I Thought Something Was Wrong With Me, Not My Family

6 minute read

This story was written by an anonymous author at 23 years old. Her parents divorced when she was 18 years old. She gave permission for her story to be shared.

HER STORY

Growing up, I always thought I lived in a normal family. Though I experienced what I now know was anxiety and depression from the time I was a young girl, I always thought it was because something was wrong with me—not my family situation.

Looking back, I see how far from a normal, healthy family we were. My mother tried to have a closer relationship with me than my father from the time I was born. As early as eight years old, she confided in me about her struggles with my dad.

By the time I was in high school, I knew all about his alcoholism, pornography addiction, and the hundreds of other ways that she told me he did not measure up to other married men she admired. I was her shoulder to cry on for years, having to remain strong and take care of my younger siblings while she was emotionally unstable and my dad was not present.

My parents rarely showed affection and when my dad attempted, my mom showed expressions of disgust. Family outings always ended in a fight between them that they would take out on me and my siblings. My mom made me "choose sides" and would give me the silent treatment if I talked to my dad while she was angry at him.

My parents spent more years sleeping in separate bedrooms than together, and to me this was normal. It was only in high school, after talking with friends, that I realized married couples could actually be friends and trust each other.

My mom had "kicked" my dad out of the house time and time again, so when it happened during my freshman year of college, I figured they would make up and get back together again. However, what proceeded was a divorce pursued by my mom, which led to the unraveling of both of their lives and those of my siblings.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

For the first year after, I was completely numb. The divorce was no surprise, but I couldn't believe it actually happened. I thought I was happy and lived a great life. Looking back, however, I can see that under that happy shell, inside I was so empty.

I had trouble praying and felt that God was far from me. In the years since, there have been many times that I have broken down crying or felt rage well up in me thinking about all that has been taken from me—my memories, childhood home, visits with grandparents during holidays, and parents, who have only become more emotionally unstable since the divorce.

I felt deep loneliness in college as my parents were going through the divorce and struggled to believe I was loved or cared for by anyone. I struggled greatly with self-confidence and suffered from feelings of low self- worth. I deeply sought the affection and approval of others, but could not believe that anyone truly liked me.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

At first, it numbed me inside. I fell into deep perfectionism, anxiety, and overexercised while undereating. By God's grace, I was led to seek help in counseling, which has greatly helped me recognize my wounds, coping behaviors, and begin the process of healing.

I was blessed to meet my husband, a godly man, who truly supported me and helped me to trust in men. Without his presence, I would have easily fallen into a lifestyle of promiscuity. I struggled in our dating relationship to live out chastity because I was constantly seeking his validation and approval.

Holidays these past years have been gut-wrenching as they are constant reminders of the divorce. Growing up, holidays were one of the bright times as we lived out traditions with cousins, grandparents, and family. Since the divorce, my grandparents have fallen into depression and neither side wants to see each other.

My parents have had new girlfriends/ boyfriends at each holiday, which has only made the loss more real. Even though my parents weren't happily married, I deeply miss when they would at least pretend for us kids. I struggle now as a married woman with family boundaries and the loss of my childhood home to go back to and visit.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

1. Counseling with someone of similar values! This truly saved me from going down a path of destruction. Through counseling, I was able to heal and discern my vocation to marriage in a healthy way. I have learned to see myself as God does, which has slowly healed my prayer life and relationship with God.

Counseling has taught me how to cope with anxiety and helped me recognize and heal my eating disorder tendencies. I still continue seeing my counselor today.

2. Form healthy friendships with those of the same and opposite sex. It can be easy to isolate ourselves from friends and to seek love and validation from a romantic partner rather than truly forming a friendship.

3. Realize that you are loved. Regardless of what your parents have led you to believe or what you may feel, it is an objective truth that you are loved, treasured, and protected by your Heavenly Father regardless of the wounds committed against you or the sins you have committed as a result.

My counselor, husband, and time in prayer have helped me realize these beautiful truths. Though I am still early in the journey of healing, I have lived in such freedom from realizing that all that has happened in my family is not my fault and that I am so loved.

4. Seek and create beauty. In times where I felt a loss of identity or found it hard to pray, I was able to connect to God through buying a bouquet of flowers, enjoying a nature walk, cooking, singing, or holding a baby—all tangible reminders of His love and goodness.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED OR SEPARATED FAMILIES

The issue needs to be talked about—in homilies, youth groups, online blogs. I also think that better marriage preparation should be given to young adults dating or engaged to be married. The accompaniment should not stop there but should continue after.

Married couples need constant support and fellowship, especially those, who did not grow up with a healthy example of marriage and are now navigating the waters of marriage and parenthood. I also think retreats for married couples, which contain one spouse from a divorced family, would be beneficial and healing for both spouses.

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In Defense of the Family: How We Lost It & Why We Need It

5 minute read

When I was 12 my parents divorced; even though I knew classmates who had divorced parents, it was one of those things I never thought would happen to me. After I recovered from the initial shock, I told myself it was a normal thing. Whenever someone found out my parents were divorced and said, “I’m sorry” I brushed it off, saying it wasn’t really a big deal.

I think this is the mentality most people have today; we don’t think divorce is a good thing, but we don’t see it as a terrible thing either. After all, 50% of marriages end in divorce… how can something so normal be that terrible?

It wasn’t until I got older that I began to understand the ramifications of my parents’ divorce; the long-lasting effect it had left on me. Growing up in an uncomfortable love triangle is painful and stressful; there are serious consequences when something that is meant to last forever… doesn’t.

What really saddens me though, is that couples continue to divorce once, twice or even more often and many don’t bother getting married at all. There are a couple of reasons I think this happens…

1. The ‘I’ factor: today we’re told that what we want is more important than anything else; we should follow our dreams and bulldoze anything or anyone that gets in the way. I see millennials forgoing ‘settling down’ to travel, move up the career ladder, get another degree… we want to accomplish and experience; tying ourselves to another person will get in the way of that. Listen, I love to travel as much as the next person, but the idea that we are forgoing all these good things if we get married is a lie. It’s just not true. Planes, jobs, degrees… they will still exist even if we aren’t single. Starting a family is anything but settling down, it’s an adventure that leads to so much growth, especially in love.

2. Fear: a lot of us have seen our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, even friends go through a divorce. We see how painful and unpleasant it is and we think, “nope, not for me.” We realize that the risk of saying ‘I do’ comes with the risk of someone saying ‘I don’t anymore.’ It’s scary. That was certainly the initial reaction that I held on to for years after the fact: I wasn’t going to marry because it just didn’t last. I’ve been lucky enough to realize that this isn’t true; I’ve seen couples who not only love each other years and years of marriage but love each other more. Marriage is challenging, as are all good things (ask anyone who has started a successful business or written a best-selling novel) but that is one of the reasons it’s so wonderful: it isn’t easy, it’s incredible. There are probably a plethora of other reasons for the decline of the family, I won’t go into too many here because I want to touch on the final point: why family matters.

Family is where we learn to love and be loved. Our ability to relate to ourselves, to others and to the world is learned at home. Our attachment types, self-esteem, work ethic… we learn all of this from our parents and siblings. That’s not to say that you can’t unlearn or change; however, we are severely affected by the environment in which we grow up. This isn’t just me saying it, psychologists have learned this through repeated studies, especially recently. As a general rule, a healthy and loving home produces a healthy and loving person. When our family is broken or the ties are distant, the effects run deep, especially relationally.

We see that today as young people are scared of getting close to others, the fear of getting hurt is a huge impediment to true intimacy. Even in popular culture, country singer Rae Lynn hits the nail on the head of what it’s like to grow up in the ‘Love Triangle’ that is divorce for a child.

What the world desperately needs today is “young people full of hope and strength.” This starts at home. I challenge you to help yours. Maybe that’s reaching out to your parents or siblings just to check in, maybe that’s planning a family get-together, or maybe that’s telling your spouse you love them… even if you’re not ‘feeling it’ right at this moment.

Marriage and family are essential to society because it’s essential to our ability to love. It’s up to us to show the world all they have to gain by pursuing and cherishing family life.

“Perfect families do not exist. This must not discourage us. Quite the opposite. Love is something we learn; love is something we live; love grows as it is ‘forged’ by the concrete situations which each particular family experiences.”

Pope Francis

If we don’t learn to love and be loved, there really isn’t much to live for. I hope that our generation is the one to bring the family back to the center of society and share in the adventure that is deep communion with others.

This article was written by Miranda Rodriguez, a contributing writer for the Restored blog. It has been reposted with permission. It originally appeared on her blog, First Class Act.

#024: Tips for Engagement, Wedding, and 1st Year of Marriage - Part 2

If you come from a broken home, planning a wedding and getting married throws some unique challenges at you. Joey shares what he and his wife, Brigid, wish someone told them about engagement, the wedding, and the first year of marriage. 

By listening, you’ll hear this and more:

• Challenges you’ll face planning your wedding if you’re from a broken family or you’re marrying someone who is - and how to deal with them

• Wedding day anxiety and what to do about it

• Things to keep in mind about your parents for your wedding day

• How to handle disappointments, frustrations, and conflict in your first year of marriage

• One of the major pitfalls most newlyweds fall into

Part 2 of 2. Listen to Part 1 here.

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links below, your purchase will support Restored at no cost to you. Thank you!]

• Books

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

  • Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before -- and After -- You Marry

• Chris Voss, FBI Hostage Negotiator

• To request the wedding planning Google Sheet template Brigid and Joey created, email wedding@restoredministry.com

• Brigid Pontarelli

  • Instagram

  • Facebook

  • Email: brigid@restoredministry.com

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

If you heard the last episode, you know that my wife, Bridget, and I thought it'd be useful to talk about what we wish someone would've told us about engagement, the wedding and the first year of marriage. And so we just wanna share our experience and some practical advice from the practical wisdom that we learned along the way.

And so by listening to this episode, here's what you're gonna get out of it. We'll touch on some of the challenges that you'll likely face in planning your wedding. If you come from a broken family or maybe you're marrying someone who comes from a broken home and how to deal with them, we'll get some quick tips on wedding planning and planning the honeymoon as well.

We'll talk about wedding day anxiety and what to do about it. I, I think a lot of us who come from broken homes deal with this, cuz there's a lot of fear attached to love and marriage. We'll get into some things that keep in mind about your parents on your wedding day. Really trying to encourage you guys to have some empathy for them and put yourself in their shoes.

Then we'll get into the first year of marriage, kinda what to expect from that first year of marriage. And some things they'll look out for along the way. We'll mention how to handle some disappointments, frustrations and conflict that are inevitably gonna come up eventually. And we also talk about one of the major pitfalls that most newlyweds fall into.

And so if you want more of. 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 Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 24 and we're in the middle of our love and relationship series. Research shows that the biggest effects from our parents' divorce, our experience in a romantic relationships.

Why is that? 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 feel lost and we struggle in numerous ways in our relationships. And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actual tips and expert advice on how to find and build. Authentic love.

Now this is part two of two in part one. The last episode that was episode 23, we permanently focused on engagement. We talked a little bit about dating, but it was mostly engagement. And as you heard at the top of this show in this episode, we're gonna focus on the wedding wedding planning and some of the challenges that are gonna come up for you.

If you come from a broken family, we'll also get into the first year of marriage. Now, if you haven't. Part one, I encourage you to listen that maybe do that now, but if you don't want to totally fine. You can just listen to this episode and you're still gonna get a lot out of it. Also. I wanted to say, I'm really sorry, but Bridget, actually, wasn't able to record this episode with me.

We had planned for that, but due to our schedules and the deadline for this episode, we weren't able to make it happen. And so I'm really sorry about that. But Russ assured that we actually developed this content together. And so I'm just gonna be the one delivering it, but know that Bridget was involved with.

As well. And so with that, I wanna just dive in to talk about the wedding. And the, the first thing to talk about is just some wedding planning tips that we learned along the way. And the first thing of course, like we mentioned in last episode is don't let the wedding become more important than your relationship and your future marriage.

I we see this all the time and we even fell into this too. The wedding day seems to take over your relationship. You stop going on dates, you stop having good conversations. You stop having fun together, and you just focus on the wedding. And man, this is so dangerous for your relationship, especially if this gets really serious.

And so just make sure you're investing time, investing money into your relationship into your marriage. In the last episode, again, we went into this a bit more. I'm not gonna get into it as much, but just remember. Don't let the wedding take over and ruin your relationship. And this tip might be pretty obvious, but do as much planning as possible, far in advance.

And I know a lot of people, you know, like to wait till last minute or they don't end up getting things done until the last minute you can probably think of back in school or work. And so one thing you can do to help you actually get things done is just set some deadlines and ask some of your. To, to keep you accountable.

So, you know, even if you need to make some artificial deadlines, like, oh, this has to be done at the end of this month, even though you could potentially wait like two months more, that's gonna help you get way more done way sooner than if you just kind of mosey along and wait till the last minute. One of the tools that helped us the most get a lot done and stay organized was having a to-do list.

And so we just made a Google sheet, a shared Google sheet, and we just had different tabs for different things. Like one tab was a to-do list. And, you know, Bridget had her section. I had my section and we would put due dates in there and just. Start executing, getting stuff done. Uh, we had another tab for venues, the different venues we were looking at and some info on them helped us store everything.

Uh, we had, you know, another tab for DJs and so on. It really helped us stay organized and save a ton of time, especially cuz we weren't living together. So we didn't need to wait till we were both together to talk about things and start getting things done. We're able to just go to the Google sheet, see what we needed to do and work on.

And since then, we've actually shared that template that we use, that we created, uh, with friends of ours and they've found it helpful. And so we'd be happy to share that with you. If you'd like, if you're planning a wedding or maybe soon planning a wedding or, you know, someone who's planning a wedding, just email us.

We're more than happy to send that to you. And you could email us at. wedding@restoredministry.com. Again, that's wedding restored, ministry.com and ministry is just singular. Next tip, delegate as much as you can, to your friends, to family members on your wedding day. And before it find some friends, you trust some family members who, you know, are competent.

And give them some responsibility and give them detailed instructions on what you want them to do, what you want, uh, it to look like, whatever it might be. And then what I recommend is having a shared to-do list for them too, maybe on the, the Google sheet, because there's probably tons of details that they don't need to know about.

Um, but you can use an app like apple reminders. And just write out the tasks you want them to handle. And then you can share that with them. If they're an apple user. Now, if they're not an apple user and you're not an apple user, totally fine. There's other applications out there that you can find like to do lists that you can share with them.

But we did this on our wedding day, showed up to Kendra, a friend of ours who is a huge help for us on the wedding day and even the days leading up to it. And she really allowed us to just focus. On our marriage to focus on getting married. She's a very competent friend. And so what we did is we had, uh, get, did a phone call with her and wrote out all the things we wanted her to do the wedding week, the wedding day, uh, we put it in that reminders app and shared that with her.

And so she had a list that she could pull up on her phone at any point, made it really, really easy. And so things were really clear for her. We laid him out exactly what we expected, what we wanted her to do for. She had the list. She can always go back to and look at if she maybe forgot something. So it worked out really well.

And so definitely delegate, delegate, delegate, and you don't have to do this alone. Okay. And I know this is hard for a lot of people, especially your control freaks out there. I get you because I'm kind of one of you, I've made a lot of progress along the way, but man, it's so easy to just want control over everything.

But if you can give up a little bit of that control, you're gonna get peace and return, especially. Because you're not gonna need to be thinking about everything. It's so stressful to keep track of everything. But if you have other people who are competent, who can help you with it, man, you are gonna enjoy your wedding day, your wedding week so much more.

Now the next tip is to make a plan to tackle the challenges. That may arise with your parents and relatives, an example of some of those challenges. First one, when we did invitations, we weren't quite sure what we were supposed to write because my parents are divorced. And so typically on an invitation, you've all have seen these, you know, it says Mr.

And Mrs. So, and so invite you and so on, but. Obviously we couldn't use that. So we had to think about, and we came up with something else, which I know, you know, other couples have used as well. And it was just a simple phrase that we had at the top of the invitation that said together with their families, and then went on to say, you know, bridged Joey.

And so on. The next thing that's kind of challenging is taking pictures of your family and your relatives on your wedding day. And so one of the things that we recommend is just having a list of the individual pictures that you want the photographer to get. So give them that list, make that. Take some time to think through it, give them the list.

And they typically will ask you, I believe for a list, but even if they don't just send it to them anyway and make sure they know that your parents are divorced, just so they don't, you know, try to put them together in a picture that may be kind of awkward for, for both of your parents and for you. And just understand that some things are gonna change in your wedding day.

You know, we didn't totally follow that list that we gave the photographer and we didn't plan on it, but we actually did get a picture with my mom, my dad, and my siblings together. And so my mom stood on one side. My dad stood on another side and, uh, it ended up working out. It it's a beautiful picture too, but, uh, just set some expectations and just know going into what you.

Speaking of pictures. Another challenge can be, there's a tradition you may know of where the bride and the groom will have on a table, the wedding photos from their parents and perhaps their grandparents. And I think it's just a beautiful, beautiful tradition, but obviously we couldn't do that. And for me, that was hard.

It was sad. It was something that I really wish we could have had, but. Couldn't. And so, uh, after the initial sadness and me kinda letting go of it, I started thinking about our future kids. And I started thinking that, okay, I want our kids to be able to do that, but since we couldn't do that, what we had were, uh, photos of family members that were deceased, that, you know, we wish they could have been there that day.

So that could be a good substitution if, uh, if you wanna go that route, another challenge is sitting arrangements. So, you know, there's always the question of which parents it's where and how do you make everything fair? Totally get that what we ended up doing. And it took some time and some thought to figure this out.

But what we did is at the church, my dad sat closer to the front and at the reception, my mom sat closer to the front, closer to the head table and then ended up working out really well. And we just made sure to communicate. I think I called them both and said, Hey, this is what's gonna happen. And it worked out well.

In fact, my. Siblings sat at the table with her. My dad's siblings sat at the table with him. And so they had people with them and it worked out really well. So just make sure you're communicating up front, make sure you have a plan going into it. And one of the last challenges that we'll mention, and this applies, even if you don't come from a broken home, but different family members have opinions about your wedding day, and they're gonna tell you.

And so what we recommend you doing is hear them out if it's healthy, if they're doing it in a respectful way. And, but just understand that it's your. And you're not obliged to do what they say again. Good to consider it. And maybe you do end up doing some of those things, but make sure that you know, that it's your decision.

Don't feel forced. Don't feel manipulated into doing something that you don't wanna do, just because someone's putting pressure on you. It's okay to say no, I'm sorry. No, that can't happen. And so the main point with all of these challenges really is to just set clear boundaries and expectations for the wedding day.

There's no magic formula here. Just start talking about it now with your fiance, make a plan and then communicate that plan to everyone involved just to set their expectations. So when they go into that day, they know, okay. This is gonna happen quickly. I wanted to give you some tips on honeymoon planning.

So what we did is I actually planned the honeymoon and I didn't tell Bridget where we were going. Now she had an idea of kind of what's a pack that she knew that we were going somewhere warmer, but she didn't know where we were going. And so we, uh, we ended up going to the Canary islands and island called, uh, rife.

And it's a Spanish island off the coast of Africa. It sounds super bougie, but it's. Decently affordable, considering some of the deals that we found and the money that we, we were able to save for it. And it was just awesome. But some of the things I learned along the way, it can be stressful first off. So just take a deep breath and don't overwhelm yourself.

You don't need to vet every single option out there. Just pick something that you think you'd like. But some of the steps that I followed, if you're more of a planner, more of a detailed person, this is especially gonna be helpful for you. That the first thing really to get down is what's your budget and there's nothing wrong.

Simple honeymoon. In fact, I think those are the best honeymoons because you're usually exhausted from the wedding and you're not up to do a ton of adventurous stuff. I mean, you may be at some point on your honeymoon, but simple honeymoons, relaxing honeymoons, I think are awesome. So don't feel bad. Don't feel like you have an inferior experience just because you weren't able to spend a ton of money.

No. And don't go into debt for your honeymoon, please. Don't do. It's just gonna cause more headaches for you later on. It might be a nice trip, but then you're just gonna have to pay off that debt. It's gonna rack up interest and it's gonna be a problem. So save the money in advance. Do what you can. It does need to be a super bougie trip and you could always do another trip, a nicer trip later, if you want to, after setting the budget and talking with your fiance about that.

You wanna ask your fiance? Of course, what type of honeymoon they would prefer. They likely have an idea of what they'd like, and you probably know what they like too, for Bridget. She's such a beach girl. I'm a mountain guy, but she's such a beach girl. And I was okay with doing the beach thing because I knew that I we'd be tired.

We'd be exhausted. And so the beach sound really nice actually. So once we kind of set that, I just got to work researching and I just gathered a bunch of info. I read a bunch of articles. I watched videos. I talked to people that I knew around the world, getting their advice on things and, uh, yeah, just gathered a bunch of info.

And then I made a list of some different options. And then I started vetting those options against our budget and some other things that we we wanted. So for example, you may want a place where you can go jet skiing, or you might wanna go hiking, or you might want it to be more secluded or you might want an all inclusive.

Sort of thing wherever you're at, maybe you can't afford all that and that's totally fine. Just know what you want and kind of vet those options against that, just to make sure that you're getting what you want, but at the same time, you're not going too far above and beyond. And if after doing all that, it's not obvious where you should go.

Just use the process of elimination to eliminate a bunch of options and just limit it down to like one or two options or maybe three. Options and then make a call. You know, if, if you're doing it as a surprise, you make the call, it was a little bit more challenging cuz I wanted to be sure Bridget liked it, but I couldn't talk to her about it.

I actually didn't tell anyone about it. And so there was a little bit more pressure I felt, but you know, if you can talk to your fiance, then you can make a decision together, but just make a call. Don't overthink this. Don't over plan. It, it is what you make it. And so make it awesome and just know that no trip is perfect.

If you've ever traveled, you've likely had things that go wrong. That happens all the time. I've traveled a lot and man things go wrong and you just have to roll with it. You just have to learn how to deal with it in the moment. Of course you could have some plans and how you're gonna deal with certain things if they go wrong, but just understand that no amount of planning is gonna make it go perfectly.

And so don't overdo it. Just make it. All right. I think this is the most important part of this episode. So really listen in here. I wanna talk about the wedding day, especially wedding day anxiety. I think this is a big deal. Like I mentioned four people who come from broken homes because there's a lot of fear when it comes to love and marriage.

We don't wanna repeat our parents' mistakes. And so we are terrified in a lot of cases and maybe that's not you and if not, that's great, but a lot of us do deal with this. And so just understand. I think it's normal. I think it's normal to be nervous. It's normal to be anxious. It's normal to be scared.

This is probably the biggest decision that you'll ever make. And so, yeah, it's okay to feel the pressure. It's okay. If you have doubts too, you might be thinking, is this the right person? Is there someone else who would be better? You know, am I gonna repeat my parents' mistakes or are we gonna just end up like my parents?

What I would say is just expect those doubts, those thoughts, those feelings to come up, just expect. And if you expect them, when they do, you're not gonna be freaked out from 'em, you're gonna know, oh, you know, Joey said that this is gonna happen and it's happening. Okay. You know, I'll get through this and you have to trust that if you've discerned your relationship.

Well, right. If you've gone through a process of making a decision about if this is the person that you should be with, if you've taken your time, if you've gotten the advice of people that love you, if there's a lot of respect in the relationship, there's authentic, love the person is a person to virtue.

Taking time to develop a strong relationship, then you have to trust your preparation. You have to trust your discernment and a sports analogy. Here. You can train, train, and train for a game, a big game, but you're always gonna get nervous. At least I did. I played baseball all my life. Played some different sports, play baseball and volleyball in college.

And you get nervous. And that's normal. And, and at that point, when you're going into the game, you just have to trust your preparation. Now it's not to say that there's never a legit reason to call off a wedding. You know, some of those doubts that anxiety inside of you may be pointing to some real issue, a red flag in your relationship.

And so just listen to that, get to the root of it, understand where's this coming from? And if you need to delay your wedding or even call it off altogether, Do it do it it's much better to go through the embarrassment and the struggle of calling off a wedding than to get married and be miserable, get married and get divorced.

No one, nobody wants that. And so have the courage to call it off if you need to. And most of those issues that would actually be red flags have to do with morality, right? The integrity of the person that you're marrying. And so if you're all good on the integrity front, the next thing that you need to know is that you're never gonna find a flawless person.

You're never gonna find a flawless person. And some people think that there's just one soulmate out there there's one person that's meant for them in this world. I actually don't believe that. I do think that God in certain situations can call you to be with a specific person. But ultimately I believe that it could work with different people, right?

It could potentially work with different people. And I think the danger to believing that there's just one person out there for you is that people get married and things are. right. They're in love. They're happy. But then the struggles come, they end up fighting a lot. Money's tight. You know, the husband doesn't put the toilet seat down, the wife shops too much.

And then both spouses think if I really found the one, it wouldn't be like this. It wouldn't be hard. And guys, I'm here to tell you, please hear me out. That's a lie. That is a lie. When you've gotten married, you go through those struggles and you think if. Was the one, it would be easy, not true. Just look at people who are on their third, their fourth, or their fifth marriage, still searching for the one somebody emailed me recently and said that their dad is on his sixth marriage.

Now I'm not judging him. I don't know his story. I don't know what happened in those marriages, but I can't help. But think that this soulmate idea played into. Either consciously or not. And so don't drive yourself crazy, trying to figure out if you've found the perfect person for you. Uh, this may sound odd, but you'll never know if things could have been better with someone else.

You'll never know, cuz you'll never have lived that out and it could be natural to wonder, especially leading up to the wedding day. You know, if it might be better with someone else. Totally get that. Don't beat yourself up for thinking that if that crosses your mind, but it is pointless to obsess about that, especially once you're married, because I don't think in this world it's ever possible to have a hundred percent surety about many things.

Maybe there are some things that you can have a hundred percent surety about, but I think there's always the possibility of doubt because we have free will, we can choose things. And so we may not always know this is absolutely the right thing to do. This is I'm a hundred percent sure. That this is the person for me.

Again, I'm not saying to just marry anyone. You need to go through the process of discerning, but just understand that struggles are gonna arise and your relationship's gonna be imperfect. And that's okay. And, and speaking about all this, uh, token, the guy who wrote Lord of the rings, he actually wrote about it in a letter to his son.

He said when the glamor wears off or merely works a bit thin, then they that the spouses. Think they have made a mistake and that the real soulmate is still to find the real soulmate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married if only.

Hence divorce to provide the, if only. And of course they are as a rule quite right. They did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life can make a sound judgment concerning whom amongst the total possible chances. He ought have profitably married. Nearly all marriages, even happy ones are mistakes in the sense that they almost certainly in a more perfect world or even a little more care in this very imperfect one, both partners might have found more suitable mates, but the real soulmate is the one you are actually married to.

And so when challenges come in, your relationship in your marriage specifically, it's normal. Just understand that it's normal love is challenging. It always will be the struggles in your marriage are not a sign that you chose the wrong person. They're not a sign that you should leave to find someone else.

It just means you have work to do. It means that your marriage needs some work. You need some help. And so go to counsel. Read some good books on relationships, invest time into your relationship, going on dates, doing things that you enjoy doing when you were dating. And it's also a sign that you and your spouse aren't perfect.

I've always said that the more virtuous the spouses, the happier the marriage, the opposite is true too. The more you struggle with advice with bad habits, the more miserable your marriage is going to be. And so it's so important that you work on yourself, that you encourage your spouse to develop virtues, right?

Good habits. And by doing that, I think you'll see that your marriage gets better. Just remember you can't make your spouse perfectly happy. If you can remember that you're gonna have a much happier marriage. It's kind of ironic, but you won't be looking at your spouse to fill you in a way that they were never meant to fill you.

And again, you'll never gonna find the perfect person. Just find the right person who possess as virtue, discern that relationship. Well, develop authentic love. Don't settle on moral issue. But don't at the same time, expect them to be a perfect European prince or princess. All right, moving on. Next tip is on your wedding day.

Have empathy for your parents. Just understand guys that as hard as it may be for you on your wedding day. And I totally get that. How the brokenness in your family, when these big life events come up, it's often more pronounced, right? We feel. The pain more in those moments. I totally get that at the same time.

I just wanna challenge you to kind of step outside yourself for a little bit, and just, just understand that your wedding day may be awkward for your parents, too. It may be hard for them to, and if you ask your parents to, you know, play a role in your wedding in some way, just understand that they may not be comfortable doing that.

And you know, maybe they will end up doing it. Maybe they won't, but just understand that. And it may not just be awkward for you, for your parents, for your family, but also your relative. Right. When the different families interact, who knows what sort of drama and tension could be there too. I know typically in a divorce people pick sides, you know, one side hates on the other, the other side hates on the other and it just gets really ugly.

And so a wedding could be tense because of that. One of the things that was kind of awkward for us, and I'm sure kind of hard for my parents too, was the rehearsal dinner. It was in a small Italian restaurant and my parents ended up sitting next to each other and ended up working out fine, but it was kind of weird because they really didn't talk at all.

And now they're like sitting next to each other in a room full of our family and friends. And it was just kind of weird and bridge. And I were, were sitting there too. So, you know, I felt for them in that moment and it was kind of an odd situation. So hopefully you can prevent that from happening, but if it.

Just be prepared for it as much as possible last tip when it comes to the wedding day, enjoy it and let the little things go. It's so tempting to just want to control everything like I mentioned, but just live the moment, live the moment on your wedding day, because it goes by so fast. And if things are not perfect, That's okay.

In fact, I expect them not to go perfectly and just roll with the punches. One of the things that happened was, uh, I was late to my own rehearsal. I, uh, went to the airport with my dad to pick a bunch of people up and pick up a rental car that bridge and I were gonna use. And, uh, the traffic was so bad that I didn't make it back in time.

I didn't even get the car on time. I had. Go to the airport and come back. And so it really was a waste of time to do the thing to begin with. But, uh, later that night, actually the night before my wedding, I had to go to the airport at like midnight, one in the morning to pick up this rental car. So, which is like a mess, like I'm such a planner.

And the fact that that happened is hilarious and was stressful, but eventually. Let it go. Another thing that happened on the wedding day was Bridget's Val kept flying away. So we just had to deal with that, especially during pictures and things, but it ended up working out something kind of embarrassing for me when we entered the reception room where all of our family and friends were, I, uh, Didn't know it then, but on video you can see, I was like yanking Bridge's arm too hard.

I, I didn't even realize it. I was just like excited and happy and just moving around. And, uh, when I was leading her behind me, I was just like pulled her arm too hard and she was fine. But, uh, but looking at it, I was like, man, gotta relax a little bit. So that sort of stuff is gonna happen. Oh, the last thing we actually, when we were leaving for the night, going to the hotel, That we, uh, had chosen for our wedding night.

We, you know, got all the bags, packed up. One of our friends helped us do it. And, uh, we, you know, go to our hotel and we were staying in the city and, you know, our friends were, were far away from us, but then we realized we actually had one of the wrong bags. It was a bag of one of Bridget's friends, Lacey, if you're listening, shout out to Lacey.

Uh, so we had to do. Swap. We ended up doing it the next day Lacey came down and she was able to, to leave the bag for us. But, uh, man, just like such a mess. So expect stuff like that to go wrong. You can't control everything. Things will go wrong and that's okay. Live the moment. Enjoy it. Soak it up. It's a really beautiful day, especially if you can let go of the little things.

So I'm sure there's lots more that can be said about the wedding day, wedding planning, all that, but I hope those are some helpful tips for you guys. Now we wanna transition into talking about the first year of marriage, you know, after the wedding's over the honeymoon's over, you're just kind of back to, to normal life.

But especially if you didn't live together before marriage, things are really new to you. And even if you did, uh, there may be some changes in your relationship now that you're married. And so I just wanna talk about some of the things that we've learned along the way. Some of these things are very basic.

They're simple, but hopefully they'll be helpful for you, especially if this is something that you're gonna be experiencing soon. The first tip is to embrace the reality of marriage, not the Instagram version in your mind. Get don't hear me wrong here. Marriage is so beautiful. Right. You have a life companion.

There's permanence to it. It's fun. It's adventurous, it's romantic. But at the same time, it's gonna be messy, right? It's not gonna be perfect. You may think that someone else has a perfect relationship. You may see their pictures on Instagram. You may see all these things about their marriage, their life, their family, but understand that that's just the highlights of their life.

So don't compare. The behind the scenes in your life to theirs, there were some quote, like don't compare your behind the scenes with someone else's highlight reels and know that you're not gonna have a great marriage by accident. It won't just happen. You need to actively work on it. You need to actively build it.

And again, don't be discouraged when your marriage isn't perfect because those people. On social media. They're not showing you the imperfections. They're not showing you the reality the day in, day out, the no filtered stuff. Oftentimes it's pretty far from reality. Next sip. Understand the two ingredients for great marriage.

The research shows that two important things that you need for a great marriage are a realistic concept of love and healthy expectations of marriage. When it comes to a realistic concept of love. The question here is, is your concept of love realistic. Obviously, when I was younger, I really thought that.

Love equaled feelings. And I maybe couldn't have put it into words, but I certainly believe that deep down. And then when feelings and my relationships began to fade, I thought that love was ending. And I was terrified cause I didn't want my love to end the way that my parents love did. And so I eventually learned that this is just a really immature concept of love.

And so I needed to, to purge that, to purify that, to learn that love is a choice. Love is an action. Love is something that you choose. Willing the good of the other it's desiring and doing what's best for the person that you love. And I go into this more in episode 17, with Miranda, the episode's titled six tips to conquer your fear of love, but we get into a lot of different components of love.

And there's a exercise that you can do. Actually, you can just write out what love looks like to you. So get a piece of paper, get a pen, pull up the, an app on your phone and just write out, say, you know, love means. Or when you love someone, you do this and just try to get a grasp, try to put these beliefs that you have inside of you into words.

So, you know, what you expect love to look like. And then from there, if there's any unrealistic ideas that you have about love, or maybe some lies that you believe you can. Bring truth into those, right? You can kind of smother them with truth, suffocate, those lies with truth. And again, go to episode 17. If you wanna hear me go into this a little bit more, but again, simple exercise, just get a piece of paper, pen, an app, and just write out what love looks like to you.

Love means this. When you love someone, you do this, or you say this, get it out of you. So you can really address anything in you. That is unrealistic when it comes to love. Like I mentioned, the next ingredient is healthy expectations of marriage. Are your expectations of marriage healthy. And for those of us who come from broken homes, I think almost always the answer is no, because we've seen a really broken model of love and marriage.

And so we really need to learn to set healthy expectations for marriage. And some questions that you can think about is, do you think that you'll never fight, right? Maybe, maybe you saw your parents fight a lot. So you wanted to go in the complete opposite direction. I dealt with this and you thought, okay, we are gonna have.

Picture perfect marriage. We're never gonna fight things are gonna be great. We're gonna have healthy kids. It's gonna be awesome. And obviously you're gonna fight. And so having that expectation that you'll never fight for example, is really, really dangerous to your marriage. That's just one example.

Another one is, do you expect to travel the world? But your spouse is a homebody, you know, get practical. What is this gonna look like? What is your marriage going to actually look like day in, day out, the special things that you do together and so on. You wanna really set some healthy expectations for marriage and in the book, saving your marriage before it starts by doctors, Les and Leslie parrot, they talk about unspoken rules and unconscious roles.

Again, unspoken rules. And unconscious rules. And what they're talking about with unspoken rules, we all have rules that we just kind of follow inherently. We just learn them in our families or someplace, and we just follow them somewhat blindly. And they could be as simple as you know, when you're brushing your teeth.

You squeeze toothpaste from the bottom, not the middle, not the top. And you know, it can be as silly as that, or it could be more serious things as well. You know? And so that's kind of a silly example, but that is an example of an unspoken rule. Another one could be, you know, you always put the butter in the fridge.

And then maybe your spouse thinks, no, you put the butter on the counter, you leave it out. And so those unspoken rules, just things that we live our lives by the rules that we live our lives with, that we never really think about, but we certainly carry with us. Unconscious roles are, are similar, but different.

These are just roles that people play in a household. So. In your house, you probably had one of your parents who was a better cook, right? They would cook more often. Maybe one of your parents was more of a handy person, right? Maybe it was your dad. Maybe it was your mom who knows. And so we tend to think on an unconscious level that those roles.

Will transfer into our relationship. But I remember something from the book I mentioned saving your marriage before it starts a guy and girl got married and the girl expected the guy to be Mr. Fixer upper to fix everything around the house. And the guy expected the girl to do that. And basically from the girls' perspective, her dad was like handyman, he can do anything, but the guy.

His dad was a busy executive and he was, you know, gone a lot, working a lot. And so his mom was the one who did that. So they both expected the other to fill that role of being the handyman around the house. And so it caused some tension in their relationship. So it's good to just be aware of the unspoken rules that.

You follow and the unconscious roles that you play as well. And so talk about this with your fiance, with your spouse, uh, an exercise that you can do on this front, when it comes to unspoken rules, just write out what are some unspoken rules that you follow? What rules were present in your parents' marriage, growing up in your family, growing up, and they could be healthy or they could be unhealthy.

Another example is, you know, never resolve conflict, never resolve conflict, or at least never resolve it in public. A lot of kids experience that they see their parents fight, their parents just go separate ways. Maybe one of the spouses leaves the house and the kids never see any resolution. And so it can be easy growing up thinking that, okay, when you have conflict, you just leave.

You just don't resolve it. And that's so obviously so unhealthy, but that can be maybe one of the rules that you're living life by. And they could be much simpler. Like I mentioned, such as, you know, never buy orange juice or only buy milk. So again, you can get a piece of paper pen. Pull up an app on your phone and just start typing out.

You know, what unspoken rules do you follow? What did you observe growing up in your family and your parents' marriage? When it comes to unconscious roles, same exercise. Get a piece of paper, pen and write out the different roles that you saw play out in your house. It can be cleaning, cooking, fixing things, managing finances, doing yard, work, all that stuff.

Just write 'em out. Know what you expected and then talk to your fiance, talk to your spouse about this. It's gonna help you to avoid a lot of conflict, a lot of, kind of unspoken expectations that lead to frustration. And so, yeah, just write about what do you expect your marriage to look like when it comes to those various roles?

That we need to play in our houses. And again, in episode 17, you can go to restored ministry.com/seventeen, or just pull up episode 17 on your podcast app for more on this topic. Another tip understand that one of the biggest dangers to your marriage is idolizing your marriage and your spouse putting that up on such a pedestal thinking, right?

Like I mentioned before that they can make you perfectly happy. and then later they don't and you're completely destroyed you think, oh my gosh, we weren't meant to be married. This is a total disaster. So again, it's easy to want the opposite of what you saw in your family, but just be careful though, you don't go too far in the opposite direction and create this unrealistic expectation for a perfect marriage.

And again, I couldn't put this into words growing up, but eventually I put my hand on it for a while. It was just kind of there untouched, but I really believe that my spouse and I wouldn't fight, we'd never get annoyed with each other. If we did have any fights, they would be few. They would be all cordial.

We'd never get angry. There would be few struggles. Our kids would be perfectly healthy. I know it sounds ridiculous saying it right now. Just try to understand the different ideas that you have in your head about your marriage and just avoid idolizing your spouse because idols always bring disappointment, always bring frustration.

When we put someone on a pedestal, when we think them to be better than they actually are, we expect something to happen when in reality, something else is gonna happen. And that leads in perfectly to the next point. Be prepared for the disappointments and frustrations that will arise in your marriage.

You are going to get annoyed with each other. It's just gonna happen. And you've probably already experienced that in your dating relationship during your engagement, but it's eventually is gonna happen. And maybe some couples, you know, don't experience this for a while, but eventually you will experience this and, and one area where it's common to get annoyed with each other is when it comes to organization cleanliness.

Right. It, it might take you a while to get used to your spouse's level of organization and cleanliness, for example. I'm a very organized person. I like things in their proper places. And that's just the way that I operate Bridget. She is organized. I wanna throw her under the bus, but she's not as organized as me.

And when it comes to cleanliness, she's actually more clean than me in terms of, you know, dusting things and wanting to clean the floors and vacuum all the time. Like I can kind of do without that. I think a lot. Guys are like that. But organization though, things in the proper places is important for me.

And so we're different on those two things and that's okay. But it's really important to, to understand, to have some patience with each other when it comes to those things. Like, you know, I'm not constantly following Bridget around and saying, Hey, you know, please. Pick this up, organize this, organize that, you know, from time to time, I will ask her, say, Hey, can we take care of this?

Can I help you with this? And we'll get it done, but I don't have this expectation for her to be like me. And on the cleanliness side, you know, she's typically doing more of the cleaning, but I will chip in and I'll help out and I'll say, okay, how can I help? What can I do to, to keep things clean? Or, you know, if I have a little bit of time to myself, I'll clean the bathroom or do something like that.

Cuz I know that makes her happy. One of the things that best prepared me for marriage actually was being from a big family and, and you know, always having roommates and things over the years, it just made me kind of get outside of myself and just deal with things, not being the way that I wanted them to be.

And so, you know, if you have some time now to do that, to practice that maybe with your own roommates, your own family, definitely do it. Develop that virtue now so that when it comes to marriage, You won't be as annoyed. You won't be as frustrated. You'll be better able to deal with any frustrations that come up.

Another thing that can be an adjustment to for people, especially if you didn't live together before marriage is being around each other all the time, it it's an adjustment, right? It's an adjustment. And don't think that you need to spend 24 7 with that person. And this may be obvious to a lot of you, but for some people it's not, you maybe feel like, oh, okay, now that we're together, we just spend all time together.

But it's actually really healthy for your relationship to give each other some space, to spend time with your friends, to go out and do things that you know, you're passionate about that you love doing. And of course, you know, you never just wanna abandon your spouse, not talking about that, but, uh, space is really good, really healthy.

And like I mentioned, when it comes to all these things, when it comes to your personalities, kind of rubbing up against each other, just go at it with patience with grace, know that it's not gonna be perfect, but you both can grow and change and improve. And I've seen it in my own marriage. You know, one of the things that I did wrong.

Starting out was I would leave the toilet seat up all the time and it drove Bridget crazy. And all the ladies listening right now, you're like, yes, it's so annoying if you've ever lived with men. I didn't understand that. I just didn't know that. Then she explained it to me and said, Hey, this is why, you know, in the middle of the night, when you go to the bathroom and the toilet seats up, and, you know, as a woman, you sit down, it's the worst.

so sorry team either. But, uh, it really helped me to understand. I need to change and I did. And you can ask bridge now. It never happens. I always put the toilet seat down for her. So , I dunno if that's helpful, but, uh, but you can change. You can develop new habits. You can't change old habits. It is possible, but be patient with each other and learn each other's personalities.

Right. Just know that you're constantly gonna be discovering things about your spouse. You know, like I mentioned, I'm a decisive, organized person. I'm an aggressive problem solver, right. When there's a problem I wanna tackle to the ground right now, a bridge it on the other. Is more of a reflective person.

She's a little bit of a slower decision maker. She can be decisive when she has to be, but usually she wants to think about things a little bit more, and that could be frustrating for me. And I know I could be frustrating to her because she wants to take more time to make decisions. And so there is some give and take there.

We have to be respectful of each other's personalities and, you know, we've had fights over this. We've had a lot of frustration over this, but thankfully we've been able to work through some of the issues and just understand, okay. They are not the same as me. They're not the same as me and they're not going to be the same as me and that's.

Okay. And so just respect the differences between you and even see value in them. For example, you know, I'm a go getter, I'm a decisive person. But bridge is more reflective. And sometimes I need someone to slow me down a little bit and say, wait, did you think about this? Did you think about this? And sometimes I don't and having bridged there to kind of pull me back and say, okay, before you jump out of the plane, make sure you're wearing your parachute.

You can really compliment each other in that way. So don't look at these things as just points of tension, but they really can help build your relationship up. If you look at them in the right light and you respect each other's differences. Next tip is something I just wanna repeat, cuz it's so, so important.

Your spouse will never fully complete you fully make you happy. I believe that when God can do that, but we consciously are not expect our spouses to make us perfectly happy and often to even heal us, to make our lives better, to make our problems go away. And that could just be so unhealthy for a marriage.

So just understand again, I mentioned this before, but I'm saying it again because it's so important. You have to understand that your spouse will not complete you. They may won't make you perfectly happy, but at the same time, they can help you. Right. They can't help you grow. They can't help you heal.

Marriage can actually be extremely healing. It has been for me, it's challenging, but it's also very healing, but understand that your spouse can't fix or. You, we have to do the work ourselves. Even if they're there assisting us, they can't be the reason for it. They can't be the one doing the work next tip.

And this tip gets to the heart of what I think is one of the biggest pitfalls for newlyweds. And that is don't become complacent. Don't become complacent. It's so easy when you get married to just kind of soak in the goodness of marriage and you should do that. It's a good thing. But often what can happen is that we just get comfort.

We don't challenge each other to grow. We end up just sitting around and watching Netflix all the time. And so my challenge to you is just, don't get cooped up in your house. Don't get cooped up in your apartment, get out, build intimacy, have those deep talks with each other. If you're religious, pray together.

Talk about your thoughts and your feelings on different things. Talk about your brokenness, build friendships with other couples. That's so helpful. Just spending time with other couples. For some reason, it just really helps your own marriage. And don't gossip about your spouse. That's one thing I think is so deadly to marriage is gossiping about your spouse.

And I've heard people who have been married way longer than me. Talk about this, how it really just kills a marriage. If you gossip about your spouse. So don't say anything to anyone who can't help solve the problem that you're currently facing. I wanna say that again, don't say anything to anyone who can't help you solve the problem you're currently facing.

And so if you go and talk to a mentor about the problems in your marriage, that's not gossip. You're trying to get them to help you solve the problems. But if you're talking to your friends, if you're talking, maybe your parents, siblings about your spouse in a negative way, that's gossip and it's never, never helpful.

And in fact, it's always toxic to your marriage and the people that you gossip. So don't become complacent. Don't become comfortable, constantly be challenging yourself. Get outside of yourself. Don't just stay cooped up, watching Netflix every night, go out with friends, volunteer, do whatever it is you did before to keep growing the last tip for you guys.

Learn to solve conflict in a healthy. Way, and this can be so hard. This is one of the biggest challenges that bridge I have faced. And she would tell you that right now, too. One of the biggest things, when it comes to conflict is listening, seeking to understand the other person before you try to be understood.

That can be so hard, especially if emotions are high, but try to detach emotionally, take a step back emotionally. So you can actually use your mind and you can respond in the right way to this person because I've been there. Guys. I'm ashamed to say it, but. The moment when I'm emotional, when I've been angry, you know, I'll say something I regret and, you know, bridge.

And I have been really good with apologizing to each other, asking for forgiveness, forgiving each other, saying that we love each other and making up. And that's another essential skill in solving conflict. Right? You need to be able to apologize to ask for forgiveness that takes humility, but then you also need to be able to forgive you.

Can't just hold these grudges over the other person. And so those are two really important ingredients as well, but. When it comes to the conflict, usually there's something going on underneath the surface, right? You may be fighting about this or that, but in reality, there may be something else that happened, you know, a month ago, a year ago, that's really eating away at this person.

So try to get to the root of that in the tense moment may not be the right time to do that, but try to understand really what's going on from their point of view, it takes. Stepping into their shoes, but you won't regret it. It will bring more peace into your relationship. It'll help you solve conflict better and even avoid conflict to begin with another thing to keep in mind when solving conflict is just know what the other person wants.

That's something that I learned from an FBI hostage negotiator. Chris Voss is his name and he literally would be negotiating. These people who were robbing banks or taking someone hostage. And he knew how to talk to them in such a way that would get them to trust him that would get them to give him what he wanted, which was to free the hostages and to, you know, ultimately surrender, um, by giving them what they wanted.

In whatever he could do, right. He couldn't give them everything they wanted, but he first tried to understand what do they want. He tried to build trust with them. And by doing that, eventually he was able to get what he wanted, which was everyone walking away safely and the other person ultimately being arrested.

And so just to understand in those tense conversations, you can just ask yourself the question, okay, what do they want right now? And sometimes it'll be as simple as they just want an apology. They don't want an excuse. They don't want an explanation, even if it's a warranted explanation, right. Even if you have something to say, that's worth saying, it may not be the right moment to do that.

And so just understand what the person wants in that moment and realize that you may just need to take a break if things are really tense. So, you know, give each other some space. Maybe you go on a run or you spend some time, you know, getting some things done. Or maybe you sleep on it. If you have to, you know, typically you'd wanna avoid doing that.

You wanna solve these things before you go to bed, but sometimes you can't. And so in that case, when you need to take a break, that can be frustrating for people who are aggressive problem solvers like me for me, when Bridget would say, you know, I don't wanna talk about this right now. I was afraid that we would never resolve.

And I was afraid that it would escalate and that we would end up being really angry at each other. And our marriage would end up to repeat what I saw in my parents' marriage. And I was scared of that. And so our counselor helped us realize that, okay, you can take a break. It's okay. Just make sure that you communicate.

When you're gonna talk about that thing again, and it could be as quick as 15 minutes and maybe as long as like 24 hours, I wouldn't push it out much further than that, but make sure there's some sort of a plan. And if you need to put it on your calendar, it's just important that both of you, especially the one who's more of the type, a aggressive problem solver that.

They know. Okay, we are going to actually talk about this. It isn't just gonna slide away, cuz like I mentioned, it's so unhealthy to have conflict and to never resolve it, that stuff is just gonna build up underneath the surface. It's gonna fester. It's gonna grow. It's gonna get bigger. And one day it's just gonna explode.

And so if you don't deal with it now you're gonna have to deal with it later. So deal with it. All right guys. I hope all that was helpful. Again, we're not experts on this stuff. We just wanted to share our experience and the things that we've learned along the way. And so thank you so much for, for hearing us out.

If you wanna get in touch with Bridget, I know, uh, last episode, we didn't give her contact information, but if you wanna get in touch with her, you can email her@bridgetrestoredministry.com. Now I'm gonna spell out Bridget for you, cuz I know there's a few different spellings. Her name is spelled B R. I G I D again, that's B R I G.

ID restored ministry.com. Just email her. And she'll be happy to, uh, to get back with you and also throw her social media handles in the show notes. And you guys are always welcome to, to contact me whenever you need to. You can contact me at Joey. At restored ministry.com. Again, that's Joey, a restored ministry.com in closing out the show.

My challenge to you is whatever stood out to you in this episode, talk to your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your fiance, or your spouse about it. Have a good conversation with them about it. Maybe send them this episode and have them listen to it and ask some good questions in that conversation. If you need to write them out beforehand, do it share your thoughts, share your feelings about the things that we talked about in this episode, and then pick one thing.

That you heard in this episode and focus on it and execute on it. And you know, if it's some sort of a goal set a deadline for it, if it's a habit, keep track of it, see how well you're doing with developing that good habit, that virtue. And that's really it guys. It's just all about taking these ideas and not just thinking about it and are talking about them, but actually putting them into action.

The resources mentioned are the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 24. Again, that's restored ministry.com/two four. Thanks again for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast with someone you know, who could use it. 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.

My Parents' Divorce Made Me Feel Abandoned

6 minute read

The story below is from an anonymous author, written at 15 years old. Her parents’ divorced when she was 4 or 5, then again at 14. She gave permission for this story to be shared.

HER STORY

We were a pretty normal middle-class family. We attended a local Baptist church. We had just recently moved from California to Oregon to be near family. At the time, my dad was working a lot to support my family. He was working a lot of graveyard shifts and sleeping when he could. My mom was staying home and taking care of my three older brothers and me.

Within my mom’s boredom and loneliness - at least that's her excuse - while my dad was at work she would lock herself in our office and go on the computer to play this online “adult game.” She would chat with men on there and flirt with them. She also talked bad about my dad to her friends on there and online male acquaintances.

My dad eventually looked through the computer‘s search history. He found the game and what she was spending hours on. He found the messages to these men. (God, when I write this out I realize how dumb this is....) He confronted her about it and he really wanted to work it out and go to counseling. She rejected his offer and she packed her things. She left for a few months, leaving my whole family behind.

My dad was left to support us on his own. Within months, they finalized the divorce. I was with my dad most of the time and with my mom every other weekend. It is still like this to this day.

Both of them remarried. My dad married my stepmom, whom I cherish very much. She has three boys too, so they are my brothers as well.

My mom married my stepdad. I didn't really have much a relationship with him but he wasn't a bad guy. He has a son that is a year younger than me. He was my best friend. I love him very much and I always looked forward to seeing him every other weekend and chatting about life. We were very close. Yes, we had our occasional arguments just like all siblings do. If you've noticed I am talking in the past tense... My mom initiated the divorce with my stepdad because he was having trouble with alcohol. There was no physical abuse, but he would be a real jerk when drinking. That is one of the many reasons she had for the divorce.

Last December, they got divorced and we moved out into a tiny apartment. It’s just my 16-year-old brother and me because my other two brothers are in the Air Force. My mom put a restraining order against my stepdad. That means I can't talk to my younger stepbrother - I am not allowed to see him till next December and I really miss him. He was my best friend and that really sucks to not see him. He was the good that came from my dad and mom’s divorce.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

Well, at the time I was quite young and didn't really understand it. I don't remember it very well but I have a few vivid memories of the situation. But I remember being confused and thinking, "Where's Mommy?" But I am very thankful for my Dad, how he handled it and supported my brothers and me.

But with my mom and my stepdad’s divorce, I feel very resentful toward my mom because I feel like she is being really selfish about it and she doesn't care about how I miss my brother. (I don't want to use names so that's why I'm using pronouns.) Don't get me wrong, I love my mom very much, we just have a very complicated relationship. But my stepdad and mom’s divorce hit really hard since I'm older and can remember it. It’s definitely made me sad and unmotivated. Not exactly depressed but it’s hard since it happened pretty recently.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

It's really affected my friendships. It really caused some abandonment issues since my mom left us when I was younger. With my friends, I get really hurt if they have other friends, or if I have a fight or argument with them I get really scared for the future of the friendship.

Most of my friendships have failed and when they have, it took a big toll on me. To this day, I have very few friends and it’s hard for me to connect with people because of insecurities. I don't want temporary friendships. For me, it’s important to have true bonds with people.

My best friend is amazing, Godly, and a great friend but she has a very normal Christian life, so she doesn't really understand but she tries her best. And since my mom and stepdad’s divorce just happened and I am still a teen, I'm not really sure what to say because it’s still going on...

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

There is the cliché, "You are not alone." Which is very true. But one thing that has really helped me was this: We all have a story.

We all have things that happened to us in adolescence that affected us in a negative way. Some may be bigger than others. But what matters is that you can either learn from your parents’ mistakes, or you don't and instead act out upon them.

Some of the most troubled people had a trauma they experienced earlier in life. They didn't get the help they needed and they changed in a negative way rather than positive. So I guess what I'm saying is that you have the choice to choose your path in life.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

I believe that although the divorce and separation rates are very high, I don't think it should be normalized. Nowadays it’s easy to just look over the fact that someone is a child of divorce/separation. I think that they all need to be given a safe place to be heard and share their story. Because processing it on our own is not good.

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The Key to Ultimate Wholeness

8 minute read

This story was written by Raschelle at 55 years old. Her parents divorced when she was only 1 year old. She gave permission for her story to be shared.

HER STORY

I have no personal memory of my parent's separation and subsequent divorce. What information I do have, I have been told over the years by both parents, my older sister who was 6 years old at the time, and my grandparents.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

This is an interesting question when your parents separate and divorce before you have the ability to actually remember the specifics. I literally grew up with divorced parents being my norm even though in 1965 it was not the world's norm.

I remember recognizing and observing my family was different than others around me when I was about the age of 4 years old. However, I did not have the maturity of thought to understand exactly what this meant or to put it into context. Therefore, at times I felt afraid, not because each of my parents did not do the best they were individually able to do to offer us security and stability, but because I didn't understand all the uncertainty around me.

I learned my Dad would leave and come back by observation because I could not understand, at this age, what "I will see you in two weekends" actually meant. Young children don't have a context of time. Therefore, I gained confidence and trust observing my parents following through on commitments and through promises kept. As I aged and matured, my feelings changed.

At times I felt feelings of abandonment by my Dad; feelings of frustration because I wanted a "normal" or intact family; feelings of guilt as if my parent's felt I loved one more than the other; feelings of not being enough because I obviously wasn't enough to stop my Dad from pursuing affairs with multiple women over the course of my lifetime. (At the time of his death my Dad was married to his sixth wife.)

And yet beyond my feelings of confusion, hurt, abandonment, frustration, insignificance, among others, as I aged and matured in thought and feeling, I came to understand, believe, and feel, given the circumstances surrounding my parent's separation and subsequent divorce, my Mother made the only decision she could have made at the time to save me and my sister from a life of inconsistency, instability and lacking in security.

This understanding came through first, my faith and trust in a God, Heavenly Father, who does not abandon us, loves us completely just as we are and right where we are, even in the midst of heartache, disappointment, trauma, and great loss. I also embraced therapy while in college. I had a deep desire to unpack what I had stuffed inside my heart for so many years so I could reach a place of wholeness and healing.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

I honestly believe it impacted me most during the time just after I moved to college. I spent my childhood concerned about things children should not have to be concerned about. I would like to reiterate, this was not because my parents lacked the desire to give us the best they could, it was, I believe, more because divorce was NOT the norm at this time and there was still so little understood about its impact on children. I am confident my parents each did the best they individually knew how to do.

I say individually because they each grew up in very different environments. Yet, they each were raised in intact homes themselves. So, it wasn't until I left home to attend college, that I allowed myself to fully comprehend and begin to unpack the magnitude of my parent's divorce, our blended families on both sides, and the impact all these thoughts, feelings, and experiences, spoken and unspoken, had on my life.

It was very heavy and it was also the first time I realized this could and most likely would affect my ability to have a stable marriage and family if I did not choose to go there and unpack everything I had stuffed deep inside over my life's first 18 years.

College was a struggle for me academically. Not because I was not smart or capable of being successful in the classroom, more because of the weight of emotions I felt yet buried because to voice them might cause the ones I loved so much more pain and heartache. Things a child should never have to worry about, yet most Children of divorce do. In some ways when divorce occurs in a child's infancy, I believe a certain emotional innocence is forever lost for that child.

And I also want to be clear with this, it is often NOT the intention of the parents for this to occur, it is because of the emotional, physical, spiritual and mental immaturity of the child. Infants grow up in an environment where the opportunity to bond equally with both parents is not possible. Bonding is critical for the overall health and wellness of children. However, it doesn't mean it can not occur it still can, it will just occur differently and over time rather than being an innate part of an infant's experience.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

First, I am so sorry. My heart aches with and for you. Nothing that you feel is wrong. Your feelings are valid and real and you were created on purpose and for an incredible purpose! You are seen, you are known, you matter, and you are loved!

No one else fully determines the course of your life... you do! Your life doesn't have to follow your parent's decisions or experiences. You have the incredible opportunity to choose your own path, write your own life's story, and paint your life's own spectacular and individual picture. You did not cause your parent's separation or divorce.

The key to ultimate wholeness is forgiveness. It is not always easy and it does not necessarily happen in one moment, it is a process. Sometimes, you don't forgive for others, you forgive for the wholeness and freedom it gives you. In some situations, which was true in my experience, my Dad never felt he did anything he needed forgiveness from or ever apologized for. So there was not a big forgiveness conversation, I made a decision to do so for me. And, in doing so, I forged a deeper love for and understanding of my Dad. I also found and continue to experience joy in my life.

My mother, on the other hand, has lived much of her life feeling guilt over the effects of my parent's divorce on her children. This breaks my heart for her. I pray she can let go of her guilt. I pray she comes to the place where she believes me when I tell her I honestly wouldn't change the circumstances of my life because they brought me to where I am today, and honestly, I like who I am and I love myself in a healthy and whole manner.

God knew I needed both of my parents to be who I am today. I believe by grace, I was given the best parts of who they both were and are. It has been a process to reach this place in my life, however, I am living proof you can find, live, experience, and celebrate all the very best life has to give! It's a choice. Having the choice is also having the power to write your own story and paint your own picture!

We all have choices we must embrace them. My hope for all children of divorce is that you realize you have a voice, you deserve to be heard and listened to, your experiences, feelings, and thoughts matter.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED OR SEPARATED FAMILIES

1. The stigma the world places on children of divorce needs to be unveiled and changed. We are all members of this silent club none of us asked to join. We were enlisted in it by our parent's choices.

2. Teens and young adults need the tools, opportunities, and freedom to unpack the emotions, feelings, and experiences they have stuffed inside. It is not an easy journey but it is a journey worth taking as the end result is wholeness and health, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. It is not a sprint, there are no shortcuts, it is a marathon.

3. The Act and Gift of Forgiveness needs to be better explained and understood. It is a process and understanding of what this process looks like and feels like brings healing, freedom, and wholeness.

