Speaker 1: Life Audio. What have you been doing in your marriage
Speaker 1: that you feel like it's just not working? Maybe you're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've decided to watch my tone. My
Speaker 1: spouse told me that my tone can be harsh, and
Speaker 1: so this is something that I'm committing to doing. But
Speaker 1: they're still treating me the same way. They're still picking
Speaker 1: fights with me, or they don't even recognize that I've
Speaker 1: changed my tone. Why am I going through all this
Speaker 1: trouble if they don't even recognize it, if they don't
Speaker 1: even appreciate it, Keep doing it, Keep planting those seats,
Speaker 1: because over time you will see a transformation. Hey hey everyone,
Speaker 1: it's Dana se and you're listening to the Rebuilding US
Speaker 1: Marriage podcast. I am so stoked today you guys, because
Speaker 1: it is our four hundredth episode. Can you believe that
Speaker 1: four hundred episodes in I remember when I started this podcast,
Speaker 1: and the summer of twenty twenty. It was in COVID,
Speaker 1: and I really I didn't start the podcast because I
Speaker 1: was bored. I didn't start it because I just needed
Speaker 1: one more thing on my plate. I really started this
Speaker 1: podcast because I found myself saying some of the same
Speaker 1: things over and over to some of my clients, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, there's got to be a more
Speaker 1: efficient way to do this. I really want to find
Speaker 1: a way to resource myself so that I can just
Speaker 1: tell one of my clients, Hey, go listen to episode ten,
Speaker 1: or go listen to episode five. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: I never started off thinking I would be six years
Speaker 1: in four hundred episodes in but here we are. This
Speaker 1: is such a blessing and it really is such a
Speaker 1: testimony because, to be honest, I am not necessarily somebody
Speaker 1: who is very consistent with things. And I'll say it
Speaker 1: like this, I love starting things. You may have heard
Speaker 1: me say this on the show before if you've been
Speaker 1: listening for a while. John Acuff has written several books,
Speaker 1: and one of his books is called Start, and the
Speaker 1: other book is called Finish Well Start. That's like me, right,
Speaker 1: Like I love starting things. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a launcher.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of something fresh and new, especially
Speaker 1: if I can get my hands in on like the
Speaker 1: ground level of it. I am a visionary. I love
Speaker 1: launching things. Finishing, on the other hand, eh, not so exciting, right,
Speaker 1: And so there can be times that I find myself
Speaker 1: like Super Gung Ho, really energetic about something in the beginning,
Speaker 1: Hello weight loss Plan, but then three four, five, six
Speaker 1: weeks in, I'm bored and I'm ready to move on
Speaker 1: to something else. And so I wanted to have this
Speaker 1: conversation about consistency and marriage because I believe that there
Speaker 1: are many of you who you are going through the
Speaker 1: motions in your marriage. Maybe you're doing all the things
Speaker 1: that you know how to do, You're trying your best
Speaker 1: right to do what you know that you need to do,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, you find yourself struggling to be consistent.
Speaker 1: And when I stay consistent, I don't mean the big
Speaker 1: grand gestures. I really mean those small, everyday things that
Speaker 1: add up over time. So just to be sure that
Speaker 1: we're all on the same page, I want to give
Speaker 1: you a definition for consistency because maybe you think, hey,
Speaker 1: if I've been doing something for six months and I quit,
Speaker 1: that's consistent. I mean, how many of you have had
Speaker 1: more than five jobs in your adult life? How many
Speaker 1: of you have lived in more than ten homes in
Speaker 1: your adult life? Right? You? Maybe you move around from
Speaker 1: place to place to place, or you jump around from
Speaker 1: job to job to job. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that,
Speaker 1: but I do think there's something to be said of
Speaker 1: when you can meet someone and they're like, we've been
Speaker 1: married for forty three years. I met a lady at
Speaker 1: church recently and she got my book and she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got your book even though I've been
Speaker 1: married for over forty years. And she was like, it
Speaker 1: is so good. I am learning new things about my
Speaker 1: marriage every day. That's the kind of marriage that I
Speaker 1: want to be in. I want to be in forty
Speaker 1: years and still be learning and still be growing. There
Speaker 1: are certain people who maybe they've been married for forty
Speaker 1: three years, or they've been on their job for thirty
Speaker 1: eight years, or they've lived at the same house, they've
Speaker 1: had the same address for twenty five years. I just
Speaker 1: think there's something really special about that. Let me just
Speaker 1: give you this definition of consistency. It is reliable day
Speaker 1: to day practices of trust, commitment, and affection that builds
Speaker 1: a secure and long lasting bond. This is specific to relationships.
