Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
The Hidden Crisis in Christian Marriages (And How To Fix It)
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🔎 What Does Research Say About Marital Satisfaction Among Christians? | Marriage Helper + Barna Study
In this powerful episode, Dr. Joe Beam and Kimberly Beam Holmes dive deep into the fascinating findings from a 2021 survey conducted by Barna Research Group in partnership with Marriage Helper.
➡️ What percentage of Christian couples are truly satisfied in their marriages?
➡️ How does practicing faith impact marital happiness?
➡️ Why do men often report higher satisfaction — and what could they be missing?
➡️ Why does "somewhat satisfied" actually ring alarm bells for marriage health?
You'll hear behind-the-scenes insights into how the survey was designed, why self-reporting can be tricky (especially around sensitive topics like infidelity and satisfaction), and the real implications for couples — and churches — today.
Key Topics Covered: ✔️ Marital satisfaction breakdown across generations: Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers
✔️ Why “somewhat satisfied” may signal hidden danger
✔️ The critical difference between practicing and non-practicing Christians
✔️ How long couples typically wait before seeking help (hint: it’s way too long!)
✔️ Why churches struggle to support marriages—and how Marriage Helper is stepping in to help
✔️ Resources available RIGHT NOW for individuals and churches
📢 Free Resources + Support:
Want real help for your marriage or your church? Tap the link or card to access free resources, or book a call with our team at https://marriagehelper.com/call
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On today's episode we are going to be diving deep into a research study that well, polling survey is a better way to say it that Marriage Helper partnered with Barna Research Group to do a couple of years ago, but we've never actually fleshed it out and what it means, and the findings are pretty interesting, and so Dr Joe and I are going to discuss that today.
Speaker 2:Yes, I understand that Barna did the research and we're working from their surveys and their numbers. This is not our research. Therefore, if you think somehow we were biased, we didn't do the research, we're going to show you what they found Now. Barna is pretty renowned for researching Christian subjects, am I correct?
Speaker 1:about that, yeah, and Christian audiences, and so, very specifically, this was in 2021 when we came to them, and what we wanted them to help us find was the percent of Christian couples that had had an affair in their marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they felt that was a little too risque for them to ask that question, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're saying that nicely. Yes, they very much said people aren't going to tell the truth, so we're not going to ask.
Speaker 2:Well, it is possible that people won't tell the truth about that.
Speaker 2:You know, part of my PhD degree was studying sexology and we know that when it comes to any sexual survey, unless you're actually doing it face-to-face which can help a little bit but when you do research in sexology, you'll find that people will lie.
Speaker 2:Like, for example, if you ask women just out there in general how many sex partners they've had so far in their lifetime, they tend to underreport. And if you ask men out there how many sexual partners they've had so far in their lifetime, they tend to overreport. And both of those things apparently are tied to ego, where she's saying I don't want people to think I'm some kind of slut forgive the word and he might be thinking I want people to think I'm some kind of a player. And so in any survey there's also always the potential of people distorting their answers based on how they feel that people are going to perceive them, even when the survey is completely anonymous. So in this survey here, some people will know that, as you've worked on your PhD, you've had to do research through surveys. I've had to do research through surveys.
Speaker 1:Oh no, no, no, I did research through an experimental randomized control trial, not just surveys.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did Okay, and that's the I was trying to say it simply, since most of our audience aren't PhDs I know At least I assume you may all be PhDs, Listen but once you've done a randomized control trial, it's just like I feel like you just have to brag about it because it's so hard, it's so hard to do. But yes, so when we went to Barna and ultimately what we were trying to do here is understand what is the current marital satisfaction rate out there in the general population, realizing that Barna is also going to have a biased audience because they're probably going to attract people who lean more Christian and more Christian values than Because they're known as a Christian organization.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly so, but what we were looking at was marital satisfaction and counseling. How often do people use counseling, things like that? And so that's what we're going to be going through.
