4 Steps to Creating Safety in Your Marriage Pt 2 (Marriage Reset Series) - 295

What if the one thing your marriage can’t live without isn’t better communication tactics, more date nights, or a perfect budget—but an open heart? We dig into the quiet signals of a closing heart, the way self-protection slowly replaces connection, and the faith-filled path that leads from guarded to genuinely close. Using the Tin Man as a mirror, we show how a hardened heart drains love at the source and why a return to God can renew trust faster and deeper than white-knuckled effort.

We get real about our story—blame, secrets, and the moment conviction flipped us from damage to repair. From there, we map out what emotional safety truly looks like in daily life: feeling fully known and fully loved while still imperfect. You’ll hear how couples describe safety in their own words, why judgment suffocates intimacy, and how respect makes room for different perspectives on money, decisions, and pace. We also unpack four dimensions of safety—emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical—so you can pinpoint where your bond feels sturdy and where it needs care.

This conversation is practical and hope-filled. You’ll learn simple moves that change the climate: praying before big choices, slowing conflict down, asking “What do you need to feel safe with me right now?,” and replacing accusations with ownership and repair. Expect clear takeaways, honest moments, and Scripture that anchors the work of healing—Proverbs 4:23, Joel 2, and Ezekiel 36 among them. If your marriage has been running on routines, it’s time to rebuild the refuge and let connection flow without force.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more couples find a safe place to heal and grow.

Transcript

The One Thing Marriage Can’t Live Without

Michelle Moore 0:06

Have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz? Well, today we're talking about one thing your marriage cannot survive without. And no, it's not better communication skills, date nights, or even finally agreeing on that thermostat. It's your heart. If your heart stays closed or hardened, your marriage may survive, but it will truly never connect. It's a bit like that unforgettable moment in The Wizard of Oz, when the Tin Man realizes his biggest problem isn't his squeaky joints, it's that he has no heart. And let's be honest, a heartless tin man is sad, but a heart-closed marriage, it's even worse.

Show Intro And How To Subscribe

Daniel Moore 0:54

But there is some good news. Unlike the Tin Man, we don't need a wizard behind a curtain. We have a God who heals broken hearts, restores what's been shut down, and creates marriages that feel safe, connected, and alive again. So if you've ever felt guarded, distant, or emotionally tired in your marriage, well stick with us. Today we're talking about how open hearts and emotional safety can move your relationship from simply coexisting to truly thriving. Welcome to Marriage Life and More. This is a podcast about marriage, Bible, and book studies, and we interview people with inspiring stories. I'm Daniel Moore, your host, and over study next to me is my beautiful co-host, my wife Michelle.

Michelle Moore 1:42

Hey, hey.

