We look at where we started, where we came from. Some people are like, that's a terrible story.
Why do you tell it? We love it because it shows, look at how far we've come. Look at what God has done. Thank goodness we got help. We learned how to manage conflict and how to communicate better and to not throw laundry over the balcony near your wife.
And we just go, 33 years later, here we are and look at what God has done. That's Erin Smalley describing how she and her husband Greg have stuck together in marriage despite some ups and downs in the relationship. I'm John Fuller and we'll hear more of their story today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Actually, we're going to hear several marriage stories today because Greg and Erin joined me and my wife Jean in the studio recently. We decided to have a roundtable discussion about better ways to connect as a husband and a wife. It's always a little dangerous having Jean join.
I feel a little exposed. She is the truth teller. The basis of this conversation was a book I wrote with the help of Kenny Chapman. The title is The Healthy Marriage Devotional, 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring You Closer Together. And it was a lot of fun exploring different themes and stories about marriage with Jean and Greg and Erin. And I think every couple will find something helpful from this program. Yeah, this is really a delightful conversation and Greg and Erin head up our marriage and family content here at Focus and do a lot of writing and speaking and counseling on marriage issues.
By the way, if you'd like to learn more about that devotional Jim mentioned, we've got details for you in the show notes. Let's go ahead and hear that roundtable conversation on today's Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. So first, we're going to talk about strengthening marriages and Jim and Jean, we're going to start off with a story about cooking and how you have very different approaches to following recipes. Well, do you want the right way or the wrong way? Let's start with the right way. Jean, how do you cook? Well, having a science background.
That's no default. I do like looking for the meniscus and the liquid measuring. Does anybody know what that is? I torn my meniscus in my knee one time.
Yeah, I have a torn meniscus. I do. I'm not quite as precise anymore, but I do. You like to follow the recipes. Put the flour in the cup and use a knife to scrape it off and get it stacked.
You are loving your family by giving them the best version of the food you're preparing. You know it's only pancake mix. It's not like tile grout. The stuff you can actually add a little water and if it's too thin, add a little flour.
If it's too thick, you thin it down. I mean, so I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be painful. Like was this from the get go? Oh yeah.
From day one you saw this? And I'm sure the other shoe on the foot would be her watching me and she's going, what are you doing? That's going to be terrible. Are you trying to ruin breakfast? I mean, that's not what she said, but I'm sure it's what you were thinking. Well no, and we are, we didn't know that we are generally opposites. We thought, we went through marriage. Now you two do a lot of marriage counseling. So Jean and I went to marriage counseling.
That was so smart. The statistic is great. You know, if you go to 10 hours or more of marriage counseling, what's the incident of divorce? It's very low. That's like 80 percent.
80 percent stay together. Yeah, that's amazing. So that's the first step. So we did that one really well. We get into that going, we're so much alike. We are just so similar. This is why God has brought us together. Because we care about the same things and we see the world the same way.
And then we cooked breakfast together and went, what is this? But isn't that true? I mean, that's kind of the opposite thing. So yeah, that was the, you know, I think I've learned to appreciate sloppy cooking only goes so far.
Really measuring things does pay off in the long run. And being opposites, you know, that we are opposites. I was such a night owl. He's a morning person. He's an extrovert.
I'm an introvert. And those differences can become quite annoying. But you know, you really need, it helps to do kind of a shift in thinking.
And instead of being annoyed by those differences, just recognizing God makes us different. That's a good thing. It is a good thing. And a blessing to the marriage to be different.
That was Jean's challenge. How am I going to make a positive out of this negative thing? I remember being at the sick.
I mean, we were probably married six, eight months. I remember when I'm at the sink and brush my teeth, I start really pretty loud in the morning. Like, hey, how you doing? What's happened? Did you sleep? Did you dream about anything? What did you dream about? Tell me about that. What was it like for breakfast? You want anything for breakfast? I mean, that's a little, little exaggerated, but I'm a talker in the morning and she was not responding to me. And I thought seriously.
Then you start to personalize. Well, what have I done? How have I upset her? She seems mad. And then one day, which was good communication.
