Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Have you ever felt that marriage is actually harder than anyone ever let on or what you thought it would? From constant disagreements to feeling like you are just not on the same page, it can be a real struggle to get along sometimes. But there's good news. There's good news. Putting in the work will actually make marriage life easier. So in today's episode, Jen and I, we're talking all about three things. One, two, three, you can do. today, right now, to build a stronger, healthier marriage. Tune in for the right tools that help you move from struggling to thriving in your relationship. That's right. We can do it. You got it. Tune in. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Home to Haven podcast. Come on in, gather around the fireplace that we don't have, but maybe you do. And so make it cozy. This is your home for faith-filled content that helps you communicate in your relationship. We are the Turners, and man, we are so glad you have tuned in, whether you're on iHeartRadio, many of you are listening on iHeartRadio. Thank you, Apple Podcast. Thank you. We welcome you. YouTube, thank you. We welcome you. However, wherever you're joining us, we are so, so appreciative of you. We will not be here without you. And we're looking forward to growing this community, growing this podcast. So thank you guys so much. Your comments, your encouragement, it's everything. So we just completed or finished or went to our annual Harvest Fall Festival Family Day Pumpkin Race Enjoyment of Time.

• Speaker #1

  Yes.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. At the family farm.

• Speaker #1

  That's right. One of our annual traditions that we do every year.

• Speaker #0

  It's becoming an annual tradition. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  So we get our pumpkins.

• Speaker #0

  We get our delicious apple cider donut sundaes and the maize that the boys got lost on this year, me and Jaden.

• Speaker #1

  Yes. And the girls did it in record time. And so I think we should do the big maze next year. Maybe challenge you all to the big maze.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think next year we'll actually take more time because it's time we didn't get there.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, we went in an evening and so sun was going to set.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Getting a little chilly. We had fun, but we did the kid maze. They said would take about 20 minutes. We, the girls, did it in six minutes. So it was a little disappointing for me because it was so fast, but it was fun. It was still fun, fun family time. So they can check that out too, right?

• Speaker #0

  Absolutely. If you want to see that, we have a travel playlist on our channel. Yeah. So I'll put the video in the description. You can click on that and enjoy. Come along with us and kind of see real people do real life. And we tell you things and it's kind of us being who we are.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Being a family. That's right. And so don't forget next year we're going to do, we're going to do the. adult maze. It's supposed to take an hour. So you have to use your phone and do QR codes and a whole bunch of stuff.

• Speaker #0

  So they need to be older for that.

• Speaker #1

  Don't let us forget.

• Speaker #0

  Jaden is not ready. So anyway, today we're talking about three things going to help, you know, we're basically going to bring you behind the scenes, right? And what it takes to build a strong relationship. We got this, you got this. So maybe you've got questions or like, Is marriage hard work? Like I've heard that before.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. What, what we do to make our marriage work. But like you said,

• Speaker #0

  it's not, marriage is not hard. I don't believe marriage is hard. Sorry.

• Speaker #1

  It's not hard.

• Speaker #0

  Marriage is not hard. You have to work at it, but it's not hard work.

• Speaker #1

  So that's different.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. So first of all, do you think marriages work?

• Speaker #0

  Do I think, I don't think marriages work.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. So you also don't think it's hard work then? No. Okay. So we're, we're saying that marriage is easy then?

• Speaker #0

  I've got a, it's not, I don't know. No, it's not easy, right? You're dealing with a different person. But for me, I don't believe that marriage is hard. Like you just hear it's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

• Speaker #1

  Or it takes a lot of hard work.

• Speaker #0

  Hard work.

• Speaker #1

  If you think it's hard.

• Speaker #0

  You can make it hard.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  You can be very difficult to deal with if you want to be.

• Speaker #1

  Yes, absolutely.

• Speaker #0

  But you can also choose, I'm going to make it easy to live with. And I'll tell you, thank you for making it easy to live with. Thank you for making it so easy. How do you make it easy? Well, she asks me, she considers me. What do I need? What can I get for you? Did I say that right? Did I understand that correctly? And I'm doing the same thing for her. And so we have decided to work on these things. Now, it wasn't always that way. We committed and we dedicated time to talking through and walking through how to get better. I don't think it's hard work. Well, I'd say it might be hard work. But it's not hard.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  Every day with you is not hard. It's a grind. Right. And it's just this. Now we've experienced some hardships. We've had to face some challenges, but we did it together. What do you think?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So I've heard you say it's you have to work at it, right? You have to work at marriage.

• Speaker #0

  You 100% have to work at marriage.

• Speaker #1

  But it's not.

