A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
246. The Little Things That Can Destroy (or Save) Your Marriage with Lindsey Maestas
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This week, Lindsey Maestas joins us to unpack why long-term relationship success isn’t automatic, how the romantic ideal can quietly sabotage real life, and why many marriages don’t collapse in one explosive moment—but slowly, over time.
We talk about the small choices, subtle shifts, and daily habits that shape a marriage far more than the big moments.
If you’ve ever felt the tension between building a life you’re proud of and keeping your home steady, this conversation will hit close to home.
This episode is honest, thoughtful, and full of perspective for anyone who cares about building a marriage that lasts.
Love Ideals And Divorce Reality
SPEAKER_00We've never gotten married more in the name of love, and we've never been divorced more in the name of love because we have this idealized version of what marriage actually looks like. But then we think it just happens to us. Like this love, this long-term relationship will just happen to us and it absolutely will not.
SPEAKER_02We are at war, and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians, or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
SPEAKER_01So the questions are: who's the fight against? And are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
SPEAKER_02Are you ready to join the force?
SPEAKER_01Okay, welcome back everyone to another week of A Force to Be Reckoned with. We're so happy to have you here, and I'm so happy to have our guest today. You guys, if you've been longtime listeners, you are familiar with her by now. And you might even be if you haven't been listening to our podcast for a while, but Lindsay Myastis is joining us on the show today. Welcome, Lindsay. Thank you. Thanks, Bethany. I'm excited to be back. It's fun. Yes. We're so happy. It's always nice to see a familiar face. Yes. We were just talking before we hit record. It's been probably five plus years that we've connected in this online space. And I want to say this is your third or fourth time on the show for various different reasons. So I'm going to link your previous episodes below. But everybody who listens knows I just love stories. And you've had the opportunity to kind of share where you were in different seasons. And again, as we were talking before we hit record, it's a whole new season. And that's just the beautiful thing about living life as a believer and walking the journey that God calls us to. So I'm excited to dive into that today. Thanks for having me. So with that said, why don't you just go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit? I know you've done some incredible work. Lindsay has a new book that just came out earlier this year. She's a podcast podcast host. But yeah, I'd just love for you to dive in kind of what you've been up to over the last few years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh okay. So my name is Lindsay, my estus, and I live in Nashville, Tennessee with my husband and two boys. I've been married for 14 years, and my husband and I have been friends or best friends for 16 years. We just celebrated his birthday this morning. We were at brunch, and then I came here to talk to Bethany. So I am in great spirits. I had a lot of coffee and I feel wonderful. Um, but yeah, it's been a journey. I started my blog 10 years ago, my podcast four years ago, Living Easy with Lindsay, with the goal of becoming an author. So that has always been my heart, my soul is to write books. And I was very fortunate about three years ago, two and a half years ago, to sign with Harper Collins. I believe that nothing happens by coincidence, but my husband, when we moved here shortly after, a friend at Pickleball who communicated that he had written a book and had an amazing agency that he worked with, referred the agency to Jesse. I reached out to the agency. It turned out to be the best decision of my life. He's been amazing and started from there. And I pitched a marriage book to them, which is now in stores and on Amazon, called Don't Burn Your Own House Down, Prioritizing Your Marriage, Your Spouse, and Yourself for a Deeper Connection. And I've been in the marriage space for a long time. I've probably talked about marriage on here, Bethany, I think a few times. It always comes up in every conversation because I'm fascinated by it. But the writing process has been beautiful and overwhelming. And I'm an Enneagram. Two-wing three alternate between a two-wing three and three-wing two, which is like the helper and the achiever. So I like to serve, I like to help people achieve their dreams. I like to give them passion or like help them to lean into their passion. And I also like to achieve. And so doing something like writing a book totally hits every part of me, but it also hits the really unhealthy parts of me as well. That feels like I can't fail and I can't mess up. And I want to help people so much within their relationships because I've been studying marriage for a decade. But I also have to constantly step back and remember that I'm doing it for eternal purposes. I'm doing it for the glory of God and that my failure or my shortcoming or whatever it is that may come out of this is not the defining factor. So it's been a journey. And now we're we've launched the book and we're talking about the book, and it's felt really, really life-giving to kind of breathe and have conversations like this with people I love and people I admire, and then also be able to be home with my boys. And so we're just kind of leaning into a season of peace, which I have been talking about on my podcast, the Living Easy Podcast, and just the transitional season we've been in. So yeah, it's been a busy three years, but a good three years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it has just been so cool to see your journey from it was the marriage project, right? Is that what it is? The wife project. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I have the wife project from roommates to soulmates, which is a video course for women. And then we have the marriage project, which is a combination of the wife project and the sex and intimacy project.