She just, you know, she's brushing her teeth and I'm yapping away and she's not talking to me. And then she just looked at me and said, I don't really talk before 10 o'clock. And I went, oh, okay. That was not helpful to me. I didn't have to guess why you weren't talking to me. And I put everything in front of the simple answer, which is I don't really talk before 10.
I thought I had upset you somehow. And this isn't working very well in our marriage. Okay, Aaron, it's my turn to ask you a question. Explain how mentoring can help a marriage for both the mentors and the mentees, those being mentored. Let me give a shameless shout out to your mentoring program here at Focus for people to sign up.
Yeah, talk about that real quick and then answer. Yeah, we just, we know that the real answer for marriage revival in our country is this army of couples. Every church, there's so many couples that just want to help, want to invest, want to do something for another couple.
Oftentimes it's like, well, what do we do? So we've created something called marriage champions to where it just, it helps give vision for a couple going, yeah, we want to do something. So, you know, one idea is to pray for another couple or maybe babysit for a couple with young kids or, you know, take someone out to coffee or double date. It's these simple things that we're finding is a great way to invest in other couples to mentor them. Yeah, and so often we don't realize that we as a mentor actually benefit from pouring into another couple that blesses our marriage because we're ministering together and we're imparting wisdom to someone else and our experience. Granted, most people are like, well, I don't, I don't think that we have the perfect marriage, so we can't mentor. But the truth is, you know, if even if you're just a little bit further down the road than another couple and as well for us, having a mentor couple is a blessing to someone who is further down the road, who has wisdom and can pour into our marriage. You know, so many folks that support the ministry say to me when I'm traveling and meeting with them, you know, we pray for you guys and we write you a check, but is there anything else we could do? Man, this is a great way to plug in with us to within your church, be a marriage mentor. Just go to your pastor, talk about it.
Do you mind if I do that? And then there's so many ways to hook in with focus to help those couples that are struggling and, you know, the younger couples that need some help. They just and they're not probably going to say anything, but if you seek them out, they'll go to lunch with you. Totally. And even just the question like, how did you guys deal with this? We have small kids and we're overwhelmed. How did you guys do that? And it's just such a simple thing to share your experience and encourage them and give them hope that you guys are going to get through this.
It's a hard season that you're in, but you're going to get through it. We did. Yeah. Speaking of that, that was I remember I have something called the Gordian knot. You know, and this is a thing out of, I don't know, philosophy one on one. But it was this knot in the ancient world that could not be undone. So anything I hit up against that I can't figure it out, it's a Gordian knot.
Like I can't figure out how to do it. So the Gordian knot for Jean and I in our marriage occurred when I mean, I'm working hard. I got, I was just, I just became present focus. There were things we needed to work on.
And, you know, I'm spending 12, 14 hours a day at the office, which was not good. Our kids were young. And I remember one night specifically, you know, where this is going. So I remember, you know, I got home at, I don't know, six o'clock maybe. And I step into the door, had a briefcase back in those days before smartphones. And, you know, I just sat it down and Jean actually meets me at the door with the boys who are probably like six and four.
Maybe seven and five. And she goes, they're yours. I was like, OK, can I just, you know, put some comfy clothes on and can I just take five minutes to throw some water on my face? But I got it. And, you know, the thing about it wasn't, I mean, Jean was equally desperate as I was.
So you have these two exhausted parents and you both need to tend to the children in some way. And that to me was a Gordian knot. It's like there is no real way to undo that knot. We just need to figure out how to survive in this moment.
So what do you what kind of Gordian knots did you guys have? That's a great question. I mean, probably a lot like what you were saying is that, you know, with when we had young kids. That seems to be that time.
Yeah, the same thing. I mean, Erin would just be exhausted. I was traveling a lot. And so I would call, you know, I'd be out to dinner with colleagues and, you know, we're having this great time. Traveling is exhausting, but I would call her and I'm just telling her, yeah, we did this. And we had a great meal. Man, the steak was awesome. Yeah. And I'm sitting on the side of the road in a broken down car. Remember that? And going, I'm so glad, Greg, I've got three kids in the back seat.
