Imagine a world where dirty socks on the floor don't escalate into full-blown arguments. In this episode, we unravel the art of seamless communication and divvying up household duties. By recounting our own tales of chore charts and laundry schedules, we aim to equip couples with the strategies to combat the build-up of resentment. It's not about keeping score; it's about playing the game together and rewriting the rulebook when life tosses a wildcard your way. Whether it's managing a budget or ensuring both partners can handle the car maintenance, we're all about fostering a partnership where both feel valued and heard. So, as you listen in, we invite you to join us in this ongoing conversation about love, dedication, and the heartfelt work that makes a marriage not just work, but thrive.
Imagine a world where dirty socks on the floor don't escalate into full-blown arguments. In this episode, we unravel the art of seamless communication and divvying up household duties. By recounting our own tales of chore charts and laundry schedules, we aim to equip couples with the strategies to combat the build-up of resentment. It's not about keeping score; it's about playing the game together and rewriting the rulebook when life tosses a wildcard your way. Whether it's managing a budget or ensuring both partners can handle the car maintenance, we're all about fostering a partnership where both feel valued and heard. So, as you listen in, we invite you to join us in this ongoing conversation about love, dedication, and the heartfelt work that makes a marriage not just work, but thrive.
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 and I'm here with my extraordinary wife, jennifer Duncan, and we are so honored you've chosen to join us today. Jen's laughing because every time I read her douce ourselves, it changes from. You know how amazing or extraordinary or wonderful she is.
Speaker 1:So next episode I'm gonna have to come up with a word that's not heard very often. We used to ball. We used to ball. My entire vocabulary's been used. It's like four words. So good thing this isn't a teaching podcast. All right Work's starting off with a bang this year. Happy New Year, happy 2024 everybody. I cannot believe it is already 2024. And this is episode number seven.
Speaker 2:Number seven Are you sure?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure it could be six. No, it is seven. It is episode seven, but it is the first one of 2024, which, wow, is so amazing. I'm looking forward to what the Lord has for us and the Love Works podcast this year. It's gonna be super exciting. So couple housekeeping things before we get started. As always, we'll be releasing episodes bi-weekly. We generally release them on Sunday mornings. Apologize for the little break during the holidays. Everybody in our house of eight got sick and we're still dealing with some of that as we record tonight.
Speaker 1:So if you hear some coughing in the background or Jen suddenly stops talking and I take over, that's why. But also, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Wherever it is that you listen, you can hear the Love Works podcasts, whether it be Apple, spotify, amazon Music, google, all of them, even ones I've never heard of. We're on there, I promise you. So if you listen, please subscribe, like, share and rate. Yes, please do rate, like and share, because that does help us with our ratings and moves it up in the search engine. So again, please like, rate and share.
Speaker 1:As always, if you have any questions or topics that you'd like us to discuss, there's a few ways you can reach out. You can direct message us on social media, either Facebook or Instagram, or you can text your questions or topics to 747-322-1089, or, if you're old school and you want to make a phone call, you can. No one's going to answer, though, but you can leave a voicemail at 747-322-1089, or you can email us at Love Works Podcast at gmailcom. I think that's all the housekeeping that I have, so do you, Jen.
Speaker 2:All right, we're going to move into our what's that segment. I think this might be our favorite. This is where we talk about something that's gone on in our family, kind of lets you have an inside peek into the Duncan household and the stuff that goes on here On a daily, weekly basis. We have some crazy stuff. I don't know if all the crazy stuff makes it on here, but we try to share at least the ones we can remember.
Speaker 1:We'd have to change the rating of our podcast explicit.
Speaker 2:It gets crazy, but mine this week was Harper, so we were getting ready to go to church last Sunday, I believe, and Chris had talked about how everyone hasn't been sick forever. So Harper comes down, she's like Mom, you're going to let your children go to church when we've been sick? And I said, harper, you haven't been sick for a couple of days. Baby, you're fine now, so I think you'll be okay. You're not going to infect anyone, everything's going to be okay. So she looks at me and then she turns and she looks at the echo on the counter. She goes Alexa, how long before you should let your children go to church after they've been sick?