• Speaker #0

  work itself like marriage itself is not like work like i'm going to work every day right but you shouldn't be and if it is and that you know like people like well then that's why we're here yeah because it shouldn't be like right you know the scripture the promises of god and this is where we get this from is that marriage is honorable you find a wife you find a good thing you get favor you know marriage is beautiful right before the lord right and so his picture that's presented in the word Doesn't show a ball and chain. Doesn't show shackles and doesn't show just this. Now it's the wrong person. You know, Isaac and Rebecca, she's up there dressing up boys with wolf skin and, you know, scheming against her husband and Esau and Jezebel. Not Esau, but Ahab and Jezebel. She's out there just wilding out. Like, okay. You don't want that kind of. Yeah. It's a nightmare.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  It can be, it can be the haunted house of hell,

• Speaker #1

  right? Okay.

• Speaker #0

  But it also can be this blissful, amazing fulfillment. And that's what we want for us as we want for you.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And no matter where you are in your current relationship that can always turn around. So if you feel right now that it is in that bad place, there's light at the end of the tunnel.

• Speaker #0

  Just like there's no person's gone too far who can't extend or outrun the grace of God. There's no marriage has gone too far that can't be repaired or restored. Whether it's been infidelity, you know, just all kinds of stuff.

• Speaker #1

  Trust issues.

• Speaker #0

  Trust issues. You know, if two people are willing and obedient, then they'll be able to go to the land. You know, so if you're willing and obedient to like change and do some stuff and again, work,

• Speaker #1

  you can. Right. So there are some things that we work at right in our marriage. So you may have to work on active listening or you may have to work on a character trait that you have that isn't the best in a committed relationship. Right. So you're working on those things. And then God, of course, can work through and bring you over to a better place.

• Speaker #0

  So let's take them behind us. One of the things that we do, there's three things you may have heard. If you haven't, there's three principles that we live. by, that we give to you, that we believe the three Ps will consistently, you know, move you along in your relationship. They are pray it, then plan it, and then pursue it. You've got to pray through things and pray through it together. Get the house vision, get God's direction for your lives. Once you get the prayer part down, then you can actually plan some things. Go ahead.

• Speaker #1

  Which is very important because a lot of times people will plan things or come up with their idea of how they want things to be. And then they pray about their plan that they made. Right. So, OK, I have this great plan. It's going to this is how it's going to flow. This is how it's going to go. And then you pray, God, please make sure this goes perfectly according to my will. My will. Right. So we're flipping that. Right. We start with the prayer. We start with seeking the Lord's face. We start with reading the scripture. We start with. immersing ourselves in the scriptures and God's word. And then ultimately, like you said, he will give us vision and he will guide our steps. He will show us the plan that we should start to put in place.

• Speaker #0

  Then you want to plan that out. And then you, then and only then do you pursue actually put into action. Quick example would be our trip to Alaska, which there's videos for that. Sitka and Skyway in Juneau. It's an amazing time. We had as a family. So if you want to see our adventures in Alaska. I'll put that in the show notes as well. But we prayed about that. We committed it to the Lord. Hey, Lord, we really would like to go here. And we got scriptures and just committed to the Lord Jesus. And then we started planning. When do we want to go? We had to find a cruise line. We had to find dates. We had to get stuff in order, budgets. And then we actually pursued that once we. had an action plan and, you know, had God's direction, we pursued it. So those three things helped us accomplish a goal that we had and we saw together as a family.

• Speaker #1

  That's right. And so we also have some specific things that we do as our...

• Speaker #0

  What do we do daily, monthly?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So let's go through, we talked a little bit about our prayer and now let's go through our plan. So things that we do...

• Speaker #0

  How often do we pray?

• Speaker #1

  I pray every day. Do you? I hope you pray every day.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Yes. We pray every day. We pray as a family multiple times a day. We pray over each other. We pray for each other. We ask each other, is there anything I can pray for you? Anything you need? So that's like a daily, a daily thing. But we also do implement some things in our schedule, right? That we do to work at our relationship and keep it fresh and alive. And so some of those things.

• Speaker #0

  I didn't want to say, this is what I meant by work. Okay. We have to be in. intentional and that's what i mean by work it's not again for me it's not hard yeah i want to yeah like i you i had to shift my mindset and grow up and be mature okay you know yeah in my 20s i didn't want to yeah not ready for marriage no i wasn't so you shouldn't be dating okay talk to us so yeah yeah i wasn't ready for that right i want to do my own thing yeah so yeah but my heart shifted and i was ready because i'm like i'm ready to For me, submit my will to a woman. I'm ready to involve her in my life. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And your life's going to be different.

