#030: How to Heal Your Broken Marriage | Greg & Julie Alexander

Podcast
Written By Restored
Greg & Julie Alexander.png

How do you heal a broken marriage? We tackle that topic with two experts, Greg and Julie Alexander.

They’ve helped over 5,000 seriously struggling couples in the past 20 years. Their success rate? 98%.

By listening, you’ll hear:

  • How Greg & Julie healed their marriage after both cheated on each other

  • What they offer struggling couples

  • Specific advice, such as: What’s the first step to rescue a broken marriage? How can a couple heal from infidelity? What should you say to help a friend who is struggling in their marriage?

Plus, enter our random giveaway to win the book! We’re giving away 3 copies. Details at the end of the episode.

Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links on this page, your purchase will support Restored at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Buy the Book

Marriage 911: How God Saved Our Marriage (and Can Save Yours, Too!)

Links & Resources

Enjoy the show?

To be notified when new episodes go live, subscribe below.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

How do you heal a broken marriage? That's the question we tackled today with two experts, Greg and Julie Alexander that have helped over 5,000 couples in the past 20 years, their success rate, 98%. And these weren't just couples who were struggling with minor things. Many times they were struggling with very serious issues and they were on the brink of divorce and Greg and Julie say that typically when they work with couples who are struggling, it just takes four to five sessions to turn things around.

One couple. Could you not? They had done 18 years of counseling yet. It only took three sessions with Greg and Julie to learn more about life and marriage than the entire 18 years of counsel. Incredible. So by listening to this, you're gonna get a bunch out of it. You're gonna hear their story. You're gonna hear how they hit rock bottom in their marriage.

They actually both were cheating on each other that came to light in a very dramatic way. You'll hear about that in the show. And obviously they felt hopeless. They felt like divorce was inevitable and they felt fake. Because a lot of people on the outside didn't know about what was happening in their marriage.

They thought they had a good marriage. Uh, when in reality it was just a complete mess. Thankfully they met a guide, they met someone who helped them really rediscover the whole purpose of marriage and, and how to build a, a great marriage. And now their marriage is completely different. It's happy, it's joyful.

It's not perfect, but it's so much better. And so they'll explain what happened after that and how they got to that point. We'll also talk about how they actually help struggling spouses. They help marriages that are in really bad shape. They have a program that they offer to, to help couples who are in really rough situations.

We also get their advice on various topics, such as what's the first step that, that a couple should take to, to rescue their marriage. How, how can a couple identify the root cause of all the problems in their marriage instead of just treating the symptoms, you know, what does a couple need to do to heal from the very serious.

Wound of infidelity. What if one spouse wants to save the marriage, but the other one doesn't what does that spouse do and say to, to rescue the marriage and how can someone, uh, support a friend or someone they know who's going through a really rough marriage? What should they say? What should they not say?

So all super, super useful stuff for really anyone, but especially if you're in a really difficult struggling marriage, or maybe, you know, someone who is, this is gonna be especially useful for you. So keep listening,

welcome to the restored podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow from the trauma of your parents' divorce or separation. So you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 30 and we're at the end. The very end of our love and relationship series. The research shows that the biggest effects from our parents' divorce, our experience in a romantic relationships.

Why is that? Basically because we don't have a roadmap for love. We've seen a broken model of love and marriage. And so when it's our turn. We struggle in numerous ways, we feel lost. We feel like we just don't know how, how to do this thing. And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actual tips and expert advice on how to find and build authentic love.

My guests today are Greg and Julie Alexander. They're authors, speakers, and marriage missionaries. They help couples that are experiencing difficulties in their marriage, and they offer hope and guidance to assist system in rediscovering the joy and beauty in their relationship. They're frequent guests on national radio.

They've been married for 33 years. Some of those years have been very, very difficult. Uh, they almost got divorced as you heard me mention, but now they're so happy. Things are so different for them. They have seven children, five grandchildren, uh, they are Catholic Christians. So they're speaking from that perspective.

You're gonna hear a lot of talk about God and God's grace. So if you're not familiar with those terms, or you're not comfortable with them, I just challenge you to keep an open mind. You're gonna get a lot out of this episode, even if you don't believe in God, but truly without God in. Relationship Greg and Julie would not be married today.

They would not be doing the work that they do today to help heal marriages. And so I'm so excited to share this interview with you. There's really nobody like this couple out there. There's no one doing what they're doing. And so I'm so pumped for you to hear this at the end of the episode, I'll tell you how you can win one of three copies of Greg and Julie's book marriage 9 1 1.

So make sure to listen to the end, to hear how to enter that random giveaway here we. Greg and Julie, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's a pleasure to have you. Oh, it's great to be here. Thank you so much. And thank you for the work that you do. Yeah, we appreciate it so much. Thank you.

Absolutely. We are fighting the same more. We're trying to reverse that cycle of brokenness and divorce in our world, and I love what you guys are doing. And I read your book, fantastic book. I honestly couldn't put it down. And so I wanna get to, to your story cuz your story is so engaging and it's so hopeful and beautiful, um, and honestly dramatic at times.

And so let's dive into that story. Take us to the day, if you would, when you both hit rock bottom, what happened? Oh my goodness. Um yeah, rock bottom is, is an appropriate word. It was a day when I wanna say the discoveries were made, uh, when I had discovered that Julie. Having an affair. And, and what was interesting is as the anger and resentment was building up inside of me and just as I wanted to turn to her and kind of verbally unload on her, so to speak, I felt convicted to, to share with her, my indiscretions as well.

And, uh, I would say God knew exactly what needs to happen and when it needed to happen to be able to, to shake our tree and get us to wake up and, and come back to reality. Hmm. That was the beginning of rock bottom, but I can distinctively remember is on the floor in my bedroom, literally laying on the ground in a fetal position, bawling my head off.

And my mom had called on the phone and Greg answered the phone and I didn't wanna talk to anybody. I didn't care. Nothing else mattered. And he put the phone to my ear. And I literally was, I was like, it's done it's over. I never thought I'd be in this position. I never thought I'd feel so low, but it was a moment of grace when my mom said, we love you and we're praying for you.

And that literally was a breath of God coming through the phone to say, okay, something can be done. Incredible. And this all started by a knock at the door. Is that right? Right. Uhhuh yeah, there was a, a D friend of ours, uh, more so Julie's who was coming over to, uh, deliver a, a related Christmas gift for Julie.

And, um, at this point, Julie was working in San Antonio. We were living in Austin, Texas. So San Antonio is about an hour and a half away. And it was on one of her weekly trips back at home to visit with me and the kids that, uh, her friend was, was coming over to deliver that gift. , you know, which was not a gift, but in a sense, it was because the gift was literally the, um, the, the explosion or the, the exposing what had been taking place.

And that was probably, I just, I had no clue, no idea hiding behind the lies and the deceit and all that. And it coming out was a gift it was painful, most painful gift I'd ever received. But now, and then through the grace of God, the blessing that allow. Everything to be broken open so that something could be done about it.

Wow. So she confronted you, the li just blew off of all, like you said, the deceit that had been going on, and then it really forced you to, to face what was happening in your own marriage. And it brought you to the point where you essentially wanted to, to just give up, you thought that this is hopeless.

There's no, no future for us. And you said that when you broke the news to your kids, that you were gonna, you know, pursue a divorce that was kind of a wake up call. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, not really so much a wake up call. I would say, because at, at that point joy, we were so self-absorbed that we didn't even take in consideration the kids' wellbeing.

You know, we, we had, uh, at that point made the decision to divorce, uh, and Julie's wisdom decided to call our parish priest. I think because our, our church is our church home, if you will. So let's go home and find some answers. Uh, our parish priest couldn't do much for us, referred us out to a Catholic therapist.

And he was the one who suggested that maybe we were not meant to be together. Maybe we should get a divorce. And so at that point we thought, okay, we've consulted the expert. This is what he said. Let's go home and tell the kids. And so we called them into the room and kind of. Begin to explain to them how our relationship was kind of like theirs.

You know, guys, you are in fight sometimes, and that's precisely where your mom and I are. And we have decided to get a divorce and, and in an instant, their little seven, nine year old bodies huddled in the corner, embracing each other, literally crying their eyes out joy. And, and again, it wasn't a wake up call because we just skated right over that issue, not even taking consideration how they were feeling and we just kind of concluded, wow.

You know, if they grew up and manifest any problems and issues, we'll just send 'em to counseling. That's what everybody else does. And their lives seem to be okay. So again, demonstrating how coldhearted we were at that point to again, to the fact that we didn't even take their, their wellbeing, their state as in, into consideration at that point.

Yeah. We, we were below numb because, because not only how we entered into all of this, but we, there was so much darkness and sin in our lives because, you know, we would, I, especially in my life, showed up at church because that's what you're supposed to do as a Catholic. And honestly, the only reason I went is cuz I didn't want my parents to find out I wasn't going

So I did not, I didn't have a relationship with God. And, and the only reason I went because she dragged me outta bed and made me go so there was going through the motion. Yeah. Yeah. There was not this burning desire for, for this God to be in our life for sure. But sadly, I'll tell you what, how sad is it that, uh, we were, I, especially me, I was living such a double life.

