you've seen me across workouts, you're probably worried about, oh man, I'm better helping by.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

And then it's the provider of stability, whereas so often we think of provision is how do I provide materialistic shelter financially for my family? Great things, but if I'm not providing stability in our marriage, man, I'm missing the mark. I'm back to your tripod. I'm the teeter-totter. If I'm the, if I'm set, if I'm the barometer, if I'm the thermostat walking to the room and I'm always at a level 10, my whole family's gonna be at a level 10. So I've got to learn how to be the pastor of her heart, protector of her mind, provider of stability. We do that by looking at who is giving me vision, who's getting my best, who's gonna battle with me, will I be ready when it matters most? And will my legacy last? So when I work with men, we focus on that. And then at the lid for that whole piece is really as we make decisions and say yes or no to things, we say yes or no to them through the lens of one, is this making me a closer follower to Christ? Number one, if the answer to that's no, there's no reason we should ever do it. Number two, is it making me a better husband? If the answer to that is no, man, I really got to think about whether or not I should be doing this. Is it making me a better father if we're if we're in a position to have kids? If the answer to that is no, man, I don't know if I should be doing that. I'll give an example of that. One, hey, got this opportunity to go to this business thing. I'm gonna be out of town for a week and a half, like it's gonna be a great deal. Got to close on this one, it's gonna be huge. Okay, well, my kids are gonna miss miss out on something during that time. I'm gonna be gone. I'm providing for my family. Doesn't mean I shouldn't do it, but I want to evaluate it through that lens of is it making me a better father? And then the last one is, is it making me a better leader? So usually as we as we navigate through those things of like, okay, yes or no's. And then I want to be able to sit with my wife and say, hey, here's what we have on the table. Should I say yes or no to this? And then I'm really getting the opportunity to say, okay, is the Lord inviting me into this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:30

Yeah. And some of those times it's like, yes, it's a great opportunity. Go, the kids will be fine. I'll be able to do this. You know, the other times, it's like there was a couple times in a previous job that he had where he was gone on specific events that really didn't need to be out of town events for, but you know, it was like a Halloween where he was going to miss out when the kids were little doing something. Okay, that's not that big of a deal. But when it comes back to back-to-back things where he's missing out on all these important things, then we have an opportunity to sit and say, okay, is this something that I still need to be pursuing? If it is, great, let's keep doing it and just know it's a season. But for a while, it was just him making decisions and me making decisions. And then there was that perception gap, that intention perception gap. Okay, someone's gonna get let down. And so just be willing to make a decision and invite your spouse into it with that communication. So it's not my way is is what's gonna happen. And that goes both ways in a husband and a wife. But um Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Now I hear another question. So you you both individually counsel men and women. Coach. Uh I'm sorry, coach. And I I I think the answer, the difference is counseling, there's no faith involved. To me, that's the biggest difference. And then coaching, clearly, if you don't if you don't you know have accept Christ as your savior, you're not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Is that I can I can take that. I mean, really, the way we explain the biggest difference is there is no knock on counseling. We have we know amazing counselors. There are people that genuine genuinely care about the other person. However, it's also an industry that has probably fallen victim to an insurance-based society. Yes. Where they're billing by the hour. Billing by the hour, and the the care is not there. Gotcha. And also like behavior modification versus root cause analysis. Coaching, you're a sports guy, you're a CrossFit guy. You could give me five workouts, I'll go do them. But if I don't have a coach to tell me what I'm doing wrong in the moment, I'm still gonna make mistakes. I'm gonna get hurt. I'm gonna get hurt, right? Same. And really, when we built this, we took the fitness model and said, man, in our best seasons of life, we've had a coach to say, time out, the way you're doing that movement, you're gonna end up getting hurt. It might work for right now, but you're gonna feel it at a later date.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

I have so many questions. Um, okay, back to my original question before we got sidetracked there. Uh does it take longer to coach women? Are if you bring a woman on, are they gonna your average person time you see them is eight times and average person for you is four? Do you see that at all? Men, I I have a perception that men are gonna be able to to get there quicker, women are gonna need to stretch that out a little bit because they got more to work through.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:26