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So just the different transformations from the podcast to the projects to the book, it's just been really cool to see. Thank you. I do feel like we're in similar seasons of just stepping back, taking a breath, serving our families. And something that struck me that you said was that the things that you love also can become very unhealthy things. And I I relate to that because I um am an achiever on the Enneagram. So I get obsessive. I, you know, I want to do things and I can tend to neglect the things that are just easy to neglect. And sadly, that can often be my marriage, my family. And I think that's common for a lot of us. But especially in this space, I have seen something over the last, I would say, five since I've been in the space. It was like all of these very ambitious moms who started these online businesses, which are so incredible. And so many of them have been God honoring and made such a big difference. But it is so easy to get wrapped up in that and then get into the phase of neglecting the family and becoming almost the superior in the home. And I have found myself with my personality wanting to do that and God constantly like gut checking me. And so as I've kind of watched these, I've seen two different paths where it's been women who have really gripped that. And um, I've seen a lot of several marriages end because of it, just almost like their husband becomes the inferior, the family becomes the inferior, and they grip onto this career. And then I've seen the other path where um they, you know, they take those steps back, they take the the breaths and then they surrender and they realize what their role is in the home. And that's not, I know this is super big and super controversial because I'm not saying that women shouldn't be working, but just that constant gut check and going back to what the Bible says of who we are. I'm wondering if you have anything to say about that.
SPEAKER_00I have so many thoughts on it. Yeah, I've been watching the same trajectory. And it's been really cool for me because women I've admired and that have led the way for me, I am also watching them step back. And initially, if I'm honest, very honest, Bethany, this is very honest. I had a little bit of judgment where I was like, I didn't know if it was for views. I didn't know if it was for um approval, that like maybe something wasn't working and therefore they're shifting over. And I quickly learned that that judgment was my own projection because I felt immense guilt over the amount that I had been neglecting my family for the things that I wanted to achieve. So I believe there's a balance, there's harmony, right? Not in the way that we function, because I don't even think we can fully function well in both spaces when we're leaning so heavily into one, it's hard to not neglect the other. But I do believe in doing things that make you feel human. As a mom, as a wife, as a woman, I believe in autonomy and building a life that if your spouse were to pass away, if something were to happen, God forbid, that you would still have something that held you up. Because what I think happens is within a relationship, sometimes within a marriage, we place so much of ourselves onto our partner. We're expecting our happiness, our joy, our everything to come from them that we don't build our own life. And so I'm a believer in that. And I think that our children are blessed to see a hardworking woman, to see somebody who achieves their dreams. Like my boys have witnessed the process of don't burn your own house down, and they've been my biggest cheerleaders. But they've also made comments like, Mom, you seem so overwhelmed when you're dealing with your book, or you seem so grumpy today. Like, is something happening with your book? Where the book has become like almost a villain in my home, and I am responsible for that. And so I think for me, it's been a season where now I respect the women that I was previously judging because I was dealing with my own conviction, and I see what they were aiming for. Because I think a lot of the time when your kids are young, you feel and and there's no harm in this, right? There, you start to feel like, wait, who am I? Who am I becoming? What, what does God want from my life or being touched all day? You're having to cater to someone else's needs 24-7. You just want something for yourself. And I think that's where my blog, Sparrows and Lily, was birthed from was like, I've always been really ambitious and saw a success. And then now I'm just sitting on the couch waiting for my baby to wake up. I'm going to freak out. I couldn't function in that. And so I created that. But as my children have gotten older, I've begun just seeing the process of the home and how the heart of the home really is led by the mom and how the tone of the home is set by the mom and the weight of responsibility. And my husband is a phenomenal dad, but there is no replacement for a mother's love. And my husband reminds me of that often. Like, they just need their mama. And I'm like, you're right. Okay. They just need their mama. It's not, I'm not failing because I'm not providing not providing something in that moment. They're just, and which is something I fall into, the feeling of if they're asking something of me, oh, then I failed and that I should have been ahead of it. But instead, it's no, just hear your child's need. And the requests I've been hearing from my kids for really the past few years is I just want quality time. And I can allow that to pull me into shame and condemnation and be like, oh, did I pick this over them? Did I? But I didn't. I know that God called me to it, but I placed it on a pedestal of idolatry, essentially, that it didn't belong. And now it's time to refocus and to shift and to come back to peace within my home. And so I think that that's one thing I would just encourage briefly is shame doesn't exist. Like it doesn't need to exist in your life because in Christ you're a new creation, old things pass away. Behold, all things have become new. And that's every day. So if you just say, okay, I fell into sin, I fell into temptation, I fell into a season of chasing after something that maybe I didn't need to, but I had to do that sometimes in order to learn and to be sanctified. And now I have, just like you don't have, you don't know sunshine without the rain, you don't know how sweet and glorious it is to have that home stability and that peace without a lack of it.
