Episode 32 - Secrets of a Successful Marriage - Jalen and Cacie Barnes

Jalen and Cacie Barnes, marriage ministers, share insights on marriage, focusing on premarital and early married couples. They discuss challenges in their own marriage, highlight the dynamics of age gap marriages, and stress the importance of shared beliefs. Emphasizing prioritizing purpose over feelings and the value of faith, they discuss benefits of premarital counseling. The conversation covers challenges faced by the current generation in relationships, advocating for respect and honor for marriage, fighting for it, seeking counseling, and maintaining open communication. They advise men on cultivating a relationship with God, admitting faults, and learning and growing. Additional topics include the importance of learning to communicate emotions, humility, seeking help for communication skills, and the significance of men's empowerment. Connect with them on social media and join their mailing list for book updates.

Takeaways

• The current generation lacks respect and honor for marriage and relationships.
• Appearances are overemphasized, leading to either quick divorces or staying in lackluster relationships.
• Information overload and lack of a solid foundation contribute to the brokenness in relationships.
• Marriage requires constant maintenance, including counseling and communication.
• Selfishness is a major obstacle in successful marriages.
• Accepting and embracing differences is crucial in a marriage.
• Trusting in God's plan and hearing His voice are essential for a successful marriage.
• Men can improve their marriages by cultivating a relationship with God, admitting faults, and being willing to learn and grow.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
01:27 The Struggles of Early Marriage
04:42 Age Gap Marriages
09:42 The Importance of Shared Beliefs
15:00 The Dangers of Letting Feelings Guide Relationships
20:46 The Value of Faith in Marriage 
27:33 The Role of Premarital Counseling
35:39 The Challenges of the Current Generation
36:23 Disrespect for Marriage and Relationships
37:50 Focus on Appearances
39:19 Emulating Failed Marriages
40:19 Information Overload and Lack of Foundation
41:26 The Importance of Fighting for Marriage
42:17 The Need for Maintenance and Counseling
43:20 The Selfishness in Society
44:16 Learning to Be Selfless 
45:12 The Importance of Communication
46:11 The Risk and Reward of Marriage
48:29 The Role of Sacrifice in Marriage
50:06 Accepting Differences in Marriage
51:27 Trusting in God's Plan for Marriage
52:58 The Importance of Hearing the Voice of God
57:09 Serving and Sacrificing for Your Spouse
01:04:06 Advice for Men in Improving Their Marriages 
01:09:02 Learning to Communicate Emotions and Grow
01:10:01 The Importance of Men's Empowerment
01:11:12 Being Strong Men and Women
01:12:19 Where to Find Jalen and Cacie

About Jalen and Cacie:

Jalen and Cacie are marriage ministers from Chesapeake, Virginia. They are helping couples to master their marriage! Their online biblical marriage content is aimed toward pre-married and newly married people. We also offer our unique viewpoint on age gap marriages. We're writing a book for release this summer 21 Days to a Better Marriage.

Our YouTube channel: YouTube.com/c/jalenandcacie

To learn more about Maxed Out Man and to maximize your potential, visit www.maxedoutman.com or connect with us on Social Media:

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Transcript

​​0:00

Welcome to maxed out man helping you

0:06

become the man you were made to be hey guys it's Kevin Davis from the maxed

0:12

out man podcast we're at episode number 32. I am here with some awesome people Jalen and Casey Barnes uh they I'm gonna

0:20

read their bio a little bit real quick uh they're marriage ministers from Chesapeake Virginia they help couples to

0:27

master their marriage uh their online biblical marriage content is mainly guilt towards pre-marital or early

0:35

married early married people uh however it'll benefit all of us as we listen to

0:40

it and they are looking forward to releasing a new book this summer 21 days to a better marriage so I'll put some of

0:46

their links and we'll talk about those links in the in the podcast as well but hey guys I appreciate you taking the

0:52

time to come and talk to us about this topic I'm pretty excited I think I told you I've been married for 28 years as of

0:59

a couple of weeks ago and so obviously marriage is something that's super uh important to me we've done pre-marital

1:05

counseling and actual you know crisis counseling just as lay people along the way too so welcome if you want just give

1:13

me you know that's kind of your your your quick bio but kind of give me your story your backstory and kind of what

1:20

you guys have going on for sure and I want to say thank you for having us on thank you so much

1:25

congratulations to you on 28 years that is an achievement it should be celebrated we look forward to that ourselves 100 uh but yeah so uh again

1:33

we're Jalen and Casey we've been on YouTube for going on well I think we

1:39

started 2018 so they'll put us about five years now that we've been on YouTube doing what we do

1:44

um started podcasting and all that we just really had a desire to help people um with the issues that we had when we

1:51

first got married we have what we like to call newlywed struggles uh we got married and immediately uh all the

1:56

things that we never thought we would deal with because we were raised in the church because we were virgins when we got married because we love the Lord and

2:03

all of that we assume that it would be easy and it wasn't it wasn't and uh marriage is challenging no matter how

2:09

right you come into it it's always going to be a challenge and we quickly learned that and as we learn things and as we

2:15

begin to be educated on matters of marriage we decided hey we need to share what we're learning you know yeah

2:21

because we realize that a lot of people start contemplating divorce within the first two years of marriage so we wanted

2:28

to get a head start on that so we want to have other people to do that as well and say hey it's not strange you're

2:34

having marital problems right at the gate because I think people look forward to the honeymoon phase of the marriage

2:40

and so we weren't having that so it was like wait what is wrong with us but what we do wrong like this is not right this

2:46

is not what the the movies told me it was going to be like so we wanted to I

2:51

guess for lack a better term debunk you know that fairy tale mindset about marriage yeah so that led into what we

2:59

do now and we've we've grown um as we've done this uh we've got around 18 000 followers across all of

3:05

our platforms on social media and um we got an international audience people all over the world and uh we like to be able

3:12

to help people where they are and uh so some of the questions we get in our inbox it's kind of shocking to us

3:17

sometimes the things that people are dealing with uh and then even sometimes the similarities but um we we by the

3:24

help of the Holy Ghost try to help everyone that we can and uh continue to do it because we realize the more we do

3:29

it the more it's needed and how much help is needed with marriage we think that marriage is a foundation of society

3:36

and when marriages crumble Society crumbles and uh we see that today in our in our modern world so our our effort

3:43

one of the efforts the lord gave us was to change the divorce rate change it lower it and it can be done and when

3:49

people found their marriages in the word of God then uh that transformation can happen as the transformation happens in

3:54

you personally and now that's some of the content that'll be in our book that we're releasing later this year an

4:00

application it's so important to anything you want to be successful in you know we take a lot of time to

4:06

educate ourselves on business Sports I interest things like that and we take a lot of investment time like

4:13

even put money into these things why not do the same for your marriage it's the most important relationship besides your

4:18

relationship with God that you will ever have is with your spouse so why not put all your efforts in learning about

4:25

marriage learning about your spouse individuality and investing in them and

4:31

it's because since it's gonna be a lifelong thing you might as well so that it could be the best that it could

4:37

possibly be exactly and you guys have kind of a special um slant to what you do because you talk

4:42

about age Gap marriages too right yeah can you kind of explain that a little bit I skipped over that in your bio

4:48

sorry about that but then this is something that that's kind of interesting to me I mean my wife and I

4:54

are six you know five months apart so we're we we don't have much of an age Gap except for when I turned 50 and she

5:00

wasn't 50 she made sure to remind me of that she turned 15 last week so uh but yeah

5:09

well we have a 11 year age Gap I'm 11 years older than Jalen is and

5:15

um something that we were not looking for or trying to make happen it just

5:21

happened we don't encourage age Gap relationship not because it's something wrong with it but a lot of people come

5:27

at it for different reasons um we weren't trying to do it for sport or just I don't know I wasn't trying to

5:34

have a a boy toy anymore you know he wasn't looking for a sugar mama anything like that but we really

5:41

knew that God put us together and once we got married and we began to minister marriage and we revealed that we had a

5:48

age got a marriage so many people came out the Woodworks now we realized we're not the only age

5:53

Grant relationship we don't have the largest age Gap in the world um but there are some unique issues that

6:00

people deal with in age Gap relationships especially when a woman is older than the man and so we help people

6:07

that's dealing with that you know uh figured that out from a God's perspective and what we come to realize

6:14

is really not the age Gap that makes the marriage special because doesn't matter what your age Gap is you still got to

6:20

use the word of God as your foundation you still got to treat each other with respect With Honor you still gotta do

6:26

things in a certain order to get the kind of results that you want in your marriage yeah and some of the things that some people uh who inboxed us or

