Secrets to a Strong and Happy Marriage

Take their hand before you walk out the door to face the world and say, Lord, you know, bless our marriage. Be with us as we're apart from each other today. Give us wisdom.

Like I said, it doesn't have to be a long drawn out thing. It just acknowledge that God is a part of the marriage. That's Lee Morgan and she and her husband Trey. Join us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. They'll have practical ways that you can better love your spouse, strengthen and protect your marriage. Thanks for joining us.

I'm John Fuller. John, it does feel like marriage is under attack. I mean, we use that language, but man, it's just, you know, John 10, 10, it says the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. I think the number one object for the enemy is our marriages, because if he can destroy those, he wins so much.

And I mean, it decimates our kids, et cetera. So that's why here at Focus, we fight for marriages in the most positive biblical way. We want your marriage to thrive, to do well. We've got hope restored marriage intensives to help you. It's got an 80% post two year success rate, 50% roughly of the couples that come have divorce papers already in hand.

It's a miracle. And then you got counseling here. We've got great resources, tools, books. We have a marriage assessment. It's free. Just go online and take the marriage assessment. It's kind of fun because it'll say where you're doing well, where you need a little work. And there's so much, but let's fight together for our marriages, each and every one of us, Gene and I included.

Yeah. This is a show that will help strengthen your marriage. In fact, our couple today, Trey and Lee Morgan have written a book called 10 ways to a stronger marriage.

And I'll tell you a bit more about them. You can find out further on the website. The link is in the program description for our guests and this terrific book. Trey and Lee are a husband and wife team. They have four adult children and they're creators of the stronger marriage workshop.

They host and speak around the country. They've been married for 36 years. Okay. And they've turned some of the wisdom that they've collected along the years and their perspectives in this book, 10 ways to a stronger marriage.

There's gotta be 11. Come on. First of all, welcome to focus on the family.

Trey and Lee. Lee, let me ask you because John didn't say it, but it was four boys you raised. I mean, you were the only woman in the house.

How did that go? You know, I, in retrospect, I look back and think God must have known that I needed boys. I tend to run late everywhere I go. I would never have had time to do all the hair and the frill of little girls. I think he just knew I don't do drama well. Okay. Well, that's the key.

So that's it. Well, Jean shares that with you. We have two boys and it's, you know, it's a mess when you don't have that little girl or you have all girls and not that little boy. It's a little hole in our heart, I think, as parents, but I'm proud of what Jean has been able to do with our boys.

I'm sure you've done a great job with your sons as well. I'm talking about marriage. I mean, they talk about, you know, one of the best parenting things you could do is do well in your marriage. Think to that concept a little bit about how important a marriage is to the family and to the world. Well, for us personally, our goal has always been to build a marriage that honors God, that blesses us. And as we've done that, we're looking now and realizing that it's not only blessed us, but our kids. We have our grown children that have come to us going, we didn't realize how important it was that we got to see y'all being married and doing married things and being affectionate and going on dates. And so we're realizing we want to honor God with our marriage. We want to end our life going.

We did it. We built a great marriage. But what we didn't realize is that it's blessing our children from our example and even, we believe, our grandchildren.

And I think one of the greatest things you can do in this earth is to leave this earth going. We built that marriage that has done that and it set that example. Well, it's so true. And nothing's foolproof, obviously, but meaning the children, the grandchildren, they're also created beings. Adam and Eve made their choices, right? And God was their father. But in that context, I mean, you set up predictability, you know, that your kids and grandkids will do better.

And all the social science shows that. Well, let's get more practical. You guys met in high school and we all went, oh, but Jean and I met after college, you know, just right while I was ending my schooling and she was still in the middle of it. But and we weren't at the same school. But talk about going to high school together and then, you know, take us through that.

I will. So we went to the same high school, but Trey is a few years older than me. So he finished high school before I started. Well, you said that with a little bit of pride. We were, but we were youth groups.

That's it. We were youth. We went to the same church together and we're in the same youth group. And so as I was kind of in the youth group, she was coming into the youth group and we connected and dated for four years throughout all of that time. And when she got out of high school, we married. And in the 80s, that was legal.

You did that. And quite truthfully, that's the only reason my parents let me date an older boy was because they knew his parents. I mean, they were friends at church. And so they all knew it was good.

They knew it wasn't odd. Right. Yeah, that's good. Now, in the book, one of the funniest things you talk about, and I think we can all relate to this, this is such a guy thing, how much communication should be valued in the relationship. So when you guys are dating, you're on the, you're saying hi to each other, you're spending evenings together. Then you go home and get on the phone together for another hour or two, speak to the importance of communication. And really, is it realistic to keep it going that hot, even in marriage? I don't mean, you know, in a physical context, I mean, just talking, because you want to talk together.

