How To Transform Your Marriage Together This Year

Aaron:
Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God Podcast. All of us on some level desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether the transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, we want to experience more joy, more peace, more love, and more purpose.

Jennifer:
The truth is, we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires, or something else?

Aaron:
This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show. Here’s a shout to some of the most recent patrons: Nicole M, Don G, Kimberly S, Katherine C, Candace, G, and Regina J. We thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing tens of thousands of couples, with free daily prayer emails, and this weekly podcast.
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Jennifer:
Well, this has been a whole month now of the podcast.

Aaron:
We’re doing it.

Jennifer:
It’s awesome.

Aaron:
We are doing it.

Jennifer:
Welcome to 2023. How’s January been for you?

Aaron:
Well, it feels like we’ve been doing better because we’re better as in, we’ve talked about, we’re getting into routines. The routines look different than they used to, but we’re getting some routines and I like it.

Jennifer:
Yeah, sometimes you just got to reset. Sometimes life forces you to reset.

Aaron:
Yeah, hence 2020, 2021, 2022.

Jennifer:
Every year there’s been new reset. Yeah, so what’s been happening lately since last week?

Aaron:
Well, just before …

Jennifer:
Oh, yeah, I was going to say that.

Aaron:
Yeah. I walk in, and I wanted to Jennifer look at the notes and she’s like, “What notes?” I’m like, “Oh my goodness. Was one of the kids in here?”

Jennifer:
There was just two sentences and a bunch of gibberish.

Aaron:
Garbly. Yeah.

Jennifer:
Did you say garbly?

Aaron:
Garbly goop. It was, all the notes were deleted, literally.

Jennifer:
Who was the culprit? That’s what I want to know.

Aaron:
I’m wondering what else happened in our room. Luckily, I was able to restore the notes so we weren’t out of luck, but something that is awesome that happened this week is I got to start Jiu-Jitsu.

Jennifer:
Nice. The kids have been doing it for a year. Did you know that?

Aaron:
It’s been a whole year?

Jennifer:
I know. Crazy. Went by fast.

Aaron:
They’re getting really good and I was getting jealous, and I’m like, “I got to get good at Jiu-Jitsu so that I can wrestle with them and them not win me every time.” I started this week and I think you’re a little jealous, because I think you want to start too.

Jennifer:
I’ve been wanting to start for seven months. I feel like out of everyone in the family, Mom gets to make those kind of choices last because everyone’s got to be okay if I’m going to step out of the house.

Aaron:
It is true. We need you a lot.

Jennifer:
Timing was off, but who knows?

Aaron:
I think we might try it this week though together, on a date night or something.

Jennifer:
I think we’re going to try it on a date night.

Aaron:
We should do it.

Jennifer:
It’s just a fundamentals class, so there it’ll be easy for me, I think. Not easy, but I’m not going to do what you’re doing.

Aaron:
Straightforward. Yeah. To be honest, it was one of the most rewarding and intense workouts I’ve had in a very long time. I walk out drenched, soaking. It’s disgusting. I’m so wet. I was getting in the van and I had to look for something to sit on so I wouldn’t get the seat all wet.

Jennifer:
That’s gross.

Aaron:
It was really gross, and I’m also really sore. To be honest, I felt really good after the first class. I was like, “Dang, I’m not that bad. I did awesome.” Then the second class, I realized everyone was probably being really nice to me because I’m not good at all. That was awesome, actually.

Jennifer:
Does that make you want to go back?

Aaron:
Yeah. It was still a lot of fun. No one was mean about it. Everyone’s so nice and they want, everyone wants to get good together. Yeah, it just made me excited.

Jennifer:
That’s good for this episode. Get good together. That’s what we should call it.

Aaron:
Get good together. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to growing in it.

Jennifer:
Cool. Well, something that’s been interesting for me was a little bit unexpected, just because we’ve had conversations about it, but …

Aaron:
Privately.

Jennifer:
The kids started praying for me crazy …

Aaron:
Out of nowhere.

Jennifer:
… that I would have another baby, and it really warms my heart. Aaron and I have talked about this in the past. We’re like, we look at Edith, she’s two, almost three, and she’s been our baby for so long that it’s like …

Aaron:
Is this the longest gap we’ve had so far? Yeah.

Jennifer:
WI think to myself, okay, well if this is all the kids that we have, I’m totally content and happy with where our family is at. Then there’s this piece of my heart that I’m like, but if I did have another, that’d be awesome.

Aaron:
Our hands are always open in that sense. We want God’s will. At the same time, we’re praying and asking God to bring us along with them. Our kids started praying for it.

Jennifer:
Every day.

Aaron:
At Bible time, I’m like, “Who would anyone like to pray?” First prayer, God give mommy a baby. Then Elliot just came up randomly, me and you were talking this morning, just about the day, and I can’t remember what we were talking about. He just comes over and puts his hands on both of us and looks at us and starts praying for a baby. We’re like, okay, I guess you guys want a baby.

Jennifer:
That’s just been going on a week.

Aaron:
We will see if you guys get an announcement at some point this year about a baby.

Jennifer:
Stick around if you want to hear it announced on the podcast.

Aaron:
You will hear about it if that happens.

Jennifer:
We shall see.

Aaron:
For this topic, transforming your marriage, it’s hard to say that. Transforming.

Jennifer:
No, it’s get better together, or what’d you say?

Aaron:
Yeah, let’s do this together. Get better together. Transforming your marriage together. We wanted to bring up some ideas, and we actually have seven of them for you. What inspired this idea for you, Jennifer? You kind of wrote down some of these ideas that we’ve been building off of.

Jennifer:
Yeah. Well, the initial just idea of, hey, let’s talk about transformation for a minute. Marriage came because of a conversation that we had back in December. I was having a hard time dealing with desiring change and wanting change, and being frustrated over things not changing,

Aaron:
Which also has been the theme for this whole month.