Part Two: Creating Safety At Home

Signs Your Heart Is Shutting Down

The Slide Toward Disconnection And Divorce

Healing Starts With An Honest Look

Owning Your Part Without Self‑Judgment

Their Story: Blame, Secrets, And Conviction

Daniel Moore 1:43

Thank you guys for joining us this week. If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website at marriagelifeandmore.com. Our platforms are there, YouTube and Rumble Links. We're also on the Christian Podcasting app Edifi. We're also on your Alexa and Google Smart Devices. You can also visit us on social on Facebook, Instagram, and X at CTGapOnline. If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe and feel free to leave a comment on our platforms, give us a thumbs up or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we'd be thankful to you for doing that. Well, this week we're going to continue our episode that we started last week. And we're going to be talking about creating a safe spot in your marriage. A lot of times in marriages we fail to protect that, and then we start having problems. So this week we're going to go ahead and get back into it with part two of episode 11, four steps to creating safety in your marriage. So last week, as we finished up the episode starting talking about safe spaces, one of the last things that we talked about was what are some of those signs that you know that your heart has been shut down? And Michelle and I, we talked a little bit through uh having little or no eye contact or having negative body language, you know, bitterness, resentment, harshness, or acting cruel, refusing touch. There was a lot of different things that you can look for in your relationship to really see the condition of your heart and see where it is in your relationship. And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, we definitely highly recommend that you go check that out. But when you have all of this damage going on that's taking place between you and your spouse, it creates a lot of issues with your heart. And it can become very easy to shut your heart completely down. And as Michelle and I talked about last week, you know, we can vouch even with our own testimony how you can get into a very dangerous place when that heart is closed off and you're no longer in a place to want to be to listen to your spouse and try to rectify issues or solve problems that you have. And it starts that dangerous slope of sliding away from your spouse in marriage to a point where you could possibly end up in a divorce situation if you're not careful. And so this week we're going to start off by talking about how do we heal your heart? If we have all this damage taking place and we're being mean to each other and you know, biting each other's heads off, and throwing each other under the bus with things and just being really cruel. And we have all these really bad situations going on that look like there's no solution, looks like there's no way to solve this. And we know that our answer is that we've got to get our hearts back where it needs to be so that we can love each other properly again. Well, how do you do that? Well, you'll never experience the transformation from simply coexisting to truly connecting in your marriage if your heart remains closed or hardened. And it's like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the ten man reflects on what he's truly lost. It was not his strength or body, but it was his heart. He realized that without a heart, he couldn't give or receive love. And that was the deepest loss of all. When the ten man sought help from the great wizard, our healing comes from a greater source, the God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. And there's a good scripture for that in Psalms chapter 147 and verse 3. So we need to start by taking an honest look at the condition of our heart and our marriage. Is it open and receptive, or is it cloved closed off, you know, even just a little bit? Or you starting that progression to where it feels like that you're closing off. If you recognize any level of emotional shutdown, resist the urge to criticize yourself. Judging yourself will only increase your sense of isolation and strengthen your emotional defenses. Instead, approach your heart with curiosity. Ask yourself questions like why is my heart closed? Sometimes the cause lies in past wounds that you carried into your marriage, childhood trauma, broken trust, or pain from previous relationships. Other times, your heart may be shielding itself because your marriage has felt unsafe. Is there times in our marriage situation that we were in? Did you ever really ask yourself stuff like that when your heart was closed off? Did you in any ways take any of that blame while that was going on, or did you really push that all off on me?

Michelle Moore 6:31

I think I pushed a lot of it off on you. I mean, it just it was easier for me to deal with it that way because I truly felt like you did me wrong. But in all reality, after years that we went through that, I recognize some of that was me. I take blame in that. And you know, and I feel like though a lot of times because I at first I my heart wasn't closed off completely. And so it was those little digs at it. Um, which I do think that, you know, yes, you did do some of that, but you know what? I looked at things differently. If I would have been solid in my walk with Christ, I would have noticed, hey, this is the enemy. Yeah, you know, this is Dan, you know, acting this way. Yes, he did make some personal choices and it's gonna affect us, but what did I do, you know, to create this? Yeah, but I never did.

Taking Responsibility And Guarding Your Heart

Daniel Moore 7:27

Yeah, and see from my side, I kind of in essence, at the beginning of our marriage, my heart was kind of closed off because there's a there were several little corridors I didn't want you in because I you know I had secrets. You know, there was things that I was not fully relaying to you. And so I was on that slope kind of heading towards that direction. But before all before my heart could completely close off, the damage happened between you and I because I pushed you to your limit to an extent with everything that was going on, and then that multiplied with what you were going through. Um, then all that the really bad thing started happening, and then I flipped a switch because I all of a sudden realized what had happened. Things were in a bad spot. I didn't know if I really liked that. I wanted what was supposed to be there to begin with at that point. I realized what was messed up, I realized what I had done to damage where we were, and then that's when I started kicking into recovery mode. You know, I was trying to start fixing things and trying to make things better because I saw everything that I was losing. It was all just falling apart right before my eyes. And so I did see it at a at a point there finally where I realized that I had closed my heart off to you to an extent, but it wasn't to that dangerous point where it couldn't come back because I definitely felt conviction when everything started happening and trying to fix stuff. And so I think looking at that, there's two sides to that heart closing off. So you're either gonna be in the side where you're the person that's done, you're just out, I'm out of here. I don't want no more to do with this. Um my heart's closed, I'm not letting you back in. And then there's the other side of it that doesn't really want it to be completely gone, and then all of a sudden they realize when it's falling apart, uh-oh, we've gone too far, we've got to do something to fix this, and then they start damage control. And that's the part right there where you have to be real careful with how you handle that because you can do things to either push that spouse further away that's already closed their heart off, or you can handle it in a correct way and start that reopening process and then draw them back in. Unfortunately, in our situation, that's what happened with us because you did God started working on you and you started allowing God to to work inside of you and it came back.

Michelle Moore 9:51

Yeah, and it's because deep down inside, you know, at some point I I loved you, you know. Um, I hated you, but I loved you, you know. Um, and and I have to, you know, I had to take responsibility, you know. Some of this is my fault, some of this is my bringing on. So, you know, I can't let it go down unless, you know, I recognize and I did recognize, but at the same time, what did I do afterwards?

