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So I would say the hardest years of our marriage were when? Please don't say today or this year. When our kids were little, it was so hard. I felt alone. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing.
It felt like you were building your career. And I was lost. I think that can be pretty typical, don't you? Oh, I think, yeah. I mean, it doesn't have to be, but I think it just is.
Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson. And I'm Ann Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifetoday.com. This is Family Life today. When our kids were little, it was so hard.
And we've got two moms in here with, what, nine kids between them or eight? Eight. Please don't, please. We've got two moms in here with eight kids between them. And their sister-in-laws.
I mean, it's pretty cool. We got Emily Jensen and Laura Whiffler back for day two. Thank you for having us. Let's talk. I mean, in your book, you have a chapter on marriage.
And I don't know if we'll spend the whole day talking about it, but I think we could because you're in that season.
So talk about marriage and having a great, healthy, God purpose-centered marriage in the middle of risen motherhood. And let me add too, both of you have children with disabilities. And so your kids are getting older, but you're continually putting your time and energy with all of your kids, but especially you have some more energy that you're putting into the kids that have special needs. And I'm guessing that that can take a toll on your marriage as well. Is that true?
Yes, absolutely. I think it's just been interesting over the years because you do go through phases in marriage. Like what you're saying when kids are really, really little and all you are doing is just surviving day to day and coordinating to the next outing. And I think for us, so we've been married 14 years and our youngest is in first grade now.
So we're a little bit out of that stage. We have kind of been rebuilding now in our marriage. Not that anything was like torn down, but it's like you're investing in a different way that I think we didn't always have. Time to do in a little year. Like, oh, I remember you.
Yeah.
And oh, the kids really will go to college someday. They really will move out. I think when they're really little, you just, you don't believe it. It seems impossible that they'll ever be that old. And now we're going, oh, actually, we can imagine the amount of years we'll be.
And then it's us. And are we investing in our friendship? Are we partnering on things together? And I think something that's really helped us through the years is just trying to stay on the same page in the big picture. Because my husband and I have really different personalities.
We have really different ways of doing things. You know, our method to getting to the same end is usually different. But the point is that we're usually trying to get to the same end. And so trying to find ways that we can be unified in the big picture and stay on the same page, I think, has been really important for us. Let me ask you, Emily, you're married to Laura's brother.
Yes. And so has there ever been like this awkwardness of, Let me vent to you, not just about my husband, but about your brother. Oh, I want to know this answer. Laura has been so good about being normal and just like laid back, like being open about it. Because I think I'm usually the one of the two of us that's like, oh, I want to make sure we have clean boundaries here and that you don't feel like you have to hear about this.
But she pushes me and is like, I want to hear, I want to know what's going on in your marriage. And so I definitely feel like we're able somehow, by God's grace, to keep all of those things separate. And yeah, Laura is someone who I can talk to about marriage.
Now, definitely there's some topics that I don't want to know. I'll be honest. I don't want to get into dealing with you, brother. I know. It's weird.
I've had it find another friend a few times and I'm like, group settings. But yeah, but the normal marriage questions and woes we can talk about.
Well, and as I'm, I'm so for you. And I think that that is so key as friends and as family members that love one another. That we be for one another and believe the best in each other, you know? And so I want. Her to have room and freedom to just share the real realities of what's going on.
And also know that I'm going to believe that they're both, like you said, pursuing the same goal and their end goal is different and just to be a friend and cheerleader. I think we all need that. And that's a huge thing, I think, in marriage, too, is that we believe the best in our spouses. And I know that for me, my husband and I are also opposites, very different from one another. It seems to happen a lot in marriage.
I know. And yet, I've had to really trust that he wants the same thing as me. And you're going to say something. I can feel it. You said, like, you see, you want to see the best in each other.
Yeah.
Generally, most women don't do that. They see the negative in their husband. They don't see the good. How have you done that? Maybe their husbands aren't as bad as the one you are married to.
Oh, no, no, no. They're normal. I have a normal marriage, though. Yeah.
I would agree. If you don't have a friend that's on the same page spiritually, you've been around women that there is just a husband bashing. That goes on. Yes, absolutely. And so you're saying you're believing the best and seeing the best.
How did you start doing that? I've been fairly open about my husband for a long time worked really long hours with just. not be at home very very often because he was um Doing great at work and was just really committed to his job. And we definitely did not see eye to eye on that. And my children were young and at home.
My daughter was getting diagnosed with disabilities, surgeries, like it was, we were moving. There were so many things going on. And I felt like he wasn't as present as I had hoped for him to be. And I think one of the things that kept me through a lot of it was that his words were that, I want to be available. I want to be here.
I love you. I care about you guys. But sometimes I felt like maybe the actions didn't add up just the way I am in my own life, right? Like I say one thing and then I do another thing.
