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056 | Marriage Episode 1: Our Marriage Story
576 Plays4 years ago
Verity Season Five: The Honest Marriage Series ------ Phylicia and Josh launch the Honest Marriage series with a personal look at their own marriage story, from when they started dating to their hard "middle" years and what they learned through the series of crises they faced along the way. The Flirtation Experiment preorders are available! Get it at https://theflirtationexperiment.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
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 teachings, and if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there.
Exploring Christian Marriage: A Personal Series
00:00:26
Speaker
This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back to Verity with Felicia Masonheimer, except this time it's not just Felicia Masonheimer, it's Felicia and company, which is actually my husband Josh, who is here with me today. Say hi, Josh. Hello.
00:00:46
Speaker
We are in our fifth season of Verity and in this season we're talking about Christian marriage. Now this is going to be a more personal series than we've ever done before because obviously I have a guest with me and this isn't going to be a marriage series that's going to spend a ton of time
00:01:06
Speaker
exegeting scripture or teaching you how to apply all of these biblical truths to your marriage. It's going to more be a glimpse of how we walk out Christian marriage and hopefully you glean something along the way that might encourage you in your marriage or, if you're single and listening, might give you some things to think about as you're dating or as you're looking towards the future.
00:01:30
Speaker
So there are going to be 12 episodes in this series and we are so excited to get to share a little bit of our story today. Yeah, yay! In this first episode.
00:01:42
Speaker
If you're listening to this marriage series, there's a good chance that you or someone you love is married. And that's fantastic because on December 7th, my brand new co-authored marriage book is launching into
The Flirtation Experiment Book Discussion
00:01:56
Speaker
the world. It's called The Flirtation Experiment. And if that title intrigues you, good, because I can't wait for wives to pick this book up
00:02:06
Speaker
and be encouraged and equipped to pursue their husbands in ways they maybe never expected to do so.
00:02:14
Speaker
When I wrote this book, I was looking back on a year in my marriage when I was really struggling to cultivate a relationship with Josh. I felt lonely, I felt disconnected, and I realized that I could wait for him to change it or I could make the change. And so I made a list of 30 flirtations, all different kinds of ways to show him that I loved him. And through this experiment, I found that I actually was changed.
00:02:43
Speaker
I co-authored this book with my friend Lisa Jacobson, who's been married 28 years to my 8 years, and we alternate chapters showing you the ideas that we used to cultivate an intimate and fun romantic
00:03:00
Speaker
now. Anywhere books are sold from Amazon to Barnes and Noble to Christian book or you can go to the flirtationexperiment.com to get two free chapters in the introduction and to be notified when the book launches. I hope you guys will grab it. We have some awesome bonuses for those who pre-order and I'm excited to get this book into your hands.
00:03:22
Speaker
So I just thought we'd kind of do a high level, just a sharing time about an introductory episode, sharing a little bit about us and our story before we go into these other episodes that get into more detail and talk more about what scripture says. So I don't know, should we start?
Meeting and Early Relationship Doubts
00:03:45
Speaker
I guess we should probably start with our date. We met in a bookstore parking lot.
00:03:49
Speaker
That's true. It was so romantic. And in fact, when we met, I liked the guy who introduced you to me. Yeah. And you were dressed in a very strange outfit when I met you. Yeah, I didn't really have any sort of, like, dressing abilities. Fashion sense.
00:04:11
Speaker
yes at least you were wearing clothes that that is a good thing but yeah when we met i mean i we've talked about this pretty openly but you weren't very attracted to me and i wasn't i weren't really my type no well i was wearing like a ankle length gray wool dress coat when you met me i looked like general lee definitely not from around here
00:04:37
Speaker
And you were in a green Abercrombie shirt and, or maybe it was Aeropostale, no Aeropostale, definitely. And yellow plaid shorts. Yeah. Lemon line. In February, I might add. So all this to say we were pretty unlikely look, looking couple, I guess. Yeah. At the time. And I mean, how would you describe our relationship going forward from there?
Friendship Before Romance: Building a Strong Foundation
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, I actually, backing up a little bit, my roommate was the one who introduced us. And he told me, he's like, Josh, there's this girl that's like, you know, she's calling me all the time. Okay, we, oh my gosh, we have to go. And like, she sent me like these men's like bath products that she said she won in a raffle at some bridge club. And
00:05:37
Speaker
And he's like, man, like, you should like, take her off my hands. And I was like, well, do you have a picture of her? Oh yeah. Yeah. It pulls up Facebook. And I sold her profile picture and I said, I'm going to marry that woman.
