EP 21. The Lover's Dozen Pt 3. 13 Tips to Develop a Fun and Fulfilling Marriage; Tip #1 Understanding Each Other; A Key Component to a Thriving Marriage including Love Languages, Male/Female Differences, Family Upbringing, and Excess Baggag

Welcome to the Married and Love It Podcast. We are Greg and Linda Smith, your hosts from Raleigh, North Carolina.It is great that you are taking time to invest into your marriage by listening to our weekly podcast. The goal of our podcast is to provide you with a weekly dose of marriage teaching to help you keep focused on your marriage.See it as a freshening up of your marriage, preventive maintenance, a marriage tune up or fanning the flames of romance, love and passion. You could even call it continuing education.We will be covering everything that has to do with your marriage including hot topics like sex, communication, love and much much more. Our teachings are based on Christian principles plus over 47 years of marriage to each other and ministry experience.We want to help you make your marriage great by teaching you how to be married and love it. It is an honor and privilege to have you join us.

Thanks for joining us today. Today we're going to be continuing the lovers dozen which is 13 tips that we followed to see our marriage restored back in 1986.

We encourage you to listen to episodes 19 and 20 because we go more into our background then and we lay a foundation for episode 21. So go back and listen to those.If you haven't listened to them, matter of fact, it probably wouldn't hurt to listen to them again to get it in you and learn from it.Before we get into the the series today, I just want to encourage you to sign up for our newsletter that we're going to be starting within the next three to four weeks give or take.And if you're interested in getting on our newsletter we would need to get your email address so you can go to our website www.marriedandloveit.com or at the end of our show notes, you can click on the link there. It'll take you to our home page to give us your email and get you put on that mailing list.That way you our newsletter which is going to have a lot of good things in it and also stay current with all the activities and things that we're going to be doing through Married and love it. So we're looking forward to that and looking forward to hearing more from you so we can get more information back to you. And we're excited.You know God is doing good things in our life in our marriage and I know God wants to do good things in you. Our goal is to make marriage great.So regardless of what situation or what season is that your marriage is in right now and it's springtime coming in our. In our life now.So let this be a springtime board, as we talked about on episode 19, about a new beginning for you, even if you're doing good, the Bible tells us in different areas of our lives to excel still more. So our goal is to make marriage great. And a foundational scripture that we've been using since we started our Married and Love it podcast.It's Ecclesiastes 9, 9 through 10. And it says, enjoy life. It doesn't say endure. It doesn't say put up with. It doesn't say drag through. It says enjoy life.Say that to yourself, I enjoy my life. Now you can say, I enjoy my marriage if you're not married yet, because it says enjoy life with a woman.And our version says, you can put in there, enjoy life with the spouse whom you love all the days of your life. And that means every day. You know God wants your marriage to be a blessing to you every day.Not every other day, not three weeks out of the month, every day and every week and every month all year long. Set that as a standard. Don't settle for it says, all the days of your life. And whatever your hand finds to do it, do it with all your mights.That means there's some work involved. You got married, but you just don't stop after you plan the wedding and have the wedding, there's a lot more honeydews to do.Don't see it as work. It's honeydews so you can bring honey to your marriage and make it sweet. And I got a scripture that I want to use for this today.It's James 1, verses 22 to 25. And this is a key to success for your marriage and other areas of your life. In James, it says, but prove yourselves doers of the Word.That means you're taking action. Not merely hearers only who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, there you go. You got to hear and you need to do.He says he is like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror and once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten about what type of person he was. But the one who looks intently at the perfect law and I'm going to say looks at the word of God regarding their marriage.It may be listening to a podcast like this one. It may be going to a seminar or to a class you have at church or. Or getting some counseling. It says, the one who looks intently.That means on purpose. That means not just casually listening, but listening with purpose. They'll hear and learn. It says they.They look intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty. And here's the next word. Abides by it. That means applies it. You know, you can hear good teaching on any type of topic.It could be as a cook, could be as your job or whatever, but if you don't abide what they're teaching you, you're probably not going to do a good job at it. And that's what God wants you to do, is to have a