There's so many levels to or uh layers to this. It's a maturity.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

Is that an unfair generalization?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:32

I don't know if it's unfair. I don't know if it's completely accurate with the clients that we've had.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:37

But um everyone's on their own journey. And yes, maybe communication is the overarching thing. I was just seeing something recently, and it said most people think that divorce is because of infidelity or, you know, big, big, huge things. And it's like, what actually also causes divorce? Your life changing after kids while their life doesn't, feeling completely alone, being the one who makes all the effort, lack of follow-through, always having to ask, not feeling heard, ignoring requests. There's so much that goes into the breakdown of our relationships. And for us, what was really crucial was when I quit blaming Kevin for, oh, it's because he's having an affair, there's infidelity, that's why we're getting divorced. No, that was part of it, but there was such a breakdown that I also contributed to our marriage. And that's for a whole nother podcast. But women, you know, if it's if it's a man or a woman getting to this breakthrough, everyone's on their own journey. And so their maturity level, their humility level, their um experience, their wisdom, their faith, yes. But so to answer your question, we do work with couples or with people who their, you know, faith may not be their top priority, but we just kind of say it this way you can have a better marriage, but it's gonna be the best marriage if you can learn to put Christ at the center because higher power. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah. The the fast, the ones that the ones that pick it up the quickest are the ones that are willing to give up control the fastest. Humanity that doesn't matter, man. Gender's not.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

That goes with anything in life.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

It's true. That's exactly right. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

So it's really this this spiritual maturity piece of whichever one is going to fully surrender all of it first.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Is gonna is gonna be the one that starts to excel. But then the other side of that is there are very few times, hardly ever, where both are growing parallel parallelly, parallel, parallel to one another. There, there's just not. There, well, the way we describe it is you never want to get one so far ahead that they can't reach their hand back and grab the other.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

One of my questions, and I'll just jump to it, is how do you help couples align their individual goals with their standard vision for the future? Yeah. Because what you're talking about, two different someone's might be going fast to the other, but you better have that right standard vision for the future. 100%. It's the path you're walking on, like my mom said, Yeah, we're still on that path. Still going.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

And there may be times where one of them's lagging back a little bit. That's okay. Just don't get so far ahead that you can't reach back and grab their hand and say, hey, come on. You're that's all right. I'm here with you. I'm not gonna let you fall back any further. I'll slow down a little bit. Doesn't mean that I have to slow down in my my pursuit. It just may mean that I need to slow down in how much my expectation is of them to keep up during that season. And that might be something where you're like, hey, like right now I can see that you're struggling with some stuff. Like you're not in your word, you're not spending time with the Lord. I can tell that your tone's a little bit off with the kids. We we're I'm seeing patterns or consistency over time where, hey, something just seems a little bit off. Is there something that we need to connect on? What's going on? How can I help you? Back to that soul care question. What do you need from what do you need from me today? Man, I'm just in a funk. Cool. Let me help you get through that right now. Like I get it. What can I do?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:58

Can I take the kids? Can I take the kids? V day off.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

What do you like? What do we need to do so that you can get your mind right with the Lord? And then we've got an opportunity to start working forward from there.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:07

Yeah. And Sam, I would say that's where we were. Um, and that's where a lot of couples that we find. It's it's no shame. It's no, oh my gosh, your husband isn't as far along spiritually as you. I would say a lot of women get there and have a desire. I think that women still want their husband to lead and protect them in all areas. Yes. And faith is no different. Um, but if the woman is a little bit farther along with her faith, the last thing I want her to do is to shame her husband and tell him that he's not, you know, following along, he's not this. It's gonna put a lid to where he's willing to be vulnerable and learn and say, hey, maybe I need community. Maybe I need to learn about this. Because that's where we were. I was maybe about six to eight months ahead of him in our faith journey when we reconciled. And I screwed up a few times saying, you know, you're not doing this right. You're not, you know, do this, do that. You're supposed to, we had gotten an argument. And I said, You're supposed to be spiritually leading me and you're not. And he was so brand new to this, you know, following Christ. You think that encouraged him to lead me spiritually by shaming him? Absolutely not. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:24

