What if you could turn the tide in your marriage with just a simple shift in mindset?
Appreciation is a powerful tool, often underestimated in its ability to transform relationships. We delve into the critical role of appreciation in marriage, discussing the "magic ratio" of positive versus negative interactions and the tell-tale signs of a lack of appreciation. We'll guide you through the steps to make appreciating your spouse a daily habit, improving communication and paving the way to a more fulfilling marriage.
Shifting our focus from our partner's faults to their positive qualities can have a profound impact on our relationships. We highlight the importance of using phrases like "I appreciate" and going the extra mile with politeness. By referencing Philippians 4:8, we aim to encourage listeners to fill their minds with positive thoughts. As we wrap up our conversation, we hope to inspire you to infuse more love, gratitude, and positivity into your relationships. Join us, and let's transform our marriages together!
What if you could turn the tide in your marriage with just a simple shift in mindset?
Appreciation is a powerful tool, often underestimated in its ability to transform relationships. We delve into the critical role of appreciation in marriage, discussing the "magic ratio" of positive versus negative interactions and the tell-tale signs of a lack of appreciation. We'll guide you through the steps to make appreciating your spouse a daily habit, improving communication and paving the way to a more fulfilling marriage.
Shifting our focus from our partner's faults to their positive qualities can have a profound impact on our relationships. We highlight the importance of using phrases like "I appreciate" and going the extra mile with politeness. By referencing Philippians 4:8, we aim to encourage listeners to fill their minds with positive thoughts. As we wrap up our conversation, we hope to inspire you to infuse more love, gratitude, and positivity into your relationships. Join us, and let's transform our marriages together!
Welcome to the Love Works podcast. My name is Chris Duncan, and my wife, jennifer and I are marriage coaches and ministers in our local church. We've been married for over 20 years and have six wonderful children. Over the years, we've experienced infertility, miscarriages, become parents, had career changes, fostered children and adopted triplets, which, among many other life experiences, have helped to shape us, our marriage and our family. We hope to share some of the things we've learned to help others with their journey to have a successful marriage and a strong family. I'll keep in a focus on our faith as a guide. Thanks for listening and, as always, remember love works. So let's get to work. Welcome back to the Love Works podcast. My name is Chris Duncan. I'm with my amazing wife, jennifer Duncan, and we are so honored to have you join us today. Thank you again for tuning in to our fourth episode and, if this is your first time listening, thank you so much for joining us. Also, we're recording right now, on Thanksgiving weekend. So happy Thanksgiving. I hope you had a wonderful time with your friends and family, ate a ton of turkey and ham and whatever is your most favorite side dish. So thank you.
Speaker 1:A little bit of housekeeping. We will be releasing new episodes biweekly. So we generally record on Thursday night and I try to get everything edited and posted by Sunday. So we're a little behind because of the holiday. It's Saturday night about 10 pm, so we'll see how this goes and we'll be posting by Sunday. So thank you again for joining.
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Speaker 1:And, as always, if you have any questions or any topics that you'd like us to discuss, there are a few ways for you to reach out to us now and you can direct message us on any of our social media platforms. You can text us or call in your topic or question to 747-322-1089. And you can text that number or call and leave a voicemail. And you can email us at loveworkspodcast at gmailcom. That's loveworkspodcast at gmailcom. And, as always, any questions, comments, anything you send in to us, we will make sure that it remains anonymous. So we'll probably respond to you if it's a question directly to us and you're looking for a responsible respond, but make sure that we don't share it with anybody else, all right, so?
Speaker 2:All right. So we're moving right into our what's that for this week, Since it's Thanksgiving weekend. I know with our what's that we normally share, like a funny story about our kids or our marriage or something that happened throughout the weeks, but we decided that we would take a break from that and we're going to ask our children to help us out and say what they are thankful for. So we're going to let you listen in and they're thankfulness this week.
Speaker 1:All right, Harper, tell me what you're thankful for.
Speaker 3:I'm thankful for God and I'm thankful for my church.
Speaker 1:Oh, those are good things. Anything else, or is that it?
Speaker 3:I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right, harpy, I love you. I love you. All right, rowan. What are you thankful for?
Speaker 3:I'm thankful for my mom and dad and grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 1:Good job, anything else?
