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067 | Building a Healthy Marriage: On Growth
349 Plays3 years ago
In the final episode of the marriage series Josh and Phy talk about growth as a couple: how they vision cast for the future, practical steps for getting on the same page of growth - including Sunday night planning and goal setting getaways - and what to do when your spouse isn't growing the way you wish.
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast and Honest Marriage Series
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hi, welcome back to Verity Podcast. I'm Felicia Masonheimer. And I'm her husband, Josh. And we are in the very last episode of the Honest Marriage series, episode 12. And I can't believe we're here already. That's three months worth of podcast episodes.
Reflections on Growth and Vision in Marriage
00:00:47
Speaker
We're recording this right after Christmas before New Year's. And so it's a little bit late going up because of the holiday, but we're so glad that we squeezed it in before we wrap up the year.
00:00:59
Speaker
And in this episode, we're talking about growth as a couple and what Josh and I do to grow as a couple to stay on the same page and to keep a vision for the future. We thought this would be a good way to end the series and hopefully give you something practical you can try out in your own marriage as you are going forward.
00:01:20
Speaker
So we are going to be looking at our verse for this episode in Proverbs. It's Proverbs 29, 18, which says, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. Now, obviously in context, this is talking about prophetic vision. So in the Old Testament, a prophet giving the word of the Lord, the revelation of God that cast a vision for
00:01:50
Speaker
Israel at the time. That's the context of this verse. Another translation of this verse is, where there is no vision, the people perish. I think it's interesting that in the ESV it says people cast off restraint, but the end result is that they perish. Either way, a Christ-centered vision for the future
00:02:11
Speaker
is the only way to remain in godliness, to remain together in walking in a scriptural focus, a Christ-centered life. If we don't do that, we can cast off restraint and fail to keep the law, the gospel.
Understanding Personality Differences and Love Languages
00:02:29
Speaker
So we're going to talk about how Josh and I do that practically, how we keep a vision. We, as we've shared so far in this series, are very different personalities, would you say?
00:02:43
Speaker
We actually recently retook the love languages test and discovered that we are still opposite on our love languages, but we also took the apology languages test, which is on the same website. That was interesting. That was very interesting. Very helpful. But once again, we were complete opposite.
00:03:05
Speaker
Sometimes I'm like, gosh, the cards are just stacked. Every single time we do any kind of test, we're always complete opposite. I've literally got a zero in what she scored the highest on. Yup, exactly.
00:03:19
Speaker
Anyway, it takes a lot of work for us to remain on the same page. And again, we've talked about this throughout this series. So if you are jumping in now, you can go back and listen to previous episodes where we talk about our different personalities and how we work through conflict and make decisions about everything from parenting
00:03:40
Speaker
to finances and more.
Effective Marriage Practices: Planning and Organization
00:03:42
Speaker
But keeping the vision has been really important for us because of all the transitions we've been through as a couple. And so there are two big things that we do that have been very helpful to us. And the first thing is our Sunday night planning. Yeah, so usually after the kids go down to bed, we have our planners that we have right now.
00:04:07
Speaker
and it's just like a way to structure out the week that's coming up and we list everything we have on the calendar from previously and everything that we know is coming up that may have not made it on the calendar
00:04:24
Speaker
And we use like a shared calendar, a Google calendar. Yeah. So we just basically go down and be like, Oh, like, so you have this on this day, which for me really removed a lot of like, Oh, we're doing this today. You never told me that.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yes, that was a huge reason we did the shared electronic calendar because I don't actually like electronic calendars, but it was Josh's preference. And so in order for him to know what we were up to, we started using it together. And it's actually worked really well because then I just take what's on that calendar and put it into my physical planner. And now you use a physical planner as well.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, and it's really useful to look at it each day in the morning and be like, just as a reminder, oh yeah, we had this today, along with checking the electronic one.
00:05:21
Speaker
And so it is really useful to just kind of stay on the same page and I guess like synchronize basically. And like we have to do it still, even though we have a shared calendar, you know, like I have to sit down and do the planning meeting with her or else, you know, there will be something on the calendar that it's like, Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. Or.
00:05:46
Speaker
if it's there we never like talked about it like oh that actually includes me as in addition to you right yeah so we'll add things to the electronic calendar throughout the week but then we'll have to you know sit down on Sunday night talk about it go over the week and say okay well I see that you have this early morning meeting on Tuesday what time will you be back because I have to leave to go to this you know and I think our life is unique in that
00:06:14
Speaker
Every single thing for us happens under our roof. We have a small farm. We run our business from the farm. We homeschool and our church is five minutes away and our town is 10 minutes away. And so everything revolves very close to our home.