00:05:54
Speaker
which is bizarre because you hadn't met me yet at all. Yeah, a little bit. It's so strange. Now let me clarify just for the sake of the record that I was not calling his roommate all the time. He was calling me and I did send him
00:06:10
Speaker
those bad products, but they were indeed something I won and I had no one to give them to. So I gave them to him. So he doesn't listen to your podcast. Hello, Brandon. Thank you for introducing us. Okay. So we really were an unlikely couple. We really didn't have a whole lot in common on paper. We were pretty different. I was working. Josh was a student at the time. I was working for the university. And so between the two of us,
00:06:38
Speaker
We were in a little bit of different stages, even though Josh was older than me. And we didn't share many common interests at the time, but we still were really drawn to each other. What would you say drew you to me? And then I'll share. I think initially her spunk and sass, she's just like more engaged in than previous interests of mine.
00:07:06
Speaker
And I was kind of at a point where I wanted like a mature woman who, you know, had like good core values and loved the Lord. And so that's what I was kind of looking for and valued in someone and I could see that in her. Oh.
00:07:29
Speaker
Well, and I had repeatedly dated guys that I was attracted to or I had a very strong type and it kept not working out, which you think would be a clue.
00:07:42
Speaker
But I had never dated someone who I was friends with first. I always dated people to get to know them. And then after I got to know them, I found out, oh no, this is actually not what I thought it was going to be. And then I would break up with them because I realized we weren't a good fit or whatever else was going on.
00:08:03
Speaker
And so I mean, I recognize now looking back that I was a pretty unhealthy person in those relationships and the way I was treating people in the way I was dating was not a healthy way to date. But I also think a part of it was that I had never been friends
00:08:18
Speaker
first with somebody that I dated and so Josh was the first person that I was friends with first and what I appreciated was that he really wanted to know me as a person and he was funny and he really seemed to want to get to know me not because of what I could offer to him but just because he liked me and so we were friends first because we were dating other people when we met and the friendship part is what laid the foundation for us later on.
00:08:48
Speaker
Would you say that's accurate? Yeah, I'd say so. It laid a good framework for just getting to know each other and just how we just interact in a situation where we aren't influenced by infatuation or chemistry. Now I will say the interesting thing that's been a theme throughout a relationship, correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I think
00:09:15
Speaker
is we've often been in crisis and that's what has brought us together.
Bonding Through Crises: Blessings and Challenges
00:09:21
Speaker
So we've been in more stressful situations in our time being married than perhaps the average young married couple. I don't know. I don't have anything to measure it against, but just stressful situation after another. And it started when we were dating and some relational drama that we were both in and that kind of brought us together. And then after we were married,
00:09:45
Speaker
I think we continue to see that pattern of crisis that brings us together. Would you say that's true? Yeah, we definitely bond and grow through challenges because, you know, maybe it's just because of the way we interact with each other. You know, I'm a nine on the Enneagram and she's a three and we just lean toward problem solving
00:10:15
Speaker
in situations like that and we work well together. Yeah, we do. Which I think, as we'll reveal over the course of this series, has been a blessing but also a curse because we work really well together when we have a crisis or a stress or a task. But then when those things go away, our biggest struggle is in peaceful times because we're like, well, what do we do with each other?
Struggles with Mutual Interests and Communication
00:10:45
Speaker
what do we have in common? We don't have a problem in common anymore, so what do we have in common? Yeah, we're like the empty nesters when it comes to problems. Yes, we always need to have a problem because, yeah, exactly. So that's something that we've been working on over the course of our marriage, is to develop common interests. In fact, what was it when we went to our marriage counselors, when we did premarital counseling, when we were dating, and she asked us
00:11:14
Speaker
I don't remember what happened there. Because there was none. There were none. Isn't that what we told her? We don't really have any. Yeah. We listed things that each of us enjoyed individually, but it was difficult for us to come up with anything we enjoyed together, other than skiing and stuff that we didn't really do too often.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. And that I would say was consistently a problem for a good part of our marriage. Yeah. Probably five years, five, almost eight years, maybe. Yeah. I think we listed like fitness as one, if like we were able to work out, but that wasn't really possible once we had kids together, at least.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, at a gym anyway, not at home. So one of the things that we, I think that we really grew through was realizing that we might not have anything specific in common, but that we could take an interest in one another's interests. And I know that for a long time, I was very stubborn about that, where I was just like, Nope, I'm not interested in the things you do. So you can go do that with the guys. And I'll just read a book. But
00:12:33
Speaker
We have found some things like fishing. We found Josh enjoyed fishing. I started fishing with him and now I actually enjoy fishing with him. You've taken an interest in some historical things. He wasn't into history, but he's taken more of an interest in that since we were together. So I think there had to be like a selflessness cultivated because
00:12:56
Speaker
You know, you definitely took more of an interest in things I liked, but I struggled doing that in return. You always turn the date and period. Yeah, I would say early marriage too. It was not, not great. So what would you say is something that you learned through those early years of marriage and dating? I think that I set the bar a little high initially.
