EP 46. The Formula for a Successful Marriage PT 2; Daily Habit's, Being All In 100%

Foreign.

Welcome to the Married and Love it podcast.

We are Greg and Linda Smith, your host from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Hey, thanks for joining.

We are going to be continuing the formula for successful marriage.

And this is part two.

Now, there's four parts to this formula.

This is episode 46 in 45, episode 45, we covered parts one and two.

So now we're going to go into part two.

This is going to be good because last one was excellent.

And today we're going to finish off the formula for successful marriages.

And if you follow these four things, things that we're talking about, they're going to lay a foundation for all the other things that you can really do in your marriage.

Our base scripture is Ecclesiastes 9, verses 9 through 10, and it says, and this is a married and love it version because we change spouse, I mean wife to spouse here.

So if it sounds weird to you, that's what's going on.

But it says relish and enjoy, doesn't say endure, relish and enjoy life, your life, your everyday life from here until you go up to meet Jesus, enjoy your life with your spouse.

God's given you somebody to go through your journey with and have fun with.

They're not, they're not there to irritate you and to bug you and to be a thorn in the flesh or to have a good day or to be a roommate.

You can go to college and be able to get a roommate.

They're there to enjoy life with you.

And God gives a prescription on how to do that.

So enjoy life with the spouse that you love.

Everybody say love, love, love that you love.

That's an action word there.

Each day, God is saying every day you need to be loving your spouse.

Now that's easy to say, but it can be harder to demonstrate.

Each day of your life.

No, that's not every other day.

It's every day.

Not not once a month.

It's every day.

And then to kind of put a little umph on this verse 10 says, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

Now, we're going to talk about each day here in a minute, and we're going to talk about doing it in with all your might.

Now, we already mentioned some key words, I emphasized them, which are enjoy your life with your spouse and love them daily.

Now, enjoy.

And this is a little bit of review from last episode.

But enjoy means to anticipate.

I mean, do you wake up in the morning looking forward to a day that you're going to be able to be with your spouse and it's not a vacation time?

Maybe you're getting ready to go to work.

You're saying, oh, man, I get to go get up in the morning and pray with my wife or my husband.

We're going to have prime time together.

Or we're gonna get all the kids out of the house on time today.

But we're doing it as a team, and I'm glad he or she's part of my team.

You're anticipating getting home in the evening.

You're con.

You're anticipating a date night coming up, or you're getting somebody to come watch your kids.

You're looking forward to enjoying your life.

You're anticipating.

It's wow.

A Christian merits ought to be wow.

We ought to be set in the standard.

We ought to be excited to be married.

That when our.

When our kids are watching us as they're growing up, they ought to be saying, you know what?

I want a marriage like my mom and dad have.

And that means they're going to see you happy and they're going to see you upset sometimes.

But you know what the key is there?

They're going to see you if you happen to get mad at each other.

They're going to see you in another 10 or 15 minutes, kissing and making up or moving on with your life.

They're not going to see dad walking around the house having a pity party, our mom just shutting up and going to the room for a while.

They're going to see you.

They're going to see how to experience life.

All right.

Should be exciting.

Yeah.

Taking care of the kids all day, coming home and doing all the chores at night's not always exciting, but it should be exciting.

Romantic, having fun, a love affair, not having to endure or settle for your life.

That's Your journey together again.

It's your dreams and goals, your ups and downs.

And with your spouse again, you should be partners, teammates, best friends and lovers, not roommates.

Okay, so.

Right.

Let's just review minute our version, the married and love it virgin, the scripture.

I like this one.

Your marriage should be, wow, exciting, fresh, sizzling, a married affair, rewarding and strong.

Best friends, lovers, partners in life.

You pursue goals and dreams together.

And here's a biggie.

When the storms of life hit, you stay unified as a couple.

That's key right there.

This is so true.

And you.

But the staying unified as a couple, that's very important.

And I want to highlight that again.

We talk about this, but the last 13 years, 14 years of the stuff that Linda and I have gone through, we have been able to stay united on the same page with all the different things that have gone on.

Again, it's not our marriage relationship, but it's marriage busters that hit.

