Let's face it, family life isn't all sunshine and smooth sailing; it's the gentle art of extending grace and the diligent craft of forging bonds that fortify our home. By highlighting the importance of treating our spouse with the same kindness we'd lavish on a friend, we carve out a space for conversation on the subtle dynamics that keep familial ties strong. Our candid moments reveal that sometimes, it’s the smallest gestures and the shared laughter over gourmet appetites or a child's podcast dreams that stitch us closer together.
Wrapping up with heartfelt thanks to our dedicated listeners, we share tips on fanning the flames of love through those everyday acts that say, 'You're my person.' Whether it's through sweet nothings left on the pillow or the tender embrace of a prayer, this episode is a treasure trove of reminders to cherish the ones we hold dear. So plug in, press play, and let's nurture those intentional, loving connections together.
Let's face it, family life isn't all sunshine and smooth sailing; it's the gentle art of extending grace and the diligent craft of forging bonds that fortify our home. By highlighting the importance of treating our spouse with the same kindness we'd lavish on a friend, we carve out a space for conversation on the subtle dynamics that keep familial ties strong. Our candid moments reveal that sometimes, it’s the smallest gestures and the shared laughter over gourmet appetites or a child's podcast dreams that stitch us closer together.
Wrapping up with heartfelt thanks to our dedicated listeners, we share tips on fanning the flames of love through those everyday acts that say, 'You're my person.' Whether it's through sweet nothings left on the pillow or the tender embrace of a prayer, this episode is a treasure trove of reminders to cherish the ones we hold dear. So plug in, press play, and let's nurture those intentional, loving connections 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, while keeping 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 oh wow. Wife, jennifer Duncan. We are so honored you've chosen to be with us today. Just a little housekeeping we release our episodes bi-weekly, so generally they come out on Sunday. We're Sunday morning. We're slacking this week because it's not come out until Sunday evening, but uh, I have an excuse though.
Speaker 2:What's our excuse.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:It was very memorable. It was super memorable.
Speaker 1:No, I do have to share a little story. So we went to a pretty nice restaurant and I made reservations quite a while ago. We get there valet course. I have a big truck, so they charge me more for parking my truck. And we walk in, they go and sit us down and they sit us at this tiny table in between two other couples. It took everything within me. I want to just lean over to them like hey, I didn't know we were going to be having dinner tonight. How?
Speaker 2:are you. Yeah, we thought it was a rough beginning, but it turned out really nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it did. It turned out nice. We had an enjoyable dinner but, yeah, pretty tight quarters. Anyways, back to the housekeeping. Please make sure that you like, share and rate the podcast Wherever you're listening. If it's on Apple Music or Apple Podcasts or Spotify, youtube wherever it may be, please go ahead and like, rate and comment and please share it. And, with that being said, I'd like to say a great big welcome to our newest group of listeners in Canada, denmark and Finland. So thank you so much for joining the Love Works podcast. We truly appreciate it. It's pretty amazing how we're on our 10th episode and in how many different countries we're being listened to at this point. So thank you for doing that. I think we've grown from 11 listeners to at least 13.
Speaker 2:I was thinking like 14 or 15 maybe.
Speaker 1:Wow, you're shooting for the stars with that number. We got that 14th cousin on my mother's dog's side. That started listening, but if you have any questions or any talks that you'd like us to discuss, you can go ahead and direct messages on social media, on Facebook or Instagram at the Love Works pages, and you can also email us at Love Works Podcast at gmailcom, or you can text at 747-322-1089. So again, thank you for listening and please like, rate and share.
Speaker 2:And, without further ado, we're going to go into our what's that section. In case you are just listening for the first time, we have a portion of our podcast we call what's that and we have a one-year-old and everything right now is what's that, what's that, what's that, what's that, what's that. So we decided to name that after his phrase right now and it just lets you see a little bit into our lives and experience what a day in the life of Duncan family looks like. What's yours, chris?
