Check The Gauges Of Your Marriage: Warning Lights and Wake-Up Calls

Check the Gauges: How to Notice the Little Things Before They Become Big Things

In this episode of the Home and Marriage Podcast, hosts Lennon and Christal Noland discuss practical ways to help couples strengthen their relationships. They share personal stories, including their recent car-buying experience, which transitions into a broader conversation about the importance of not putting your marriage on 'cruise control.' They introduce the concept of 'gauges' in marriage, covering topics like romantic affection, sexual connection, parenting perspectives, and simmering conflict. The Nolands emphasize the importance of regular check-ins and provide a valuable resource, the 10/2 Connection PDF, to help couples stay connected. They conclude with an invitation to subscribe, leave reviews, and access more resources through their website.

00:00 Welcome to the Home and Marriage Podcast
00:22  Car Troubles
02:39 Introducing the Topic: Marriage Gauges
08:52 Gauge 1: Romantic Affection
14:15 Gauge 2: Sexual Connection
18:22 Gauge 3: Parenting Perspectives
20:54 Gauge 4: Simmering Conflict
23:42 Conclusion and Resources

Transcript

Lennon: 0:00

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger Together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers, and we want God's best for our home and for yours.

Christal: 0:16

Hello friends. Thank you for joining us today on the Home and Marriage Podcast. I hope you're having a great day. I hope you've got your cup of tea, cup of coffee I am here with my mug of hot coffee and a wolf mug to be exact. And Lennon, what are you drinking over there?

Lennon: 0:33

I have my own cup of coffee and I have a wintertime cup here, a little fox on it. This is actually the one that I get in trouble for using whenever I don't ask our oldest daughter her permission.

Christal: 0:44

That's right,

Lennon: 0:44

because it's technically her mug, but if you don't tell, I won't.

Christal: 0:48

And I think this is your mug originally, right? The one with the wolves here howling. It is. That

Lennon: 0:53

is a, uh, that is a Bass Pro special right there. It's very nice. And that was one of the gifts your parents gave me last year, so I, I love that mug.

Christal: 1:00

It's a very nice mug.

Lennon: 1:01

Well, lemme tell you what we've been through lately, I think, you know? Yeah. And knowing that this hunt is over with is as soothing and encouraging. As a hot cup of coffee. We are once again, A, we're a two car family.

Christal: 1:14

Yes. Praise the Lord. We are now a two car family.

Lennon: 1:17

Yeah, I think we dropped this in on some episodes. We had been going through it with our vehicles and finally our 2016 Honda pilot gave up the ghost. We got rid of it, and just ran as fast as as we could, and so we had actually been on the search for. How long? Like a couple of weeks for a car?

Christal: 1:35

Couple of weeks. Oh goodness. It's been longer. I think we've been on the search for a month.

Lennon: 1:40

I think you're right. I think

Christal: 1:41

it's been a month.

Lennon: 1:42

I think you're right. It felt

Christal: 1:43

like a year.

Lennon: 1:43

Yes. And so that's, that's a month of scrolling websites, of driving to dealerships, all sorts of stuff. And finally, we got a second vehicle. We are the proud owners of a 2020 Corolla.

Christal: 1:55

Yeah, this is our first Toyota to own and we've always wanted to own a Toyota. We have because it's like the best, it's supposed to be, the best quality, reliable, all that kind of stuff.

Lennon: 2:06

And Reliable's the key word.

Christal: 2:07

Yeah,

Lennon: 2:07

because that's what we've been going through. We've been going through unreliable cars and so this is nothing fancy, great little car base model, but what Toyotas are known for is running for. Ever. And so we've got a car now that hopefully our daughter's gonna drive away to college with. Yeah,

Christal: 2:25

yeah. Here this

Lennon: 2:25

next year.

Christal: 2:26

And hopefully we won't see any warning signs, any blinking lights on the dashboard. I'm really ready for some relief with that.

Lennon: 2:33

Yeah. And look at you with a smooth transition.

Christal: 2:36

That was, it's my turn.

Lennon: 2:37

You did so good. That's actually what we want to talk with you about today. Friends, we want to talk to you about checking the gauges of your marriage. If your marriage has a dashboard. And it does. What are the gauges of your marriage and what do you need to be looking out for? And this is actually the first habit that we we're gonna give you a condensed version of what the first habit we address is in our six Habits of Happy Couples course.

