Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Hey everybody, we're back with another episode in our marriage series. And we are today going to be talking about something that maybe took us a little while to figure out in our marriages or me in my marriage. This is Audrey doing the intro today. We're going to be talking about being independent and happy in your marriage. So we're going to get into that here in a second.
Speaker: yes and you know we've talked about this in other episodes that by and large the image we have of a marriage comes from generally our parents marriage and also any other marriages we saw a lot of growing up right and so you may enter into a marriage thinking well yeah everyone each person in a marriage is very independent should have their own personality their own
Speaker: their own interests and likes, or you might be the opposite. No, when you're a couple, you do everything together and you like everything together. So we're just kind of trying to explore this topic a little bit and talk about the benefit to being your own self, your own independent person.
Speaker: Kind of a funny thing that happened recently in our marriage was my husband and I went on a little trip to get away together for the weekend it was great and Our babysitter watched our kids and she's now married and so when we came home They were both at the house and we were just sitting and chatting and I said something like you know I love reconnecting with my husband because it means that he talks more because he's a very quiet person and I'm the talker big surprise and
Speaker: And so I said very often, I'll even ask him questions and he just will not respond because that's just, he's just a thinker. And he'll just sit and think for a while and maybe 20 minutes later, he'll say something back and I'm thinking, am I chopped liver? Like, are you deaf? Did you even hear what I said? Because in the family I came from, we talk ad nauseam, respond all the time. Anyway, so I mentioned this and our sitter goes, oh my gosh, I'm not going crazy. He's exactly the same way. I'll say blah, blah, blah, blah, right, honey?
Speaker: Nothing, nothing. We just giggled and giggled, but okay, we're not alone. And that's by no means a strictly male thing. It's a personality thing and very often a chatty one is married to a non -chatty one. So anyway, I thought that was humorous. If you also have a spouse who does not respond, you are not alone. There's still good people. Okay, and here I am, the non -chatty one, just because I wanna think about it for a while. And so I'll be like, I'll be like, uh -huh, uh -huh, and then I'll be like,
Speaker: 30 minutes later, I'd be like, okay, so you know how we were talking about this? And I know what I want to say about that now. And he'll be like, hang on, let me pull that back up from wherever it went when I was talking about it. Right, he's already moved on. Yeah, totally. It's a cover thing. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: We're going to discuss independence and a happy marriage. So this is kind of like I remember the days of first being in love and you thought you wanted to be together all the time and never be more than six inches apart and all that. But then you were married for a little bit.
Speaker: It took a little while to realize all the things we're going to be talking about today. We're going to answer the question not only of how to seek independence a little bit, we're going to discuss that, but mostly we're going to address why. Why you want to have a little bit of independence and how your marriage can still stay happy.
Speaker: totally totally yeah so if you haven't listened to us before we will just tell you right up front we are big fans of lifelong faithful monogamous marriages we are Christian women and that is our viewpoint on the world but we also believe in being very confident and capable women ourselves and so we're going to largely be talking to the women out there but if you happen to be a husband who's listening it works for you too. So what does this look like in a faithful marriage where you are going to each other
Speaker: You're counseling together in big decisions and you love each other and are connecting, but you still are your own person. How do you be your best self and the best spouse to your partner? Right. Thank you so much for adding that caveat. If you want to know exactly what we think about intimacy in marriage, we have an episode about that too. Yes, we do. You'll find out that we are not interested in independence in that part of your relationship. That's not what we're talking about today.
Speaker: All right, so we are going to start with this thought that developing yourself makes you more well -rounded. And when your husband develops himself, he becomes more well -rounded. And that is a benefit to both of you in your relationship.