Speaker 1:All right, so I'm a cheat. I'm actually gonna give a few. I had a really good one and then I forgot to write it down, like I literally stopped in the middle of my day and was laughing about it. I went to write it down in my phone and I completely forgot. So one kind of cute thing part of our tribe our six children is triplets. They're six and each of them have kind of started their own little podcast or vlog on their little tablets that they have, and it's really funny to hear them talk about their day and what's going on. So the other day I walked in and Quinn was welcoming people to the Love Works podcast and she was having an episode.
Speaker 2:Probably better than ours Much better.
Speaker 1:I was gonna post hers, but she wanted too much for it. So, and then she wanted royalties and all that stuff. So I was like, oh man, we'll just continue with ours. So but another thing happened today. We're having lunch On Sundays we normally have like a late lunch because we had like late lunch early dinner and today, instead of going out to eat or getting something to eat, we, after church, came home and we just made sandwiches and stuff. And I looked over and I believe it was Rowan. She was eating avocado toast and I just started laughing. I'm like, is that one of our six-year-old daughters eating avocado toast? And so Grayson, our 13-year-old, he's like, yeah, what's the big deal? And it as he eats lobster mac and cheese. Yeah, as he's eating lobster mac and cheese leftover from our Valentine's bill.
Speaker 2:Something's going wrong here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I just started laughing and I was like avocado toast wasn't a thing when we were kids Like when I was a kid, that I we didn't have avocados in the house, and so we were talking about fancy meals. And so a fancy sandwich when I was a kid is we would take bologna. Yes, bologna, that circular. I don't know if it's meat, but whatever it is, you would cut out four corners of it, toss it in a frying pan on the oven and fry the bologna, throw it on some bread with some mustard and a slice of cheese. And that was a fancy sandwich when I was a kid, and now my six-year-old is eating avocado toast. So you know what's that.
Speaker 2:Well, mine is kind of funny. Mine is actually asher this week. So we're out as a family and all the older kids were off doing something, and so I had Asher and he was running around and I had my phone out and there was like some memories popped up of videos of our two oldest boys when they were real little, and so Asher loves to watch little videos of himself mostly, but sometimes he likes to watch his sister's too, so he's being kind of bussy. I was like, oh, asher, come here, come watch this video, boston Grayson. So he walks over, he looks at my phone, he looks at the video, takes my phone, throws it, turns around and puts his little arms up for me to hold him. He was like, yeah, those losers. No, no, that's the old version, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm new and improved. I'm new and improved. We don't need those guys.
Speaker 2:I'm the only one that matters right now. Okay, Obviously you had to keep going because you know.
Speaker 1:You weren't satisfied.
Speaker 2:So that was pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Oh man, so that's a perfect. What's that to lead into our episode today? I know I say this every time and it jinx us every time. His, our episode should be very long today. But I was listening to the radio the other day and something came on and I thought of that song. It's an old song written by Meatloaf or sung by Meatloaf or however that goes, and it was. You know, I'll do anything for love, anything you've been dreaming of, but I won't do that. And so I started laughing and I thought of an episode for our podcast entitled but I Won't Do that. Aw, thank you, meatloaf. Thank you, meatloaf. We do not own the rights to that song, so please don't sue us. But I thought about that, but I won't do that. And I think actually, what spurred the thought not only was listening to the radio, but our dog. We've mentioned them. You might even hear them in the background. We have three Frenchies, pretty annoying, but they're also really cute too.
Speaker 1:So, but they cost us money, all the time I thought about people spending money on their pets. There's nothing wrong with that but then they won't, you know, spend money on their spouse or significant other or something. So I thought of that episode, but I won't do that. I'll do anything for love, but I won't do that. So we're going to discuss that tonight. So, Jen, I'll let you go ahead and kick that off.
Speaker 2:Great. So have you ever found yourself you're going above and beyond for friends, for a family member Chris mentioned a pets, sometimes even your kids. But when it comes to your spouse, those efforts, sometimes you kind of resent having to do that for some reason, like you feel like they should be able to function on their own, like can you just grow up already?