6:34

comment on our videos we talk about the topic uh kind of like struggling like well I'm interested in someone and should I pursue it and all that we're

6:40

like we're not going to tell you what to do but remember that and that's why we say we don't encourage it because we're

6:45

not saying oh this is the solution you know you had a series of bad relationships and the problem was you needed someone younger that's never

6:52

going to be the solution the answer is going to be you need someone older that's not a solution that's not what it is and uh so we help people with that

6:58

and say okay this is not the solution it's nothing like you know it depends on what culture you come from some people

7:04

it's very taboo you know the United States is getting a little more it's still some some pushback on it depending

7:09

on where you are but uh it's it's a little easier to do that here than it is you know somewhere else but uh we just

7:15

tell people okay fine you're in the scenario but it's a good opportunity for us to still minister to them the proper

7:20

principles of marriage and give them the unique uh I won't say issues but the unique quirks that come with having an

7:27

age Gap because there are some unique quirks but it doesn't have to be the end of the world if you still know how to have a relationship things would be like

7:34

well since he's younger what does he know can you really follow him is he the leader yes he is you know I'm not

7:41

telling you to marry somebody way younger than you just because again for sport but he showed the type of

7:48

character that gave me the the um the trust in him that I knew that first

7:55

of all he had learnership with God that was obvious you could hear God he was a leader already so I knew that I would be

8:02

safe with that and not that I was so mature and I knew everything in the world

8:08

this idea that women mature faster than men that's questionable

8:14

you know I think that we kind of compare like women sometimes tend to be a little

8:19

more ready to settle and and to to have um Security in their lives maybe a

8:25

little bit sooner than most men but it doesn't make them more mature spiritually or even mentally depending

8:31

on who they are so you have to really just know who you are that's why we recommend any relationship that you

8:38

presented before God if you have a strong leadership in your life like pastors or parents present it to them so

8:44

you can have oversight so because they know you better they can be a little more objective in your life and the

8:50

grand thing about our relationship both of our parents um were very on board with us so they we

8:56

had their support on my pastors which also happened to be my parents you know

9:01

they we had their support so that was very important to me that they that we

9:07

had their support and so that we knew we had the right kind of guidance that we needed man Jaylen for I mean there's one

9:13

thing having to talk to the dad but when the dad's also the pastor man that's uh that's kind of a double

9:19

It's a Kind of a Funny Story how that all went down because I almost was like nah I can't do this it's too scary you

9:26

know having to go ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage but uh it went well obviously we're here today so

9:31

it worked out that's good and how old how old were you guys if you don't mind me asking how old were you guys when you guys got married

9:37

I was 34. all right so that would have put me I know my birthday happened right after we got married so whatever 23 24

9:45

22. yeah he's 23. yeah okay yeah that's 23. okay yeah yeah okay yeah my birthday

9:51

happened right after that yeah well I mean it's funny because there seems to be this kind of Continuum that I you

9:57

know right like uh three years five years difference not sort of a big deal you get to kind of seven to ten then it

10:03

gets a b yeah when you get to that like 20-year difference then it's like all

10:09

right there's this is a little creepy I mean it's funny

10:14

yeah yeah we'll get comments people ask and be like okay well I have this much age difference is that okay and I'm like

10:21

I'm not going to tell you what's okay what's not okay you know I mean I've seen some things like you'll have a man who had a wife passed and then he got

10:28

married to a woman and she's a couple decades younger than him and okay they can't be happy they're okay you know

10:34

children obviously yeah yeah but uh so you know I'm never going past judgment and say okay this is the this number

10:41

right here is the cut off because there was a time where I probably would have thought that 11 years I'd be like oh it's funny is that my father he's now

10:47

passed he's been passed for three years now before we got together my my father was

10:53

not pro age Gap at all especially the woman being older he was okay with the

10:59

man being older but it was like no because he has to be able to lead he has to be able to you know have obtained

11:06

some things in his life which is all true like again I get why age scaling ships don't work especially when a

11:13

woman's older and I don't think there's anything wrong with having that that caution and having that fear about like

11:20

he may not be right because for a lot of times we've seen a lot especially in Hollywood it usually just falls apart

11:27

yeah you know because sometimes women can be so mature and so advanced in her career and can get very subtle in her

11:34

way that she's not gonna let anybody interject anything um so it doesn't work for everyone but

11:41

if you happen to find yourself in an age Gap relationship there is a way to navigate through it we made a video for

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people said okay you're presented with an age guy relationship he's like I think with like 5 questions you should

11:52

ask yourself before you move forward and then try to help people out with that because a lot of times people just and

11:58

people do this with any relationship they'll hop into things based on feelings and emotions and um that's

12:03

something that's that we talk we tackle a lot on our channel is don't be moved by your feelings what happens is for a

12:09

lot of people you start talking to someone and whether or not they actually initiate a physical relationship their emotions get excited and their

12:16

feelings and and all these chemicals start going off and you just become infatuated with this person you fall in

12:22

love as we say and when that happens you lose your objectivity and so you start

12:27

ignoring those what was everyone saying now red flags that's the big buzz term right now you start ignoring those red flags because in your mind you're

12:34

already halfway down the aisle and it would be a lot more difficult to kind of separate yourself and that's one of the

12:40

reasons we definitely tell people don't have sex before marriage because that entirely just implodes your objectivity

12:46

we're not saying that if you have sexual marriage and you got married just are definitely going to fail no there's

12:52

Redemption for that it's healing for that that's fine but we're saying is if you are starting here now and you have a

12:57

choice to make we tell you make the choice to wait because not only does that abide with the word of God but there's a reason why that's in the word

13:03

of God it's because it kills your objectivity once you make that connection because that action of sex is

13:09

the act of marriage in and of itself on a physical level and when you become tied to someone like that it's very very

13:14

difficult to objectively say okay you're not right for me there's some things that we disagree on fundamentally in our

13:21

personality and our character and our belief system that's going to cause a problem down down the road we don't agree about whether or not we believe in

13:27

God we don't agree about to what extent we don't agree about church going we don't agree about how we raise children we don't agree about how we handle

13:33

finances and when you have all these differences you're thinking okay we'll figure it out because the good feelings are so strong that's not true that's not

13:41

true at all and um so that and we've experienced that obviously with our newlywed struggles but it happens to

13:47

everybody you get into the marriage or however long it takes one year two years ten years eventually the feelings that you got married on are no longer there

13:53

and now you're wondering what happened was this the wrong person should I not married them well no that doesn't

14:00

necessarily mean that however those feelings might have clouded you to the person that you're standing in front of you now and so we say when you get

14:06

married and this we're going to talk about this in our book you've got to get married with purpose that should be the reason you get married not feelings

14:12

purpose and so when a man and woman get together some of the first conversations they should have is what is your purpose

14:17

in life what did God put you in this planet for what are you going to do because I need to know if that matches what my purpose is and if we can work

14:23

together because that's what's going to keep us in the sick and uh sickness and health richer or poor what's going to

14:30

keep us in the good times and the bad times is knowing that we have a purpose to be together that's what's going to allow us to forgive and to say you know

14:37

what I want to compromise on this issue or you know I don't have to have my way because you have a purpose to fulfill a

14:42

god-given purpose so that's what we tell people don't get married for feelings age gap or Nat whatever it is don't let

14:48

your feelings Cloud your judgment because at the end of the day that purpose is going to keep you because those feelings will not last and that's

14:54

not a bad thing that's supposed to last those feelings yeah they'll get you to the altar but involved yeah but the

14:59

feelings aren't what you live your life on and anybody's been married and you could probably attest to this Kevin greater than us that haven't been

15:05

married as many years you have your feelings have changed they've gone up and down they don't always feel great you don't always wake up and look over

15:11

and be like Oh I'm just so in love with you sometimes you

15:17

you know my wife's looking over at me yeah if you do that again there you go

15:23

and don't know those are feelings that you never thought you'd have when you first started but it's real and if you

15:28

don't have an underlying purpose to keep you together then you'll end up saying we have irreconcilable differences and

15:34

you'll hop and find the next person and repeat the cycle all over again yeah 100 Now you kind of alluded to it

15:41

would you mind sharing those five questions that you that you kind of go through I think you probably alluded to

15:47

those if you don't would you be oh yeah yeah and I touched on them so what's interesting is those five questions and

15:53

I'm trying to remember if it was five or three in the video I'll come off top of my head but there are the questions that we tell people to ask

15:59

even when they're not in an age Gap relationship in any relationship they go into and so um come on top of my head here one of

