EP 82. Reignite That Loving Feeling in Your Marriage; Identifying Roadblocks to Love (PT 1 of 3), Complacency, Contempt, Resentment, Anger, Crazy-busy and other Marriage Busters.

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And today we're talking about couples that have lost that loving feeling, leading them right into the roommate syndrome or just a dull and boring marriage.

Boring, Boring.

And we're going to be identifying some of the roadblocks to love, which would include complacency, cont, Resentment, anger, crazy, busy, and the other marriage busters of life and how to overcome them.

In this episode, we're going to focus on complacency.

The C word.

Complacency.

We're going to get into that in just a moment, but before we get started, we would like to hear from you.

If you've been enjoying our our podcast on Married and Love it and you've been learning things or you have any questions or comments that you might want to share with us, we would really appreciate hearing from you that we know if we're going on the right direction or do we need to change something.

Y' all have any questions for us to answer, just contact us.

And in the bottom of our show notes, we're going to have our email address, a phone number that you can call and leave a message and just get with us.

You don't have to give us your name or anything, but we just love to hear your feedback.

So if you would take time to do that, we would greatly appreciate it.

Now, as we start this, we're talking about reigniting that loving feeling in your marriage.

And there's a song that Linda sang a few podcasts ago that we're not going to get into.

But so many marriages today, and maybe it's yours.

You don't have that loving feeling.

You're not feeling that freshness that you had and life is wearing you down.

Marrying your, wearing your relationship down.

And you just don't have that pizzazz, that freshness, the romance, and you're just kind of existing.

I think we've talked about roommates in several issues.

And that seems to be the big buzzword nowad connecting roommates and all that is very true.

So that's what we're going to be talking about that Linda talked about a few moments ago.

Complacency, contempt, resentment, all these things that can impact your marriage in a negative way.

But today we're going to be doing complacency, and that's a powerful one.

So you made us say, oh, you may be thinking, no, we're not complacent.

But listen, as we get through this episode, as we describe what complacency looks like.

Yeah.

It might surprise you.

Yeah.

Do an honest evaluation in your marriage about where you stand in this.

But what I want to do is start off with an example of the gas stove.

Many all probably cook with a gas stove.

You have a pilot light that's always on.

And then you, you go over and you want to cook something.

You turn the little knob up, the heating knob, whatever you want a burner knob to, to get that flame going up higher.

And I want to relate that to your marriage today.

You see, your marriage is.

It should have a pilot light going on all the time, that there is a spark in there.

And what happens is you can go, you can control the atmosphere and climate of your marriage by turning up that heating knob.

And what happens is in a lot of marriages, life hits and that's going to cover everything.

So just think, life is everything that could come against you.

And sometimes that pil light goes out.

And when, so what happens on your stove if you've got a pilot light and it's, it's not on, you got to sit there and you, you go over there, here, I'm going to cook some oatmeal real quick.

And you go over there, fry eggs, and you go over and turn that on and nothing comes up.

You go, where's the heat?

Did you pay the gas bill?

What happened to it?

And then you, you investigate it and you go, oh, the pilot lights out now.

Now you got to go figure out where their pilot light is, and you got to go down and rig, restart it, or if there's something wrong with it, fix it.

Well, that's what happens in a lot of times in our marriages.

They can get so rock bottom in our relationship that there's no pilot light.

And that means you've got to recognize in your marriage what's going on.

You say, you know what?

We've lost the heat in our marriage.

We are roommates to the max.

There's not any life here.

Yeah, we're getting.

We're.

We're getting along, but we're just.

There's nothing there.

So that's when, like a stove, you got to say, all right, we've got to light that thing.

So what decision are you going to make?

Are you going to say, you know what?

I'm fed up.

I've had enough.

I don't want to settle for anymore.

So you got to go in there and light that pilot light.

So then once you got that pilot light going, you can have you.

You.

What's happening is you go, you know what?

We're just not as romantic as we used to be.

All we do is sit around and look at our phones, watch tv.

We don't hold hands.