We both were, we were living such a double life and didn't realize, you know, I always thought in my head, you, as long as mom and dad don't find out what I'm doing or as long as so and so doesn't know, or as long as somebody else I never, ever, ever. Had an inkling or a thought of God sees everything. And that didn't even come into my thought into my heart, into my mind.

And how sad is that? That's how a lacking I was in my relationship. My understanding of who God is. Sounds exhausting. That's so much to, to carry with you. And yeah, I, I we'll get to kind of the, the end of the story in a little bit, but what so much peace I can imagine came from being able not to, to hide anything anymore, but you, you touched on the fact that you tried to get some help and people will actually directed you.

Down the path that you were already considering of, of the divorce breaking off the, the marriage. And so, uh, talk about that a little bit people trying to help you, but then giving you that a as an option when you really, uh, needed something else. Yeah. You know, first of all, I'll, I'll go back and, and I just remember thinking that wow.

That if our marriage has arrived at such a point, then there, there can't be much a marriage, much of a marriage left if we're having to resort to these kind of behaviors. And, and I don't even know if it's, it is what I wanted, but I just simply turned to ju I said, you know what? I think we need to get a divorce.

And, and without even hesitating, she, she immediately agreed. And I was thinking, oh, wow, I guess we're hitting down that path. And that's when she had the. The desire to call our parish priest to see if he could help us. And, uh, so we went to that appointment and we kind of talked about the relationship and he made the mistake and asked the question, is this marriage relationship something you want

And we looked at him, are you kidding me? after all of the stuff that we just divulged or you, you think we wanna stay in this, this mess. Yeah. And he eventually said, I there's not much I can do for you, but here's the name to a Catholic therapist, you know, make an appointment to see him. And so we got there thinking that, okay, well maybe, maybe we'll find some, some answers some, some direction.

And, uh, first of all, he kind of went and gave us this long, uh, analogy as to how our relationship was like the civil war. And truly you like the north, Greg, you like the south. And maybe sometimes you have to come to realize that that just maybe you were not really meant to be together. Yeah. Maybe, maybe you should get a divorce

And so in that quick hour session, that's what we received. And, uh, he looked at his watch. He said, well, that's, time's up. You wanna make an appointment, then come back next week. And we're like, for what you just told us what we were already thinking, why do we need to come back and hear more? And now we just need to go back and figure how to dissolve this and, and to go our separate ways.

And that's what led us to, to coming home and sharing that information with our kids as. And, uh, it's just . I mean, as we, as we talk about it now, and this is like 22 years post train wreck, you know, the, the, the lump in my throat and, and the anxiety I'm feeling right now, just at the thought of what we were thinking about doing not only to our marriage, but to the lives of our children as well.

Yeah. Wow. And sadly, that's the advice a lot of people are given. I've heard so many stories where basically divorce is prescribed as a solution to the problems in marriage. Without really recourse to any other solutions or trying anything else. Um, and it's so sad because there is so much hope. There are so many good resources.

Well, maybe not so many, you guys are one of them , but, but there, there are ways to, to heal and we'll get into that in a bit, but it makes me so sad to, to hear that, uh, any someone who's struggling is just told to, to continue down that path before trying other things mm-hmm yeah, yeah. It it's devastating to the point where you see, and, and as, as those that are listening and those that might be in, in having struggles in their marriage, it doesn't start.

That day that you come to the conclusion to say, Hey, maybe we weren't meant to do this, or maybe we should divorce. Or maybe now as we hear from the church, maybe I can get an annulment. No, it's, it's, it's at the beginning, you know, there's so much ignorance and so much lack of, of, of preparation, meaning inside the home as to what marriage actually is, because, you know, you asked what, what, what happened to, to get us to that hit rock bottom.

But as you know, it doesn't start there. You know, it began on the foundation of sand, you know, not on the rock of Jesus Christ that we're supposed to stand on truth and, and firm and hope what we met in college. And it started off on the wrong foot because we didn't understand, we were, we were doing things entered into premarital.

Sex lived together, did had all these lies and ways of, of, of going against what is the, the normal. Proper way to do things. And so we started our relationship on a lie and we never did anything, but just kept building the bricks and building the bricks to then at this point that we couldn't sustain the, the, the huge load that we had placed in our own selves because of the way that we went against God from the.

Yeah, I, I think that's a pretty good point as Julie speaking, I'm just going back as well, because when you look at, you know, what really happened that got us to that point, uh, as much of what Julie had just mentioned, but, but I also wanna attest to the fact that, that my introduction of pornography into the relationship, you know, back in our college days, dating days, but, but also in, in our marriage and, and what I felt to understand as well as what Julie felt to communicate to me was that indulging in, in that that S smut was making her doubt herself, her beauty, her worth, her dignity, uh, made to feel as if she's a piece of meat.

And so it is no wonder that some other opportunities, opportunities coming along in her life, speaking into her life, things that he would do, if she was his wife, there's no wonder that she ran away. And so there there's so many times we, you know, we wanna look at situations like that say when infidelity happens and, and for.

The faithful spouse to pointed fingers at the other Paul at the other spouse said, well, this is your fault. You did this, you destroyed our marriage. But I think part of the healing comes in also when we come to understand what did we do to contribute to the demise as well. And, and that was a grace from God that allowed me to see that.

But, but again, that's what was happening. My making her feel as if she had no value worth in my eyes to then seek that somewhere else. And as she began to seek that somewhere else, I'm feeling the void of not having her in my life, the way I was used to. So therefore I have to go find this comfort somewhere else as well.

And, and. It's just when these things happen and it's something I've come to understand. Now that many people still don't believe is indeed the spiritual warfare that takes place each and every day. And, and I can only imagine now looking behind the current scene, Satan pulling the switches and the strings and the temptations to, to enter to our lives and to destroy a merit relationship.

And, and we were open pre and, and we had no understanding of relationship with God, no understanding of the grace and the SAC that could, could shield us away from those temptations, or even have the grace that have the eyes to see the temptations. For what they were. And, and so we , we just fail hook, line and sinker, as many people today are, are still falling as a result.

Wow, incredible. So it was a Rocky foundation to, to begin with, or like you said, Julia Sandy foundation to begin with. And then from there you both basically felt so empty in your marriage that you sought to be filled in other ways in other places. And like you said, Greg, just. Open pray someone to, for someone to come in and just to, to pick you off.

So, man, I, I can't imagine how many couples feel exactly how you guys felt, uh, in that moment. Yeah. , it's, it's interesting. You say that because as we have worked with many couples throughout the years, everybody's story is, is kind of the same. And of course we start, I work with couples by sharing our testimony, cuz we don't want them to feel as if they're sitting across the table from some holier than now, couple who has always done it.

Right. And just, just perfect. so we have to share with them to let them know who they're dealing with at that point. But I mean almost a hundred percent of the time. So couples come back and say, oh my goodness, it's it's like you had a camera in our house. This is the same things that we're going through.

Wow. And I always say, you know, Satan is not smart and creative. He just used the same thing on, on everybody. We, we all fall for the same lives, the same tricks that begin to allow for that division to be had in our marriages. And I'll even say that the sad part that, I mean, not too long ago, literally years ago, it just came to the, a revelation as I'm in prayer.

The holy spirit brought to my understanding, literally that we entered into our sacrament of marriage with no hardly re being able to receive any grace. It was, it was like a. Uh, we didn't go to the sacrament of reconciliation before we got married. Nobody ever told us to, we didn't study our faith. We didn't know that that's what you should do.

Just like all the other sacraments that, that we defile and that we don't understand the beauty and the goodness of why they're there and how it should be entered into. We came in so broken and so filled with wounds and, and, and sin that, that I'm shocked. Like literally, we are literally a living witness of a miracle that sits here and talks to you today that even can say, we, we, we look at every, each other every day and say, are you kidding me?

God must have really needed to be he's desperate one for if he chose us. But secondly, we go back and find so much hope in reading in the Bible and the people that God chose the, the greatest of the worst of the, the sinners, because it is so evident. Not only to our families, but our P the people that knew us, they could look at us now and say, there is no way you two should be doing this.

And our answer is, you know what you're right. But God is doing it through us. And we're allowing him to, because we're the worst of the sinners that we've ever met. And yet God's, grace can bring us to this under just beauty, where we can share our brokenness to give others hope in healing. Incredible, man, I, I love your story.

It, it makes me actually think of, I don't know if you are familiar with the musical, uh, Le Misra and it's such a beautiful story of redemption and mercy, and, you know, you have this man, John Ville, John who, uh, sold a loaf of bread. He's put in prison for 19 years for stealing bread. And he's just so bitter and empty and broken.