4. Help in understanding each sibling in a family will have their own unique and individual experience that may or may not be similar to one another. This is key in forging stronger bonds, and in understanding and appreciating one another's own stories. It gives validation to how each person's experiences, memories, and feelings combine together and ultimately paint the picture of your family.

5. More tools need to be available to help teens and young adults realize they don't have to live in a continued pattern of chaos and uncertainty which tends to be the norm. They can find comfort and familiarity living in a place of peace, calm, and security. These things can feel and be your norm, not just a sometimes reality.

6. Living a life of Wholeness, Health, Forgiveness, and Joy are choices we choose to embrace! They are possible even in the midst of the most heartbreaking of circumstances. We choose our outcomes no one else has the right to determine this for us!

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Are you interested in sharing your story with Restored?  If so, click the button above. Sharing your story can help you begin healing. 

Be assured: Your privacy is very important to us. Your name and story will never be shared unless you give explicit permission.

#023: Tips for Engagement, Wedding, and 1st Year of Marriage - Part 1 | Brigid Pontarelli

Getting engaged and married is exciting! But it can also be overwhelming, especially if you come from a broken home. Joey and his wife, Brigid, share their story and what they wish someone told them about engagement, the wedding, and the first year of marriage. 

By listening, you’ll hear this and more:

• Brigid talks about dating and marrying someone from a broken home - plus advice for people like her

• How to keep building your friendship in a romantic relationship

• A tactic to avoid allowing the wedding to dominant your relationship

• How to handle money - one of the top reasons for divorce

• Common money traps couples fall into

Part 1 of 2. Listen to Part 2 here.

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links below, your purchase will support Restored at no cost to you. Thank you!]

• Books

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

  • The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

    • Listen about this book in Episode #021

  • Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before -- and After -- You Marry

  • Love Talk: Speak Each Other's Language Like You Never Have Before

  • Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility

  • The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved

  • A Severe Mercy

  • The Jeweler's Shop: A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony

  • The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni

• Resources

  • Dave Ramsey

    • Start free trial of Financial Peace University

    • YouTube

    • Take Dave’s free 3-minute money assessment

  • Overcoming porn

    • Fight the New Drug

    • Matt Fradd

      • YouTube

      • Online Course: Strive: 21 Day Detox from Porn

      • Instagram

      • Facebook

      • Website

    • Jay Stringer

      • Podcast

        • Struggling with Sexuality Part 1: How Understanding Your Story Can (Surprisingly) Help with Jay Stringer

        • Struggling with Sexuality Part 2: How Understanding Your Story Can (Surprisingly) Help with Jay Stringer

      • Book: Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing

      • Online Course: The Journey Course: A 5-Month Path to Freedom from Sexual Brokenness for Men and Women

      • Website

    • Integrity Restored

    • Find a Restored verified counselor

  • Chastity

    • Jason Evert

      • Episode #018: The Dating Blueprint: What Women Want But Won't Tell Men

      • Episode #019: How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

      • Podcast: Love > Lust

      • YouTube

      • Instagram

      • Facebook

    • Sarah Swafford

      • Episode #020: Navigating Singleness

      • Instagram

      • Facebook

  • FOCCUS Inventory

• Research

  • Credit Cards

    • Always Leave Home Without It: A Further Investigation of the Credit-Card Effect on Willingness to Pay

  • Couples that live together before marriage are more likly to get divorced

    • Why are the divorce rates so high for couples who lived together before marriage?

    • Why Not Take Her for a Test Drive?

    • The Myths and Reality of Living Together Without Marriage

    • Prenuptial Cohabiting Can Spoil Marriage

    • Cohabitation and Divorce -- There is a Correlation

    • Living Together First Can Spoil Marriage, Study Finds

    • Five non-religious arguments for marriage over living together

    • Cohabiting couples destined for singledom: study

    • Q&A: Is cohabitation a good way to test a couple's marital compatibility?

    • Cohabitation: a Recipe for Marital Ruin

• Brigid Pontarelli

  • Instagram

  • Facebook

  • Email: brigid@restoredministry.com

Enjoy the show?

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Special treat for you guys today. My wife, Bridget actually joins me on the show. We thought it'd be useful to talk about what we wish someone would've told us about engagement, the wedding and the first year of marriage. And so in this episode we just share experience and some of the practical advice that we've learned along the way.

And so by listening, what you'll get out of it is you're gonna hear Bridget briefly share her experience dating and marrying someone who comes from a broken home who comes from a divorced family. And she mentions some of the struggles that came along with that. And she gives some advice for any of you out there who are like her, who come from an intact family, but you're dating or marrying someone who comes from a broken home.

We talk about some good things to know about engagement, like how continuing to grow and to build your friendship is so important. For the success of your marriage. We encourage you guys to keep dating, especially going on dates where you don't talk about wedding planning at all. We touched on some conversations that you really need to have during your engagement.

And hopefully even sooner, we get into money cuz as most of you guys know, money fights are one of the leading causes of divorce. And so it's so important as a couple to get on the same page when it comes to money. And so we talk about how to create a plan for your money and get on the path to financial freedom.

So that money isn't a stressor for you and your relationship. And we share kind of some of the screw up some of the struggles that we've had to face as a couple when dealing with money. And we touched on some common money failures that couples need to watch out. And if money is tight for you, if you're planning a wedding, I know money's usually tight.

We just give some affordable date ideas that you can use. And we also share our story, how we met, how we built our relationship, how we ended up getting engaged, married, talk a little bit about, uh, our journey since then, too. And so my hope for you is that hearing our story. Gives you hope that even if you come from a broken home, you can go on and build a marriage and a family.

You're not doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes. You can write your own story. And so if any of that sounds useful to you, keep listening,

welcome to the ReSTOR podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow from the trauma of your parents' divorce or separation. So you can feel hold again. I'm your host, Joey. Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is. 23. And we're in the middle of our love and relationship series. The research shows that the biggest effects from our parents' divorce, our experience in our 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 feel lost and we struggle in numerous ways in our relationships. And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actionable tips and expert advice on how to find and build authentic love.

Now, this episode is part one of two. And in this episode, we're gonna focus on engagement. In part two, we'll discuss the wedding, including wedding planning and some of the challenges that you're gonna face. If you come from a broken home and we'll get into some good things to know about the first year of marriage, too.

So subscribe in your podcast app to make sure you don't miss part two. Before we get into the conversation a little bit about my wife, Bridget Pelli was born and raised in Philly. She comes from an Irish family. She's one of six kids. So big family. Her parents have been married 41 years. Really beautiful.

She's a pediatric nurse, which means she works with kids. She's worked as an ICU nurse and a PACU nurse, which basically means she does surgery, river recovery. She works with the kids after they come out of surgery. She went to Penn. For nursing, but after a year she decided that it wasn't the right fit for her.

So she transferred to Franciscan, university of Steubenville, where she graduated with her, bachelor's in nursing. And that's actually where we met. Bridget is a proud godmother to Maggie and aunt, to Jack and Marty. We love those kids. Bridge loves the beach, traveling, coffee, relaxing, sleep, and sports.

She's a diehard Philly fan. And honestly, sometimes I'm not sure if she loves me or, or the Eagles more in all fairness, the fact that I'm a Chicago fan who cheers for Chicago teams like the black Hawks and she being a Philly fan has definitely brought some struggles into our marriage, but. All that aside, jokes aside.

I'm really excited for you to hear from my bride. So let's not win any longer. Here's my conversation with Bridget bridge. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's great. Is it weird to do a podcast with your husband? For sure. Yes. . All right. We'll try to make this as normal as possible. We wanted to share our story with you guys just briefly.

We'll go through it. And then, uh, we wanna talk about dating, get into engagement the wedding day, and then talk about the first year of marriage a little bit as well. So we met, uh, at college. We actually met by working a similar job on campus. And from there we just developed a friendship. I remember. Uh, running into bridge.

I was headed to like our student union center and I didn't really know her too well. We had worked together, but, uh, that was kind of the spark that just ended up building a friendship. And from there spend more time together. An attraction grew my initial attraction. I'm interested to hear what you have to say, but my initial attraction, her wasn't actually physical.

Although I think she's beautiful. It was more emotional. I just thought she was a really good person and cool person, someone to get along with really easily and, uh, enjoyed our conversations. As I got to know her more, I became more physically attracted to her as well. So that was kind of the beginning of our friendship.

What, what would you add, babe? Yeah, I mean, for me, I saw you as a friend first and then over time. Yeah. Things started to happen and I was like, oh, maybe he is interested in me. And, uh, one thing led to another and yeah, we started to get to know each other, started hanging out, met each other's friends, and then he asked me on a date.

So are you sure you didn't like me at first? Uh, no comment no, no, no. I think it was actually gradual, right? Yeah. For both of us, it, it was a gradual yep. Mm-hmm yeah. Which was different than some of my relationships in the past one in particular, I know, uh, the physical attraction was kind of the initial impetus for the relationship and it didn't end up working out of course, but, uh, this was different.

So I think it can work either way, but I definitely, uh, appreciated the fact that it was more of an emotional attraction that then developed into physical attraction. So the first time we actually went out was our senior year dance. And that was like towards the end of. Time at college. It was what, two weeks before the end of college before graduation.

Yeah. Two weeks before our graduation, we went to a bow in Pittsburgh on the water and, uh, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. So we went to the small school in Eastern Ohio called Franciscan university of Steubenville and Bridget studied nursing. I studied finance and uh, yeah, like I said, we both did a similar job on campus and that was how we met.

So we go to this dance and by that point I was getting more and more interested in Bridget. I actually was away at a business conference and the dance was like on a Friday night and earlier, uh, that day I drove three hours away with one of my buddies to a business conference, but I wanted to go to the dance so badly with bridge that, uh, I ended up driving three hours to Pittsburgh from the conference that night, and then I drove three hours back.

So I literally drove six hours just to go to. Dance with this girl that I liked. And so I was impressed. Yeah. From there, it, uh, it developed, so we went on our first date a week before graduation, not something I recommend, but ended up working out for us. And then we both went home, Bridget to Philly, me, Chicago.

I actually went off to Italy to teach English over there for two months. And we weren't really sure what would happen. We had a talk beforehand before heading home, but up to that point, we were just going on dates. We didn't really define the relationship, but we both agreed that we wanted to see where this would go.

And so we agreed to stay in touch and kind of see what happened. Like what, what did you think would happen? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was definitely a overwhelming time in our life with graduation and moving on and moving home. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day though, Joey was very intentional with me and I definitely appreciated that.

And so as we went into summer, I felt comfortable going forward. Yeah, we were kind of in this weird limbo. We had, again, gone on dates, but we weren't technically dating. So we were still building our friendship from afar yet. It was clearly more than friends. So we were kind of in this weird limbo, but once I got over to Italy, I kept in touch with bridge.

We would text, we would FaceTime. And I actually thought because of the distance, we may just grow apart. That's not what I wanted, but I thought that may happen. But we actually got closer through that experience and it was awesome. So we built our friendship from afar, from a distance. And then I came back to the states and bridged actually came on vacation with my family, which was a brave thing to do.

Then after that, I went to Philly with her to spend some time with her and her family. And that's when we started our relationship. We became boyfriend and girlfriend. So then I took a job in Chicago and Bridget, uh, was in Philly and she was looking for a nursing job. And so we did a year of long distance.

And eventually after you know, about a year, I moved to Philly, got an apartment out there and, uh, I was close to bridge, so we we're able to see each other a lot. And that was good. Then a, a year after that kind of fast forwarding through our story, we got engaged and I won't go into that story, but basically little scavenger hunt.

And at the end with me, and I asked her to marry me then, uh, after that we moved to Denver. So we, we came and lived out in Denver. Uh, before we got married, kind of the stars aligned, there was a job opportunity. One of her friends needed a roommate and things just ended up working out. And so we, uh, we moved out to Denver.

We had always. Talked about different places that we might wanna live. If we were to get married and Colorado was one of them that we both agreed on. Each of us kind of had preferences in other states, but that, that was one that we both agreed upon. So we thought we're young, you know, we're not married yet.

We don't have kids. So we might as well kind of adventure a little bit. And so we came out to Denver. So then we got married in Philly, in April. And after that, we went on a honeymoon to the Canary islands, to, to Europe. If you don't know where the Canary islands are, they're off the coast of Africa.

Actually, it sounds super bougie, but, um, it, it actually was pretty affordable compared to like some of the other options and we saved up money for it. And it was, it was an awesome, awesome trip. I don't think I'd, I've ever been really to an island. I guess I went to ly years ago in college, but, uh, but was that the first time you had been to an island.

Yeah, first name. So that was, that was wonderful. But we wanna get into talking about engagement. Talk about the wedding day. Talk a little bit about the first year of marriage, but before we get to that, we wanna touch on dating really briefly. And this could probably be its own episode. And the last few episodes, if you've been listening, you know, have been about dating and finding your spouse.

But, uh, Bridget, I wanna talk you with you a little bit about as someone who comes from, uh, an intact family, I wanna ask you what it was like to date someone from a broken family. And so what was that experience like for you? Yeah, so a little bit of background is I actually knew Joey's brother first, before I met Joey.

And so I think in the back of my mind, I remembered hearing that their parents were divorced. And as I got to know Joey Moore, I could tell that it was something that was a sensitive topic. And so I knew not to ask questions and press him about his family. For myself being patient with him was huge. I let him share what he wanted in his own time.

And I feel like that was huge for us. He was then able to open up to me about his family when he felt more comfortable with it. And I definitely appreciated that as time went on and we, you know, were dating, you know, months into our relationship. I, I did feel more comfortable than asking Joey questions about his family.

And then he, you know, he was vulnerable with me and he was opening up to me about his past, about his family, about current situations. And I definitely appreciated that for sure. And, uh, and one more thing to know about my experience is that when we were ready to get engaged, I was the one that was ready first and I we've talked about this, but there, there was fear on his end and I, I had to be patient with that as well.

No, that's a good point. Was the idea of marriage scary to you too? Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, knowing you're gonna be with someone for the rest of your life. That's what you are agreeing to when you say yes, but at the end of the day, I, my parents now have been married for 41 years. And I grew up with that.

So you had that example. Yeah, definitely. So we'll talk about some of the struggles we faced a little bit later in the show, but just briefly when it came to dating, what were some of the struggles that you experienced or saw in me throughout the time we dated? Yeah. I mean, I, I could tell that you were struggling with something struggling.

I, I believed it was, you know, about your family, but I, I didn't know exactly what it was and I wanted to be patient with you sharing to me, you know, what was going on. So I think that was hard. Just not knowing. Yeah. And another thing is that I just couldn't relate to, to Joey, to his background. When we, you know, would visit families.

It, um, another struggle is that it, it would be hard to make time for each side of the family when visiting, um, especially right now, when we, both of us, we don't live by each of our families. So then that time is kind of cut in half. And then, you know, for Joey's side, it's even cut in half again. So it's always been something that we've struggled with and we're still trying to navigate that area.

Yeah. That's something we realized last Christmas and new year's that we were visiting my family and we spent some time with my dad, spent some time with my mom and it really cut the time in half because, you know, we were trying to spend time with both of them where normally, if you come from an intact family, you spend time with your parents together and therefore you have more time to do other things like sea.

You know, relatives or maybe friends of yours, especially if you're traveling your hometown. And so you really do have half as much time, or at least less time than you normally would would, and that's a struggle. And so just finishing this up bridge, what advice would you have for someone like you who's dating someone who comes from a broken home?

Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is just patience, patience with your significant other about them. Just sharing their story with you. And to know that at first it may just be pieces at a time, but then over time they will open up to you as they feel more comfortable. And the second thing that I would say is to listen because by listening.

they know that you care for them and that you're there. And one more thing to add. Typically, children of divorce struggle more in relationships. We come into relationships with a lot of anxiety, with a lot of fear and a lot of just different struggles, whether it's opening up or trusting someone because likely our trust in our parents was broken through the whole process of separation and divorce.

And so it can be really difficult for us to, to learn, to open up, to take our guard down, to put our shield away. In a relationship. And so, like you said, bridge takes a ton of patience. And just to understand that they're just kind of bringing this into the relationship, not necessarily by choice, it's just their experience.

And so the patience and listening, I think are, are great pieces of advice, but almost like expecting that to happen and expecting them to have struggles with intimacy. And some people may struggle more than others. I I've seen that even through this work, even through restored that some people are better adapted to love and build a relationship and a marriage, and then others really struggle for one reason or another in relationships.

And so, regardless of where, you know, you're a significant other, if you're listening to this and you're dating or engaged, or marriage is someone who comes from a broken home, just realize their experience may be unique and. Than what we're talking about, but most often the struggles related to opening up to trusting, to intimacy, to just relationships in general, um, are definitely there.

Yeah. And just one last thing to add to my experience with dating Joey is that as we dated certain situations would come up and they would be triggers for Joey and Joey's story. And I did not know about them until, you know, until it happened. And so that led to us growing in communication about different situations.

Yeah. And, and the, like you said, that led to us growing. They could really be opportunities for growth. If you learn how to handle 'em the right way and you won't succeed in every instance. And that's okay. There's gonna be times where you're triggered in one way or another, and maybe you get angry or you kind of shell up and pull away that's gonna happen.

That the goal of course always is kind of to revisit those things. To talk about them and to make sure that you both are on the same page, so that if anything like that happens again, you'll be ready. Both of you will be ready to kind of tackle that situation. That's what we learned over the years, but it certainly was not like a perfect performance.

It was something that we learned over time, mainly through messing it up. Yeah. And I mean, at the end of the day, marriage is two imperfect people trying to love each other perfectly. And so you are going to mess up, you're going to have failures, you're going to have arguments, but it's how you grow from them and how you learn to love each other in those moments.

And I've heard it said that marriage isn't about funding, like the perfect person, but rather about funding the right person for you and loving them in all their imperfections. And so it really is all about. when you fall, when you fight, when you have conflict repairing, that's kind of a funny word, but it's really about repairing the relationship and forgiving and getting on the same page and something that Jason Everett says a lot is, you know, there's three phrases that married couples need to know.

It's I love you. I'm sorry. And I forgive you and I'd say that's absolutely true in our experience that being ready to forgive, being ready to ask for forgiveness and just ready to express love, even through difficult times, just goes such a long way. So I'm sure we could talk about that for a long time about dating and what it's like dating someone who comes from a broken home.

And we really need to do a separate episode on that, but we wanna get into engagement. So we wanna talk about what it's like to, to be engaged. Some of the things that. We wish we would've known. And some just tips that we've learned through our experience that may be helpful to you. You know, a lot of these tips are very practical.

They're not super deep. So the first one is, uh, prepared to be exhausted on your engagement day. It is tiring when you get engaged from the guy's perspective, especially you're thinking about this, you're planning it, you know, you got the ring, you're keeping that a secret from someone that takes a lot of maneuvering and then you're planning this whole proposal.

And that takes a lot of energy. And then you're executing on the proposal. Sounds like a military operation. Uh, and then from there you're announcing to everyone. So it's a lot that goes into it. And man, I was exhausted. Yeah. I think that was the most exhaustive I've ever seen Joey before was on our engagement day that evening and that someone who.

Really ever has a problem with having enough energy. But that day, man, I was exhausted, but don't get me wrong. It's super exciting. Yeah, it is. The thing that I could think was most exhausting was so after we got engaged after did the little scavenger hunt, I asked her to marry me. Uh, we eventually had a party with her family.

I arranged it beforehand. So we were talking to them and kinda celebrating. And you know, my nerves were sky high. And after the fact they came down and that was tiring in itself, but then talking to everyone and calling our family, cuz again, I was living in Philly at the time. My family's in Chicago. My friends are really all over the country.

So we were just announcing it to everyone, to my friends, to Bridget's friends, to family members, cousins, and man that was tiring. So just what we're saying here, be prepared to be exhausted. On your engagement day, especially if you choose to announce it in more of a personal way by FaceTiming everyone.

And if you wanna save yourself some time, then, uh, just create like a social post and just say we're engaged and that'll probably be less exhausting. The next tip is to adopt the mindset that it's still a discernment. And by discernment, we mean, it's still a process of choosing of deciding if this is the right thing for you, if this is the right person for you.

And I think a lot of people assume that just because you're engaged, you're gonna end up getting married, but that doesn't always happen that way. It really is a, a different phase of your discernment of figuring out if this is the right person for you. And so don't lose. Keep that in mind. And if there is a reason where you think that, okay, this isn't the right person for me, or we should at least delay this that's okay.

I think it's extremely courageous to delay or call off a wedding, uh, because there's something big in the relationship that needs to be handled first or something's going on maybe in your life. And of course this needs to be balanced with the fact that children of divorce. Typically we have a lot of anxiety and fear when it comes to relationships.

And so we always need to kind of get to the root of our anxiety, our fear, cuz if you feel anxiety, if you feel fear. Coming close to the wedding day. Don't just assume that, oh, this isn't the right person. It may be the right person. You just may have a lot of anxiety and fear about relationships and that's okay.

So relying on mentors, relying on family and friends, talking through those situations, writing about them can be really helpful to really uncover, okay. What's the root of this fear, the root of the anxiety. Uh, but in some cases there may really be issues in your relationship that would prevent you from moving forward with getting married.

And there's nothing. Wrong with that. Sure. It might be a little bit embarrassing. Sure. It might be a hard thing to do, but it's much better to call off a wedding than to marry someone who you don't think you should be with and then get divorced down the road. The next tip is to build your friendship.

What would you say about this bridge? Yeah, I mean the basis of any marriage is really a friendship as your feelings fade. The thing that is left is your friendship. So working on that is so incredibly important and your feelings will fade. It doesn't mean you won't have feelings at all, but it's not gonna be the excitement, the initial excitement of a dating relationship, it's gonna become a more mature emotion.

And so we need to really learn how to love in the midst of that. CS Lewis had an awesome analogy. He said the posture of friendship is standing side by side. With your friend looking out at the world, pursuing a common purpose. Whereas the posture of lovers is facing each other, looking into each other's eyes.

And so you could have both, but the point here is that you really wanna continue to build your friendship. It's so easy to just focus on the romance, to focus on the feelings, to focus on the affection. But what you wanna do is still build that friendship. And one way that you can do this is just set aside time, where you're not being all cuddly.

You're not being all romantic, but you're just kind of acting as friends. You're doing things together that you enjoy doing with your friends or that you enjoyed before. Maybe you started dating and you're having good conversations, right? It doesn't always need to be super intense romantic, but just have good conversations like you would have with any of your friends.

And I know sometimes people say that you need to be friends with someone before you start dating before you get engaged and or married. And I think there's a lot of value to that. If you don't have that in your relationship, if you weren't friends beforehand, then I really do think you can build your friendship in the midst of your dating relationship or in your engagement, or even when you're married.

In fact, you really need to, and you have to. And so look for those opportunities to build your friendship. Look for those opportunities to, again, not focus so much on the romance and the affection, but just on becoming better friends curious. So what would you say that we did to build a friendship when we were engaged?

I think one of the things I've heard, it said that men bond through doing things through experiences and women typically bond through conversations. And I think it goes both ways. That's a huge generalization, but I found that too absolutely true for me. And so when we did things that one or both of us enjoyed.

I felt like our friendship grew like going to a baseball game or going on a hike in the mountains or doing something adventurous like that things that I love, things that, you know, you love, or at least you're interested in enough to, to do for me. I think that's when our friendship really grew. Again. It wasn't about, you know, being affectionate.

It wasn't about the romance necessarily though. There was a place for that, of course. But I think doing those activities together and, and the conversations we had too, what would you add? Yeah, no, I, I think that's right. Um, I think we shared a lot of experiences together. Like you said, things that we both enjoy.

Yeah. I mean, we both love sports and so that's actually something that we did when we were getting to know each other. We played volleyball and we loved it. And so. I think that's important. I think it's important to kind of go back to your roots and remember what you used to do when you first met, when you were friends in the beginning, or, you know, when you had a crash on each other, what were the things that you enjoyed doing?

Yeah. Those common interests. Yeah. You played volleyball in high school and then a little bit in college and I kind of played sand volleyball growing up. And then in college I played club a little bit and yeah, so we both love volleyball. So yeah. Again, those common interests I think, are really important and really help you to build your friendship and going back to something that bridge just said, encourage each other to have friendships with.

Don't become isolated. You really wanna focus on bringing people kind of into your relationship and going out and spending time with, with other friends, whether that's other couples or just single friends of yours, whatever, spend time with other people. I know wedding planning could be exhausting. And so it could be easy to just wanna like stay in and watch a movie all the time, but don't do that.

Like really make an effort to get out or have people over to spend time with them and, and have some good conversations and build those friendships too, because the more you build friendships with others, I've seen like genuine, good, authentic friendships, the better that your relationship will get as well.

Yeah. And like Joey mentioned earlier, your engagement is still a discernment. And so another great way to continue to discern your relationship is to have your friends meet your significant other and to get to know them and. Get feedback from them and for them to see you guys together and to get their input of what, if they see any red flags, if they see something that, you know, maybe you're, you don't see yourself.

So I think it's incredibly important to be around your friends, both of your friends. Yeah. No, that's a great point. Love can certainly be blinding. And so it's good to get other people's perspectives and feedback, and it's good to just see each other in different scenarios too, in different situations.

Cuz if you're always, you know, spending time at one of your apartments or houses, then you might not really get a good idea of how the other person would act in different scenarios. And so it's good to get outta the house. It's good to spend time with each other in different environments. Just kind of see how things go.

The next step for engagement is to. Dating. Something that I've always loved is that we plan our dates each month. Um, usually it's Joey, but it's usually, you know, once a week, once every two weeks. And we just make sure that we set aside that time to actually go on a date and this doesn't always involve going out to dinner, going out to a movie, spending money, you can be creative, but just setting aside that time, especially when both of your schedules may be so busy and hectic and chaotic with wedding planning.

It's so important to set aside that time. And we'll talk about some creative dates that you can go on that won't break the bank, some cheap date ideas that you can do, especially during engagement, if you're saving for your wedding and for your honeymoon and buying a house, eventually all that stuff, paying off debt.

What we're, we'll get into that in a little bit, but yeah, planning those dates, making it something that's kind of systematic has been helpful for us. I'm such a nerd. I try to be cool. I try to look cool, but I'm really a nerd at, at the core and, uh, every month. Well, uh, I have a reminder, that'll pop up on my phone for me to, to plan our dates.

And part of the reason some couples do like, uh, one night a week is there like date night. And I wish we could do that, but Bridget's a pediatric nurse and her schedule changes every week. So we don't have a consistent schedule where we could do one night a week. So we just plan it out at the start of every month.

I get that reminder of my phone and I plan out the dates and I, when I plan them on, when I put 'em on the schedule, I don't always maybe have an idea of exactly what we'll do, but I'll have like kind of a loose idea. And, uh, I keep a list of potential dates too, when I have a good idea from another couple or wherever, I'll write it down on our list.

And then we'll, we'll go and do that one piece of advice. That was super helpful to me, that I heard from a friend is to go on dates and to promise before you go to not talk about wedding planning, This can be really, really hard, but it was so rewarding at the end of your date because it just took the stress off and it just, it made you remember why you wanna marry this person.

Yeah. Wedding planning is super stressful. It's stupid. In my opinion, I, I kind of hated it to be honest with you. It was just like all this work and build up for just one day and, and I get it, like it's important and it's beautiful and it was so fun and such a good thing, but man, it can be a lot of work and it can just consume your relationship in your life.

And so, yeah, I love that advice taking time kind of away from the wedding planning to, to just focus on your relationship. Yeah. And I would definitely do this, especially closer to the wedding, cuz I feel like you need that time to de-stress together and to talk about important things that don't involve.

Wedding planning. and don't become so focused on the wedding day that you neglect the marriage. It's so important to really keep investing in your marriage, to, to keep growing, to keep developing your relationship. And it can be totally tempting to kind of just put that on the back burner, but it's much more important to have a great marriage than to have a great wedding.

And so just make sure that your priorities are straight. And I think this is maybe a little bit harder for the ladies, if that's okay for me to say, because you know, you've been dreaming about this day since you were a little girl and you want it to be perfect, not to say the guys don't care, but I just don't know for as emotionally attached to it.

And so I think it can be really hard, but equally important to make sure that the marriage is more important than the wedding. and I think we live in a culture where people spend ridiculous amounts of money on their weddings. And then these marriages just fall apart. Like what if we took the money and the time that we spent planning the wedding and invested that in our marriage, invested that in counseling, invested that in reading good books and going on trips, doing things together, uh, as a married couple or even an engaged couple that would help you to grow.

I can't help, but think that our divorce rate in the us and around the world would be much less. The next tip is related, and that is to grow together, keep growing together and grow together in all different aspects of life, whether that's your spiritual life, emotionally, intellectually, you wanna continue growing together.

And again, not just growing in your relationship, but just growing in general. And one way to do that is just by consuming good content to strengthen your relationship and to strengthen each of you as individuals. And, you know, listen to this podcast right now is one way to do that. But another thing that's been so helpful for me and for bridge too.

And our relationship is just reading good books, reading good books. And so we just have a few that we recommend that would be good for an engaged couple to, to. And if you don't get them all done during your engagement, that's okay. These are so good books. And so, uh, we'll have all of these in the show notes.

So don't feel like you need to write them all down, but, uh, if there's one that jumps out at you, then, uh, get after it, go ahead and download the. Audible book, go ahead and, and buy it on Amazon. But, uh, but here they are. The first one is the five love languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. And we talked about that in episode 21, and really it's all about learning how to make your significant other feel loved and how to help them love you in return.

The next book is saving your marriage before it starts by Dr. Les and Dr. Leslie parrot. These are two psychologists, a man, and a woman, their husband and wife. They both have the name, Leslie, which is hilarious. And this book is all about just practical advice on how to build a strong foundation even before you're married, but after as well, there's just a lot of good stuff.

It's very research based. And so pick this one up. I highly recommend I've read this a couple times. Love it every time the next one is by the same married couple, and that is love. Talk. This is all about how to communicate well, especially in the midst of conflict, you'll learn about your personalities and kinda how you solve problems and how you're most likely to end up fighting and how to deal with that.

The next book is men, women, and the mystery of love by Dr. Edwards in this book focuses more on like the philosophical foundation of love, like explaining, like what is love to begin with, how do you love someone in an authentic way? And it also gets into the practicals. And so this one is really good. It comes from a little bit of a different angle than the other books by the psychologists, but it really gives a lot of practical advice on how to love and continue loving your spouse in marriage and not just kind of growing distant and growing apart as so many couples do.

The seven levels of intimacy by Matthew Kelly. And this book is really all about how intimacy works, how, you know, sharing a part of yourself, letting someone in how that all works. So a lot of, again, practical insights in that book as well. Next book is a severe mercy by Sheldon van Hawkin. And this one, man, such a beautiful story, a story about a couple, and it will help you really see what a strong marriage looks like.

What a really beautiful love looks like. And I think so often, especially those of us who come from broken homes, we don't really know what it looks like. And so we need to see concrete examples of good strong marriages. And this one, even though it's through a book, we'll give you an idea of how beautiful love can actually be.

And lastly, the jeweler shot by Carol VO. Uh, Carol VO Tiwa later became Pope John Paul II. And he's just this brilliant mind, this philosophical deep mind, but he was also able to make things simple and some of his writing's complex, but this one is actually a play he wrote, and it's just really a beautiful meditation on love and marriage.

So check out those books. Those will all be in the show notes. We'll tell you how to access those at the very end. One thing that can be. A struggle. I know for couples we dealt with this is reading a book together. It can be hard, especially if you're, you know, living in two separate places, it can be challenging to kind of read the book together and then make time to discuss it too.

So there's a few different options that we just thought through and laid out for you guys that may potentially work for you. So hear them out. So the first option is you can buy two books, either the physical book or the audio book, and just read them together at the same time. That's the one option.

Second option. You can buy one book and you can switch off reading chapters. So maybe you have the same audible app, right? Both you can log in and after reading the chapter, you would kind of teach each other. Tell each other, the main points and then the other person would take over and teach the main points.

And you remember, I don't have the research before me, but you remember so much more of what you tell so much more of what you teach. And so this is a really great method that can work for you. The third option is to buy one book, again, either the physical book or the audio book, and to read to each other.

Again, this is good. If you have more time in your hands, but it could be really challenging if you both are, are really busy, but the most important thing is to discuss your takeaways and to make changes in your life and in your relationship, like it's good to read about these things. It's good to think about them, but if they don't actually change your life, if they don't actually impact your.

It's kind of a waste of time, so make sure to discuss them. It doesn't need to take forever to do that. If you're not someone who naturally loves deep conversations or having discussions, then give this a shot, keep it simple and make a plan to implement this stuff in your life. Again, doesn't need to be complicated, keep it simple, but it really comes down to what do you put into action in your life?

All right. So the next tip that we have for you guys is to get coaching. So this could be getting a mentor, couple going to counseling, going to friends, um, but to get help when you guys need it. And even if you don't have like an extreme need or there's a big struggle in your relationship, it can just be so good to learn from someone who's actually coached couples.

Or a couple themselves who've gone through some of the stuff that you're going through. Yeah. So for us, we actually started to go to counseling when we were about a year, a little over a year into our marriage. And it was something that we had talked about many, many times before, but we just didn't take the steps to do it.

Yeah. We were having some struggles, just dealing with conflict, communicating well, when there was something that we disagreed upon. And so we knew that we needed help, but, uh, a lot of it was preemptive. It was something that we wanted to get ahead of instead, letting get. Get outta hand, we wanted to kind of tackle it at the beginning.

And so don't be afraid if there's not like a big struggle in your relationship to, to go and to learn some skills about handling conflict, about communicating well about really building a strong relationship. Yeah. And for myself, I had never been to counseling, so it was something that was definitely scary and I didn't know what to expect, but Joey, he was able to push me in the right direction and encourage me to go.

And I'm so thankful that we did go because. Of our counseling. We did learn a lot of concrete tools of how to handle conflict of how to communicate better. And for that I'm very, very thankful. And one of the things we learned in counseling, it actually kind of surprised me, cuz again, I'd been through counseling up to that point, but never marriage constantly, of course.

And one of the things that the counselor did instead of just focusing on our conflict and how to resolve that and given us skills to do that, I kinda expected him to do that. I kinda expected him to say, you know, talk about this or, or do that in this situation. But instead of doing that, he actually asked us about our marriage overall kind of holistically.

And he really focused on the foundation of it. And so he asked us like, are you spending time talking together? Like what happens at the end of the day after work? Are you going on dates? Are you having heart to heart conversations where you're sharing your feelings? And so instead of, again, just kind of fixing a symptom in our relationship, which was the conflict.

He really went to the root and tried to fix that. And so he encouraged us again, like we said before to go on dates regularly to, to have those open conversations, to spend time together at night, after a long Workday. And so what he was really saying is that you need to focus more on making your relationship strong than trying to solve every problem that comes up.

And what you'll find is if you do that, if you focus on making your relationship strong, making things go, right, some of those problems will kind of just resolve themselves or they won't even come up to begin with. And when there is a real issue, though, it may be tense, though. There may be conflict, you'll be better able to handle.

And one thing to remember about conflict too, since we're talking about it is from Dr. Les and Leslie parrot, who I mentioned before, who wrote saving your marriage before it starts, they have this great line and they say conflict is the price you pay for intimacy. Conflict is the price you pay for intimacy.

And basically saying that conflict can be an incredible growth opportunity to go deeper in your relationship. Because when you grow close to someone, you're inevitably gonna have conflict, no doubt, but it's by working through that conflict together, even if there's strong emotions that allows you to build a stronger relationship.

And typically, especially people who come from broken homes, we don't see conflict like that. We have typically seen conflict lead to permanent separation, and so it freaks us out. And so we can shy away from it. But what we really need to do is kind of press into it. And if we've built trust with our spouse, then conflict actually doesn't need to be this war between two people.

It actually can be a pursuit of truth. Pat ly, a business writer that I follow. He says that when there's trust in a relationship, whether it's a marriage or a business relationship, then trust makes conflict the pursuit of truth. And what he means by that is trust, transforms conflict from just being a war between two people, to really a struggle, to find the best solution.

And so building that trust is essential and then learning how to really press into that conflict. And it's always gonna be uncomfortable. It's never uncomfortable if it's comfortable to you. You're probably a little bit weird for most of us. It's conflict. Isn't super comfortable. It kind of is awkward.

It kind of is weird, but don't be afraid of that. And again, go to counseling. I mentor a couple too. We had a mentor couple when we were engaged through our church and they were really helpful. It was good to just spend time with another married couple who had been married for years and who had some training in kind of leading couples in talking about things that you need to talk about when you're engaged or even before you're engaged.

So that was really helpful. They were a great couple. And so we met with them, uh, a few times before the wedding and it definitely helped us to, uh, to talk through some things that maybe we didn't address on our own. Yeah. We went over something called the focus inventory, F O C C U S. And it was a questionnaire for both of us.

We answered on our own and they had the answers to the questions that we disagreed on. And so we would kind of talk through those questions and see kind of like where each of us. What our thought process was. And so it was great for both of us. We would go over their house. We, you know, would have drinks and a snack.

And, and we went, you know, over, you know, what our thought processes were. Why did we answer this question this way? And it was, it was a lot of great topics. I mean, it went over probably all of the harder ones though. I would say money, conflict, sex. In-laws God. Yeah. Religion, children parenting. And so I would say joy and I both learned a lot from each other.

And from this couple who had been doing it for years through our church. Yeah. That assessment was really helpful in meeting. The couple was helpful. And I realized some things that, you know, I needed to change about myself through, through those meetings, which it was really helpful. And I'm really grateful to that couple spending time with us.

And so if you have that opportunity either through your church, or maybe just a couple that you look up to go ahead and approach them and ask them, Hey, would you mind coaching us? Could we just sit down and have coffee with you? Would you mind coming over for dinner or could we meet you for dinner somewhere and just talk through some relationship stuff, like ask them questions.

How did you build such a good marriage? And those mentor couples I think are, are really, really valuable. And this next tip is a bit controversial and kind of a hot topic. But our advice is that you don't live together before the wedding. And again, I know hot topic and something that really deserves its own episode, but for me going into marriage, I knew that I wanted to make it last.

I did not wanna repeat what I saw in my parents' marriage. And so I looked around, I wanted to learn, okay, how do I make this last, how do I lessen the chance that we will get divorced? And the research is super, super clear on this point, that couples who live together before the wedding have a higher divorce rate.

And I know that might sound ridiculous. It might sound strange, especially if you're hearing that for the first time, but we're gonna link to a bunch of articles, a bunch of research in the show notes. We don't have time to go into all of it, but the research shows that that couples who live together before the wedding have a higher divorce rate.

And you know, that doesn't mean that every couple who lives together before the wedding is gonna get divorced, that's not what we're saying, but the likelihood is much higher. And so if you wanna have the best shot and making your marriage last. Then we suggest strongly that you don't live together before the wedding.

And it's certainly a countercultural thing to do. It's normal to live together. I mean, we know a lot of people who, who do, and so this is certainly something that takes a lot of courage to do. And there's a lot of reasons. I know that couples live together. I don't think people who do are like evil or malicious or anything like that.

I just think maybe they don't, haven't seen the research, they don't know any better. And, and just kind of a funny story about this, because it is kind of odd today, not to live together before you get married. Uh, Bridget has a, has a story about that. Yeah. So I was telling a friend, um, when Joey and I moved out to Denver, we were engaged, but we were not living together.

And so. I just met someone and I told her, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm living with my roommate and she's like, wait, you're not living with your fiance. And I said, no, we're not living together. And then , and then she asked me, she was like, so are you guys gonna live together when you're married? and I looked at her and I was like, uh, I thought she was joking, but she was serious.

So yeah, it's a very comical question. And it's true. It happened. Uh, I did receive that question. Um, yes, we are living together. If you guys were wondering, I just wanted to clarify, uh, we moved in together after we got married, but yeah, it's, I, I love to tell that story. You should have said no. We're we're actually not gonna live together.

Yeah. It's just seen a reaction. The, the next step is to, to talk about the most important things. And we mentioned that that focus inventory that we did, that psychological assessment, the survey that we took that kinda led us through and prompted us to speak about the most important things. And when I say most important things, what I mean is those deepest held beliefs that you have.

So again, talking about God, talking about religion, talking about kids, how many you wanna have, how you wanna parent them talking about your families, in-laws talking about sex, all those topics that may not normally come up in conversation, but are so important to get on the same page on make sure you talk about those things.

And so again, if you have that mentor couple, hopefully you can bring up those conversations with them that can prompt better conversations between you and your significant other either way. Make sure you're talking about these things and for us. One of the big topics of course is sex. So we are both Catholic Christians and we decided to save sex for marriage.

And again, that's a whole nother episode. You can go back and listen to episode 18, 19 and 20. If you want to hear more about that in those episodes, we talk about the virtue of chastity, which sounds like such a foreign thing to someone who doesn't know what it is, but it's just a virtue like courage or honesty that frees you to love.

And the virtue of Chasity is not. Like being prudish or strange or like thinking sex is bad or dirty? No, not at all. We actually think sex is so good and beautiful that we wanna save it for our spouse and just experience it with them. And even if you've made mistakes in the past, you can still do this again, episode 18, 19, and 20, or if you just want to go on YouTube and look up Jason Everett, he has a lot of great content about the virtue of Chasity about why saving sex for marriage can end up making your love so much strong.

And one analogy I've heard is like, sex is like fire in its right context, right? In a fireplace or a fire pit fire is really beautiful. It's really good. But when you take it out of there, it can actually become destructive. And I've seen this in couples, right. They start having sex and they bond on that chemical level, right?

Because sex releases oxytocin in your body and oxytocin is a bonding hormone that is released actually when a mother nurses, her baby too. And one of the effects of oxytocin is that it actually blinds you to the faults of the other person. and this is really good in marriage when there's a lifelong commitment and there can be some personality differences and some annoyances, it can actually blind you to those and help you love each other.

But when you're dating and engaged and you're trying to decide if this is the person you wanna spend the rest of your life with you don't really want that. You wanna see. Clearly. And one thing that can be so tempting for couples is to cover their problems in their relationship, with pleasure with sex.

And that happens even in marriage too. And so if you take sex out of your relationship and I encourage you to do that, if you're having sex now, just try it, try it for a month, try it. If you can, until you get married, like if you're engaged right now, just wait. It will make your wedding night so much more special and beautiful.

I mean, we we've heard stories of couples too, who, you know, they go through the wedding day and they get to the wedding night and it's kind of like any other night, it's not really that special. And they end up just like falling asleep when it's really meant to be this really good and beautiful thing.

And we're not trying to shame couples who are having sex. We're just trying to say, if you want your love to be the most beautiful, the strongest, it can be. Practice this virtue of chastity, again, a radical radical thing. But if you wanna see clearly, if you wanna make a good decision about this person, if you wanna make sure that they're in it for the right reasons, right?

They're not just in it for the sex for the pleasure, but they're actually in it because they love you take sex outta your relationship and just see what happens. And again, Jason Everett is the man for this, look up his videos on YouTube and, and you'll get a really compelling reason and argument of why saving sex for marriage is the thing to do.

Next step. Don't go into marriage with any addictions, especially a porn addiction. Really get help for that. Yeah. I, I know a lot of women who have gone on date, it starts off great. And then. They have these hard conversations. And they said, Hey, I have standards. I have these non-negotiables and one of them is no porn.

And unfortunately these men have picked porn over these women and it's so sad and it breaks my heart that they have made these decisions. And I I've been through that. Like I totally get how addicting and how attractive pornography can. And so I really have a heart for people who do struggle with it.

So to understand that you're not alone, if you do, but you really owe it to yourself and to your future spouse to get help to at least start overcoming this problem in your life before you get engaged and get married, because really porn, what it does is it kills, love. It destroys your ability to love another person.

Because if you think about it, pornography is all about using another person to make yourself feel good. And that is a recipe for disaster in a marriage. And so you really wanna overcome this, or at least start the process and start making some real progress, a few resources for you to do this. Look up, fight the new drug.

We'll include this all in the show notes to make it easy for you guys, but fight the new drug is a great organization that helps people, uh, overcome pornography and really just understand the effects that porn has on you on your brain, on your relationship and on the world. Integrity, restored integrity.

Restored is another one that, uh, helps people overcome pornography and they go at it from a little bit more of a religiou. Standpoint or fight the new drug that I just mentioned. They're completely secular, not religious at all. Matt Fred is a speaker. Uh, he actually works with integrity restore, but he's got his own thing as well.

So look him up on YouTube, Matt Fred. He has some great videos on just really practical advice and practical steps to overcome pornography. Jay Springer is someone I just learned about too, and he's a counselor and a Christian pastor, and he's been working with people. Who've had sex addictions for years, and he has a book called unwanted.

He has an online course, but he has a lot of good wisdom, good insight into this problem and he'll help you to overcome it. And one of the things that he says is we can't just beat our struggles with pornography, beat our Lu into submission. We need to understand. And by understanding it, then we can overcome it.

But so often I think we just push it away and we try to kind of kill it, but then it just comes back again and again and again. And so it's so important to go to the root, to really understand where it comes from and to beat it for good. And if you need a counselor who specializes in helping people overcome pornography addiction, or at really any addiction, whether it's drugs or alcohol, go ahead to ReSTOR.

Dot com slash coaching. Again, that's restored ministry.com/coaching. We're building that network of counselors, who we trust, who we recommend, that you can go to, to get really concrete help on overcoming an addiction, or really any other struggle that you're dealing with in your life. And I think this is especially a, a problem for people who come from broken homes.

And the reason is basic. We go through the trauma of our parents breakup and in an attempt to kind of numb that pain to comfort ourselves. We turn to pleasure. I know that's certainly that was my story. And I've seen this again and again, in people's lives, especially those of us who come from broken homes.

And so you're not really weird if you struggle with this, but you owe to yourself to get over it, to, to beat this. And it's, it's actually possible to get to a point where you don't even desire this stuff anymore. It might be a temptation, but you really won't want it anymore. And you can get there. The next thing we wanted to talk about is money.

So this is such a hot topic because money fights are one of the top reasons for divorce. Hear that again? Money fights are one of the top reasons for divorce. And if you think of your own families, If you think of the reason that your parents separate or divorce, likely there was some tension around money, whether that was the main thing or not money can cause a lot of stress.

And that's especially true when couples are not on the same page when they don't have a plan for their finances, it just results in stress. And just a sense that things are out of control. And when you're going through a crisis, COVID for example, there can be so much extra stress on top of that, especially if you lose your job or maybe you're just going through any hard time.

If you don't have your money in order, then it's gonna add so much more stress onto that already stressful situation. And so our advice to you is just create a plan for your money and to, to create a plan for your money. We recommend turning to Dave Ramsey, and I know not everyone's a huge fan of Dave Ramsey.

There. A lot of people are he's helped a lot of people like millions of people get control of their finances and millions, millions. Millions. Wow. I didn't know that. And so he could help you too. He has these seven baby steps, which I'll list off now, but you can learn more on YouTube or anywhere. We'll link to this in the show notes as well.

But the, the seven baby steps here, they are quickly. The first one is have $1,000 in a starter emergency fund. And that emergency fund is just to put a little bit of cushion between you and life, because something's gonna break. Something's gonna go wrong. You're gonna need money and you shouldn't have to rely on a loan, your parents, or a credit card.

Baby. Step number two is to pay off all your debt except a, your mortgage. What using the debt snowball and the debt snowball is just where you list all of your debts from the smallest to the largest. And you attack that first one with full intensity, right? You're making the minimum payments on all of them, but you attack that first one with any extra money that you can muster until you destroy that.

And once you destroy that debt, then you go to the next one. And so on down the list and some people. Think debt is a way of life, but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to carry debt with you throughout life. And really personal debt can just destroy your finances because it just eats away at your income and eats away at your savings.

And so it's so good to get debt out of your life for good. Maybe step number three is three to six months of expenses in savings. So this is looking at okay, how much does it take for you to live for one month? Like, what are your expenses for just one month? And then you take that in times three or times six or four or five, whatever you take that.

And you can see, okay. If I lost my job today, and I just had to live off of savings. This is how long I would last. And for most Americans, over 70%, we just live paycheck to paycheck. I think it's actually 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, which is just so scary. It's such a scary place to be. And so having that emergency fund will put you in a good spot where if something goes wrong, if you lose your job, if you get sick, if something happens like COVID, for example, then you'll be able to live off of your savings for a little while.

And the difference between three months and six months briefly about that three months, the lesser time is if you have, you know, a really stable job. Or maybe you're married and both of you are working, right. You don't need as much saved up because you have a lot of money coming in. And also, you know, you're pretty secure in your job.

Six months would be someone, if you're single, you know, you're living on your own. Maybe your job is not the most secure, like if you're in a sales role or something like that. And so in that case, you want to go more towards that six month mark, but it's really up to you to decide kinda what you're comfortable with, but that emergency fund, man, it brings so much peace.

And when there's problems that come up, like when you have a flat tire, when something goes wrong in your car, when you need to fly somewhere kind of in an emergency. You can just use the money. There's so much peace there. So that's baby step three. And then there's baby step three B. And that is to save at least 10% of a down payment on a home.

20% is ideal, but at least 10% and 20% helps you avoid private mortgage insurance. And that's a percentage basically of the value of the house. So if you buy like a 200 or $300,000 house each month, you're gonna pay a percentage of the value of the house to private mortgage insurance. And what that insurance does is it basically just protects the bank in case you can't pay it off.

And so really it has no value to you, but if you don't put at least 20% down, then you'll have private mortgage insurance. Baby step number four is invest 15% of your income for retirement. Dave Ramsey goes into this much more, but basically we wanna be investing. We wanna be strategic about our money and making it grow.

And so investing 15% of your income could even make you a millionaire by the time you're retire. It's kind of insane. There's a lot more to this, a lot of math and calculations, but this is super, super effective. Baby. Step number five is college funding. So you'd save money for your kids and there's different ways to do that.

Baby. Step number six is to pay off your home early, the average millionaire, the average everyday millionaire, right? Ordinary people that you wouldn't really think are millionaires, but they are millionaires. They pay off their home in about 10 years. And so attacking your home payment, um, can bring a lot of freedom as well.

And then baby steps seven is just to build wealth and to give money away just to be outrageously generous, which honestly is the most rewarding thing. So those are the seven baby steps. Again, will link to those in the show notes. Really the starting point of getting control of your finances to making a plan for your money is creating a budget.

And I know some of you listening, you're like, oh no, I am not about that. I get it. I get it like budgets. Aren't a fun thing, but really it's a tool that helps you to have control of your money. And budgeting together is such an important foundation for your marriage because you're getting on the same page when it comes to your money.

Again, which can be such a stressor, which can be one of the leading causes of divorce. But if you do a budget, you're basically creating a plan for your money and it's not. Dave Ramsey always says that a budget is not a straight jacket. It's a guardrail it's really freedom to spend. And it's more of an art.

It's not necessarily a science, so we'll take some time for you to get it down. But Dave Ramsey will teach you all about how to budget. and just sharing a little bit of our story, our, our struggles with money. When I was a, a boy, when I was like 14, I started tracking like every dollar that I spent, again, such a nerd, uh, I majored in finance and college.

And so this stuff is just kind of in my blood, in my DNA. And, and I like it a lot. It's, it's kind of like a game to me, but Bridget was on a different page. Yeah. So I hated everything about money. I hated the word budget. I hated the word debt, student loan debt, everything about money. I hated. So it, it actually to be vulnerable here, it took us, it took myself about a year to talk about how much I had in student loans with Joey.

And that was a big step in our relationship. And Joey was very patient with me. And he walked with me. And the first step that we took, which was probably the hardest step is that we sat down and we started a budget. And for myself, I was very against budgeting. I kind of had a loose interpretation of what a budget was.

But we do follow Dave Ramsey. So we do do the, every dollar budget. It is an app. You can also get it online, which we go over every month. And it's helpful for both of us to use myself as an example. I was someone that hated the idea of a budget. Never thought I could do a budget. And here I am with my husband doing a budget every month and going over it every month.

And now when I go out shopping, cuz I am the spender in the relationship, Joey is the saver. So every time I go out, I, I, I feel a lot more free actually, which is kind of funny that we have a budget and I feel more free in a budget, but it's, it can happen. It's true. And I just encourage you all, who may be feeling the same that I did to just take that step.

It's so helpful. It's. It's very freeing to be vulnerable about your money situation with your significant other and to go over together. Because when you marry the other person, you combine your finances. It's not an a and a B team. You're the same team together and it will make your marriage stronger.

It absolutely will. Yeah. I mean, I hear about other couple's situations and you know, the wife pays for a, B and C bills and the husband pays for de and F bills and then whatever money they have left over, they use it for themselves. The first time I heard that it actually made me really sad because the point of our relationship is to do everything together.

You're not. Bridge and Joey, you are a couple together and your money is together. Yeah. And you, and you need to face your money problems together. There's no way out the easy way out is to do it by yourselves, the hard way, but the best way is to do it together. And I highly, highly recommend that. Yeah.

You've really come a long way. And I'm really proud of you. I have to say it's been a journey, but it's been a really good thing. And I can't say you said I've been really patient. I, I can't say I've been patient whole time, but what was your number one fear going into marriage about money. Yeah. But, but what was one of the stressors going into marriage?

Yeah, definitely. One of the stressors I think was kind of repeating what I saw in my parents' marriage. They really did not have control of their. Things didn't go well for them money wise. Uh, even though, you know, at certain points, we were never rich by any means, but, um, my, my dad made a good living, but my parents didn't really manage their finance as well.

And they'd be the first to tell you that I'm not trying to, you know, reveal something about them. They'd be the first to tell you that they didn't really have good habits. They didn't have a good plan for their money. They didn't stick to that plan. And so it just caused so much stress, so many fights that I saw growing up.

And I just knew I do not want that. I don't want the stress that comes from that. I wanna have control of it. I didn't wanna see things in my own marriage get out of control because money was such a point of tension. And so, yeah, that, that was a big fear of mine that we would kind of repeat that or that money would be something that we never quite agreed on.

Never got on the same team on. And it would just end badly. So it was important for me to really get on the same page, which we started, uh, a little bit while we were dating mainly during engagement, but then even after we got married, we kept working on it. And that, I think that's when we grew the most.

And I think for bridge, I think one of the biggest things that made her change was seeing other people manage money really poorly. And to understand that, no, this is like really important. This is not a trivial thing that you can just kind of ignore. You need to face this sooner or later. Yeah. I mean, I I've seen couples kind of laugh off really serious situations and it broke my heart and it made me realize how important money is and how important it is to be on the same page about money and what they can do to your relat.

Like Joey said it. I think that was the point in our relationship that made us grow closer. Yeah. And now it's really not a big stressor at all. It's kind of fun. It's like this game we play together every month. Like, okay, Hey, can we go out tonight to dinner? Do we have money in the budget? Yeah. And if we do, we go and that's awesome.

Again, it's freedom to spend, like you're saving so that you can spend you're saving so that you can do something with that money. It's not just saving for the sake of saving, you're saving for some good reason. And you'll be surprised how easy it is to say no to some things. When you have a good reason for saying no for all of you out there who this may be a struggle for you, especially at first, something that we did is we would.

these goals for ourselves. Like at the end of this baby step, we will buy, I think what we bought a big screen TV, cuz we didn't have a TV for the first year of marriage. So we bought a TV and then at the next baby step, we wanted to plan a trip. So we planned a trip and all of that is because we were dedicated and we sacrificed.

But in the end it was, it was very much worth it. Yeah. And you can do it, especially if you're discouraged about money right now. Just want you to hear that. There's a lot of hope. There's been some really rough situations that people have fought back from and you can do the same. And one thing I wanted to say Bridget's debt.

When she finally told me it didn't scare me, it really didn't. I was actually just excited to tackle it together. I saw it as a challenge that we can take down together. So, what do you do if you're someone like me where, you know, your significant other isn't exactly on board, on the same page with you about money?

Uh, four things. First thing I would say, explain why it's important to you. You know, like you heard me say. I saw what happened in my parents' marriage because of the way that they didn't have really a plan for their money, they didn't manage their money. Well, and it just led to stress just led to other problems.

Tell your significant other that say, Hey, this is why it's so important to me. It's not just cuz I want to control you or anything like that. It's really just because I want freedom. The next thing clearly define why you're doing it. So it's, it's related to that first point, but this is more doing it as a couple saying, okay, this is why we are doing it together.

And one thing that can be helpful here that Dave Ramsey talks about is just creating a dream together for your life. But even something in particular like Bridget mentioned, okay, we wanna go on a trip or we wanna do buy this or we wanna buy that. We're not gonna do it until we reach this certain point.

In our journey, right? The, on this baby step or after this baby, let's say so dream together, motivate yourselves in that way, work towards kind of a common goal and make that your why and remind yourself of the why, especially when it gets hard, cuz it can take years to do some of this stuff. So you really need to stay motivated.

Keep an eye on the goal and keep moving forward. Next one. Be patient. Be patient. It really pays off to be patient. You're not gonna change your significant other by forcing them to listen to you, forcing them to, to do something. You might need to give them a little bit of a push that's different, but be patient with them, give them grace and just kind of be along with them for the ride and continue doing the good things that you're doing.

Those good habits. You have to continue those don't just abandon them, maybe cuz their significant other isn't on the same page, but slowly. Patiently try to influence them to, to change. And one practical tip at the end here, slowly feed good content to the other person, give them articles, videos, podcasts that talk maybe about something that they're dealing with right now, when it comes to money, sometimes it can be better to have someone else from the outside, outside of your relationship to speak into that issue.

And the other person may be more likely to change. Then the next tip is combine your money after the wedding. So we recommend, and Dave Ramsey talks about this a lot. Don't fully combine your finances until after the wedding. And it's totally fine. If you have like a joint bank account for the wedding itself, if you're both paying for it, that's totally fine.

You can open a new account and both contribute money to it. Or you can just use money from one of the accounts and give the other person access. That totally works too. That's actually what, what we did. And one thing that is really helpful that I've heard Dave Ramsey say a lot is. Don't buy a house together until after the wedding.

And there's a few reasons for this, but one is, there's so many stories out there of broken engagements, right? Engagements, such as ended. And then you have this house to deal with. That's under both of your names and that's just a huge stressor as well. And so just wait of you can now, you know, if one of you buys a house or maybe you're a little bit older and you're able to buy a house, that's totally fine.

There's some exceptions to maybe that hard and fast rule of like, don't buy a house. But, uh, what we're saying is like, don't buy it together because if it somehow doesn't work out and you don't end up getting married, then it will save you a lot of headache. Next step, realize that your family may not be able to help with the wedding costs.

Some families can, some can't and that's even true, regardless of if your parents are divorced or not. But the research shows that children of divorced people come from broken homes are less likely to receive. Financial support for college from their parents. And so the same logic applies to the wedding.

Like you're less likely to receive money for the wedding. And the reason for that is divorce. Rex families financially, like completely Rex them. It's so expensive. It can be so expensive to go through a divorce. The attorney fees, the court costs. It's just ridiculous. And so just for practical reasons, your family may not be able to contribute toward the wedding.

And so you may need to do a less expensive wedding or maybe, you know, save up money for a little bit longer, whatever the case, just understand that they might not be able to help with those wedding costs. Another tip having to do with housing rent for the first year of marriage, my financial advisor, our financial advisor.

He told me that he said it's best to rent for the first year of marriage for, for a bunch of reasons. Dave Ramsey repeats this too, but of course, if you already have a home, that's totally fine, but it's so wise to just rent for a year because owning a house is a big deal and being married is a big deal.

And so that first year of marriage can involve a lot of adjustments. And if you're taking care of a house, it totally, it can be done, but it's just gonna add more stress onto it. And so. Typically for most people it's best to rent for that first year of marriage, especially maybe you're checking out a new area or you're figuring out where you wanna live.

It can give you more time to have those important conversations and to figure things out. Because again, planning a wedding is tough. It is stressful. And so I can't imagine buying a house at the same time. So put this off, do it a year after rent for the first year. And just practically speaking is if you guys aren't living together before you're married, that first year of marriage is gonna give you a lot of insight into each other and make you think about different things that you might have not realized beforehand.

And so going into buying a house together, that information will be really, really helpful. Yeah. Cuz maybe you're pregnant. Maybe you end up having a baby. So. Things are gonna change quickly. And so buying a house on that new information will be a lot more helpful for you both. If we've even had conversations, talking about like what we'd want in a house.

And I can't imagine having had that conversation during engagement, it just would've been super stressful, just overload. And I was doing my MBA during our engagement when we were planning wedding. So that really took a lot of time. So there's certainly, I think are some exceptions to. But typically the best thing is to rent for the first year of marriage.

Now, if you're older and you have money and you wanna buy a house during that first year of marriage, nothing wrong with that. But typically for most people renting the first year of marriage is best. The next money tip is to, to keep an eye out for these really common money failures for a couple. So the first thing that comes to my mind is that people spend more money than they make.

And I see this a lot. It breaks my heart. People are spending money on this and that, and they go into debt. They, you know, spend it on their credit cards. And so the biggest takeaway here is just to live within your means. And that is such a countercultural saying right now, because everyone wants the nicest thing.