We're not going on dates.

We don't ever pray together.

We don't even talk about anything.

But.

Except for Johnny's football practice and Susie's tennis practice, and.

And when we got to go to a PTA meeting or what you did at work all day long and how your boss was a pain in the rear.

And that's.

But what happens is you recognize something is wrong and that.

You know what that is?

Is that.

That's that pilot light in your marriage.

It's on, and it's saying, turn the knob up and get some heat going.

So what we want to do is encourage you to recognize, you know what, we can do better in our marriage.

God wants us to have more.

So what happens?

You have to take action and say, dear, we need to turn up the heat.

And maybe you're thinking this, but you know what?

It only takes one of you to turn the heat up.

That's true.

So you go over to that knob and you just start turning the heat up.

You know what that is?

You're being intentional.

You need to have that heat set on medium to cook that oatmeal or to fry your eggs.

So you know what?

We need to start off our marriage getting some heat going.

Let me turn it up a little bit.

I'm going to hold my husband's hands today.

I'm going to put a sticky note out.

You know what?

When my wife comes home from work today, I'm going to ask her what was the best part of her day, you know, and you're going to start taking those little actions, and you just keep turning that knob up, and before long, you've got a nice, warm, hot marriage going on, and you're leaving that roommate behind.

You're boiling it out, so to speak.

So that's what we need to do is get that knob and turn it up.

You see that little flicker that's in your marriage, that little pilot light that is the flicker of hope and desire.

What I just said, something's still in there.

You're not lost yet.

You're not so far down that you got to recall.

Call the repair man out.

So stir up, start turning that knob, and you're going to see something happen.

And the pilot light should always be on in your marriage.

And I'll be honest, there's going to be times, there's going to be in seasons in your life where your life gets off track.

Maybe there's a major issue going on having a move or somebody's got some challenges going on.

And that can.

That can knock back some of that stuff that you'd like to have going on in your marriage.

But you know what?

You don't lose focus of it.

And that pilot light is still going.

You don't give up on it.

You don't stop it.

Because soon as things improve a little bit, then you slowly start turning that knob up because maybe you're both feeling better, you're getting your energy back, you're getting refocused, and that.

That pilot light's all the way on.

So we don't ever want that pilot light to go out.

So do the work.

Turn that knob up.

All right.

Yeah, that's right.

You're right, Greg.

You're so right about the.

Couples start to feel like roommates in their marriage.

They're just like two ships passing in the night.

They're not connecting at all.

And what happens is their relationship becomes dysfunctional.

Yeah, it's like business like.

Business like.

Yeah, boring.

They're just existing and going through the motions.

In other words, they lost that love feeling.

You thought I wouldn't sing it, huh?

Right.

We lost that loving feeling.

They may not feel like they're even in love.

They might think, how was I ever in love with my spouse?

Well, the big key is, though, is part of it.

Don't get so far gone you don't even know how bad you are.

That's right.

That's right.

So that's what we're going to do today.

That's what we're going to.

We're going to help identify some of these causes.

And so if.

If you're feeling like what we're talking about is you and.

And your marriage, then our goal is help to bring you back to that loving and reignite that spark.

So let's take a look at Some of the causes of this and how they can be overcome.

Yes.

Take a look at how to stir up and restore those loving feelings.

I'll tell you what, the loving feelings are a lot better than the boring and the aggravations and the complacency.

It's worth fighting for.

It is.

And yes, people say you can't get back to those dating days or those newlywed days.

No, it's.

It's.

Your marriage is always changing and the older you get.

Now we're coming up on, on 49 years married to each other, plus dating for a couple years before then and next November.

But our love has changed through the years.

Huh?

This November.

Next November.

Oh, okay.

This November.

Yeah, it's coming up.

Next November be 51 more.

Right.

That's the big five zero.

But you know, but what I was.

Trying to say is the love changes through periods.

It does, but you keep that pilot light on and yeah, maybe you don't feel like a two 25 year olds getting married.

But I tell you what, you know what?