So, and but I had to believe that his heart was there and that what he said, I felt like at times, if perhaps I couldn't trust him, I could trust God with our lives. And so I could believe the best because I believed that his heart was still soft towards wanting to be available to our family. And there were times where I think in that situation, we needed more tools, more people around us, other voices helping us. Both to know how to get a different family lifestyle that we said we wanted, but it felt very hard to achieve in the moment. And so, believing the best doesn't say, I don't see any of these problems, or like, oh, you can do nothing wrong.
It doesn't mean anything like that, but it does mean to say, Okay, if he's saying that he wants this and I want this too, like, I'm going to believe that we both want to pursue this, even though it feels really bumpy right now, even though it feels really hard. And then we want to bring in voices and support structures and accountability or whatever those things are in order to say, okay, we're going to pursue what we both say we want. And also, like, it can happen in little things, I think, a lot of times with couples where. You know, one person just forgets to take out the trash. And you believe the best means, okay, you actually forgot.
Not that you just like only wanted to watch the football game or whatever. You know, how do you forget every single week? I know, questions, many questions. Right. But what I like that you're getting at, too, is it's almost developing just compassion for your spouse too, and like who they are and what they're walking through.
Because with our own issues, right? When I forget to do something. I want someone to be like, what's going on with you today? Are you okay? You must have a lot on your mind and to really dig in, right?
And know that I'm not perfect. I have issues. You want someone to have that compassion. And it's helped me to know too, like. My husband also has hurts in his life.
He also has, you know, things that are on his mind that are weighing on him. And so recognizing that, right, it's not just, well, you didn't meet my needs and you're not doing what I want, but like, What's going on with you? Like, are you okay? How can I come alongside you in this? And knowing that, you know, there's a person on the other side who might be hurting, who might also be caring a lot.
And having that kind of response to them that I would want someone to have to me, I think has been really helpful. And having that like long-suffering attitude for racist.
Well, I mean, I'm sitting over here as the guy. I'm the only guy here, you know, as the husband representative. And I'm thinking, man, you talk about grace. You two just spoke. Yeah.
Really, grace? And part of me is like, do you live that? Because there's moments, right, where you said, you know, when we often invite our husbands in to see what they think. But I know we get frustrated with one another. And it doesn't always come out that way.
Maybe an hour or two later, you come back and go, right? I mean, there's sometimes, especially when you're kidding, and you've got children that have extra needs. I mean, children are hard enough as it is. And then add that on. Top of it, and then you got a husband who's not showing up.
Well, Emily, that's hard. As you said that, too, I was recalling Dave has a really rough family past. Both his parents were alcoholics. His dad was abusive. They divorced.
He had a little brother that died. And we were on a trip, and Dave has very little recollection. His brother died when he was seven. Were your parents divorced at seven, too? Yeah, when you were seven?
And so we got on the phone with his sister, who's 10 years older, who remembers everything because her age. She was a teenager at the time. And we got on the phone, and she starts saying, Oh, you know, our dad was so abusive. He beat up, you know, Dave one time, and he was drinking all the time. They both parents would pass out.
And I remember listening, just tears coming down my cheeks, thinking, I had no idea. And then I told our boys And when you know the past, you give way more grace. And honestly, our spouses and you felt bad all those times you were putting me down, didn't you? Oh, my dad. And the boys are like, Dad, we should have given you more grace.
You had no upbringing in terms of a healthy family. And I think we just need to give ourselves a little more grace because of the gospel. How can we do that? Because of what Jesus has done. He does that for us all the time.
I think that's really wise. Yeah, and you both, and we need Jesus every day to get us to do that every day. For 50 years, God has been using family life to strengthen homes and transform marriages like ours. Imagine what could happen in the next 50 if people like you Choose to invest in what God is building. Yeah, so here's the challenge: what if your monthly financial support helps save a marriage this year?
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So don't just celebrate God's faithfulness over the last 50 years. Help write the next chapter. Become a family life partner at familylifetoday.com or give us a call at 1-800-FL. today. Yeah, so as and both of you have already you've said enough where I go wow you have good marriages in the middle of this crazy life you're living at a season in your life where it would be really hard Get real practical.
What do you do? Do you guys date? Do you talk at night? It's so funny you bring up date night because Emily and I have a thing about. Feeling like, I don't know if I'm allowed to share this, but feeling like maybe date nights are so good and so helpful.
But also, there are seasons in life where date nights aren't possible. Because when you have children with disabilities at the restaurant, yeah. Good clarification. Because we have children with disabilities. Can you leave them?
We can. Clearly, we're here. But it can be hard. It's much more difficult to secure childcare, I mean, and things like that. And especially when they were younger, we needed to be available for bedtime and things like that.