16:06

them for sure is find out what is your belief system okay what what do you guys actually believe like truly let us have

16:12

these hard conversations now what do you believe you know about each other and for one that is specific to age Gap is

16:19

you gotta ask yourself does it how much does it matter to me you'll be honest

16:24

with yourself because again you get the good feelings and everything but one thing I had to do when we were getting married before we got married I had to sit down and say okay

16:31

do I actually care I told her I don't care that I'm not gonna care when I'm 40 and she's 50 and I'm 50 and she's 60 and

16:37

I'm 67 I'm saying I don't care but Jalen are you actually going to care ask yourself I had to sit down kind of a

16:43

thought experiment and say okay what if someone says something negative to us what if someone looks at it and and has

16:49

a problem with it what if when we get older I start looking at her different like what if you know and I took myself

16:54

through that and I came to an intelligent decision that no it's not going to matter it's not going to change

17:00

anything you know he was okay with that because that could happen um children is another thing you know do

17:07

you want children and depending on the age Gap you know some women just like no I don't want to have children yeah

17:13

unfortunately for us we do we have a son he'll be three next month

17:19

um so you got to talk about those things well how many children do you want yeah well depending on that depending on the

17:24

age Gap there's a physiological concern like if some if if if you're 25 and

17:30

she's 35 like that's a conversation like I want to wait five or six years to have kids well you probably you know that

17:36

that creates high risk situations and all that too yeah and you got to just know the person yeah

17:42

and what they're willing to tolerate to to deal with what kind of Faith they have for kind of things like that you

17:48

know we're we're Faith people I know we don't say that gingerly we are Faith people we do some extreme things that

17:54

most people just don't consider doing you know we like to live on the edge especially this guy he just brought me

18:02

on the edge of Faith so many times but I'm thankful for that and that's one of the characteristics that I really like

18:07

about him um but that's definitely something you should definitely ask one your belief system

18:14

um what do you believe about children and their child rearing um finances yep big One

18:20

finances are you good at saving are you you know better at spending you know uh

18:25

what's your thoughts about debt you know those types of things are very very important because again you get into a

18:31

relationship and you realize oh she likes to splurge a lot or he likes to

18:37

splurge a lot and he doesn't he's not really great at saving you know um our Dynamic is I'm really good at

18:43

saving now my husband's a giver he's not a frivolous spender at all

18:49

um he's good at managing the finances but say that he would give it all if

18:55

somebody needs it it's gone and I'm like hey you got to save something you know

19:01

so I'm the saver he depends on me to save the money and he gives the money

19:07

um that's allotted and things like that so we have to know your Dynamic financially your strengths and your weaknesses that really is important to

19:14

know yeah I don't know how many points we hit there but we tend to talk about these things so often we kind of jump

19:19

forward oh no that's fine that's I mean I think it's all I think it's all super educational it's funny because my daughter uh who's 24 she's actually here

19:27

I told you she's actually leaving today she's been here for about a week we had both of our kids here 25 and 24. but she

19:34

she by her own admission has not picked great guys

19:39

um and and what's funny is that she is kind of a chameleon so this Faith issue

19:44

has and ironically her name is Faith because of some issues that we had in her marriage and God sent her to us as a

19:51

surprise to uh kind of help us along the way but she's the faith issue has become

19:57

something that's really um been really big because for whatever reason you know this is the kid that's

20:03

like been on multiple mission trips and led her sister to the Lord and and then she started dating non-believers which

20:09

we had conversations about that and uh I'm not sure if it's good parenting to throw the Bible at your child but

20:17

um which you we had an argument where she basically told me that God told her that it's okay and he she can uh she can

20:24

date him into the kingdom um so you know which which we know which reload doesn't work out uh but that

20:31

unequally yoked um but yeah so so now she just started dating this guy probably seven or eight

20:38

weeks ago and the first and her first thing she said is he's a Christian and we're like oh well that's a basis at

20:46

least that's a basis we can we can work you can start from yeah so that that Faith issue is is important yeah it's

20:54

it's interesting we just got an inbox this past week from someone um overseas dealing with a similar issue

21:00

and I won't you know go into too much detail that person's question was but the same kind of thing we get that a lot and typically it'll come from women

21:07

um who will get interested in a man and but their belief system is either not

21:12

like yeah you know uh not religious or a completely different religion that's diametrically opposed you know to

21:18

Christianity and everything and um what we try to tell people to get them to understand it's a little more difficult we deal with younger people but which

21:25

other people understand is that like with our situation we thought we weren't going to have problems because

21:30

we were raised in the same church I mean we had the same past like everything we believe the same about pretty much everything inductionally well and that's

21:38

the thing so we're talking to people is when you get married because you are two different people tutoring perspectives

21:43

you're going to have conflict that's just a part of it it's going to happen you're not going to see everything the

21:49

exact same way two siblings raised in the same house don't see everything in the same way he sees magenta exactly

21:54

like just it is going to be disagreement naturally that's just the way it's going to go and so what we try to tell people

22:00

is if you choose someone who's got something so fundamentally oppose or or diverge from what you

22:07

believe something as as critical as eternity what happens when I die like

22:13

let's just boil it down to that that right there you're adding on a

22:18

heavy burden to your relationship before you even get started because you're going to disagree on a whole bunch of stuff little nitpicky stuff when you add

22:24

in major things like that and the same thing goes with finances and rearing children things like that when you add

22:30

something in like that and think I'll figure it out as I go one of you is going to compromise it's either you're

22:35

going to compromise your faith in Christ or they're going they will change and convert but one of you is going to have

22:41

to compromise and usually the person who compromised first to get into it is going to be the one that compromise down the road yeah and so if you're the

22:47

Christian compromised or give a non-believer you've already made a compromise to do this because you had the question in your mind of first place

22:52

and now you're going to keep compromising keep compromising and as you're going yes there are stories of people who married non-believers and

22:58

then that person had experience with Jesus and they got saved and all that that's a great relationship based off of someone else's victory yeah you know

23:06

because it's one fundamental truth you cannot change the individual that's true I don't care how good you are as a

23:12

person you cannot do that that's the Holy Spirit job now if you are on assignment you better know you are an

23:19

assignment and you better carry the anointing with you and you better be dog mad about your faith and your stance on

23:25

what you believe because that's going to work you can't waver um but you just can't change someone you

23:32

can introduce the love of God to someone you can be an example and things like that but I don't understand why people

23:39

just can't wait until someone converts or someone shows them proof of change

23:44

and it's because we have this fear and anxiety in our society that I want to be lonely I gotta get married by this age

23:52

or be relationship by this age or I'm gonna be weird I'm gonna stand out because the devil has told us that our

23:59

best years are in our 20s or in our 30s it is not if you see in the word of God

24:05

the people that did the most marvelous things but they were always older more

24:10

mature I found that now that I'm in my I'm 41 now I am more grounded and rooted in who I

24:18

am as a person the confidence that I'm walking now I did not have when I was in my 20s now I don't despise my 20s but I

24:25

have so much more confidence since there's so much my relationship with God has even grown and the things that I

24:31

would tolerate in my 20s I don't anymore but we're just afraid of aging and and you

24:37

know we we told that oh girl your air is going to dry like I have a whole book on that how to be single and happy to give

24:44

it to your daughter she might like it yeah um um but it's just the Lord taught me how

24:50

to be happy with myself and to be happy in his presence and I let the Holy Spirit lead and guide me to

24:57

my husband today I never saw this coming I didn't want a husband younger than me

25:02

if you had to see my list that I had my requirements he was not on it except

25:08

being a Christian and being tall he's he's taller than me so those two things

25:13

yeah yeah one one out of 37 ain't bad Jalen right exactly right exactly

25:19

exactly I did not know what was best for me and I was just writing a list based off of what I thought looked good

25:27

and would make me happy but the Holy Spirit knows you better than any person so I would encourage people to just lose

25:34

the fear find God's plan for your life and let him direct that and the right

25:39

person will come along and the years that and I'm not saying you have to be 34 to get married or 40 50 whatever your

25:46

timing is your timing but for her to find that satisfaction in God and in yourself and it's it's so worth the wait

25:53

it really is and you're so valuable to God don't waste it on people who can't

25:59

value you the same way God yeah so you use that time in your 20s and early 30s

26:04

to to Really find figure out who you were as a person who you were in the

26:10

Lord and that's that's kind of what we've encouraged our our youngest to do she's not taking that advice so far but

26:16

uh you know as as early 20s do but you know the old joke is you know my wife's

26:22

50 she's like you're gonna trade me in for two 20 year olds and no offense of 20 year olds but I'm like have you

26:28

talked to a 20 year old there is nothing in me though and and

26:34

it's funny because it we were we were celebrating her birthday the other night I looked across the table and she was

26:41

actually yelling at me about like in play we're playing this game and she was basically telling me to stop talking

26:47

during the game and and all this stuff but I looked at her and like I still get those butterflies in my stomach when I

26:55

see her and it's like it gets better every year we're turning 50 and we you

27:01

know we have a different situation than you guys obviously we we got married at I was 21 she was 20.