Speaker 3:Uh Parker and Chippy and Jesus.
Speaker 1:Sparkle and Chippy and Jesus. All right, I love you.
Speaker 3:Me too.
Speaker 1:All right, gwen. What are you thankful for?
Speaker 3:I'm thankful for Jesus and us and mom and dad and Chippy and Parker.
Speaker 1:Chippy and Sparkle All right. The elves that come see us during Christmas, Mm-hmm. All right, anything else?
Speaker 3:Uh yeah, I'm thankful for my Grayson and Boston and I'm thankful for my grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 1:All right, Grayson, tell us what you're thankful for.
Speaker 4:I'm thankful for God and my shoes.
Speaker 1:Your shoes.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Any specific pair of shoes, or just your shoes.
Speaker 4:Nah, just my shoes in general.
Speaker 1:Okay, anything else.
Speaker 4:Uh, my family Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm a squeeze family in there with shoes Sounds good. That's wisdom from a 13-year-old. All right, bud, love you All. Right now for the oldest Boston. Tell us what you're thankful for.
Speaker 4:I think if I had to choose well, I'm obviously thankful for so much, but if I had to choose one thing, I think it would be my church and my church family and just the overall community that we have, and that includes our youth group too. I'm very thankful for our youth group, um, but yeah, I think that's what I would choose. If I had to choose one thing, all right, awesome Thanks, love you. Love you too.
Speaker 1:All right. So that was awesome, having the kids share what they were thankful for. But, jen, what are you thankful for?
Speaker 2:Ah, this wasn't in the notes. I'm like on the spot now Um, what am I thankful for? I am thankful for I know it sounds uh, I know it sounds like cliche but I'm very thankful for my family. I'm thankful for our church, our friends, the community around us. We have been surrounded by so many amazing people. We've been blessed with so many amazing people in our lives that I feel, especially this time of year, I feel overwhelmingly grateful just for the people that we have in our corners and the people that support us, no matter what's going through. It's so important in this world, where sometimes we are so separated from one another. It's so important to have those connections and I am very grateful for the connections that we have.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I'm thankful. Kind of a random thing, I'm thankful for the family photos we took today.
Speaker 2:I will wait to see the edits before I'm thankful.
Speaker 1:The faces the kids were making. Oh man, these photos are gonna be epic. Okay, little bit of confession. We'll call this confession time with Chris. This is the first time that we've done family photos with the whole family. So now Asher's 15 months or so.
Speaker 2:He's 14 months, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know he looks like a 15-month-er, but we did family photos today. We met the photographer in this woodsy area and we just had a really good time. The kids were awesome. The girls I bribed them, told them, if they were good, that we'd go to the park afterwards. So they were awesome and I'm just really looking forward to seeing they were very excited about getting their photos taken.
Speaker 2:So Extremely. It'll be very interesting we had some amazing poses.
Speaker 1:I think I saw what duck lips. Is that a?
Speaker 2:thing yeah, duck lips, heart, hearts, all kinds of really yeah, curtsies.
Speaker 1:Some really good stuff going on there. So I'm thankful for that opportunity for us to go out and have those memories captured in a way that we'll be able to keep for a lifetime. So that's what I'm thankful for. So obviously, right, we've been talking about thankfulness. So today I actually had a different idea in mind. In Gens, I knew it. Let's talk about appreciation and gratitude, thankfulness for our spouses and others. So today our show is going to focus on appreciation and thankfulness and gratitude. So I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:In marriage. Appreciation is so very important. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and this is kind of why I wanted to go this direction. But so often we forget to appreciate the people closest to us and while we say we appreciate them if we're asked, or just like we just did right now, like hey, what are you thankful for?
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm thankful for my wife. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know those are so easy to say, but what does that really look like in a marriage? And how can we be thankful, not just when we think about it on a random holiday, but be thankful for our spouse and show appreciation each and every day? So good Appreciation in a marriage helps you more than you even think by helping you keep the lines of communication open, and it also leaves you feeling good about your spouse. If you know that you are appreciated by your spouse, you feel good and your spouse feels good when you appreciate them and you feel good when you appreciate your spouse.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of good going on. It's all good, it's all good.