Christal: 3:04

Yeah. We talk about this so often, but habits are so, so important for our marriages. One thing we will say at our conferences is a one grand gesture just won't. Isn't what you need to fix everything. I mean, sometimes yes, a grand gesture is needed, right? To save something, but it truly isn't the fix. The fix really will be the habits, the day-to-day things that we do, how we treat one another and all of that. I mean, think about your daily habits, like how you keep healthy. You know the things that you do in your life that are gonna really add up and end up making your life better. That's what we do for our marriages. We have these habits that we pay attention to so our marriages can get better and grow.

Lennon: 3:49

Yeah, that's perfect. And it's a perfect analogy because with the bodies, whatever our bodies are, whatever our health is today is actually the result of habits. Yeah. You could do the grand gesture of, I'm going to go out and run a marathon today, but it's the habits that you've been maintaining with your health and with your body that will determine whether that is a. Great accomplishment or something that you never, ever should have tried. Sometimes we put too much stock in, like you said, the grand gesture, the big moment when really the everyday stuff is what's gonna lead to a happy relationship. Mm-hmm. So let's get into it. One of the important things that we highlight is that, um, marriage on cruise control misses, turns toward intimacy. And the idea here is that we have a lot of things to deal with in our daily life. There are things to do, uh, places to be kids to take care of, all of that kind of stuff. And if we aren't careful. Then what we will do is just put our relationship on autopilot or on cruise control, and we'll kind of assume that it'll be there whenever we come back to it. But I think we've all had the experience of, especially whenever we're young, you know, listening to Third Eye Blind or Ace of Bass, bootie, and the Blowfish Bootie and the blowfish, whatever your era was of just being on the highway on cruise control, enjoying the journey so much, or enjoying the moment. Being on the highway, being on cruise control and just missing a turn. Just getting somewhere you didn't intend on getting to or ending up in a dangerous situation. Mm-hmm. Not responding to something around you having to slam on the brakes because you were realize you were coming up onto the back of a van. Really fast. Cruise control can be dangerous unless everything is just.

Christal: 5:38

Perfect conditions. Perfect conditions right, and in life our our lives are not full of perfect conditions. I mean, goodness, I could think 50 million things right now that don't always go right or that just are changes in life. So let's say you move, you have a new job, the a bill that's unexpected that comes up, or there might be a health issue that happens. All of those things are gonna affect our everyday lives, which in turn affects our marriages too.

Lennon: 6:05

It really does. And so the idea is that you've gotta pay attention to the gauges of your marriage. Sort of like the dashboard of a car, like on the dashboard of a car, we've got what gauges the fuel gauge. We've got the temperature gauge

Christal: 6:21

speed. How are you speeding? Which I never do.

Lennon: 6:25

You never do that. The oil pressure gauge, you know. Dashboards are increasingly complicated, but the idea is that there's a ton of information there that it's not just numbers on a screen in front of you. Mm-hmm. It's all reflective of like a greater reality underneath the hood, and the gauges are an opportunity to catch a warning sign before it becomes catastrophic.

Christal: 6:49

Yeah. Don't you love when that check engine light comes on and then you, or a code and you have no idea what it is? Yes. It's like a mystery and then you go down a Yes. A path of trying to figure out what, what could this be? Maybe you take it into a shop and they tell you, well, this is what's happening with your car. But sometimes you don't immediately know what is going on. It's just like warning, warning, something bad is happening

Lennon: 7:11

and the worst thing we can do is be like, but I'm not breaking down yet.

Christal: 7:15

Right. It sounds okay. Maybe I can keep going.

Lennon: 7:17

Yeah. And whenever we do that, we find ourselves in a breakdown situation, and as much as we may not want to pay to have a diagnostic done. Or pay for an oil change, like those maintenance type of things. Breakdown is way more costly than maintenance. Mm-hmm. And so in marriage, sometimes things may be a little tense here and there, and we don't want to address the issue. It's not that big of a deal yet. We can just keep moving forward and not have to have that conversation. But. Break down in a marriage like with a car, is infinitely more costly than maintenance.

Christal: 7:55

Yeah. And one thing we say is that we, we need to consistently check the gauges of our marriage, not just maybe every now and then, just paying attention to your marriage, not just saying, you know what? I said I loved you at the altar and I meant it. Do I need to keep, I'll let you know if anything changes. Yeah.

Lennon: 8:13

So we want to give you four gauges to check, and here's an important paradigm that whenever you're looking at a gauge of your marriage together, you're only seeing it accurately if you both agree on what you see. Mm-hmm. Because here's what happens, like often is one person will be like, things are fine, and the other is like, things are not fine. And so we can disagree on that. It's important when you're looking at gauges to look at the same thing. And come to a point of agreement because there are two people in the marriage. Mm-hmm. I don't get to decide if things are fine and you don't get to decide for me if things are fine, we've gotta work that out together.

