A Love Letter Life with Jeremy & Audrey Roloff

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Hey guys, welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis and on this podcast we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And I am super stoked about today's episode. We've got some incredible guests. Ashley's going to tell you about them. But before she sets up and introduces our amazing world famous guests, I want to give a quick shout out to those of you who are giving a shout out to us online. Your reviews are helping people discover this podcast and helping spread the message to strengthen marriages. And I want to read one of these recent reviews that really encouraged us. It says amazing wisdom and practical advice. Five stars from Pepperdog 24 6. And they go on to say Dave and Ashley have helped our marriage of 20 years reach its best level ever. I've been listening for just a few months, but have gained years worth of practical tips and advice in the areas of communication, healthy boundaries and rekindling romance. These two keep even the heavy topics in the forefront and are not afraid to talk about the hard things. Thank you, Dave and Ashley for the healing you've given our marriage. Keep up the great work and wow, thank you for sharing that. I mean, that fuels us and just keeps us going. So thank you for all who are listening and sharing and leaving reviews. Sweetie, why don't you tell everybody about these guests? I'm a little bit giddy. I'm kind of geeking out over who we've got here with us today.

I know, I'm so excited. So it is or they are getting Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. So we have the Roloffs here and that name probably rings a bell for many of you, especially if you've been watching the show. TLC show, Little People, Big World and I love that show. So I am such a fan. I've been watching them grow up. Literally.

We were watching reruns this morning.

We were. We were. I love it. But they have a lot more going on. Even besides the show, they have a marriage ministry that's called beating 50%. They also have a podcast called behind the Scenes that's wildly popular and the reason we have Them on today is they're gonna tell us a lot more about their book, A Love Letter Life. So let's dive in.

We are so excited about our guests today. Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. I just met them for the first time, like, five minutes ago, but I feel like I've known them forever because I've been a stalker for a long time.

We are stalkers. We love it.

Show little people big world. The behind the scenes podcast, the new book, A Love Letter Life. I just feel like I know you guys.

Yeah.

And so thanks for finally, you know, had the opportunity to hang out.

Thanks for having us.

Excited to get to know you guys.

Pleasure to meet you guys.

Awesome.

Good to be here.

Well, tell us a little bit about first before we jump into, you know, what you're doing, like, right now. What is life like with. With a little one at home. How old is ember now?

19 months. Almost 20 months. Yeah.

You guys have kids?

Yes. Four boys. So no little girls?

No little girls.

Four boys, four boys? Well, we do have chichi, our chiweenie.

But what's a chiweenie?

A chihuahua wiener dog mix.

Okay.

I highly recommend it.

Yeah, she's. She's cute.

Yeah, she is.

But she's, you know, they're little girls.

Yeah. We'd love to get a dog at some point. We're still in that season where we travel a bit and the cats are just so easy.

They are.

We have.

That's awesome. So is Ember running everywhere now, like night to jumping? Right.

He's a capable human being. Yeah.

She started Lots of words.

Lots of words. Loves her books. We're having a lot of fun with her.

She's great age.

Well, it only makes sense that you guys would have, like, a brilliant overachieving kid.

No.

Cause you guys, I mean, honestly, like, it's really wonderful. Wonderful and amazing how much you're doing and God's blessing it. You got a clothing line, you've got Praise the Lord, just ministry, beating the 50% you're writing, you're speaking. And it just seems like God's blessing, all of it. What's the favor of all those different kind of things that you're doing, what in there energizes you the most to do it?

Yeah, great question. So I would say we're. Yes, we do a lot, but we ultimately, our hearts are. Are bent toward the Lord, and we want to turn people's hearts toward the Lord. And so we just said, like, okay, if that's a mission, how do we want to do that? And we just started exploring, so we were just like, well, let's do this and let's do that. And the Lord just kept opening doors, and now we're in a season of, like, okay, whoa. Like, there's quite a few things worked. So now what do we want to, like.

And we didn't have the infrastructure.

What do we want to keep pressing into? So back to your original question of, like, what does life look like right now? Like, yes, we just had a daughter, and so now we're in those stages of, like, whoa, things look different. How are we. How are we going to, you know, scale but also do it responsibly and not. Not be so scattered and so unfocused that, you know, we can really zero in on that on a mission. Really, really well. So awesome. We're having a lot of fun. Yeah, A lot. A lot of irons in the fire, like, as we like to say.