Speaker 1: So if you are in a relationship, let's say you've
Speaker 1: been married for ten years and there's a lack of affection,
Speaker 1: or there's a lack of trust, or there's a lack
Speaker 1: of commitment. This episode is hopefully going to encourage you
Speaker 1: to start doing some of those small things to rebuild
Speaker 1: the consistency, which will also then rebuild the trust and
Speaker 1: the commitment in your marriage. So, just in case you're
Speaker 1: new here, let me just give you kind of a
Speaker 1: quick rundown of me and Sean's story. Sean and I
Speaker 1: met as children. We were probably five and eight years
Speaker 1: old at the time when we got married, or when
Speaker 1: we got married, oh my goodness. When we met each other,
Speaker 1: we went to the same church. My sister was actually
Speaker 1: in Shawn's class at school, so my sister and Seawan
Speaker 1: were friends. And I was just like the little sister,
Speaker 1: little kid's sister, right, And I knew Sean. I knew
Speaker 1: about him, but I wasn't interested in him. Now, if
Speaker 1: you ask him, he will tell you that I came
Speaker 1: up to him and gave him this kiss when I
Speaker 1: was like five years old. Now that technically could be true,
Speaker 1: because I did kiss boys, like really early in my life.
Speaker 1: It's under the blood, praise God. But I don't remember that, okay,
Speaker 1: But he remembers it. He tells it like you know,
Speaker 1: it happened to him yesterday. But in any case, we
Speaker 1: knew each other just kind of, you know, around the way.
Speaker 1: We were friends at church, and we grew up, went
Speaker 1: to different schools and lost touch. His family ended up
Speaker 1: going to a different church, and I didn't Sean for years.
Speaker 1: When I was in ninth grade, he was a junior
Speaker 1: in high school. He came to our school, and we
Speaker 1: had a small, little private school, so I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you're talking less than two hundred kids in the whole school,
Speaker 1: So of course we're going to know each other. So
Speaker 1: we kind of, you know, got reacclimated. And that year,
Speaker 1: I was liking his friend, he was liking my friend.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be setting him up with my friend.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be setting me up with his friend.
Speaker 1: Y'all know how that goes. And neither of those relationships
Speaker 1: worked out. So the next year, my sophomore year, his
Speaker 1: senior year, we were like, oh, well, hello there, and
Speaker 1: we started dating. And we dated throughout my two years
Speaker 1: in high school, kind of off and all because you know,
Speaker 1: high school relationships. But when I graduated high school, we
Speaker 1: were like, you know, super serious, super committed, and we knew, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to get married. So I was going to
Speaker 1: go to college. I was, you know, have my whole
Speaker 1: five year plan ahead of me, Well, go off to
Speaker 1: college our first semester or my first semester, because he
Speaker 1: had already been in college. But my first semester in
Speaker 1: college I gets pregnant. That was not a part of
Speaker 1: my five year plan. And so we realized, Okay, what
Speaker 1: are we going to do. We know we're going to
Speaker 1: get married eventually, so what are we going to do.
Speaker 1: The churches that we attended at the time were very
Speaker 1: much old school, like, if you get pregnant, you will
Speaker 1: get married. And the pastor who married us literally told
Speaker 1: us if you don't get married, you're going to break up,
Speaker 1: like he was giving us our choice. So we thought, okay,
Speaker 1: well we obviously don't want to break up, so let's
Speaker 1: just get married. So we got married at eighteen and
Speaker 1: twenty one. I do not recommend, okay, if you are
Speaker 1: eighteen or twenty one, or if you have children who
Speaker 1: are eighteen and twenty one thinking about getting married, Listen, listen.
