EP 04 - Dr. Robert Paul - A Journey to Stronger Marriages - PART 1

In this episode of Upstream, Joy Tolle welcomes Dr. Robert Paul, Vice President of the Focus Marriage Institute with Focus on the Family. As a licensed professional counselor and accomplished author, Dr. Paul shares insights on restoring marriages in crisis through programs like Hope Restored intensives. Learn about the impact of group therapy, the power of vulnerability in healing relationships, and how thousands of couples have found hope when all seemed lost. Whether your marriage is struggling or you’re seeking wisdom to support others, this conversation offers encouragement, tools, and powerful testimonies of transformation.

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Transcript

Unknown
Welcome to upstream. I'm Joy Toal, a chaplain with River Radio Ministries and on air. We're here on the podcast. We'll journey together with Jesus as our guide and navigator against life's tide. My guest on this episode is Doctor Robert Paul, a licensed professional counselor and the vice president of the Focus Marriage Institute with focus on the family. He is an accomplished speaker and author.

00:00:22:06 - 00:00:43:19
Unknown
He and his wife, Jenny, live in Springfield, Missouri and have been married more than 43 years. They have four children and six grandchildren. And today we're speaking with Doctor Paul about Focus Marriage Institute and their work for restoring marriages in crisis. The resources and programs available to help, such as couples group intensives or therapy, and connecting couples with local counseling resources.

00:00:43:21 - 00:01:14:12
Unknown
Now let's go upstream. Is Doctor Paul. He has coauthored five books the DNA of a relationship with Doctors Gary and Greg Smalley. The DNA relationships for couples and nine lives that will destroy your marriage, and the truths that will save it and set it free. With Doctor Greg Smalley as well. And then finding Ever After his most recent book, restoring Hope and Integrative Approach to Marital Therapy, is written with Doctor Robert Burpee and Doctor Christine Anson, and it's geared toward professional therapists.

00:01:14:15 - 00:01:47:07
Unknown
Pastors lay counselors, people like chaplains like us that are dealing with a lot of couples in crisis. And this presents the focus, marriage model and focus marital therapy approach that underlies our focus on the family's successful hope restored, marriage intensive programs. So, Doctor Paul is a former professor at Evangel University, where he taught both the biblical studies and psychology departments, specializing in marriage and family counseling, human sexuality, and the integration of faith into all areas of life.

00:01:47:09 - 00:02:08:15
Unknown
So Paul and his wife Jenny live in Springfield, Missouri, and they have been married over 40 years. I think that is such an accomplishment in and of itself. They have four children and six grandchildren. So today we're going to be talking about marriages in crisis and then things we can do or steps we can take. So I know in 2023, focus on the family helped.

00:02:08:15 - 00:02:37:03
Unknown
More than 170,000 marriages that were in crisis helped him see significant growth and improvement towards actually many instances, probably saving their marriage. I do know from looking back that you, that's like nearly twice as many marriages that were improved in 2021. So my question to you is why do you see the significant increase? What are the factors behind that?

00:02:37:10 - 00:02:58:19
Unknown
Well, that's a great question. I think that there's a couple of things that that I see factoring into that one. Marriages are in a pretty bad state right now, partly because of what we've gone through. I mean, I think Covid really did throw things upside down in a big way, and it has affected mental health and relational health.

00:02:58:19 - 00:03:18:25
Unknown
I think across the board. So I think that's part of it that people are are looking for help because they're struggling work. So, you know, so we have more people coming to us. But I think in addition to that, we've been working for a long time to get ready to, take what we've been learning over the last decades.

00:03:18:27 - 00:03:42:07
Unknown
And get get it in better, more accessible forms for people. And I think right now we're probably in the best shape we maybe have ever been in with resources and programs and so forth to help couples. So it's helping us have a bigger impact. But we've been working a long time to get ready for this. We've had these visions for years, and it just took a long time to get our ducks in a row and get these products and resources created.

00:03:42:07 - 00:04:06:14
Unknown
So I think that probably has a lot to do with it. I know that our last conversation, we spoke briefly about the Hope restored intensives. Are you able to give us a basic outline of what a day in an intensive program looks like, or what it includes? And I know that there are a group intensives as well as, one on one couple intensives and maybe discuss the difference with that.

00:04:06:17 - 00:04:28:13
Unknown
Sure. So our mainstay, the program that we have the most people go through, actually is our group program. We have five couples that will come to work with us, and they'll be two therapist and five couples. And it's amazing because, many people think that sounds like a terrible idea, right? You know why I'm hurting? I'm in a bad place.

00:04:28:13 - 00:04:52:28
Unknown
Why in the world do I want to come and sit with four couples I have I have no knowledge of and have to listen to them and so forth. But what we found, you know, having had a hand in developing all the programs, I think that for the average person, the group intensive really is the best option. And, it, there's, there were advantages to that that you would you would not on the surface expect to find.