But, yeah, I would say lately, though, the. The book that just came out is probably our favorite thing because it's the most. We've worked on it longer than we've worked on anything together, and we've worked harder on it than we worked on anything together. And we're the most passionate about it, probably.

The book I love, Letter Life specifically, is, like, that one project so far that we've put out there that has taken two years of work. There's so much energy, prayer, tears, laughter poured into it, and it's something we've chosen to do, and it's actually a manifestation of the infrastructure we've built over the past couple years. So we're having so much fun. Like, we're on tour right now, and it's just been. It's been great.

I love it. I love it. And tell us more about that. Like, what do you mean by a love letter life?

Yeah.

What exactly does that mean?

Yeah. So, I mean, the literal sense is, like, we wrote letters, and we did.

Long distance with a typewriter, man.

With a typewriter. When you.

True romantic.

Yes, yes. So, you know, that's the obvious interpretation of it. But, like, love letters, think about them. They take patience. They're often most of the time, inconvenient. They require effort, intentionality, creativity. All of these are qualities that we want our relationship ultimately to reflect, and they're qualities that the Lord's relationship with us reflect as well. And so we're like, well, how do we do that? Well, letters seemed like the perfect thing in love letter life. Ultimately, what we want to do with this book is ignite people to Live the story. The love story that they would want read back to them one day. And love letter life. It's a story, so it just fit. And we thought the title worked, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it. And I know you guys did that a lot when you were dating.

Yes.

But now you've been married how many years?

Five years.

Five years.

Coming up with five. Yeah. Yeah. And to keep the letter writing going. Babe, you want to share this? Because this is actually your idea.

So on our honeymoon, we had some. Lots. Letters have been a huge symbolism thing in my life, personally, just with my mom writing me letters. And then I wrote a letter to my daughter, not knowing I would have a daughter on my wedding day. I wrote a letter to my future daughter on her wedding day.

Wow, that's awesome. I love that.

And there's a whole crazy story about that in the book, but we still write letters to each other every year on our anniversary and seal them, and then we read them the next year on our anniversary. And it's just a cool way to kind of chronicleize the growth of our love and reminisce on the past year and just see the things that we were hoping for a year ago and how God's brought us to now. And it's just been really, really cool thing that we love doing. So we always tell people, steal it. Like, if you love the idea, do it. Cause it's awesome.

And it's a rhythm. It's like a cadence, a yearly rhythm that, like, one of many that our marriage beats to. Right. It, like, falls in line. And that's just a rhythm that we've decided to, like, embrace and say, like, hey, this is gonna be a piece of consistency that, you know, that follows us through years and years and years. And so it's been fun.

Yeah, man.

I love it.

I love it. I absolutely love it.

Well, I mean, it makes me think about, like, I kept track. I have this whole book. Dave and I met my first day of college, and it was the first day of his junior year. And he wrote me letters.

Who is that?

Oh, you're so funny. But he wrote me letters, and I kept every single. And I have them in this scrapbook. So I'm like, I get the power of that. And it's just. It really does cultivate a richness to the relationship, and it does give you kind of a way to look back on how far God has brought you.

Totally.

And I love. And he still writes me letters in our marriage. And I do somewhat with him. He's not really A card guy, per se. But you do, like, when I write you things, like a waste of money, like, it does. Yeah, I know. Like, I keep every card.

What does Hallmark think they are telling me how I feel about you.

Yeah. Yeah. You're charging me 12 bucks for this.

Piece of sheet paper and write the meaningful note on it. That's right.

All you need. That's the meat. That's the real good stuff right there.

Sticky notes on the mirror. Undervalued.

That's the truth, though.

I mean, that's the truth because it's really from the heart. And so, like, now that Ember is in the picture, how do you find? Because a lot of times we get questions from listeners saying, like, I love my spouse. I want to have a strong marriage, but kids are just. They take so much of me and so much of my mental energy and my emotional energy. How does that look for you guys?

Yeah, yeah. So I will say one thing comes to my mind immediately. And, babe, I'll let you jump in on this, but I think, and I don't know, you know, the demo graphic necessarily, that might take. Take to this, but we are so inundated with. With the most beautiful highlight reeled, absolutely perfect, you know, demonstrations of love on the Internet that, like, we think we just need to do all that.

