If you know that it's coming, then you invest well and you make smart decisions and it doesn't have to be a crisis. But most people just like fly through life and don't really think through life or prepare well. Like if they're not listening to Focus on the Family, they might not be ready. That's what I'm saying. And everybody I know evaluates life at midlife.
So you will evaluate. Yes. That's Bill and Pam Farrell and they join us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller. John, I so appreciated what Bill and Pam had to say last time talking about midlife transitions in marriage. So if you're married, I'm sure you're leaning in going, yeah, we're in it. Because almost every couple will go through something, if not every so many years. You know, you have your first child, you then have maybe two, three, four, who knows? And then they grow up and they leave the house. And now you've got another transition. And of course, teen years.
And then you get into taking care of aging parents. We're going to talk about all that today with our special guests. And they've written a great book, The 10 Best Decisions a Couple Can Make. Bring out the best in your relationship.
And every married couple says, Amen. Yeah, get a copy of the book and learn more about Bill and Pam at our website. We've got the link in the show notes. And John, one of the easiest ways for people to pick up if they didn't hear last time is listening to the app. Our mobile app is a great one.
It's got all sorts of great resources. It really does. And that's the way I'm listening mostly now. So just a good reminder. Pam and Bill, welcome back. Thank you.
It's great to be here. OK, let me just hit this because we really didn't hit it last time. You're saying 10 best decisions.
Just describe in the book. I mean, what are the one word adjectives for some of those 10? Well, the first thing I would say is the reason why decisions are so important is that our emotions follow our decisions. So couples who are good at making decisions together, they tend to harness the emotional energy of their relationship. And couples who are not good at deciding together, they create emotional chaos in their home. Boy, that's so well put.
That's exactly right. So couples who learn to make decisions together keep themselves bonded emotionally. So that's really the first decision. Decide to decide, not just let life happen to you and then decide to be positive. You can focus on the negative or you can focus on the positive of your maid and your kids.
If you focus on the positive, then you're going to get more enjoyment out of your relationship. And, you know, communicate with kindness and decide to fight fair. When responsibility hits, we start getting harsh in our communication. Interesting. You said you would do this. You didn't do it. I need you to do this.
I need you to follow through. And now we're fighting over things that we love rather than working together. Wow, interesting. Decide that the we is greater than the me. Yeah, turn the M upside down. I like that. That's good. That's a meme. Hey, we did talk about the midlife crisis and the formation of that term even was a friend of yours that was a mentor, right?
And talking about those opportunities for improvement. You also use a term in the book and you call it going berserk. I kind of like that one more. It seems more colorful when you go berserk in these situations. What do you mean? It can be the midlife crush. That's another way to put it is, you know, a lot of times everything just comes to a crescendo. And you've got teens and tweens and college students and you're releasing them and you're paying for cars and kids and proms and then your weddings and then there's grandkids. And there's just a lot. That's a long list.
Yeah, it is a long list. Plus your careers are like at their peak and everybody wants something from you. And like in the book, we talk about a man feels like a little bit like a vending machine. Everybody just wants something from him at all times. I want your money. I want your advice. I want your time. I want your skills. I want your ability.
I want your time. It just goes on and on. And while all that's happening as men, our bodies are changing and we're not used to it. I guess, man, we go through puberty and we get, you know, this big testosterone rush and we power through life for decades. And then we wake up one day and the testosterone level starts to drop a little tired and we feel tired. And, you know, we don't have as much hair as we used to have. And we just don't have the oomph that we used to have.
But more is being demanded of us. And I know the thing I wish somebody had told me earlier on is that every 10 years an adult doubles his responsibility level. So at 30 you have twice what you had at 20. At 40 you have four times what you had at 20. But it snuck up on us.
So life is now just this berserk, we need to go, need to go, need to go, need to do, need to do, need to do, I need this, I need this, I need this. And if you have teenagers in the home, they're not very complimentary. So they're criticizing you as you're working really hard.
Duh. Your wife is, yeah, exactly. Your wife is relying on you and wants you just to man up. And as a man you're starting to ask the question, who cares about me? And the answer tends to come back, well, actually nobody. Well, that shoe goes on either foot, the husband or the wives, right? Exactly.
And who cares about me? Mom's feeling that way too. Right, because your family demands a lot at this stage of life. And so you can't be all about yourself. It's just impossible.