SPEAKER_01There's a season for everything. And I love that you said the shame portion of it because so easily we can feel a shift in a season. And then we believe this lie, like, oh, this is how it's been all along. And now I feel shame. I was just in a season where I was running a business full-time and working a full-time job and doing all of the other things. And Corey and I are doing foster care. And for a season that worked. It went, you know, it was fine. It worked for our family. We were making it work. We were, you know, we are high capacity people, so we can we can make it happen. And then suddenly I felt that conviction in my gut. And so that's what I think that is. When you start to feel that conviction, like this no longer works for my family, then it's time to pivot. And so I just love that you are always willing to pivot and be honest with where you are. And who knows, this could be, you know, those sprints and rests. You were just in a sprint season and now you're in a rest. And this just could be God preparing you for what's next. And so I think that's a great encouragement for anybody out there who's listening.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you. And same for you because I know you're doing the same thing. And I think it takes humility to step back a little bit from something you're building. It can be really scary. And I know there are a lot of moms and women who don't have the opportunity to do that. And so just encouraging, I was raised by a single mom. And when I look back at my life, we really were only together from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. But I don't look at her and think, what a failure, you know, or you never spent time with me. All I see is a mom who did her absolute best and who God really worked through for me to see what it looked like to be a woman who loved her family well while also doing what she has to for the sake of her family.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And there's room for everybody here. We're all part of the body of Christ. We're all different parts, different body parts. And so that's why we all have different personalities. There are stay-at-home moms, there's work-from-home moms, there's entrepreneur moms, and everybody is welcome and has a place. Yeah, absolutely. Here and, you know, in the body of Christ. So that's that's what I love about it. So moving into marriage, you have been in this space for a long time. And it you have so much good wisdom there. And that's just because you have known about marriage and and have been a marriage expert since the day you were married, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I started working on it pretty early on. I wanted to know everything I could know about relationships.
SPEAKER_01Just tell me about that. How long have you and Jesse been married now?
SPEAKER_0014 years. Okay, that's Corey and I.
SPEAKER_01What was that? Okay, we just celebrated 14 years on February 20th. Congratulations. That's exciting. And I was laughing because, you know, Corey and I will do like off the cuff, ridiculous question. You know, we like to test the limits. Our episode last week was 14 lessons in 14 years. And in that episode, I said, you know, we're having Lindsay come on next week. So this is gonna make us look really bad because the advice that we're giving is not advice.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it is. I I love it because I think one, I think that's a really great topic idea, but also I think that there's so many things that one of the reasons I love these conversations is because I am always learning things as well. It's so easy to almost get stuck in our routine of in our pattern, maybe of what resonates with us. I'm like, oh, that that it hits hard. But then I read something else. I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have even thought to think that way. And I think that's the beauty of resources and podcasts like yours and conversations with husbands and wives, because you just I think you just gleaned so much from other people, you know? But thank you for that compliment, also.