But you stay united.

You know what?

We get together, we'll hold hands and pray and we'll speak God's word over our situation.

And we stay united, we stay the course and we come out winners and we overcome.

And then you're celebrating as a team.

Yeah, that's right.

And you know, we pass through lot of seasons in our marriage and life.

And you know, we want to hear from our listeners that they can, that they are saying during these seasons.

Yeah.

And as they pass from one season to the next, that they are married and love it.

Yeah, you know, that's right.

That through different teachings and through life's ventures together, that they can say we are married and love it.

That's what we're all about, isn't it, dear?

Yeah.

And there's going to be seasons that are heavenly and then there's going to be seasons that are a battle.

Not that you're battling each other, but there's a battle to get through, to, to overcome, to endure those times.

But the whole goal, stay strong, stay steady, apply the principles we're talking about in this last two episodes that we're doing.

And you can do that.

Yeah.

And long as you're bringing, get God in there to help you because he gives you the grace and the peace and the power when you can't do it.

That's true.

Now you can learn more about that.

Go back to the original 1, 2, 3 episodes.

We talk about having the God factor working in your marriage.

It's a game changer.

It is.

Now, here's the two first parts of the formula in episodes 45, number one, which I kind of highlighted while ago, is enjoying.

But you have to decide to enjoy your marriage.

We break that down in the last episode.

What does it mean to enjoy and to decide to enjoy?

The other one is most powerful is put on love.

See, love is a decision.

It is.

You gotta build new habits for it.

You got to take off your old.

The part of you that wants to argue the salt to have a pity party or to be selfish or just not want to do anything.

You got to take that off and put on love.

See, it's easy to put on love, guys, when you're thinking, all right, tonight's the night, but you need to put on love before then because love is taking out the garbage.

It's helping with the kids.

So we're going to talk about that more in lots of episodes.

So put on love's number two.

Enjoy is number one.

So, Linda, do we have some announcements?

We do, yes.

So we have a newsletter that we're putting out now weekly, and we'd love for you to sign up and give us your email address.

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Somebody you think needing to hear it or you think they would enjoy it because everybody can little could use a good little marriage, a little dose.

Yeah, right.

And tell your family and friends about it.

Everybody knows somebody, right?

Somebody that's married or wanting to be married.

Somebody that is their grandchild, their own children that they want to avoid.

Maybe different questions they would have in marriage, but they don't feel comfortable bringing it to mom and dad.

Let us do it, you know, let us do the teaching.

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Get some good exciting stories and marriage teaching.

Share this episode and tell everybody about it.

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All right, so let's move on.

Number three, build daily habits.

Make them a lifestyle.

See, it said in that our scripture, Ecclesiastes daily do these things daily, put on love.

So there's habits that we need to do in our marriage.

For us to excel in our marriage, we need to do things regularly, daily, not just once a month, like we said earlier.

All right, well, here's the Scripture I want to share.

Ephesians 5, 15, 17.

Therefore, be careful how you walk.

Not as an unwise man, but.

But as wise, making the most of your time.

Because the days are evil.

So then not, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Now, we did a marriage and love it.

Paraphrase here for this.

It says, be intentional in your marriage.

In other words, be careful how you walk.

Pay attention to it by making the most of your time.

You see, that's where we're every day you've got to look at, what can I do today?

How can I make the most of my time?

How can I seize my day?

Because if you're not intentional on your time, the distractions will come and the marriage busters are going to come in.

And that's when we need to remember what God wants.

And he wants you to enjoy your marriage during all of these distractions and everything that comes against you.

So be intentional in your marriage.

Make the most of your time.

Be a wise man.

Yeah, be a wise man.

Be a wise woman.

Yes.

So, right.

He's warning us.

Because the days, it says the days are evil.

That would be your distractions and stuff coming in.

Because you know what?

You may happen, you may say, today, oh, I'm going to call my wife for lunch.

Distractions come up.

The boss comes in, the kids get sick, the car broke down that day.

And all of a sudden you look down at your watch and say, it's 2:30.

It's too late to do that.