Jennifer:
Yeah, yeah. I remember calling you, and we were having a conversation about, well, I was letting my emotions out and you, you’re being a good listener. Then you said, “Let’s transform together. Let’s be transformed together,” or something like that.

Aaron:
Yeah. Well, because you felt like you couldn’t. I don’t know how to do this. I can’t do this. That’s why we’ve been talking about this in various aspects throughout this month, but we all feel that way. That’s why I shared it. I feel like there’s things in my life that I can’t break out of either, that I can’t change. Then I was just saying, “Well, we have to be transformed.”
That’s the only way we have true change in our life is if there’s a transformation. We can’t be the same person but act differently. We can’t be the same in the same place and yet be in a different place. We have to change. We have to move.

Jennifer:
I think the tension of the agony in all of our lives when it comes to transformation is we’re on one side where we desire the change, because we’re frustrated over the results and things happening because of where we’re at …

Aaron:
The consequences of where we’re at.

Jennifer:
We also know that to get to the other side of change, it just requires a lot.

Aaron:
It’s painful.

Jennifer:
It’s painful, and it’s hard to make those changes and those habits, and redefining rhythms and routines, and things that will help make all of that happen.

Aaron:
I think an encouragement also about transformation, because it’s easy to say, we got to be transformed. It’s like, well, yeah. How? I think the first step, and it’s something that we’ve been trying to reiterate, is that first of all, we can change. If there’s areas in our lives that we don’t like, or that we know God wants change in us, we have the ability to, because God’s putting his spirit. He’s put his spirit in us. It’s not impossible, and they feel that way, but the reality is we, are being transformed.
Like we said in the beginning of this episode, all of us are being transformed into something. Either we’re being lazy or we’re being lax, and we’re being transformed into something that we don’t want because we’re just letting it happen, or we’re following God, we’re putting our eyes on him. We’re seeking first his kingdom. We’re letting his spirit work in us. We’re not fighting it, and we’re being transformed into his likeness.

Jennifer:
The lie is that we’re stuck.

Aaron:
The lie is that we can’t change the lies is that there, that we are what we are.

Jennifer:
We’re here in our heads. We’ll never change. That’s what I was getting stuck in, is like, no, I’m never going to change. You see yourself one way, and it gets really hard to see yourself in a new way.

Aaron:
Yeah. Believing that we can, like you said, but then also believing what God says and believing that he has something for us.

Jennifer:
The reason why we wanted to bring this up to you today for those listening is because we kind of had this conversation going on in our marriage, and we know that we’re not the only ones who have struggled with desiring change in marriage, or in parenting, or in life, in so many different areas of life. We want to encourage you guys, if you’re in that place of desiring change and transformation, we hope that today encourages you.
Maybe what we share, not every single bit of it will stick with you or be something that you feel like you need to work on, but I’m sure there’s at least one or two.

Aaron:
Well, and the point is, there’s this saying that it says, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Well, if you think about the whole thing, you’re like, it can. The goal is taking that next step, just moving forward, asking God, saying, “God, help me get to the whatever the next footprint is.”

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
Not trying to look at the goal a thousand miles away and saying, “I can never get there.” Just realize there’s a journey that we’re all on. We hope you feel the grace and the mercy that God’s been showing us is that it’s okay that we’re on this journey, and that we sometimes don’t know what we’re doing. Transformation and change feels hard because it is, actually. We all can do it because we have Christ.

Jennifer:
We’re going to share seven ways that you can transform your marriage with your spouse. Some of these are practical, some of them are just good old fashioned truth from the Bible. We hope that these stick with you guys and encourage you toward that change you’ve been yearning for.

Aaron:
A lot of these things are things that we ourselves have recognized helped us or will help us as we have been trying to implement them more. It’s not like we’ve just came up with these for you. This is things that work for us too.

Jennifer:
Our experience.

Aaron:
This first one, I’ve mentioned it so many times in other episodes, but it works so well for you, Jennifer, but it also works really well for me.

Jennifer:
For us.

Aaron:
For us.

Jennifer:
We get to see it together.

Aaron:
What is it? It’s write it out. It’s very practical. The idea is write it out. This first one …

Jennifer:
Not ride, write it out.

Aaron:
Not ride it out. That is a good tip, actually. Just get through. No, write it out, W-R-I-T-E. There’s something really powerful about writing things down.

Jennifer:
We’ve kind of been doing it all week with the growth spurt, if people have been following along.

Aaron:
We got our own cards out. The fact that I wrote it down and put it on the refrigerator …

Jennifer:
Makes you think about it every day.

Aaron:
I see it, and I realize I’m like, oh man, I’m not following through with that thing that I said I’m going to do. I’m looking at the clock right now actually. The thing I wrote down was I’m going to be in bed by nine, and I did it last night just about.

Jennifer:
You’re not supposed to talk about it yet.

Aaron:
Sorry.

Jennifer:
That’s the notes on there for later.

Aaron:
Yeah. Okay.

Jennifer:
You guys have to listen to the rest of the episode today to hear more. Yeah, I’m going to cut you off.

Aaron:
The idea behind this is meet together to write down some goals you have for your marriage.

Jennifer:
Sometimes we don’t even know what it is that we want to change into or be transformed in unless we get it out of our hearts, get it out of our heads and see it on a piece of paper. You go, “Oh yeah, that’s what it is. That’s what I want.”

Aaron:
These actually, they could be large goals, but something things that are practical, especially when you start talking together, you start realizing like, oh, there’s some disparaging thing. Well, you have this goal and I have this goal. How can we meet in the middle? How can we figure that out? What’s awesome about that is you figure that out.

Jennifer:
Compromising.

Aaron:
Yeah, compromising. Then also finding out, well, what are some large goals we have that we can write down and shoot for that might take years? What are some short term or smaller goals that we can start focusing on now?