So. The bigger things. They want the most updated things. They want the cutest house with the cutest furniture and you know, all of the things with that. And so my biggest advice with that is just your budget. It helps you do that. And so you can plan for it, but it may take some time. And that's the sacrifice that you'd have to make with that.

And if you live on less than you make, you will be financially free. And it may take some time because if you have some debt, you have to work through, totally get that. But if you live on less than you make, you will be financially free. Money will not stress you out. And I think our just our generation really struggles with that for one reason or another, we just don't understand what it's like to, to live within your means and living within your means can mean cutting down on your expenses.

Right? Not going out as much. Not maybe having as nice of a car, not living in it as nice of a place, but it also can mean just increasing your income. And typically you'd want to do both increase your income and decrease your expenses if you can. But like I said, living within your means is so basic. It's so foundational to financial freedom.

So you really have to do that. And it's such a common struggle for couples and just individuals to, to spend more than you make. The, the next one is comparison. Comparison. Yeah. And comparison is so big nowadays. Um, and especially, I, I believe with women, I believe that we compare our clothes, our shoes, our handbags, our makeup, um, our homes with each other.

And one way a practical way of. Dealing with that is just to practice gratitude. So gratitude every day for what you have. Do you have a house over your head? Do you have food on the table? Do you have clothes on your back? Those are just things that we take for granted. And to remember that every single day is huge and there's always gonna be someone who has better or nicer things.

So you're really just chasing kind of this infinite target. That's always gonna keep moving up the hill that you'll never catch. And so you'll never be happy by constantly comparing yourself. So I love that practicing gratitude is really the way to be content where you're at. And that doesn't mean you can't work to have a better life or work to have nicer things, not at all, but it means that you're content where you're at in the moment while still working toward your goal.

The next thing is just racking up. So nowadays through student loans, through credit cards, through different purchases, you can rack up debt very, very easily. Um, and then with that debt, it adds stress and it, it sucks money out of your pocket. So you don't have the money to, to spend on the things that you really need.

Yeah. And what we mean by sucking money out of your pocket, as you know, debt has interest and interest keeps growing, especially if you don't pay your debts off. And so it really destroys your ability to, to build wealth. So racking up debt, by buying a car that you really can't afford running an apartment that you can't afford going out too much, all those things and putting it on a credit card, all those things will just end up sucking money out of your account, sucking money out of your pocket, more than just the thing you spent it on because of the interest.

The next one is credit cards. So this is a hot topic and a controversial one, but it's so easy to spend money with credit cards. And there's actually, uh, a study that showed you actually spend more money with a credit card. You're willing to pay a higher price with a credit card as opposed to, to cash or debit card.

And even if you're doing it for the points, let's say you want airline miles. It's still dangerous. This study found that people were willing to pay up to 64% more for something. When they purchase on a credit card, that's just insane. So even if you're disciplined with paying off your card every month, you still are tempted to, to spend more money than you normally would.

If you didn't have the card. And the last common money failure for couples is just to spend way too much money on cars, right. To buy a new car. With an expensive car payment, like I've heard stories of people buying really nice trucks and their truck is like more expensive every month than the apartment that they live in.

It can really get insane. And so what we recommend of course, is just buying a solid used car. Don't take out a loan, save up the money for it. And I know this can be hard in certain situations, but you certainly can do it. There's people who've done it on, on far less than you. And so save up money. You can get a good car for a few thousand dollars and then save more money, sell that car, get a nicer car.

And so on. Dave Ramsey talks about this a lot, but cars can really suck money out of your account. And so to avoid that really buy a car within your means, and you can always upgrade later. And when it comes to dealing with money, the really best resource we've found as we've mentioned is Dave Ramsey. And if you wanna take his course, you can go to financial peace university.com.

Or FPU. Dot com and we'll link to this in the show notes, but again, fpu.com financial peace university.com. Once you're on there, you could actually start a free trial. As of right now, there's a free trial that you can do on there to, to work through the course. And you won't have to pay a cent. And if you want to continue it later, uh, you can, you, you can't pay for it.

And I think it's totally worth it, but, uh, but that this will really give you good content, good guidance, and help you create a plan for your money. So you can have financial freedom. And once you start that trial, you're just gonna watch the videos and do the action steps that they tell you to do. Now, if you're not ready for that, if you don't wanna start the trial, that's totally fine.

You can just YouTube Dave Ramsey. He has. Radio show every day you can watch it live. You can watch recaps. Uh, if you have specific questions, just type in Dave Ramsey, and then your question into YouTube and, and I'm sure he's covered it on his radio show. He's been doing this for like 25 years. Another thing is on his website.

They have a free money assessment. It's a way for you to start creating a customized plan for your money. And you can find this by going to Dave ramsey.com/get started again. Dave Ramsey Ramsey is R a M S E y.com/get started. And you don't need to agree with everything. Dave says to benefit from him. I, I encourage you to really hear him out because there's a lot of wisdom when it comes to money, but you don't need to agree with everything he says to get something out of his guidance.

Okay. So the last tip that we have when it comes to engagement is to invest money into your marriage. So this is related to everything we just talked about, but to really put money into your marriage, again, not just the wedding, but also the marriage. And what we encourage you to do is to have a budget for your date nights and have a budget also for buying content, buying books and videos and courses that will help you grow as a couple money to go to counseling and so on.

So yeah, so some creative, cheap date ideas that we have are there's a list of them. So go on a picnic, go on a hike, go on a bike ride. Do a night in play, some board games, play cards, go on a drive, go somewhere different that you haven't been before. Um, cook, make new dishes together. Do a day in watch movies shows documentaries.

You could also go to a rerun movie theater and we have one of these in Denver. It's called Elvis theaters. And basically they get movies. They are $4 a ticket. Yeah, it's super cheap. So they get these movies that are out of theaters, but not yet, maybe on like the streaming services like Netflix, I think it's even $3 during the day $4 at night.

So it's just like such a steal. So maybe there's something like that in your city. Uh, coffee shop dates too are great. You know, you buy a coffee. And that's it, it's like less than 10 bucks for both of you. And if you live in an apartment complex that has some amenities you can make use of those, like if there's a basketball court, a tennis court, a swimming pool, things like that, you can make use of those.

And those are free dates. There may be some museums in your area that maybe have free days go to those check 'em out the zoo. Some zoos are free, um, explore different cities. So if you live near. A city that you haven't been to go check it out, go on walking tours. Some of them are free. Yeah. On our way.

Back from our honeymoon, we stopped in Madrid, Spain, and we were able to do, uh, a free tour of Madrid. And it was, it was actually a pretty good tour. And we, we gave them a tip at the end, but overall it was. Pretty darn affordable. So, uh, yeah, there's certainly a lot you can learn and you could even just Google, you know, cheap or free dates and then the name of your city or in, you know, your city in Chicago, in Denver, in San Diego, wherever you're at.

And, uh, I'm sure there are a lot of ideas of, uh, of cheap dates. You can also go on brewery tours. If, if you're, you know, of age and you like beer, then go on a brewery tour, distillery tours, if you're into to whiskey and things like that. One thing that, that we've done is bowling went on Groupon and got like a really good deal to, to bowl.

And we would go out with some friends and it was a really good time. We haven't done this one as much, but I know there's some places where you can go dancing. Like we have friends who are. So different types of dancing. Uh, I know some of my cousins grew up dancing and you know, whether it's like swing dancing or, or something else you can go to, uh, to maybe like a dancing club.

Yeah. And then also on Groupon, you can find Groupons for escape rooms, with friends, especially if you get a good amount of your friends to go, it's really not that expensive at the end of the day. And they are a ton of fun. Um, something that we also have in Denver and in the mountains is that we have outdoor movie theaters.

There are a ton of fun. They usually are a little bit cheaper than your regular movie theater. And it's just a different experience for sure. You can bring your own snacks, your own drinks, kind of making a date night. It's a lot of fun. And then something, if you guys have a backyard of your own bonfires, I love a good bonfire in the fall.

That can always be a nice fun date night in, and then I know this is probably not something going on right now with COVID, but sports, Joey and I love sports. So obviously right now we can't go to sports games, but maybe you just go to a park and you play sports together, whatever that is. You learn more about each other.

Yeah, we got into tennis. It was never something that either of us really. Before we were married, but we got into tennis. Uh, someone gifted us to tennis rockets and some tennis balls. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was great. I think Justin and Lewis, my, my friends, they, they gave me thanks guys, if you listening. So it was, uh, it was a great sport for us, both to get into cuz it was a way that we can spend time together and be too competitive.

Ano another thing too is if you're more artsy, if you're not into sports, then make use of that. You can make candles, you can paint, you can draw, you can do all sorts of things and you know, you, you might need to invest a little bit more money into something like that initially. Or you can find a group on and go do that at some studio.

But, uh, but that can be a really good bonding experience and something that's fun yard games. So, oh man, we, we, we like yard games. Whether it's can jam or spike ball. That's really fun. So we love yard games, and those are simple. And once you have 'em, you know, maybe costs a little bit money to buy 'em or maybe you just make 'em, uh, if you can, you know, you can make like a corn hole set, but, uh, but those are really fun going walks.

We like going on walks. We like watching the sunset, especially over the mountains where we live. Uh, we can go down the street to the park and get a good view of the mountains. It's really beautiful. Another idea is camping, you know, get a group of people go camping. And lastly minigolf so I know some people call it putt putt.

That's just strange, but minigolf is, is such a good thing. And I always love, uh, beating Bridget and minigolf excuse me. No, I she's beat me once before. No, no, no. no, no, she she's beat me more than once. It's pretty humbling. She she's good at it. And, and I don't like to. So guys, there's a lot more that can be said about engagement in general.

There's a lot more date ideas that you can look up, but I hope this is helpful. This is just some stuff that we wish we would've known going into engagement. And so I hope we can kind of pass this on to you from our experience. One last thing to add. We didn't really touch on the length of an engagement.

We typically recommend eight to 12 months. We think that's enough time to plan a wedding to prepare your relationship, and also to discern if this is the person that you do wanna marry. And there's people that I trust who say that six months is enough. So I respect that. I would say that's on the short end.

I think on the long end, going up to 18 months is fine, but really anything longer than that is just too long. Unless you have some big reason to do it. If you've discern well, if. Relied on the people that you trust for objective feedback. And you know that this is the person you want to commit to. Don't let fear hold you back and don't wait for the perfect time or the perfect wedding, because honestly, marriage is a carefully planned leap of faith.

It's never going to be perfect. And so our encouragement to you is just, don't wait too long to close out the show. Our challenge to you is once this episode, Take a minute to think about what stood out to you and then talk to your significant, other about those things. Talk to your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your fiance, your spouse, about those things.

Ask them some good questions, get a good conversation, going go out for coffee, go on a walk, whatever. Just make some space for you to, to talk about it, share your thoughts and then pick one thing that you're gonna do in the next week and execute on it. And if you pick something bigger and you need more than a week, totally fine.

Just make sure to set a deadline and to focus on one thing. If you focus on more than one thing, chances are you're not gonna do it. That's it. That's our challenge too. And like I mentioned, in part two, we're gonna talk about the wedding day. We're gonna get into wedding planning, touch on some challenges that come along with being from a broken home on your wedding day and in the wedding planning process.

And we're gonna talk about some good things to know for the first year of marriage. The resources mentioned are in the show notes ever stored ministry.com/ 23. Again, that's restored ministries, just singular ministry, singular.com/ 2 3 23. Thank you guys so much for listening. We do this all for you, and if this has been useful, please share this podcast with someone that you know, who could really use it.

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.

Abuse, Addiction, and How I've Found Healing from my Parents' Divorce

10 minute read

This story was written by Sara Meyer at 26 years old. Her parents began separating when she was 14 and eventually divorced years later. She gave permission for her story to be shared.

HER STORY

I grew up in a Catholic family and I thought my parents were a loving couple when I was young. But there were big problems that I didn’t know about, problems that had started before I was born. And the problems centered on my dad. My dad was always moody and I knew I couldn't count on him to be compassionate when I was sick or hurt or feeling sad, but I thought that was just how men were and I didn't expect anything else.

When I was young I thought my dad loved me and my sisters and my mom, and I was convinced that I would never have to face the heartache of being a divorced kid. But when I was fourteen, my world fell apart overnight and life became a nightmare, a nightmare that lasted over ten years. My mom and dad suddenly started fighting, and my oldest two sisters and brother-in-law were also involved.

It quickly became a whole family division. The focus of the arguments was on religion after my dad and oldest siblings left the Catholic Church but my mom and my sister closest in age stayed. But the problem was much deeper than that and after many years I realized that the base problem was that my dad was a toxic man, a narcissist and that no matter what my mom did, she would never be good enough for him.

My teen years were very hard, my dad slowly became more and more unkind and finally became very psychologically and verbally abusive and when I was 19 I saw the first of his rage episodes. I walked in on him screaming insults and horrible things at my mom and when I tried to approach him and help him see the truth of who my mom was and tried to be loving and patient with him, he shut me down roughly and refused to listen.

I had never been so hurt and angry in my life. This continued for years and many problems arose that had been hidden for a long time, dark things started to come out of my dad's past that made me realize I had never really known him. For many years my parents didn't sleep together. People blamed my mom but it was never her fault. Finally, my dad became threatening and we felt very unsafe in our home and when I was 22 he moved out and about a year later he divorced my mom

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

In my experience, my parents’ separation started many years before the divorce and it was a gradual and very painful process. There were a few times throughout the years that I dared to hope that my dad would change and become loving to my mom and that the marriage would be saved but I eventually realized that hope was futile.

He was very rejecting and cold toward her and toward me as well. He called my mom "it" and a "thing" and treated her like an object. At these times I felt very angry at him, sometimes I felt very angry at myself for reasons I couldn't even explain. I felt like it was all my fault. Sometimes I felt very afraid and sometimes very grieved but always there was a deep heartsick feeling that nothing could comfort.

On the night before my dad left, I was very scared, I felt very alone and felt like life was ending and when I watched him walk away the next day, it felt like he had cut out part of my heart and taken it with him and like I would never be whole again, and it still feels that way in some ways. Before I understood about my dad's abuse I sometimes got mad at my mom because it sounded like she was talking bad about him. But I came to realize that she was only telling me the hard truth about him because she loves me and was trying to protect me from being sucked into his lies and his abuse.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

I don't know how to trust men, I ache to be happily married and have a family of my own but it doesn't feel at all safe or possible. After my dad left and after I found out things about him that were very horrible, things he had done sometime before I was born, I felt like half of me had died, nothing made sense anymore and to escape from the intense pain, anxiety, and self-hate, I started excessively picking my skin and making myself bleed which eventually turned into an addiction to cutting.

I had never ever thought that I would fall into self-harm, but I had never thought I would be a divorced kid or have a broken family and when that happened I didn't know how to cope. I began hating myself and my addiction made it worse. I had constant nightmares, was often depressed, very anxious, and afraid of my own shadow.

I lived in a constant sense of gloom and lost many friends because they said they "couldn't handle my emotions and my depression." I began to feel like a burden to everyone and there were times that I didn't want to live. One thing that I had to do to even begin the slow process of healing was to learn the real truth about my dad which I did after finding and reading an incredible book called Healing from Hidden Abuse by Shannon Thomas. This book perfectly explained the type of personality my dad was and the type of abuse that we had suffered from him; psychological abuse.

It was a very hard read because it hit so hard on my heart but it was a lifesaver and I started to stand up straight and look the truth in the face after reading it. I also had to write a letter to my dad expressing all of my hurt and when he replied and denied everything he had done, I knew I had to cut ties and not have him in my life. Only when the break had been made, could I heal.

But still, I struggled for years and I attempted counseling but had a counselor in college who did not understand how to help me and ended up making me feel worse about myself. I felt like so few people understood what I was going through and no one seemed to have the ability to help me make sense of the turmoil I was going through.

Then I found an amazing woman when I saw her on the EWTN channel, Sarah Swafford. She spoke to so much of what I was going through and after a few years of listening to her talks, my dream came true and I got to meet her and through her, I found my current incredible counselor who has been helping me heal for over a year and a half now and helping me sort through over ten years of emotional pain and abuse.

Currently, I can finally say, though life is still hard and some days I feel like a failure, I am healing, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and my life is gaining a sense of peace and happiness that I have never known before. I still struggle to trust men, I still struggle with my addiction at times, I still have emotional triggers from my dad and my past in general, but I find myself laughing and smiling more often than before, my life is becoming brighter and the dark clouds leave quicker when they roll across my sky.

But there is part of my heart that will never be complete again. My dad's abuse and the divorce cut out part of me that will never come back. That is a sad fact of being a kid of divorced parents. You can and will heal, but you will never be the same again.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

Know that even when you feel like you are the only one left in the world, the only one who has the pain you have, you are NEVER alone. There are others out there who understand your pain and will lovingly help you carry your burdens and when you find those people, hold onto them tight and let them hold you up when you are drowning.

Know that those loving people are out there but that most people will not understand and when they tell you things that are hurtful, know it is not YOUR fault. Fight the urge to internalize any blame that is thrown at you and know that your parents’ divorce is NEVER your fault. If you have a story like mine and feel that one parent has been the cause of the divorce and the other is not, know that some people will hurt you deeply by insisting that both parents were at blame.

I find it very offensive and deeply hurtful when someone insists that both people in a divorce are always to blame and that if you say that only one parent was the cause of the division, they will accuse you of "taking sides." I had a member of my family tell me that I was being blind and judgemental against my dad by claiming that his toxic behavior was the cause of ruining the marriage and that my mom did nothing to destroy it. This person caused me extreme grief and horrible self-doubt by telling me that the divorce was as much my mom's fault and as much MY fault as my dad's.

Yes, all humans make mistakes and need to do everything they can to heal any hurt they caused others, but I cannot agree that every divorce is caused by both people, not every person is toxic or at fault for a broken marriage. If you feel rejected by one or both parents specifically, try to find a mom or dad figure in a dear older friend, someone who can be there for you to help fill the holes. I have a dear uncle who is a dad to me.

Also, know that you are loved by God, even when you feel no one can love you. Know that there will be a hole in the world that no one else can fill if you choose to leave it. Know that if you hang in there long enough, life will show you reasons to live. I know all this advice is very hard to follow and believe me, I have struggled with it all and still do. But I have to believe that the fight is worth it and I do. To all those hurting from the pains of divorce, I believe in you, I am sending you prayers and know you ARE worth it!

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

Kids of divorced parents NEED to be validated. They should have more books, talks, shows, and other resources to help them with the effects they suffer from the death of their parents’ marriage. More counselors need to be trained specifically on this topic. Maybe even prayer groups could be formed for teens and adults of divorced parents so they can gain in-person support.

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I Became My Mother's Counselor After the Divorce

3 minute read

This story was written by Kate Meyer at 36 years old. Her parents divorced when she was 6 years old. She gave permission for her story to be shared.

HER STORY

My biological father was/is an alcoholic, lacked responsibility, and was emotionally and physically abusive to my mother. After a few years of trying to make her marriage work with my father, she decided it was best to separate and later divorce him. Within a couple of years, she met my stepdad and when I was eight years old she married him.

Through the years they have had their fair share of disagreements and power struggles. Two years ago (2018) my stepdad had to have a major abdominal surgery requiring several months of recovery time. Since then, he's become more angry and controlling, often yelling at my mother and seems to think she doesn’t do anything right.

This triggers my mother’s childhood memories of times when her mother was overly controlling and belittling. Sadly their marriage has disintegrated, as they barely say more than a few words to each other each day. Currently, my mom is in the process of moving to a separate residence and has regained employment.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

I don't remember very much about the first years after the divorce. Growing into adolescence was challenging. When I was a little girl, I remember feeling the need to take responsibility for my mom's emotional wellbeing.

Taking ownership, I became like a counselor, listening and comforting her. Throughout my childhood and young adult years, we've depended on each other for emotional support. Over the last few years, I've come to notice how I often feel slightly despondent around her. There has also been some resentment.

Growing up, I always felt the need to be overly calm, balancing out the stress and anxiety that my parents exhibited towards each other. While being calm has served me well, it also has had its drawbacks, in limiting my more creative, light-hearted side.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

My parent’s divorce has impacted my dating life. Unfortunately, I haven't had a close relationship with my biological dad or my stepdad, basically surface level conversations and YES I jump into that counselor role sometimes by listening to their woes and concerns. . . I’m still trying to turn away from those conversations.

Overall though, when it comes to dating, I think I've longed for companionship and have often dated out of a sense of loneliness instead of dating a man that I'm deeply attracted to or experience a deep connection with.

Realizing these dynamics, I've decided to "reset" my dating ways, trusting that God will fill the void of loneliness and if He sees fit will provide a loving boyfriend when the time is right.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

I would advise going to counseling and talking out your thoughts and feelings. I never had the opportunity to go to counseling when I was young, I didn't know there was such a thing until college.

I would also encourage you to lean on your faith, asking God for strength and opportunities to learn more about His healing power. I've experienced so much healing through the years by taking advantage of retreats, prayer experiences, and learning more about myself through these kinds of processes.

Don't let opportunities pass you by!

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

This networking opportunity is great, continued outreach helps reduce isolation and helps us feel like we're not alone. Thank you so much for all your hard work!

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Are you interested in sharing your story with Restored?  If so, click the button above. Sharing your story can help you begin healing. 

Be assured: Your privacy is very important to us. Your name and story will never be shared unless you give explicit permission.

What I Wish I Had Known About My Parents’ Divorce

5 minute read

I think my generation has become very guarded and as I’ve gotten older I’m starting to understand why.

From 1960 to 1980, after the no-fault divorce bill was passed (saying that you could get a divorce without proving spousal wrongdoing), the divorce rate more than doubled.

A lot of us millennials and some from those in the previous generation (gen x) were born to those parents.

Ex: my mother and myself. We were both born into families whose parents went on to get divorced.

What has occurred as a result of this breakdown in the family, is that we are terrified of making a promise that could later on be broken. What we have learned is that a vow doesn’t mean anything, it is unsafe. I can say ‘I love you’ and still walk away. Marriage, therefore, has lost its place in society as an outdated and ineffective tradition.

We treat relationships lightly and avoid getting attached at all costs.

The problem with this is that family is the foundation of society. We learn to love in the home. The best example we’ll ever have of love is that which our parents show us through their love for each other. That is why we are falling short today, we don’t know how to love. It is something we have to learn, we are not born on an island; our ability to love, our identity and sense of self are all things we develop in relation to others.

I wish I had known all of this earlier; my dating relationships have been made dramatically more difficult because of my own experience of what happens when we fail to keep our marital vows. We make a vow for a reason, it is not meant to be broken. Not merely because of the heartbreak that happens to the individuals who were married, but because of the damage it does to the children affected and society at large. The children of divorce live with that for the rest of their lives.

Distrust, skepticism, and overwhelming fear often get the best of me, leading to strife between myself and the person I love. These thoughts and feelings aren’t things that come from nowhere, they are leftover from the reality that I’ve seen what happens when our love falls short and the pain that it causes. It honestly has gotten between us over and over again. I am constantly battling the voices in my head telling me to run…I am wary of being hurt and willing to do just about anything to avoid it. At times it is excruciating, exhausting, and entirely discouraging for both me and my significant other. Experience and the fear it causes are powerful forces, more than I’d like to admit, however it is evident in myself and the culture around us.

This secondhand effect of divorce is rampant in people my age who refuse to ‘settle down’ and avoid family life altogether. We have, instead, become concerned with career achievement and having a good time. While these are good things, they are not the best things. The most convincing lie out there today is that you can’t have a good job, have fun, and be married with children. It is either one or the other. If that were true, then I wouldn’t blame anyone for not ever wanting to get married, that sounds awful!

The reality, however, is that family life doesn’t steal our joy, it increases it. The studies concerning singles vs. married couples show us that married couples tend to be happier.

This makes sense because we are made to be in relation to others. We are born into families for a reason. Our deepest joy doesn’t come from getting drinks with friends (again, not a bad thing), it comes from loving and being loved deeply.

I know how discouraging it can be when people left and right are leaving their marriages. I know what it’s like to grow up convinced that family life is for the sitcoms and love doesn’t work. I know how hard it is to love when all you know is what happens when we don’t love.

However, I was reminded in a moment of frustration that hope is a virtue because it only makes sense in the context of hopelessness. If things are just fine, we have no need for hope. We need it when we are most tempted to despair.

As millennials get older, I hope we realize the absolute necessity for family life. I hope we’re brave enough to give it our all, even if we’ve seen others who haven’t. I hope we learn to prioritize what is truly important and to overcome the fear that tells us to run the other way…because if we don’t, I guess I’m not sure who will.

It’s up to us to undo the cycle of broken promises and give the generations after us the opportunity to learn what it means to love and to love others themselves.

This article was written by Miranda Rodriguez, a contributing writer for the Restored blog. It has been reposted with permission. It originally appeared on her blog, First Class Act.

All Children of Divorce Deserve a Voice

4 minute read

This story was written by Janelle Peregoy at 38 years old. Her parents separated when she was 6 years and divorced when she was 7. She gave permission for her story to be shared.

HER STORY

Even now, I am uncertain as to what was the final "catalyst" for what finally caused my mom to leave my dad. She had separated from him a couple of different times in their 14-year marriage.

My father's emotional maturity/intimacy is, in my opinion, deeply stunted. He has always equated his role in marriage and/or parenting with monetary value. As long as he was paying bills, he was doing his "job" well.

The most telling story is that my dad nearly missed my brother's birth because he was at a Stanford football game and hadn't wanted to change his plans. My mom later confided in me that she was already functioning as a single parent in the relationship; why not make it official?

My mom, brother, and I moved in with my maternal grandparents after my parents separated. We were so fortunate to have them and they really provided a sense of stability for all of us.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

I don't have a lot of memory of the first years after the divorce. Growing into adolescence was challenging; I share a lot of mannerisms and patterns of speech with my mom.

My dad focused a lot of anger towards me, whom he perceived to be my mom's representative. My relationship with my dad is better as an adult, but all the anger and negativity toward my mom and I during those years didn't accomplish "turning us to his side." It had the opposite effect of just alienating us from him for a long time. I certainly understood why my mom felt she had to leave the marriage.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

When I consider my parents’ divorce, a lot of the longer-term impact involved my dating life. Even though I wanted to date, part of me was so terrified of getting into a relationship similar to my parents' marriage.

I mostly avoided the romantic realm until my 20's. Later, I got into a relationship with a guy who had a series of traumas and mental health concerns. I liked him because he was seemingly the opposite of my dad: very emotionally available.

I reverted to a caretaker role, not unlike the one that many children of divorce feel forced into during their childhood. Thankfully, I was able to see the inequities in that relationship and end it. My husband and I have been married six years; he's truly my guiding light.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

Easier said than done, but it is critical for children of divorce to learn how to self-advocate. For a 7-year-old, this may look like having the courage for both parents to attend his/her birthday party without fighting. For a teen or young adult, that may be the insistence on not having to attend multiple Christmases at each of your parents' families.

Everything in one's parents' divorce is being "done to" the child, teenager, or young adult. All children of divorce deserve to regain their voices.

All divorcing parents need to take a back seat and learn how to listen to how their decision affects their children's lives.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

Going along with what I said above, all young adults and teens need to have access to counselors, teachers, coaches, or trusted adults outside their parents, who can successfully model that self-advocacy.

Teens and young adults need to lean into their friends! This may initially sound obvious but our society doesn't give enough credence to the power of friendships to shape our attitudes and capacity for resilience. We all need spaces where we can be vulnerable and laugh at ourselves. For a child of divorce, that safe space may not be family and therefore they should be finding that safe space in the relationships where it is possible.

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#022: A Quick and Simple Healing Exercise

If you could go back in time and have a conversation with the younger version of you, what would you say?

So often, those of us from broken homes are never asked how we feel about it all. Nobody asks how it has affected us. Never having a chance to speak, we bottle it up inside.

In this episode, you’ll learn a powerful yet simple exercise that’ll give you the chance to speak to the little version of yourself. If you give it a shot:

• It may bring up a lot of raw emotions

• It’ll bring healing and relief

• It may even open parts of your heart that you’ve closed for years

• Best of all, it’s simple and doesn’t take long at all

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

If you could go back in time and have a conversation with a little version of you, what would you say? Something that's really common for people whose parents are separated or divorced is that nobody really asks us about how we feel. Nobody really asks us how it all affected us. And nobody really cares for us in that way.

And I think of Erin in episode 16, she shared her story about, you know, all of her friends, her family, and even her teachers knew. About her parents' separation, but everyone kind of acted like it wasn't a big deal. Everyone acted like it was normal, even though she was really hurting because of it. And so it made her feel like something was wrong with her.

And that is so common. And the result often is that we just bottle those feelings up inside. We just keep them hidden. We have no outlet for them, even though we're dying to be heard, to be seen for someone to just validate our pain and listen to us. Now, of course you can't go back in time, but what if I told you, there's a way for you to kind of talk with.

The little version of you to have a self dialogue with that younger version of yourself. And I'm not talking about some bizarre self-help crystals thing. No, there's lots of weird stuff out there. We don't condone any of that. I'm just talking about a simple, psychological exercise that I learned from a counselor that I know that'll help.

You kind of have an imaginary dialogue with that little. Version of yourself. And I know some of you may be thinking how that's not like me. I don't do stuff like that, but please give this a shot, give it a shot. I did it. And it made me cry. And I'm not someone who really cries easily. It was just so helpful.

And it just got to the core of so many of my wounds over the years. Now if you do it, I think you'll find that it's surprisingly healing. That'll bring a lot of relief because you're giving the little, you a chance to speak out in a way that maybe you were never even able to do. And it may even open parts of your heart that you just had closed off for years even.

And you might even find that this exercise comes some of those really intense emotions that you feel like anger, because those difficult emotions that we deal with. Are intimately connected to the wounds that we sustained over the years. And really the best part of the exercise is that it's simple to do.

It's not complicated and it doesn't take long at all. It could be as simple as 20 minutes or as long as you really want it to go. So if you wanna give this a shot, if you think this will be useful to you, keep listening.

Welcome to the ReSTOR 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 22 and it's kind of a mini episode where it's not gonna be long at all. And we're taking a break from our love and relationship series to bring you this really quick and simple exercise to help you.

So let's dive right in. What you're gonna need is a pen and paper. Uh, you can grab your journal if you wanna use that instead. Totally fine. And then just go to a private place. And there's three steps to this exercise. I'll go through each of them more in depth, and then I'll repeat them at the end so that you know what you're doing the first step with your dominant hand.

So if you're righty, that will be your right hand. Write a question. That the little, you needed to be asked to care for his or for her heart. So a question that you really wish someone would've asked you when you were younger and these are open ended questions. This is an exercise of the heart. It's not an exercise of the mind.

And so just open ended questions. Again, you're directing these questions to the little version of you at the time your parents separated or divorced, or really any other point in your life that was difficult for you, especially at a time where nobody really asked you how you were doing and you bottled up a lot inside for me, that was when I was 11 years old.

That was when my parents separated lot, a lot of difficult things happen around that time. And it was certainly a time where. I felt like I didn't really have a voice. And so in my exercise, some questions I asked to that 11 year old Joey was, how does all this make you feel? You know, what do you wanna say to dad?

If you really could have no filter? What would you say? Uh, what would you wanna say to mom? If you took away the filter. When you're writing all this right in the present tense go where it leads you. It's a dialogue between you and the little version of you, just like any other conversation. So just go where it takes you.

And I recommend I'll cover this more in a second, but I recommend doing one, uh, question at a time and then doing the, the rest of the exercise and then getting into another question. So that's step number one, using your dominant hand. Again, you're writing a question. The little you needed to be asked to care for his or for her heart.

So step number two, using your nondominant hand. Uh, for me, that's my left hand, cuz I'm all righty. Answer that question. That first question that you wrote down as the little, you and guys, no filter, no filter. Be blunt, be super, super blunt. Don't hold anything back. Think back to how you felt in that moment or on that time and speak from that emotion.

And if you have to swear, if you have to curse, do it. Okay. Just be super, super blunt, be raw with your emotion, with your words. And one thing that the counselor, I learned this from said, you may need that older version of you to encourage the younger version of you to really open up and to get it all out.

So you might need to give the younger version of you permission to, to speak freely. So that's set member two. All right. Using your nondominant hand, your an gonna answer that question that you wrote and step number one, and then step number three. Is go again back to your dominant hand. So for me, Maite, and just respond and affirm the little you affirm the younger version of yourself and whatever you said, empathize with them, tell him, or heard that, that you get it right.

You know, that it hurts, you know, it sucks and tell them. You know, if you wanna relate with them, you can say how you feel today about that thing as well. And keep in mind this isn't a performance. In fact, nobody's ever gonna see this. This is just for you. So feel free to, you know, write in whatever way you want.

You're not gonna be graded. Your grammar doesn't matter. So that's step number three. You're gonna respond to the little version of you and what this looks like on paper. So imagine a piece of paper. What I would do is you write one question down on one line, and then on the next line, you start to answer it and you can go for as many lines as you need.

And then once you're done with that answer, then you go to the response on another line and you can use as many lines as you need with that. And so it's just this back and forth. Dialogue and, you know, once you've done the question and then the answer, and then the response, you can start over again and ask another question and just go back and forth.

And I recommend doing this for at least 20 minutes. Uh, you can do more time too, but don't feel like you have to, uh, if you get to a point where you feel like you've just had enough. You're ready to stop, then just stop. That's okay. It took me about 45 minutes to, to do all this. I really dug into it and thought pretty deeply about it, but by the end I was done.

I was ready to, to put this away, cuz it had been pretty emotional for me. And to keep in mind that you can always do this again in the future. So don't feel like you need to get everything out right now. And also if there's a particular question or a topic that's just too much for you to handle, right.

It's too raw. Then answer another question or talk about another topic. That's totally okay. Sometimes our emotions are just too raw to, to handle in the moment, especially when we're doing something like this on our own. And so just to review quickly, step number one, using your dominant hand, just. A question that the little you needed to be asked to care for his or for her heart.

And then with your non-dominant hand, step number two is answering that question as the little you and lastly, step number three, using your dominant hand. You're gonna respond with empathy with affirmation and with love to the younger version of yourself. So again, it's question, answer response, repeat as much as you want.

So my challenge to you is simply to do this, make time to do it either when this episode ends, or if you're in a spot where you can't do this right now, put something on your calendar with an alert so that you go back to this later and really do it. And when you're done with this, something that could be really good is talking with someone about the exercise and talking about the topics that came up.

You can do that with a mentor, with a friend or a counselor, and there's no pressure to do this, but if you want to, you can come into resort's online community to talk about this. And it's really simple to join. And again, no pressure. You don't have to. I'm just throwing this out there as an option. If this would be helpful to you, uh, there's three steps to, to join first, go to restored ministry.com.

Slash community again, that's restored ministry. Ministry's just singular.com/community. You're gonna fill out a quick form and then, uh, we'll add you to the Facebook group. That's about it. And once you, you can create a post and just talk about this exercise. You can say, Hey, you know, I did the exercise from episode 22 and I just wanted to talk to someone about it.

And everyone in the group is just so. Empathetic and just wants to listen and support you. So we'd be more than happy to, to have you in our community. If you want to. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful. Hope it was useful. We are dedicated at restored to bringing you practical advice and tools like this exercise to help you cope, heal, and grow from the trauma, your parents divorce a separation.

So you can feel whole again. So this. Exactly in with our mission. So I was so excited to, to bring this to guys. I hope it was helpful for you. And if it was useful, I just wanna ask you, would you leave us a review on apple podcast? We love to, to see your reviews, just to hear what you think about this podcast.

You know, maybe something we can be doing better, anything at all. Tho those reviews really help us, not only to get that feedback and improve or know that we're on the right track, but also it gives us more visibility in the podcasting apps. And please share this episode with someone that you know, who could use.

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.

#021: How to Build Love That Lasts: The 5 Love Languages

Most couples experience love fading at some point, usually after the wedding. They long for love that lasts, but they doubt it is possible. And even if it were, they don't know how to build it.

The 5 Love Languages are a simple and effective tool for building real love. They're so simple, they're often overlooked. In this episode, you'll hear how the 5 Love Languages help you:

• Make your significant other feel loved

• Build deeper intimacy

• Create a more satisfying relationship

• Start using the 5 Love Languages today

Plus, enter our random giveaway to win the book The 5 Love Languages! We’re giving away three. Details at the end of the episode.

Buy the Book

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Books & Research:

  • A Severe Mercy

  • The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict

  • The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

    • [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links above, your purchase will support Restored at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]

• Take the 5 Love Languages quiz

• Follow Dr. Gary Chapman

  • Podcast: Building Relationships and A Love Language Minute

  • Website: 5LoveLanguages.com

Enjoy the show?

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

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

So many couples feel like love has just disappeared from their relationship. And this usually happens at some point after the wedding. And when you mix that with the divorce rate, the reality of divorce in our country and our world, we often wonder, can love even last. And if it can, how do we do that?

How do we make love less? And if you're like me, you know, if your parents are separat or divorced, divorce terrifies you, I I'm so afraid of getting divorced. I don't wanna get divorced and I don't want a mediocre marriage and maybe you're there right now. Maybe you're in a relationship that's really struggling.

And, and if that's the case, I want you to know that there's some real help for you here in this podcast episode today, we're gonna be talking about the five love languages, and these are really secrets or hacks to relationships. And I don't say that lightly, right? I'm not trying to make this sound phony.

These are real. Secrets to building lasting love. And I think most of you listening have probably heard of the five love languages. Maybe you've read the book, maybe you've taken the test, or maybe you just know about it from talking, uh, to people. And my question for you is, do you really understand it's power?

And more than that, Are you living it, are you living it in your relationships? And I know some of you listening, you've never heard of the five leveling inches and I'm really excited for you because there's so much good stuff in this book that we're gonna dive into in this episode. And just so many practical tips on how to build love that lasts and whatever side of the coin that you're on.

Idea, right. The five love languages is really gonna help transform your relationship. So by listening, you're gonna get a lot of things. Uh, first you're gonna learn to love your significant other in a way that they want you to love them in a way that makes them feel loved. You'll understand them much better when learning about the five love languages.

And most importantly, you're gonna learn to start using. These tips and all this is gonna result in deeper intimacy, a more satisfying relationship, not only for them, but also for you. And one of the most beautiful things is your spouse. Your significant other is just gonna feel so much more secure in your love.

And if you're like me and you're a busy person too, one of the benefits of listening this and the podcast is that you don't need. Buy the book and sit down and read it. We're gonna give you the core concepts, you know, in this episode. So you don't need to get the audio book for example, and listen to it for five hours.

We're gonna give you kind of the, the main stuff, boil it down without watering it down. Now, if you're in a relationship where you're really struggling, right? Maybe you're in a marriage where you're really struggling, you feel like you and your spouse are just on totally different pages, right? You don't feel loved.

And maybe you're in such a rough spot that you're considering a divorce. Hear me out, this is going to help you. This is going to help you give this a shot and on a personal note, learning these five love languages has been extremely powerful for me. It's really changed the way that I see and love people in my dating relationships in the past and my marriage now, but also my friendships, my siblings, my family, my parents, uh, it's really helped across the board.

And it's helped me to understand and to love my wife in a way. That she feels loved and don't be fooled. I haven't mastered that I'm still working on it, but, uh, but so much good stuff here. And like I said, it really feels like a relationship hack. And so if any of that sounds useful to you. Keep listening.

Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you cope, heal, and. From the trauma of your parents' divorce or separation. So you can feel hold again. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 21, and as you may know, we're in the middle of our love and relationship series. The research shows that the biggest effects from our parents' divorce are experienced.

In our romantic relationships. And you may be thinking, why is that? Basically because we don't have a roadmap for love, right? We've seen a broken model of love and marriage. And so when it's our turn, we feel lost and we struggle in numerous ways in our relationships. And so we're bringing you a roadmap for love, actionable tips and expert advice.

On how to find and build authentic love. And today, of course, like I mentioned, we're talking about the book, the five love languages, the secret to love that lasts. And we're just gonna boil down the content in the book, give you kind of the main ideas and main concepts, kinda like a, a book review may have seen on, on YouTube and along the way, I'll share some stories and my thoughts on it as well.

And, uh, one of the most important things is we're gonna talk about how you actually live this. Right. We're gonna give you practical advice on implementing this in your relationships right away. And towards the end, I'll tell you about, uh, random book giveaway we're doing so we'll give away three of these books, the five love languages.

So listen to the end to hear about how to enter for that. The first thing, you're probably wondering if you've never heard of this is what are the five love languages. And these are just five unique ways that people receive love, and I'm gonna list 'em off and then we're gonna get into each of them in more depth in a little bit.

The first one is words of affirmation, words of affirmation. The second one. Acts of service, the third receiving gifts, the fourth quality time and the fifth physical touch. And like the title suggests each is its own language. And each language has different dialects or different ways of expressing.

Similar things. And so we're gonna dive into each and more depth. But before we get into that, the five love languages were developed by Dr. Gary Chapman. He's an author, a speaker, and a marriage counselor, and he's worked with hundreds of couples to develop and test these concepts over the years. And he has a really popular radio show, a popular podcast, and he's actually sold more than 10 million.

Of these books and he's helped so many couples along the way, even couples who were just on the brink of divorce or just were really in a rough spot in their relationships. I wanna read you one thing that he says in the book that really is just gonna set up our entire conversation. He said, I believe that our deepest emotional need.

Is the need to feel loved. If we're married, the person we would most like to love us is our spouse. If we feel loved by our spouse, the whole world is bright and life is wonderful. On the other hand, if we feel rejected or ignored, The world begins to look dark. Most couples get married when they still have the euphoric feelings of being in love.

When the euphoric feelings evaporate sometime after the wedding and the couple's differences begin to emerge, they often find themselves in conflict with no positive plan for resolving conflicts. They resort to speaking harshly to each other. Harsh words, create feelings. Disappointment and anger, not only do the husband and wife feel unloved, but they also begin to resent each other.

In the context of marriage, he goes on to say, if we do not feel loved, our differences are magnified. We come to view each other as a threat to our happiness. We fight for self self-worth and significance. And marriage becomes a battlefield rather than a Haven. And at one point in the book, he just talks about how, if we don't fill that need.

To, to feel loved, to be loved. Then we often seek it out in unhealthy ways. We seek it out somewhere else, for example, by having an affair by cheating on our spouse. And so it is so, so important to, to get this right. And so the five love languages really helps couples to understand why they may have lost those romantic feelings and how emotional love can actually be reignited in their relationship.

But we're not just talking about infa. Right that obsession that usually comes at the beginning of a relationship, but we're talking about a real love, a deep intimacy that you can have in your marriage. You can have in your relationship that lasts for a very long time. One of the main concepts that Dr.

Chapman talks about in the book is the metaphor of an emotional love tank. He says that, you know, inside each child is an emotional tank waiting to be filled with love. And when the child feels loved, the tank is filled and the child develops normally. But when the tank is empty, says. The child acts out.

And I think this is so true for children of divorce, kind of varying away from relationships for a second here. He tells the story in the book of Ashley. Now, Ashley was only 13 when she was being treated for a sexually transmitted disease. Her parents were crushed and, uh, Dr. Chapman said, In my conversation with Ashley, she told me of her parents' divorce when she was six years old, she said, I thought my father left because he didn't love me.

When my mother remarried, when I was 10, I felt she now had someone to love her, but I still had no one to love me. I want so much to be loved. I met this boy at school. He was older than me, but he liked me. I couldn't believe it. He was kind to me. In a while. I really felt he loved me. I didn't wanna have sex, but I wanted to be loved what a beautiful desire just to want to be loved.

And I think so many of our struggles as children of divorce really come from an empty love tank. If that's true for children, it's also true in our relationships. When problems occur often, the root of those struggles is just an empty love tank. And Dr. Chapman says, I'm convinced that no single area of marriage affects the rest of marriage.

As much as meeting the emotional need. For love. And I, I think we forget this so often we try to solve the symptoms in our relationships and not the root cause. This brings me back to a time when my wife and I were going to marriage counseling and, uh, you know, we were dealing with some issues we were kind of, but heads and just a lot of conflict, a lot of, um, unrest in our marriage.

And, uh, and so we go to counseling and I'm gonna give you guys a tip. That's gonna save you a few hundred dollars here when we went. You know, having done counseling in the past, having, you know, read about psychology and all that I expected. The counselor to kind of give us some tactics on conflict resolution.

You know, when she says this, you say that, and don't say this and do that, all that. But I was surprised that he didn't take that approach instead of giving us those tactics. He instead wanted to know about really the health of our marriage overall. And he was, you know, asking questions like, okay, are you going out on dates regularly?

Are you spending time to. Really have deep conversations to really share, you know, your thoughts and your feelings with each other in a way that, you know, is not distracted by a TV or a phone and, and all these other questions, just trying to see, you know, is your marriage healthy at the core? And what he was trying to do is to get us to focus.

On really making the foundation of our marriage strong instead of trying to address every little crack in it. And it brought me back to, uh, a book that I read a while ago and actually rereading right now, it called the anatomy of peace. This book is all about building genuine peace in our relationships and in our world.

And one of the concepts in it is that we need to spend more energy making things go right than fixing things that have gone. So the counseling helped because we just started doing those simple things that would help us really to connect on a deep level and to develop that intimacy and kind of to our surprise, a lot of the problems that we were dealing with kind of disappeared, or they kind of worked themselves out.

We were able to handle them, uh, much better because our marriage was healthier. Our marriage was strong. And so when it comes to the emotional love tank, the goal of course, is to keep the love tank of our spouses, of our significant others filled. And then we can also help them learn how to fill ours, too.

We can teach them, we can request them, you know, do certain things to, to keep our emotional love tank filled. And you may be wondering, well, how do we do that? That's exactly what we're talking about in this episode about learning the love, languages, learning how to love them in a way that they want to be loved in a way that they.

Loved. And when we talk about the five level languages, we're really talking about how we or significant others receive love, but we, it also goes the other way too. We can talk about how we give love, because what I've found is, you know, we receive love in one way, but we also give love in, in another way and they could be different.

And we'll kind of get into that a little bit, but a couple things to know from the get go, you and. Significant others. Love languages are probably not the same. They, they might be, but they're probably not. And even if they are, you may have different dialects, different ways of expressing or different ways that you want, uh, people to love you.

And so, uh, it's important to, to just understand that. And often I think what happens in our relationships is that we try to love someone in the way that maybe we would feel loved. Think they want to be loved in reality, they may not be the way that they want to be loved. And so, um, you know, they may feel pretty empty that emotional love take may be pretty empty.

And it's almost as if you know, we're speaking English. and they speak Chinese and we're just completely missing each other because we're not loving in a way that they really understand in a way that makes 'em feel loved. So the first love language is words of affirmation and kind of in short, these are thoughtful or romantic or just kind words that make someone feel loved and they could be spoken.

They could be written. They've really affirmed the goodness. Of our spouse of our significant other as a person, as a partner. And they make them feel appreciated. They make them feel valued. And one of the easiest ways to, to do this is just to give compliments, right? Give them words that, build them up and it can be as simple as saying things like, Hey, you look great.

I really, you know, I like that dress or like that tie or, you know, you look really good today that that shirt looks really good on you. Whatever you can say, things like, I love your eyes. You're so good to me, you know, thank you for, for taking care of me. Thank you for taking care of the house. Thank you for planning our dates and these compliments, you know, they're endless, they can be direct or they can be indirect, you know, and by direct, I mean, they can be directly to them or they can be indirect where you compliment them, you know, to someone else, maybe you tell their friends or their family something good.

About them. And eventually, you know, it may make its way back to them, which is a really beautiful and powerful way to, to compliment someone. Dr. Chapman says verbal compliments are far greater motivators than knacking words. And in the book, he tells the story of a woman who, uh, who came to see him in his office.

And she, uh, she came into his office and, uh, she said, Dr. Chapman, I've got a problem. I can't get my husband to paint our bedroom. She said, I, I have, uh, been after him for nine months. I've tried everything I know, and I can't get him to paint it. And so Dr. Shaman, you know, talked with her a bit and he tried to understand like, okay, you know, what have you tried to do to get him to, to paint it?

And so she listed off some things and you know, most of them to be honest, were. Kind of, you know, nagging, uh, methods of getting him to, to do it. And he just wouldn't do it. He would just put other things ahead of it. Um, you know, like spending on time in the computer in this case. And so after talking with her for a little while, uh, he asked her a question.

He said, you know, does your husband ever do anything good? And. She thought about that for a little bit. And she said, yes, he does. He does some things good. Like, you know, taking out the garbage, putting gas in the car, you know, paying bills or, you know, going to the store, things like that. She didn't quite get it.

But Dr. Chapman went on to say that, okay. You know, you just told me that he knows that you want the bedroom painted. Uh, but, but he's not doing it. You know, you don't need to tell him that anymore. He knows it. He knows it. He knows it. And he said, what I want you to try is some kind of a different tactic that, you know, the next time your husband does anything good.

Anything, just give him a verbal compliment. You know, if he takes the garbage out, just think him for it. If he does the dishes, think him for it, give him a compliment, tell him, you know, he does that. Well, whatever, and, and, you know, kind of seems silly to the woman. She didn't quite understand how that was gonna get her bedroom painted, but, you know, she, she wasn't really happy with that advice, but she did it.

And three weeks later, she came back to his office and she said, It worked, you know, eventually she complimented her husband. She was just focused on kind of building him up and eventually he became motivated. He wanted to paint the bedroom for her. And so just back to what I said before, verbal compliments are far greater motivators than nagging words.

The next way to, uh, to use words of affirmation is encouraging words. All of us feel insecure about certain. In our lives or about ourselves. And so to encourage someone really means to inspire them or to give them courage, to do whatever it is that they need to do, or, you know, to help them feel better about themselves.

And, you know, often this comes down to a skill or a talent, right. There may be some potential hidden inside of us, but we feel too insecure about, about it. And so when someone encourages us, they give us a compliment or they just say, Hey, you're gonna be great at this. It really helps draw out that potential in us.

And to do this, it. Requires empathy. Dr. Chapman says, and we need to see things from their perspective kind of step into their shoes. Another way, uh, to use words of affirmation is to give kind words. And what he was talking about here really is your tone of voice, right? There's some things where if you said them in a loving kind voice, They can be taken one way, but if you say them in really a mean degrading voice, they can be taken a totally different way.

So our tone of voice, the words that we use too really mean a lot. And so we need to pay attention to those things. And when it comes to fights, right, we're bumping heads. If there's conflict in our relationships, if we can have. The emotional intelligence to respond with kindness and really a desire to understand kind of what's underneath of the conflict for our spouse for a significant other.

We are gonna get so far in building a strong relationship than if we just try to win every time. And I'll be honest with you. This is something I'm still learning. And I, I have made some progress, but man, I, this is a struggle for me is really trying to understand and respond with kindness when my wife and I have a disagreement.

Another aspect of words of affirmation is humble words. So humble words. What he's getting at hair is. Just the, the requests that we make out of love, right? These aren't demands. This is not something we're forcing our spouse to do, forcing our boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance to do, but it's really something that we're asking them to do for us, because it would help us, right.

Maybe asking them to make us a meal or to, you know, give us some space when we get home from work, whatever, just requesting that in a really humble way goes, goes really, really far. And kind of the core idea of words of affirmation is that there's many ways to. Words of affirmation, right? There's many different dialects, but the main idea is just to affirm someone's goodness to build them up instead of tear them down and really to make them feel appreciated and make them feel valued.

And this is actually one of Bridget's top two love languages, the way that she really receives. Love. And when we were dating, because you know, all the feelings, it was really easy for me to do this, but in marriage I've realized that it's not as natural for me to, to say things, to give compliments, uh, as it was, when we were dating, when we were dating, I would write her letters.

I would, you know, have really kind. Romantic things to say to her, but I've realized now I'm not loving in that way as much as I should be. So it's something that I'm honestly trying to improve upon because it's more natural for me to love with acts of service and physical touch. And so I'm trying to learn a few things you can try to really love with words of affirmation.

Just make a list of positive things about your spouse or your significant other, if this really is not natural to you. Uh, one of the things Dr. Chapman recommends is. Writing on a post-it note and maybe putting it somewhere, uh, where you'll see it, words are important. Words are important. Words are important because it's so easy for us who, you know, don't need words of affirmation necessarily, or don't value them as much as some people to just kind of forget it and to not love in this way.

Another thing you can do is just write down. The words of affirmation that you give your spouse for a week. So maybe, you know, kind off the cuff, you may say something, or you may think of something to say and you say it, um, but you can write them down. And the reason for that is just kind of to track what you've said, uh, for a couple reasons, one, you know, you don't wanna repeat the same thing every day, but also.

You can see, you can look back and see, are you actually doing it? Dr. Chapman recommends setting a goal of giving your spouse a different compliment each day for a month. You can learn how to say, I love you in different languages. You can, uh, compliment your significant other, uh, in the presence of other people, right?

Other people that they care about or that they look up to, you could appreciate your spouse's strengths, right? You can just really affirm, like, Hey, you know, you're really. At this, I, I love when you do this, I love whatever it might be about them. You know, one of the things I admire about Bridget is the fact that she's a nurse, she's a nurse, she's a pediatric nurse.

And so she works with kids and families, and it's just a really beautiful thing. She's taking care of these families who often are in like a really tough spot, you know, their child's suffering. And so she just has a really big heart when it comes to loving on those families and really helping them. So I admire that and I try to remind her of that every so.

If you're away from your spouse a lot, like if you're traveling on the road or just, you know, don't have time to spend with each other, uh, you can text each other, right. Text each other little words of affirmation. And, uh, you know, you can also just thank them for the, the routine things that they do in a day.

Everything from sweeping the floor to doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, whatever it is. The next love language is quality time and kinda in short, this one is all about giving someone your undivided attention. And this is all about, you know, spending carefree time with them. And this is actually my secondary love language.

You can have a couple, you can have like a primary and a secondary or even more, but usually it's, you know, one or two are really high for you. And, uh, you may be able to guess what the other one is, but for me, I just love good. Deep conversations. And I also just love doing things with people that I love things that I really enjoy, like, you know, going on adventures, playing sports, spending time in the mountains, traveling, all those things.

And one, one aspect of quality time is focused attention. So. Ironically, I think in order to have quality time, one of the requirements is actually having quantity time and, you know, maybe you're in a season of life where you don't have a lot of time to actually spend together. But what I've often found is, uh, it's really difficult to force quality time.

And Bridget and I dated long distance for about a year. And I noticed, you know, even though we would text and we would talk to each other pretty frequently, uh, when I would go visit her, I'd often realize that it. Kind of takes some time to get into sync with each other. And so, um, we would just kind of need to spend time being around each other.

And, and it made me think of relationships as kind of like a complex dance. And, you know, if you've ever done any sort of complex dancing, you know, that it really takes time to learn how to do it and to get in sync with your partner. And if you don't do it for a while, Then it takes time to get back in sync and to do it well.

And so that's kind of what we experience. So you really need that quantity time in order to have the quality time. And the goal here of focus attention is really to connect on an emotional level. It doesn't mean that every talk you have is gonna be a deep talk, but really that you're developing that feeling of closeness with each other.

And you can imagine the opposite of this is really. Being in the presence of the other, but not connecting. I mean, you can go out to a restaurant and you can see couples just kind of glued to their phones, right? They're not really talking. Their mind is elsewhere. Their attention is elsewhere. And so we really want to focus our attention on the other person.

Another part of this is quality conversations and. These are deep conversations where you can share your experiences. You can share your thoughts, your feelings, your desires, and accepting non-judgmental context and you know, asking good questions is really part of that. Truly listening to what the other person is saying, listening to kind of reflect on what they had to say.

One thing too. This is so hard for guys, especially a guy like me, cuz I'm such a problem solver, not trying to solve every problem that someone brings up. And again, I think this is more prominent in guys. Like when our ladies, you know, tell us something, tell us about a problem or an issue that they had at work or with their friends.

It's so tempting to just say, okay, well you need to do this and this. And that's a, and I've been there and I've done that so many times, you know, even after knowing this, I still mess this up, but, uh, but I am trying. And so, uh, we just really need to empathize in those moments. Just listen. Be there to just hear someone and kind of receive what they're saying to us, not fix it, all that that will come later maybe, but, uh, but that's not something we need to dive right into.

And that's especially hard for people who are problem solvers. So the opposite of these quality conversations of course are just kind of surface level conversations. And we've all been there, right? Small talk and, uh, you know, there's of course a place for small talk, but if we never go deeper, then our relationships are really gonna lack that joy that we all long for that.

Depth that intimacy some tips about quality conversations. So you can make, uh, a list of ideas of how to spend quality time together. Again, it takes some effort. It's not something that just happens. I think that's kind of a myth about quality time is that just automatically happens. So you kind of have sift to set the environment for it to happen.

Another thing you can do is just make eye contact, make eye contact. It can be uncomfortable. I totally get that. But really try to force yourself to make eye contact. Doesn't mean you like stare at them the entire time. Uh, you can look away, you know, every once in a while, but, uh, but really making eye contact says so much to the other person when they're saying something to you, multitasking, oh man, don't be on your phone.

Don't be doing something else at the same time. Like really stop what you're doing and listen to them because that thing that you're doing right, unless the house is on fire, um, it's gonna be there when you're done. Just do it. And in that moment, just spend time, truly focus on listening to the person that you're talking to.

One of the things Dr. Chapman says is really to listen for feelings and you, when someone's opening up to you about something, that's really a clue that we really need to pay attention. And one tip that I learned a while back. Just about conversations in general is to reflect people's feelings or reflect their thoughts, reflect the things that they say.

And what I mean by that is you kind of mirror them where, you know, if they say, oh, you know, I felt angry about this. You can, and in some way, not identical, but you can kind of say back, man, it sounds like you were. Really upset about that, or really angry about that. And that simple tactic makes people feel so understood.

And, and they really feel like you get them. Like, man, he, you know, he, or she like really understood what I was saying. And so there's really some simple phrases that you can use when someone's talking to you to kind of reflect back the gist of what they were saying to you. And they'll definitely make them feel understood.

Watch body language. You can definitely tell a lot about a person from their body language and it's often. So much more of what we communicate. I forget the percentage is just our body language and don't interrupt. Dr. Shaman was saying that usually we feel the need to interrupt and we often do interrupt, but instead, just be silent and listen to, to what they're saying.

Okay. Another component of uh, quality time is actually talking to actually express our feelings to another person. And this can be hard for some of us, right? If, if you're a person who just doesn't really talk about feelings, one of the things that you can. Dr. Chapman says is to, uh, focus on recognizing your feelings to begin with.

And this, he gives a really simple tactic to do this. He says, you know, throughout your day, if there's some event that makes you feel something. Then just write it down. For example, you may be driving to work and someone cuts you off on the road, you know, you, and you feel angry. Write that down, just recognizing it.

That's the first step to actually being able to communicate it. And in the book, uh, he talks about just kind of two type of people, people who. Really are pretty content. Not saying much, they just listen more. And then other people who just always have something to say. And so he said it can be dangerous in a relationship, especially a dating relationship where let's say the guy is the one who doesn't say much.

He just kinda listens. And then the girl let's say, and this can go both ways, but let's just say the girls is the one who just talks more. She's more talkative. It can be tempting for the guy not to really say much. And for the girls to just always say something and both of them can kind of feel content with this setup because they're like, oh man, you know, the girl may think he really listens to me.

And the guy can maybe thinking, man, I don't really need to say much. This is great. Uh, one of the problems with that, Dr. Shaman explain. More in the book. Is that in marriage that doesn't play out very well because the guy can just kind of hold these feelings inside or not really share any of his feelings for years and years and years.

Uh, because he maybe feel overpower by the, the woman, the wife. And again, this can go both ways, not picking on wives here, but, uh, but I think it's important to kind of recognize that in our data and relationships, but also in our marriages, just to make sure that we're both sharing and, and speaking about kind of what we're experiencing and what we're.

Another key component to quality time is quality activities. So this is just doing things that one or both of you love. And if only one of you loves that thing, I'd challenge you to stretch yourself. There's a, a great book called a severe mercy. And in the book it tells a story of a, a really beautiful couple.

It just such a great love for each other. And one of the things that they came up with is this idea of sharing. The idea of sharing and basically what they meant by that is if one of us likes something, then that must mean that there's something likable in that thing. And they made this commitment to each other to really find out the thing that they like and really to figure out kind of what it is.

And by doing that. They were able to honestly grow an appreciation for that thing or at least for their spouse, uh, who loves that thing. And so it's such a powerful thing I've done. And I know a lot of people have done it and it really, really helps another thing that Brene brown suggests in one of her books doing this simple exercise for your family, like maybe you have kids or even if not, can just be you and your spouse, or even if you're dating engaged, you can just list all the activities that you love to.

Have your, you know, significant other, your kids maybe do that as well. And then kind of analyze them and find the common ones. And she, she would like draw a Venn diagrams where, you know, all the circles are intersecting and they would find those things that were common to all of them. And they would focus on doing those things primarily.

