The Team Wade Podcast

When Culture Creeps Into Marriage

• Team Wade

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The loudest voices in our lives aren’t always the wisest. When comparison, “my money” thinking, and curated highlight reels start setting the rules for your relationship, small cracks become real divides. We unpack how popular culture sneaks into marriage—through finances, privacy, and role expectations—and replace those scripts with a grounded approach to oneness rooted in trust, fairness, and a clear, shared mission.

We get honest about a pivotal moment early in our story: the request to bring a paycheck home. At first it sounded like control, but it became the turning point toward unity and acceleration. From there we lay out the difference between non-negotiables (love, respect, integrity) and negotiables (how you split chores, schedules, and methods), especially when both spouses work. You’ll hear practical ways to make financial unity work day to day, create reasonable expectations at home, and trade instant gratification for legacy-building habits.

We also confront the trap of social media fantasies. A solid marriage can feel “less than” if you measure it against edited vacations and borrowed lifestyles. Instead of chasing illusions, we show how contentment and ambition can coexist: set shared goals, increase income with intention, and protect the relationship that makes every win worth having. Along the way, we challenge secrecy framed as independence and offer a healthier model of transparency that deepens safety and intimacy.

If you’re ready to move from scattered expectations to a focused plan you can build together, this conversation will help you reset with clarity and courage. Listen, share with your spouse, and tell us the one mindset you’re changing this week. And if this resonated, subscribe and leave a review so more couples can find tools that last.

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SPEAKER_00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Team Way.

SPEAKER_01

What's happening?

Spotting Pop Culture In Your Marriage

SPEAKER_00

Hope you all are doing well. I want to bring to you another topic. And we're gonna talk about it. We kind of hit on in our last episode, and we felt like it was worthy for us to dig a little deeper into what happens or can you identify when popular culture has entered your marriage, when popular culture has showed up in your marriage, has seeped into your marriage. Do you know what that looks like? Do you know what popular culture uh is saying to you? And are you bringing those same values or principles into your marriage?

SPEAKER_01

So I want to- So basically, popular impacting how you operate in your marriage.

The Paycheck Story And Mindset Shift

SPEAKER_00

It will definitely impact how you operate in your marriage. I want to tell you a little story. Many of you have heard my story, my testimony about when we first got married, and my husband told me, you need to bring your paycheck home to me. I'm just gonna let that simmer right there. He said, You need to bring your check home to me. And in my mind, I felt like that was a sign of me being dominated. I felt like he's trying to dominate me, or he's trying to control me, or he's trying to, you know, walk all over me or rule me. And so I didn't know at the time. I couldn't identify it at the time, but that was uh some popular culture that has seeped into my mindset concerning, you know, how to uh uh what it means to be unified in a in a marriage or divided. And many times when you're divided in your finances, you're divided. That brings a level of division. So it seeped into my marriage, and I didn't know I brought that mindset into the marriage. When you say that it was popular culture that influenced me, along with some strongholds.

Roles, Order, And Misuses Of Authority

Modeling Marriage Beyond TV And Traditions

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was a mixture of both. Well, one of the things you got to think about is the biggest thing is the feminist movement, which, you know, with the feminist movement, women are equal to men and men equal to, and when we talk about equal, we're talking about in a marriage when God uh has given roles to each individual. And so it's difficult to have a marriage that's God's design, which marriage that is God design is a biblical marriage. Yeah, and so with the with the feminist movement, it is really uh designed to emasculate man. Oh wow, to really emasculate and take away the authority. Uh you have sayings like uh the toxic masculinity and you know the the toxic patriarchy, and and so really there's no order, it's it's really about the woman, and and God is a god of family, he's a god of marriage, he's a god of order. He says he's not the art of confusion, right, but of peace. And so when you think about he's the creator, and so he created his his order and his structure. Now, let me say this and make it very clear. He said that the husband is the head of the wife, but when he said he's the head, he's not, he wasn't advocating abuse, right? He wasn't advocating control, control, no free will, no voice, any of those things, because you can go into the ditch on either side. You can go into the ditch with the feminist side, and you can go in the ditch on the abuse of authority side. And so what we're teaching from is a position from the middle ground of where truth lies. And so Team Wade teaches marriage from a biblical perspective. Absolutely. And so, with the abuse that you have seen, you saw the other extreme. So that was part of your belief of strongholds, but you also had that independent woman, which can come from the feminist movement mindset.