Speaker 1: I do not recommend, okay, you do not know anything
Speaker 1: about anything when you were eighteen and twenty one. I
Speaker 1: think that we should have waited. I think we should
Speaker 1: have graduated college first, We should have figured it out.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's neither he nor there. God worked it
Speaker 1: all out. We got married. We've been married for almost
Speaker 1: twenty seven years. In our marriage though, and if you've
Speaker 1: listened to any of these episodes, you get, you know,
Speaker 1: little taste of kind of the struggles that we experience
Speaker 1: in our marriage. And a big part of that was
Speaker 1: we were not consistent with anything. We would start something,
Speaker 1: we would stop, we would try something, we would figure well,
Speaker 1: that didn work, we'd stop, We go to therapy, we'd stop,
Speaker 1: we find a new therapist, we'd quit. Like, we were
Speaker 1: just not consistent in any area. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: what really changed was when I decided I am going
Speaker 1: to just decide to do something and just follow it through. Now.
Speaker 1: Earlier I told you that I'm not super consistent in
Speaker 1: some areas of my life, but then there are other
Speaker 1: areas of my life where I am super disciplined, laser focused,
Speaker 1: very consistent. So for whatever reason, I can like turn
Speaker 1: this on and off. And maybe you're like that too,
Speaker 1: And maybe like if you are a fitness trainer or
Speaker 1: you're like really into nutrition, you are like gung ho.
Speaker 1: That's me like, I am gung ho completely there right,
Speaker 1: But then in other areas I'm like, eh Ugh, you
Speaker 1: know what I want you to know today is that
Speaker 1: if your relationship is going to go from just kind
Speaker 1: of ho hum drum mundane average, Yeah, we get along,
Speaker 1: but things aren't great. If you're going to go from
Speaker 1: that to having a wonderful, exceptional, amazing marriage which you
Speaker 1: can have, friend you can have, that, you are going
Speaker 1: to have to decide to be consistent. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you a very simple framework, and you can
Speaker 1: apply this framework today in your marriage. And I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: if you apply it today, you are going to see
Speaker 1: changes right away, but you have to be consistent in
Speaker 1: doing it. Okay, I'm going to give you that framework,
Speaker 1: but first we have to take a quick break for
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor. If you have not already
Speaker 1: subscribed or followed the podcast, be sure to do that
Speaker 1: right now. I would love if you would write a
Speaker 1: review for the podcast, either on Apple or Spotify. Let
Speaker 1: people know how much the show means to you. It
Speaker 1: also helped them to be able to find the show,
Speaker 1: So don't go anywhere it We'll be right back. Most
Speaker 1: marriages aren't falling apart, they're being refined. Tried and True
Speaker 1: is a scripture based marriage guide for couples who want
Speaker 1: a resilient, faith filled marriage, especially in seasons that feel ordinary, difficult,
Speaker 1: or stretched through twelve and perfect biblical marriages. This book
Speaker 1: shows how God uses trials to strengthen connection, not destroy it.
Speaker 1: Learn more at Tried and truemarriagebook dot com or find
Speaker 1: Tried and True everywhere books are sold. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: we are back. We are talking about consistency in marriage.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite scriptures is in Second Corinthians, chapter five,
Speaker 1: verse seven. Shawn and I actually have this wall in
Speaker 1: our room. So every morning when I wake up, it's
Speaker 1: literally the first thing that I see, unless Sean's like
Speaker 1: staring at me in my face. But there's wall hanging
Speaker 1: that is on our wall. And it's the scripture second
Speaker 1: Crimpeans five to seven, which says for we walk by
Speaker 1: faith and not by sight. And I think about that
Speaker 1: in so many areas of my life, because we humans
Speaker 1: are prone to want to see something first before we
Speaker 1: believe it, right, I mean, think about it. If you
Speaker 1: start a nutrition plan, you start working out, what do
Speaker 1: you have to get on? You got to get on
Speaker 1: that scale and you're like, okay, I'm one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. For example, all right, I'm one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. I want to lose ten pounds. So you
Speaker 1: start eating right, you start working out, and then you
Speaker 1: keep getting on that scale because you want to see
Speaker 1: if this is really working. Let alone, your clothes are
Speaker 1: fitting a little looser. Let alone, you have more energy
Speaker 1: than you've had in years. You want to see something,
Speaker 1: and this is just how we are wired as humans.