Jennifer:
It sounds like more though, that’s more for a couple who wants to dream together. If this whole episode is about transforming your marriage, we’re talking more relational goals here.

Aaron:
Relationship, home life, spiritual walk goals. Goals. You can also break them up, goals for your walk with God, maybe individually and together; goals for your marriage. What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want to represent? What do you want people to say about your marriage? What do you want to show to your kids in your marriage?
Then the next one would be goals for your family. What do you want your family to look like? Represent? How do you want it to operate? For us, we’ve talked about this. We used to do bible time very consistently every day. A goal for us would be like, “Hey, let’s get back to that consistency of doing Bible time every day throughout the week.”

Jennifer:
Then asking each other, “What’s the best time to do that?” That’s where that compromise comes in of like, okay, well, for me, it’d be this time and let’s work that out. I also want to just add right here that my encouragement would be, don’t go list 25 ways you want your marriage to improve.
Pick one or two, because you want something that you can work towards and feel good about when you’re actually feeling the success of it, when you’re feeling the change coming and you’re making those decisions. If you overwhelm yourself with a lofty list, then your mind and heart’s going to freak out because it’s going to be hard.

Aaron:
Yeah. Some of the ways, I just want to mention one more thing. When we write these things down, you kind of said a second ago, it gets things that we may not know how to verbalize them in the moment, or they’re things that just have dwelled in our hearts. Maybe those things have turned into anxiety or frustration or bitterness, because we don’t see them happening, but they’re also never being voiced in a real tangible way.
It gives it a place to live. It makes it from this internal secret thing to a real life thing that can be looked at, evaluated, calculated, remembered, and even held accountable to, because it exists.

Jennifer:
Also just to add to that list, a repetition of seeing it helps you remember about it. There’s so many things that we’ve talked about, and then it’s like, once we’ve talked about it’s gone and you forget so easily. Yet if you write it down and you see it constantly, in that repetition, you’re forming that memory in your brain to be on it.

Aaron:
A couple of things this does for you in your marriage. If you guys plan a night to sit down, maybe it’s at a date night, which is often when Jennifer and I do it, or after the kids go to bed, or in the morning after breakfast. I don’t know, whatever works for you guys. You guys start getting into a habit of planning things together. Hey, we’re going to do this together now. It’s like, it’s not just, oh, let’s hang out and talk. It’s a let’s be specific and focused. It also gives you an opportunity to figure out life together.
Now, you’re building this bond of like, hey, let’s talk about things that are important to us and what that looks like. The third thing is it brings accountability. Like we said, Bible time. Jennifer, you look at me, you’re like, “Hey, remember we decided we’re going to do bible time?”

Jennifer:
Oh yeah.

Aaron:
I’m like, “Yes.” Then I stop what I’m doing because she knows that’s the moment that we would do it. I sit down. Now we can help each other because we made that agreement together. We wrote these things down together. Now that bond and that commitment is all really good stuff that happens in your marriage.

Jennifer:
Let me ask this question, if that’s all really good, especially if you’re on the same page and there’s unity and oneness toward working towards some of these things. Let’s say you are listening right now, but Aaron, I’m posing this to you. If you’re as a listener and you’re thinking, okay, well me and my spouse, we’re not quite there yet, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to have that conversation. Is it something you could do individually, separate?

Aaron:
Well, if …

Jennifer:
For a time while the Lord’s working on both of you.

Aaron:
Yah, maybe there’s a relationship where it’s not as tight and maybe that wouldn’t be this season right now, they’re not going to be sitting down and writing goals together. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe in what God tells us. A wife or husband, if you’re the one wanting to do this, I would say start, your planning and goal setting should be a regular prayer for your spouse.
Lord, help me to grow in my love for them. Lord, help them transform into the man or the woman that you have made them to be. Seeing look more like these prayer goals for your spouse who maybe not be on the same page with you to be drawn into it more.

Jennifer:
That’s good.

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
All right. This next one, we’re on number two. We’re only on number two. Number two, how to transform your marriage. We’re going to take it back to Sunday school. Okay, guys. It’s because, if we’re honest, we don’t always operate this way.

Aaron:
No. We want others to, but we don’t.

Jennifer:
Okay. Number two is the golden rule.

Aaron:
Yeah. If we can incorporate the golden rule into our marriage, into our life, oh, man. It would literally would change everything.

Jennifer:
You’re saying. Intentionally do it like it. Well, because we do probably generally think about this at some point, but maybe not. I don’t know.

Aaron:
The golden rule. If you don’t know it, Matthew seven 12, Jesus says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and prophets.”

Jennifer:
Okay, so question. Do you operate in this with me?

Aaron:
I would say I try to on a regular basis, but I would say the times that I don’t is not good.

Jennifer:
Yeah. That’s kind of where I land. We need to be better at this. Okay.

Aaron:
Often, the way my kids put it, because the way they hear this is I’m going to do to them as they do to me. I’m like, “That’s not what it says.” Often that’s what we do. We do. You did this, so I’m going to do it.

Jennifer:
We just mirror everybody.

Aaron:
Instead of breaking that cycle and saying, “Oh, I’m not going to do that thing because I wouldn’t want it done to me.” If we just applied this rule more regularly, if we looked at our life and said, “I’m going to commit, Lord, you helping me to do unto my wife as I would wish her to do unto me,” man, it would change everything. If I treated you the way I wanted to be treated, if I don’t want you to be harsh to me, then I should be gentle to you, right?
I’m going to treat you. I want you to be gentle. I’m going to be gentle. If I wouldn’t want you to lie to me, which I don’t know anyone who would want someone to lie to them, then I shouldn’t lie to you even about little things. It keeps going. If I’m going to want to be pursued by you …

Jennifer:
You were going to see by someone else.