And literally his, his life is changed by the mercy of, of a Bishop. And then he goes, you know, goes on, it changes everything. And he goes on to become the, the person to be so mercy on others and to help others. And so you guys, I love that musical it's so, so beautiful. You guys remind me of him. It's, it's amazing.

And that's a huge confidence well, thank you. I, I, I love that we saw the play once and what I thought is so intriguing, interesting that you're saying that that's what we have to remember. And I think sometimes we forget that the mercy of God is shown here on earth in and into each other. Hmm. So, so our brokenness in our wounded that we know, we now recognize that we are both sinner.

and we know that we've married a sinner, you know, I know Greg thought he married a perfect person. I showed him really quickly. Actually. I thought I was a perfect person. Yes. We still have a lot of work to do. keep us humble. But what's amazing is I, he knows everything about me even more than my parents know more than anybody knows, but God knows everything.

Greg knows. And it in hi in his person, in his humanness, he forgives me and he says, I forgive you. And I love you. That makes me just go, are you kidding me? So now I can understand God's mercy. God's grace, God's forgiveness because a human being who knows my wretchedness literally can still be here with me.

That is what we're supposed to do to emulate the love, the sacrifice, the suffering of Christ, and yet to help each other, understand what it's all about. You know, you, you bring up a good point there because, you know, I'm thinking back despite the fact that this licensed therapist suggested we divorce, we didn't follow through with that joy.

We, we continue to kind of coexist in the home, not really making any effort to, to make our marriage better, but just coexisting. And, and I think it's because deep down inside, neither one of us really wanted to go anywhere. And you know, you think about the fact, you know, we, we're going through life. We're dating all these different people, but, but eventually find quote unquote, the one and this one person that man, you do it for me.

And I wanna spend the rest of my life with you. And we stand at that altar and we're professing these vows to, to be together, to death, to his part. And I think really in a lot of these marriages and divorces even. It's not really what they want. And it's kind of where we were. We had just yet to find a way to, to make our marriage work.

And I mean, we had delved in some of the self-help books and looking for, for help. There were points when Julie wanted suggest counseling. And I thought I was too much of a man that I don't need somebody else to tell me how to be a man and live my life and to be a husband and all those things as we continue to VO back and forth.

So never having find, found that resource to really give us what we needed. But I think again, deep down inside, we didn't wanna be a part. We just didn't know how to make it work together. No, that's beautiful. And before we continue on, I just wanna say something about mercy to everyone listening, who isn't familiar with that word mercy.

I believe the Latin word, um, basically means to be moved by the misery of another. And so basically when they're, uh, Greg and Julie are talking about this, everyone listening, they're saying God was moved by their misery. And he came in and gave them what they needed. And that's always, Mercy's always focused on the needs of the person.

Whereas justice is focused really on what the person deserves, especially, you know, if it's punishment or something like that. So it's, uh, it's an incredible, your, your story is a, a beautiful story of, of mercy. And so I just wanna clarify that for, for everyone listening. Maybe isn't familiar with that word.

Amen. I love that. And you know, it's awesome is go back to what he just said. Look, where we went, we went to the self-help section in the bookstore and, and what is Christ do? Self-sacrifice look at the opposite of what we were looking for. What am I getting out of this? What's in this for me? How much pain have I endured?

What has he done for me lately? I didn't know. This is what I was gonna have to go through. I asked myself that question, you know, what am I doing to participate in this marriage? The way God intended for it to be, and what have I done to take away from what it's supposed to be. And when I started to do that and self reflect, as you said, the misery of, of myself and his self and bringing that to that point of going, wait a minute, we are causing more pain and damage to one another than we ever did to bring each other to, to goodness and to, and to, to happiness mm-hmm

And that is when I knew that everything had a change, because we were heading down that path to self destruction, which was causing our destruction, which was causing the destruction of our children and everybody that knew us. Yeah. But, but here's something that a lot of people fail to take in consideration.

And maybe if there's someone listening today who might find themselves in that trouble spot, God knows exactly what we need to happen in our lives to, to shake us, to wake us up, to bring us back to him. We just have to respond to the call. So even in the bad things that happen, we have to know our loving father allowed it to happen and he allowed it to happen for a reason.

And, and again, we have that free free will Julie, either one of us could have made that decision to, to not turn back to God at that moment, and to continue in our wayward ways to try to find that fulfillment and that happiness in the things that we thought were gonna bring that fulfillment in the first place.

But yet God knew exactly what needed to happen. He knew this, the exact circumstance the exact day when the, the discovery needed to be made to put us in that position, to be able to turn back to him and, and just thanks me to God that there was enough grace in us, in our marriage to be able to, to do that 180 and to turn back to her heavenly father.

Incredible. Yeah, it seems like God's always on a rescue mission for all of us, but especially those of us who are in the worst situation, it makes me think of the, uh, PJs pair, rescue jumpers from the air force. These are guys, if you're not familiar, everyone listening, these are, um, people who are highly, highly trained, both in, in combat as well as in medicine.

And they'll go in the worst situations in the world to, to rescue, you know, our, our soldiers or other people and essentially save their lives. Like if they weren't there, these people would die. And so, yeah, it seems like God's constantly on that sort of rescue mission, which is man, so hopeful. So you guys.

You get to this point where everything just seems hopeless. People are telling you, you probably should just get a divorce. Come on. What kept you from going through with it a again, I think just that deep desire, not wanting to be a part and just not knowing how to make it work. Therefore again, just coexisting in the home and just, just going through the motions.

And, um, I mean, cuz we were never really coming back together praying at that time or coming together. In fact, the only Lance of faith in our life was, was still going to show up at mass on Sundays. and again, as I mentioned earlier, if it wasn't for Julie, I wouldn't have, have been doing that. Yeah. And, and in that, what what's so crazy is I thought this whole time I went out of.

A fear that I didn't want my parents to find out it wasn't going. And as we continued to go, even in our worst of worse times, we still went to mass on Sundays. And now I realize that was God's grace, his hand calling us to go because it was in that time of going to mass after the train wreck, after the, after finding everything out that we continued to go, and it was a blessing, cuz God allowed us to meet this incredible man, a priest who truly was a gift in our life that that gave us the hope and the life vest, the life raft that we needed.

I I'm I'm, I'm laughing to myself. It's you is talking because, uh, I wanna say we, we. Um, able to put on a, a great facade if you will, because we would continue to go to mass, but people would come up to us after mass and, oh my goodness. You have a beautiful family. You got a beautiful marriage. I wish we had a marriage like yours.

and I remember us getting in the car, looking at each other, like if they only knew. And, and so we, we were, we were experts. We probably could have gotten an academy award for being the best husband and best wife. Cause we , we presented that front very well but, but again, thanks me to God for, for that priest coming in that summer into our parish, filling in for our pastor for the whole summer and, and.

The best I could explain. He was just a great teacher of the faith. His Hollies were incredible. You know, my parents converted to the Catholic faith when I was in the third grade. And for all points and purposes, I really didn't know much about my faith, but in his Hollies, as he was talking about this Catholic faith and the beauties and the treasures and the things we had, it, it was just eye open.

It was refreshing. And we went from, from barely making it to mass on time, standing in the. Watching our, our watch to count down a time to say, when is this gonna be over? And we can leave many times, uh, now as I know, SAC religiously receiving Jesus and leaving early, just so I can get back home and, and watch the football game or whatever it was that we were gonna have to do.

But, but again, this priest that God allowed to come into our lives began to, to speak those words that just literally started to echo and reverberate in their heart. So much to the point that we, we started making a decision to meet with this priest in between the two masses, just to, to get to know who, who is this guy.

He's just incredible. Cuz he was not like anything else we had ever experienced. And I remember one of our, our visits, we were asking him about what he did in the diocese. And he said, well on the tribunal Vicker. I'm like, oh, I know that guy. That's the guy that does this en enrollment thing. You know, this awesome, God sending this priest in our lives to be our friend, because he's gonna be the one, show us how we can get out of this thing and to go our separate ways, quick, easy, and simple.

That's God, God's just gonna show up and help us get out of this thing. And, oh Lord, we had no idea. We had no clue, but I, I scheduled an appointment. I called and asked if we could come see him and the poor priest, he thought we were coming by for a social visit. Well, before that, the, the argument that that had created, cuz you know, Julie said, we need to go see this guy.

I'm like, we just created this great relationship with this priest. He's our new friend. I'd be darn. If I'm gonna go and expose our, our junk to him, are you kidding me? so that in of itself almost turned into a fight as well. But uh, but we, we get to the appointment and, and poor God. He thought we were coming by for this friendship visit.

Again, as we're starting this new relationship, but we get there and, and for the next 45 minutes or so, we proceeded to build our case as to why we felt we could no longer stay married. And we started pointing the fault and blame. He did this, she did this and, and, uh, the lying, the cheating, the materialistic things in our lives, that indels, and, and again, he's sitting there as if he's watching a tennis master who are just volume in the false and blames back and forth, back and forth.