00:06:32
Speaker
And a lot is happening under our roof and we often have people over, people are often here at our house throughout the week. So there's a lot that has to be discussed and we have to make sure that we know who is where so that we can trade off kids and schooling and work. Because we both work and we both homeschool. And so there's a lot of logistics involved there. But the Sunday night meeting works no matter what lifestyle you live, I would say.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. It's kind of like a nice little end to our Sabbath at sundown. And it just kind of prepares you mentally for the week so that you don't feel like you're already behind Monday morning. That's a really good way to put it.
00:07:20
Speaker
So during the meeting, practically speaking, Josh kind of described, we go over the Google calendar and that is all of our appointments. So those are like outside appointments with other people, interviews that we have, you know, people who are going to be at the house working, anything like that goes into the calendar, doctor's appointments for kids, all of it.
00:07:42
Speaker
That's on the Google Calendar. But we don't put tasks or anything aside from birthdays that we need to remember on the Google Calendar. Or projects. Those go into our planners, but we still want to talk about them during our meeting. So we talk about our appointments, who's going to be where, what days would be best for Josh to homeschool, for me to homeschool. Typically, I watch the kids in homeschool in the mornings and he works, and then we switch in the afternoons.
00:08:12
Speaker
I work in the afternoons and he will watch the kids and answer some emails in the afternoons. So we'll talk through all of that in the meeting. But then we also talk about other things, like... You've been talking about your power sheets lately, your personal growth. Yeah, my own goals, my plans for the next year, we'll talk about that kind of thing.
00:08:35
Speaker
meals I'll sometimes say hey are there any things you need because I plan all the meals for the week Sunday night and then I place a pickup order that evening so that it's ready to go Monday as well and so we just start the week on the same page and we're trying to also take some time to just talk to each other
00:08:55
Speaker
a little bit. Yeah, as well kind of touch base. Like I said, we synchronize. And it does kind of like, you know, that's when you would be like, are you getting enough time in the morning to have devotions or, you know, develop personal growth. And so is a time for us to kind of touch base with one another on our growth.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah. So it's just, it started out, I think, I don't even know how it started, but we wanted a way to stay on the same page, but then it became so helpful. It's kind of just seems to come naturally now.
00:09:33
Speaker
And we, I look forward to it. I don't know if you look forward to it, but I do. It's usually a good experience. Okay. So that's the one big thing. And if you're listening, we have a free marriage meeting download.
00:09:51
Speaker
on the website FeliciaMasonHimer.com slash resources. You'll see it listed there. It says your marriage checkup. And that is a free download with many of the exact questions that we ask during our Sunday night meeting. So if you would like to have a guide to using your own marriage, you can head to FeliciaMasonHimer.com
00:10:12
Speaker
slash resources and it should be right there on the freebie page. We've got a bunch of great downloads so that you can grab, but that one is specific for marriage. Okay. Yeah. Cool beans. Okay.
Setting Family Goals and Yearly Themes
00:10:24
Speaker
So the other thing that we've done, this one we haven't done every year, but we've done it
00:10:29
Speaker
twice, I think maybe three times, though it didn't look exactly the same as this time. But we've gotten away towards the end of the year to talk about our vision for the next year.
00:10:46
Speaker
our goals, our desire for what we want for our family. Yeah, a company retreat. A company retreat. Kind of. Management only. So how would you describe what we did this time?
00:11:03
Speaker
Well, we did a lot of Christmas shopping. That's true. But yeah, like we just took some time to just talk about our vision for this coming year for our company and for the children and just our lives.
00:11:24
Speaker
So it was really nice to just kind of get away and have some clarity in that. And we covered a lot of ground just kind of candidly while we were doing, you know, at a coffee shop or, you know, bookstore or at Target.
00:11:42
Speaker
So we were able to just kind of like there was no agenda as far as like the itinerary of the trip, but we were just kind of able to just discuss everything and cover our hopes and goals and expectations for the coming year and it was really nice.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, it was nice. It was just one night and a day and a half or yeah, basically a day and a half and then not too far away from home. And so, like I said, we've done this a couple of times and it isn't very structured. Like we're not sitting down with a list of things to go over, although.