I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll do it tomorrow.

What we call.

We talked about being spontaneous sometimes to be the wife saying, I want to call my husband.

I know he's probably in between meetings and I just want to call and tell him, I can't wait for you to get home.

I got something exciting going on.

And if you do that, he's going to get that call and be on cloud nine.

He's not going to know.

He doesn't know.

It might be a to do list for all he knows.

But you go, oh, shoot, I forgot about it.

Oh, I don't want to interrupt them.

So what happened?

You had a spontaneous moment right there where you could have done something.

You could have made the most of that time when you got that thought.

And it could have totally changed your husband's afternoon.

He may have needed it right then, but your whole key is make the most of your time.

And when a time arrives for you to do something, if you haven't planned and it comes to your mind, take it.

Seize the day.

Seize the day.

That is really good.

Because if you make the most of your time and then we're going to begin to override the distractions and the marriage busters because we're doing things that we need to do daily to create success.

Because we got to remember, God wants you to enjoy your marriage.

That's right.

And you know, we've been given 24 hours in our day, so how are you going to be spending your 24 hours?

How much of that time are you going to give to your spouse?

So seize the day.

Take the moment while you can.

Daily.

Focus on your marriage.

Do things to serve, to build and to strengthen your marriage on a daily basis.

Doesn't have to be any big thing, just a quick little simple something, you know, but it just lets your spouse know that you're thinking about them and that they're on your mind.

Ask yourself, what is one thing that you can say or do to express love towards your spouse?

Well, there you go.

We just gave you that one thing is to just take a moment, send a quick text, and you're on your way.

A little sticky notes.

Little sticky note.

And you're on your way to let them know.

You know, you could wake up in the morning, like, and say, what can I do to show my wife I love her today?

Same thing for the wife.

What can I do to show my husband?

What can I do?

What's one little thing?

Like Linda just said, maybe it is just a sticky note.

And I know we got some more examples.

But see, that's being intentional on your day.

Yeah.

That you're waking up.

You're automatically setting yourself up.

Oh, what can I do?

I can do this.

And then you start planning that, because otherwise it'll just, it'll be a wisp.

Wisp of a thought to help on that is to.

Everybody's got their phone that has a little timer in it.

Yeah.

So set yourself a little timer to send that text.

Like, say, hmm, it's about 2 o' clock in the day and you just want to send a text message or call and leave a voice message and just somewhere in your day that works for you.

You know, so maybe you're taking a break at work and you just think, oh, oh, I can send a little message to my wife or my husband and just let them know I'm thinking about them and can't wait to see him at home today, you know?

You know, some people may say, well, that's not really romantic to sit there and Use your timer.

Well, you know what we set, we set reminders for a lot of things in our life.

Oh, I gotta call the babysitter day.

You put it on your to do list.

I need to call the doctor's office today.

I need to call my mom or somebody.

It doesn't hurt.

Especially while you're learning to develop habits, because that's what we're talking about, develop that habits.

Before long, once you've done it long enough, you won't need those things.

But say, hey, oh, on the way home today, I want to stop and pick up my wife this one item at the store she's been talking about.

And I'm going to surprise her.

Oh, I'm going to bring home dinner tonight.

So you put a little note on there, a little timer in your to do lid.

That's a good one.

You gotta write yourself little notes to do that.

Write yourself a sticky note to remind you to give your wife a sticky if you have to, you know, because we get lots of the goods.

I did.

But we have to be the intentional because the Bible said what make the most of your time.

But if you don't plan your time and organize it, even in your love life, so to speak, you're not going to get things done that need to be done.

So then the distractions in the marriage busters can come in even worse.

Because remember, your goal is to enjoy life with your spouse, right?

And to do things that help to serve to build.

So just a couple ideas that you can do is to have a walk and talk, put that on the calendar, to get together with your spouse and do a little walk and talk.

And another one would be to sit down and reconnect from the day, you know, maybe take five, 10 minutes.

That's all it takes.

Or like we talked about just now, is a simple text or a sticky note.

All those things are just, just things that can be done that don't take a lot of time, but they speak volumes of love to your spouse.