SPEAKER_00

And that's exactly right. Because in my mind back then, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I work hard for my money. So, so what do you mean, bring my money home to you? And I didn't have a mindset of if we build together, we can get further quicker. But I had this individual mindset. And, you know, a lot of people when they get married, they still have this single mindset. Yeah. And I brought that into the marriage. And really, it was because I didn't have a foundation of truth. And so when we bring to you team way, we're bringing you truth according to the word of God. And so if we're going to have biblical marriages, because our mindset is if you do it God's way, you're going to get God's results. And we have a group of people, a lot of people out there that's trying to do marriage unto their own um, you know, principles and own values and instead of bringing their values in alignment with the word of God and with truth so that the marriage can last and be built upon biblical, a biblical foundation. And so I thought that was uh, you know, really important to know and to say that how you, how your mindset is, where your mindset is, if it's not according to truth, you're gonna bring that mindset into the marriage. And if you got two mindsets that's not built on truth, it's gonna create some type of chaos because there's gonna be a clash eventually.

Agreement, Finances, And Fair Expectations

SPEAKER_01

No question, it's gonna be a clash. But I think every marriage gotta start from the word out. Okay. But a lot of times what has happened, we model our marriages out of what we've seen. Yes. What is in our home, whether you've been watching television, your favorite show, your favorite actor or actress, and so you try to model marriage after that. Um if you've been reading books, novels, and uh, and a lot of times people live in this fairy tale fantasy world, and and they haven't come to an understanding of what a marriage looked like. Yeah. Just like a lot of times, people, let's say you you modeled your marriage after your your mother and your father. Your mother stayed at home, your dad went out and and made the money, he came home, brought the money home, mom dibbed the money up, how it needs to be, but she took care of the kids. Well, every family that may not be the model that your marriage can do. You may not be able to afford for your wife to be at home. Or your wife may not want to be at home. Now, for me, if we could have afforded it, I would have wanted my wife at home to help raise our children as opposed to putting them in daycare in school before the time was. And that's because for us and our values, we would have wanted to instill our values more in our children without the outside influence. Right. And so what happens is as long as we understand our roles and how we interact with each other is from a biblical perspective, how you carry that out comes down to how you all agree what our marriage is going to be. But what is not uh up for negotiation is whether I am going to love her as Christ loved the church.

SPEAKER_00

Or whether or not you're going to be the head.

SPEAKER_01

Whether I'm going to be the head or whether I'm not going to be bitter toward her. All of those are non-negotiable because God has already clearly laid out the biblical perspective. But how we navigate some of those things are negotiable based on our agreement of how we're going to carry out our marriage.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and we agreed upon how we want to carry out our marriage. I had to make a decision when he said that. And once I got an understanding of what we were trying to do and building together and bringing up.

SPEAKER_01

When you said say what, bringing the money home. Bringing the money home.

SPEAKER_00

When he said that, I had to get more understanding of what we were doing and what we were trying to build.

SPEAKER_01

Because it wasn't about control. Right. And you just bring the money to me.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

No, it was about positioning our family and putting us in a better position. Yes. Because we needed both incomes in order for our family to be what it needed to be.

SPEAKER_00

And that speaks to what we said earlier about bringing a different mindset into the marriage. And so what if I were were, what if I held my position and said, no, I'm not. You know, I'm allowed, I would have allowed my perspective or my mindset to create an element of the vision in our household, and it would have hindered us building together, and we would not be where we are today had I usurped my right to say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to keep my own money.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, when you think about modern marriage, you have some men that call themselves traditionalists, which means they want their wife to cook, to clean every day, take care of the children. But the thing is, some of it is not reasonable because if she's out working just as hard as you're working and bringing money to the table, I know you saw your mom do all of that, do all the working and clean and cook and take care of the children, but she was a full-time homemaker. And so now you got to look at the dynamics are different if she's out in the workforce every day, and then you want to come home and and clean up and and cook and then also be intimate as well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Fantasy Vs Reality And Hidden Discontent

SPEAKER_01

So that's where it's not reasonable. So we gotta look at what the biblical part is. Wives submit to your husband, uh, see that you respect your husband. Husbands love your wife as Christ loves the church, don't be bitter toward them. And so you gotta look at how do we make our marriage what it needs to be for us, along with doing what God told us to do from a biblical perspective. That is so good. And so what I think has happened, we got people looking at all these outside influences, including social media, and people showing this fairy tale from a camera lens point of view and not a practical, fleshed out, living it in real time type of perspective. And even some people are miserable in their marriage because it's not living up to this image that they have created in their head. It's fantasy. It's a fantasy.