My car won't start. And I'm glad you went out for steak. That's awesome. And I got three hours of sleep last night.
Yes, add that in there. So I'm calling the tow truck right now and I'll be fine. I think for me, the hardest part was we as we would talk. So I'm excited to hear about her day and just to catch up, connect. And then it would be kind of this dump of everything that's going on that's frustrated her. And I would feel so helpless. But how I would choose to handle that would be that I would try to shut her down.
I would try to say, hey, man, when I call you like this, like, can we just talk like fun, happy? Can we just relate? And why do you always have to dump everything on me? And, you know, because what I wasn't understanding was that it just would create helplessness in me. I didn't know what to do. And so I tried to control her to get her to not tell me about these things. And it just it never worked.
No. But really, underneath that, all I was wanting is to know I wasn't alone, that he was with me, even though he wasn't home, that he was with me across the miles, and that I wasn't alone in parenting these children and feeling so overwhelmed just to know that he was available to connect with me in that moment. And I stopped trying to fix and solve and just started going, all right, yeah, tell me what was what's that been like? And that was how we untied the Gordian knot. There you go.
Nice. Jim, we love stories about older couples who have been married, you know, 40, 50, even 60 years. I mean, their their love stories are amazing. So from what you've observed, what's the secret to their success? So as you hear all these stories, what stands out? You know, you do a good job of this collecting these little stories.
So I remember one that's kind of funny, this couple that have been like 70 years married. They were asked, what's the secret? Yeah.
And he said, well, when you get into bed, play footsies and make sure you say sorry. I thought there's something pretty easy to do. That's good. That seemed to work for them. Yes.
And but, you know, again, I think we overcomplicate it. I think resiliency is really cool. It's an incredible attribute.
Can it be developed? I think so. Yeah, it's attitudinal. Yeah.
So what's the attitude toward your spouse? You know, and I'm not always strong at that. I mean, I can.
What are you doing? Right. Sure. There are times. This feels like a Gordian knot moment. But it's that resiliency factor that, you know, we're in this. We're going to figure it out. We have to figure it out. And there's degrees of that.
You guys are counseling people all the time. But I love I love the the meaning, though, of resilience. It's able to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties. Yeah. And there's a beautiful way in which kind of thinking about that, repairing for what will happen.
We will have those moments where a child is handed to us the moment we come home from work or, you know, whatever's going on. And how do we recover quickly from that? Yeah. It makes the benefit of it that, gosh, as we walk through these difficulties, we're going to grow stronger because of it. And so there's benefit if we can remember that through those difficult times in marriage that we're developing grit and resiliency. Yeah.
It's so good. And trying to de-escalate. I mean, that's a big part of it. Like, what are we really talking about here? It's a pancake mix or whatever.
What's below the surface. Yeah. And to your point, so many of these things are just the mundane things of life that, you know, we all laugh about who squeezes the toothpaste from what part of the tube. Right. And these things become irritating for some silly reason. And it shouldn't be that way. Can you snap back from that stuff quick? That's the resilience.
By either going, you know what, we are different. And that's that's how Aaron likes to do it. Or that's what's going on. Or, hey, how do we need to repair what just happened quickly? Yeah. Something shouldn't matter.
Something shouldn't matter much. So Jim and Jean, I have another question. I know you guys have a story about losing Jean's wedding ring. Well, we don't have a story about that. This question is for you.
So you lost your wedding ring and what happened and what did you guys learn through that? Well, may I set this up? Oh, please. Yes. Because I came home from work. It was probably about six. There's a pattern here.
Yeah. And I bound through the door. My bride is nowhere. Where's my wife? Where's Jean? And then I hear this in the bathroom.
Oh, no. And I go to open the door and it's locked. And I'm going, yeah, these are none of these are good signs. Are you are you OK? Did our boys tie her up? No, I'm not OK. I'm like, oh, my gosh, what is going on?
We have a wonderful marriage and a good life. What's happening? And she eventually opened the door, took a little time. You can take over from there. Good set up.
So I'm kind of afraid now. We were newlyweds. So this was the first year of our marriage. And I have obviously accidentally flushed my wedding ring, flushed it down the toilet.