00:12:22
Speaker
Sometimes we have a few things that we really need to talk about. But, you know, for this year, we were looking back on 2021 and we had a lot of travel this year, mostly for work or for my brother's wedding. And it was all really fun and really exciting. But next year, that's something that we don't want to do because it took us away from
00:12:46
Speaker
home and the farm so much that we really want to stay close to home next year. So we talked about that and what that will look like and why we want to do that and what impact it will have on the family. And so, you know, we got to talk through different children and what we think they need. Yeah. And we even came up with a word. We tried several different versions of the word for the year.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, the first draft was recoil. And I was like, that's not a very positive word. It makes me think of like a snake before it strikes or something. We were trying to come up with something along the lines of like retreat or rest. You think the better version was for Cooper, right? Yes, I think that was the better version. I was like, recoil doesn't sound like a good word for the year. I'm not sure why, but it doesn't.
00:13:41
Speaker
But for instance, setting a word for the year, this is something, we don't take it super seriously, we're not gonna just use this word all the time next year, but I do pray about a word personally for each year, and all it is is a focus. This is kind of a theme, a focus that I align my goals with, and for us, setting that intention for the year tells us when something doesn't line up with that intention,
00:14:10
Speaker
then we need to be able to say no to that no matter how good it is. So if someone comes along in August and is like, hey, you have this great opportunity to take this trip. Well, we've already set our intention that trips are really a no go in 2022 other than the few that we've chosen because it's a lot of strain on the family.
00:14:32
Speaker
After we get back in with the garden and the animals and the business and stuff and so we know what to say no to and getting on the same page with that I think is helpful because then we can hold each other accountable later on in the year. Yeah, I think it will also help for us to be more invested in our local community.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. So that would be nice. Yeah. And so you don't have to set a word for the year to accomplish that. You can just accomplish that by talking about things and maybe setting three or five actual goals for the year. We didn't set anything tangible beyond our word and the decisions that we made for the business and for our home life. But you could be very specific if that works better for you.
00:15:18
Speaker
Many of you know that my son Ivan was born towards the end of the year 2020. And so without question, all of us as a world were struggling with anxiety. And on top of that, I struggled with postpartum anxiety at the end of 2020.
00:15:34
Speaker
And during that time, I found the Abide app. As I was trying to fall asleep at night and struggling with intrusive thoughts and anxiety, the Abide app was actually the thing that I reached for, guided meditations completely based on scripture. Abide is the number one Christian meditation app, and Abide users report less stress, lower levels of anxiety and depression, and better sleep.
00:15:58
Speaker
For a limited time, our listeners will get 25% off a premium subscription when you visit abide.co slash Verity. Abides meditations start at only two minutes long, so they're super easy to fit into your schedule. I used them at bedtime, but I also listened to them in the car and sometimes while I was cooking dinner or in between my work tasks.
00:16:20
Speaker
You can also use Abide's Bedtime Stories, which are all based on scripture, and they work for kids and adults alike. You can get started now with 25% off a premium subscription by downloading the Abide app at abide.co slash verity. You'll get additional stories and meditations, premium music, soothing sounds, and more.
00:16:42
Speaker
Support this show and get 25% off by going to abi.co slash verity and that's A-B-I-D-E dot C-O slash verity for your 25% off a premium subscription. Okay, so that's what our getaway for goals and vision casting looks like.
Supporting Personal and Spiritual Growth in Marriage
00:17:02
Speaker
Now, one question I think might come up is, what do I do if I'm growing but my spouse is not growing at the pace that I want or I wish or I think they should be objectively? I think every spouse gets to a point where they look at the other one and they're like,
00:17:25
Speaker
you are not where I think you should be in this area. Basically, you're dead weight. You're dead weight. You need to pick it up enough. And I think it's really hard because you know that maybe the growth, it would be the best thing for them, whether it's their health, their spirituality, their parenting, their friendships, any of that you want them to be growing, but they're not. You know, you can't force them to change.
00:17:53
Speaker
So what do you do in a situation like that? That's kind of the question I think that people would ask. We've been very open that both of us have wished the other was growing in certain areas at a pace, you know, that we would have liked better.
00:18:15
Speaker
And we were talking before we recorded about two areas where we both needed growth. And one that I thought of is my struggle with affection and physical touch. And Josh thought of his struggle to be really consistent and growing in his Bible study and in his knowledge of the Word.