Speaker 1: We want to see something before we will believe it that.
Speaker 1: This is why that scripture for we walk by faith
Speaker 1: and not by sight is so important because if you
Speaker 1: keep looking at what you see, you are going to
Speaker 1: stay discouraged. You might be planting seeds in your marriage,
Speaker 1: and so might your spouse. But guess what, it takes
Speaker 1: time for seeds to grow. You're not going to see
Speaker 1: it overnight. So if you're looking for seeds overnight, you're
Speaker 1: going to stay discouraged, and then you're going to give
Speaker 1: up and you're going to say, well, that didn't work.
Speaker 1: It is working. It just needs time to work. And
Speaker 1: this is why the clients that I have when they're
Speaker 1: in marriage coaching. I always tell them, listen, this is
Speaker 1: the beginning of your transformation. Your marriage is not going
Speaker 1: to just change overnight because you decided to sign up
Speaker 1: for marriage coaching. It works, and I have test stimonials
Speaker 1: upon testimonials upon testimonials that shows that this works. But
Speaker 1: it's going to take some time with any and everything
Speaker 1: in life, anything that we start out doing, unless you
Speaker 1: have like plastic surgery, but even that there's a recovery
Speaker 1: time and your scars have to fade. I mean, even
Speaker 1: that still takes time. Right, So you could take the
Speaker 1: easy way out, quote unquote, or you can keep eating
Speaker 1: right and keep working out and then trust that in
Speaker 1: time you're going to see those results. But don't give
Speaker 1: up just because you don't see any results. Okay, there's
Speaker 1: some free fitness advice for those of you all who
Speaker 1: need it, But let's talk about your marriage. What have
Speaker 1: you been doing in your marriage that you feel like
Speaker 1: it's just not working. Maybe you're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've decided to watch my tone. My spouse told me
Speaker 1: that my tone can be harsh, and so this is
Speaker 1: something that I'm committing to doing. But they're still treating
Speaker 1: me the same way. They're still picking fights with me,
Speaker 1: or they don't even recognize that I've changed my tone.
Speaker 1: Why am I going through all this trouble If they
Speaker 1: don't even recognize it, if they don't even appreciate it,
Speaker 1: keep doing it, Keep planting those seeds, because over time
Speaker 1: you will see a transformation. Okay, so let me give
Speaker 1: you this framework. This is going to be something you're
Speaker 1: gonna be like, why didn't I think of this earlier?
Speaker 1: I made this up, So if you use this, make
Speaker 1: sure that you give me credit. Okay, I literally made
Speaker 1: this up. But I want you to think about what
Speaker 1: are those small actions now. If you are a client
Speaker 1: of mine, if you've ever been through marriage coaching with me,
Speaker 1: you know that I always recommend these five to ten
Speaker 1: minute daily check ins. A check in is not the
Speaker 1: time for you to discuss bills. It is not the
Speaker 1: time for you to discuss vacation plans. It is not
Speaker 1: the time even for you to discuss problems per se.
Speaker 1: A check in is simply you checking in on the
Speaker 1: emotional health of your spouse. Hey, babe, how are you like?
Speaker 1: What's going on in your world today? This new exciting
Speaker 1: thing happened to you today? Was there anything hard that
Speaker 1: happened to you today. This is you simply checking in
Speaker 1: with each other to find out where you are. It's
Speaker 1: a little place of connection. Now, should you be having
Speaker 1: longer conversations, yes, Should you be going on your date
Speaker 1: nights or date lunches, yes, you should be doing all
Speaker 1: those things. But a daily check in really should be
Speaker 1: a non negotiable in your marriage. Everybody has five to
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and if you don't friend, you should not
Speaker 1: be married. I'm so sorry. If you don't have five
Speaker 1: or ten minutes that you can devote to just checking
Speaker 1: in with your spouse, something is seriously wrong. Okay, so
Speaker 1: these check ins are where we're going to start. Let
Speaker 1: me give you the framework. It's simply the acronym care.
