Making Positive Choices For a Stronger Marriage

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And I can tell you going over that rainbow was worth every price we had to go through. Well Ron and Jan Welch join us today on Focus on the Family. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, marriage is a unique and precious gift from God and I was reminded by a young lady not long ago she said you know whatever Christians talk about marriage sometimes they talk about it being a load or you know carrying this heavy burden and I want to say yeah we don't want to project that we want to say marriage is awesome sometimes you got to do some tune-up you got to you know you got to pour into it you got to work at it but man you put that little bit of work in and marriage is the thing that that drives you you know it's fun it's good so I want to make sure we start there and we're going to talk about some of the tune-up things today and how to make it even better and I hope that you will lean in with us especially if you're you know kind of in a stalled spot and you want your marriage to be all that it could be. Yeah and Dr. Ron Welch and his wife Jan are here to talk a little bit more about these things that can make marriage better. Ron is a clinical psychologist who specializes in marriage and family and Jan is a teacher who works with at-risk children and they've been married for over 30 years and have two grown boys and two grandkids three okay three grandkids correct the record there. Dr. Welch has written a book called 10 Choices for a Better Marriage how to work through struggles and increase joy today.

Look for details about that at our website. Ron and Jan it's great to have you back to focus. Thanks so much we appreciate being here. Yeah now Ron as a psychologist you work with couples going through some tough stuff does choice really factor into how you empower relationships? You know it has so much to do with whether people feel they have the power to change things if they don't feel there's a choice and it's sort of like they're stuck this is the way it has to be it's the way it's always been so it's probably the way it's always going to be without that it doesn't feel like there's any choice if you can change that one thought process suddenly everything opens up. Well you know you get married that's choice right you're making the best first big choice and then there's a lot of choices after that right.

Every day all the time you're always choosing your marriage and you're choosing your partner or you're choosing yourself and you kind of have to make a decision about that. Jan we've covered your marital story before but give us the recap the quick thumbnail of you and Ron and and how you met and married. We were in a class at DU together. That's University of Denver. University of Denver and the professor talks his first thing he says is people meet and get married in this class and I was like woohoo I'm starting to look for who's there and we ended up doing a project together and then next week.

The fatal project. The fatal project I was flirting sick you know and he's marking these points and so we ended up going out the next week and talked all night and I basically talked I told him I really like you but I can like you as a friend or maybe something more can grow and basically four dates and we were looking at wedding rings. Oh my goodness four dates. Four days.

Okay wow that seems a little fast Ron. Just a little. I wish I could say that it was motivated by some kind of cognitive thought process that made sense. Most of my family my friends looked at me and said what on earth are you doing to be honest if you want the honest answer I was afraid that if she really got to know me she probably wouldn't want the package that I was.

Wow there's a lot to that. I pushed things and she was she was ready it wasn't like she was on a slow track but we had to get to know each other after we got married and that's not what my son's not the advice I give my sons at this point. Well in fact you use the term fall in love that that sounds like you like tripped into it but talk about your use of the word fall in love what's that definition? You know for me it's more like jumping into love I think that's where the choice piece comes in it's it's really a matter of saying I want to be with you I want to change my life the way God wants me to change and become the man that you deserve and that's a choice that's jumping that's not just like a passive falling into it it's more a matter of saying I'm making a conscious decision now I granted it might have been good to take longer than four days but I think at least six dates at least six that's kind of funny I mean Jean and I knew right away we went to we neither one of us were dating you know I'd given up dating for a couple of years Jean was close to that same kind of attitude and a couple a friend of ours they had gotten married we met at their wedding but they kind of you know kept pressing us to get together and then they called both of us said let's just go out as friends we go to Amy Grant concert I think it was and but we both knew that night that this could be the one but we were very you know shy to share that yeah took months actually probably six or seven months before we started talking could this be it and it came out slowly so that was a little different story than yours it's one of those things where it might have been helpful obviously to know more about each other but there was something about being on the journey together from the very beginning both of us trying to figure out our childhoods and our development and who we are as people that God used to grow us into ways well I don't know if it would have happened in a different story well and the bottom line is you're there yep whether you come the way John and Dina got there or you or you know Jean and I you end up you're there how do couples choose to love each other every day once they've tied the knot I mean that's kind of interesting to choose it and keep choosing it every day you wake up you you don't realize you're making choices but when you put the word choice in there then you're like oh I do have a choice and sometimes it's more difficult when things aren't going well to smile and say okay you really want to do this I'm in and you know I'd rather be sleeping or doing something you know shopping but you you make those choices and I really feel that our struggle was for a purpose you didn't know it then but until he wrote these two books ah God is using what we've gone through to help others and it was healing for us but it also we really wanted to help other people and you have to be honest oh yeah we'd love to cover some things up but he was brutally honest and I admire that Ron conflict comes to every