Don't Put Your Marriage on Hold While Raising Kids

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Welcome 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. Thanks for listening from wherever you happen to be listening. Itunes, Spotify, Google Play, Podbean. We love all you guys. If you're watching us on YouTube right now, you can see that we're wearing our XO T shirts and this is an excitement and anticipation for the XO events coming in 2021. So you can go to xomarriage.com and look into more of that. We're still hoping and believing that our big event, February Valentine's Day weekend at Gateway Church and live simulcast all over the world is gonna happen as scheduled. It's always our favorite event of the whole year and kicks off a whole spring tour. And it's been a while since we've had kind of our regular live events and we miss seeing you guys. We just miss you.

We just love being able to see you guys in person. It's our favorite thing.

That's right. Hope to see you there. Maybe you'll even go home with a new T shirt because they're very comfortable. But we're not here to talk about T shirts today. We've got a really important topic and I'm excited to dive in. But before we do, we're going to share a recent review. Thank you guys for leaving reviews. This one is from itunes.

That's right, and it's from Rach Savage and it's entitled awesome and Refining. Five stars. Thank you. Rach says. I have listened to several podcasts and I feel like many of the marriage podcasts are directed to newlyweds, porn, or targeting vague generalities. I love this Naked Marriage podcast because it tackles all of the specific, really quote, nitty, gritty stuff. As a wife of seven years and a new mom, I love that the content on here relates. My husband and I are able to refine our marriage and tighten the reins in the little areas and in the big ones too. Thank you for going further and for the transparency. Well, thank you, Rach, so much. I mean, we just love that and we do. We want to get to the nitty gritty stuff. We want to be real with you all, but we also hope you always leave our podcast feeling full of hope for your marriage.

Yeah. So true. Thank you for that. Very encouraging. And so with that, let's dive into today's episode.

All right, this piece of marriage advice is so huge, especially for those of you who are raising kids right in this moment. You're in the trenches, and that is, do not put your marriage on hold while you are raising kids, because if you do, you will end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage, and none of us wants that. And tragically, in a lot of the work that we do, we see this happen. We see couples, you know, they've raised their kids, they've put in all that time and effort to raise their kids, but throughout that time of child rearing, they forgot to focus on one another and to really dig in and work on their marriage. And so, you know, the last one leaves the nest, and they're like, I don't even know this person anymore. And it doesn't have to be that way. You know, we can thrive in our marriage while raising kids, but it takes great intentionality.

It really does take great intentionality. And sometimes that intentionality is countercultural, because I think we're living in a time where there's almost this, like, child worship.

Oh, yeah.

And where, you know, you're taught by the culture that once you have kids, then your whole life has got to be about the kids. But, you know, kids, like, we've learned from wiser mentor couples. I've heard one in particular say, children are a temporary assignment, you know, but you're assigned to 18 years. They're going to be part of your life forever. Of course.

Of course.

But your marriage is that lifelong commitment, and just the way God orchestrated it. The marriage has to come first. The best thing you can do for your children is to have a strong marriage. I'm telling you, the best thing you can do for your kids is to give them the security that comes from seeing what a healthy marriage looks like. And there's just a security in that. And it's going to free you up to love them even better. So it's God first, marriage second, kids after that, everything, and everybody else beyond that. That's the biblical order of things, and it works. And I'm so thankful. We've had mentors in our life who've spoken this, you know, my parents being among them when we were, you know, new parents for just a few weeks. Cooper was two Weeks old, two weeks old. My parents came over and they were like, yeah, it's time for you guys to get out.

Go on a date.

Yeah, go on a date.

Short date.

We got this. Yeah, you know, don't go far, maybe, but go get some dinner. Get something. And we got out of the house after being cooped up for two weeks without even seeing daylight, hardly. And it just kind of brought life back to us. It's like, oh, yeah, we're still a couple. We're not. I mean, we're parents now, but we're not just parents. In fact, we've got to make this marriage stronger than ever for the sake of our kids and for all that God has for us. And so I'm so thankful for that. We had a pediatrician do the same thing. We took Cooper in for a checkup after. Gosh, it was.

It was days.