Yes, for sure. Well, we laugh when we do our marriage workshops. Now we, you know, we tell the younger couples, we couldn't text all day, like you guys do, you know, there was no such thing as texting. So we, you know, spending time on the phone after dates, we was the only way we could continue to connect. And we laugh that we spent so much time on the phone, we think what in the world did we talk about, you know, we wonder really what we talked about, but it doesn't matter what you talk about as long as you're talking.

Yeah. Because if you're talking, you're learning about each other. And that's still so true in marriage. The more you talk, the more you learn about each other and you grow. Yeah, we fell in love because we talked, you know, we were attracted to one another, but we really connected when the talking started. And for us to continue that, we've still got to talk. You can't just stop once you get married. Okay, but okay, this is relationship 101, Trey, us guys.

I know, I'm one of them. Let's just put the cone of silence over Lee for a minute. We can't, once we get married, it's like now we're down to one word answers. How was your day? Great. I hear you. Yeah, what do you want for dinner?

I don't care. Yeah. You know, why, I guess why do we lose that edge?

Is the hunt over, so to speak, and we've won the prize and we don't feel like we need to do that any longer? And speak to how critical it is, again, for us guys in the cone of silence here, to be able to spur each other on to more conversation. That was something I had to learn. Once we got married, it was kind of like, well, I know who she is now and we're married now.

And it wasn't that I didn't want to give information. It's just, I felt like I would come home from work and she had been home that day with a toddler and a baby and she'd asked me about my day. And she'd go, what'd you do today? And I'd say, nothing. And she would, yeah, exactly. She said, I know you did something today, you know? No, not a thing.

That's it. I thought the details of my day were extremely boring and that she wouldn't be interested, but she was. I mean, she had been home with a toddler and a baby and watching Barney and she was like, I just want some adult conversation. And so when it clicked and she finally got that through my head, I began to, and still today, I'll come walk in the door. How was your day? It was good.

What'd you do today? I will never say nothing. I will start with the details of my day and feel her in and it makes her happy. And if that makes her happy, that makes me happy because that's part of it. Lee, would you say that's true? Most of your girlfriends? I don't know.

I would tend to lean in Trey's direction. I mean, if I were listening to me, I'd be bored. So that may be one reason we don't go into great detail because we're thinking of how we would be hearing this.

Right. But how do women think? It's just not interesting topics. Well, you know, women talk about everything.

I didn't know that. You know, things that are not that interesting of topics to talk about. But yeah, I, I think when I finally made him understand, maybe it wasn't even so much about me wanting to know all of those boring details as much as it was, I just wanted to connect. Yeah, that's the key.

I was making that bid for connection. And if he would just share, you know, some of his day with me, I would feel connected. Lee, let me ask you this question. In the book, you mentioned the bedroom chair. This is going to cut way too close to home for me because I don't think I've learned all the lessons that you two have learned yet. But we talk about the bedroom chair and what it did for you functionally, Trey, and how you didn't like that, Lee.

Oh yeah. So the bedroom chair, I think we all have one, right? Where the dirty clothes, maybe even the clean clothes, they just end up semi-dirty, semi-dirty. They end up on the chair. So, you know, I thought I was doing her a favor.

I'm not just throwing it in the laundry for us to have to do laundry. And so it goes to the chair or some people probably have a, maybe a treadmill that works the same way. Correct. Yeah. But in other words, it's not, it's not where they should be.

It's not where they should be. And Lee would kind of hound to me about it and I would get that. I really should have done a better job. It was not responsible of me, but it was a very guy thing to do sometimes. And, and she, I think it was by accident when I cleaned the chair one time, I think she had been saying clean the chair and I got the chair all cleaned up and, and I remember she came through and she hugged me and she thanked me. She said, you don't know how much I appreciate you cleaning the chair.

I said, I didn't know which ones were clean or dirty. And she just, she gave me so much praise. I thought I got to do this more often. This was great. And so I started keeping the chair clean because it was like, boy, if that makes her that happy that she'll go out of her way to, uh, to give me that much praise, then obviously this is something I need to do better on.

Yes. I, uh, we have two chairs in the room, but I just pile them up in the floor. You know, I got my semi clean pile. Don't touch that.