relationship to a certain degree you know maybe light conflict maybe really serious conflict but research shows it to be a little more prominent than we might expect what are the research findings showing us you know it's scary we end up entering into conflict or dealing with conflict five six seven times a day in a relationship it may be where we're going to go for dinner it may be you did that or you didn't tell me that or what do you mean you spent that much or you bought that one but then that multiplies and they tell us that there's a couple thousand conflicts we enter into every year just trying just trying to negotiate well imagine what happens if a couple doesn't have good conflict negotiation skills or if they run away from conflict or avoid it or if they if they get really aggressive with each other if that's your style and that's how you handle conflict you do it over and over and over you mentioned in the book some ways we can start believing in our marriages I would think boy you're you know the courtship side you're believing in it you've said yes to each other you get married you're full of belief in this being good so what does that mean to keep believing I think you very quickly have some negative experiences that break that belief system and you know the research tells us we need five to seven positive things to make up for everyone negative that's a really important point punch that a little bit because I learned that a little late in my it's hard because if you start making a couple of observations in the morning about critical things you've now got 14 positive things to say before lunch and it's hard to do that yeah and I find with Jan my tone of voice or my attitude can just destroy her and then try to make up for that and then the next day it's like the last thing she remembers my tone of voice from the day before that's where the patterns get broken yeah we had a guest that suggested putting coins on one side of your pocket every time you give a compliment move it from that pocket to the other pocket but when you do something other than a compliment move that going back yeah and where's the change at the end of the day that's a pretty good little idea Janet I understand you run like to play with a couple of stuffed cows now don't go into much detail here but how do the cows help you it's just a way we kind of hide them in unique places so when you find it like I put them in his shoes you know when he was traveling and you know you just never know where the cow will end up and it's it's just a way to kind of say I'm thinking about you I love you hopefully eventually you'll find this and you know sometimes we had two or three for being adventurous so we have different we have several of them on a tree in the kitchen right now so they're good and you lost a cow like you put it somewhere both of you forgot where and then it's really funny when who finds it you know but it's just kind of a way to say I'm thinking of you I love you you're important to me no I love that yeah and you could do it with a variety of things this was the chick-fil-a cow I believe of course it was our sons both worked for chick-fil-a hey Ron talk about the power of commitment what does it look like to make that choice to be committed and why is it so important in a healthy marriage that's a tough one it's gonna be a little hard to talk about it now too recently the last year Jan's had some significant hospitalizations been in situations where the doctors walked out of an ICU unit and told me that not a good likelihood she would be there the next morning and taking care of her at home wound care as a nurse packing her wounds every day and putting on wound vacs and things that were just not what I thought husbandry would look like yeah and then every day you're thinking I can't thank god enough for the fact that she's here and we get another day to be together there's perspective and so commitment is is saying I'm in this no matter what for better for worse right and that means 12 o'clock at night at the hospital crying my eyes out trying to figure out whether she's going to be there the next morning that's that's what commitment looks like for me anyway wow I mean that's powerful and for someone who it's so hard to ask for help being so helpless and Ron just he stepped up so much and as you mean he talks about wound care I mean he just yeah he beyond what I would have expected him yeah or anyone to do and he did it with a smile on his face and love in his voice you know it's so beautiful to hear that and tender I appreciate that Ron your your tears because it's good and I'm thinking of just how the culture right now is so anti-marriage you know not everybody but just generally so many young people here oh it's a burden don't do it you know you got to give up yourself for that for another person and here I see the two of you in tears about a tough time but the giving giving is not bad sacrificing is not is not bad and in a me focused culture we really are far healthier if we could get back to you know this is what love and commitment looks like when did sacrifice become a dirty word I don't get that yeah why is it bad to give why is it bad to to be selfless rather than selfish I don't know where that came from but I'm sure not happy about the direction the culture is going and I I don't think that makes a healthy marriage in any way yeah moving from that kind of commitment to forgiveness and that is so essential talk about Charlene and Rico I think you mentioned a story of the about them in the book sure I mean there are situations where couples end up hoping and thinking that they'll be able to get past something but they get stuck because they don't know how to move forward and I talk with couples a lot about this idea of forgiveness not just being oh my bad we got it out of two words now my bad some cases you just pat your chest and we're all good it's like no if you're saying I'm sorry one of the things we talk about in that story is saying that means I'm going to work in all my power to become a better person to not let that happen ever again the person who's forgiving is going to say yeah and I would like you to repent I want to see some evidence that you mean it show me this is going to be better and then when you say I forgive you it's like we're going to actually move forward and I'm going to believe in you in the future that's what that story in the book was about was being able to say we're going to be better we're going to try hard we're not going to be the same people and moving forward we're going to be able to forgive each other and have a different relationship because of that Ron that area of forgiveness you say there are four elements help us better understand what are those four elements you know I think it starts with the idea of being