Aaron:
I know. I don’t know why I was going to say that. If I want to be pursued by you, then I should pursue you.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
If I want to be encouraged, then I should be encouraging. I should encourage you as much as I would want to be encouraged by you. The point is, whether or not you do it to me, that’s what I would want, so I should treat you that way.

Jennifer:
Galatians five 13 through 14 says, “For you’re called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Aaron:
If we love each other the way we want to be loved, if I love you as myself, which in marriage you are myself, that’s what the Bible teaches, we’re one. I’m actually fulfilling the law and it continues on, and it says, “I would never steal from you if I love you. I would never lie to you if I love you. I would never murder you if I love you.” You don’t break the law. When you love someone, you’re actually fulfilling all of the law in it.
If we treat each other, golden rule, the way we want to be treated, there’ll be so much more joy and peace and power and forgiveness in all the things that we want because we’re doing it. Even if only one person’s doing it, you’re getting 50% more of it than you were before.

Jennifer:
Right. All right, moving on to number three. Should we say it together?

Aaron:
Okay. One, two, three.

Jennifer:
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Aaron:
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That’s really funny, because it’s been our whole life here, right?

Jennifer:
Yeah. I’m sure everybody.

Aaron:
My parents always saying that. We always said something not nice.

Jennifer:
Even still, there’s times we want to speak our minds.

Aaron:
Often, we get angry, we’re hurt, and we think that gives us the right to say angry and hurtful things to our spouse. Maybe some of you don’t, but we have when we feel justified.

Jennifer:
I was going to say, because the things that I don’t mean to hurt you or be mean, I think I’m just stating the obvious or observing something, or saying something that’s true. The way that I’m saying it or …

Aaron:
Well, it’s the heart and the intention and then the purpose behind it is what’s not nice. I was saying critiques are good, this note I put here. When they’re brought constructively, so like you said …

Jennifer:
Well, not in the middle of an argument.

Aaron:
Well, and with the purpose of constructive criticism and love, and like you said, not in the middle of I’m mad at you, and therefore, boom.

Jennifer:
Right. Here’s another one.

Aaron:
We’ve done it and we do it. If we can practice holding our tongues, meaning being quiet, not saying the thing that comes to our top of our mind when we’re in the middle of a heated argument, or we’re hurt or frustrated, is so much more fruitful than just letting it out.

Jennifer:
This is a really big one for making transformation happen in your marriage, because you listed a practical and an action, where it is how you treat each other, but the tongue, you hear that over and over and over again. The things that you say to your spouse, they are not easily forgotten, and they bring up …

Aaron:
Especially if your spouse repeats them often, because that could happen. Becoming an echo chamber, here’s things that I’m going to continue to say. Sometimes it comes from a heart of I just want, and you’ve said this, I have to say something because I feel like if I don’t, they’re not going to change. They won’t …

Jennifer:
You won’t know. Yeah.

Aaron:
… Deceive that thing.

Jennifer:
Yeah. All I’m saying is even though it’s a small part of our body, our tongues are so powerful. What’s that proverb where it talks about the tongue brings life or death? It builds up a home or tears it down.

Aaron:
He who loves it, eats it, eats up its fruit or something like that.

Jennifer:
Yeah. We should have put that note in here, but seriously, we could have a great day. We could be treating each other well. We could be hitting our goals, but if we don’t practice self-control with our tongues, or thinking before we speak …

Aaron:
Well, and to be honest, silence is often better than saying the thing that you want to say.

Jennifer:
Not the silent treatment, that’s different.

Aaron:
Not the silent treatment. Yeah. Not saying silent as a weapon, but holding your tongue as a form of love.

Jennifer:
Being slow to speak love.

Aaron:
Yes, slow to speak and quick to listen is what the Bible says. There’s a verse that should put some fear in us about how we talk to each other. It’s in Galatians five 15. It’s actually the continuation of verse you just read. It says, “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”
This idea of are we walking in the flesh so much with each other, the way we communicate with each other, the way we talk to each other, and we’re not loving our neighbors ourself, we’re not loving our spouse as we love ourself, we’re not doing unto others as we’d have them do unto us, that it turns into this biting and devouring of one another.

Jennifer:
Like a cycle of just going back and forth.

Aaron:
I feel like we’ve brought this up before, but when we are talking this way, even in an argument, we’re chipping away at ourselves, because we’re one. We’re chipping away our teammanship, our unity, our oneness, and our love. Being quiet is so much better than letting it out. Okay, number four. Stop being easily offended.

Jennifer:
This was a huge one for us. We started out this list by telling you guys this list was based off of our own experience and what we walk through.

Aaron:
Things that we’re actually trying to walk through, yeah.

Jennifer:
When we came to this realization that, “Hey, we’re actually being really easily offended. We need to stop doing this,” it was a game changer.

Aaron:
Really was. This is actually one of the attributes of love. Love is patient, love is kind, and then it says, “Love is not irritable or resentful.” Irritable means easily frustrated, easily offended, like bothered. It’s like this. It’s an oversensitivity.

Jennifer:
You walk past me, and you’ve done something that I disagree with or it’s frustrating, or you do something differently than how I would do it, and I just respond. I just snap.

Aaron:
You snap. Yeah.

Jennifer:
I huff under my breath and I’m just irritated by you.

Aaron:
A good way of looking at this is when we make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells, that old idiom that says like, oh, I have to tippy toe. If I just slightly crack that little egg over there, you’re going to like freak out on me.

Jennifer:
Another way this happens is by, if one of us wants to share something, and we say it the wrong way, or our intention is well, and we feel like it needs to be said, but the other person is just easily offended, they can’t even hear what’s being said, because they’re just resistant to hearing. That’s happened before.

Aaron:
I think we become easily offended when we get stuck in a place of loving ourselves more than we love our spouse.

Jennifer:
That’s good. Yeah.

Aaron:
What that means is I love myself so much that I don’t want you to step on my toe, or hurt my feelings, or say something that’s going to bother me, or do something that I’m embarrassed by, or anything that’s going to make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced or you name it.