It doesn't mean they couldn't. Do other things, but those were the, the main ones that they did. And that's just a really simple exercise. Take no time at all to, to really find some things that you, you and your spouse, your family would love to do together. And one of the things that often prevents quality time is people just say, I don't have time to spend at all.

And, uh, Dr. Shaman, he's pretty strong on this in a book. He says, make time for. We make time for the things in our lives that are important to us. And so there's really no excuses if we don't make time for our relationship. So some of the things you can try, uh, here, in addition to what we already talked about, don't feel the need to make everything quality time, right there.

There's a separation there. Like, especially if you spend a lot of time with your spouse there. Are things that you'll do. They're just not quality time, you know, things chores around the house or whatever. And so you don't always need to be having quality time. Another thing is to ask your spouse, uh, about the things that they love to do, kinda like the exercise I mentioned, and, you know, you could do one of those things a month or even more frequently.

You can include your significant other in your day by just texting them pictures, you know, about kind of what's going on with you, especially if you're away from each other for a while. Uh, you can plan a weekend getaway. Or, uh, you know, just share parts of your day with each other. Another thing that's just so good and beautiful is just to share about your dreams for the future.

You know, the places you wanna travel, the things you wanna do, uh, what you wanna accomplish in your life that could really bond you on, on a really deep level. The third love language is receiving. Gifts. And just in short here, uh, this is all about loving through receiving or, or giving meaningful gifts.

And these gifts are usually just visual symbols of our love and, you know, they could be purchased, they could be made and they can be anything from food to art, to card, to clothing, to, you know, going to a show or a movie, giving them a book that they like, you know, it's really only limited by your imagination.

But, uh, but there's so many options here for giving gifts and helping someone to kind of receive your love through that gift. Uh, but one of the most powerful gifts he mentions about in the book is the gift of presence. So this kinda overlaps with quality time, but really being there for someone, especially during difficult times in their life, when they need you the most in the book, Dr.

Chapman tells a story about a couple. He met in Chicago who, uh, Kinda experienced a miracle in their marriage. And they told them how, you know, they attended one of his seminars. And, uh, what they realized was that for so long, especially the husband, he just didn't love his wife in the way that she wanted to be loved.

And he was, he was kind of a jerk about it. He kind of just told his wife like, Hey, you know, we have as good of a marriage as anyone else. Like, you know, why are you trying to, uh, To, to ask for more like we're still together. You know, we have a good family, good jobs, all that. One of the things that, uh, he realized after this seminar was that his wife's primary love language was gifts.

Right. She loved receiving gifts and he just hadn't given her gifts for a long, long time. And so what he started to do was he started to just give her gifts and. After the seminar, he came home with a rose one of the nights and it just blew his wife away. And she felt so loved. She was a little skeptical at first, but she just felt loved by it.

Um, you know, then the, the next day he picked up a pizza for dinner, so she didn't need to cook and, you know, went on and on the next day brought home, you know, some treats for the kids and he. Made it a point to, to give gifts because that's the way that his wife felt loved and it really, it transformed their marriage it's so it was so simple, but it transformed their marriage and he just kept doing this.

And so some of the things you can try is just to keep a list in your phone of the things your spouse or partner mentions. So throughout the year, you know, they may mention, oh, I need this, or I need that, or, oh, I'd really like that make a mental note of that when you get some. Jotted into your phone. And when Christmas comes and their birthday comes, whatever celebration you have this whole list of gifts.

And so you can go ahead and, uh, give them one of those. And of course it doesn't need to be a celebration. You can just surprise them. You can get pretty artsy with this. I think that's something great about artsy people. You guys can really probably do this better than most of us, but if you're not like that, if you're not a great gift giver, you can recruit friends or your family to help you.

But one important. Don't ask them to do it for you. Right. Make sure you're learning from them. You're doing it with them. This is not something you're just like, kinda like delegating, cuz man, that is so inauthentic to, to do that. So don't, don't do that. And, and like I mentioned, just be there during difficult times with the gift of your presence.

The next love language is acts of service. And this love language is all about doing things, you know, your spouse or significant other. Would like you to do, it's really the right actions speak louder than words for them. And you know, those right actions, they make them feel loved more than really anything you can say or, or anything else you can give to them.

And so it's all about loving through actions. And some examples of, of that could be just doing chores around the house, you know, cooking, taking care of the finances, picking things up, taking care of the car, you know, planning a romantic date, all, all those sorts of. In my experience, this is one of the primary ways that I give love.

And, uh, thankfully this is one of the primary ways that Bridget receives love. So it actually works pretty well for us. We're, we're pretty blessed. One of the stories that Dr. Chapman tells in the book is about a, a young couple who approached him outside of church. He went to church business hometown in North Carolina, and, uh, and they, this couple came up to him and they said, you know, Dr.

Chapman can, can a couple make it in marriage. If they disagree on everyth. And, and so, you know, they kind of broke into a little counseling session and they finally got to the core of it. And that was, you know, they weren't really loving each other in the way that they wanted to, to be loved. And, you know, the wife was.

Kind of complaining that the husband would go off and he'd do things and he would, you know, go hunting, go fishing and just not really spend, uh, time with her and do things, uh, for her that she wanted him to do. And he had the same complaint. He would say, you know, uh, you know, I liked. When I come home for things to be tidier around the house and to sit down and eat dinner with my family.

And, uh, and so there's just a lot of tension in their marriage. And so, uh, when it came down to it, it wasn't so much that, you know, they were just so angry at each other and not good for each other, just that they weren't loving each other in the way that they wanted to, to feel loved. And so, and when they talked about kind of before marriage, They realized that they would, you know, do things for each other, do things with each other that made each other feel loved.

And, and so they kind of got away from that. Just focus on doing kind of the routine everyday things that so many of us fall into what Dr. Chapman did is he had them just make a list, uh, a list of what they would want their spouse to. Just a few things every day for them, they talked about it and they said, okay, we can do these things.

These things are very reasonable things like, you know, making the bed, you know, cleaning up the house, having dinner ready at a certain time, you know, washing the car every week and, and so on. So different, different acts of service. And once they started doing those things for each other, Their marriage has improved so much.

And so that's where Dr. Chapman again, realized that there's these different dialects that we sometimes speak, even if we have the same love languages. And he realized a few things from that specific couple, he said, what we do for each other before marriage is really no indication of what we will do after marriage things change.

So if you're engaged, if you're dating right now, uh, just understand that and be on the lookout for. Be really intentional about loving your spouse, uh, in the way that they feel loved. Uh, the, the next thing he discovered is really love is a choice. And it's not something that could be coerced. It's not something that we can demand.

We can request it. We can give people the opportunity to love us, but we can't force them to. And the last thing he realizes that, you know, my spouse's criticisms about my behavior. Provide me with the clearest clue to their primary love language. And so basically what he realized from this couple, the wife was complaining about the husband going off and hunting and fishing and doing all these things and not doing things for her around the house.

It really was an indication that okay, her primary love language was acts of service. And so when we're criticized, if we can keep that composure and just ask for clarity, we can often get to the root. Kind of what are spouses requesting and how we can make them feel loved and feel their love tank. And of course he says, you know, we're not in any way a doormat for our spouse.

We of course demand respect, but, uh, this is really something that when they criticize us, if we could take that constructively, it can go really a long way. Some of the things you can try when it comes to acts of service, uh, serve someone or something important to your spouse, to your significant other, whether that's a relative of pet friends.

Some cause I really believe in that can go a really long way. Cuz remember, actions speak louder to words, to these sort of people. And uh, you know, you could write on a note card. Today, you know, I'll show my love by doing this or doing that. And, uh, and that again can go a long way in making your spouse, making your significant other feel loved.

And I, if you don't really know what they would want you to do, you can ask them, you know, you can ask them to just like list 10 things that they'd like you to do. This month and then have them prioritize those from one to 10 and then get to work on it. You know, maybe do one, one a month or one a week, whatever rhythm and, uh, really start working through that list.

You can surprise, you know, your significant other with some act of service too, and you can involve your kids, uh, in it as well. And another way you can love in this way is to make sure your significant other has time to do the things that they love. And, you know, it doesn't mean that they're always off doing what they love, but really making sure that your spouse, if they love to watch football, making sure they have time to love football.

If they love to, you know, go out, shopping with their friends, make sure they have some time to go out, shopping with their friends. The last love language is. Touch in short, this one's pretty obvious, but it really touch makes someone feel loved more than anything else. And really a touch says more than any words, any gifts, the time you have together or any other actions.

And this is so powerful, you may have heard of, uh, failure to thrive. And I think it has some different meanings in, uh, and like psychological research. But one of the things that Dr. Chapman talks about is that there's been so much research. On babies. And he said babies who are held stroked and kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact.

And so touch is just so, so important. And of course we're talking about appropriate touching for whatever phase in your relationship you're in. Um, and this may, you know, break down by culture, um, your state and life, of course, like I mentioned, and of course the opposite of this is abuse. Really inappropriate touching and just taking things to, to a level that's just not good or healthy.

And the there's a story in the book where, uh, there was this couple and, uh, the husband said after doing some counseling with Dr. Chapman that, uh, once he waited. Six weeks before his wife touched him at all. And they were just kinda like the couples you heard about already. They were missing each other on so many levels.

And she didn't really realize that her husband needed that, that he really craved that, that made all the difference. Once they started to build that back into their relationship, a few things you can try. Not rocket signs here, hold hands, hug, Kee, watch a movie. Uh, you know, you can put your arms around each other in public.

You can give each other a massage. The list goes on and on. So those are the five love languages. Again, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, physical touch. Now you may be thinking, okay, how do I figure out my left language? How do I figure. My, you know, my significant others love language.

Uh, Dr. Chapman gives a few hints. He says one, uh, think about the things that kind of hurt you deeply. And the opposite of those is probably your love language, right? If the things that hurt you are, you know, actions that someone does, or some words that they say harmful words, critical words, then maybe your love language is words of affirmation.

As an example, that the second tip he says is look at the sort of things that you request the most from your partner. So maybe you, you know, wanna back rub or maybe you want them to do something for you that can kind of be a hint about what your love language is. And I, I would bet most of you can kind of figure it out or maybe you already know what your love languages are.

What. Uh, significant others, love languages are. And the third tip you get is, you know, kind of look at how you regularly express love. And one of the things for me, you know, like I mentioned, physical touch is a big one for me. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm Italian or just a guy. I. But, uh, that's something that's really important to me.

And so I can tell you without a doubt, that is one of my love languages. And so it's possible to, to have a few love languages, like a primary and a secondary, or, you know, maybe even three that are kind of high. But typically Dr. Chapman says that usually people have one or, uh, two primary level languages.

No, like I mentioned for Bridget and I, uh, Bridget receives love. And through words of affirmation and acts of service, those things make her feel love. And the way that I give love is through physical touch and through acts of service. So I've, I've definitely had to learn, uh, when it comes to words of affirmation, uh, on bridges, then, you know, she really gives through acts of surface that that's the primary way I've seen her, her give love, and she gives love in other ways too, but that's one of the primary ways that I've seen.

And I, like I mentioned, receive love through quality time and the other one is physical touch. Like. Mentioned a few times. And one thing I've noticed too, is this is different in your romantic relationships versus your friendships. You know, some of this stuff still applies, but I know dudes for one, you know, aren't gonna really be touching, uh, our guy friends all that much, and maybe girls are a little bit more touchy and cuddly, uh, than guys are, but, uh, this stuff can totally go beyond just romantic relationships, but it may look a little bit different there.

And I, I think he even has books on like the five love languages for singles and so on. One of the things that came to me when I was talking to a friend of mine about these, is that, uh, often the habits in our families can dictate your love languages. And I think it can kind of go one of two ways. And this, of course, isn't always the case, but kind of what I've seen is, you know, there may be a love language in your family that was just really strong.

Like maybe your family is a really touchy family and, you know, they hugging all the time, kissing things like that. And, uh, and so that may be your love when she feel loved when people touch you, but it also can be something. Where you felt neglected, right? Maybe you never really receive words of affirmation from mom or dad, and that's something you really lacked and you wish you would've had.

And so now you're really hungry for that. And so I think it could go either way. In some ways it's just kind of baked into our DNA. It's something that we grow up with and doesn't really change over the years though. It. So there's so much more we could have talked about in this episode, but if you pick up the book and I'll tell you how to get that in a little bit, you're gonna get answers to questions.

Like how do you love someone when you're full of hurt, anger and resentment over the past? You know, what do you do in long distance relationships to use these five love languages? And how do you figure out your love language or your significant others love language. And, you know, he gives ideas on how to like study them.

How to ask them to, to take the test or to read the book and I'll mention how you can, uh, take the test at the end of the episode as well. And this stuff can actually save your marriage. There's a really beautiful story. Uh, about one couple where the spouse that the husband actually started. To having an affair.

And it was really partly due to the fact that him and his wife were not loving each other in a way that they wanted to be loved. And so he kind of started down that path, but what ended up happening is in that affair, the woman that he was with the feelings started to fade. In that relationship too, the infatuation went down and then he realized that, oh, this other woman doesn't really fill my need either.

And so instead of kind of seeking it elsewhere, Dr. Chapman really encouraged him no double down in your own marriage. Fix your own marriage. And they did that and it saved their marriage. And of course there was a lot of hurt to work through. Um, but by going through this book, by reading this book, you're gonna see that there's so much hope for couples, even those who are just really, really in a difficult spot.

And there's other things in the book too. Like what about situations where you actually hate your spouse? Like there's so much tension in your marriage and it feels like it's beyond hope. There's a story about that. Um, again, talking about sexual infidelity, like, what do you do. In that case, like is all lost.

Um, one of the things that he says as a marriage counselor for years, he said, no, there actually is a way to rescue your marriage. If your spouse is willing to end that and to truly change. And I know that's not a popular thing to say, but his experience as a counselor has really proven that it can actually work another couple after 30 years of really just having a.

Super mediocre marriage. They were able to turn their marriage around just by learning the five love languages, just by loving each other in a way that made them feel loved. And really the, the goal of bringing you this content from this book, this book review is if we all do this, if we build strong marriages and good families, our kids are gonna grow up.

In an environment of love, right? They're gonna have that love tank full. And by doing that, they're gonna grow and build their own strong marriages, good families. And we're gonna transform our culture. I don't think the fix lies in politics. I don't think it lies in a lot of other initiatives in our culture, but it really lies in helping people.

Feel whole again, helping them face their brokenness and heal so that they can become strong virtuous individuals and go on and live the life that they were meant to live, which often includes getting married and building a family. And really, I believe this is the best way. And perhaps the only way to truly transform our culture.

If you want more, some next steps for you, you can learn more about the love languages. That's really kind of the first step by picking up the book. And I'll tell you about that in a second, but go ahead and share this podcast with your significant other with your spouse or your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance.

This could help them learn more about it. So you guys can start using this in your relationship. Learn your partner's love language too, you know, first seek to fill their needs, to fill their love tank. And then once you've started doing that, then you can request them. To fill yours and you guys can actually take the quiz at five love languages.com/quizzes.

Again, that's five, love languages.com/quizzes. And there's a few tests on there. They're all free. And one's for couples. One's for singles ones for I think children. And so there's a bunch of different tests you can take on there and really understand. Kind of what your level languages are, get your spouse significant other to do it.

And you can understand what theirs are as well. And more important than any of the knowledge from this book from this podcast is actually living this stuff, executing on it. And so I invite you start one of the things that we talked about today, one of the things that hit you, one of the things that stuck out to you, write it down, make a commitment to start executing on that.

Because I think so many of us, we want good, meaningful, happy relationships. And you've heard me say the purpose of marriage is not happiness and that's true. The purpose of marriage is not happiness, but it is a really good and beautiful goal to make our spouse happy. And that goal of making each other happy should really be pursued a.

By each spouse to love each other and to make each other happy. And, and that's my hope for you. I hope that you can have a really good fulfilling relationship, and I hope that the five love languages can help you get there by figuring out how to make your spouse feel loved and how to help them make you feel loved.

In closing out the show. I'd love to hear from you guys. Like what in this episode was really helpful to you find us on social media and, uh, DMS, or you can find the post for this episode and just comment, like what was the most helpful for you? What's something that, uh, that you're gonna use to, to love your significant other better.

Let us know love to hear from you. Uh, you can just find us on social at, at restored help at restored help. If you wanna buy the book, uh, I just recommend going to. Just search the five love languages, and you'll find it on there. We are gonna do a random giveaway of three books. So if you go to restored ministry.com/ 21 again, restored ministry ministries, singular.

Dot com slash two one just on there, scroll down. You just subscribe to our email list. Give us your name, your email, and just answer one quick question. You can unsubscribe it any time that you want to. And then, uh, we'll announce the winner by July 17th of, of 2020. So if you wanna chance of winning a free book, go on there.

And if you buy the book, now you can still enter the email list for the random giveaway. And if you win that, you can always, you know, give it to, uh, to someone else, you know, who could. The resources mentioned during the show notes@restoredministry.com slash two one guess. Thank you so much for listening.

I hope this has been helpful and useful. If it is, please share this with someone, you know, who could use it. Uh, go ahead and subscribe and 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.

My Kind of Broken

4 minute read

I think there’s this subconscious myth out there that in order for single people to meet someone and have it work out, they are required to have it all together.

Emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically you have to be ‘good enough’.

Accomplished, in shape, out of debt, well-traveled, an excellent cook…there’s a long litany of things we can (and ‘should’) achieve during our singlehood. Until then we are vastly insufficient, which is why Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful is nowhere to be found.

Okay so yeah, I think self-improvement is a good thing – scratch that – an essential thing.

Isn’t the point of life pretty much to be a  better person day in and day out?

What I would like to challenge is this misconception that you’re single because you’re not good enough…You need this time to become better. Everyone else has already obediently achieved perfection (gee, what’s taking you so long?).

Not so. You want to use this time to become better. And all the time – even long after the right person has wandered into your life (took them long enough!).

No matter how hard you work right now on yourself, you will never be “done”. We all have a dark side.

Insecurities that run as deep as our blood, hurts that still sting, jealousy, greed, vanity, selfish tendencies…these are vices we will be fighting our whole lives. And as soon as we feel we’ve improved in one area, ten other places that need some help will make themselves evident.

In fact, I believe that a lot of our “garbage” isn’t even apparent until someone tries to get a little too close. Struggles we didn’t even know we had come out of nowhere and slap us across the face as someone attempts to know us intimately.

Yes, we should certainly and continually strive for self-improvement – but this isn’t what makes us lovable or worthy of being in a relationship.

We’re already there, friends.

The question isn’t, ‘are we good enough?’ The question is this: “Can you love me in my brokenness?”

Sometimes the answer will be ‘no’, and that’s okay; it is heartbreaking and devastating too, I know. However dating is a discernment, and the question of ‘can I carry this person’s wounds?’ is one much better asked before marriage than after.

We only need one person to say ‘yes’ to this question.

We all deserve to be with someone who will see us – brokenness and all – and say:

“this is my kind of broken.”

There are wounds that take a lifetime to heal, bad habits that we are perpetually ridding ourselves of.

The right person won’t ‘fix’ us, they will support and understand our journey toward healing and growth.

We have a responsibility to work on ourselves, to try and try and try again even if we fail 100 times before seeing a minuscule amount of progress. But this responsibility doesn’t go away once we are in a committed relationship – if anything it increases since we now want to be better not only for our own sake but for this person so dear to us.

You are not single because you need to work on yourself; you need to work on yourself, that’s it.

And, so does the person you date/marry.

The beautiful thing is that you are lovable right now, in our brokenness. And for the right person, you will be the right kind of broken (as odd as that may sound).

I know that there is so much that I want to work on, my dark side is dark. I also know that doesn’t stop me from being able to be loved and known intimately.

“Love is never defeated”

Saint John Paul the Great

This article was written by Miranda Rodriguez, a contributing writer for the Restored blog. It has been reposted with permission. It originally appeared on her blog, First Class Act.

#020: Navigating Singleness | Sarah Swafford

Navigating the single years can be challenging and lonely. In this episode, we hit on some of the unique struggles we face during a season of singleness. Our guest, Sarah Swafford, offers advice on dealing with those struggles and preparing for the love we all long for.

By listening, you'll walk away with:

• How to deal with the loneliness of singleness

• How to overcome the fear and shame of not being chosen

• We even go beyond singleness into identity, self-worth, and the reality of marriage

• How Sarah’s husband didn’t let his broken home dictate his future

• Answer questions from Restored’s community

Buy the Book

Emotional Virtue: A Guide to Drama-Free Relationships

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Books & Research:

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

    • [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the link above, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Follow Sarah Swafford

  • Instagram: @sarahswafford18

  • Facebook: Sarah Swafford

  • Twitter: SarahSwafford18

  • Website: EmotionalVirtue.com

• Podcast #013: Why We Repeat Our Parents' Mistakes and How to Avoid It | Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD

Enjoy the show?

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

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Navigating the single years can be challenging and lonely. In this episode, we hidden some of the unique struggles we face during a season of singleness. Our guest is Sarah Swafford and she offers advice on dealing with those struggles and preparing for the love that we all long for by listening.

You're gonna get Sarah's advice on how to deal with the loneliness of being single, how to overcome the fear and shame of not being chosen. We even go beyond singleness and identity self-worth and the reality of marriage. Sarah also shares how her husband didn't let his broken home. Dictate his future, really beautiful.

He worked hard to heal and build a strong marriage and a beautiful family, which he now has Sarah challenges us and says that today is the day to start preparing for your marriage. Even if you're single, we also field some questions from restored community. Like how do you make the most of the time that you're single?

And how do you know when you're even ready to date to begin with lots of wisdom ahead from Sarah.

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 Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 20 and we're in the middle of our love and relationship series. The research shows that the biggest effects from our parents to force are experienced in our romantic relationships.

You may be thinking why is that? 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 feel lost and struggle in many ways in our relationships. And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actionable tips and expert advice on how to find and build authentic love.

A little background on Sarah. She's the founder of emotional virtue. She speaks to people of all ages, all around the world on a variety of topics, such as emotional virtue, dating and relationships and confidence. She's a graduate of Benedictine college and has been involved in ministry for over 10 years.

And for three of those years, Sarah actually worked as a resident hall director at Benedictine college, taking care of a dorm over 140 freshman women. And that experience gave her a front row seat into the hearts of the women and men transitioning from high school to college. And she really got a good understanding and a deeper look into the struggles that teens and young adults face today.

So I'm really excited for you guys to hear from Sarah. One thing I do wanna say there's so much to cover on this topic. We obviously couldn't cover it all in this episode, but I do wish we could have, and thank you to everyone who submitted questions. I wish we could have covered them all, but we didn't have time, but a special thanks to Shane, to Kendra, Gerard.

Jasmine, Aaron, Monica, Tori, Nick, Suzanne, and Heather. Thank you guys for submitting questions. We're gonna do more of that in the future. Answer your questions on the show. So join our email list on the website or follow us on social. So you don't miss that. Here's my conversation with Sarah Swofford. Sarah.

Swofford great to have you. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I have been looking forward to this for so long. I'm sorry. It took me so long to get myself on here. Thank you for being patient with me. I'm pumped to be with you guys. No, thank you for making time. And it's a pleasure to have you, uh, big we're, big fans of you and everything that, that you do.

So really honored to, to have that Ashville. Well, I'm a huge fan of everything you guys are doing it restored. I remember talking to you years ago about your desire to have a place where you could come and talk about these things and share. In a community and it's just so beautiful to see it ha it's happening.

And, um, I'm so grateful to all your hard work, your whole team. Thank you. Yeah. Slowly but surely we we're, we're getting there. So thanks for that. So we're talking about the single years. And so you talk with so many young people every year. And so you know that for a lot of people being single can be really difficult and there's a number of struggles that kind of come along with that.

And we're gonna talk about a few of them. Uh, but one of 'em is loneliness for a lot of people being single is very lonely and, you know, we want someone to call to text. We wanna someone to come home to, to hold, to share holidays with, to support us through, you know, those rough patches in life. And so if you would give us your advice, what's your advice for someone who's dealing with that kind loneliness?

Yeah. Well, that's great out question. I think, especially during quarantine time, right? I, that it's really interesting to see. How our hearts can be lonely, even when there's people around and then to be like very lonely because, um, you have a situation in your life where you really are cut off from people.

You know what I mean? So mm-hmm, , um, I think loneliness while it is something that is even harder when you have a family that maybe isn't in, you know, maybe that's broken, whether your family is, you know, separated or, or your parents are separated or divorced, or if your home is just very volatile and very broken, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm , um, I think all of those. All of those situations, you are gonna find yourself, like, I feel alone in this, you know, maybe you're hiding out in your room just to get away from all of it, you know? And, um, and you find yourself cut off and isolated. And I think that that's probably the word that, um, comes to me.

The, like, when I think of loneliness, we just, we weren't created to be alone. Amen. Like, I, I really, um, one of the things I say in my talk sometimes is the devil loves to do three things. He loves to twist, divide and. , those are like his three ways that he really loves to get at us. And personally, I can attest to this, you know, he twists the truth about who we are about what we're made for about, you know, like who's we are, right.

It's just like all this twisting, especially of our identity. Um, what we're longing for. He's just able to really like put that in, not, and then he does that. And what seems to happen is it, it creates division, right? So you, you feel insecure. So you're like, I don't wanna be with this group of people. You feel, you know, you feel competitive, you feel like you're comparing they, for some reason, they make you feel small, you know, like maybe it's a relationship where you, you know, you are interested in one person in that friend group and now it's like, you can't be around any of them.

You know? So there's like a lot of, you know, like I just think in young adults, especially, it's really easy for the devil to twist. And then he, he divides people out and then he isolates them so he can pick 'em off. And I think that that's part of the ball game is. When you feel, and, and I I've struggled with like anxiety my whole life.

I, I am just am a worrier. And then, um, I've had, I was bullied in seventh grade and so I had to switch schools and, and there was some. There was a shift for sure. Like in that time period of junior high where, um, we, I think the best way to say it. And, and I wish I had a counseling degree, you know, like I, I, that would be something that would be very helpful in my life.

Um, but I pick up little things as I go along. But, um, that whole idea of just like trying to protect yourself, you know what I mean? Like that, like safety or trying to protect yourself and for a lot of people, it's it, that isolation is where they think they're gonna find safety and pro and like protection.

You know what I mean? So it's really easy to wanna cut yourself off or to, it's really easy to feel only whether you've chosen it or not. Right. Like, that's just, I mean, sometimes it's chosen for, you know, like if you come from a broken home and you don't relate, you don't feel like you can really be yourself or relate to anybody there, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm um, or you come from like, you know, a really loud, fun family, but they're just a lot and , and you feel like you need to get away, you know? So, um, so I would say to that loneliness aspect, There's no easy answer, cuz we're all gonna kind of feel lonely at some point in our life, whether you, you know, no matter what your circumstances are.

So I guess the way to fight it for, for me to fight loneliness is to kind of give myself that, that deep look in into the interior of just like, okay, like I feel lonely, like why, you know what I mean? Like, am I running from something? Um, am I trying to distance myself from those who either, you know, maybe, maybe I'm trying to distance myself from my friends or those who love me.

Um, and then also trying to look, look for those little places where you maybe feel the, devil's trying to poke into a wound, right. Where the devil's trying to divide you out from someone. Um, and then you just have to fight like crazy against that. You know, that, that loneliness, because what happens is, is it's very easy to slip into despair.

Amen. Yeah. And so, so from, I mean, I'm speaking as a 30. I guess I'm 37, I'll be 37 on Tuesday. So a 37 year old, old, I'm an old lady with five kids and I've been married. I'll be married 15 years this summer. And it's interesting how I can be, you know, happily married with these adorable kids and they're allow, and they're awesome.

And I can be busy as I'll get out. You know, you just have this, like, you know, you just have this like crazy life. A lot of us are, you know, in these quarantine lives, but it's still, still really busy. Right. But it's amazing how you can be so busy and around people. And then every once in a while you still feel kinda lonely.

So, and I mean, I'm speaking from experience. And so I just think that that's where we have to take that deep step back. You know, if you're single, if you're a teen, if you're a young adult, if you're someone that is in, you know, in a broken home or even in a home that's. Not easy to be in. Amen. I think it's really just to, to, to fight that feeling of, or, or fight that, like feeling of slipping into any type of, you know, despair or desperation, um, or like that isolation, sometimes we have to like kind of talk, not only like, okay, well I'm here, I'm acknowledging it.

But then also, how did I get here? Why did I get here and how can I work my way out of. Um, cuz God did not make us to be lonely. He did not make us to be on our own. He did not make us to be out fending for ourselves. Like mm-hmm he wants us to be close to him. He wants us to be, you know, sitting in his sacred heart where he can protect us and he can love us and he can comfort us.

Even if there's a storm raging in your life, you can find that place like you can, you can curl up in the sacred heart of Jesus. As St. Faustina says it so beautifully, you can curl up in that place and find, you know, your identity, find rest, find safety, but he's not gonna just leave you there. He is going to bring you close to himself.

And then he's gonna introduce you to people who are going to love you. Well, he's going to introduce you to people who are gonna love you the way he desires to love you. And so I just really encourage everybody out there. You know, if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling, um, isolated, if you're feeling that division in your life, that you know, the, the twisting.

I know that it's easier said than done, but it is worth taking the time to look at all those little aspects and say, wow, like, how did I get here? And what do I need to do to get out of this? Because I don't want you there. And I know our Lord doesn't want you there either. I love what you said too. Just naming it is so powerful.

And oh my gosh. You know, doing when you're exploring it, one thing that's really helped me. And there's a lot of research behind this too. We're actually writing a book. Someone along these lines is writing. Writing is oh, cool. Incredibly powerful journaling. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Yes, exactly. Well, and I know it's a little bit hard right now, um, with all the quarantine stuff, but some of my most powerful, like self-reflective times has been.

Sneaking to the adoration chapel, or like sneaking to the tabernacle or sneaking to your church, or, you know, like, you know, for a lot of people who aren't even religious, you know, it's just like, I just going on a nature, walk, going somewhere quiet and taking a piece of paper and a pen. Do not take anything else.

Just take a journal and a pen. Don't take your phone, don't take your computer. Don't take, I mean, it's amazing how hard it is to just stay like in the moment when you have nothing else with you. So like try to get away for like an hour, like, you know, whether where, whatever you are, whatever, you know, whatever is your kind of quiet, peaceful place, where you can be alone with your thoughts.

Um, Dude do that. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's so important, like to, to write it down cuz when you name it, when you name it, you claim it and you write it down, you own it. Amen. That's awesome. Good stuff. We can talk about loneliness all day, but another struggle is shame. I think it's easy when you're single to feel like something's wrong with you because you know, nobody wants you, nobody wants to date you.

Nobody seems interested in you and you may wonder things like, oh, is it my looks? Is it my personality? And it could lead to the conclusion that I'm just not enough. I must be flawed. Yes. Because otherwise I would be in a relationship. I would be married by now for some people in the same life. Um, yeah.

And so we, we have some questions kind of along these lines, but I want you to be able to speak to that. The first question's from Shane and Shane said, uh, how do you overcome the fear and shame of not being chosen? Oh my gosh. Yes. Man. Okay. So I'm so glad we have four hours to break down all of this awesome stuff.

Um, it's really hard. I always, I always joke that podcasts are so fun because I feel like I have answers you America's like solve world in one minute. You know, this is my miss answer to all these questions. Cause like I really, the Lord gave me the gift of gab. And if you ask me questions about shame and relationships and you know, identity, I'm gonna go on for days.

So here's the deal. I would say, um, to answer this concisely for Shane and, and this whole idea of like that I wasn't the one chosen and like being single. It is so hard. I, you know, my whole ministry I've been doing, I've been doing ministry for like 10 years. And I really think that when you boil it down, like down, down, down, down, down, down, down, um, I used to talk about so many like random things.

And then that kinda got to a point where I was like, everything kind of goes back to like three or four core things. You know what I mean? Like there's like core questions. And the whole topic of shame and all of that kind of runs, it runs right into, I think what would be one of the other like foundation stones, which is, I think the two questions that we as human beings ask ourselves the most, we very rarely ask them out loud, but we ask them in our heads all the time and in different ways is, am I enough?

And am I ever gonna be truly loved? Hmm. Like, am I enough? And am I ever gonna be truly loved? And they, they go very closely together. Right. Because, because, you know, it's one of those things where if you see what you want and someone has it, it's like, it's so easy as a human being to look at that and then go, well, I mu like for some reason them being up on that, you know, I don't wanna say pedestal or that stare, that's like right above where I wanna be, you know, whatever that is.

Like, whatever I'm looking at them, they're standing on, let's say a bench. You know what I mean? I see them standing there and because I can see them and they have what I want. Therefore I'm a notch down because I'm looking at what I want and I don't have it. Therefore, somehow. Like you just said, shame, you know, identity, you know, insecurity, doubt, fear, anger, bitterness, how many emotions can we put to that?

Right. Like, I mean, totally. I could talk for days on bitterness and, and I think that everybody out there, you know, especially you're restored community who, and again, I don't have, I wish I had a counseling degree cause I, I can't speak to this as articulately as I would like to, but like, I've walked with thousands of people over the last, you know, years because I'm so close to, um, Benedictine college is I, I live across the street from 2000 college students and, and the, the thing that I just, I think I need your people, your people, I think I want your restored community to hear like very loud and clear is just that.

I really want them to shine that light. That can be kind of hard to talk about, which is that whole idea of like, when other people have like the family that you want, or other people have the marriage that you want, or the relationship that you want or whatever. I think it's really important to look at it and say, just because that's not what you have now does not mean that that's not what's in store for you.

And I think that for a lot of single. It's really easy to take the past and project it upon the future. So you take that divorce and everything that happened as your parents were separated. You take that moment when you were bullied in seventh grade, you take that moment when you were dumped by your first boyfriend or girlfriend, you take that moment when you're standing with a group of girls and some like random guys come by and like call out one girl as hot.

And you are just standing there feeling super awkward, right? Like, I mean, you, you have all these experiences in life where you were not chosen or it wasn't the what, like you bring all of that to the present. And then we are so good as human beings at like throwing it on the future as well. Like we take all of that and we just put it on the future and we go, well, this is how it's always gonna be like, this is my, this is what's gonna happen.

And, and one of the, the people that I love to raise up for this is my husband. My husband comes. Uh, I don't, if your people don't know him, I, I call him SW. His name is Dr. Andrew Swafford. We all call him doc SW, SW SW daddy P. Um, he has lots of names, but he teaches, uh, here at Benedictine and he comes from a very broken home, like extremely broken home.

And, um, It's one of those things where like, his parents are married, but we're not really sure why, you know what I mean? Like, so just think broken home, right? Think like a lot of verbal abuse, he grew up just like really doubting and questioning his worth and doubting and questioning a lot of what he wanted for his life because of how broken his, his childhood he was.

And so, you know, fast forward into, you know, college, high school, making decisions, just kinda living for the moment, you know, it, it was really hard to like look forward. And I remember, um, after his conversion, um, with he actually, we, we both had our conversions through, um, at Benedictine college through focus, but also through Beth and Ted Shree, Dr.

SRE and Beth. And I know that, um, you'll either know them or they, or your people do know them. And, um, there was something really beautiful. We, when we got engaged, I remember one. I found, we were like driving and all of sudden, like SW got really quiet. And I was like, what? And he's like, he just started crying.

And I mean, he is a big, like six foot football player. So like, you know, I was like, whoa, the dude's crying. Like this is an important moment. Like something's going on? And he just looked at me and he goes, I don't know if I can do this whole marriage and, and fatherhood thing, because I don't know what it should look like.

But, and, and he's like, I don't know if I know what it takes and I dunno if I can do this. And it was such, it was this beautiful moment. Like, I just don't know what if I don't know how to do this. And it was so beautiful because, um, I don't know. It was just like in the moment I just looked at him and I go, the reason why you're gonna be an amazing father and an amazing husband is because you want it.

and you're willing to work for it. And so for all your single people out there who are feeling shame from past relationships, if you're feeling like my family's really broken, if you're feeling like I'm late to this ball game, like I'm late to this, like understanding why my life has been the way it is and it's been dark and I've made mistakes.

And like, I feel shame. I I'm gonna hold up my husband, his poster boy, because he is, he was exactly where a lot of you are, which is like, am I too far gone? Like, am I have I already screwed up my kids? Even though I haven't had them yet, like, am I gonna be able to be a husband like that? I wanna be, and then does anybody want me because I'm kind of a mess and like, there's gonna be baggage for sure.

And I just, I really hold up someone like SW again, he's my example because I know him so well. And I know his story. So intimately it's easier for me to. It's almost my story now because we're married. You know what I mean? Like I like that's how deeply I feel it. And so I just, I wanna hold that up to all to Shane, to everybody out there.

Who's like feeling that, like, what if I've never chosen? What if so, what if I'm continue to be overlooked? What if I continue to feel forgotten or dismissed or all those words? And I just really, I want you to like, bring that to like, kinda what we said with the loneliness. Like let's acknowledge. Let's acknowledge that you're feeling that way.

Let let's be real about it. Right. That's good. But you can't take your whole past and throw it upon the future and be like, this is the way it's always gonna be. You know what I mean? And, and God has a plan for you, you know, like I, I know that, um, it might not look the way that you want it to look, but God has a plan for you.

And then the second part that I'll answer this is, um, so like with that shame and just like feeling you're not being chosen, um, I'm gonna couple that with a story from my really good friend. Um, Jackie angel, Jackie angel, France, Jackie Franwell angel, uh, Bobby and Jackie angel are very good friends of ours.

And I love, I love listening to Jackie talk and she gives great stories. She's very real, but she said something to me one time and I just wanna share it real quick. Um, is this, this whole, like, I keep getting rejected, but she, um, she dated. I don't know, like 20 guys, like, it's unbelievable. Like, like she would, she would, she was trying so desperately to find a spouse in her twenties mm-hmm and she would just like, she's like, I dated so many different people.

I threw myself at so many different people, you know, she just talks about like how almost like she felt like she was so incomplete because she hadn't got that figured out. Like, who's the one I wanna start this life. And she just kept, kept waiting and being like, what is wrong with me? You know? Like that was always her thing.

It's like, why did my other friend, you know, end up married and not me and blah, blah. And, um, she said something in this talk that I just really stuck with me and she ended up getting married. I think she was 31 when her and Bobby, uh, got married. So they were in their early thirties. And I think for a lot of young adults, like teens and young adults, I think it's like, we feel like that is ancient of days, right?

Like that's so old. And I, and I just wanna tell you what she said is she said around the time she turned like 20 or seven, she had just been throwing herself at relationships and, you know, just, it was just kind of all going wrong and she kept feeling inadequate. And then she finally just said, one day it just hit her.

And she just said, you know, if I'm not happy as a single, I will never be happy, married. And she was like, if I can't figure this out, because I can't, you know, if people follow my ministry, they know like one of my lines is you can't make anyone your savior. Like if you, if you try to make someone your savior, you will crush them under the weight of that.

They cannot be that for you, no matter how great they are, they cannot be that for you. And you will always end up disappointed. And I just, I bring that because that it couples so well with what Jackie was saying, which is like, if I, if I can't be happy, single, I'll never be happy or fulfilled or whole or healed in this marriage.

If I can't bring myself wholly to this marriage, you know, I have to use this single time to figure this out. And, and then she said part two of that little saying is she always said, I would rather be. Happy single than miserable, married, because I took all of my crap into that marriage. I would rather have taken the time to figure this out.

And that's what she said. She said those years really helped her to kinda like hone who she was. And so, you know, in my ministry, I always tell people like, don't shoot the messenger. Like please don't throw rotten tomatoes at me. I love you. Please. Don't throw objects at me. Singlehood in a lot of ways is a great gift.

Yeah. You work on what you work, what you're that's given you time to kind. I wanna see, I wanna, I wanna, I call it kinda like holy selfishness, you know, like, like almost like this time where you can look in your heart and, and, and take that time to figure out who you are and ask like some of these hard questions we're talking about right now.

Yeah. Because once you get into a relationship, once you get into a marriage, it's kind of go time. It's like, okay, you better bring your big boy or big girl, virtue pants, you better put 'em on and it's time to play. You know what I mean? Like it's time to go. Um, and so I always say go day, you know, people always think that like, game time is on the altar saying I do, but game time is right now, wherever you're sitting right now, listening to this podcast today is game day.

It is game day right now for you to figure out exactly who you wanna be in that marriage and being convicted in the fact that whoever you marry, they are not gonna be your everything. They are not gonna complete you. They are not gonna be perfect. They are not gonna be any of those things. They're gonna be the person that you wanna run in this life with you.

They're gonna be your workout, buddy. They're gonna be the one you laugh with. The one you have fun with the one that's co that is a compliment to your personality, but it's also gonna be the one that you're gonna grow with and you guys are gonna help each other through hard times. Um, so, so getting prepared for that is like really important.

And I I've spent years of my life talking about how important it's, so don't wish this time away do not wish this time away. And I know it's, it's easier said than done. So everyone out there hear me say it is not easy to be single. I know you're ache. I remember your ache. I, I, I know it. I, I, I respect it.

It's okay to feel. But don't just, don't sit in that again. Don't sit in that loneliness and in that despair and in that isolation, like pick it, you know, do all the things we're talking about, pick up your journal, head to a quiet place, make some lists of what you wanna do, how you wanna grow, make some lists about what you're looking for in, in the opposite sex.

Like, and this is your time to really figure all of that out. And don't be caught up in the whole, like, like I'm not enough, who's doing what I wanna do. All that stuff. Like you just have to really trust that, you know, God got you, he's got a plan and he has got great timing, even if we don't feel like it's our timing really good.

One of the things I say when I speak and I, I honestly needed to hear this myself is we're not doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes. We can write around stories. And I love what you said there, because it's, it gives so much hope because we do feel that we are kind of doomed to repeat them often. And, uh, in episode 13 of the podcast, we talk with a psychologist about that, how we, um, you know, tend to repeat.

Our parents behavior, the behavior we saw in our families and how we, we can avoid it. Yeah. So people want more on that episode, 13 0 13. That sounds amazing. And for the record, for the record, my husband, um, anybody that knows him would say that, I mean, he really is legit, like the best father and the best husband that you could ask for.

And it's because he really wanted it. You know what I mean? And, and he said, you know, I took everything that I didn't have and I took everything that I always wanted and I did. Like how beautiful is that, you know, as a Testament to, I saw the way my parents' marriage was, and I decided that's not what I want, so what is the opposite?

Or, or what could I take that was from my parents' marriage and say, okay, this is how I wanna bring, you know, a different twist to my marriage or whatever. I mean, and, and here's the other thing. I come from a family where my parents are married and they've been married for like 40 years almost. And no marriage is perfect.

Like nobody's parents are perfect. You know what I mean? So like, I think that that's the other thing is, is this is something, you know, my marriage isn't perfect. Nobody's marriage is perfect. And so it's, it's really taking it and saying, what can I learn from this? How can I heal from this? And how can I grow in this?

And that, those are hard. They take time, but they're good questions to ask. Absolutely. Kendra asked the question, which I think you already answered it, but I'm just gonna throw it out there to see if there's anything you wanna add. Sure. Uh, she said getting married seems to be this external goal that marks a young adult is doing well in society.

Um Hmm. So she asked, you know, why is that? And why can't I just be growing on my own? So it seems like she she's getting that like pressure, like, oh, I'm not married yet. I'm in my twenties. I'm in my late twenties, whatever . Yeah. Why? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I dunno. I mean, it's so funny how our society works, right?

Because like on one hand it feels like, yeah, marriage might be kinda like a status symbol of some kind like, oh, they have a job. They're married, they have a kid. Therefore they are. You know, whatever status, whatever that is. Right. You know what I mean? But then on the other hand, I feel like I get in a lot of debates on whether or not people will even wanna be married anymore.

Yeah. Um, and just like, I get into a lot of, um, not debates, just, you know, I, I go to a lot of like, you know, big colleges, like universities all over the country, all over the world. And a lot of the questions are like, can you defend dating? And whether it really exists or whether it's needed. You know, and I'm like, whoa, here we are.

you know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's, it's, it is an honest question, you know, because yeah. I mean, what is marriage to a lot of people? I mean, what is relationships to a lot of people it's like, you hook up, you, you know, you maybe like maybe live together for a while. I, I was talking to this one girl on the east coast, or it was a group of guys and girls on the east coast and this girl, I was like, what's dating like here.

And this girl was like, well, I mean, people just hook up. And then I guess when like guys deem the girl worthy to be like, seen what they're in public, or like spend money on her, then I like, guess they're dating. And I was like, wow. I think I just threw up in my mouth. Like, that's awful. You know what I mean?

But that's exactly where a lot of the culture is. And then what happens is, is they, you know, they end up just like being together or they move in together and they get like a plant and a dog and they join their bank account. And then it's all of a sudden, it's like, well, I have 500 invitations and my dress is hanging up.

And the guy's like, yeah, like I've, you know, I've been with her for three years. Like, I guess I should marry her. So we have a lot of marriages that are just kind of. I don't wanna say like, Stu they just like, kinda like stumble upon marriage and they're not really like actively looking at, so I would say to Kendra, like, I think that seeing it as a social status or feeling like that pressure to be married, to like achieve something, um, I would say like, let's, let's not get married for that reason and let's also not get married just cuz we stumble into it.

You know what I mean? That we just like, I don't know. I guess I'll just get married, you know, like those are both, I think marriage has to be one of the, I mean, gosh, this could be like a six hour long answer, but you know, it has to be one of those things where you go, wow. Like, like I feel called to this.

Like I feel to, I feel called to pursue a life of radical love where I put myself aside and choose you even when it's hard. in those sacrificial moments. I want you to be the father or the mother of my children. I want to like create life with you in our image where we raise them. And like, this is like, this is like radical and people don't talk about it.

Like this. It's just like, well, we got married, it's fine. You know what I mean? It's like, when you start really thinking about what you're doing and what you're saying yes to, and what you're, you know, putting on the table, it's pretty amazing. I mean, you're joining to someone in a way that is so radical, you know what I mean?

And so I would just say to Kindra, like, it is everything that it should be, and you should never be pressured to feel like you have to have this just as a symbol. You know what I mean? Cause it's not easy, but it's so worth it. It's so beautiful. Um, but yeah, I, I would say, I would tell Kendra, like, girl, it is okay.

You do not feel like you have to have a RS in front of your name to be who you need to be. Awesome. I wanna shift a little bit to talking about something that you said making the most of the single years. And we had a bunch of questions actually on this. And Gerard asked, he said, how do you make the most of the time that you're single?

What should you focus on? And Shane asked the question as well, but I wanna throw it to you on that. I can go on later. Oh my gosh. I love it. Virtue, virtue, virtue, virtue, virtue. I dunno. Virtue is like, um, would you define that for, for anyone? Who's just not aware. Yeah, totally. So my ministry, I actually ended up naming it, emotional virtue ministries because my husband and I were on a date night and I was like, I don't even know what I talk about.

Like, it was almost to a point where I had to name it something and I didn't even know how to like. Articulate it mm-hmm . And so we decided we were talking over dinner at, on a date night and he's like, well, really, all you do is talk about virtue. Like, like you talk about virtue all the time. And I was like, well, what, what do you mean by that?

Cause, I mean, it's really hard to define. Right. Mm-hmm um, and people throw around and I think a lot of people are like, oh, okay. So like Jane Austin, right? Like porch, city, you know what I mean? Like, I think virtue is just such an kinda an old time word, but I had a, I had a, um, a pastor one time, um, come out to me and he's like, you're bringing virtue back.

And I was like, oh my gosh, making virtue sexy again. That's where I'm at right now. So, um, it was kind a joke, but I totally took it as like a couple, but so like virtue the way, like, I would say like the old, like of old, the like raw definition is called virtue is the habitual disposition to do good. So that's like the technical, I would say the technical definit of it.

So breaking it down. I am such, I am in the habit of doing and choosing the good thing to do or the right thing to do. I'm so in the habit of that, that it's become my second nature. Okay. So think about a virtuous person that, you know, their, their qualities, what are the, what are the qualities of like a virtuous person, right?

What would they be? So you could go through, I mean, this could be like lit a litany of virtues, right? Totally courage, honesty, anything courage, honesty, patience, Lord, help me. Patience. um, you know, modesty of inten, modesty of intentions. So, so think about someone who's like not jealous, not, not vain, someone who doesn't constantly compare and compete and tear others down, right?

Like someone who is of, of sec, like someone who's secure someone, who's confident, someone who's able to articulate the truth. Someone who stands up for the truth, someone who's selfless. You know, you start going. I mean, I could talk about this for days, but I think, just think about those virtues, those characteristics that are not easy, but you will, you like gravitate like a magnet to people who are virtuous mm-hmm amen.

Like when you're looking for someone to marry and be the father of your children or the mother of your children, my friends, you are looking for a virtuous person, we all know what the opposite of that looks like. Right. Think about someone who's selfish. Self-centered proud. Jealous, manipulative. I mean, I keep on for days.

So it's sometimes it's easier to talk about the opposite than what it is. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Um, so virtue for me, when I think about it is. We all know, like we all, we're human, right. We're fallen. We all screw up. We all sin, we all make mistakes. We all have our triggers. We all have our things that like, cause us into a downward spin.

We all have our things. We struggle with temptations. We all have the things that we struggle with. Right. Virtue would be the thing that virtue would be what we go to, to like have that virtue stand in the gap. You know what I mean? So like, like I always tell people like lead with virtue and what that means is like, we always want, we're just gonna naturally wanna do the selfish, comfortable, lazy thing.

Like, that's just, I mean, I'm, I'm, I dunno if I'm speaking for myself here, but like, I mean, you naturally want to be comfortable and selfish and self-centered and kind of do what you wanna do, right? Yeah. And pick what's most comfortable and pick. Most, um, like enjoyable, right? Like pleasurable, like, I mean, I don't think anybody would say that they don't think laying on the couch and eating hohos and watching movies for like six or eight hours.

Isn't the greatest thing that's ever happened. You know what I mean? Like we all just wanna be like, comfortable do what you wanna do. Yeah. Which, you know, virtue just stands in the gap and says, okay, I'm gonna have, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna have two hohos and I'm gonna watch one movie, you know what I mean?

Like virtue says, you know, virtue says I'm going to break free from this sin or this temptation, because I want to be free. You know? So, so I think a lot of your listeners know that, you know, Jason Everett, he's like a big brother to me. We, we do Chasity project, you know? So, so, so many teams, like, you know, I walk into, you know, Matt, Fred and, and Jason and Chris and, and so many of us do high school assemblies, you know?

So I always walk into a high school assembly and I can always tell that like, They're like, oh, here comes like the Chasity lady. You know what I mean? Like, oh, here she comes. Like, she's probably a total prude. She's like here to ruin my life. Like tell me no, no, no, no, no. Like that, I'm a terrible person. You know, like they always have this like persona of who they think I'm gonna be.

And so it's really beautiful to be able to walk into a high school assembly with a thousand kids and be able to like completely rip to shred everything they thought I was gonna talk about. Because what I, I come to talk about is freedom. And what I come to talk about is being loved for who you are and not letting someone use you like a, like a virtuous person is someone who can say, I'm gonna rise above whatever, spontaneous, emotional, or physical or sexual desire I have in this moment.

I'm gonna rise above this and I'm gonna set this aside and I'm gonna choose you. I am going to choose you. And the true and the good and the beautiful. For myself and for my beloved, because you're worth it because I didn't come to use you emotionally or physically. I'm not here to tear you down. I'm not here to take from you.

I am here to love you. Well, I am here to protect your heart. I am here to guard your heart and it's like, all those, all those, like things come up to someone, you know? And even my like hardest, like, you know, my football boys, I always got on the senior football team in the front row. Right? Like they're always there.

They're always like senior boys right in the front. And I think they want to hate me. And they can't because they know that that deep down, even they want to be loved like that they don't wanna be cheated on. They don't wanna be used. They don't wanna be slept with and dumped. They don't want any of that.

Like all, like everybody's sitting in there. I cannot argue with what she's talking about because deep down, even if we are steeped in things that are not good for us, even if we're steeped in sin, it doesn't matter. Like there's still that longing in your heart where you want to be free to choose what's best for someone.

And that's why, again, Chasity project, you know, it's so it's really, it's really good because what, what I say in a lot of these talks is if someone can do that for you, like, let's, let's say you're a college student, you're a high school student out there. You're a young adult. Right. And you're like, why should I care?

Like why? Like people can sleep with each other. Like, like, I, I love them. I love him. I love her. Like, this is how I'm gonna show my love. And I, and I always, you know, I always say, you know, I get it. Like I totally get it. Um, but how do you know that, that person's not just using you for sex? Like how do you know?

And they're always. I, I don't, I'm like, yeah, I know like how, but how do you like answer me? Like, how do you know that they're not just using you emotionally to feel enough, or to feel affirmed or to feel like they have like that power over you? How do you know they're not using you like that? And they're like, I can't, I don't, I dunno that.

And I was like, here's the deal? This is the beauty of it. If someone can rise above whatever they, anybody can sleep with anybody. Right. That's pretty easy. Not everybody can have the virtue to say, I know what I want in this moment, but I'm gonna set it aside because I want to love you. Well, and in this, and this is where I think this is the boldest thing for, I think this is one of the boldest claims for Chasity.

If someone can set that aside and choose you, what can't they do for you? Like if you're in a relationship right now, anybody out there listening, and you're like, Sarah, I don't know. I mean, we sleep together. Like this is important to our relationship. I want him, or I want her to know that I love them.

Like if I take this out, how are they gonna know that I love them. I get that. That's one of the things I get a lot. And I'm like, that makes sense to me. Like, I understand why you would feel that way, but if you're in a relationship and you're contemplating. Is this the right? Is this the right relationship for me?

Can I see myself marrying this person? Are they gonna be the kind of person I wanna walk through life with for 50 years? Raise my kids. Is this the kind of person that I know is going to be there in the thick and thin with me? When you start asking questions like that? That's when you start to see man, if they can do this for me, if they can die to themselves sexually, to be able to say, like, I know what I want right now, but I, I choose you.

I choose what's best for us. I choose you. If they can do that for you, what can't they do for you? And what, what, one of the reasons I love fell in love with my husband was because I, we made that commitment to each other after lives of, of the opposite. Like we made that commitment to each other. When we got, when we started dating and I watched SWA die to himself over and over and over again in the small things and the small things and the small things.

And then in the big things and the times where it was like, you know, like he was so good about not putting us in compromising situations. Like I just, I looked back on all that and I was like, man, that is what made me fall in love with him. And that's what made me trust him and know that when we got married, this was for the long haul.

This is the real deal I have seen. This guy died himself. And now I watch him die to himself over and over again for my kids and for myself. And it's just so gorgeous. And so. I don't know how I'm like, I don't know why I'm like making a case for Chasity right now. I don't even remember what the question was, but no, no, it's really good.

I just wanna like share, I just wanna share that with everybody. Cause I think that kinda what I told you before, how we could talk about a lot of different things, but it kind of comes down to those core questions. And if you're feeling like you're not enough, if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling kind of overlooked, it is so easy to want to just throw yourself into the arms of the opposite sex and be like, make me feel.

Like that is so easy. And so that's what I see in a lot of young adults and what I see in a lot of, of teens and high schoolers and college students and young adults is like, you know what? I'm tired of feeling nothing or just brokenness or hollowness. And so I'd rather feel something, even if I'm going to be used.

I don't know if I care anymore. And I just feel like someone has to, like, someone has to step into that gap and say, I want a life of virtue for you because I want, I do not want you to be used emotionally or physically. You are worth more than that. And let me hug you and look you in the eye and tell you that you are worth more and you are gonna, you are gonna grow in ways that you never knew possible by putting your putting aside those, some of those emotions and some of those things, and being able to take those desires and say, they're good.

They're awesome. They're amazing. And they're reserved for this place. That's gonna be so beautiful in our marriage, and I'm gonna prove to you my love. by being able to set them aside and it's, it's really gorgeous. And again, that message is not out there very often. And in a lot of teen, when I walk into a high school, I, they they're, they look at me like their, I mean, their eyes are just so open.

It, it it's really beautiful. I think, I think a lot of times their head spin, they're like, man, I wanted to hate you. And I can't disagree with you right now. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Um, and, and I don't, I, I don't cut to the chase quite this fast either. Like I get an hour to explain everything. So it's kind of beautiful.

I don't actually talk about all that till the end. You know what I mean? Cause you have to, you have to build that case. Like the, the case is, is a long thing to draw out, but it's, it's probably one of the most important decisions you'll ever make in your life is who am I gonna run with? Who am I gonna date?

Who am I gonna marry? Who, who is gonna be my squad? Who's gonna be my crew. That is the most important decision you'll ever make. Is who do you run with? And if you're dating someone right now, or you date someone in the future that you can't see yourself marrying that you're just dating, but you can't see yourself marrying them.

You are dating heartache. That is what you're dating. And I, I say that and I just see people look at me like, shoot, I have a long conversation to have tonight. You know what I mean? Like that you have to kind of like talk about this. And I've had a lot of couples come back to me and be like, we listened to, we heard your talk together.

And our relationship wasn't the same, because we just realized some of those little easy pitfalls it is to just jump in, you know? So, yeah. So I don't know, take that for what it's worth, but virtue is the it's freedom, man. It's not rules. It's not, don't do this. Don't do that. You can't do this. You can't do that.

It's it's freedom. It's who do I wanna be? It's it's being able to say, I, you know, like Michael Jordan, you know, it's like, can, can you play one on one against Michael Jordan? Yeah. I'm free to, I'd get my butt kicked because I'm not free in the sense that I have the same virtue I have the same moves and I have the same stamina and I have the same workout and the same, you know, all of that, that he.

Freedom is when you can say like, no, I'm free to play this game because I've been working at it. I've been busting my tail. I've been putting the hours in, like I am virtuous and I am free to love in this radical way because I am here to play. Yeah. Like that is so beautiful. There's nothing holding you back.

Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Nothing chaining me down. Yeah, no, exactly. So I think what you're saying basically is virtue is what you need to focus on when you're single and just preparing for the future, whatever that is, whether that's you as a husband, a wife, or maybe God called you somewhere else, it's really the foundation that we need to build our lives upon.

And if we can do that, then we can build on top of that self denial on top of that self discipline on top of that virtue of Chasity, like you said, and I've found that too. I, you know, I don't think Chasity, of course isn't the only virtue needed in marriage. I, you and I both know that, but it is its so foundational, like the, everything that comes along with it, the self mastery just makes it so much easier and happier.

Yeah. And, and I have in my book, I have a whole chapter just on, on virtue and ju well, I have two chapters on virtue, but one of 'em is just on going through different virtues to work on and, and really breaking them down, which is. I took a lot of time doing that because, um, I remember in high school and co and even early in college where, and maybe some of your listeners, um, can exper or have experiences this too, but it's almost like everyone tells you, like, what not to do.

Like, don't do this and don't do this and don't do this, but no one tells you what actually to do. You know what I mean? It's like, you, you finally have a taste of, of what you're like, oh man. Like I know what I don't want. Like, I've been, you know, I've been cheated on, I've been used, I've been dumped. I've been, you know, I've had all these things happen to me and you're like, okay, so I don't want any of that, but what do I actually want?

Like, what do I, what do I, what should I be doing right now? And so I, I spent a lot of time in my book answering the, what should I be doing right now? Because I felt like sometimes we all get tired of just hearing the nose and like, you know, and sometimes the, and then the other question is why, why can't I do that?

And so I tried really hard to answer the why and then the what to do now and how to. How to move forward, how to get excited about this. I mean, I get jacked about talking about virtue. Like I get like so excited, you know what I mean? Like, I, it pumps me up because I was an athlete and I understand like hard work and stuff.

And, um, you know, my husband and his conversion story, it's really funny cuz he was a football player and he's like at the end of the day, you know, badminton is just as much as sport as football. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm, like at the end of the day, they're all beautiful and they're fun and they're great, but they're all just games.

And we spend so much time on different games in our life, but we don't spend any time on the game of life. Mm. And that game of life is that life of virtue, that life of freedom, that life of faith, that life of conviction, you know, that life of, of learning how to communicate well, how to disagree with someone and still be able to love them.

Like, you know, we're all face to face right now with like enduring family relationships. I mean, Talk about a growing opportunity or a time to just hit your life, being quarantined with your family. I mean, it's really an opportunity to say, wow, where do I wanna grow and virtue and where have I found myself not as free because I'm, I'm, you know, chained back by something or I'm, you know, I'm chained down by this anger or this bitterness or this resentment.

Um, I mean, we could talk for a long time about that, but I think that virtue just remember virtue is it's a lot of self discipline. It's a lot of, um, healing. It's a lot of virtue or it's a lot of like dis like having that discipline of desire, you know, like I'm, I'm disciplining this, not. Not because it's bad, but because I wanna be able to hone it and control it and use it where I want to be able to put it and not just let my emotions control me.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And you and I both believe that Love's the meaning of life. And if that's true, which I believe it is then in a way, I think that the greater your capacity to love the greater, your freedom, the less your capacity to love, the less freedom you have. And so you can look at things like pornography, you can look at, uh, other just unhealthy behaviors and you can see that isn't freeing you to love that isn't increasing your capacity to love.