Again, attention perception gap where he's sort of a yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:27

Right when I said that, I was like, oh, take it back, take it back, take it back.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:31

You know, well, the old cowboy term, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:35

That's right. So for the women who I'm working with who they're like, you know what, we're we're going through some things. This is what I want to do. I'll work with them and say, okay, let's start healing you. Let's start working on you, let's learn how to communicate with your husband, let's meet him where he's at, because you barking at him with orders and all these things you want him to do, you can get the same thing across. But if we just change language a little bit, not manipulation. Yeah. Just motivation motivation and strategically saying things to him that's going to build him up. Again, he's this little boy at heart. He needs to be built up. He needs to feel safe if he's going to be vulnerable. And I didn't provide that spot for him the first 12 years of our marriage.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

Well, I I'll be honest, guys, majority marriages don't that's that's not the way we are. No, I mean it's just majority. What you're talking about is the minority. You're talking about the elite. What you're talking about is building elite marriages. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Yeah.

unknown 1:06:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

That's true. I mean, one I one thing as you were describing that that I thought of, do you know what we do see a lot of more than more in men than women is men tend to use grace as a license to sin.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:43

Boy, that pisses me off. That's just bullshit. It happens. Sorry to watch my language, but that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

It happens so often where men will use grace as a license to sin and they think it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

That is the biggest sin of all. That's taking like taking the Lord's name in vain.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

Yeah. I mean, it's just it, and we see it more far more in men. In fact, I don't know that we've ever seen it in women, but I I can think of numerous occasions where men will continue to that's so weak.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:10

Go a little bit further in that. Like please.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Yeah, yeah. Potentially, uh, I'll I'll think of the two that are right on top of my tongue right now. Infidelity has bit has taken place, wife wants to put marriage back together, and and the they the men say to the wife, yes, I think we can do this, I think we can put the marriage back together. I want to can I want to learn to pursue the Lord more with you. They start to get a relationship with the Lord, and all of a sudden they learn about the term grace and how God is grace is abundance, He will continue to give it to us. So then they start thinking about the other person and say, Well, wait a minute, if I'm learning about this grace piece, now all of a sudden, if God's got this for me, then I'm okay. I can still pursue this other relationship with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

No, you are not, you ding-dong.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Yep, happens happens so frequently. Must have manure for brains.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

Yeah. And it's just so unfortunate, man. And we we try to talk about it. That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:02

That makes me angry. I'm sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

No, I'm not sorry at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:04

Well, and I'll say something too. I mean, it's it's God has no favorites. A sin is a sin is a sin. Romans 3 23 says we have all fallen short of the glory of God.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

You sure have.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:16

And so that means Kevin, that means me. And so I'll take it at another angle, is that it's no different. If I am choosing to be this godly wife, I know how I should speak to my husband out of respect. I know I should do things that are honoring to him. Not because I have to, but because I want to honor the Lord. And I'm continually gossiping about him, telling my best girlfriends secrets that he shares.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:40

Also makes me very angry.

unknown 1:08:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:43

You know, it's or or tearing him down in public, you know, very angry. It's like these may be specific things that you know you should not do, but why? Because I want to honor the Lord. I want to honor my husband as unto the Lord. And we can sit here and say we do all these things perfectly, but what happens when we're in a conversation at the gym, at work? What happened so frequently in my line of work, I I'm a nurse by trade. And so typically a lot of women are nurses. And so what happens when we're around the lunch table and someone's saying, Hey, you know, my stupid husband did this work. And then pretty soon I found myself as a young bride thinking, Oh, yeah, my husband does that too. What an idiot. And then I started joining in, right? It's no different.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

Hey, you're shopping for the advice you want.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:32

Right, but it's no different. Like that is so hard to hear. It's so detrimental. If I'm doing those things and tearing him down, yeah, you know, it's it's it's no different than him thinking that it's it's just people just happen to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