SPEAKER_00

And speaking of popular culture, not just you know, the reality TV shows and you know all of this fake social media stuff, it's really sabotaging a successful marriage. You could have a wonderful marriage. I believe I was listening to something or listened to a podcast, or somebody was telling me about a podcast, and this young lady was married, but it wasn't, she had a wonderful husband that worked, took care of the bills, took care of them, but it wasn't living up to her fantasy that she saw on somebody's social media page or in this fantasy book that she was reading. What do you call those love books? Um fantasy novels. Uh, and those things are really uh popular culture, and it's sabotaging marriages because it's not living up to a fantasy. And you, there's no way you can live up to a perfect fantasy. But those things can get you to negate what you have, neglect what you have in a good man and in a provider, in a good man and a provider, and someone who loves you, you know, as Christ loves the church, but he's not measuring up to this fantasy world and it could sabotage your marriage every time.

SPEAKER_01

But but see, that's why I'm saying it has to be a reality, what a marriage really is. Right. Because what if we had measured our life at um let's say 25 years ago, 30 years ago, compared to where our life is now. 33 years later.

SPEAKER_00

It's no comparison, it's no comparison. It couldn't compare because we are in such a more mature state right now.

SPEAKER_01

In in every area.

SPEAKER_00

In every area.

Oneness, Transparency, And Maturity

SPEAKER_01

Emotionally, spiritually, definitely spiritually, financially, how we interact with each other. But how did that happen? We we grew into it because we worked on it. We didn't grow into it because another calendar year went by.

SPEAKER_00

Right. We grew into it.

SPEAKER_01

We grew into it because we worked into it.

SPEAKER_00

We worked into it. Absolutely. We were intentional. Um, even that decision that you made to say, hey, we need to put our resources together so we can build, that was one of the steps that we did together.

SPEAKER_01

That laid the foundation for us together. Absolutely. Because if if we didn't get on the same page financially, and and this is the thing, well, that's my money. And then the husband's money is for the house, but my money is for me. And then when you look at what you're doing with your money, is it making the family lineage better?

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Is the legacy of the family going to be better? Or are you just going out shopping and going on girl trips and now you he spent all the money, but there's zero savings, zero investments, zero anything. You have, but yet you're living your best life. Nothing to show for it. And really, all it is is selfishness because you're watching a lot of selfish people showing you an image of a life that's not real.

SPEAKER_00

That's what popular culture feeds you. That's what popular culture feeds you. Yeah. They feed you that image, and then now you want to live up to it, but yet you don't have you have nothing to show for it in the long run. Your children don't have a legacy, you know, from you that has been passed down to you. And so it's important to identify in your marriage, just take a um, just take a analysis of your marriage relationship and look at ways or look at your your marriage to see what areas has popular culture given you a perspective or an unrealistic point of view. And is it sabotaging your marriage? Is it causing you a rift? Is it causing a rift in your marriage? Because once you identify those things, you'll be surprised at what you have allowed to create a rift through popular culture.

SPEAKER_01

But one of the things I wanted to go back to something that we always say marriage is for grown folks.

SPEAKER_00

It's for grown folks.

Contentment, Comparison, And The Bigger Bone

SPEAKER_01

See, some people haven't matured to a place to understand what marriage really is. It's oneness, it's not individuality anymore, it's oneness. And in that oneness, we're living this life together, we're building it together, and it's no place for selfishness. But selfishness come at come out when you're immature, you're you're not grown in the marriage. You you you you want to be married, but you want to be single too. They they are oxymoron, they they don't work together. So you want your own individuality, your own time, come and go when you please, do what you want with your no accountability, no accountability. That is not married. Then you even got popular culture that married folks can't even have the passcode to each other's phone and iPads and emails and all that. Like, where are you looking in my phone? Ain't no my. This us. We together. And and you wonder why there's a collapse in uh in modern marriages because they don't understand what marriage is. There's no such thing as you, my phone can lay anywhere. You got all of my codes, it don't even matter because I'm not hiding anything. Right. I am married, I am in oneness. What am I hiding from my wife other than I'm trying to surprise her?