And the other thing that's happening to a woman at this same stage is the perimenopause and menopause. Let's just throw that in. Right?
Yeah, because that's fun. I'm glad you said that, Pam. When I wrote 10 Secrets of Living Strong, Smart, and Savvy, it's all about what you need as a midlife woman and beyond in life's second half.
It's basically the emergency kit for life's second half. There's over 100 symptoms. Well, I was going to say, what do you do to focus on the right things and not the wrong things? Because it's all coming at you and that's easy to steal our focus about, okay, this is what we've got to do with the kids and you've got to talk to them tomorrow because this is what you need to say. And by the way, I've got to be with my parents tomorrow because I've got to take them to a doctor's appointment.
And I don't think they've made their house payment this year, you know. Yeah, and you start blaming each other like, it's your fault, it's your fault. One day we're standing in the bedroom and I'm like, ah, life is so stressful, what are you doing wrong, Bill? And I'm like, I'm not doing anything wrong.
I'm like, well, I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong either. And we were looking for where to place blame. And so in the middle of this, I said, Pam, it's not you, it's not me, it's just life. And then I realized all that life was demanding of us and I'm like, you are so right, it's not you, it's not me, it's just life. But it's not what we want to do. What we want to say is it's not me and it's not life, it's just you. And we want to put blame somewhere. Right, and yeah. If we can just get real about this and say, you know what, at some point, life does get overwhelming.
And so we use it as a code word. When either one of us get irritated or overwhelmed, we say, ah, just life. And I know this is not very like modern biblical thinking, but this time of life, your goal is survival. There's an expectation. Right, like if you get to your 50th birthday and you're standing upright, you're in your right mind, and your relationships are intact, you have won.
You have won. And we put this expectation, you got to walk in victory, you're more than a conqueror, you have to be always joyful, always peaceful, always focused. And at some point in life, if you survive it, you're doing fantastic.
Above all else, stand in Sydney Fusions. The other aspect of that that I like is it puts the focus on the marriage as being a team. We're working together, we're going to have this onslaught of situations, but you need to be communicating.
And you mentioned that, but I guess I want to reinforce that. When you are, you know, we're all in the marriage business, so it may come a little easier because this is what we do every day together. But I would say that you don't just need to communicate during this time, you need to be on mission together. Well, but that recognition, though, of anticipating together what that next phase might look like, I love that idea.
I don't know that Jean and I have done that very effectively to say, okay, we're leaving this phase and we're going into this phase, so let's brace ourselves. Well, one of the smartest things that, looking back, Pam and I did, is when our kids became teenagers, we changed the way we parent. And we stopped saying no to our kids, and we replaced it with, tell me why I should say yes. Because we're rolling the ball into their court, making them be responsible. And getting our kids involved with that to where they had to help with the decision making. Because sometimes going into it, we didn't know what the answer was. You know, Mom and Dad, can we do this?
Well, I don't know what that is, so the answer is no. Which, of course, is going to bring a reaction. But by getting our kids involved, two things happened.
One, it gave us time to process, you know, how do we want to respond to this? And it forced our kids to be more mature. And so they followed Jesus and they stepped up to the plate and they were responsible.
And it took a lot of falling down over stupid things, you know. Sometimes your teens will make mistakes. And it's okay, because that's how they learn to take responsibility for their own life, and that's really the goal. And so I think part of the reason that God has teens be a little bit irritating at times, is you have to release them to go to college or be young adults and live on their own. And it will be so devastating if they're just so lovely and perfect all the time.
So you're like, yeah, go, we're ready. Well, I'll tell you, the insight I've learned, Jean and I both, the more you try to control them as teens, the deeper that problem will become. So you've got to learn how to let go. And teenagers want you to decide so they can blame you if it doesn't work. Because they're on a roller coaster ride and they don't want to blame themselves, they want to blame you. So they're sinners too?
They are. Hey, let me ask you, because you mentioned this in the book, this idea of creating an oasis. You know, I'm hearing all this, I'm going, let's get to the oasis part.
So what does that look like? You know, it can be as simple as like making your master bedroom like a place you want to be together. So you have a place to escape from the busyness of like the rest of the household. But Bill and I also, it's a part of your schedule. And so we always take a sunset, sunset salah or prayer walk together. And we've learned that, you know, listen to like a Christian comedian on the way out and laugh together.
And then on the way back, you know, how can I pray for you? What's going on in our life when we pray together? And doing that every day keeps you connected.