SPEAKER_01Oh, of course. It's true. Okay, so don't burn your own house down. Let's talk about that a little bit. In the context of marriage, what inspired that title and really the book as a whole?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I started speaking years ago just to friends about the importance of counseling and the importance of community and having other people who are aware of what's going on in your relationship. Because when you're on an island, it's easy to lack accountability. It's easy to get this mindset of we're broken or there's nobody else out there that is like us, or you just grow to become so heavily dependent on one another that it's unhealthy. And when I spoke with friends about this topic, I would use it as a preventative care, right? Like counseling does not need to be when your house has already burnt down. It is preventative care. But as I started really kind of going through the process of writing the book, of imagining the book essentially, I imagined little flames within the house. And if you were to walk into a bedroom and you were to see a little flame in a bedroom, you would do everything you could to put out that flame. But a lot of the time within our relationships, we pretend it's not there. And then somebody else lights a match, throws that match into the fire, and it becomes the room becomes engulfed in flames. And before we know it, the house is burning down because we didn't do anything about those little things. And what we find in research is that most divorces do not come from those big events. It's from the little things that build up over time, the unmet needs, the lack of forgiveness, the contempt that builds. And you start to see, oh, we've we've become roommates, where that's one of the concepts of my work is preventing you from feeling like roommates, from roommates to soulmates. And a lot of the time we have children and we have work and we have careers and we have all these things that it's so easy to begin neglecting our spouse, and that itself is a little flame. And I share in Don't Burn Your Own House Down about sitting with a couple that I loved dearly. And we were in the process, it was unfortunately just not fixable because the amount of betrayal that had happened within the relationship. But they were going through their custody agreement and walking through their finances and what their lives would look like completely torn apart, essentially. And the husband under his breath just asked, How did we even get here? You know, as he's processing through all the spreadsheets and the things that their life has now turned into. And the wife under her breath, essentially, and I'm in between these two, feeling the weight of this, she said, we played with fire until we burned our own houses down, our own house down. And it stuck with me so heavily because all of the thoughts that I had had throughout the years and that, and it was, it wasn't even neglecting the fires, even though that did happen within their relationship. So much of it was pursuing their own happiness over their own holiness, pursuing pleasure, allowing for temptation to have just its way within their home and not placing Christ at the foundation, even though they knew him. They put themselves as the foundation. And granted, I there's so much grace there as I look at them and their lives. This is what they would say, you know, about their relationship. But there's so much grace. I don't believe that divorce is the ultimate sin. I just think I have witnessed and they have experienced how the oneness of a marriage is called oneness for a reason that God refers to us as one because once they split, they've communicated that nothing in their life felt familiar anymore. Nothing felt right, nothing felt comfortable. Every single thing that they knew to be comfortable was ripped apart and ripped to shreds. And so my heart is to say, hey, if we're not talking about abuse here, we're not necessarily even talking about betrayal because God has given freedom in that if you feel the need to walk away. But in the sense that these are frustrations or irritations, or you feel like you're growing apart to challenge people to fight for their marriage, to fight for their ministry, to fight for eternity in a world that says just get divorced.
SPEAKER_01And so I'm sure somebody out there is listening and thinking, yeah, I hear what you're saying and I feel it, but also I don't even know, know how to call it out or what it is. What would some of the little fires be? And I'm I know you go through this in your book, but what are some of those little fires that people unintentionally let slip into their home? And I think that they always slip into our homes. It's not it's not that they come in, it's that we don't address it, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there are a lot. And they slipped into my home as well. I'm not preaching from a high horse in chapter two, how I almost burnt my own house down. I talk about a point where I had sworn coming from a divorced home that was really tumultuous, I would never say that word. I was studying marriage at the time. I'm in it, but we have two little kids. The exhaustion is one of those things that can really wear a person down, was wearing me down. And I share the story in detail in chapter two, but I essentially cracked. Like I just couldn't do it anymore. I felt alone. I felt like anything I asked for was just, I had no partner at the time. And I was so depleted. And I just threw my hands up and it didn't last long. We were very fortunate to have built, and this is why I encouraged so many people because we had such a community, a village that we had built and poured into and they had poured into us that we could lean on during that season. And a lot of the time we just heard us two, you know, we went through this too. And sometimes that's all you need to hear is me too. You know, you're not alone in this. You're not, there's no such thing as a perfect marriage. You know, the picket fence and the pretty Christmas cards, they have their mess too. And when you understand that and realize that and realize, oh, these people are just actually fighting for it, it makes a big difference. So I would say one of the things that goes really quickly is