And you know, it takes, can take some work.

And I know some of y' all are going, oh, this is great, but you, you're not at the age where you still got two or three kids at home.

You're absolutely right.

But that means you just have to get a little more creative.

And maybe you maybe take the walk and talk and you got, you're pushing the stroller or maybe you can't do the walk and talk, but you get, you get a, you, you find the time where you and your spouse could just sit down for 10 minutes if it's all it is, and talk for a few minutes, rub feet, back rubs.

But take that time.

You've gotta develop.

You got to get creative.

I know back when we were.

Had our kids at home, we found ways to do things so we could sneak away for a minute because the kids at different ages can.

You can do different things.

So get creative.

That's a whole nother topic.

Okay.

But it takes discipline.

It takes creating habits.

Anything else on your part there?

Text phone.

Do you remember the dating days are dating?

Oh, yeah.

Tell me about that.

Yeah.

And let's just go back in time.

I remember, and I'm sure everybody else is like this.

Me and Linda would spend half an afternoon together, and on the way home from seeing her, I would.

I didn't have a cell phone then.

No, I had a phone in my room.

Went in my garage where I worked on my motorcycles and stuff.

I would call her up and we would breathe on the phone for another hour and a half.

Say a thing.

You know what I'm saying?

And you guys have been there, so don't make.

Don't look at me weird.

Or.

Nowadays, some of the younger.

Some of y' all younger ones probably text all day long.

So that's another thing which stops people from having good conversations.

They don't know how to talk to people anymore because everything's in a text, you know.

But let me get back to it.

But when we were dating and engaged, we made time to talk.

Oh, I got to be with my honey.

I got to be with my.

My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my.

My fiance and such.

We need to have that intensity even after we're married.

Yes.

So carve out that time.

Make that time.

You know, it's just like making habits.

I remember when I was.

Went on an eating program to lose the weight I had lost.

I had to change my eating habits.

I had to go to smaller portions.

I weighed my food.

I ate so many times a day.

I remember I created habits.

If we were going to a restaurant, I knew what was going to be on the menu.

I would bring my own salad dressings for things.

We go to a party somewhere.

I bring my own food.

I developed habits and it got to.

When I lost the weight over 60 pounds, those habits kicked in and I didn't have to think it about anymore.

I know how to do my food at home now.

Lately, I've been real good on that.

But those habits kept me going to keep the weight off.

Same thing when you get married, the habits that you Use to help win your spouse.

Keep those things going, but get it in your marriage because after you've done it for a while, it's going to be easier to keep going because it gets ingrained in you.

Okay.

Another daily habit is to invest into your marriage by listening to a podcast like this or reading books or an audible or something that you can do daily.

Or maybe it's every couple days you get a chance to put your headphones on.

But create a habit of investing into your marriage and into your spouse because remember, you want to enjoy your marriage all, all the days of your life every day.

You don't want to start off strong and fade out.

Yeah.

Life.

Well, you know what?

Some people don't have daily habits yet.

That's true.

They have to find one.

And so if that's you, then think about something.

Pick that one habit that you want to start and start working on it.

You know, like a good one would be the ten second kiss.

And we'll tell about.

We'll tell you if you're not familiar and have it hard what the 10 second kiss is.

We'll be closing and explaining that a little bit.

But that's a really good habit.

Yeah.

To start with, right?

Yeah, I think it's great.

Like she said, pick just one type of thing that you can start doing daily to say one thing, one thing a day.

Some of you guys or girls, you did four or five in one day.

Your wife was.

A husband's gonna be thinking, what's.

What are they up to?

Oh yeah, they up to.

You're up to love number four now.

Okay.

All right.

It's the last.

Okay.

Be all in.

Yes.

A hundred percent committed.

Because verse 10 says this.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

Remember when you got married, I'm assuming at some point you two took each other's hands and you said some type of vow.

Hopefully it had some commitment in it.

And I know a lot of days people get up there and see all these lovey dovey words and.

But there's no commitment to it.

But you said, I'll be here forever.

I'm going to love you, I'm going to serve you.