Speaker 2:Fact check, she fact checked me with Alexa and I just looked and I thought, wow, I really miss the days when my children couldn't fact check everything that I said. They just believed it. I don't understand this new generation. This is some crazy kind of stuff. I don't even know what Asher's going to do when he's old enough to do this. It's going to be insane. So, yeah, so for all of you new parents, just know that everything's going to be fact checked via Alexa or Siri, so get used to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Harper's six. So, yeah, we're going to have just a blast when the triplets are teenagers. So what's that? How that came up? This is your first time listening to us. Asher is now 16 months, Almost Almost 16 months, and he points at stuff all the time. He's like what's that, what's that? And so we just all start laughing about that now and that's a thing. So that's how we came up with this segment of our podcast. So my, what's that is? Actually, it just came up tonight.
Speaker 1:So we were sitting there getting ready for the podcast and Jen was talking to our older sons, Boston and Grayson, and she was like what is the most memorable thing that we've done as a family? And the boys are like all of us together, all eight of us, or I said no, it can just be if it was just half of us, or maybe the younger kids weren't born yet. So they both chose New York. We actually did a two week trip Wow, about seven years ago now, I think and we did the East Coast. We had all the really cool places over there and we went with our great friends, our pastors, Sean and Missy Monzano, and their kids, and we just had a wonderful time and the thing that's one of the things that came up was okay, this is hilarious, but you have to know Jen she's about 4'11" and a half and a half and a half, Standing on Boston's shoulders the sweetest, kindest person you will ever meet.
Speaker 1:And we were in New York and we're in Shake Shack and it is packed just to the brim. And I guess this guy I wasn't in there where I would have obviously said something this guy is behind Jen and he's like pushing on her and telling her go, go, go, go. And as her and Boston stand there and Jen turns around, looks the guy dead in his eyes and says if you touch me again, I'm going to punch you in the face.
Speaker 2:I do not remember this. I do not think it happened.
Speaker 1:It did happen.
Speaker 2:There's no photo evidence.
Speaker 1:Boston's my Lucas, so if you know, jen, obviously she's never punched anyone in her entire life, and definitely not in the face. So that's my what's that. That came up tonight and I had forgotten about that, because Boston came out of the Shake Shack just like dad. You won't believe what mom did. It was pretty amazing. So that's my what's that, all right.
Speaker 2:Listen to this, I guess don't push me right. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:You've punched Jen so far, and then you will get punched in the face.
Speaker 2:Everyone just stop listening.
Speaker 1:They've lost all 11. Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh my word. So tonight or today, whenever it is that you're listening, our episode is going to be on expectations. When we get married, we all come into a marriage with expectations, and the areas we're going to go into tonight might be a little bit different than what you're thinking of right away. When you think of expectations and somebody might be thinking right now well, you shouldn't go into any marriage with expectation. Well, that's ridiculous. If you think of that right now, everybody has expectations, whether they've been voiced or not, and those expectations and we can even call them needs are colored, skewed, biased. However, you want to say it. A lot, by the way, that we were raised and our family Vorgens. So we're going to talk about some of those things tonight. So we'll start off with Jen and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're going to start off with roles, unless you've had really great premarital counseling A lot of us Like with us. Yeah, I don't know if that qualifies, but hey, we'll throw it in there. But a lot of us didn't really sit down with our soon to be spouse or partner and talk about roles. Most of the time we just have those things in our head like a preconceived idea of what the husband's going to do, what the wife's going to do, based on how we've grown up what we've learned from our family, from people around us, from society as a whole, and so that can actually lead to some of the biggest arguments and also some of the biggest resentment.
Speaker 2:Because if you feel like you're the one pulling all the weight in a certain area, that you feel like isn't your job right, you're division of responsibility, it can really start to crack and fracture your marriage and make it really tough to get over something that can be so simple. If we would have taken the time to sit down and just hash these things out, that's really good what you said there.