Daniel Moore 10:17

And it's gonna be very common, I think, like in our situation, because I do feel like I kind of started that roller coaster with the way that I came into our marriage, uh, because the way I did things was not right. You didn't expect me to do it that way.

Michelle Moore 10:32

No, I put you on a pedestal, which I shouldn't have done.

Returning To God For A New Heart

Daniel Moore 10:35

Yeah, and so with me coming in the way that I did um with all of that, I then when everything went south, I started taking a lot of blame and I started this is all my fault. Although re repetitively several times, once we started working on things and started seeing some progress, you would continually tell me, no, I messed up too. Some of this was my fault as well. But it took me a little bit to work through all of that because I remembered what I did from the beginning, and so I kept looking at it like this is my whole, I gotta fix this because this is all my fault. This is happening, you know, and I I start I took a lot of that blame rightfully. So, I mean, there there's a lot of things I did that I had to take the blame for, it was my fault. But like you said, there were stuff on both sides eventually that that ended up taking place, and so it's a two-sided story at that point.

Michelle Moore 11:28

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 11:28

Um, but at least if you can get to a point where you can at least start taking responsibility for some of the things that you've done, that's progress. And that's that's a a spot that you can actually move forward from and try to fix things. So, whatever the reason is, just remember that your heart is your responsibility. It's not my responsibility to fix Michelle's heart or have her heart be in the right place or whatever. Now, things that I do can definitely affect the way that you feel like your heart is. Yeah. And you can do things to me to make me feel like my heart's in shambles. But ultimately, what ultimately, when it comes down to the very end of the whole thing, it's really up to me what I do with my heart.

Michelle Moore 12:06

Yeah, it's good.

Daniel Moore 12:07

Um, it's not, it has nothing to do with with you. Um, it's it's how I handle it, and vice versa. You know, Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23 reminds us keep vigilant, watch over your heart. That's where life starts. This isn't a command to hide behind emotional barriers, it's a call to protect our hearts from shutting down because God's love flows from an open heart. That's nothing we need to remember. If we if our hearts closed off, it's gonna be hard for us to spread God's love to other people.

Michelle Moore 12:36

Right. That's good.

Daniel Moore 12:36

And it's there that is a that's a conduit that we have built inside of us that God has created for his love to flow forth. And if we shut our hearts down to our spouses, we in essence at that point are damaging that conduit that God has within us to share his love.

Michelle Moore 12:52

And you can remember what we were walking through and how we were with our relationships with Christ.

Daniel Moore 12:59

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 12:59

You know, and you go back and you think about that, you know, putting a front on, yeah, you can put a front on. Anybody can put a front on.

Daniel Moore 13:07

Yes.

Michelle Moore 13:08

But your intimate personal relationship with Christ, if your heart's not open with your spouse, it can't be fully open with God either.

Daniel Moore 13:16

Right. Yeah, there's a big disconnect that happens there. So when the heart deepens in trust and softens through vulnerability, only then can that real love, that true love, flourish in your relationship. And you might be sitting here think, if you're in the situation where your heart's just zip tight right now, you might be thinking, there is no way that my heart can be healed. It's just beyond, beyond me at this point. And uh the the truth of that is though, is yes, your heart can be healed, no matter how long it's been closed. All it takes is a heartfelt return to the one who restores it. As Joel chapter 2, verses 12 through 13 calls us, return to me with all your heart, rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God. You know, in ancient culture, if you look into the way it used to be back then, tearing garments expressed heartbreak and repentance. But this passage here actually goes deeper than that. It's urging us to open our hearts, even to the point of breaking, so that God can begin his healing work. And we all know if you've been in a Christian walk very long, we all know that God does his best work when we're in our lowest valley.

Michelle Moore 14:29

Yep.

Daniel Moore 14:29

It takes us to get destroyed, basically. Satan just comes in and pounds us and gives us a pounding sometimes, and we get to that lowest point before we'll actually put that pride down and call out to God and say, God, I need fixed.

Michelle Moore 14:43

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 14:44

And so we have to make sure that it's not good to let your heart get that far. Yeah, but we're human.

Michelle Moore 14:50

Wouldn't it be easier just to let God take control?

Daniel Moore 14:53

I know.

Michelle Moore 14:54

And let Him carry that burden.

Daniel Moore 14:55

It would be qu it would be fixed so much quicker.

Michelle Moore 14:58

Oh my gosh.

Daniel Moore 14:58

And in and so much of a better way.