• Speaker #0

  My life's going to be different. I'm okay with that because in order to be a good husband, it has to be different. Can't be hanging out with the boys all the time. I mean, I can't have friends, but I got a wife. I got kids. No. So.

• Speaker #1

  Priority shift a little.

• Speaker #0

  Priority shifted. So. It had to be intentional. We say, okay, at least once a month, we want to do it more than once a month, but no less than once a month, you and I will come together and we will have somehow a date night that could be going to a restaurant. It could be going up to Harris Teeter, sitting in the grocery store and the chairs and planning out stuff. It could be going uptown for a show or it could be going to get some ice cream and again, just talking. Right. So as many different ways we do, or it can be something fun. We did a, I'm pulling all this stuff. We did a splatter date with pain. So don't think that when we say date night, it's got to be this elaborate,

• Speaker #1

  expensive,

• Speaker #0

  expensive TV show production thing.

• Speaker #1

  Right.

• Speaker #0

  You know, but you have to be intentional and we make it happen. There's no compromising this. People get told no. Because my wife is more important. Right. That's work. I have to be. Otherwise, it won't happen.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. And so we do set that time every month. We really strive for two times a month. So I try to, when I start planning the next month, make sure we have a couple of dates on the calendar. Like you said, either a super fun day or more chill, laid back, set vision date. So we really strive for two date nights a month. But then every week we also have a quick powwow get together. Hey, let's go through our schedule real quick for the.

• Speaker #0

  Who initiates that?

• Speaker #1

  Both of us do.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. Do you think I say most times Jennifer is doing that? She'll kind of take the lead on that. I'm really busy and then I'll get going and I'll get pulled in so many different directions. Yeah. And so she'll just say, hey, sweetheart, can we have a powwow? Later on, can you fit in your schedule? I need 15 minutes to go through some things for this week.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And so I'm more of the planner and more structured person out. So I always have that like in the back of my mind, hey, we need to sit down this week. But a lot of times people will set like every Thursday night, we're going to watch our show and then have our meeting together. But you will sometimes say, hey, can we run through this upcoming week just so I know what's going on? Forget. Right. So. Sometimes you'll say that and just kind of refresh. But every single week we're just running through, hey, do we have anything out of the ordinary this week? Appointments, things going on. Make sure, you know, if you have to pick up the kids, whatever needs to get done is going to get done so that we're on the same page. So many times we get so busy with the day-to-day things that if we start forgetting to do that, that's where things start to crumble.

• Speaker #0

  And because you're so much a planner, you're like three months out. Yeah. And you'll tell me something. And again, I'm not going to excuse I'm a guy, but yeah, I kind of heard it. So I'll say, hey, it's the week of a. Let's go through this, make sure I got it because I heard it, but I didn't really hear it. So let me make sure I'm dialed in because I really need to pay attention so I don't mess up. Yeah. What time am I picking the kids up and what day is that? Okay, where, where? Okay, got it.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And we have some other things that we have in place. We have a shared calendar, things like little details like that. So if you're interested in that, definitely let us know. Happy to go through some of those specifics that help us keep on track with each other.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, we got a shared calendar. I see we invested in a digital wall. So we had a command center where she was and she still likes to write, but whatever. I was like, well, don't write it all. That's not whatever. But, you know, I'm like, don't write it all. Let's put it in the.

• Speaker #1

  Make it easier. I was doing the whiteboard, which I do still like.

• Speaker #0

  You still like to do it. Yeah. But for it, make it easy. You have a shared calendar. It's on the digital wall and we can see all the events for me, for her, for the kids, for us together in these shared calendars. Makes it super easy to glance and see it.

• Speaker #1

  It's on our phones too. So things like that keep us together every week. Then we do our date nights two times a month. And then we also do a couple of getaways each year. So yearly we go on to at least getaways that's wife, right? And we're not bringing the kids along for these. And so typically our fall one is more chill, relax. Let's get some rest and set the vision. for our family for the next year.

• Speaker #0

  Which is in November.

• Speaker #1

  Typically

• Speaker #0

  November. It's November-ish. You know, it's kind of vision casting, chilling out. We'll go in the spring. That's more so like celebration, anniversary, adventure.

• Speaker #1

  Dinners, yep.

• Speaker #0

  Dinners and stuff like that. So that's two times we try to get away. We'll also try to do a one night overnight. You know, that's my prayer, my desire, because Jen does a lot. She's got, we got eight-year-old twins. She's an amazing mom who just does so much. We were at dinner yesterday, and she's doing multiplication table drills with them. It's like, good Lord. But I mean, it's amazing. What an amazing mom. And doing division things. Prayer. They read books. She's awesome. So I like to take her away and say, hey, let's just go overnight uptown or somewhere, chill out, and get a break for a bit. So I try to put those in.