Oh, let's play this grace card. You know, I think you missed the point. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:52

Yeah, yeah. So it's like, man, if we can just get back to basic principles for us, that's God's word.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Yeah, absolutely. Um, what's a successful story that well, you may or may not be able to say it and talk about it, but what's the successful story that uh that uh that you witnessed through your work with other couples?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

Gosh, I mean the first one that comes to mind is just the C and C couple that we have right now. Um why don't you tell us?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:21

I don't know how much you can say or can't, so we can.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:23

I mean um well, I would say that like anyone can have a new marriage with the same spouse. It's a tagline that we've used, but it really is our hearts. You don't have to have a new marriage with a different spouse to have this amazing experience. We thankfully got the opportunity to have a new marriage with each other, kept our family intact. Um a gal had reached out. They had threatened the word, just like we had over the years, divorce. So maybe we should just get divorced. They had gone through some really chaotic seasons and um financial health, really big ones. Um and she got in touch with me. We were able to start working together. She was fully submitted and surrendered to the Holy Spirit uh for faith and was like, man, I know I've fallen short. Yes, I could point out 10 things that he's done wrong that contributed to our marriage breaking down this time. But man, I God is wrecking me with showing me all these ways that I didn't do this, this, and this and this. I want another chance. He's done. And so we started working together. Um, she started to get some healing, some confidence in a couple areas. She felt the the the earth the what's the word, desire to reach out to her husband. And they were separated. They were separated. He was on his way to file for divorce. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:53

And um don't go into all the details of that. I don't know if we have time to do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:56

But but that's another crazy story how God intervened.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:59

Yeah, yeah. But big guy knows.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:01

Yeah, big guy knows. And and you know what? They started connecting again and decided to put their marriage back together. And now they're both on fire. It's just for the Lord and for each other. Very rewarding, though. It's oh my gosh. It's it's all God, but it's so great to be a part of facilitating that. Um, you know, that that's the one that comes out.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Yeah, that one. And I mean, there's so many of them. And the like I was saying, it it's so cool to be on this side of it when we love being able to work with couples. If we have two couples, two people fully surrendered and want to put their marriage back together, we have a hundred percent success rate. It's never failed.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:44

But when one of them's kind of on the fence or not and doesn't know what to do, not being honest, not being honest, yeah, not being fully transparent with what's going on, those are really hard to work through.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:54

But when we uh people, if they're that way, they're not gonna uh they're not honest with you either. No.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:59

Well, I mean, think about going to the gym, you know, and it and we can talk about kinesis for a minute, but it's like, dang, if I'm gonna go there and my goal is just to have some social interaction, which it might be, and then never was Bertie Bailey.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

I never went to that gym for friends. However, that's not what happened.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:19

Yeah, but you know, if like what's my end goal? If my goal is to to grow and if I want to be get stronger, get healthier, I'm gonna be coachable. And yeah, that might not mean I'm gonna be a star athlete, compete at the games, but I'm going to get better, get healthy, and be my best self. It's no different when someone comes to us for coaching and is like, you know, they don't have to take all of our advice, but the ones who are the most humble, surrendered, and coachable are gonna have the best results. Yep. And that works amazing when both people do it at the same time or have a desire to, that's their end, that's their end goal.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:56

That's that's the best thing you could hope for.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:59

Uh we've had couples though, um I've I've had I've I've worked with wives whose husband again, you know, just did not want to grow and learn. And he was comfortable not joining in the coaching. And so I'm gonna work one-on-one with her and we're gonna get the healing so that she can trans transform to the wife that she wants to be, regardless of what her husband's doing. Because we all, it's a thing, it's it's our response, it's our responsibility. My husband could still be going off on his own path. I don't have to to do that too. I can say, you know what? If I don't change, our marriage is not going to change. I'm gonna be the one that's gonna step in first and I'm gonna go first.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:43

So why don't marriages work sometimes?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:46

Pride?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:48

Ah boom.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Yeah, it's that easy. Boom.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