Speaker 1: If you know me, you know I love acronyms and alliteration.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's another story. Care c are. This is
Speaker 1: the acronym. So the C is your check in every
Speaker 1: single day, five to ten minutes. It's easiest if you
Speaker 1: can do it the same time every day. So some
Speaker 1: couples will call this pillow talk. Right, it's at the
Speaker 1: end of every night you just check in with one another.
Speaker 1: You say, hey, what was the best part of your
Speaker 1: day to day or did you have a good day today?
Speaker 1: How are you today? You know you check in with
Speaker 1: each other why because you care about this person that
Speaker 1: you married, and because you should be curious and interested
Speaker 1: in this person that you married. So maybe you don't
Speaker 1: do it at night during pillow talk. Maybe you do
Speaker 1: it during your lunch break. You call each other at
Speaker 1: the start of your lunch break and you talk for
Speaker 1: five minutes before you go eat. Or maybe it's in
Speaker 1: the morning as soon as you wake up you say, Hey,
Speaker 1: what are you expecting God to do today? Or what
Speaker 1: exciting things do you have going on at work today?
Speaker 1: Or is there anything I can pray for you about today?
Speaker 1: Whatever it might be. Maybe it's going to be in
Speaker 1: the morning. But devote the same time, if possible, every
Speaker 1: single day to just checking in with one another. Again,
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of the check in is just I
Speaker 1: care about you. I just want to know what's going
Speaker 1: on in your world. That's it, Okay, So that's the
Speaker 1: se The A and care is affection. Every single day
Speaker 1: you should be showing your spouse some form of affection.
Speaker 1: And usually when I say affection, I mean physical affection. Okay,
Speaker 1: this could be a hug. This can be a kiss.
Speaker 1: This can be a squeeze of the shoulder, a tap
Speaker 1: on the butt. It can be I put my leg
Speaker 1: on top of your leg. It can be I put
Speaker 1: my cheek beside your cheek. I mean, be creative, right,
Speaker 1: but show your spouse some affection. Now. I know you
Speaker 1: might be thinking, well, I'm not a very affectionate person,
Speaker 1: or maybe my spouse isn't very affectionate. That's not really
Speaker 1: how our marriage works. Every human being needs touch, every
Speaker 1: single one of us. So you don't have to kiss
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, okay, But a peck, a hug, a
Speaker 1: shoulder squeeze, a butterfly kiss, you know, you put your
Speaker 1: eyelash on their cheeks. Something we can all do this
Speaker 1: every single day. Shows some form of physical affection. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're not together, if one spouse in the military,
Speaker 1: somebody's deployed you or out of town, get it, got it?
Speaker 1: Then you can do non physical forms of affection, such
Speaker 1: as sending a sweet note, a text message, sending flowers,
Speaker 1: doing something like that. But let me just encourage you
Speaker 1: to go for the physical forms of affection first and
Speaker 1: save the non physical forms of affection. If you cannot
Speaker 1: be together physically. Why because again we have so discounted
Speaker 1: the need for physical touch. It is so important. Do
Speaker 1: you think it's by chance that babies can act die
Speaker 1: if they are not held and touched. We're just big babies,
Speaker 1: you guys, Like we're the same people. We just grew up.
Speaker 1: We still need touch. So don't underestimate how powerful a
Speaker 1: hug is. I have an episode on here called do
Speaker 1: you Need to be hug heard or Helped? And the
Speaker 1: hugging part. So many people have written into me and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I never thought about how powerful it
Speaker 1: is to just hug my spouse. When I was away
Speaker 1: this week out a speaking engagement, and I brought my
Speaker 1: books with me, and so one of the ladies who
Speaker 1: had bought the books, she came up to me and
Speaker 1: she said, can I give you a hug? And now
Speaker 1: I don't know this lady from Adam, right, and I'm like, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm a big hugger anyway, sure, bring it in right.