Speaker: Totally. In fact, I have to share a funny story here. When I was a child, well, a teen, we had an activity at a church activity, I think, where we all sat down and talked about the attributes we'd be looking for when we started to date and we were looking for a potential spouse. And we all wrote lists, right? Like, oh, he would have this and he would have this. And just to kind of brainstorm, what are you looking for? What do you think would be a good partnership to your own personality? But in my 13 or 14 year old mind, it was like,
Speaker: well, he will look the specific way and he will listen to this music and he will like these kinds of books and this kind of food. I didn't quite understand that I was going to get a human being with his own developed tastes and passions and it was going to look nothing like mine. I didn't realize that the most important things were going to be like two or three. You know, honesty, faithfulness, loves me kind of a thing, right? So it was kind of a silly thing to do. And now as a mature woman, I realize
Speaker: our spouses are totally different from us and we should be totally different from them. And as we develop our own selves and our own personalities and our own talents, we have so much more to bring to the table. Nobody wants to end up
Speaker: together forever with somebody who is a dud, right? Who has no different interests or hobbies or passions. And I do think that in some relationships, especially, I will even say this, especially the wife, I think is sometimes a little bit afraid to offer an opposing opinion or stand up for something that she believes that is vastly different from her spouse. That is what makes a marriage exciting. That's where the spice comes from, is two totally different people coming together.
Speaker: Yes, that is so awesome. So it brings to mind something that my husband and I did, oh, I don't know, quite a few years ago. We had this health examination where we had blood tests done and we had hair analysis done and we had all these things done and we were looking at each other
Speaker: Um, at the, like at the core level, like how you're made up chemically and, um, you know, your minerals and all that. And it was based like, um, there was a lot, the purpose of it was to discover what foods you're eating and how, you know, what foods you need to eat to become healthier. But what was so funny, what sticks in my mind about that is like my husband and I were like,
Speaker: clones, like identical twins, because we were like, we eat the same thing. And so like we had through, I don't know, when we were 15 years or something by that time, we, we were like, not, not genetically, but like chemically, we were like, so, so similar. And so I'm bringing this up as an example, because there are so many ways like living with somebody that you become
Speaker: Like, okay, so scripturally, it says the two become one. And we're very interested in that. Like, like harmony and all those ideas. And we talk about that a lot on our marriage series. You can go listen to the other ones. But in this one, we're thinking about, like, there's so much that brings you together, especially in a good, healthy marriage, that seeking something from, from outside or something different is going to add like another ingredient. So if you have like a two ingredient pie,
Speaker: It's going to be kind of boring, but you know, you start adding some spices or you start adding some different elements into your, you know, pie or salad or whatever dish you're making. It's going to be more interesting and more enjoyable for everybody. But because I just want to say like, because we live together and we eat the same things and we live together and we're learning how to be like each other and you know, all, all these things that make us more and more like each other, it's like you have to kind of intentionally seek a little bit of independence to be able to bring in
Speaker: that that spice or that difference. Yeah, that's so funny and definitely happens the longer you get married too. Like really at the beginning you tend to, the challenge tends to be melding, right? Taking all these different viewpoints and melding and after a few years it kind of, you kind of start to think, oh actually we need to remember that we are our own people too, right? Okay, so number two, being independent means that you have the freedom to spend time together
Speaker: and apart versus being kind of stuck in this bondage of we have to do all the things together. And again, like you said, at the beginning of a marriage, that's normal. We feel like it's almost the first year or two when you don't really want to go on group dates and you don't really want to see your friends very much because it's that honeymoon period and you are just dying to be together 24 -7, which is totally normal and healthy. But after a while, you really have to remember who you are as a person.
Speaker: And if you are both really dependent on each other, that can be a bit of a struggle. Very often it's one that's more that way than the other. And the one who wants to be dependent is like, oh, but I thought we're going to do something every weekend forever. And your spouse is like, oh, no, I actually want to go out with my guy friends, or I wanted to do this with my girlfriends. Maintaining those interests and that healthy balance is a really important thing to do.
Speaker: Right. And so on this one, this is really, we're kind of addressing the thoughts behind the time that you spend together. So, you know, if you're just a couple years into the marriage, in the first couple years of marriage, we're going to talk about have to versus want to is the thought here, right? So let's first look at it about making a meal, right? Okay, it's supper time. You're like, oh, I have to make dinner, right?
