36: 5 Agreements We Hold To Keep A Strong Marriage

And starting the first week of November, we were finally home for a few weeks and no, no, no. Sorry. For a few months. Um, yeah. So we're home all through the holidays up until seek. And I just can't tell you how rested I feel and how just like at peace and happy I feel just to be home for a few months. It's been a big thing. Peace and order balance. Yes. That's what you're all about. It's what I'm all about these days.

Peace, order and balance, because I've just realized if you don't have those things, then it's chaos in your heart and your soul. Three months. Yes. Our last three months were literally chaos. But, um, Peace is good, but chaos is a little fun. It's fun at times. Sometimes. No, it is fun sometimes, but I think for us, like we've just been in that season of chaos for like a few years. And I think I've, I like actually truly reached kind of a burnout point where I was like, I am done.

I'm done with the chaos. I'm done with like running around, traveling everywhere, even though it sounds super fun and it was for a long time. But I think I just like, yeah, really needed some time just to be home and just attend to our home. And I think that brings me back to order because, which I know is not even what we're talking about today, but. Just a shout out to this because it's been on my mind.

Just a shout out to peace in order because it's been on my mind, but God actually made a hierarchy of like priorities for us. Like what he created us for was firstly to know and love and serve him.

And then to like be in our vocation and tend to our vocation and then to To tend for our work and so when those things are out of order, I have literally physically felt the stress and the chaos that comes with that as much as we feel like we need to do something right now and it's out of order, whether it's like we're putting off time with the Lord or we're tending to our work before we're tending to our vocation for, in our case, like our spouse, it feels like.

We just have to do it to be more productive, but in the end it actually doesn't leave you feeling fulfilled and satisfied and full. Um, so yeah, so that's what I've been learning. I'm, I'm just like so happy because I actually get to be home and practice just like a well ordered life that I've been wanting to for awhile. And, um, I talked to a little bit about it on Instagram this week, but. I think I'm going to have to do a podcast episode about it because I just feel like I have more to say.

And I got so many responses on, yeah, on my stories about it. And so I know it's, yeah, I talked about it twice this week and both times I got a ton of responses. And so I feel like it's just a conversation that like young wives really relate to. And, you know, Want to dive into more. I think everybody can relate to wanting more peace and balance in their life. Yes, and wanting practical ways to actually execute and help you get there.

Yes, you can talk it and you can plan it, but that's what we talk about all the time like a discipline to actually do. Yes. Is the hardest part. Yeah, like actually doing the work is the hardest part. And I guess that leads us into our combo today. It's about marriage, uh, marriage. Surprise, surprise. We're back talking about God centered marriage. It's kind of what we do around here. Um, and it's no, Secret that marriage takes work, you hear that a lot.

And if you're married, you experience it. However, if you commit to, um, if you just like make commitments in your marriage that are rooted in faith, genuine love for each other, like the true sense of the word love. And respect, then you're going to create a strong marriage that's hard to shake. Yeah. So what are we talking about today? It's a few, maybe five non negotiable commitments, agreements. How do you title it? The title I chose was five agreements we hold to. To keep a strong marriage.

So these are kind of like five rules that we live by in our marriage. And I didn't want to call them rules because they're agreements that we make to each other to keep a strong marriage and to keep a healthy thriving marriage. And it's not saying that. We're perfect at all of these, but it's just something that like, we've agreed to that. These are very important things that build our, like that put our marriage on a strong foundation. So what's number one? Number one is we pray together daily.

So we've talked about this on another podcast episode on praying together as couples. Yeah. And how it looks at practically, uh, do you want to go to the practicals first or do you want to do? Like why it's an important thing. You can do the why and then we can do practicals.

Okay. Well, why is the most important relationships you have in your life are your relationship with God and your relationship with your spouse and Praying together is a way to do both Simultaneously and it's like burying your heart and your soul to God with your spouse or your significant other and It's extremely powerful. It's, it's intimate. And so it builds intimacy in your relationship. Uh, but it's also very powerful. I mean, the devil hates marriages and holy marriages.