Speaker 1: So she gives me the longest hug, like it was
Speaker 1: like one of those hugs that was just like no
Speaker 1: words needed to be said, but I knew everything that
Speaker 1: she meant in that hug and she ended up telling
Speaker 1: me she was like girl, She said, I read the
Speaker 1: first three chapters of your book last night, and let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. It was everything I needed, everything
Speaker 1: I needed. You have no idea, She kept saying, you
Speaker 1: have no idea, You have no idea. She just kept
Speaker 1: saying that over and over and over, and I'm just
Speaker 1: hugging her back, hugging her back, and I was like,
Speaker 1: praise the Lord, Like I didn't know what to say.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. You know, but the
Speaker 1: power of a hug, the power of human connection in
Speaker 1: that way cannot be over exaggerated. So the A is
Speaker 1: for affection, Okay. The R in our care acronym is reassurance.
Speaker 1: Every day you need to make it your priority to
Speaker 1: reassure your spouse, to reassure them of what, to reassure
Speaker 1: them that you love them, that you want them, that
Speaker 1: you need them, that you chose them. And you don't
Speaker 1: have to go up to them and say I chose you,
Speaker 1: I want you, I need you. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do that, but you can. You can say these things
Speaker 1: and ways that are creative to you, that sound natural
Speaker 1: to you. You could say something like babe, I am
Speaker 1: so glad that we got married. I love the life
Speaker 1: that we build. I tell Sean that all the time. Sean,
Speaker 1: I loved this life that we're building. You can say
Speaker 1: I am so grateful for you, and I am so
Speaker 1: thankful for this family that we have. I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be anywhere else, or those powerful three words, I
Speaker 1: love you. How often do you tell your spouse that
Speaker 1: you love them or do you just assume they know.
Speaker 1: I told them a couple of years ago that nothing's changed.
Speaker 1: They probably need to hear it regularly. So some of
Speaker 1: you maybe just need to start there. Just start with
Speaker 1: telling each other that you love each other every day
Speaker 1: and don't do like the loya or loveya. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: about like I love you? So funny story is a
Speaker 1: few years ago when I was working at the church
Speaker 1: and one of our pastors he was like, I was
Speaker 1: walking through the office and he was talking to somebody
Speaker 1: else and they were kind of like giggling, right, and
Speaker 1: so they look over at me and he goes, watch this,
Speaker 1: watch this. He goes, Dana, I love you, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I love you too, and I like
Speaker 1: walked out, you know, and then they start like cracking
Speaker 1: up right, and he goes, Lo, what you gotta come back?
Speaker 1: So I come back. He goes, I told them you
Speaker 1: were going to say that I was going to say
Speaker 1: I love you, and you were gonna be like love you.
Speaker 1: He was like, cause you don't really love me, you know.
Speaker 1: And we just like all kind of laughed about it.
Speaker 1: And we were very tight knit staff, and so there's
Speaker 1: nothing like crazy funny going on. It was just, you know,
Speaker 1: we genuinely love each other like brothers and sisters. And
Speaker 1: so I said, no, I love you. I was like,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I don't know. I just that's
Speaker 1: just what I say, right, But how many of us
Speaker 1: say that to our spouse? Was like love you? Or
Speaker 1: my goodness, if your spouse tells you I love you
Speaker 1: and then you send them a like like emoji or
Speaker 1: thumbs up, don't do that right, like say I love
Speaker 1: you too. So those small acts of reassurance ten, it says,
Speaker 1: go a very long way. All right, So we've got
Speaker 1: the c is for your daily check in five ten minutes,
Speaker 1: you guys, It's all I'm saying. Don't do fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: five forty five minutes, five to ten minutes daily check
Speaker 1: in that's the C. The A is affection, show some
Speaker 1: sort of physical affection to your spouse every single day.
