Your Marriage Isn’t Broken - You Are

Most marriages don’t end with a blowup — they end with a slow fade. 

In this episode, Tim Owen gets brutally honest about what actually destroys relationships, what quietly holds them together, and the four foundational things most couples were never taught. 

He draws from his own failed marriage, years of counseling real couples, and decades of biblical study to get at the root of why so many relationships — even Christian ones — quietly fall apart. 

Whether your marriage is thriving, struggling, or somewhere in between — this conversation is for you.

Check out our YouTube Channel “You Finishing Well” and our website: www.youfinishingwell.com 

All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for updates - all free. 

Stay strong, pure, and like Christ - Thanks for taking the journey with me! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, and welcome back to my podcast, You Finishing Well. This is Tim Owen. So I want to come right out of the gate today and talk about relationships. Really, I want to talk about marriages and even marriages that you think may be broken, but the issue isn't that the marriage is broken. The issue is maybe you are broken. Let's talk about it. You know, I know this might be hard to believe, but I'm telling you with great experience. When I became married the second time, so a lot of you may not know that that's the case with me, I really begin to discover it really wasn't my wife the first time. The problem and the broken thing was actually me. So I want to ask a question. If you are in a marriage right now, or maybe you're a person dreaming about one, or you think your marriage is too far gone to even save, what if, listen and dream with me for a moment, what if it could actually thrive, not just survive, not just coexist, but genuinely deeply thrive. Can any marriage, can all marriages become better? And I'm telling you, I'm telling you with great confidence, yes it can, but it's really not the way that most people think. Today I want to talk about marriage. I want to talk about people who are thinking about uh relationships or serious relationships or maybe getting married. I also want to talk about hidden things, the secret sins, the unspoken desires, the quiet routines that I think slowly smother the flame. And I also want to talk about what actually can be done about these things, because there are things you can do. These are not just theories. This isn't just wishful thinking, this is real biblical, battle-tested truth. And also I want to give you a little warning up front. I'm gonna get kind of personal. I'll tell you a little bit about myself and some of my stuff, because I have lived on both sides of this the broken side, the rebuilt side, and I want you to hear both sides. But before I get into the story, I want to plant something in your mind right now, something that I want you to kind of carry through this podcast. In all of my years of studying marriage, and I've done a lot of reading and studying and even counseling myself, being counseled, I mean, we, Wendy and I have also counseled many, many couples. I have learned, frankly, from my own wreckage. I have come to believe, and I wrote a book about it, about four foundational things, only four, that if they are not in place, a marriage will slowly fall apart. Now, they're not ten things, it's four things. And here's to me what seems to be striking most couples, as we talk about them and talk to them, have never been taught these things. I mean, it's not in premarital counseling, it's not from the pulpit, it's not from their parents. There is an absence of knowledge, and this absence is quietly costing people everything in their relationships. So I'm not going to hand you all four of them right now. I want you to kind of think about these four things. Okay, he's got four things, what are they gonna be? But I do want to kind of touch on them just ever, very ever so slightly. Well, the first one has to do with feelings. It's almost every relationship begins with feelings. It's that you know it, it's the rush, it's the electricity, it's the, oh, I have never felt like this with anyone. And feelings are real, they're quite beautiful, but feelings, as you well know, they rise and they fall with seasons, with stress, with age, with hardship. And if the primary thing holding your marriage together is how you feel, you are building on sand. And I don't know if you know the Bible verse with Jesus said you can build your house on rock, which is him, or you can build your house on sand. But when the storm comes and the storm comes for both, the house built on the sand falls and it falls greatly. The second thing I want to talk about is similarities. Now, this is all fun stuff, it's shared interest, it's compatible personalities, it's loving the same things. And I think all of that is just absolutely beautiful and wonderful, and it makes for a great first date. But it cannot carry a marriage through real suffering and real life. Similarities are fine, it's a good starting point, but they are a dangerous foundation. The third thing, because I said there's four, kind of cuts deeper, and it has to do with the kind of love that you bring. And it's and it's a mentality of having a contract love, meaning I will love you as long as you remain lovable. And there uh is a contrast to that called covenant love, which means I will love you even when you're not lovely. And here's the kind of sobering truth about that, I