Speaker 2:Okay, Now they can't see really well on our screen here, but we can. So forgive us if we turn to look at the screen here. You'll be able to see it on your screen because it'll be a graphic there. But our producer over there, Jason, Jason, would you kind of scroll it where I can see a little bit of those numbers there?
Speaker 2:Now, understand that the definitions you're going to see here when you look on this graphic, were not designed by us. They were designed by the Barna people, and so they refer to Christians who are self-identified Christians. Now notice they say, including Catholics. That might sound offensive to you if you're Catholic, but there are many Protestants who would actually view Catholics as not being Christians. Now, I'm not giving you our opinion. I'm saying that that's why they ask it that way, because there is some bias out there about that. So, self-identified Christians, including Catholics, and so 64% of all the adults in this survey claimed they were Christians. Now, that's a pretty high percentage, Because if you just went out to the general population in general and asked how many are Christians, it might be that high, but that seems pretty high based on how America is behaving at this point.
Speaker 2:But look at the practicing Christians. Now, this is their definition of that. I think I probably would have done a different one, but they said adults who identify as Christian. Well, that part's important and they have attended church service online or in person in the past month and practicing Christians. In the kind of church I grew up in, if you only came once a month they wouldn't call you a practicing Christian. But in this survey that's something out there. And then it says who say their faith is very important to their life today 21% of them, which means that one out of five said I go to church at least once a month and my faith is very important to me and identify as a Christian.
Speaker 1:Right. How would you define it differently?
Speaker 2:I think I would define it more in terms of prayer, life and spirituality, those kinds of things. I don't think that church attendance necessarily indicates whether you're a practicing Christian or not, because Barthel themselves found out in a survey several years ago that there are millions of people who have very strong faith that don't go to church anymore, and the reason they don't is because one of the main reasons was that many churches had become too political, and it's like I don't want my pastor telling me who to vote for, I don't want to hear sermons about how evil the administration is, whichever administration it might be, et cetera. And so there are a lot of people who pray, they read their Bibles, they study, they may meet in small groups, but they don't go to church. And if I were going to live practicing Christians, I would have identified in that factor as opposed to church attendance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. So the majority of people were non-practicing Christians, who identified as Christian but didn't meet the definition of practicing Christians. And then it kind of breaks it down from there. And then they also break it down generationally, which will start mattering when we get into the meat of what the study is. So we know they broke it down into millennials ages 22 and 36, gen X, which were ages 37 to 55, and then boomers, aged 56 through 74. I'm not even on that list. You would have been back then. I'm not even on that list.
Speaker 2:You would have been back then, that's right, I would have been. Hey, I want to ask these people are we not boomers once we pass 74? I mean, I'm 149, so surely I should be on there somewhere.
Speaker 1:Well, if you scroll down. So here's the first and main question that we were asking, concerning your marriage overall, how frustrated or satisfied are you? And this was a Likert scale from one to five Type scale.
Speaker 2:Likert type scale one to five, miss PhD.
Speaker 1:Very frustrated all the way to very satisfied, and so this is where things get a bit interesting, when we begin to see this middle graph right here. So it shows us as all US adults, so everyone combined, who took the study, and then it begins breaking it down All US adults, means of the 1,519 who were in the research Exactly so we can look at all Christians, which includes practicing and non-practicing, and then we can see non-Christians.
Speaker 1:So when we just view this overall and just look at the color differences, the dark yellow is very satisfied, the dark blue is very frustrated, and then we know that it goes in between. What are the key things that jump out at you?
Speaker 2:Well, of the people who identify as Christians, that there's a larger percentage of them who say they're either somewhat satisfied or very satisfied than those people who are just in the general population out there, and particularly of those who are non-Christians or at least identify as non-Christians. But if you look at it, it's kind of an interesting thing because if you look at the non-Christians, but if you look at it, it's kind of an interesting thing because if you look at the non-Christians, there's 4% totally frustrated, 6% of somewhat, that's 10, 16, some in the neutral, which we would tend to count as negative actually. So that's 26%. So 26% of people who say we're not Christians are to the neutral or frustrated side, whereas people who identify as Christians, whether they go to church or not, that's eight in eight, that's 16%. So that's a pretty significant difference.