Speaker 1:Resentment and some of us probably know people that are in marriages that they resent their spouse simply because they're doing something, they're performing a role or taking care of something in the marriage that they don't feel like they should be taking care of. But unfortunately they've not had that conversation with their spouse about, hey, I would prefer you do X, y and Z or whatever it is, and they went into the marriage. Maybe their father or their mother handled that certain thing and they just expected that to happen in their marriage and it's not happened and it's caused not just an argument but resentment, and that is a slippery slope when you get there. So that's actually a really good thing that you brought up there, jen, because it can happen. So we need to have those conversations and Jen's going to start off with some topics to kind of kick off that conversation, if you've not had it yet.
Speaker 2:I think not only having the conversation but also having it in the right setting is important, because once you're in that relationship and once you've already started to get frustrated with things that you're doing or your spouse is doing and they're not helping with this or that, and if you voice them in a certain way, it's just going to cause more conflict in the marriage. So I think sitting down with a list and going over it it sounds so simple, but it really brings clarity to things and helps both of you decide okay, this is what I'm going to do. So there's no questioning it. There's no. You should have done this, you should have picked up the slack. Obviously, if one person's sick or you know, and honestly, sometimes these things will change. So in our relationship, the division of responsibilities has changed over the years with job changes with children changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many different things in life that can affect this, and so it's not a list that is permanent. It should be something that you're able to come back to when life changes and kind of go over it. I'm feeling, like you know, too stressed in this area. Can you help me out? Can we kind of balance this out again? And if we can't figure this out, is there someone that we can get to help us with this, so that way it's not one spouse feeling resentment and then taking it out on another spouse who has no idea what they're talking about. You guys are mutually working it out together.
Speaker 1:Well, in there I'm starting to cut you off. I'm actually going to share something a little personal story with us, and this was pretty recent, since we've had Asher. Like I said, asher is almost 16 months, so we have triplet girls who are six. We have Asher that is about to be 16 months. We have a 16-year-old son, a 13-year-old son. We have eight people in this house. There's a lot that goes on here. There's a lot of mess, there's a lot of clothes, there's a lot of everything.
Speaker 1:Jen sat me down one night and she had always done the laundry for everybody and she pretty much always done the dishes too. But she said you know what? It's become too much To clean the house. We have, you know, a pretty big house. We have a lot of kids, so the house to clean the dishes, the clothes, all the stuff. She sat down with us and said you know what? I need help. And so we sat down and said, okay, boys, here we go, your day. You know, monday is your laundry day, and Boston and Tuesday is your laundry day, grayson. And Wednesday is my laundry day and you know, thursday is, you know, for the girls laundry day, but really every day is the girls' laundry day. But so we did that and then we also made a list for everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, monday night is dishes for Boston and Tuesday night is for Grayson and the girls. You know, they each have a night to unload the dishwasher and take out the diaper genie. And then on Thursdays I clean the bathroom and the boys have days to clean their bathrooms. And Tuesdays I take Jen's car every Tuesday to get it cleaned and I vacuum it out All this stuff. We hadn't done that previously, but it came to a point where Jen was getting stressed out and it was affecting things. So she sat down and said hey, you know what I need help with this. And we rallied together. She had to look the right way, said hey, not like you guys never do this, you never help me, you know and sat down, we had the conversation and we put together a plan of action and it's on the calendar and it's really helped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So remember, this isn't something that you can never change. This isn't like oh well, you said you'd always take care of the animals. Well, you know, this is something that is in flux, just like our families, just like our marriage. Things change and we can change it, but it has to be a conversation.
Speaker 2:It can't be, just like oh well, I expected you to pick up the slack because you know we had another baby. No, you got to sit down. You have to talk these things out and talk them out in the right way. So here are some conversation starters and some things that you should talk about, and it's going to be different for every family, depending on your circumstance and what is going on in your life, or in your family and in your life during that time. But here's some topics.