Michelle Moore 15:00

And and I mean, we're a walking testimony of doing it yourself and letting pride come in. And then later, after you're healed, you know, now we recognize. We don't that we recognize the enemy and we go, I mean, we spend daily in prayer and and reading, and we know, okay, the enemy is on attack. Yeah. Like, you know, and we recognize that. And it's like, okay, God, do your work, you know?

Daniel Moore 15:23

Yeah. You there are signs, wording signs that you can watch for, and you'll know when Satan's coming up against you.

Michelle Moore 15:31

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 15:32

So sometimes as with a bone that must be broken again to heal correctly, the heart also needs to be opened deeply to fully experience transformation. When you invite God into that process, He makes a powerful promise. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart. That's Ezekiel 36, verses 25 through 26.

Michelle Moore 15:59

That's a good scripture.

What Emotional Safety Really Means

Daniel Moore 16:00

A closed or hardened heart never has to be your final chapter. With God, restoration is always possible. Michelle and I, we've seen it in our own lives, and we've also seen it happen over and over with other people, that their hearts were once hardened, are now beating again with renewed love and tenderness. If God can bring life from death, he can certainly revive a lifeless heart and transform your marriage. And I like that analogy with the broken bone. We know that if the bone breaks and we don't get that taken care of immediately and it starts trying to grow back, it can grow back the wrong way. That's good. It's not set correctly. So obviously, when that happens, it's a very painful fix. They have to go in there and re-break that bone all over again and restart that process putting it back together. And so with that, with that being the case, our marriages sometimes are like that. We may have something break in our marriage, and we may try, especially if we keep God out of the equation, we may try to fix the issue on our own and not bring God into the middle of it. And we can sometimes cause more damage by doing that by let than by letting God come in and fix things. And what that ends up happening is when we do finally break again and we finally let God come in, then He has to bring us back down to a low again to start building us back up. And I really like that analogy. And that's one reason it's so important when we have these issues in marriage between spouses that we need to get God in the mix very quickly at the beginning of the problem. Don't try to fix it ourselves without him, and then find out, oh, we can't fix this on our own. Right. And then bring God back into it because there's probably going to be another breaking or pruning season that's going to happen when God gets involved. And that could be much more brutal for us to get through all of that process. So, how do you create a marriage that's built on emotional connection and trust, even when vulnerability feels risky? Well, it starts by cultivating an environment where your spouse's heart feels safe. Safety isn't just about avoiding conflict or pain, it's a way of being. It's living in a posture of love, grace, and trustworthiness. Remember, God deeply desires relationship with you, and he pursues you with love so pure and faithful that he gave his only son for you. The essence of God's love includes safety, the kind of safety that invites us to rest fully in his care. And he assures us this through scripture. And let's look at a couple of those scriptures here. Michelle read those four scriptures that are apply here.

Scripture As A Refuge And Reset

Michelle Moore 18:52

Um Proverbs 18 10. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man runs into it and is safe. Psalm 16 1, save me, O God, because I have come to you for refuge. Psalms 4 8. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Proverbs 29 25. The fear of the man lays a snare, but whoever, whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

Daniel Moore 19:32

I love those scriptures.

Michelle Moore 19:34

Those are very good.

Daniel Moore 19:35

So many times we always walk through things in our human flesh. We think we're by ourselves. We're on this little island out here, nobody cares. Yeah. We got our own little pity party story going on. And the whole time God's right there waiting, you know, and it's like we just don't see it because we're so involved in the mess going on in our head. And we have so much baggage that we're dragging around. We're just it's just total chaos of with everything that's going on. And the whole time we're sitting there thinking, well, I got to do this to fix it, and I got to do this to fix it, and now I need to do this to fix it. And it's always me, me, me. And we got to remember God wants to be in the middle of that stuff with us. That's good. Yes, we probably did things to get ourselves in that mess. It's probably our fault. But God doesn't want to see us that way. He knows that at that point we have a wrecked heart. And he's the only one that really can truly fix that. Even if Michelle and I, if I have a wrecked heart, and even if we wreck, you know, reconcile to a point, yeah, things probably get better, but I may still not have a completely healed heart. And there are some things that it takes God to come in and to weed out. And so these scriptures, I love them because it just shows us how much his love is. He's our strong tower, he's our refuge. We get peace when we lie down with him and sleep. Uh, if somebody lays a snare for us, the Lord is there as our safety to get us out of that mess.

Michelle Moore 21:07

Yeah, this is a good thing.