Speaker 1:Very significant difference. The thing that I would love to know more of is I would love to know the qualitative side of someone who answers somewhat satisfied Because you're not good enough, that you're saying, yeah, very, we're very good. So is it because you're actually frustrated about some things, but you don't want to admit that your marriage is worse off than you think it is? Or is it just because you're never going to say very satisfied?
Speaker 2:One of the reasons that Kimberly's bringing that up is because in our world, where we deal with marriages every day I mean every day, and quite often we deal with marriages that are having difficulty, crisis troubles, those kinds of things Then what we hear a lot of times would be a story somewhat like this I thought we were OK, and then I found out that. And so to us, when we see somewhat satisfied or, yeah, somewhat satisfied, what we're thinking is that may mean that they're not really aware of what's going on, because we hear daily people that were somewhat satisfied who found out that what the other partner was doing or what the other partner was feeling was actually causing great crisis to occur in the marriage. And so, for example, a guy told me I came home from work one day, the furniture was gone, all of our clothes were gone. I was blindsided. I never saw it coming. Now we tend to hear that more from men than from women, but if you had surveyed him, he would have said even possibly very satisfied, but at the very least he would have said somewhat satisfied, but by not measuring the partner as well, which is the only way to really get a good idea about a marriage, because if you just measure one of them, you have a vision that is pretty narrow. You have to measure both of them. And so in our world, in our world somewhat satisfied scares us. Now, if both of you are somewhat satisfied, then you can have a peaceful relationship. You could say married 100 years? Well, maybe not 100, but at least 99. And in that process it'll be okay.
Speaker 2:But if we're not measuring both people, if we see that one of them is somewhat satisfied and the other one is like somewhat frustrated or very frustrated, and we actually have a survey where we can measure that, it's not ours. It came back to them in the 1980s. It's called the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Survey, where we can measure him and her. And several years ago, kimberly, I developed a four-quadrant model that we developed so that if we took his scores and her scores and put them both in that four-quadrant model, we can find out whether one of them is blind, whether one or both of them are frustrated, et cetera, et cetera. We've got four different quadrants there.
Speaker 2:I don't need to go into all of that. And maybe sometime, kimberly, you and I can do a program where we give it to people, but unless the couple is watching, it's still not going to tell you what you need to know. And then from that, I can't tell you how many times I've done that, speaking to audiences all around America and actually different parts of the world, where I would ask them those three questions there's only three and then get them to get their scores and look at it and find out that one was satisfied and the other one was frustrated. And so when you put those two together, that meant the one that believed that the marriage was okay we put into what we called the blind category.
Speaker 2:You don't realize that things are going on, and so by just measuring one side, I don't know that this tells you much. You've got to measure both of them.
Speaker 1:The thing I was thinking of as well, seeing that somewhat satisfied, and thinking about the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Survey, is. It's so astounding how high someone's score on the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Survey can be and it still shows that they are in likelihood of marriage distress. So it's based on a seven.
Speaker 2:A seven point scale.
Speaker 1:Each question has that seven point scale.
Speaker 2:So the highest score is 21.
Speaker 1:The highest score is 21, but then the cutoff score for an indication of an unhappy marriage is 17.
Speaker 2:It's either 17 or 16. I'd have to look it up, but yes.
Speaker 1:And so that's only two sixes and a five. So that's only two somewhat happies and one neutral. That's somewhat satisfied, two somewhat satisfied and one neutral. On the Kansas marital satisfaction is indication of unhealth.