And so like praying together, builds a holy marriage, builds a holy marriage. It, uh, roots your marriage in faith. It roots yourself in faith. Uh, and it, Builds up defenses against evil one. And then it just like allows you to intercede for each other and to really be like a good strong support for one another. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say like prayer is what helps keep faith as a foundation to our marriage. And that's first and foremost, most important to us.

And the way I look at it, It takes three to have a God centered marriage yourself, your spouse and the Lord. And if you're not inviting the Lord into your marriage, then it's going to be really hard to have a good God centered marriage. Because again, you're not including the most important factor into this relationship of you, the Lord, and your spouse. And so praying every day allows us to really primarily, uh, root our relationship as spouses, is.

In our relationship with the Lord together, and like you said, at the beginning, marriage is hard. It takes a lot of work. Sanctification is hard. It takes a lot of work. Those things we can do on our own. Yeah, we need grace and prayer is a true, like, practical way to receive sacramental grace. So practically, how does that look for us, Mari? Praying together. Just real quick. Oh. Um, we pray together every night before bed. And that's kind of more of like a freestyle prayer.

So, listening to your intentions or praying for anything that either of us needs. Praying for other people. Um, praying on Thanksgiving. Um, praying the rosary. We also pray the rosary together. We try and do that as often as possible together and that's kind of like the primary ways we do it. Most routine ways. Uh, yeah.

But then there's the one offs where we'll pray a scripture, we'll pray a scripture, do like say together or if one of us is struggling or just like want some intercession or like if one of us is feeling very stressed out, uh, we'll ask that person like pray with us or if we're sick, we'll ask the other person to pray with us. Yeah. Classic intercessory prayer.

The other thing too that I think is important, and I know we've talked about it a lot in our relationship, is that the habits we build now are habits we're going to have for our whole marriage and the habits we're going to have like in our family as we continue to grow our family and have kids one day. And we want our kids to understand.

Learn to pray we want our kids to see their parents praying And so building this habit now as a couple just as spouses is going to allow us to just make it like a Regular routinely part of our family life and of our home life And so then when we introduce kids into the picture, we're able to pass this on. Um to our children Yeah, that's a great point. second agreement? Yes. Number two is we never speak ill of each other.

So I think that a lot of the times in the secular world, you see this more, I feel like than in Christian circles, but I mean. You can't exclude christian circles from this.

Um, we're all human None of us are perfect and sometimes we you know are tempted to talk badly about our spouse um, and it can be easy to do that because like we said marriage isn't hard and sometimes you might even use the excuse as Like you're just venting, you know to your friends about how hard marriage is However, we've made the agreement the commitment to each other to just never talk badly about each other um to anybody really because that does not build up a marriage that breaks down a

marriage. No. And I think that's something that you've talked a little bit about this kind of culture on social media of poking fun at your spouse. Mm-Hmm. And like, that's not, that's not building up your spouse. Mm-Hmm. Um, and then especially it is easy to, like when I'm with the guys or when Mari's with the girls, like, I mean, we hear.

Like, I feel like it's very common to hear people like complain about their boss or complain about like something like they're gossiping or coming up with some drama. And it's very easy to let that continue into like complaining and gossiping about the problems in your marriage or the things your spouse are doing that are really annoying you. And so, yeah, like there is. You know, a time and place where good holy community, it's good to have like conversations.

If you need to get something off your chest and to like process something with a really good friend. But, uh, as a general practice, like we're not going to be just speaking ill of the other while, like when I'm with the boys, I'm not going to be talking about. How, you know, like what the things that Mari's doing that's really bugging me today. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this helps really build and like foster like trust with each other and just a deep admiration for each other.

Like just to always live out of a place of admiration and that when we. Talk about our spouse with other people. Only goodness comes out and only really praise comes out. And that's not to like hide our imperfections and like come off as if we have no problems, but it's truly just out of respect for your spouse and out of respect for your marriage.

And with that, obviously we don't have kids yet, but we want to make sure that we build that habit so that we're not venting to our children about each other, each other, like that's really unhealthy. So yeah. Uh, definitely don't want to be doing that. Yeah. Okay. What's number three? We start and end our days together. This is something that Mari especially loves. I do. You're like Mari's favorite parts of her day are going to sleep next to me, waking up next to me.