think. Sooner or later, listen, sooner or later, every one of us becomes unlovely. And it's not just on a bad day, sometimes it's for a season, maybe even years. So my question is, what kind of love do you have then when the hard times show up? And then the last thing, the fourth thing, has to do with truly being equally yoked. Now, a lot of you already know what you think, you know what that means, but in my book I break that down in great, great detail. But I want to tell you right now, it goes far deeper than just sharing faith or a denomination or similar beliefs. It's much, much deeper. Most couples have never really explored what equally yoked really means and that and and looked at it at the level that it actually deserves. So these four things I believe every married couple, every engaged couple, every person in a serious relationship, you really need to understand them. And they're biblical, they're rock solid, and they are genuinely life-changing. So I'm not gonna I'll hold them back for now, but I want to share with you about them in just a few moments. So he so here's what I've seen in counseling couples over the years, and it's always the same story, to be honest. All of the sudden, in a marriage, secret sins bubble to the top, or hidden desires, or unexposed selfishness, or exposed uh expectations that no one knew about. Or we've seen couples where there's deep routines, they're too comfortable. It's kind of a soul-numbing routine, and these have slowly, ever so slowly, snuffed out the flame that frankly used to burn hot. And here's the heartbreaking thing to me as we watch these. This is the reason I wrote the book, because I I just see too much of this. These are people who loved each other, who meant every word in their vows, who would have told you on their wedding day that nothing could touch what they had. So what happened? And I think the uh Proverbs 423 says it very clearly, above all, listen, this is important, above all else, I mean that that's a pretty broad statement. Above all else, guard your heart. For everything you do flows from it. Everything flows from the heart. It just does. And when we stop guarding it, when we let the wrong things in our life, and we let the right things slip out, the marriage doesn't just explode. It's not it's not huge, but it erodes. It's quiet, it's slow. It's like a slow leak that you don't notice in your tire, and then before you know it, you're on the side of the highway with a flat tire. I mean, it happens that way. We see it. I see it over and over with great experience. So let me say something that might surprise you. Maybe some of you are thinking, well, Tim, at least we're just both Christians. At least we have that foundation. And I do love that. But I want to be honest with you, if you've heard of the Barna Group, and they measured the statistics of believers, Christians and non-believers, and 35% of Christians have experienced a divorce. And here's what's interesting: the divorce rate among Christians and non or non-Christians, I'm sorry, they're equal. There is no difference. So being equally yoked, like we're both Christians, it just doesn't mean that you have some kind of guarantee that you're going to make it. A shared faith isn't a guarantee. It's really kind of a starting point, sort of an invitation. So let me tell you about my marriage, my first marriage. And then I want to I want to be very honest about this. My first marriage, listen, it failed because of me. I mean, that's it. It failed because of me. I thought of myself more than I thought of my wife. And I had desires that I had never told her about. And I let those things kind of swirl around in my head too much, too often. They did. And eventually I acted on them. And when I acted on them, my heart followed. I don't know if you've ever heard of Dr. Kurt Thompson. He writes, he's a Christian psychologist, wrote the book of Soul of Shame, but he explains this is a guy that really understands how the mind works, that the mind is always being shaped, listen, it's always being shaped by what we consistently attend our thoughts to. Our thought patterns literally form neural pathways, and these pathways become the roads that we travel on. So what you dwell on long enough, listen, you think about it long enough, you will eventually move toward those things that you think about. And this isn't just psychology, it's the Proverbs 23. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And here's something I learned, but I learned it way too late. There are specific, this is important, emotional desires that every man and woman they carry those desires into a marriage. And most of you don't even know what those desires are. There's a priority. A doctor, a psychologist interviewed over 6,000 couples and they all had the same desires. Do you know what they are? Well, they're in my book. But anyway, those desires, if they go unmet on either side, man or woman, you are a ticking time bomb. And I didn't even know what those things were. And when I did learn them, you know what I did? I said, Well, why aren't you meeting mine? There wasn't anything in me. I was so selfish that I should have thought about providing those desires to my wife at the time. But it was all about me. I was selfish, I was sinful, I was mostly concerned with my own happiness, and honestly, I did not give hers a second thought. You know, the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2, 4, he said, do not be interested only in your own life. And