The Team Wade Podcast
Welcome to "The Team Wade Podcast," this podcast designed for couples immersed in the sacred journey of marriage and ministry. Dive into a rich tapestry of Godly and Christian advice tailored for those currently married, aspiring to be married, and couples navigating ministry together or separately.
Join us as we explore the divine synergy between marriage and ministry, delving into the unique challenges and blessings that arise when two hearts are bound by both love and a shared devotion to serving God. From strengthening the marital bond to navigating the intricacies of joint or individual ministry callings, The Team Wade Podcast is your sanctuary for wisdom, inspiration, and practical insights.
Uncover the secrets to building a resilient marriage that not only withstands the tests of time but thrives in the realm of ministry. Our podcast is a beacon for couples seeking to align their sacred commitment to each other with their shared mission for God's work.
Whether you're a seasoned ministry couple or envisioning a future where love and service intertwine, The Team Wade Podcast provides a compass for your spiritual and relational journey. Tune in for authentic conversations, expert perspectives, and real-life stories that resonate with the unique dynamics of married life in ministry.
Subscribe now and become part of The Team Wade community – where the sacred and the ordinary merge, creating marriages and ministries that reflect the profound grace of God.
Follow us on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/teamwadeincorporated
Follow us on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/teamwadeincorporated/?next=%2F
Subscribe to our Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@teamwadeinc1141
Grab the direct link to this episode and share it with a friend ❤️
The Team Wade Podcast
Is Pride Sabotaging Your Marriage? Part Three
Marriage thrives on humility and withers under pride. But what exactly does pride look like in a relationship, and how can you recognize when it's sabotaging your connection?
Pride operates with remarkable stealth, disguising itself as self-protection or righteousness while systematically dismantling intimacy. In this revealing episode, we continue our examination of how pride undermines marriages by highlighting ten specific behaviors that signal its presence. From the persistent belief that you're always right to an inability to truly hear your spouse, these pride indicators serve as warning signs that your relationship may be veering off course.
We explore why apologizing feels so difficult when pride has taken hold, even when you haven't technically done anything wrong. The resistance to compromise creates what we call "relationship tug-of-war" – a stalemate where growth becomes impossible as both partners refuse to yield. This standstill contrasts sharply with the team mentality that characterizes thriving marriages, where spouses leverage individual strengths for collective success rather than competing against each other.
Perhaps most dangerous is how pride facilitates emotional disconnection. We discuss why many affairs begin precisely here – when someone isn't emotionally connected at home, they become vulnerable to forming inappropriate bonds elsewhere. Pride prevents the vulnerability necessary for true intimacy, affecting not just emotional connection but your physical relationship as well.
Throughout, we emphasize a transformative truth: "Humility isn't always pretty, but it always elevates." While pride guarantees a fall, humility positions you to receive God's grace and solutions for your marriage challenges. Ready to identify and uproot the pride that's been holding your relationship back? Listen now to discover how walking in humility can revolutionize your marriage.
Follow us on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/teamwadeincorporated
Follow us on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/teamwadeincorporated/?next=%2F
Subscribe to our Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@teamwadeinc1141
Grab the direct link to this episode and share it with a friend ❤️
What's going on everybody?
Speaker 2:Hello, welcome to another edition of Team Way. We'll be giving you tools for a successful marriage.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:So we have been in this series on how pride has been for so long a sabotage of a great marriage, and so how, how important it is to identify pride, to recognize when it's there and to know how to combat it so that you won't sabotage your marriage, amen where pride is a dangerous thing.
Speaker 1:it is so ugly that god said he resists the proud, but he gives his grace to the humble. So pride is a dangerous thing and also, if you're not careful it can get on you subtly and you don't even know that it's so subtle.
Speaker 2:It's very subtle. You could be operating in it and don't even know it. So let's go over some of the things that we talked about, just to do a recap. But I hope you have watched our previous videos. If you have not, please go back and watch them, because it's great information and great revelation on, you know, pride. So number one how you know Well, actually, number one is if you are in pride, you will always think you're right. Notice, I say always think you're right. Oh yeah, I mean you're right. Doesn't think you're right? Notice, I said always think you're right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it doesn't mean you're right.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean you're right, but pride always says that you're right. Number two pride will not allow you to do what is written in the word of God. So you know, we are giving you marriage tools and we're giving you marriage, biblical marriage.
Speaker 1:Because marriage is a God idea, it's not a man idea, and so it should be done God's way, and so everything we teach is from a biblical perspective.