I'm going to wear those again. And then one day I cleaned everything up and Jean was like, thank you for that. She didn't have to say anything. I got the hint, but well, it, it takes a lot of effort on my part to not say anything. It really does because I tend to be a little nitpicky. I mean, I want everything in its place. And so I could, I could harp on things like that if I'm not careful. So I have to be very intentional about, you know, just, I can let that slide. There are some things you can let slide, you know, pick your battles. I appreciate that. Lee.

Now what about you, Trey? Are there some things that you can kind of pick your battles on when it comes to communication with Lee? You know, it's for me, I'm a little bit more laid back and so I don't have as many battles to pick. The thing that I have had to work hard on in marriage is I'm a, you know, we're very two, two very different people. And I am an on-time guy.

She's a, if running late were an exercise, she'd be very, very fit, you know? And so she struggles with being on time. And so we've learned to adapt and I've had to be patient and choose to, you know, at times to take my own car somewhere, you know, when we lived close to someplace where we were going. So we've had our, we've had our issues we've worked through and things. Well, but what you're saying there is resolve it so the conflict is minimal to none. You know, if this is a pattern, this is a pattern and you don't have to make it an argument every time.

Find a solution to the pattern that works for the two of you. That's what's so good. I think, you know, what I've experienced is the older we get, the more years we're married, the better we are at that. I think in our early years of marriage, those things that were mo-hills that then looked like a mountain, over time, I think both of us have learned to kind of recognize it as a mo-hill.

It's not a big deal and that's a refreshing place to get to. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guests today are Trey and Lee Morgan and we're covering some of the content in their book, 10 Ways to a Stronger Marriage. And you can learn more about Trey and Lee and their ministry and this great book when you stop by our website.

We've got the link in the show notes. Lee, let me ask you, under this banner of making time for your marriage, which is I think one of the 10 ways you have to prepare this, having four sons and then leaving them at home. That was hard for Jean and I with two sons, partly because of the mischief. So I'm just assuming with four boys, you may have had twice the mischief than we had. But being able to let go of that and get a babysitter, I'm sure they were fine babysitters, someone from church, and then you go out on a date.

But could you really relax as a mom of four boys? You know, I think when they were very, very small, it was harder. But once they were older, you know, it was just like, oh, we, you know, we needed that time away to just to reconnect. And it was good for them. You know, we say that it was good for them to see us. They might have whined and cried and not wanted us to leave. Right.

Sure. But in, you know, big picture, they could see that mom and dad love each other. They need time together. And yeah, so it was it was easy to leave them knowing that it was it was good for us. And I think for young couples, they need to hear that it's OK, especially young moms, because I think they panic and they're not the value of investing in the marriage is quite high.

Right. One of the one of the things we were blessed with was church friends where that had kids the same age as ours. And we would kind of make a deal with them where we'll watch your kids this Friday night if you'll watch our kids next Friday night. And so we would swap babysitting that the kids thought it was awesome because they got to play with their friends two weekends in a row.

And and it saved on, you know, we didn't have to pay money to for a babysitter. Yeah. Yeah. Lee, you mentioned the book about the deer hunters wife. I like this story. I know a few deer hunters who are listening right now. Bill, I'm thinking of you.

But speak to that wife and what she did to engage your husband. Sure. Yeah. She had zero interest in going deer hunting. Who would have thought that?

Right. And yeah, she came up to us after a workshop one time. She said, My husband will never take me on a date.

How do I get him to take me on a date? And she said, All he ever wants to do is deer hunt. And Tracy said, Well, have you been deer hunting with him? She said, No, why would I ever want to go deer hunting? And Tracy said, I tell you what, you go deer hunting with him. And you're probably going to have to ask him if you can go because he's quit asking you to go with him.

Right. And she said, Oh, yeah, he quit asking me a long time ago. But Tracy said, you go on a deer hunt with him.

You have a good time. You know, she did. They had a phenomenal I mean, she said, you know, it was cold, but we cuddled in the deer blind. We watched the sun come up together.

Right. She said, I don't, I don't think they got a deer. But she said, we had such a great day, you know, together.

And then the very next weekend, he took me on a date. Oh, wow. So it started to cascade. I'm thinking the reason they didn't get a deer is because they're talking too much.

I mean, I don't know everything, but I think that's probably it. Trey, you and Lee were both in ministry, but struggled to seek God. This is so common. I mean, I'm making it sound like it's, but all of us, I mean, Christian leaders, pastors of churches, this is common to all of us, that development of spiritual intimacy together.

I think partly because we take it for granted. You know the word, I know the word, we love the Lord. Okay. But how to continue to develop that spiritual intimacy appetite.