Speaker 2:So today we're going to explore why that might be and how we can bridge the gap between our actions towards different relationships in our lives. We're going to start by examining the ways we often prioritize others over our spouses. Think about the times when you've rearranged your schedule to help a friend move, you've cooked elaborate meals for your family or even pampered your pet with a fancy grooming session. Or I mean people do all kinds of things spray-paint them, color their nails, buy stupid expensive food. I don't know it's ridiculous, but these acts of kindness and care come naturally to many of us. But when it comes to our spouse, why do we fall short and why do we resent sometimes having to be there to meet their needs?
Speaker 1:to go above and beyond, and you mentioned something helping. I think you said something about yeah, help a friend move, we'll go help a friend move, like their whole house. But when our spouse asks us to move something from one part of the house to the other part of the house, it's this big deal. Like, oh my gosh, I got to do that again. Like I got to move the furniture from upstairs to downstairs or whatever it is. But if a friend reaches out and says, hey, man, I'm moving this weekend, can you come help me? Like oh yeah, I got you, no problem, I'll bring my truck. So that one kind of hit a note we just moved a bunch of stuff from upstairs to downstairs, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like three things, but one reason could be familiarity. We might take our spouses for granted because they're always there. All our interactions with others are more intermittent. It's easy to overlook the small gestures that can strengthen our bond when we're caught up in the routine of everyday life. When your spouse is always there, when your children are always there, it becomes easier to discount their needs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Weirdly, oddly enough, and we can be kind of blind to that sometimes and not realize that we're even doing that it's just like, well, they should be able to do this on their own. Or why do I always have to help them do this? I have stuff I need to get done too, but we don't act that way with our friends, our acquaintances. I always try to remind my children, like with their siblings how are you treating your siblings? You should be treating your siblings the way and talking to your siblings the way you would talk to a friend, right? If you wouldn't say something rude or degrading to a friend, you shouldn't say that to your sibling. I think it's the same in a marriage relationship or a parent-child relationship. We have to realize that our spouses, our children, have feelings still, and the things that we say and how we react to their needs and what they need us to do for them or how they need us to help them, impacts them and it impacts the relationship.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Another factor to consider when it comes out is expectations. Jen kind of said it in the onset of this episode like can't you do that yourself? We often have higher expectations for our spouses or even our children compared to others. Right, A friend or somebody can, or even just an acquaintance. We can have a lower expectation for them to do something and we would do it for them. But then for our spouse or for one of our children, we're like no, you can do that, why aren't you doing that? We really need to stop and think about that, because if we really do love them, why not, right? I'm obviously not talking about being taken advantage of and whatever, but hey, if you have children and you're a parent.
Speaker 2:You can take advantage of it anyway.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, we might expect them to understand our needs, like talking about our spouses without having to express them explicitly, or to share the burden of household responsibilities equally. These are expectations that we have, but again, these unspoken expectations can lead to frustration and resentment. We've talked about that before in some of our other episodes. But we have to adjust the expectation. Everybody has them, but we need to remember hey, our spouse is number one, they're above anyone else, they're above the kids. We have six kids, jen. I tell them your mom is here before you and your mom will be here after you.
Speaker 2:I think this too, coming kind of from a different angle, I think spouses can do this together too. They can forget to make things special. We were awful, I'm going to tell on us.
Speaker 2:We were horrible last year. We didn't celebrate our anniversary, we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day, we didn't celebrate our birthdays. There was just stuff scheduled every one of those days and it was so busy we just didn't make the time to do it. I was like that was an awful year. We didn't celebrate our stuff and we put time and effort into celebrating our kids' birthdays. We put time and effort into celebrating Christmas.
Speaker 2:We put time and effort in all these things, but we didn't put time and effort into things that we shared together. That was one thing that I was like we're not going to do that this year. This year we have to make sure that we've been pretty good with it every other year, but we have to make sure that we're taking the time and we're making the time for each other and celebrating the things that are important to us mutually. This doesn't even have to be like I won't do that for you.
Speaker 2:You won't do that. For me, it could be things that you let slip through the cracks together meaningful dates in your lives, special occasions, special holidays, anything like that. That can be something, too, that you have to make sure. Hey, we're doing this together, we are making sure that we are each other's priority and not letting other things interfere with that.