Christal: 8:52

Yep.. And so the first gauge is the gauge of romantic affection. Who would you say tends to be the ones that have a really good read on the romance of the relationship? Typically with the couples that we've counseled with or that you've counseled with.

Lennon: 9:08

Right. It is not always, but it is typically. Typically the woman.

Christal: 9:11

Yeah, the woman. Right, right. Not always. Sometimes the woman's totally clueless, This is, I feel like an area where it's very common for, the husband and wife to be on very different pages with

Lennon: 9:24

Yes.

Christal: 9:25

And you know, really. Our relationships start off very romantic. If you think back onto when you first get together or you're first married in that honeymoon stage, it's really all about the romance, isn't it?

Lennon: 9:35

It is. Because this is a person that you like in a way that you don't like any other person. Yeah. It's the chemistry thing that just has to be there. And initially it can come so, so easy.

Christal: 9:48

Yeah. I mean,

Lennon: 9:49

you will like walk across broken glass to bring them their favorite Starbucks drink. Oh

Christal: 9:55

yeah. At work? Yeah.

Lennon: 9:56

Across town.

Christal: 9:57

Well, I remember one time we were first married and you came all the way to my office to bring me up. Probably a pumpkin spice latte. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I just remember wow, he's working too. I can't believe he came all the way out here to do this, you know?

Lennon: 10:12

But what, what else would I be wanting to do?

Christal: 10:14

Right.

Lennon: 10:14

You know, especially early on in marriage, and this is where we can go off the rails. A marriage relationship is fundamentally romantic. The romance part isn't meant to be exhausted in the early part of the marriage. Whenever we got married. Whenever anyone gets married, it's because you feel a certain way about them and you don't want them to be anywhere else. Like, we didn't get married because I needed help paying the bills. Mm-hmm. Or because I wanted a roommate to help with the chores. We got married because I wanted to be with you.

Christal: 10:46

Yeah.

Lennon: 10:47

And sometimes we can forget that.

Christal: 10:49

And you know what? whenever we watch a lot of those romantic movies or or Disney movies, if you grew up with those, you really usually see the couple going off into the sunset. All happy in love, and I think we really do. Desire for the rest of our lives to be full of romance and love, right? Mm-hmm.

Lennon: 11:08

That's

Christal: 11:08

really the picture we want, and as much as we don't wanna live a Disney movie, but we do want to have romance in our marriage because we're not roommates. We really want that connection to last throughout our marriage.

Lennon: 11:24

And so the question is what? Like. Are we still treating one another that way?

Christal: 11:29

Yeah.

Lennon: 11:30

If somebody listening is like, yeah, romance G. Ours is, really down low. Mm-hmm. What would you say is a good starting point to begin to. Kind of turn that tide.

Christal: 11:40

I feel like one of the things we've done before periodically or on dates are, Hey, are you happy with our romantic life? Just asking the question to one another.'cause honestly, husbands and wives can really be different on what their. Gauging, like you said before, we can think everything's great and the other person could think, no, we are really in a bad spot. And so I think you need to start with asking one another. Is there anything that you feel like romantic wise we need more of in our marriage? Yeah. What do you think about that?

Lennon: 12:12

Yeah, I, I do, I think that's, I think that's very true. Is, is there anything I can do to remind you mm-hmm. That I feel a certain way about you? Yeah. Because how many affairs have been sparked, I don't know, whenever some off limits person at the off sees somebody. In a way that they haven't felt seen in a long time. Mm-hmm. You know? And so, so a woman who feels overlooked or neglected by her husband feels noticed and is told she's funny. Yeah. By a colleague at work. Yeah. And it's those kind of things that, again, it pops up in the worst areas that whenever we aren't romantic with each other, uh, that flirtatious chemistry. That is not an indication of whether anything is right. Can show up at the wrong time and people can fall for it.

Christal: 12:59

Yeah, and I I think another thing is to look at yourself and what you're doing for your spouse and think about, you know, what am I paying as much attention to them or doing those special things for them like I used to I know for me that there's something that really sparks my love for you actually by doing things for you.

Lennon: 13:18

And that sounds

Christal: 13:18

kind of funny maybe, but doing things romantically for you makes me feel more romantic and I think when one spouse makes that effort, the other spouse usually returns it or awakens to, oh yeah, I need to do more of that in our relationship. So it really starts with one person. Maybe you're in a marriage where. You feel it's really one-sided right now. Do what you can do, I think to spark that romance and then see how they respond.'cause usually consistency with this. C will create some spark of romance.