Days. And he was already talking about us planning date nights. He was like, now, I know right now this seems like it's all encompassing. And, yeah, your life's changed forever. He said, but prioritize your marriage. It's the best thing you could do for yourselves, and it's the best thing you could do for this baby. And so start making plans of how you're going to consistently have a date night. And of all the advice he gave us that day about babies and everything else that stuck out, too, that this wise older pediatrician who's worked with babies for years has said, you want a healthy family, make sure that you're prioritizing your marriage well.

And one thing I remember distinctly that he said was these kids, the baby, at the time, we just had one. Adjust to your life, not the other way around. You don't adjust to his life. I mean, he's not. Kids can't rule our world. They don't even know what they're doing right. We're here to care for them and to guide them and to lead them. And I think so many times it is so all encompassing that it is easy to lose sight of one another because it just takes so much time and effort and you're exhausted. You know, earlier in this season of podcast, we talked about that, how sometimes you're just exhausted, and especially if you're like a nursing mom and you're just trying, you know, you're nursing the baby, gosh, every couple or few hours, it takes a lot of time. And then, you know, you're just trying to do all the things in between and changing diapers and all the different things that you're doing. By the time you get to the end of the day, it's just. You're exhausted. I mean, I remember those times. They're very vivid in my mind. Our youngest is five now, but I remember that like it was yesterday. And so I know how it's so easy, especially in those early years of having kids. You're like, who has time to go on a date? Or who has time to have, like, a real adult conversation? But we have to make time, right? Our kids don't determine our schedule, but we allow them to. If they're, like, ruling our schedule all the time, it's because we've allowed it. We're adults, and we have to stand up and be adults. And, you know, we will make time for what we want to make time for. I mean, that's just the honest truth, and it's the hard truth. And I had to tell this to myself. I mean, I remember distinctly that date night when your parents came over. Dave was like, okay, let's peel out of here and go have a date night. But it took me a little bit to catch up. Like, my heart felt so conflicted because, again, I was a nursing mom, a new mom, and I put all this pressure on myself, like new moms often do. And I remember going to Applebee's and sitting there in the booth, and it took me about 15 minutes to feel okay with it. Do you remember that? And I actually started crying.

Yeah, you were kind of in a day. And I mean, understandably, you know, your hormones were all over the place. You're just over the place, completely exhausted, depleted physically, emotionally and otherwise. And again, I'm just so thankful in that season to have people to step in and say, like, we want to help lighten your load. You need this. And I know that not everybody has the benefit that we had back then of some parents willing to watch the baby so that we could go and do that. And for most of our marriage, we've not lived near family, and we've any kind of childcare we've had to just kind of figure out on our own. But it's something that we've prioritized. We've budgeted for it specifically, we've made it happen. Even though. Because maybe you're listening, like, oh, well, I don't live near family, so I'm never going to get a babysitter. We've not lived near family since. Since. Since our oldest was, gosh, not even 13, not even 2 years old. And we've had three more children since then. And. And We've, we figured it out. You know, we've, and we've. A lot of those years we were broke, but we still, we said, you know what, this is a priority and we're going to invest in our marriage and our sanity by making sure that we have some time together alone. And we had to get creative with that. Sometimes it wasn't about money. We were spending, we were out. Some of our best dates were just to go on a walk, maybe get some ice cream and just go on a walk and talk. It wasn't about spending a bunch of money. It was about being together and making sure that that was a consistent priority. And man, it is so important to do that. And what happens if you don't do that? Because we've seen this play out long term from a lot of couples that again, are older and a little further down the road. The marriages that made it all about the kids, we said at the beginning, don't end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage. Once their kids are gone, it is complete chaos for them because they don't know how to relate to one another anymore, nor do they want to because they got really good at co parenting and really bad at everything else. And so some of the unhealthy dynamics and side effects of that is that often the parent in that child focused family will try to hold on to the children. I've especially seen this with mothers and their children. It can be either. But it tends to be more of a tendency for moms to find all their emotional connection through the child because they're not receiving it with their husband. And it creates this, it does one of two things. It either pushes your children far away where they don't want any relationship with you, or it creates this weird codependent dynamic where you're sabotaging your children's relationships because they don't feel like they can go have a healthy marriage because you're right in the middle of it. And my gosh, it's just so unhealthy on so many levels. And we could point to a lot of psychological research to kind of back some of this up. We could point to biblical passages that talk about the importance again of that, that priority structure being in place. If it's not God first, spouse second, children next, and then everything else below it. If those priorities get out of whack in any order out of whack, then the whole Jenga block comes tumbling down and we've got to make sure that we're keeping those priorities where they need to be.