27:07

um and and we just we got married early so we've grown up literally grown up together so everything that we've done

27:13

it's a mutual experience and and all that but yeah you know it's it's something that really can that

27:19

faith-based part of it for us has been super you know it's what's gotten us through

27:25

you know stupid mistakes on her part stupid mistakes on my part the day in and day out of just being a person you

27:32

know it's it's something that makes a huge difference and I think that's the key because we're

27:37

like what you run into is say okay you should get with someone who's a Believer and it's okay but this person isn't a

27:43

bad person it's like that's not the issue I mean first of all Jesus said nobody's good so let's let's throw that out the windows whether that someone's

27:49

good or whatever but but let's just let's just talk about this for a second let's work through this it's not about oh well they're a good person they just

27:55

don't have to be a Christian the point is when you get into marriage one thing I have to practice is forgiveness yes we're both going to hurt each other

28:01

we're both going to do wrong things either by mistake or just by uh Disobedience we're going to do wrong

28:06

things in this relationship so the difference is the person sitting beside me shares my belief that when that

28:12

happens we run to the same Source we don't run to coping mechanisms we don't run to substances we run to Jesus we run

28:19

to him and we believe in his blood that covers sin and so I know that we both believe in forgiveness and holding each

28:26

other to that we both believe in Redemption and we both believe in the word having the answer to any situation

28:31

that when we get up to it we don't have the knowledge of doing we both believe that when we pray in the Holy goes he's going to give us a download of what we

28:37

need to do in every situation we believe in these things and so that's what's key there it's not that we're saying that oh

28:44

that person that you're dating well because they're not a Christian that means that they're an evil person that's not the issue that's not what determines

28:49

the evil or the not even the whole other issue for there what we're saying is that person that shares that belief system y'all are going to be United when

28:57

y'all come up against the challenges and the tribulations of life because they will come no matter what and you don't want to look to the person beside you

29:03

and they run to some other God hey guys thanks for listening to this episode I hope you're enjoying it and learning a

29:09

lot if you're looking for extra help don't forget that I do offer one-on-one coaching we can talk through a ton of

29:15

different issues I can give you guides guidelines and logistical help to help

29:20

you take that next step or go to that next level in some of the things that you're dealing with in your life we also

29:25

have some course content some guides and a lot of educational materials over at

29:31

maxedoutman.com for the coaching go ahead and go to maxoutman.com coaching and you can learn about that

29:37

and then just go to maxed outman.com for everything else thanks for joining us now back to the episode even if they

29:42

don't believe in God everyone has a God that they run to in their time of need and you don't want to find out that they're running to some other God when

29:49

you're running to the the god that you believe in and suddenly y'all are going to separate directions and that's the

29:54

thing that no one thinks about when they're feeling those good feelings for somebody in that dating process you're using two separate playbooks right I

29:59

mean it'd be like it'd be like having having co-coaches on the football field or basketball court exactly and one is

30:06

using one Playbook on what they what they're supposed to do in the rules and then the other one's using a different

30:12

one like you're never it's impossible to get you know not impossible but it's extremely difficult to be on the same

30:18

page oh yeah yeah it becomes very problematic and you don't want to have to put

30:23

yourself through that and there's a reason why I mean I mean it's like you know you feel like you're being mean to people you're

30:29

being too hardcore but let's look at Jesus how hardcore he was I mean it's something he said to people if you're going to be on my team if you're going

30:35

to follow me you have to leave everything else behind let it all go Let the dead bury the dead and take up your

30:41

cross and follow me die to yourself all these different things and it's like it does require a lot and it's okay like

30:47

you mentioned having a list of 30 different things yeah you don't have to end up dumping your list but one thing that you should have as a core

30:53

foundational thing is there are certain things for the person that you're looking for man or woman if you're looking for somebody there's something

30:59

you should look for is that I'm going to require that we share that same belief

31:05

and that same God and that same savior uh he's required that saves acquired a lot of me and I've been on this journey

31:10

I'm gonna be on the journey the rest of my life serving him and I've been willing to die to all these different things so follow him as he required of

31:16

me and the person I tied myself to it's not too much for me to require they do the same problem most individuals

31:21

haven't died and before doing that they're looking to get into a relationship that requires

31:28

you to die into yourself yeah you know so it causes a ball of confusion and

31:34

that's why our ministry is geared to newly ways or people walking into relationships because if we can head you

31:42

off yeah before you make a huge mistake yeah they're better because we know God's grace is more than able and we

31:49

know there's forgiveness and people come from all walks of life we didn't always do it right so we thank God for that

31:55

because some mergers wouldn't be here today yeah if it wasn't for God's grace and his forgiveness and giving us that

32:01

second chance to do it right to fix things so we're not I know some people hear this and they're like well you

32:06

saying there's no hope there's hope for everyone but even in a hopeless marriage seemingly hopeless marriage at some

32:13

point those two individuals had to stop and say okay this is it you got to do what we're talking about

32:20

right now you got to start from square one and um so we can help new Lewis or help

32:26

people come into relationships start right so that way you because you will have challenges like we've been saying

32:31

the whole time but if you if you give it the foundation to weather that storm a

32:36

lot easier so your marriage will come out stronger and not broken because that's what

32:42

happens we go through these challenges and the marriage just gets beat up and then it's broken and every year it goes

32:47

by you get more cracks more cracks and we Never Mend those cracks so then two three years maybe five years maybe even

32:53

10 years you decide we're done you're too crap you're too broken and it's hopeless and we don't know how we can

33:00

fix it yes did you did you guys build up pre-metal counseling before you got married

33:05

did Dad do it no actually actually no because that'll

33:11

be funny they're quite interesting no my I actually

33:16

um our the pastor that married us he was my parents pastor and um because my

33:23

father walked me down the aisle and um but best believe we got it from both sides so yeah like we got it from both

33:30

sides um but no we did have premarital counseling and we had a whole questionnaire that we had to take and we

33:37

couldn't share it with each other and it was very interesting once we were able to see each other's answers just

33:43

how different yeah we thought about the same thing so from that we realized

33:49

there's some things we need to talk about yeah you know because I didn't know you felt that way yep um so premarital counseling is very very

33:56

important because you need to have somebody that can be objective and can access hard questions that sometimes you

34:02

might think if I ask that he's not going to want me well if you had that concern yeah that's a good that's a good

34:09

indication you need help and I think that's the one thing people hear Premier counselors like we don't have problems Premier constantly is if we're having

34:14

problems well first of all you do have problems everybody got problems but that's not what it's for what it's for is to get you to ask those questions

34:20

that you're not asking because I guarantee you again your objectivity is

34:25

compromised and there's some stuff you're holding back and some of the things of this questionnaire were intense it was it got into are you able

34:31

to perform sexually how do you feel about that uh how many children uh do you want to have

34:36

um should the woman work oh yeah how do you feel about women working or so she's home with the kids only and all these different things like that like stuff

34:41

that people have strong opinions on but don't always talk about because it's uncomfortable conversation yeah and I'm

34:47

like at the very least Dr Chapman calls it what the tingles right I you know he's yeah yeah back in the day we used

34:53

his five leveling we have an old VHS tape of like the 90s right Dr Chapman

34:59

doing it and doing a speech classic and you we actually started using it again and trying to find that is impossible

35:05

you can't find that particular one online but uh but he talks about the tingles and he talks about meeting with

35:12

this young couple and and asking them the question what are you guys going to do when you have disagreements and like

35:18

the the joke is they're looking at each other and kind of giggling like they don't really understand the question

35:24

yeah you know we've done some pre-marital stuff and actually we had two couples in our in our group where we

35:31

said these guys should not be getting married um right now or maybe ever uh yeah and

35:38

one of them one of of them actually did not get married um because of because of that advice and

35:43

one actually did and then they divorced within like eight 18 months and so it was because because there was so much of

35:50

a fundamental difference in the way that they handled conflict and just underlying issues and

35:56

and all that so like that's that pre-marital part of it what things are you seeing

36:02

I mean you guys are you know a lot younger than me not not that much 10 years for you you know

36:08

20. what's that average 30. you guys are thirty something no we advertise

36:14

yeah so you're 33 right that's that that's the code that's something like that yeah what kind of things are you

36:21

guys seeing now because this is a whole different generation that obviously we grew up we got married in 1995.