Speaker 2:Providing an income who's going to be responsible for that? The husband, the wife, both of you? Staying home with children is that important to you. Who will do that? The husband, the wife? Sometimes, in a perfect world, it can be both of you. If you both work from home, that can be something that you range. Or if you have, you know, a grandmother or someone in the home that can help with that, that's also helpful. Yard work, auto maintenance, fixing things around the house, making the bed, taking out the trash, maintaining ties with friends, talking about spiritual matters, decorating the house, disciplining the children there's so many. Can you think of any more? There's so many.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's so many paying the bills, handling the finances. If something were to happen again, we would be in trouble. She handles all the bills and the finances. But actually the past few weeks we've sat down and I've helped her with that because, you know, lord willing, nothing ever happens to her. But I need to know what's going on there too, right? So, gassing up the cars, the laundry we talked about how we handled that doing the dishes, cleaning the house, cooking meals, grocery shopping, caring for the pets, scheduling social events and some of you are thinking right now, seriously, you'll find out as you start getting started having kids.
Speaker 1:You've been married, things start coming up and you realize, okay, we didn't go to this party or we didn't do this because nobody handled scheduling it. Yeah, nobody put it on the family calendar, no one made it a priority. Maintaining ties with relatives who's going to do that? And that needs to be done? Right, we need to make that a priority. But you get busy in life with your work and hobbies and all these other things that you know you have to take care of. Those. Planning vacations and holidays, making major decisions how are you going to make a major decision? Are you just like, well, I'm the boss and here's the final answer. Or are you going to sit down and talk about it as a husband and wife and make the best decision for your family, obviously with prayer and counsel with your pastor, and to make these or talking major decisions? But you need to talk about that. Initiating talks, about the relationship. There's so many things and you might again, we're talking about expectations, right? So maybe in your household your dad always took care of the auto maintenance.
Speaker 1:I have kind of a funny story with that. I didn't have a dad in the house Growing up. I was raised by a single mom. We didn't have an automobile in the house until I was almost 18 years old. So auto maintenance I had no idea Zero is a zip. And Jen's dad is like he's like MacGyver, one of the brothers from Pet Boys and it's like I don't know something else Like the most DIY, the most DIY person in the world. He can fix or build anything. I'm not, and I'm not kidding, I can't. So when we got married, like I didn't know how to do anything, I had to change the battery on our car. This is before. Youtube was big too, so I went and bought the-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been married a long time we haven't married a long time. I got a new battery. I put it in, hook up the cables I was real feeling really good and the car went and start like what in the world. So I tow it to our mechanic, crazy John, and he calls me laughing and say hey, come back, your car's ready. So I come back over there and he's holding a little plastic cover and he's like hey, I'm gonna keep this because this was so funny.
Speaker 1:I didn't take the plastic cover off of the battery. Where you connect the positive negative, there's a plastic cover on those. I didn't take them off, I just put the cables right on it. I did, though you were supposed to take it off, but you go into a marriage with the expectation that your husband's gonna know how to do this right, Because your dad was always able to do that. Again, these expectations. That's why we need to have those conversations. At that moment, Jen realized I could have fixed anything. So surprisingly, she got me these books on how to fix things and Read this how to maintain your car.
Speaker 1:And now I have a YouTube university degree in how to fix things too.
Speaker 2:So Car maintenance for dummies. There you go. Car maintenance for dummies, for sure.
Speaker 1:But these things you need to talk about them, you need to understand. So if you're engaged and you're engaged to be married, have these conversations. If you've already been married, you can have been married for 10, 15 years and there's certain things that you're like, man, I hate doing this, or I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you here's your barometer, right, if you're going through something and you feel like, why am I always doing this? Nobody's helping me, that's a sign that you know what. There's something that we need to talk about. We need to sit down, we need to go over the list of all these things and write down a list. So you guys know, okay, this here's the list. Taking care of dog, who's gonna do that? Me, you. It doesn't have to be a fight, an argument, you're just sitting down and finding out, Because sometimes we'll sit down and we'll have that conversation and realize we both had the expectation that the other one was fine taking care of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so when someone has to do that, they get frustrated because they think it's the other person's job. But if we just took a couple of seconds to sit down and say, okay, who's gonna do this? You me, are we gonna share it? If we're gonna share it, what days are we gonna do it? Let's just figure this out instead of being frustrated and feeling, you know, stressed cause I'm always the one that's cooking dinner Like why doesn't anyone else cook dinner Like?