Speaker: Do you enjoy it? Does anything you cook that meal taste good? Nah, not really. But if you cook an I want to meal, oh my goodness, I want to be there and eat that one because that's a good one, right? So this is the same thing, the thoughts about spending time together or spending time apart. Like I want to. Well, you're going to enjoy the time together or you're going to enjoy the time apart. Same thing with, you know, it goes both ways. So spending time
Speaker: I have to spend time together. Well, that's not going to be as enjoyable as I want to spend time together. Um, I have to spend time away from him is not going to be enjoyable as I want to spend time away from him. So it's like the thoughts going into what you do both when you're together and when you're apart. And it's like it just, just changing your thought about it makes you feel free or makes you feel in bondage.
Speaker: Absolutely. And the good news is you control those thoughts. Only you. I mean, sometimes you might think it's a little bit more difficult because of a certain circumstance or whatever, but you get to choose them, which is phenomenal. This really reminds me of a quote that I read this week, and I'm going to share it with you guys. It's a little bit longer, but I'll include it in the show notes too because I thought it was so powerful. And it's talking about a mother and her attention to the home, right?
Speaker: says, by inattention to household duties, the little touches that make or mar the family piece, many a woman has reduced her home to a comfortless house, and many another has eliminated the essential elements of home by her self -assumed and persistent drudgery, in which she denies to her dear ones the cheer of her loving companionship. One -sided service, however devoted, may become neglect.
Speaker: So as a mom, you can probably see both sides of that, right? The day where you've just been like so tired and so exhausted, you do nothing and the house is a wreck and everybody's miserable, right? Or the other days where you feel like everything is on your shoulders, so you're running around doing everything and you feel like a slave and you're also miserable, right? There's a happy medium and the same goes with the marriage, right? When we have these thoughts like, oh, I got to do something with him or I have to, you know, we have to be together, it becomes, like you said, bondage or drudgery, right?
Speaker: when your thoughts are, I'm so excited to see my husband tonight. We haven't talked in a while. We're going to have this conversation, or I'm going to share this, or I'm just going to be happy no matter how he shows up. It's so freeing, right? How are we looking at this relationship? Are we looking at it as something liberating and exciting or something that just involves some drudgery? And that requires work. It really does.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Both ways. So I mentioned that when you're at the beginning of the marriage, you're like, Oh, I have to spend time apart. Well, maybe when you get a little farther into marriage, maybe when you're 10 years in, you're like, Oh, I have to do something together, right? Like we have an episode on date night. Oh, it's Friday. We have to do a date night. So like, you know, it's just those thoughts about it that can totally change how you feel either, either way, the spending time together or the spending time apart. But it's your choice, what you're doing. If you keep in mind that you're choosing to do that rather than you having to do that.
Speaker: It might require a little bit of adaptation, right? Because guaranteed, one of you probably wants to spend more time together than the other one. That's just life, right? We're both different. So you might have to have some conversations about this. Like, hey, a weekly date night is perfect for me. How about you? And maybe he prefers to do an every other week because on those off weeks, he wants to go see his friends. You know, get to a point where you're both really comfortable and feeling like you're getting enough from the relationship without suffocating each other.
Speaker: The last thought I had about this was a healthy marriage means we give our spouse the best, but we also don't require something of him or her that he can't give, okay? So for many years, I kept expecting my husband to listen and chat at me like my girlfriends do, and he just doesn't do that because it's not his personality.
Speaker: and for a while it was frustrating to me and I kept thinking something's wrong with our relationship or something's wrong with him or you know why can't he give me this until I realized because that's not him and wanting him to change is not doing him any good or our marriage any good so instead I come to him for the things that I know he can give me and that I need from him and then I go to my girlfriends for the chitty chitty chat chat because that's what they can give to me um you know and specific advice or whatever um but to just really focus on only asking
Speaker: for what they can give, right? Not requiring them to change for you. Right. That is such a good point. Again, brings in the bondage part of it. Yeah. All right. So moving on to number three, think about the example that you're setting for others. If you have a happy marriage, if you have a successful marriage, there's some level of responsibility to teach your success formula to others.