And so we. While I think dates are so valuable, I think there's a lot of pressure on young married couples who have little children at home to figure out a way, even if it's, you know, let's watch TV and eat ramen on the couch, but it's just us and it's intentional.
Well, we're tired, you know, and that's a very real thing to be very, very exhausted because your kid's not sleeping. And so I think that the Lord is kind to sustain us no matter our season, and that we have to trust that marriage is not dependent upon a special Kind of set-aside night, but that God can sustain a marriage through so much more than that in heavy, big seasons where maybe we don't have capacity to even say, Hey, every Tuesday night, we're going to get on the couch, we're going to have ice cream. Um, so and I only say that to relieve some pressure that has just relieved so much pressure. I we've talked to a lot of military families, yeah. One of the spouses deployed, like we can't have date nights, yes, yeah, and so can we not make it right, right?
Is it good? Absolutely.
So, please, no one hear that. That, like, if you can, if you can do that, go for it. That's going to be incredible, but also you can have a very great marriage. And the things that happen on a typical date night, whether it's at a restaurant or whatever, you still do somehow communication, exactly, connection, intimacy, you name it. I'm guessing you still do that, even in a different way.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's kind of like quiet time where you have to be able to think outside of the box of if I can't be with God, yes, from 6:15 a.m. To 6:25 a.m. with my coffee, with my Bible. Can I not meet with God? And it's like, you absolutely can.
You can immerse yourself in the Lord all day, every day. You have to just be a little bit more creative and think more openly. And I think for us, that's kind of what we've done in each season: just be creative about what it means to stay connected in that season.
So, for us right now, like I said, we have school-aged children, so they're gone during the day.
So, guess when my husband and I go do stuff together and hang out while they're at school. We rarely go on an evening date or a morning date, but you know, if he's free around lunch and I'm free around lunch, I'll say, Hey, can we have lunch together? And we'll do that, you know, maybe a couple of times a week or in the evenings. A lot of times, I'm really impressed right now. I know we have a lot of flexibility, but I think it's like looking at your own situation and saying, what does it look like for us to connect?
And I think even just bedtime, that's been something for us really early on. You mentioned we have five kids. Like people tease us for this, but bedtime was like a strict thing in our house. Like you are downstairs in your room at a certain time and like our older kids can stay up and read. But then from that point on, you know, 7:30 on, it's just my husband and I.
And like, we don't always have deep conversations, but we have that time together pretty much every night. And, you know, that's yeah, it's gonna go away when our kids become teenagers. And then, you know, it will go away someday and then we'll have to get creative again. But for us, I would say that is what got us through the little years: our kids went to bed early every single night, and we were just, we just laid on the bed and just died. But we were together.
Okay, we were together. As an alternate perspective, as someone who I had shared, my husband worked really long hours, so we would not see each other. Very often, and still, like, he works away during the day, so that's probably not practical for us to see one another during the daytime. At least twice a week. Come on, I know, man.
We gotta work on something here. But that being said, I think one of the things that helped us was that we took trips together. And so, we found that for him, I always would joke that I had to get him out of state in order for work to leave him alone. And I know there will be women here that will resonate with that statement. And so, I would plan us a little weekend away, or we would take a week away and do something a little bit longer.
But that was something that we didn't bring our children on. And it sort of carried us a lot longer through things. If we could say, Okay, we're gonna plan a vacation, we're gonna go on a trip. And that could be, you could go camping, you could go to Paris, whatever. It doesn't matter.
But that for us was a big way that we connected because we honestly didn't see each other very much during the week. And it was a little bit of practical, you know, hey, I'm going here, you're going there. And that was for a season, and there were hard years. I mean, when my daughter was diagnosed with disabilities and we were working through. through a lot of just big life changes.
Please, no one hear that our marriage is good all the time, especially that season. Things were really, really hard. But we both promised that we would make good on the covenant that we made before the Lord. And so it wasn't an option for us to explore anything else because we both knew that we wanted to make this work. And this is assuming a healthy marriage, you know, that it has its normal struggles and ups and downs.
There's no abuse. There's nothing like that.
So there's assumptions that I'm putting in here that I hope anyone hears that. those caveats are there and said. This is where we kind of, Emily and I keep saying we want the same thing. Like, we know that our husbands want to honor God, they want to be faithful to God, and they're going to do it in a different way than what we think is best. You know, it's their quiet time's going to look different than what I would suggest.
Their time in men's ministry is going to look different than what I think is the right way to do it. And yet, we have to give them freedom to be able to figure that out on their own, just like we have freedom to figure that out as wives. And so, there's a lot more we could say, but I think that it's really just. Important to recognize your season of life and allow your talk with your husband.
Okay, what is right? Like, how often should we have one-on-one time together? How often should we try to pursue a date night? Should we take a yearly trip instead? And so, having that open communication when you're both not hot-headed, right?