Speaker 1:I don't have time. Well, you've always done it. I just figured you liked doing it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it just gets crazy, and especially because then every other little thing that you do just kind of adds onto the pressure that you feel like. I feel like I'm doing everything around here. I have to cook dinner, I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to make the doctor's appointment Every single thing that you do during your week. Before you sit down. Here's a good thing to do Before you sit down, make a list of all the things that you're doing. Have your spouse do the same thing, make a list of all the things that they're doing and, as you go throughout your day, put those things on the list so that way, when you get to the end of the week, you can sit down and say, okay, here's all the things that we do on a weekly basis. Let's figure it out.
Speaker 2:If we can't do all this, can we incorporate our children into it? If you have older kids, this is the time to train them. This is a time where they should be helping out. They should be learning how to live life, and sometimes it's easier for us as parents to just do it, but it doesn't help our children. Do they do it perfectly? Do my six year olds unload the dishwasher perfectly? No, they do not. Am I standing there usually helping them? Yes, but you know what they're learning? Do my teen boys load it perfectly? They've gotten better. They have gotten better.
Speaker 1:I don't load it perfectly.
Speaker 2:We don't let Chris load the dishwasher. That is not one of his responsibilities.
Speaker 1:I'm old school baby, Give me a sponge and soap. Oh gosh.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so we just need to make the time and we need to make the effort to do this. It's gonna help alleviate so many issues in your family and it's really gonna help everyone when we take the time to actually talk about it and make a plan. Make the plan.
Speaker 1:The key is getting in sync. And how do we do that? Discuss it, agree upon it and do our best to stick to it. Do I always, every single Thursday, clean the bathroom? No, I do miss every once in a while, but I do know that. Okay, hey, I miss that, I need to do it. I might end up doing it on Saturday or whatever. But and if you miss it, get back to it. Don't be like, okay, well, I miss it and I guess I'm not doing it anymore.
Speaker 1:You know, again, the key is getting on sync, discuss it, agree upon it and do your best to stick to it. So another thing that we wanna get into is not only ex well, it's still in the vein of expectation but also needs. A study was done with wives and husbands and what their expectations or needs in a marriage were, and I found it kinda interesting, so I wanted to talk about it a little bit in this episode. So we're gonna review the topics, we're gonna read them and then we'll actually choose a couple to come back to them and dive in a little bit deeper in. So I'll start with Jen. She's gonna start with the wife's expectations or needs.
Speaker 2:So, according to this study, the top six expectations for wives. Number one the wife needs her husband to stand by her side, protect her and honor her through thick and thin. Number two she needs her husband to share his heart and be her best listener. Number three needs her husband to always be honest and transparent with her. Number four a wife needs her husband to be her biggest fan and motivator. Number five a wife needs her husband to foster her strength and health in mind, body and spirit. Number six a wife needs to know that her husband has wildly attracted to her, strongly desires her and has eyes only for her. Oh yeah, that's a tall order.
Speaker 1:No, all the lows, no. Would you add anything or anything out of those six, maybe one or two that jump out to you like, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Speaker 2:I think number one and number four are very similar. A wife needs her husband to stand by her side, protect her and honor her through thick and thin. And then number four was a wife needs her husband to be her biggest fan and motivator. I think both of those are so important.
Speaker 2:I think and it's probably different for different people- but, I think for me, those are two things that are really important. I want to know that my spouse is part of my team that work together through whatever happens and Chris has always you've always done a great job of that, of always not taking my side to the point where, if I was wrong, but being there with me, no matter what, no matter what we were going through, no matter what the stress was, no matter how I was feeling, even if it was ridiculous and I was like completely emotional and over the top, you've always done a really good job and I think that's really important. You have to know that your husband is there for you and even in those times when you know that you're not being what's the word? Sane, rational, I have those moments. You want to know that your spouse is not judging you during those times, but there's still your partner during those times and helping you through whatever it is that you're dealing with.