Speaker 2:And what they have done with that thing over the years like I said, it came out back in the mid 1980s is they have compared it to other instruments that have been developed since then, as well as instruments that were developed before then, to find correlation. And they find that the scores on the marital Kansas marital satisfaction survey. I need to get my gingers fixed. Actually, these are my real teeth.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, you don't have dentures, that if you compare them to the other instruments, it turns out to be accurate. And so if you're 16 or less, it's saying that your marriage is in distress. And, like I said, I have done that by putting it up on the screen, speaking to churches all around the country and showing them that we're making this relatively early in 2025. And later this year I'm going to be teaching a whole bunch of ministers and I'm going to show them how to use that in a sermon to get an idea how many marriages in their church are really in difficulty, even if one of them doesn't realize it yet. Now here's the problem If I show those guys how to do that, what are they going to do?
Speaker 1:Exactly 100%.
Speaker 2:Because they're going to show it. These people are going to get the scores, they're going to be hit up. Help us. And those ministers, those pastors, those elders, those deacons, whatever it might be, are going to be going. What do we do? What do we do?
Speaker 1:We don't know how to help them. Okay, I mean we do at Marriage Helper.
Speaker 2:The churches are going to say that they don't know how to help them. Be careful how you say that there, we do know how to help them. Isn't there something right now you could even mention?
Speaker 1:that? Yeah for sure. We have a free resource available. You can go ahead and click the link or the box that shows up on the screen and get that free resource for you right now.
Speaker 2:And it can have an individual, but we can also train churches. If these difficulties are going to happen, we can show you how to help them. And so when I present that in October of 2025, and if you're seeing this after, then understand this already occurred I'm going to be offering to them you can come to this three-day thing that we will have developed by then, that we can't just look at her panic over there like what, what A three-day thing we'll do by then that they can come to and we'll train them how to help those marriages.
Speaker 2:Not in the sense of making them marriage counselors. The therapists Can't do that in three days, but how can you help on a pastoral level and how can you know whom to refer on? And then how can we come in and help you, which we're very happy to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. In fact, if any of you are watching this and saying that sounds interesting, I would love to know more about that when it comes out. Just leave a comment below. What would better marriage help look like inside of your church? Because your church is probably not alone. Most churches struggle in this area.
Speaker 2:And if you could write in that comment here's the particular help we believe we need, or these are the problems we typically see. Put them in those comments. That'll help us develop more and more programs to help you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Another key thing to see here. So we've talked about these numbers. You know for me that lighter yellow, I feel, is going to move one way or the other. They're going to move into very satisfied, hopefully eventually, or they're going to start moving into those blue zones which, in this case, would not be a good thing.
Speaker 2:Now, in the generation before mine, people could stay in that section For a long time, a long time, but the world has changed. Yeah, very few people now will tolerate being somewhat satisfied.
Speaker 1:Right, right, very much so, and if we look down here, we see another key element for this study is that men express greater satisfaction in their marriages than women.
Speaker 2:That's because they don't have a clue what's going on. Not a clue.
Speaker 1:Not a clue, but we see this all the time, do we not? We see this all the time.
Speaker 2:If you're a guy, I apologize. I mean, I know I've turned on my own people here and I realized that you may have a clue. But it's so common that the man is so focused on making a living and doing other things that even when she says I'm not happy, he tends to discount it like well, sure, you're happy. And often, kimberly, they'll base it on negative goodness, like I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't chew, I don't hang out with people that do. Therefore you must be happy. Well, while it's important not to do certain things that will hurt a marriage, not doing the things that will hurt a marriage doesn't make it stronger, it just keeps it from getting weaker. And so often guys and no offense, fellas, I've been in the same boat. Offense, fellas, I've been in the same boat we don't know what we need to be doing on the positive side to make the marriage better and we're not really hearing what's being said by our wives.
Speaker 1:I think there's also two other reasons here. That men? Yes, I think that they do that, but then let's look at the two different types of men. So I think there's the men. Are there only two? Let's look at the two main different types of men. So, there's these men that are super strong personalities and may have a tendency to downplay their wife's emotions because they think they know everything. Clearly, that's going to lead to them thinking the marriage is great because in their mind it's great, Everything's going my way.