Daniel Moore 21:08

And I think many times if we would just immediately go to God when things start coming up in our marriages, we could probably resolve things a lot faster and a more efficient way.

Michelle Moore 21:18

Well, if we just go to God in general for a whole day.

Daniel Moore 21:22

Yeah. Uh it's something we we forget a lot.

Michelle Moore 21:24

Yeah, we do.

Marriage As Sanctuary Of The Heart

Daniel Moore 21:25

I think.

Michelle Moore 21:26

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 21:26

But these passages here, they they paint a picture not just of God's power, but of his deep desire for you and for us to feel secure enough to keep our hearts open, not only to him, but also to other people. So when you live from an open healed heart, you unlock the possibility of intimacy in your marriage that goes beyond surviving. It begins to fully thrive. You know, we like what John and Stasi Eldridge says about creating a safe marriage. They say marriage is the sanctuary of the heart. You have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest. Marriage is the privilege and the honor of living so close to the heart, and as close as two people can get. No one else in all the world has the opportunity to know each other more intimately than do a husband and wife. We are invited into their secret lives, their truest selves. We come to know their nuances, their particular taste, what they think is funny, what drives them crazy. We are entrusted with their hopes and dreams, their wounds and their fears. This reminds me so much of the scripture that's in the Bible where uh Jesus said that we need to love our neighbors ourselves.

Michelle Moore 22:51

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 22:52

And many times it's been said, our spouse is our closest neighbor. And so whenever we look at that scripture, especially in these marriages that are having problems and they're enemies, they're fighting against each other constantly, but yet they'll go to their neighbor and be their best friend. Uh, we're breaking that that scripture. We're breaking what God has put before us because as this, I love this, what they what they're saying here, because your spouse truly is other than God, they truly are the one that knows you the best.

Michelle Moore 23:27

Right, right.

Daniel Moore 23:27

They are the one that knows how you tick, your insides and outs. I mean, they know everything about you before it's all said and done. And it's always a learning process. We constantly find out new things about our spouses all the time. It's just kind of like having a relationship with God. We'll never know the fullness of God in this life. And there's just He's too much. There's too, there's too much vast about Him that we just will never understand. And I think a lot of times, even with our spouses, it's the same way because it's a constant learning curve that as new things happen, new adventures take place in your marriages. Uh I know with myself that you know I'm always learning new things about you.

Michelle Moore 24:03

Same here.

Defining Emotional Safety In Practice

Daniel Moore 24:04

And but you're only going to do that if you're wanting and willing and wanting to put yourself out there and do that and keep this open heart stance so that you can actually uh take go on this adventure with your spouse and really truly see who they are. And so I I love that uh what they were saying there, and that is very important to keeping our hearts open, is to realize that our spouse is the person closest to us that really truly needs to know who we are. And so we always need to make sure that we protect that. So as we're talking about this safe spot that we all need to have to be able to run to so that we can actually communicate and talk with each other, work through issues and problems, what is emotional safety? Well, we define emotional safety as feeling free to open your heart and be fully known and know that your spouse will unconditionally love, accept, protect, nourish, and cherish you as an imperfect person. So then you say, Well, how do we pull this off? How do we create a marriage that feels like the safest place on earth? And that's truly what we're trying to build here. There's a lot of things that, you know, from a storm we can run to a tornado shelter. Uh if we have wild beasts chasing us out in the field, we can run to our house as fast as we can, run inside and lock the door.

Michelle Moore 25:26

As long as you're fast, right?

Daniel Moore 25:27

As long as you're faster than the beast.

Michelle Moore 25:30

I'm sitting here thinking that would not be me.

Daniel Moore 25:32

I might get caught myself. I bet I better make sure I'm only like five feet away from the door.

Michelle Moore 25:37

That was good.

Daniel Moore 25:38

But in this analogy, you know, there's so many places we run to for safety.

Michelle Moore 25:42

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 25:43

And then we forget about the the safest spot that we have in our lives. That's our marriages. Uh we have to make sure that regardless of what's going on around us, the dangers and the trials and all the things that can take place on a daily basis from the outside, uh, we do want to work on trying to stay safe from all of those types of things, but we also need to make sure the whole core of our emotional safety that we thrive on, that we protect that as the best that we can. And that is our marriage. Yeah. And that's the whole core of family.

Michelle Moore 26:15

What people gotta remember is your marriage is a reflection of your relationship with Christ.