Speaker 2:So I think those are really important. Also, your husband being your fan, him being your motivator, not squashing whatever crazy ideas or dreams or things that you have in your head. I can dream up some pretty crazy things sometimes and I can't remember any time that Chris has told me no, and most of the time I end up talking myself out of them. Well, I wouldn't say most of the time.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, rarely I talk myself out of them, but he's always been my biggest fan, to the point where sometimes I'm like, okay, chill out, it's not that good.
Speaker 1:It's just so amazing, easy, no what am I this year?
Speaker 2:I'm extraordinary, extraordinary.
Speaker 1:Well, this week, yeah, this episode, I'm extraordinary.
Speaker 2:But I think those are very important. Your spouse has to be your partner in life, and that includes in the good and the bad, in the, in the crazy and the sane, and I think that that's probably the most important to me and I think those are two really, really key things for husbands.
Speaker 1:Well, the study also, like I said, had expectations for the husbands. They actually only had five in this article for the husbands.
Speaker 2:And are so easy.
Speaker 1:And the funny thing is in our script here I just copy and pasted them and the wife's it was several sentences and the husbands was just one word, just one word. And Jen's like what is this? And the study actually went into a whole lot more but I just copied it like that. So Okay, but number one for men, for husbands, an expectation or a need in the marriage companionship. Number one, number two respect. And these are in no specific order. Number three sex. Number four domestic support. Number five commitment. Number one companionship jumps out to me right away. And what do we mean by companionship? I'm sorry, companionship.
Speaker 1:Well, when you were dating, you went to his softball games, his flag football games or whatever. You were a part of your husband's life, his activities. You were a part of all of it. And sometimes, when you get married, you then stop being their companion in those areas. And why?
Speaker 1:If someone to tell you right now your husband needs that, he needs that companionship, he needs you to be a part of the activities in his life, if you're at a stage in your life where you don't have children yet, or maybe you only have one or two, and so you're able to have a little bit more free time with extracurricular activities like softball or something like that. He wants you there Now. I'm not saying you have to be there every single game, but he wants you to be there. He wants you to cheer him on, even though he knows you don't wanna be there, even though he knows it's freezing cold. Where we live it gets cold and windy, and I know you don't wanna be there at the baseball field, at the softball field, watching the game. But he wants you to be there. I want you to be there, jen. I want you to be there. I don't play softball anymore, that we have way too many kids.
Speaker 2:But-.
Speaker 1:Calls once a year.
Speaker 2:I'm right in the golf cart.
Speaker 1:That's the only safe place to be. I coach all of our children's sports teams baseball. This last year the girls played T-ball and Grayson played baseball and Boston actually aged out but I've coached all their teams and Jen used to come to the practices too and was there part of it the team mom Once we had the girls and started having several more children than of us.
Speaker 2:They asked us not to come anymore.
Speaker 1:They said keep your feral children away. Obviously Please don't come. Obviously, that changed a little bit, but she's at every game. She tells me I'm doing a good job with the kids and all that. I need that, just like any other husband. We need that companionship and so just remember that, ladies. You were there during the dating stage and don't let that change in the wedding. I mean in the marriage. Obviously, things do change. You're not gonna be at every single one if you have children or work or whatever, but don't just check out from that. Your husband needs that companionship and obviously the guys you want me to talk about sex right now? I know you do we all need it. We all want it. So I'm not gonna dive into that in this episode. We'll have one down the road.
Speaker 1:But the other thing that jumps out to me is respect, and Jen has always been really, really good with this Respect in how you treat your husband. Your husband needs respect. Men, everybody needs respect, right. But there's something for a man that when his wife respects him, or if his wife disrespects him, that is a wound or a cut that cuts deep and that's a wound that can last a very, very long time, especially if the disrespect is continual. So we all deserve respect Husband, wife, kids. Everybody deserves respect. But that's something that really jumps out to me in the husband's list is respect, and Jen's always been extremely respectful to me, even when I left the plastic cover on the battery. She would say you dummy, what are you doing? She didn't make me feel like an idiot. We did laugh about it. My mind just went to a crazy story. I'll share it another time.
