Is Love Enough?

Is love enough to make a marriage last? In this episode, we challenge one of the biggest relationship myths—that love alone can overcome every obstacle. Drawing from our own 18-year marriage, we share why trust, respect, communication, emotional maturity, friendship, and commitment are the real foundations of a thriving relationship. If you've ever wondered why love sometimes doesn't feel like enough, this conversation will encourage and equip you with practical steps to keep choosing each other every day. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Before we start, if your marriage feels hard right now, you're not failing.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

And if you I don't know if I can keep doing this, you're not weak.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

You're certainly not alone.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

This pocket is not about perfect marriage. We don't have one.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

We've been married 18 years. There's a 13-year age gap between us. We blended a family young and we raised kids while still growing up ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

We walked through property from a fight we didn't know how to fix. There were times we were not sure we can make it.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

But we kept choosing it again.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Again after disappointment, again after hard seasons.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

This podcast is for couples in the middle. Remember to get this messy and real.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

We are not here to give you a perfect answer.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

We're just still here and we're gonna be able to. Hi, I'm Yami.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

And I'm Omar.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

And on this week's episode of So Choosing Us, we're gonna be talking about is love enough?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

That's a good topic.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

So one of the biggest myths in relationships is if we truly love each other, everything else will work itself out.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah, a lot of couples enter marriage believing love will conquer it all, and then all of a sudden reality hits.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

That's where you start having communication styles, money disagreement, family dynamics, parenting conflict, emotional wounds, and mad expectations. You know, love matters, right? That's essential. It is matter, but is love enough to create a thriving relationship? No, it's not, it's not, and we're gonna discuss why. So I know in the beginning of our marriage, we loved each other, right? There was so much love, love you're the air. And we were gonna be we were gonna conquer the world because we loved each other, and then the reality hit. We started having financial problems, we had parenting issues, emotional wounds. I mean, we just brought in so much from our past into our marriage, stuffed, parents, conflicts. I mean, there was just so much just started entering into our marriage, and it started affecting us.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

That's when real reality hit.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yeah. And at those moments, love was not enough.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

No, I mean, we love each other. It was a lot of loving each other. It just needed a lot more to make that lover more concrete.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Yeah, because I mean, we loved each other, but it wasn't fixing the fact that we had no money. Nope. We loved each other, but it did not make us emotionally mature.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

No, and we love each other, but you know, it was a lot of expectation in a marriage unmet expectations.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Then now it's different.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yeah. And I mean, there's different ways people define love, right? People communicate people confuse love with attraction, with chemistry, with compatibility, with commitment. But the truth of the matter is sometimes you just have an attraction to someone.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Doesn't necessarily mean it's love.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

No. I mean, that's what happened to us, right? I was attracted to you in the beginning of a relationship. Does not mean that I was in love with you until I told you I fell in love with you. But the attraction was there.

unknown 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

The chemistry was there. We were compatible. Now it wasn't, we wouldn't uh give this a little a chance. Commitment came later.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah, I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

I don't think commitment was part of that equation right there. No.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

No.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

But you know, but all those things are not the same thing as love. It's a it's a key ingredient, but it's not love.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

You know, it's not the love that we have right now. Because let's put this example. The way I love you when I was 20 years old is not the same way that I love you now after 18 years of marriage.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

You know? So 20 years or 20 years ago, Omar, the attraction was there, the chemistry was there. That's for me, it was love. We were compatible, we liked a lot of things. So to me, that was love. 18 years past, 18 years after that, my love for you is more concrete. We have it's a season love. You know what I mean? It's it's like a tree. When you plant a baby uh tree and it's a baby tree, the roots are weak. You have to water, you have to make take care of it, you have to look after it. When the like, for example, the tree that we have in front of our house, it brings amazing shade, but we take care of the tree. Now the roots are deep. And we have plenty of storms over here in this area, and and the tree is still attending. So, yeah, 20 euro, 20 years ago, I cannot define the same love that I have for you as right now.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah. And I also don't have the same belief, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:21

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

I used to think, well, we loved each other. And we hear this quote a lot love will conquer all.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

We used to say that ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yes. But it wasn't gonna fix our problems, and it wasn't gonna make us grow. No, and I love how you use that tree analogy because there's something so key to what you were saying, and it's that maturity. It's as the tree matured and the roots were rooted in the ground, and nothing can break it apart. It's the maturity that caused us to change.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, you want to change, you have to change. It's something that you must do to be able to for the the your love to be stronger.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Yeah, I mean, and love is a feeling, it's a choice. It's both of us, it's both, yeah. But it's more was that enough?