Speaker 2:It's great.
Speaker 1:Everything's going my way, it's great. Then there's the men who just want their wives to be happy and they are bending over backwards, fawning over her, just trying to do whatever she says, whatever she wants, so she'll be happy. Therefore, he's well, that's an interesting one, would he say. He's satisfied.
Speaker 2:Probably not, but he might be in the somewhat satisfied until she winds up actually moving into the frustrated.
Speaker 1:And he can't understand why, because I'm doing everything she wants.
Speaker 2:Exactly Now, if you're either one of those two types of men and, by the way, there are more than two but if you're one of those two types of men, you need to come see us. Typically, I am the one who does the workshop. That's for men only. If not, it's because either I've been booked overseas or something, or because of the fact that I might be ill. I'm getting a little older in my life and just a few months ago I had to deal with some cancer and that kind of thing, so I missed some workshops. But you can find out about our men's workshops, guys, where men come together right here in Middle Tennessee. No women there as clients. I'll typically bring in some women helpers for me, but men only as clients.
Speaker 2:And so if you're either one of those like I've been dominating at least that's what she tells me and she says he doesn't want to be married to me anymore Come see me, or I've been giving her everything and now she's left me for some other guy. I can explain to you why she did that or why that she's lost respect for you. I can explain that to come see me, and we do these about once every two or three months. One of these men's things, and if you want to find out about how to do that, you go to marriagehelpercom slash, call that C-A-L-L and you come to the workshop.
Speaker 2:Now, unless something bad happens, I'm going to be there. I'm asking you please come see me so we can help you if you're in either one of those two things, because there are ways to turn it around and save the marriage, even if she now believes that she's madly in love with someone else, or even if she says she can never forgive you or that she can never love you. We have seen those miraculous turnarounds again and again and again. So please come see me. Marriagehelpercom slash call. Ask for the men-only workshop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. One of the other interesting things that we see here is that, of all of the percentages so far, the group, the demographic that has the lowest satisfaction rate is Gen X. So that's the 37 to 55 age range. Why do you think that is? They're the least likely to be set, or they're the least likely to be very satisfied. The Gen X generation.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but you're asking my opinion. Okay, Him of the ages again 37 to 55.
Speaker 2:You see, my generation, I'm in the boomer generation. My generation tend to try to make everything wonderful for the intergeneration that followed us. Like, typically, we had to work our way up from from nowhere, all right, and I mean some of us inherited a lot of money, but not not. I, my brothers and I started with nothing and he started businesses and et cetera, et cetera, and so we tended to make things too easy for our kids. Therefore, I think that some of the Gen X has actually come along thinking everything should be easy.
Speaker 2:And marriage is not easy. Now, this is just my opinion. I don't have any research on this. Marriage is not easy and I don't think they were prepared for. You have to work because of of what we thinking. You're going to have a better childhood than I did get for them.
Speaker 1:I think also it's the thick of hard parenting. So teenage parenting at those ages your kids are more likely to be adolescent to teenagers, to empty nesters, those ages your kids are more likely to be adolescent to teenagers, to empty nesters. So it's kind of covering that gamut of that family life cycle as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw a cool thing about Ben Affleck the other day. He's the actor Ben Affleck. I'm sure you guys have seen him. He's a tremendous actor. And his son came to him and said Dad, I found a pair of sneakers. They cost $6,000. I want you to buy it for me. And Dad said no. And his son said to him but we have the money. And Aflac said no, I have the money. You're broke. And if you want to go out there and figure out how to earn $6,000 and take that hard-earned $6,000 and buy those shoes, feel free. So he's joining the ranks of many people in his age group who are saying I'm not going to destroy my children by giving them everything. They're going to have to learn how to work for that. Now, I realize that's a little different than what we're talking about here, but I just read that the other day and I thought that is so cool.