36:28

um you know we started dating in 93 and so like it's it's a whole different world you have hookup culture going on

36:35

now and yeah these yeah even the fact that there's a phrase called body count is just completely yeah crazy to me and

36:44

the numbers that these young women especially and you know men especially too but what kind of things are you guys

36:50

seeing as you deal with these young couples and kind of help help them along this journey I think for me and especially in a

36:57

woman's side it's just the mere disrespect for marriage we don't have the same love of Honor respect for

37:03

marriage honor respect for sex I respect for ourselves we kind of just think that

37:09

it's so fair it's something to do I had a young lady that um I was dealing with for a while and she's she was much

37:16

younger than me at this time you know she was like 19 20. and uh she just like

37:22

I got married I'm like what when you know and but she was so nonchalant about she

37:30

was like well if it doesn't work out we just get a divorced like it was nothing like it wouldn't affect her at all and

37:36

she is divorced still in her 20 and I could see the scarring but she's

37:42

acting like it's okay you know it's just a fact of life be people divorced you know we can move on but I can see the

37:49

hurt I can see the pain people act like their soul isn't real you know we treat

37:54

our bodies we just respect not realize it's not about just your body it's your soul it's your spirit is being affected

38:00

by this and these are the wounds and the scars that we carry into other relationships and this is why we see uh

38:08

the Brokenness we see in relationships people are now not even getting married you know they live together for 20 years

38:14

and never marry I've seen that and it's like why can't you make that

38:20

that next up commitment you're doing everything in the book that looks like marriage but you just won't say I do

38:26

you know one thing interesting that I'm seeing um and it's actually like talking to certain couples whether they're married or not but

38:33

there's a very big focus and over emphasis on appearances yeah

38:40

to the point where the man has this idea of what the ideal

38:45

family looks like what the husband should be doing what the wife should be doing what the children should be doing

38:50

and the wife has her own version of that and it's based on social media based on experiences from childhood things like

38:56

that and um so they have that and then they're so focused on appearances that

39:03

either a at the drop of a hat they'll cut the tie on that leadership and get a divorce because now serving them their

39:10

Vibe their energy or there's another Twist on it well they'll stay in a lackluster relationship not improving it

39:18

but they'll stay in it even if it's bad because they're afraid of how they'll look if they get out of it yeah and so

39:25

it's so appearance focused whichever way you take it in which direction you take it that no one's really focused on

39:31

fundamental and I saw one person and I was asking him okay so where'd you get this idea from that your wife should be

39:36

doing this particular thing playing a specific role but I wanted to see did it come from the word of God where'd it come from and they say well it came from

39:42

what I saw from my parents and what was interesting was they told me earlier in the conversation their parents were divorced and I looked at them and I said

39:48

why are you trying to emulate someone who failed that marriage and I said I'm not trying to be mean here but

39:54

marriage and divorce divorce is when you fail that marriage even if you needed to get divorced maybe you needed to but the

40:00

marriage failed I said I'm not saying they can't try again or what about that not being mean I said why are you trying to emulate someone who didn't you're

40:07

trying to succeed at marriage but at the same time you're trying to emulate the behaviors of people who you saw fell at

40:13

it I said wouldn't you rather try to emulate someone who's actually succeeding at it and I realize that

40:19

never crossed their mind that way they were just trying to repeat what they saw and so um I think that's what we're seeing now everyone is taking a lot of

40:25

information and you know no one wants to submit to good marriage teaching however

40:30

they are submitting to the information they're getting on Tick Tock Instagram the culture and we're letting the culture determine to us how we should

40:37

handle our relationships rather than determining and having a foundation a core value system that says this is how

40:43

it should be and please believe you know we talked a lot earlier about you know marrying someone who's a Believer and having a strong Foundation please

40:49

believe there are many Believers not following the word of God and following the principles of the word of God and

40:54

many people were talking to that were helping that are believers but they're just not doing biblical principles in

41:00

their marriage because just like a non-believer they're taking in all this information from outside and so I think

41:05

if I could wrap up one statement to say about what this generation is we've got information overload and we're taking

41:10

the wrong advice and so then you know we're heavy on social media WE Post

41:16

several times a day on our Platforms in order to come to realize is I'm one of many accounts that these people are

41:22

following and they're just taking my advice although it's the truth of the word of God they're taking it and it is lumping it in with everything else and

41:29

90 of people were coming across our content that's what they're doing you know my hope is that something I say

41:34

will ring true in your spirit and then you'll come and maybe subscribe or watch more videos and then you'll realize okay

41:39

this is different this is important I need to be paying attention and so out of the 100 but I see what we post maybe one or two are actually going to follow

41:46

through and realize okay I need to make some changes but that's just the reality of the world we live in right now hopefully the algorithm picks up on that

41:52

and starts serving them more people yeah more people with the positive message like you guys have yeah amen yeah you

41:58

know it's it's interesting that you know with us we we made divorce a non-option which I think is just not the case now

42:06

it's like it's like if you were in a war firefight situation right like if you're

42:12

you don't have the option just to get up and walk away so if you don't have that option the

42:18

only other option is to fight and yeah and so like you have to fight

42:24

for your marriage and do I don't understand why anybody would want to be in an unhappy marriage I understand that

42:30

that happens but you know and and you like you said earlier you can't change that you can't change the other person

42:37

um but to be able to do everything you possibly can to make this as happy and

42:42

fulfilling as you can Michelle and I we've been we've probably been to counseling six or seven times in our in

42:48

our marriage and that's we've done kind of we call it kind of we're car people so we kind of call it changing the oil

42:54

of of our relationship yeah maintenance going and doing those maintenance things we've done weekends to remember and

43:01

we've done we've done intensive counseling where we actually do on-site like we had a few years ago where we

43:07

were kind of going through this thing where we weren't sure okay the kids are leaving home uh we weren't kind of sure what our next

43:14

steps were we're gonna stay here I'm not a huge winter fan and we live in Montana uh but we went to this like week-long

43:21

intensive and like God actually just changed my heart completely and it was

43:26

crazy it was like this huge Epiphany for me and it changed the course of the next

43:31

you know 50 years of our marriage we'll just we'll you know say that but like I think that that's something that people

43:37

are afraid to do is like you know we encounter an issue if you encounter an issue anywhere else in your life you're

43:43

gonna usually seek a way to fix it versus just bail out like I like it's

43:49

it's just a crazy scenario that we have hey guys thanks for listening to this

43:54

episode I hope you're enjoying it and learning a lot if you're looking for extra help don't forget that I do offer

43:59

one-on-one coaching we can talk through a ton of different issues I can give you guides guidelines and logistical help to

44:07

help you take that next step or go to that next level in some of the things that you're dealing with in your life we

44:12

also have some course content some guides and a lot of educational materials over at maxedoutman.com for

44:20

the coaching go ahead and go to maxoutman.com coaching and you can learn about that and then just go to maxed

44:26

outman.com for everything else thanks for joining us now back to the episode

44:32

um well we live in a very self-serving Society now it's all about what makes me

44:38

happy what you know we're always so concerned about protecting my energy whatever but again those things are Buzz

44:46

term their words people don't even know what they're really saying but it's just selfishness it really is am I saying

44:52

that you shouldn't have love for yourself but the word said we shouldn't take thought or thing

44:58

you want to cast out cares onto him because he knows you he would take care of you and when I was single I looked at

45:05

that and said he'll take care of my relationship too he would he would make sure I had the best man that will give

45:11

me what I need will be able to be that leader will that heart that will not hurt me and not harm me that will love

45:17

me the way he loves me so I had to trust God enough with that part of me as well I stopped being so self-serving learning

45:25

how not to be selfish because getting married you are a selfish person it is the worst

45:31

thing to do is to get married if you are selfish because you're not going to have a good marriage at all because marriage

45:37

is all about serving one another it is the biggest example of Christ's love to us it's been able to start

45:44

waking up every day and say what can I do to meet my spouse's day better what would make him smile and make her smile

45:51

that takes a selfless person to do that and people are just afraid of sacrifice

45:56

they're afraid of that and you know I think that we have a lot of

46:01

Comforts in our world especially in the western world that we take for granted

46:06

people are dying all over this world this globe that would die for some of the the amenities that we have and we're

46:14

just so like I said we're just self-serving we take things for granted we're not thankful for what we have for

46:20

who we have people are flawed we all are flawed we're not going to say everything and do everything right but people are