Yeah. And, and it's, you know, we, we went to church together, we worship together, we read Bible together, we, we prayed at meals and with family together, we would pray for each other. But there was, there was never a time where we actually sat down and prayed together.

There was, we never climbed into bed at night and said a set of prayers together. And when we realized we were really missing out on this, we became more intentional at going, we've got to start doing this and doing a better job at it. And, and it really opened up some really deep intimacy that we had been missing. You know, we all understand sexual intimacy and intellectual intimacy that comes through conversation, but we really didn't notice the spiritual intimacy that was missing in there. And when we connected that, which includes God, you know, I got to, when she prayed, I got to see places in her heart that, you know, generally were reserved only for God and vice versa.

And so it became such a powerful thing. And we've, we've read new statistics today that talk about couples who pray together on a regular basis in a daily basis, the divorce rate drops to less than 5%, you know, and it's like that there's obviously something to that. And, and we, we need to be good at that.

And then we need to encourage other couples to connect spiritually together. Lee, I think you know, again, I think for men, you're always in dangerous territory when you're speaking for all men. So I'm not trying to say that, but generally speaking, we don't pay attention to this. I mean, we're just, you know, we're out trying to make a living and do the things we need to do. And there's a lot going on and we tend to be very contained as men, you know, those great books, Venus, women are from Venus, men are from Mars and, you know, spaghetti and waffles and all those things.

But that idea that we can compartmentalize and we probably overcome compartmentalize when it comes to communication with our spouse. But from your perspective as a wife, what are the things that you're wanting or needing? Now you get to talk on behalf of all women in terms of developing that spiritual connection.

What are we missing? If you're in a room with 20 guys and you're coaching them, okay, husbands, here's what you need to know, what would you tell them? Just take their hand before you walk out the door to face the world and say, Lord, you know, bless our marriage. Be with us as we're apart from each other today.

Give us wisdom. You know, it doesn't have to be a long drawn out, sit on the couch for 30 minutes prayer session. Those are great too. But just to acknowledge, you know, God, please be a part of our day as we're away from each other. And then also when you come together again in the evening before bed, you know, take each other's hands and say, you know, thank you for our marriage. Please continue to bless our marriage.

Like I said, it doesn't have to be a long drawn out thing. It just acknowledge that God is a part of the marriage. It feels like to what a woman hears in that and her emotional reaction to that is to open up.

Yes. And you know, women we know through our counseling at Hope Restored, one of the big things is a sense of security that they need to feel. And again, men, you know, haven't I provided that? I mean, we get lost in all that.

But for women to feel that you're seeing me, you know what I need. And that prayer just like that is so meaningful. Well, it takes vulnerability for sure to open up in prayer.

And men don't want to feel vulnerable. Am I correct in that? That's true. Yeah. Trey, oftentimes when we're talking about, tell us what we need to know, Lee.

Men will write us and say, why are you man bashing? Yeah. So you got to represent the other part of this. I will. I will. I'll be one of the, because I am a man, I love speaking to men from a standpoint of, you know, as a man, we're really good at being the, I'm going to protect my family and, you know, I'm going to teach my kids to play ball and I'm going to teach them to hunt. I'm going to teach them to fish. And one of the things that God wants us to do is to be that man who not just provides for the family and not does those things, but also leads his family spiritually and to step up and be that guy who says, we're going to pray together at the table, or we're going to go to church together. We're going to read our Bible together. And so it will open new doors in your marriage that you have never imagined. If you'll just take a little bit of time to try to be more the leader, if you're, if you struggle with that in your marriage.

And that's good. Now the other click is speaking to the women. There's 20 women in the room and you're going to say, well, ladies, this is what your husband really needs. So now you're dancing on the floor here.

Go ahead. I have never met a wife yet that has said, I don't want my husband to be the spiritual leader in the house. Most of them are going, I want more of that.

And they love it when their husbands are. You know, one of the things you mentioned in the book, and I think this is great. I just want to get to the reality of it though. Treat your spouse better than they deserve.

That's a little bit of a nuance. And I think the answer I'm looking for from both of you is, okay, how do you get there emotionally? I get it, but it's not going to be that easy. It's not easy. Well, we like to remind each other and we like to remind ourselves that it's, you know, I'm going to treat her better than she deserves because that's how God treats me every day. God is way better to me than I deserve. And I always want him to forgive me quickly.

