The Team Wade Podcast

Is Pride Sabotaging Your Marriage? Part Two

• Team Wade

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The silent destroyer lurking in countless marriages has a name—pride. It's that stubborn refusal to bend, that self-focused certainty that you're right and your spouse is wrong, and that resistance to outside help that keeps so many couples locked in cycles of conflict.

Our conversation picks up from our previous discussion, diving deeper into the specific ways pride sabotages marriages. We explore how pride manifests as an unwillingness to seek marriage "tune-ups" or mediators who could provide neutral perspectives when conflicts arise. These outside voices aren't about taking sides but rather about creating space where both partners can truly express themselves and be heard without defensive reactions. Pride whispers that seeking help is unnecessary or a sign of weakness, when in reality, it demonstrates commitment to your relationship's health.

We discuss how pride makes apologizing nearly impossible, even when you know you're wrong. This refusal to acknowledge mistakes creates emotional barriers that grow with each unresolved conflict. Similarly, pride creates an unwillingness to compromise—insisting on "my way or the highway" regardless of the cost to the relationship. The culmination of these pride-driven behaviors is emotional disconnection, where you remain physically present but emotionally checked out of your marriage. After nearly 33 years together, we've discovered that humility—the opposite of pride—creates the foundation for lasting love. We share how choosing humility invites God's grace into your marriage, providing the strength needed to overcome challenges together rather than facing them divided. 

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Speaker 1:

Hello everybody, what's going on? Welcome to Team Wade, where we're giving you tools for an effective marriage, or tools for a successful marriage and relationship, a healthy marriage, good yeah, so.

Speaker 2:

Generational.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So we're continuing our series that we've been talking about. I hope you tuned in to the last video. If you did not, be sure to go back and watch the last video, because we started a new topic that we're talking about. That is so prevalent in marriages today that we're talking about. That is so prevalent in marriages today, and we are here to help you become successful in your relationships so that you can have a successful marriage. So we talked about last week the last time was there how pride is sabotaging your marriage.

Speaker 2:

Oh my god, it wasn't it powerful. It was really powerful.

Speaker 1:

So many great truths that we talked about and we're going to do just a recap on the two points that we started off with. So the first point that we said pride is first of all. Pride is the sin of self, me, myself and I. That's right. And then number one we said how you can recognize if you're in pride is number one you are always right. You're never wrong. Your spouse is always wrong and you're always right. That is a sign that you are operating in pride.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you definitely operating in pride, because no one is always right all the time except the lord that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

And then the second thing is it will not allow you, pride will not allow you to do what is written in the word of god. So pride goes against the word. Pride will take a stand in and of itself against the word of god against the word.

Speaker 2:

Will not submit to the word of God, won't submit to the word it stiffens its neck against the word. It won't bend, even though they know the word says husbands love your wives as husbands love the children. It won't bend, no.

Speaker 1:

It'll stand like. I know I'm right, you know regardless.

Speaker 2:

That's pride and that's pride, and that's.

Speaker 1:

I know what I said, but, right, I know what god said, but but and that's a very dangerous thing to sifting yourself against what you know is truth of the word of god, so that's very, very, very dangerous. So those are two signs to look out for so that you won't sabotage your marriage. And and now we're ready to go into number three- hey. You want to do it.

Speaker 2:

Pride would not allow you to get marriage tune-ups. Oh, in other words, sometimes you need a mediator, you need someone that you can bring in and allow you, allow them to look at both sides so they can point the focus for both of you toward each other's perspective and that that's without taking any size.

Speaker 1:

It's a neutral perspective that doesn't have any emotional you know gain from it, that can give you truth without necessarily taking a side.

Speaker 2:

Well, the only side that a mediator should take is the side of right, what is the right thing, what is the true thing. And so, if they take that side, they have the right side. And so that is the biggest thing is that some people, because of pride, they're not going to go to a parish tune-up.

Speaker 1:

They don't want a mediator. This is what they say. Well, we don't need a mediator, you might just need some counseling.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my God.

Speaker 1:

We don't need that. We don't need to go in front of you know nobody. I know I'm right.

Speaker 2:

Well, you can go you know, but then yet you're stuck, yet you're stuck, you're stuck in in the same place in your marriage. And so sometimes, because, like when we meet with couples, all we do is ask questions and let them talk, and as they're talking, we ask a question. And as the spouse is talking, we then ask the other spouse did you hear what he said or did you hear what she said?