Speaker 1: The R is reassure them that they are your person. Okay,
Speaker 1: however you need to do that. And then the E
Speaker 1: is to encourage them, build them up. We live in
Speaker 1: a crazy world, you guys, and there's so many things
Speaker 1: that come at us all day, and our spouses need
Speaker 1: to be encouraged. They need to be built up, they
Speaker 1: need to be appreciated. And listen, I know you're thinking,
Speaker 1: I need to be encouraged. I need to be appreciated.
Speaker 1: I need physical acts of affection. You know how you
Speaker 1: get things, you give them away first. It's true. It
Speaker 1: is a life principle. Give and it shall be given
Speaker 1: unto you. You will reap what you sew. Almost every
Speaker 1: major religion has this tenet. Whether you call it karma,
Speaker 1: whether you call it giving, whether you call it generosity,
Speaker 1: I mean we all believe the same thing. You don't
Speaker 1: just want something and think that it's going to come
Speaker 1: to you the things that you want, You've got to
Speaker 1: be willing to give first and again, being consistent. You
Speaker 1: might start telling your spouse I love you, and maybe
Speaker 1: they don't say it back and yeah, that hurts. Or
Speaker 1: maybe you start to show your spouse some physical affection
Speaker 1: and they squirm away because they're not used to it,
Speaker 1: and they're probably thinking, what do you want? Like this
Speaker 1: is new? Just keep at it, be consistent, and I
Speaker 1: really believe that over time, not only are they going
Speaker 1: to soften up to it, but then they're going to reciprocate.
Speaker 1: So this is a very simple episode. You all, It's
Speaker 1: a very simple framework. How do you show up consistently
Speaker 1: in your marriage? You simply care, You simply care every
Speaker 1: single day, have those check ins. You show affection, reassurance
Speaker 1: and encouragement. And I believe that if we can do
Speaker 1: these small acts every day, just keep showing up every
Speaker 1: single day, you're gonna look down the road five years
Speaker 1: later and you're gonna be like, our marriage is better
Speaker 1: than it's ever been. What changed We were intentional. That's
Speaker 1: what changed. We were consistent. That is been the biggest
Speaker 1: difference maker in my marriage is that Sean and I
Speaker 1: are very intentional. Our marriage can go on autopilot, just
Speaker 1: like your marriage can go on autopilot. We can neglect
Speaker 1: each other just like you can neglect your spouse. But
Speaker 1: we just make it our business not to do that.
Speaker 1: And when we find ourselves slipping into old patterns and
Speaker 1: old behaviors and old habits, we catch ourselves. We keep
Speaker 1: each other accountable, We keep ourselves accountable, and we say no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: because what we're not going to do is have a boring,
Speaker 1: dry marriage. Okay, life is too short for that nonsense.
Speaker 1: So we are going to get it together. We are
Speaker 1: going to do these small acts of kindness for one another,
Speaker 1: and we get to create the marriage that we want.
Speaker 1: If you don't get anything else from this podcast, I
Speaker 1: pray that you get that message. You truly do get
Speaker 1: to create the marriage that you want. You are not helpless,
Speaker 1: you are not a victim. You get to choose, and
Speaker 1: so I pray that you choose wisely, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you put into practice this very simple care acronym
Speaker 1: to help you to be more consistent in your marriage.
Speaker 1: Well that does it for us today. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it was a shorter episode than usual, just by a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes. Actually it's not really that short now
Speaker 1: that'll look at the timer, but it felt short to me.
Speaker 1: So I hope that you've enjoyed this episode. You can
Speaker 1: find a show notes to today's episode in every other
Speaker 1: episode at Danishshay dot com Ford Slash Podcast. Today you
Speaker 1: can go to Danishshay dot com, Fort Slash Podcast Slash
Speaker 1: four hundred, four hundredth episode. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for being a part of this journey. I couldn't have
Speaker 1: done it without ya. Literally couldn't have done it without you.
Speaker 1: Were over a million downloads in and I am so
Speaker 1: thankful for the hundreds of reviews that you guys have
Speaker 1: left on this podcast. If you have not already written
Speaker 1: a review, please take the time right now and write
Speaker 1: a review for the Rebuilding US Podcast. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here and I will see you all
Speaker 1: next week. Take care.