playfulness. Playfulness and fun are what brought you together in dating. When you were dating, when you were getting engaged, you likely were having a lot of fun. You were enjoying each other, you were making one another laugh. I remember Jesse and I, Skype was like the first Snapchat. It had filters on it and stuff. And we would use Skype and take pictures. And I have videos of it of us just laughing so much together. And after having kids and trying to pay bills and do all the things, we really stopped that almost completely. We had neglected fun and joy. And I think a lot of couples do this. And so that's one thing I will kind of point to things that cause issues, but also things that will help right away. And playfulness is one that will immediately shift the dynamic. It's very vulnerable sometimes. Like I will do Nerf gun wars and put the eye black under my eyes and surprise Jesse. Or I'll plan spontaneous date nights where we go to one restaurant for appetizer, one for dinner, one for dessert. Um, we will play video games together. I will plan kayaking trips, like, and that's not necessarily his personality, but it puts us in research shows that if you're more adventurous and spontaneous with your spouse, you're not only having fun together, but you're also creating new neural pathways that allows you to see them in a different way. So if you're just talking about your problems, which is probably something a lot of you are doing, talking at one another over and over and over again about the issues, I would encourage you to maybe, because this has helped us and so many couples I've worked with, take a step back from those conversations, even if the issues are still very present in your life, and just try to be side by side. Go play golf together, go play pickleball together, go and do something where you both can just see one another in a different light, especially if bitterness has taken over the relationship. Secondly, a lack of partnership. When one partner carries the weight of doctor's visits, birthday parties, birthday gifts, school notes, school responsibilities, you know, the weight of it, that's emotional labor. And not only are you carrying that, but you're also trying to raise your children in a really healthy way. And when you're in a marriage where your partner is unwilling to give of themselves in that way, it feels so defeating. And what comes of that is not only a lack of emotional connection, but also a lack of physical connection. And there's a uh post I shared on my Instagram at Living Easy with Lindsay called the walkaway wife. And I talk about how psychologists have coined this term, the walkaway wife. And what the walkaway wife is, is a woman who has communicated so many times for so many years, the issues that she sees, the help that she wants, the affection that she needs. And her husband does not take it seriously or just doesn't care enough, honestly. And by the point that they stop nagging, stop talking about it, the husband thinks, oh, everything's great. But usually at that point, the wife is so fed up and tired that she wants to just stop. She wants to be done. She's numbed out at that point, and that's when she walks away. But what a lot of people don't talk about, and this is a very, I think it went viral because it's a common story, it's a common thread. And the husband's left shocked. He has no idea what happened. But also with a husband, a lot of the time what happens when we're feeling frustrated is that we are also disconnecting sexually. And men connect through sex. I know that that frustrates a lot of people. And again, we're not talking about abuse here. A man who is just he's gentle, kind, loving, but he frustrates you or isn't a great partner. Sex can connect you emotionally. Physical connection can connect you emotionally, just as emotional connection can connect you physically. So when the wife is feeling frustrated, the husband's feeling sexually frustrated, they're it's a combination for destruction. And what a lot of the time I find is that when you don't have other men or women in the picture, other couples, it's really easy to get away with a lot. Like I was talking about the island. And so when we don't have accountability and people that we're seeking help from, whether it's counseling, whether it's friends who've gone before us, mentors, those topics just get brushed under the rug and they create bitterness. But when you have other men and you can be like, hey guys, this is something we're struggling with. My husband is not contributing at all. And it doesn't have to be a formal setting. I know a lot of men shy away from that. But having dinner with a community group, having dinner with couples, which requires you to get vulnerable and to get involved. But you can be like, I'm we're really struggling with this. My husband is, he just doesn't feel like he needs to contribute. He's working a lot or it's causing me a lot of frustration. And by the time I go to bed, I'm touched out. There's accountability from the other husband there, right? There's accountability from the wife to be like, it's not okay. But also I would say during the worst time of our marriage, I was withdrawing, withholding sex from Jesse until I realized how much sex really can save a marriage. And there's a command in scripture to not withhold. And the more that I pursued, and the more that I try actually tried to have sex every single day, and I saw how different our relate, our emotional relationship became because sometimes it was vulnerable. I didn't want to do it at all. And it was a process like to get there. But then the next morning we were more playful, we had more fun, we were more intentional with each other. He was more helpful because he's also feeling neglected. He's also feeling like, well, I can't do anything right if I load the dishwasher and she just criticizes it all the time. I might as well just give up and not do anything. But if we give that emotional intimacy and physical intimacy, and if we're willing to praise the good things, a lot of the time we see growth. And so I would say those are two major things that create issue within the relationship and can be really hard to and vulnerable and humbling to have to face, but they can make a massive difference in the marriage.