And it makes it so that the bricks don't build up the little foxes as, you know, songs talks about. You deal with those little foxes every day through prayer together and it bonds you. Prayer is like a really a winner thing, especially a prayer walk. Because you get closer to God, closer to your spouse and thinner all at the same time.
And at midlife, that's like, that's a win, man, to get thinner. Yeah. Bill, let me ask you, because we went by that pretty quickly, the little foxes. That is a reference to scripture.
What's that fuller scripture say? So in Song of Solomon chapter two, Solomon and his wife are taking a walk around her family's farm. And they pass a vineyard that has a vine that's turning brown and wilting. And the reason why that would happen is they had burrowing animals back there that they referred to as little foxes. We would probably refer to as gophers or moles.
They would burrow down, eat away at the roots of a vineyard, and a vine that should be flourishing is now deteriorating. And she uses a reference in every human relationship, there's obstacles. They're these little obstacles that work their way in and they eat away at the roots of our love for each other. It could be attitudes, could be bad habits, it could be things that we say.
You mentioned last session about pushing buttons. We just get in the habit of doing all those things. And if we're diligent to remove those when we see them, relationships tend to develop.
Because humans want to be connected to each other. Let me turn a little corner here. You know, at this age you tend to begin, whatever that age is, I'm going to leave it nebulous. But you tend to make more stops at the doctor to say, this isn't working right. What can we do to fix this?
Boy, this thing's not working right. Describe that moment in our lives when all of a sudden he's on speed dial. Yeah, we were taking a walk one day and I had just noticed all of the pressure women were under at midlife. And I'd started a group in our church, Bill was a pastor, called Season Sisters. You've got great names for things.
Yeah, it was fun. And so we gathered together because we thought the rest of life can be the best of life. And so Bill and I were on this prayer walk and I'm like, isn't it great, you know men are like waffles, like spaghetti's on the bestseller list and our kids are teenagers but they're making good choices. And you're pastoring the largest church in town and we just moved into this new building. I feel like our life is a beautiful hand crocheted afghan.
And then it's as if somebody grabbed a hold of one string on that afghan and began to unravel our life as we knew it. And how it hit was we were on a media tour like this and Bill was not feeling well so we went to the doctor. I was pretty sure I had a sinus infection so I went to go see the doctor and at the visit he said, how long have you had high blood pressure? I said, I don't have high blood pressure.
He said, you do today. And it got my attention because it runs in my family. My grandfather died at 47, complications to high blood pressure. My dad had a stroke at 48 because of high blood pressure.
He lived to be 92 but the second half of his life was very different than the first half. So when this became a reality of my life, I kind of panicked. And at first I said, well, I'll go see my doctor when I get home. We'll fix this.
Because that's what we do, right? I love the look on your face I can relate to. So the doctor said to Bill that Christmas when we went, I went with him to that appointment. And he said, Bill, you're a people helper and you have been burning the candle at both ends. You're a full-time pastor, full-time writer, speaker, and your body is telling you what.
What would you tell somebody if they came into your office with these out of control blood pressure issues? And I reluctantly said some significant life adjustments are in order. And so Bill resigned his senior pastorate, which was very hard for a guy. And he did that because we looked at our life and there's very few couples who can minister together. And we've always believed you should do what is unique to you.
So together we decided that we would launch full-time into writing and speaking as our full-time gig. And then when you time everything out in midlife, it can really hit. And how it hit in our life is Bill resigned and then right after that there's this little snapshot. One son was hit in a football game, had a concussion and a knee injury. And that senior son's ability to get a college scholarship. The next night our junior college son got hit in a football game, shoulder injury, quarterback. My name is opportunities. We're down to one income.
We need college scholarships. And then the third day I was away speaking because we needed groceries. And I got a phone call from my sister-in-law that my 40-year-old brother had just had a heart attack. They had to come take care of their kids.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln had you like the theater. Who do you say first? So something on my face must have shown the stress. And so my friends would say, how you doing? And I started like, I don't know how to answer this, God.
Too depressing. So the Lord said, what kind of person do you want to be? I said, I want to be the kind of person that can choose joy no matter what life sends your way. Because the joy of the Lord is our strength. So I choose you, Jesus. I choose joy. So I started answering them, choosing joy, when they would say, how you doing? And what Bill and I discovered is that joy really is a strength to your life.