Absolutely. And I think too sometimes maybe you have some issues going on in your marriage. And what I've seen couples do, especially when they're in the trenches of raising kids, especially school age kids, where they're running, you know, everywhere to go to different events and such, and sporting events and all that, they often hide behind the busy schedule of raising children to avoid their marital problems. And that is just, it's toxic because what? Avoidance. Like we say all the time on this podcast, avoidance doesn't solve anything. Avoidance just leads to more problems and bitterness and misunderstanding and lack of communication. And then ultimately where that leads is apathy because you're like, yeah, you know, I don't know what to do here. I don't even know this person.

Don't even feel anything for them anymore.

And you know, we say this on the podcast before, even this season, we tend to gravitate and put more resources and more time, more effort into the place where we feel like we're winning. And so if you, you may feel like, well, I'm an awesome mom or I'm an awesome dad, I'm just gonna put all my effort here. But what happens is because you're not putting any effort into your marriage, you're not able to become a better spouse because you're not even trying to. And so we really have to make sure that we keep those biblical, you know, the priorities kind of in check. And again, it is God first, then your marriage and then your kids, and then everyone and everything else. And when it comes to our parents in particular, you know, it doesn't mean that, that we don't honor our parents or eventually when we're, you know, the parents, that our kids don't honor us. But it just changes. Like the relationship changes as we get older and our goal as parents and is that we want our kids to flee the nest, right? We're preparing them for life. And then hopefully, if it's, you know, God's will that they'll meet a spouse and they'll have their own family someday. And, you know, we don't want to just dread that day. And that's what happens when you are focused so much on the kids. You see these parents, you know, it's okay to be sad because of a new season, a new milestone in their life, and it's like, oh my goodness, that season's gone. You know, it's okay to grieve a little bit in the changing seasons, but when you are dreading it because you're scared to address your spouse, and you're scared of what the future holds because you don't even know your spouse anymore. Or maybe you're just bored and you're like, I don't even want to be with this person anymore. That's really a sad place to be. And it doesn't have to be that way. And so it's more than just date nights, guys. I know we've talked a lot about, you know, prioritizing date nights, but really, how to foster a thriving marriage in the midst of raising kids means that you don't just talk about the kids all the time. It means that you have routines in your life where you prioritize your marriage, where you talk daily about your hopes, your dreams, that you laugh together, that you are staying in touch throughout the day. Like we talked about in our episode about making your smartphone kind of work for you and strengthen your marriage. It's having these habits and these routines in place that foster a thriving marriage. Because if we don't make that a priority, then everyone and everything else will take precedent over our marriage, and it just can't be that way.

Yeah, it really does come down to the priority issue. And you'll see that theme interwoven into so many of the topics we discuss, not just this one. Specifically about the child issue. And be a great parent, obviously, huge blessing. We would jump in front of a bus for our kids. You know, we bend our whole lives around what we feel like is best for our children, especially during these years where we have the sacred responsibility of raising them. But with that being said, so many people, they just try to become a martyr for their kids and their marriage is what gets put on the altar that they ultimately sacrifice. And you're never, ever called to do that. Anything that you make more important than it should be will ultimately cause you to sacrifice something that never should have been sacrificed. And maybe an example of this, I can kind of build a bridge to it. I read a book recently by this Navy seal, a really inspiring story. He's an ultra endurance athlete and transformed his body from being, like, really out of shape to being one of the most elite endurance athletes on the planet. And the whole story is about him having the discipline to go for these very, very specific goals and be all in just completely focused, laser focused on it. And he's achieved all of these physical goals for himself. And that in itself is to be commended, as is his service to his nation and the courageous way in which he served. But as I was reading this book, I've noticed that there's almost no mention of the family connections and relationships and these other things. And I think that just feels like I know the story. The book itself is about more of the physical stuff, but it's a life out of balance when you're not talking about those other things. So I actually looked up about the guy, like, is he married? I mean, you can't even really fully tell from his story, which is strange. And, and it's both of his marriages have ended in divorce. And I know like from his story that he had a really rough childhood and his dad was abusive. And I think that there was probably some baggage from that and didn't ever see a healthy marriage modeled for himself and maybe carried some of that into it. But as I was reading the story to kind of bring it back to where we are talking about today, it just reminded me that whatever you make most important in your life, you can have. But if you're chasing after something that isn't the most important thing, you're going to sacrifice things along the way. Another way to say it is you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want. Do you want to be an ultra endurance athlete? Yeah, you can do that. But it might come at the expense of some other things. If you want to put your children first and make them your whole life, you can do that. But it's going to come at the expense of some things that were never meant to be sacrificed and namely your marriage. And that's going to cause eventually the whole family structure to break down and generation down the line. Your relationship with those children that you worshiped and that you put first is not going to be what you think it's going to be. We've just seen this play out so many times. It's not going to be healthy most of the time. It's not going to be balanced. It's either one of those scenarios I said at the beginning, either this codependent thing where you're just holding on so tightly to them that they can't live their own life, or where they've pushed you away to the point where you've kind of been estranged from your parent, from your spouse and from your kids. God wants you to have a healthy relationship with your children and he wants you to have a great marriage. And the only way both those things can happen is to put your marriage first.

