EP 58. Communication in Marriage; Practical Tips to Handling Conflict Peacefully PT 1

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In today's episode, we're going to be talking about some practical tips to handling conflict and, you know, peacefully.

Yes, peacefully.

Peacefully.

That's the word.

Yes.

And we are talking about conflict today.

But just a reminder, when we talk about communication, it involves everything from setting your daily schedule to setting a date night to talking about the bills your go and your dreams.

And believe it or not, there's people that don't even take time to do that, which leads to lots of frustrations in marriages.

But today we're going to talk about conflict.

So go ahead, Linda.

Well, if it's not dealt with properly, it can actually lead to the destruction of a marriage.

Yes.

You know, so communication is vital.

It is key in a person in a marriage relationship.

Listen to what this scripture says, dear.

It's.

It's tough.

It says, it's Galatians 5:14 through 15.

It says, you shall love your neighbor, and I say our spouse as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, take care, lest you be consumed by one another.

That's an amplified version.

Wow.

Yeah, that's.

That's in.

Well, we can see in this scripture that, you know, how it can actually destroy a marriage.

Right?

That's right.

And, you know, a lot of times listening to other podcasts or reading articles on communication and marriage, so many times people are saying we just don't communicate or everything turns into an argument or it just starts off soft and then it turns into a hollering attack.

And there's so much that involves communication.

And if you see in the scripture that Linda just read, you can Be in love and you can love your spouse.

But if we don't get our communication down, and then last week we talked about getting the fruit of the spirit going, talked about putting on love, and we talked about attitudes in our hearts and how we, how we control ourselves and, and we've got to get that under control within us so that we can learn how to do the 1, 2, 3 steps that you hear a lot of teaching on.

But a lot of times we hear the do this, say this, don't say this, act like this, listen this way, ask these certain types of questions which are all good and need it.

But if we don't get our heart under control, if we don't know how to make a decision to put on love and the lay aside anger in the flesh and impatience that's in us, then our communication is going to be doomed.

So tonight on this episode today, I should say we're going to continue talking about, as Linda said, how to communicate peacefully.

So buckle up.

This is going to be a good one.

Just like Linda said, love your neighbor.

But part of loving your neighbor is learning how to communicate.

So I want to go to a scripture that we stand on a lot for married and love it.

All right?

It's Ecclesiastes 9:9.

And this is kind of God's plan for our marriage.

But we're going to take it a little deeper about communication.

It says, enjoy life.

God wants you enjoying in your.

To enjoy your life in all areas with your.

It says in the Bible, it says why.

But we're going to put spouse in there.

Okay?

God wants you to enjoy life with your spouse whom you love.

All.

Everybody say all to yourself, days of your life, man.

Every day should be a love affair.

Yes, I know that's can be pie in the sky, but really it can.

And part of that is getting our communication under control.

So what?

We've already talked about love a lot in our podcast, so we're not going to really dig down deep on love, but we're going to apply it to our communication like we did last week.

Love is an action.

And that means you're going to be communicating, communicating properly with the proper skills and applying that.

So God's saying, love your wife, love your spouse all the days of your life.

That's every day.

Again in episodes 56 and 57, we talked about putting on love.

See, when you get in that argument mode or you feel, feel the temperatures rising in your conversation right at that moment, you have the opportunity to put on love or to put on Anger to put on love or to put on impatience to put on love or to put in the last zinger, that's going to zing your spouse.

And that's what we talked about in episodes 56 and 57.

So go back and listen to those.

But putting on love, communicating properly is a daily habit because it says love daily.

So it's a daily habit.

It's something you need to practice every day.

And here's an attitude to have in all areas of our merge, but especially communication, because you know what we can, you can be driving around the road, down the road and listen to a podcast or read a good book or hear a message on communication.

And you can hear all these points, but if you don't take them and put them into your heart and meditate on them and practice good communication skills every day, you know what?

You're not going to get it.

You're not going to get skillful.

You're not going to be able to have good communication because it just goes out your mouth, out of your brain, so to speak.

Because the word says faith comes by hearing and hearing the word.

And that's how we get stronger, is by listening and learning and applying.

So Ecclesiastes 9, 10 is right at the end of loving your spouse and enjoying life every day.

It says, this is good.

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

Communication is what your hand is finding to do.

Your tongue and God is saying, do it with all your might, be skilled, get into it, learn how to communicate and make a decision.