46:26

valuable and you don't really know that until they're gone yeah and it's too late at that point and uh we pay to

46:32

learn some hard lessons but uh that's what I believe why people we struggle so hard because we're just too selfish and

46:38

I want to call out something you mentioned about uh you know you said you've been to counseling several times and all that you know what's interesting

46:44

is the first thing someone might say is oh I wonder what was wrong yeah that made them have to go to counseling it's

46:51

like that's the wrong way to look at it let's say let's look at marriage like a business if you have a corporation in

46:57

some cases you're kind of required to have minutes you required to do uh certain meetings whether it's quarterly

47:02

or yearly and what if every time there's a shareholders call or meeting of the board

47:08

the board was like why we mean something wrong well why are we talking and it's like no it's the end of the quarter we

47:14

need to talk about our performance for the past three months and when you talk about our projections the rest of the year do we need to make adjustments because some things have changed the

47:20

economy has changed we lost some workers we gained some workers we made a decision that's not working out we need to revisit before we go jump into next

47:27

quarter if we don't talk about it we only talk once at the beginning of the start of this business 50 years later this business going to collapse because

47:33

we haven't talked and adjusted and made adjustments and moved and grown and we get that with business we get that in

47:40

the workplace but with marriage we think we're supposed to say I do maybe have a premarital counseling session and never

47:45

have to talk to each other or anyone else again and that doesn't make any sense no organization your marriage is

47:50

an organization no organization will survive if you all aren't communicating and getting input whether between the

47:56

two of you or somebody else and it's like that should be a normal thing it should

48:01

be a normal thing to seek insight to stop and um you know something that we've practiced that our marriage Retreats where at the beginning of the

48:08

year you'll sit down you'll talk you lock yourself away and we'll talk about what is the plan for this year what do we want to do let's talk about the kids

48:13

talk about issues that we're having between each other and then we have a focus for the rest of the year but um it's a big thing creating those plans

48:20

and so that should be normal that should be normal because here's the thing yes divorce is not an option but the one thing that we've always said is having a

48:26

lackluster marriage is also not an option 100 so not only am I trying to plan to make sure that I don't divorce I'm also going to make it unacceptable

48:33

that we go long periods of time being unhappy when it's something that we can fix between one another you know the

48:39

challenges again are going to come but when there are external pressures we often say this we're going through a

48:45

financial issue or something like when her father passed when we go through hard things sometimes in the middle of

48:50

it we'll look at each other and say I'm glad we're doing this together that's what that's kind of marriage you want right there you don't want a marriage

48:56

when when those bad things are happening all each other's throats and you wish you didn't have this person dragging you down that's what you don't want so that

49:02

only comes with this maintenance you know like you said changing oil I like that you know that's that's the attitude we should have about our marriage yeah I

49:08

mean we we did kind of a mixture you know we've had times in our lives where it was like all right we need some crisis management counseling stuff and

49:15

and that's been you know probably 20 of the kind of the counseling stuff we've done over here but yes the rest of it is

49:22

like hey we need a tweak here whether it's our nor our communication just our you know future kind of things dealing

49:29

with children you know sexual relationship all of these different things and like it's there are always

49:35

people that know more than you and can help exactly along the way for sure

49:41

definitely definitely and that's the thing you got to have good counsel and the Bible talks about that in the Book of Proverbs about surrounding yourself

49:46

with Good Counsel if you're going to succeed and it's just about changing the way you view what marriage is um we just

49:52

don't really look at it properly I think of society what it is and you mentioned being at War that's a good way to look

49:58

at it another way to look at it is a sports team you know how many times in sports uh I think I could have most

50:03

examples from basketball where there was that one uh player on the team who you knew they were unhappy and they were

50:09

possible to walk how much that hurt the locker room how much that hurt performance on the court because you knew you had that one person that was

50:15

checked out and didn't care and was about to sign with another team well that's what it's like in a marriage when you're not putting in 100 you know the

50:21

team can now perform it and we can't succeed and I think the thing that people ask us will succeed at what and

50:27

that gets to the root of the issue yeah we don't have a purpose we don't know what we're doing we don't we don't know why we're married in the first place

50:33

because a lot of us get married I needed a warm body I need someone to have sex with on demand I needed

50:40

Financial Security I needed to look good and in my culture we look good when we have someone on our arm those are the

50:46

wrong reasons that's not a purpose and when you lack purpose you don't know what you're doing you're just running around on the court and you'll know if

50:52

you're making good shots or not anything that you don't know the purpose of equal abuse yeah and abuse is not just somebody hitting

51:00

you upside the head or verbally abusing you but just not using it for the purpose it was designed yeah you know

51:06

it's like buying a car and letting it sit in your driveway and rot you know not taking care of enough maintenance it

51:11

you just bought a car just to look at I mean that's not the purpose of that vehicle it's meant to be driven you know

51:17

it's meant to take you to a destination so that's very much like marriage you know you can't buy the vehicle of

51:23

marriage and don't maintenance it yeah in these constant daily maintenance and that's why I am so encouraged when I see

51:30

marriages like yours and and uh people that's been married 50 60 years and they

51:36

still in love with one another I admire that so much and I'm always asking what's your secret what did you do and

51:43

at the core of it all is communication you learn how to communicate we learn how to compromise yep you know uh

51:51

basically they're saying we learn how to be selfless you know one thing I noticed when I recently you see YouTube videos

51:56

of people like they're turned 100 years old and what's the secret what's secret and I think the ones are really listening but you know when they when

52:03

they get the answers but I want one pattern I noticed is they seem so unbothered by the stuff that bothers us

52:10

younger people and they'll talk about issues between themselves like yeah she's like this or

52:16

he's like this and it's the same stuff that every marriage deals with every man and woman to say oh yeah I can resonate

52:21

with that my husband does that too my wife does that too difference is they don't care at a certain point they just

52:26

accept it yeah these are our differences but I'm not gonna let it bother me anymore I'm not gonna hold this against them I'm not gonna punish them for

52:33

having this difference and character and this difference and opinion and I've accepted to to work with it and to not

52:41

settle with it but become a person but true enough that it doesn't rock my world that you're different from me and

52:48

uh I think and so when you look at those things like yeah they have the same issues that everyone else has they're just mature about how they're handling

52:53

them and we're still getting angry and mad and and cussing each other out because we're expecting that somehow

53:00

they're going to change that Quirk at some point and likely they're not they're likely not going to change that

53:05

and so either you're going to learn many things that we have and I'm that

53:10

you know it's like okay it's just the way is and if you can have that maturity then I think you can last yeah I've got

53:16

a friend of mine that we actually that I had on early on in the podcast like episode two or three he's 92. his wife

53:22

is 91. they're still married celebrating their 74th wedding anniversary wow like

53:29

that's awesome long time and they're they're the most and they're you know he was a former Pastor they're both like

53:35

they get closer and it's funny because I've asked him I'm like how do you find your relationship with each other and

53:42

your relationship with God as you get towards what really is the end like there's no surprise when you're when

53:49

you're early 90s your time is limited and he's you know he talks about how they by them each getting closer to the

53:55

to the Lord they've gotten closer to each other and you know they have the greatest marriage and he's kind of he's

54:02

he's super fit I'm fairly certain he might outlive me um but but she's she's kind of frail and

54:11

has some health issues he you know takes care of her and and deals with all that stuff and it's just such a great picture

54:17

of Sir of that servant marriage um and going back to something you said

54:22

Casey one of the things that I try to do and advise other people to do is if I'm doing everything I can to make sure

54:29

Michelle's needs are met and she's doing everything she can to make sure my needs are met guess what everybody's needs get

54:36

met like that's it's this magic exactly magic right yeah exactly

54:41

yeah and that's it and I think I mean that some that simple statement you just made okay stuff yeah we do but that's

54:48

some statement you made it's it like at its core like all the law of love that Jesus

54:55

talks about is wrapped up in in that like that's how your day-to-day practice of marriage should be serving one

55:02

another and the thing about it is it's so perfect it's so genius in that it

55:07

works but it's also so risky yeah yeah and that's what we're afraid of we're afraid of trusting somebody enough

55:14

that they're not going to take advantage of us that you're not gonna be the only one doing all the giving giving giving and we thought about that we did a video

55:20

one time talking about those phase of marriage where that does happen where someone's going through something emotionally or in their health where

55:26

there's one spouse doing more of the giving than the other and other people spouse doing more than taking whether

55:31

they should be or shouldn't be whether it's the justification for it or not and it's like that's a part of the journey though like that's sort of the risk you