successful marriage. But you know what? He gives you the keys. He says, here they are.Plug them in and enjoy life with your spouse all the days of your life. And it says, abides by it, not having become a forgetful here, but an effectual doer. This man, this woman, shall be blessed in what he does.You want success here? And do the word of God. You see, the.The scripture right here is showing us the importance of being intentional, being on purpose, being mindful and disciplined. It shows that the product of our actions, of being a doer, is that we're going to be blessed in what we do.You see the marriage busters in life every day. And a lot of times, moment by moment come in to take our focus off our marriage.We may be doing home life, we may be doing the quote to do list that our spouse or husband may want us to do to get through today. But if we lose the focus of our marriage, then we're leaving that realm of being a doer. And all we're doing is being a hearer.So stay focused, be intentional, keep reading, keep studying, keep learning. But be a doer of the word and apply it so you can be married and love it on purpose.Now, we've been talking about the differences in our marriage, and in the first talk part, we talked about our personality traits or temperaments.And a point I want to bring out is that with all these differences, and that's what step number one is, is the differences that we have as married couples. And there's several we're going to look at, and we're going to try to finish those off today. The first one was the temperaments.But there's something I wanted to bring out when we look at our, our spouses, their differences, their personality, whether you're the male or female, whatever that area we're looking at, is that neither person is right or wrong in their relationship. God made you unique to be you and for your gifts and talents and abilities and love the flow. So neither person's right or wrong.And you may need to work, even though we may need to work on our weaknesses, nobody's right or wrong. And then here's an important one, and this is what I had to do for Linda. But we have to do this all the time.We should give our spouse permission to be themselves. Don't put your spouse in a box.Don't have a preconceived idea how they should be as a man or the woman or husband or wife, or what their background is or what their personality types or bents are. Allow them to be the best person they could be and be who God called them to be.And then use your abilities to come along and be a helper and encourage them. So that's what I wanted to say, kind of as an introduction. So today, this podcast, we're going to get into the five love languages.And I know probably 85, 90% of y'all have heard about the love languages. And just as I said earlier, we can hear and we might do a little bit, but God expects us to break these things, a habit, to be part of us.So what we're going to do is talk about the love languages. And even if you've heard them before, let this be an evaluation. Because have you stayed focused on daily on what your spouse's love language is?I mean, it's a daily activity, otherwise we drift away from it and before long, we're off course and we're not doing what we need to do. Here's some of those acts of love languages, acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time and receiving gifts. Now we'll talk.Break these down a little bit. And I'm sure you're already thinking, well, yeah, I know what I am and this and that, but you may know what you are.But our goal is to know what our spouse is, is because if we're not meeting their tank, if we're not meeting what their love language is, and we're doing it by our way, then that's going to cause some problems. Now for me in our marriage, especially when we first got married, my two, I have one main.Usually you have maybe another one was words of affirmation. I love to hear that I'm doing good, that I did a good job, I'm on track, that I took care of this. Okay. I love to hear words of affirmation.The other one that I like is quality time. It's like when Linda and I first got married, and even now, I still like quality time.Where we can sit down, we're together, we're, we're listening and talking to each other. Maybe we're just taking a walk or on a date or sitting on the couch, maybe even watching a show or just reading, but we're together.So I love quality time. However, I didn't used to be physical touch. Now I'm leaning more to physical touch at times. So these things can change and grow into.

Yeah, different.

Yes.

Love languages.

And that's my lovely wife Linda popping in here now.

Well, mine are of the five is acts of service. I love, I love getting things done for me without having to tell Greg to do it. He just knows what needs to be done.

So I have to have women.

I just had a birthday and he took my car to get it cleaned.And we're going through the season where there's a lot of pollen, poo poo is what I call it, all over our cars and boy did my car ever need to be cleaned. And it, I mean that green poo poo even got inside like along the trims of the doors and stuff.But he filled my love tank when he did the acts of service and.

Give me some more. Yes.

Of affirmation.

Yes, yes, bring it.

Yep, yep. And then my secondary because like Greg said we have usually have a primary and then we have a secondary.And you know that like he said that can change over time.

Yeah.