And so therefore it's making you less free and I've been on both sides of this too, and me too, so miserable, like so empty. When living that life. And so, yeah, I never, never want to go back, so really good stuff there. Um, we're gonna tell you guys how you can get the book at the end. And so, uh, hang on for that, cuz this conversation, we can't cover everything I wish we could but, but we can't.

I think too, I talk too much. I know miss America can't go that I just go too long. I'm sorry. No, no, it's great. Um, but, but we'll tell you people how they can get more. Uh, Jasmine, Jasmine asked the question, she said, uh, what are some tips on being honest with yourself when discerning, if you're even ready, uh, to start dating or, uh, a romantic relationship.

Oh cool. Great question. Your people have great questions, man. Restored community rocking it. I feel like it's, it's one of those things like how do you know you're ready? You know what I mean? Like, you know, oh, I'm ready for this test. Oh, I'm ready for this, you know, relationship I'm ready for this marriage.

You know, it's like, you know, there's always gonna be that moment where you're. Man, I think I'm ready. I think I can do this. I I've prepared. You know what I mean? Definitely. You're gonna have a moment where you're like, um, I think that there's probably two sides of that one is nobody's perfect. And so I just, I really want all of your listeners to take a deep breath.

Like everybody take a deep breath in and let it out and just really sit with the fact that we are all a work in progress. Uh, I saw a, a, a quote the other day that said it's okay to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress. And I just, I like really resonated with that because it's like, man, there is that moment where you're just like, am I just, I mean, are we even taking divots out of this?

You know what I mean? Like, you feel like you're working towards something or you're trying to like work on getting ready. Like she said, ready for a relationship or, you know, like we just talked about all this virtue stuff and whatnot and, and it's hard, you know, we're never gonna just like show up and be like, okay guys, I I'm here.

I'm perfect. I'm healed. I'm restored. I'm whole and I'm ready to rock. You know what I mean? Like that's, mm-hmm, , that's just not even possible. That's not even, and, and praise God that it's not right. Cause why would we need community or our Lord or whatever, you know, like it's, it's, I mean, I was in confession one time and I was talking about, self-reliance like, I'm kind of a control freak.

I dunno if there's anybody else out there that struggles with that. But, um, like just like trying to control situations. And um, sometimes it's really good. This, this pastor, this priest was telling me, he's like, man, what a gift that you're wrestling with this. And I wanted to be like, gross, take it away. I don't wanna deal with this anymore.

You know what I mean? Like, like I wrestle with this, like this, I want to hand my whole life over, you know, in trust to, to God, to my husband, to my kids. Like you wanna just like radically trust and yet we still kind of clinging, right. We still kind of grasp. And I think that, you know, for a single, like you guys like young adults and, and high school college, you know, all of that.

There's so many, like endless possibilities. Like I could go here, I could go there. I could date this person. I could date that person. I could do this. I could do that. Like, there's all these like openings, you know? So it's really hard to feel. Yep. I I'm, I completely figured this out and I'm completely ready.

You know what I mean? So totally. Um, but speaking from experience, I think with my husband, like my husband and I, we actually got married pretty young. We were like 22, 23, we got married a year after college. And, um, that was like the beauty of like, remember us talking about Bobby and Jackie getting married, like at 31.

And then the beauty of Andy and I getting married at like 22, 23, you know, we did a lot of that growing together during our early years of marriage. And, and we learned a lot from each other and sacrificing. So it's like, it's not impossible to keep growing, obviously in your marriage, you don't have to like show up to marriage and be like, yeah, I have no other work to do.

I'm here. I'm ready to go. Because I would say some of my most like prolific growth came early in marriage and that was through like the, you know, iron sharpens iron. Right. You know, so it was through some of that, you know, some of those marital like hard times and some of those hard times just in life.

So it's really beautiful. I think I would, I would tell Jasmine, like, Don't stress. Like don't worry about being, having it all figured out. Don't worry about all of that. Like part of this like radical trust is saying, I know I'm not perfect. I'm working really hard. I'm a masterpiece. You know, God loves me.

Like my identity is I'm a beloved daughter or son of God, like that's my identity. Everything else is labels. And I'm gonna just like, be confident in this, that, that I want to be along for the ride. I wanna be along for the journey and I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that control. That is an illusion. Thank you, father.

Mike Schmitz control is an illusion. Security is an illusion. It's all an illusion, but we grasp at it. And so I think just saying like, I'm going to have confidence and I'm going to have trust and I'm going to have peace in this idea of, I'm really excited to see what my life holds, but I'm not gonna sit here and be like a, you know, like a divine Nintendo player and feel like I'm gonna be able to manipulate every move and, you know, AA B, B CC up that's the right move.

Like we don't know that, you know what I mean? So, so I would just say, you know, that I had, y'all just take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And I think it's just to say, like, this is this life, like, there's, there's gonna be a lot of unknowns. Um, there's gonna be a lot of walking into something and going.

All right. What's this let's go, you know, but some of those harder times in my life where I, I didn't know what was going on and I had to just trust, um, you know, some of those ended up to be some of my, the biggest blessings of my life. You know, some of the things that just really blew my mind were things that were of none of my doing, or my choosing or my, my picking, or my path me going like, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do.

You know? Like, like even what I do now as a, I never would've ever like every, I never even thought about writing a book. I never thought about giving a talk. I never thought about any of that. Like if you had asked me in high school, what I was gonna do, I was going to open a coffee shop and I wanted to open like a little bookstore in a coffee shop.

Um, like that was what I wanted to do. So like you think about, or even in college, just going to college for, you know, so just let God really, you know, again, Live, try to live your life with open hands and not clench fist. Father, Johnny Burns. One of my dears friends. He always says, he's like, Sarah, you he's like you put your own plans in your hands.

And then, and then you close your fist. He's like, and you're, you're just like white knuckle in it. You're just holding over to your life. Cuz you have this idea of how you want it to go or how you want life to be. And then he is like, he's like, nobody can put new beauty into clench fist. Someone might be trying to hand you a gift.

God may be trying to hand you a gift. You know, something might be coming your way, but your hands are clenched around something else. And you're not able, you're not free to even receive it cuz you're you don't have open hands mm-hmm . And that, that vision, that, that visual for me is huge. You know? Cause I feel myself grasping.

I dunno if you guys ever feel that, like I feel myself like grabbing and trying to hold on and try to keep things the way I want them or keep things where I want or you know, try to make things the way I want them or whatever, whatever that means, you know? And I just really would encourage you guys to like live life with open hands and let, let God surprise you.

Let, like, especially with this whole relationship thing, you know, what do you hear over and over again from people who are in great relationships or beautiful marriages? It's like, yeah. It's like when I stopped trying and when I just started living and I stopped stressing about it, like, it just all fell into place.

You know, I hear that all the time. You know what I mean? So, yeah. Again, one more last thing, nothing good ever happens at a desperation, nothing good ever happens at a desperation. And that is like the number one thing people should remember when they're looking at this whole relationship thing is desperation.

Doesn't bring out the best in us. Amen. And it, it, doesn't typically when you're desperate, when you're worried, when you're anxious, when you're manipulating situations, when you're trying to make something work, when you're crawling, you know, back to people when things are just not, you know, when it's square, peg round hole and you know it, but you're still forcing it, like typically that desperation, um, Typically, it's not a good place, you know, and that's just from years and years and years of walking with people.

No, that's such a good answer. And just speaking to Jasmine here too, I just wanted to add that, like you said, Sarah, I compare this to fitness, cuz we're always gonna be healing. We're always gonna be growing. But in our, in our, uh, fitness lives, we don't ever say, oh, I'm at the peak of fitness. I would never need to do anything with fitness ever again.

I never need to eat healthy workout. I've made it. That's not the case. Yeah. It's an infinite game. We're always gonna be working on it. And so I love what you said, how different people have done this different ways. What I would say of course, to balance that. And I, I know you would agree with this is if there is some extreme struggle with say something like pornography or an addiction like drinking or drugs, then of course that's something you do wanna overcome before entering into a relationship.

And the way you can think about that. Yeah. Is, is there anything that's seriously impeding. You from being able to love. And if that's the case, then you really owe it to yourself, your future spouse, anyone that you date to spend some time, um, healing and getting control for that. And, you know, not in the sense that we have control over everything in our lives, but we do need to, to get to a certain point, but you're right.

It's hard to draw a line. Yeah, no, for sure. We, my husband and I do a lot of marriage prep. And one of the things that we always say is any problem that you have, anything that you're struggling with, even either yourself or with your significant other, anything that you're going through or struggling with before marriage, um, it doesn't go away when you get married, it's magnified.

And so I think a lot of people think, well, when we just get married and, and I'll change or they'll change, or I can change them. And that is a hundred percent not the case, anything that you're struggling with, it doesn't go away. It doesn't change. It's usually magnified. And so part of what, I couldn't agree more with what you just said.

It. How do I wanna bring the EST and the most, you know, the, the healed and most, whole, and most virtuous and the striving, you know, person, the confident person, how can I bring. The most of what I can to that alter. And that's, you know, like you said, working out, you know, if you stop working out, you're gonna get flabby and outta shape, right.

Like you have to maintain that, that kind of condition. Right. And that's the same for the, the spiritual life, the emotional life, the, the life of the interior life, right? Like, that's the same thing. You have to work at it. You have to keep it healing and whole and healthy. That's a, that that's a real thing.

And we don't talk about it enough. No, no we don't. And one thing that Jason and I talked about was I've noticed this, just looking at couples around me and that is the more virtuous the spouses, the happier the marriage. Mm. So true. And so the, yeah, the virtue that you've been talking about so much is so key and so foundational.

I wanna move on. Yeah. I wanna move on. Monica had a question. She said for people from broken homes, how can we approach the topic of fear of failure in marriage with a potential spouse without coming across, like we're planning for a divorce. Sure. Sure, sure. Well, nobody plans for that. That's for sure.

Yeah. Um, man, the feel fear of failure is so real. And um, I mean, one of the things that I, I don't know, like something that really helped me whenever my husband and I got married was, uh, he looked at me at one point and I mean, we, we just really built our entire dating relationship, our engagement, our courtship, all of it, like everything leading up to our marriage.

Like we really went into it with the language and even had like long conversations about the fact that like, like we want this to be for life. Like I'm choosing you. And I want like, I'm not gonna run away. I'm not going to, um, when times get tough, I'm not gonna bail on you. And it was kind of cool, like to, to have that language even going into it because there was kind of that freedom to be able to say.

Are you worried that I would leave? Like, like, do you trust that I would stay? Or do you think I would leave? Or like, how would we handle this? Or how would we handle that? Like, you know what I mean? Like, we were really free on that. And I think talking about that, and I think that it kind of helped, I almost think it helped kind of, you know, dispel that, you know, if you don't ever talk about it, you don't talk about things that could go wrong.

You don't talk about how your past has affected you. Um, if you don't talk about those things, I think it's almost like the big, I think maybe like big pink elephant in the room. Right. So I think it's really good. Like, you know, the fact that, you know, you don't walk into it, the fear failure, but walk into it more with that realistic outlook of, Hey, like I'm doing this for life.

Like I'm signing up for this. So like, whatever we think might go wrong, we should probably deal with it now, before we get married. mm-hmm um, you know what I mean? Like, I think that that's really good. Cause a lot of people. What's so hard about dating and courtship and, and engagement is when you're dating or engaged or whatever, you're like always putting your best foot forward.

You know, you're always like, yeah, of course. I look this way all the time. Of course, of course. I'm virtuous all the time. Like, you know, you can kinda. I don't wanna say like, you know, poured on or whatever, but, but there's something really beautiful about being very honest and an engagement being very, again, that's where chastity plays a huge role.

You know what I mean? You can't just cover everything up with sex. You just can't cover up any hard things with like, we're just gonna brush this under the rug. You know, we have no problems. It's like, that's just not true. You know what I mean? Everybody's bringing a story, everyone's bringing a history, everyone's bringing something to that relationship.

Um, so let's not be naive to not say like, these are the things I wanna talk about. These are the things I wanna bring to you. Engagement is the great discernment. Everyone thinks engagement. You, you know, you get a ring and that's it. Like, you're married practically. It's like, well, no, actually we always say engagement is all the marital problems without the marital benefits.

That's like our joke because engagement is really hard, right? Like, I mean, you're like, dude, I'm gonna marry this person. Like I really am like, I have a ring. It's like, well then why can't. You know, why can't we get a, a, you know, a house together and get a dog and get a plant and sleep together and all this stuff.

And, and my answer back to it is, is, look, you're about to try to, you're gonna try to plan a wedding together, which is a, a, a feat you're about to try to blend your lives together, right? Like, you're gonna have to figure out what city are we living in? How are we gonna handle? You know, you're maybe going to grad school.

I have a new job, da, da, da, da, you have all these, like, how are we gonna, like, you know, how do we handle money? How do we, you know, it's becoming our money. How do we wanna do that? So all of a sudden you have all these marital, I'm gonna say like problems, which is like marital. They don't have to do problems.

They're almost like circumstances, right? Like you're starting to see that you're gonna have to blend this. And there's no like running and hiding, like just like covering all that up. Right. If you're gonna see a red flag, you're gonna. A lot clearer if you're not sleeping together. Amen. Does that make sense?

I hope your listeners know that I, I, I feel bad. Keep coming back to this, cuz I don't wanna be Debbie downer, you know, but like I'm just really trying to speak into this, this place in relationships where it's like, man, I wanna grow and virtue, man. I wanna look at this relationship differently than my past relationships, man.

Okay. I've been in like six, like relationships that did not go well. Like I want this one to be different. You know? Like if, if you're in a spot like that or if you're in a relationship, I counsel a ton of couples who heard my talk and like together, you know, maybe they came to like my college talk or something and they, they come up to me afterwards and they're like, we need to talk to you, you know?

And I know what they wanna talk about. They're like, we're sleeping together, but we love everything you just said, , you know what I mean? Like what are we gonna do? Like what are we gonna do? We we've been dating a year and we have all these habits and you know, they're just kind of things that we've fallen into, but like they, they loved all 49 minutes of my talk and now they want that, you know what I mean?

So it's like. You gotta kind of see that that's, you know, I'm so proud of those couples. I'm so proud of those people that, you know, come up to me afterwards or email me, or, you know, read the book and go, holy cow. I, I just was, I had, I've never even like been able to articulate this stuff, but I know this is what I wanna build my life on my, my marriage, my relationships.

I wanna build it on something as sturdy as this. And I'm tired of being used. I'm tired of being abused. I'm tired of fearing that my relationship is gonna end up like a relationship. I don't want, you know, it's just so beautiful. Like we said, freedom, man. That's the word? It just keeps coming up. Right? It just keeps coming back.

Yeah, no, it's so good. We, uh, we're running along time. So I just wanna ask about the book. What will someone who reads a get out of it? You know, it was one of those things. It was actually Jason, which is so funny. You guys all know? I, I started giving talks, um, at Benedictine here at the college and I, I never sat out.

I never, you know, was going to be a speaker. I just started, um, hanging out with like groups of guys and groups of girls and then co-ed groups. And we were just kinda like talk a lot. And then finally my kitchen was too small and then the lounge was too small and then the dorm was too small. So I had to move, we went over to an auditorium and next thing I know I'm giving a talk, you know, and it was really beautiful because it was basically, I just kept saying the same things, one on one with people.

And then I, I ran out of time to be able to go one on one. Like I couldn't go to coffee all the time and I had little kids. And so it was really hard to find that time. And so I started giving talks cuz it was easier to say it at, say it once in front of a hundred people than say it to a hundred people.

Does that make sense? So, um, but yeah, I was, I was given a talk, um, somewhere and Jason found out about me and heard me speak. And Jason was like, this is he's like, this is like a part. The heart and a part of like ministry that no one's doing. Cuz I was speaking a lot about social media emotions, um, insecurities identity.

I was speaking about virtue. I was speaking about, you know, what, why do we do what we do and why is it that relationships are so hard? And especially as social media was kind of coming on the scene and texting and things like that. And so to be honest, the book, the, the book just became Jason saying, Sarah, like, you can't be everywhere, but your message has to be everywhere.

And so I said, I was like, Jason, I have, at the time I had three little kids, I was like, it's gonna take me like years to write a book. I mean like legit, like six years, you know what I mean was like, there's no time for that. And he's like, who cares? How long it takes to start writing down everything you want people to know and write it down and just, you know, and then we'll organize it later.

You know, that was kind of his whole thing. And um, and so that's kinda what happened. It took me over two years and I just kept writing down things that I was passionate about things. I was saying, things that I wanted people to know. Um, I really poured my heart into it. A lot of people. I think they think what might be in it.

And they're really surprised when they read it to find what it is actually about what the books is actually about. Um, I have a lot of people that will read it in one sitting they'll just sit down and read it. It takes like five hours. They're like, yeah, I read it in one sitting. I just kept reading. You know what I mean?

It's one of those books that you can kinda, um, get lost in it, cuz it's very personal. It's it's I speak in the book the way I'm speaking right now. I wanted it to be very, um, easy to understand and just my heart kind of poured out and mm-hmm if it helps in any way, then it was worth how hard it was to write

So, um, and it has, it's been really beautiful. It's it's just celebrated its five year, little birthday and I think there's over. I think there's over a hundred thousand copies floating around the world. So that's, I mean, I, I really legit thought a hundred people might read it and I thought I'd be related to 50 of 'em so the fact that the fact that it was more than that is still kind of mind blowing, so that's awesome.

So, yeah. And you talk about everything from virtue, like you said to body image, to social media, to, you know, dealing with, how do you find your posse, your friends, and all, all that good stuff. And so guys, if you want more, I'll tell you at the end of the episode, how to get it, but sir, in closing out the show, I just wanna ask you what final word of encouragement would you give to anyone who's, uh, just struggling right now, especially who's struggling with being single.

Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where I, I really want you to hear me say this and, and just hear it really like deep in your soul. It's just. I'm sorry for the times that you have not been loved the way you deserve to be loved. And I will fight like hell to make sure that you feel the love that you deserve.

And I, I call myself like a professional, like crap clear, like I just love clearing out obstacles and that are in your way from you being able to know your true identity and so that you can be convicted and how loved you are and how, how unique you are and how, how there is no one else like you and God needs you to be you.

And he needs you to be whole and healed. And, and like, again, it's gonna take a little work, but like it's worth it. It is worth the fight. It is worth the struggle of getting over and getting through some things. And to be able to look not bringing your past and, and projecting it on your future, but being able to like clear a new path for your life.

Um, one of the greatest things I, I, I always hear is that my, my talk or my book is like hitting a reset button. And so that would be my, my final, like concluding thought is just believe how loved you are. And don't be afraid to hit the reset button and say like, yeah, it's like a hard reset on your phone.

Sometimes you have to like clear everything, like hard reset. We just need to, like, we need to add in, what's gonna help. And we need to subtract. What's not helping. We need to, to play that game of what needs to go and what needs to come into my life and order for me to really rock this, um, as a person and then in relationships, um, because you only get one life, we only get one, we only get one shot at this, and it's too precious to not, you know, to not really go at this with everything we.

So good, sir. How can people follow you? Yeah, so I'm at emotional virtue.com. That's the website. And there's like, um, a little online store there with like books. My husband is, has some phenomenal books. There's a bunch of fun swag. And then the book is there as well. Um, and then I also have, um, Sarah Swafford, 18, 18 is my wedding anniversary.

Sarah Swafford was taken. Uh, but I loved dwelling over on Instagram. It's a fun place to be. Um, so yeah, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I'm a little slow to get back, but I do answer my Instagram direct messages. If, if anybody wants their needs. Um, I like speaking into the microphone. I love that. Um, I love that little feature.

So let me know if you guys need anything, but just please know my prayers and, uh, just keep fighting the good fight. It's worth it, Sarah. You're awesome. We love you. And thank you so much for, uh, for being here. I love doing, I love you and I love your ministry and I love your family. You guys are good stuff.

Thank you for all that. You guys do it restored and just, you know, everybody out there, like keep plugging in the things that really feed you. So beautiful. Good. If you want more wisdom from Sarah, you can buy her book in three easy steps. First, just go to restored ministry.com/twenty. Again, that's restored ministry.com.

Ministry is a singular slash 20. The number 22 0. Just scroll down. And when you see her book, click on it and then that'll take you to Sarah's site where you could just click on, add to cart at the bottom of the page and check out the resources mentioned are in the show notes@restorministry.com slash 20.

Thank you guys so much for listening. We do this for you, and if this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast with someone that you know who could use it. Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole. And become the person that you were born to be.

Something Has Been Taken From Me

4 minute read

The story below is from Marissa, written at 29 years old. Her parents divorced when she was 20 years old. She gave permission for this story to be told.

HER STORY

I grew up in a home where I never really saw my parents express love to each other. There was a lot of fighting and hiding things from each other but I still never thought my parents would divorce.

When I was a freshman in college my mom called to tell me that my dad moved out. The whole process was kept quiet from me and my brothers. We never even were told the day they actually got divorced.

I did not think it affected me. I thought it was better. Both of my parents seemed happier. I went down a path of self destruction in college. For two years I spent almost every night intoxicated in some way. I was very promiscuous and detached any intimacy or real love from my friendships and relationships. So many wounds in my sexuality were caused then.

I went to confession one day after spending less time with my “friends” and more time with a virtuous friend who respected me - he’s now my husband. In confession, the priest told me I am behaving as though I feel something has been taken from me. He did not know my parents were divorced. The phrase “taken from me” resonated on every level.

I spent time in confession over the next year, I went to a theology of the body camp, I started dating my husband and finding authentic relationships. I started a deep prayer life of healing with our Lord.

We are married for 4 years and have two little girls. Only through God’s grace is my sexuality redeemed and my relationship with my mom and dad strengthened.

HOW THE DIVORCE MADE HER FEEL

I realized after two years that I felt that something had been taken from me.

I felt that my dad was taken from me when he started seriously dating his new wife.

I felt that my mom had taken information and closure on the divorce from me by not telling me the details.

I felt that my childhood was taken from me because all of our family traditions did not exist anymore.

I felt that my faith had been taken in many ways because my family growing up helped shape my faith and now my family was not the same.

I finally had to realize that God had so much more to give me than anything that had been taken from me.

HOW HER PARENTS' DIVORCE HAS IMPACTED HER

It’s affected my ability to trust and receive intimacy (emotional and physical). I did not work through the divorce during it happening, so I was wounded in many ways but primarily in my sexuality. So much of my healing has been in restoring my femininity and receptivity.

ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHOSE PARENTS HAVE DIVORCED OR SEPARATED

Don’t be afraid to ask your parents questions. If you have siblings, don’t be afraid to ask them how they are doing.

It’s okay to use the word “divorce” when talking to your family. You can still be a family by listening to one another.

Make sure to surround yourself with virtuous people and seek out authentic relationships. Hang out with people that you admire.

• Speak to God the Father. Listen to him call you his child.

• Hold the hand of Our Mother and don’t let it go.

• Pray for healing.

• Read about Theology of the Body.

• Tell your Mom and Dad that you still need to be their child.

HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED AND SEPARATED FAMILIES

More content that uses the word "divorce.” Easier and more mainstream resources that talk about relationships and divorce.

Youth ministry resources sent to diocese and parishes. Partnerships with big conferences to host breakout sessions on the topic.

A family home ministry where young adults are invited to a married family’s home to share a meal, pray, hang out, and just be in relationship with a virtuous married family. Give them the encounter of a holy, loving, authentic relationship.

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Are you interested in sharing your story with Restored?  If so, click the button above. Sharing your story can help you begin healing. 

Be assured: Your privacy is very important to us. Your name and story will never be shared unless you give explicit permission.

#019: How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul | Jason Evert

Ladies, if you've ever felt discouraged and alone in your search for love, this episode is for you. Jason Evert offers advice from the book he and his wife wrote titled How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul.

By listening, you'll get:

• The type of guys to avoid

• How the "Love Test" helps you figure out if a man really loves you

• One thing you can do to reduce the chance of divorce in your own marriage

• How to break up with a guy, even if you're afraid

• Encouragement if you've made mistakes and how to heal from them

Plus, enter our random giveaway to win the book How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul! We’re giving away three. Details at the end of the episode.

Buy the Book

How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul: 21 Secrets for Women

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Ladies you are in for a treat. If you or someone, you know, has ever wondered, how do I find a good guy? How do I build love without settling? If you've ever felt hopeless in your search for love and your search for a good man, this episode is for you. My guess today is Jason Everett. The last episode we did with him was for the men and this one's for you ladies.

Jason and his wife, Lina wrote a book called how to find your soulmate without losing your soul 21 secrets for women. And they've sold hundreds of thousands of these books. Women just eat it up. And as you'll hear him say, after traveling the world and speaking about love and relationships, they saw some common themes in the struggles women face.

And so they wanted something. They could just handle the women to help them in their search for love. And the book is their answer. So we'll dive into the content in the book and even go beyond it. And some of the benefits you'll get from listening to this episode, you'll know some of the guys you wanna avoid.

Jason talks about the love test and how it can help you figure out whether a man really loves you or not. We speak about hookup culture and how that's so toxic to your love life. Jason gives a couple ideas on how women should respond to the constant pressure in our culture, for them to have flawless bodies.

We mentioned one thing that you can do to reduce the chance of divorce in your own marriage. Jason gives some guidance on how to break up with a guy, you know, you should. Even if you're afraid. And lastly, Jason just gives some encouragement. 10 of you ladies out there who feel broken, who feel like, you know, it's too late for, you've made some mistakes.

So Jason will speak into that and give some advice on how to heal. We're also doing a random giveaway. We're giving away three of these books. I'll tell you more about that at the end.

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 19, and if you've been listening, you know, that we're in the middle of our love and relationship series.

Research shows that the biggest way. Our parents' divorce affects us is in our romantic relationships. And you may be wondering why basically, because we don't have a roadmap for love. We've seen a broken model of what love and marriage look like. And so when it's our turn, we feel lost and we struggle in numerous ways in our relationships.

And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actionable tips and expert advice on how to find and build authentic love that lasts. What about Jason? Jason Everett has spoken on six continents to more than 1 million people about love, relationships and sexuality with his wife Carlina. They're the authors of more than 15 books, including how to find your soulmate without losing your soul pure womanhood.

And if you really loved me, Jason earned a master's degree in theology and undergraduate degrees in counseling and theology with a minor in philosophy at Franciscan university of Steubenville, Jason and his wife, our frequent guest in radio shows throughout the country and their TV appearances include Fox news, MSNBC, the BBC and E w TN Jason and Chris married in 2003.

And now they live in Phoenix with their beautiful family. And I know I say this often, but for any of you guys out there who are listening, who aren't religious. I'm so happy you're here. Uh, Jason and other guests of ours are religious. And so they may talk about God about faith, but even if you take out those parts of the episodes, you're still gonna get a lot out of it.

And so if you can keep an open mind, there's so much good stuff in this interview for you. And I do apologize. There's some background noise throughout the interview. So please bear with us on that. Here's my interview with Jason, Jason. Thanks for being back. Great to have you on the show again. Oh, I'm glad to be on.

Thanks for having me. I love, uh, I love the soul, my book. I read it a while ago. I know I'm not a woman, but I thought it was excellent. A lot of great advice that I would want my sister and my future daughters to read. And before getting into the content, I was curious, let's go back in time. What inspired you to write this book in the first place?

Yeah. Well, first I'm glad to hear that you read it and I'm here more and more guys are, even though it's, you know, clearly for women, one guy came up to me at a conference, was buying the book and I said, Hey, well just, you know that just for women. and he said, I know, but my girlfriend told me I need to read it.

so like, okay, then enjoy. Um, but where it came from is that we would speak at, you know, these young adult gatherings or universities, even high schools. And the, the women would come up afterwards in lines just with these serious issues, just one after the other, after the other. And we began to notice these patterns, these trends that were going on in their relationships and their personal lives and the, the difficulty, the abuse, I mean, just, just so much stuff that they were having to navigate through on their own.

And, you know, they say necessity is the mother of invention. And then just felt like I just wish I had something. I could just hand these women and say, here, this is it. A to Z. This is how to get through these tough single years, uh, without having to lower your standards on your quest for real love.

Here's how to know if a guy's worth dating. Here's how to know, you know, if he really loves you once you are dating and how to keep the thing strong. And, and so we spent a couple years just putting it together and, uh, You know, it's been a blessing to see the fruit of it. I saw one girl decided that the girls at my university need this.

So she put up some signs, Hey, we're gonna do a book study on how to find your soul mate without losing your soul. And a bunch of girls signed up for it. And then it got too big. And so they had to split it up to the next floor of the dorm for another study. And that got too big. And before you knew it, there was a book study on every single floor of the girls' dormitory, uh, going through this book because the girls are hungry, uh, and they look for guidance.

That's not gonna pander them, not gonna water it down, not gonna make 'em feel shameful, but just empower them to be the women. You know, the guy I've created them to be. That's amazing. And the women, like you said, have responded well, how many have you given away? How many have you sold? Do you know, offhand?

Uh, we're in somewhere into the hundreds of thousands. Uh, you know, I haven't kept taps on how much more than that. Um, but it's, it's moved, you know, partly. It resonates with women. And also we make it available at $3 a piece@chastity.com. So you can get a box of 'em at a time and share 'em with the women in your young adult group share 'em, you know, with the theology on tap group or their, you know, high school classmates or whatever, you know, our goal is just, let's just make this dirt cheap and get it out because if women can just get this part of their life relationships, sexuality in the right sweet spot, life becomes so much easier and, and less complicated and difficult.

And so we just wanna come alongside these girls and, and, uh, help them the final love that they deserve. I have a confession to make some, uh, years ago I bought a box of the books and after, uh, I think after Christmas mass or something, I had texted a bunch of my friends and I started, uh, selling 'em out of the trunk.

and, uh, the, the reason for that was, yeah, I wanted them to get 'em out to people who they thought, you know, could use the gift and I sold them for like a dollar more than, than you sold them so that I can do it again. Uh, so I hope that's okay. Little confession? Yeah. On the black market. Yeah. Yeah. Chasity black.

Yeah. No, well man, whatever gets it out there. I mean, and you know, and sometimes I'd keep a stash in my car. I remember I was getting my cut once and ladies starts asking what I do for a living start explaining to her. And she's like, oh wow. She's like, you know, I work at a, a center for women who are leaving, like the sex trade industry and all that.

And wow. You know, and, and, you know, people have been life prostitution, whatever. And she said, oh, we could, we could use a case of them. We'll do study for the girls. So, you know, just brought her a whole load of books out of the car and you know, and they let us study the girls. So you never know when an opportunity's gonna rise.

So kudos for you for keeping a stash in your trunk. And Jason, what do you want for the women who, who read it? What's your hope for them? I, I remember one mom in the Philippines asked me when I was there. She said, if I can tell my daughter, what is love in one sentence, how can she know if a guy really loves her in one sentence and I'm sitting there, I'll see, you know, one sentence.

And I thought, okay, the closer she gets to him, The more, she becomes herself. That's a real of it. Whereas the opposite is the closer you get to this person. You don't even know who you are anymore. And so, uh, I just want these women to feel like themselves again, but sometimes they get stuck in these relationships that are so.

Cloudy and confusion, confusing and difficult and hurtful that, you know, after a few days or weeks or months or years of this, like, you don't even know who you are anymore. Just so disorienting to be in the wrong relationship. So we wanna help orient them in a sense to, to a love that actually makes them feel cherished.

Instead of perhaps just taking advantage of one of the first problems you identify in the book is missionary dating. Would you explain what, what is missionary dating and what's wrong with it? Well, you know, guys and girls are guilty of doing this. I think girls in a particular way, because sometimes they can really see the positive qualities of a guy that he might not even see in himself.

And she dates, she sees like, oh yeah, you know, I know he is got this proper, that crop, but, but we can fix it. It's almost like one of those home makeover, TV shows where you fall in love with this dilapidated property. And then you think of all the potential that's within it. You know, and some girls are dating like that.

Where if the guy was a house, he'd be like some dilapidated haunted. Crack house in Detroit and she's thinking, oh, but you know, we can put a swimming pool in there and I'm gonna get new curtains and it's gonna be brand new and they're not really dating a person. They're dating a project. They're dating their imagination of, of who they hope he can be or who they thought he was when they first met him.

Um, and it's just draining because yeah, someone gets changed in that scenario, but it's not the guy for the better, it's typically the girls for the worse. Hmm. So true. And it's so sad to see that in real life. And I think some listeners may in the back of their head be thinking, but I've seen this situation or that situation where this worked my aunt or my uncle or my friends, you know, was with this guy.

And eventually he turned things around. What would be your response to someone who thinks that, well, maybe it can work some of the time. Yeah. You know, and maybe it can some of the time, but you know, if we're gonna put our money down on, so. This is not the place to put it. Um, I mean, it's an investment that can take years and years and years, and you think, oh, well, our love is stronger.

Our love is stronger. You know, we'll overcome this. Um, but your whole vocation is at stake. I mean, what type of man do you want raising your kids? I mean, do you want the guy raising your kids who, and you've gotta drag him to church and you've gotta beg him not to drink and not to look at porn and not to treat you like garbage.

Like, is that really what you want for your own life? Probably not. And so I would say don't date somebody hoping they're gonna change into a different person, date, someone hoping they're gonna stay the way that they are for good. You know, otherwise, like I said, you're just dating your imagination. And so torture is really a time where the person is typically on their best behavior.

And, uh, I'm sorry if their best behavior is pretty bad that don't expect for things to get better as time goes off, because like the best indication of the, the future of a relationship in the past, As the past is tumultuous and difficult and full of bickering and whatever infidelity, jealousy, I, you know, it's, it's a bit naive to expect.

It's gonna be sunshine, roses and lollipops. You know, if you just try harder and that's often how they make you feel, well, if you just did this or you just didn't do that, then I wouldn't have done this. And that's just not a healthy dynamic. I couldn't agree more. You give a list of the top 10 guys to avoid.

We do describe one or two of them. We can't go through through all of 'em of course. But you, would you describe a couple? Yeah. One, one, you know, one of the biggest ones is the flip Flo, you know, we're one minute, you know, you are the best things to slice bread, the whole world, the revolves around you. And the next minute he's not even answering his cell phone, not picking, not returning your text messages.

And then he is kinda goes dark for a while. And then he kind of thinks he's end into this other girl maybe, but then he is back with you and he, you know, oh no, you're the one I. And if you put your heart in the hands of a guy like that, I mean, it is a emotional rollercoaster that will take a significant toll on you.

And so nobody can take you out of that situation. You have to choose to unplug yourself and be like, you know what? I don't need some indecisive flip floppy boy, because the fact is, men are simple creatures. If we wanna be with a woman, we'll, we'll act in such a fashion. Uh, and, and so girls don't need to stay up at night creating 10,000 excuses and, you know, justifications for why he's not, oh, well, maybe he's really busy and you know, maybe this and maybe that it's like, no, if a guy, everyone deserves to be with someone who wants to be with them and you as a woman deserve those things.

And so you should hold out for it. And so that was one of the guys we really highlighted in there. And then the other guy is another one. Just one more is the kind of the smooth. And meaning by that, he's not gonna pressure you too much to do sexual things, but he'll literally take everything that you're willing to give.

And I remember one guy came up to me after a chance that he talked at his school before I was heading over to the all girls school. And he said, do you ever tell the girls that we tell them we're okay. Not doing something sexual, just so that they'll give it to us. And I said, yeah, I actually do point that out to them that there are guys out there like that who think that it's the girl's job to be the Chasity cop.

And he can push the envelope gently and quote unquote, respectfully. And Hey, if she's willing to do it, I'm okay with it. If she's not willing that I'm okay, but he's never really gonna lead that relationship in a positive direction. He's just gonna continue inch by inch to see how much he can take as much as she's willing to give.

And that's not the guy you want to end up with. You want a guy? Who's gonna realize that. Hey, guess what? Like girls have temptations too. It's not just the guy. and when she's tempted, he needs to be strong. Instead of every time she's tempted that both of them fall. And so you, you know, those are just two of the 10 guys that we kinda highlight in the book.

Um, but we, that's how we start. The book is jumping right into that whole section because, you know, girls need to realize like you are not alone in your desire to find authentic love, and you're not alone in your frustration and how difficult it's been up to this point. But if we could just weed out the wrong kind of guys to get started, You're you're definitely gonna be offer the right on the right foot.

Absolutely. You make the distinction between love and being in love. Would you explain the difference there? Yeah. Being in love is a part of love. It's it's fun. It's exciting. It's, you know, it's a beautiful experience. And I think everybody, you know, I hope everyone gets experience that. Um, but that it in itself is not love.

It's just the, the beginning, the kindling, so to speak before the fire and, uh, love on the other hand is not a feeling. It is an act of will that consists of doing what's best for the other person. And so if you have all the Twitter paid infatuated, feelings of love for someone, but you're not really willing to sacrifice and do what's best for that other person, call it whatever you want.

It's not. And so love as desire is the beginning. And then it blooms into this union. I want to be together with this person, but if it does not mature into a love of good will of I'm willing to do what's best for this person, then it is love. And so this is why you got guys saying girls like, well, if you love me, you do this with me tonight.

It's like, dude, if he loved you, he wouldn't be asking for it in the first place that isn't love. You know, he's trying to guilt you into ING him instead of actually dying to himself to do what's best for. And so a woman needs to listen to her heart and to her conscience instead of falling for the counterfeit infatuation, instead of the full type of sacrificial love that she deserves when it comes to dating, you say that there's some wrong reasons today, and there's some right reasons today.

What are some of the wrong reasons? What are some of the right reasons? Well, wrong reasons could be just, just pure loneliness. You know, I gotta fill this void and, uh, you know, or, or for social reasons, you know, everybody has a boyfriend, I wanna have a boyfriend, you know, obviously those superficial reasons, but, you know, under.

You know, in that moment is that ache, that desire for communion. It's a good thing, you know, it really is, but we need to be, make sure that am I capable of being happily single? Like, do I have purpose in my life? Do I have mission? Do I have community friendship, family, faith? Like, do I, have I got my stuff together?

Or am I expecting this relationship to be almost like an idol, that's gonna make everything great, you know, and wonderful and perfect. And you know, once I get that, it's gonna, everything's gonna be great. And some people make an idol out of dating. Some people make an idol out of marriage and they think, oh, well, once I get a spouse, you know, or once I get those kids and I, then I'm gonna be a happy person, then I'm not gonna be so much this or so much that, um, but we've gotta realize.

All idols are meant to be broken. And CS Lewis even said, all idols will break the hearts of their worshipers. And so we've gotta make sure that we're putting God on the throne of our heart, not a human person. So good. I remember Matt Fred saying once that he was speaking to, to women and he said, it is better for you to be alone than to be with a man who's not worthy of your love.

And that, that is a hard truth, but it's an important one, isn't it? Yeah. You know, I often tell the girls, it's also, it's a much better thing to be disappointed in some guys than to be disappointed in yourself for settling for a guy who's only half the man that you deserve. And so, yeah, loneliness, the single years can be difficult and frustrating.

Um, but it's important that you not lower your morals and, and settling for something, cuz I mean, you know what? I can get you a date tonight. If you really wanna date, I can get on Tinder and swipe this way in that. And we can get you all set up within a matter of moments, but the difference between quantity and quality.

And so, you know, if you lower the bar low enough, you can get a significant quantity, but it's not the quality that you deserve. And it's never gonna satisfy that ache. Like you said, that we all have in our hearts. Yeah. I mean, we, what we long for is something, you know, that, that takes time, that requires patience, you know, faith in God and trust.

And you know, it, it can be a long and painful process because it's like, God, I know my desires are good. I just, I wanna start my vocation. I want, you know, godly spouse, a beautiful family. And it's nowhere in sight. And like, God, how come, what I want does not seem to be what you want from me today. And in that is a very.

Heavy cross, you know, and God wants to meet us in that cross and walk with us, you know, so that he can show to us, you know, what he's doing in that time of solitude in that, in that time of patient waiting my generation as a millennial, we want everything. Now we want instant gratification. And I think we need to remember that masterpieces aren't built overnight.

They don't happen overnight. Yeah. So it just, it takes time to, to find that love to find the right person. And that's just the starting point. I mean, you know, I I'm married now. Yeah. Did you, did you go through that as well? Would you say? Yeah, I, I would say so when I was starting my dating relationships, I wanted to, you know, kind of dive head long and figure out is this the person I'm gonna marry?

That was one of it. Like, I wanna know now, God, like, I don't wanna wait six months. I don't wanna whi year, I wanna know now. And then, you know, once I got further along, I, I wanted to know, okay, I wanna build a really good and beautiful relationship, but I wasn't very patient with the process. And I think that is a struggle with so many people, uh, in, in my generation.

So yeah, I would say I absolutely. I dealt with that, but I like to think of Olympians, professional athletes, uh, you know, artists like Michael Angelo when they're working for gold, right. When they're going pro, when they're building some sort of a masterpiece, it takes time. It just does not happen overnight.

And it amazes me that some, you know, architects or builders, uh, in years past they would spend generations. Cathedral and the cathedral was absolutely gorgeous, but the grandfather didn't see its completion. The father didn't see its completion. It was the grandson who finally finished it and they were so willing to put in their life to, to build something beautiful.

And I think we all need to take that approach. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Theo, um, in Milan took 800. Years to build. Now, imagine how cranky your parishioners would build. If the parish committee couldn't get that, you know, , you know, parish hall built for 800 years, but you know, good, good wine takes more time, so, Hmm, amen.

So good. And the right reasons to date, there really is only one isn't there. Yeah, no, I mean, there's, there's only one reason to date and that is to find a spouse. Um, it is, you know, marital discernment. It is purposeful. It's clear. It's intentional. Um, it's not born out of desperation, desolation and loneliness.

Um, yeah, there, there could be some aloneness and ache there behind it. Yeah. It's finds natural, but the, the driving force is like, God, is this not only is this the right person, but is this the right. You know, do I, do I have my ducks in a row? You know, am I ready to enter into my own vocation or prepare seriously for it?

Or do I have some, some skeletons in the closet, some junk that I really need to sort out before I invite someone into, into my life in that way? Yeah. I think one illusion that we take into marriage often is that it's gonna fix our problems, but you and I both know it just magnifies any problems that are already there.

So we really do. Yeah. It just creates more. Yeah. And it creates more. Right. So when you really do need to take time to, to heal, shifting to, uh, the next chapter, love your spouse before you meet him, that's what you tell the women. You encourage them to love their husbands before they even meet him. Why is that important?

Well, you know, on your wedding day, you're gonna promise, you know, I will be true to you. I will love you all the days of my life. Okay. Well, today is a day of your life. You know, why don't we honor and love our spouses before we even meet them, by the way that we live our lives. So if I'm a single guy. And I'm looking at porn or using women.

What, what am I just gonna meet? One of those women not use her and then promise to love her forever. It's like, well, let's be faithful to our spouses before we even meet them in the sense that I'm preparing my, my body, my heart, my mind, my soul, you know, for this vocation that God might call us to together.

And, and so that's a, it's just a way to, to put everyth all the sacrifices and context they're in the context of love. Like, why am I not sleeping around? Why am I looking at porn for love of my God, for love of my future spouse, for love of just women in general. That I respect. Um, love is the motivating power behind these things, not guilt or repression or what have you love that?

I think it was NCHE who said, you know, give a man a why and he can endure almost any how so we really need to keep love at the center of chassis. It's not this arbitrary repression, but it really is to make love more beautiful, stronger, more authentic. Mm-hmm yeah, yeah. That, I mean, if you don't understand the connection between Chasity and love, the Chasity is not gonna last in.

Neither will love, um, the, the, the two sink or swim together. Some people listening may not be familiar with the virtue of chastity. Would you explain what is it and what are some of the benefits? Yeah. Well, chastity is a virtue kind like courage or honesty, but one that applies to your sexuality and it doesn't eliminate your sexual desires or attractions.

What it does is it orders. According to the demands of authentic love. And so, you know, when you see like, you know, I say driving down the street and I see, you know, a woman jogging down the street and you know, let's say she's not wearing a whole lot of clothing, you know, there there's a moment there there's a choice.

How do I look at her? How do I see that as that that's passing by, you know, there may be the initial instinct of the sexual attraction, but now okay. There's a sexual value there for sure. But is that sexual value greater than that? Woman's personal value. No, the personal value is above the sexual value.

And so at Chasity, he does, it helps to arrange those in right order where, where you may be tempted to look at someone as some thing to be used for your gratification. Chasity helps to take that desire and say, no, no, no. Remember human being first, she is first and foremost, a daughter of the king of heaven, your sister in humanity.

And, uh, instead of being tempted to look and think as, as women, as things to be used for our enjoyment, Chasity helps to order those desires, right? So not simply in what we think, but what we look at, how we speak, how we act and, you know, for a single person, it would involve abstinence. And even for a married person, chastity involves abstinence at times in marriage when that's necessary, but that can be a part of married life as well.

But it's just the proper use of the gift of our sexuality, according to whatever our state and life will be. Um, but it frees you. I mean, it frees you to know, uh, it frees you to love. because if I can't say no to my sexual desires, my yes. Means nothing. But then it also frees, you know, if you're being loved, because if a woman takes a sexual element out of a dating relationship, Watch how the guy reacts to it.

I mean, does he have an anaphylactic meltdown? Does he get pouty? And petant distant, whiny and withdrawn because he's not getting what he wants. Well, what did he really want you to begin with? Or did he only want the pleasure he was getting at your expense? And so that virtue of chest that he brings to the surface, another person's intentions to see if it's love or simply loss.

And at the core of chastity is self mastery. And I think it's so important to point that out because this virtue doesn't mean that you're gonna have a great marriage, right? It's not the only virtue that you need, but that virtue of self mastery does extend to other areas of your life. And it is an essential ingredient to have a great marriage.

Is that right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's the integration of our sexual desires, not, you know, and some people say, well, what am I supposed to do? Just, you know, repress all my desires to make God happy or indulge in them to make myself happy. But, you know, repression is not pleasing to God and indulgence will not bring you joy.

The the real alternative is that of the integration of your sexual desires of that virtue of chastity. And that's what God's calling us too. In the book, you talk about the love test. What is that? And how can a woman use it? Uh, well, the love test is when, like, let's say you're in a relationship with a guy, maybe things have gone too far, or you're just getting started.

And you kinda announced to him your standards when it comes to sexual morality, or you take the sex out of the relationship, but basically the element of marriage, the forms of affection that are really proper to spousal love. And you say I'm saving that for when I have a spouse and you watch how the guy reacts and you're only gonna get one of three reactions reaction number.

Is, you know, he freaks out what, you know, are you some prude? Like, do you not like me anymore? You like some other guy and, and he gets angry or distant or pout or whatever, you know, if that's his reaction, then you, you know, very clearly what you're dealing with and you should get out. The second reaction is he acts like he's okay with it.

Oh, well, if that's what you wanna do, I respect that. But then you wait three weeks and back of the same old stuff. Well, can we at least do this? Can we at least do that? And he, like, he really doesn't get it. The reaction I'm looking for is not where he is just willing to wait for you. You know, like a dog, that'll wait for a treat that you balance on his nose.

He's actually willing to wait with you that if you're tempted, he could be strong. And so that's the reaction you're looking for is the guy who would agree with you yet. These are the moral principles that I wanna live by as well. Or maybe if he doesn't fully understand them yet, he's open to learning and you explaining them or sharing some good books and CDs with him.

And you can grow in this virtue together, but you just wanna really be careful he's self-motivated and you're not the one always having to be the Chas to be cop. And so, you know, that's the basic love test, and then you watch his reaction and you can gauge from that where his true desire is like, cuz if he really loves you, then if you take the sexual stuff out, guess what?

He still has. You you're right there. Uh, what you're taking out is the pleasure. If you removed the pleasure and then he leave. It shows that's all, all he was ever after to begin with. He's forced to choose between the person and the pleasure. That's really good. I like that. Yep. It's a, it's a great tool for, for any woman to use.

One analogy you think of is like a cigarette smoker. Doesn't really want a cigarette. A, a cigarette smoker wants the feeling. He gets from the nicotine, from the cigarette, because when he is done with that cigarette, he just flicks it with the curve and the gutter. He didn't ever want the cigarette. He just wanted a feeling.

And sometimes guys date like that, or he's not really after the woman properly speaking, he's only seeing her as an asset that can get him what he wants through her. And, and that's just not love. And a woman knows it in her heart. There's some couples listening right now. Jason, who genuinely wanna live a pure life.

They wanna chase relationship, but they're struggling. You know, they keep falling for one reason or another. What advice would you give to, to couples in that situation? Well, one thing is you you've gotta avoid the occasion of sin. Like if, you know, Well, yeah, well, we've been hanging out at her apartment at 11 o'clock at night, you know, watching a movie and you're on, on a couch and there's no one else living there.

Like what do you think's gonna happen? You know, I remember buddy of mine's youth minister in east LA and a teen came to his door, knock, knock, knock. He said, Hey, Chris, I feel really bad. I had sex with my girlfriend, Chris, what happened? Well, I was over a house. Her parents were there and one thing just kinda led to another.

Chris said, okay, don't go to her house. When her parents aren't there. And the guy's like, oh, that's a good point. Week later, kid knocks the door. Oh, Hey Chris, I feel very bad. I slept with my girlfriend again. Chris's like what happened? He said, oh, this is my girlfriend's house. Parents were there. And you know, it just happened.

Chris said, Hey, here's an idea. Don't go to her house. When her parents aren't there. The kid's like, oh, that's a good idea. Week later it did happen. And like the kid just didn't get it. Like. Spend more time in public mm-hmm , uh, you know, if you can't be together in private alone, you also have to ask yourself, are we ready to date spiritually, emotionally?

Are we mature enough? Or are we just fallen flat on our face and hurting each other, even though we don't intend to. And you, you, you might need to take a little break, a little retreat from the relationship not to run off and date somebody else, but to get your, your stuff together, you know, maybe the guy needs to work on something privately, whether it's some addiction he has pornography or this or that, that wasn't quite dealt with.

Maybe you can get a good spiritual director, you know, maybe there's stuff she's going through. Maybe counseling is needed somewhere. And so to make sure that you can, you know, it's gonna be part of the fight. It's gonna be a battle. You're gonna take your hits. You're not always gonna win, but you gotta make sure you're in this thing together.

You're dedicated to prayer. You're avoiding the, you know, the inclination of sin or the occasions of sin. And, uh, just making sure you're accountable. It's not just her and you against the world. Like you gotta have people in your life who know what's going on, you know, that can call you to a higher virtue.

And, uh, and having that accountability is a big piece too. And my wife and I use this when we were dating, I know ideally, you know, you should be able to be alone with a woman and not be tempted to use her, but sexual desire is a real thing and we gotta be smart. We can't overlook our weaknesses. And so one thing my wife and I would do when we were dating was if we were gonna be alone, uh, isolated, we, you know, we try to go out in public and avoid just being isolated.

But if we were, we would do this thing called no touch. Where we literally would just not touch each other. And we would, you know, act as if we were friends, watch a movie, play a game, do something like that. And it worked. And so, you know, like you're saying best, avoid it all together. But if, for some reason, like during a quarantine, for example, you're in a situation where you can't, I highly recommended that.

And honestly it built our friendship cuz we were forced not to just focus on the romance, the affection, but actually talk to each other. And so that was a really beautiful thing. Yeah. And another thing, you know, following your advice, I would check in with one of my best friends every week on Sunday, I'd shoot, 'em a text or I would give 'em a call and just tell 'em how, how the week went.

Like, you know, was this, was it a week where, you know, we struggled, we fell or was. A good week where there's some victories. And I know for me, I know I'm being vulnerable with everyone right here, but this stuff actually worked for me. And it was so helpful both to do that, no touch rule thing, uh, when it was needed.

And then on the other hand, have someone who I knew I was gonna have to tell them, Hey, you know, I messed up here or, or this went really well. I had a victory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's just so key. Not going lone ranger on all this stuff, because otherwise you can end up in this cycle for years of like, oh, we messed up.

I feel bad. So do I let's try again. Oh, we messed up. I feel bad. So do I, let's try again, you know, have an accountability can help not only call you on, but like be a reminder before you do that of like, uh, do I really wanna have to tell this person again that I messed up again? No, let's, let's, let's skip it this time.

So having that account. Just keeps, keeps you in check a little bit more. Jason, some women are with men who just aren't good for them, really bad for them. And often the women make excuses for those men. They make excuses for their bad behavior. And so I'm curious, what are some of the most common excuses that you've heard women make?

And what's your response to, to some of those we can't cover all of them, but just a few, if you would. Yeah, well, I wanna like, well, you know, he came from a bad family and he is really been through a lot or, you know, he's under a lot of stress and just an infinite number of things, but that all typically show a real lack of emotional maturity in the man.

And so she's trying to come up with excuses for him so that he doesn't have to actually man up for his behavior and be like, yeah, you know, I shouldn't be behaving like this at all. And I literally begged the woman get out, just please just get out of the relationship go. And if you can't do it for love of yourself, do it for love of your future kids.

They deserve more stable, peaceful home environment than this guy is likely to ever be able to provide. And, you know, I know it's hard because a woman will hold onto a vision, a dream she has of like, no, no, I see what the future can be. And if we just try harder and we try one more time, but you know, if, if he's treating like garbage, one thing can do write it down, make a diary.

And, uh, you know, and just take a journal, you know, today he said this and he did that and he didn't do this. And this happened, that happened. Okay. Just jot it down. As soon as it happens, get it verbatim, put it down, um, and keep doing that because you can argue with your memory and your feelings, but you can't argue with your handwriting.

And when it's there in the ink and you see that pattern playing itself out day after day, week after week, it's sober. And sometimes that's, what's needed to get that reality check of like have I'm I'm diluting myself and thinking that things are just gonna get better if I just wait long enough and just put on a Cape and just try to be superwoman or wonder woman and just try harder and try harder.

Like it's not your job to be his mother or his Messiah. You know that that's for somebody else, it's your job to be his partner in a relationship. And if he doesn't have the emotional maturity to return the favor to you, then you're gonna end up feeling like you're both taking care of the same person in the relationship and that's him.

And that's just not a healthy relationship. In my opinion, in order to, to walk away you and Chris Lina tell women, you need to grow a backbone, you need to grow a backbone. Why is it so necessary for a woman to grow a backbone? And what are some practical ways that she can do that? Well, one is you've gotta know beforehand what it is you really want.

When it comes to dating and relationship. Cause if you don't really know what you want, unfortunately you can end up settling for something that's much less than you really desire. And so if you don't know what you're looking for, you don't really have a, a map of destination map. You can spend so many years just kind of wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, hoping you're gonna just stumble into the right thing.

And so know what you want beforehand and have the guts to stick to it. Because you know, if it's time to break off that relationship and you feel like you don't have the backbone, one thing I really recommend, even if you do have a backbone to get a breakup buddy, meaning someone who knows the situation, who knows you, who loves you and is gonna be by your side, that when you're tempted to text him at two o'clock in the morning, you text her instead and you go eat a gallon of ice cream with her and watch an ice chick flick and just get away from it all.

Like don't try to break off alone because there's gonna be so many moments where you feel weak to go back and then you can end up breaking up with the same guy five times. And it just takes an emotional toll where you keep thinking, no, this time it'll be different because what's frustrating is it's almost like every time you start to pull away, that's when he begins to exhibit his best behavior.

And it creates this vicious cycle of like, no, this time it'll be different. And it just keeps looping you back back for more. And, uh, it's just terribly painful to live through that. So you gotta learn how to trust your gut and let go of that, which was never meant to be because you're really, in my opinion, potentially clogging up your love life with someone who is never really meant for you in the first place.

And that's painful to admit, but what's more painful than admitting it is spending a lifetime denying it. And then ending up with someone who. Is not gonna be the best person for you on somewhat of a separate note. Uh, how can a woman balance between keeping her standards high? Right. So important, keeping her standards high yet at the same time, not expecting her spouse, her future spouse to be flawless.

Yeah. I mean, if, if you're holding out for Mr. Absolutely flawless, you know, flawless looking flawless income, flawless spirituality, flawless dis flawless, the flaws, not in him, it's in you, you know, because we we're human beings. We're gonna have shortcomings, we're gonna have failings. And, uh, and we all know that, you know, I, I think unfortunately, most women are not falling into that category.

Most women, I think, fall into the category of not having high enough standards, but, you know, in my opinion, you wanna shoot for the SARS. You want to keep that standard high and, and, you know, make a list of what you really want in the future. And then really step back and okay. Is this realistic? I want him to not take drugs and not look at porn to want to lead me closer to God.

Like these are not unrealistic expectations. These are standards. And so women, I think if anything, just need to be reassured. That they're not studying, setting their standards too high, because I believe that a man can be as much of a gentleman as a woman requires if a civilization of women aren't requiring much from their gentleman.

Unfortunately they're not gonna end up with much from the gentleman. And so I think as a civilization, women would do well to put those standards super high and leave them there. One of the thing that sabotages love is hooking up and hooking up is easier now than ever with apps like Tinder and the million other apps out there.

Why is hooking up so toxic? Well, it's just basically the opposite of what we really want, because I mean, if you think what men are afraid of, sometimes it's, they're afraid of initiating and committing and giving of themselves. And then women are kind of afraid of, well, I'm not really worth the effort.

I'm not really worth the pursuit cause I might end up alone. So I'll settle for whatever. And if you look at where those two fears collide, it's hooking up where the man's not really giving himself, the woman's not expecting anything more and we're just becoming slaves or weaknesses. And this is just mutual use and you think, well, it's not bad.

I mean, we both agree to it. It's like, no, it's just it's mutual use. It could be like emotional prostitution in exchange for physical prostitution where, you know, he's given her love for the sake of getting sex and she's given him sex for the sake of feeling loved. Like this isn't giving it's using and the human heart is made for better than that.

So the woman who's listening right now, who feels stuck in the hookup culture, what advice would you give her for getting out of that? Um, one, like I had mentioned before, you gotta get some accountability. You need some friends to get around you and, and better ones. Cuz maybe the friends that are around you have not been very supportive.

Maybe they're the ones knocking at your doors saying, Hey, let's go club in this weekend and back with the same old junk. And so you've gotta take a good, honest look like because a friend of mine said, friends are like elevators. They either take you up or they take you down. And so you gotta take a look like what direction am I being taken here by my own friends?

Because you always become like your friend. So I think that's one of the biggest key pieces is friendships. And then look at your cell phone. Like are there contacts on there? That you have no business having that, you know, when that guy calls or whatever, you know, what he's interested in, or people that you you're following on social media that show up in your Instagram or Facebook feed that you need to start unfollowing because you don't even need to be seeing that imagery or those messages that they're getting off.

Um, and so just, just take a good, honest look. Like, what is it you really want? You know, it's not this you're made for so much more and it doesn't matter. You know, my wife always says it doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, all that matters now is where you go from here. And so just because the past has been messy, doesn't mean that your future's gone, your future's still spotless and that's all yours.

It's like a book and yeah, maybe the first 40 pages haven't been so pleasant, but the rest of the book of the script, it's. You get to put on those pages, whatever you want. And so just realize that it's, it's that way with God that every morning his mercies are new, so good. And that advice of getting new friends is life changing.

I know for me when I was, uh, young and when I was 11 years old, I was hanging around with my sports buddies and, uh, one of em introduced me to pornography. Another one, the mom would let us watch our rated movies as 12 year olds. And, uh, just exposes so much crap to be honest. And, uh, once I met new friends, uh, my life started to change.

And so I, I love that advice. Oh yeah, no. I mean, I, I remember having friends, exact same thing in junior high and high school where one of my buddies, his, his, his mom paid for him to have a subscription to Playboy magazine. Hm. And it's like, what are you thinking? And, and going to the, you know, blockbuster video back when you get, you know, DVDs and videos there and the mom, like not caring what we're checking out with.

Like, I'm like, wow, this, this lady really doesn't care. Like we can get anything we want under her watch. And it's just like, you know, when we don't have parents that aren't vigilant, you know, sometimes we're getting get exposed to, you know, a lot more junk than we need to. Unfortunately, I mean, I was blessed with parents who were vigilant.

But then I'd go other parents' house. It wasn't the same way, unfortunately. Yeah, no, me too. I was playing, you know, grand theft auto down the street, even though my mom would never allow that. And so it, it, you really do need to take an assessment of the people you're surround yourself with. Yeah. In the book you say that it's important to understand when it comes to sexuality, men and women are wired differently.

Would you explain that? Yeah. And this is not to say that women obviously don't have sexual desires. They do, but I, I tend to find, operate a little differently, whereas they can say a woman could be compared almost like to an iron, or if you plug in an iron. You know, at first it's not hot or you wait a little, okay.