55:38

take when you want that that's why that I do is such a major decision that we need to be very careful before we make

55:44

it because what you're doing is you're agreeing to meet their needs you're trusting and they're going to do the same unto you and if you can't

55:51

confidently ask yourselves that question and answer it truthfully then you got your answer

55:57

before you get married right there because that's the core of it that's what you're going to be doing every day advice Jesus made when he's down across

56:03

and die for our sins he died for everyone but there's a possibility that

56:09

not everyone is going to accept that sacrifice but he did it anyway and he's

56:15

not he's not you know beating you over the head and saying hey remember I died for you hey remember I did this for you

56:20

he's not doing that at all he's still loving us loving us right where we are

56:26

until we come to the realization of our need for him and he's going to do that

56:31

until the end of time and I know that sounds like you're getting risky and scared to do that and

56:37

I'm not we're not promoting abuse right you know if you're in abusive relationship

56:42

get out you know you need to get out of that but a lot of times it's just we

56:47

make it feel like it's abused because it's challenging our selfishness we don't want to give of ourselves I didn't

56:52

realize I was so selfish until I got married you know I'm single I'm living my life

56:58

I'm subtle I'm doing me you know and I'm a giver like I like helping people I'm

57:03

I'm I love teaching and sharing things like that but once I got married it was a whole different game and I had to

57:08

learn how to surrender what I wanted for the sake of the whole marriage you know

57:15

and that's the thing and we knew we wanted to have children so it was like I want my children to see

57:21

something better I want to lead them into the kingdom of God lead them into

57:26

the righteousness of God by our example because children will sense and they will see

57:32

even beyond what you tell them they're going to do what they see yeah you know we didn't come from Flawless

57:37

families but we did see our parents before my father passed my parents were

57:43

married for 40 years and I saw them go through a lot of hard stuff Financial things uh ministerial

57:50

things relational things but I saw especially my mom she was a very woman a

57:56

woman of faith and walked in a lot of love and forgiveness and perseverance because my dad was a great man but you

58:03

had to know how to love him you know I won't be gentle about that but being a

58:10

pet being a pastor and being a pastor's wife something is a whole different it's a whole another it's a whole different

58:15

level because there's a there's a this outside pressures and internal pressures and yeah it's it's a it's yeah it's I

58:22

don't envy it we don't envy it at all so I just saw that they learned how to

58:27

forgive one another and learn how to trust one another even when trust may be broken sometimes you

58:33

have to learn how to trust again you know but like you said earlier we you just didn't give up you don't throw

58:39

stuff away just because it gets hard you know and we just gotta stop throwing things away because it's hard God never

58:47

promised us that this life is going to be easy but it will be rewarding when you walk straight in their path with him

58:54

yeah and it can be difficult because you never know like in some cases um you're gonna have to do all the

59:00

effort and the other person's not going to do any effort and Dr Chapman talks a lot about that I know we're talking

59:05

about Love Languages a lot but he talks a lot about that as a strategy like if I if I learn that other person's love

59:12

language and I start practicing loving them in the way they can accept it then they eventually and he talks about these

59:18

kind of you have your own set of bricks on your brick on the brick wall and they have their back and and you have to

59:24

start taking your bricks down before they can start taking there so yeah you know it's not it's not like hey I'm gonna start doing this and then all of a

59:30

sudden my spouse is gonna you know turn around and everything's gonna be perfect it's it it's funny that you say about

59:36

loving yourself because there's still this movement about finding yourself and loving yourself more I'm like we have

59:43

never been in a society that loves themselves more we literally have

59:49

networks where we tell each other how awesome we are all day long yeah right

59:54

so yeah and somehow it is now working our mental health is getting worse and all of that so maybe we're doing this

59:59

the wrong way maybe I should be a clue but you know because living is giving is

1:00:05

the key giving give and you shall receive you can't hold it all in and think

1:00:12

that's going to save you no give and it will come back to you press down shaken

1:00:17

together run over and it's not just about money it's about love it's about respect it's about honor it's about all

1:00:22

those things when you give God will make sure that will be returned back unto you and he you know it's very keen you

1:00:29

mentioned that because in that passage the whole chapter he's talking primarily about love and forgiveness and all that

1:00:35

how you handle people and treating people and what's interesting he said if you'll do these things you'll be

1:00:40

rewarded of your father in Heaven and that was something that we've you know taught in some of our videos before we've said when you start serving your

1:00:46

spouse and loving them I said the thing you're going to have to do don't look from your Harvest to come from your

1:00:52

spouse yes God may bring it through them I said but your eyes are on God you're serving him when you're serving your

1:00:58

spouse you're doing it unto him he's the one that's going to reward you I said he's the only one that can break the

1:01:03

shell that's on your spouse and sometimes you'll be pushing and you'll be doing all the right things and you're

1:01:08

not getting anything in return for your spouse I said but remember the promise is that your father in Heaven is going

1:01:13

to be the one to reward you so he's going to break through I love story of Abigail and uh David uh she had that

1:01:20

husband the ball was just a bad man and uh but she intercepted and stopped David from killing him and I said I said I

1:01:28

said Lord I'm not saying this was going to happen I said but I just love the story because her husband was just refusing to change

1:01:34

and it got so bad that he just died like he said God struck his heart and then he he had a he heard about David coming to

1:01:40

kill him and he what we might translate today maybe he had a stroke or a heart failure or something like that and a

1:01:46

little bit later he died and then David found out about it and said Abigail come be my wife I said so in that position in

1:01:52

that particular case she was a good woman with a bad husband who would not change I said all right he died she got

1:01:58

a better husband now I'm not saying wise you know hey we forgot to kill him but

1:02:04

um but I'm saying that ultimately it's God's responsibility to take care of you and God took care of Abigail she did the

1:02:10

right thing she had the right heart and God took care of her and that's the way it ended up um playing out but I've

1:02:16

heard stories of you know uh there's a story uh we listened Pastor Jimmy Evans from an EXO marriage to the story of a

1:02:22

woman that came into his office and for counseling by herself doesn't wouldn't come and she said my husband being

1:02:28

unfaithful he'll come home for dinner then he'll go and spend the night with her this other woman and she's like what

1:02:33

should what should I do he said well I would advise you divorce him like biblically you have grounds to divorce him and leave a situation this isn't

1:02:39

good and she said but she said I want to fight for my marriage he said okay he said are you sure and she said yeah he

1:02:46

said okay then I'm going to tell you exactly what you should do and he told her to begin to serve him

1:02:52

and to treat him like the Bible says to treat your husband as if he was a good husband some weeks or months past she

1:02:59

comes back to his office he's there this time and he comes in there like he

1:03:04

doesn't want to be there and he started he starts talking to him asking him what's the story and he says well you know I got his girlfriend on the side

1:03:10

but she's being so nice to me now she's making me feel bad and Pastor Jimmy Evans in his head it's like oh yeah I

1:03:15

feel so bad for you that you feel bad but he's like okay so you know like this guy's a jerk so anyway so he counsels

1:03:21

them long story short at the end of it they restore their marriage he gets

1:03:27

right he gets saved they become preachers preaching marriage teachers traveling the world personal marriage

1:03:32

thou the transformation that was the Redemption only God could do the the question is and like I said she

1:03:38

had every right to lead a relationship she could have left and that would have been fine but Jesus said you're good you could leave but because she chose to

1:03:44

serve and to give we saw a transformation that she could have never done herself but the only God could do

1:03:49

and again that reward is coming from the Father in heaven so the question is do

1:03:55

you believe that and can you hold fast to that and there the Bible talks about

1:04:00

the Hall of Faith all the people who believe God and didn't even get to see the end of what it was but we get to

1:04:06

live in the end of it with the manifestation of Jesus in our lives and um you talk about our parents and things that they sacrificed for that they

1:04:13

served for and you know so that I could have the life that I have now so I understand service I understand

1:04:19

sacrifice and so when I'm in marriage that's key for me like I want to serve I

1:04:24

want to sacrifice I'm gonna make a decision that I'm going to always do right by you even if you do wrong by me and I'm gonna believe that God's gonna

1:04:31

get a hold of your heart when I can't and he's going to take care of me because God loves me I know he loves you but I'm his son he takes care of me and

1:04:37

part of him taking care of me was giving me the wife that I have and I chose you and he signed off on it so he's going to

1:04:44

have to figure that out I can't change you but he can so either you're going to change and buckle under the weight of

1:04:50

this love that I'm showing you with or I don't know God's Gonna figure something out but something's good something's going to change here and it's going to

1:04:56

be on him I'm not looking for you to to this quid pro quo Taffer tapping when I do this now you do this for me I'm not