Yeah.

And back to what we just said. Like, literally, if you were to say like, every. So we do something called, man, I don't know what we call thankful jar or whatever. For her birthday a long time ago, I bought her a jar. This is like three years ago. Every single day, night before we went to bed, I just wrote one thing I appreciated about Audrey on it and said, babe, I today appreciate that you, you know, did this or you did.

You know, and he would read it.

To me, tell it to me, and then he'd put it in the jar. And it was a year of that. And then this past year, it took 10 seconds.

Literally 10 seconds. And it's super, super simple. And the jar was by her. But as she watched that jar fill up, so did you know?

And I knew the last thing I heard before I was going to go to bed was going to be an affirmation for my husband. And it just, like, it softened my heart on a good note.

Yeah. And it grew hers. And so what I will say is, like, we, you know, we think you need to, like, buy the canoe, the cool truck, go to the river, get the photo, and then that's the way your wife feels loved. Was like, no, like, literally pick three super, super simple, attainable dollar store cheap things. Because it's not the picture or the thing, it's just the action. Sticky notes on the mirror is a perfect one. The a jar by the bed. Literally, I take printer paper, rip it up like, it's that simple, and I just keep it in the drawer next to my bed. It is so minute, so easy, but it's just those little things. So back to the point, though, with Ember, we used to prize spontaneity as, like, if it's not spontaneous, then it's not romantic.

Like, if it doesn't just happen organically, then we're failing, and it's not. And, like, both Jerry and I are also very spontaneous people by nature, and we're really spontaneous and adventurous. Like, we didn't plan anything, any of our dates. We just decided where we were gonna go in the car on the way somewhere. And now we've had to. Obviously, with a kid, you're playing the babysitter in the time and when are you gonna be act and where are you gonna go and all of that. So we've just had to be much more intentional. And so we've had to come up with creative ways to be intentional since having a daughter.

And they don't all have to be Instagram perfect, like, worthy. That's the big point there. But it's tied into a bigger problem, which I think a lot of our book is about, and, you know, we speak to, which is this whole concept of, you know, like, if. Well, first, if you can fall into love, obviously you can fall out of it, right? And I think that's a reality that a lot of people don't really. We all know that, but we never say, when you hear that said, like, think about it. If you can. If you tripped into love accidentally, you're tripping out of it unless you're careful. And if you look at every single successful organization, every single baseball team, sports team, university, you name it, that's successful, what do they all have in common? They all have mission statements, goals, yearly summits, budget, strategy, why they've designed success. Yet we're all tripping into our marriages with no plan. It's like, no wonder we're seeing the stats we're seeing. It's like, so those little tiny cadences, rhythms that you want your marriage to beat to, those are foundational, and they can be as simple, cheap, and easy as sticky notes on a mirror. I know I'm dumbing that down, but there's a concept there.

No, it's really really, it's brilliant. One of the quotes from the book, and I'll read this because this is strong, talking about that mission statement. I think it comes down to this in a lot of ways. True love is something you choose to live out each day through your actions, decisions, and sacrifices. And I love how you guys kind of unpack that, that it's not just a feeling. Our culture worships feelings and all these kind of fickle, superficial notions of love, and. And you guys get to the heart of what. What love is the way God intended it. What love is the way it's meant to be lived out of marriage. What love is, you know, built on a foundation of friendship, which is a big part of your story, how, you know, you really built a solid foundation of friendship over those first couple of years, really before the romance really even kind of came and came into the picture. And so how. What would you suggest for a couple that maybe doesn't have that foundation? Like, because you guys did it right, you really built this solid foundation through intentionality and building great habits right from the start. And. And all this.

Praise the Lord.

Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, it's really just. It's a beautiful story, but it's also a textbook for a young couple or dating couple, I think, on how to build that kind of foundation. But a lot of our listeners, they've been married for a while, and they're thinking, man, that's fine and good, but we did it maybe the wrong way. Like, we did not build that foundation. We do not have those kind of habits. And so now we want to go back and kind of like reverse engineer our way to. To having that now. So where do you start? You know, we've been married, we got kids, and we want to do things better than we're doing. So where do you start?