You know, as you're growing and you kind of, you know, start, you know, like because I, you know, even though my primary is acts of service and then my secondary would be physical touch and that is non sexual physical touch, like rub my back or you know, rub my feet or you know, that kind of thing. But you know what, I'm kind of leaning like you said, you're leaning into certain things. I'm leaning into the gifts.

Well, you know, you don't have to change.

No, no, that's just, you know how time goes and it happens like that. But it's a problem that can arise when we try to love our spouse with our love language.

See, that's what happens.

It doesn't like there if, I mean that's not going to fill their love tank.

Yeah, that's right. When we first, those first few years when we first were married, I was always trying to do what I thought was a love loving actions.And I liked a lot of romantic things, cards or fixing a room up, making it look nice and romantic or giving her Hallmark cards and she was like, oh, those are really nice.

You know, just give me the Money instead.

But, yeah, but then she dishes away. And then once we learned, it was acts of service. So I was doing all those things, and yes, she would like them, but I wasn't.Like she said, I was not filling her love tank. So I had to learn to say, hey, what does Linda need? She wants. She wants action. She wants access, service.So what I have to do, I had to put my radar on and say, how can I meet Linda's needs and be aware of them? I had to listen to her. I had to. To think ahead because she always would tell me, I always love it when people are one step ahead.So I had to make a mental note. Linda likes it when I'm thinking ahead. See, that's part of learning your spouse's love language and being a doer.You've got to make a habit out of it. And I wrote down some notes here. It says, know your spouse's love language. Focus, focus, focus.And it's daily because we can drift away from what their needs are. And before that long, that love tank, as Linda started bringing up, goes, what? Empty?

Yeah, it gets drained. And I had to. With Greg being quality or words of affirmation and quality time, I had to, on purpose.I had to be intentional about thinking, you know what, I need to write, like a little note and stick it in his lunch or stick it in his pair of socks or his jeans pocket or whatever. Whatever that may be. And then the quality time, I had to pay attention to putting my device down.

Yeah.

And whenever. Or, you know, putting a magazine down or get off the phone, don't be on the phone whenever he come home and give him my full attention.

Yeah.

You know, so that he could tell me how his day was or if he just wanted to talk, whatever it would be. But I had to do that on purpose.

And she had to realize that if I'm doing acts of service, I'm sitting there thinking, hey, did she notice I replaced that light bulb before she had.

A chance to tell me. Yeah.

That I did a good job vacuuming the floor, etc. Etc. Because that was my affirmation. That was like my reward for being, hey, I am the man.I changed the light bulb, and she didn't even know the light bulb had gone out. So I had to tell her that it went out so she knew I fixed it.

Yeah, that's right. So ask yourself this. Am I filling my spouse's love tank or am I draining it? Okay, so let's get. Let's get on to the next point.

Male and female difference going to male and female differences.

All right, now the book that we recommend is by Bill and Pam Farrell, which again, this going to be in the show notes for you. So you can see the title of the book is Men are like waffles and Women are like Spaghetti and wow, howdy, is that ever true.

Oh, yeah.

You know, men are in their little boxes and women are like bola spaghetti all over the place. And men are very simple, you know, and it's pretty easy to see about the boxes, but women are pretty complicated.

Well, that means in a waffle you got a picture of waffle. It's got all these little boxes inside the circle. And that's the way men's work. Everything's put in a box.

Yeah. And there's actually in that waffle, I would say more than just one nothing box for a man. Totally nothing. Do I have an amen sisters on that one? Yeah.Yes, yes. So now even think about this. When, when you're making love, women, their brains are spaghetti brains. When you're having physical intimacy, think of.

A bowl of spaghetti needles and, and.

Everything can be going through their brain at once and it can really mess up the love making time. But a man is in his box. And that box would be called the love box, right, dear?

Yes.

Yep, the box. And there might be several love boxes could be in that waffle. They're very focused on what they want to get taken care of, what they want to do.

Well, what happens with that spaghetti? That represents all the thoughts coming in.

Yeah.

Getting tangled up.

Yeah.

And so instead of focusing on the pleasure in the moment of making love to her husband, she's thinking about everything out there.