Because love, love is putting the other first person first.

So that means in your communication, you should be communicating with, with love.

That's going to bring peace to your spouse.

That's going to encourage them, that's going to draw out their goals and dreams.

It's going to allow you to get through conflict where somebody's not run over and splattered against the wall, so to speak, because your tongue just blew up on them.

It's learning how to communicate and compromise and, and come up with a solution to what you're arguing about.

All right, so that's what we're going to look at.

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

Because if you do this half heartedly, it will show up in your communication and will show up in your marriage.

So take communication seriously.

That's what we're getting at today.

Take it seriously, Linda.

Well, here's some daily habits that we need to apply regarding communication.

This will help out accept your part in Any poor communication that might be going to.

Going on within your marriage, like, you know, own it.

You mean if Mike, me and you were having an argument?

Yeah.

You're not the only problem.

It could be me too.

No, it could be me.

I need to look at myself.

Yes.

No, own it.

We got to own it.

Yeah, you got to own it.

Matthew 7:3 through 5 says, and, and why do you look at the speck that's in your brother's eye?

But don't.

Do not.

You don't notice the log that's in your own eye.

Ooh, we need to do a self evaluation.

You know, I need to take time to, you know, be mindful and listen to myself talk.

When, when I'm talking to you, I want to be aware of what I'm saying.

So people ask yourself, how can I be a better communicator with how I'm talking and how I'm listening with my spouse?

Right.

You said something.

When you're talking, be aware.

I've noticed recently, especially since we've been, you know, we've talked about communication a lot, but especially this last couple of months, we've done several podcasts regarding it.

And I've noticed myself, like if we're getting in the kitchen or somewhere in the house and we're having a discussion and maybe we're getting a little bit of argument or disagreement or just talking and I'll hear myself subconsciously talking and it's like, Greg, you could have said that differently.

Or, or Greg, your tone is getting a little, little louder there.

And I'm catching myself.

I'm self monitoring even while I'm talking and I'm able to back up and say, hey, Linda, let me say that differently.

Or say to myself and rephrase it.

And see, that's where practice comes in, is your mind does you do that self evaluation.

So I much rather me catch myself getting aggravated and say, okay, let me hold on dear, I'm getting a little aggravated here.

Or to myself.

And then while I'm talking, my voice can change.

Then Linda have to point it out.

So that's what we call self evaluation, part of that.

Yeah.

Like, do I respond?

Ask yourself this, do I respond or do I react?

And see, that's in that communication.

That's a split second thing.

If I say something to Linda and she has within that split second, I mean this, this stuff is, is real and it's, it's vital that we get this in that split second, she can come back with the same type of maybe bad tone.

I had, or, or maybe I offended her by what I said.

And she can come back a certain way, but she has that split second to respond or to react.

So that leads us to becoming skillful.

We have been talking about that.

So let's, let's talk about being skillful just for a moment.

Proverbs 16, 23, 24 is one we've used for this.

The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and as persuasiveness to his lips, it doesn't say, I'm going to teach Linda how to speak.

It's me, me teaching my mouth how to speak.

It starts with me, but then that becomes, I need to practice that and practice that.

So I challenge you to be teaching yourself.

Listen to these audios that we're doing and learn how to speak and practice it.

And let me say this.

If you're listening and you know your spouse is working on this, allow each other time to grow.

Yeah, that's important.

Allow each other, allow yourself.

Yeah, they're not going to change overnight to grow.

Yes.

These are habits.

Some of you guys have been married for 40, 50 years.

Some of y' all have been married for three months.

Now's the time.

If you're three months, now's the time to really get a grip on this so you can learn, because the older you get, the harder it is to change because it gets ingrained in you.

So the heart of the wise teaches his mouth and asks persuasiveness to his lips, and therefore pleasant words come out.

And that's a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

And then Proverbs 15:28 says, the heart of the righteous ponders how to answer.

That's what we need to be.

We need to have that instant thing we ponder.

How am I going to answer this?

How am I going to respond?

And where we put on love and, and answer with love.

Maybe speaking truth, but there's a right way to do that.

But it says, the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.

Now, it doesn't mean you're cussing and, and, and ranting and raving.

It may be speed.

You're not supposed.

Just a jab.

It's just a jab.

Or bad tone and such.

Yeah.

So with all of this in mind, let me say this.

You have to be intentional and then do it.