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Make sure that you make your marriage a priority. You know, I hope that after you turn off this podcast, you know, a lot of times couples write us and say that. That each spouse will listen to it separately and then talk about it together. And what I hope happens in your conversations is that you guys take an assessment of where are you. For those of you who have children, ask each other, do you think we're prioritizing our marriage? And if not, what could we do to prioritize our marriage? What are the routines that we need to put in place that will help us to make our marriage a priority for us? Just for example, I know we've talked about this before. We go on a nightly walk. We weren't always able to do that because we didn't have older boys who could watch our younger boys. But nowadays, that's how we connect. Now, before that, I'm trying to think of some other things that we would do. Sometimes we would just put our kids to bed early and have good conversation, you know, Netflix and hang out. But, you know, there were a lot.

Of foot rubs involved.

A lot of foot rubs involved. But, you know, there's all kinds of different seasons that come along, and it may look different in every season, but that's why we always say you need to monitor and adjust. Because if something's not working in that particular season, that just. It doesn't mean you don't do anything. It just means you change what you're doing, find a new way. Find a new way to connect. And, you know, you'll see that each season you're gonna learn new things, you're gonna be growing together. And kids, you know, they're a beautiful part of that, but they aren't all of that. Right? They're not all of that and we should be investing in our relationships with our kids, too. But if we're only investing in those relationships, we are robbing our children of the greatest gift we could give them, which is two parents who love each other and stay married forever. I mean, there's just such a comfort that comes with that. And so we want to do the best we can to give that to them.

Yeah, man, well said. Well said. And we're not trying to listen. If you're listening, listening to this and you've, you know, you're in a blended family situation or you've had a marriage that has failed in the past, please hear our hearts on this. We're not trying to make you feel like your second best or to shame you in any way, but we're saying to start right where you are in the situation that you're in right now and saying, what does it look like to model these principles? Right? You know, moving forward from right now, you can't change the past, but you can change the future by the decisions you make right now. So make the decision to put your faith first, because Jesus is never going to lead you in the wrong direction. Then put your marriage right underneath that and then put your kids next and then your career, everything and everyone after that. And you'll find that life, life will be in the balance, that it's meant to be. All right, well, it's been a great topic. It's time for us to transition to our question and answer time. We appreciate the questions you guys Send in@nakedmarriagepodcast.com which are the ones that get read on the air. At least some of them get read on the air. We also appreciate the questions you send us on social media so you can continue to look us up. Dave and Ashley Willis on social and we'd be happy to connect with you there. Here's today's question. My wife and I have been married for almost six years now, and we have a good marriage. We're both believers who saved ourselves for one another until we got married. Once we got married, I realized I never learned how to initiate sex. I thought it would be easy. We all know the stereotypes of men with a high sex drive pushing themselves on their wives. But our marriage isn't that way. If I sense a lack of desire in her, which is often, it feels selfish to initiate, so I don't. I daily strive to be selfless and sacrificial husband, and I simultaneously fear rejection. This cycle has us going down a road of our marriage lacking intimacy. What Do I do? Great question. Very honest question.