00:04:53:00 - 00:05:21:16
Unknown
So, you know, we sit in this group and these two therapists are, you know, are working with these five couples and all the work is done with everybody there. And I think the reason that the group intensive works as well as it does is that when you boil it down to what are the issues that couples struggle with, surprisingly, when you get past all the surface stuff that makes us look so different from one another and the issues to be so different?

00:05:21:19 - 00:05:42:23
Unknown
Really at the core, there's only a handful of of real issues that people are tripping over, and it's the same for all of us. So, you might look across the room and see a couple that looks nothing like you and their story sounds nothing like you. But when you hear what's really going on down at the core, you go, oh, wow, that's me too.

00:05:43:00 - 00:06:08:04
Unknown
And often times you would have never even, thought to talk about these things, you know, you hear it and somewhere you go, oh, I guess that really is going on for me, too. And I never noticed it before, because we're not talking about the surface. We're getting down to what's really going on at the core. So, so with that, with that there another thing that's big about that is, you know, I wouldn't necessarily have thought to bring it up.

00:06:08:07 - 00:06:24:05
Unknown
So, you know, I wouldn't even wouldn't even realize that that was something going on for me until I heard someone else talk about it. I'd be talking about all this stuff on the surface. And and you're you're able to do a lot of work while you're not actually the couple that's on the hot seat or the one that's talking at that moment.

00:06:24:05 - 00:06:41:24
Unknown
Because I tell people at the beginning, always, do you think the only time this work is relevant to you is when you're talking about you and your circumstances, you're going to miss the lion's share of what God's got for you, because you're going to see things you need to be working to apply. See, how does this apply to me?

00:06:41:29 - 00:07:11:20
Unknown
So, and a lot of times for men particularly, it's interesting, men are probably the ones that would that most object to the idea of being in a group. And men or in our culture, incredibly isolated and and they don't we don't talk to each other about the stuff that's going on in men by far more than women say that the group experience was the most important thing for them because they listened to other dudes talk.

00:07:11:22 - 00:07:30:06
Unknown
And, and they're going, okay, wow. Yeah, that's true for me, too. And I'm not alone, and I'm not weird and I'm not. You know, there's nothing wrong with me. I just didn't realize that. That I was believing this or trying to do this, and it was a set up to fail when you first thinking, right, like, I don't want to air my dirty laundry in front of other people.

00:07:30:06 - 00:08:01:13
Unknown
And a lot of times we're raised like that. So reaching out or talking about what's really going on is hindered because of that culture of don't tell, don't share. This is my this is my business and nobody else's. And I think doing the group therapy, you know, now that you've said that the guys are the probably the ones that benefit the most, I think that is really a healthy sign for them that they are they get to a point where they're actually feeling comfortable in front of these other couples, and they can bare their heart.

00:08:01:16 - 00:08:24:02
Unknown
Yeah. And it's all supported by the other guys. And they realize that that, you know, there's really they're not worse than others. And that's not a bad thing to to deal with it. It's actually helpful because, yeah, in the male culture we're basically taught, you know, suck it up and, and and and just deal with it. Yep. And we have no idea what we're trying to deal with, let alone how to do it.

00:08:24:08 - 00:08:45:15
Unknown
So I know that there is a fifth Cobra Store location. And from what I have seen, these are beautiful. And what I would call, for lack of a better term, beautiful retreat centers. And I know that they're very intentional about how they're set up. A lot of forethought goes, a lot of planning goes into each of these, but I know there's a fifth one that is opening in Texas.

00:08:45:15 - 00:09:10:04
Unknown
What is the significance of a fifth location opening up? Yeah. Well, it's it's it's, you know, we've got a lot of people that have come to us historically from the Texas area. And we've actually been opened. This is the Grand official grand opening, but we've been operating since December there. And it's a beautiful property. It's it's in the Hill Country in Texas.

00:09:10:04 - 00:09:33:06
Unknown
All the properties are spectacular. I mean, they really are nice. We want we want people from any walk of life to be comfortable there. If you're a person who is of means and is used to being in really comfortable, luxurious settings, you're going to be quite comfortable there. And if you're a person who is you know, living more modestly, you're going to be blown away.

00:09:33:12 - 00:09:56:24
Unknown
So, you know, it's something that everybody's comfortable in this particular, location on 26 acres and it's it's it's breathtaking. I mean, it's beautifully appointed. We've got a great hospitality team. You don't over a year, you know, because when people come in, we want them to not have to think about any of the normal stuff that gets in their way, that they have to deal with in their normal life.