Lennon: 13:51

It really can. So if, if you're not feeling like things are very romantic, you're not being necessarily needy, you're not crazy feeling like it should be. If you're married, you are in the final romantic relationship you will ever have. Yeah. And so let's do things that make it count. So that first gauge was the gauge of romantic affection, and then the second gauge is related, but not identical. The second gauge is the gauge of sexual connection. And guys, if you're listening to that saying, didn't we just talk about that one again? They're related, but they're not identical. I love to have a group of guys in the room and I get'em to repeat after me. These are not the same thing.

Christal: 14:32

Mm-hmm.

Lennon: 14:33

But they are related,

Christal: 14:34

right? They are related. I know for me, there are definitely romantic things you do that aren't sexual at all. Now, they may lead to that eventually. I don't know if things are going right. Sometimes that happen, but there are romantic things that have to be there as well because when you're loving someone, well, you're not loving them. So you can have sex. You're loving them because you're sacrificially laying down your own wants, needs too. And you're also wanting to show them how much you care for them. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't have to do. With sex only. So I think, I think wives can definitely tell the difference between those two. But I really do say that it's very important that as a wife, they really sense the romance. Coming through as well as the, as the desire for sex too? Wives don't wanna feel like they're not sexually desired, but we need the romance part to have like a healthy whole marriage.

Lennon: 15:35

So I feel like what you just did by bringing romance into the sexual habit is you reminded maybe guys of something here that a lack of sex is sometimes not a sex problem. Mm-hmm. It's sometimes a problem with another area of the relationship that's showing up. Yeah. With this. Yeah. And yet it is incredibly important. Like how sexy is your sex life? Are things healthy? They're not trying to force any sort of cultural paradigm on anybody of this is how often you should be doing it. The important thing is that you are agreed and you are satisfied.

Christal: 16:10

Oh yeah, those are, those are key words right there for sure.

Lennon: 16:13

And so if you're not agreed, then, then why? Like if there's a gap in sexual desire, one of you wants it more than others, uh, what kind of things are going on there? This is really, it's an area of conversation that can be difficult for people to be vulnerable with people that have been married for 30 years can feel really awkward talking about sex. It's like we turn into junior hires that don't think we should go there, but it's incredibly important to be able to open up about.

Christal: 16:44

Yeah, I think we really do need to talk about it. We need to communicate. And we have some friends that recently at a conference we were at and we were doing a little q and a time and they were talking about how important it is to have sex even putting it on the calendar, which is something we talk about if you need to put it on the calendar so you are doing it.'cause sometimes we get out of the habit of not making time for it. Mm-hmm. And so. Really gauging man, it's been a while. We need to get better at making a purposeful time for this, even if we have to put on the calendar because it's, it's better to have sex on the calendar than no sex at all. Right?

Lennon: 17:20

Right. And whenever something is on the calendar, you prepare and you leave room around the event to make sure it happens. I mean, if you have going to church on the calendar. You make sure you leave early enough to be there on time. If you have physical intimacy, hey, Friday nights or whenever we usually get down, then if you're smart, you're going to make sure that you don't fill the evening with other things. Mm-hmm. Because you'll be squeezing out the mindset in the breathing room that you need to have to, to make love whenever you. ready to make love

Christal: 17:55

and hey guys, we do a whole podcast episode on Making Love. It's really our first full episode after the Welcome but we deep dive into physical intimacy. So if you're just wanting to hear more about that, you can go to that episode, episode number two,

Lennon: 18:12

that's great. So we have the romantic gauge, we have the sexual gauge. And what is our, what's our third gauge?

Christal: 18:19

Well, this is actually something we just got done talking about. It's the gauge of parenting perspectives. And the thing is, we are. Two very different people. Right. Coming together and then raising kids that are all different.

Lennon: 18:33

What do you mean? We just got done talking about it?

Christal: 18:35

Well, we just had it on, our last episode called Why Do We Parent So Differently? Finding unity when you parent and so when you're not, on the same page, parenting becomes. Way more difficult. It's already filled with challenges, but it becomes more difficult. So if you wanna go back and listen to that, we just did that our last episode, episode 10. You can listen to more of that. But The gauge of parenting perspectives is just another thing that we really need to be on the same page because it can affect our marriage and how we are together and like you said earlier, if sex isn't happening, it could be. There's more to it. And sometimes this is one of the reasons we're not connecting intimately is because we're not agreeing and we're not on the same page.