• Speaker #1

  few times yeah and so you're gonna probably have to sacrifice some other things you're gonna have to find child care you're gonna have to pay for that right you know we don't look at that as like a burden it's an investment something we have to do this is something we desire to do right and so we even prayed about that when the kids were little because we don't have a lot of family in town to just watch our kids for free so we had to find we say it again so we could we hear the complaint of we don't have child well we don't have a lot of family

• Speaker #0

  who live in town, who can hang over Auntie Betty's house. They don't have Auntie Betty. Grandma and Grandpa, they're gone. They've been in Michigan. My parents are here, but their schedules are busy and they've got things going on, so I can't just dump them off there. We chose to say, you know what? For me, instead of going to get basketball tickets, I'm going to use some of the budget and spend it for overnights. That's our choice. because for me, again, everyone's different, but for us, investing in our relationship by doing these things for us is investment. Maybe for you guys, it would be going to the game together. But for us, it's overnights, travel, those things, because you have to prioritize at least whatever you're going to do, get that time to communicate, get that time to listen, get that time to hear. to express your heart, express your vision, because that's how your marriage is going to be sustained. It's not hard work. You just got to work at it.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And I hear a lot of times, if you desire that and you're immediately coming up with excuses like, oh, we don't have enough money to do that. Oh, we don't know anybody. I don't trust anybody with my kids, like that type of thing. You're not trusting God in your situation. So it is, you know, kind of a tough thing to navigate. To find a stranger to watch your kids.

• Speaker #0

  Absolutely. We experienced that. And we had a son who had a very difficult first year health wise. And so, yes, it was extremely fearful of like, oh, you know, if we leave him, what happens? But that's not trusting God. And we prayed about that Sunday. that we can trust. Yes. Because you put us together and you know our heart's desire and you know what we need in this marriage. So God fulfilled that and God did above and beyond. He gave us an amazing, amazing caregiver for our kids. They love them. They love her and they take care of our children.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So that's where I was going with it. You ultimately turn that over to prayer, right? If you're finding some reason, why is that reason? Why are you allowing that reason to stop you? Right. And so we submitted that to prayer and we obviously got some amazing help. And so that's been beneficial for us to be able to take that time away, which is so important to a relationship. to be able to have time, just you and your spouse. And so many people are like, well, I'll do it when the kids get older, or I'll do it when the kids move out. But every single year you need that time with just your spouse. It's so important to your relationship.

• Speaker #0

  Might not make it.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, you might not make it to when the kids move out, right?

• Speaker #0

  If you don't do those things, you've got to water the garden. So not speaking negativity over you, but you have to invest. And again, make that intentional effort. And I don't want to make it seem like, oh, marriage is just this bed of roses with marshmallows and nothing. Yeah. Nothing ever comes up. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you submit to the Lord and when you really, really say, you know, I'm going to die to myself because marriage can't be about you and really embrace this. You'll find the joy that God has that he ordained for. He, he, he created man for women and women for man. Yeah. There'll be a completion and a complimentary to one another. So what was that?

• Speaker #1

  And number three was pursue. So we talked about that a little bit, but that is more so setting those goals and actually doing things to get them done. Right. Not just saying we're going to do it. And then a year comes by and, oh yeah, we set that goal last year and we haven't done anything towards it. You know, I've been there, done that. And so it's really important to actually pursue those things. And we have. A planner that really helps you map those things out, set those priorities, and really get forward in your goals.

• Speaker #0

  What's one example you did this year? You had a goal and you accomplished it.

• Speaker #1

  So my main goal was to start reading again for fun. I've always read in my past, like as a child, I've loved free reading, just reading for fun. And so I had set that, I think the year before too. And then I set it for this year, 2024. Correct. And it. was like mid-February and it always gets to that time. And you're like, oh yeah, I set some goals six weeks ago. And I was so mad at myself because I'm like, why am I setting these goals and then getting nowhere with it? So I'm like, today I'm going to start, picked up one of the books I had. And I was like, typically my days are super busy. So I'm going to have to sacrifice or change something about my day, right. In order to have time to read. And so I decided instead of just scrolling for 10 minutes or saying, Oh, I just have 15 minutes. I'll check out, you know, social media or Pinterest or something. I'm going to pick up a book and actually read it. And so that's what I've done. And so I set a goal to read a book each month. So at the end of this year to have 12 books done. And so I already reached my 12. I'm on my 13th right now. So definitely happy.

• Speaker #0

  I started in February. So you met January.