Those are her two favorite parts of her day. It is. And I waited a long time to go to bed with you every day and wake up next to you every day. And so three and a half years in a marriage, it is still one of my favorite parts of my day, if not my very favorite part of the day. And this is something that I wouldn't say is necessarily like a make or break for all couples. Like some people's lifestyles just don't allow for this.

I am really grateful that ours does and that we have just made that agree. And that we've just made that commitment to each other to start and end our days together. Um, it could be easy to just be like, Hey, I'm tired. I'm going to head up to bed, you know, or just like, Oh, I'm going to stay up working and I'm going to go out with the guys super late and, you know, you go ahead to bed and, um, and whatever.

And yeah, there are days when maybe, like, you get up a little bit earlier to go work out in the gym or something like that. But most of the time, I feel like when we're starting and ending our days together. It's solidifying just like our daily life as a married couple and just that like we're ending the day in gratitude in prayer with each other, like acknowledging our relationship, like having a second to like check in and just have like a daily, like, how was your day? How are you doing?

You know, love you prayer. Good night. And then like, start the day together, like tackle the day together. You know, I love when you like lean over and like, give me a kiss, good morning. And like, we get out of bed and like, we're able to get out of bed together and start our day. Whereas like, if we went to bed at different times or woke up at different times, I feel like for me personally, there would just be kind of like a sense of like loneliness or just like.

It's just, it just doesn't feel right. You know, like if I'm married, like I don't want to go to bed at a different time than my husband. Like I want to end my day with my husband. I think the two things that I was thinking about while you're sharing was one, to build the unity as a spouse or as a couple, especially going to bed together and then two, It provides a space for, uh, one just conversation and connecting. Yeah. Apple.

Um, if one of us goes up to bed before the other, then you're missing out on, like, you already provide the other and then just like decompressing your day, connecting and conversation, just you to, uh, embed. And then, uh, three. Well, I guess there's two more. Three is it provides a space for prayer. Like if you're going up to bed at different times, then it's going to be, it would be very difficult to pray together at night or in the morning.

And that is, it's just like the easiest thing to do is just pray together when you go to bed. And so, but the first step is you have to go to bed at the same time. And then lastly, it does keep the window open for more opportunities. Intimate. Yes. For intimacy. For intimacy. Yeah, exactly. Which is so important in a marriage. And like, not very many times are you able to just do it in the middle of the day with each other.

And so like night and the evening when you're coming together and you're connecting emotionally, spiritually, and then also, uh, physically. Yeah. I love that. That's why we love ending our day together. Okay. Commitment number four. We believe that honesty is the best policy. Yeah. I'm a fan of this in all my relationships. This is a must. It has to be for a marriage. Um, yes. So basically this just means exactly what it is. We choose to be honest with each other at all times. We choose to say.

What we're feeling not play mind games with each other and truly not shove things under the rug I think there's a time and place to choose when to bring things up But if something actually is hurting us or bothering us or you know We don't agree with or whatever We'll kindly bring it up to each other and it's usually not some like, we usually won't just like let things pile up and pile up until we blow up and then like have to unload because we believe that continually just keeping a

conversation or just keeping like a spirit of transparency in our conversations and in our relationship is just going to lead to To healthier marriage. Because we're constantly communicating with each other exactly what we're feeling. Yeah. And my favorite part about this agreement is the no mind games. Like if you want something, say that that's what you want. If you don't want something, like we tell you to like, that's not what we want, we want something different.

And it's not like I'm asking Mari if she wants me to buy this thing for her and she's saying no, but she actually doesn't want me to get it for her, but she's telling me no, uh, or if like I'm cooking food and she is not going to tell me that she doesn't want that. And so then she's just unhappy and hangry because she didn't get to eat what she wanted to eat. Uh, then it's just.

Or, or more like, or more like serious examples, like, you know, if you do something often that bugs me, I'm not going to be like, Oh no, it's fine, babe. I'm fine. You know, that didn't bother me. It's okay. Like just to be like a people pleaser, kind of just to kind of just not want to or not people pleaser, but like to avoid confrontation, I think this is where the biggest pitfall is with people. This commitment can be really hard because.