Speaker: to share your success formula with others. Like just, let's be honest, the rate of divorce or unhappy marriage is so rampant out there that like, how can we help others? So that's what we're going to address on number three is like, how do we help others if when we are in a successful and happy marriage?
Speaker: Yeah, and one of the coolest feelings in the world is having a happy and supportive spouse that then gives you the impetus to go out there and improve yourself, right? There's nothing like being in a happy relationship that makes you want to be a better person for yourself and for them, right? And hopefully, if it's a good relationship, they can help be this cheering section for you. You want to go out and develop a hobby or a talent or a business, and they can be right there behind you supporting you. It's fantastic when it works correctly.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. I read one of my favorite articles is it was in one of
Speaker: Let's see, maybe I'll see if I can find it. It might be on the blog as well. So Chip Gaines wrote an article about Joanna and about seeing her succeed and becoming her cheerleader. When he thought going into their marriage, he would have the leading role and she would be the cheerleader. And so that article, like it just gives me chills to think about it and to see him supporting her in such a way when he realized like she really had the magnetism and he needed to just support that. That's really neat. If I can find that article, I'll link to it.
Speaker: But think about the most important people or maybe the people that we have the biggest responsibility or the most opportunity to set an example for is our kids, right? How do we want our children to feel in their marriages? Successful? Stuck? Independent? In bondage?
Speaker: Like, this isn't just about us. Once we have children in our relationship, we need to show them how healthy, successful, happy people navigate a marriage because they're going to be modeling their relationships on that. You can think about your marriage and your parents' marriages and how kind of you maybe brought in some of the baggage.
Speaker: Because that's what we all did, right? It's what we grew up under. So maybe just the thought of minimizing some of that baggage that we pass on to our kids, and some of that baggage can be like this codependency that we can't spend time away from each other. We can't develop ourselves. We have to be like this uni person that has no interest. Uni person.
Speaker: Yes, the goal is to pass on to your children the smallest handbag of baggage and not the largest super -sized set of luggage. We can. They need a luggage cart to get it along with them.
Speaker: Even with our best our best efforts they will probably have that anyway and that's okay. That's what therapy is for. It's good Yes, you know, I personally have my heart has been broken seeing women end up in relationships with with spouses that are domineering or very controlling or even abusive and
Speaker: And I really feel like, and not that it's ever anyone's fault that they end up in a relationship like this, however, I really feel like if children grow up seeing mothers and fathers who demand respect from each other, consideration from each other, who really love each other and do not allow that kind of mistreatment, then the children are much more likely to grow up demanding the same. And recently, my son was doing a little bit of research and found out that
Speaker: Boys, psychologists say that boys largely get their sense of empathy from their fathers. So if they grow up without a father that shows a lot of empathy, guess what? They grow up as men who do not have empathy for their family members or society at large.
Speaker: So these examples, they don't just end when that marriage dissolves or when the children leave the home or whatever. Those ripples go on forever. And so it's our responsibility to stop that and to make sure that our children know what an acceptable relationship looks like, what a happy, healthy relationship looks like. Yeah, that is such good advice.
Speaker: Okay. Number four is stop relying on your spouse for your happiness. There is one episode, um, uh, early, very early episode of the life coach school podcast that really, really made this like super clear for me. And I will find it in Lincoln in the show notes. Um, but it brought such clarity and such, um, growth to my marriage. If I'm going to be honest here about stop relying on your spouse for your happiness.
Speaker: I think one line out of that, the one that sticks in my mind so much is that I expect you to make me happy when I don't even really know how to make myself happy. I'm not really very good at making myself happy, but here I'm expecting my spouse to figure it out and make me happy.