You have to, you have to be thinking, I need to communicate properly.

Here's how I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it.

But you have to be on Purpose with it.

So let's look at some tips that we can apply on how to be better communicators.

Yeah.

How to handle a conflict peacefully.

And this is part one, because we're going to have to probably.

Right.

We don't know if we'll get them all, but.

Yeah.

Well, we want to be committed to being honest and extending mutual respect.

What does that exact.

What does that mean?

It means being you're expressing your thoughts, your concerns, your feelings, your desires, and you're expressing them clearly and truthfully.

You know, like a partial.

It's not a partial truth or half a truth.

And you're not withholding information or actually misrepresenting the facts or feelings.

And that can.

That actually can prevent your spouse from being able to properly deal with issue at hand because they really don't have all the information.

Right, right, right.

So basically, if your spouse can't get proper information from you when you're talking, then they can't respond properly.

They're going to take.

If you're not saying what you're feeling accurately, then they're not going to be able to respond accurately and then that's going to cause you to get aggravated.

So got to share everything accurately and don't lead things out now.

Tell the truth, even if it's uncomfortable.

Oh, you know what, there's going to be times it is going to be uncomfortable.

So tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth because if

you get caught not telling the truth down the road, it's going to cause more problems.

Yeah, sure.

Tell the truth now.

Share with openness and freedom what's on your heart.

Yeah.

And you want to be vulnerable and willing to share your whole heart.

So we did some episodes that talks about that.

Yeah, Episodes three and four, I think.

Yeah.

You know, you know, there's a part of being vulnerable and willing.

You know, you have to know that you can be that way with your spouse.

Now, the key to that is, is if your spouse is starting to open up and be vulnerable, that's.

Your spouse is putting their heart.

Yeah.

In your hands.

Yeah.

Here's the skillful learner, skillful communicator.

You, you've learned how to take what they're saying and listen to it and respond and show that you're understanding.

And if they're sharing some feelings or they're sharing a weakness or maybe something they did for you to respond in love and not crucify them.

Right.

Or say that was stupid or exactly why did you do that?

I didn't know you thought that way.

I can't believe that.

No, they're laying their heart out there.

They're being vulnerable.

They're, they're, they're taking a risk.

And if you don't respond properly, you cut them off, you ridicule them, you come against them, which.

We'll talk about that in a few minutes.

You know what you're going to do?

You're going to put that heart in a shell.

You know, they got to know that they can trust you.

Yeah.

With their heart.

Right, right.

That they're safe.

Yeah.

That they can be safe with laying it out there.

Yeah.

Because what happens when that heart starts going in a shell?

It's going to, it's going to be harder for them to.

Yeah, that's right.

That's going to affect your communication because there's a good chance they're not going to keep sharing with you things of the heart or what's going on or if you go ahead.

No, I was just going to say.

Well, that actually presents trust issues.

Yeah.

You know, we don't want that happening.

Right, right, right.

So be vulnerable, as Linda said, and then moving on a little bit in that conversation, don't pretend to agree with them when you don't.

Right.

So if you're.

There's something your spouse.

And maybe it's an idea that's not being.

Maybe they've got an idea.

Maybe they're saying, hey, can we do this?

Or how about if we try doing this differently or whatever it might be.

Don't pretend to agree.

Just say, you know what, dear, I, I like what you're saying.

I appreciate, but I don't think we need to go that direction.

I don't believe those glasses would fit in our cabinet real good.

Whatever it is, speak up.

Like ladies.

Hey, your husband says, hey, we need to get these type of dishes.

And you go, oh, yes, dear, we can get those dishes.

Or you're thinking, I don't want those dishes, but you know what?

And then you get them and you're not happy.

Tell the truth.

Because that's.

That takes both of everybody getting mature to be able to handle the truth.

Right.

Well, also avoid exaggerating the facts.

Oh, I don't know anybody that does that.

I don't think I do either, really.

Maybe there's somebody out there, but it's worth saying.

And then certain personalities are good at that.

Yeah.

The sandwich type people, they can exaggerate.

Yep.

So go ahead.

Respect the other person and what they say.

Yes.

That's, you know, even if they're exaggerating.

You know how you can come back or you can say, wow, that is really colorful picture of what you're talking about.

I don't see it that way at all.

Yeah.

So that would be showing respect.

Respect their feelings and opinions as they're neither right or wrong.

Like Greg was saying earlier.