A lot of people don't like confrontation and I think the reality is that confrontation doesn't have to be an aggressive argument It can just be an honest Candid conversation. And this is like, honesty is avoided a lot because people think it's going to lead to a big argument. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I'll tell you right now, I think any man can say this has been in a relationship. Like if a girl is saying I'm fine, like then they're fine. Like that is the expectation.

Like if you're communicating with your words, that you're fine and you're actually not, then you're setting your man up for failure and you can't expect anything different. Yes. And so like, be honest with. Your husband or your significant other, like, if you're not fine, tell 'em and tell 'em why. Uh, we're not mind readers. We can't get in there and figure out what's wrong. I think Yeah. Being honest with the other about like what you're actually feeling. Exactly what you said.

Yeah, and I think the way you worded that was really beautiful because I don't feel like i've heard that often like choose honesty Because why would you want to set your spouse up for failure? Why would you want to lead them to believe something that's not true? That's just going to cause confusion and conflict. And those just aren't of the Lord. Totally. Honestly, it's the best policy. And last one, number five. Is we choose to love each other and each other is love languages.

This is a big one. This is one that we like learned right off the bat, right as soon as we got married, it was like one of the first like hard lessons we learned that led to this agreement to like really make an effort to love each other and each other's love languages. So if you haven't done the love languages, look up five long love languages and it's basically like the different ways that people. Feel loved the most and most naturally give love. Usually those are correlated, I would say.

And so it's acts of service, physical touch, quality, time, words of affirmation and gifts. And my top love language is physical touch, which means that I feel most loved when I'm hugged or kissed or like somebody like, you know, it rubs my shoulder or. Just like there's any other point of, like, physical contact that, like, makes me feel, like, seen and loved. Yeah. And so, similarly, it's also the way you give love the most. Yes. Because, I mean, it's natural.

That's the way that you receive love. And you have an urge to show love and affection, like you go, you do that in the physical way because that's the way that you receive it. And then my love language, my top one is acts of service. And so, uh, I receive love very well when people are performing acts of service for me so that I don't have to do them. That's also the way that I give love. And so I'll be doing the dishes or.

cleaning up something or taking the trash out or doing chores, like, or driving or going on my way to pick something up, like finding ways to serve as a way of showing love. And so a lot of times when I feel like the inclination, like, Oh my gosh, like I love you. I want to love you.

You know, get up and clean up the kitchen and this or you'll like get up and like, Bring me my water or like, you know, if like I'm on the couch or something, I feel like that's like a, like nobody likes getting off the couch, you know? I'm like, that's a little way to do like an active service. I feel like, you know, if I'm on the couch, I'm like, babe, can you please remove my water? Getting off the couch and doing that. Exactly.

And so this really became a challenge in our marriage early on is. I kept thinking, especially like in the mornings, I would wake up early and make breakfast for us both and, uh, or at nights after dinner, I'd get up and start cleaning up the kitchen and doing the dishes. And, but, and so I was like giving love, but it wasn't being received by Mari. She was in that way. In that way. She was like, Oh, like he just has to do the dishes. Like we have to do the dishes.

So we're going to do the dishes. Uh, but she would have. Rather, I stayed in bed a little bit longer and cuddled her in the morning before I got up and made breakfast. Or after we cooked dinner, I laid on the couch with her and cuddled her and watched TV show instead of doing the dishes right away. And so, uh, it turned out that like, I was trying to give love to Mari, but was like missing the area that she was receiving love. And so, she wasn't actually feeling that loved by me.

Even though I kept thinking, wow, I'm doing all these things that love you, but you weren't actually like receiving it as well as you would have if I just chose physical touch instead. Yeah. And I mean, it went the other way as well. Like I felt an inclination to like love my husband. So I would go and like give him a big hug or give him a kiss or like ask to cuddle or just, you know, like, Just like try and be physically close to him and like show my love in that way.