SPEAKER_02 6:18

No, it's not enough. You need more, and we're gonna discuss more down the road. But you need more than the feeling, and you need more than the choice. Because I chose you in the beginning and I had a feeling for you, but 18 years later, we noticed that those things are not enough to sustain it.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

I mean, it wasn't gonna pay our bills, it wasn't gonna raise our children.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

No, it was not gonna heal past wounds.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

No. So, Dr. Robert Sternberg, he wrote the book Love is a story, and he says, Love is a story we tell ourselves. And what he has is it's called the Steinberg, Sternberg's Triangular Theory that says there's three components that are very important in relationship: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Many relationships have one or two, but a thriving marriage has all three. And I can see that in the beginning, intimacy, not a problem whatsoever. Yeah, commitment, that was questionable. Passion, if you would have asked us back then, yes, passion was part of the intimacy. Yeah, but when I think of us now, we are fully committed to each other, we are committed to this marriage.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, and out of that triangle, the easy for me to neglect in our marriage, it was the commitment part.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

I loved you and I had a passion for you, and then intimacy was great, but the commitment was not there. So that was easy to neglect.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Yeah. But now we have this commitment for each other. Intimacy is so different for us. It's so different from what even thought it was 18 years ago. And then we have this passion for life that we've gotten together, and we share so much of the same desires for our lives, and and the so many of the same things that we enjoy, that that's just caused us to have this passion in our life to fully enjoy this marriage.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yeah. I mean, love alone is not enough. That's just the bottom line, right? Love cannot do the work for us. No, it can motivate us, it can motivate us, yeah, that's for sure. I mean, it motivates us to do a lot of things, but it cannot do the work for us. No, I can't. We have to go out there and do we have to put our part just to be able to make it better.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

I mean, many couples love each other, right? But they still struggle.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

And and a lot of that has to do because they lack the skills necessary to sustain contention.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Well, that happened to us in when we were younger.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Yeah, because the maturity wasn't there.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

You know, there's there's areas that love does not automatically solve. One of them is communication.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Conflict of evolution is another one. Conflict of revolution is a big deal. Emotional regulation, financial alignment, trust. I like this one share vision.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

And the shared vision.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

That was a big one for us.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Like I said, you know, we were so in love, but we weren't disconnected. We weren't disconnected in the way we saw money. We were disconnected in our mature, immature emotional needs.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Financial alignment, yeah. We when we talked about our money episode, you can see how unaligned we were.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

It was different.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Trust, I think trust has always been there.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Yeah, I can uh say, I mean, of course, trust is built.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

It was built through the years in our marriage. Shared vision, definitely that's something that we implemented a couple of years ago. And it was really great.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

And we had to learn to communicate.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

I think we're wonderful at it now.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah. And I think one of the big misunderstandings is in reality, is problems don't disappear. They didn't disappear in our marriage because we simply love each other.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

No.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

I mean, the problem was still there. They were all there. We just when you say you love each other, oh, but we love each other. Oh, I love Camille, oh, I love her and I love her. It was just kind of like a cover-up. You know, you just put a little bandit where the damage is done because I love you. It don't resolve the problem. They don't disappear. Actually, the more that we used to do that, the problem used to come worse.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

And and and I agree with you. I think there's so many aspects of life that we use the word love for. Oh, yeah. Because love is gonna conquer all. And there's still so many struggles there.

unknown 10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

And that has been such a bad, such a wrong conception to have.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Well, this is something that think about it. In the in our language, in our English English language, we the word love is used for everything. I love my wife, I love my car, I love my computer, I love my book, I love my shoes. I love my shoes. That word love is used for a lot of things. Yeah. Now, what defined that kind of love, what defined the love from a book to the love me for you, is all the things that go attached to that. It's not just the word love alone.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

No, and I mean, you know, and we think about that, right? Like, oh, but you love me, so why didn't you? Or oh, but you love me. How did that not change?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

And it's again, I'm gonna go back to that tree. If those roots are not rooted, the tree cannot grow. Yeah, and that's in that maturity.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