Speaker 2:Biblical perspective. And then number three it will not allow you to get marriage tune-ups. So pride won't allow you to go in to get a tune-up because pride going to say, well, we all right, We'll work it out, It'll be okay. You know, I don't want nobody to know you know we struggling.
Speaker 1:I don't want nobody to know my business.
Speaker 2:And then number four, pride doesn't allow you to seek wise counsel. Wise counsel Not just your friend whose marriage is struggling also, who can identify with what you are going through.
Speaker 1:You know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Girl, yeah, man, I know how these women are Exactly so wise counsel. So we're on number five. Number five if you're in pride, it makes it difficult to apologize. So if you have difficulty apologizing, then you are in pride. Come on, let's talk about that apologizing then you are in pride.
Speaker 1:Come on, let's talk about that. Well, I mean the thing about it pride is self-centered, self-focused, self-absorbed. So when you think about it, difficulty apologizing. Part of that is you may not even think you ever wrong, and so if you don't ever think you wrong, it's difficult to apologize. Or if you apologize, you think it makes you less than Wow, and so you know, if you have wronged somebody, it's okay to apologize.
Speaker 2:And let me say this you know, not only if you have wronged somebody. It's only right for you to apologize if you have wronged somebody. But what if you're not wrong and your spouse, his or her feelings, were hurt or they were offended by an action or offended by something and and you didn't, your intentions were not to offend and you feel like you know I really didn't do anything wrong. But the very fact that they are offended or they're hurt or they're affected by your behavior, what's wrong with apologizing? You know what I mean. Just to make things right, to show your spouse that you empathize with what they're feeling. And you know, don't be so difficult, Just apologize anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's going to take humility.
Speaker 2:That takes humility, so I would recommend that you definitely put the cloak of humility on every day.
Speaker 1:Every day.
Speaker 2:In a marriage relationship. You got to put that cloak on. You got to wear it like it's fashionable, like it's in style, Because humility is not always pretty. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:No, it's not, but it always elevates it always elevates.
Speaker 2:That's so good. It's not, but it always elevates. It always elevates. That's so good. It's not pretty, but it elevates, but it always elevates.
Speaker 1:You can't lose going the way of humility, but you always lose going the way of pride. That's so good, because the higher pride takes you, the higher you're going to fall from that place. So you're better off walking in humility and allow god to elevate you, then to stand firm in the pride and cause it, and it caused a great fall. A great fall like the horse says pride goes before the fall.
Speaker 2:I love what you said. You can't go wrong in humility but you're gonna always fall in pride. Yes, that's t-shirt, all right. So next one number six, unwilling to come to a compromise, my way or the highway. Wow, does that really exist in a marriage?
Speaker 1:well, it has to exist in a marriage, because you got two people and I don't know any two people, that's gonna always see everything the same way, right. But how do we come to a medium, an agreement that we can walk in agreement, because the bible said I can two walk together except they agree that's really good.
Speaker 2:And you know, there have been many times in our marriage where we did not agree on things, um, where, you know it, both perspectives, both of our, our own perspective, we thought we were the right, right perspective, yeah. And somebody has to come down, somebody has to say look, let's agree to meet in the middle, and that's where I see most couples miss it. There is no compromise.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:They refuse to meet in the middle. How can I give up a little for the sake of us moving forward?
Speaker 1:To gain a lot.
Speaker 2:To gain a lot.
Speaker 1:Because if you're giving up little, you're sowing, so you can reap.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:There can be greater dividends in your marriage if you come to a compromise and if it's not going to harm you, which it's not, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Right, it's okay. It's okay to compromise, meet in the middle of the road so that you won't stay stuck. So when you got two people still tug-of-warring, what happens when both people have the same strength of pull as the other person? In a tug of war? There is no movement.
Speaker 1:You're at a standstill.
Speaker 2:You're at a standstill.
Speaker 1:Unless there's a greater one to pull the opposing person to the other side.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Which you don't want to be in a tug of war. We advocate team because if you are in a tug of war, it's the two of you against everything else that's good.
Speaker 2:Let that sink in how many of you in your marriage and you feel like you at war in your marriage.
Speaker 1:I think I love when the year there was a few years ago, when Golden State Warriors won another championship and their slogan for the year was their strength in numbers. So them all being unified in their numbers. They made their numbers a strength. So the Bible talks about a threefold cord, is not easily broken.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So you think about the two of you all being unified, and then God wrapped with it. You can't break that, and so it's so important that you stay unified, not dividing, not in a tug of war.