Speaker 1:

So it's providing an opportunity to really listen without being argumentative or defensive. Yeah, a mediator provides an opportunity for you to express yourself, because oftentimes, when you are in a heated discussion with your spouse, you're so busy trying to rattle off your position that you don't truly get to express yourself and nor does the other person get to really hear what you're saying, because they trying to load oh, they're gonna come back to bring you know, to come back at you, and so nothing really truly gets done or gets really, you know, solved. And so we're in the business of helping you all solve the areas in your marriage that's sabotaging it and that's causing it to be at a standstill.

Speaker 2:

And the thing you got to look at. It's not about a win or loss. Should be win-win, win-win. And so a lot of times you don't get to the win-win because most of the the couples, they're too busy wanting to be right and if you're being right and the marriage loses you everybody loseusing on winning the war.

Speaker 1:

Most people focus on winning the battle.

Speaker 2:

No, you want to win the battle. You want to win the war.

Speaker 1:

You want to win the war against your marriage and not just these little bitty battles, to say that I got this battle, I won this one, and yet you're losing the war against your marriage.

Speaker 2:

And so there's so many of that. So pride can sabotage that because you would not choose to get a mediator, get someone to help you both see each other's perspective, which is so important.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. You have a scripture you want to read with that, or are we going to go to the next one?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't have a scripture.

Speaker 1:

Okay, because we gave you scriptures last time. We are Bible-believing people, Remember? Team Wade brings the perspective of biblical marriage, not some of this stuff that's going on out in the world or in the church that they call marriage or relationship. We're talking about standing on biblical truth so that you can win in your marriage. So number four pride doesn't allow you to seek wise counsel, and that goes neck and neck with the marriage tune-up in the mediation yes, it does it won't let you seek marriage counseling because it says you don't need.

Speaker 1:

I remember having an issue with someone and I said well, let's go to counseling so we can just get to the root and the bottom of all of these things, because a counselor has a perspective, a professional perspective that can bring things to light that you really hadn't even thought about or haven't even seen. And so, because of pride, that person was like I don't need it, you need to go get it done. And therefore the issue was never resolved, so we just chose to move on. And that's what's happening If you don't go to counseling, you're choosing to move on and basically laying the rug on top of the pile of junk that you need to clean up.

Speaker 2:

My, my my.

Speaker 1:

When you avoid counseling, you're basically covering everything up, and this big pile, this big lump, this big rug is in the middle of your living room that you're not choosing to deal with, and so counseling will help that oh, it definitely would.

Speaker 2:

And so we're not just counseling or just wise counsel, because that wise counsel could be someone that you look up to and that you admire, that has a successful marriage, and the key word is successful marriage. Successful marriage don't mean perfect marriage. It means that they have learned how to navigate through any difficulties that may arise in the relationship and that they are willing to put in the necessary work to make it work. And so when you go to someone with wise counsel, they're not there to take a side and to side with how you feel. They're there to give you the thing that is necessary for you to do. And so when you talk about wise counsel, the Bible says in the multitude of counsel there's safety, and so it is nothing wrong with getting wise counsel, someone that is proven through the fruit and their actions that have a successful man.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, we cannot recommend it enough. Seek wise counsel in successful marriage. Absolutely, we cannot recommend it enough. Seek wise counsel in your marriage. But remember, pride will sabotage that.

Speaker 2:

It won't let you it surely will.

Speaker 1:

Number five, pride, has difficulty apologizing. My, my, my, my, my.

Speaker 2:

Even when you know you wrong.

Speaker 1:

Even when you know you wrong. Come on now that's just wrong, you know you wrong and you want to apologize. That's just sin, wow.

Speaker 2:

You got to hold that position, hold that image that, even though I'm wrong, I'm going down with the ship.

Speaker 1:

Wow, it sabotages your marriage.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it does.

Speaker 1:

It sabotages your marriage. Pride is ugly.

Speaker 2:

It is.

Speaker 1:

It's very ugly and it is a sabotage and it goes before the fall. That's what the word says.

Speaker 2:

God also say he resists the proud, but he gives his grace to the humble. So I don't know about you. I don't want God to resist me. Number one, number two I don't want I I don't want God to resist me. Number one, number two, I don't want. I need his grace upon my life Right, because his grace is his unmerited favor, unearned love that God has for us, and so we need grace in every area of our life. But when you're in pride, you're doing it all by yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're forfeiting the grace that's made available to you for a successful marriage. So if you're in pride, you're resisting, you're forfeiting, you're foregoing the grace that the Father has given for marriage. There's a grace for marriage.

