The Team Wade Podcast

Collaboration Over Competition in Marriage

• Team Wade

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Ever wondered what it takes to win at marriage the way championship teams win titles? Tune in as we unpack the secrets to building a marriage that thrives on teamwork. Discover how you and your partner can each play to your strengths, rather than competing, and focus on overcoming the external challenges life throws your way. Through the lens of collaboration and communication, we explore the dynamics of a successful marriage, emphasizing how shared values and principles can guide you in parenting and beyond.

Prioritizing righteousness over the need to always be right can profoundly transform your relationship. In our latest episode, we discuss the power of humility and wisdom in breaking free from generational struggles and building a strong family and financial foundation. We'll share personal insights on finding healthy marriage models and the benefits of counseling, as well as the importance of both partners being committed to positive change. Join us for an enlightening conversation about harnessing the power of teamwork and evolving together for a thriving marriage.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everybody. Welcome to Team Wayne.

Speaker 2:

What's happening?

Speaker 1:

Hope you all are doing well out there. We are coming to you with another podcast that we hope will bless all you married couples out there and those of you who want to get married and are in a relationship and you're heading that way. We hope that you will be blessed by what we have to talk about today. So what are we going to talk about today?

Speaker 2:

We're going to talk about building together.

Speaker 1:

Building together.

Speaker 2:

You know, as you know, this is the Team Wade podcast. So when you think about team, they're always coming together for one common goal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So when you think about a team, if you're playing on the team, your goal is to win a championship.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So when you think about a marriage, it is a team, so you're building towards something and so that something should be what your championship is.

Speaker 1:

I love that Building for a championship. So basically, a team comes together in order to win. Yes, I love that Building for a championship. So basically, a team comes together in order to win. Yes, I love that, and that's so good in marriage because, as married couples, we should be winning in life. We should be winning in every area of our life when it comes to parenting, we should be winning. When it comes to finances, we should be winning. When it comes to our health, we should be winning.

Speaker 2:

Loving each other.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to loving each other unconditionally, we should be winning in every aspect of our relationships.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I mean that is the whole. Goal is to win as a team. So you're building together, and so when you think about natural building, you have many different tradesmen that are involved in the building process. So each of them bring an expertise. They bring an ability that allows the building process to take place.

Speaker 1:

That's so good.

Speaker 2:

So when you think about building together, we both in a relationship bring strengths and weaknesses. We both in a relationship bring strengths and weaknesses. And so, just like the skilled tradesman, the electrician is not the plumber, Right, you know. So they have different skills, so in a marriage it's the same.

Speaker 1:

And the electrician is not competing against the plumber.

Speaker 2:

No, they're doing their role.

Speaker 1:

They're doing their role. So we have found, in our years, 32 plus years of marriage, almost 33, it'll be 33 this year, yeah. We have found, though, that a lot of couples tend to compete with one another as opposed to build together as opposed to building together, and so when that competition comes in the marriage, it creates chaos.

Speaker 2:

A lot of chaos.

Speaker 1:

It creates division. Yeah, how can one walk together except they agree? Yeah, and so if you're not building, if you're competing with one another, that means you're not building together because you're too busy trying to compete to see who can. I don't know. It's just unbeknownst to me because we've never, ever, you know found ourselves competing with one another. We've always been pushing each other, pushing one another to excel, not to compete, and to be selfish. I found that competition is you've got to have a level of selfishness if you're competing against your spouse, because it's all about you winning and not the team winning well, I don't have a problem with competition, but it's, it's bad when you're on the same team and you're competing against each other now speak to that, because you're a guy of sports, you play yeah, I play team sports, so, um, so you got sports, you got single sports.