Now it's getting warmer. Okay. Now it's hot. Oh, what? Now it's searing hot. It just takes a little bit more time. Whereas with a guy, his sexuality tends to operate a little bit more like a light bulb. You flip the switch and it's on immediately, meaning that, you know, if you're with your boyfriend and you're just cuddling or whatever on a couch together, she might be perfectly content with only that, oh, this is nice for clothes.

We're cuddling, whatever. Whereas with the guy, he might be thinking, Hey, you know, this is what's happening now. You know what could be happening five minutes from now, I'm already getting, you know, excited, whatever. And so just to try to have regard for the fact that we're wired a little bit differently to help, uh, that virtue of chastity develop in him, uh, just by avoid.

You know, the, the things that might get, because I remember meeting one girl and she told me, she told the boyfriend, now, now all we're gonna do is make out. We're not gonna do anything more than make out. And the boyfriend's like, okay, whatever, you know? And then, you know, after a couple of weeks or whatever, doing that, you know, he said to her don't you ever just get bored?

She said, no, I don't. And he said, well, I do, because it was stirring up all these desires that she just had to slam the brakes on mm-hmm so it's, it's, it's much better to, I think what you'll find is the more pure you, the easier it is be pure. Uh, whereas where you kind of sit on the fence and saying, we don't do this, and we're still gonna do that.

It then makes it a lot more difficult, cuz you're revving up all these desires and then having to repeatedly slam on the breaks. You know, it's only a matter of time before the breaks, give out shifting gears a little bit. You and I both know that women are under such pressure in our culture to have flawless bodies have the perfect Instagram.

How should women respond to that pressure from society? Well, I think two things. One is that women should take an active role in shaping. Society of being like, you know what, I'm gonna start a, you know, modest line clothing or, you know, bathing suit line. You can, you can make it cute and fashionable without having to be so small.

And I'm gonna show you how you can do that. And, you know, I know women that have done this, that have actively entered into the fashion industry that transform it from within, instead of constantly complaining about it. I had heard of some girls that were shopping in, I think in Norstrom or something, and everything was like low cut this and super tight that, and, and they just wrote a letter to the manager.

Like, dude, we want more modest clothing options. And they started getting signatures and petitions. And before you knew it, you know, the department store actually brought these girls on as fashion consultants to help change the wardrobe selections for teenage girls in the store and like change can be made.

Uh, and so that's active an activist role, I think is important. But then another big piece you gotta look at. Is how you look at yourself. I mean, look at the, the, the most, the women in the world who have the most perfect bodies, like, do they have the most perfect loving relationships in their lives? No.

They often have the most dysfunctional ones. Now think of the people, you know, that do have the most perfect love. Do they have perfect bodies? No, they're probably like 85 years old and overweight and wrinkly, but they have love because the perfect body doesn't get you. Perfect loves. And, and woman has attempted saying, well, you look at that woman on the magazine.

If I look like that, I I'd have love too. Well, not necessarily. I think you have to begin by loving yourself and by loving yourself, I don't mean being infatuated with yourself of like, oh, I've got the greatest body in the world, cuz frankly. You're gonna lose that contest. And so am I, I mean, only one woman gets to be the most beautiful in a woman and woman in the world.

And she's probably not listening to this show. The most beautiful man in the world is not hosting this show or being interviewed on this show. And that's okay because it, it's not a contest to be on the top of the pile, you know, it's to be able to say, you know, I like who I am as a human being and I'm living a purposeful life.

And, uh, and once you have, cause you ultimately wanna be loved, not because your body is so flaw. You wanna be loved because who you are with all your flaws. I'm a little offended by that, but I will, uh, I'll chiller it's okay. You're in the top 10, but I dunno, top five question. So it's a little bit of a stretch.

Uh, you in talking about friendship, you encourage women to find their bridesmaids first, then their groom. Why that order, um, one, you need that sisterhood, not only for the accountability, but a lot of times when a girl gets in a relationship with a guy and he becomes her everything. A lot of times, maybe she gets married young, 19, 20, 21, whatever.

And then like five years in a marriage, she just gets itchy. Like, wait a minute. I never traveled to Europe with my friends. I never, you know, figured out my career. I never did this. I never did that. Everything was the boy, the boy, the boy, the boy. And, and it can end up stifling the relationship quite a bit and even make her resent him to some extent.

And so I think it's important that you, you find yourself and your fellow sisters before you find your soul, you tell the women not to play house. What what's wrong with living together before you're married. I know this topic really deserves its own episode, but, uh, in, in a few words, what would you say is wrong with living together before you're.

Well, sociologically speaking, there is no benefit whatsoever to marital stability or happiness by living together prior to marriage. In fact, those who cohabit prior to marriage actually have a higher divorce rate, higher infidelity rate, higher rate of domestic abuse. I mean, it goes on and on and on.

This is not the way to prepare for marriage by playing house, because essentially what you're doing is starting the whole thing off on the wrong foot of a trial marriage of like, Hey, we're gonna give this a shot because if you're not all, I think your crack up to date, and I wanna know that a door is still open for me to exit through, well, that's really starting things off on a wrong foot.

And people say, oh, well just financially, it makes more sense. You know, I just split the rent and whatever, but you know, I think what we've got right here is a culture of single people who pretend like they're dating the culture of dating people who behave like they're married. And the fruit of that is a culture of married people who seem to think they're single.

Everything's outta order. And so if we are not married, we shouldn't pretend to be husband and wife. So women listening, like if you're single, don't pretend like you are his girlfriend, you're not his girl. If you're his girlfriend don't behave like his wife. And if you're his wife live as one, and imagine if guys would just do the same thing, I mean, relationships would become so much simpler.

A lot of women listening right now come from broken homes. And I think so often, so many of us have seen brokenness around us when it comes to marriage. So many divorces, so much separation and. I think that's part of the reason why we fear going into marriage. And so instead, like you said, so well, we'd kind of tiptoe into it.

Uh, you mentioned some of the statistics, I'm just curious. Uh, why do you think it is? Why is it that couples that live together before the wedding are more likely to get divorced? And like I mentioned, so many people listening comes from that and were afraid of repeating the divorce. We don't want that.

Yeah. I mean, there could be, I mean, there are a number of reasons. I mean, uh, you know, one reason being, you know, people who refuse to go habit typically might have, you know, religious reasons behind that, of morality and things of that. And those things could be beneficial to marital stability in the future.

Um, but if you look at, I think one of the biggest reasons is. You know, what do you need the most in marriage, patience, you know, sacrifice, putting other person first, you know, all, all that stuff that that's what you need for marriage, but you don't learn any of that by cohabiting. You don't learn patience by rushing ahead of your wedding date.

You don't learn self control by sleeping with your boyfriend and girlfriend. It doesn't train you in faithfulness when you don't really even have to say no to your own desires on a daily basis physically. And so the, the very things that make mirrors laugh, the patient's self control, uh, all, all that.

You're training yourself in, by waiting for that big day. And it just makes it more special. Cause like, I mean, if you're already living together and sleeping together and all that, and then you get married, how is life really that different? I mean, you go through a ceremony, you get a piece of paper, you get some new Tupperware and silverware, whatever.

And then back life as usual mm-hmm um, And so marriage should be an exclusive lifelong, permanent union with another person. And you cannot test drive something that by its very nature is permanent. You're either all in or you're all out. And so thinking we can tiptoe into marriage is like thinking we can tiptoe into relationship by hooking up first.

Well, I don't really wanna date her, but you know, we'll kind of do this and, you know, see what happens and if it works out, maybe we'll end up dating. It's the wrong way to enter dating. It's the wrong way to enter a marriage. We've already spoken quite a bit about breaking up. Is there any additional advice you'd give to a woman who knows that she should break up with her boyfriend, with the guy she's with, but she's.

Yeah, well, they, they say courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the judgment that something is more important than your fear. So it's okay. You're afraid. It's okay. Let yourself feel that feeling. You don't need to stuff it, you don't need to repress it. It's okay to feel afraid. But I think the real thing you should be afraid of is staying with him.

The real thing you should be afraid of is what you're missing out in your life. By not letting go by living off of this trail of bread, crumbs from this guy when God would rather give you a feast somewhere else. And so don't starve yourself and this relationship, I mean the biggest choice you will ever make in your life is that of a spouse.

And if your boyfriend does not have the qualities that you know you want, and a husband, girl, get. And don't look in the rearview mirror and will it hurt? Will it sting? Yeah. But that thing's gonna go away and you're paying a price and letting go, but that's an investment and it's gonna be worth it. It's gonna pay off.

I really believe that. I mean, I really don't know that I've met any girl who's ever broken up with a guy and looked back and regretted that and be like, oh gee, I wish I put up with it for another couple of years. Typically by the time you're out. And you're seeing things more clearly, uh, you'll experience the, the, the fruit of the piece that comes.

I've heard it said that when you overcome fear, you feel free. And in this case you're free to love. Yeah. I mean, you could stand at the edge of that cliff, you know, jumping down on the, like you go cliff dive and you're kind of stand at the edge. And so harrowing and afraid. I don't know I do this is, this is this the right decision to make like, oh, it looks so far down, but then when you jump off and you splash the water and you laugh, it's like, okay, I.

And that fear immediately gets replaced with something else. And yeah, it it's scary. Um, but to me, it's a lot, nothing scarier than living outside of the will of God. And so if this relationship has not brought peace and purity and, and joy in your life, you know, like I said, everyone deserve to be someone who really wants to be with them.

And if you really wants to be with you, he'll love you. He'll cherish you and he'll treat you that way. Jason, just a curious question here. Why do you think that a lot of girls date jerks? You, you know the saying nice guys. Finish last. I'm just curious. You have your take on that. Yeah. Um, you know, one thing is a, I think a lack of emotional maturity on the one's behalf.

Of really seriously. What is the purpose of dating? Is this adventure? Is this like a movie where I'm gonna fix the bad boy and I'm gonna tame him and I'm gonna make him finally faithful to me and me alone. Like it's some game like it's some contest. So there could be a real lack of emotional maturity on the woman's behalf.

You also could have a deeper psychological thing going on where maybe her father was cold or distant or difficult to please, or a rebel or, or whatever. And it almost feels like if she can win the affection of a boyfriend, it's almost like she's winning the affection of the dad that she feels she never really.

Maybe she feels like she lost out on that love of a father. Um, but when she meets guys who are similar to his temperament or has his, his, his lack of maturity, they kind of gravitate towards such guys. And it's sad because I mean, I had her a roommate once in, in San Diego that I live with and he met this beautiful girl once San Diego state university and they started seeing each other and then she broke up with him and she said, you know, I'm sorry, I, I, I, I don't date, nice guys.

I only date jerks. And she actually said that, wow. And, and it was so sad. It was like, man, she, she missed out on an awesome guy and a potentially awesome future because she apparently didn't think she deserved better. Yeah. And if anyone listening is curious about learning more about kind of why we do that, why we tend to repeat our, the mistakes we saw in our families, our parents' mistakes.

Listen to episode 13, we brought in a psychologist, a friend of mine who has her doctorate in psychology, and she kinda explained what's going on underneath the hood. And, uh, so real, really good episode, if you're interested in understanding kinda why we repeat our parents' mistakes, or like Jason said, we tend to seek to rewrite a broken story, uh, after the fact.

So real, really good content. Mm-hmm in the episode, episode 13, Jason, a lot of women, uh, they have made mistakes. They have regrets that haunt them. How can a woman heal? Uh, I think one of the most important things is you need to begin. But to not infect the previous wound, you know, it needs time to clean out.

And if we're rushing back to the same old problems, the same old stuff, you know, you can't close that we, you can't close that, that wound as, as long as it's, there's junk getting into it. And so step number one is to get out of these toxic situations. And then not be afraid to go to counseling. If that's something that you think would be fruitful, uh, you can find good there's counselors that may not be so good out there.

So you might need to shop around a little bit. That's one of the greatest gifts that you could give to yourself is, is the gift of holiness, um, of being able to mend those hurts in the past. And yeah, you know, they hurt, but living purity can heal the past and you, sometimes you learn wisdom in painful ways and you can grow from this and be a stronger woman and be like, yeah, you know what that stinks going through.

That was really rough, but you know what? Now I know for the future, I'm, I'm not gonna date with guys like that, and I'm not gonna put myself in those situations and you don't wanna beat yourself up. Like this is all your fault. And if you had only done that, don't let yourself just bludgeon yourself over the head about the past or with the future, cuz God doesn't want you to live in either one of those places.

He wants you to be with him in the present moment. So as much as you can to entrust the past in the future to him, What final word of encouragement would you give to all the women listening in their search for love? A lot of them after hearing this conversation, after reading some of the book, maybe thinking this is impossible, you know, where can I find a good guy?

So what, what encouragement would you give them? Well, I mean, some guys wanted the same thing. Like where can I find as decent girl? And, you know, unfortunately there are fewer and fewer decent guys out there because of the prevalence of internet porn with the guys. And not that it's only a guy problem, but so many guys have been hooked on that junk in junior high.

They don't even know how to look at a woman and let alone how to speak to one and relate to her. Um, but to be patient, to hold out. I mean, if there's anything. Holding out for it is love. And I know it can be long and it can be discouraging and it can be frustrating, but you'll speed up the process. If you're filtering out the guys who aren't even realistic candidates to begin with, and you can find decent guys, like there are good, you know, faith based dating websites out there, like Catholic connection.com or Ave Maria singles.com.

Like there's good ones out there. And obviously you still have to be discerning cuz someone might pretend to be spiritual on that website. But in reality, they're not, you know, or you find someone good that they live in Abu Dhabi and you know, they're not gonna move here in the next decade. So you gotta be prudent there, but.

You know, put yourself where good guys are likely to be, get involved in service work and the church, youth groups, and things like that where, uh, pro-life work or just some places where guys who have the same passions and standards are likely to be. Uh, and so don't wait for 'em to come knocking at your door, get involved in young adult groups in your diocese or in your city, you know, put yourself out there, uh, and, and broaden your horizons instead of just staying in your, your narrow social circle, hoping he is gonna walk through the door.

Um, so there's, there's good means out there, but you want to take advantage of them. In the meantime, you know, I remember one woman, Sarah Swofford, she said become the woman of your dreams and you'll attract the man of your dreams, meaning focus on who God's calling you to be. And then, and then see what God is saying to you in these single years, and then see what happens in the future and leave those in God's hand.

I remember you quoting, I think it was Curtis Martin who said, you know, don't pursue your soulmate pursue God. And after a while of running after him, turn to see who's keeping up with you. Yeah, yeah, no, that was, that was a memorable quote from him that I've, I've used with many shared with many people.

Just, it just gets your priorities straight. It's like if you're a sailor a century ago and you didn't have GPS and you're out in the middle of the ocean, all you had was the stars navigate by, you know, but if you, if you, if you can see that one bright spot and you keep your eyes on that, it'll lead you to the port.

Absolutely. And for those of you who aren't religious, I know there's a lot of people listening who aren't seek that purpose for your life. Like what are you on this earth to do? I think, I think you'll find that what, like Jason saying, by ordering your life in that way, uh, things will just work so much better for you.

Jason, how can, how can, uh, people follow you? Uh, if you just go to our website, which is chastity.com, uh, there, they can connect with us on social media. On Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. They can donate to the ministry, they can connect with the new podcast. We're about to launch here. So all that and the books that we wrote, like how to find your soulmate without losing your soul, that's available on the website as well.

Uh, for as little as $3 a piece, you can share it with friends and that's C H a S T I T y.com. Jason, thank you so much, guys will link to all of that in the show notes to make it easy for you. So if you wanna pick up the book, you can, Jason really appreciate you. Appreciate everything you've done. Like I've said before, you've been a huge mentor of mine and helped me, uh, navigate this world of love and relationships.

And I know, uh, you're doing great work, so keep it up. Thank you so much for being with us today. Well, God bless you and thanks for having me on. So much wisdom from that, man. And if you wanna get more wisdom from Jason and his wife, Lina, you can buy their book, how to find your soulmate without losing your soul.

You can buy it for yourself or you can buy it for someone else who, you know, needs it. And so it's really easy to do you just go to restored ministry.com/nineteen that's number one, number nine. So again, that's ReSTOR ministry ministries to singular.com/nineteen. We'll link out to where you can buy the book.

And once you go to that link, just complete the purchase and good to go. Like I mentioned, at the start, we're doing a random giveaway of three books and the way to enter that giveaway, you just go to, again, that link restored ministry.com/nineteen. And you'll just subscribe to our email list. Just put your name, your email, and just answer one quick question.

And then we'll announce a winner by June 19th, 2020. And if you buy the book, now you could still enter that email list for the random giveaway. If you win and you have two copies, you can always give one away to, to someone else that you know, and anyone who's already on our email list, you're automatically entered into the contest.

The resources mentioned are in the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 19. Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast with someone you know, who could use it. 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.

#018: The Dating Blueprint: What Women Want But Won't Tell Men | Jason Evert

Men are rarely given advice on how to pursue a woman. In fact, they're usually just told what not to do.

In this episode, author and speaker Jason Evert gives practical advice based on his new book The Dating Blueprint: 

• Answers from 1,000 women about how they want to be pursued

• The #1 vice women want men to overcome before dating them

• How to break up with a woman

• How to know if "she's the one"

• How to guard your love and make it strong

Plus, enter our random giveaway to win The Dating Blueprint book! We’re giving away three. Details at the end of the episode.

Buy the Book

The Dating Blueprint: What She Wants You to Know About Dating, But Will Never Tell You

Buy from Chastity.com

Buy single copy

Buy in bulk

Buy from Amazon.com

Buy single copy

[Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the Amazon link, your purchase will support Restored at no extra to you. Thank you!]

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Books & Research:

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

    • [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the link above, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

• Covenant Eyes: Screen Accountability

  • Get 1 free month with this code: CHASTITY

• Follow Jason Evert

  • Podcast: Love > Lust

    • Listen on Apple

    • Listen on Spotify

  • Instagram: @jasonevert

  • Facebook: Jason and Crystalina Evert

  • Website: Chastity.com

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Men this episode is for you. There's a lot of confusion. When it comes to dating, pursuing a woman and building love. We may not know what she wants or how to go about it all the right way. And often we're told what not to do, but nobody tells us what to do. But thankfully, my guest today has answers for you is practical, concrete advice on dating.

My guess is Jason Everett. And he wrote a book called the dating blueprint. What she wants you to know about dating, but will never tell you he asks over a hundred thousand women who follow him on social media. The following questions. He said, how would you want to be asked out on a date? How would you not want to be asked out on a date?

What habits or vices would you want a man to overcome before he dates you? If he's not interested in continuing the relationship, how do you want him to communicate that to you? And other questions like that, and over a thousand women responded and left more than 30,000 words of feedback, Jason sifted through it all.

And he compiled it into the book that we're gonna talk about in this episode. And so what we're gonna do for you is we're gonna pull out some of the wisdom in it to help you. We talk about how can a man know if she's the one, how should a guy ask her out on a date? How to guard your love and make it strong.

And what do you do if your woman has made a lot of mistakes in the past, and that kind of haunts you, Jason even shares how he and his wife Lina have dealt with the effects of her broken home, on their marriage. She comes from a broken family. So he opens up about that too. And by the end, you'll have really solid at dating advice and advice for building the love that we all long for.

And my hope is that you'll feel even more confident in pursuing women. We're also gonna do a random book giveaway. We're gonna give away three of the dating blueprint books, and I'll tell you more about at the end. So lots of good stuff ahead. Keep listening.

Welcome to the ReSTOR 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 joy Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 18 and we're in the middle of our love and relationship series. Research shows that the biggest effect from our parents' divorce is on our romantic relationships.

Why is that? 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 feel lost in struggle in numerous ways in our relationships. So we're bringing you a roadmap, actionable tips and expert advice on how to find and build authentic. Love a little about my guess.

Jason Everett has spoken on six continents over 1 million people about love, relationships and sexuality with his wife, Lina, they have authored more than 15 books, including how to find your soulmate without losing your soul pure manhood. And if you really loved me, Jason earned a master's degree in theology and undergraduate degrees in counseling and theology with a minor in philosophy at Franciscan university of Steuben.

Jason and his wife are frequent guests on radio shows throughout the country and their TV appearances include Fox news, MSNBC, the BBC and EWTN, Jason and Chris were married in 2003 and they have a really beautiful family. And before we dive into the conversation, I wanna say to everyone listening who isn't religious, I know we have a lot of listeners who aren't religious and I'm so happy that you're here.

I just wanna say that, uh, Jason is Christian, he's a Catholic Christian. And so he does talk about God and faith in this interview. Uh, but even without those parts of the episode, you are still gonna get a lot out of it. And so if you can keep an open mind, keep listening. Here's my conversation with Jason, Jason, thanks so much for coming on the show.

It's an honored to have you. Well, thanks for having me on looking forward to it. Let's dive right in. Before we get to the content of the book, I wanted to ask you what inspired this book? What did what'd you. Well years ago, we had written a book for single young women called how to find your soulmate without losing your soul.

And, uh, it did real well for the women. They loved it. And, you know, requests started to come in. Well, where's the book for guys. Where's the book for guys. And I, you know, I kept saying, well, guys, don't read, you know, so that's not an issue, but they kept bugging me like, no, you know, we're literate. We read.

And so I figured, okay, we, we gotta do this. And so I started writing the book and got to the point of feeling a bit of a writer's block halfway through of like, I feel this is missing something like it's missing its soul. I realized what it was is that I was just giving the guys a bunch of dating advice, but they don't care what I really have to say.

They wanna know what the women think about dating. So I figured, well, I looked on our social media analytics and we had about a hundred thousand single women following us on social media. So I thought, Hey, I'm gonna tap into their wisdom. And so told them, Hey, we're writing this book for guys on, on dating and dating etiquette.

And, and I just wanna know from you women. How would you want a guy to ask you out on a date? How do you not wanna be asked out on a date? You know, how about when it's time to break up? How do you want him to communicate that to you? Uh, in a way that's clear without ghosting you. And then, so I just said, Hey, leave your comments below.

And we'll integrate that into the book. And like, boy, I mean, the floodgates opened, I mean, women submitted more than 30,000 words of feedback, which is longer than the whole book was at that point, but it was just gold. Uh, the, the advice and the tips that they gave, just so incredibly useful for men who just want concrete, specific guidelines, but oftentimes the women, Fields's not their place.

To give that feedback to the guys. I figured, Hey girls, you tell me, and then I'll tell the guys and I'll stand in the breach and we'll make sure that they get this information. And, uh, and that's what the book ended up being love. It, love it. It's so needed. And, uh, I've read the book in preparing for the interview and it's, it's such actionable stuff.

This is not kind of abstract thought. This is really practical advice. Yeah. I, I wanted to keep it, you know, cuz men don't do not do well. And with abstract general principles, I mean just, just give us the specifics, the blueprint, what is it we need to do, and then we can do it. And a lot of this stuff, I mean, you just hear it once and you can remember for the rest of your life.

Oh, okay. I need to make sure not to do that. Like, you know, I, I was asking the girls like, where do you wanna go on a date, not go on a date. And universally, the women did not want a man to ask them out to go to the movies on a first date. They said, that's a horrible first date. Cause the whole point of a first date is really get to know each other better and spend that time together.

And it's really kind of hard to get to know some guy when you're sitting in silence. Staring at a screen for two hours together, go to a movie on a third or fourth date. Great. First or second date. No way. And so if a guy hears something like that, it's like, okay, like you said, actionable items. I can do that.

I can come up with a different idea than a movie on a first date. What's your hope for the men who read it? What's the outcome or the result that you want for them? Well, you know, I want them to realize first and foremost, like marriage preparation is not something that begins when you get engaged. Uh, this begins long before you even start dating the woman.

And so this isn't just a blueprint on how to ask her out and get her to say yes and have a fun date. This is like, are you even ready to date? How do you know, it's the right time? How do you know it's the right girl? You know, are you prepared, you know, to enter into romantic relationship, to take care of this girl's heart and her soul and her body.

Yeah. To really do that introspection and, you know, look into your heart, take a real sober assessment of, you know, is there junk in my life that I really should root out before I embark on what could be the beginning of my vocation. And so encouraging the guys to do that and taking that deep look and then giving them the specifics and then not just how to ask her out, but how to keep that relationship strong and then how to continue to date God willing, even in your marriage.

I think it's fair to say. I think anyone listening would say that there's been a real crisis of masculinity in our culture. And so just curious from your point of view, what do you think has happened to men in our culture? Well, Thomas Aquinas gave a definition of a FY in one of his writings. And now by a FY, he does not mean femininity.

And he does not mean homosexuality. He's talking about a FY, which is to be emasculated. And his definition of that is that when a man refuses to let go of that, which is pleasurable in order to pursue what is arduous or difficult. And so what is it out there that's really enticing men to let go of what's pleasurable in order to pursue what's perhaps difficult or arduous?

I would say the most biggest thing that's making men a feminine is pornography because we are getting emasculated. By the millions, essentially being trained that a woman should be valued by how much lust she generates in me. And if I'm bored and I'm lonely and I'm angrier, I'm stressed or I'm tired.

Well, I can just go to porn to get my fix. And so men effectively or emotionally are not maturing at the rate that they should be where you're having a guy who's 25 years old and he can't even ask a girl out face to face. He doesn't wanna look her in the eyes. He'd rather be home playing video games or looking at pornography on a cell phone.

And so, you know, 50, 60 years ago, men were grown up a lot faster. I mean, my grandpa at the age of 20. Was flying a world war II, you know, airplane deliberately into thunderstorms to avoid Japanese enemy aircraft. I mean, at the age of 20, I was playing ultimate Frisbee in college. I mean, it was a very different scenario.

And so they grew up a lot faster because of those trials. And I think, unfortunately, what's happening today. You look at the porn statistics since coronavirus hit. And, you know, I saw the numbers just for Italy and through the roof. I mean, once they did the quarantine, the poor numbers skyrocketed, I mean, do we even know what to do when we're bored and have extra time on our hands?

Or if we're stressed out or life is difficult, do we just run to using women as our fix? And I think that's what pornography has done and emasculating men, I've heard you talk about comparing that to the one child policy in China. And I, I think it's so accurate. Would you talk about that analogy a little bit?

Yeah. Well, in China for decades, they've had the one child policy that, you know, you can only have one kid, uh, because they wanna control population. And so their way of doing that is telling you, you can't have more than one kid. If you have a second kid, not only will we find you and, you know, deprive that.

Education, uh, we will find your coworkers. We will dock their pay if you have a second kid. So you will punish all of their families if you're irresponsible and having a second kid. And so what's happening is a lot of these families are only having one kid, but they're having only the male child, because that can carry on the family name.

It's more, you know, financially productive and honorable or whatever to have a boy. And so the girls are all getting aborted and have been for a very long time, much more disproportionately than the male babies. And so what you're having now is now these male babies are all grown up. They're looking for a spouse and she's not there cuz she was aborted 22 years ago or whatever.

And I think pornography is having the opposite effect in America where there's plenty of young adult, single devout women wanting to start a vocation. And the men are nowhere in sight. They're in their mom's basement playing video games, you know, at the age of 26 or whatever, you know, and that that's not to say that men are the only ones impacted by pornography.

Many and many women struggle with this as well. It's not just a lust, isn't a guy problem. It's a human problem. But precisely because more men historically have been into this stuff, we've seen the effects play out more fully than we have with the females who are now beginning to struggle with it. Cause a lot of girls think, okay.

You know, look at the stuff first out of curiosity of, well, what do I need to look like and who do I need to be? And what do I need to do? And how do I need to act in the bedroom? But they don't realize that women weren't created to be porn. They were created to be loved. And so it, it, we owe it as men and women to get rid of this junk so we can be free to love.

Couldn't agree. More. One of the questions you asked the women is what is the number one fault that you would want a man to root out of his life before he enters a, a dating relationship and their answer was pornography. What else did they say? Yeah, I mean, we got some funny responses there. I remember, you know, we asked him, what's the one thing you want a guy to stop doing in his life before he dates you?

One girl said, well, not take your ex-girlfriend to the duck pond. I'm like, okay. I'm like, alright, I'll make a mental note of not taking, ex-girlfriends do a duck pond, but you know, other things. You know, excessive gaming or laziness or pride alcohol, things like that. But pornography four times to one, uh, was the number one response from the women.

Like, get that outta your life. Before you even ask me on a date, look, you can have your pixels. Or you can have a person, but you can't have both pick what you want. You know, if you really want me, you really want a girlfriend, then not only break your porn habit, but heal from its effects as well, because it's a mistake to think, okay.

I haven't looked at porn in a month. I'm good. But that's like, if I stabbed you, you know, the big piece of rebar and I pulled that outta your guts. And I think, okay, the rebars out of your stomach, you're okay. Now it's like, well, no, you're not okay. There's a gaping hole in my stomach. And my intestines are halfway out.

Like I'm not healed because the wound has been pulled out. Because, you know, the damage in the scar tissue remain. And so we've gotta be able to take some time and heal from the effects of pornography to retrain our imagination and self mastery so that we can be free to love. And this is stuff we should do before asking a girl out.

Instead of treating her like a, she's a prude. If she doesn't allow us to look at pornography during the relationship, because, Hey, that's just what guys do, you know, that's not true fidelity. It's cheating. And to a man who may be thinking, I'll get this outta my life. Eventually I don't need to do it. Now.

Marriage is five years away, 10 years away. What would you say to him? Why is it important for men to eliminate those vices now and to start healing from their effects? Well, one is that the longer you stay involved in a porn habit, masturbation, whatever the deeper, those hooks sink into you, it's not like it's gonna get easier to break free as you get older.

I mean, that's the, the lie the devil tells us, oh, well, you know, eventually this will just go away. You know, just let's deal with it tomorrow. Well, tomorrow's kind of full, let let's deal with it next month or next year, next decade or presidency or whatever. It's like, no. Now, now is the moment of salvation.

Now you've gotta act. And so one is just the sense of urgency. It's only gonna get more difficult the longer you hang on. and then secondly, like you're really clogging up your love life with something that's bogus because you know what, if you think, oh, well, I'll be ready to settle down. In two years, five years, the punishment of certain sins is the pleasure you get from them.

And I know that sounds kind of weird, uh, because like some people think, well, aids is a punishment for promiscuity. Well, so. The pleasure you get from these addictions is the punishment in itself because it gets you hooked on something that, you know, it seems to bring temporary satisfaction or relief, but does not meet your deeper needs.

And so you keep end up going back for another hit and another hit, but you're not really satisfied. You don't experience the joy of authentic human love, which is what God wants to give to you because you're too busy binging and basically eating out of a dumpster instead of enjoying the buffet of steak and lobster tail that God wants to give to you.

And yeah, real love is demanding. It's much more difficult than pornography because with porn. She's got no demands. She has no needs. She doesn't need you to hold a conversation with her. She can't reject you. She doesn't have problems she's instantly and constantly sexually available whenever you want.

She's completely disposable. And as soon as you get bored with her, you go to the next flawless supermodel. And so it, it just makes us slops when it comes to real love. It just makes us so lazy and soft belly and weak because it's all about us. And if you think you can just flip a light switch and transition from complete self gratification and selfishness to selfless, sacrificial, love your in for a big surprise.

It's almost like, imagine you get Tom Brady and man, like, dude, that guy knows how to throw a football, you know, but let's say, okay, starting the game tomorrow, you have to throw left handed. I mean, he might not be able to throw the ball 15 yards down the field with any precision whatsoever. If he's now having to retrain his brain on such a drastic level.

And it's the same thing when it comes to switching from lust to love, we've gotta learn how to do that now, instead of when our future spouse walks into our life, and then we are far from prepared for her. In the book you give some really practical tips on how to overcome vices, such as pornography. I, we can't get into all of them, but would you give us one or two tips?

Well, one thing I would say is don't go lone ranger, you know, don't think, okay, well, you know, I got this, I'll conquer this on my own. I mean, you're gonna fall flat on your face. You need accountability. So one thing I recommend is called covenant eyes and, uh, covenant eyes. If you go to their website and just type in the, uh, promo code chastity, they'll give it to you for a month for free.

And that'll not only block pornographic content, but it'll send your accountability partner or report. Of what you've been looking at, so that you're not on your own, that he knows when you mess up and you can call you on and, and you think twice about clicking a site when, you know, somebody can see that, that that's what you're into.

And so you've got that accountability. A second thing I would try to do is that, you know, even if you don't have a computer on you, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna have any temptations. I mean, what about that woman jogging down the street? What about the girl working next to you in the gym? You know, what about, uh, you know, when you're at church and like, you have a thought of lust from two years ago and like where the heck did that thought come from?

Or you're just getting ready to go to bed and imagination start stirring. What's your strategy in those moments? Most people don't have a strategy. It's just like, well, uh, I don't know, but we have to be prepared. And so one thing that I would say is, you know, just stop and trace the little sign of the cross on your forehead, you know?

And the first part of the cross is up. So GRA think of that as a prayer of gratitude, you could think God for the beauty that he gave to that person. And the second part of the cross goes down, that could be like contrition, you know where you're God, I'm sorry. For the times I have not looked. Upon your daughters, you know, creating me a clean heart.

And so you're asking for forgiveness and for purification, then the cross comes up and it goes off to the side and that's like, now you're looking over to her, you know, or that source of temptation of like, maybe if it's a pornographic flashback, where is she right now? Like, is she, I mean, she's just human being, is she, you know, trying to get outta the porn industry?

Did she have an abortion last week? You know, is she struggling as a single mom to make ends meet and is doing this on the side? Like, or is she, um, been sex trafficked? You know, is she a human slave? Basically that ended up online. Like this is a human person. This is your sister in humanity. Let's pray for her.

And so you're transforming temptation into intercession. And then the final part of the cross kind of moves away from her to the other side of the source of her beauty, which is God. And because the devil didn't invent the human form, that's God's idea and all beauty comes from him. And so I think the beauty of others can lead us into maybe a prayer of adoration and the beauty that God possesses.

And so this is a little anecdote that you could use. If you don't remember all four points, it's fine. Just do one or two of them, but you just gotta make sure you have a game plan, uh, that you're not repressing and stuffing your desires. Like, oh, desires are bad. Sexual desires are all evil. It it's like, well, no.

I mean, passion is a good thing. Sexual desire is a good thing, but it's lust that pollutes it and wars it. And that's when you take the person's sexual value and you place it above their personal value. And so what love tries to do is arrange that rightly where you're valuing them as a human person, instead of a commodity for your own sexual gratification, that makes so much sense.

It's almost as if we're so focused on the body that we're missing the person. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's, that's the thing with pornography. I mean, the, the porn stars, they're the focus of all of the attention and yet they're completely ignored. And so they're getting all this attention, but like, you don't know where she's at in life.

You don't know what's going on with her. If the porn industry really revealed too much, it would go out of business because if it really revealed, oh yeah, miss September. Yeah, she was molested when she was 12 and she was raped when she was 18. And right now she is addicted, um, to cocaine and, uh, she is an alcoholic and, you know, she has two kids and she's had three abortions.

And that porn video that you saw last week. Yeah. She actually did conceive a child during that porn video who was aborted, you know, eight months ago. like, okay, what man on earth, no matter how depraved your struggles may be, would take delight in watching that movie. If you were fully revealed the woman, you know, and all of her humanity instead of just her body parts.

And so our job is to clothe these women, uh, with, with dignity and with their personhood again. And there's so much freedom in that. And we'll talk about freedom in a little bit, but one of the things that you had said in the past that really helped me break free from pornography, uh, years ago was that you really need a greater desire to overcome a strong desire.

So if you have a strong desire to look at pornography, you need a greater desire to overcome it. And so find that desire, guys, everyone listening, find that desire, whatever it may be, you you're probably gonna have to dig for that a bit. It may not be obvious and you may not have seen good examples of what love is supposed to even look like.

So you may not even be motivated to do that, to, to find love, to build love that lasts, but spend some time with that find that greater desire that will help you overcome. The lesser desire, anything to add to that. Yeah. And you know, in terms of what is that desire? Is it your love for God love for a future spouse love for your future children?

I mean, you think is any, you know, maybe there's a guy out there listening right now. Who's, you know, 23 years old or whatever you gotta think. Okay. Where do I wanna be 10 years from now? Do I really wanna be a 33 year old porn addict? Who's gotta slap my laptop shut when my five year old daughter walks the room, cuz she can't see what dad's seeing.

Like no man wants to be that man. And so well, let's start now. Then let's use motivation for love of my future children, love of my spouse. Uh, you know, cuz you'd think like what. Dad would bring his child. Like if he struggled with pornography would bring that kid into an adult bookstore and be like, why don't you just kind of sit over here in the waiting room while I shop around for a little bit and just try not to look at too much on the shelves.

I'll be back in a minute, sweetheart. I mean, you would never bring her into that. I mean like my gosh, I mean, yeah, you wouldn't even let her sit in the car in the parking lot. Well, but we're doing something worse as fathers. If we're struggling with pornography or husbands, we're bringing it into our own house.

And, and, and so we have to be the gatekeepers in a sense, but we're leaving the barn door wide open for evil to plunder our entire kingdom because we don't have control over our of ourselves. And so we've gotta take this thing seriously, cuz our entire vocation could be at stake. One of the things when I was engaged and dating my now wife, one of the things that helped me to just keep our relationship pure was borrowing a tip from sports psychology, actually in sports psychology.

When you're in a, you know, nerve wracking situation, you wanna have two or three things you could think of to give you confidence. So you think of situations where you were, you know, in a tough situation, but you succeeded. And for me, I had three really vivid images in my mind of why I wanted to be pure.

And that really helped me because one of them was having a baby girl. How would I want someone to treat her. And so to, to all the guys listening, that's something I would definitely recommend to. It helps to have a really vivid, visual reminder that you can quickly pull up if you're in a moment of temptation.

Yeah. Yeah. And that, that way you're not just doing it for yourself, you're doing it for somebody else. Cuz you know, life you, I think his mother Teresa said life is not worth living unless it's lived for others. And so that gives you so much more meaning behind the sacrifice, you know, cuz if you're just, you know, shedding blood for no reason at all, other than just.

You know, self control, you know, sometimes it's easy to lose motivation, but it's like, no, this is for something. This is for the sake of love. This is so I can be free to love and free to be loved shifting to chapter two. So in chapter two, you talk about how you can figure out if she's the one. And so my question, do you, yeah.

How can a man know if she's the one I know if they'll read the book, the guys will get 10 questions asked to know if she's the one, but what do you, uh, explain a little bit about how they can know that? Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things you gotta do is like, okay, what is it you you're really looking for in, in a future spouse?

You know, do you want, um, are you in a agreement in terms of like the size of a family? Is it in terms of like, does she possess a virtue? Because even if you marry miss universe, But she does not possess virtue. You will have a miserable marriage. Whereas if you marry someone who might not be a miss universe, but you're still attracted to her, but she has virtue.

You're gonna have a happy marriage. And so you really gotta ask, you know, does, does she possess virtue? Is she working on that? It doesn't mean that she's gotta be a Saint, but she at least needs to want. To be one, uh, you've gotta ask yourself to, does she share your faith? You know, hopefully that's something that's important to you and that you're gonna want your kids to be saints.

And is she gonna help you get to heaven? So you've gotta ask that stuff. I mean, you know, does your relationship have a good history, you know, or is it been an emotional roller coaster soap, opera, you know, drama fighting bickering back together, break apart. Because the best indication, the future of relationship is a passive relationship.

And if the past has been pretty darn Rocky, um, that's probably what you have to look forward to for a lifetime, because it's like, well, you know, she's really stressed right now, or I'm really stressed. And so I've done this that, well, trust me, marriage has infinitely more stress than you're gonna have as a singled person dating.

And so you've gotta really take into consideration, you know, are you ready as well? It's not just like, okay, is she ready? Cuz if so, well then I just gotta plug that into my life and we're good to go. You've gotta look into your own life. Am I ready? What do the people who love me think about her? You know, do my parents think that she'd be an awesome spouse or do the people who care about me the most tend to point out some red flags, Hey, you know, keep an eye on this.

You know, that that could be an issue, you know, and I know this is a, this last one's kind of a tough one because it's not up to her. I mean, she, this is beyond her control, but it's almost like a bonus point. If her parents have a strong marriage, it's such a blessing because in an effect, she will have sat in a classroom of authentic love for the first 18 years of her life.

Whereas I, if she was not unfortunately raised in that environment and her parents had a broken relationship, divorce fighting, whatever, you know, it doesn't mean that she's incapable of love or incapable of a happy, wonderful marriage, but it's just gonna be an extra challenge and a sense for her. And maybe for you as she perhaps needs to learn and develop the skills that she never had, the blessing of witnessing.

And so that can be a challenge, you know, but it's not a deal breaker by any extent. I mean, I, I was able to come thanks me to God from parents who still are married today. My wife came from, you know, a very broken family and, uh, you know, but, and she'll be the first to admit, you know, that. You know, creates an uphill struggle when you don't get to see what that interaction is supposed to look like from a husband and a wife.

So, you know, so those are some questions. What guy needs to look at. Not only is this the right girl, but is this even the right time, you know, for her, for me, because even if you find the right girl, it might not be the right time to jump into relationship. You know, maybe she's going to. UCLA next year, and you're going to Louisiana state university, and you're gonna have a long distance relationship, 4,000 miles apart for the next, you know, who knows how many years it can be pretty difficult.

And so you really gotta discern not just is this the right girl, but is this the right time? Love that. I love what you said about virtue two. That being really the main goal of finding a woman who's virtuous. And I know what I've seen in marriages around me is that the more virtuous the spouse is the happier the marriage.

Yeah. And so I think it's really the secret to a happy marriage is find a virtuous spouse, be virtuous yourself. Yeah. It's, it's not much more difficult than that. Marriage is very difficult, but if, if you can both, you know, be pursuing virtue, uh, you're far more likely to have a happy life together to anyone listening, who you maybe discourage because you come from a broken family.

I just wanna say there's so much hope. I know statistically, we're more likely to get divorced. We're more likely to maybe not even get married in the first place, but it is possible. And Jason's wife, uh, Lina, which hopefully will have her on the show at some point. Uh, she proves it and I'm living that out too.

I'm a baby husband, but, uh, I'm, I'm working it out and it's difficult. It's challenging. And like Jason said, you made it to work a little bit harder. You're gonna have to dig into your brokenness and find healing. But it's possible. So don't lose hope. Yeah. And, and that's the key, like if, if there is brokenness in that person's life, are they really willing to face those demons?

Are they really willing to work actively and, and take charge of that part of their life? And like, yeah, I'm gonna go to counseling. I'm gonna pursue this. I wanna work on this. Or just forever making excuses for why they've got other things to do then to really pursue that or dig that deep into those things.

And so you wanna make sure that, you know, they're willing, you know, as you should be as well to do the heavy lifting for some healing that might need to take place. Why is it ideal for man and woman to form a friendship before they started dating relationship? Well, one of the things, when I asked the girls about being asked out, a lot of the girls said, I would just much rather be asked out by a guy who gets to know me as a friend first, because otherwise he could have just as equally asked out my twin sister, simply based upon what we look like.

And we'd rather be asked out because you admire more than our physical appearance. Um, so that's one reason, but a more substantial reason is that, you know, you don't wanna date somebody unless you can see yourself marrying that person. And so that's the, the whole graced season of friendship gives you an opportunity to really get answers.

These questions of like, okay, Yeah, I'm attracted to this girl, but does she, does she really possess virtue or do I just kinda have a crush on her? Cause she's really pretty, um, you know, what type of spouse would this person make? What type of people do they hang out with socially? Does this guy hang out with other guys that are, you know, drinking all the time and vaping and looking at porn?

Well, that tells you a ton about a guy. If that's, who he's choosing as his male companions. And so does this person share your morality or do they just kind of respect and tolerate and put up with your morality? The purpose of friendship is to get answers these questions before you tend to get more clouded in your judgment, by a relationship that may be physically or intimately close, cuz once you get close in those ways, Your objectivity is pretty much shot.

I think back to some relationships where that I've had where their initial attraction was, the physical, you know, she was beautiful. And, uh, we did develop somewhat of a friendship in the dating relationship, but it really was lacking. And when we got to the point where feelings started to fade a bit, it was a struggle.

And so I, I just can't imagine playing that out through years in a marriage, not having that friendship. It's that must be a real cross. Yeah. I mean, cuz you can imagine being married to someone and, and maybe you possess the physical stuff, but you don't have anything else. You know, you don't have mutual admiration and love and respect and all this stuff, the physical stuff, the value of it just tanked because, you know, if you don't have someone that you could have an intellectually stimulating conversation with and, you know, just companionship at the end of the day of just your friendship and spiritual intimacy and all those other things that really are the lifeblood of a marriage, what you're left with is pretty shallow mm-hmm

And so you need to make sure that the choice you're making is not simply because of the physical, because even over the years, the physical itself will fade, you know, and then you're left with what is the value of the choice that you've made. And why did you make that choice? And all of those things will then come to the light.

Really good. You say in the book that you should involve your family and your friends in the decision to, to date, or to enter into a romantic relationship with someone, why is that important? And what advice would you give to someone who comes from a broken family where maybe they can't rely on mom or dad?

They don't have a good relationship. What would you say to them? I remember hearing once that one of the best indication of the health of a female's relationship is what the girls, female friends think about. The guy, meaning, you know, do they think this guy is a creep and he's got a real bad history and he's just bad news for the girl.

If so, that girl better to listen up. Because they're not, you know, wanting her to break up with him so they can poach him off of her and date, date, him themselves. No, that they see some red flags there and they care about their friend and they just want her to be careful with her heart and with her body that she not get ahead of herself and make a bad relationship decision.

So, you know, maybe if your parents are out of the picture, whether it's a pastor, you know, a priest, youth minister, an uncle, an aunt, a best friend, you gotta get input outside of yourself because it is so hard. You know, especially when you get close, it's like reading a book when it's only two inches away from your eyes.

You can't see the text, it's too blurry. It's too close. Those that are more at a distance kind of holding the book can see the text much more clearly. Absolutely. And I've seen people who kind of go it alone and it usually doesn't end so well. And you know, if you think of big O other big decisions in life, like which college you're gonna go to, what job you're gonna take, we usually ask the input of other people.

So I couldn't agree more. It's really, they see things that you don't see. And I remember reading something, uh, when we were writing the soulmate book for the girls, uh, these two guys were having a discussion about, you know, trying to take advantage of women. And they said, well, what you wanna do is try to get her in bed is fast as you can in the relationship, because they said before, she sleeps with you, she's looking for reasons not to sleep with you.

Oh, why? Why should I invest myself in this guy? Why is he worth my time? Why should I do this with him? But they said, look, after you get better with her, she doesn't even ask those questions anymore. The question then becomes, you know, all the positives, like, you know, I need to keep this guy because you know, I've already given my heart to him and he's, they're no longer so critical of the negatives, cuz they're trying to justify why you were worth getting in bed with in the first place.

And obviously these guys are shallow as can be, you know, but, but it, it reveals something true of that. Once you a woman lets a man. Closely to her that, you know, she's not just given her body in many respects. She gives her heart. And then after that choice has been made, sometimes they look for every excuse imaginable to stay in a relationship that frankly is headed nowhere.

But having people outside of the relationship who care about you and love you. Can help you to see things that you might not be able to. I love the backward advice you give to the men about what not to do to date a woman, if you would, would you tell them what that advice is? Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's, it's kind of a fun little section in, in the book and, you know, I, I might as well just read it just cuz I mean it's only a couple paragraphs, but it's kind of fun to go through.

Um, so basically what I said, and now you first you gotta realize that this is all backwards. Okay. So if you wanna understand this, rightly you have to understand this is all inverted logic, but basically what I say is like step one is to incessantly flirt with her while keeping her in the friend zone and the strategy offers you a couple benefits.

First, it gives her the opportunity to ask you out, which is the safest route. You're a modern man liberated from the confines of binary. Gender stereotyping also creates romantic tension cuz she has no idea what you're thinking. This is a good time to show her that you're a true gentleman by asking for revealing pictures.

That way you can get to know her on a more personal level. Now, if she drags her feet. And doesn't ask you out after one or two years, uh, it's time to act decisively and have your friend text her on your behalf and ask for her social media information. Since she couldn't find her on Tinder. Now, if she says, no, you should be persistent, cuz uh, a little cockiness goes a long way, text her and tell her you think she's hot and call her little mama and ask her if she wants to hang out or chill at your place.

After all girls love dark basements, old couches and gaming, you know, hashtag romance. And I said, if, if persistence and poutiness don't do the trick, go public and ask her in the presence of multiple people. Women love being put on the spotlight that and whatever you do, don't say the word date. Um, that's way too clear.

Uh, that could mean rejection for you. And uh, and that's not a risk you really want to take your feelings could get hurt. So you wanna spare your ego. Um, it's all so smart to keeper guessing what your intentions are, cuz this makes you a man of mystery. And then if she asks what the plan is for the date.

I just kind of wanna avoid eye contact and mumble and say, you know, I don't know, what do you wanna do because, uh, indecisiveness is irresistible and a man now, when you pick her up for the date, I mean to hang out, uh, just text her here in all caps to let her know that you've arrived since she's capable of walking to your car alone.

Um, and if the car smells, it's kind of sprints, some masculine smelling body spray all over it, um, you don't have to open doors for her cuz you don't wanna be offender by being too patriarchal and then go to a movie so you can get to know her better sitting in silence for two hours. Um, and then, uh, you know, after the dinner bill gets there, just stare at it with big eyes and slide it over to her and say, I wouldn't pay that much if I were you, you know, just kidding.

Um, that's rude. You can just split the dinner bill. You're already paying for the gas. And then at the, uh, end of the date, you just wanna make sure to, uh, I mean, you deserve a payoff, so try to enter her dwelling and get really pouty or frustrated if she doesn't at least give you a prolonged, passionate kiss.

And then if you're not sure if you ever wanna see her again, um, don't communicate that to her. Just kind of fade into oblivion without communicating her intentions. Moving forward. You wouldn't wanna give her clarity when she can. You know, speculate about it with her girlfriends for the next several weeks.

Um, and if all, all that doesn't work, you know, getting back to seriousness, I say, look, put down your dumb phone, stop hiding behind the screen. Look a girl in the eyes and ask her on a date. You have to face the fear of rejection, like a man, because a woman is worth it. And so all that was basically.

Backwards dating advice of, you know, use the word date. Don't say let's hang out, be clear, be intentional, be chased, uh, be, be deliberate. And look, she owes you nothing for going on a date. The date itself should have been the reward that she was willing to spend that time in your company. And so when it comes to the physical stuff, don't wait for the girl to say, no.

I mean, it's such an UN gentlemanly thing to do to be like, well, you know, as long as she's willing to do it, then I'm okay with it. You know, take some leadership in, in terms of relating this relationship in a way that's pure and godly so that she doesn't have to wake up tomorrow morning. Wondering if she went too far with.

So good. I was cracking up over here, so I love the backward advice. Um, let's flip that around a little bit and you just did, but would you elaborate a little bit more? How should a guy ask a, her out? And I know the whole book is the answer to that question, but if you would play that out a little bit, based on the responses you heard from the women.

Well, one is don't text her out. You can never ask her out over a screen. Very tacky looks cowardly. Um, you know, one girl said the guy's just trying to take the easy way out if he gets rejected. And she said, look, if anything, I'll probably just say no to him. Even if I do wanna go out with him, because he asked me out over a text.

But if a guy asked me person and me not really wanna go out to them, I'd probably just give it a shot. Cause he was confident and up for the challenge. Another woman said she put this really succinctly. She said to the guys, look, she said, let me just say the easier it is to ask a lady out the easier it is for the lady to say no.

so get some guts, ask out face to face. And when you ask out, you have to save the word date. You can't say, hang out, get coffee, chill. No, she has no idea what you're talking about. Like you want to hang out, like, what do you, what do you mean? Like you wanna play Minecraft together? Like what does hanging out to you mean like no date is clear.

They know what you're asking for. If you're asked on a date and so it's making them clear. Um, one girl said, look, being vague. Doesn't exactly. Make a girl go weak at the knees. And so clarity. Don't ask your friends to ask her out, risk it, ask her out face to face, even if you're nervous. That's okay. It, it makes her feel valued that you're willing to take that risk.

Even if you're nervous. One girl said, I can't even imagine being with a guy who won't take any risks and give her advanced notice. Don't be like, want to come over my house tonight? No, give her a couple days, like, Hey, this Saturday, would you want to go out that doesn't work out maybe next weekend? Uh, give her advanced notice plan it.

Don't do this. What do you wanna do? I don't know what you wanna do. Like put some thought into it, make it fun in a, a way that you can talk and have fun together. That's that's the basic premise and there's a million different ways that you could kind of figure out how to do that. And, uh, you know, dating etiquette.

If she says, no, look, it's not the end of the world. Okay. Uh, you've just narrowed down your search for your future spouse by one, take it in stride. And if after a few dates, let's say you don't wanna move forward. Don't ghost her. Don't fall off the faith of the earth. Be clear and be intentional and, and honest with her that might be hard, um, to do, but you know what?

It shows respect for her. Cuz look, a lot of guys can be like straightforward and brave confidence, sincere and honest. When it comes to asking girl out. But can you be straightforward and brave and sincere and honest when it comes to breaking up? Uh, that's much more measure. I think of being a real gentleman, being able to clearly say, Hey, maybe we're not the best match, but I wanted to, you know, be, be open and honest with you that I don't really see this going further.

And I really thank you. And I think you're a great person and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. It might be a painful, difficult conversation for both of you, but let's grow up and be able to have tough conversations. You mentioned ghosting. Let's talk about that. What did the women have to say about ghosting? Oh my gosh.

It, it drives 'em insane. Like one girl said ghosting is basically sending the message that you don't respect someone as a human being enough to have a crucial and hard honest conversation with 'em about how you're feeling. And honestly, if you're not mature enough to talk about your feelings or lack thereof, then maybe you're not ready for relationship whatsoever.

I mean, yeah, it hurts. This girl said, but at least no more. Time's gonna be wasted. You can move, invest it in someone who's invested in you. There's nothing wrong with not liking someone cuz we can't all marry each other. But then if you do let go, one girl said don't pop back in when it's convenient for you and use me as your emotional fidget spinner.

So basically if you break up at least commit to the breakup, but just make it clear either way. Uh, I think one girl just said it best. She said an ending of a relationship should be just as intentional and clear as initiating our first date clarity at the beginning, clarity at the end. Good stuff. You touched on fear and fear holds a lot of men back.

And I think at the root of so much fear is really a false notion of freedom. You mentioned then the book, would you talk about that false notion of freedom? I know one of the things that a lot of guys say is, well, what if someone better comes along? Talk about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, in a sense, yeah, someone better is gonna come along.

It's only a matter of time. That someone more attractive is gonna come along. Someone cuter funnier, more appealing is gonna come along. It might happen next week. It might happen 20 years into your marriage, but somebody more beautiful is gonna come along. Will someone that God has planned for you come along.

You know that that's a different story, you know, because a lot of times we're basing, you know, someone better on some instantaneous attraction versus someone who we can build a life together with because in the end you have to choose. You have to make that decision. But if we're forever being paralyzed with someone better might come along, you're gonna miss the entire boat.

You're gonna miss everything at the end, you have to choose. And we've been sold this false notion of freedom of you don't wanna date, cuz then you're tied down. You don't want kids. You don't want marriage balling chain game over, but this idea. You you're gonna have freedom by living for yourself, but you know, Vatican too is a document, uh, from the church, uh, council they had, and it said that, you know, man only finds himself in the sincere gift of himself that you only find yourself in giving yourself.

And, and so the man who is forever holding back out of fear is not finding himself. He's losing himself. He has become a slave to his fear. He's not liberated as a man. He he's enslaved. And so we, our freedom exists for the sake of love, exists to be given away. Freedom as an end in itself is a myth, you know, I can say, well, you know, I wanna, I wanna be free.

What, what does that mean? I mean, people who join the army are warriors of freedom, but consider how much of their own freedom they give up in order to provide that for others, you know, freedom to them is not the end game. You know, freedom for, for others, for the sake of love to have a free nation. You know, that gift of self is what puts meaning behind their sacrifice.

We often measure freedom by a lack of commitment, but I think like you've said really well, the truest measure of freedom is actually your capacity to love the greater your capacity to love. The more for you are the less your capacity to love the less free that you are. I think this is crucial and probably something we don't talk about enough.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, if, if, whether it's my anger, my selfishness, my Lu, whatever, what ever inhibits my ability to love it's to that extent that I'm not free. And so someone like, you know, mother Teresa, you know, who would get up in the morning and do her religious prayers and go serve people all day and clean lepers out of people in the gutter and like would devote every moment of their life to others.

She was truly. She's free to love cuz that's what you're, it's not simply what you should do. It's who you are. You're made in the image of likeness of God. God is love. And so all of God's commands pertaining to human love and human sexuality is no, not so much an aught. This is what you ought to do. It's more of an is like, this is who you are.

You know, you are a son of God, you are a daughter of God. And we live in a way that's contrary to that. Dignity of what real love is about, you know, we're not just breaking a rule. I think we're breaking ourselves in the process. You know, we're, we're losing our identity instead of really discovering it.

And what has said life for of a man who just lives for himself. I mean, it's just so tragic to think of a guy who would go through his life, focus on himself, making himself feel good instead of giving himself for others. And I think anyone who's been stuck in the vice of pornography addicted to porn or, or anything else, like you mentioned video games too.

Once you break free of that, Because it is enslaving. You may think it's freeing to be able to look at all that stuff, to be able to play those games whenever you want, however long you want with no one checking in on you, but it really, really is enslaving. And so many people have gone from being enslaved or addicted to freedom can see that it's night and day.

Yeah. And you know, one of the challenges is it's not like the victories one at a certain point in our life. Like I got married, I've made a gift to myself and now I'm free. Like, no, I mean, the demands upon our selfishness are. We're given an opportunity, literally every 15 minutes of like, do I choose for me?

Do I choose for another? And you know, we win some, we lose some, but you know, let's why John Paul II said that love is a constant challenge thrown to us by God. And so that's why we wanna start working on our vices, whether it be self absorption or whatever, prior to marriage, um, or, or whatever vocation that you may be called to so that you can live, you know, as your created love in the book, you tell the men to go all the way with her, but that's not in the way that they may think.

Would you explain that? Yeah. To, to, to have a one night stand to sleep with some girl on prom night or whatever. Like you're really not going all the way. I mean, if, if just to simply have physical intercourse with a woman is not going all the way, it's really hardly going anywhere because you know, there's that song that came out a couple years ago by what's a guy pit bull or M where he is singing.

Like, give me everything tonight for all we know we might not have tomorrow. It's like, yeah, that inspires a lot of confidence. But like, I remember first, all I heard, like give me everything tonight. I'm like, is this a bank robbery? Like, what is he asking for? Like, you know, but give you everything. What's a girl supposed to say that I think she should say, okay, you want everything?

I I'll give you everything. You know, I'll give you my body. I'll give you my heart. I'll give you, I'll give up my last name. I'll give you my children. I'll give you their dirty diapers. I will give you my, you know, nursing home bills when I turn 85, like, I'll give you everything. And you know, at that point, such a man would probably recoil and be like, oh, well, you know, buy everything.

I didn't mean everything. And it's like, well, what did you mean? Well, well, he just wants the body. That's not everything. That's not going every, all the way. Like if a man really loves a woman, he doesn't just give her some pick up lines and a promise ring. You know, he gives her every breath he takes until the day that he dies.

You know, he gives her his bank account, his last name, his address, that's going all the way. And so it's not the church or God that's saying, oh, don't go too far. Don't go too far. It's like, no, we're the ones holding back. We're the ones who are afraid to go all the way, because just grabbing some physical gratification is not going all the way.

You know, it, it's heartily using today's lingo, going to first base, you know, we need to make much more of a gift of ourselves. And that's why sex in marriage is really speaking the truth with your body. Your body is saying, I give myself totally to you. I'm completely yours. And that's true. If you're a husband and a wife, if you're not married and your bodies aren't effect saying I'm all yours.

When in reality that person be, be outta your life two months from now, it's a lie spoken in the language of the body. And so all that God's asking for is sexual honesty that when a man and a woman make love, they should be renewing their wedding vows in the flesh. Once men start a relationship they're pursuing a woman, you say it's so important to guard your love and you give 10 tips in the book.

We don't have time for all of them, but would you share one or two? Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I recommended when it comes to, to guarding love is that make sure that there's emotional space in the relationship that you're not getting emotionally married super fast, uh, in this relationship that, you know, there's, you have interest apart from that relationship, you're not getting emotionally married right away.

Give it, give it some time, uh, when it comes time to like this, the physical aspect I alluded to this earlier, don't wait for the girl to say no. Um, a lot of guys, well, I'm a good guy. I wouldn't force her to do anything. It's like, you don't get points for not forcing a girl to do something against her.

Will, that's your duty. It's not a sign of like your moral quality. And so we need to actually take more of an active role instead of expecting the girl to be the chasy cop. You know, she's the one who says no, and I'm the one who gets to push the envelope and see how far things can go. That's not healthy.