Speaker 2:

There surely is.

Speaker 1:

And that grace allows you to be able to overcome these barriers. But when pride is there, you're forfeiting the grace that God has allotted you for your marriage. So humility is key. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and he's going to lift you up, he's going to bring you up out of the place that you're in in terms of needing answers, needing a relief for your marriage in the situations that you're dealing with. Amen, Amen. Next is pride causes you to be unwilling to come to a compromise it says my way or the highway. Unwilling to come to a compromise for the sake of the whole.

Speaker 2:

That is a really big deal.

Speaker 1:

It is.

Speaker 2:

You know, I can remember early on because I was always wanting to win and and get the victory over you. But then the Lord told me be quiet, don't say anything, and begin to speak life to you. So there had to be a compromise and even if you were wrong in that situation, he was like don't say anything. So I need to put my focus on what God was saying, as opposed to my way or the highway, and so as we worked through that, it helped in our marriage.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and you know I'm so really excited. I think I'm just going to take this opportunity to say, you know, while we are on that point of showing some of our transparent moments in our marriage, that we are going to open up our Patreon platform for you all so that we can go deeper into personal, intimate situations that we were in that you can identify with. That's going to help you overcome quicker than we did, because it took us about 10 years to come out of that same old cycle and pattern. So we don't want you to go 10 years, you know, when you have somebody available for you so that you can uh work those things out, because we didn't have that when we were first uh going through our marriage challenges we didn't have a team way to coach us.

Speaker 2:

We did not and to uh, we could pattern ourselves after we did not so why would you, if you have a template and you have a pattern, why would you try to manually draw when you can just trace the steps of a template that's already been?

Speaker 1:

made, yeah, a pattern that was successful. We will be 33 years in September, so this pattern that we have outlined, that God, by His grace and by us embracing the grace for marriage, has outlined us a successful pattern and it works. So be sure to join our Patreon.

Speaker 2:

Amen.

Speaker 1:

All right, so let's go to our next point, which is pride creates emotional disconnect. Can you elaborate on that emotional disconnect?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think sometimes people get to a place because of pride and their frustration, that you're no longer emotionally vested in your relationship.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

And so it's like checking out. So you're just going through the motions of the relationship and your emotions are not tied to it.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

And you know you think about, when you emotionally vested in something, what comes with that Passion. Passion is a fuel that can drive you through almost anything.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

When you're passionate about something, thinking about fanatical fans of sports, you know, even if the sports team is not doing well, their emotion or their passion for that team allows them to go through the difficult season allows them to go through the difficult seasons Wow, the seasons that are low, or the down season.

Speaker 1:

They're not winning, or everybody's, you know, nobody is really rooting for them, but that passion takes them through that season and on the other side, and it allows them to have hope. That's so good, so that emotional disconnect creates a checking out.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly, and if you check out emotionally in your marriage, the next step is to be physically out yeah, because you're pretty much giving out when, giving up, when, when you begin to have emotional disconnect and it leads to just what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you will physically check out next, because where your mind and your emotion goes, your body is going next and that's where it all starts, with that seed of disconnecting. You know it's too much, too hard. I don't wanna go through this emotional rollercoaster again and you totally check out and so you gotta catch that now, while when you recognize it and don't allow it to fester so that you can come back and get the help that you need.

Speaker 2:

all right, you know a lot of people think that that love is a feeling. But love is a choice. You choose who you love and you choose who you don't love.

Speaker 1:

Right, right.

Speaker 2:

And so it's not a feeling, even though feelings can be involved Absolutely. So a lot of times, pride will let you ride the roller coaster of what you feel or what you don't feel, and so, some of you out there, you feel that I've fallen out of love with this person out there. You feel that I've fallen out of love with this person. Know what I believe has happened. So much frustration has built up and so many things have happened that?

Speaker 2:

now your emotions have changed and so you don't want to get to an emotional disconnect. So you got to remember why you fell in love in the first place and begin to clean out the clutter of your marriage that caused you to feel the way you're feeling. But you got to keep the passion in it and continue to fight for a healthy relationship, a healthy marriage, and also fight for the legacy of your children and your children's children down to a thousand generations amen, amen.

Speaker 1:

Well, we hope you guys have enjoyed this episode of team wade. Stay tuned for the very next episode. Don't forget to join our patreon yes we're going to be giving you some face-to-face time. You get to ask questions. We're going deeper. Uh, it's going to be good, so be sure to join that. And until next time, ting Wei, here signing out. We'll see you next time, god bless you.