You're cooking something other than eggs and oatmeal.

Yeah, that's right.

So your God wants you to have an awesome marriage.

Know how, how long you've been married or how short you've been married?

I want to go back to our foundational scripture.

Just a minute.

You may be getting tired of hearing, hearing it, but we've got to paint the vision for what God wants in your marriage.

And in our marriage.

Ecclesiastes 9.

9 Says to enjoy life with your spouse.

It says wife in there, but we put in their spouse.

That doesn't mean you're a roommate.

You're supposed to be bored.

You're just existing.

No, it means you're having a love affair with your spouse.

Right.

Your best friends.

I'll tell you what, you can go through all the crap that life throw at you and you can still be best friends.

Linda and I, this past, I've been.

We talk about a lot.

Thirteen years we have faced a whole bunch of stuff in there and such.

But you know what?

We're coming through as best friends.

Yeah, we have moments where we can get aggravated because life and Linda's in constant pain and we got this pressure we're having to do this and deal with that.

But in trying to do this ministry, and that makes the devil even come at us even stronger.

But we're still best friends.

And you can have that in your marriage too.

All right.

But it says to enjoy life with your spouse with whom you love.

L O V E. And we've talked about that in the previous episodes, about genuine love.

And if you haven't listened to those, you need to go back and listen to them because that's a key to your spouse whom you love.

Daily.

Daily.

Everybody say that daily.

Not.

Not just Friday night.

That's right.

Not just Friday night.

When you're thinking you might get some.

Or weekends or, oh, we cannot wait for our vacation.

We're not gonna have the kids this year.

So you think for one or two weeks a year, that's when you're supposed to be enjoying life.

No, it's all every day.

Then you just have an extra blast when you have your vacation time.

So there's one last verse to look at before we move on, and that's Ecclesiastes 9, 10.

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

This is turning on the stove.

So you can say, I want to cook oatmeal.

I want to cook oatmeal.

I want to cook oatmeal.

But if you don't ever go and turn on the stove.

I remember one morning I got eggs all scrambled and everything put in them, and I went to put them on the burner, and I came back a couple minutes later because I knew they were going to start cooking.

And the thing, things weren't cooking.

The egg yolks were just as yellow, and everything else was all clear and nothing was cooking.

You know what?

I didn't turn on the burner.

Well, I didn't turn the heat.

That's a difference, huh?

You know what?

So you may want your marriage to be great and hot, but you know what?

You got to put the word in.

You have to be intentional.

You have to do what it takes.

You know what?

You go to work, and you go to work for a boss.

You go to work for a paycheck.

You want to raise.

You want a promo.

I.

We lot.

We watch a lot of the Hallmark movies, and they always say to the workers, the stars, they say, you know what?

If you'll work these extra hours, you're up for a raise.

They always put this.

They dangle the carrot out there.

They want you to go all out for them, show up early, stay late, all that.

And you know what?

We do that for a job and for our careers.

But what if we put that same attitude into your marriage?

Because I'll tell you what, you get complacent at work, and before long, you may be on the chopping block, or you're not going to get the Promotions and stuff.

You want.

Let me just talk about this one couple.

They think they're okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

They're building their marriage on the word of God.

You know, there's.

They're not really having any struggles other than the.

Just the normal ups and downs that a couple would have.

Overall, they're doing good, so there's no serious challenges.

Yeah.

So what happens then?

Well, over time, the marriage busters come in.

When we've talked about this in a lot of episodes, that's anything that comes in from having kids, overtime, work sicknesses, financial challenges, your schedule gets crazy busy.

Over, over commit.

Anything that takes you away from focusing on your marriage that could cause strife and division and to cause you and your spouse to go.

To go apart.

So those come in, and when all those things come in and you're not dealing with them, you're not being intentional to say, you know what?

All heck is breaking out right now.

And if you're not saying, you know what, I'm still going to kiss my husband.

I'm still going to reach over and say, let's prayer.

We're going to reach over and give each other a tap on the rear when we walk by.