I mean one word.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:56

Yeah. There's no reason to add anything more to it. It's it's purely just a pride issue.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:00

Wow. Wow. Okay, next last question.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:07

I mean, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:08

It's like it's one word. Yeah, pride. Says it all.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:15

I remember Sam. I sent him a text one time and said, You're being so prideful. Tearing him down, also speaking a little bit of truth, but I could have gone about it differently. I say, You're so full of pride. And guess what? I was also full of pride.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:34

And I was like, oh, not in the moment, but later on, I was like, oh gosh. Yeah, could I have done that differently? Could I have said that differently?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:43

Huh. Pride. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know if pride is a sin or not. Um 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

Absolutely, it is. It's the it's the number one sin.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:54

What if your father what is your mother? It's the initial you're proud of you, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:58

So being proud of somebody is uh absolutely, we should be proud of one another when something goes right. But in order for like pride is simply just not willing to have humility and say Christ is I I want to make Christ proud. Yeah, and when I do that, it will obviously have an impact on those around me as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:16

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:17

Thank you. That's that's very good. Thank you. What advice would you give other couples who are hesitant to seek help? Any help, your help, anybody's help. Yeah. What what advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:29

That's a great question. Um the thing that's coming to mind is you don't know when your life on earth is up. And sure don't sometimes we have experiences all too close, right? That that are like, shoot, yeah, okay, I I need to get my life right. I need to do this or that. And it isn't a way to say work on your marriage or else, but it's like, man, at the end of my life, what do I want to be known for? Do I want to be known for having all these accolades, all these things, being such a good friend, having all the resources? No, and that's exactly where I was going. You are never gonna get things back, moments back. And gosh, I just it is never too late for a fresh start in your marriage, in your heart, in your health. And it's a legacy that we really want to work on and focus on. We can leave our kids with a great inheritance. I want them to know that they are loved, chosen, that marriage is not easy, but we are gonna fight like hell to get it right according to the Lord every single day. Takes a lot of humility, a lot of grace, a lot of faith, a lot of forgiveness. But if you're hesitant to to start working on your marriage, I would just say you never know when your time is up.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

I'm I there you tomorrow's not guaranteed.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:18

I want him to know that he is my best friend every single day. We're gonna fall short.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:24

But I want him to know that after God, he's it, he's my most important. He can count on me for anything. Um and I want our kids to see that because guess what? When they, if they choose to get married when they're older, they're gonna have issues too, they're gonna have conflicts in their marriage. I don't want them just to think of us like we have this perfect marriage because it's imperfect, but I want to give them the tools and let them see firsthand what it looks like to work through things and still choose love and respect and and just honor each other.

unknown 1:18:58

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

Yeah, I would just say you've got to remember that marriage is a covenant, not a contract. It's not a contract. We if you had hit the altar and they said, Are you still going to love her when she yells at you? Your answer would have been yes. Of course it would be. Are you still gonna love her when her breath smells funny? Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:20

Not me.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:21

Are you still gonna love her when she gains 20 pounds after that first kid and goes through a little bit of postpartum depression? Yeah, I'm still gonna love her during those moments. Your answer would have been yes in any of those moments because your motivation was there to love that person, to the vows that you said, which was in sickness and health for rich or for poor, till death do us part. All of those things you're going to be faced with. You now have a choice to make. Are you going to follow through with the covenant that you made, not the contract that you wrote, the covenant that you made to say, you know what, we're going to go through some stuff, and we have an opportunity to change generational paths for our family. The things that we've talked about from the onset of this conversation of I didn't see that. I don't know what that's like. I don't do that. Great, I didn't either. But I had a choice to look to my Abba Father, Christ, and say, okay, I'm going to learn what it looks like to truly be a man that honors the Lord, loves my wife unconditionally, knows how to parent my kids the right way, can be a great leader in every aspect of my life, whether that's marketplace, ministry, doesn't matter where we're at. I want to show up full in every one of those areas and I want to make sure that I'm honoring the Lord in all of those. And it starts with our marriage, man. When we get this right, when we get this relationship with Christ right, and we get this right, I have seen God move in crazy ways, not just in our life, but in so many people in so many people's other, so many other people's lives. Everything elevates. Everything elevates. Life gets simpler. Doesn't mean it's not going to be hard, but it'd be we've now got these two relationships that we can hold on to. One that is never going to change, the one with Christ. So He's going to give me everything that I need to do, and she's going to be along my side. And same thing with her. So it's just worth it. You're either growing or you're dying. And I I prefer to grow.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:06