That's the way it's such a misunderstanding, that word love.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, and and don't take me wrong, love is powerful.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Oh, it is powerful, that's that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, it is so powerful, and it is what gets you started. I mean, if we didn't love each other, we wouldn't be in a marriage. Yeah, uh, you you know, we wouldn't have made it if there was no love. But there are things love cannot substitute for.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, definitely love cannot replace trust. No, that's number one. That's what I'm talking about. The way what defined the word love from me loving the book that I'm reading right now versus me loving you is these things right here that we're gonna discuss right now. And one of them is trust. Definitely cannot replace trust.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

No, without trust, your intimacy suffers, your safety disappears, and your connection weakens.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Oh, big time. I mean, and trust is not something that happens overnight, it is earned, is earned, is built, is shown. Yeah, you have to show the trust.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

I trust you blindly.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Oh, me too.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

But that's because throughout the years, you have demonstrated so many reasons for me to trust you, same way around. And so it didn't just happen because we loved each other. Love didn't just create trust. No, it was something we built in this relationship with each other.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

It required work, it does require work. Yeah, it required time and sweat. But, you know, at the same time, love will not survive without trust.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

No, it won't. And you know, there's this book I love, it's called Dare to Lead from Dr. Brene Brown. And it there's a quote in there that says, Trust is built in very small moments. That is true, and that is true. I mean, there's these little moments throughout our years that has caused me to trust you.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Me too. I it's not one thing that you did so big in in the 18 years of us being together. I said, Well, that's the moment that I chose to trust her. It was those little things that you did that they allow me to lean back and be man, I trust this person. Yes, completely 100% blindly. I trust her.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

So then there's number two love cannot replace respect.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Oh, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

And respect is something that I think gets overlooked in marriages, but it is so important. Oh, it is, and I'm not saying that you and me have never had a moment, but that is pretty big in our relationship.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

I can say that you love me. I I'm not gonna say that that's the way because I love you, but I'm gonna say this. I know you love me by the way that you respect me.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah, I can say the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

That respect is shown. You know, that's not something that you earn. Okay? I didn't earn your respect. That respect came from you trusting me. Yeah, because you trust me, you respect me, and I can and I know the way you love me by the way that you respect me.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Respect is something that we talk about. Respect is something we talked about from the very beginning. Yeah. Because that was important to us.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I mean, we joke around. I mean, when we were friends with our best friends, we joke around. People might look at us and be like, wow, you guys are horrible. But I know you respect me.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

When it matters, there's a mutual respect in this relationship.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Even when we are joking around, yeah. I know, man, I know in myself that you respect me.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Yeah, same way. Same here. And and and to me, a relationship is hard to thrive if there's no respect.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

I don't think can survive.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

I don't think so either. Then there's number three love cannot replace communication.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Oh, that was a good one in our marriage.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

In the beginning, we had no form of communication. I mean, our communication was arguing.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Well, that was the only way that we knew how to communicate with each other, I guess, in that time. Everything, it was just an argument. Everything turned into an argument.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

And I mean, it just became something that we were hurting each other with.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Well, of course, because it wasn't we didn't see eye to eye, not the way we see it right now. No, the way we what is the word that I'm looking for? The way we come around conflict is way different just because we learn how to communicate.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Absolutely. I I completely agree with you on that. And we're always communicating. I think that if you talk, what's the biggest strength in this marriage? It's communication.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah. I mean, you have to find your sweet spot, right? You need to find something that works for you. For us is going for a drive. Yeah. And we mentioned this plenty of time in this podcast. It's just we love driving. I mean, we can start a conversation in the house, but I mean that conversation developed and strength when we jump in a car and we go for a drive.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Well, it's funny because we'll start the conversation in the car, and the first thing we we start a conversation at home, and the first thing we do is like, hey, you want to go for a drive?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I know.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Because the way we talk in a car, we just don't talk anywhere else. But I mean, it was a form of communication. We learn to talk to each other, we learn to listen to each other, we learn to respect each other in that. And, you know, we work at it all the time because even if there's a little lack in our communication skills, we discuss that in our communication. And we and we fix it and we move forward. And I just love this quote from Virginia, Virginia Satir. She's a family therapist, and she says, communication is to relationship, what breath is to life.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

I can testify to that.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

And I agree with that too.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

When you are in a relationship and you can talk to your partner, and feel safe that you can talk to your partner at the same time. Oh, it is so refreshing.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

I to me, it blows my mind where couples don't talk to each other.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Me too.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Or they can go days without having a meaningful conversation.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