What she forgot to do that day or what she's got to do tomorrow or what, what's happening with the kids, all of that. So it does, it messes up your love making time.

Which we're going to talk about making love and how they'll combat that more in other episodes when we talk about sex or fizzle or sizzle and such.

Right.

So but a woman has to untangle a little bit of spaghetti and change her thoughts to get back into the man's box there.

But just understanding that about your spouse, just understanding that this is what's going on, it is going to keep the men from getting angry or offended.

Yeah.

You know, because that, that's a big part, you know, when, when you understand your spouse as part of understanding them.

We talk about male and female differences. We recommended the book and you know what male and female Differences are talked about, made jokes about.If you listen to comedians, so you probably got a pretty good idea that you're different. But you still have to think a lot of times, why is my wife or my husband acting like that?Well, it's because that's the way they could be bent to act. And we got to realize that and understand it and allow room for growth.And if there's an issue going on, then you learn how to communicate and deal with those issues.

And men, they want the headlines, but. And this is normal, they want the headlines of the women want the fine print, the details. Yes, men are surface. But on.In relationships, men are surface and women are very relational. Normally. That's normally how it is.

You know, if you ever thought about. You ever been out to eat at a restaurant and you got maybe three or four couples there?And the man, I'll say, you know, I got to go to the restroom, or he'll get up and walk. And all the guys stay at the table because they're going to go do their business. But could you imagine if they did what the women do?You know, one of the ladies says, I need to go to the powder room. You want to come with me?

And all of them get up and.

They all go in there and go.

To the restroom together.

Can you imagine if your husband got up and about three guys followed him to the restroom?

That would be funny.

That's just the differences in how we communicate and how we socialize and such. You know, men especially, and you get into the area of sex or looking at their. Their wife, they are very visually oriented, okay?They get turned on by seeing their wife dress certain ways or undressed there. I call it going on red alert. And a lot of people say, well, men are that way and women aren't that way.But I beg the difference somewhat, because I know women are visually stimulated. Because you can watch shows.

Is pretty nice, huh? The six pack.

Yeah. So we know.But the thing is, a lot of times the wives that, you know, they can say, oh, that guy's nice looking, but if it's a movie star or something, they're also thinking, well, that guy's a good husband. He's got a good role going on. He knows she knows the story behind it, but it's not stimulating her necessarily the way it does a guy.So sex is really just as important to a man and a woman.And unfortunately, society's come around and taught people that, well, women just aren't into sex and they're not visually stimulated and they don't want it as much as a man. A healthy relationship, a husband and wife should have really the same type of sexual desires.Now there is higher, lower desires and that stuff we'll talk about. And that's normal. That is normal for one of you to have a lower desire and a higher desire.But if there's issues going on with that past, just arousals and stuff, then maybe there's things that need to be looked at. But that's another topic.

Right.

So male and females are different. Enjoy the differences and have fun.

So family upbringing.

Yes.

All right.

That's just talking about how you were brought up before you got married. I was an only child and I.

Was from a family of six.

And my home, since I was the only one there other than my mom and dad and a little poodle that didn't bark much, was quiet.

But not me.

I had no competition for anything.

My house was a house of chaos.

Oh, yes.

Running, barking dogs and kids screaming around and everybody fighting her, too.

I went to therapy after the first time I went to Linda's house.

I think you still need it, right?

Probably.

Okay. So how were you raised? Think about this. How. How did your parents bring you up?

Right.

Think about that.

Yes.

Now, in Greg's family, from what he tells me, there was not much physical touch.

No.

Yeah. And. And even what. Tell me more about that.