SPEAKER_01Somebody who's listening and is thinking, yeah, I can relate to so much of this and so much of these scenarios, but I I'm intimidated by my spouse. They don't want to sit down and have these conversations. I know that you mentioned having trusted people, but I'm finding as we just get more and more plugged into people around us, people lack that community. And then it's hard to know what is a trusted person. Maybe they get plugged into a community and then it ends up being all of those nagging wives who will just be like, oh yeah, you're you're in the right, your spouse is in the wrong. So do you have any more that you can speak into that for somebody who's like, I feel this and I feel like we're struggling, and maybe our marriage isn't on the brink of divorce, but if it continues down this trajectory, it might and I want to fix it, but I'm overwhelmed with where to even um start.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big proponent of talking to people together because it is really easy to get into a women's Bible study with a chatty Kathy who just who honestly thrives off of other people's hurt. And I hope that that's not always the case, but I know that it can be. And you do want people are voyeuristic. They like to see other people fail or fall because it makes them feel better about themselves. And so what I would say is finding another couple, not where you're with groups of women, because it's just so easy to honestly, and and it so scripture is very clear, gossip stokes a fire. And I think that this is the same thing. When you're talking to your friends about your husband and not yourself and evaluating yourself, and instead you're venting about him. I do a marriage temperature check in chapter one, and it talks about this. Like if you're just adding fire to fire, essentially, what are you expecting to happen? Proverbs is clear that gossip stokes a fire. You're actually making your marriage worse. And then, say you fix that situation, you go back to these women, they still hold that grudge against your spouse because they have not seen the resolve. They have not seen the healing that has come. And so then they keep you stuck there. It's a very dangerous place. And so I would really warn against and challenge. It's sin. It's sin to gossip about your partner without their presence. So don't do it. Um, it also damages your relationship, adds more fire. So I would say find a couple. And this is through your church. This is a mentor couple, this is a marriage. You pay for a marriage counselor, you somebody who you've known, because even having friends or family involved, it does the same thing. Like they may be the best of family, but it's hard for them to release what has happened. So finding people and and don't give all your information right away. Just feel it out. See how they respond to see if they respond with grace, with gentleness, you will see the fruits of the spirit and somebody who genuinely wants to help you. And we've been very fortunate that most of the people in our life want to see us succeed. And if you're surrounding yourself with friends who are not wanting you to succeed, that is a big red flag. So yeah, I think it's very important to be discerning and to pray and pray together about who you speak to, but don't let it get to a point where you spend so much time praying and worrying about who you're talking to that you then just never follow through because it is part of scripture to be part of the body and to confess our sins to one another.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's part of scripture. And also what's part of scripture is marriage. And so I love that what you talk on is all based on biblical marriage. And so that was actually gonna be my next question. And this could be a whole series, and it's been a dream of mine this series for years, and it's just such a big topic. So I'm gonna disclaim this with saying we're not gonna be able to cover it all, and it truly could be a whole series. So maybe that's something in the future. But culture is just so upside down right now, and marriage roles and just everything, marriage is being redefined, it's just broken all around and not just in marriage, but everything that you teach stems from the Bible. And so, even earlier in the episode, when you were talking about roles in the marriage, I mean, we can go like we mentioned earlier, Proverbs 31 talks about the Proverbs 31 woman. I think sometimes that can be misconstrued from both ends of the spectrum of very, you know, passive, submissive, I'm just a yes woman wife, to all the way to the other end of the spectrum, where Proverbs 31 also says that she was a powerhouse and a an entrepreneur and she did all these things. I just feel like there's so much warped within the definition of marriage in our culture. And so for somebody who is maybe confused about what a role looks like these days, like what is my role as the wife in marriage? Where would what is your advice for that?
SPEAKER_00I kind of want to go off on a little mini tangent before we go there, because what I think when we think about culture and marriage is again happiness versus holiness. We are raised on fairy tales and Disney movies and these promises that life is happily ever after. And then we get into a marriage and research shows that marriage has a shelf or being in love, the feeling of being in love has a shelf life of about two years. So that's the honeymoon phase. And then reality hits, and you think there is no way we could ever get divorced. We would never get divorced. But the thing is, is that a lot of us see issues within our dating relationships before we even enter marriage. We just think marriage is going to solve them. But the reality is that everything is magnified in marriage. Everything is more difficult. And so Esther Perel is a renowned marriage psychologist and talks a lot about this idea that we've never gotten married more in the name of love and we've never been divorced more in the name of love because we have this idealized version of what marriage actually looks like. But then we think it just happens to us. Like this love, this long-term relationship will just happen to us and it absolutely will not.