Speaker 2:We only have so much time in our day, every day, to think about things, right, there's only so many hours that we can ponder things. Even if you're someone like me, who I feel like I can never fall asleep, even then you only have so much time to think about things. And if we're constantly focusing on negative things, if we're constantly focusing on people's faults, on the things that bother us, then we don't have time to think about the good things about people. We don't have time to focus on the things that we actually should be appreciating. So it's so very, very important that we do make this a habit in our marriage appreciating our spouse, appreciating the people around us.
Speaker 2:Appreciation is absolutely vital and one of the probably it sounds silly, but it's kind of like a secret to a happy marriage. Right, we don't really think about oh when people say, oh, what should? What keeps your marriage happy? You know oh, this or that, but hardly ever hear somebody say, oh, appreciate your wife or appreciate your husband. But it really is key to a happy marriage Very important, critical that we appreciate one another. Appreciation is the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something. According to psychologists, there is a magic ratio of positive versus negative interactions that predicts the health of a marriage. The magic ratio is five to one. For every one negative interaction, at least five positive ones are needed to counterbalance it. Our minds are wired to focus on the negative. When I worked in the real world before I had children and decided to stay home Really.
Speaker 1:it will happen in this house, babe.
Speaker 2:That's true. My children don't believe that I ever had another job outside of here, but when I did, I always told my employees that one negative interaction will be shared about nine or ten times, and positive interactions that customers have with you are very, very rarely shared. It's, I think, once or twice. So it's so important that we really focus on those positives, that we really make sure that we're showing our appreciation, that we're focusing on our spouse and the good things about our spouse and not just focusing on those negative things, because negative things are so much bigger in our heads than positive things. We blow things out of proportions when it comes to negative and positive.
Speaker 2:That's just humanity. That's just how people are wired. We're wired to. That's why the news is so important. Right? We watch the news and there's all these negative stories, and then they'll have one positive like ooh, feel good story, yay. And you're like okay, you just told me everything's coming to an end, the world is coming to an end, and now I'm supposed to feel good about a kitten getting rescued from a storm drain.
Speaker 1:So Well, think about when you're scrolling on social media or something, if there is a negative title on, like a story or a reel or whatever.
Speaker 2:nine times out of ten you stop and you check it out. Okay, let's see what's happening.
Speaker 1:If it's all positive and happy, you're like eh, whatever.
Speaker 2:That's not true. Fake news Backcheck that it really is true. This is how we're wired and that's why it's important that we are very intentional in making sure that every day, in so many ways that we are focusing on the good things about our spouse, that we are appreciating them and we're letting them know not only for ourselves, but for our spouse as well. The National Science Foundation tells us 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. I think we kind of went over that. We didn't even need the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 2:That's why appreciation matters, though, if you want those stats, 80% of our thoughts are negative. It's really important that we change that with our marriage. We don't want 80% of our marriage and our interactions with our spouse to be negative.
Speaker 2:The negative sticks with us so much longer than the positive. You remember those fights you had with your spouse. You remember those disagreements. You remember those harsh words that you spoke with one another. It's so important that we are. Obviously things happen and we say things and we do things. But if we're not appreciating our spouse, if we're not daily showing our spouse how much they mean to us and how much we notice their good traits and their good characteristics, then it's going to be impossible for us to overcome those negative things.
Speaker 1:So good. There's some benefits of appreciation, some benefits of admiring our spouse. One of them is your mindset changes. Jen already shared this stat, but I wanted to share it again because I like stats, even though I read a stat that 94% of stats are not true. But 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. So 80% are negative and 95% of the time we're repeating those negative thoughts. So what can we do? When we decide that we're going to look for the good instead of the bad, and our spouse and others, you begin to notice just how fantastic people actually are. And it's a change of mindset. You have to tell yourself and you have to be like okay, I'm looking for the positive, I'm going to show appreciation. It's so easy to be negative, it's so easy to kick somebody when they're down. A lot of us have to really try to look for that positive and to share that. But once you do, you can literally change your mindset and I know the statistic is 80% of thoughts are negative. But you can change that right. Statistics change, people can change. I hate that, saying that people don't change. I don't believe that People change if they want to change, and so we can benefit of appreciation appreciating our spouse we can literally, and we need to change our mindset.