Speaker 2:

Like, if you play golf and tennis, now we know you can play doubles, but mainly they're singles and singles. In golf you can play team and any of those things, but when you think about team sports, you're not competing with your teammate, you're competing against the opponent, right, and so it's OK to bring competition into the relationship, but it's not OK to bring competition toward each other, so we're not competing against each other. We're competing against the enemy or the opponent that is trying to destroy the marriage or keep us from accomplishing the goals that we set out to accomplish.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and competition in the marriage against each other will sabotage any success. Yes, because you're not going in the same direction if you're competing against each other.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So how can you obtain, you know, goals or reach your, your dreams, and you're competing against each other. Yeah, so how can you obtain, you know, goals or reach your dreams, and you're competing against each other. So it's important you know, as a couple, to bring your goals and dreams together so that you can know, communicate, so you can know what it is that we are trying to accomplish together. Yeah, so that you can find yourself not, you know, competing against what you're trying to build together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So when you think about if we're building a family together, so when you all decide you're going to have children, the way you build together, you got to come in agreement that, hey, this is how we're going to raise our children, that, hey, this is how we're going to raise our children. And so because we, as Team Wade, everything we do and teach is from a biblical perspective. So we have to look at what does the word of God say about discipline? What does the word of God say about training as it relates to information? So we're not going to give information that is anti-Christ, that is against the word of God. We're going to give information that is biblical based. So, as we're training our children, the values that we instill are biblical based values. So not only do we teach them, we also model them in how we live our life. So our children learn through precept and through examples. So that's so important. So when we think about building, we want to lay out that type of model before our children.

Speaker 1:

And speaking of modeling before our children, you know children are very perceptive and they can tell. They can tell if you all are on the same page. So, in terms of modeling, you have to model unity in front of your children. If there's any divide or any division, they're going to perceive that and it's going to confuse the kids. Well, mama said do it like this. Or daddy said we, the kids, yeah, uh. Well, mama said do it like this. Or daddy said we doing this.

Speaker 2:

Or mama said you're already creating division with the children because one you hadn't established the, the hierarchical chart of the, the old chart of the family of the family and so, just like any organization, even with a team, there's a leader, there's a clear leader.

Speaker 1:

And a chain of command.

Speaker 2:

And a chain of command, and so you got a coach, you got the captain of the team Right, you got the star player, you got the role players, all of those things. Now we live in a society that has now got a problem with a clear leader. As a matter of fact, this society has a problem with masculinity, and now we want to call it toxic masculinity. They call it all masculinity toxic, because now, instead of a patriarch, we want a matriarch, and really that's not God's standard. God always had a patriarch that should be the leader and is led by masculinity. Now, one thing about God's way of masculinity or leadership it it's strong, but it's also humble. That's right.

Speaker 2:

It's also loving and caring and kind. So yeah, when I say masculinity and I say leader and strong, that don't mean domineering Absolutely, and so a lot of times when you tell people use terms like submission authority, it comes across like it's a bad thing because a lot of leaders haven't led the right way of leaders having led the right way.

Speaker 1:

And it brings a level of resentment for the woman which I experienced that early on, before I got married, I had this concept, I had this perception. When someone says submission, that was like a cuss word to me because of what I had been exposed to, you know, growing up, you know and what I saw. I did not want anything to do with submission. To me that meant domineering but, I, had a wrong perception.

Speaker 1:

So how many people come into the marriage with the wrong perception of what the org chart should be? And so you come in a marriage with your own strengths, with your own perceptions, and that can create a level of division and that can create some animosity with the spouses Because you have a strong wife who is refusing to be dominated and then you have a strong husband who could come off as being domineering but is just a masculine man who understand that he is the leader. And so if you have this perception, it can create some division in the household when you don't know your roles, when you don't understand what the order is and what it should be. So if you come into a marriage as a woman, as a wife, with the perception of I'm my own woman, I can do what I want. I can do what I want. You know I can do the things that he does, that's going to be some problems, especially when you have a strong husband who know and understand what his role is and what his vision is for his family. So you may be fighting an uphill battle because somebody has to come down.

Speaker 1:

We realized early in the marriage when we were butting heads. You know me coming being a strong person and not understanding what true submission is and what true authority is. Healthy authority, healthy leadership is. I didn't understand it and so it created, you know, like two rams butting their heads against each other and we weren't going anywhere, anywhere, anywhere, until somebody came under. So when I got an understanding of I needed to come under and what my true role was as the wife, then we were able to start progressing instead of butting heads against each other. So I believe that some of you are out there you're butting heads, you're not progressing, you're constantly fighting and at odds with one another. Because you're butting heads, you're not progressing. You're constantly fighting and at odds with one another because you're struggling for control which is which is a major problem.