We're going to send somebody a note.

We're going to do what it takes to keep that relationship, keep that pilot burning.

You know what?

That's when you begin to turn into roommates because life is squeezing the love out of your relationship, so you begin to drift apart.

You.

You quit being intentional about what you need to have in your marriage because you're so busy trying to.

To survive.

And.

And this is what happens.

And this is when complacency comes in.

So that's what we want to focus on for a few minutes.

Okay?

Complacency in your marriage means you're coming so comfortable or accustomed to the relationship, your marriage relationship, that you stop.

Here's a keyword.

You stop intentionally caring for it.

You're kind of like that boiling that frog and boiling water.

He doesn't know he's cooked until it's too late.

So what happens?

You stop intentionally saying, I need to call my husband today.

I know he's probably on lunch break.

Now's a good time to call him and just say, hey, I love you.

I can't wait to see you after work today.

You.

You stop.

And I can't cruise control.

Yeah, you're kind of like, yeah, you stop paying attention to your spouse's emotional needs.

You stop nurturing your marriage.

And just like Linda says, you get on.

You Take your spouse for granted, really.

And you're assuming that they're always going to be there regardless of how you treat them.

And so you stop pursuing, like you said, the dating, flirting, affection, meaningful conversation.

So this is some of the characteristics of being complacent.

These are examples of complacency, living like roommates, sharing the house, the bills, the chores, responsibilities.

But you really have no romantic connection.

Yeah.

So what's happened is you're going through the routines without connection.

You communicate about schedules, children, finance and errands, but you really talk about what's going on in your heart.

The heart matters.

What's going on in your heart.

Yes.

And what's going on in your life, your dreams and goals and frustrations and such.

You're basically in a business meeting all the time.

You're neglecting, you're neglecting affection.

There's little or no holding hands anymore.

You're hardly hugging.

Your kissing is probably a peck on the forehead or on the cheek.

No making out or anything like that.

You're just, you don't even do the ten second kiss anymore.

Yeah.

There's hardly any touching or expressing love.

And you know what happens?

Sex goes on the chore list.

Yeah.

And then you're not addressing problems in your relationship.

You just start saying, that's just the way we are.

Which becomes an excuse not to work on the issues.

Right.

You're assuming that your spouse knows that you love them.

If you told them once, well, that's all they need to hear.

Right.

So you stop saying it or demonstrating it and you, you put everything else first.

Like Greg said, like work, your phone is first.

Your hobbies, your friends, maybe your ministry or other responsibilities.

They can say consistently receive the attention that once went towards your marriage.

And let me interrupt real quick before you move to the next point we talked about.

You stop saying or, or demonstrating you love.

That makes me think what we say Valentine's Day is more than one day a year event and we pull out all the stops on Valentine's Day.

Well, start thinking about every day or weekly or whatever, that you still bring that Valentine spirit into your marriage.

And don't, like we said earlier, don't make it on Friday nights.

Begin to demonstrate every love, every day.

That's what the scripture says.

Daily put on love.

That's what it says.

You, you know, recognize that you may be losing the curiosity about your spouse.

You stop asking them how they're doing.

You stop asking them how are you feeling?

And maybe you even stop asking, what do you need from me?

You're settling for.

Yes.

You're settling for that coexistence rather than having an.

Experiencing intimacy.

Yeah.

So there may be peace in the home, but what kind of piece of that.

It's just like floating along, really.

It's very little closeness.

That type of peace is probably like a boring staff meeting at work.

Yeah.

Like a.

Like a lake that's just flat.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

So how can we fix that?

Dude.

Okay, well, let's.

I want to use another word picture here is think about a garden.

You ever seen a garden?

It looks really nice, and then all of a sudden you come by it a couple of weeks later, you cut back down that one street of A, and you see that yard that usually the lawn and the flowers look all great.

But you know what?

It doesn't die deliberately.

Somebody.

Something happened.

Somebody or something didn't happen.

Yeah, something didn't.

It begins to be neglected, you know, and we use a lot of times a display when we do our seminars and we talk.