But finally, when we, we ran outta stuff to, to, to dig up on each other, uh, he leaned forward. He said, look, guys, I understand your plight and your situation, but let me ask you a few questions. What is God's plan for marriage? What does our church teach about marriage? What are some of the writings of St.

Paul and the various holy fathers pertaining to the SAC marriage? Julie and I looked at each other short by show. We don't know father, you know, I mean, what, what does this have to do with us, man? We're we're Catholic. And we go to church every Sunday and we used to be in love and now we're not. And, and we were simply hoping you can show us how to, how to get out of this thing.

He said, ah, but what I suggest is you go back and you find some answers to the questions that I've asked before you make a final decision. And, and thanks me to God that we, we took, took that challenge seriously and went back to, to do just that. Incredible. And it was through that process of discovering God's plan for marriage and kind of what you guys were missing all those years that your marriage wa was rescued.

Is, is that right? Take us through kind of that journey and that process. Yeah. I wanna say that, that was kind of the first symbol of hope for me cuz as I'm going back and I started of course with St. Paul in Ephesians and I'm looking cuz I, I thought it, you know, if nothing else, I remember that, that, that great Hoy in Ephesians.

So I found my way to that part where it says, why is be submissive to your husband? and I remember thinking, here's the problem in our marriage, man. I got this miss fitness queen over here. Wanna make a million dollars, just wanna be seen all over the place. She's just not doing the things I want her to do.

Yeah. This Bible, man, this is some awesome stuff. but then I went back and as I continue to read, and then I read the few, the next lines, husbands, love your wives. Like Christ, love the church. and I mean, it's like, I hit a brick wall and I just stopped like, wow. Like, like Christ led the church and Christ died for the church.

Am I dying to myself for some of the things that ju is wanting and desiring in, in this marriage. And I was just kind of reflecting on our lives of, of the things she was wanting. And as she would say, you know, we were very, very much into the Trinity instead of being the father, son, holy spirit. It was for me, myself and I, and in all of our life, I started looking at that.

Yeah, it was all about me and what I wanted, what she needed to do for me. And so dying to myself or her, it was, it was unheard of. And so then I, I started to think, wow, that, that maybe some of my own selfishness was contributing to the breakup and breakdown of our marriage. And then thanks me to God that, that her parents gave us a catechism of the Catholic church as a wedding gift.

that I remember getting, and I'm like, what in the world are we gonna do with this thing? but thanks me to God, we, we kept it. And, and I, I thought, okay, well let me go and see what the church has to say about marriage. And so thumbing my way through. And I finally found. The section article seven, uh, paragraph 16.

Oh one. I believe it is marriage in God's plan. And, and I started to read and for the next two days, joy, I just stayed in our bedroom, just reading and absorbing this information and coming to understand that while this, this God has a plan for marriage and what we were doing was totally contrary to what I'm seeing in, in this catechism.

And then I, I hit paragraph 1608 in the catechism that began to talk about marriage. In the regime of sin and it started talking about what would happen to your marriage once you allow sin to enter into it. And it start to speak of things like hatred, domination, lust, infidelity, and then the red light went off that, wow, maybe this church do know something about marriage.

And, and if we can, can look here and see the, the damage that it knows about, maybe we can find some resolve here as well. And then I remember getting on the internet, uh, going to Catholic information network or going to, to alt Vista was the big search engine at that time. I'm dating myself now, but I typed in Catholic marriage and got led to the psych Catholic information network.

But it was there that I found out about. Encyclicals had never heard of the word. But the first one that I, I found in, in downloaded and read was our related holy father jump all the great familiarity consortium. And it was delving into that document that really allowed me to start seeing some of the attacks that the world would wage on our marriage relationships.

And it was there that I started to learn. What are some of the qualities and characteristics to be a good Christian husband, a good Christian father? What are some of the dynamics that should be taking place in the home in order for this, this home to be this, this domestic church. And, and again, I'm just, I'm just, it it's like St.

Paul and the shields falling from my eyes and not only seeing. Our marriage, but my, my life in a different life and I called Julie into the room and I spent about 30 minutes or so, just overviewing with her, some of the highlights that I was finding and look at this stuff and this whole things, and it's about me forego the things I want to do for you and all these different things.

And, and she was, she was just as wide eyed as I was she, wow, this is incredible. What do we do? And instinctively, I turned her, I said, I don't know, maybe we need to pray or something. And at that point, of course, married for 10 years, having been together for 13 years, total. We had never gone to a heavenly father in prayer, looking at the jobs we had, the money, we were making all the toys and the materialistic things in life we had.

And at one time to include the beautiful children. Had we ever gone to God in a simple prayer of Thanksgiving. And so I took Jule by the hand, we got on our knees and I recited the simple prayer. And I said something to the effect that father, we tried living our marriage based upon the things that we think we should do, and it doesn't work.

But we have also tried to listen to the ways of the world and father, as you know, those things too, do not work. And I said, heavenly father, more than anything right here. Right now, we invite you into our lives to show us how you want us to live marriage. And if you deliver us from this evil, we will commit the rest of our lives working in some type of marriage or family ministry.

And, and that was the day we opened the door and extended an invitation for our heavenly father to come into our lives, to come into our marriage, to, to be able to be back in the driver's seat as he had always intended to be. And, and for him to deliver the holy spirit, to continue to lead us to this path that allowed for us to find the things, to find that redemption in the Lord and savior Jesus Christ, what a story, what a story.

And so you opened your marriage essentially up to God and asked for his help. And, and then what happened after that? Yeah, it just, uh, well, I'll tell you that first, because the day that Greg called me into the room, everything changed for me. I didn't trust him. I didn't like to be around him. I felt dirty, cheap used.

I mean, you name it. I mean, if you, if you feel like that from someone you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, there's not much hope anywhere else. And so when he. Laid down his pride. And he went to God in front of me and he assumed the position of falling underneath the authority of God.

Instead of, instead of doing things, as you know, he, he witnessed, or as he saw growing up, everything changed. My heart literally was on fire for him. The day he called me into the room and said, I think we need to pray. And it was this understanding of being this washed, literally in the understanding of this grace that I literally felt poor over me, that I was like, all of a sudden, I just wanted nothing more than to make this marriage work.

There was hope there was. And when he said deliver us from the sea, I thought, gosh, isn't that amazing? Like deliver us. We say it all the time. And we knew the, our father, we knew that prayer. And we said that if, if only that prayer I remembered, it was like, wow, we're asking God to deliver us. And truly he answered Greg's call.

And then we started to put everything in order. Cuz at first everything was out of order. It was the job and the money and the house and the cars and the materialism God was at the bottom. When we were in trouble, God, why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me go, you know, go through this. But by that action that Greg decided upon himself by the grace of the holy spirit to put into place, God first, each other second, him leading me then the kids.

And everything else fell into that order. All of a sudden, the chaos and disorder that we had been living for so long just fell off. And now we were in a position to be ready to do whatever it was that God was asking us to do. Yeah. You know, and she gives me credit with that, Joey, but it wasn't even on from my own genius, if you will.

It is just something internally. I knew that needed to happen. We started learning about this God. And as we started this prayer thing, we would all of a sudden feel better. But then we started looking at our lives and start saying, okay, what are the things that we are allowing to be in our lives? That's really causing us this distance.

That's causing us to be taken away from each other and our heaven father as well. And the first thing that came to mind to us was the jobs because we, we had good jobs. I was in pharmaceutical sales, Julian, yellow page, advertising sales at the time. And, and the money allowed us to be able to indulge in those things that took us away from each other.

And now, as we had come to know that had taken us away from our heavily father as well. And so we made the decision to quit our corporate jobs and we didn't know what we were gonna do, where we were gonna go. But we, we knew that the jobs were providing the money that allowed us to do those things. So it, it could no longer be there.

And then we started thinking about anything in our life that was not positively contributing to our life and our marriage. It had to go. And we started focusing on our relationship with God, continuing to, to bathe ourselves into sacraments and to, um, to focus on our marriage and our children and whatever else we needed to do to generate revenue, to, to keep eating, so, to speak and paying our bills.

And, and that was the, the only priority we had in our life at that point in time. But it's, it's exactly what we needed. Again, I truly feel that God, you know, graces with the holy spirit, the, the leaders in those ways to do those things. Because he knew exactly what we needed. Wow. It's so bold. That's such a bold move to quit your job, especially you both were making good money and that man stepping out into the unknown.

Talk about that. That is crazy, man. There's so much we could go into there's so much that we could say, but you essentially started prioritizing your relationship with God and your marriage. And by doing that things just started to change. And again, we can go into all the details I'm sure. But I wanna kind of fast forward to today.

Uh, how, how is your marriage different now? What's your marriage? Like? How would you describe it? Oh, wow. It's it is 180 degrees different from the way it used to be. Uh, there's not very much we do anymore to where we're. So self-absorbed that it's about us and, and we are constantly thinking about what we need to be doing for the other person, you know?