Speaker 2:

I, before I want to, before I come back to those couples that may be struggling with that I want to talk to single young ladies and young men that you got to understand. If you don't understand the dynamic of the roles in marriage, you don't need to be focused on getting married yet. You need to get a clear understanding of what God's intent was for marriage. And so God won't unity, he won't team, he wants family. So when we're becoming fruitful and multiplying, god wants that to happen in the confines of a marriage, of a family dynamic, and in that family dynamic there are things that we're to learn, and so I think too many people fall in love with the idea of marriage than being married, more so than being married, yes, and so it creates a problem. So we went through that. So if you're challenged with that, you need to go back and get a biblical perspective of what your role is. So, as a husband, god said that the man is the head of that wife, so he's the head of the family, and that the wife is a helper that is suitable for that husband. So that means, as a helper, you bring certain abilities that the head don't possess. That's right. And so being the head don't mean you're the most skilled. It doesn't mean that you're the smartest. It doesn't mean that you're the smartest. It doesn't mean any of those things. It means you're the responsible one, you have the final authority to make the decision that we're going this way. So that puts more pressure on you, which means you need wisdom, you need knowledge, you need understanding, you, you. There's no place for pride to bump your chest, that on the head and you just just pounding your chest about high on the head, but yet you're not bringing any wisdom. You're not bringing any, uh, knowledge or understanding and direction to the family. So, as a wise leader, that means you know who's supposed to be doing what.

Speaker 2:

So go back to the building analogy. The general contractor is the head, the subcontractors or the tradesmen. They help the general contractor build the house, but he may not ever know how to do electricity he don't have the license for electrical. He don't have the license for plumbing. He don't have the license or know how to to do the foundation or the frame, do the foundation or the frame. But what he does possess is I'm the head, this is my project, so I know how to get the right people and bring them in to be in the right place at the right time when they're supposed to be doing it. So being the head is not about dominating. It's about letting those that have the right abilities do what they do, and together we build this beautiful home.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And it's the same way when you think about a marriage, because there are things that you can do, that I cannot do. That has been a great blessing to our family, but me having the wisdom to let you be who you are and not be intimidated by that right, because we all win together so we, we always say positional leadership is the lord lowest form of leadership that's the lowest form.

Speaker 1:

However, I'm the head, I'm the you have to push your position over in order to get somebody to respect you and to respect your authority. However, there is a, like you said, a wisdom that comes with leadership, but then there's also responsibility.

Speaker 2:

Great responsibility.

Speaker 1:

For every leader. And I want to go back to something you said about. You know, the idea of God saying being fruitful and multiply. We were talking about this the other day. There's a lot of fruitfulness out there in terms of people reproducing A lot of multiplying. Multiply reproduce, I don't even know how fruitful it's been. Having kids, you know, outside of marriage, and we were talking about how the, the um, the marriage rate or the single parent home rate, or in the black community, in the black community children born outside of wedlock is what?

Speaker 1:

70 percent, almost almost 70 percent, it's about 70 and so we were just talking about how you know what we have, why we have the society that we have, and it's simply because people are not honoring God in their relationships prior to marriage, or honoring themselves or honoring their body, honoring their body honoring. You know what God has said in his word.

Speaker 1:

He said it for a reason and we're getting what we have today in society because people are not honoring what God has said in concerning relationships, concerning sexual uh activity outside of marriage, and then also on the other side, that people are not honoring God in their marriage when it comes to biblical principles and we have the voice. You know, 50% of marriages in in the voice in the church Christian people.

Speaker 2:

I'm Christians from believers.

Speaker 1:

And that's directly because the same reason we're not honoring God and the principles of God when it comes to marriage and relationship, and knowing your role and understanding your authority and leadership as a husband and understanding the responsibility of submitting as a wife. I had to learn that and when we got on the same page listen, it got so much better when we understood humility in leadership, humility in submission. That was a recipe for success. So I want to encourage you all in that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times we we spend more time focusing on trying to be right than righteous. So you can be right but not righteous.

Speaker 1:

So because people associate righteous with being right all the time. No, that's not the case. That's not all the time, you know it's. It's more about what are we trying to?

Speaker 2:

accomplish. You know it's. It's more about what are we trying to accomplish and so, building into a family, one we want to raise our children in righteousness and in truth Right, and we want to model it. Then we want to build a life together financially. So we don't. We can break curses of family, curses of poverty and struggle.