boy was I. But instead be interested in the lives of others. I mean, how simple is that? It says, serve other people, love other people. So I want to tell you about another couple that I know. I mean, this is a great couple. They were married for decades, they were Christians, they went to church every Sunday, they raised their kids, they served their community, they were truly good people. But here's the problem is they begin to work opposite shifts really almost for their entire marriage. Day shift, night shift. They were like two ships passing in the night. And over time, they had built a life around each other instead of with each other. They had routines, they had roles, they had responsibility, but somewhere along the way, they stopped being the students of each other. Now listen to me, please, very carefully. Nothing, and I mean nothing, not your work, not your career, not a not a job opportunity, nothing, nothing should come between a married couple. That gap, whatever it creates, what it's a work schedule, it's busyness, it's distraction, secret sin, worse in worst case, this is normally the thing that causes the first division. And here's the problem. Once the divide starts, typically it always grows. And what starts kind of as a crack becomes a canyon if it's never addressed. And you already know this, but the question is, are you in the middle of this? And here's the thing about a relationship that I think isn't, we don't really just under fully understand. It's always either declining or it's growing. Nothing just sits there idle. You can't be idle in a marriage or frankly any area of your life. I mean, the truth of the matter is the flame either gets fed or it goes out. It just does. You know, Jesus said to one of the churches in Revelation, man, this one, this one probably hits me harder than the other things that he said to the other churches. He said, I know what you do. You are not hot nor cold. And I wished you were, because you are just lukewarm. You're neither hot or cold, and I'm ready to spit you out of my mouth. The biggest issue we see as we counsel is routine, boredom. They're not your marriage isn't hot. It's not even cold. It's just lukewarm. And there are way too many marriages like that. The Song of Solomon talked about two people who were wholly devoted to each other. And they said in the Song of Solomon 6.3, I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. I mean, that's a that's a beautiful thing. And that's not a honeymoon, it's a declaration of being chosen, of being intentional, and of in a and being in a belonging type of relationship. So I want you to hear this as we are headed toward closing. And if you've divorced, you you will know exactly what I mean when I say this. But divorce is like death. But here's the problem: you're not dead. You just have to keep living with the loss. And the loss, I'm telling you, because my parents divorced, I divorced, it never ends. The holidays are awkward. New relationships are complicated. You have sp step parents, step-brothers, it's all awkward and just different, and blended families and people just can't adapt. And it's not natural. It's not what God originally intended. And this weirdness, if you will, will continue even to a funeral. I've lived it. So let me give you the good news. Wendy and I have watched couples who were really done. I mean, they were saying that they were done, but somehow they found their way back. And it wasn't because the circumstances really changed. Now, obviously, if they're an affair, they stop that. And it wasn't really because a person magically became somebody who they wanted them to become, but it was because one person in a relationship, listen, decided to get honest. They finally decided to get educated. They decided to stop pointing the finger and actually start doing some work, listen, not on their spouse, not on the other person, but on themselves. And here's the beautiful part is when you apply work and effort on you, you know, it's like going to the gym. You are going to change. And part of that work is leaning into God. Philippians 1 set 6 says, God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again. That's really the full healing of all of us. But if you ask God to help you with you, not ask him to help your spouse, help you, he will help you. God is not done with you. Even if it's already divorced, he's not done with it. You may not remarry, but you will change and you will grow if you will just be honest. You have to light the burner of hope. And then you have to turn the flame up. You have to get educated. You gotta start somewhere. And here's kind of where I want to get practical with you. Number one, let me give you a few things. Get educated. You need to read. You need to listen. You need to study, and you and you need to understand what is hurting you and know how that works. Second, I think you just need to evaluate your own private desires. You do have expectations. You do. Have you ever written them down? Do you know what they are? What about the hidden things that you really desire? You have to come clean on these things. You have to expose them to God, and I would suggest a trustworthy counselor. And just don't wait, just get honest. Third, you have to set, listen, this is important. You have to set goals for yourself, not for your spouse. You can't control your spouse. You can only control you. When you set goals and don't achieve them, you become frustrated. So set goals that you can control and