Um, as I tell the couples that we work with, just because we're sitting on this side of the screen or the. Doesn't mean that we're perfect. Wonder from holding, get it right all the time. Sure. You know, there's, there's still those, those, those difficulties. In fact, Julie uses the, the analogy of a flower. She said, you know, you can take a flower.

And in order for that flower to, to demonstrate its beauty, we have to give it the proper water, food and nutrition, sunlight on a daily basis for the day that we start to deprive that flower of any one of those, those sources, it starts to. Hm. And it may take, you know, four or five days before we actually see the results of it dying.

But the day we stop feeding, it is the day that it starts to die. And it's the same thing in our marriages. The day that we stop giving to each other, the things they, that the other person needs today, we stop feeding each other in our marriage is the day that that marriage starts to die. And unfortunately, you look at many couples in, in our, in our church, in our society that they get married.

And, and whatever they did for marriage preparation is typically the last thing they'd done for the marriage relationship. Mm-hmm . And so you can only imagine the stillness, the stagnation, the theri smells that are in the lives of the individuals, because they have failed to feed each other, to give each other what we need.

And, and as in our case, we thought, okay, well now maybe I can go to somebody else and they can feed me and give me what it is that, that I need when indeed, that, that should come from the source of the person that we, we chose to, to spend the rest of our lives with. Yeah. And I think it's important to say, especially today in this social media world, you know, it's literal, marriage is not about the fun and games and the drinking and the partying and the getting what you can and buying what, whatever is, is on your, your list to, to take, you know, your, your bucket list.

Literally, our marriage is our pathway to sanctity. We are married so we can help each other, get back to our creator to get to God. Because when, when we meet at that altar, when we come to that altar, God is entrusting us with the other person's heart. The other person's soul, it's their heart that we are called to then nurture and cherish and, and, and lift up, not to discard, not to trample on not to break, but when we know that our calling is to one day, Bring that heart, that, that son that God has given me and Greg, that I am supposed to return him back to God, better than the day I received him.

I have a mission. It's not all about this, this life. It's about where we want to spend eternity. And this is just our marriage is marriage preparation for the final. Wedding banquet, the eternal wedding feast. And I pray to God instead of saying, okay, Greg, what are you doing for me lately? I pray that I have done everything I can by the grace of God to allow Greg to enter into heaven.

That's what I said. I do too. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your ministry. So you work with couples. Tell us a little bit more what you offer for couples who are either struggling or maybe just wanna build a really strong marriage. Yeah, it's interesting. You asked that question. Joy, because probably within the last year we have kind of recommitted ourselves to really focus on just the trouble marriages.

You know, up until five years ago, we had parish based marriage ministries. We had all these other things that we were doing, which were things that are indeed needed, but I think we were stray away from the. And, um, experiencing a lot of difficulties as we do in our marriage. And, and so we're smart enough to know that when God starts to allow these difficulties to happen, we need to pull back and pray and go and talk to him to say, okay, what are we doing wrong?

And where is it that you want us to be? And in doing so we felt him calling us back to where we started ministering to couples who are, who are in trouble in their marriages and to help bring them back. So through our marriage disciples program, that's exactly what we do to help bring a sense of hope and healing for these couples to help them not only come closer and back together with each other, but leading them to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ as well.

Cuz you know, a lot of people come and they say, oh, you know, I hope you guys are good or you're our last hope. I'm like, there's no worry on my behalf, cuz everything that we do to really help couples to be able to, to reconcile and to redeem their marriages, has everything to do with their willingness to participate couple with God and his grace as a result of the things that they start to do, that that's what gets into where they need to be.

Julie, and I are just the mere instruments. And I wanna say the, the happy, humble instruments that God has deemed us worthy enough to be able to serve on his behalf for all those couples that we, we find ourselves ministering to. So you're coaching with couples and you said you have a program where you're training other couples to coach others.

Is that right? Who are going through struggled marriage? I'm just curious, you know, if someone's listening and they're, uh, thinking, man, I really could use some help. Uh, what is exactly that you guys offer? I, I know you mentioned coaching and things like that, but I wanna make sure they really understand.

Yeah, I wanna, I wanna go back. First of all, make a clarification. We specifically refer to it as marriage discipling and the reason being, and I I'll show you real quick, how we came upon that one day I was sitting at the computer and the thought the truth shall set you free, kept coming to mind and, and being the smart Catholic, I was, I didn't even know where it was in scripture so I went and found my way to, to, uh, John eight verse 32, however, in a prior verse 31, Christ was speaking to the Jews.

And depending on the translation, he would say something like, if you keep my truth, if you live my commandments, then you become my disciples, then you know, truth and the truth sets you free. And so before we find this authentic freedom, we have to become a disciple of Christ. The way that we become a disciple is coming to understand and living out his truths.

So our marriage disciples are those who have come to live out and understand Christ's truth for marriage. And now we're there to, to minister other couples and serve and help bring them to that truth as well. So that, that's why we, we kinda make that distinction if you will. But, uh, so yes, we, we have that available.

So anyone who, who feels that they are experiencing those difficulties, they can come to our website, the Alexander house.org, or, or more specifically the marriage disciples.org website. And. Send in an intake form or a request for an intake form and we'll start the process. And we usually work with couples once a week for the first four weeks before I feel that it is there, that we begin to kind of rebuild the foundation of their marriage relationship.

And then we let them take what we give in that month's time in, in, uh, take another month of just putting those things into practice. And then he be come back and continue to work. But in all honesty, after about four sessions, we're, we're done with a couple and I don't care if it's minor communication issues all the way up to, to infidelity.

And even in instances where children were born from those adult's relationships and, and in five instances, not only. The couple's taking the way we're coupled back, but even going as far as to adopt a child of those illicit affairs and to be able to see and feed and manifest and take care of, and to, to take into your life as your own, the physical manifestation of your spouse in fidelity that's God's grace that gives the individual the power to be able to do so.

Just incredible. Seriously. Incredible. Wow. That that's fantastic. In four sessions. I mean, I, I remember reading in the book, you said that, uh, I think there was a couple who had just said yeah, four or five sessions with you guys. And they, they previously had gone through like 18 years of, of counseling. Uh, but it only took, uh, it only took you or no, I'm sorry.

It only took you three sessions with them after they had done 18 years. That's just incredible. Yeah. That's what God does. That's how he works. Cuz when we invite him in it, it's like our story, you know, people look at look and say, wow, you know, they, they don't. Understand the depths of where we came from.

But if we get take to the point, we were married for 10 years, had two kids. We were done having children and done with our marriage. And when Greg called me into the room again and invited God into our marriage, we've now been married for 33 years, seven children, five grandchildren. Think of all that would've not taken place if we would've called it quits at that time and just went in our own ways because it would've been a lot easier.

Believe me, it's not simple because there are days that we think of the past there's days that things come up. And yet we know that that, that has God calling us back to our humility and our, our taken away our pride to say, don't forget where you come from. Mm-hmm and don't forget how I, God am the one who brought you out of that mess.

And now that you, I brought you outta that mess, your message can give hope to this world that is so hurting for hope, because it's sad to say that 95% of the couples that come to see us have been to counseling have been to their parish. Priests have been to their diocese and offices have been to their friends and their family.

And we are the only ones that tell 'em there's help. And hope for their marriage that needs to change that said, and, and I think one of the things too, I'll say this right quick. You know, people say we got only three, four sessions, you know, what are you guys doing? Well, the thing is we lead them back to, to the church.

We lead 'em back to Christ, but more important. We lead them back to understand how to live out their sacraments. And, and many of us learn in our earlier years of catechesis that a sacrament is assigned. I instituted by Christ to give grace and, and we learn the definitions. We learn the answers to those questions, but, but we never really internalized that to really come to understand what does that mean?

And so what that means is that in this sacrament called marriage, all the grace, we need to love to care, to forgive, to have these happy, holy marriages, all the grace is packed into that sacrament, but there's a catch. And the catch is, is that we have to be living that sacrament the way that God calls us to for if we do not, we are not made available to that full abundance of.

And so there's a lot of couples married in the Catholic church who have now contracted this sacrament who think that by the mere fact that we have a sacrament, that the grace is, is there and the grace is there, but the grace is only efficacious to the degree in which we participate in the sacrament, the way that God calls us to.

So for the guys that are engaging in, in pornography, frequenting, strip clubs and all those different things, guess what guys, there's no grace. And so we have to come back and live our lives and our marriage, the way that God calls us to. And so therefore the difficulties is God's way of simply banging on the door and saying, you know what?

Wake up, Greg and Julie, it's not about the job. It's not about the money. It's not about the stuff. It's not about the other people. It's about me. I need to be front and center. In your life. I need to be your guiding star, but if you're like we, the way we were, we were too quick to throw up the hand and say, no, God, we got this.

This is our life. This is my job, the money I'm making. And, and God, because he's a perfect gentleman would honor what it is that we choose to do with our free will. So he's hands off until he has to allow that train wreck to happen, to bring us back to, to his understanding and really coming to understand the grace and what that is.