Speaker 1:Another one is your mood improves. Psychologists have long touted that our mood and daily outlook change when we focus on positive things rather than the negative. Dr Woodward PhD suggests that simply removing negative words from our vocabulary can have a tremendous effect on our mood. Just think about that. It not only has a positive effect on the person that you're speaking to, but yourself as well. If you're always using negative words and you're always speaking negatively to somebody, that's beating them down and so it's wearing on them, but it also has an effect on you. Jen said a couple minutes ago you remember those negative words. You remember the negative words that were said to you, but you also remember the negative words that you said to others. And so when you decide and really focus on using those positive words, a positive affirmation, it will change your mood. It will change the person who you're dealing with's mood.
Speaker 1:We have six children and it can be very hectic, it can be so rambunctious. We have six year old triplets. If you have never had triplets, you don't know. You just don't know. It is wild and crazy and at times I can say my words can be negative and sometimes not even my words, but the way that I say them and you can see that impact on them.
Speaker 1:And I have to. I see them, I recognize them, I have to, sometimes I have to apologize, right, but I have to change the way that I speak to them and change it to the positive. And once you do that, you change your tone, you change the words, that kind of stuff it starts getting through differently to them and you can see a positive change to the attitude or the direction that they're going and kids are going to be kids. Right, it's not 100% foolproof my kid's always going to listen if I speak nicely to them, but it's definitely will have an impact on them and yourself and it improves your mood. And actually here's the crazy thing when you think positively and you're using positive words, it's actually proven to boost neurotransmitters that transmit, or serotonin, to activate the brainstem to produce dopamine, and dopamine is the brain's pleasure chemical. So the more we think positive, grateful thoughts, the healthier and happier we will feel. That's crazy. It is crazy.
Speaker 1:You might be thinking, oh, fact, check that, do it. Do it, go through a day and be positive and everything. A positive outlook. You will feel healthier, you will feel happier. Do it, I promise A benefit of appreciation. Another benefit of appreciation is you engage at a higher level. How's that Okay? Well, if you are talking positively to someone, you're talking kindly, you're appreciating them. They're going to engage with you. They're going to engage with you on a higher level. They want to hear more. Everybody likes to be appreciated, right, man? You're doing such a good job. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Stop it. Tell me more. They're going to want to engage with you on a higher level. If you're always talking negatively to somebody, you're talking down to them. You're spouse. Everything you say is negative about the way they cook, the way they clean, whatever it is. The engagement is going to be very low because nobody wants to deal with that. Nobody wants to engage with somebody who's always negative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and going back to the mood, it even creates a different mood in the house, not just between you and your spouse, but between the whole family. That ruins the whole mood of your home. It's yeah.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, but it absolutely does. Another benefit of appreciation is you build trust in relationships. Even the neuroscientists are proving that recognition, appreciation, builds trust, and this is more. They did a study and it was in the workplace, but it absolutely applies within your marriage and within your home and really any aspect of your life. There was a study done by Paul Zach, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, and the neuroscience shows that recognition has the largest effect on trust when it comes immediately after a goal has been met, when it comes from peers and when it's tangible, unexpected, personal and public has an immediate effect.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking about that at home talking with your spouse, talking with your kids, people close to you tangible, unexpected, personal and public. We should show appreciation to our spouse, not only in private but in public. We should let people know how much we appreciate our. We should let our spouse know how much we appreciate them when others are around, and I'm not saying do it kind of, oh, I have to do this obligation or try to show off or boast, but there's definitely times that you can see that your spouse has done something when you're out and you're amongst people and you appreciate that. Hey, jen, I really appreciate the way that you got the kids ready today for the pictures. And right when they hop out of the car, the photographer is like, oh my word, there's like a clown car. People get piling out. There's eight of us, but after she's, oh my God, there's more. They keep coming.
Speaker 3:I'm charging double.
Speaker 1:It was like a hotel. You book it online, it says how many adults, how many kids, two and we got 14. We never do that.
Speaker 2:I can't. I'm sorry, I can't.
Speaker 1:She can't, I could. That's why she makes me get two rooms everywhere we go. It's crazy. I'm like back to the podcast. But the next thing she said was how cute the kids were and how great she had addressed them. That's a perfect opportunity to show appreciation in public and that's tangible. That's something that we can appreciate and take with us. Another benefit of appreciation you inspire greatness in others and you are appreciating. And I'll say, with your kids, all of our kids are different.