able to actually think about the word repentance and I'm going to focus on that more than any other because that word also has somehow gotten a bad rap in our world today it's okay to say that you are accountable and responsible for your actions and then in order to be forgiven you need to repent and you need to actually say wow I need to do some work to figure out how this happened rather than ah my bad I'm sorry well you know you think about that that happens mostly in the covenant of marriage yeah I mean really there's a societal application of that you know repentance and that's what criminals the pendants right is where we get penitentiary sure but it's an amazing thing that the core of it I think is in the relationship of marriage yeah to say you're sorry to be repentant and there's it's hard sometimes because I could say I'm sorry early in our marriage but because of many of my behaviors and activities and and how I was acting she'd hear those words and I don't think you believed them no I think when you are forgiving someone you're basically saying I'm not going to do that again I'm going to try my very best not to treat you or do things that that with what the mistake or whatever that I've done wrong and that makes a difference because you know as you know our story a lot of times as he would say that he'd be like okay you know I was probably going to do it tomorrow or next week or something it was hard to believe when it was kind of consistently not that didn't happen and once he started making those changes then I was kind of like eh really okay but you always have to praise the person for their efforts not for their failures and that really made a difference yeah really made a difference and you worked hard I could see it every day and you have to believe when someone's really changing who they are for you and that's what he does every day you know what can I do to help you and he really means it wow that's good what give the four though so you have to apologize first you have to repent for what you did you have to account for yourself and take responsibility for that and then you have to expect success from your partner now that those are good right there that's worth the price of admission you touched on this a bit but if you're not doing those things trust is broken and that's the next element in this unfolding after forgiveness you have to build trust why is trust such a a big challenge probably the core thing I'm just thinking in marriage generally but Jean and I that would be true trust is kind of the foundation of the foundation of it all I definitely agree with that and when you when it breaks it's such a heartache I think and it doesn't have to be the big thing like infidelity trust can be broken every day just in the way you treat me exactly I trusted you to love me and I don't feel loved that's a broken trust and for me it was I wanted someone to love me unconditionally even with my flaws and he kind of disagreed with that and it was like oh okay so now I have to try and be this person that you want me to be and it's sometimes really hard to always live up to that and rebuilding it does take time there were times when he would ask something and I would lie about it because I didn't want him to get upset and it was easier to lie than to say whatever I'd done when I you know spent too much money or bought something that oh I probably shouldn't have done that so you're trying to avoid pain and then that probably run for you indicated I can't trust her nope it broke the trust because she's gonna lie to me right she's gonna hide it anyway so man this is a vicious cycle and then at the same time you're like wow so that's what I've done to my wife now my behavior and who I am as a person makes her scared to be honest with me let me ask you though how do you get to that place for you to realize that you're badgering if I can call it that you know correct me if I'm wrong but that badgering for you to realize she's now misleading because of me that's a big leap rather than just put it all on her well I wish I didn't have to say this but I saw it because I saw what my sons were doing and I taught them how to treat women I heard I saw them demanding things from her I saw them being absolute about their beliefs about women and about men and then I realized okay I'm not only doing this to her directly I'm teaching them how they will eventually treat their wives that was too much and God just slapped me and said you got to do something man this is not acceptable and it's interesting because our son our youngest and Robin and I were having a conversation and he's like why did dad change what made him change I said do you want the honest answer and he was like yeah and I said because he saw what how you guys were treating me and that really made him wake up and say oh no I don't want another generation and I think his willingness to change really affected them as well hopefully in the positive no I mean that's powerful and the fact that they could see that your sons could see that and learn that lesson with you really a lot of conversations as adults about and they sometimes say I'm hard on myself or a little too tough myself but in general I think they experienced they experienced a lot and they had to go through some of the same things that she went through let me ask this we only have a few minutes left so when you're looking at all of this why do you think we so often take our spouses for granted and then what in what ways do we do that so we can all be more cognizant of it you know I think it's really amazing that we will say things to our spouses we won't say to a stranger on the street it somehow becomes okay to use a tone of voice or be derogatory or say hey can you do this it's like or why didn't you do this can you be kind and nice I mean somehow we take each other for granted and one of the things I suggest that I think really helps is to sit down at the beginning of the week and ask yourself when you're going to be married this week and I ask that question with the couples I work with all the time to say okay well you look at your schedules and you know there's all these appointments and work and church and the dogs and some guy named frank gets in there everybody gets in the schedules but your wife and your husband's name never appear for the whole week and I ask people to look at the schedule and say let's schedule some time for us let's schedule a check in time during the middle of the week when we can say hey we haven't had a chance to talk about something let's talk about it now and then schedule some time when you can just sit together and enjoy your relationship and be married if you can't look at the week and find a time to be married how are you going to do it successfully let's hit a couple of these marriage