Daniel Moore 26:20

Yes, it is. And when we keep that in mind, that gives us a whole different aspect on it. I mean, that's and gives us different goals. Yep. Yeah, it re rewrites that whole script basically. So some couples were asked at a marriage seminar to define emotional safety. So they gave some answers. So let's look through these and see what we came up with. Michelle, why don't you share those with us?

Differences, Decisions, And Respect

Michelle Moore 26:46

Yeah, so here is some of their responses. Feeling secure, a deep sense that our relationship is unbreakable, feeling loved unconditionally and accepted for who I am, feeling relaxed and peaceful, being cared for above anyone else, being fully known to see me for who I am, being free to express who I really am, feeling respected, feeling valued and cherished, not being judged, and accepting my flaws as part of the whole package. You know, I I read those and I'm like, it's mostly accepting the person who I am, to see me for who I am, to express who I am, to be not being judged for who I am, you know, accepting my flaws for who I am.

Daniel Moore 27:44

Well, if you think about it, if you come up to a relationship that's having problems, a lot of times if you really talk up to the spouses and try to get to the core of the problem and what's going on, you'll probably eventually hear them say something, well, they just aren't quite who I thought they were. I expected this and they gave me this. I assumed they would handle it like this, but then they handled it like this. They let those differences determine where that relationship goes from that fork in the road whenever whatever it is happens. And we forget again. I think we've brought this up a couple times today already, but we forget again that we're human.

Michelle Moore 28:33

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 28:33

You know, we make mistakes, and there are things that we're gonna make decisions on sometimes that's gonna throw our spouse for a loop.

Michelle Moore 28:41

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 28:41

Our spouse just dead set thought they were gonna make this decision, then they do something completely different, and it might cause damage. You know, it may have been a bad choice. It might have sent something down the wrong path.

Michelle Moore 28:52

Can I make make make a comment to that? Sure. You know, when you say that sometimes your spouse may make a different choice, you also and and I know that we're also talking about relationships with that had that's having issues, but sometimes one spouse may be more in tune to the Holy Spirit and the than the other. We have to remember that one spouse, if they choose to do something, we have to respect that to a certain way, degree, because what if the Holy Spirit is telling them to do something and the other spouse is not at the moment connected to God and yet we get upset about that.

Daniel Moore 29:35

Right. And what's our litmus what's our litmus test for that? Well, we start we put that towards the Bible. We start comparing, well, is there a positive outcome with this choice that's been made? Does it really seem like God's in the middle of it?

Finances, Trust, And Transparency

Michelle Moore 29:50

And it's hard for that other person to recognize that because they're not where they should be. So I can see in areas where that person would choose to do something that they thought was correct, but the spouse is saying, No, that's not what I would be doing, or that's not what you should be doing. How do you, as the one spouse that is following what they felt like the Holy Spirit is moving them to, how do you handle that spouse that disagrees with them?

Daniel Moore 30:18

I think these decisions need to start with prayer.

Michelle Moore 30:21

That's good.

Daniel Moore 30:22

Because how many times do we make choices without praying about them? I mean, you do it a lot. I mean, we don't do it as much as we used to.

Michelle Moore 30:29

I was getting ready to say we do pray about a lot of stuff, you know.

Daniel Moore 30:32

Yeah, we still have a tendency sometimes to make quick, fast, rash decisions though sometimes without praying about them. And sometimes they work out. I mean, it's not most of the time. It's not a bad thing, yeah.

Michelle Moore 30:44

Because they're not huge things.

Daniel Moore 30:45

Right. There's there's a lot of times that it's okay, but we have seen times where we've done that and it caused friction between you and I because it didn't have a good outcome.

Michelle Moore 30:56

Yeah. It's usually mostly the kids, just saying a lot of times.

Daniel Moore 30:59

And then and I think financial stuff is a big one in this area. And there's a lot of things that that we do financially sometimes where we just make the choice because it's what we want. I think we've all been there and done that. And but then what happens later if you get really tight, can't spend money anymore, you might even be, you know, spiral towards bankruptcy. It's real easy at that point to start playing the blame game on your spouses. Because if it if you can point it back to one choice that was made, well, that can cause issues and create tension between spouses. Well, if you'd never done that or made that choice, we wouldn't be where we're at right now. And then you see where that goes. Yep. You know, that that's a very bad spiral. That's a bad slide to slide down on. You you want to stay off of that.

Michelle Moore 31:44

And we've seen that multiple times, not just us, but I mean just in in in marriages in general.