00:13:23
Speaker
But I think that I should have shown more like endurance with it rather than it just being a sprint and it being kind of pittering out. With like your pursuit? Yeah like pursuit and planning things because like I kind of got to the point where I was just like well it's her turn now. Yeah you did have a period where you got very bitter because you were
00:13:53
Speaker
like setting up dates and planning all this stuff and I wasn't doing anything in return because when we got married, I had this super unhealthy view that very extreme view actually that basically
00:14:07
Speaker
because I'd been taught that the man was the pursuer and the man was the head of the household, that it was up to him to do all the pursuing, all the planning. I didn't do anything. And that was just what he was supposed to do. And the first year or two of our marriage, that's what it was until Josh just got tired.
00:14:30
Speaker
And I had not yet studied scripture on the topic to know that scripture fully supports and encourages a woman pursuing, which we'll talk about throughout this series. But I didn't think that. And so I left it all at the Josh and he burned out on pursuit and then just kind of got apathetic, which made for some very difficult years in a different way.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think it, you know, the pursuit was the only thing kind of nourishing the emotional relationship between us. And so when that went away, it was just kind of like, you know, famine, a drought.
00:15:15
Speaker
in our emotional side of our relationship. So we're both starting to become very deprived emotionally. And that's when we had Adeline. Yeah, we got pregnant with Adeline on our, we found out we were pregnant on our one year anniversary. So we had her about
00:15:39
Speaker
What, what would that be? One and a half years after we were married? And that was a huge, huge transition. She was born and we moved to a new state where we only knew one family. And Josh, a week before she was born, we moved and it was just so stressful. Josh was working super long hours with really negative job environment. I mean, what was it like? Yeah, a good day was eight hours with a one hour commute each way.
00:16:09
Speaker
A bad day was 22 hours. With a one-hour commute each way. And you were gone overnight a lot too. Yeah, and I did a lot of 16-hour days.
00:16:25
Speaker
Couldn't plan anything. No, like the one day I planned to go dancing with Phi, I was on a service check and was just like, are we going to be done in time? And my boss was just all over the place. So I ended up just canceling and didn't make it. And it was so frustrating.
00:16:45
Speaker
It was a really sad time because I think I can even remember that night that I was sitting in our duplex alone and the babysitter had to be canceled and holding the baby and Josh was still gone and the only thing that sustained
00:17:02
Speaker
me and us in that season was our church because we immediately found a church right down the street from us. We were our family. They were our family. They surrounded us and supported us in that time. We didn't know anybody really. The family that we knew was 30 minutes away, so we were just like, well, we'll try some churches and this church just surrounded us. We were in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Church Community Support and Spiritual Growth
00:17:28
Speaker
And it was just a gift in that season. And I just mentioned that because I think...
00:17:33
Speaker
It's amazing how a healthy church with godly people actually supports a marriage. Like they saved our marriage in many ways, even though we were still having a hard time. That's our good church story. Yeah, that's our good church story. Yeah. So that was the hard, that was the beginning, I think, of the really hard years was that year in Pennsylvania, which would have been year two or three, two and three. And then into four and five, I think,
00:18:03
Speaker
I would call those the hardest years for us because I think that's when we felt the most distant. What'd you say? Once we had moved up to Michigan, right? That would be four and five. Yeah. I think both. We still were struggling when we moved to Michigan. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Between four and five, I lost my job that we had moved up here to Michigan four.
00:18:31
Speaker
And so that was kind of, you know, I stayed busy applying for jobs and stuff. And, you know, it didn't want to take too much of a backward step, occupationally, but, you know, apathy always sets in at some point or other when you're unemployed. So it was tough. And that's when Fi released Christian Cosmo.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's when I really started to begin selling some of my work to help make ends meet because he'd lost his job and I was pregnant with Eva. So I was seven months pregnant with Eva. It was the day after we signed the mortgage on our house. So another crisis. Yay, another crisis.