Another thing is, you know, when you see divorce.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:09

Oh my gosh, it's catastrophic, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:11

It's it's not only catastrophic to you, to your family, to your kids, to your in-laws, to everyone else, and it it just doesn't affect. It's a ripple effect into your neighborhood, to your schools, to your community.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:25

It it is. I mean, yes, it's it's one of the worst things a person goes through. But we um there are uh there are people out there who are divorced. Absolutely. Um, there are listeners of mine that are divorced.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:41

Yeah. I mean, no give up. Yeah, no, no shame. I mean, like you've got to- That's what I wanted you to hear. That's yeah, and I really wanted you to say no shame at all. I mean, we've worked with the couple, the C and C couple that we mentioned, they have both been married before. And so this is their second marriage, and they they almost threw that one in the ditch and said, Man, I want to get this thing right. So it's never too late for a fresh start. But what we don't want to do and what we don't want to see with couples that have gone through divorces, we've got to get that bitterness out. We've got to get go through the healing process to say, okay, I want to make sure my heart's right because if I do decide to step into another relationship, let's make sure we're prepared for it. Yes. And there's no shame back on the other one, like, man, we did the best we could with what we knew at that time. Yeah, it doesn't mean that it was right, but it's the best that we can do. Same thing with the way that our parents raised us. Yes. They did the best. Our parents are amazing. No shame on the way that we were raised, but we didn't learn some of the things that we know now. So we're doing the best we can with what we know. We want our kids to go on and move forward and say they can do better than we can because now they've got a better foundation than what we had. But I would just say it's never too late for a fresh start. Get the healing before you enter into another relationship. It goes back to what my dad said is figure out who you are.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:55

Figure out who you are, figure out who you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:57

Yeah. Otherwise, just be prepared to add another shirt to the suitcase. And that's why second marriages fail at a faster rate, third marriages fail at a faster rate. Because most of the time we enter into that based off the next relationship, based on an emotion. We're lonely. We want somebody, we want to be connected to them. But if we don't take the time to realize that there's only one person that's never going to leave us or forsake us, get that relationship right, we're not equipping ourselves to step into that next relationship. And we're just adding another shirt to the suitcase.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:26

And I would add to that that God has plans for you. Yeah. That you know, He can redeem. I'm so grateful that He redeemed our marriage and redeemed our family. I know women that have done maybe the exact same thing I did and even a better job of that, if we're really being honest. And for whatever reason, their their marriage didn't get redeemed.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:55

I don't know why. The Lord knows. Big guy knows.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:58

God knows.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:01

That doesn't mean that they're any less of a human, that they're any less of a Christian, that they're any less of a woman. Or, you know, it's like, we don't know, but man, if you are divorced and you're listening, God loves you just as much as He loves us. If there's anything that we said along the lines, the scripture says God has no favorites. Um, but what an opportunity to take this time to get healed, to figure out what your goals are, figure out what your standards are, because just to be married doesn't mean you're a higher class citizen, right? Like if we can be, it means man, give glory to God wherever you can give it. And so right now, if that's in a season of singleness or maybe your second marriage, fight like hell too. Again, I don't think I've ever said fight like hell twice in in one half hour, but well, I bring out the best in people to fight for it. I mean, whatever season you're in, fight for it and don't give up. And just know that with God, all things are possible. I truly believe it. Um, He's got plans for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:07

We'll end it at that. Guys, thank you for a great discussion. I really appreciate it. And again, if you want to know more about Reverence Restored, just visit Reverence Restored.com.