00:18:39
Speaker
So we were going to talk separately. I'll, I'll talk, he'll talk about what our spouse did for us that has helped us grow in those areas. So Josh, why don't you go first? Okay. All right. Got me in the hot seat. So for me, I think I've struggled with kind of like consistency in general as a theme. Um,
00:19:05
Speaker
So it's no surprise that it's affected my devotional time or quiet time. A lot of people have different words for it. But for me, consistency has been hard. And when I have been consistent, it's been hard not to view it as a chore and something that I'm just checking off the list.
00:19:32
Speaker
So it's tough. It's like you have to find the medium where it's relational as well as consistent. So like what I've been doing recently to try and just like do something, you know, is just like I've been listening to the Bible on audio.
00:19:56
Speaker
And while I'm doing that, I've just been reciting like writing down memory verses and then just taking like a time of prayer after that if like the whole family isn't around, which depends on if whether or not I get up early enough to do it.
00:20:15
Speaker
So that's been really helpful for me to just kind of learn the word and commit it to heart. And this is a newer thing for me. A newer model for you? Yeah, a newer model.
00:20:31
Speaker
So it's been working pretty well for just like, you know, because I always get kind of paralyzed by, Oh, like, what do I study now? Like, do I get this devotional or that devotional? And some of them are just like a lot of busy work. If there's wide writing required or.
00:20:53
Speaker
There's no verses at all. So you're not even like, you know, I know learning the Bible, a really good Bible study revelation and one on first to third John by this lady named Felicia. I don't know. It's kind of daunting. Verse by verse, my man. Might have to take up some of the articles there.
00:21:24
Speaker
But yeah, so that's been helpful for me. Felicia has been able to support me in that by just kind of allowing the time. If there's something, if I do it later in the morning, then she kind of makes a little space for it.
00:21:45
Speaker
and won't, you know, like ask of me things and so that's been really nice for her to kind of just like create that space and kind of cultivate it.
00:21:58
Speaker
So that's been a very passive way of her supporting me, which usually goes better than an active way of supporting me. Okay. So tell people, though, what would an active, quote unquote, active way of, quote unquote, supporting be in that situation? Because I think a lot of wives really struggle in this area sometimes if they're like me. It's tough because it can often, like,
00:22:28
Speaker
You feel like you're nagging and he feels like you're nagging. And I don't know, like when it comes to a man's religious status and knowledge, it's kind of.
00:22:46
Speaker
I guess a humble topic, like you have to be really humble as the man to not be offended by your wife asking about it. So it's really tough to be that humble because you know, especially in cases like this, obviously she is more, you know, studied or at least diligent in her studies.
00:23:13
Speaker
Well, I think you're being a bit modest here. You've always been consistent in seeking the Lord. It wasn't like you were like years of not seeking Him. You weren't like a functional atheist or anything. You just weren't studying it the way I was or do. And you weren't... it didn't look the way mine looks.
00:23:38
Speaker
And I think that's where some wives, and husbands too, because I'm sure there's husbands with wives who struggle this way, spouses can fall into a problem when they expect their spouse's Bible study growth to look exactly like theirs. And some hurtful conversations can come out of it.
00:24:02
Speaker
You know, like when I'm studying and like she doesn't see it for, you know, maybe a couple of weeks and it's just done before she woke up or, you know, here or there when she wasn't around and she may say like, I don't even know where you are spiritually because I haven't seen you studying. Like that's super hurtful and really discouraging when you have.
00:24:31
Speaker
been studying and she just hasn't seen it. So I think having an open dialogue and maybe in one of your Sunday night weekly preps, just be like, have you had time to do your devotions? Has the schedule allowed for it? And not like pointed accusatory questions, but
00:24:59
Speaker
You know, there's a way to ask without seeming like you doubt them. I think I asked at one point, do you have time and is there a way I can help make time so this is a priority for you?
Navigating Physical Affection and Emotional Growth
00:25:15
Speaker
And that put it in your court to say, yes, it would be helpful if, you know, if I'm doing it at eight o'clock, if you could, you know, give me some space in the living room to do it or
00:25:28
Speaker
Maybe it's a husband who's like, I'm going to do it in the evening when I get home from work after dinner. Can I have a half hour after dinner to do it? And it's a sacrifice on your part as the wife.