00:09:56:24 - 00:10:22:10
Unknown
We want them just to be able to be free to focus inward and on their relationship, to be able to get to the heart of this. And we, you know, and we work in an intensive format. So it's a maximum of the five days, the group is four days. And, and it's, you know, we go all day long each day and we just want to get we want to get the stuff out of the way that can take forever to do.

00:10:22:13 - 00:10:42:15
Unknown
Especially in, in marital therapy can take forever at times to do in your, in your normal week, you know, one hour a week for forever. Right. So the other thing I will say that you asked about the significance of this site. One of our desires is to be more geographically accessible to people. We want to be at the most within a five hour drive.

00:10:42:15 - 00:11:04:12
Unknown
Ideally, this is ultimately we're not there yet, but a five hour drive of anywhere in the US. So you can drive there and not have to deal with all the extra expenses of plane fare and, and, lodging and all that kind of stuff. We want to take as many of those variables out of the way. So having a fifth location just means that many more people are able to drive to us.

00:11:04:12 - 00:11:24:13
Unknown
Now, I have been online and I've read some of the Hope restored testimonies and just the encouragement that you see in how marriages are turned around. Some of them are on the brink of divorce or filing the paperwork. So can you share with me? And I don't know if this is one of your would this would be your personal experience or one of the counselors.

00:11:24:15 - 00:11:46:20
Unknown
One of the best stories that you can share about a couple, obviously not giving any any names or anything, but that attended a Hope restored retreat. Maybe it was a couple that had lost all hope, and maybe they were filing the papers for divorce and didn't even, you know, this was their last ditch effort to kind of rescue what was left.

00:11:46:22 - 00:12:15:19
Unknown
So if you could share one of, you know, share one of the best stories that you've heard and what you believe was the breakthrough that actually turned their marriage around? You know, I can the the story that comes to mind. It's an interesting one. Like it's been a few years now, but, just to show you how dramatically, things can turn around, we have lots of couples that come, in really bad shape, you know, divorce papers drawn.

00:12:15:19 - 00:12:35:00
Unknown
And basically they tell us, you know, it's a Monday through Thursday group experience, and they basically tell us, okay, the divorce papers are drawn. We hear that miracles occur and hope restored. And if we don't have a miracle by the end of Thursday, you know, we're gonna sign the papers on Friday. You know, no pressure. Just. We just got to have a miracle in four days.

00:12:35:05 - 00:12:51:02
Unknown
Yeah. And, you know, and the one thing that we ask couples to to be able to agree to work with them is this question that got to say yes to, if God was to work a miracle in your marriage, would you accept it? And you know, we say the miracle could be the magnitude of the parting of the Red sea.

00:12:51:02 - 00:13:12:06
Unknown
And we're defining a miracle as a relationship both feel great about and both feel great about. The direction is headed. Nothing short of that. We're not talking about putting up with things. We're talking about a relationship both of you feel great about. So we have so many couples that end up tearing up their their divorce papers at the end of the week.

00:13:12:06 - 00:13:36:19
Unknown
I mean, not everybody comes in that condition, but but we've had plenty that have. So I will say that at times because it's God who's really at work, our prime purpose is to help the Lord have access to people's hearts and get themselves out of the way. So occasionally the miracle doesn't even happen when they're there. This is this is a more rare story, but it's been a powerful one and a very humbling one for us.

00:13:36:22 - 00:14:04:25
Unknown
I worked with a couple in a group, like I said, some years ago, and the guy basically lied and he said, I'm open to a miracle. But he came with his arms crossed and like, you know, no way. One. And from day one he basically said, I'm not. I'm just here because I got family members that are pressuring me and I'm getting I can at least say I went, even if I, you know, have no intention of this working, which was gut wrenching because that was not the expectation that his wife had.

00:14:05:00 - 00:14:23:25
Unknown
So she, she, you know, so we worked with her, but he basically sat, checked out with his arms crossed and, you know, seemed like he might be paying attention, but he wasn't sharing anything. And again, it was hard for everybody. It was heartbreaking to see what she was going through. So anyway, they left and it was very sad.

00:14:23:25 - 00:14:48:11
Unknown
And we had a lot of tears and everyone fell for her. So we, several days later they left on Thursday. On Monday of the following week, we had a call and they had an eight hour drive home. So this was this. They weren't five hours away. They had an eight hour drive home and about several hours into the drive, he is driving and he grabs her hand and he puts it on his chest and he says, do you feel that?

00:14:48:13 - 00:15:07:26
Unknown
And she said, she basically pulled away, like, what are you messing with me for? You've already crushed me. He said, no, no, no, no, I want you to feel that. And she said, what? She said, it's beating. And he basically said, God's touched me and my heart is open and in let's figure this out. And I mean, we were we were blown away.