Speaker: Yeah. Honestly, I have told my husband before, there are two things I want my children to really understand. One is a relationship with God. And number two is how to make themselves happy. And I'm not talking about doing irresponsible things like leaving their relationship because they just don't feel happy. But doing the hard work of understanding what thoughts they're allowing in and what's poisoning their
Speaker: their mentality, right? Because the situation does not matter. We know that, right? We hear stories of women and men who survived concentration camps, and we're still able to keep a positive outlook. Clearly, the situation is not the problem. It's what's up here, right? And so, I mean, granted, we have our boundaries, right? If a spouse were to be abusive, then we would then take actions to keep ourselves safe. But when it comes to the day -to -day happiness,
Speaker: if it is reliant on your husband's actions or your wife's actions, you will be miserable for the rest of your life. I can clearly attest to that because they cannot possibly do everything right. And when they do, you'll find something else wrong with it because that's just how our brains work, right? If you are like us and believe that your happiness or your sadness comes from your thoughts, then that is where you start, not with your spouse's actions because good luck trying to control them. We haven't yet figured it out.
Speaker: Yes. One of the most empowering things that I have ever done is take charge of my own happiness. Because when you are in control of your own happiness, nobody else can take it away from you. Nobody else can give it to you. Nobody else can take it away from you. And that my friends is one of the most empowering things that you can ever figure out.
Speaker: So I have an example here to show you how this can work and what we're talking about, independence and a happy marriage. So when we were early in our marriage, my husband had this interest in flying and specifically
Speaker: flying in like a glider. So an airplane without an engine, they take it up, they pull it up with another airplane and they let it go and it glides down like a bird, right? No motor or anything. That absolutely terrifies me. I would like die before I could do that. But if my, I know, right? I would be like vomiting the whole way down or something. Like there would be, yeah.
Speaker: It would not be pretty. But my husband loved that. And if he, if I had said, oh, we have to do everything together and I am not leaving the ground in one of those gliders, then I would have deprived him of that happiness because he loved that. And same thing with me. OK, sewing, for example, he really doesn't have any interest in sewing or learning about sewing or anything.
Speaker: But he's never deprived me of that. He has allowed me to explore that and become very involved in that independent of him. And that adds to each of our happinesses. And we can bring that happiness and that joy and that empowerment back into our marriage and be a better person for each other.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I would also interject here too that we need to maybe sit down and have a chat a couple of times throughout the marriage, not just once, about our perceived roles of husband and wife and whether or not we need to change things, right? So I grew up in a very conservative household where mom was predominantly responsible for raising the kids and dad was predominantly responsible for bringing home a paycheck to pay for everything.
Speaker: And I've had to kind of wrestle with some feelings like, what happens if I make money? What happens if I want to work? What happens if my husband wants to be more involved in raising the kids? What does that look like? And to make sure that you and your spouse are on the same page there so that he doesn't feel threatened if the wife wants to go out and do something that maybe he thought he would be predominantly in charge of, like you're saying, the chip game scenario, right?
Speaker: And the wife doesn't feel threatened if the husband wants to do more at home. I think we would all probably love that actually, a little bit more laundry or whatever, but they usually just want to spend time with the kids and not do the laundry. Anyway, just to be really open about that so that everyone is getting exactly what they need out of the relationship. Our final tip for making sure that, for the why behind this independence in a marriage is
Speaker: Heaven forbid something were to happen to your spouse, right? Divorce, deaths, disabilities happen every single day, sadly. Are we prepared for something like that? It's just something none of us wants to think about, but it is really important.
Speaker: Right, right. And think about, would you be prepared to be a single parent emotionally, financially, logistically, if something happened to your spouse and you had young children left at home? What are you going to do? Cultivating some of this independence before, this is just another element of why it's kind of an important thing. Yeah. And just a few logistical ideas is, do you know how to log into all your financial institutions?