It's not respectful of a woman. And, you know, and ultimately try to keep that relationship chased and pure. You know, avoiding the occasion of sin, you know, practicing chastity as a couple, and this is not gonna drive you apart. I mean, if chastity drives a wedge between you, then it's not love that's there it's lust.

Chastity will divide people who are United in lust, but for those who are unit in love, who actually want to do its best for the other person, chastity will intensify that love and it'll draw them closer to each other. Even if they've made mistakes in the past, they're always capable of starting over.

Would you just give a quick definition of chastity for people who are listening, who have no idea what that is? Yeah, well, chastity is a virtue like courage or honesty that just applies to her sexuality. And the function is to free us from the utilitarian attitude, meaning using someone else as an object for our own gratification.

And so we're all tempted to do this in one way or another. And so what chastity does it doesn't kill our sexual desires. It orders them according to the demands of authentic human love. And so the question would be for a guy practicing chastity. It's not just, okay, I'm not gonna sleep with my girlfriend, cuz maybe it's not good for her to get pregnant right now, but it's like, am I faithful to her with my imagination?

In my speech. Am I respectful in the way I talk about women? What I'm looking at on my cell phone, it's a virtue that encompasses far more than sexual abstinence, uh, to a virtue that really helps to regulate our sexual desires and make sure we're expressing them with love. So it's an integration of desire, not a repression of them.

Cause people think, well, look, I'm either gonna indulge on my desires and make me happy, or I'm gonna repress 'em all and make God happy. You know, which what what's it gonna be? And it's like, well, look, there happens to be another option out there besides indulgence and repression. And that's chastity of realizing, yeah, I've got these desires, you know, God created my sexuality.

It's something good, but I need to master these desires so I can be free to love instead of simply using women as an outlet for my. In the book you touch on how some men find it really difficult. If the woman that they're pursuing has a really dark and broken past, maybe they've made a lot of mistakes.

What advice would you give to men like that? Who are listening right now? Yeah, you know, I mean, it can be tough, you know? Cause my, my wife, she shares openly her testimony. She lost her virginity when she's 15 years old, came from broken family and, and uh, and then she turned her life around and I know a lot of people have reached out to me of like, dude, how do I deal with this?

You know, I have, you I've made some mistakes, but nothing too big. But my, my girlfriend or my fiance has been a lot, these different guys and just a thought of her with those other men just haunts me. And I, I feel like I'm getting bitter towards her or resentful or pouty or whatever. And. You've gotta be able to do something with those things.

Otherwise they're really gonna infect the relationship. And so what we gotta do is like, okay, stop realize she was not unfaithful to you, you know, unless you were dating her at the time and she did these things, she probably didn't even know you back then. And oar, she hardly knew herself back then. These are mistakes.

She probably regrets that she had made, uh, wishes that she had never made those choices. But you play an active role in her healing and her being a new creation that you fall in love with who she is today, not who she was 10 years ago. And so when those thoughts of her, those other guys come to mind, Pray for those guys, pray for their own conversion.

Pray for your, the girl that's with you. Now. Pray for her healing as well. Uh, you know, from maybe some bad experiences in those relationships so that you can play an active role in her healing instead of forever holding this over her head, because you don't save your virginity to get someone else's virginity.

It's not like a give and take kind of thing. Hey, if you could both share that on your wedding night, that's awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of people can't nowadays, uh, cause they've made different choices and so be able to realize, okay, but maybe if she had already lost her virginity, maybe you're still a Virgin.

On your wedding ad, you'll still be experiencing, making love as a sacrament for the very first time. She's never made love as a sacrament. She's had fornication. That's a very different thing than consummating a sacrament together in the state of grace. And so realize that that's an altogether new experience for the both of you to enter into together.

And if you can't let go over past. You know, you really need to work through that or let go of her because she deserves someone in her life who loves her for who she is today. And isn't gonna spend the rest of her life, rubbing her nose in something that she did five years ago. And so it's gonna take some patience on her part.

You gotta be able to talk out and share some of your feelings and be able to work through this. And it's a good test of your love. This is tough. Can we work through this together as a couple and make progress? Is she understanding, is she compassionate? Am I merciful? Am I patient it'll bring some of these virtues or the lack thereof up to the surface.

So you can take a look at that work on it. You mentioned before that marriage is tough. It's not easy. And I've experienced that. I've only been married two years, like I said, at this point, and it's already, it's challenging. I kind of expected it to be like a honeymoon phase for a few years and definitely surprised to find out that it wasn't.

Uh, but it is really good. I don't wanna discount that, but it is hard. And when things get hard in marriage, Just like in any other point in life, it can be tempting for a man to seek out comfort and advice. Like we mentioned pornography or other types of vices, or maybe another woman. And so I just want you to speak into that a little bit.

When a man may be tempted away, maybe he's listening right now. What encouragement would you give to him to stay faithful, to stay strong, to keep fighting for his marriage? Yeah. I mean, one, one of the beauties, you know, of, of having children is that your fidelity extends not just to your spouse, but to all of them as well.

And so, although your relationship with your spouse might be strained and painful and feel dead, you can look into the eyes of those kids and be like, Hey, you know, I feel like I could have an affair on your mom, but I couldn't have an affair on. You know, I couldn't break your heart. Uh, you know, maybe she's broken mind and she's hurt me in this way and that way.

And I wanna get back at her and, you know, I mean, I've heard some horrific stories of pain and marriages, you know, there's a lot of hurt that can be going on there, but, but you know, God, thanks me to God. Sometimes kids keep you in check. You know, they, they hold you accountable just through the innocence of their own eyes and the unconditional love that they always pour upon you.

And so realize that. You know, you, you owe your fidelity to them as well. You know, if, if there aren't kids in the picture, I remember two pastors once for up late discussing, like why does some marriages last really long and some don't and the end answer that was that, Hey, the marriages that last and the couples that are willing to show up and fight for their marriage, when things get tough, that's all, it comes down to not a secret recipe of compatibility, but rather two people who are willing to fight for something good.

You know, when the tough times come and trust me, they're gonna come. A lot of listeners come from broken families. And I know you mentioned before that your wife comes from a broken home. And so as much as you're comfortable with saying, how has that affected your own marriage and how have you guys overcome those challenges?

Well, it's been a challenge cause like, you know, not only did she never had a dad, she never saw a mom interacting with a husband, you know, and because she never had any younger siblings either, so she never saw parenting. So, so she was kind of coming in this thing, you know, I, I think kind of. Hey, you know, this is gonna be great.

You know, now I can have what I never had and it was tough. It's been tough, you know? And, and, and so she and I have been to marriage counseling, you know, and we've done it many times, gone to marriage counseling, try to work through this patch or work through that time. And you know, I'm not ashamed in saying that because, you know, you think of the, the king of any nation or any president or prime minister, they're surrounded by a cabinet of ministers and advisors on different things.

They're not just trying to, I mean, Trump's not trying to figure out. Uh, you know, I'm sure, you know, economically he's a smart businessman, but he's not trying to figure it all out on his own with the coronavirus, when it comes to, you know, international conflict and foreign diplomacy, you know, he's got people around him that he's gotta tap into their advice and hopefully follow it.

And the same goes for any leader of any nation. They need people who specialize in different fields, whether it's the armed forces or economy or whatever. And it's the same thing in marriage. Like you gotta get people that know more than you do and can, can work on it, whether referee with a counselor or heal those deeper wounds.

So just, don't be afraid to be able to go get counseling that you need, instead of thinking that you can figure all out on your own really good. My wife and I have been already, and it's a little bit more preemptive for us. Um, but still there were some struggles in our marriage and we went and it helped.

And we were able to, to move ahead and I'm not pretending that our marriage is perfect at this point, but, um, but it helps so much. And it's someone who has a lot of tools and techniques they can give you to help overcome the conflict or whatever it is that you're struggling with. Yeah. Yeah. And preemptive, it's the best way to go.

I mean, if you can get counseling before you even get married, For your stuff, her stuff, or both your stuff. It's one of the best gifts you could give each other love that Jason, how can people follow you? How can they buy your books, your products, things like that, uh, easiest way is just go to chastity.com.

And if you go to chastity.com, so C H a S T it y.com. It's there that they connect with us on social media, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or on all those different platforms. And then, uh, all our books like the dating blueprint book for the guys, or how to find your soulmate without losing your soul for the girls.

All of that is available@chassis.com and we sell stuff in bulk for $3 or less. So people can get these. Boxes at a time if they want to share with their youth groups, their colleges or, or different groups study these things in a group studies setting, um, all that's available@chastity.com. Awesome. We'll throw that in the show notes for you guys, as well as, uh, Jason mentioned before covenant, I we'll throw that in the show notes, so you don't need to remember those.

Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for all the work that you've done. You've been an inspiration to me and a mentor over the years, and so just very grateful for you and everything that you've done. Keep it up. Well, thank you for having me on and, uh, I didn't just ask your listeners to please pray for our marriage or family.

All the people we speak to. And, uh, we'll actually be launching a podcast ourselves in the next two weeks or so. We're gonna be launching that. So if any of your listeners want some more podcasting stuff, we'll have that coming out soon. We'll be announcing it through our social media stuff. Excellent. And we'll throw that in the show notes as well once, uh, once that's up and ready to go.

Well, Hey man, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for having me on God. Bless. Isn't he, the man, Jason is honestly the best speaker that I've ever heard. I know a lot of people who've heard him speak, agree with me on that. And like I mentioned, he has changed my life. He's really helped me in a lot of ways.

I heard him speak when I was 14 and he answered all the questions. I didn't even know I had when I came to love and sexuality. And so we're bringing him back. We're bringing him back next episode to do a show for women. We're gonna talk about the book he and his wife wrote for you ladies, how to find your soul.

Without losing your soul. So make sure to subscribe. So you don't miss out on that. If you wanna buy the dating blueprint for yourself or someone else it's really easy to do. You can go to restored ministry.com/eighteen. Again, that's restored ministry ministries to singular.com. Slash 18 1 8 on that page.

You'll see a link to where you can buy the book either on Jason's website or Amazon, whatever's easier for you. And then go ahead and complete the purchase to get the book. Like I mentioned, at the beginning of the show, we're also doing a random book giveaway. We're gonna give away three of the dating blueprint books.

And so you can enter that giveaway by just joining our email list, go again to ReSTOR ministry.com/eighteen. Scroll down a little bit. You'll see a form where you can put in your name, your email, and just answer a quick question on May 31st, 2020, we'll email everyone to announce the three winners. And if you're already on the email list, don't worry.

You're already entered for the giveaway. And if you wanna go ahead and buy the book, now you can still enter the email list for the random giveaway. Let's say you buy it and you win it. You could always give the extra book away to someone that you. The resources mentioned during the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 18.

Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, go ahead and subscribe and share this podcast with someone that you know who could use it 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.

#017: 6 Tips to Conquer Your Fear of Love

I felt torn. On one hand, I craved love. On the other, I feared it. Why? Because I didn’t think love could last. I feared my relationship would end the way my parents’ marriage did.

Thankfully, that fear no longer controls me. It took time and intentional effort to overcome it. But by doing so, I felt free to pursue my wife and begin building our marriage.

In this episode, you’ll get:

• A better understanding of yourself and why you fear love

• Real life relationship stories and lessons from Miranda and me

• 6 tips to conquer your fear and find authentic love

Contact Joey: Joey@RestoredMinistry.com

Links & Resources

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Books & Research: [Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links below, your purchase will support Restored. Thank you!]

  • The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study

  • Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before -- and After -- You Marry

  • A Severe Mercy

  • The Four Loves

• Quotes

  • The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

  • Speech by John Paul II: “Love is not merely a feeling; it is an act of will that consists of preferring, in a constant manner, the good of others to the good of oneself.”

• Miranda Rodriguez

  • Episode #008: The Hardest Part of My Life | Miranda Rodriguez

  • Bio: Miranda Rodriguez was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Shortly after, her family moved to North Carolina where she spent most of her childhood. In 2009 she moved to Charleston, SC where she currently resides. Miranda graduated from Clemson University in 2015 with a degree in psychology. She currently works as the office manager for a marketing firm. In her free time, Miranda enjoys spending time with friends, writing, walking on the beach and chasing sunset views.

  • Blog: First Class Act

  • Instagram: @ms.mirandakate

Enjoy the show?

To be notified when new episodes go live, subscribe below. You’ll also get the eBook 5 Practical Tips to Cure Lonelines.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Do relationships make you anxious? Does vulnerability scare you? Are you afraid of love? If so this episode is especially for you. And even if that's not, you, you probably know someone who's dealing with this. And so this episode will help you understand and ultimately help them. And I'll be honest with you.

That was me. I had a crippling fear of love and relationships, and at the root of that fear was a belief that love didn't last. And ultimately I was afraid that my relationship would end the way that my parents marriage did. And so it put me in this odd spot on one hand, I craved love. And on the other hand, I was terrified of it.

I ran from it and I pushed people away. And so after years of struggling with this and learning how to overcome it, I realized that I wasn't alone. I realized that tons of other people dealt with this, especially people like me, people whose parents are separated or divorced. And so that's what this episode is about.

We're gonna talk about the fear of love and how to overcome it. We'll touch on how that fear can leave us feeling stuck and how it can feel like we have no idea what we're doing in relationships. Like we didn't get the training we needed in our families to build a healthy relationship. We're also gonna unpack the fear itself and understand the reasons underneath it.

We talk about how we tend to overanalyze things and how it can be tricky to discern if a relationship is right, because of that fear, that fear clouds, our judgment. We also touch on how a lack of peace in your relationship may not actually mean that it's not meant to be. There may be more to it than that.

And then we touch on how the lies that we believe about love. Often, hold us back by listening to this episode, you're gonna walk away with a better understanding of yourself and why you're afraid of love and relationships. And if that's not, you you'll walk away with a better understanding of someone you love and why they're afraid of.

You'll get six actionable tips to overcome that fear. And ultimately our hope is that by following those tips, you'll lay the foundation for a strong relationship and even a strong future marriage. So lots of good stuff ahead. Keep listening.

Welcome to the ReSTOR podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow after your parents' divorce or separation. So you can feel whole again. I'm your host joy. Elli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 17 and this episode kicks off our love and relationship series. Research shows that the biggest effect from our parents' divorce or separation is on our romantic relationships.

Why is that? 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 feel lost and we struggle in numerous ways in our relationships. And so we're bringing you a roadmap, actionable tips and expert advice that you can follow to find and build authentic love.

Today. I'm joined by Miranda Rodriguez. She came on episode eight. She shared her story of how her parents divorce has affected her and how she's dealt with it. I won't go into a full bio here because she's not here to be a guest to be interviewed, but rather as a contributor, we have a conversation. We go back and forth.

But if you wanna learn more about Miranda, go listen to episode eight, or you can see the show notes. So here's our conversation. Miranda. It's really good to have you back. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. It's good to be back. I was sitting in a coffee shop some time ago and I overheard the girl next to me talking to one of her friends, a female friend, and they were talking about a guy that they both know a friend of theirs that seemed to have an aversion to love.

He did not wanna even talk about love or relationships, wanted nothing to do with them. And it got me thinking that there's a lot of people like that in our world. A lot of people who are afraid of love, they're afraid of commitment. They're afraid of, um, relationships, vulnerability, all those things. And so it got me thinking about myself, how I've struggled with that too.

There's a lot of reasons for that, but I think at the root of so much of my fear was that I saw my parents' marriage fall apart. And I didn't wanna repeat that. Uh, in fact, I was terrified of repeating that. And so I was afraid that love wouldn't last. I was afraid that someone might love me. And then abandon me or stop wanting me.

And, and I did not want that. And so over the years, just talking with people like us, I've realized that this is a common fear and it certainly goes beyond children of divorce or separation, but I think it is more prominent in people like us. And so I just wanna break down this problem and then we'll go into a solution.

Like what can we do about this to overcome this fear so that we can, um, you know, live the life that we were born to live and find really meaningful and joyful relationships. And so, yeah, really pumped to be talking with you. But yeah, I'm just curious, let's, let's dive into this. What's going on here? What, why are we afraid?

Well, let's unpack this. I think that fear is so it can be so oppressive and yet like weirdly sneaky at the same time in the sense that you can live with this fear, your whole life and not realize. You know that, wow. I actually struggle with fear of love. And I think that, you know, for us who, when, when something so fundamental, like the family, like our parents' marriage is dissolved inherently.

Like the fear establishes that become, we, we internalize it and it becomes part of who we are. And it prevents us from doing like what we are normally called to do, which is to love and to be loved. And so it just goes to show like how important the family and how important, like our parents' marriages are to us, to the kids.

Cause when it doesn't, you know, go the way it's supposed to like their dire severe consequences. And for us, I think a lot of time that is living with this fear, um, that can be just so overwhelming. Absolutely. And it's a good point that we might be walking around with this fear without even realizing it.

I know it took me some time to, to put my finger on it. Was, was that true for you as well? Yeah. I always had a very strong. A version, you know, to men, to men that I liked, especially like, it was just this weird, you know, like wanting their attention and wanting to interact with them, but also just being very terrified and like the smallest thing, um, whether that be like a conversation or, you know, something they did like.

I magnified it and oftentimes turned it into like a red flag, you know? So it's like the most innocent gesture, all of a sudden becomes suspicious. Mm-hmm um, and so that was something, and I, I, I think I noticed it most in high, you know, first in high school, and then it kind of, you know, continued to, to happen in college and after, and then especially my first relationship, I was realizing how difficult it was for me to connect with this person because of this fear and because of how flighty I was, you know, the slightest thing was like, oh my gosh, I need, I need to get out of this.

And just that instinct to run and to find safety, um, and how like that, how difficult that was to find in a relationship. And it wasn't until, you know, I, I started therapy, which, you know, I'm a huge advocate of, um, and she was the one who kind of suggested, like, do you think this could be related to your parents' divorce?

And it, I, it wasn't something that I immediately clicked with me. Uh, didn't not immediately. Resonate. Um, I think we have a tendency to suppress a lot of times these things and we don't, you know, we don't wanna blame, we don't, it's hard for us to accept things that are outside of our control or that people we love could affect us in such a negative way without meaning to, so I think it took time for it to really sink in, but it wasn't until she suggested it, that that kind of process of unpacking, uh, the divorce and how it affected me began.

And I think now, even still, I think it's something I wrestle with, but it's, I would say a lot more, a lot easier to admit that, Hey, like maybe, maybe this is the case than it was, you know, five years ago or whatever. Yeah. I can totally see that and we'll get into more of my background too, but I, I certainly saw the same thing in my first serious relationship.

There was so much fear there even entering into it. And I, again, couldn't put this totally into words at the time. I was very apprehensive, very afraid of going into the relationship to begin with, but then also, you know, being vulnerable within the relationship, committing, opening up to her and she was a really good girl, this isn't because you know, it wasn't because this person was like bad or something like that.

No. And, uh, yeah, I just, it really harmed the relationship. And I think ultimately it was part of the reason that, uh, you know, it, it ended, um, I, I know, you know, I trust that it was meant to be, but, um, it's yeah, certainly has, has affected me in so many ways, but I wanna go back to something that you said seeing your parents' marriage fall apart, you know, was traumatizing and was.

Something that's really difficult and same true. In my case, we often hear people talk about the family. Being the school of love, the place where we learn, how to love we learn what it means to love, and we learn what it means to be in a relationship, both friendships and you know, a serious romantic relationship and marriage.

And, uh, I know when we were talking before the show, we were using the analogy of, uh, pilot, like a 7 37, a big commercial airline pilot. It's like asking someone to be put in charge of piloting this aircraft. Who's never had the training to do it, or maybe has had bad training training from someone who, or from people who, uh, didn't model it the way that it was supposed to be.

Right. And I'm not trying to place blame, but the truth is when a marriage falls apart, that's not what's meant to happen. Right. And so when we're put in these situations where we're expected to love someone else to build our own relationships or own marriages, it can feel truly like we're sitting behind the yolk of a aircraft that we have no idea of what we're doing.

And that should be scary. It is scariness. Okay. To feel afraid. Let's talk about that a little bit. The school of love. We're supposed to learn how to love in the family. Aren't we? Yeah, no, I mean that, that is, I think one of the primary purposes of the family is to learn what it looks like to love and to be loved.

And that's one of the reasons that it's so important and one of how it has so much power, like it can be so detrimental or so beautiful, you know? And I think, yeah, if, if we are not properly educated in the family in how to give and receive love, It's really difficult for us to like go out and live our vocation of marriage or even other vocations, like even friendships.

Like we don't, we're not equipped to love. And it's just, you know, just like you're saying with, with the airplane, like it's something that's so monument a task that is so monumental and risky too. You have to have like the proper. Quote unquote training, you know, and it's something that we learn through watching our parents, like how they love each other and how they love us.

And it's so, you know, one of the reasons why this anxiety is so difficult and so painful is because love is like so inherent to who we are as human beings. Um, and so when we. When there's something like a barrier of sorts that prevents us from being able to live that out. It, it hurts like it's, it's truly traumatic, uh, because it is so inherent to who we are as human beings.

And so when that, in the family, when those relationships, those primal formative relationships are broken, it's a wound that is so difficult, not only because of the hurt and inflicts at the moment, but also how much you, of it, you carry through the rest of your life. Because something that was so innate and that everyone has, you know, inherent right to was kind of taken away.

Then in, later in life, it's like you're walking around. You know, with a crippled leg or something like something that you're supposed to learn and that's supposed to come so naturally to us, all of a sudden, we, we are not equipped to do. We don't know how I think to your point, like, yes, like the family is the school of love.

And when that's, when that's hurt, it's not just like a, oh, well, you know, it hurts now, but then you'll, you're gonna get better. It is something that, unless you face it and you work hard to heal, um, it can seriously get in the way of. Finding love so true. Yeah. And it's possible to learn and to compensate for what we weren't given that we needed.

And we'll get into that a little bit later, but yeah, I think everything you said is spot on because if we don't learn in our families, then it can be more difficult to learn though. It's possible. And one point that, that you made before is that we often, you know, don't know what we don't know, and that ends up being very dangerous, cuz we're going throughout life kind of expecting things to go well, and then we get into a relationship and I've experienced this myself and we're not quite sure how to handle disagreements.

We're not quite sure how to open up. We're not quite sure how to set the right boundaries because if we're honest, we haven't seen a lot of that stuff modeled well for us. And I think it's important to put a caveat here. We're not blaming parents. We're not saying that parents are evil. Um, I think in the majority of cases, parents don't realize the effect that their marriage has on their children.

Yeah. And, uh, they don't realize the effect that a divorce will have on their children either. And so, uh, I have no doubt that my parents never intended to hurt me the way that it did hurt me, but at the same time, we can talk about these things in a way that's factual. We can talk about them in a way that's sharing responsibility.

Uh, you know, that what happened, mattered. It hurt us. And we're trying to take responsibility of what our life is right now and how we can, can move forward. Parents don't know, you know, the ramifications often I think of divorce. Um, even if you're a child of divorce, oftentimes you don't understand, you don't see.

And I think that that's kind of a challenge that we see in our culture today is, uh, how almost trivialized marriage has become, you know, like it's like, oh, well, if it doesn't work out the first time, there's always, you know, you can always meet someone else, uh, later in life or mm-hmm, , you know, there's a lot of skepticism and cynicism today about marriage in the family.

And I think that that's a result of. Of a lot of parents getting divorced. And then, so a lot of us kids like grow up, um, with that example and not understanding how it affected us. And so we're walking around unable to love and scared of it. And so we like a lot of us, I think almost as a culture, have a tendency to like give up on it, you know, mm-hmm, like, it's like, we're scared of it.

Well, we don't know we are, we have this aversion, but we don't realize that we have it. You know, you hear a lot of commentary on millennials and, and trends and you know, there's like a fear of commitment. Um, a lot of times with, with this generation and the generations after. And I, I truly think it's because we.

We are so afraid. Um, because we've learned that just because you make a commitment or you're supposed to make a commitment, that doesn't mean that it will be kept. And when it isn't kept, there are ramifications, it hurts. And so we just say, okay, you know what, it's easier if we just don't do it. Yeah.

Which is too bad. This isn't a stretch. So people who are listening, who maybe hearing this for the first time, I've heard people say this exact thing. In fact, there was a time when I was younger where I said, oh, I'm not getting married. I don't wanna get married. Yes. because I saw the way that things went down and there's a lot of people like that.

And you know, like you're saying, that's resulted to people just kind of having more casual relationships living together. Um, and, but never taking that step to, to get married. And so, yeah, it is certainly a generational problem. I, I think, and there's a lot to it, but, but you made a really good point before about.

How we don't really go underneath that problem. We talk about how, oh, you know, millennials are afraid of commitment. Millennials are afraid of commitment or whatever generation we're talking about. They're afraid of commitment. Um, but when we kinda stop there and that's really a disservice to, uh, to everyone, I think, cuz we need to really uncover what's going on underneath.

Yeah, absolutely. I think understanding the issue is so essential and you know, I don't blame our generation for having like I don't, I don't think you can say, you know, that it's a huge shortcoming in us. I think it's just when things like divorce becomes so, uh, prevalent, it's really hard for us to know, you know, it is like a true handicap.

Um, and that we have to understand like, okay, why is this, why is this happening? And not just stop it. Like, okay, well we have this, oh, well, you know, like it's, it's so important that we face it and try to heal. What, what has happened and not just kinda let it go, I guess, on the psychological side. It's so interesting that when we see our parents' marriage, when we see what they have modeled for us, and if that didn't go well, it's a broken model.

We almost tend to expect the same thing to happen in our lives. And I think that's a lot of what I was dealing with through the years, especially when I started dating seriously, it was almost thinking my story was going to end or could end in a similar way that theirs did. And, uh, it was almost like I was defending against something that I thought was inevitable.

And yes, that, that is not, not good for a relationship. Is it? No. No. And it's so sneaky in that, you know, you are, you are act, it's like you're working against yourself because it's like, you want love, you want to be loved. You want to like be in a relationship and you crave intimacy to be seen, you know, to be held.

but there's this huge part of you. That's like, no, like this is, this is not safe. And so, and a lot of times that that part of you is not vocalized. Like it's not, you can't identify it. And so it's there and it's like sending off alarms, but you don't even realize that the alarm, you know, you don't understand that the, what the alarms are about.

So it's so confusing and just makes dating, especially so tricky and something that, you know, should be more of a fun, um, beautiful, you know, part of life, somewhat like painful yeah. Yeah. We're not really equipped to go about in the way that we should be. It's almost a handicap, like you said, and it makes it really hard for us to live out a good, beautiful, meaningful relationship.

And so we wanna, you know, talk about how, how we can do that, how we can, um, compensate maybe for what we weren't given. How we can build those good habits and how we can really overcome this, this fear of love. And I think, you know, so much of what we've said so far is really uncovering the problem. And I think that's, that's a main starting point.

Just the awareness, just understanding that okay. The way that my relationships have gone down so far, or the anxiety I feel in my relationships has something to do with what happened in my family. And there's so many people who just don't make that connection like we've been seeing. And so, uh, we really need to do that before we get to the solution.

Let's talk a little bit about our experience. So your experience, my experience. And like I said, in my first relationship, you know, I was afraid even to ask her out, to ask her to be my girlfriend. And even when I did. I loved at arm's length. It was really difficult for me to be vulnerable. And during that relationship, I was going through a lot of tough things.

There was, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Kind of figuring out if I wanna get married or go a different route and pretty stressful time. There was a period where I pretty much felt numb for three months. It was kind of a dark time for me. And I really wanted to open up to her about all that, but I just like, couldn't, there's something in me that wouldn't let me do that.

And I'm sure if I did, if, and if I did it in the right way, she would've been very supportive, very loving, but I was so afraid that if I showed her what was really going on with me, that she would reject me and that, you know, she would stop wanting me and wouldn't wanna be with me. And so I just kept it to myself and, uh, it was a real struggle.

It took a lot of time to, to kind of work through that. And it wasn't until I really came to a point of just accepting the fact that, uh, you know, Hey, this is what I'm going through and I can. To just be honest with her about it. Uh, it wasn't until then that I really started feeling more at peace cuz there was just so much anxiety.

So the relationship and not saying it was the only thing stressing me out during that point in my life, I was trying to make some big decisions about how the rest of my life would kinda unfold. But yeah man, that, that relationship, it certainly suffered because of what I was was going through. So yeah. I just curious, is there anything that, that you've seen play out in your relationships related to this whole fear of love?

Yeah. I mean, I think similar to you that fear of fear of letting the other person see you just, it's very difficult for me to let my guard down. I think that's something that I didn't notice right away, but then I realized like the difference between how I act with friends or people that I'm.

Comfortable with that. I, I don't have that fear of rejection that fear of, of the relationship ending. Like there are people that I, that I have like a secure relationship with, but I've noticed that it's very difficult for me to develop that with a man that I, that I like, because there's this really, really deep set fear that they're going to leave.

And a lot of times, the way that plays out is, uh, not only, you know, trying to keep things at a surface level and not wanting to talk about anything, you know, difficult, um, whether it be my feelings, whether it be a subject that is kind of touchy and then also like my stomach will hurt. It's so funny. Like it's such a physiological response.

It's something that I noticed like early on. And then again in therapy, it kind of, my therapist suggested that might be related to that. And so it makes it hard because you have to be able to open up to the other person, um, in order to properly discern and to grow together, you know, grow as. As a couple to get to know each other.

That's so necessary and in marriage even more so obviously, but it's so difficult for me to like talk about things like I will, I, I go through so much interior struggle to avoid bringing things up that are difficult, or if they bring them up, I kind of shut, 'em shut it down in turn also makes connecting difficult.

Um, and so, you know, I overcompensate in other ways, um, because emotionally, like, I don't want to go there, you know? And so there's just a lot of fear, like you said, and it's just, it traps you because. You it's so easy to get it caught up in your head of like I'm scared. And then you start spiraling instead of just bringing it to light and then opening up to the other person about your fear.

Um, it just feels easier to kind of keep it to yourself and hold onto it. And so it just makes the whole process of dating kind of painful and just di difficult. And it's also hard to even explain to the other person, you know, that you're experiencing this difficulty. And I think you mentioned this in our conversation before, it feels like you're a fraud because on the surface, you're like having fun and you like this person and you're sharing with each other and, and investing in each other, but there's a, at a deeper level, you know, you know, that you're withholding a lot.

And so it almost feels like there's a level of being ina inauthentic with the other person, which is counterproductive in a relationship. You, you have to be able to be yourself and to open. And let your guard down. And so, and yeah, I think too, like there's always those flags going off that we talked about.

I, I really like your analogy that you used in our earlier conversation about, you know, you're driving a car and like all your lights, just go on, you know? And, and you're like, oh shoot, like, something's wrong. I need to pull over. But you know, your lights are faulty. And so like, that's what dating feels like to me is a lot of the times is like, all my alarms are going off, but it's not justified.

Like there, there isn't necessarily like an actual problem. And so then it turns into this constant questioning of like, well, is this safe? You know, like it is this conversation mean we're not supposed to be together or did this gesture mean that he's gonna break up with me or like you just analyze every single thing.

And that to them might seem so harmless and insignificant, whatever. And in your mind, it gets blown up into this is gonna make or break this relationship. And especially when it comes to conflict, it's like, this is, this fight is gonna be it. Yeah. And so there's just a lot of, a lot of ways I would say that this kind of.

Has come up for me in relationships, when you said stuck inside your head or something, to that extent, it made me think back to that first relationship. And that would happen to me so much. And I was dealing with a lot of anxiety around that time. And so that certainly played into it, but some of it was from the relationship itself, just the fear that I had going into, into love.

And yeah, I would get so stuck in my head. Just like you said, constant questioning, having all these lights go off, like you said, the car indicator lights saying something's wrong with your car? yeah, something actually wasn't wrong with the car. Yeah. Made me question so many things and just overthink and overthink and just again, not live in the moment, but rather live inside my head.

And yes, I remember getting to a point where I. Started trying to ground myself in reality more. And it may sound silly to someone who's never struggled with this before, but I literally would try, would touch things around me, like whether it was a chair, um, or a table or something like that, to just bring myself into the moment instead of letting my head and my anxiety run away with, you know, my thoughts and, uh, yeah, it was a serious questioning would go on like you, I would think, oh gosh, does this mean.

That this relationship isn't meant to be because for so long, I had heard people say like, oh, when you meet the right person, you'll just know, or it will just feel right. Or other things like peace is a sign that you're supposed to be with that person and all, you know, all good things in the right context.

But, um, in my case it just wasn't that they weren't helpful because it wasn't a lack of peace because the person wasn't good or it wasn't meant to be, it truly was a lack of peace because I was anxious about relationships and about love. And, uh, I think people who kind of preach that message. It's a good thing to say in certain contexts, but in other context, it's harmful because yeah, there's some people who really have an aversion to love who really struggle with vulnerability, really struggle with, you know, opening up and loving someone in the way that they're supposed to because of what they've seen throughout their life.

And so, yeah, so I would get so stuck in my head and I would read into things that really weren't a big deal. Yeah. I think. It's like that tip about, you know, the piece it's like, you know, if you have a extreme phobia of snakes, you know, and they're like, no, no, no, if you just find the right snake, like it's gonna, it's gonna be okay.

Like, it's gonna feel right. It's like, no, you don't understand. Like, I am terrified of any snake. Like it doesn't even if they are harmless and it's not gonna bite me, like, it doesn't matter. Like I'm still going to that, that physiological response is gonna be the same. If you put me in the cage with a snake, you know what I mean?

But they're like, no, no, no, it's fine. Just get in there. Like, you'll be fine if it's the right one, you'll feel it. it's like, no, I'm really not going. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I hate snakes. I was, uh, kind of a side story. I was in Arizona some years ago and we were going, we were tubing down this river and it was super fun.

We had like a cooler with us and everything and. I, we saw some wild horses on the side of the river. Oh, wow. So we just like pull the tubes over, get out. And we start like, of course, as young boys, we're like, oh, let's chase the horses. oh, no. So, so we start running after these horses and, uh, my friend and I are like, okay, you go that way.

I'll go this way. All right. Well, we'll try to like head 'em off. And, uh, so we're running after these wild horses, not something I recommend, but, um, but as I'm running. Look down in front of me in like a step and a half hoop. This snake just like pisses at me. Oh my gosh. And I just like froze. I was freaked out from what I can remember.

It rattled at me too. So it was like a rattle. Oh my gosh. Not something that you wanna mess with. So, wow. I just froze, counted my eyes on it and slowly backed away. But uh, yeah, not a, not a fan as snakes and stuff. so if you put me personal experience yeah. If you put me in a cage of snakes, it won't overcome my anxiety.

I promise exactly. But, um, but no, no, it's, it's a good point. And, and not to distract from the conversation, but it's like you said, almost like a physiological response that it's hard to, to overcome. And people who come from intact families may not deal with it. They really may not understand. What's going on here and that's okay.

I'm kind of glad that they don't, because that means they don't struggle with it, but it is, uh, it can be somewhat of a trauma response to, uh, to things that we've seen. And I think that it's important to say too, like you said, that it makes it more difficult to discern. It makes it more difficult to see is this someone that I should spend the rest of my life with?

Is this someone that maybe I should even be in a relationship to start with? And, uh, and I've seen it on both ends of the spectrum where you have a really good guy or a good girl, and the person is doubting. Just because they are afraid of love or on the other end, maybe the person, it really isn't good for them, but they don't have the tools and the skills to see, okay, this is going to end well, this is not going to end well.

And either way it will hurt you. And so when it comes to discerning, uh, what, we'll get into some tips on that, but that, that certainly has been a struggle for me, uh, through the years. Same and it to add to that, it really makes you feel like you can't trust yourself, which we'll talk about, uh, a little bit.

So shifting gears, we wanna talk about the solution. How do we overcome this fear of love? We have six tips for you guys. And our hope of course, is that you can face this fear. You can overcome this fear so that you can build a really good and beautiful relationship. Cuz I think Miranda, I know you'd agree with this.

We all want love. We all want authentic, love, love that lasts. And it's possible to have that even if we haven't seen great examples of it, it is possible. And so, uh, these tips guys. Are really gonna help you to, to do that. So let's just dive into this first one. The first one is accept the risk. What do you, what we mean by this is vulnerability.

The possibility of being hurt is inherent in love. You can't remove that. I kind of wish you could, but you can't. And so Miranda, it's a requirement for love, isn't it? Vulnerability. Yeah. And I, I would say that's something that you may have to sit with, you know, for a while, you know, to really. Embrace it and to feel comfortable with it, but it's kind of, you have to remind yourself that the reward is so worth it.

But I think that, yeah, accepting the risk and accepting that, like, if it doesn't work out, like it's not the end like this, isn't it, you know, there's more to the story, but I think sometimes when all you can picture is like, oh, like, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna break up this, isn't gonna work out. I'm gonna get hurt.

You know, obviously there's gonna be a huge aversion to moving forward to persevering, but you have to remember that the payoff, you know, the, the goal is love that last and you may not find it right away, but the hope is that you will, you know, and you, you certainly will not find it if you don't run the risk.

And I think, you know, there's that Lewis quote that you, you know, maybe you can bring up, but talks about how like, yeah, like the cons of not, uh, being vulnerable are so much. You know what I mean? Like the, the ramifications of never opening up your heart to someone are so much worse than running the risk and getting hurt.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's more dangerous not to love. It's more dangerous to, to not be hurt than it is to open yourself to possible hurt. And like you said, CS Lewis said it best. I'll just read off this quote. He said to love it all is to be vulnerable, love anything, and your heart will be rung and possibly broken.

If you wanna make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up, safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken.

It will become unbreakable. Impenetrable, irredeemable to love is to be vulnerable. I love that quote, because he's really saying, you know, the danger of not loving of putting walls around your heart and really not engaging in a relationship is that your heart would become hard. Yeah. And the truth is like we're saying inherent in love is the fact that you may be hurt and there's just no way to avoid that, unfortunately, in our broken world.

And so love is risky. And we're not saying of course, to throw yourself into the arms of someone who's could be reckless. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're not saying that to accept the risk. Of course you make sure this is someone who's trustworthy. Who's virtuous, who's worthy of your love. But understanding that it love is a risk.

And even if you, even, if you find someone who is so good and who will love you, it's possible that you'll lose them. And that hurts that will hurt so much, or it's possible that, you know, maybe you think this is meant to be, but they don't. And that is really hard. And there's no way to make that easy. But it's important to just accept the risk.

And so what I've learned over the years is that love is worth the risk. If there's anything that's worth the risk, it is love. And it can be hard to believe that maybe if you've gone through some breakups or, uh, again, you've seen your parents' marriage fall apart. Other marriages around you fall apart.

You may think this just isn't worth the risk. I'm not even gonna try and Miranda, like you said before, if we are convinced that we're doomed to fail, why would we even start mm-hmm so that first step guys, uh, accepts the risk. The second one is purify your idea of love and what we mean here is one essential ingredient to a great marriage, to a great relationship, according to the research.

And we'll link to that in the show. Notes is a realistic concept of love. A realistic concept of love. And so we really need to look at well, what do we think about love? What do we believe about love? What do we think it's supposed to look like? What have we been taught that it's supposed to look like?

Like we were saying earlier in the show, our parents teach us so much about what love is meant to be for better or for worse. And so we really need to take a look at what we believe in. So often these beliefs that we have are very subconscious, right? We don't know that they're there, but they are there.

And what I've seen in my life is, as I've tried to love, as I've tried to build relationships, I've noticed that these fears and these lies are kind of all around me. And I've had to take one at a time and just address those and wrestle with those. And so it's so important to, to confront those lies and to give them the truth, kind of destroy them with truth.

And one of the lies that we talked about Miranda was I'm not built for love. Like I'm just not, I'm not built for this. It's not possible for me. And that was one that for me, was. Has been extremely difficult because, you know, when you internalize something like your parents' divorce and even to a degree take ownership over it, it really is easy to convince yourself that like, I just can't love.

I just cannot be loved. It's just not possible. And it, you know, fear in a way it works well, but it's not the most effective thing when you start to break it apart because it's vague, you know, it makes statements like that, like never or always or whatever. And so, yeah, like it is deep, um, that it's hard to really address because it is at kind of a very inherent level and has been for so long, but certainly it's brought so much freedom to, to even just question it to say, well, maybe that's not true.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm um, so even if you don't feel ready to like completely let go of, of a lie like that, at least leave room, for doubt, at least say, you know, like maybe, but maybe not. Cuz I, I think you find that when you start. Questioning things like that, at least that kind of gives you a little bit of hope and it makes it easier to progress in the opposite direction.

No, so, so true. And one word about fear. Let's talk about fear for a second here. Fear has a role in our lives, has a role in, you know, our, our makeup as humans. And that is it, you know, helps us to avoid things that are harmful for us. You know, it's good that if you're, uh, near the edge of a cliff, that you feel some fear there, it's gonna help you to avoid falling off the cliff.

But what can happen often is that we can become so afraid and it can get exaggerated to the point where, um, it really turns into. Almost an imaginary threat, not, not a real threat. And that's what, um, Dr. Julia Eski said in a recent episode, we, we kind of think it's real, but it's not real. Or we exaggerate maybe how real a threat is.

And so when I've dealt with this fear of love, this fear of vulnerability, that's what it's been more for me, not, not a real fear. Cuz when I look back on my relationships, the things that I was afraid of, weren't good things to be afraid of. Like, like they were valid in the sense that in my experience I saw these things go badly.

Therefore I was afraid it would repeat with me, but the way that it got exaggerated, wasn't a good thing. so just curious Marinette what, what else would you add about fear? Um, yeah, I think just to challenge it, you know, it's a very, it's a learned response and it's becomes very habituated, especially in thoughts.

You know, thoughts tend to work in like cycles or something, you know, spirals. And so it's easy to go down the same thought process over and over and over again. And like, the more you go down that spiral, the more often the easier it, it gets to go down that spiral. It's almost like an addiction, you know, it's like the, the more often, you know, you eat sugar, the more you're gonna crave it.

And that, you know, easier, it'll be to like reach for a cookie or whatever. And so with thoughts, like it's almost, you have to, you have to be very conscious of. What is going on and with me internally, and be able to challenge the fear because otherwise it, because it is so big and so overwhelming, it's easy to get entrenched in that and not be, uh, not, you're not partaking in objective reality.

You're not, you're not, you're, you're living out fear, which is not, not equal to reality. I think it's so easy when, especially when there is such a strong physiological response to say like, this is, I fear this and it is real because of what I'm feeling. It's like, no, you feel something you're scared and it's also not true.

It's not what, it's not the actual lived experience that taking place at that moment. No. What you said is so good, cuz it gets reinforced. The fear gets reinforced through repeated behavior and uh, Dr. Julia made the analogy of kind of being afraid of walking down a dark alley. And maybe something bad happened to someone, you know, when they're walking down a dark alley and we're not recommending walking down dark alley

But if you, no, if you go down a dark alley and you see something moving or you see someone in the alley, you may have immediately assume I'm gonna die, I'm gonna murdered. Right. And is that a possibility that you would get hurt? Yeah, totally be, you know, be careful be safe that jumping to that conclusion, like every single time, you know, maybe walking down a street where, you know, you're not gonna be harmed, uh, would be kind of an exaggeration of that fair.

So that's really what we're getting at in so many words that the next lie that I've believed certainly, and we already brought up in this conversation is that love does not last that no matter how good it is, eventually it's gonna fall apart. And this, this really stuck with me for so long. And again, it took me a while to put my finger on it.

But what I've learned over the years is that love can last. Why because we can make it last. And we'll talk about that in a second. We need to really understand what love is first, if we wanna make it last. But one of the things that's helped me so much, just really practical tip is spending time with good couples who have solid marriages.

Mm-hmm going over to their house for dinner, spending time with them at events, doing things like that, just seeing them interact. And again, they probably don't have a perfect marriage. Nobody does, but just a marriage that you can look up to that you wanna emulate. And there's a few couples that I can think of who really have great marriages.

Yes. And I want my marriage to be like their marriage. And so seeing them though has really brought this belief back that it's possible to make love last. Even though I have tons of examples of love going really badly. I have a lot of examples of marriages falling apart of couples really treating each other badly.

And it can be so easy as humans to just resort, to always seeing the negative in things. And so it's important to also look to see, okay, who's doing this right. And how do I replicate that? And so now I, I do truly believe that love can last. It's still a temptation. I think, to think that I can't when things are hard in my own marriage, but I do truly believe that that love can last, has this been something that you've struggled with as well?

Myrna? Yeah. I mean, I would say when, whenever I am in a relationship, you know, and I've. Been blessed to like date such great guys, but even so it's always like, okay, like this is gonna end today. Like something's gonna happen. Or they, you know, haven't responded to me yet. Or I haven't heard from them or they said, you know, this or that.

And like, it's over, you know, it's just like your it's just like, my mind constantly goes to that. And it, it just makes things so much more difficult because it's like you're working towards a goal that you think is impossible, you know? But I think what helped me a lot is, and it's so such a blessing shortly after my parents divorce, I happened to babysit for a family who just this couple that has one of the most beautiful marriages I've ever seen.

I just, I was at their house like one full day, a week, if not more. And it was such a privilege to witness, you know, their family life and their relationship gave me hope for. The rest of my life, like to this day, they, they modeled for me, just the fact that God brought them into my life, like such, you know, so shortly after the divorce and for, you know, it was at least a couple years, it was incredibly healing for me.

And it was, it is what has sustained me. I think my hope for marriage and love is, was seeing them so beyond the lookout for, for couples like that, and, you know, it might be kinda awkward or, you know, uncomfortable at first, if you don't know them super well, but, oh my gosh, like it is a game changer in terms of having hope about love and marriage.

Totally. It was so helpful. I can't say it enough, um, totally there with you. And how would you say maybe that's give some people practical advice on how to build that relationship? What I would say is if you're on like a college campus, for example, start by forming a relationship with your professor, you know, whether it's the wife or the husband, and then slowly, you know, don't go up to them and be like, Hey, can I come study your.

It's probably a little bit creepy, but instead say, you know, Hey, you know, get to know them a little bit, ask them maybe, Hey, could I get coffee with you some time? And, uh, and then over time after developing a relationship, uh, you can say, Hey, you know, I come from a broken family and I wanna get married one day and I wanna build a really good, beautiful relationship.

And I'm afraid because of what I saw in my family. I see that you have a really beautiful relationship and I'd love if it's possible some time to just spend time with you and your spouse, or spend time with you and your kids. Uh, is, is that something that would be possible? You know, then maybe you can go over for dinner or, you know, depending on where you're at in life, maybe you can have them over for dinner.

And, uh, the couples, again, that I've done this with, I've done this with them. It's been so healing and so helpful, just like you said Miranda to, to, to have them in my life. And I still look up to so many of them. So you kinda have to be courageous to kinda have to go outside yourself. Because I think a lot of marriages who have, uh, really strong, uh, a really strong relationship, they may not be thinking of that.

They may not be thinking of the people around them that have come from brokenness. And, uh, don't really know what that looks like. And they may see that as normal. Whereas we see it as like really, really beautiful. And so, uh, so you kind of have to be courageous and go after that, but do it gradually do it over time.

And, uh, when it gets to the point, you could even open up and say, Hey, this is something that I struggle with. And I'd love to kinda look to you and your wife or you and your husband. A, uh, a mentor to me. Is there anything, anything else you'd say about forming that relationship? I think the more that you run in, in good circles, like whether that's volunteering somewhere, getting involved in a parish or in a ministry of some sort, like the more you just are exposed to good people, the more likely you're gonna see, um, those strong marriages.

So, you know, so it might take a little bit of proactive, you know, going to look for a group, you know, some sort of, cause maybe that you're passionate about or whatever, but they're certainly out there and they're worth finding. Totally. Yeah. So go to your church, look at your professors, uh, get involved in some ministry or something.

Just find out where the good people hang out and fund people who have good marriages and then, uh, yeah, try to surround yourself with those people because we do, we truly do end up repeating what we see around. And so surround yourself with really, really good people and good, good relationships. And this is true too.

When you get into the dating world, you wanna be spending time with couples that are on a similar path to you that wanna build love. That lasts that are not just in it for, you know, just a short fling, but they really do want to figure out if this is the person that they wanna spend or life with. And so, uh, surround yourself with those couples go and double dates, you know, hang out, do things like that.

Uh, you know, the guy can get to know the guy, the girl can get to know the girl. And I found that super helpful too, to just have other relationships around you who are kind of striving after the same thing, even if they're not able to be like a mentor to you. Um, it is good Miranda, like you said, just to run in those circles.

Mm-hmm , mm-hmm, the next slide that I believed was feelings equal love, and this is so harmful yeah, but our, our culture really, really preaches this in a subtle way. But also in not so subtle ways. I mean, all you need to do is watch a lot of romantic movies. Yep. And, um, you know, listen to music. And I really thought in my relationships that the stronger I felt for a girl, the stronger was my love for her.

And when feelings would fade, I thought that love was fading too. And so I would get freaked out. I'm not kidding when I was younger, it sounds silly saying it, but I'm not kidding. I'll get freaked out when my feelings weren't as strong on a particular day, a particular week, or even if it SMED out longer than that a month.

And, uh, and I thought that love was ending and I didn't want love 10 because I wanted it. I wanted to build love that lasted. And so, uh, you know, this played into my relationships later, uh, my serious dating relationships, but it really, really freaked me out. And so I needed to, like we were saying, purify my idea of love and really ask the question, you know, what is love if I wanna make it last, I first need to understand what it is to begin with.

And I love this quote from, uh, Pope John Paul, the second, if you're not Catholic, that's okay. He's still awesome. um, and he said that love is not merely a feeling. It is an act of the will that consists of choosing in a constant manner. The good of the beloved to the good of one's self. I wanna say that one more time.

Love is not merely a feeling. It is an act of the will that consists of choosing in a constant manner. The good of the beloved to the good of oneself. So, what you can see in that is love is a choice and feelings are certainly a part of love, but they're only a part and they certainly are not the measure of love.

You can't measure the work of a relationship based on the intensity of the emotion. There's more to it than that. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it goes both ways. Like if you feel really intense fear, that doesn't mean the relationship is bad or, or that you should break up or that you should end it or whatever.

And if you don't feel anything or feelings, um, can be helpful, but they're not the end all be all like it's okay to experience some discomfort in relationships. You know, that's part of the growth and part of the challenge. I mean, I've experienced the same thing that you said Joey, about, you know, the, this fear of like, okay, I don't feel super, super in love and I don't feel super infatuated right now or today.

And it's just like a panic of like, oh my gosh, I have to, this is wrong, you know? And yeah. And realizing that, like that makes no sense, you know, like you don't operate other life decisions on whether or not you feel like it, you know, like, like saving money or going to the gym or, you know, decisions that are good for you.

You don't base it off of how you're feeling at that moment. You know, it's, it's a much more integrated. Process. Yeah, absolutely requires discipline. And you can love even when you don't feel it. Yeah. And, and that's a really important distinction. And I think often what I saw is that people would talk about relationships and talk about like the honeymoon phase.

And this is a big problem, I think in, uh, so many circles, but especially for newlyweds. Um, but even before the marriage, even during the engagement, during, in dating relationships, I've seen people talk about the honeymoon phase, where they almost expect things to be effortless. They expect the feelings to be high.

They expect people to get along really well there not to be much struggle. And what happened with me is there were certainly great periods of. Being, you know, really in love, but there were also periods of struggle and it would make me think what what's going on with this honeymoon phase that everyone talks about.

Like I thought I was supposed to kind of find the person that was meant to, I was meant to be with everything. We go super smoothly in our dating relationship, we would get married. We'd have like years of wet it bliss. And then, you know, maybe a few years into marriage, we would fight and then start to struggle a bit.

But up to then, you know, it was, it was all gonna be good and easy, and that has not been my . And, and I don't think there's something wrong with me. I certainly think that I struggle with relationships more than others given, you know, my background, but I think that's super harmful. And so guys, if you're dating and you're feelings, fade.

There maybe a million reasons that that happened. And maybe it is a sign that there's something else in their relationship that you should be paying attention to that, you know, maybe this isn't the right person for you to be with, but I'm very hesitant to, uh, give the advice that you should base, you know, your decisions in a relationship off of emotional alone.

In fact, I think almost never. Do you wanna base your decision off of emotion alone because it usually will not, will not serve you. Well, you have to use your mind as well as your heart. Absolutely. That's so true. Another lie I believed, and this kinda goes along with what we were saying is that if I married the right person love would be effortless.

It would be picturesque. It would be beautiful. And, um, you know, love is certainly beautiful and there's some really high highs. Um, but it's not a fairy. And what I've found is that it's usually different in reality than we picture it in our minds. And it's messy. And it's something that takes work just like Randy, you were saying with any worthwhile goal in life, it's gonna take work.

Love requires work. And, uh, you know, if you talk to any Olympian, who's one gold. They're not gonna tell you they did it by sitting on their couch, watching Netflix, it took really, really hard work, especially on the days that they didn't feel like doing it. And so that this is something I had to confront that love takes work.

And even if I found the right person for me or a person that was good for me did not mean it would be effortless. It would take, it would take work. And I really, I don't think you'll ever find the perfect person for you because we all have, um, faults. We all have weaknesses and, uh, we're gonna kind of butt heads at times and that's okay.

And that happens. But I think it is really toxic to think that, you know, if you find the right person that your love is gonna be effortless. Yeah. And I think. This, there's an idea of like that the other person, like you have to have all these things in common. You have to be perfectly compatible in all these different ways.

And I mean, you have to be compatible in, in big things. You know, I think there has to be a common ground there with what you value in life. Um, but certainly like you're never gonna find someone who agrees with you in everything who has all the same hobbies. And I think that it comes down to accepting the other person as other, and like embracing their otherness, you know, and, and allowing room for that and not expecting the person to be an extension of yourself, cuz that's not what they are.

Totally. You know, like you said, there needs to be that foundation. You need to have that common purpose. But after that then yeah. It's um, you know, you can have, you can keep your individuality it's okay. You don't need to be like, you know, perfect match in that sense. And I love the book, a severe mercy. Oh, so good.

It's so good. And I love the, the idea and maybe you could explain this better than I could, but, um, I love the idea of sharing. Yes. They thought that the couple it was Sheldon and his wife and they, they had really, really beautiful love. And basically what they said is if one of us likes something, then there must be something likable in that.

And so the other one was going to make a true effort to find the thing that the other person liked in it. And so I've seen this in couples, they just like Garrn into one thing that the other person's into and that's okay. But the result of the, what they did, what Sheldon and his wife did was really beautiful.

They would form an appreciation for the thing that the spouse liked. Um, but also they would just learn to know their spouse better and love them better. And it was just really, really beautiful in this book. And so, uh, and I, I would encourage everyone to do that, that if, you know, there's something that you're kind of resistant to go ahead and kind of entertain it.

Try it out. Um, and just if nothing else form an appreciation for why this person might like this thing, of course, assuming it's a good thing, but it, it was a really beautiful thing that they would do in their relationship. It's funny, cuz that was one of my favorite takeaways from that book as well. So awesome.

Last, uh, lie that I believed was I thought it was a gift that was not worth giving. I just felt like I wasn't enough. And I really internalized that following my parents separation cuz I thought, well, if I was, why did they separate? Why wouldn't they fight harder for us? And so in my relationships, whether it was my serious dating relationships or even just.

Interactions with girls. I would keep things at the surface level. And we talked about this more in episode eight, but just to touch on this briefly here we, yeah. We both experienced that fear thinking that I can't really show people what's underneath. And if I do, then they might like leave. They might get bored and, and walk away.

Um, we were afraid that if someone would see the real me, then they wouldn't like what they saw. And, uh, man, that's such a debilitating fear because it prevents you from revealing yourself. One of the main, you know, things is, you know, you can only be loved to the, to the extent that you're known. You know, I.

Aquinas. He's a kinda philosopher Saint in the Catholic church. He says, you know, to, to know, is to love. Like there has to be a precedent of understanding before you can truly love. And so if you don't, if you withhold, if you don't reveal yourself, like you're not able to love, uh, or to be loved. And so that idea of like, I'm not good enough, or I'm, you know, X, Y, Z, if it keeps you hold up in yourself, like it's not allowing the other person to love you.

And so you hit a wall in my relationships. This would come out in me, flirting with girls, but not allowing it to go deeper. Mm-hmm just holding myself back because I was generally afraid that they wouldn't accept me. And so, yeah, it's so important to really allow the other person to see you as you are, because one of the measures of love that I've learned one of the ways that you'll.

Feel the most loved in a relationship is if someone really understands you and really knows you, and if you're preventing them from doing that, you're never gonna experience that love that we all long for. And so what I've learned over the years is that I am a gift worth giving and worth keeping. And I've learned that through my relationship with God first and foremost for me.

Um, but also through my friendships, they've really taught me that, um, you know, I'm, I'm a good man and I'm worth, worth, love and worth keeping. And that has, has been really helpful. And then that extended into my dating relationships. And we'll get into that in a second, but, um, but that's been so helpful.

So the second tip purify your idea of love. Number three is do it scared. And what we mean here is it's okay to feel afraid. And I say this a lot on the show, but courage is not the absence of fear it's acting in spite of your fear. It's okay to do it scared. And so some tips to overcome your fear. First, we just have to face it.

We have to recognize that, okay, this is, this is what I'm afraid of. This is my fear before we can attack it and overcome it. And, uh, one of the things that is so useful and overcoming fear, which Miranda and I have both found useful is getting it out of your head. Don't just keep it in your head, cuz in your head, it's very loud, it's big, it's scary and could overwhelm you.

And so you really wanna get it out of, out of your head. And um, one of the things Miranda that we talked about was journaling. Yeah. I mean, I'm a big journaler. I've been journaling since I was like 12, but it's, there's something about writing it down that is extremely cathartic. And um, even if you don't right away express it to the other person, you know, just seeing it in words makes you realize that, okay, like this isn't what's happening right now.

It's just kind of, what is, I guess, taking place more internally and I'm really amazed at how instantaneous. The effect is for me. And, and it's not always the case, but a lot of times, like as soon as I just put the words on paper and say, this is what I feel, it's like the power of the words or the feelings is reduced.

You know, it becomes words on a paper and not my destiny . So I think just the actor journaling, you know, even if you're not someone who, who enjoys writing necessarily, or, or is comes easily to you, even if you just say it on paper, the way you would say it to another person, just the act of doing that kind of takes away the power of fear and.

And like those internal processes, because you realize that, you know, it may not be, uh, your objective reality at that moment. Fear is so convincing, I guess it's really good at just totally convincing us that it is true. And what it, a lot of times it does that by like the physiological response that comes with fear, like of the anxiety, like your is tight or your head hurts, or you're shaking, you know, whatever it is, it becomes.

Yeah. And so you're like, this is what I'm feeling and I feel it so strongly. And so I know it has to be true. Mm-hmm and writing it down makes you realize that, wait, no, this is just what I'm feeling right now. It's not necessarily what's happening. It's not what the other person is feeling. It's just, what's going on with me internally and, and even examining, okay, like why do I feel this?

You know, the more you can delve into it, I think the better off, you know, the more helpful it is, but yeah, just. Fear is not truth. Don't let it bully you into, you know, into thinking that like that, that is the only option that it's the only outcome or whatever, like fear has no place, you know, in your life, at least overwhelming, debilitating fear should not dictate our decision.

So yeah, so fear at the end of the day, a lot of times is just a feeling and writing it down can help us wake us up to that reality. Another tip you gave was practicing mindfulness, just being present in the moment that you are not letting your mind get taken away with whatever you're thinking about or afraid of in the moment.

Because like you said before, it's so easy to just spiral just to get pulled into kind of a circle or repeating circle of whatever you are afraid of. And so, uh, really just living in the moment and, uh, focusing on what's around you, the people around you can be so helpful. And I, like I mentioned before, even touching things kind of grounding myself in reality was, was really helpful.

And so just getting guys getting it out of your head. Yeah. I think also understanding that like, Fear can be such a powerful tool. You know what I mean? Like mindfulness, what has helped me too, is also like you said, touching, but also like hearing and smelling and like, you know what I mean? Like going through all the senses of like, what's going on with you at that moment.

Yeah. I know that's a tool that a lot of therapists use to help people who, you know, deal with intense anxiety, um, or even non intense, just anxiety. So, uh, so we can use it here too. Yeah, it's really, it's really good. The last tip to overcome your fear is act. And what we mean by this is action is the antidote to fear.

So if you can act, even when you feel afraid and you can move forward, even if you're feeling really nervous or scared, then you will eventually overcome your fear. And this has worked in so many areas of my life. Whether it's from giving a talk on a stage to a lot of people or, you know, doing something else that I just maybe don't feel a hundred percent ready to do, or, you know, I'm just nervous about.

And so just act, just act and do it scared. And as you do this over time, you'll build up that muscle. You'll better be able to do things scared. And then you'll notice also that you become less afraid as you do that again and again. Yeah. Fear wants to paralyze you. And so even if. Don't know what the right thing to do is like, just doing something is so much better than doing nothing.