And many times I learned he would have felt more loved if I took the time to clean the kitchen or to do something for him that would have taken it off his workload. And that would have gone a longer way than like stopping him to like give him a hug or something like that. Yeah. And so it ends with both parties feeling like trying really hard to love the other. It's all in good intention. But then We're almost just like missing each other.

Yeah. And it's frustrating and it's frustrating because like, you're continually feeling like, I'm trying to love my spouse. I'm trying to love my spouse. And it's like so defeating to hear, like, I wish you would have done this. You know, like, I don't feel as loved because I'm not receiving love in the way that I most naturally receive love best. So the challenge here is choosing their love language over yours.

And the times when we have really pressed into that, I feel like we see fruits in our marriage and we see a deeper connection and just like a closeness and a deeper appreciation in our marriage because we're acknowledging like. We're, we're doing the hard thing not to love how we would want to be loved. And maybe, maybe it's like a bigger effort, you know, like for me personally, like it feels better to give you a hug than to do the dishes.

And so for me, it's like a stretch to be like, okay, I want to love Trey. I'm not going to ask him to like cuddle on the couch and like spend time like that. I'm actually just going to like go and like make the bed or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Choosing the other over yourself and choosing their love language over yours. And essentially that's love is choosing the good of the other over yourself. Exactly. So something that we are learning and getting better at and.

I would encourage you to take the love language test. It's like a quiz online and yeah, figure out what yours and your spouse's languages are and we can put it in the show notes and learn to love the other. And there's, yeah, there's a book too. It's super short. I read it in like a day on a retreat. It's so short. So. You could read that. And then I think actually, um, I saw this, but I didn't really actually do it.

They have an app that you can download and you can input what your spouse's love languages or what your friends love languages are. And it'll like ping you like a couple of times a week, like time to walk the dog, you know, love your spouse, clean the kitchen. Like, did you make the bed today? Or like, The other way around, like, have you hugged your wife today? Like it, it pings you like notifications to like remind you in case that like, it's not something you naturally think about.

One, of course I have an app. Of course they have. Why wouldn't they? And that's even better that they found a way to make the app actually useful. I know. I feel like it would be really useful. Well, too bad. I'm too good at loving you. I don't know. Just kidding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so those were the five agreements that we have seen a lot of fruit from in our marriage. We hope that this blesses your marriage. Any closing thoughts, Mari? Yeah, I think just a word of encouragement to.

Newlywed couples out there. I know that we have a lot of like newlywed couples tuning in. And I mean, what is newlywed? I feel like young marriages is like the first, like five years, you're still considered like a newlywed. And basically I just want to say like. Those first few years, like, are meant to learn how to be a good spouse. I remember, like, within our first year of marriage, I went to spiritual direction and I, like, talked to my spiritual director. I was like, what's going on?

Like, you know, and our first year of marriage wasn't even that hard, I think. But there were just some things that I was like, why are we fighting about this? Or like, why does he do this? Or like, why don't I do this well? And I thought, yeah, I'm like, and I was worried. I'm like, it's only our first year of marriage. Like this is when it should be so easy. Like we should be so good at this.

And my spiritual director was actually like, no, actually, if you were, Struggling with these things or like not good at loving your spouse in these ways 10 years in, then I would be concerned, but he's like, of course, you guys aren't good at being married yet. Or, of course, there's just like a lot of things that you're learning about how to love each other better and how to be a good wife or about how to be a good husband because you've never been one and you've only been a wife for.

Nine months, one year, two years or whatever. And there's a lifetime ahead of you. And so I know that like, there's just like a fairy tale, you know, standard of like that newlywed bliss. And there is totally a newlywed bliss that comes. And it is just like a beautiful feeling to like, start off your years together when you first get married.

But also let's just normalize the fact that marriage takes work and that those first few years, you're learning how to be a good wife and how to be a good husband.

And so, Work hard on your marriage Know that like you're not perfect We're not perfect and that's just what these first few years of marriage are and honestly all the years of marriage There's probably going to be so many seasons of stretching and growth um, but I hope that these commitments that we hold to each other that we shared with you today could be a source of encouragement and inspiration of Ways that you can pour into your marriage and center it around christ.