See, my dad was not a physical touch person at all. Me and our relationship was. We had a good relationship, but I didn't have physical touch from him.Probably normal or less with my mom, although I was a lot closer. Me and her talked a lot more than my dad, which probably put me more into being concerned about what she thought.But unfortunately, I got under where I wanted to please them all the time. But my dad, he. We just never got into a good father son relationship that got into the mentoring.He did it the best he could, but there was no physical touch. And later in my life, with my kids and other relatives and people, or even strangers, I'm not a physical touch person.That's why when Linda wanted back rubs or she wanted more hugs, sure, I wanted to hug her, I guess, as a normal male guy, but that was not my love language. And that's not the way I was raised. I wasn't raised to spend time with my kids, to disciple them and mentor them.I mean, I heard about it and I did stuff as I was a good parent. But when I see some people get it certain ways, I'm thinking that was not part of my life. But, you know, what happened? My dad didn't have it.Both his parents were alcoholics. He. He lived on his own. A lot of times he was living in people's garages, getting his own food.Lied to get into military when he's like 15 or 16 years old, and that's all he knew. So that's what he brought into my family, raised me that way. So then I had to learn and adjust, and I still am.So your upbringing and Linda's had things in her past with her family affects us, and we need to realize those. But we don't use the man as excuse. We use them as an opportunity to.

Learn and grow and to understand ourselves. There's some differences in the family upbringing in, like, mealtimes. What's that like in your. What was that like in your family? How about some.Like, I was talking to somebody, a couple, and she said that her background was Italian. So it was very normal that if they got angry at each other, they yelled and screamed at each other, and that was just very normal.

Yeah.

So when she came into her marriage, her husband was not that way at all. He was not Italian. Matter of fact, they were.Does what their family did was they would hide like they would go silent on each other for three or four days, she said. So they had to figure out. And they had been married 59 years. And I had been asking her how, okay, tell me some of the secrets of your 59 marriage.And this is the thing they had. One of the things they had to figure out is to understand how their family upbringings made a difference. So talking louder, quiet.

Yeah.

Holiday traditions.

And then. So holiday traditions, you need to discuss what you like.Because one person may love all the holidays and the other person's, ah, I could take and give them. We didn't do it when I was young. That can cause problems. And you need to take and give and come across. Right.Religious or church backgrounds can be an issue.That's why it's important that you talk about that when you're early, even when you're dating, to say if you're different religions, different beliefs or different denominations, you can say, oh, that's not going to be a problem.

But what can happen until you have children?

Until you have children. Because one of you all of a sudden says, well, I want to go to our church and they're going to do water baptism.And the other one goes, well, my church doesn't do baptism like that. We do it this way, or we don't believe in that. I don't want them to go to your church or we don't want to.

Celebrate your in laws maybe saying, yeah, so that's going to cause conflict in the home. Yeah.

Things you got to think about is that family upbringing. Let's go a couple more here.If you're raised as in divorce situation, you've had a divorce in your family or you're doing single parenting, that can impact your, your marriage.

Also money. How were you brought up to be a spender or a saver? How was, what did your parents teach you? You know, and different family roles.Like the man was always the one that mowed the yard and took out the trash and the woman was always the one that would cook and be expected to clean up. Well, you know, it should be a partnership. And you know, I loved mowing the yard. I thought that was great.But Greg was like, I'm not gonna let you mow the yard. And I'm like, why? I love it. It's okay. You know, and so I was.So there's just certain things that, you know, you got to realize what your family background may be in those family roles. Right?

Yeah.

And like you said, on holidays all that would go for like family celebrations or birthday parties. We know some couples where the husband, he wants no attention at all on his birthday. None. None at all on his birthday.But the wife is thinking, she was always brought up having special birthday parties and, and birthday cakes and had a lot of attention on her birthday. He might never give that to her. She can't understand why. And then she wants to have birthday cake and have everybody come over, surprise party.And he doesn't want to have anything to do with it. Nothing. Right, Right. So that can cause conflict in the home.

Yeah. And that's why you gotta talk about the. And that's why I said earlier, nobody's right or wrong. It's not right or wrong to have birthday parties.But you got to find out what your spouse wants and adapt to them. Respect what their desires are. For the one who wants to have a party party for the one that doesn't, well, then honor them by that.But even like when people, they come from divorce homes or they've had a divorce that impacts people's decisions on how they're going to live their life in the future.I was just talking to somebody the other day and we're going into the excess baggage part here, but the two people are older and they're, they're dating. Both of them have been divorced. And they're saying, we are taking this slow. We don't even know if we want to get married again. Why?Because they had such a bad deal with their previous marriage and it impacts people.