SPEAKER_01And if it's then like then you just move on to the next marriage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. We'll go to the next marriage. And I talk about in Don't Burn Your Own House Down. I interviewed David Erdman on my podcast, who is a renowned divorce lawyer and has worked with thousands of couples. And he said 90% of the people he's worked with who have two, three, four marriages all have come back and said, I wish I would have just stayed with my first spouse. Because the baggage follows you. The difficulty follows. You're two sinners coming together trying to make marriage work and thinking somebody else will be easy. Maybe they'll be more affectionate than your spouses, or they'll load the dishwasher better. But then what if they're on Tinder? Or what if they are lazy or what, you know, it's it's you're choosing different issues with a different person. And so most people do wish they would have just stayed with the first and made it work. And so with that though, we're also expecting, because of these expectations, and I am getting to your question. I just feel like this is such an important foundation. But with those expectations, we then expect our spouse in this world to be what a village once was to us in back in the day. So we had a village of people who would help us with finances, who would help with hunting, who would help with relationship, who would help with all these things. But instead, now we're saying, hey, husband or wife, give me excitement and pleasure while also giving me stability and safety, while also giving me financial security, while also being my best friend, while also making sure I laugh and have fun every day, while also like, oh my gosh, a human will crumble. And they will, because what we're doing is placing them in a position of idolatry of Jesus and saying, give me peace, give me joy, give me all of the things that are suffocating to a spouse. And I've done that to my husband, where my anxious tendencies are like, wait, wait, wait, why are you distant? Why are you this? Why are and he withdraws because he's avoidant. And if you haven't studied attachment styles, it's brilliant. But with all of that said, if we don't have a sense of autonomy and more importantly, a sense of who Jesus has called us to be, which is not the Holy Spirit of our partner, but somebody who loves our spouse, not a fix him spouse, a love him spouse, as I often say, we then shift the role in our own lives. And therefore, when we're following Jesus faithfully, think of a pyramid, you have, or a triangle, you have me on one side or a you have a wife on one side, husband on the other side, God at the center, you're gonna work together at all times and you're going to get to God. But if you're like an H and you're connected, you're still connected to one another, but God is not there. And so I think we then have this dependence on each other. But when we seek autonomy and we seek like my faith is my faith. It's not my husband's faith, it's my responsibility, my relationship with Jesus. If he doesn't go to church, it's my responsibility to still go to church because I'm not walking into heaven holding my husband's hand. So then when you start to see these roles, when God, when you're in the triangle and God is at the center and at the top of everything you do and everything flows into him, these decisions are honoring of him. And so if you want to be a working mom and you want to live in a way that is honoring to your family and you're helping to provide, that is not sinful. If you want to be a stay-at-home mom, it is not sinful. It is choice. You, God has given you free will. And oftentimes God gives us the desires of our hearts as long as we're being faithful to him and we're listening to him. So are we praying and seeking out his will for our marriage? Are we praying over our marriage and our spouse? Are we praying over this decision or are we saying, sorry, God, I know you're kind of convicting me here, but I really want what I want and I'm gonna go after what I want. He's going to let you do that thing. So maybe it's for me, I could use this as an example, like chasing these businesses, building these businesses and doing all these things. I felt really excited about it. It was good for a season, but it started coming into where I would either not pray because I was worried about what God's answer would be, or I would pray and I would pretend I didn't know. You know, and it's just so hard in there. Yeah. And selfish. And God's like, hey, rest, rest, let your husband lead, let your, and for those who don't know, I was the breadwinner for like four and a half years and it nearly killed my marriage. It was suffocating because carrying that weight alone as a woman was really hard. And while trying to raise children who love the Lord and love each other and love other people. So I I knew that God didn't say stop, Lindsay, but I did know that God was saying, hey, let's pause a little bit and reevaluate where you are. And when you fight against God, it's going to create division in the relationship. And so I think with all of that said, it's balancing, it's acknowledging that this relationship, this expectation of the relationship can be so harmful because we're expecting it to give us all the answers all the time. And that's where Jesus lies. That's it. That's the foundation. And it removes pressure from your spouse when you actually live that way. Because we can talk about it all the time. But if you're not actually abiding in