I'm going to help create a good marriage for you through sickness and health and poor and what, richer or poor, all those type of things.

But you held hands and you said, I'm here for you.

You looked at each other's and you made a commitment that you're going to take, do what it takes to have a strong marriage.

And that's what God's saying now.

Put your all into it.

Just because you said I do, you need to keep your hands to the plow, so to speak.

You need to be all in.

Don't, don't back off.

Do everything you can to see your marriage succeed and to see your spouse be who all they're called to be.

So you two can be all you're to be to get with as a couple.

I remember back when I was in grade school or first year junior high somewhere, I was on a little league baseball team.

And I remember I got up the bat and I swung and I actually hit the ball and I hit a little slow thing to the short stop and I would start to run down the base and it was, I could see it was going right for the short stop, so I slowed down and of course they threw the ball over and I was out as soon as I turned around.

Coach Diaz, I can remember his name in front to me and in front of all the baseball field and everybody around, he says, don't you ever stop running.

And so far that has been ingrained in everything I try to do.

Don't ever stop running because you don't know what's going to happen when you put all your effort into it.

You don't know.

Maybe it looks like you say, I'm putting everything I can into my marriage.

I don't think anything's going to change.

You never know.

That short stop could have been.

Could have made a mistake.

He could have looked up and the ball gone between his legs.

He could have thrown it and the guy on first base missed it.

He could have thrown it and it was way off base.

I could have, I could have been safe.

I could have even gone to second base.

But because I slowed down, it didn't matter because if, you know, if they messed up, I wasn't going to the base.

So don't ever stop running.

Right?

Don't ever give up on what you're doing.

Put your whole effort into your marriage.

That's an attitude to have.

That's attitude we should have, is to do that 100%.

Not so many times people get married and said, well, I'll give 50 and they get 50.

No, that's, that's not the way it works.

No.

You give a hundred, you're going to.

Reap what you sow.

Oh, well, that's no good.

Yeah, yeah.

Go the extra mile.

Do what you must to put on love, develop them habits and work on your marriage.

You decide even if your spouse doesn't Maybe they haven't engaged with that idea yet.

You decide to give a hundred percent, and like Greg said, you are going to reap what you sow.

You're gonna.

It's gonna come back on you.

Good karma.

Right?

Right.

Poor communication.

If you've got poor communication going on in your marriage, we'll do something about it to improve it.

That's going all out.

That's going all out.

Right.

I hear so many times, me and my husband, me and my wife can't communicate.

We just have communication problems.

Talk about not communicating, find out why and do something about it.

Right.

How about if you got a poor sex life?

Well, study and find out.

That's right.

Again, do what it takes to improve there.

If you don't understand your spouse, you know what?

Find out from them about their past.

Maybe you've never talked about it.

Maybe you've never talked about any past abuses or a bad home life, or maybe the physical conditions that they've had in there, the baggage that they've had in their past, in their upbringing will do what it takes to understand and learn about your spouse.

Yeah.

So if you've got these things to work on, see, you've got to say, all right, I'm going to work on these things even if my spouse doesn't do it, because that's your part.

Right.

Of your hands being out there saying, I'm gonna do whatever it can do, and I'm gonna put all my might.

Into it, giving it a hundred percent.

And that starts developing habits.

And as you do that, your spouse will respond.

Now, here's a more serious issue, and I hear this a lot.

Sometimes people go, oh, I just can't get into sex, or I can't.

I can't communicate, or I can't let my heart go all the way.

They got, they got.

They got some issues going on, and that's understandable.

And if you've got sexual or physical or emotional abuse in your life, and let me kind of refer to this.

Take action to deal with those things.

Don't use as.

Don't use it as an excuse not to grow and learn in your marriage.

If you're having a problem with one of these and you're.

Don't sit there and say, oh, I just can't have a good sex life.

And, and you, you kind of withdraw from your spouse, male or female, because sexual abuse can go either way.

Yeah.

And you just keep using that for an excuse.

And, and you don't try to push through that because.

And I understand that.

So we're not belittling those issues, but being 100 committed says, you know what?

I'm going to go get some help.