Yeah, it's a hard place to be because, you know, I can tell he's a very sensitive husband and a caring husband and that's awesome. And I can, I commend him for that. I mean, that's a wonderful way to approach your wife. But I do think that this is an opportunity to really talk to your wife and say, listen, you know, be honest with her and say, I feel like there's a lack of desire here and I understand, you know, like, maybe he's the one with a higher sex drive. It sounds like he is. And that's okay to have lopsided sex drives. We actually have a video all about that on YouTube that you can watch and we talk more about that. But you know, that doesn't mean that you don't want to feel like you're bothering her. I think that's kind of what he's saying is he feels like he's bothering her and there's just such a lack of desire and he doesn't want to feel like he's forcing himself on her. And so how does he initiate with that? And I think it's again, we always, always talk about this, that a great sex life doesn't start in the bedroom. It starts through conversations, it starts through opening up. And I think that just being really honest and open with her, not just about sex, but just about everything and really connecting on a deep emotional level is a good place to start.

Yeah, always communication paves the way and then you gotta put yourself out there.

You do.

When you go baseball terms, you miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at. So you might strike out a few times, but you're gonna make contact a few times too, if you know what I mean.

And I think too women need a lot more foreplay. So like engage in more foreplay, you know, like really have a good makeout session and really see where it goes.

Yeah, you know, cuddle, give a lot, rub her feet. She might really give a lot of non sexual touch throughout the day. Most women. Studies have shown that most women desire that in ways that men do not. Because for men, like all touch can be sexual touch in marriage. But women appreciate a lot of non sexual touch. Holding hands, put your arm around her shoulder, just tuck her hair behind her ear as you gently, you know, caress her face. And not like instantly expect any of these things to lead to making out or lead to the bedroom, but just through your words and your actions, show that affection, that tenderness, and then you know, be honest. Like, talk about like you just did with us. I hope that you've been as honest with her as you have with us. You were very honest in your question. To express your vulnerability, your desire that you desire her sexually all the time. But some of the fear that's holding you back. I hope you've been that honest with her. And in doing that, at least you're putting your heart out there. You're being vulnerable. You're having that naked marriage that we talk about and continue to do those things and continue to just look for ways to serve her needs and connect with her physically, emotionally, spiritually, in every way. And know that early on, give yourself some grace here. That a couple early in their marriage. I think that we have this really unrealistic idea that you're gonna go from being, you know, a couple people with. With. With zero sexual experience to be, like, you know, swinging from the rafters, doing these bizarre Kama Sutra poses within, like, two days of being married. And it's gonna look like that all the time. There's just a process of awkwardness, frankly. I mean, it's still gonna be. Sex is still gonna be fun. Even when sex is awkward, it's fun. I mean, God, he knew what he was doing when he made it. But it's gonna be a process. It's like when you're learning to dance with somebody, you step on each other's toes in the beginning and. And you're still in the step on each other's toes phase. And that's just part of learning to dance. But you're gonna get better at it. But part of getting better means communicating. Like Ashley said, it means talking through these issues, sharing your heart, sharing your fear, sharing your desires, and then looking for ways to meet her needs and to help her feel. Take. To help her with whatever inadequacy and fear she might be feeling. And to really process that together and make your marriage the safest place on earth and. And make your marriage bed the safest place on earth for both of you to express yourselves.

And I would say, too, you know, definitely talk to her about what she likes and doesn't like. I mean, I know you're early in your marriage, but it'd be good to know. I mean, it might be that she doesn't like the particular thing that you're trying to do in foreplay. Like, maybe there's something else that you haven't tried that would be more enticing for her and just be willing to talk about that. I also think and this is something that couples don't talk about a lot of. Maybe you're trying to initiate at the wrong time of day when she's at her lowest energy level and romantic level. You know, you have to find that time of day that is. That is best really for you both, ideally. But also if she's the one that just tends to have the lack of desire every time you. You are trying to initiate, maybe it's the time of day, like, maybe try another time of day where she tends to have more energy.

It's great advice. It's good stuff. So we're gonna let you go so you can go try some of this stuff right now. And yeah, just give yourselves both a lot of patience along the way. In fact, a few episodes back in this series, we did a whole episode on patience. I think that would definitely apply in this situation as well. But it's going to keep getting better. And your heart's obviously in the right place. And I know that God's got great things in store for you. And so thank you for your question. Thanks to all of you who are listening or if you're watching us here on YouTube. Thanks for watching and we appreciate you guys so much. So thanks for being part of this online community.

We'll see you next time.

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