You're not coming in mad and saying, I haven't seen you in a month. What the world? But instead, you're saying, Okay, I prayed about this. I feel like I'm in a good, you know, state right now where I'm walking in grace. And have that communication then with your husband and like decide then and there, this is what we would like life to be like.
And knowing that it's probably not going to measure quite up to that, but that's something you want to pursue. And I think that that can be really helpful: what's practical, what's realistic, and then what do we want that fits in there? I would love for you to speak to the dad, the husband, because for years, probably decades, I didn't understand how hard it was for Anne. Yeah, for a mom. I think I do now, maybe.
Speak to the guy. Yeah.
Tell him this is what it is like for your wife.
Well, one thing I was going to say I've noticed throughout the years is how overstimulating it is. I mean, even just the very physicality of it. I mean, it's like almost imagine you're in a room all day and there's like loud music blaring and there's lights flashing and there's little things coming out of the wall punching your body and you know and you can't leave except for when you go to the bathroom and then it's like the room so and so there is a very real component of it that is it's exhausting because it's so overstimulating that's good and so there's like just know that that imagine that and then add anything else you want to onto that onto the room smells oh surprise that's right and someone's throwing food at you just give me a disney ride you haven't had a chance to really eat because you're just snacking off the other people's plate for sure you're like mildly hungry but also like totally sick you can't be eating all this weird food yeah you are you're on like three three hours of sleep maybe somebody's been sick and there's a timer counting down to when somebody's your husband's gonna open that door and let you out of that room and then he comes out home two hours late this is a risen motherhood right at universal get on the mom ride back no one wants to be on it no one we should say like tomorrow let's back up no it's funny the other day i actually heard this was on some social media but a dad was saying and i thought this was like really cool he was saying um i actually have the privilege to go work because my wife gets to be a stay-at-home mom and that she serves me in that way and it was just interesting because i think we say that a lot as women like we get to serve our husbands when they're at work especially if that mom is a stay-at-home mom but to hear a Dad says, I have the privilege of working outside the home because my wife is serving me in the home. I thought that, I don't know, it's like saying the same thing, but hearing it from a guy recognize the privilege that it is, because sometimes it can feel like that's his right. You know, that's all he gets to do like because he's head of the household.
And it can kind of feel, especially, I'm probably someone who's maybe a little bit more ambitious and probably like has to like use my hands and my mind all day. And I really enjoy that. And I think that that was something that was hard for me: it felt like, well, okay, yep, I have to, that's his right. And so now I have to be home in order to support him in that. But instead, for him to hear and recognize what a privilege it is.
And so just asking, you know, as we speak to dads, I think recognizing the privilege it is that you get to go off to work every day and that you come home and whatever state your home is in, you know, it might be a total disaster. And depending on your wife, it might be neat as a pen. But to just be able to tell her that, I'm so glad that I'm able to go off to work and come home. And I want to help you and I want to engage in this. But to be able to say that to her, I think like that affirmation piece, that piece that says, I see your work.
Because I remember I would like go through my list with my husband and be like, and I did this and then I took the trash out, you know, and then I moved the lawn. I mean, I was doing it all. And I needed to hear, I needed someone to say, I see the work you're doing. And we know that God sees all the work, but sometimes you just need another human being that you love and care for to recognize it. And so that's what I would say to any dad who's listening: is like, go home.
And whether your wife is working outside the home and then she's coming home and feeding those kids dinner and getting them off to practices or she's at home all day, tell her you love her. Tell her all the reasons why. Tell her why she's incredible. And that, I think, will do so much for her as she goes into the next day and the week beyond. And like, put it on your phone, make a little reminder and do it once a week, you know, every day.
And if you're hearing this and you have a friend that you know, her husband will not do that. You do it for her.
So good. Like, we just need to remind each other as sisters. Like, I see everything you're doing, and I know it's a hard way to go. And I got to add this: dude. If you're the guy saying, I can't do that, do it.
Seriously, first of all, thank her. She may be working full-time and doing all this, or she could be at home. Yes, say honey. Tell me about your day. Yes.
Hear about her day. She's had a hard day, probably. And I know you have too, but she's had a hard day. She would feel honored to be able to go, well, I did this and I changed 18 diapers and I picked up. I mowed the grab.
Yeah.
And be impressed. You know, like amazing. Exactly. Genuinely impressed. Yeah.
I feel like those were some truth bombs laid out today, weren't they? Yeah, Emily Jensen and Laura Whiffler. And again, their book is called Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments. Who doesn't need that? And you can get it at familylifetoday.com.
Just click on the link in the show notes. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry. celebrating fifty years of God's faithfulness as marriages grow stronger and families flourish in Him. Yeah.