And I want all these things. And then sometimes we hold these petty grudges against our spouse or against other people. And we've just kind of tried really hard to make it our goal. We're going to treat one another better than they deserve because that's pretty much how God treats us every day. You know, I have a friend, Matt Hurd, who's a former pastor here in town and has his ministry now, but he does a talk on the lavish love of God. And it's such a great reminder, but think of that in the marital context. If we're going to be Christ-like to our spouse, that means the lavish love of God to portray that to them. That's good.

Wow. That is kind of the essence of what you're saying there by treating them better than they deserve. It's that lavish love. It's not what we deserve from God. It's what he chooses to give us. Isn't that amazing?

It is amazing. You know, in a godly marriage, there's no place for selfishness. And that's where we get things wrong. When we're too concerned about what we need, then we are what our spouse needs. And if we can just wake up every morning and say, what can I do today to bless my spouse? You know, I'm not going to worry about myself, but what can I do today to bless my spouse? And then if we carry that through, then chances are they're probably going to be thinking, what can I do to bless her in return?

Well, I love that. In fact, you call it out bless your spouse. But Lee, come on, just between us girls, you don't know my husband. I don't want to bless him. He doesn't deserve a blessing.

Speak to her. Yes. So then you do what you're doing to serve God.

Maybe you just don't even think about, you know, I'm going to pick up these his dirty socks out of the floor because I'm serving God today. You happen to have that example already. I think that's good. No, I think that's so true. And it is an attitude adjustment, right? So much of this is attitude. Yes. You know, okay, God loves me. So therefore I have to love my spouse. That's not the attitude you're looking for, right?

It's the want to. Yes. Let's do this better. Well, what a great concept. I mean, 10 ways. I'm sure we could come up with 11 or 12. But let's go with 10 ways to a stronger marriage.

And Trey and Lee have done a wonderful job pulling this together. Let's end with this one. The couple who is trying to get by, I'm paying the bills. The kids are young, you know, they're pulling on us and she's tired. We don't have time for physical intimacy or, you know, let alone spiritual intimacy and all the other things. What do you say to that couple when they come to your conference and they're the first ones in line going, help.

They're going to have to be intentional. It's going to, they're going to have to, so it's so easy to take our marriage and push it to the back burner and focus on the things that are still important, but less important, the jobs and hobbies and kids and PTA and little league. And we're going to have to move that marriage back to the front burner. And there's so many good helps out there through marriage workshops, through a marriage book, podcast episodes. There's so much information to kind of help you reconnect and re-click. And the main goal is don't give up. We've had times in our marriage that we look back and we go, you know, we've had peaks and we're so thankful in the valleys that we didn't give up. The peaks you never think about giving up, but on the valleys, you're kind of like, is this worth it? And now we've hit a portion of marriage where we're like, we're so thankful we didn't quit in the hard times because we're enjoying the good times. Yeah, that's so good.

It's been great. Thanks for coming in and talking about these things. I'd like to do this if we could. We didn't cover the physical issues or physical intimacy, so let's do that as a web extra. Folks can come to the Focus on the Family website and check out that extended discussion and we'll include that in the package if people come and get the download. Yeah, we have a lot for you at our website and the link is in the program description. Of course, we would appreciate you getting a copy of this book, 10 Ways to a Stronger Marriage from us here.

And then as we've indicated, we have so many resources. Call today and donate generously as you can to support the work that we're doing to help couples fine tune their marriages and then to restore if they need to rebuild and come back from hard places. Donate generously when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459.

We've got all the details in the program description. Also John, we have a great resource for fine tuning your marriage, like you mentioned. It's a free online marriage assessment. You and your spouse can take it, like I said, for free. And it really does help you get a sense of where things are going well in your marriage and identify some areas for improvement. You know, just do it with a smile on your face. Your spouse is going to say, yeah, that is an area you can improve in and it will give you those areas to work on to create a stronger, healthier marriage, which is the goal. Yeah.

Invest 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes and take that free online marriage assessment. It's a great resource. The link is at the website. Trey and Lee, thanks again for being with us. Honored. Thank you for having us.

We're very honored. Coming up tomorrow, we're going to be addressing worry, anxiety and stress. When people start to get healed from anxiety, they start to have this gratefulness.

It's really powerful. It's hard for anxiety and gratefulness to live together. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for joining us today on 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. Culture is changing so fast. How should Christians respond at our next Lighthouse Voices event?

You'll hear from John Stone Street with the Colson Center. We live in what is called a civilizational moment. Civilizations ebb and flow, and we are at a pivotal moment. I think a lot of us have felt that existentially for a long time. Learn how to face this moment with clarity, confidence and courage. Lighthouse Voices is on April 15th, and you can register for the free live stream at lighthousevoices.org.