Speaker 2:And that threefold core, that third core, represents God, represents you all standing in line with the word of truth.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that way it won't be able to be broken, because both of you are standing in solidarity and unity in the truth of the word of God. So it won't be easily compromised.
Speaker 1:And that's so important and I think that has been one of the biggest strengths of our marriage is that we're unified together, that we're working together to accomplish the same goal.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so it's a win-win because we win together. It's not I win or you win, and I think a lot of couples make it more. Advers've played team sports, uh, a majority of my life, and in playing team sports there are strengths and weaknesses on teams and you have to identify your, your limitation, and I've played with guys that scoring didn't come easy to them, but it came easy to me, or some other people, like my guy, tony Baines, it came easy. He was a pure shooter. So if we coming down getting ready to shoot, I want him with the ball in his hand over this guy, or he want the ball in my hand over that guy, but guess what, you have them guys. Well, man, pass the ball, I want to be able to get a shot. What do the percentages say? And so we would win because we would build us a team that understood their role, that understood the strengths and weaknesses that they brought to the table.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And whenever we had problems winning, it was always with those guys that were not team players. So when you think about in a marriage, those marriages that are not thriving are the ones that get in pride and begin to sabotage the victory that we can win together. And they go it solo and they want to be right, they, they want to be on top, and then you do it at the expense of the team.
Speaker 2:Wow wow, and even with you know, with the both of us, how we've had so much success in our marriage and being on the same page and in unity.
Speaker 2:We, we work hard at not being divided Come on in anything that we set our heart to, we always try like if I wanted to, if I had a goal, I had a vision to do something personally. You know he made it, you know his point to support me and to help push me out there to do the things. That and it was. It's never a competition, there's never a competition, and that's the thing I've seen. In marriages there's sometimes competition.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna go to school first I'm gonna get my degree first, or I'm gonna get my master's first, or I'm gonna get my doctorate first, you know, and it's or it's a competition where I'm gonna I'm gonna sacrifice this to go higher in our financial realm, and but now I want to do this so we can go higher in our financial realm. So so that's what I'm seeing is too much competition and it sabotages the whole and it creates another level of being stuck.
Speaker 1:It's just a way of being stuck. A lot of that goes back to the trust level that you have with each other right. And and a lot of the self-centeredness which leads back to pride again. So you got the self-centeredness and then you get the selfishness, which is pride, right. So all of that because pride is self-centered. You know, when Satan brought pride out of himself, he said I would be like the most high, I would everything was I, my throne above.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So all of that is what it comes down to, and a lot of you. If you really be honest with yourself and look yourself in the mirror, you would say pride is sabotaging your marriage because you refuse to get rid of I and put team there.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 1:Team.
Speaker 2:There's no I in team all right, that's good so eyes and win their eyes and win, but there's no eye in in team. Yeah, uh, okay.
Speaker 1:So the next one is you're experiencing, or pride will cause you to experience emotional disconnect emotional disconnect let's talk about that well, I mean, you see it happen on both sides, for for men, you know, they begin to go into the cave, not just physically but also mentally. So you there, but you're not there.
Speaker 1:So you check out so that's pride, because you're leaving your family outside of your connection Leaving uncovered, so emotionally disconnect, or the woman walks away and she disconnects emotionally and she's not present, and that's how a lot of couples get in trouble with infidelity. Come on, never talk about it, because if you're not emotionally connecting with your spouse, somebody's going to connect with you.
Speaker 1:You're going to connect with somebody, you don't connect with somebody, and so that's how affairs start. On jobs, you exchanging information and talking about what you don't like about your spouse, and now they telling you what they don't like about their spouse and talking about I remember and you like, well, this is what I do, and talking about I remember, and you're like, well, this is what I do.
Speaker 2:Next thing you know you're developing an emotional attachment, in another word, a soul tie, come on now. How many people talk about how that's my work spouse. So that's my work wife.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:That's my work, husband. What that should never come out of your mouth Never, because you're speaking things in existence and work husband work what? It may seem funny, you know it's not fun, but it's not um. But these things are realities. These things happen and it starts with emotionally disconnecting at home to your true spouse and then making connections you know with people outside of your home but.
Speaker 1:But my thing is, it ain't but one wife category for me.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So ain't nobody else talking about that's my work wife and all. No, it ain't but one wife category.
Speaker 2:Just one.