Everything is all about God and his grace, my ability to be who I am to do the things that I do. In fact, my ability to, to speak right now in, in all those that are listening, your ability to take your very next breath. It's God's grace at work. Why? Because he wills for it to be so for the moment, when he decides to cease to exist, or for us to cease to exist, he removes the grace and we do cease to exist.

So we have to understand that this grace thing is not some abstract thing that we just talk about. It's real. And it's, God's grace that God us to where we're at. Scott's grace, that he has, has deposited into that sacrament to give us everything that we need. And so when we are living apart from him, Joey, it, it is like living in this dark room.

But as we go into a dark room and flip that light switch, that light comes on and displaces the darkness, God works the same way in our. And in the darkness we had in our marriage, we teach couples how to go into that room, flip on that light to bring the light of Christ back into that relationship. And so, yes, it can be done in four and five sessions.

If couples are willing to take what we give them to be able to not only stand intellectually God's plan for marriage, but one of the things that I need to be doing in the confines of my domestic church each and every day, that's going to honor my father. That's going to make me predispose. So that full abundance of grace.

And that's the secret. Not having grace in your soul is like not having blood in your body. It's, it's so essential. And just because it's invisible, right? We, we talk about grace. It's kinda this complex, perhaps complex theological idea, but it's truly, um, just because it's invisible doesn't mean it's any less real and it's truly just God's life.

God's strength in our souls, in our marriages. And it truly gives us the ability to do things that we would never be able to. And that's truly what God's all about. He he's the one who can do the impossible when, when we can. And Greg and Julie, you guys are, are certainly, uh, evidence of that. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Wow. Thank you. We are, when we, when we share our story and when you, when you had us on here, it's always like anytime that we can give hope and, and that to share our, our, what God did with our mess and what God did through bringing us through this test. And, and literally what we just love is to see the transformation on the people's faces when they come to us and say that they're done, and they are on the brink of divorce and within one session.

We had five couples last Tuesday that were all were talking of, or had filed or were saying, we're getting a divorce. And within one session of saying, wow, I didn't know that God had a plan. I didn't know that this was what the church taught. They all their faces were transformed and they looked as though they had been given this new medicine of life.

Wow. Which they were because it's truth. Yeah. And, and what what's really devastating. And this kind of gets into your area, joy when there's children involved. And, and when we don't take the time to consider the wellbeing in our kids in that situation. But again, as Julie mentioned, and we're working with these couples and we bring them back and, and their kids start to see the difference.

In fact, Julie probably about six months ago was in a grocery store here shopping. And this, this 13 year old girl ran up to her and gave her this big old hug. And we're like, who is, who is this girl? ? And she said, I know who you guys are. And I want to thank you for what you did for my parents in. And that's that says it all right there, you know, priceless, there's no amount of money that you can put on that for the feelings we get, as a result of God using us to help bring others closer together and back to our Lord savior Jesus Christ.

It has to be so rewarding. Tell us how many couples have you worked with and, uh, briefly. Yeah. What are some of the results you've seen that you already mentioned some, but I'm just curious, uh, God knows how many we don't know, but over 5,000 couples, literally for the last 21 years and it's wow. 98% success rate, meaning the truth has gotten into these people's hearts and literally it is unbelievable to see it because what we see so often is when couples come to us in the despair of saying.

I can't do it anymore. I'm not in love anymore. I, I can't stand to be in the same room as this person. And when we start to ask the questions, it's three questions that I wanna tell you that Greg starts with and that the holy spirit came to him is, do you want this marriage relationship to work?

Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no, but the second one is, do you have faith that Jesus Christ can redeem your marriage? And when he goes back and points out the biblical parts of the, of, of, in the Bible where people actually it's their faith, that cured what they were ailing and what was ailing them, and that they put their faith in trust in Jesus Christ, how he has that ability.

They all say yes. And then the next one is, do you give God permission to come into your marriage and to help you and help you give you that grace? And when they say yes, they've already committed to say, I wanna do things different than the way I've seen. Cuz often couples that come to us have not had a good example of God's plan for marriage.

Oftentimes they come to us from a divorced family. They come to us from even FA marriages that we're not, we're not a positive example. They say, I want, I don't wanna end up like my parents. We wanna do something different. And when we start giving them this truth and we start giving them that, that, that the blueprint, which is God's.

They literally start to have hope and excitement into entering into, or to start doing things differently than they've ever been shown before. Really amazing. Wow. The 98% success rate. That's fantastic. And you, you don't hear that. You don't hear that anywhere else, uh, in the world, at least I haven't so Bravo to you guys for, for doing this incredible work.

I, I was gonna say, I was just thinking about the fact that, that, you know, again, that success is us taking him back and leading him to, to God's plan. So those that have not worked have been those that wanted know God. Are they drug and a alcohol addicted, are they already have that significant other person where they're not willing to give up?

And there's been a couple that have come back and said, Hey, we've been out. We tried everything else. Can we come back now and try some of that God stuff? And, and they came in and turned around as well. So, you know, we, we're not surprised anymore. We used to be in the beginning, but, but we know that God makes good on his promises.

And if we promise to come together and to engage in this relationship called marriage and live it his way, he will allow the graces to be there for everything to be okay. And everything we give couples are exactly everything that we've gone through. We've just been smart enough not to change it. Let's shift gears and talk a little bit about some practical things that couples can do.

Uh, I wanna get your advice on a few things. Uh, the, the first is. There are definitely spouses listening right now, who, who are struggling. They're in that really rough spot in their marriage and they need real help, but they may feel overwhelmed by, by the problems that they face. Uh, where should they start?

Like what's the first step to, to rescuing their marriage. The first step is, is really going to prayer. You know, so many times we'll, we'll go to God in prayer and, and looking for help and, and, you know, let this magical thing happen for everything to be okay. But going to God and asking him for the strength to persevere, first of all, to maintain their yes.

To their vows that was made at the altar in front of God, family and friends, and to each other. And, and so really going back to where it all began and really focusing on your own life now to see what it is that you have done that has negatively contributed to the relationship, you know, because it's always about the other person, what they didn't do, right.

Or what they've done the cause of hurt and pain. But we have to start looking at what it is that we've done to, to allow for that, that, that breakup, that breakdown to be there in the first place. And then after that is just simply going back to our church. All the answers is there. And as I've kind of already demonstrated, you know, the catechism of the Catholic church, in fact, as we work with couples now, and one of the things I learned from that good priest, we don't give them all the answers.

There's sometimes I have them go back and find answers to come back to tell me, because there's something about the fact that when we go back and we start to seek and, and, and we open our hearts in that process, God set a fire inside inside of us. That just makes us want, want to have more. And so we kind of treated like Lexi Divina for couples to go back and say, maybe start with paragraph 1601 in the catechism, say a quick prayer to God.

Father send me your holy spirit to reveal to us what you want us to know. As we read this paragraph. Maybe it's a word. Maybe there's a phrase or a sentence. So we haven't read the paragraph. Meditate on it, read it again. Meditate if need be, read it again, but ultimately turn to each other and say, sweetheart, what did you feel God, through the holy spirit, inspiring in your heart from that verse, from that paragraph.

And you'll be amazed at where your marriage goes. And, and the things that the holy spirit will, will begin to reveal to you. And, and so God knows exactly what it is that we need. It's just a lot of us never humble ourselves to go to the father, to see what it is that he wants to show us and coming to understand that as you begin to, to turn and conform your lives to the ways that you have to become that new creation in Christ and no longer engage in those activities and behaviors of the things you were doing that took you away.

And that's another difficulty for a lot of people, they still wanna do all the crazy stuff, but they want things to be okay. And, and you have to make that choice as it tells and security, you can't serve to gods. And so you're gonna either have to serve, you know, the God, the creator, the sovereign father that we have are you gonna have to serve the God of this world?

And, and we all know what, where that gets us so often. I think in marriage, but also just in life in general, we treat symptoms and we kind of ignore the root cause. How would you say a couple can identify the root cause of all the problems within their marriage, uh, to begin with? Well, I would just say the root cause is, is all of our hearts are just the sin.

The ignorance is, is huge to not understand the truth, not understand. God's plan allows us to then open ourselves up to, to the evil that's out there, which causes wounds and which causes pain and which causes those things. So the root problem, usually the things that we discover that seem like they're, they're the, the issue, lack of communication, finance issues, sexual issues, all these things, they do start.

Those are symptoms. They start with the root cause of a lot of that is even things that can come from our family, things that we open ourselves up to that that allow the evil to come in and, and, and to remain until we do something about it and turn towards God and ask for that healing. Yeah. And if I could do telling her comments that again, it's the ignorance, you know, we have to do a better job.

As a church. And let me go back to this. It's a battle to be fought on many fronts. We have to do a better job in marriage preparation in our churches. We need to have the facilities and resources available to help couples not only prepare for marriage, but to navigate through, through all of their married life, but more importantly in the times of difficulties.