• Speaker #1

  I did

• Speaker #0

  January. So incredible. I'm super proud of you. I have that goal. I didn't meet my goal because I didn't do what you did. Yeah. And so you'd be amazed of the time you have. Yeah. You'd be amazed of the finances that you have. You'd be amazed of all the many things that actually you do have in your possession. Yeah. If you budget it and look at it and say, let me tweak this. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  You'd be amazed. Or you set the goal and figure out how to get it done. Baby steps, right? Every month, every month you can make progress towards it. It doesn't have to be overnight. ta-da, change, right? You do need to take those small little steps in order to make big leaps.

• Speaker #0

  So those are little things that we do consistently to help our marriage. Every single day we're talking, every week we're talking, every month we're talking, throughout the year we're talking. So those are the things that we do that we believe help to make a strong marriage. And so actually we pull it from a document that we have.

• Speaker #1

  That's right. So we,

• Speaker #0

  yeah, like we've actually been talking today out of something that we do that now is available to you.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So this is the next step. If you've gotten our freebie relationship planner, it's just a couple pages, but we have expanded it and we are offering it to you right now. It is available for you to sit down and map out your 2025 vision, your goals, and to really put your faith and your relationship. and the high priorities that you know that they should be.

• Speaker #0

  This is what we do. We use this. So we're giving and making this available to you now as a secret.

• Speaker #1

  Secret.

• Speaker #0

  Secret sauce revelation. Okay. But no, it was as a resource to really help you guys, all of us in our planning and our pursuing.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so these are a little bit more in-depth, right?

• Speaker #0

  A little bit more in-depth, because the freebie only has how many pages?

• Speaker #1

  It's just a couple pages, and it's more of like a template you kind of fill in, which is great when you're just kind of mapping out the month.

• Speaker #0

  It's a starting point.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, your bare minimum starting point, right? So this is a resource that can really... dive you deep into setting your vision, you're figuring out your core values, making sure you're in alignment with your core values, with your spouse, making your home purpose statement. So all these things we've been talking about, if you've listened to any of our other episodes in our podcast or followed us, you've heard us talk about all these things. And so now we have a resource for you to actually have it on paper, pen or digitally. And actually give you the opportunity to do those things in your relationship and in your home.

• Speaker #0

  Love it. So, man, like I said, we've been working hard at this. We're not perfect. We've dragged our feet. We didn't have goals set. We didn't have clarity. When we first started, hopefully if you listen to the podcast, many of you have stuck with us. Thank you. We're getting clear and we're really helping getting things narrowed down. So this is an amazing, amazing resource. You are the first ones. Actually, if you're on our email list. you're going to be the first one to get the link so if you're not subscribed yet we send one email every thursday afternoon once a week that's it we're not harassing you right one email on thursday with you know sometimes a podcast recap sometimes it's what's going on in our lives in our family but it's always encouraging faithful content that helps you communicate in your relationship so Get on that because email subscribers, you are VIPs. You're going to get the opportunity first. Yep. When's it drop?

• Speaker #1

  It's out now. Yes. If you're listening to this podcast, you can get it. We can, we can share the link, right? And you need to go check it out today. Grab it, get it, start implementing it. Cause this is the time of year that you really need to pause, reflect, think about the past few months. And set that vision for 2025 so that 2025 will be your best year yet.

• Speaker #0

  That's right. You don't want to go through another year, the same old way, getting the same old results with the same old wash, wash, rent and repeat. Right. So okay. If a company.com, it'll be on the homepage, go to our website, get it, Because it's there for you. We love you guys so much. If you've got anything from the episode, like and subscribe. Go to oakhavencompany.com and get this planner. Yes. Relationship. It's awesome. It's going to help. Let us know how it's working for you. And we can't wait to see what God does through you in this new year. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Remember, wisdom builds the house.

• Speaker #2

  Thanks for listening to the Home to Haven podcast. Did you get anything from today's topic? Are you ready to go even deeper in developing healthy communication with your partner? Download your Relationship Planning Guide absolutely free. This monthly outline is a great starting point to reclaim control of the hustle of everyday life and ensure that your most meaningful relationship takes center stage. You'll have everything you need to accomplish and measure your goals. And did we mention it's free? Look for and click the link in the description. Our mission is to assist couples in their relationship communication so that they can build a haven of peace and love. Friend, you can have a fulfilling relationship, and we hope today's topic provided tools that will help you experience the fullness of a faith-centered relationship. So connect with us on social and send a message. Find us at Oak Haven Company on all social media platforms. We also have additional resources available to assist you on your journey. So visit oakhavencompany.com today and discover even more tools for success in your relationship communication. Again, thank you for listening. And remember, wisdom builds the house.