only goals about yourself. Fourth, just invite God into the real stuff. The real stuff. Not the polished Sunday morning stuff. Not the stuff you, if you're really struggling in a particular area, you've got to invite him into that real stuff. Because the Holy Spirit, listen, the Holy Spirit can rebuild what you can't. He can. You know, Proverbs 3, 5, 6 says, trust the Lord. I know this sounds subreligious if you're not a church person, but listen, trust the Lord with all of your heart. And don't depend on your own understanding. That means get educated and remember the Lord and all that you do, and He, not you, not somebody else, He will give you success. So I want to be transparent with you. I wrote a book called What Nobody Told You About Marriage. And I want to be clear about something. I make about three bucks on this book. It costs$9.99, and I priced it for anybody. Who needs the counsel and wants to grow. So this is not a revenue stream for me. It's really more of a mission. And those four things that I mentioned earlier: the feelings that can't sustain you, the similarities that won't save you, the difference between covenant love and contract love, and what it truly, truly means to be equally yoked. That is the backbone of the book. I'm going to walk you through all four of those in depth and specifically on the fourth one, being equally yoked. I want to lay out at least eight critical areas where a couple needs to be aligned. It's not just faith, it's eight areas. And most couples have never even had these conversations. I know because we counsel them. Also, I want to share with you what I've learned from some of the top relationship researchers and Christian psychologists, the love busters that quietly destroy relationship, the top five emotional desires in order, in priority for both men and women, so that you do not leave the door open for affairs or emotional distance. And the eight alignment points in being equally yoked. Whether you are 19 years old, listen to me, or whether you're 65, and you're wondering if you can ever get the spark back, and can you be deeply happy and fully enjoy your marriage? I promise you, I promise you, this book is for you. We have even seen divorced couples come back and remarry. They're not, they are, these are not fairy tales. These are real people, real wreckage, real redemption. And it happens honestly more than you think. So I'm going to give you the link in my podcast at the end of it, and you'll see it. You can go on Amazon. It is called What Nobody Told You About Marriage. You can just go to and it's uh it'll soon be on Audible. But listen to me. Your marriage, or if you're in a relationship, you're not married yet, it is not broken. It is not beyond repair. You may be operating on just simply incomplete information or unhealed wounds or unexamined habits, but all of that is fixable. You can learn. I don't care how old you are, you can change, you can grow toward your spouse instead of away from them. And when you grow toward God, and you're gonna hear some God in my book, He has a way of walking you right back toward the person you promised yourself to. But here's the best part. You are gonna grow. You are gonna change. I'm telling you, you're gonna pop out the other end, and you will not be, I'm telling you, you will not be the same. Can it get better? Yes, it can. But it starts with you. It starts with honesty, and it starts now if you want it to start now. So let me pray first. God, I just come to you on behalf of everybody listening, and some of them are carrying very heavy stuff in their marriage, or it's in their heart, and some of them are even maybe in the middle of a slow fade. They don't even notice it's happening. And some of them, frankly, are just lying there in the middle of the wreckage of it all. But and some of them are kind of scared. Maybe someone has scared them or something's happened that they never thought would take place. But I'm asking you, please, and I pray for myself, that you meet us right where we are. We don't have to clean ourselves up to come to you. We just have to come to you. So where and if there is something hidden, if I'm just asking you to bring light to that darkness and gently and mercifully and redemptively just help us and help us change. And if there's selfish pride, I ask that you soften it. And when that where there's a wound, I just ask that you cover that up and you heal it. And whatever you do, I pray that you will heal it from the inside out. So give us all the courage to stop managing the distance between us and our spouse or the person we love. I pray you give us the humility to stop asking, why aren't they changing? And start asking, change me, please. And I just ask that you reignite, fan the flame, you know, help the embers get hot again, because it can happen. Help us all to give all that we can to change ourselves first. Help us finish well. And as we mess up and we will, help us draw another line. Write the word start, and when we look back, Lord, we're gonna see all those lines. And we won't be where we want to be, but we won't be where we were. And we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, my good people. If this episode has helped you, I want you to share with someone who needs it. Grab a copy of What Nobody Told You About Marriage. It's on Amazon. I'm gonna try to do the link. If you don't see it, just go to Amazon and get the book, uh, What Nobody Told You About My Marriage. And until next time, have a beautiful day.