Speaker 2:So Well, I think, going back to respect, I think sometimes we can get I think our world sometimes has kind of made this a bad word Especially in a male-female relationship like your subservient. If you're respecting your husband and everyone needs respect and there's not a lot of it going on in our world.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest, mutual respect in just society is completely gone. The way we respect elders, the way we respect law enforcement, the way we respect our leaders, the way we respect teachers, the way there's so little respect going on at all. But respect should be mutual Respect. You should be respecting your children, you should be respecting your spouse, you should be respecting husband and wives, parents. Respect doesn't mean that you are subservient or that you are I'm trying to find the right word but it doesn't mean that you're just acquiescing to everything and not questioning things. You can still have discussions. Have them in the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can disagree.
Speaker 2:Give your spouse the respect that they deserve to have the conversation in an adult manner.
Speaker 1:There you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:Instead of treating your spouse like a child or treating your spouse like less than human. Sometimes, you see, unfortunately we see it so many times, and this is why so many marriages don't last.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from such a simple thing is respect.
Speaker 2:We have to respect each other. Wives, you have to respect your husband and husbands have to respect their wives. It's so important. Be careful of how you're talking about your spouse in public, how you treat your spouse in public.
Speaker 1:And in public means social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in front of your children.
Speaker 1:Wherever you're at in front of your kids. If you're going to post something online negative about your spouse, don't do it. Don't, yeah, do not do it. Don't do it. Delete, hit, delete, yes, do not do that. That is so damaging to your marriage, to your spouse's character, to them personally. That's a wound that some will not be able to get over. Don't do it. Respect them.
Speaker 2:So true, yeah, respect them.
Speaker 1:So we've gotten a little bit longer. It's so funny. Tonight I was like, okay, this is gonna be a shorter one, we're gonna go 20 minutes. Well, we're not going to 20 minutes, so we're gonna move on. Was there anything else you wanted to add to these?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think those were really good. I liked both of those.
Speaker 1:Good, all right. Well, we always like to throw in a biblical perspective, and I have a scripture that I'm about to read that you might be thinking what and so I'll explain a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So Proverbs 2717, this is the New King James Version says as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. And you're thinking, well, that's talking about we. A lot of times people use this scripture and we think about, in the church, people of faith, your faith sharpening their faith, and we're sharpening each other, which is good and true. How I wanna look at this. It says friend, and you might be thinking well, we were talking about spouses. If your spouse is not your friend, your best friend, you have some work to do. So iron sharpening iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. What does that mean? Having the conversations with your spouse, spending that time with your spouse, having the respect for your spouse, the companionship being their number one fan, being in their corner, all of that that sharpens them.
Speaker 2:Making each other better.
Speaker 1:Making each other better. That's exactly what this scripture is talking about. So that's the biblical perspective that I wanted to give with regards to this episode, because it is so powerful. If you're not doing this yet, if you haven't already discussed expectations we'll call it roles who's going to do what you need to do so? And if you're not meeting the needs or expectations that your husband and wife have, talk about them and do your best to do so, and you will see that in doing so, you're going to sharpen each other and your relationship's going to sharpen, your relationship's going to strengthen and your marriage is going to be so awesome, which is exactly what God has in store for all of us in this wonderful gift that he's given us called marriage. Again, thank you so much for joining us on the Love Works Podcast, like rate and share. Tell everyone about it. Coming up soon.
Speaker 1:We're going to have some quick hit episodes where we're just addressing questions from our 11 listeners. So we have that, and we're actually going to be doing a live question and answer interview with some folks that have been marriage coaches and counselors for many, many years. So thank you again for joining us and, as always, we like to close out each episode in prayer. So, dear Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to allow us to gather together today. Lord, I pray that something that we've said, lord, might help somebody today, might strengthen their marriage. I pray for the husband or the wife or the fiance that's listening to this episode, that hasn't yet had that conversation on expectations or needs, or that this gives them the nudge in the right direction to have that, so they can have the greatest marriage that they could ever have, which is exactly what you want them to have, lord. We thank you and we praise you In Jesus' precious name. We pray amen and amen. Always remember love works, so let's get to work.