1:05:01

looking for that however long it takes it into my life I made a vow that I'm going to serve you to the day I die no

1:05:06

matter what you do and that kind of vow that kind of submission that kind of servant hood is something that you gotta

1:05:13

ask yourself am I up for that because if so don't get married yeah okay amen and I I mean that's a that's a great I have

1:05:19

one more follow-up question I think that this is a good place to kind of land this this thing but you know most of my

1:05:24

audience is probably men 35 Plus a little bit you know in your age range

1:05:30

um what kind of advice from either of you I'd love to hear both perspectives like how can men what can men do that

1:05:39

are in marriages whether they're happy mediocre unhappy what are what are just

1:05:45

a couple of things that they can do and we can even stick to one today to help improve their marriages

1:05:52

the one thing that you can do is be

1:05:57

God's definition of a man the definition of Lord showed me early on for what a man is a man very simply

1:06:05

in the eyes of God is someone who can relate to God when he created

1:06:11

Adam in the garden before there was ever a woman he and Adam related they communicated

1:06:16

they taught he heard the voice of God he taught back and God heard him they con conversed a man is someone who can hear

1:06:23

the voice of God so I would say to any man if you're struggling or if things are going good okay maintain

1:06:29

make sure that you can hear the voice of God because if you want your wife to submit to and follow you and to allow

1:06:35

you to be a leader of your home the only way that's going to happen is if she knows you can hear the voice of God that

1:06:41

will convert a non-believing woman absolutely a a woman feels safe when she

1:06:46

knows that her husband can go pray hear the voice of God for the family come back and deliver the message and say

1:06:51

this is what we should do and she'll come in agreement with that plan she may feel 50 50 on your plan but she's

1:06:57

confident you can hear the voice of God's plan that's happened in our marriage I mean we were raising my thing I want to say that she my wife distrusted me but as like I started when

1:07:06

I me got married the job I had I was making 24 000 a year that was a lot of money right yeah so you know it's like

1:07:12

but but she watched on my job as I progressed and what happened is the Lord would tell me things that were going to

1:07:19

happen he would say start believing me for this promotional your job for this raising your job for these accounts and

1:07:24

sales so for these accounts to become your accounts even though right now they belong to somebody else and I'll write these things down I'll say okay guys

1:07:29

told me to believe for this I'm gonna start believing you for this I write this down to confession I'll tell her about them and then as these things will

1:07:35

start to unfold I would tell her hey guess what just what happened and so she got to watch firsthand me prove out that

1:07:41

I could hear the voice of God and that I could lead our family and so that built her trust to now when I come to her and

1:07:47

say God is saying we need to go make this move no matter how risky it sounds she's she she now can say okay I'm

1:07:52

confident that you're hearing from God and now we're going to come out all right on the other side of this and it's happened and I've got a good track

1:07:58

record now both think about this this is God I have a good track record of God tell me what to do what to believe for believing him for it we come together

1:08:04

the family pray about it and then those things happen sometimes they happen in a year several years if not happening in a few months but those things begin to

1:08:10

happen so the advice have for many is hear the voice of God Cult of relationship with him if you got issues

1:08:16

with your relationship with your wife first thing you need to do is focus your relationship with God build that cultivate that learn to hear his voice

1:08:22

gain your own confidence that you can hear the voice of God because he's gonna be getting a minister to you about all

1:08:28

the issues in your life include relationship with your spouse and once you have a relationship with God a

1:08:34

working relationship that always grows it's always growing it's always growing but you have your working relationship with God you will have self-confidence

1:08:40

that okay I can succeed I can succeed in the workplace I succeed as a father I succeed as a husband or if you're a

1:08:45

single man I can succeed at life and know I'm going to succeed at finding the right woman and our culture a lot of men

1:08:51

are concerned are there any good women anymore you can find the right woman you God will direct you hear his voice he is your lifeline his

1:08:59

voice is your lifeline you want to succeed in life create a relationship a working relationship with him where his

1:09:04

presence is all you desire more than anything and that will secure you to the rest of your days

1:09:12

I mean just that I mean you did wonderful baby but I think the strongest thing that a

1:09:20

man can show anyone is being able to admit his wrongs and his faults I'm not

1:09:27

saying that he has to be you know downtrodden or anything like that but being able to say you know I'm wrong

1:09:32

about this but I'm willing to grow I'm willing to learn I'm willing to educate myself whatever that may be for you uh

1:09:40

let that woman see that and that will make her respect you so much I've seen

1:09:46

this man educate himself on whatever he needs to educate himself in to advance

1:09:51

our family whether it was spiritual whether it was natural and we are moving in the right direction because of his

1:09:57

willingness to say hey I was wrong about this but I know better now and and learn how to say I'm sorry you

1:10:05

know um I know that myself well that's easy but it is it's hard for a lot of people to say I'm sorry you know even

1:10:12

when you feel like you was right just say I'm sorry and uh I know sometimes I was wrong but when he cunted me first

1:10:18

and say hey I'm sorry it just makes me okay you know what you were right I was wrong you know but just it's learn how

1:10:25

to be humble and to grow you don't have to be picked up with your emotions and feelings you know get the help you need

1:10:31

to to learn how to communicate your emotions and and be helpful in that way because it does bring a sense of peace

1:10:38

to your family [Music] um when he's able to communicate with me his emotions and feelings and trust me

1:10:44

with those feelings and emotions yeah so it is a growing process but we love to see men grow and develop and I'm telling

1:10:52

you I will rally behind any man that's willing to do that like is that so often because we need strong men we need

1:10:59

leadership it's not enough men I I feel like I I feel like there's so much Focus

1:11:04

on women empowerment that we don't have enough men empowerment and nothing

1:11:10

against women I'm a woman but we need men because God created them to lead and

1:11:17

not because you know women can't hear from God not because women are weak we're not weak at all but men are men

1:11:23

for a reason and so I really think that we should just have more men empowerment

1:11:29

um things to encourage men because y'all go through a lot you know they'll go through a lot emotionally and mentally

1:11:35

and that's why we see a lot of men dealing with depression and all kinds of addictions because they don't know how

1:11:41

to to vent you know how to release and to trust so I would encourage men to

1:11:47

just learn how to do that in a safe place whether it's your church counseling

1:11:53

um I definitely will encourage that so and that's one of the things we're trying to do that I you know one of the reasons I started this whole thing is

1:11:59

just to try to educate and Inspire men right like I'm trying to do some coaching and courses and all that to

1:12:06

like do more kind of be you know wherever you're at right now start from there and kind of grow and grow in your

1:12:12

manhood and to your point for whatever reason our society has decided that being strong women and being strong men

1:12:19

have to be mutually exclusive and it's like we're telling men now they have to be weaker in order for women to be

1:12:25

stronger and my relationship with my wife's a perfect example she's a welder car racer Builder you know all these all

1:12:33

these things and he's cool yeah and an accomplished Baker so um you know she's she's one of the

1:12:39

strongest women I know and we're surrounded by strong strong women because she's in so uh but that doesn't

1:12:45

mean I have to be weak in order for her to be strong so I I think that's great hey I appreciate you guys coming give me

1:12:52

where where do we find you I know you guys have and I'll put the links in here too but uh YouTube and Tick Tock you

1:12:58

guys are on all the socials I'm sure yeah so yeah so for most of our socials like Instagram and uh Tick Tock you'll

1:13:04

just do at jalenkc j-a-l-e-n-a-n-d-c-a-c-i-e

1:13:09

um as for Youtube it'll be youtube.com slash at Jalen and Casey so

1:13:15

um YouTube channel fire at home you know that's where our podcast with the Jalen and Casey podcast um but we do distribute daily content on

1:13:21

Instagram Tick Tock Facebook and even Twitter or X now I think it is uh what oh yeah we're halfway I joined

1:13:32

threads and then promptly forgot that I had it so that's exactly right yeah yeah yeah yeah we yeah it is what it is but

1:13:39

um if it exists we're probably trying to get on it it gets annoying sometimes keeping up but yes that's what you can find us Jalen and Casey you type that in

1:13:45

you'll find us you'll find us and uh um I would say uh get it get on our mailing list if you want to see our book when it

1:13:51

comes out um and those links are in all of our videos maybe we'll have to come back and do a part two and talk just about the

1:13:57

book when you guys come back to yeah that'll be cool that'd be great all right guys I appreciate you have a great day thank

1:14:03

you so much thank you if you're looking to really maximize

1:14:09

your life and become the man you were made to be head over to maxedoutman.com

1:14:14

and get your journey started today.