Speaker 2:And as for Kimberly, who is my daughter, I keep telling her I don't know why you work me to death, because there's nothing to inherit. Whatever she has, she's had to earn on her own, earn her husband, rob, and they've done well.
Speaker 1:That is true. We have had to earn it. So, going down, we see the next question, which is the second and final question that we asked in the survey, which is in the past 12 months, have you considered getting help for your marriage yes, no or not sure? Thankfully, there was not a large amount of people that said not sure, but the vast majority of all of the people who answered said no.
Speaker 2:Don't need it.
Speaker 1:Eight and a half out of 10 people said no, even when they were very frustrated, somewhat frustrated, neutral about their marriage and interesting. I find this interesting church status has a difference. So people were half as likely to consider getting help for their marriage if they were churched versus unchurched, which you pointed out. But they have less frustration, they're more satisfied if they are practicing Christians.
Speaker 2:Now, if I'm looking at this thing, the people who have considered are these people who have considered marriage counseling? Is that what this chart is over here? And so it says that 50% of frustrated people have? Is that correct? And is that under marital satisfaction? No, I'm missing. I can't understand that chart. Explain that to me please.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's breaking it down by different demographics. So, white adults are the least likely, according to the ethnicity, to consider getting any help for their marriage. Boomers are the least likely of their generation to consider getting marriage help, which makes sense. Millennials would be the most likely, which also makes sense. People who have children under 18 are more likely to consider it based versus no children. So this is breaking down the 14 percent the red 14 percent. Yes.
Speaker 2:OK, that's what confused me there. Thank you, yes, I do have an earned doctorate from University of Sydney I actually do which is a very prestigious university, so I hope they don't see this. They may take it back. You couldn't understand that simple. So the 14% who would consider it? This is how that breaks down the largest group, then of course, would be the frustrated.
Speaker 1:Right, the people who are frustrated.
Speaker 2:But 84% won't consider it at all. That's right. How often? You've quoted this many times? According to the Altman's research, how long does it take before people decide to get help?
Speaker 1:Seven years. Seven years Of being frustrated.
Speaker 2:And then finally will decide to seek help. Now, why would people wait so long? Well, there might be ego like I can fix this, I don't need anybody else to help me. We hear men say that a lot, I can fix this, I don't need anybody's help. Well, if that's the case, then forget about going to the doctor or the dentist or anybody else.
Speaker 1:There are things sometimes we face, but men don't do that either.
Speaker 2:Actually.
Speaker 1:You are hitting the nail on the head. Men don't go to the dentist, they don't go to the doctor and they don't get help for their marriage.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I stand corrected. Now I do, but of course I've had prostate cancer so I do those things. But I'm just thinking right now. I missed my last dental appointment and haven't made another one.
Speaker 2:So I guess you're right about that. So, yes, I yield to your point. But here's another one, and that's that so many counselors have gotten such bad reputations that the whole field suffers Like lawyers make jokes about that all the time, how that a bad lawyer, the whole profession, winds up with bad reputations, and that can happen with counseling as well. I want to tell you that there are some excellent counselors out there. They're amazing. They're really, really good at what they do.
Speaker 2:But if I were you and I were going to receive counseling for my marriage, I would ask the counselor, the therapist, are you going to use me as the client, my spouse as a client, or the marriage as the client? And if they say, I don't know what you mean by that, just go right on down the street and find somebody else. You want one that will make the marriage to be the client. So there's some really good ones out there. Unfortunately, like in every other profession, some are mediocre and some are terrible, and they can actually do more damage, and we have heard so many stories about that. And so if you're afraid of going to marriage counseling because you've heard so many bad stories about how they'll wind up splitting you up. Come see us. We will do everything we can to help you fix your marriage. We won't pressure you, we won't twist your arm, we don't preach at you, we don't try to make you feel guilty. We work through an educational process, but we always see the marriage as the client, and so we try to help the husband and wife figure out how to do those things.