That Bible is like true. How about that? Yeah. But we also learned you have to choose it. Yep. It's a decision.
Because life doesn't always set the table real well for you. Well, and the phrase that's going through my head is joy is a decision. It is. But does that sound like you're avoiding something? Yeah.
You know, people ask me that, but it's actually very real. And so it is a series of choices like joy. I wrote a whole book like discovering joy in Philippians. And so Philippians is full of how do you choose joy and joy is proactive.
Like make a list of things that always give you joy and then put one of those every day so you have a joy moment. Well, if you think about it, you know, Paul's in prison and he's basically reflecting that, you know. Don't let your circumstances take a hold of you. Exactly. And joy is different than being happy.
Describe that difference. We weren't always happy during this. Like there were some tough circumstances. There were some difficult things we had to work through. The joy comes from knowing God's going to bring something out of this that's worthwhile. Right. And the things we value most in life come through the adversity that we overcome.
Together, especially. That's what sports is all about. Sports is about volunteering to go through adversity so you can win. And in life, the things you overcome together is what adds the most value to your life. And a life that's too easy, people get bored with. So that's where the joy came from for us.
Yes, this is difficult, but we're going to overcome it together and we're going to find out what God's going to raise out of it. And, you know, God did like some amazing things. You know, Dr. David Jeremiah called Bill and said, hey, can you check out our small group ministry and design a small group ministry? And then he hired Bill to do that for four years. So God kind of stabilized our life and blessed us there. Which is good that we had that little oasis as we released our last son right about the time that Bill's parents needed caregiving. Yeah. And all three of our kids did compete at college. They all got scholarships.
Oh wow. It was a whole miracle there. Yeah, he provided through all of it. And he raised our compassion level. You know, when you talk about difficulties of life in theory, it sounds different than when you speak from your experience.
And we have more compassion, we have more insight because of what we've been through than we would have if we just read it in a book. And it really helped as we stepped into that caregiving role. Like one day, Bill had driven back and forth, back and forth across Los Angeles, taking care of his folks. And I'm trying to hold up our life and Bill's trying to hold up his parents' lives.
And he was just exhausted about midnight. And I said, hun, do we need to move? Because it looks like, you know, keeping your parents alive is killing you. We're back and, you know, risking your health. And he's like, I'm so tired, I can't even think about it.
And the next day he did come to me though and he said. And the backdrop to this is my parents were not easy. Like when I, growing up, I did not grow up in a strong, healthy, highly encouraging home.
Right. I lived in a tough home. And when I realized God was asking me to start caretaking my parents, my first reaction was, God, you can't ask me to do this.
It was too hard growing up there. You can't ask me to go back. That's exactly where he's going to take me. I'm smiling because I know. And then I'm asking, how am I going to tell Pam about this?
Like moving close to my parents is not going to be good for our marriage. So I started praying, God, how are we going to do this? And one of the things I know about Pam that you wouldn't necessarily is Pam loves the water. I'm like half a mermaid. Yeah. And so I got the idea, Pam, what do you think about moving onto a boat for this season of our life?
And no kidding, I said, hashtag crazy fun midlife adventure, let's do it. And I knew there's a marina about 20 miles from my parents' house that has a pool and a jacuzzi. You already did the reasoning.
And a kayak, we kayaked to get our mail, so. Let me ask you about conflict in every marriage. And you say all great relationships are made up of two committed forgivers.
Yes. I like that. Speak to that.
Committed forgivers. So every marriage, if you're fully involved in your marriage, you will have conflict. Because you married somebody who has what you don't have. So Pam has all the creativity that our family needs. She has a spontaneity that our family needs. All those frustrating things.
Yeah, she has like the social mandate that our family needs, which during easy times, that's really fun. But when the pressure's on, those things become interruptions. So if you're a normal couple, you are going to have conflict.
And at times you blurt out things you shouldn't say, you do things that are not helpful to the relationship, and you may even bring baggage from your past and dump it on your spouse. And if you don't know how to forgive all of that when it happens, then you just carry grudges. And the more grudges you carry, the heavier the load gets.
And if the load gets heavy enough, you're going to think it's hopeless. And Colossians 3 13 is really fascinating. Which says? Which says, bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And when I read that passage, I went, we're supposed to forgive everybody for everything.
And that was a real challenge for Pam and I. Because when we first read that verse, we thought, I've got a list of people that I don't think really need, like deserve forgiveness. Because what they've done is really bad.