00:19:18
Speaker
So, you know, moving to Pennsylvania at 37 weeks and having Adeline a week later and then, you know, not knowing anyone and Dasha's long hours and then our marriage struggling in that season, moving to Michigan and losing the job he got after signing on the house, you know, being pregnant again. It was just...
00:19:36
Speaker
You know, hit after hit, while our marriage was already struggling so much with communication and we were having the same fights over and over and over again, we'd go on dates and I feel like we didn't have anything to talk about. Like, it was like, what? We don't have anything in common outside of this job. You always seem bored when we go out to eat. We eat so quickly that like five minutes in, we're just like, OK, now what?
00:20:06
Speaker
It's true. That's still a problem. So now we don't go out to just eat. Now we usually do an activity if we can, but we have more to talk about now. But back then, like we didn't have anything to talk about because we were in such, I think it wasn't just not having things in common. It was just not wanting to try because we were both not in a good place. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, I think.
00:20:31
Speaker
just as far as like what we were expecting out of the marriage and just like not even like prioritizing one another right like not prioritizing one another and then wanting this good marriage to come out of thin air like why aren't we having fun on this date it's like one in a flower to bloom without water in it yes that's a fantastic analogy it was
00:20:57
Speaker
very rough. And I think I have friends now who've told me they can see the difference now versus then who've been with us in the five years since we moved here, but moved back to Michigan, who've said like the way we talked about each other then was very condescending or contemptuous.
00:21:19
Speaker
Well, a good friend, a good friend who loves us said that back then versus now, it was actually visible that the way we talked about each other was at times not kind. And it was obvious that we didn't like each other. And I think that's the thing is we all think we can hide our marriage problems better than we actually do.
00:21:46
Speaker
It comes through in our attitudes and in our words and our looks on our faces and things like that. And so her point was that there was a progress scene from then to now. And I think a lot of that, I would say a lot of that is due to our personal spiritual growth and also the people around us. The church, once again, supporting us
00:22:11
Speaker
simply as people and as a family, and that enabled us to grow our marriage. What would you say about how you've grown spiritually? How has that affected you as a husband?
00:22:24
Speaker
I think it definitely has, you know, I've been in communication with other guys in my life, like strong Christian men that have been great sounding boards for like just things that I'm struggling with or, you know, feel like I might be
00:22:43
Speaker
inadequate in or, you know, just like seeking advice on how to cultivate our marriage. And so I get a lot of good feedback from them. So it's been a huge blessing to be a part of like a mentorship or like an accountability group just for life.
00:23:04
Speaker
And, you know, definitely being in prayer and memorizing scripture and keeping my focus on the Lord has enabled me to pause before I blow up, or most oftentimes, at least. And
00:23:23
Speaker
has allowed me to be more supportive and thoughtful and maybe even notice that the dishes need to be done. Historically, Josh has been completely blind to things that have been in the middle of the floor or dishes on the counter. They don't even exist. We all know that socks are meant to be left next to the hamper. There's a lot of women that listen to this.
00:23:51
Speaker
But yeah, I think I've definitely seen that in you, that as you've grown spiritually, and I mean, you were a newer Christian when we got married, or when we were dating, at least. You were a pretty new Christian, and even as a new Christian, like, theologically, knowledge-wise, you were, you know, very much growing, very new in all of that.
00:24:14
Speaker
But I do think that one thing that's very apparent is that knowledge does not equal maturity and faith. Because I knew a whole lot about the Bible when we were in our first year of marriage, and yet I was a very mean, angry person. Still struggle with being an angry person, but that first year, who I was did not match the amount of knowledge I had about the Bible, and who you were
00:24:44
Speaker
was, you know, very gracious and kind, even though you needed to grow in your knowledge of the Bible and of the Lord. So it just shows that
00:24:55
Speaker
Knowledge does not equal spiritual maturity unless you are letting the Lord change your heart. And unless you let the Lord change your heart, you won't let him change your marriage. And so that's something that we've both been working on for, you know, almost eight years now is letting the Lord change our hearts individually. We don't do devotions together. We really haven't in years, right? No, I think
00:25:25
Speaker
it can be difficult just based on a busy schedule as well as just like I think when we did that, that was the only time we had to do devotions and we did it together so we didn't have any individual time with the Lord. Right.
00:25:47
Speaker
So it was almost like having a Bible study or a small group you go to and then you never have your actual devotions. Right. Or on worst cases, like going to church and never reading the Bible during the week. So though it's great and it's unifying, I think just with the stages of life we've been in, it hasn't been the best option. Yeah. For us, it was better to do a separate time with the Lord.