Lennon: 19:20

Yeah. Or just the kids are taking every bit of energy that you have. Maybe there's a sexual connection lacking because there's a 7-year-old still sleeping between you and those kind of things are not. Those kind of things are not good, and they're so hard to resolve if a mom and a dad don't agree on what needs to be done. And so the gauge of parenting perspective starts with just a simple question, you know, how are the kids, do we agree on what we see and, and what do we do about it?

Christal: 19:50

Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you think about it, whenever the kids do grow up and move off, it's gonna be. You and your spouse, The long-term goal is to be in unity. That's why you really need to get on the same page, and it's okay. You're not gonna have every little detail. Will you be perfectly like, oh, I agree completely on that. You know you're gonna have your bent towards certain things, but it's those main big issues. And we talked about this last week, but one of the things we really need to do is show our kids that we are united. Front because a lot of other little issues come up when the kids see that, oh, mom and dad really aren't on the same page with this.

Lennon: 20:30

Right, right. So,

Christal: 20:31

and it really does affect our parenting and affects the way our kids see our parenting.

Lennon: 20:37

Like you've mentioned with both of the other gauges, to see the gauge in the same way. There's going to have to be conversations and calmer moments to address this thing. And Greg, you come back, uh, here in a moment at the end of the show and give you kind of some suggestions of how you can make that happen.

Christal: 20:54

Right. Well, our next gauge is the gauge of simmering conflict. What do we mean by simmering conflict Lennon.

Lennon: 21:02

What I mean is that things that are not addressed, they're just set aside for now, and there are gonna be themes in relationships with people that are wired in a certain way to a degree, you're gonna butt heads over similar things at times, but what we're talking about here with simmering conflict is something major that really needs to be resolved and you're not really. Dealing with it, you're just waiting for it to blow up in your faces at a later date. And so the, uh, the question here for this. Gauge is, is there anything unresolved that is keeping the two of you feeling tense or distant?

Christal: 21:44

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you can tell there's something there and you can't get past a certain point in your relationship and it's probably that one thing in your mind that comes up when you're frustrated with your spouse and you just have not yet spoken about it or resolve the issue. And I will say one thing that I've learned after. Our time together and our marriage is that I've come to realize that men are not mind readers. Men cannot read minds. And I think as a wife, we would love for you just to understand us completely and know what's going on with us. And you know, I think y'all do know when something's not quite right usually. We want you to know. What you exactly did and apologize for it, right? Mm-hmm. We just really feel like you should just know what's going on with us, but you don't, right?

Lennon: 22:33

We don't. We don't. Or at least I can speak for myself loudly and proudly. I don't. Yeah, I don't have any idea. No. Sometimes I do have an idea and I try to tell you that it wasn't that big of a deal and you should be just fine. And then we come back to it later. Yeah. Yeah. Women are not men. No matter how much a man thinks she should get over it and move on, and men are not mind readers. No matter how much a wife should think. He should know better by now. We should know better by now and we don't. Right? So those are the four gauges that we talk about. The romantic affection, sexual connection, parenting perspective, and simmering conflict, and wherever the gauges are in your marriage, they just read the way they read right now. When you start addressing these things together, they can get in a healthy range again.

Christal: 23:22

Yeah. It's just like your car. I mean, when you start to take care of it and you do pay attention to the check engine light and you don't let it go too long without it being addressed, um, it, that car will last longer. And so our marriage is not something to set aside and just, you know, keep on cruising. Through life.

Lennon: 23:42

In closing my friends, what we're trying to say is that a check-in conversation where you talk about these gauges needs to be routine. Whether it's a daily sit down at the end of a work day, right after you put the kids down at night or once a week, we're not telling you exactly how to do it. You're smart people, you know what to do. But what we can do is offer you a tool. Of something that's been helpful for us that we developed that's been helpful for other couples. If you'll go to home and marriage.com/connect home and marriage.com/connect, uh, there you'll be able to put in your email address and get what we call a 10/2 connection pdf and that breaks down a very simple approach to connecting at the end of the day. We'll take you all of three or four minutes, and the idea is this, that whenever you check in and check the gauges consistently, connection is way more easy. It's less defensive, it's not so tense, and you can keep your marriage moving in the right direction and on the right track.

Christal: 24:46

That's right. So friends, don't forget to follow or subscribe, so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday. If today's conversation encouraged you, would you take a minute to leave a review? It really helps more people find the show and join our community. You can visit home and marriage.com for more resources like our Six Habits of Happy Couples Course. And if you'd like us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All of the links are in the show notes.

Lennon: 25:23

So thank you for joining us on the Home and Marriage Podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.