May I give some advice to husbands right here? It's not in our devotional, but this is added material. Don't say how could that happen? How could you? That's not a good thing. Well, it wasn't that it was more like what? How did that happen?
Yeah. To which you continued to cry. Well, it was so interesting. I was sobbing. I could not stop sobbing.
And, you know, poor Jim's trying to console me. I was inconsolable. And I you know, the ring obviously meant a lot to me. It had been my engagement ring that I told Jim I wanted that to be my wedding ring. It was my birthstone.
We didn't have the money to replace it. I am sentimental, but I just fell apart. What is so sweet, though, the next day I had to work all day.
And Jim spent the entire day taking that toilet apart. Hoping. I began to cry. Hoping. I imagine.
I can't believe I got to work on this toilet. I didn't even know how to do that. Well, that was before YouTube.
Yes. Well, let's just say it was a good effort, but I didn't find the ring. I found other things, but I didn't find the ring. No, but that act, I'll tell you what, that still sticks with me. That meant so much to me. What did that say? Like, what was the message by him doing that?
It said, I care enough about how upset you are that I'm going to try to fix this. I love you. I'm going to spend my whole Saturday looking for a ring that was there. This is like the weakest part of my masculine. You kind of go, OK, there's two bolts. If I take these off, I'm sure I can get this off the floor. That's reasonable.
Never done it before in my life. But that's so sweet. I never heard you convey that. Oh, absolutely. And in the end, you know, I eventually realized the ring. It's yes, it was sentimental and yes, it was pretty, but it's just a symbol. Just like the wedding, the big wedding.
It's just a symbol. And it's really about the relationship of the marriage that matters. Let me let me move here toward the long view of marriage. You know, so often in parenting, we talk about this, the need to have the long view when your 14 year old is misbehaving and kind of frame your mind as the parent around them being 30.
And what are you aiming for and what are the lessons to teach them in that moment, that kind of thing. That can be said, too, of marriage, that you need to take the long view of marriage. So many of us are living in survival mode because the pace of the culture, the job or the jobs we both have, etc. The family, all of that. How do we keep that long view perspective when everything's raining down on us every day? Yeah.
Yeah. It's so important to know where do we want to go? What do we want our marriage to look like long term? I recently had a couple sitting in my office and they had attended a wedding and they came in. They were struggling prior to attending this wedding and sitting at this wedding of a friend. They came in and they said, you know what, it just revived what we really want to shoot for.
We want a marriage that glorifies God. And it gave them a vision for where they wanted to go. And it actually helped in the moment because it inspired them to work through what was happening now for the long term goal of we want to work toward a marriage that is glorifying.
Yeah. There is something powerful about thinking about like you're saying, where are we going to be in 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years in thinking that through? Because then that gives us one hope that we're going to get there. It gives us a goal, something that we're working towards.
And there's just something powerful about having that long view. We said that in our wedding vows when we talked about in the good times, in the bad times, that this is a lifelong marriage. There's something powerful about going, this is for a lifetime.
I've eliminated the word divorce from our vocabulary. It creates kind of that journey mentality of going, you know, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I know where we're headed. Let's just start walking and journeying together and then deal with whatever comes up. We're in this together and we'll figure it out along the way.
I mean, I think that's what it helps us do. I'm laughing because I know the stories of you guys when you were first married. We cannot escape today without the laundry story.
I just love that story because it's so funny. We're right at the end. Let's talk about early development in marriage and some of the things you weren't doing so well. What I wasn't doing well was James 4-1 that says, what causes quarrels or fights among you?
Is it not the desires that wage war within you? What's really going on? So one time, Erin, we just had gotten into a conflict early in the morning.
Nothing was going right. You were married how long? Months. Six months maybe.
Under a year for sure. I had to go to work. It was a Saturday.
Didn't want to go to work. We were irritated. So I set a good firm boundary before I left to say, no more talking.
Let's just stop. And when I get back, we'll figure it out. So she pops her head in the door. So she's leaving.