If I need to get counseling, some therapy, I can't make excuses for not moving on.

I'm going to work through, through this.

That's.

That's putting on love.

I mean, your spouse has to put on love to work with you, but you got to put on love because you're supposed to be ministering to and serving your spouse, but you're holding back because you got some issues.

And put your hand to the plow and say, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get victory.

See, God wants you to enjoy your marriage.

And if you're holding on to the past or you're saying, I don't know how to communicate, you are blocking God's blessings coming in and the enjoyment into your marriage.

That's good.

Yeah.

So come up with some game plans.

Come sit down together and say, how can we get some victories in our marriage if we're needing those things?

On your own, look at what habits you can start.

Think of some habits, then start doing two habits, three habits, and see, make it a game.

How can I, how can I out love my wife?

How can I out love my husband?

I'll make him coffee first this morning.

I'll make the better unmaked.

I'll do the whatever it is in your life.

I'll get the car gassed up, whatever.

Start getting creative.

And you know what?

Because God wants you, think about this all time.

God wants you enjoying your marriage, all the days of your life with the spouse whom you love.

Yeah.

So follow God's formula for success.

I'm gonna just review and tell you what those four key points are.

Enjoy number one, have a vision for what you want and keep that vision before you.

That's right.

Enjoy even when the marriage busters are coming up.

Yeah.

Enjoy.

You know, sometimes having a vision when the marriage busters hit, sometimes just having a vision of what you want and where you're headed together.

That helps, you know, relieve the pain of what's going on.

And it pulls you.

Yeah, it pulls you along.

That's right, it's does.

That is a good point there.

So put on love.

Don't be selfish.

Remind yourself to put on love and then do it daily.

Develop a lifestyle.

Make it that daily habit, and then be all in 100% effort.

Now, if you don't follow this formula, this is what Proverbs talks about.

Yeah.

I've got a scripture Here.

And it's talking about a vineyard.

But I want it.

I'm going to.

I'm going to say that venue could represent your house.

Yeah.

Your marriage, so to speak.

It says Proverbs 24, verses 30 through 34.

And it says, I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of a man lacking sense.

And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles.

Its surface was covered with nettles, its stone wall was broken down.

When I saw, I reflected upon it.

I looked and received instruction.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.

Then your poverty will come upon you as a robber and a want like an armed man.

So I'm not going to say you're.

Somebody's being lazy in their marriage, but they're not being aware of what's going on.

They're not being all in in their marriage.

They're not understanding what's going on.

They're not learning about it.

So what happens when you don't take care of a vineyard, when you don't take care of your yard or the flowers or whatever you're trying to grow?

If you neglect those things, what happens?

If you see a house that hasn't been taken care of, what happens?

It's beginning to fall apart.

It's the same thing with our marriages.

If we're not tending to our spouse, if we're not tending to our marriage, then what happens?

The walls break down.

That's the nettles come in, the harm, the resentments and all those things come in.

And before long you're sitting back, you were asleep on the job.

Sometimes we just fall asleep on the job.

We're not aware because of all the stuff.

The marriage busters and stuff come in.

So don't be the sluggard.

Well, what happens if you do follow the formulas?

But here's what happens.

You don't want to be the slugger.

You don't want to be the broken down wall syndrome.

Here's.

If you follow this formula, relish and enjoy life with the spouse that you love each and every day of your life, and whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

God wants you to enjoy your marriage more than you want to enjoy your marriage.

So follow these and have a love affair with your spouse that's going to curl your toes and it can happen.

Yes.

It's not impossible.

It is.

Yeah.

And it's really simple and practical and easy.

I mean, well, could be hard, but you know what I'm saying.

Yes.

The principles Are there principles?

It is hard, but it's.

It's.

If you get creative, you ask God for help, that's important.

And you walk on love and put on love and you say, I want to enjoy my marriage.

Yes.

Then you find a way to get through the kids.

You find a way to get through the teenage years.

You find a way and then you set a path to get through the empty nester.

Empty nesters.

We couldn't wait for the ins.

We loved our kids, but we were glad when they came because we didn't make the kids our God, so to speak.