Speaker 1:And that's Felicia Wade. Felicia, felicia Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. So you have to be on the level of pride to disconnect emotionally from your family. So just know that if you're not connected emotionally constantly with your spouse and with your children being involved, being present, some people think, well, I'm in the home, I come home straight home from work and I'm there. Well, are you really there?
Speaker 2:Because there's more than just being physically there, there's being emotionally there being involved in the world of your children, in the world of your spouse. Being engaging, having conversations, doing things together, sitting at the table, playing a card game together, being present, not just being there.
Speaker 1:Monopoly deal. You know we used to play a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We hadn't played a lot of that in a while. I wonder why Inquiring minds want to know.
Speaker 2:So we're not going to put y'all, we're going to say that for a patron exclusive as to why we have not played Monopoly deal together in the long term. So moving on, number eight, when you're in pride, it definitely can interfere with intimacy. It can interfere with intimacy and we know that intimacy is a very important piece for the marriage. It determines whether marriage is healthy or not?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's one of the major factors that determines whether the marriage is healthy or not. And so how does pride interfere with that intimacy? How can pride interfere with?
Speaker 1:that it interferes because before you get to the bedroom or to intimacy, you got all these other things that are going on.
Speaker 2:So pride creates. Pride says you have to. If you're not in pride, then you're not giving of yourself. But humility says you have to give of yourself. And prior to the bedroom you're giving of your emotional presence there, complimenting each other, verbal affirmations, all of those things require you to give. But if you are in pride, then you're not going to, you're going to want to receive, receive, receive and never give.
Speaker 1:That's because pride, that's what pride does, it's all about itself. So it's so important to be emotionally connected, not disconnected.
Speaker 2:Right and not allowing it to interfere with intimacy. Yep, All right. Number nine pride causes you to always be defensive and feeling attacked. I feel attacked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean because you really don't want to hear an opposing view. So a lot of times you know if we know couples that they can never talk about anything Because every time the other spouse is feeling attacked. And so when you're always defensive, that's a form of pride, because you got to have a teachable spirit, so that means you got to humble yourself to listen. And now we're not. When we making these blanket statements, we're assuming that the spouse is using the right verbal tone, we're assuming that the spouse is speaking to you correctly, so we're not dealing with that. So when we throw our blanket statements, we're saying that their communication is right when they're doing it and you're being defensive.
Speaker 2:Well, that just reminds me that there are so many different scenarios that we could be speaking into. However, we want to make sure that we are speaking directly into your scenario, so I'm going to give a plug for our tier for Patreon for you to join so that you can get direct information specific to your situation. So all of our Patreon people, our subscribers you get to get direct communication with us through the live chats and the live videos.
Speaker 1:so make sure you subscribe today and that's going to be important because now we can answer your direct situation and so you almost have a little online personal personal counselor.
Speaker 2:In our almost 33 years of relationship wisdom 33 years, you guys, we have been through it, we have been proven, we've been tried by the fire amen, and yet we came out not smelling like smoke and yet we stayed okay.
Speaker 2:Last one, you, last one. I think we said enough about feeling attacked. And last one Pride will not allow you to really hear your spouse, come on now. Why? Because you're always thinking about your position, your standpoint, so your ears are not really open to really hear the issue or what it is your spouse is trying to convey to you, because you're always thinking inwardly.
Speaker 1:Or thinking about your response, and I know like when we meet with couples in our church and the first thing we do is we just listen, to let them talk, because we're listening to where the issue really is and what we found out is that pride comes in, that they're not hearing each other.
Speaker 2:Not even hearing each other.
Speaker 1:And so as they're talking, we'll interject and say we'll ask the other spouse did you hear what they just said? And then the other spouse, when they're talking, we'll say did you hear what she just said?
Speaker 2:And we'll often say can you repeat to them what they just said?
Speaker 1:so that they can know that you really were listening they weren't paying attention, and so those are so vitally important when you're talking about going to that next level in in your relationship. And you gotta have humility and it would help you build a strong, vibrant, healthy marriage. When you walk in humility, when you view everything through a lens of humility, god can really bring on and allow his anointing to be on your marriage.
Speaker 2:He will bring answers. Yes, he will bring answers, and in his scriptures, his and and his scriptures. His scripture is totally true when he says if you humble yourself under his mighty hand, he will exalt you. What does that mean in relation to marriage? He will bring the answers that you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So we hope you have been blessed by this series on how pride can sabotage your marriage, and we pray that you have a spirit of humility. Don't forget, subscribe, like and join our Patreon group. Let's see you soon. Bye-bye.