00:26:15
Speaker
and then just talk about it. Or pray together at meals or in bed rather than doing a time together in the word, it just didn't work. But as we've done those separate devotional times, I've seen you grow a whole lot. Have you seen me grow? Yeah. Oh, good.
Commitment and Hope in Marriage
00:26:38
Speaker
Definitely.
00:26:41
Speaker
I think there's just looking at our marriage you know since those super difficult years because in the difficult years we both told each other you know why I don't really like I don't like you which I'm not sure I recommend saying that to somebody but we both said I know a bad place I know why people get divorced we even asked like why are we married like why are we married why did we even get married like I
00:27:08
Speaker
Why did we think that this could work if we're so different and we have nothing in common? We actually asked that question just before we got engaged actually. You were traveling for your school conferences and we're just like, we have no common interests. Like why are we even doing this?
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah. When we were right before we got engaged, we both were just, we're on both on business trips and we just felt like, gosh, why? We don't have anything in common. Like why are we doing this? We almost broke up, but we ended up back together. Like I'll tell my side, then you tell your side, but I ended up back with Josh because I pictured him going on to marry somebody else and I knew
00:28:03
Speaker
I didn't want that to happen and I wanted, I couldn't imagine my life without him in it. And I know that sounds so cheesy and it sounds just like a Hallmark movie, but it really is what I thought when I was praying about it. I just thought if he's not there, I don't know what
00:28:25
Speaker
my life would be like. That and prayer is what I went on to make the decision. And was I completely 100% sure? No, I wasn't. I'm not sure that you can be completely 100% sure on somebody. You know, people change and you don't know every single part of them, but you're committing to them and you're risking love. Love is a risk. And so I took that risk
00:28:49
Speaker
Josh, knowing his character, why did you decide to stay with me? I think it was the hope that, you know, we could grow together and overcome the barrier and figure it out. You know, again, it's kind of a leap of faith. And I think in addition to that, it was a little bit of like, I couldn't picture myself with someone else. And
00:29:18
Speaker
You know, I did love her, so I wanted to make it work. So we did, even though, you know, four years later or three years later, we really were struggling and asking some of those same questions. At that point, we knew that we were in covenant to each other. And obviously, this was not an abusive marriage. It was a very lonely marriage.
00:29:46
Speaker
at times. Yeah, we're both very lonely at times. But it was not abusive or neglectful. So those would be different circumstances. But we were just in a very unhealthy marriage and the covenant that we knew we made really, I think kept us together just by nature of it being a covenant until
00:30:14
Speaker
we could grow spiritually and get the counseling that we needed. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah. Yeah. Kind of duty calls sort of thing. But kind of like the loyalty and the accountability to the Lord and to the people who witnessed our wedding. Yeah. We take that very seriously. If you go back on an oath, you might as well have not taken the oath at all. Right. So to us, the covenant
00:30:44
Speaker
biblically was before God, and because we didn't have a biblical means of, you know, leaving the covenant, which would have been abuse, unfaithfulness, it meant that we were going to have to find a way to heal. And that is part of what we're going to share in the rest of this series. We'll talk a little bit more about the different pieces of this story in depth, as well as the scripture that speaks to the different parts. And we're definitely not experts. We've
00:31:12
Speaker
been married almost eight years, which makes us like, not experts at all. But I will say, I mean, I think it's fair to say we've gone through a lot, lot, lot for the first eight years. I hear people, some people talking about like the seven year itch. And that's just like people who, you know, have pretty
00:31:37
Speaker
relatively easy marriages to the point that they're like, you know, things get hard or boring at seven years and they just want to like up and leave.
00:31:48
Speaker
But we say that like, well, we've never been bored and we never had it easy. It seems for any, you know, duration. So we just passed right by the seven year. We just flew right past it. Actually, I'd say year seven was probably one of the best years we've had. Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
We could call it the seven-year Sabbath instead of the seven-year itch. Yeah. The jubilee year. Well, anyway, you guys, we obviously didn't run down the entire story of our marriage in one episode here, but we hope this gives you a better picture of what we've walked through together. And in the next 11 episodes, we're going to look at some more detail of what we've learned in those
00:32:36
Speaker
seven years together or eight years almost together and look at what scripture says about things like sexual sin and marriage and fighting and parenting together and all sorts of fun stuff like that. So I hope you guys will find this interesting and encouraging as we go through this series with you and again we're not trying to preach to anybody about how to do marriage but we do hope that it gives you a picture
00:33:04
Speaker
of an everyday Christian marriage and what it can be.