Daniel Moore 31:51

Yeah, as we've talked to other couples and worked with other couples, that's been a big issue. Yeah. Um because if we got to remember when we get married, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, we are different. We come in with different views of things. Uh we have, you know, different aspects of different ways that we look at stuff. So we're two really completely different individuals coming together to mesh as one to try to combine all of that and make something awesome out of it.

Michelle Moore 32:18

Yeah, and I know we've talked about it. One of most generally you have one saver and one spender.

Daniel Moore 32:23

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 32:24

Sometimes you get two spinders, you know, and you it just we've talked about that in the past, you know, and how that affects a marriage.

Living Fully Known And Letting Go Of Fear

Four Dimensions Of Safety And What’s Next

Daniel Moore 32:31

Yeah. And so we have to be real careful with judging our spouses and disrespecting them. And this one about being fully known. This one's a tough one because this gets into the area where spouses sometimes don't want to let their spouses in to see everything because it terrifies them to let their spouses know who they truly are. They have these little, I don't want to say they're really skeletons in the closet. I mean, they might be, but it it may just be that trust thing. They just don't have enough trust yet in their spouse, and especially if there's been some damage that's taken place and some trust has been annihilated in some different areas. It's real hard after that to let your spouse in and fully know, allow them to fully know who you are. Uh there you just you set you have a little sense of safety in keeping some of that back. But we can't do that whenever we're trying to open our hearts. Right. When we're trying to be transparent and we're trying to talk about things between each other that's going to eventually fix a problem. We have to be able to open ourselves up to that and let our spouses in there. And so if you're in any of these spaces here that's been mentioned in this emotional safety, then you really need to look probably at trying to work out the resolution and try to get to a place where you can heal your heart. Yeah. And we're not going to get into it this week. We're going to have to spread this out to another episode. But we do have four steps that we're going to go through, uh, the whole, the whole core of what this episode's about, and we'll get into those next week of what those four steps are. But regardless of what's going on in your life, there has to be a point that you come to where you realize you have an issue.

Michelle Moore 34:26

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 34:27

And that something needs to be fixed, or this marriage is not going to flourish.

Michelle Moore 34:31

And you got to remember your marriage is more important than your pride.

Daniel Moore 34:37

Yes. Pride's a big one. It's hard to bring pride down.

Michelle Moore 34:41

Yeah. And you just got to remember that love that you had, your first love. One, your first love is is God. But you know, your love and your marriage, why did you marry that person? Let that open your heart. Be vulnerable. I I want to say for some people, that's probably one of the scariest things that they can experience is to open your heart and be more vulnerable to anything. Um, is allowing that spouse. I mean, that to me, after we fixed everything, that was it was hard for me. And you know, because I was terrified I was gonna mess it up, I was terrified you were gonna hurt me again. But my love to you knowing that you were my chosen spouse that God gave me, it helped. So remember that.

Daniel Moore 35:31

Yeah, we can't stress enough to keep prayer because it it's honestly you can't do this opening the heart thing and letting your spouse back in when trust has been damaged and there's insecurity issues, yeah and all this stuff's going on. That's very hard for you to do that by yourself.

Michelle Moore 35:49

Absolutely.

Daniel Moore 35:50

Because you are like you said, you said the exact thing being terrified that it's gonna, you're gonna let it all out there, and then it's just gonna be squashed and crushed again.

Michelle Moore 36:02

When you've been hurt more than once, it I mean it's it is hard to break that wall.

Vulnerability, Prayer, And Daily Repair

Daniel Moore 36:07

Yes, very difficult, so that list that we just shared you with you there, that's a very powerful list. But you know, imagine what your marriage would feel like if that kind of emotional safety was actually at the core of your relationship. Yes. When your spouse feels secure with you, it naturally allows them to let their guard down and open their heart. And when hearts are open, connection just flows. Michelle and I can vouch for that. You don't have to manufacture closeness or try to force intimacy because safety invites it in organically. And our connection that we have is unreal at this point. Uh, we've never at early in our marriage, we never would have seen this type of connection that you and I have. Right. We never saw it. And we talked to couples that don't have it right now in their relationships. They're happily married in their own minds, but they don't, they're in awe of the connection that you and I have. And but there's a reason that we are so open now. There's a reason that we are so transparent, even with all of you, as we share all of this. Michelle and I have came to a point in our marriage where we've realized how to break those walls down and let God come in and do his work, and he's created a whole new relationship between us two. And I'm so thankful for that because it takes so much stress just off the relationship part itself, of the worry of making you happy or the worry of meeting your needs or whatever it may be. And I know from the other side of it, there's not a worry there for that for you anymore either. And so it's just a whole cleansing type of feeling inside when you can actually get to that point where everything is is in a good condition. Now, on the other hand, though, staying emotionally shut down takes an enormous amount of energy. You know, think of a moment not long ago when your spouse upset or disappointed you. Remember how quickly your heart pulled away from them? Well, that disconnection wasn't just emotional, it took effort to maintain that. Our hearts weren't designed to stay closed. Holding everything in is like trying to keep a beach ball submerged underwater. It takes continuous force.