Jennifer:
Yeah. The question in the head goes, why aren’t you doing X or Y or Z?

Aaron:
For me.

Jennifer:
For me, yeah.

Aaron:
You did this thing against me, and now I am feeling this way, or it comes from a place of insecurity. You’re ashamed or guilty, or you feel a certain way about yourself. We take that out on our spouse. We make them want them to be at fault for how we feel.

Jennifer:
Like projecting our feelings.

Aaron:
Yeah. There could be so many other reasons for this. We’re not psychologists, but …

Jennifer:
I could say one thing. When you’re not abiding in the word and you’re not walking with Christ, our flesh gets irritated.

Aaron:
Easily, yeah.

Jennifer:
Bothered. We get selfish. We get all kinds of pride. That’s just another way. Sorry, go ahead.

Aaron:
No, but if we truly love, we will not be irritable or resentful. Always having it out for our spouse, like, “Oh, they always are this way with me.” A good place to start with this is again, going back to that, writing it down, maybe having, writing down, “Hey, we’re going to work on not being easily offended,” and then reminding each other in those moments of a quick irritation, a quick offense.
Why’d you do that? Why’d you say that to me? Reminding each other that we’re working on it? “Hey, remember, we’re working on not being easily offended?”

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
If I bothered you, let’s talk about it, but let’s not be easily offended, and then going back and forth. I think that’s a really good place to start.

Jennifer:
I just want to add, if you’re listening right now and there’s been tension in your marriage for any reason, start here. Make this one your number one.

Aaron:
That’s good.

Jennifer:
Yep.

Aaron:
Number five. This is going to be a hard one for some people and a really good one for some people: more romance and more sex.

Jennifer:
Okay, Aaron.

Aaron:
Okay. I could have said more intimacy. That’s what I originally wrote. Then I wanted to be more specific because the wife’s going to see intimacy one way and the husband’s going to see it another way. Really …

Jennifer:
I think we all get it though.

Aaron:
We need both romance and sex. We need the blessing of what both of those bring to our marriage, both the physical and the emotional. That’s kind of how I categorize this. Romance is more of the emotional intimacy, that connection, and then the physical is that sex. It’s the physical connection where two are becoming one and the bodies are connecting. They’re both necessary, both needed, and we shouldn’t do one and not the other.

Jennifer:
Yeah. Anytime we’ve intentionally focused on this area of our life and just made it kind of a focus for us, it’s blessed us. It’s helped us.

Aaron:
Always. Yeah.

Jennifer:
It’s made our relationship feel more full. We feel more unified. We feel more connected. We feel more interested in each other. Don’t you feel like that?

Aaron:
Well, the desire grows the more we work on these areas, the more we want them in our life. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the order I put these in is for a reason. They’re writing it down. You could take each one of these things and start putting these down as relational goals.

Jennifer:
That’s good.

Aaron:
Then they’re visible. The doing into others, so treating your spouse the way you’d want to be treated. If I want my wife to be more physical and more in interested in me in that way, then I’m going to do things that would be loving to her, massages and other types of physical intimacy that she appreciates and desires.

Jennifer:
I see. Not being easily offended has to be taken care of before you jump into this next one.

Aaron:
Exactly.

Jennifer:
Got it. You should have corrected me when I said you should make number three, your number one. I didn’t know you put these in order like that.

Aaron:
Well, I did because this is actually an area where being easily offended always gets in the way. If we have easy offenses …

Jennifer:
Makes it so much harder to get there.

Aaron:
If I’m desiring one thing, and you can’t give that to me for whatever reason, you’re tired, long day, sore, painful, whatever, and I’m easily offended by that, rather than loving you and being patient and it messes things up and vice versa. Yeah, I did put these in an order because they matter on some sense to work on each one of these areas in little ways. They will all benefit each other. Romance, I just wanted to pull out some ideas for this section that the …

Jennifer:
You’re going to give them ideas?

Aaron:
Emotional intimacy. It’s this feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. That’s the definition, in search of romance. It’s a quality or a feeling of mystery, excitement, a remoteness from everyday life.

Jennifer:
I like that. It’s cool.

Aaron:
It doesn’t have to be this big extravagant thing. How can you just make the moment with your spouse special?

Jennifer:
Special. Yeah.

Aaron:
Different. Take them away from that ordinary just for a moment. That could be a going on a walk. It could be bringing something home that’s like, “Hey, I thought about you today.” That’s an excitement. You actually like that when I, like a simple thing, I call you up and I say, “Do you want an iced tea?”

Jennifer:
I love it. That’s awesome.

Aaron:
You’re like, “Oh,” awesome because that’s out of the ordinary. I’m not always grabbing an iced tea, but you felt thought of. Then you get a special treat out of it. It kind of breaks up the day.

Jennifer:
I do love that so much, and it makes me feel so good to feel thought of in a special way that you know me, that you know what I would like, and it just affirms my heart and my love, and makes me feel like you’re thinking of me, which is good. It’s good for us to recognize those times that our spouse goes out of the box.

Aaron:
Goes out of their way to …

Jennifer:
Go out of their way to …

Aaron:
To try these things. Try be more romantic and exciting and different.

Jennifer:
When they do it to affirm them and use your words and say, “I really appreciated that,” or, “I really love that.” The more we affirm each other in those ways of being that we want to see more of, they’ll continue to happen.

Aaron:
Yeah. Jordan Peterson as a quote says, “Don’t ever punish behavior you want repeated.” Even if I don’t follow through with or do something in the way that you might want, there’s been times I’ve brought you iced tea that you don’t like, because you have a taste for certain types of teas, but I didn’t know that. Then I learned it. You could have taken the opportunity to punish me for and be like, “This is what you got me. I hate this.”

Jennifer:
Oh, got you.