It just don't make no sense to me.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

But the but because we worked at it and we've gotten where we've got it. I know. But if we would have kept on and we would have never matured to what we were in the beginning, we would have no communication.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Well, at the end of the day, all these require maturity.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

We require you one to do these things. If you don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Number four, love cannot replace emotional maturity.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

And so, even with emotional maturity, I mean, love does not heal emotional wounds, insecurity, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Nope. And that's all true. Like, yes, you love me. And yes, my safety with you is part of my healing journey. But I needed to work through my emotional wounds. I needed to let go of my insecurities. You couldn't do that for me. The love for you have for me did not do that for me.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

It was not, it was not enough, and it's not sustainable. I mean, those things are personal things. This is that's not a part of you come to the marriage and be like, hey, you're gonna do all this for me. It's not achievable.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

So here's a perfect example. I've always had a struggle with body weight. And in that struggle, I had a lot of insecurities.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

And you never saw me that way. You never thought that I had a problem. You never thought that I was ugly, the way I looked at myself. You you couldn't see what I saw of myself. And you loved me no matter what I thought about myself. But that didn't take away my insecurity.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

No, that never. I mean, that's something that you have to, that's something that you work on yourself this past year or year and a half. And I can see it how have fixed and have helped this marriage to be better.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Yeah. But I had to do that. Yeah, love wouldn't do that for me. No. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna repeat again the four things that love cannot do. So love cannot replace trust, love cannot replace respect, love cannot replace communication, love cannot replace emotional maturity.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

That's right. You know, love is not enough by himself. No, just by loving somebody and say that you love somebody, that's not enough by himself. What really keep couples together for decades is more than just saying I love you. And the number one thing is commitment. Yeah, commitment is so important. I think when we committed to each other, you and me, together for the long haul, it changed your life.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

And and love is a feeling you have, an emotion you experience, but commitment is a choice you make.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

And when you make that choice, it makes a difference. We choose each other every day. Okay, every day. We choose to Commit to this marriage every single day.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Even when things are not 100% going 100% the way we expect it's gonna go, we still choose to be there for each other.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Absolutely. And so, you know, commitment to me is such an important ingredient in a marriage.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

It is.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Then you have friendship. And I love to talk about this one.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Well, that's easy for us to talk.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

So I have my girlfriends that are my best friends, and I adore them. Oh my gosh, do I adore them? But I do recognize that my friendship with you is so different to what I have or I could have with anybody else in this world.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

You know, for some people, this may sound crazy. You know everything about my life. It's not one thing that is hidden from you in my life. You know every detail. You know all my secrets, you know all my dark secrets, you know everything about me. It's nothing that I can really sit down and say, hmm, Yami don't know about this.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Agreed. You know everything about me as well. And you know, happy marriages, and this is from Dr. John Gottam, says happy marriages are based on deep friendship. And I agree with that. I you are the number one friendship in my life. Yeah, I want to tell you everything at the moment it happens. I don't want to experience memories without you. I don't, I mean, it's like you're like that best friend I can't let go. I want you in every aspect of my life.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Same here. That's why I like, I mean, you and me, we're friends outside being a spouse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

We really are.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, you and me, we're friends.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Yeah, and I and I I I would not trade that for anything in the world.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Me either. And you know, the other one is share purpose.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Yeah, I love this one.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Reason being is we love this so much because every purpose that we have in our life, we trying to do that together. Yeah, it's not one thing that we have accomplished in this marriage, in our life, in our finances, parenting, whatever you want to put, that it was not a shared purpose before. We have this thing that we do every year that I love. So every year before the year is over, you and me, we sit down, we grab a pen and a pencil, and we vision for the next year. What is gonna be the next target? What is it that we have to improve? What is gonna be the next achievement in our life? And that brings purpose in our life, yeah, it does. And it's such a beautiful thing to be able to sit down together and dream for the future together and see where we want to go and see how you and me we can align together just to make that future our present.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Yeah. I mean, this is how this podcast came out.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

It was a shared vision, it was a conversation we had, and we realized that we were both excited about this and passionate about this. Yeah. And in that excitement, it was like when we started to create together, when we were planning on the microphones we were gonna get, it was so much fun to have that shared vision and do it together. And we and we do things, right? Like for instance, I we're very involved in a ministry, wildlife. And even though I'm more involved because I I do a lot of the day-to-day stuff, our pastors have taught us that we are one unit.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