00:15:08:02 - 00:15:36:06
Unknown
And they had a, you know, they had a miraculous turnaround. He had been listening and he really he really felt his heart soften and he accepted, you know, the Lord into it in a new way and moved and south moved back into the relationship. So what was fun was we didn't know this. But a year to the day later, they show up at our door at the office and they they just wanted they were coming back to the area to celebrate their anniversary of their breakthrough.

00:15:36:13 - 00:16:00:26
Unknown
And they just they just popped in to say hi and let us know how well they were doing. And it was it was amazing for everybody. So we have a lot of stories like that and one form or another. Not not that specific, but it's amazing. Couples come in a terrible place on Sunday and it's and it's amazing for our staff to watch how God breaks through and changes people's hearts in as little as four days.

00:16:00:29 - 00:16:23:04
Unknown
Now, does every couple have an aftercare program? So yeah. Yeah, we have, resources that we give them that they can stay with. And then we put them in touch with, one of our aftercare life coaches that have been specifically trained by us. And then they get they have a couple of meetings with that person and are able to schedule more.

00:16:23:09 - 00:16:44:26
Unknown
If it turns out that that feels like a good resource for them. So there's that. And then if somebody is working with somebody like a local therapist. Exactly. Okay. We're happy to do a consult on the front side and, you know, find out what the you know, what, what they're dealing with, and then consult with that therapist on the backside and hand them back and say, okay, here's the work we did.

00:16:45:02 - 00:17:09:01
Unknown
And, you know, take it and walk with them. Because, you know, most people, you know, need, need ongoing support. So we've got several ways that we can we can help people. Yeah. So they had the the intensives in my opinion, are a better option because I have witnessed a lot of couples that go through marriage counseling and they come out no better because they're just rehashing everything over and over again.

00:17:09:05 - 00:17:32:21
Unknown
And I and I'm sure the the kid, the therapist is probably frustrated. Sure. Yeah. Well, it's a it's a tough the normal outpatient setting is a tough setting for marriage counseling because, you know, you've got your issues, my issues and our issues and you got, you got less than an hour and then, you know, then you go away and you come back a week or two later and all the stuff that's happened between the two, oh my gosh.

00:17:32:21 - 00:17:49:23
Unknown
And it's just hard to make progress. It's a I did that for years in my private practice, and I find it a very frustrating structure to do marriage counseling in. I like the intensive method much better. So what do you tell people or how do you help them when they come to you and go there? There's no hope.

00:17:49:27 - 00:18:11:11
Unknown
It's done. It's over. Paperwork is filed. How do you how do you help them move? I don't know whether I know God's intention is, you know, except in very rare circumstances to restore the marriage and their relationship. And I believe the therapist is that is in that same method or same mode. But what do you tell people when they come to you?

00:18:11:12 - 00:18:41:10
Unknown
Like, there's no hope we're done. It's done. Well, they again, they come to us open to a miracle. I say, okay, so I don't know how we get you specifically from here to there, but you said you'd be open to a miracle. So let me tell you what. What? Our definition of a great marriage is that our definition, as I mentioned earlier, is a relationship that both people love and love the direction it's headed now, it's not important that you love it for the same reason as long as you both love it.

00:18:41:16 - 00:19:00:06
Unknown
And it's not important that anybody else on the planet would want it as long as you two like it. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to take some time to get clear about what it would take for each of you to feel great about where things are at, and then help you see if there are ways that we can make that happen for both of you.

00:19:00:11 - 00:19:13:27
Unknown
It's got to be it's got to be a relationship both of you love, even if you don't. I mean, like, for instance, in my situation, my wife and I, at this stage of the game, love our marriage. But if you were to take a detailed list of what we love about it, you're going to see bunches of differences.

00:19:14:05 - 00:19:36:20
Unknown
But who cares if she loves something that I don't love? As long as we both got enough of what we love going on. So the reason I say that is that when couples hear that, that's what our goal is not to just help people endure misery or even mediocrity. For the cards that we are setting the bar way higher, we're a no compromise organization.

00:19:36:27 - 00:19:56:27
Unknown
We're not going to say you just need to suck it up and deal with it. Even if even if it stinks for you for the rest of time. We're saying we're going to help you figure out a way. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And you can decide. All you got to do is be willing to trust us enough to walk with us for a few days to see if we can pull it off.

00:19:56:29 - 00:20:04:06
Unknown
And, and most people are willing to lean in.

00:20:04:09 - 00:20:24:05
Unknown
If you or someone you love is struggling in their marriage and need help, I want to encourage you to get connected to our chaplain team here at the River. We can pray with you. Share helpful resources, and encourage you with the reminder that God is committed to your marriage and it's success. To reach a chaplain, visit River Radio.com and click on Connect.