She's a nurse at this time working in a hospital. So she shuts the door, pops her head back in, and makes one more smart comment about whatever we'd been talking about. And she'd already said, no more talking. So she violated. And I violated my own rule. So you're throwing a flag. So she's gone. I'm just standing there going, well, that wasn't very nice.
That's so unfair. And so I had already said I'd get our laundry together. So I pull it all together. So I used to put it all in this huge mesh bag because there was no elevator and we lived up on the fourth floor. But under our apartment on the first floor was the laundry room. So I would just jam all the laundry in in this bag and then wait till no one was around and then just drop it on the ground. Then I just would go down, pull it in the laundry room.
It was very easy. So as I'm about to release the laundry bag that's stuffed full, I see Aaron walking on the ground floor. I was still irritated by her whole last word thing. So I thought, wouldn't it be funny in my mind? I'm thinking it'd be hilarious if I dropped that by her. And it would scare her. She'll look up and I'll be like, last word that.
And I'll win because marriage is all about winning. And so sure enough, I released it in my, well, I guess depending on your perspective, either my aim was really on or really off. But either way, I hit her, barely clipped her with the big laundry, enough to throw her kind of on the ground. So there she is. She's just staring at me as I'm looking at her going, oh, I'm in big trouble.
That was not good. She starts racing back up like she's coming up the stairs to get me. Oh, yeah. And I did what any real man would do in that situation. I ran back in the apartment, locked the door. And thank goodness I didn't have my keys because I don't know what I would have done. But I went to work. My 12 hour shift came back and walked into the apartment to make amends. He had washed everything in the apartment, including the couch cushion. So he unzipped the outer couch cushion, but shrunk them. So to where there were like these pyramids across. That would have been helpful to say not to dry them. That would have been helpful.
Yes. But we tell that story because we look at where we started, where we came from. Some people are like, that's a terrible story.
Why do you tell it? We love it because it shows. Look at how far we've come. Look at what God has done. Thank goodness we got help.
We learned how to manage conflict and how to communicate better and to not throw laundry over the balcony near your wife. And we just go 33 years later. Here we are. And look at what God has done. Yeah. And that's the point of everything.
Look at what God has done. So this has been great. Let's let's come back next time and keep it going. Can we do that? Absolutely.
Yes. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And we've heard part one of a conversation Jim and Jean Daly had with Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin. And our panel was exploring themes from a book that Jim wrote called The Healthy Marriage Devotional. Three hundred and sixty five daily inspirations to bring you closer together. Get a copy of that book from us here at the ministry. Make a monthly pledge of any amount to focus. And we'll send that book to you as our way of saying thank you for supporting this ministry and all that we're doing and working hand in hand with us to strengthen marriages. Frankly, that's one of the big reasons why Focus on the Family exists.
It's to help husbands and wives have strong and healthy relationships that honor the Lord. How about that? And we have many resources for you, like our counseling team and Hope Restored, our four day intensive, where we offer counseling to marriages that are really struggling and in trouble.
Yeah. And Jim, you know this and I mentioned this before, Dina and I went to a Hope Restored intensive in Branson, not because we were thinking of divorce, but we were just stuck. After 30 years, we were just we were in some bad patterns and the staff there was so caring and so kind.
And that was about five years ago. Today, we're using almost daily the tools that we learned at Hope Restored. So I really want to encourage our friends.
If you know someone who needs help, Hope Restored is a terrific program. In fact, it has a 98 percent satisfaction rating. I mean, 98 percent of the couples that go say the program was really good.
And I'm proud of that. And you can partner with us to give that help to couples in need. Make a monthly pledge to Focus on the Family today or send a one time gift, whatever you can afford. We can work together to help save marriages for the kingdom. You can donate online or give us a call.
We've got the details in the show notes to learn more about Hope Restored, about ways that we can help your marriage, including the healthy marriage devotional that Jim wrote. And if your travel plans have you coming to or near Colorado Springs, please check out our website for details about all the great things you can do here at our ministry headquarters. We have a fantastic welcome center with an indoor play area for kids. We've got a wits and soda shop. So much here, including a terrific bookstore.
Stop by and say hi as you can. And thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a Hope Restored marriage intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.