Speaker 1:We have six kids Asher, who I just found out is actually 14 months, not 15 months. Even Asher, when today he started, he knows how to walk. He does. He's a little stinker. He's been able to walk for months now, but whenever he sees us catch him walking, he drops down to the ground and crawls because he wants us to carry him. There's he's seven other people in the house that will pick him up at any moment. So he would much rather use somebody else's legs. But today he started walking so much and he was like Dude, this dude could kick a ball. He's like kicking the ball around, he's like playing soccer. And yes, or you pretend like he could barely crawl, he's a wild man, but anyways, he was walking around and every time we saw him we would clap and say great job, asher. And he kept doing it more and more and more to where I think today he walked more than he crawled. And that, just that just shows you, even in a 14 month old, the Showing that appreciation, showing that faith and that love and that joy in what he was doing Inspired him to want to continue to do it. And so, with our kids, with our spouses, when we're showing appreciation, we're showing gratitude, it inspires them to want to do Better, to want to be a better person.
Speaker 1:Jerry McGuire, you complete me. That's a very False statement, but you know you should believe yourself and the Lord. But hey, back to the story anyways. But we inspire greatness when we are appreciating others. And then one other thing when last thing, before I turn over to Jen you create a story with a future. When you're being positive and you're appreciating, you create a story with a future. Negativity has a sense of ending, despair, an awful finality, but appreciation and a positivity always has a future, is Always showing them hey, there's more to be had, there's greatness to be had and it allows for growth and newness. So always appreciate, always show gratitude and use those positive words.
Speaker 2:That's so true, and when you know somebody appreciates what you do, it makes you want to do it and do it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally because you're like somebody actually appreciates it. Yeah, I'm like making food for you know the triplets? Or cleaning up their room for them or something like that. You know I Don't want to do it because I know they're not gonna appreciate it. Some days they do, some days they don't.
Speaker 2:But it is really true when, when I know that that Chris Appreciate something I do, it makes me want to just take it to the next level. It makes me want to be better at it and to Do, to strive to to make him, to make him happy and to make our relationship better. So it's very important that we always make sure that we're being appreciative and there's some signs that we can look for in our relationship that show us that we're lacking appreciation. One of them is you're drifting apart emotionally and showing less affection. I see this all the time. People are like oh, we're just not connecting, we're going different directions. You know we're. We're not on the same page. We hear it, everyone hears those things, right? If you're feeling that, if you feel like you're not Connected, you're not together, you're not All you a vibing, if you feel like it's just like you're not in sync, think about how your interactions are.
Speaker 2:Yeah are you showing your spouse appreciation? Are you Focusing on the things that they do well, or are you constantly focusing on the things they didn't do? Are you constantly focusing on the, the lack in their character instead.
Speaker 3:Of.
Speaker 2:What they have to offer and what they do for you on a daily basis. One of the other Signs is you're quick to argue. Every little thing right is, isn't?
Speaker 3:get it yeah it's, everything's magnified.
Speaker 2:You know they didn't do this and as soon as they get home, gonna, you know, talk to him about this and then, oh well, you didn't do this. And it's back and forth, because we're not Appreciating the things that they do. Right, we're just focusing. We're using all of our mental time and energy to focus on the things that they haven't done, instead of using some of that to Focus on the positive. Another sign is you're not communicating and are more quiet than usual. If you notice your spouse is quiet, if you notice your spouse isn't engaging, that's a sign that maybe we're not appreciating one another. Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 1:That's a red flag you need to make, you need to correct something because you are going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2:Communication being open is. It's not negotiable. You have to communicate or your marriage will not survive. Another sign is you're telling people that you don't feel appreciated. We hear that one a lot, right? Oh, I don't feel appreciated. Everyone takes me for granted. I just, you know, work all day. I just do all this stuff and nobody cares, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:I know when I get, and we all do right, we all get in those moods like, oh, I do everything, nobody does anything. I'm you know, nobody cares, I'm just doing all this stuff. We can all get in those situations, absolutely. And I know, as soon as I get in that situation, as soon as I start feeling those things, I Look for things I can do for others, because that's the only thing that's gonna get me out of that funk. It's not true. People do appreciate me.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do a lot, but everyone else does a lot too, and it's so important that we go out of our way. I always do this and it always works. I Go out of my way when I feel overwhelmed. I go out of my way to make somebody to stay easier and when I see how much joy that brings them, it makes me feel joy. I forget that I'm overwhelmed. I forget that I'm stressed. I forget that I'm feeling unappreciated because I made somebody else's day better and I Took that energy and that time that I was wasting thinking about myself and thinking about poor me, and you know I'm so unappreciated. I miss that and I put it towards something positive and I turned my mood around. I turned their day around and I changed Everything about that interaction. I changed everything about that day. So it's really important.