Michelle Moore 38:46

And we've tried that before, so we know how that turns out.

Daniel Moore 38:50

Unless you bring that fork that Michelle talked about last week and stab the ball and let the air out of it, it's not going to stay under very well. God fills our hearts with love and trying to suppress that love just drains us. But then notice what happens when your spouse takes responsibility, owns their actions, and asks for forgiveness. Have you ever felt how quickly your heart responds to that? It's like releasing that beach ball. It bursts to the surface with tons of energy. The moment safety is restored, your heart often opens wide, and that genuine connection returns. Sometimes it happens in an instant. So as we close this week, let's say it again. True connection and closeness are only possible when both partners keep their hearts open. And for that to happen, the relationship has to feel safe in every way. And what are those four ways? It's emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically. So what does it take to create that kind of marriage? Well, in all reality, it's actually more simple. Than you might think. And next week when we come back, we're going to have four points that we're going to go through as we wrap up this episode here on creating safety in your marriage. So make sure you're subscribed and that way you'll receive that. Michelle, is there anything else that you want to add to this week's episode?

Real Talk, No Scripts, And Practical Steps

Michelle Moore 40:17

No, I just want to go to the fact that as you were saying, as our relationship is different, you know, and we're so lucky and blessed to be this, you know, to have our relationship the way we are. And, you know, as we've talked about on our podcast, this podcast has been a healing process for us too. Yes. And, you know, both of us talking about these things, there are things in here that we when we get done with the podcast, we're like, oh my gosh, that was so good. And it's like, we wish we would have had that, you know, but even if we since we didn't have it and we have it now, there are things that we've been putting into practice for ourselves now. But it's been a healing process for Dan and I to be so open on the podcast to all of you. And, you know, not that we're not open all the time, we are very open with each other. But as we talk these things through, we do not, this is like he'll say something to me and I'll give him a look because I'm just like, you want me to answer that after you asked me that question? We're real. Like, I mean, there is nothing scripted out. Like, this is us giving our hearts out to it. And, you know, and so when he'll say things, I take that in. And it's like, wow, you know, I learned that, you know. So I just want to tell you guys to be, you know, be open with your spouses. Yeah. You know, communicate. Um, if you're having issues, be very, very vulnerable. Yeah. You know, let them, you know, sit down and talk to them. Don't accuse, don't use your tone, don't roll your eyes. Just sit down and talk to them. Have a heart-to-heart talk, you know, and you know, work things through. Don't let it build.

Daniel Moore 41:59

Yeah. And silence is very damaging.

Michelle Moore 42:02

Oh.

Daniel Moore 42:02

If you are one of those silent communicators that never wants to talk, you're never going to solve any problems. It's just not going to happen.

Michelle Moore 42:09

No.

Daniel Moore 42:09

You have to be open and willing to talk about things and truly talk through things because you want to fix it.

Michelle Moore 42:15

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 42:16

Not because you want to accuse and blame somebody for something.

Michelle Moore 42:20

And I want to go back to the scripture in Proverbs. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man runs into it and is safe. I'm so thankful we have that. Our Heavenly Father is amazing.

Daniel Moore 42:36

He is.

Silence Hurts; Honest Talks Heal

Michelle Moore 42:37

The grace that He gives, the forgiveness, the love that He has for us, the protection. I mean, who wouldn't want that?

Closing Blessing And Ways To Connect

Daniel Moore 42:47

Yep, I totally agree. And on that note, we're going to go ahead and wrap it up for this week. As we leave, we pray that your marriage is stronger and your walk with God is closer after this episode. This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can go to our website at connectingthegap.net. There's a form there that you can maybe reach out and let us know maybe something that's uh gotten better in your marriage or maybe something you've learned today that you're going to apply. We'd love to hear from you guys. You can also email us at Daniel at connectingthegap.net as well. And of course, the links for our new books are there. If you haven't had a chance to purchase those yet, you can purchase those pretty much anywhere that you can purchase books online. Well, we're out of here for now, and we pray that you have a blessed week.