moments because these are really good too marriage moment number one the schedule you've touched on this Ron this is a designated time to review your and your spouse's schedules together for the week yes you kind of mentioned that check in right so when do you guys do this we tend to be early early or late on Sundays a lot of times after church or in the evenings we often go to church on Saturday evenings but it's it's kind of like what's the week going to look like or am I going to see you and there's sometimes we look and it's like wow we're gonna have to put some serious effort into this and then the check-in is kind of to say how are we doing later on during the week yeah second check-in is about raising issues right so describe that I'm I am probably this is where Jean does a good job again she'll say you know can we talk about this and I'm like ah this is the last thing I want to talk about yeah let's talk about it next year maybe next month but not now yeah you know I have to tell couples if you don't actually have a time that you're agreeing to have a connection then what happens is if they're in counseling for instance the only time they bring things up in counseling and they don't learn to do that on a regular basis so I suggest that they have their own counseling appointment on their own and see how it goes and sometimes it ends quickly but you have this time where you say I know this is the time for the stuff we really don't want to talk about and we're going to agree that we're not going to back out we're not going to find a reason not to do it we're not going to say oh man I'd love to do that but I gotta mow the lawn right no lawn doesn't count it's like we're going to show up and we're going to be there even for the heart I gotta stop using that excuse okay that last one is important to the date you know we all talk about a date night and Jean and I are pretty good about doing that we go to a favorite restaurant but in that context I think one of the things we violate is we'll bring up all the stuff we haven't dealt with with other you know where the boys at what the boys doing and it doesn't feel like a date right and it can't be like a movie where you sit and watch a screen for two hours that does no good it can't be something where you're just going to be disconnected it has to be where we're going to remember why we're married we're going to remember the feelings we had when we first decided to get engaged and we're going to just enjoy and share in our in our company and be so happy that we're together you know those are the times it's harder I think sometimes if you have children and you have to pay a babysitter yeah and you know sometimes you can do neighbors and you know you share they watch it than the other but it's just the intention of reconnecting because as you continue on your marriage all those memories you share with that person we can look at each other sometimes in like uh-huh the great pancake incident of 2019 exactly you know the flood the fire you know all those fun things that we have experienced just us yeah and the moments our children that are so special and once you have that kind of bond you really want to fight for it even if it's hard even if it brings tears and pain you get through it and we've done it and I can tell you going over that rainbow was worth every price we had to go through yeah it made us stronger it made us deeper and you know writing these books really bring a lot of those at those memories out yeah I'm sure and we're right at the end here and I think the best place to end would be for the couple that's listening maybe either one of them the wife's listening right now going okay we've blown so many things that I've heard right now all these things that you're talking about I've done them or both my husband and I have done them how do they how do they course correct what are some things they can do obviously get the book that's a great way it's it's a quick read 10 choices for a better marriage it doesn't get easier than that here are the 10 things to think about and you've touched on so many of those things but what can they do tonight that'll be different to rekindle that relationship and make it really good you know the great thing is that God's giving us all a new day tomorrow and we get a wake up and say how do we want to live this day how do I want to love my spouse how do I want to become the man or woman God wants me to be what can I say to my spouse to say you know what I need to apologize I need to repent I need to start over what can we do tomorrow to make it a brand new day and then if that doesn't quite turn out right guess what God's going to give you another shot the next day as well yeah but again what a great reminder and I want to reassert what I said from the beginning that so often we're so often we're talking about how to fix wobbly marriages and the good thing is man when you get married just don't let it wobble do these things from the get-go and all the research and the studies show that the happiest people in this country and around the world are married people with a faith in Christ I mean that's what we're ahead of the game yep so now we just have to apply these principles and love each other and respect each other and do the things that you've captured in this book and certainly the things that are captured in the book and uh and if we do those things we will have a really fulfilling lifelong commitment to the one we love and at the end of life what's more important I know this is it so thank you both Ron and Jan thank you so much and let me tell you if you are saying yeah we need the help get in touch with us man not only do we have this great book 10 Choices for a Better Marriage but also counselors and a heap of material to help you including a marriage assessment and other things you could do at the Focus website that will really benefit you and get you moving in the right direction yeah donate today as you can either a monthly gift or a one-time donation of any amount and as our way of saying thank you for joining the support team we'll send a copy of the book by Ron Welch 10 Choices for a Better Marriage you can also access all the great materials Jim just mentioned at our website you'll find the details in the show notes or give us a call our number's 800 the letter a and the word family 800-232-6459 on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ if the fights with your spouse have become unbearable if you feel like you can't take it anymore there's still hope hope restored marriage intensives have helped thousands of couples like yours our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face them together call us at 1-866-875-2915 we'll talk with you pray with you and help you find out which program will work best that's 1-866-875-2915