I got three plants that I put up on display, and one plant is a plant that's got full green leaves on it, looks really healthy.

Then I got another plant that has some green in it, and it's got some brown leaves and stuff.

And then I got another plant that looks dead with maybe one little green leaf on it.

And those represents.

Represent the amount of nourishing that's being put into those plants.

And that green one means somebody's water.

I'm watering that plant.

It's being nurtured.

It's getting fertilizer.

Maybe it gets trimmed and pruned, it gets watered.

And that's why a good marriage ought to be, you know, it's looking good.

But then you get plant number two that's got some green in it, and then it's got a little bit of brown in it, or maybe half of it's brown.

You know, no marriage is perfect.

There's always.

Can be rough edges.

You may have an area that needs a little bit of work.

And so you say, you say, well, how come over here we're getting a little brown?

Well, you know what?

That's because we haven't been praying together enough.

Or we haven't gone on a date and got a babysitter for a while.

We just need to have some time together.

So you.

You take care of that little brown spot.

But what happens.

And that what we're talking about complacency.

If you begin to quit to go out or if I begin to quit not paying attention to our Little plant there, and I don't water it when it needs to be watered, or I don't put the fertilizer in it, or it can be a yard or your garden at home, you slowly begin to neglect that.

That garden, that plant.

And that's what happens.

So that right now, that.

And it's just like your marriage.

You can have a little bit of brown in it.

Maybe it's not really bad, but you know.

You know, you got something to work on.

But what happens if things.

Life comes in and continues to distract you and you get busy and you go, you know what?

I don't feel like working on the plant here.

I want to go watch a football game today instead of doing something with my spouse.

Or.

Or I got to go to work today.

They called me in the work on a Saturday.

We can't go out and do stuff.

You didn't know how to say no.

Whatever the reason is, though, it happens.

That plant starts shifting more from brown.

I mean, from green, the brown.

And before long, it gets over to where it gets browner and browner.

And that relationship that marriage is getting because of complacency and neglect, and it's not necessarily on purpose.

It's just being distracted.

And before long, that marriage gets to a point where they need some help.

They got where they can start watering it, nurturing it on.

All of a sudden, before long, that plant comes back to life.

And that's what we want for your marriage.

We want your marriage to be full of life.

And then if for some reason you get a little brown part coming up, you go, oh, we need to take care of this.

What do we need to work on?

And let's go listen to a.

An audio or get our book out and say, hey, what do we need to do here?

And you get it fixed, because God wants you enjoying your life every day of your life.

Now, I want to read Proverbs 24 as we begin to land this plane today.

Proverbs 34, 30 through 24 says this.

And this is talking about complacency, neglect, Proverbs 24.

And it's verse 30 through 34.

Okay.

Did I mess that one up?

That's okay.

All right.

Sometimes that happens.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

Let's just say this is somebody who's neglecting their.

Their just not paying attention what needs to get done.

And maybe they didn't listen to their married and love it podcast and they don't know what to do.

But it says, and behold, it was completely overrun with thistles.

His garden, his field.

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

When I saw, I reflect upon it.

I looked and received a little.

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

Then your poverty will come on you as a robber.

And you want, like an armed man, God's built.

Your marriage is a field.

It's a garden.

Look at Adam and Eve.

They had the garden and Garden of Eden.

What happened?

They got complacent to let the enemy came in.

And look where we stand now today, we don't want that happening happening in your life, in your marriage.

But what happens, it says it's that gradual.

The, the, the, the, the, the man, he got lazy.

And again, it can happen so subtly, we don't even know what's going.

It's called.

We just need to refocus our intention because we're busy doing nothing or doing the wrong things.

We just got to remember what our priority is.

God, your wife, and then your family and everything else falls in line.

So our challenge is to knock out that complacency.

Yeah, complacency is often the gradual.

Listen to this.

Complacency is often the gradual neglect of something that still matters.

And your marriage, man, and your spouse still, yes, matters.

Right.