Feelings.

A lot of this is just discussing your.

Your own feelings.

They're neither right or wrong.

Yeah.

They're just feelings.

Yeah.

That's something I had to learn.

Most men need to earn.

Learn that.

But respect your spouse's feelings, you know, so being truthful and honest is so powerful.

That's the key.

The bottom line, you gotta be true.

Very important to have any type of progress going on.

Now, another thing is to take initiative to communicate.

Yeah, yeah.

The another step, don't wait for your spouse to take that first step.

You be the one to break down the barrier barriers because, you know, issues might be building up and neither one wants to talk about it for whatever reason.

Well, you take the initiative to communicate.

Yes.

And get those barriers torn down.

Yeah.

When there's something that needs to be talked about.

Take that.

Because what happens is if we let issues build up, before long that's going to start boiling over.

Boiling over, going have an anger build up, issues build up.

And when somebody doesn't deal with that and then especially if more issues pile up on that, what happens is like a Jack in the box.

Y' all have seen the Jack in the boxes before.

You start the, the little Jack in the box guys inside the box.

And you wind it up.

And the more you hide and hurt your feelings, you hide them and you hide them and you hide them.

And then one week goes by, two weeks go by or whatever it is, and all of a sudden you can't hold it anymore.

And bam, that Jack in the box pops up.

Well, that wife or that husband, and they just explode.

Can't hold on because they didn't speak up when they need it to speak up.

You know, that's why sometimes a wife can start crying and the husband goes, what are you crying about?

She goes, well, five years ago this happened.

He's like, are you kidding me?

What?

And the wife held on to it for a long time.

And that happens.

So don't let things build up.

And another thing is to make sure that the timing is right when you are going to communicate with each other.

Talk or sit down and cover an issue.

Ask yourself if the timing's right for you, but ask your spouse if it's the right Time for them to talk.

You know, they may be needing to come in and get the day shook off and sit down and kind of decompress from the whole day before they get hit with some big issue or some.

Or even if it's a little issue, any kind of issue.

Check out the timing on all of it.

Yeah.

Step out of your comfort zone, you know, make sure that you are stepping out of your comfort zone to move in on the issue.

Yeah.

Now, see, I can come back to.

Well, we go by the personality types.

There's four different ones, but a couple of the types, they don't like the confront.

That's right.

They don't like to rock the boat.

Now, if you're one of those type of people doesn't like to confront, you're more inward and you don't like to rock.

Like I just said, rock the boat or cause a problem or speak up, then you've got to get out of the comfort zone.

That's part of getting mature, growing up.

Yeah.

Because.

Because if you don't, then that's going to harm your spouse and your marriage.

So you gotta.

You got just like the.

The one that tends to exaggerate has to tone it back.

The one that doesn't want to talk, they got to come out of the box and the other one's gotta.

They gotta meet in the middle to have a good conversation.

Yeah, that's true.

And so that's something to work on.

And you can see what happens if somebody doesn't speak up or they do start speaking up and the other person that's the listener doesn't know how to respond, it's going to push that one back in their box.

So work on these issues right here.

Remember, you got to be a good talker, but you also got to be a good listener.

Now, the next.

Next one we want to look at is attack the problem and not the person.

Because if you don't focus on solving the problem, then what's going to happen?

You start attacking the person.

Yeah.

You know, that gets into name calling.

Yeah.

Accusations, blaming, belittling and attacking that person these different ways.

And that's not what we want to have.

You can't get anywhere if all you do is attack the person.

If you don't agree with them or you think they did something wrong, look at the problem, focus on it and say, how can we solve it without attacking?

Because when you start attacking, what happens?

Defensiveness becomes to stick in.

So now they're defending themselves, and that is.

This causes the conflict to escalate and causes everything to come up to that explosion point.

And we don't want that going on.

Well, a good example.

Well could be say you go to your spouse and you tell them you always leave your dishes in the living room after you have a snack.

You are so lazy and selfish and you don't even know.

You know that I don't like stuff being left out like that.

Now that could be said in a better way without attacking the person.

It can be said like this.

When the dishes are left in the living room, it causes more work for me to do.

How can we prevent this?

See how better that was?

How that was way more kind and not attack, is it?

It was going to the issue, not the person.

Yes.

Okay, so be a problem solver and not a problem solving people attack her.

That's good.

And then don't threaten and say things you may regret later like calling somebody your name or saying they're stupid.