Speaker 1:It starts with mindfulness and intentionality in our actions. We talk about that a lot being intentional, being intentional parent, being intentional in your marriage. When you were dating, it was like you know you're not going to be able to do that Happy.
Speaker 1:You know, one month anniversary. You know, happy, happy, 436 day of our relationship anniversary. And you, everything was celebrated. Everything, yeah, everything was celebrated. Yeah, totally, I mean, you were doing whatever you could to celebrate. And then, for some reason, a lot of times, when we get married, and as time goes by, maybe you're newly when you're like, yeah, we just celebrated our six months, you know we've been married. Yeah, but as time goes by, like Jensen, you get busy. And last year we were terrible, you know, we didn't take the time to really celebrate each other and to celebrate our bond and to celebrate our union.
Speaker 1:And it starts with mindfulness and intentionality. So if you find yourself putting others before your spouse, you find yourself, you know, going with a meatloaf song, but I won't do that. You need to make sure you get back to that mindfulness for your spouse and that intentionality in our actions to make sure that we're putting them first, to make sure that we're prioritizing them. And I promise you you start doing that now. Hey, everybody gets busy, everybody slips up, but the great thing is, it's a new day. You can start doing the right thing today and turn that around.
Speaker 2:That's so important. I think we can. Like you said, mindfulness. We need to stop and just take a minute sometime during our busy weeks to reflect on ways that you can show appreciation for your spouse even on a daily basis. When you were dating, you woke up with that person on your mind and you couldn't wait to text them or call them or hear their voice, or you couldn't wait to do something to impress them right, make something special for them. We need to start getting back to those things, even though you roll over and they're there and you're like oh wow, I hope they pressured you.
Speaker 1:Got that helitosis in your face, but no, for real.
Speaker 2:Like you, we need to get that back in our relationships and make sure that we're setting aside time. It could be a sweet text, it could be a little note that you leave. It could be a special thing that you make them cup of coffee. Whatever it is, it can be something every day that you do just to make them stop and think. You know what? My wife loves me, my husband loves me. If you text your spouse, they're going to stop and think while they're reading that text, about you. So you're making that person realize that you care about them and then they're starting to think about you and it goes back and forth, right. So it's so important that we just make these simple little adjustments in our day to make sure our spouse understands how much we care about them. It could be even as simple as a compliment.
Speaker 2:Those are huge, especially when they're sincere. Right, I tend to think no compliment is sincere.
Speaker 1:I know Jen's the worst at receiving a compliment. I'm like hey, baby, you look beautiful. She's like what do you want? I'm like, well, I want you obviously.
Speaker 2:But I still like them. Any type of little surprise. It doesn't have to cost money, it doesn't have to take a long time, it just has to be.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It just has to be something.
Speaker 1:It has to be something.
Speaker 2:Think of little ways. There's so many ways. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but sometimes I'll write little notes on Chris's mirror in the morning. I haven't done it recently because the girls thought they could start writing all the bad thoughts, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:The girls I was just going to say that the girls wrote all over my mirror and there's like kisses all over it. It was cute but also messy.
Speaker 2:So we had to resort to other methods. But hey, if you don't have triplets at home, you can write cute messages on the mirror. You can write cute messages on their napkin when they're eating breakfast. There's just so many things. Think outside the box and just think of a little way every day that you can let your spouse know that. Hey, I'm taking the time because you matter. It could be even setting us a dedicated time for a conversation. How many times do we go through a day where we're just so busy by the time we're done, we don't even really want to talk. We're just like okay, what kind of show you want to watch? Okay, I'm going to bed, it's just like I'm done, but taking the time to sit down and ask questions, talk to your spouse. There's all kinds of things we were talking the other day about. Oh, I think there was a couple sitting.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say this, so sitting with us at our Valentine's dinner.
Speaker 2:Our Valentine's dinner. It was our 10th year anniversary. We know all about them because we were basically sitting each other's class.
Speaker 1:I shared a fork with a guy next to me.
Speaker 2:But they had a little app and it was like asking them, giving them questions to ask each other over the last 10 years of things that had happened and stuff like that. It seems cheesy, but what a great way to start a conversation or start thinking. Sometimes we're so tired and so mentally beat down by just the day that we just don't have the capacity to think.