Jesus every single day, you're allowing the world to dictate how you live. And culture is going to tell you things a million times a day. They're going to tell you, oh, go be happy, go do this thing. But what they don't tell you is that choosing that happiness will destroy a million other things. So finding the path that aligns with Christ and his path, which of course is it's hard. Sometimes you need others to affirm you. Sometimes you need to seek counsel and everyone's going to have a different opinion. But what I have come to and what I would encourage is where is your peace? Because you know when you're unsettled. You know when you're out of alignment. You know when you're struggling. And so where is the piece? I was telling Bethany before this call, I was sitting outside last night. And obviously, I've been working on this book for years and on a million other projects for years. And this was one of the first times that I've said, like, I'll have one or two interviews a day and then I am done. I'm with my family. You know, that's two hours. And the rest of the time I'm with my family. And I'm sitting outside and I'm thinking, okay, what's next? What do I, because my cortisol levels are used to being so extremely high. And it was a moment of like, oh, you have nothing to do except be with your family. And I got emotional because it felt so peaceful. And I knew I had been fighting against peace for a really long time. And so I would just encourage women to ask Jesus, like, where is my peace? Where is the stillness? What does that actually look like? And is it okay to just be here and be with my family for the glory of God? Because it is the most important ministry of your life. And building a business is also okay if there's peace.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Ugh, you could have taken those, you took the words right out of my mouth, I will say. Yeah. I mean, Monday, I was driving Maya to dance class, same thing. Just sitting there, the sunroof is open. I'm sitting there. And I just had that moment of it's been years that I since I've been able to actually drive in my car and truly look in her eyes without having a million things going through my mind. And I'm actually present in this moment. And so when people get that, there's nothing better. And it kind of the part that makes me sad is just like you said, in in my prayers and my journaling, I knew I knew what the answer was. And I knew, you know, what I needed to do long before I did it. And um, I'm so glad that I finally did and I have so much peace now. But if you I just would encourage you guys out there, if you have that churning in your gut and that the conviction, and you don't really know, like you do know, but you you aren't taking the steps. I would just encourage you in your marriage, in your home life, take the steps. Because even if it doesn't make sense on paper to pursue, you know, where God is asking you to go, God will provide. And I just loved what you were saying about not seeking your spouse first, not seeking yourself first. The Bible says, seek me first, seek God first, and then everything else will fall into place. And so that was just so beautifully said and such a perfect, such a perfect um response to that question. Thank you. Lindsay, I feel like every time we talk, you make me better. I truly mean that. I really appreciate my time with you. I have loved just in some ways working alongside you and also just seeing you flourish and grow because of the obedience that you've um stepped into, where God's calling on your life. So I just want to thank you so much for your time. Share where people can get your book, what's most helpful to you, and any other resources that we can share.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, I feel the same way. Bethany, I always look forward to our conversations. Even when I saw your name, like on the docket, I was very excited. So thank you so much for being willing to support. Don't burn your own house down and support me and just have these conversations. So, yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Living Easy with Lindsay. I talk a lot about marriage, faith, relationships, motherhood, all the things. The Living Easy podcast or Living Easy with Lindsay, I kind of call it both names. I don't actually even know which one it is anymore because I call it different names each time. But it's one of those. You'll find me. I think it's okay. Living easy with Lindsay. And then uh you can find Don't Burn Your Own House Down, anywhere books are sold, Amazon, Instore Barnes and Noble, really anywhere online that you shop. A lot of churches have them now. So yes, I would love your support. We're still kind of in the launch season. And so anything helps buying for a friend, sharing on stories on Instagram. If something resonates with you, I'd love to hear about it and reviews, just all the feedback from me. You're you spend years built writing a book and you're like, people are just in their homes reading it and you want to be invisible and go into their house and be like, what do you think? So yeah, so any response, anything is huge. And then my courses, you can find the wife project and sex and intimacy project on my website. And all of these are linked on my Instagram as well.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Yeah, and they'll all be linked in the show notes as well. So make sure you check them out. Check follow Lindsay if you're not already. And again, thank you so much, Lindsay. Thank you.