Yeah.

We weren't so wrapped up in them.

It's like, you know, it became the Naked House, and then later on in life and different things happen.

You got to have a vision.

Have a vision for your marriage.

Have a vision.

So.

All right, well, I think that's about it for today.

And we are gonna.

Hold on.

Hold on a minute.

Yeah, tell me.

I. I just want to share again.

Sound like we're harping on this, but recently we just heard about somebody that went through is possibly going to be getting a divorce.

Okay.

That just breaks our heart when we hear that.

And I remember one time talking to the person, one of them, this is a while back, and I was telling about our podcast and stuff, and he just kind of said, we're good, we're good.

And we get a lot of people that do that.

We'll tell them, hey, we do a marriage podcast.

And they go, well, we're doing pretty good.

We don't.

We just don't listen to things or do stuff, but we're.

We're doing good.

But a lot of times the people that go, they don't even sound like they want to hear anything that turns into the guy, this, the.

The guy that has the walls breaking down in his vineyard, the foundation, because they didn't pay attention, they weren't intentional, they didn't make the most of their time.

And we don't want that to be you.

No.

We believe that one marriage, it can come back.

It can.

But we're concerned about you who are listening right now, because we want you to have the best that God can have for you.

That's very good.

Yes.

So, honeydews, number one.

What?

Ask yourself this question.

Number one, what is a daily habit that you can continue, or is there a new habit that you could develop?

All right.

And number two, ask yourself, are you all in giving it a hundred percent effort?

And number three, the ten second kiss.

Here we go.

I love it.

And I've I've talked a few times where I was getting ready to walk out our door in the morning to do something.

And I said, oh, I need to give Linda the.

Oh, actually I want to give Linda the 10 second kiss, but I need to get going.

And I said, greg, it only takes 10 seconds.

Well, a couple days ago I got out the door and was.

We got a walkway going to the apartment because we live like in a townhouse, so it's out there.

So I got about halfway down the thing, the sidewalk, had my arms full of stuff and I go, I didn't get my.

I pecked, gave her a peck on the cheek.

But I did not get a 10 second kiss.

You know what I did?

I kept going.

No, turned around.

I said, we're going to have that 10 second kiss.

And when I had left earlier, it wasn't anything exciting going on in the house.

And Linda said, bye, you know, nice pack on the kid.

So I got back, so I saw.

Him put his stuff down.

I walk back, put my stuff on the little bench we have out there.

Came in the house and I said, did you forget something?

Because I was like, what happened?

Usually I forget something.

Yeah, usually two or three trips back to the house.

But he's like, yeah, I did.

And he came over and grabbed my cheeks and pull my lips.

Oh, he said, he said, told echo set my timer for 10 seconds.

That's right.

Yes.

And he just laid a good one on me and I'm like, oh, I'm glad you forgot that one.

That was nice.

And so that kind of could have.

So I walked out the door, had a little skip on my stuff and walked out and turned around looking back at the window.

Because there's like a window right there.

Yeah, it was fogged up.

There was a handprint on it.

No.

But she was smiling at me and it just changed the whole air.

Whole atmosphere.

Yeah, it did.

So some days those 10 second kiss can be.

Oh, that was nice.

But sometimes you never know what might happen.

But for the ones of you guys maybe that are doing the 10 second kiss, maybe sometime right then or during the day, add a 10 second hug.

Yes.

That's so good.

Start a new habit.

Yep, that's it.

Well, thanks.

Oh, so what you do for the ones that haven't heard before?

Okay, grab your.

Get your spouse and say, hey, Siri, set my timer for 10 seconds and then you plan a good one on them for 10 seconds.

Yep.

Yeah.

All right, that works.

Well, I enjoyed this episode, sharing with all y' all and thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

We'll start a new habit tonight.

Yes.

All right.

Figure it out.

Okay, let's do that.

And so again, share these podcasts with your friends and your family.

Pass the word along to them.

Have them push that button.

That's right.

I push the button.

I hope you've gotten inspired like I have developing that new habit.

And we're going to see you next week.

And until then, remember, 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.