We have to be able to go back and allow moms and dads to, to understand their role and their responsibility to, to teach the children that God gives this to him with to teach them in his ways and ways of his church. And so it's gotta be coming from all angles all the time. We can never let up because the world has no problem.

Speaking its message on a daily basis, through all the different resources and entity that it uses. And if we're not countering that message again, we see it at our children, their, their attitudes and their behaviors being formed by the culture and the ways of the world, as opposed to informed by God and his church and what he desires for us.

And so it's no wonder that we're having difficulties. A first question on our intake form for the couples is where is God in your marriage? And we hear things like, well, we say meal prayers every now and then, or are we gonna mass? Sometimes not even every Sunday. And that's the extent. And, and so I look at, I say, guys, you know, I'm not here to judge you, but some of the things you have shared with me, you're in the state of mortal sin and you know what, there's no grace.

And I said, without the grace of God, guess what you're supposed to be in trouble. I said, so God has allowed you to be here now so that we can begin to share this information with you to help bring you back. And so people are so poorly catechized in their faith. And, and as a result, poorly catechized in their faith in regards to what God wants us to do in our marriage.

Therefore again, the ignorance that they just don't know what they're doing, and they're trying to, to fill their hearts and their lives and their marriages with all the ways of the world. And it's just not gonna get it. And again, God allows the, the difficult times and the troubles to hopefully be that.

Fire it across the bow for couples to come and realize that and to come and understand that it is God that is missing and the things that he desires for us to do, that's gonna be the fix and allow us to be able to experience that joy and happiness that we all desired and coming together in marriage in the first place.

It's, it's like we're eating a diet of potato chips, ice cream, pop I'm from the Midwest. I say pop. And we are expecting to have like these ripped bodies and the marathon runners. And it's just, we want that good result, but we're not going about it there, which is why I love you guys. Cuz you, you give that roadmap, that blueprint and that your forward author say that then in the book they say that good intentions are not.

We might want that end result, but we need, we need a plan, a blueprint to get there. And so, uh, does that blueprint exist? And if so, how do we go about finding it and building those great marriages? I know we could do a whole seminar on this topic, but, but briefly, yeah. Does that blueprint exist and how do we find it?

Absolutely it, it does exist. And God has created that blueprint through the church and through the various resources it has in cyclicals, the catechism scripture, all the answers are, are, are there. And, and in short, it's what we refer to as the essential elements for strong Catholic marriage. That's coming to know and understand and live God's plan for marriage God's plan for chastity in marriage, understanding true forgiveness and healing.

And again, that ability to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness in those times, in which we have fallen short and have inflicted hurt and pain upon our spouse, but also for that spouse to be able to, to extend that quote unquote absolution for those transgressions as well. And then understanding more importantly, what does it mean for me to be a servant spouse?

It's not about what I want, what I desire and what I have to have. It's everything about what you chose to, to give up. And, and I always draw to the example of Christ being the, the epitome of what dying to self really is. I said the good thing for us, we don't have to, to literally die and give of our life.

It's just to start doing the things we don't like doing or forego things I like doing in order to serve our beloved. And, and there is a grace in that, that moment. In fact, God even spans paragraph 24 speaks to that. Man can only realize himself only when he's able to make a sincere gift to self in a sincere way that we could be a gift of ourself to our spouse.

And our marriage is when we died to ourself to serve the other person. There is indeed a grace in that moment. And then there's some life skill things in terms of coming to understand communication, how we should communicate, how do we deal with issues and, and, and concerns in the marriage itself. But then more importantly, weaving through spirituality to kind of bring all those pieces into binding them together.

And, and that's what we do in four short sessions that, that. Transforms the lives of, of these couples that come to see us. Let's talk about infidelity briefly here. It's so common in our world. Uh, what does a couple need to do to, to heal from that specifically? Cuz that that is a deep wound. It is a deep wound and I want people to be aware that it doesn't begin with sexual infidelity.

Infidelity starts with emotional infidelity with even having, having confidence in somebody, outside of your marriage relationship, things that you share with somebody, especially of the opposite sex that you should only really be sharing with your spouse. I mean, it, it begins this thing. How many times are we unfaithful to that?

Of what God calls us to unfaithful to the things he asks. And that's what happened with us in the beginning in fidelity is. Is the most painful thing in the world because it's the, the sexual act, the marital act that that is the sign of our sacrament, but it can be healed. And that's what happens.

Oftentimes when couples come to us again, taking him through this healing and forgiveness exercise, that's modeled after the, the sacrament of reconciliation. It's another thing that came to Greg, but long story short is everything can be healed when we ask God to come in and heal it. And, and it's unbelievable to say this, but where there's the most break.

when God comes in and binds that together through our healing and forgiveness and, and reconciliation and the sacrament of reconciliation and receiving that grace, it can be stronger in that break where it's it's it's what do you call that it's brought together like a tree that's well, well, I I'd liken it.

I, I used to be in the x-ray tech in military and, and one of the things we learned that, that when there's a break in the bone and when you reset that bone and due to the calcification and it's things that take place to heal that bone, that point of the. Become stronger in any other part of the body. So it's one of the things I expressed to the couples that despite the fact you have to experienced this break, when we put it back together and you heal your marriage is gonna be strong enough to endure anything that Satan has to throw at you in, in your life.

But again, providing that they keep God front and center. Yeah. And one of the common things I have to mention it, cuz it's such huge issue and it's plaguing marriages is pornography and it's both from men and women's side. I mean, literally it is destroying marriages because it is infidelity. I mean, you're, you know, when you're, you're focusing on somebody else or looking at something else, an image on a screen or whatever the case is that.

Twist and distort. So what the act was intended to be by God, and there's no good that can come out of that. And what we're seeing is these ways in which both either, either men or women are indulging and engaging in this, they start to excuse the beauty and the goodness and the, in the, the awesomeness of their own spouse, because that bringing pornography and opens up the door for Satan to come in and twist your understanding of using another person for selfish gratification.

And that was never God's intention or plan for us to do on anyone to include our spouse. Absolutely. Yeah. Porn truly does destroy our ability to love. And you cannot have a marriage if you don't have that ability to love. There's so much we could say on that, we're gonna be producing content. Uh, specifically, one thing I wanted to mention is it usually doesn't stop there.

You know, people think like, oh, I'll just, you know, look a little bit of porn here and there, but it usually leads to other sexual behavior that usually is unwanted. It's something that people never imagine themselves doing or wanted to do, but because of the habits that they've established in their lives and the addictive, uh, you know, capacity of pornography, literally on a, a neuro biological level, we end up in that spot.

So again, can't get into all that right now, but we'll be producing content around that topic specifically. I wanted to ask you guys what happens if a spouse comes to you and one of them wants to save the marriage, but the other does not. What should that spouse say and do, who does want to save that marriage?

Yeah. One of the most difficult and painful situations that we ever deal with is when somebody wants it and somebody doesn't, or even when somebody wants God and the other person doesn't. But we will tell that person, Joey, as hard as it is, we ask them to pray and to literally offer sacrifices, everything fasting every day for their spouse, because it is truly them.

We call them to stand firm to their marriage vows, to what they promised God that they would do at the altar. And you know, what's amazing about that is I remember first having these words come outta my mouth, thinking this person is gonna just hate me for saying this. But each and every time when we tell that person to remain faithful to their marriage vows, they cry and they say, thank you.

You're the only one that's telling me to do that. And that's what I wanna do. I wanna stand for my marriage because when I married that person at, when I stood at the altar, I said, until death do us part, and we always tell them picture years later at the end of your life, we all have to put ourselves in that position.

Cuz we're all gonna die. It's it's, that's a given every, there's nothing else that's assured in our lives, but we all are going to die and we all will see God face to face. And he will ask us the question, how well did you care and love for the gift that I placed in your care? And we will have no excuse.

We will have no outlet to say, oh God, you saw him. Or you saw what he did or you saw what he didn't do. It'll be God and me. Face to face. And I will have to say, God, I did everything I could by my own weakness, but your grace to bring Greg back to this point, to allow him to be with you for eternity. And I hope then that he can say welcome into my kingdom.

My good and faithful servant, cuz that is my hope and my prayer that I will one day be with God, for eternity and everything I do here on this side of the heavens on this side of earth will determine how I will be spinning my eternity. If I can dovetail on that beautiful comment as well. You know, we said I do too.

It wasn't just one person saying I do in the relationship. So we do have a responsibility to the marriage and to God as well. And so just because your spouse want to renig on their vows, that mean that you have to as well. So by maintaining your yes and your, I do, and still continue to even serve your spouse in the way that you are called to serve.

Uh, I sometimes take couples to the verse one Corinthians seven, 14, and it's about the unbelieving spouse. And how the, for belie the unbelieving spouse can be sanctified through his wife. And, and I have a quick story of a couple that, um, we worked with and, um, he was in the air force, uh, very good looking guy, jet pilot, you know, women were all over the place and he, he took advantage of that opportunity.