Yeah, well, just one quote came to my mind as you were saying that about, like, you know, what if we didn't do it right? Or what if we weren't intentional? And what if we. I think it's in the purity chapter of our book, but it's a Mary Pickford quote, I'm pretty sure, and she says you can have a fresh start any moment you choose.

So true.

That's good.

I love that.

Like, we were talking about the concept of purity, but I think it can relate to anything within marriage. Like, you're not too late. You're never too late. You know what I mean? Like, you're never too late to be more intentional, creative, and choose faithfulness in your marriage. Like, you can always come up with more ways to do that wherever you're at, whether you're one year married and you feel like you did it wrong or 15 years married and you feel like you did it wrong. And so.

And the moment you decide to make a step forward or a change or a pivot or as the Bible calls a repentance of your ways, you know, like, that's what actually makes the history such a good story. That's what makes the story is the moment after you decide to initiate the change. I mean, what's the story of Jesus in the whole Bible? It's like, come as you are, but don't stay as you are. Yeah, it's like that there's a moment there. In the same way our marriage is like, okay, we decided to come one in a moment. It's the process of becoming one that makes the marriage and ultimately makes us more like Christ. So everyone has to decide when that moment is. And I think it's just like, okay. And then there's. You know, there's obviously a billion different ways on how you want to move forward, but first it's obviously the decision. And, like, I guess one. A practical thing, I would say, because this is all good and talk, you know, but, like, give me one thing to actually do. Probably one thing we do. And I know this is, like, you know, this isn't nothing original, but it's something that we love. And it's our marriage journal. So every single Sunday, we sit down and we ask each other. We go through the calendar for the week ahead, get on the same page, when's date night? So we're able to, like, design the rhythms and the cadence we want our marriage to beat to. So we do that, and then we ask each other six questions. And it's just getting on the same page. Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's an hour. But it's super simple, super basic. But it's one thing we've said as, like, okay, every single week, we get a reset, recalibrate, and redesign the story we're living, right? So that we don't go three years down the road and then look back, go, whoa, that got out of control, right? It's a picture like a big bag of dynamite, you know? And then the fuse is 20 years long. Every single week, every Sunday, we're clipping that fuse with our marriage show. Clipping the fuse with the mirror. Like, reassessing, diffusing the bomb, discussing connecting. That's one simple thing I would say to start Just start. Start doing that. It's like we've been off a little bit. Like, do you want to, like, maybe just sit down and ask each other these six questions?

Like a weekly check in. We call it our good time to talk about it.

Those questions are great, by the way. Like this. It's six, right?

Yeah.

Same six questions you ask each other every week. And I just. When I first saw that or read that, I thought, man, that is brilliant. It's, like, so simple, but it's so brilliant as a chicken.

It's attainable, too.

It's attainable.

It's not this, like, 60 days to a Better marriage program. It's like, nope, just six questions you.

Don'T have to repeat.

I know.

And some kind of mountain retreat. You sit at the dining room table and ask these six questions.

Well, and that's really what keeps a marriage going, is regular communication. Yes, exactly. And I know one of your questions is, is there any, like, hidden sin in your life?

Any unconfessed sin, unresolved or conflict that we need to resolve or seek forgiveness for?

I know. You know, the reason we call this podcast the Naked Marriage is because we're saying we need to be naked in every way, physically, mentally, emotionally. And it's because those secrets are what really catch us. You know, just like I did Adam and Eve way back. The very first married couple. And so, like, I love that question. When I was hearing you guys talk about it, I think, on your podcast, and I just. I was like, that is so good.

It is.

Because I think so many times we let the enemy get a foothold, thinking, we can't tell our spouse this. We're just gonna figure it out. We're gonna fix it. Or maybe not fix it, but just live with it, you know? And we don't ever really talk about it, but we know the healing is when we bring things to light, first to God and then to our spouse if we're married. And so I just. I love that. I know there's more questions than that, but that's a huge one because it keeps that secret from festering.

Yes.

And I just think that's so awesome. And clearly it's helped your relationship. I know that that has helped our relationship. So if you're listening, if there's one thing you guys take away from this, besides getting their awesome book, think about the confession part of marriage. I think that's awesome.

Yeah.