Yeah, that is some putting your foot

in your mouth or saying if you don't change then I'm, I want to separate because I can't handle this.

Don't threaten.

Yes, don't threaten.

And remember, if you attack the problem, it shifts the focus to the facts and solutions.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

Well, we also want to avoid a self righteous critical attitude.

Ooh, ouch.

And what that means is you, this is believing that you are right and your spouse is wrong.

And I had heard somebody say they had married their spouse in the spouse's name.

It was right.

Oh yeah.

And she said the problem was I didn't realize that his first name was always right.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's believing that you're right in your spouse.

That's how you, that's how you want, you want to avoid that critical attitude of self righteousness.

Yeah.

And so in a marriage situation, this is a spouse who's approaching a disagreement in a way that judges it attacks or assigns blame to their per their spouse's character.

And when this happens, it's going to shut down communication and close it all down on defensive.

See how many of these different things together, all these different categories of types of communication put people on the defensive when we don't communicate properly.

Some of the characteristics.

If you're wondering, well, am I being critical?

Well, check yourself on this.

Focus on the person is going to focus on the faults instead of the facts, you know?

Yeah.

You are so selfish.

Now that's, that's a critical attitude.

Yeah.

And then also believing that your perspective is right and Your spouse's is wrong.

And also using absolutes, which would be words like, you know, you never listen to me or the person might be exaggerating and be accusing.

So these are all some characteristics to kind of just do a self check for yourself.

Something else a self righteous or critical attitude can do is they keep score.

Oh, they keep the score of everything you do.

Oh, that's painful to bring that up.

Yeah, they rehearse past failures to strengthen their argument.

Right?

Yes, they bring up those.

Well, you always did this and I remember you did this two years ago and then last year when we went out to eat, you did this when we were in the restaurant you said this.

And don't rehearse the past.

Bring up the past.

That's past.

Yep, move on.

And then not, not seeking to understand your spouse's heart or intention is another way to be self righteous because you don't care about them.

You're all about yourself.

So you really don't care what they, what their heart's feeling or what their intentions were.

Right now another tip is to hear each other out rather than tuning them out.

And James 1:19 says, Let everyone be quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to anger.

So you want to be willing to listen without interrupting and without trying to defend yourself.

So many times we will be talking, we'll be talking with our spouse and in our head we're already thinking how you're, how to defend ourselves in that conversation.

Right.

You know, so don't do that.

Be, you know, don't tune out what your spouse is saying.

You know, now you want to try to understand, put yourself in their shoes, you know, try to see it from

their point of view that, that, that takes practice.

It does take a lot of practice

that all of this does.

All of it does.

And a losing argument is when two people want to be the one to get the last word.

And I think you had said earlier, you just got to get that last zinger in.

So you can see on all these things that we're talking about that if you're you, you can hear this today.

But if you're not practicing this and you've kind of had some of these characteristics in your communication for the last several years and you're conditioned to interrupt your condition to, to start your aunt figuring out your answer before your spouse is done or you've got the critical spirit or these, you're not always honest.

Maybe it's going to take a little time to turn this ship around.

Yeah.

And again, that's why?

Practice, practice.

Ask God for help.

Get the God factor involved.

Like we talked about in the last two episodes that we did, getting God into help.

Because I'm going off our little script right here a little bit.

But once we're going over these things, some of them are really criticals and some aren't.

Well, maybe that's not that harsh or not.

But a lot of times we just need God's help to come in and do these things.

And.

And that's what we talked about.

So I recommend going back and listen to the last two episodes on that so you can learn how to get God to help you with this.

So as you're practicing and he brings and he helps you say, you know what?

You need to be listening.

You're art.

You're not listening to your spouse right now.

So you can say, all right, mind.

What is my wife saying?

I can say, what is Linda saying right now?

Do you can.

And you can go.

Can you.

Can you re.

Repeat that?

My mind.

You can always say, you know what?

My mind started wondering.

Can you repeat that for me?

I think that's good.

You got to learn these things.

Okay, so go ahead, Linda.

I didn't mean.

Well, no, that's good.

You know, Proverbs 18:13 says, he gives an answer before he hears its folly.

He who gives an answer before he hears it's folly and shame to him.

So what does.

What this requires is effective listening.

That's critical.

Takes time.

Like I was just saying, it demands paying close attention to the words that your spouse is speaking, the tone and quality of their voice, as well as your voice.