People.

So anything else on that one?

Well, cultural backgrounds, you know, because you, you, you might be married to an African American and you are Caucasian, you know.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, they are Hispanic. And there are some differences. Yeah, a lot of differences.So that's something to take into consideration and pay attention to and understand those differences. Right.

That's why, if somebody's listening, you're not married or you're just newly married. These are things you need to be thinking of.Because this may not pop up for four or five, six years, but look at how your family upbringing is impacting you or could impact you.

And that's true.

Probably will.

Yeah. And so that does kind of blend into the excess baggage.

Yeah.

So that, that excess baggage comes from life experiences, like from your parents or maybe, like Greg said, your overall family life, the role models. Maybe it's an abusive situation. Maybe it could be physical, maybe it's just emotional or might be sexual abuse.

Sexual abuse? Yeah.

Yeah. And then what? What, dear? There's what, Premarital sex.

Yeah. If you've had sex before marriage.

Yeah. That's gonna make several different.

Several different people. Maybe it was good or wasn't, but that's going to bring expectations into your marriage.Or it could be where you're start comparing yourself or the other person knows about it and they feel threatened because they feel like you're comparing them.And another thing with premarital sex is the purity culture that came out a few couple of decades ago, I guess it was in the 90s, give or take, and they were teaching people, no sex, no sex. Got to be pure. Got to be pure.

Which is until you get married, which is good. Yeah.

That would even. Even if they painted a pict that sex is good after marriage.There's lots of stories where people get married and they came out of the purity culture and it's like all of a sudden they can make love and they. And they do it and it's not good.And they're blown away because they said, well, if we held off on sex and didn't do any of that and we wait till they get married, it's going to be heaven on earth. And you know what? It's not. So that's another way.

Well, no, I mean, it may not be for them.

It may not be.

Okay, so what you're saying is they had an expectation out there.

Yes.

So it might have Been an unrealistic expectation. Right. So then they end up being disappointed.

Yes.

And that goes into a whole nother story, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And they can't shake it for a while. They may have to get therapy for that.

That's true.

Your past dating life, previous marriages, all those things impact you. And I just thought of an example earlier. Years ago, back in 1999, I was t boned and basically killed. And I was in like a Ford Taurus.And after that wreck, it was hard for me to get into small cars where the legs are crunched up, or you're real tight, or you get in and the, the consoles right next to your legs and the car doors right there and you're not far from the dashboard. I was almost claustrophobic. Why? Because all I could think of was being in a tight car and getting in a wreck and am I going to get wiped out again?And I, I just tie that into past experience. That was baggage. It took me a while to get into small car. I still don't like to get them that much. But I wanted a big car. I wanted room.But because of my experience, it caused me to, to dread getting into small cars. I was like paranoid.And then even coming up the intersections, I doubled and triple checked to see if anybody was going to run a red light or a stop sign, which is probably a good idea. But that's just kind of a little way to show how those experiences can impact us in our lives.

Yeah, they make a mark on your life.

And the longer I go, the more I can get into different types of cars. But our past is, is so prevalent in our lives and can impact us and we got to deal with it.

And sometimes the excess baggage, it may not surface until later on in your marriage.

Yeah, that's right.

That when that bag, all of a sudden, what this, what. Where'd that piece of luggage come from? Where did that bag.

Lost piece of luggage at the airport. All of a sudden they bring up, hey, here's your luggage from three years ago. We found it in China or somewhere.

Right.

You open it up and you go, oh, yeah.

So as we're talking about all these different things, in some cases, professional counseling or therapy may be needed. So consider that as we're going along. But in closing on understanding your spouse, realize that you and your spouse, you are different.And these are just a few of the ways that we discussed where you are going to be different, saying you're different.

And that's where God wants you to realize the differences and enjoy them.

Yeah. That's right. Now, by recognizing these differences, you can see then how you can adjust and adapt in your marriage relationship.And by understanding all these differences that we've talked about, then acting on what you've learned, you know, and then you realize that you're investing into your marriage when you recognize and you act on what you've learned about this. Now, Pastor Ed Ainsworth said this. If you're not working on your marriage, then you're working on a divorce.