And the check in, the consistency of.

That check in and doing it weekly is so huge.

You constantly monitor and adjust. Like, we Heard, monitor and adjust.

And we explore a ton of different. I mean, that's just one thing. Way we explore in the book of like ways to creatively and intentionally pursue and date your spouse. But there's. I mean, everyone can have their own ways. And we go through a ton, you know, and the whole creativity chapter and patient pursuit trap. Like, there's a bunch of different ways, but people just gotta pick their own way.

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You know one thing, a lot of people listening. I know know you guys from little people, Big world and a lot of like, me included. We are fans, mainly of the show. I've been watching the current season.

Oh, my gosh.

So love it. Okay. I just, I love your fans.

I want a birthday party at Roloff Farm.

Oh, my gosh, you guys, we have never been to Oregon. Like, we're big traveler. We want to take our boys. Like we went out west.

Let us know if you come.

Yeah, they would love.

Seriously, four boys.

It's like dream life for them.

No, it really is. And I've never. Like my whole childhood, we grew up in Kentucky, both of us, and so we haven't been out that way. And we want it. We have it kind of on our calendar to take the boys out to the Pacific Northwest. So, like, when I watch your show too, I'm just like, oh, my God, it's so beautiful. But, you know, tell us what that was like. Like, you know, especially when it comes to your relationship, you know, having that be in front of millions of people. I mean, you got married in front of 2.3 million or more or something.

That's a big wedding.

It's amazing.

Well, Audrey, Audrey tells this you want to say what you say in the book.

Yeah. Well, it was a big decision for us. So we actually, like, we're not going to film our wedding. And then we went back and forth on it. It was a whole thing. We talk about the whole story in the book.

It was a big point of conflict. And our entire, like, coda conflict chapter is really based around this decision and all the conflict it caused.

Yeah. It was like the first big, big decision that we had to make as married couple. And we joke like, you know, we had to decide between inviting 200 people to our wedding and 2 million people to our wedding.

It's a big decision.

Yeah.

Friends and family or anybody. Yeah, Quite a lot.

Thank you for inviting us, though.

We really honored that.

Enjoyed attending.

Yeah.

And I love how you unpack this in the book. I mean, this is real life stuff. The way you talk about just the pros and the cons, like the sacredness and the intimacy of that moment versus the opportunity to. To really share your faith with the world in a really unique way. Oh, absolutely. I think it's beautiful how you not only made that decision, but how you share the process of coming to that decision.

Yeah. Thanks. And it's funny because some people have written off, like, grabbing the book or whatever. Cause I can't relate to them. They're like celebrities or whatever. It's like, okay, no, sure, our circumstances might be different. Right. But the root problem is the exact same dealing with conflict. So, sure, we're telling the story of how we dealt with this conflict via our circumstances. But everyone has different circumstances. Yeah, that'd be like me saying, I can't relate to you because your circumstances aren't quite as, quote, unquote, huge.

Yeah.

It's like, no, of course I can relate to you and learn from you. So.

Yeah, but how's that affected you guys, like, in your relationship?

Here's the thing. I will say, like, the show was awesome. It was so fun. I mean, it was just. It got to the point where it's been on for 15 years, and it's like, that's a long time to do anything. So we got married and Audrey was never. Our relationship, really never was on the show, our dating relationship, because we were doing long distance and we were in different states. And so we like to say, like, this is the story that was never told. And it's a story that also includes one of our largest passions. It's going back to the beginning of this conversation, is to turn the hearts and souls of people toward Christ. We do that Via many ways. That's kind of our passion. And so we do that kind of exploring our story and telling our story through this book. And it's a story that was never told. So it's kind of fun. All that to be said, you know, it's difficult. I don't think growing up in the public eye is normal and should be normal for anyone. Some are called to the space, but they're in a war zone, like a hot war zone. And so, yeah, we definitely had to just be. It kind of trained us to talk and be open and, yeah, just be like honest with one another, really.

You guys use it to make you stronger. And the way that you kind of share that whole journey and how like you guys weren't looking for the spotlight, the spotlight was looking for you.

That's the truth.