Speaker 2:Another thing is that you feel sad when you think about your relationship, when you think about your relationship with your spouse. You shouldn't feel regret and sadness, even if there's, you know, things that have gone wrong in your past or whatever. You can change that. Yes, every day is a new day and Very rarely are there things now, some days or some things are irreversible, but very rarely. If we've chosen wisely and the person that we are with is the person that we're gonna be with forever, very rarely are there things that we can't recover from when we start to show appreciation for one another. Yeah, so it's not too late if you see any of these in your relationship and you're like, oh man, what in the world, how did I get here? It's not too late. You can start today. Yeah, you can start right now.
Speaker 3:It could even be late at night it could be 10 30.
Speaker 2:You can do it at 10 30. Start by using basic manners. What do we teach our kids right out of the gate? Yeah we teach them, please. Thank you, yes, ma'am. No, ma'am, you're welcome. We teach these kids all of these things and then somehow, when we get married, we forget to use basic manners with our spouse.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy. Think about that. Think about your wife or your husband. They, they bring you a cup of coffee or something and you just take a drink, like oh, that's good. You say thank you. I appreciate that our kids we'd be like what do you say? Right, it's crazy. But these basic manners Sometimes they just go out the window when, when dealing with our spouse and it has an extreme negative effect, it really does it really does.
Speaker 2:It's funny sometimes, the things we don't even think about, you know, we just don't think about them. It's not that we intentionally do things to hurt our relationship or to hurt our spouse, but we just don't think about it. And it's so important that we make a conservative effort to do these things, even the little things Say thank you, say no, thank you, say you're welcome, say please, say excuse me, say sorry. Yes, that one can be really hard, but it's so important and it could be sorry for the littlest thing. Just, I always tell my kids treat your siblings like you would, your friend, because it's really easy to get upset at our siblings, to get short tempered with our siblings, just like it is to get short tempered with your spouse, and but you wouldn't say the things you say to your spouse or treat your spouse like you would, your friend.
Speaker 1:And so and if you do, you ain't got many friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, they wanna be friends for very long. So it's really important that we think about how we're treating our spouse, how the things are coming out of our mouth. Are we doing these little things? Are we abusing our manners? Are we showing our children what manners actually look like? Are we being that person? Yeah, we need to find the good in our spouses and not the faults in our spouses. We all have faults, yeah, and we know our faults. Right, your spouse knows what his faults are and you know what your faults are. We're not hiding them. Especially when you're married, you don't hide your faults.
Speaker 3:There's nothing you can't hide. They'll come out.
Speaker 2:They will eventually come out. So make sure you're focusing on the good. Make sure you're focusing on the things you fell in love with that person. For what were the things that the personality traits that you admired when you were dating? Focus on those things and appreciate those things, and the crazy thing about that is those things will be magnified, not only in your own eyes and not only how you see them, but those traits will become more dominant the more you focus on those Because, just like I said before, the more somebody appreciates something about you, the better you wanna do it right, the more you want to do that. So it's so important that we are not picking at the faults of our spouse Every day. We need to find something good about our spouse, something we appreciate, and even if it's not something that we come out and maybe it's not, maybe they're at work or whatever you can text them.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know what I just wanna let you know. I really appreciate the kind of dad you are, or I really appreciate how you handled this, or whatever it may be. There's so many things that we can appreciate about our spouses and it's okay to tell them. You don't have to hide it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't keep it secret. Yeah, tell them.
Speaker 2:It's not a secret, so very important Use. I appreciate you Be specific about what you appreciate, so like I really appreciate how you make the bed every morning, I really appreciate how you get my coffee every morning. I appreciate that, Chris.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate, you appreciate me.