Aaron:
You could be like, “What? This was so thoughtful. Just for future, this isn’t my favorite tea, but I’m so happy that you did that for me.”

Jennifer:
I think that’s what I did.

Aaron:
That’s what you did. I thought, oh, thank you. I didn’t know that, because I actually didn’t. Now when I get you tea or do something, I think, oh, where would she like me to get tea?

Jennifer:
That’s awesome.

Aaron:
It also has taught me to ask you for future, “Hey, where’s your favorite place to get this?”

Jennifer:
It’s like a get to know me. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Aaron:
Don’t punish those behaviors you want repeated, even if it doesn’t happen the way you want, the way you expect, but affirm it and encourage it, so that it happens more from your spouse on both sides.

Jennifer:
I like that you kind of broke romance and physical intimacy into separate kind of categories here, because romance is so much more of that connectedness and …

Aaron:
That emotional connection.

Jennifer:
It’s so important. It’s an important part of marriage, but so is physical intimacy. I think it’s really important for us to remember that our spouses need us. It’s weird that I put that in the plural, just …

Aaron:
Our spouses.

Jennifer:
Our spouse needs us and we have needs. Being there for one another and being willing to make the effort and put our hearts and our minds toward that is …

Aaron:
Oh, we’re talking about the physical side now.

Jennifer:
Yeah, yeah. In the physical, just as much as the romance are connected side of things.

Aaron:
Yeah. I wanted to bring up on the physical side of things, because I know that this is a huge area of struggle in a lot of marriages. It was a huge one for us for many years. It’s only been in the last handful of years that it’s been getting so much better. We’ve been growing and getting excited about these things and praying about it more. First and foremost, it’s a powerful gift. Physical intimacy, sex is a powerful gift from God given to husbands and wives. It really is.
We have to change our minds about that. Talking about transformation, we need our minds changed for true transformation to happen. If we can change our mind that sex is a good thing, because I know many people see sex as a bad thing, or a hurtful thing, or something that they don’t enjoy.

Jennifer:
Stressful thing.

Aaron:
Yeah. It can be all of those things. If we start reminding ourselves and thinking, no, this is a good thing. This is a gift, that’ll change a lot of things. Also, it’s a command. First Corinthians seven, three, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. On both sides, it doesn’t just say the wife to her husband only, as if every situation is always, the husband needs it more than the wife, because that’s not true. There’s some situations where it’s totally different with the wife and the husband, but it says to both.
In other places, it says that her body is not her own. It is yours. Your body is not your own, it is hers. Just reiterating this, the power and the truth behind your oneness. You are one body and you cannot control it and use it and as a weapon. Not only is it a gift, but it’s also a command. There’s some actual really awesome benefits to sex.
If you didn’t know this, it helps relieve stress and anxiety. I know sex might gift some people anxiety, and I pray for you that you would, like we said, have a transformation in your mind about this. It does biologically relieve stress and anxiety. The hormones that get released in your body do that.

Jennifer:
It also helps your immune system.

Aaron:
It does. Those same hormones that help with relieving stress and anxiety helps boost your immune system. Also, when you have less cortisol in your body, that’s the stress hormone, you get sick less because cortisol can actually make you, it weakens your immune system. It helps your immune system. It also brings pleasure and excitement. That’s just such a good thing.

Jennifer:
Joy, yeah.

Aaron:
We need that in our marriage. We need that connection and that pleasure more. Most importantly, sex reinforces closeness and oneness.

Jennifer:
Yeah. Speaking of oneness, you brought up earlier, just briefly not using sex as a tool or a weapon, and then you kind of just kept on going. I just want to go back to that really quick. I think sometimes, we don’t even realize when we are withholding our bodies from each other because of being easily offended, or thinking that they’re not thinking of us.

Aaron:
Well, they haven’t given me what I want yet.

Jennifer:
There is a list of things that could possibly motivate someone to kind of close themselves off and be guarded. When you say weaponize, and you say using your body as a tool, that’s what you’re talking about, right? Yeah.

Aaron:
If you use it in a negative way, it becomes a weapon.

Jennifer:
It also becomes a roadblock to moving forward, to experience reconciliation and connectedness.

Aaron:
This is not the kind of transformation we want when we do this, but when we are more free with each other and open with each other in this way. It’s good. Now, that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be any times that you’re like, “Hey, can we forego tonight?”

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
Again, that goes back to the communication, and that goes back to goal setting together and also …

Jennifer:
Considering one another.

Aaron:
Yeah, considering one another, treating each other as we’d like to be treated. Again, there’s an order. Okay.

Jennifer:
What’s next in your order, Aaron?

Aaron:
Invest in your marriage. Okay. I think this sounds obvious, but …

Jennifer:
How much money do you have to …

Aaron:
Exactly. Well, just having it’s almost like if you were to invest in your education, invest in this business, taking one of the most important things in your entire life, and are we …

Jennifer:
You’re elevating it.

Aaron:
Are we investing in it?

Jennifer:
You’re saying this is a priority. This is what I’m going to put my effort and my energy and my resources and everything I’ve got towards, because this matters.

Aaron:
Investment means I’m going to spend time and money and energy. I’m going to invest. When you invest in your marriage, you’re going to get some of the greatest returns you can ever think of.

Jennifer:
Generational.

Aaron:
Yeah. You’re going to get returns for a long time with your children, because they’re going to look back on your marriage and be like, “Wow, my parents, they invested in each other. They loved each other. They weren’t perfect, but man, they tried hard.”

Jennifer:
Because of that kind of example, when they get married, they will have the same fortitude and excitement around investing in their marriage.

Aaron:
At least that’s the goal, right?

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
I want my kids to have the same desire.

Jennifer:
What are some ways we can invest?

Aaron:
Something we did a long time ago when we were going through some of our hardships, actually, wasn’t it right at that end point of things changing for us?