Right. And I'm the firstborn daughter of an alcoholic dad, led domestic violence in my home. So there's a list on my side. So I started asking, well, how do we do this? Because I didn't, I agreed, okay, I need to forgive. I need to forgive my mom first. I'm going to have to forgive Pam along the way because she's as imperfect as I am. She's going to have to forgive me along the way.
So how do we do this? And I took the gospel of Jesus Christ and I said, if we apply that to interpersonal relationships, what would it look like? And it turned into six statements of forgiveness that have turned into a working definition for us. So anytime I need to forgive Pam or anybody else, I work through these six statements.
And it helps, it puts handles on it. And very quickly, those statements are I forgive and I name the person for whatever it is that they've done. So real specific.
Real specific. Because like I don't forgive Pam for being spontaneous because that's too big and broad. But the decision she just made to spend money that we didn't talk about, I can forgive her for that specific thing. And then I admit that what happened was wrong. Because if it isn't something that's wrong, forgiveness isn't the answer.
It's just your bad attitude. And sometimes we're in conflict over attitudes and we just need to grow up. And the Bible is like a plumb line from heaven and God will show us whether this is an offense to forgive or whether it's an attitude that he can help adjust in our life.
Yeah. The third is I don't expect this person to make up for what he or she has done. Because if you expect them to make up for it, you're putting forgiveness on hold until they take action. And it'll roll around in your heart and produce bitterness.
Now to make things right, there's going to have to be some movement. But for me to forgive, they don't have to do anything. And the fourth one is I won't define this person by what he or she has done. Because we too often use people's mistakes to define who they are. Well, especially spouses.
Yeah, and we turn them into monsters or we turn them into very unattractive people rather than just let them be people. And the way Jesus defines all of us is we're all in desperate need of God's grace. If you don't know Jesus as your personal savior, you desperately need his grace for eternal life. And if you do know Jesus, you desperately need his grace for everyday living. And anybody who gets away from the grace of God does ugly things.
So we want to define people the way God defines people. And then I won't manipulate this person with what he or she has done. And you know, in marriage manipulation is just, it kills the relationship.
Oh yeah. And so choosing not to manipulate is part of the forgiveness process. And I think the most important statement is I will not allow what's happened to stop my personal growth. 2 Peter 3.18 says, Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And bitterness stunts growth. So people who don't forgive, they become less mature. And then life overwhelms them because they're not as mature as they could be. All the way back to the vine. Yeah.
Those little foxes are eating away at the roots. Exactly. And that matters in your marriage and your personal growth in Christ. And couples who are good at forgiving tend to stay in love. Because we both recognize we're imperfect. And if we have a way of forgiving, we can be imperfect and still be a team. Well, you've hit the nail on the head today.
I mean, again, last time, this time. This is great content. The 10 best decisions a couple can make. Bring out the best in your relationship. Every married couple should be saying, Yes, I want that. Of course, we think that too.
Yeah. And some days, some days you're going, Okay, we're doing pretty good. We're batting 900. You know, we're almost there. Nine out of 10 times we're getting it.
And other days you're going, Okay, I got one hit out of 10 at bats. And I would just say to every couple out there, enjoy the season you're in and start preparing for the next one. And choose joy. And choose joy. I love that. All along the way, invest in your love relationship. Remember the Oasis.
Make it an Oasis. Yeah. Help is a phone call away.
A lot of resources here. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word family. 800-232-6459.
We're stopped by the show notes for all the details. Well, join us next time as we hear from British evangelist, Jay John, who provides four reasons why he believes in the message of the gospel. I'm a Christian because it's true. I'm a Christian because I need forgiveness. I'm a Christian because Jesus died for me.
I'm a Christian because it actually works. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your kids are unique and so are you. You have your strengths as a parent and areas of growth too. Find out what they are by taking the seven traits of effective parenting assessment from Focus on the Family. Find out how you're doing on traits like gratitude, grace, and other research-backed traits.
When you're done, we'll give you a detailed PDF with several pages of content on how to use your unique strengths and how to work on your areas of growth. This simple framework shows you how to be an effective mom or dad in daily family life, a parent who recognizes your imperfections and finds ways to thrive. You'll also get access to other resources from Focus on the Family to help you keep growing into the best parent for your kids. It only takes a few minutes to boost your parenting. Take the seven traits of effective parenting assessment at parentingtraits.com. That's parentingtraits.com