Yeah.

The depth of meaning.

And listen to this.

The sender's eye.

See as you become.

What are your eyes saying?

Yeah, communicator.

You can look at your spouse's eyes.

You can even how your.

How are your eyes reflecting the facial expressions and the body movements?

It's a whole package that communicates to your spouse.

That's it.

All right, now we're going to stop there.

There's more steps.

We'll get into those next time.

But I just want to share this scripture here in closing.

And then we have a couple of announcements and some homework.

Genesis 11:6 says, God is saying that the people, they're building this tower all have the same language.

They're basically on the same page.

They've got good communication skills going on.

And he says, there's one.

They're one people, and nothing shall be impossible to them for them.

And that's the goal that we have for your Marriage for you and your marriage through all these episodes that we've been doing on communication and today that you will become skillful, you and your spouse in communication.

And when that happens, you're going to be unified even more and nothing will be impossible for you to accomplish together.

That's good.

All right, a couple honey do's.

Now do a self evaluation.

Ask yourself what areas do you need to improve on to become more skillful at communicating?

Can we ask our spouse if they have any suggestions?

Yeah, that would be a great thing to do.

Yeah.

If you can do that without conflict.

Yeah, there you go.

And, and don't be done.

And if they offer some, if this is, this is good practical application because if they say, well, you know what, you do have a toning problem.

Don't go, I do not.

Yeah, then you get, see, you just

fails the homework right there.

Right there.

So you got to start practicing while you do the homework.

And then you know what?

Commend yourself.

Yes.

On the areas that you are doing good in and commend your spouse.

That's another good thing.

Tell them.

You know, because I, I have noticed that Greg, since we've been doing this, these teaching series, I have noticed when he's caught himself, I said, oh, you did good right there.

He's like, I did, didn't I?

Yeah.

You know, implying that I got a communication problem.

No, I'm just saying that you're develop and you're getting more skillful at it.

You're getting more and more master's degree.

So that brings us to a third honeydew.

And that's, that's a good one for

you to cover the 10 second kiss.

You know what, when you're doing the 10 second kiss, you can't argue.

You sure can't.

So make it a 20 or 30 second.

Yeah, that's it.

Yes, do the 10 second kiss.

And if you haven't heard about it, what we just say is if you're in the kitchen and you're getting ready to go out to work or do something, wherever you're at in your house, just pull your spouse up to them and say, hey dear, give me, let's do our 10 second kiss.

Pull them up and plant a good old kiss on their lips for 10 seconds.

And this, you can give them a little hug while you're at it.

And you don't know how that's going to impact your day.

You may walk out of the house with a skip in your step and everybody, you go to work and everybody's going wow, what happened to you?

You know, or this may be a good kiss, but you know what, you took 10 seconds and bonded together for that time frame.

That's right.

Well, we'd love to hear your comments and if you have any questions or if you got some topics that you would like us to cover in our podcast, will send us an email, let us know.

You can text it to us or do a voicemail even.

And our phone number and email address is going to be in our show notes.

Plus, if you have a prayer request, feel free to leave them also on this phone line.

And we, we'll be, we will be.

We pray over all of our listeners anyways.

But if you have a specific prayer request, we'd love to cover you in prayer and share.

Share, share, Right.

That's right.

Share this podcast with a friend.

Share it with your family members, spouse, Share it with your spouse.

Do it together.

Do a little Bible study together.

That's right.

You know, and do your honeydews together.

Right.

Go on a date night and then seal it with the 10 second kiss.

Right?

Yes.

All right, well, thank you guys for joining us tonight, today, whatever, whenever you're listening to it.

Whenever you're listening now, we see a

lot of people listen to these at 3 o' clock in the.

3 o' clock in the morning.

Wow.

Well, so we hope that you have been inspired by today's message.

We want to see and know that you've been encouraged.

I know I have.

Yes.

You know, because I'm going to be developing my skill.

I'm going to be working on, you know, developing.

I mean, we've been married for over 48 years.

Yes.

And I still have to watch my mouth, you know, and how.

What comes out of it.

She's speaking truth.

I have to zip my lip many times and I have to take a pause and pay attention because I, I tend to want to wander over here or be thinking ahead before Greg even gets his whole message out.

Right.

Yep.

So, and we're going to close with that.

We're going to see you next time.

And until then, remember that 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 love it 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.