Speaker 2:

So as you grow older, together, you should grow wiser. But growing older don't necessarily mean you're going to grow wise. You should grow wiser. But so, number one, you need to ask God for wisdom, because he said if any man lack wisdom, let them ask the Lord, and he would give it freely and he won't hold it back. So God will begin to give you wisdom. You ask God to give you knowledge. You begin to kill pride within yourself because the Bible says humble yourself. And when you humble yourself now God can begin to work and you don't have to worry about the enemy getting in there, because he's taking advantage of the pride that rises up in your life and a lot of relationships, people afraid if I submit myself or if I do what is right, I am going to be taken advantage of. I am going to be taken advantage of where someone's going to have to take a risk to do the right thing. Right In order for, in order for you to succeed.

Speaker 1:

Well, the Bible says who is he that will harm you If he follows of that which is good? So what God is saying is if you do what is right, god is not going to let you go under.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So you know, don't be afraid to do what's right, because the Lord is going to stand on the side of right. Yeah, I'm going to say that again God is always on the side of right. So if you feel like you're you're submitting is going to compromise, you know. You know compromise, you you know being taken advantage, not being taken advantage of then remember this God is always on the side of right. So it may look like you're losing in the beginning, but just know that God will vindicate you. He will recompense you for you standing for what is right.

Speaker 2:

And you need to find good, healthy marriage models.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I was going to say that if you are models yes, I was going to say that if you are, find yourself, just button heads, find you someone who can counsel you, who can help you know, help the two of you um, you know, move from out of that place of stagnation where you just cannot move forward. We personally don't counsel everybody that watches this podcast. We wish we could, but the reality of it is it's not no it's overwhelming.

Speaker 2:

We pastor a church and we reserve our counsel for those that are part of our church.

Speaker 1:

And that's more than enough. Let me tell you this.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, we have people all the time reach out to us. We'll pay you all For. For us, it's not about money, it's it's about saving marriages, making families better, and so, as a pastor, people under our leadership we take that responsibility seriously, and so it's only two of us, and if we try to counsel the world, see, what we're doing now through the podcast is giving you those nuggets and those wisdom, and you won't get anything different when you sit down with us than what we're giving you on the podcast, so you can take the teachings and use us as a model and a mentor to you while you're walking right now. But for those that are part of our church as watching for their souls, we fight for those marriages and unfortunately, some of them listen and some don't listen, and so if they're not listening, we're not going to keep wasting our time meeting with them, because the information is just one part of the ingredient. You got to also have the obedience of what you just heard.

Speaker 1:

You have to put it into practice.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

You just can't hear a good nugget, you just can't listen to our story and our testimony how we overcame and you not apply it to your life, the principles, and put it into practice. If you have two people who are willing to give 100% effort, I guarantee you you will get success on the other end. But the problem is that some people give 100%. The other one is not willing to give you know anything.

Speaker 1:

Much or anything 40% you know, what I mean, and it's just. You know, it's difficult to have success when you have to drag dead weight of a person who does not want to give.

Speaker 2:

And if you have a spouse that's doing it, you just don't have to pray that God would begin to deal with them, that they make up their mind they're going to do what is right, because change is hard. If you've been thinking a certain way, believe it a certain way, act in a certain way for a long time, it takes a lot of work to get your mind right to begin to do the right thing so you can begin to see the fruit and the success of your labor. And so a lot of times people are not willing to put in that work that is necessary for the change. They're not willing to stay the course.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's what we had to do. We had to is necessary for the change. They're not willing to stay the course.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what we had to do. We had to stay the course of change, because we came in with ideologies and beliefs and philosophies and ideas of what marriage is supposed to be and selfishness of what we wanted. And so when you play team sports, it can't just be I, it has to be we, the I should come in when it helps the we. And so if it's just about I and stay about I, the we will never win.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, absolutely. Well, we hope that this has helped you tremendously and, like I said, if you are at a stalemate in your marriage, we want to see your marriage succeed. I recommend that you go and get some godly counsel. We're not able to do it personally if you're not a member of our church, but we recommend that you do it so that you can have a successful marriage. So, team Wade, we're going to sign off. We'll see you next time, god bless.

Speaker 2:

God bless you. I hope this.