And in doing something, you are already opposing fear, you know, because it wants to hold you captive. And so in just like taking a step, even if it's not, you don't know if it's the right step, but just doing something you're already in a sense, beginning to conquer that fear. That's like a squirrel standing in the middle of the road.

Like just make a call go right. Go left. It's OK. It's really worse if you just stay right there where you're at. And so yeah. Act, act so good. So tip number three, do it scared. Tip number four. This is a quick one. Start with good friendships. Start with friendships that are safe. Start with people that you trust people that you have experience with people you've known for a while, if possible, and practice vulnerability in those safe friendships.

This has worked for me, whether it was, you know, my good friends from high school or, you know, the friends I got to know in college and really trusted, uh, I would open up to them more and more. And as I did that again, it was almost like strengthening that muscle. I was able to do that in my romantic relationships as well, which were a lot scarier than those friendships.

And so practice practice in those kind of safe friendships. So tip number four, start with good friendships, tip number five, go into romance gradually. And, and what we're saying here is just, don't dive into romance headline. It's tempting, honestly, when it's kind of funny, we're talking about being afraid of love, but there's almost like an opposite extreme where people just dive into romance.

Once they find someone who they feel that they can trust and open up to, they, they think, oh gosh, I feel like I couldn't love anyone. Couldn't trust them. And now I found someone I can. So I'm just gonna go full force. Hold off on that. Gradually gradually build that relationship. And if you think of something like a tree or any plant, it grows over time.

Gradually. It's not something that just grows typically overnight to be big and strong and beautiful. It takes time mm-hmm . And so your relationship should take time as well. And one thing that I would say is, you know, start with a friendship, build a friendship, if you can, it's not always possible, but even if you can't, once you start dating, focus on the friendship, there, don't always focus on, you know, the romance, the feelings, holding hands, kissing, like focus on things that you both like to do, focus on spending time with other friends of yours and just build that solid foundation.

Because I can tell you almost been married two years at this point, and it's been wonderful and beautiful, but your friendship really is the rock, the foundation upon which everything else is built. And so if you go into romance gradually you build that foundation of friendship. Then you're gonna be so much better off in the long run.

And I would say too, like I always remind myself that patient is like the first descriptor of love in Corinthians. And I think that for us, especially who struggle with love, like we have to be patient with it. Like we have to understand that we're maybe not gonna be able to overcome all our fears right away, or we're not gonna be able to like divulge all we would like to right away.

And that's okay. Like we're not SP you know, that's not like a necessity, that's not a requirement. Like it's okay to take your time in unveiling, you know, yourself and to do so slowly. And, you know, even if it's, you know, even if there's a element of frustration, cause you're like, I wish I could, uh, feel super close to you right away.

But I think that, that it's okay if that doesn't happen, you know, immediately. And like, there's time you have time, you know? Yeah. To practice that patience. Even that uneasiness that comes along with. Going into a relationship when you're afraid. I think we kind of have to sit in that and get comfortable with it.

And as we walk through that, you know, you can't really go around it. You can't go under and above it. You kind of just have to walk through it. Uh, what you'll realize it, it won't be, it won't control you as much as it maybe did in the past. And by gradually walking through it, it will you'll start learning.

Okay. This person is safe. This relationship is safe. Yeah. I might be hurt, but I'm willing to take that risk cuz. Ahead of me, the, the possible feature that I have with this person is worth it. You know, this person is worth it. And so, yeah, I think so many good things are built over time. They're, they're not masterpieces don't happen overnight.

If you think in art, I love Italy. And you know, if you go over there and you see just gorgeous, gorgeous statues and these gorgeous paintings, you can't think that this happened overnight. Like this is something that often took especially many of the beautiful churches. It took years, and even generations of people, like maybe the grandfather started it and then the, you know, the father continued it and maybe the grandson, the son of the, the father finished it.

And it's just kind of crazy to think about cuz we live in a culture with so much instant gratification and things are just at our fingertips with technology, which is good in a lot of ways. But, uh, we tend to think that our relationship should work that way as well when that's just not the case, something great, like this takes time to build.

And so don't rush into, uh, take time and really build that solid friendship and. Things will go so much better for you down the road. Absolutely. Tip number five, go into romance gradually. And our last tip number six is, rely on others to help you discern. And what we mean by discern is rely on other people to help you make a good decision about whether this is the person you wanna spend your life with.

And so, like we were saying, sometimes it can feel like we're walking through a foggy. Or we're driving along a foggy road and we don't really know where the road goes. And so we need people in our corner who are helping us to discern to figure out if this person is good for us, are we a good match? Do we suit each other?

Is this something that I want to do for the long haul? And so, um, I think it's so helpful to have people in your corner and if, if you can your parents, but I understand that so many of us, obviously the majority of people listening, I would say, come from broken families. And so we might not feel like we can, but maybe you can rely on one parent or maybe there's a mentor you can rely on, or maybe a family friend, or maybe like we were saying that couple, that you've.

Gotten close with who has a really beautiful marriage. Maybe you can involve them in your relationship and just kinda open up to them and say, Hey, this is what I'm thinking about. The relationship. This is where we're strong. This is where we're weak. What do you think are these red flags? Are these things that you think should prevent us from going forward towards marriage?

And so it's, it's really important though, to have people in your corner really hit the nail on the head. I, I think the more we rely on ourselves, the worse off we be, because even being young and not having a ton of experience, like that's already. Makes it more challenging, right. But on top of that, we have this intense anxiety and, uh, aversion to love.

And so if you get caught up in your own head and, um, try to rely so on yourself for this decision, like there's just there, you're gonna make very little progress, I think. And even, you know, if, if you are religious and you pray like a lot of times prayer doesn't seem very fruitful either. I think, um, because it turns into just thoughts or fears or circulating as opposed to, um, being open to what I guess the answer you're looking for.

And so I think talking to someone else, just another person to voice, you know, your concern or your hope can be so much more helpful and so much more fruitful than you just going in your own head and it's challenging and it can be kind of awkward, you know, but hopefully it's someone that you already have a good relationship with and that you trust.

And so there, I don't know, I just, I'm just thinking of all the times that I have gone to one of my friends or. Someone that I look up to and said, you know, this is what I'm, I I've had this fear right now. And in, in my mind, in my, uh, experience, it's like this fear or this concern is totally legitimate and it's totally true.

And there's no, there's no other way and blah, blah. And then you talk to someone else and you're like, wait, maybe it's not, you know, may they, they able to offer an alternative, you know, which a lot of times we're not capable of coming up with on our own. And so I, I really can't emphasize enough, like the importance of bringing these things up to someone else, especially, you know, like you said, preferably someone who maybe is farther along, uh, in this journey than you, because I think they more often have a little bit more insight and advice to offer.

Um, but even if it is a friend, I think it's worth bringing up. If you feel like there's no one else you can talk to because a lot of times they can offer. At least like an alternative that isn't like confirming your worst fear, that that's really good advice and it can be in love. It's hard to see clearly it really is.

And, you know, there's, you hear people talk about the, the love hormone oxytocin and that, you know, can really blind you to seeing the faults in another person or, you know, that that's one component of this conversation is just that it's just helps to have someone who's kind of objective on the sidelines to just help you judge the relationship.

Um, but then SP speaking specifically to fear, they can help you overcome that. And so really, really good advice. And, but the last thing I wanted to say on this one, like I said before, is if there's a lack of peace in your relationship, I wouldn't take that as a immediate sign that you should jump ship.

And like I said, there's a lot of speakers and writers who kind of allude to that. Maybe they don't say it outright, but they kind of allude to that. And it's possible again, that that's pointing to something in your relationship. That means that you shouldn't be together. But I would say dig deeper.

Especially if you're someone who. Is anxious and afraid when it comes to love. So just ask the question. Why, why is there a lack of peace and what you may find? And what I've found in my relationships is it has more to do with my fear than the relationship itself. And so, uh, again, I wouldn't base your decisions off of emotional alone, but objectively look at the relationship overall.

And so yeah, this last tip, uh, I think, I think is so, so useful. So tip number six, rely on others to help you discern. So guys, I hope these tips have been helpful for you. And in closing out the show, uh, again, just wanna remind you the whole purpose of overcoming your fear is so that you can form those intimate, meaningful, joyful relationships.

And in my life, uh, not only my romantic relationships, but also my friendships, but in a particular way, my romantic relationships. My marriage have been some of the greatest joys in my life. And from everyone I talk to who has been married for a long time, much longer than I have. Uh, they say it's just so beautiful and it gets better over the years.

So I really, really hope that these tips have been helpful for you. And we just wanted to briefly show that it's possible for you to overcome your fear. And I have to say, I'm married now. Like I said, I've been married about two years at this point. And, uh, yeah. Even going into the relationship with my now wife, I had so much more confidence, so much more courage.

I'd gone through a lot of healing on my own, through counseling, through spiritual direction. And, uh, just received a lot of affirmation from my mentors from, um, you know, my friendships. And so that just allowed me, made me into a better stronger person. And so when it came time to pursue my wife, it was, um, it wasn't as difficult as some of the previous relationships.

And there was a lot more peace. There was still some fear. Not saying I didn't deal with it, but there was a lot more peace even down to my wedding day. I remember your wedding day can be super nervous and most people are really nervous and that's totally okay because it's a big deal. But I, for some reason, I just had a lot of confidence that day.

I was happy. I wasn't nervous leading up to it. Don't don't get me wrong. But that day I was very confident, very happy. And, uh, I think it was due to a lot of the intentional work that, that I had done and others had helped me do leading up to that point. And so that's what we want for you guys. We want you to get to that point where you can, you can overcome that fear and it is possible, and you may still be struggling.

You may be struggling with your fear of love or vulnerability, but that's okay. Just keep fighting. Do the things that we said. And if you guys have any feedback, let us know. You can let us know, um, at the link I'll give you at the end or feel free to just reach out to ReSTOR and then let us know, but it's really it's worth it.

It's good. You can overcome this. I really was terrified of loving relationships and now I'm married. And so if I could do, you can do it too. So Miranda, anything else you, uh, wanna say in closing? I think it's so beautiful. Yeah, thank you for sharing that just as a child of divorce, and I'm sure anyone listening can attest to this.

It is so difficult and it's so hopeful just to know that other people who have gone through this are able to like find love and to make it work and to find healing. That's such a grace and yeah, I'm very grateful that you have had that experience and that you're willing to share, share about it.

Absolutely. I'm more than happy to share. I think for me, obviously I'm not as far along as you are in. Process, I think, but I mean, just from my first relationship to now seeing how much more awareness I have, I think that's, you know, such a game changer, just bringing awareness into the situation, but also especially comparing my last relationship to now seeing how much easier it's been to handle the fear and to handle the anxiety that comes.

Like, I think before I was such a, like, I was such a victim to, to the fear and to the anxiety and it made dating so hard. And even though like I was dating a great, great person and, you know, he was certainly so good and so many ways, um, I think that my fear was like, just so crippling that it made our relationship, you know, extremely difficult.

And I don't think that that was necessarily the only problem. I don't think it's the only reason it didn't work out, but it was painful and. I notice now over, you know, a few years later, having gone through some healing, having, having worked more in therapy and process more of what's happened. Um, I feel like this time around it has been easier.

It has been easier to combat the fears and it doesn't the fear isn't as intense. It's not as overwhelming and it, and the process itself isn't as painful. And so, um, and, and there's more, I think there's more hope too. There's more hope that like, you know, maybe it could work out like maybe it is possible.

And so just to see like the difference starting out, you know, not understanding, not knowing, running, running from love because I was so scared to still being able to persevere in spite of it, even though it's not completely gone, it's so amazing. And it, and you know, there are days. It really sucks and it's hard.

And, and I resent it and it feels like I'm, I haven't made much progress, but I, I really know that overall I certainly have. And if that's where you are right now, where like it sucks and it hurts and it, you know, you feel like there isn't, um, a way out like it, there really is. Like, there really is so much hope and it it's a long process, I think a lot of times, but, um, if we keep just like putting a foot in front of the other like that, I think that's the main thing.

Absolutely. Just keep fighting, keep, keep pushing on guys. And so I hope, hope these tips have been helpful for you Miranda. Thank you for sharing all that you did, especially right there. And, uh, you know, I think the people listening, especially who struggle with this are gonna be able to find all these tips useful and everything we've talked about hopefully will be a sign that there's hope.

Yes. So guys, thank you so much for listening and, uh, yeah. Hope to have you back soon. I appreciate your time. Of course.

In closing out the show. I just wanna repeat the six tips. Number one, accept the risk. Number two, purify your idea of love. Number three, do it scared. Number four, start with good friendships. Number five, go into romance gradually. And number six, rely on others to help you discern. And so my question for you is which one of those tips is most helpful for you right now?

And my challenge to you would be to get after it, put these tips into action, unless we act these conversations while they may be cool to think about and talk about they're kind of useless. And so put this stuff into action, and if you're struggling and you need some additional help, feel free to reach out to us.

In fact, you can email me directly if you wanna talk about this@joeyrestoredministry.com. Again, that's Joey J O E Y. Restored ministry ministry is just singular.com. Joey restored ministry.com or maybe this episode helped you, or maybe you have some other sort of feedback. Feel free to email me. Feel free to reach out to me.

I'd love to hear from you. The resources mentioned are the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 17. Again, that's restored ministry.com/seventeen one. Thank you so much for listening. You are the reason that we do this. If this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast with someone that you know, who could really use it.

And 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.

What the Beast Teaches Us About Our Wounds

4 minute read

Even if you haven’t seen the rendition of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, you’re most likely familiar with the fairy tale that has been around for quite a while.

Fairy tales are powerful, not necessarily because of the beautiful protagonists, singing animals or happy endings but also because of the truths they relate. When a story tells us something about human nature, we know it shouldn’t be discredited (despite other, more unrealistic aspects like fairy godmothers and dancing teapots).

An example that I can think of starts with this quote I came across on Instagram via Made in His Image:

The broken will always be able to love harder than most. Once you have been in the dark, you learn to appreciate everything that shines.

– Zachary K. Douglas

These words really struck a chord with me; I’m not sure if it’s completely true (how can you really know something like that) but I think there is a lot of wisdom in it.

I always see traumas, past hurt and lasting wounds as disadvantages. They get in the way of peace, joy and most importantly, love.

For example, the Beast is cursed years before Belle meets him and is still affected by the consequences of the curse. Obviously there are the physical effects – mainly his Beastly-ness – but there is also a deeper hurt caused by a fear that he won’t be loved again. His ability to relate to and become intimate with others is inhibited by his physical disfigurements that resulted from the curse.

Similarly, when we are hurt by a person or situation in a deep way, we become something unnatural…we’re wounded.

The Beast struggles to become close to Belle and has occasional outbursts of anger because his fear of being unloved and unwanted rears it’s ugly head. This then pushes Belle away…causing a vicious cycle.

Going back to the quote, the important takeaway to me from that is the idea that our hurt can be used to make the world a better place. Once in the dark we have a fuller understanding of how good and how important the light is. We can try harder to be in and experience the light which we know is so good and so essential.

We see the Beast use his strength and beastliness to protect Belle; we see him overcome his fear and move closer to her and we see Belle respond lovingly. I wonder if part of the Beast’s ability and choice to cherish Belle comes from intimate experience with crippling loneliness?

I think when bad things happen there are two responses: despondence/apathy or passion.

It’s easier to not care and to withdraw…but it is also unnatural, it goes against the heart of man.

Injustice also has the power to instill great hope and aspiration for how things should be. We know how disordered it can be and we know how important it is so we strive so much more for the ideal. Once we’ve seen the bad we love the good more.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that people who have been hurt deeply are more capable of loving…but it is possible that we try harder. Part of that is out of necessity because of anxiety that has been created which affects our ability to love and be loved…our relationality. But part of it too is out of sheer appreciation of the light. It’s also possible that we don’t try at all, because we don’t think there’s a way out of the darkness.

The Beast could have locked himself away forever and sent Belle home because of fear of rejection…fear that the underlying belief that he was unlovable was true. But he didn’t; and I think (even though it is a fairy tale…I do know that) we should learn from this. Most people won’t leave life unscathed, and while painful, we can use this to build an even stronger world by striving for and being the light. In a way, we have a responsibility to others to avoid putting them through whatever we have been through. If we don’t use our hurt for good then it’s just hurt. If we use it to help ourselves and others it becomes redemption.

I’m probably reading too much into it but…who knew so much could be found in a children’s story, right?

This article was written by Miranda Rodriguez, a contributing writer for the Restored blog. It has been reposted with permission. It originally appeared on her blog, First Class Act.

#016: Everyone Acted Like My Parents’ Separation Wasn’t a Big Deal | Erin Hasso

Erin’s parents separated when she was 16 after a big fight. It was really painful for her. However, everyone acted like it wasn’t a big deal. And so, she felt like something was wrong with her for feeling so hurt.

In the years that followed, she struggled with depression, loneliness, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. In this episode, you’ll hear how she overcome those things and found healing. She also shares some practical wisdom for coping, healing, and thriving.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Erin's parents separated when she was 16, after a big fight that they had, and it really hurt her. However, so many people in her life made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. And so she felt like something was wrong with her for feeling hurt by it. In the years that followed, she fell into depression, loneliness self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts.

But thankfully her story didn't end there. She eventually got help and found ways to cope and heal. And now her life is so much better. She. Better and she's happier than she ever thought that she could be. And so in this episode, you're gonna hear the rest of her story. You'll hear how some of her friendships heard.

And some really helped her. We also discussed how, where you find your value really matters. And the implications of that, she explains why she was so drawn to self harm and how she broke out of her depression. We also touched on a really important topic of how she felt the need to parent her parents.

And we discussed why it's so unhealthy for us to do that and why it ultimately hurts our relationship with our parents. If we do. Erin gives us tips on coping in healthy ways and how to find authentic healing. And she answers the question is the pain and effort that it takes to heal even worth it. Keep listening.

Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you cope, heal, and grow after your parents' divorce of separation. So you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 16, a little bit about our guest Erin Hasso. Erin is a graduate of Franciscan university of Steubenville.

Currently she works part-time as a nanny while completing her degree as a medical administrative assistant at Genesee community college, she currently resides in Rochester. New York, where she enjoys taking ballroom dance classes and going on hiked with her dog. Troy, she's also leading an effort to get a ministry started in Rochester for adult children of divorce, starting with bringing the recovering origins retreat to the area we spoke about that retreat in episode nine.

So if you're in the Rochester area, definitely connect with. She was also one of the contributors to the book, primal loss, the now adult children of divorce speak. We spoke about that book in episode two, if you wanna hear more about that. And by the way, a lot of the primal loss contributors have reached out to restored to share their story.

And so if that's you, if you've contributed to primal loss, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us by going to our website, restored ministry.com/contact. Again, restored ministry.com/contact. So here's my conversation with Erin. Aaron. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.

This is awesome. It's it's great to have you, and I wanna just dive right into your story. And when guests come on and tell their stories, I usually ask them, take us to the day that your parents separated. How old were you, what exactly happened? How did you react to it? It was the fall of 2010, I think around October, my sister had just started college in August, so we were all getting used to that.

And I was 16 and my mom and dad got in. A big fight about don't even know it at this point. And my mom told my dad to get out. So he went to his brothers, just stayed there for a couple weeks and then moved into an apartment. And they started their separation shortly after that. I mean, they, they had a lot of fights, uh, as I was growing up.

So the fight wasn't anything different. So it was a little bit of a surprise that, you know, she kicked him out and he left and he stayed gone. But the fight itself, wasn't a huge surprise. Yeah. You had, you had gotten used to that over the years. Yeah, definitely. Um, it was a very frequent occurrence. So did you or your sister at any point think that divorce was a possibility or is that something that was not really in your minds?

It was kind of always in the back of our minds. We. My, my dad came from a divorced family. My mom came from a very together family. So in, in her mind it was never a thing, but it's something that my dad grew up with. Uh, and so we knew that, you know, we had seen it with our grandparents, so we knew it was a thing and it could potentially happen for us too.

So we were kind of prepared, but also not because there isn't really any way to prepare for that. Yeah. I don't know if I really answered that, but no, no, that makes sense. And one thing that is kind of obvious, I hope it's obvious to everyone listening. The divorce is obviously, or the separation I should say is obviously the fracture point, but there's usually so much that leads up to it.

And when we're talking about divorce, when we're talking about separation, we're including that, we're not just saying this one isolated event that just happened out of nowhere. Cause it wasn't, it wasn't random. Right. So, so no, I totally get that. And that's interesting that your dad comes from that background as well.

Um, I'm sure you're aware, you know, statistically, if you come from a divorced family, you're more likely to get divorced, which is kinda scary. Yeah. But it's true. Yeah. His parents it's all over my family. His parents are divorced. Both of his brothers have gotten divorced. There's only, my mom is one of seven.

Um, and of the four brothers that have gotten married, only one hasn't gotten divorced. So it's, it's everywhere. . I'm so sorry. Yeah. It's it's been interesting. yeah, no, no doubt. Yeah. I'm so sorry that you had to go through all this. And I was curious, yeah, following that day, when they separated, how did you react?

Well, that day, of course, I'm fairly sure that I probably went into my room and I cried, um, a normal reaction for me, I guess. But after that day, I, I think I kind. Turned, those almost turned those emotions off because, you know, I went to school the next day and I was like, oh yeah, you know, my dad isn't living at home anymore.

My parents are splitting up. Like it's actually happening. You know, my teachers, my friends, you know, all acted like it. Wasn't, wasn't a big deal. It was very normal, you know? The divorce rate is so high, it's nothing new. So I was seeing that reaction. I was like, oh, okay. Well everybody seems to think it's normal.

I need to act like it's normal. Like that I'm not affected by this because clearly I shouldn't be based on how everybody else is reacting. So, yeah. So I just, you know, I put those feelings weighted down and pretend that everything was fine to keep everybody thinking that everything was fine. Yeah, no, I, I hear that a lot and I know one of the things.

That you've said is, and, and so many children of divorce have said, it's almost like we feel like something's wrong with us. Mm-hmm for feeling the way that we do because of everyone else's reaction is usually like, oh, I mean, it's not a big deal. Right. Yeah. C could you talk about that a little bit? Did, did you feel like throughout your high school years, did you feel that something was wrong with you because you were so hurt by it and everyone else was kind of making light of it?

Definitely. Yeah, it was, it was very confusing because you know, all of my uncles that have gotten divorced, their kids were younger when it happened. So when my parents split. My cousins were like, oh yeah, you know, it happens, we're fine. You know, it's no big deal. Mm-hmm um, all of my friends' parents were together.

Um, and they were like, yeah, you know, that sucks. But we can't relate because our parents are together and all the adults in my life. And I will say I'm, I'm sure the reason that they tried to put such a, it's not a big deal spin on it is to. Make me feel better and you know, like it, wasn't such a big deal and I didn't need to get too upset about it, but it did make me feel like, oh, okay.

You know, literally everybody that I'm coming across is saying, this is not a big deal, so why am I struggling? Why am I so upset? Why am I grieving this? And you know, after, you know, a couple weeks, nobody was checking in to say, oh, you know, how are you doing with this? Mm-hmm , you know, are you still.

Struggling with what's going on with, you know, missing your parents, being together with missing your dad, being outta the house. It's just like, it almost like it never happened. Mm-hmm , you know, it's like, no, what it did happen and I'm, I'm hurting and I'm struggling. And you know, it was like shouting into the wind, you know, I could hear myself, but you know, nobody else was hearing me.

So yeah, definitely a lot of confusion and feeling like, I think the big thing I felt was I'm too emotional. Like I'm too sensitive. I shouldn't be so. That I'm feeling all of this. I can relate in some of the stories that I've heard are so similar to yours, we feel like, like you said, you know, I shouldn't be this sensitive.

I shouldn't react this way. I should be more resilient. Mm-hmm . And, but if you look at it objectively, your family is falling apart. And as, as one person said, who. Wrote their story for ReSTOR. They said I was watching my family die. Yeah. And that's a very real loss. And so to anyone listening, you know, I hope you know that it is a big deal.

It does matter. And different people have different reactions to it. Of course mm-hmm but it's so important that we just acknowledge the fact that. This is a hard thing. This is not supposed to happen. Right. And the fact that it does happen, uh, even in cases where it's, you know, necessary for the safety of the spouse or the children, it's always a tragedy.

And it always negatively impacts us the children, even if we don't see those impacts come out right away in our lives. That's what the research shows is. I'm sure you're aware is that often, you know, we do have some short-term impact, but, uh, the long-term effects are the ones that usually impact us the most.

They, they come out the most, they're the most obvious. Right. So, so I think it's a good reminder for, for everyone listening that, you know, it's, it's okay to grieve that loss. It's okay to. Feel that hurt and there's nothing wrong with you if you do definitely normal. So how did you see your parents' separation, uh, affect you in the years that followed?

Like I mentioned, there was a lot of, you know, pushing those emotions down, trying to deny that I was hurting because, you know, I felt like it wasn't normal. So the following year, my senior year of high school, my, my grandma, her cancer came back and it had spread and she ended up passing away that December.

About a year after my parents split up. So, you know, that grief on top of the grief of losing my intact family kind of pushed things over the edge. And I got very depressed. Unfortunately, you know, I, I struggled a little bit with self harm and suicidal thoughts. and yeah, I, I really hit rock bottom that year.

So that was a big, a big issue that thankfully ended up being resolved. I found a counselor during high school who really helped me work through a lot of that. I had very supportive friends then, but it was, it was such a big thing. And I think at the time I didn't realize that a lot of my hurt was coming from my parents splitting up.

I was like, no, I'm, you know, that's normal that they. So I must be so depressed and upset because my grandma died. So this is all stemming from that. And obviously that wasn't the case. . So while I did, you know, talk a little bit about the divorce with my counselor at that time, it wasn't the main focus. The main focus was the depression and.

You know the loss of my grandma. Sure. So it got out a little bit, but it was still there. And the pushing the emotions down was still happening. So that lasted about six months to a year. And that, that rock bottom just kept going. I eventually got out of it through a lot of prayer, a lot of talking. And I think part of what helped was going off to college and getting away from it kind of getting away from, you know, The fights that were still happening at home.

I mean, OB obviously not together at home, but you know, over the phone between the two of them. So that was a big thing. And I definitely think I spent a lot of time relying too much on my high school friends where I said, okay, I'm struggling. I can't go to my parents. So I'm going to put all of my, myself into my friendships and.

You know, hope that these last, because you know, the, the foundation of my family just fell apart. So I'm making a new foundation of my friends. Mm-hmm and of course that's not the greatest thing to do because you know, sometimes things happen and friendships fall apart and then you're, you know, left without a foundation again.

Sure. Which I did, unfortunately. Yeah. So there's just a lot of, a lot of grief, a lot of depression and a lot of putting my faith and almost myself worth into other people. So that's, yeah, that was the kind of the short term effect for me. And did you find in your relationships and your friendships, you were looking for your value from those people?

Is that a good way to say it? Definitely. This is actually something I've been talking to. New counselor about, I spent so much of my childhood starting at such a young age, trying to play peacemaker between my parents. That I had a hard time finding my own identity and finding my own value because I found my value in keeping the peace between them.

So when that no longer worked, I was like, okay, what is my value? Then if, if the value that I thought I had keeping my parents together, isn't there. Do I have value at all? Mm-hmm . And so then I went to my friends and said, okay, maybe if I am the perfect friend and I do everything I can to keep these friendships, maybe my value.

You know, in these friendships, but of course that's not how value works. So , did you find that your friendships crossed boundaries and got unhealthy because of the way that you looked at them? For sure. Yeah. I think I relied too heavily on some of the friendships for a lot of emotional support that, that I wasn't getting from my parents.

But of course, you know, 16, 17, 18 year olds, can't be that emotional support for you, especially when you're going through something. So, so emotional. So yeah, there, there definitely were boundaries crossed where, you know, I would confide something in somebody and then go back later and realize, oh, I shouldn't have confided that in them because you know, what are they gonna do with that?

You know, they're the same age as I am. They don't understand it any better than I do. I saw that throughout the years with me too, there were friendships that I had, especially with girls that, uh, just. Getting unhealthy, not in the sense that, you know, it was completely toxic, but boundaries were crossed and I was relying on them, just like you said, there sort of needs that I had legitimate needs that I had, that I, that weren't getting filled at home mm-hmm and, uh, yeah.

Caused a lot of issues in my friendships and ended up, um, really ending some of them. Yeah. Yeah. I can relate for sure. Did you have, aside from your, the counselor you got, did you have any mentors throughout that time? I'm just curious. I did actually. There I was in a youth group at that time. And one of my good friends in my youth group, I ended up getting very close to his mom, just the nicest woman.

And when I could, I would go over and I would spend time at their house because it just, it felt like it almost felt like home because I mean, not like my home, but you know, felt very homey because. She and her husband were, you know, they were communicating, they were very loving. They were very, you know, very focused on not only their marriage, but their kids and what their kids needed and just very present to each other and what everybody needed.

And yeah, I spent a lot of time, a lot of dinners over at their house. Just kind of watching their relationships and being like, wow, This is amazing. Like, what is, how does this happen? You know, and yeah, so I got a lot of, a lot of love and support from her and from the whole family. And it was definitely, really cool to see, you know, a healthy relationship that works through their issues and, and really puts each other first.

I wanna talk about that more, uh, in a little bit, but before we get there, if you're okay with it, I'd like to talk a little bit about the, what you were looking for. In the self-harm and in the suicidal thoughts, we don't have to go into great detail by any means, but I'm just curious. Why was that attractive?

Why was that something that you found an escape in the, the self-harm for sure was for, it would, it would kind of depend on the day. It was either because I was feeling so much grief, so much emotion that I needed some way. Get it out in a way that wouldn't draw attention to me, I guess, like, I, I would be at home and I would have all these pent up feelings.

I was like, okay, well, I can't scream. I can't cry because mom is right down. And I don't want her to know, you know, how much trouble I'm having because she's having her own issues. So then that would happen. Or it would be that I had kind of shut those emotions off and I was like, okay, I feel nothing. I need to feel something.

Hmm. Um, whether it's pain or what, I just need to feel. Like I'm alive basically. Instead of like this, you know, this zombie kind of walking around. Yeah. Just feeling numb. Yeah, exactly. And then the, the suicidal thoughts were just, it was, it mostly happened right after one of those high school friendships fell apart.

And I was like, okay, I lost my parents. I don't have that foundation. I lost this friend that I had relied so much on. And he was such a big part of my life. And I was just at a loss. I was like, I don't know how to move on from here. I. You know, if I'm failing all of these relationships, what's the point to keep going basically.

Um, like if I can't keep a relationship together, what am I doing here? Yeah. So then it became, I just want to, you know, I just wanna get away. I don't wanna be here kind of thing. Oh, I get it. And one thing that I've heard so often when it comes to. Suicide and suicidal thoughts is it's not so much that we don't wanna live anymore.

It's that we don't wanna live with the pain that we're experiencing. Exactly. So it sounds like that's where you were at, for sure. Yeah. And it going back to what you said before about finding your value and your friendships and your relationships, someone listening to that may think like, oh, you know, it's just something in your head.

It's just some mental thing that you have to deal with. Mm-hmm but right here, you're approving that. No, that has. Consequences. It has a serious impact on so much more than in this case. Even harming yourself, having the thoughts. You would potentially take your own life. So where we find our value matters, that's the point I'm getting at here, doesn't it?

Yep. If you lose what you're putting your value in and you feel that you don't have value anymore, then that leads to all these issues. Because if you feel like you don't have value, then what's the point basically. Totally. Yeah, man. There's so much to say in that. One of one thought that comes to mind is just in our culture, especially American culture.

I know there's people listening all over the world, but especially in American culture and I think a lot. Other cultures as well. We judge our value off of our usefulness. Yep. And so if, you know, if you or I are disabled or we can't work, or we can't do something that regular people can do, then we tend to think those people aren't worth as much.

Right. And that's so tragic because our value doesn't come from what we can do or how useful we. But just in the fact that we are human, like you're a human person, I'm a human person. We're valuable, we're unrepeatable, we're unique. And it's important that we talk about that, that we hear that any further thoughts on that?

Yeah. That's, that's something that I've definitely taken to counseling and. Something that my counselor has said to me many times is you're, you know, you're worth and your value. Yeah. Like you said, does not come from what you can do for other people. It comes from who you are as a person. And for, you know, those of us who are religious, your value comes from God, from being made in his image and likeness.

No, that's beautiful. And that's such a. Better foundation to build your life upon, to build your identity on than mm-hmm this kind of shifting sand of your usefulness, your relationships, whatever might be mm-hmm because that never ends well, cuz eventually you're not always gonna be good looking. You're not always really gonna have a lot of money.

You're not always gonna be popular in every circle that you run in. Yeah. All these things that we usually associate with our identity, with our value. They could be stripped away from us really at any moment. And what's left, what's left after that. I've had to wrestle with that too. It's like, okay. You know, if I'm no longer able to be a successful businessman, if I'm no longer to be athletic, if no longer able to.

You know, keep some good books. Let's say , um, what what's left and, and I think, yeah, I've challenged people on the podcast before. Think about that. Think about where you, where you get your value from. And Aaron, I could tell that you've, you've done that. You've, you've gone there and you're, I'm sure. Still wrestling with it cuz I know I am definitely the depression.

Let's talk about the depression a little. Explain that a little bit more. I, I think, I mean, I get it, but I want to make sure everyone listening gets kind of how it led up to that. It seems that there was just so much going on and you felt stuck if, if I'm hearing you, right. That ended up leading you to depression.

Talk a little bit about what you were experiencing, what that looked like in practical terms. Like, were you locking yourself in, were you isolating yourself? Talk a little bit about depression, kind of thinking there's other people listening right now who are dealing with this, so, right. You know, I think so many of them can relate to your story.

And I know I've dealt with bouts of depression as well. And so I think it's, it's useful to hear your experience. So if you would, what, what was your experience with that? Yeah, like you said, it was, it was feeling stuck and having, yeah. Pushed down those feelings for so long and feeling, you know, like I didn't have any value or any worth.

And for me, it kind of showed itself obviously in, in the self-harm, um, and the suicidal thoughts, but also my, my first semester of college, uh, my, my roommates could tell you, I spent a good chunk of. My first semester in bed asleep, you know, lights off in the room, just asleep or just in bed, you know, on my laptop or something, but very rarely leaving my room.

I would, uh, I would skip classes. I would skip maths. I would skip, you know, social functions and I would just be, you know, in my room by myself. And I mean, I know it, it frustrated my roommates a little bit because they would come home and, you know, there I was, again, I just, I had so little energy and. So little drive.

I just, all I wanted to do was sleep. And I think I ended up losing five, 10 pounds, cuz I wouldn't go out to get food. Totally. No energy, no drive to do anything was basically what it was for me. That's so hard. I'm sorry. And it sounds just extremely isolating. So I'm guessing loneliness when hand in hand with that.

Definitely it was kind of a. A vicious cycle, you know, I wouldn't go out and the loneliness loneliness would make it worse and yeah, just kept going. What helped you find some relief? Yeah, unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a counselor at Franciscan that I clicked with, but I met a couple of girls through my roommates at some point who.

Kind of kicked my butt. They were like, come on, you're getting outta bed. You're gonna go to mass with us. Um, you're gonna go to confession. You're gonna, um, you're gonna go to class, you're gonna eat food. You're going to, you know, go out and do the things that you need to do. You're gonna be social, which was a really big first step.

But the really big thing that did it for me was I went to, there were a couple of Tor sisters on campus who did a ministry called. I believe it's called Unbound, but I met up with them and I went through the whole, you know, prayer process with them. And I remember coming out feeling like a completely different person.

It was, it was really amazing. Wow. Yeah. So that was, that was the, the big thing for me. Okay. Wow. And it explain Unbound a little bit. I think I'm somewhat familiar, but just so everyone listening. At least the way I did it. I don't know if it's the typical way, but I met with two of the Franciscan sisters and we basically just spent an hour, hour or two kind of going back through my life a little bit sharing, you know, some of my suffering, some of, you know, the, not that it was a confession, but some of, you know, the sins that I was particularly stuck in the, you know, maybe I had guilt attached to, and then they.

Prayed through those things with me and really showed me like, yes, you had these sins that you were stuck in, but you can work on them. And yes, you know, you're, you're suffering through, you know, your parents putting up and your grandma passing away. But just because you're suffering doesn't mean you don't have value.

And it was basically, yeah, it was basically just taking all of the pain, all of the guilt and all of it and just giving it over to God then. Yeah. And feeling heard and seen. By these sisters and having them sit there for so long and pray with me and, you know, let me get all of it out was a, was a huge deal.

Just knowing that they, yeah, they saw me for who I was and. Didn't run away. yeah. I, I, I bet that was, I don't know if shocking is the right word, but just you, you weren't used to, that is what I'm getting at. You, you weren't used to someone kinda seeing the, the messiness inside of you and still loving you through that.

Cuz maybe this happened, maybe it didn't to you, but we often think that if I show someone how much I'm struggling, if I show someone. The bad things I've gotten into to, to cope. If I show someone, you know, the, the stupid mistakes I've made, then they're just gonna wanna run the other way. Right. I, I, I felt that throughout my life.

And, um, is that what you were experiencing? Definitely. Yeah. So then they come in and they're like, Hey, you know, you, you, you tell them, you open up to them, which I, I bet in itself was so freeing. So freeing. Yeah. Just getting that out. Yeah. And then not only did that happen, but. They were there with you and they didn't look down on you because of that, which is a really beautiful thing.

Yeah, definitely. I hope everyone can experience that at some point because that's, and, and we're gonna get to healing tips in a bit, but that's one thing that, um, that I found healing that so many people have found healing and really is a key. To healing. One of the tips of healing is like you said, getting it out and then having people just receive that and love you through it.

Not run the opposite way. Yeah, it's a beautiful story. I wanna go back to your friends that that's awesome that they kind of kicked your butt. I love that. they? They, uh, yeah. We're good friends. Yeah, because we, we all knew that. So people listening, if you have someone who is dealing with that, I, I don't wanna say that that's always the best thing to do because sometimes there's some deeper chemical imbalance that, you know, may require some more serious help, but yeah.

Fake it till you make it. I, I think that's a, yeah. Good thing. And that's kind of what you were doing, right? You were just forcing yourself to get outside of the room, go out, do all these things like, like you said, and, and eventually, uh, did, did that help you to kind of return to that healthy place where you were doing those things?

Definitely. Yeah. Um, yeah, to this day I am. Just beyond thankful for them. Yeah. And I think it helped knowing that they wanted me to come out and spend time with them and, you know, have fun. Cause I think a lot of times for people, especially who are struggling with depression and especially people who are children of divorce, We sometimes have that feeling of being unwanted.

Not that our parents don't want us, but a lot of times when they're going through their issues, you know, we kind of fall by the wayside a little bit and it can leave us feeling unwanted. So, you know, having friends come to you and say, Hey, We'd love if you came out and did this, like, oh, cool. Like they want to spend time with me.

They wanna be my friend. This is awesome. Yeah, it was, it was a big deal and definitely reminded me. Oh, okay. You know, look, they see something in me that they want to spend time with. So it started building up that value again in my eyes and yeah, definitely was. The big stepping stone to getting back to myself.

That's awesome. I love that. And I love what you said, like wanting to feel wanted. Mm-hmm feeling unwanted because of the breakdown of your family. Yeah. I totally relate with that because my, my parents did not intend this at all. I know that, and I, I think 99% of parents don't intend this when they get divorced, but it leaves us feeling abandoned often.

It leaves us feeling unwanted and those were things I couldn't have put it into words when I was 11. But looking back now. Yeah, I felt extremely unwanted and. Part of the healing process for me, like you, like, you just really beautifully said was having people genuinely want me not want something out of me, but just want me for who.

Exactly. Yeah. Turning to coping. So we've, we've kind of jumped around and we've already touched on some things, but what were some, what were some ways that you, you coped with the pain aside from what we've already covered? Cuz we've covered quite a bit. And uh, if you would, you know, you talked about some of the unhealthy ways, what were some of the healthy ways and were there any other unhealthy ways I'll I'll do the.

I'm one of those people that likes to do the less good things and then move on to the good things like end on a good note. Yeah. So I'll go with the less healthy things first. Um, aside from the ones that I've mentioned, the other big, not so great coping me mechanism for me was never saying no. And just allowing myself to be kind of a doormat to kind of be walked all over, because yeah, again, that stems from, you know, being a child of divorce, you, you wanna be that peacemaker.

You want to make things easier for your parents and make things well, cuz yeah, if you make things easier for your parents, it makes it easier for you sometimes. So you kind of learn the more I can make other people happy. The better it'll be. So I, yeah, I had. The hardest time saying no, I could never stand up for myself.

So, yeah, that was a, that was a big thing for me that I just could not say no, even to things that I should have said no to. Yeah. So that was a big one as far as good coping mechanisms. I, of course, can't say enough about counseling that. I started going again, three or four years ago. I, I had a friend of mine from high school that I was very close to passed away and I, I felt the grief coming back in and I felt myself spiraling again.

And I was like, okay, I've been here before. I'm not doing that again. And I'm going back to counseling and that's been. Yeah. That's been such a huge, huge thing, cuz it's so funny. You, you go to counseling and you're sharing, you know, your heart and yourself with this other person. And a lot of times the things that they say to you are like the helpful things that they tell you when they say it, it seems so obvious.

And so you're like, why did I not think of that myself? You know? Yeah. So that's always really cool to be like, oh, okay. Yeah. That makes sense. It just clicks. It just clicks. There's something I've been there. um, so yeah, counseling has been a huge thing. And the other thing that's been really big for me, I've been taking ballroom dance lessons and as weird as the sounds, that's been a huge coping mechanism for me because.

It's a really good way to like build confidence in yourself because, you know, you have to be very present, you know, with your, you know, your own body and you know what you're doing in that moment. And, you know, being able to see what you can do is always a big confidence boost. But the other big thing for me at least is it's a big teacher of trust for me.

Um, because I'm dancing with this instructor and I have to trust him that he's not going to like drop me on the floor or, you know, Make some mistake that's gonna hurt me, you know? Yeah. Um, and you know, trust that he's not gonna be like, oh, you know, you're doing that move wrong. You look ridiculous kind of thing.

So it's been a big, a big trust exercise. And I mean, at least for me, and I, I think you've mentioned before too, is trust is a big problem sometimes for children of divorce. Totally. So that's a, that's a big thing for me. and of course, prayer has always. A big thing, just working through whatever issues I know when, when this separation and everything first started, I had a hard time going into prayer and saying, God, I am angry.

Like, I am angry at you for letting this happen. I'm just angry because I was like, okay, God is a father. And if, you know, I went to, you know, my parents and said, I'm angry at you for this, you know, that could potentially cause an issue. So what makes me think I can go to God, the father and say, Hey, I'm angry at you, you know, and not expect bad things to happen.

So yeah, growing in that and being able to go into prayer and say, Hey God, you know, this really stinks. What's going on here has been a really good coping mechanism. So no, I totally get it. I've never heard it said like that though. You know, bringing the anger to God. That's a really good point, cuz I know that's so true that we see, you know, when our kids, our parents are the most powerful creatures that we know.

And so we tend to think that if they're like this, then God must be like this too. And so, and that, and that it's, it's kind of amazing how that extends out over our lives. Even though, like you said, some of these things. When you say 'em out loud, it's like, oh, that's so obvious, but it's not as obvious in our minds for some reason, cuz this stuff Isly ingrained in us.

So it, it makes so much sense. I love what you said there. One of the things about trust, I was talking with a friend of mine recently and we were, he comes from a broken family as well. And we were just saying as one of my other guests in the show said, when something that's so fundamental as your family, when something's so core to your identity, Your parents breaks apart.

You tend to think, well, what won't break apart. Yeah. And in a way it kind of makes us paranoid or it makes us think that, oh gosh, I cannot trust anyone. Mm-hmm . Cause if the people who I'm supposed to be able to trust the most didn't make it. And that ended badly. Then who can I trust? Right. And that's, so that's such a hard thing to wrestle with and I've even, you know, being married now, I've had to UN undo, untie, unwind a lot of those really kind of unhealthy defense mechanisms that I've had.

And my wife and I are pretty open about this, but yeah, if she could talk to you, you know, she would say it can be trying at times. And it's frustrating for me too, because, um, it's something that I wanna be able to trust so much more, but it's almost like I just whip my shield up and. Because it has become so second nature to me and we've done counseling and that's been so helpful.

And so we're definitely in a better place now and always striving to, to grow. But, um, but yeah, it, it has so many impacts over the years that you wouldn't think of in that moment when your parents. Break up. Yeah. Going to healing. So you already mentioned so much of what you did to heal and, uh, was there anything else, I guess you would add?

Yeah. Just, just learning to be better about, you know, establishing boundaries has been big, getting better about saying no, especially when I should. I actually. I met with a family friend earlier this year. He's a, he's a deacon. So it was a little bit of a spiritual direction kind of thing. And we had been talking about like discerning, you know, religious life versus married life.

And he said to me, you know, as far as you know, because your parents are split, what is keeping you from being able to discern your vocation? Like what about them? Is making this difficult. And I remember being shocked by that question that, you know, he would think to ask, oh, you know, how is your parents separation impacting, you know, your ability to discern what you wanna do with your life?

And I remember I just started crying and I said, I just need to know that they're going to be okay if I can't be, you know, readily available to them 24 7. And, and he said to me, he said, it is not your job to fix your. You need to let them be the parent and you need to be the child. And I was like, oh, OK.

like, wow, that really, you know, hit home. So learning, it is not my job to parent. My parents was. Was a huge deal for me. That's so good. And I think we all need to hear that because we struggle with that. Don't we? Why? Yes. Why do you think that is? Why, why do we feel such a responsibility? Because I, I think it's a great intention.

I think it's a beautiful thing to wanna help our parents and take care of our parents. And there are healthy ways to do that. I'm not saying we shouldn't mm-hmm but, um, yeah. Why, why do you think we fall into that so much? Really an extreme, I would guess it's because, I mean, at least from my experience, of course, from the fighting and from when they were going through this operation, you always feel like you're kind of walking on eggshells around both of them.

So you are essentially kind of parenting them because you're like, okay, well this is what this person, this parent needs. This is what this parent needs, because they're not speaking or they're fighting. Nobody can give them what they need except. So we take on that parenting role because we feel like there's nobody else that'll do it.

Totally. Yeah. No, it makes sense. There's this void that needs to be filled and we just step into cuz we love our parents. Yep, exactly totally makes sense. There was one, uh, book I was reading on children of divorce. That said there's this 14 year old boy who yeah, the mom left and he stopped going to school and he started doing chores around the house, cuz his mom stayed home and took care of the house.

Mm-hmm he started shopping. He would cook. And the reason he did that was because his dad was just totally broken by his mom leaving. And so he just assumed that role cuz someone had to. Yeah. And it's almost, so it's almost lot of necessity in some cases to, uh, to step into that role. And I've certainly seen.

You know my life with my siblings and I, I think another part of it too. And I'm gonna let you comment on this. If, if you'd like, is that we see our parents hurting too. Like, like you touched on mm-hmm and we just, they, they need support. They genuinely need support. Right. And so, and then we think because they need support, I'm the one who needs to give it mm-hmm and, uh, all these things play into the fact that we feel the need to, to parent our parents.

Would you agree? Definitely. I I'm lucky that my, my parents were still in a place where they could, you know, take care of physical needs, like the cooking and the cleaning and the getting to school and all that. It's more like, I felt like I had to jump in on like the emotional parenting, almost like my mom was struggling a lot because, you know, she didn't come from, you know, a separated, divorced parent, uh, family, and she didn't understand what was happening.

And so she was really struggling on top of, you know, her marriage falling apart. Yeah. And you know, my dad was, you know, having his own issues with it. Definitely stepping in to fill what we see as a void in their life. Especially if they're not going to see a counselor or somebody to talk through their issues with, you know, like, okay, well they're not talking to anybody that leaves me kind of thing.

No, it totally makes sense in, uh, restores online community, someone posted not too long ago about. A situation where basically, and I'm not equating it with this, but it is related where a parent almost looks at their, one of their children as their spouse. Mm-hmm and, and not, not in necessarily like a physical, like sexual way, but emotionally.

And it was a podcast episode where it's from the podcast, the place we find ourselves, which is just awesome. I I've mentioned it multiple times in the show, but you. Listen to that, but it, he, he called it Adam Young, this counselor who runs this podcast, he called it subtle sexual abuse. And again, I'm not equating what we're talking about here with that, but there is components of it.

And in, in some cases it is exactly what happens. And basically what he explains is that it gets to the point where it's so unhealthy that. The spouse who has these legitimate needs, emotional needs specifically in, in what he was talking about. They tend to go to their children to fill these needs instead of going to their spouse, because if they're separated, they just can't.

Or even if they're together, the marriage can be in a bad condition where they don't go to each other. And so it's really, it creates this really unhealthy dynamic. And it's just so interesting because it's so subtle and it almost feels like to the child, who's the one on the receiving end of kind of acting like a spouse.

It feels like you're doing something good for your parent, Adam Young. He explains it. And he quotes different sources too, to just show he play that out is really damaging, really damaging mm-hmm . And so I'll throw that episode in the show notes, if you guys wanna listen to it, but isn't that fascinating?

Definitely. And yeah, it's very true. If, you know, if you don't set up those healthy boundaries with your parents, whether it be, you know, emotionally. Sometimes financially, depending on the family, whatever boundaries yeah. That can quickly become a real issue. Totally. And this is not to say we don't love our parents who wanna take care of them.

No, we totally do. And, and I know I do, but there's been times where one parent or the other wasn't in the best state of mind or was struggling because like we've already said, it's painful to go through the breakdown in your marriage to go through a divorce. But I I've had to say, Hey, I can't provide this need for you.

You need to go to your. You need to go to your siblings, you need to go, you know, to your family, you need to go to a counselor, a pastor, spiritual director, something, someone like that who can provide for you in that way, who can offer that emotional support that I can't give you. I, like you said, like the deacon told you I'm the child.

I can't be doing this. This is not my place. And, um, it, it took a while for me to get to that point. But having that boundary now, Has helped me to have a healthier relationship with my parents, which has been healing in itself too. So it's not like, you know, when I say this stuff, sometimes parents like get turned off and like, you know, you're turning parents against their kids or kids against their parents, I should say.

And that's not the case at all. Like we want. If it's possible for the parents and the children to have really healthy relationships, but you can't do that. If the boundaries aren't in place, like you're saying so totally right. Totally on the same page with you, uh, for that, anything to add? No, I think, yeah, I think that about covered it.

Yeah. anything else you wanted to say about healing? It is a process and sometimes it is really painful. I will let you know that right now, but it's oh my goodness. When you start getting in the healing and everything, it's so good. I. I look back on my life, back in my first semester of college. And I just, I remember how just that feeling of despair that I had and how horrible that was.

And, you know, I see where I am in this healing process now. And the fact that I was able to like find joy in life again is amazing. So yeah. So do the work and start that healing and yeah. It's, it's so worth it, so worth it. Yeah. And you don't don't know that, like if you were to go back and talk to yourself, would've been hard to even believe.

I bet that you. Get to the spot you are right now. Oh, definitely. I would never, in a million years of guests, I would've ended up here so anyone listening who feels really, really down who feels so broken, think of Erin's story and just think of the progressions she's made. And I wanna go deeper down that path of, you know, you're, you're obviously.

We're always in the process of healing. I think, I think it's somewhat of an infinite game that we always keep playing someone like fitness. Like you never reach the top of the fitness speak and be like, okay, I'm fit. I'll never do anything with fitness. yeah. Hopefully you keep taking care of your body.

Um, but the same is true in healing. I think as we go on through life, our brokenness will surface in different ways or we need to deal with things. And so we continue on it. So what I'm saying is we're always a work in progress. But would you explain a little bit more how your life is, is different now that you've been walking down this path so much more joy, like being able to see the little things and be like, wow, like that's so beautiful.

You know, life is actually really good. Like there is happiness. There's like just awesome things happening. Being able to not get dragged back down into, you know, that. Depressive spiral where, you know, one bad thing happens and you're like, okay, you know, I'm, I'm rock bottom again. I, you know, how do I get back up from here?

Yeah. Just having hope, I think is probably the biggest thing, because when you are in, when you are depressed and when you are suffering so much with, you know, a separation or a loss or a divorce or whatever, there, there is no hope. You're, you know, you're at the bottom of this well going, you know, I don't see, you know, the light of day, I'm just down here by myself.

What am I doing? So yeah, now that I've been through some of that healing, I'm like, okay, I, I see it does get better. I do have hope now, like, and I know it's gonna keep getting better. The more work I put into it, like, yes. Still gonna really stink sometimes. And, um, the healing process is still gonna hurt sometimes, but knowing what the healing can bring is, is such a major, major thing.

So it's worth it. You would say absolutely. shifting gears a little bit. Let's talk about relationships as I'm sure. You know, usually the biggest effect on us, on the children is on our relationships. So when our parents separat a divorce, The research has shown that, you know, our relationships are affected the most.

And so I'm just curious, you've already mentioned it a bit, a little bit, but spelled out a little bit more for us, how did it affect your relationships? It's been difficult because before I realized, you know, what this separation was doing to, you know, my ability to trust and believe that things can last, I, I couldn't figure out why my relationships weren't last.

And it was really frustrating. I was like, what is going on? Like, you know, I, I can't keep a guy, you know, and I remember there was, there was one time I was dating this guy. We had been dating for about a year and a half. And he, he kind of gave me an ultimatum. He said something along the, the lines of, you know, you know, you have to start doing this or one of us is gonna have to end this and I'm gonna be super real with you.

My emotions just, it was almost like a light switch. They just shut off. And I was like, I have no feelings. Like I, I have no feelings and I, you know, I tried to work through that, but I couldn't trust him after that. I was like, okay. You know, if he's telling me that if I don't fix this about myself, he's gonna end things.

Then you know, what's the deal here. And so it lasted like another week or two, and then we broke up, but that was a big wake up call for me that I have trust issues when it comes to relationships, I don't trust. Someone is going to stick around. Like, no matter how much they tell me, oh, you know, I'm in it for the long haul.

Mm-hmm, , there's always that little voice in the back of my head going, are they though, you know, look at mom and dad, they got married, you know, they promised to be there, you know, in sickness and in health until death, do they part. And that didn't happen. So I was like, so can I actually trust that someone is going to stick it out through the rough patches and that also kind of led into, so, you know, there's the trust issues that would end things, or I would feel like I had to be the perfect girlfriend to keep somebody around because as long as I'm keeping them happy, they're not gonna go anywhere.

But of course, if you keep putting aside who you are to fit the mold that another person wants you to fit, it's exhausting. Yeah. It's, it's really, really tiring. And then you almost grow resentful of them, you know, even though it was your choice to, you know, try to be that perfect person for them and change who you are on a fundamental level for.

Even though they didn't ask you to do that. You, you resent them for feeling like you need to in order to keep them there. So that's been another big thing. Yeah. That's so hard just wearing that mask, being who you think you need to be instead of being authentic and saying, Hey, this is where I'm at.

That's so hard. Do, do you think that's something that we learn in our families then, because we often feel. I know, I felt that I had to wear different masks depending on what parent I was with or what side of the family. Oh, definitely. You know, my dad is tends to be more of the, the jokester of the family.

So, you know, the more I can be funny and happy around him, you know, the better I think it's gonna be. And, and my mom. You know is more of a, it's not that she's super serious, but you know, she's more spiritual. And so that, I feel like the more I talk to her about, you know, the faith and other things like that, the better our relationship is gonna be.

So, yeah. So I think, you know, we, we see our families fall apart and we go, okay. Well, I don't want to, like, at the very least I don't wanna lose my individual relationship with these people. So I need to put on whatever mask they wanna see to make sure that I keep this person in my life because we saw a situation where they broke apart.

These people who I love, and I wanna keep a relationship with ended a very important relationship that they had. And I know. So many of us are just afraid that's gonna happen to us too. And like you said, we bring it into our relationships, then our dating relationships, our marriages, and, uh, yeah, it that's toxic.

It's hard. It's exhausting. Like you said, one should have to do that. Did you, have you found that. You've been able to, to work through a lot of that. Is that something that's still in progress? I know I'm asking you to be pretty vulnerable with me here, but I'm, I'm just, I'm just curious, like, how's that going?

Cause like, I, you know, like I shared with you, but something I'm still working on in my own marriage at this point. Right. Um, yeah. It's definitely something I'm still working on and you know, I'm still. Picking up little things about, oh, you know, this is something that I do in a relationship because of the separation.

And it's something that I have to work on. I definitely can't say that, you know, I've got a down pat. Um, it's definitely something that I'm still working on. Yeah. Because trust is such a, such a huge thing. It's really hard to learn to do that when you haven't for so long. So yeah, it's, it's a struggle and I'm, I've found that.

Now that I know that I struggle with it. I'm much more aware of it. Not that I'm aware of it all the time and I, you know, I still have issues in relationships. Um, but. If it comes to my head, you know, when I'm doing something that stems from that trust issue, I can be like, oh, okay. You know, this isn't, you know, this isn't something that they did.

This is what I'm perceiving because of, you know, what I've experienced. So yeah, it helps to. Know that it's going on inside your head to kind of help you combat all of that awareness is the foundation. It's the first step to take in order to, to really overcome those mechanisms that we've learned, those automatic reactions.

Mm-hmm what words of encouragement would you give to, to someone who, who feels broken? Who's struggling in life. In different ways, um, in large part due to their parents separation or divorce, what advice would you have for them? Well, my big advice is to know that it's okay not to be okay with your parents separating or divorcing, just because you know, other people in your life might act like it's normal and it's okay.

It doesn't mean that you have. Put on that happy mask and pretend that you're okay if you're not, because it's okay to not be okay. You know, if you need help ask for it, you know, find friends that, you know, even if they can't relate, find friends that at least, you know, will sit there and hear you. And like you said earlier, see you for the person you are and not judge you for, you know, your struggles and everything.

And if you're a person of. Seek God. And don't be afraid to say, Hey God, you know, this really stinks. And I'm mad. You know, I'm mad at my parents. I'm mad at you for letting this happen, you know, because you know, he's not, he he's divine. He's not going to get upset and gun you, if you say, Hey, God, you know, I'm angry.

Like I said earlier, to learn to say no and, and set boundaries for yourself. It's. It's really hard and I'm still working on that, but that's a, that's a really, really big thing to, to help with the healing process. And if possible, after, you know, you create those boundaries and everything, if. You are in a place with one or both of your parents where you can share your feelings about what's going on.

Definitely do it. I I've been able to share a little bit with my dad of how I'm feeling and, and you know, how things have been for me. And, and that's made a huge difference in our relationship and, and how he handles different. Situations with this operation. So yeah, if you can really talk to your parents about it, thank you so much for, for sharing your story.

It's always kind of a scary thing. We talked before we started recording about how, you know, you're sharing your story with people that you'll never meet. and your, your name's attached to this. So it's out there. So guys listening, everyone listening, it takes a lot of courage to do this. So Aaron, thank you so much for, for being so vulnerable for sharing your story with us and what you've learned along the way.

It's really good advice that you've given. And I hope everyone listening can take what you said to heart and put it into action because that's really, it's. It's good to think about these things. It's good to talk about them, but we really need to act on them and that's when we'll. The changes in our lives.

Like, like you've seen Aaron, how can people connect with you or follow you? So I have Instagram and Facebook. Instagram is at Aaron Hasso and Facebook. It's just Aaron. Hasso, I'm cautious about who I, you know, accept follower requests from. But if you send me message and say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast, I wanna connect or whatever, I will absolutely 100% friend you or follow back or whatever.

Cool. And we'll throw that in the show notes for you guys. So you don't need to. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for, uh, taking the time and for being so vulnerable. Yeah. Thank you, Erin is great. I really enjoyed speaking with her and I hope that was helpful for you guys. Definitely a lot of practical wisdom in that conversation that you can use to make changes in your life.

And like I said, in this show, now it's time to get to work. Don't just think about this stuff, act on it. And so my question for you is what's one or two things that really resonated with you from this episode. How can you act on it? Just take a few minutes to think about that. Once this episode is over, make a simple plan to do it and then get to work.

Just know that at restored we're rooting for you and we're here to help. If you need anything, if you wanna share your story like Erin did it just takes three easy steps. You can go to restored ministry.com/story. Again, that's restored ministry. Ministry is just singular. Dot com slash story. Once you go there, you'll fill out a short form, just a short version of your story and take some time to do that.

Take a little bit of time to do that. And then once you submit it, we'll turn it into an anonymous blog article. And one of the benefits of doing that is just that it helps so much to get your story out of your head out of your chest and share it with someone, even if it's anonymous. And it helps others too, to hear your story, cuz it really gives them hope to know that they're not alone.

Again. You could do that by going to restored ministry.com. Slash story. The resources mentioned are in the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 16. Again, that's restored ministry.com/sixteen. That's the number 16. Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe and share this podcast episode with someone that you know who could use it.

And 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.