That's so true.

Yeah. Think about. Pause.

Yes.

Pause a minute and think about that.

Yes.

So have fun with these differences. Actually, it does become almost a game. You can have fun with realizing.Well, you know, as you're making discussions and we'll talk about a few little honeydews, understand your spouse and you can be married and love it.

Yeah.

On purpose, right, Derek?

Yeah. So communicate about your difference. Like Linda said, have fun about them.If there's something that's bugging you or you got a problem going on, communicate about it. Talk about it. You're not enemies. Nobody's right or wrong. And give your spouse permission to be themselves. Give yourself permission to be yourself.But let's be the best selves that we can be.

Right.

So we're excited about what God's going to be doing in your marriage as you celebrate your differences and learn how to adapt and change.And even when you've been married 47 and a half years like us, there's still things that can come up that we have to deal with that may show up up, that been suppressed for.

A long time or this is lost luggage.

Sometimes you get to be old and you become an old fart. You don't want to change, but you still got to think about things and how can you be a blessing to your spouse?

Right.

So as we get into the homework, I would just want to remind. Yeah. The honeydews. I just want to remind you again to go on our website, www.marriedandlovet.com and sign up for our newsletter.And we're gonna have some good stuff coming out and invite your spouse to listen to these episodes that we're doing on the Lovers Dozen so you can listen to them and talk about them and apply them so that you can be married and love it on purpose.

Actually, that's one of the homework. So one of the keys, one of them is to discuss with your spouse. Maybe if you do a date night or something.

Oh, yeah.

And talk how, how you can fill your spouse's love tent love tank, not drain it.Fill it and then also did we mention that the love languages in our show notes that there's going to be their website and they have like a little test that could be taken. So that's also going to be in our show notes. Wanted to let you know about that.

Yeah.

Now also.Okay, so number two, on your honeydews, what are the main male and female desert differences that you might be see operating in your marriage and how have they impacted your marriage?So, you know, have a good laugh, sit down like Greg said, sit down and you know, talk about them and you know, make that part of your date night that you can talk your discussion with each other.And number three, talk about how your family's upbringings are different from each other, if you got the holiday tradition, differences, that sort of thing. And then it also do an inspection to see if there's any of the excess baggage in your marriage that needs to be dealt with or disposed of.Open those suitcases, that excess baggage and empty them out.

Yeah.

How? Okay. So when we go on a trip, sometimes we've packed our bags and it takes many days, it seems like, to unpack, clean out, put our stuff away.Don't let that happen in your marriage. Don't. When you recognize these excess baggage areas, empty out that baggage and clean it out and move on. Move on. And then what is another one?What is our last honeydew?

Dear, let's pray over all these areas that need some attention.And with that, when you look at all these different, the differences, the baggage, your upbringings and you talk about them and all of a sudden you might have a light bulb go off in your marriage and your spouse or yourself and go, oh, that's what's, that's what that means. And that can set you free in certain areas of your marriage. It can cause resentment to go away, forgiveness to come, understanding to come.And God says when we take care of all those things and we get on the same page, nothing is impossible in our marriage. Now to seal all this up, what we talk about every time, 10 second kiss time. This ought to be becoming.If you're listening to our episodes on a regular basis, our podcast, these should become a habit for you, coming and going and even throughout the day, take time for your 10 second kiss. Get your timer, set it for 10 seconds, maybe graduate the 15 or 20 seconds, say, hey Siri, set my timer and lay a good one on them.See what can happen. It affect you. Then it could affect the rest of your day. So thanks for joining us.We look forward to talking to you next week on our next episode of Married and Love It.

Remember, yes, you can be married and love it on purpose.

Thank you for investing into your marriage by listening to the Married and Love it podcast.Be sure to be a part of the ripple effect of making marriage great by sharing this podcast with other couples to equip them to be married and love it.Also, subscribe to and follow us on your favorite platform and be sure to check out our website at www.marriedandlovet.com where you can learn more about Married and Lovett and contact us with any questions or comments that you may have. And remember with God that you have a future and a hope and you can be married and love it on purpose.