Speaker 1:Well, and it was great that they identified that, because when we originally sat down we smiled and whatever and said, hey, can I have that fork? But they weren't really interacting. Yeah, like Jen and I don't stop talking, so we're just going for it, we're just talking and stuff. And I could tell they were just kind of there. The wife was taking tons of selfies, they were dressed very nicely, the husband wasn't like a taxi I mean, they're a beautiful couple and the waiter's like oh, what are you guys celebrating? She was so excited to tell me it was their 10-year wedding anniversary but there was no communication going on at all. And then she pulled out her phone and it looked like she may have texted him the thing. And so he pulls out his phone and they're going through the questions and it spurred a conversation for them.
Speaker 2:And you can feel like change the whole environment and whole experience they were having together. So it was really kind of cool. But if you have to do that, I went and got some conversation starter cards. I think it was from the adventure challenge.
Speaker 2:I ordered a couple boxes and there's just really neat questions in there. We've been married 22 years almost and we have known each other since we were children. But it's surprising sometimes, even though you think you know your spouse is surprising questions you don't think to ask and so it's just one of those things that's kind of neat to see them, kind of neat to throw it out there and if you can't like mentally start a conversation, hey thanks for you.
Speaker 1:You got your starter.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having your tools. Take those tools. We just have to make sure we're prioritizing our spells and actively nurturing our relationships. Love works, but it's work right. We have to work at it and it doesn't have to be hard work, but it does have to be something that we're mindful of and we're intentionally doing every single day so we can strengthen our foundation of our partnership. It's natural to prioritize different relationships in our lives, but it's essential to remember the importance of showing love and appreciation for your spouse. They are your number one.
Speaker 1:They have to be the number one and they have to know that they're number one.
Speaker 2:By recognizing the ways we may unintentionally neglect our partners and realizing those and making a conscious effort to change our behavior, we can create more fulfilling relationship that our spouse will never wonder where they rate on your list of priorities.
Speaker 2:I think that can be very disconcerting and very damaging in a relationship. If a spouse isn't sure where they fall on your list of priorities, they have to know that, hey, my wife or my husband has my back. I'm their number one, I'm the most important thing in their life. If something happens, I'm the one that's going to be there. If something happens to me, they're the one that's going to be there for me. It's just really important that we make sure that we're consciously doing that, just like we did when we were boyfriend and girlfriend, before the wedding, before all the kids, before the work, the jobs, the careers, the school, before all of that. They were important, they were at the top of our list and we have to make sure that we're always coming back to that.
Speaker 1:That's so good. So don't get caught in that situation or in that feeling, that thought process of I love you but I'm not going to do that. Don't allow that to be the theme song of your marriage. Biblical perspective I always like to, because we are faith-based, so I always like to have a biblical perspective. Ecclesiastes 4-9, the NIV version, says two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. You can file this under a Bible verse for married couples to never forget Having someone to lean on through good and bad times is a sacred gift. Being your spouse putting them first, you're always going to have that person there to help you up. You're always going to have that person there to maybe not even help you up, but help you from falling right Because you've put them first. They're a part of every facet of your life. They're there and you're intentionally working on that relationship. So I thought that was an apt scripture for our episode for today.
Speaker 1:So again, thank you so much for joining the Love Works Podcast. Please again like rate and share. We're just really appreciative. Again, I can't say this enough. I feel like I say it like a hundred times, but thank you so much for listening and joining us and taking of your time to listen to the podcast. We really truly do appreciate it. I'd like to close this out in prayer, dear Lord. We thank you for this opportunity that you've given us, lord, to once again have another podcast episode and just to share our thoughts and our heart for the week. And, lord, I pray that something that we've said might touch somebody, might spur something in their relationship, and maybe they've found themselves in a rut and this will just help them, give them that encouragement that they've been looking for to get out of that and to be more intentional and to do better. Lord, we thank you, we praise you In Jesus' precious name, we pray amen and always remember love works, so let's get to work.