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
We went to a marriage retreat, and there’s marriage retreats all over the country.

Jennifer:
We went to Family Lives Weekend to Remember …

Aaron:
Which are awesome.

Jennifer:
It was actually really cool, because we kind of rededicated our marriage, and our purpose, and everything that we had been walking through just submitted it to God and said, “We’re going to keep going.”

Aaron:
You could try Weekend to Remember. That’s a family life event. That’s a good one. There might be one going on at your church and you don’t even know about it. Just look at if you have a pamphlet or a website, or you can Google it. There’s a lot of, we’d suggest a Christian marriage retreat, but marriage retreats, that’s one really good way to invest in your marriage. What’s another one?

Jennifer:
Reading books together or individually, and just kind of sifting through the notes.

Aaron:
Talking about them.

Jennifer:
Talking about them, but there are a lot of marriage books out there.

Aaron:
Yeah. Do we know any marriage books specifically?

Jennifer:
No, actually. Marriage After God is one that I would recommend. We have a couple of marriage books if you want to look on our store.

Aaron:
A few more than a couple, but …

Jennifer:
Some devotionals, some prayer books that you guys could do together, which is awesome.

Aaron:
You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to look at everything we have to offer.

Jennifer:
There’s a lot of other good books too, Meeting a Marriage, See Through Marriage, by [inaudible 00:41:35].

Aaron:
Sacred Marriage was a really good one.

Jennifer:
By Gary Thomas.

Aaron:
Get into books. If you’re like me, I like audiobooks. I can consume them quicker, I can also retain them better.

Jennifer:
I am not an audio person. I have to have the tangible, I can’t even do digital. I have to have the book that I can curl the pages back.

Aaron:
I know. I love something to read too, but also this creates another thing to talk about and to share with each other in growing your marriage, so you’re not just investing in what you’re consuming, but also what you’re discussing with each other. Gives you things to talk about also, which is really good. Regularly planned date nights.

Jennifer:
Or even double date nights. Go out with another couple, and you’ll notice you guys can start talking about marriage. All of a sudden, you don’t feel so alone in some of the things you’re wrestling in, because …

Aaron:
I think we’ve brought this up in 80 episodes, talking about date night. We say it so often because it’s something that we dedicated it to several years ago, how many? Maybe five or six years ago?

Jennifer:
It was after we had Wyatt, Oliver Wyatt.

Aaron:
We realized there was a while that had gone by and we’re like, “Man, when’s the last time we went on a date with each other?” We just put it on the calendar every week, and we figure out a babysitter, and we planned it. Now, that didn’t mean we went every week, but just the fact that it was on the calendar, again, the fact that we wrote it down, meant it happened way more often than it would’ve if we didn’t.
Investing in that way. Since this is under investing in your marriage, we’ve talked about in the past that it doesn’t have to be something where you go out or spend money. I would say make this an intentional investment of I want to go do something special, even if it’s not every time.

Jennifer:
Catch each other by surprise.

Aaron:
Yeah. Set a reservation at a restaurant you guys don’t go to often. Go throw axes at your local ax throwing place if you have one.

Jennifer:
Get fast food and go do an activity like some, I don’t know, ride bikes or something.

Aaron:
Invest in a way that’s different than normal, if you can. Maybe you have to save for it a little bit, and that’s okay. That actually makes it more special.

Jennifer:
Another way that you can invest in your marriage is find out if your church has a marriage group. Something that really, really affected our marriage in a positive way was the church.

Aaron:
Probably, I think we often attributed it to saving our marriage.

Jennifer:
Yeah. We were going to a church back in, I think this is our third year of marriage? We were in California, and they had a marriage group. You came to me and you were like, “Hey, we’re going to go. It’s on Wednesday night.”

Aaron:
It was terrifying.

Jennifer:
You need to be there. You need to show up. That was a really dark time for me, and I was resistant toward going and didn’t want to do it, but you encouraged us and said, “This is what we need to try.” We showed up, and it was scary. There was a lot of people there. When we sat at the table and we started hearing the marriage stories coming up, it was actually really beautiful.

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
Very eye-opening and it had a lot of purpose. You just got to do it. If your church has one, go for it.

Aaron:
If they don’t have one …

Jennifer:
Go find one.

Aaron:
… You should ask them to start one.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
You never know. There might be 20 other couples that have asked, and they’ll finally be like, “Oh, we should start a marriage ministry.”

Jennifer:
Number seven is, is this the last one?

Aaron:
This is the last one.

Jennifer:
See your spouse and yourself through Christ’s eyes. I mentioned this in a previous episode, I think one or two back. It’s really important that we are able to do this. The only way we can do it is if we know Christ.

Aaron:
Yeah. It also, again, this changes everything. Going back to what you talked about earlier also of what if there’s a couple that aren’t on the same page? Maybe one’s not a believer. Maybe they’re going through some really hard things and it’s hard to connect. When we can look at our spouse through Christ and say, “Wow, okay, Lord,” like we talked about, I think an episode or two ago about them having a brotherly love, a sisterly love, of seeing them in that way. Maybe it doesn’t feel like they’re my spouse right now because of this or that, because of this pain, because of that hurt.
Man, I’m going to try and see them the way Christ does. I’m going to try and love them the way Christ loves them, and stop looking at them from an earthly fleshly point of view of all of the things that you did wrong.

Jennifer:
Critical.

Aaron:
All of the things that need to change.

Jennifer:
I feel like when you look through Christ’s eyes, there’s like this lens of grace that you could just see not who they are in their sin, but who they are because of the blood of Christ, and what he’s done, and become a a new creation in him, and to hope for transformation in their life.