And if there's something they need to tell me, they make sure that it's in a group chat with Omar and that we both are aware, even if I'm the one's gonna solve it or I'm the one that's gonna work through it. They always make a point that we are one unit, that we are together. Yeah, that anything that we have, any vision is shared because they are the same way.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

And that for us has served as such examples in our lives, which has caused us to be where we are today with this shared vision.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah, I think one of the most beautiful things besides ministry and this podcast that we have is we always trying to make sure that we find our excitement together. Because we can help each other. Yeah, we can view each other. And if one of us deviates from that assignment, the other one can be like, hey, you are a course, and you help, or you can help me line up, or I help you line up because we find our excitement together. So for that, we can work together. What a better way to find your assignment together with your best friend.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Yeah, that's exactly it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

It's just you don't feel lonely, you don't feel alone. Now you have somebody next to you that has the same vision, it's aligned with you, and you guys can help each other. And when you don't feel to give you a hundred, when you only this is the way I see it, right? The days that I that you give 90%, I can just pull the other 10%.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

The days that you that I don't feel I give 100%, you can just come and do the, you know, give me that 10% push. And I think that's a big deal for us.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Agreed. So then we have ingredient number four, which is emotional safety. And this is something that is big for me.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Because I know that I I've always been closed off emotionally. You know, the experiences in my life, like crying, crying is a big one for me. You are the only person that has ever seen me cry the way I cried in your arms that night. Yeah, it was one night, and it was a breakthrough that I had and an awareness that I had, and I sobbed. I didn't just cry, I sobbed. Yeah, and I sobbed in a way I had never in my life cried.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Well, it helped, right? It helped when you feel safe. Safety is a big deal in a marriage. And I'm glad, and I'm I'm gonna say it, I'm really proud that I can be that safety for you. Yeah, and that's a big deal for you because of your past and things that you have experienced in your life. And just the fact that I can bring that safety to your life, that's to me is amazing. And I love the quote from Sue Johnson. It says, We are never so vulnerable as when we're in love. Yeah, and that is so important that you can be vulnerable with your partner.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

But you have to get to a point when you have the commitment, the communication, the trust, the respect.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

All those things.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

If I didn't have that, if if I didn't have that with you, I probably would have never opened up that way.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Well, if you don't have those things, you don't feel safe. Yeah, you know, that's why I hold you tight.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

And you sure did. So I'm gonna go over again the ingredients. The four ingredients are so important in a marriage commitment, friendship, emotional safety, and trust. Trust. Okay, thank you. Those four ingredients I can say that I agree with 100% that that is so important in a marriage.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah, it is. It is, you know, it's a difference between falling in love and staying in love.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

It's a big difference. Falling in love, you know, almost everybody falls in love. Everybody falls in love. One time, one time in their life, they're gonna fall in love. Stay in love does require skills. Yeah, those skills that we're talking about in the beginning in those sweet spots that we talk about, trust, you know, safety, those are the skills that you need to stay in love. Saying that you are in love does not enough.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

So let's share some of the stuff we've learned along the way. Yeah or I mean, some of the tools that we've used to get to where we are. Because we didn't just figure this out on our own. No, we didn't just wake up one day and go, oh, we have a great marriage. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

For me, it was I can share one that is in my mind right now. It was so many of them, but only it was one. I remember being sitting in the sofa. You would, I think you came to Houston to visit family. I was sitting in the sofa, and in that time I used to do church online, and I used to listen to this pastor called Greg Laurie before I found wow. And he was doing a segment uh in marriage. And I cannot remember what he was preaching in the moment. But it made me realize in that moment all the things that I was lacking in this marriage and the things that I was doing that he was not allowing me to give 100% in what I needed in this marriage. And in that moment, I remember in that moment sitting in the sofa, I said, enough is enough. I need to change. But the key is I need to change. Yeah, I recognize my faults. Yeah, because sometimes we recognize other people's faults. I I mean, it's easy to see your faults in my in my from my perspective, but when I realize my faults am I sure comments, right? That's what you said in this marriage that helped me to require the skills not only to be in love, but staying in like stay in love.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Absolutely, and there's so many things we've done along the way. We've done conferences together, we've read books together, we pray together, our talks help us all the time. Yeah, and we just had to find the tools and what worked for us. Yeah, doesn't mean that what we do works for everybody else. But what I say is anybody that is willing to put in the work that really wants to get to that point in their marriage that they're thriving, find what works between you and your partner.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Of course. Yeah. I mean, the difference, the way we love, we love each other in eight after 18 years, it has to do the way we trust each other, we feel safety with each other, we have a better communication with each other, we emotionally available for each other. So that's definitely the difference in 18 years of marriage versus year number one.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