00:25:43
Speaker
to give up that time, but it's a way of investing in his growth or in her growth, whoever has this particular issue that we're talking about now. And it might be both. Both partners have to do that. Yeah. So you talked about an example for yourself.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yes, so I have been pretty open in the past that I have struggled with physical affection or physical touch, like non-sexual touch as they call it on the love languages test. When we first took the love languages test, I got a zero for physical touch and Josh
00:26:24
Speaker
That's always been his highest love language, classic, Mason Hymers. That happens to us every single time. But I think it's just that in the early days, my family of origin wasn't a very touchy family.
00:26:43
Speaker
was that we weren't a huggy family. A little bit different now. PDA embarrassed you. Oh yes. PDA embarrassed. It's still, it's, I'm better now about it, but like even other people, having public displays of affection made me very uncomfortable if I was in their presence.
00:27:04
Speaker
So I did not want it ever, you know, like shown towards me in public. And then of course that translates to your daily life in marriage. And so
00:27:19
Speaker
This is an area of growth for me and I did study this. I actually have a devotional that I wrote about the process through which I wrestled with this scripturally and I read some psychological journals about what can cause it and its avoidant attachment is what it's called and kind of got to the root of what was causing that and allowed the Lord to heal that but
00:27:45
Speaker
I'm still in progress. And so I still, because of the habits of my nature, I'm still not naturally drawn towards being physically affectionate. I am with my children, but with adults, I am not. So friends, family,
00:28:04
Speaker
And Josh, it's not something I think of. It's not something that's on my mind. So I have to be very conscious and intentional. I actually will put it on my to-do lists as a reminder that I need to be intentional in this area.
00:28:21
Speaker
And so Josh has been helpful in that he's been very understanding when I've tried to explain why I struggle with showing affection, why it isn't something that comes naturally to me. You know, I think a lot of people think, well, if you love someone, of course you want to. Well, when I love someone, I do things for them or I give them a beautiful gift or I think of them and I bring them a coffee or something. That's the way I'm
00:28:50
Speaker
processing and showing that I love someone. I'm not drawn to hug someone because I love them. So that's something I just have to be very intentional with. And so if Josh had shamed me for that or been like, well, what kind of person doesn't think to hug and kiss, that would have been really embarrassing and very hurtful and
00:29:12
Speaker
It would have been a lot harder, I think, for me to grow in this area because I would feel like I was just an utter failure in his eyes. But he has never shamed me for it. I mean, he said, you know, this is really hard because I feel loved through physical touch, but he's never shamed me for it. And so also he has set an example of affection that makes me feel safe.
00:29:34
Speaker
to be affectionate with him, even though I'm still not as good at it as he is, he has helped me learn what it looks like and to help me be vulnerable and safe with him. And so that's been an area of growth we've been able to work on because of that example.
00:29:56
Speaker
Kind of like you said, you needed me to create a physical and time space for you to grow in your spiritual life. You were creating a physical and emotional space for me to grow in my emotional life. That's deep. Well, I think that's kind of a parallel. And maybe that's the takeaway for this particular
00:30:25
Speaker
episode and on growth, is what space are you creating for your spouse to grow? Because if you're always jumping into the space and telling them what to do, or telling them how they're not measuring up, or what they could change, that's really hard to live with. You ever see two hermit crabs in one show? No. Did they do that? Nope. There's a reason for it.
00:30:55
Speaker
That's such an old man analogy. I'm still trying to figure it out, but basically create space. Leave the whole, leave the hermit crab shell open. Is that what we're going with? Is that okay? And then there will be space for them to grow. Oh wait, do hermit crabs grow to the size of their shell? Yeah.
00:31:16
Speaker
Oh, I get it now. Most of Josh's jokes take me like a day to get. Okay. Well, you guys, wherever you are in your own marriage, we hope that this series has been an encouragement to you and that it does help you grow and have good conversations. Hopefully you'll have a few ideas of things that you can implement.
00:31:38
Speaker
Really the Sunday night planning thing is honestly one of the best things we've done. So if you do nothing else, that would be my biggest suggestion.
Recommended Resources and Listener Engagement
00:31:47
Speaker
And then one other thing I wanted to mention, our favorite marriage book that we ever read was Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. We read it when we were engaged.
00:31:58
Speaker
And it was really transformative. And so if you need a good marriage book recommendation, we really haven't read that many, but that book was really helpful to us and we loved it a lot. I guess our encouragement would just be to continue to pursue one another and pursue the Lord and keep him central. We're so grateful you hung out with us for this series and we hope that you will refer back to it if you ever need some encouragement in whatever season of life and marriage you are in.
00:32:28
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.