Aaron:
Yeah. Here’s what it says in two Corinthians five 16 through 19. It says, “From now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh.” This is essentially what we’re talking about here. Let’s stop regarding each other according to flesh, and let’s start regarding each other according to the Spirit, according to what Christ did and who Christ is. Then it says, “Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come.”
All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Instead of seeing only the flesh, only the sin and the mistakes, and the shortcomings, and the frustrations, and the hurts, we see the one who Christ died for. We see the one Christ shed his blood for. We see the one Christ as reconciling to the Father through his life, death, and resurrection.

Jennifer:
In our, it’s 16 years, right?

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
16 years of marriage.

Aaron:
We just had that.

Jennifer:
There have been many times that we’ve had to intentionally see each other through Christ’s eyes, because it’s not something we tend to do on a daily basis, although we should, right?

Aaron:
Yeah. It’s usually in those really hard times that we’re like, ugh.

Jennifer:
Then everything just kind of falls flat on the floor and you’re like, “Well, grace.” That’s what he is given to us.

Aaron:
In our testimony that you share in the Unbuild Wife book, that’s essentially what happened. We were on the verge of just being done, calling it quits. I felt the Lord telling me, “Are you going to forgive your wife? Are you going to love her as I did?” He just reminded me of who he is.
It made it impossible for me to, because I was either going to say, “No, I’m not going to look at her like that, and I’m over it,” or I was going to say, “No, Lord, I love you and I’m going to try and see her that way.”

Jennifer:
Yeah. Some of you listening right now, I just want to encourage you, you may be in a place where you need to pray and ask God to give you those eyes to see through Christ’s lens. You might need to pray for that because …

Aaron:
We have to.

Jennifer:
We have to.

Aaron:
I would say, because I can’t do it without him.

Jennifer:
Yeah. We can’t do it in our flesh. Yeah, all of us listening right now, we need to do that. Then I just wanted to … we kind of summed up all the important stuff, right?

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
I can move on.

Aaron:
You can.

Jennifer:
You guys know if you’ve been listening for a long time, I bring up memes from time to time, and I get stuck on social media in that way. I love those transformation videos where they show you the reel of pictures, where it’s like, “This is who I was, but this is who I am.”

Aaron:
Yeah, they’re really powerful.

Jennifer:
A really huge weight change. That’s what I’m thinking of right now is just like …

Aaron:
Well, we’ve even seen ones of people that are being changed because of Christ, and they had how they were before, this party, and then all of a sudden, they’re totally different. You’re like, “Whoa.”

Jennifer:
Yeah. The ones that I’m thinking of specifically are the weight ones and just how dramatic it is. They’ll usually show bits and pieces of what it took to get there.

Aaron:
The progress.

Jennifer:
The progress, the working out. It just moves me, because I think you don’t just get to be transformed. You have to be willing to put in the work. I just wanted to remind all of us that change can happen in us, like you mentioned earlier, through being passive and allowing influences in our life that change us, but we’re not going to say that’s for the positive.

Aaron:
Rarely.

Jennifer:
Rarely it is.

Aaron:
Accidentally change for the positive.

Jennifer:
Yeah. The powerful transformation that we are all eager to see in our lives and in our marriages comes from putting in the time, putting in the work, putting in the energy. It’s being selfless, it’s being sacrificial. It requires much, just like someone going through a weight loss journey and having to do muscle toning. You know that they did everything that they possibly could to get there.

Aaron:
Yeah. Well, the Lord puts it this way. We got to put to death our flesh. That’s essentially what this process is putting behind us our flesh, and designing to walk in his spirit. The things that we brought up in this episode were hopefully just some practical things, but some things that we can actually do and try to do. We hope you enjoyed those. This is the last episode of this month.

Jennifer:
The last week of the month, where we’re talking about this specific growth spurt. Is that what you’re going to say?

Aaron:
Yes.

Jennifer:
This section of the podcast, we want to encourage you guys to take time to invest, like Aaron mentioned earlier …

Aaron:
Write down.

Jennifer:
… In a personal way. Basically, this one covers everything. No. The goal here is to build trust with your spouse by doing what you say you will. Whatever commitments you’ve made, we want you to stick to them so that this is our encouragement. The way that we are encouraging that is by taking a post-it note, or a sheet of paper, or a three by five card, and just start with one.
If you have more on there, that’s great, but you still got a week left to do this. If you want to keep doing this past January, keep doing it. It’s just one way that you can experience a maturity and transformation in your marriage.

Aaron:
Mine is, like I said …

Jennifer:
Oh, yeah, we were going to talk about it.

Aaron:
… Mine’s supposed to be in bed by nine.

Jennifer:
Look, the effort was there, and I just want to let it …

Aaron:
It was on the refrigerator, and I even mentioned because we thought this was only going to take us 30 minutes to record. We’re wrong. It’s 10:19, and so I’m going to forgive myself today, and I’m going to try and be in bed by nine tomorrow.

Jennifer:
You’ve been doing great. I put on mine affirm the kids, and it’s because as a mom and homeschooling, they’re in the home all the time. They’re with me all the time. I do a lot of correction and critique, and helping them in their life.

Aaron:
Yeah, mature.

Jennifer:
Figuring what mature and what’s right and stuff. I just wanted to make sure that I was affirming them. It’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know how things have been, so I just wanted to make sure that I was doing that. I put on mine, affirm the kids, and so I’ve been doing that. It’s actually been really beautiful. I love seeing their eyes light up. It just feels good.

Aaron:
All right. I’m going to pray. Dear Lord, thank you for the change we have already experienced in marriage. We pray we would continue to see positive transformation on our relationship. We pray for more love, more peace, and more joy. Please help us to be intentional in the way we choose to interact in marriage every day. Holy Spirit, we ask you to help us to not be easily offended by each other. Show us areas of our marriage we can invest in and put the time and energy into making what we have even better.
Please help us to see each other as you see us, and help us to hope for the change we desire to see. Thank you for our marriage, and thank you for the opportunities you’ve given us to make changes in our lives. We pray our marriages continue to mature and that it honors you. In Jesus’ name, amen.