They were stationed here in the states. He received orders to serve in, in England. And so the wife had the, the question, do I stay here with my own family, mom and dad, meaning, or do I take the chance and go to Europe and be with this, this serial infidel. And she made the decision to go, and he continued his wayward behaviors even overseas, but she found this little community of old ladies that began to meet with her, pray with her and encouraged her to maintain her yes.

And her vows. And so her husband started to notice that, wow, I'm being an idiot. I'm doing all these things, but yet you're still this loving wife, you know, what are, what are you doing? And she started to share with him, I'm living my faith. I'm praying. I'm, I'm maintaining my yes. And that eventually won him over to, to quit those behaviors, to come back, to ask for forgiveness in his marriage to reconcile.

And then they went on to a great marriage and, and I think they have like five or six kids. Now, two kids married, couple of grandkids as well, but it's because she chose to maintain her. Yes. And to live her marriage vow, despite the fact that he was willing to, to renig and to, to be that infidel. And it took years.

And that's something that we talk about sometimes on the show is that we often want results right away, but we often have to wait. And so it's, it's a great reminder talking about people who maybe have a friend who is in a really difficult marriage that they're listening right now. So I'm just curious, what would you say to them in how they can support their friend?

Who's in a difficult marriage? Uh, what should they say? What should they do? And maybe what should they not say? And. Yeah. So to start, I mean, you can always ask this, this person that you are around, that's divulging to you, that they're not in a good place in their marriage. And. Where is God in your marriage.

God has a plan. God is committed to your marriage, pray and ask him for the grace to be who and what you are called to be in this marriage. And, and let's, let's look on online for some help, you know, go to the Alexander House to, to, to look up information, lead them to truth, lead them to freedom, not more into bondage cuz you know, it, it says in scripture.

God says, I hate divorce. God doesn't hate anybody, but he hates what it does to his people. So by all means we, as the faithful people of God have to help people, encourage them to stay in and help fix their marriage, not give them reasons to get out. Because we're here to build the body of Christ, not tear it down and rip it apart.

Another thing we do quite simply just we, we just refer 'em to our book. Um, I, I can't even begin to tell you the stories that we heard from couples that a family member or friend a priest gave them our book and reading the book again, gave them hope, and it starts to introduce them things in their lives that typically they've never been introduced to.

I E God God's plan for marriage, saccharin of marriage and, and what all those things mean. And, and it brings 'em back. And there's so many that have come back together and found healing themselves, not even coming to see Greg and Julie are any of our other marriage disciples, but just reading that book and come to understand that, wow, we need to cultivate a life of prayer.

We need to be engaging in the resources that teach us how to be the man, woman, husband, and wife that God intended for us to be. So, so the book is a good resource as. And the book is marriage 9 1 1, how God saved our marriage and can save yours too. And I love the title cuz it's an emergency help, help. We need help.

Absolutely. And we called on the right person cuz he came to our as. Absolutely. And we're gonna do a raffle of those books, everyone listening. I'll tell you more about that at the end of the episode, how you can enter into that raffle. We're gonna give three away and anyone listening, if you know, you really need to buy this book for a friend of yours, who's going through a really tough marriage like GRK and Julie just said, uh, reach out to me.

You can reach out to me. I'll tell you at the end, how to do that. And we will purchase it for you if you can't afford it. So definitely, uh, so much you can do to help. And the Alexander House is there to help you help them, uh, in closing out, there's so much more we could talk about, but I just wanted to ask you, you know, so many of us listening to this right now, our children of divorce and, and we have this fear of repeating our parents' mistakes and their own marriages.

Uh, we, you know, we don't wanna get divorced. What encouragement advice would you give to anyone listening right now? Who's wrestling with that. God bless all of you. And that fear is real. And yet fear opens the door for Satan. And what I want you to know is right now, right here, there is a, you know, marriage or divorce is, is, is, uh, spirit.

There is a spirit of divorce that goes on and on and on for generations, but you, by the power of Jesus Christ, have the ability to stop that. For the rest of your family and for generations to come, you know, it says in scripture that if you do anything against God, four generations will pay for my sin, your sin.

But if you do something good, a thousand will be blessed. So you have that ability by your baptism to go through, but knowing and understanding that the healing of your wounds is critical and important. Yeah. Julie mentioned the word fear and of course we find in, in God's word. Perfect love, cast out fear, who is perfect.

Love God. And so. If you have been unfortunately, and have had to endure your parents' divorce, know that again, that, that comfort, um, that, that strength, that ability to know is found in God. And so embracing this heavily father growing and cultivating that prayer life, and then turning to the re resources that God has given us through his church to teach us how to live marriage.

We, we have so many couples that come to us in marriage preparation with that exact question, you know, how are we gonna do this? I come from the divorce family. I am. I'm like fear, not all we have to do is live God's plan for marriage. And the grace will be there that allows us again, to, to break the change from those old habits and, and things that have been passed on to our families to be able to discover the way that God wants us to live it and to rediscover the joy in happiness that he has intended.

So, so again, fear not embrace our heaven. Father embrace the truths of his teachings for marriage and, and that'll be your, your insurance to a great, happy holy marriage to death of you part. Yeah. And Joey, I'll just say this we've witnessed some of the strongest marriages ever where they come from divorce because they specifically work at their marriage.

Some people that don't know what divorce is like, and they've never experienced it. They just assume that everything's gonna be fairy tales and good, you know, that Hollywood lies of marriage is just gonna be perfect and no, no problems, but those that have experienced it and they say they don't want to end up like their parents.

They, we have seen them work hard and they have been in amazing marriages and great witnesses as to what can happen when they put God in their. That's so encouraging and it's even encouraging for me. I, I need to hear that too. And I just want everyone listening to know, just like Greg, Julie just said, you can write your own story.

You don't have to repeat that pattern, that cycle. And there's so many of us who are doing that right now. We are truly trying to, uh, to reverse that cycle, Greg and Julie, thank you so much for all the work that you do. If people wanna get in touch with you, wanna follow you, what's the best way to do. Uh, the best way to do is just simply go to our website, the Alexander house.org.

That's the T E Alexander house.org. And, and there, you can find our contact information. If you need to email or give us a call or more importantly, if you need the marriage disciples, uh, and need helping your marriage, that link is there as well. Or you can go to marriage, disciples.org, marriage disciples, plural with an s.org, and you can find your way to us also find it on Facebook as well.

sounds great. And we'll throw all that in the show notes for you guys who don't need to remember it, make it easy for you to, to just click on it, Greg and Julie, thank you so much for, for what you're doing. Like I said, we're both fighting the same war. I think we're trying to reverse that cycle of divorce and truly marriage and the family are the building block of society.

If that crumble. Then we have no hope for the rest of our culture. And so the work that you're doing literally is saving the world. So keep it up. Thank you so much for, for making time. I could talk with you for hours and hours, but, uh, but we'll have to close it there. So thank you so much for your time.

Oh, thank you, Joan. God bless you. And the work that you do as well. so many takeaways, but just to mention too healing, your wounds is critically important. If you want a great marriage, I often say that you are the lid on your marriage. Your marriage will only be as healthy and happy as you and your spouse are individually.

And so you need to heal on a personal level. If you want a great marriage next, you can't rescue your marriage alone. If you, or, or someone, you know, really needs help, just go to the Alexander house.org, again, the Alexander house.org. You could also Google that and you'll find Greg and Julie, and you'll see what they offer, especially their marriage disciples program.

As they mentioned in the. If you wanna buy their book, you can just look it up on Amazon marriage 9 1 1, or you can just click in the show notes. So we have a link there for you and you can, uh, buy that on Amazon. We're also raffling three copies of the book. It's a random giveaway for anyone on our email list.

So if you wanna join to be eligible for that giveaway, just go to restored ministry.com/. Three zero again, that's restored ministry.com/thirty. Scroll down to the form, fill in your information, just a few questions and then enter that's it. And you'll be entered the win. And if you're already on a list, of course, you're automatically entered to win and we'll choose the winners by November 20th.

So make sure to join the list. By then, and by joining that list, you're also gonna get a free ebook on how to cure loneliness. You're gonna get exclusive content from us. And when we drop a new article or episode, you'll get that no spam, just really good content. So join our list. Like I mentioned in the show, if you know, a couple who really needs Greg and Julie's book and you can't afford it, they can't afford it.

Just reach out to us, go to restored ministry.com/contact. Again, that's restored ministry.com/contact. Tell us about their situation and we'll be happy to help. The resources mentioned during the show notes at restored ministry dot. Slash 30. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope this was useful for you, especially you out there who are struggling in your marriages, or, you know, someone who has, I hope it was useful for you.

So please share this episode with someone, you know, who is in a really difficult marriage who could use the help that G and Julie offer. Always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.

Restored

Restored creates content that gives teens and young adults the tools and advice they need to cope and heal after the trauma of their parents’ divorce or separation, so they can feel whole again.

https://restoredministry.com/
Previous

Love and Relationships Series
Next

A New Adventure