SPEAKER_00

And if you if if any of those things hit your marriage, you know, now you know that popular culture has seeped into your marriage. When you're saying stuff like that, when any of you looking at my phone, any of those situations fit you, that's how you can know that popular culture has seeped into your marriage. And it can sabotage. It'll lay dormant for a while, but it'll come to a head. Oh, it's gonna come. And it can sabotage. So go ahead and do that analysis together. What in what areas has popular culture seeped into your marriage? What perspectives do you have that don't line up with the values and the principles of God that can cause a sabotage later on down the road? We want to fix those things now, identify them and fix them now.

Legacy, Planning, And Long-Term Unity

SPEAKER_01

I I believe I want I want to shift to this direction here because there are a lot of people unhappy in their marriage. And and this from this perspective, not that the marriage is bad. It's not like the husband or the wife is being abusive toward each other, you're loving toward each other, all these things, but you're unhappy because you don't feel your yours life is not where you think it should be. So you're unhappy because you you may be living from check to check, or you know, you don't have the house you wanted, or the car you want. This is not what I envisioned. I didn't dream of this. And come on, all of those things, because now you're looking at people, they vacationing in Tahiti and Hawaii, and and now they they out to eat and and they're doing they living their best life. Yeah, the edited part of their best life. That's still popular culture. Yeah, so all of these things are what is happening. And so I want we want to talk to you all because that's part of the popular culture seeking seeping into your marriage. You are not arguing, that you got good kids, kids making good grades, you're not cheating on each other, you love each other, you're going to church together. Just the money is a little funny. You can't get all the desires that you want. And now you're unhappy. You're looking at your friend down the street, her and her husband, they they went, uh, been going on vacations, all this. Stuff, but what you don't know, they on the verge of divorce. They got adultery in their marriage. But now here you are, you now not in a place of contentment. Come on. The Bible talks about godliness with contentment. And so you can get the stuff. Right. You just need to ask God to show you how we can make more money. How can we build our life to the next level? But you're about to throw away a good marriage trying to chase something. And then you know what it reminds me of? There's an old saying, there was this dog, and he had a bone in his mouth. And so he he went and looked over the water while he had the bone in his mouth, and he was looking at, and the reflection made it look like the bone. There was a bigger bone in down in the water. So guess what he did? Dropped the bone. He dropped his bone that was in his mouth, trying to go after a bigger bone. And lost both bones. Which it wasn't a both bone, but he thought it was. He didn't even have another bone. And that's why we want to speak to you, husband or wife. You're trying to chase a bone that don't even exist because it looks bigger.

SPEAKER_00

My God.

SPEAKER_01

You think the grass is greener. And you know, it was like for me, I thought I married the wrong one when we got married. And here she was. She thought, I'm not bringing my money home. I make my money. I get to do what I want to do. And so some of you, you're trying to live single within a marriage. And I'm going to tell you it's not going to work.

SPEAKER_00

It's not going to work. And so I just hope that you all have heard something today to cause you to evaluate where you are, evaluate your marriage, see the areas where popular culture has seeped into it and creating a divide between you and your spouse. Unhealthy fantasies, get those out of your mind, out of your soul, and start working to build together so that you can leave a legacy for you and your family, for you and your children.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, if you build together, you can build the life that you planned. You don't have to hope it happened. You can build the life that you planned. Where we are right now, we plan to be here. We did. We planned to be here. And part of our planning was sacrifice, commitment, unity, oneness, selflessness, selflessness, because we had to give up things that we wanted for the bigger picture of the whole. So we want to encourage you. We've been married 33 years. You were 21 when we got married. I was 23 and turned 24 the next month. So you got to understand, we were in our young 20. We were young, we were a young couple. We stayed together. We didn't allow popular culture or things we saw around us to cause us to get off track.

SPEAKER_00

And popular culture was the opposite of everything you just learned, uh, name. Yes. Selflessness, unity. Popular culture is all about self. It goes against all of those different principles that we learn to get. Unity, selflessness, you know, taking down pride, humility, all of those things. So uh popular culture is the total opposite. And it's a sabotage for a healthy relationship.

Final Encouragement And Listener Comments

SPEAKER_01

So we encourage you, stay together. Get popular culture out of your eyes and out of your ear. Leave it at entertainment. It's a good entertainer, but it's horrible as a model for marriage. Find couples that do the word of God, live the word of God, that have long-lasting marriages that you can model after, that do it from a biblical perspective.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. All right, you guys. Hope this was helpful for y'all. We would love to hear your comments. Be sure to comment. Let us know you watched this and what you've got out of it. And we'll see you next time on Team Wade.