Speaker 2:And another thing if your spouse is hesitant, like they're not going to see a marriage counselor because they'll have to go once a week for the next six months, you can come see us for three days. Three days and after three days you'll have a pretty good idea about what you're going to do with your marriage. And if you need more help, we have coaches you can talk to on the phone so you don't have to go somewhere to see a marriage counselor. Now, if you have a good marriage counselor, one that's really effective and sees the marriage as a client, don't leave them. Stay with them. Thank God you found somebody good and hang in there with them because it'll be awesome work their way to go. We never try to take people away from their counselors and therapists. That's unethical.
Speaker 1:But we also, at the same time say we will help you so overall, why do you think that, according to barna's group, the, or at least the, the sample that they have access to, that practicing Christians have the most satisfying marriages?
Speaker 2:I think, because they believe they're supposed to. Therefore, a lot of them I don't know what percentage it would be, but at least some of them, let me say it that way are going to report that they're very satisfied because of the fact it is supposed to be that way, but also, at the same time, when two people share beliefs and values, where it's genuine, where they really share those beliefs and values, I think they are much happier, much more satisfied. And so I would say some of those people are telling the absolute truth because they truly do share their beliefs and values and therefore, as a result of that, their marriages are extremely satisfying. And then there are some I don't know if that's 2% or what there are some of them that are saying what they think they're supposed to say or how things are supposed to be in their mind. But do I believe that a couple that goes to church together or home church together, or at least studies and prays together, will have a more satisfied marriage?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Particularly, if their prayers aren't rituals like now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to the Lord my soul to keep that kind of thing, but real, open and honest prayers. If you're being open and honest. When you're praying with each other, you're becoming very transparent to God and to each other and we teach the power of transparency in developing intimacy in a marriage and acceptance in a marriage, and acceptance is the key to love. So practicing Christians who are really doing those kinds of things, not just going to church together sitting with each other on a pew, doesn't really make that much difference as to how spiritual you are. It can, but it's not. The biggest deal. It's whether you're praying together, studying together, opening up, talking to each other together, discussing scripture together all those kinds of things. Couples that do that, yeah, I'm convinced those couples really do have the best marriages.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but there's a difference between seeing a couple who their whole life has said everything's been great, where we've always been very satisfied, versus the couple that's gone through the trial, the tribulation, the affair, the crisis and now are saying we're very satisfied. I feel like I can trust that yes, absolutely. I don't trust this one.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, you can, but not to the degree you're going to trust it after they've been to the other.
Speaker 1:Maybe a light level of trust there but over there a much deeper level of trust, because it's like it's been proven Right.
Speaker 2:A few years ago, a marriage counselor said something to me after all the stuff that you know, when I divorced Alice, left her for another woman finally came back. Alice, took me back, remarried me, we had you, as well as children we already had, etc. Etc. Years after that because of the fact that sometimes I joke around a lot and those kinds of things she said if you're not careful, your wife's going to leave you. And I started laughing and she said you're insulting me. What's so funny? I said I don't mean to insult you, but if there's anybody on the planet that knows his wife loves him completely and is not going to leave me unless something terrible, terrible happens, it is. I. My wife and my children love me that much and I trust that love and they trust me, which is why I won't ever do all that crappy stuff again. So, yes, you're right, it builds a deeper level of trust, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:Well, those are, those are our results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now we'll get a call from Barna telling us that we have corrupted your whole survey.
Speaker 1:We could give them some feedback on how to optimize it better next time.
Speaker 2:They're a well-known organization. Nothing against Barna. They're very good at what they do. We just think we could have done that survey better, but not because we're better and smarter, but because we work in this field directly and therefore we know a lot more about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. We always love to help you any way. We can Check out those free resources that we talked about. Book a call with someone on our team.
Speaker 2:And until next time, come see me, please, and there's always hope.
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