I mean, you might find that you are still you saying to yourself, I'm committed to, you know, I'm faithful and functioning, while all the while you're losing that emotional affection, that romantic and spiritual connection that makes a marriage relationship feel like a marriage rather than just a partnership or a roommate.

Right?

Right.

So here's a question to ask.

Ask yourself this.

This is a toughie.

If we continue treating our marriage exactly the way we are treating it today for the next five years, what would your relationship look like and what would it feel like?

Wow.

Oh, think about that.

Check out from the neck up or from the heart up, so to speak.

Exactly.

Right.

In other words, sometimes you got to go out and walk around your garden.

You see this on movies when they got farmers.

You walk around, they check the soil, they look at the leaves.

Are we getting enough waters?

Yeah.

The bugs.

Does it need fertilizing?

Although if you're in Florida and you got oranges growing, they tell you that you need to go out and cover up the oranges so they don't freeze.

It's called taking care of your marriage.

So in this episode we've talked about complacency and how it affects a marriage.

And as we go through the series that we're talking about here, about identifying the different roadblocks to reigniting your marriage, we're going to look at some different ones, and then once we go through them, like resentment, I'm sure nobody here ever deals with that, or unforgiveness or anger.

We're going to look at different ones, and then we're going to share how you can deal with those and improve your love life and reignite the flame.

Or if your pilot light is out, get that pilot light back on.

Turn it on.

So we just encourage you to.

To continue to listen these podcasts.

They build on each.

Build each other, build that.

They build on each other.

As we go through the list, go back and listen to Genuine Love series if you haven't got that done.

And then we're going to be showing you again how to improve your love life and reignite the flame.

Well, we have a couple honeydews here before we close out today, and the one that I'm thinking about right here is think about what complacency is and see if it's taking place in your marriage.

Yeah.

Do a checkup.

Do a checkup.

And like you said, do a checkup from the heart up.

Really?

Yeah.

And I think that's good because we.

Got to evaluate Adam.

Adam should have been walking through his garden.

Oh, yeah.

To see if there's any snakes in there.

That's right.

But he.

He let.

He didn't let his guard down.

Eve had her guard down and they got complacent.

Yep.

And we'll look what happened.

That's.

Yeah.

So we want you to.

To check it out, think about it.

Okay, so a second one is share this episode with your spouse and, and have a conversation about it.

You know, that's a good thing to do.

Sit down and talk about it.

And what's.

What's our next.

If you say, hey, hey, dear, I listened to this today and I'd like to listen to it together just to.

See how we're doing on this thing to do.

Don't come in and say you need to listen to this.

No, that's not how you do that.

Listen to our communication podcast.

Yeah, you spoke to me.

Can we just sit down and listen to it?

Or here, I'll send it to you and listen to it on the way.

To work tomorrow when you get a chance.

Yeah.

And let me know what you think.

We can talk about it.

Yeah, that's good.

And then last one Here is the one we do all the time.

And I tell you what, this is a good way to keep your connection going and to start your day off.

Yes, it's a good way to keep the pilot light going.

Is your 10 second kiss in the morning when one of you gets gets up when you all take the lead.

But say hey dear, come on over here and say I need to give you our kiss.

Say hey Siri, set my timer for 10 seconds and just lay a good old kiss on them.

That will get the pilot light going.

Maybe it get, it may get it hotter than you want it to at.

That point, but just, but that's okay.

Get the connection going.

There you go.

Well, remember this, your feedback does matter to us.

So we want to get, we want to get your comments and if there's any questions you might have, we want to learn too.

If there's any kind of topics that you'd like us to discuss, you can text us, email, voicemail, and our phone number and email address is all going to be in our show notes.

So take a look at that.

And also if you have a need, a prayer need and a request for prayer, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

We pray for our married and Lovett family every single day and we would love to cover you and your home and your family, your marriage and prayer.

Yes.

So once again, thanks for joining us and we hope you've gotten inspired by today's message and we're going to see you next time.

And until then, remember this, you can be married and love it on purpose.