And just talking through kind of the tension that creates while also the opportunity that that creates and how to be a good steward of that influence. And I think you guys are not only walking that path so wisely, but the way that you are sharing that journey and just being real about some of the conversations that were happening behind the scenes, it really invites people into to your story in a way that I think can help all of us in relationships. Because there are some brilliant principles, like you were saying, that are universally applicable whether you're talking about, you know, a TV show conflict related to that or a conflict related to, you know, something completely different. Conflict is conflict. The way to work through it has some very, very universal principles.

Yeah, thanks, Dave. That's really well said too. But thanks for that encouragement. Yeah, here's the thing too, like, everyone, like, the point of marriage isn't marriage itself. Right. Everyone is on this mission.

Exactly.

Sure. We, like, you guys have a podcast that's a circumstance some don't have. Like, we had a TV show that's a circumstance some doesn't have. But, like, you're going to job, you're going to your job doing whatever. That's your circumstance. And like, we can all be on mission doing really cool. So I just want to encourage everyone, like, you don't need to go back to the Instagram comment, like buy the rent the canoe and get the photo in front of the waterfall to like, have a good day. It's like, just do. Just do it. Just like make that decision.

I love that. I love that. So when it comes, I know we've touched on conflict a little bit and you know, just how a lot sometimes, you know, in growing up in the public eye, there was conflict in Front of the public eye. And I know your relationship, like, your dating relationship hasn't necessarily been in the public eye, but the season that I'm currently watching, which I don't know what season it is. Yeah, you guys are on there.

I don't know either.

I mean, you're on there.

Are we?

Oh, cool. Yeah. The one I'm watching. Yeah, it's like, with your. Your brother and his wife, and you.

Just went to the beach.

You just.

It's not like the current season.

Maybe it's reruns.

I'm sorry, we're watching reruns. We're usually a few years behind.

Just enjoy with our boy. I catch up at night, so it probably. Well, anyway, maybe it was a season ago, but, you know, so you've had some that are kind of out in the public eye, but, you know, in general, I know, you know, you have just the regular conflict like any other couple. How do you guys handle conflict on a regular basis?

Yeah, we. Jeremy always does this. He, like, in podcasts, he talks, talks, talks, talks, talks, talks, talks. Then the hard question comes, how do you handle content, babe? Like, oh, my gosh. Okay, here we go.

Pass this to you.

Here's a real scenario. So Ember is trying to decide between running cross country like herme, or.

We talked about this in a podcast before.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

How do you deal? So we have a chapter in our book. It's called Our code of conflict.

This isn't a hard question.

Basically, like, you know, our premarital counselors had this, like, they impressed on us, this idea of, like, okay, if you're gonna have conflict, everyone's gonna have conflict. It's inevitable. It's a matter of, does conflict escalate into a fight? And if it does, how do we fight fair? Or how do we. What boundaries do we have to put? Can we put around conflict to prevent it from escalating into fights or to fight fair? And so we have just, like, some rules for engagement basically, of like, you know, and we're not. It's not a perfect thing. Like, we're still flushing it out constantly. But there were some things that were hard nos for us when we were in that pre mental counseling phase of, like, okay, if we do get into conflict, like, we're gonna try not to use, you know, words like always and never, because they're always, never true. And we're gonna try to. You know, we're gonna try to. We're never gonna sleep in opposite rooms or opposite beds, and we're never gonna you know, leave. And you know, that's different than like taking a step away from the conversation.

But.

And they're all listed out in our book, but just kind of like our rules for engagement and how to turn conflict into an opportunity for learning more about each other and understanding each other more and an opportunity for growth as opposed to an opportunity to prove our point or be right.

Yeah. So the code of conflict is really to protect the process, you know, because it's like, what's the goal here? You know, is the goal to stop fighting? Like, so does conflict. What is a more likely scenario? Does conflict prove your incompatibility or does it prove the sharpening of yourself to become a better person?

Right.

Like, which one are we going for here? Like, and I would argue it's probably to be. To turn you. They're road signs. Conflict is just road signs of the collision of two people coming to together. There's conflict there. Like, that's an explosion. And so how we deal with that is conflict. So we better learn to deal with it. Well, like, you should have a code of conflict or a way of engaging in this process that you're never going to get away from. Yeah, man, that's good.

Do you.

What do you. How do you guys handle conflict?

We were hoping you had the answer, all the answers. This is it.