Speaker 2:I do tell him these things, but I could do better. Right, we can all do better, so it's really important to just. It sounds funny, but when you first start it it might feel even overboard. You might feel like this is silly, but it's not in vain and your appreciation of your spouse will change your marriage overnight.
Speaker 1:It will.
Speaker 2:It will change things overnight. Appreciating your spouse will change the way you feel about them. It'll change the way they feel about themselves and it will change the way they feel about you. So quickly, absolutely, as long as we're being honest right. We're not gonna make stuff up Like oh.
Speaker 1:I appreciate the Ferrari you got me.
Speaker 2:Exactly Right, yeah yeah, we're not gonna appreciate things that are silly. You don't have to look very hard though. You fell in love with this person for a reason, absolutely there were things that you appreciated about them, or you wouldn't have been with them, you wouldn't have gotten married to them. Find those things again. Remember what it's like to be their girlfriend or be their boyfriend. Remember what it's like to think that they hung the moon in the stars.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:You need to find those things and focus on those things, not the things that annoy you.
Speaker 1:When we meet with couples we are marriage mentors and marriage coaches and when we meet with couples and they share with us that they're struggling with some of these feelings that they feel unappreciated, they're always arguing. Communication is not where it should be. I always tell them this that, okay, we're meeting, it's Thursday, we're meeting. We're gonna meet the following Thursday and one week, from when we leave today until we come back, I want you to go overboard with politeness and using basic manners. Thank you, no, thank you, excuse me, sorry, please, yes, please, all these things. Do that for the next week and when you come back let's see how that's helped you. Now there's other things that will have to be worked on, but just doing that, invariably it makes a difference.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it does every single time. And even if it feels weird at first, eventually you'll just get in the habit of it right and it will just become natural to you and to your spouse. It won't be forced, it won't be weird, but you have to start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and use the words I appreciate. I mean thank you's good, we wanna say thank you, but not just hey, thank you for my coffee, or that's so generic. But I appreciate when you do A and B. I appreciate you for this, I appreciate you for that. It will make a difference and so, if you're struggling at all with this, make it a habit. Go overboard, like Jen said. Go overboard on politeness, go overboard with this and it will turn into not being overboard, but just who you are. It's gonna change who you are and it's gonna change the way you communicate with your spouse. It's gonna change the way they communicate with you. It's gonna change everything. And you might be thinking right now, I don't know, try it, just do it. I promise, do it and you will see that it will absolutely make a positive difference.
Speaker 2:So true, like I said before, we only have so many hours of our day, all so much time to think about things, and if we're spending that time looking for things to appreciate about our spouse, we don't have any time left to think about the bad things and the negative things.
Speaker 1:So good. Well, we don't wanna take up too much more of your time. We know it's a holiday weekend, but there are a few other things that we always like to address at the end of every one of our podcasts, and we love to always have a scriptural context with the topics that we're talking about. So today I'm gonna be reading the message version Philippians 4 and 8, summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious. The best, Not the worst. The beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse, and just straight from the scripture think on these things. What's over things are good. What's over things are pure. What's over things are lovely. Think on these. The scripture even lets us know that, and it will absolutely, absolutely make a positive difference in your marriage and in any relationship that you have. So thank you again so much for joining us. I hope this episode has helped in some way and given you some tools to put to work Again.
Speaker 1:Please subscribe, like, comment, share. We'd love to hear from you. So please comment Again. You can text us or call us Only with voicemail at 747-322-1089. You can email us at LoveWorksPodcast, at gmailcom, or on Facebook or Instagram. You can direct message us and, again, any comments, topics, questions, we would love, love to hear from you, and I'd like to close out this episode in prayer. So, dear Lord, we thank you for this opportunity, lord. So, once again, share this ministry, share our hearts, lord, and share just some brief words with somebody, with a couple, and hopefully, lord, I pray that something we've said is gonna help them to have a greater relationship with their spouse and those around them. Lord, we thank you for this holiday season that we're entering into. Lord, I pray your blessings upon each and every person listening to this podcast, lord, and we thank you In Jesus' precious name. We pray amen. So always remember love works, so let's get to work. Music.