Speaker: check balances, pay bills, et cetera. Very often one spouse or the other is largely responsible for that. Like in my family, it's me. I don't know if my husband knows how to do that. So that would be an important thing to make sure he knows how to do it right in case something would happen to me.
Speaker: Could you check or change your insurance policies? Do you have a good insurance policy on your spouse, one that would actually support you for a while if something happened to them? Do you know how to file taxes? Do you know how to make sure that you are paying taxes so you don't get in trouble? What about maintaining your home or your property? Do you know, I mean, even if you don't know how to use the writing lawn more, could you hire somebody to do it if something happened, right? Your husband was no longer able to do that or your wife wasn't able to.
Speaker: you know, make dinner every night or whatever she does, could you go out and do that? And I will offer a side note here, it is always a good idea for both spouses to be involved in the finances. You don't both have to do the budgeting every week and both have to pay the bills that can kind of get messy.
Speaker: Everyone should know what's going on financially because it's too easy to hide things and get into messy spending if you don't have an accountability buddy. That's my two cents right there. We do have a whole episode on finances and marriage. It's one of the early ones in our series.
Speaker: wouldn't you want your spouse to be prepared if something happened to you and doesn't your spouse want you to prepare be prepared if heaven forbid something should happen to them of course they do and so when you think of it that way it's not only like a good idea it's like like
Speaker: It's really important for you to be able to handle it if something happened because like imagine if, okay, so my father passed away suddenly when he was young and my mom, I watched my mom deal not only with the incredible tragedy and all the emotions dealing with that, but have to figure out
Speaker: okay where's his life insurance information where you know all these things so um if you make it easier for yourself and know all these other things and you don't have to both navigate the grief and all the logistical stuff too um that's kind of a really good idea so definitely
Speaker: you know when we talk about it it's like oh yeah that's a no -brainer but how many how many weeks and months have gone by since you knew where you were financially or or whatever whatever is the one that you're kind of gliding on the back of the work they're doing just right just a thought there on that
Speaker: Yeah, one final thought about this was I firmly believe that both spouses should be named on every asset as well. It makes things a lot cleaner and easier. Sometimes it's just simpler for one spouse to go take out a HELOC or something, but with both spouses on it, it makes it so much simpler if something were to happen to one of them for the other one to assume all the assets and take control of everything. If your husband's the only one named on a credit card or a home or a car or whatever,
Speaker: It makes things a lot trickier for you to take things over after a death or a disability or something. And like you say, to go through a tragedy like that is plenty to deal with. To add in a logistical nightmare, you don't want to deal with that at all. But anyway, time out. What's a HELOC? Oh.
Speaker: home equity line of credit. Okay. I only know because it sounded really cool. It sounded really cool. I didn't want to know what it was. Yeah. So not to end the episode on a downer note talking about death and disability, but it's just so important to be your own self, right?
Speaker: And I will also add here that very often in the world it seems like we're a little bit way too far on the independent side and we don't rely on our spouse as much as we should. But I think we all know what that happy medium looks like or we will know it when we get there, right? Where we feel confident and happy in our own abilities and our own hobbies and interests and we also desperately love and need our spouse to make us
Speaker: You know to build this happy home together, so that's right right right my final thoughts on this are that this is something this is like a gift you can give to your spouse to yourself and to your spouse is when you become independent you can
Speaker: You can bring more to the table. You have more freedom. You have more happiness. You're setting a good example for your children. You're prepared if something happens to your spouse, all these things. But it's like a gift you're giving to your spouse and yourself. And so it's like there's really very few reasons not to. It's kind of like if you don't do it, you're kind of stunting the growth or the possibility of yourself and your spouse and your marriage together. And so it's kind of something that we wanted you guys to think about today.
Speaker: That's it for today, everybody. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie, and we're outnumbered. Thanks for listening, friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. Oops, I just kind of dipped into your line.
Speaker: you did that's okay but i have something but you can tell some of mine that i can did you do yours or not uh no but it kind of said that so whatever okay so no i have something to to say on this hang on give me just a it's gonna come