Because we always want to learn and you guys are like in the same space and you guys have four kids. So, like, how do you handle conflict around your kids?

Oh, definitely.

That's probably been like the main point of conflict, really. I mean, we agree, like, we get along.

The main point of honor, like, being like, how do you handle it around your kids?

Like, deciding how to, like, our kids themselves.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, their age is 14, 12, 7 and 4. So, like, there's a big split there. But no, I mean, it gets, you know, we love our boys, but it is like all hands on deck all the time. And early in those child rearing years, a lot of our conflict was around how to handle situations with our kids and getting on the same page on how to parent our kids. And so we saw those signs because we started having a little bit, like, we're not big fighters. Like, we're not like, you know, oh.

I'm ready for a fight.

You know how. That's just not us. Like, we really like things to be calm, but not at the sake of.

Not comedy, not drama about something.

Yeah, comedy, not drama.

That's right.

That's great.

That's right. But you know, we just, we Were both feeling a little bit of a. Feeling misunderstood and having a little bit of resentment. And Dave came to me and he was just like, listen, we just keep. This is one point that we keep on butting heads on. And he's like, we need to change how we're handling this. Because I can tell it's just gonna build up more resentment and maybe cause more fights.

And he said, I have this idea.

Let's get a mentor couple, like a couple at church. That's ahead of us. You know, we admire them as a married couple. We like the relationship they had with their kids. They're not perfect, but we would like to have a family dynamic like theirs. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. But nobody's gonna wanna talk to us like that. They're so busy. And I made excuses. And he said, sweetie, you can't make excuses for people. Just let's ask em. So we prayed about it, we asked em, and they were honored, Came over, huge help to us because they're not related to us. So they could look and just kinda not take sides and look at the situation. Gave us a lot of stuff to think about. And we've done that over the years. But when it comes to just daily little conflicts, we are definitely of the belief that you need to handle it sooner rather than later. And if you can't talk to each other nicely. When you were talking about Audrey stepping away, I know what you meant is like, take a breather for a minute. So you're not gonna be shouting at each other or being mean, you know? Totally. I mean, I totally think that's how it works.

Deal with it quickly. Speak the truth in love. We have what we call the secret free guarantee, where it's, you know, kind of like you guys with just constantly monitoring and going back and asking those questions. We're constantly bringing stuff out without. Yeah, we don't hit the snooze button on anything early on. That was a mistake we made. I think we would kind of hit the snooze button on things and then.

They just work out magic.

But we just try to keep learning from those. From other people, you know, and then stealing that wisdom.

Totally.

God hasn't called us to always be original. He's called us to be wise. And wisdom is not unique to. Certainly not unique to us. It's been around for thousands of years, and I want to find people who are living it and then ask them and learn from them. And like, like you guys are doing in so many ways with. With conflict and with just a lot of aspects of your relationship is we're preparing to land the plane, so to speak. I know you guys. You guys got a busy schedule.

So fun.

But. Yeah, but we could talk to you for. For days, but just to kind of like, bring it. Bring it. We can make a fire right here.

Around the campfire, saying how much you love fire.

Oh, my goodness, I love that.

So you can have fires in Texas. That's okay.

You can. Yeah. Now it could. Yeah. Things are so terrible.

There's no warning, like dry, like forest fire warnings can't burn.

There's no forest in the forest.

So, yeah, we can have fire pits for sure.

So I guess maybe a final question to kind of bring it back to the book, which is I'll just. I'll just say, go buy this book, guys. I've. I've read. Read. I'm. I've read most of it. I haven't finished it yet, but A Love Letter Life is great. It's now a bestseller, like anywhere you can be a bestseller. New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Amazon. If the Moon has a bestsellers list.

It'S on its book.

It's on the moon, and it's deserving of that. It really is a great book.

Wow. Thank you. Thank you.

You were welcome.

Seriously, that means a lot.