And when you're doing that, it's not just that you're focusing on this marriage and yourself, you're on each other, you're growing yourself. It changes your quality of life. Oh, 100% as you're growing, our quality of life is so different. Even when a problem comes, it is our reaction is so different. The way we resolve it is different because we've been able to come together and grow as two individuals to make this marriage thrive and make that commitment to each other.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I love this quote right here, and we have used this quote before. I think we used we used this quote last episode, and it's from Esther Perrell. The quality of our relationship determined the quality, determined the quality of our life.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

I mean, that's true. Our quality of life changed when our marriage changed. And that and that's I mean, that right there is that's why I said that even when a problem comes up, we handle it differently.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Exactly. And people can see the quality of my relationship by the way that we live our life.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Yeah. So it's about having those intentional habits that helps you to keep choosing each other.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

That's the bottom line. Just find them. I mean, find those little quirks that you know work. Like for us, it's the drive. That's our number one tool.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

The key is find what worked for you. Yeah, that's it. Find what worked for you with your time. Everybody life is different, everybody's time is different, and life is different, every marriage is different. So you have to find your own little thing that works for you and just go with it.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

And trust me, it will help your quality of life. Think about those situations that you're struggling with, and then find the tools that helps you to grow in that. And that right there will help you in your quality of life.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

It will help you to start to change, it will help you to start to grow, and it will change your marriage. I mean, if I if I can say any statement that I am absolute with, is the moment you have your awareness and you understand what you need to grow in, and you take that and you turn yourself around and you turn your life around in these situations, it will completely change your marriage.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Oh, 100%. Totally agree.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

So we have a couple's challenge, and this is you're gonna ask each other this. Question one is what do I contribute to making your relationship work? I'm gonna repeat that. What do I contribute to making our relationship work?

SPEAKER_02 36:26

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

So, like for Omar, it was when he listened to a pastor that he realized, oh, I have shortcomings. For me, it was when I went to a conference and I had the awareness of the changes I needed to make. And so those are the type of things that we contributed. That's just one example of what we've done to contribute to make this relationship work.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Question two is what area of your relationship needs more than love right now?

SPEAKER_02 36:56

That's gonna be a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Well, I mean, financial, like we had this conversation this morning. How can we make our health optimal?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

So that we have the energy to do the things that we love to do. Exactly. And to continue with our shared vision.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah. I mean, that required more than love.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

That requires more than love. Yeah. Question three is how can I better support you this week?

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, we always do that with each other. Yeah. We check in with each other every time that we can.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

And then question four, what does choosing you look like in this season?

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

And that's a good one. Yeah. And for us, again, the health. It's always been we want to take our our health to the next level.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

So we're choosing that. We're choosing that for our next season. So I'm gonna repeat the questions one more time. It's what do I contribute to making our relationship work? What area of our relationship means more, needs more than love right now? How can I better support you this week? And what does choosing you look like this season?

SPEAKER_02 38:07

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Love is not a feeling, love is an act of will.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

That's a good quote. Yeah. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

See, love is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Love starts the journey. Trust, communication, respect, friendship, emotional safety, and commitment helps you finish it.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

That's what I'm saying. Love is not enough.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Love may bring two people together, but it's the daily decision to serve, forgive, communicate, grow, and stay submitted that keeps them together. Because lasting marriage isn't built on feelings alone. It's built by two people who keep choosing each other.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

And that's why we keep choosing us.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

And we keep still choosing us. Thank you, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Thank you. And to the next time.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Before we end, take a breath.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

You don't have to fix anything tonight.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

If something in this episode stirred emotions, that doesn't mean something is wrong with you or your marriage.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

It means something matters.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

You're allowed to take what helped and leave the rest.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

You are allowed to go slow.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

If staying feels heavy right now, you're not alone in that.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

And if listening brought a little bit of clarity or relief, we are honored to see here with you.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Thank you for trusting us with your story. Even the parts you didn't say on that.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

We are still here.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

And we're glad you are too.