Well, it means a lot that you'd be here. Oh, my gosh, how can the couples listen and they're like, yeah, that sounds great, but how can we have a love letter life? And I would say, read the book and you'll find out, but this is something, what you're talking about in the book and what we talk about on the Naked Marriage. It's something that's not just attainable for, like, this elite few. These are the things God wants for every couple. Every couple. It's going to look different in the context of every relationship, but every couple can thrive. Every couple can be best friends. And so if you're listening and you think, this just isn't for me, it's for you. And so maybe what's one or two final nuggets of encouragement to that couple that's listening? And they just think, nobody in my family's ever had that. I don't even know if this is possible in my marriage. What's one or two things? I love how you say start with one or two things that you would kind of give them to say, start here. And you might be amazed where things lead.

Well, I would. The first thing that just comes to mind, and God loves us. Creatively intentionally and faithfully. And the subtitle of our book is Pursue creatively. Date Intentionally. Love Faithfully. And so if marriage is one of the greatest representations of the gospel, then wouldn't we want to love in those same ways? And so I think no matter where you're at in your love story, whether you're single, dating, engaged, or married for a long time, we can all have a creative, intentional, and faithful love. Everyone kind of wants that. Even no matter what kind of faith background you are, you know, like, people want that. And so going back to the Mary Pickard quote, like, at any point you choose, you can choose that. You can take those little steps. And obviously there's a lot of practical ones in the book that we talk about, but one of the things Jeremy always says. Maybe I'll just let you say it. The live in the love story thing. Do you want to say that? No. Okay. I was going to give you a space to say it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the idea is like, to your point, Dave, like, yeah, like, this is, you know, people want that one thing. They want to be told it. But, like, you just. You have to actually want it. We chase the desires of our heart. So the question we ask in the book is, what is the love story that you would want read back to you one day? Do that. Yeah, like, just do that. Right? So if you want your love story read back to you of like, yes, Netflix and Chill every day, all the TV shows, it's like, that's what's gonna be read back to you. We're all living. We're gonna have our life song played. We're gonna be held account for all of our actions. We're gonna have our love story read back to us. That's where we should be crafting our luster. And every single one's gonna be unique. So whether yours is watching TV show, like, fine, you know, but like. Or whatever it is, like, everyone, you have to want it. And we chase the desires of our heart. And so, you know, if our hearts are after the Lord's right, like, we are a wellspring of creativity and intentionality.

We're a wellspring.

We're a wellspring. We just have to learn how to access it. And that access comes from just deciding, like, you know what? I'm gonna do something intentional today for my wife, and I think I might make it creative. And then you go do the smallest.

Thing, and then I might maybe repeat it and make it faithful.

And you don't build a castle in one day. You don't wake up and run the Boston Marathon. It takes years of training and that nothing worth having happens overnight. Right. It's a process, and so nobody wants to hear it. But that's the truth.

It is the truth.

That is good stuff, man. I wish. Those are, like, drop the mic statements.

You guys keep making.

I would invite you to drop these mics, but they're very expensive. We can't replace them.

But such encouragement.

And so, just as a next. Sweetie, any. Any final words? You're the wisest and loveliest of women.

Well, I was just gonna say. Thank you, sweetie. I was just gonna say how wise you guys are to be so young and so wise, and I love that. And I think that that's so encouraging to our listeners, you know, And I love how you said, you know, you can do this at any point. You can start, you know, today being intentional. You can start today writing those love letters. You can start writing those sticky notes. Start with a sticky note, you know? Cause I think it is like, we try to imagine doing everything at once, but really, it's just that one little step. And so I hope. I know there's so many good nuggets. They're. But how can we. How can listeners get this book in their hands?

Well, the book's available anywhere books are sold. And if you want to check out or if you want to read about the book specifically, you can just go to a love letter, life.com. but if you want to check out all the things we're up to, find us on social, and check out the podcast. All those, you can just go to the roloffs.com and that's where we're at. So.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Well, guys, thank you so, so, so much for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Hey, anytime here in town, California, you.

Guys need to come to Oregon next. Real Fire.

Yes, we're doing a Real Fire in Oregon.

That's right.

I can't wait. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you again to the Roloffs. You can again find them at the R O L O F F S, the rolloffs dot com. Thank you to Zondervan for providing the books that we got to read in advance. Just a wonderful book. Thank you to our producer, Brittany Wilcox, our sound engineer, Jordan Kennedy.

They're awesome.

The best in the world at what they do. I mean, the best.

Boom.

And the whole team here at Marriage Today. Guys, thanks for listening to the Naked Marriage podcast. We'll look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye, guys.