Unapologetic Love

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Hey friends, welcome back to Summertime on the Naked Marriage Podcast. We hope your summer is going great. Whether you are at work or laying on a beach or driving on a road trip or whatever you're doing right now. Hopefully air conditioning is involved. And we hope you're having a great, great summer. And thanks for tuning in, guys, because summertime is a time, if we're not careful with all of the change in schedule, where we can start drifting apart from our spouse. And so every episode this summer is really aimed at helping reconnect with your spouse and grow closer together than ever before. A quick, quick plug before we dive into today's topic, if you're not following us on Instagram, that's a great way to stay connected with us this summer and beyond. You can go over to Instagram and we are aveandashleywillis. You can send us messages there. You can get daily marriage encouragement there. Interact with us.

We would love to hear from you. So, sweetie, what are we talking about today?

Oh, we're talking about a big one. And this is. Are you one who maybe people at your workplace, people in your neighborhood may not actually know you're married because you kind of live like a single person, but you really are married. That's a big question. And I know some of you listening are like, what are you talking about? Like, of course people know you're married, but you would be surprised. You would be surprised. I mean, we, I will tell you this. We actually had a colleague many years ago where he would never wear a wedding ring. And that's a whole other topic for another day. But it was even more than not wearing a wedding ring. He just kind of lived his life to where people did not know he was married. And I remember you often had to field ladies coming up to you saying, hey, is so and so married. And ultimately it ended up like, later on because I told you, I said if he's not careful, he's going to end up in like an affair. And sure enough, he did. And I'm just saying I think that if he had been more open about being a married Man. Okay. Which we're going to talk about on this episode, how to do that. I think that would have avoided some of these pitfalls. Okay. And it takes a lot more than that to find yourself in a. In an affair. But being very much known publicly and obviously privately that you are a married person can help things. And so we're going to talk all about it today. Let's dive in. These people that end up having the affairs often think, well, I'm married at home, you know, and that's great. That's where I'm married. I do what I'm supposed to do at home. But that doesn't mean I can't kind of have some leeway in public. And so they're kind of in every other way, single in public. And I'm not saying they necessarily set out to be this way, but I think that we can maybe be in a spot in our marriage where we're vulnerable to this and we're kind of seeking outside the marriage a little bit, and we start flirting with somebody, we decide our wedding ring's not that important, you know, and it kind of. One thing leads to another. And so we're gonna talk today about, you know, what are some things that we can do to make sure that we are married all the way everywhere, every day, you know, not just at home. And we're gonna talk about some ways that we don't get this right, that we can kind of appear as single in public.

And I do think this is a huge issue in our world, especially with sometimes, like, we've got a really good friend who kind of lived this way. He never posted pictures about his wife on social media, never didn't wear a wedding ring.

He said when people would ask him about it, he would say, well, I just don't like jewelry.

Yet.

Nobody pointed out that he was wearing a watch. But, you know, we just kind of.

Gave him the benefit of the doubt and bracelets and.

Exactly. But that was always the excuse is, I don't like jewelry. And that's. He told his wife that, and she was okay with that.

Right. And so it was essentially like, in public, he was a single dad, right? He didn't just talk about his wife. There weren't pictures of her around where he worked. And so he was living this Persona in a lot of ways, not outwardly seeming like he was flirting, but just would wear shirts to kind of show off his guns. He was, I've got love handles, so I don't wear shirts that tight. But they looked pretty good on Him. And long story short, after a long time of people just thinking, well, that's just who he is.

That's just him.

That's just his personality. And we kind of make excuses for. Recently came to light that essentially, for a very long time, he's been carrying on an affair with a much younger woman and essentially living this double life.

Right?

And I'm not saying that every guy that doesn't wear a wedding ring or every guy that, you know, wears tight shirts, post a lot of pictures online with his wife, is automatically having an affair, but I do think that that public Persona is such a. It's such a gateway, right? What we cannot do is compartmentalize. Our marriage is in this little slice of my life, and it doesn't impact any of the other slices of my life. Your marriage is something that should impact every part of your life. If the people you work with, the people you hang out with, first off, don't know you're married, or secondly, don't know that you love your spouse, you're committed to your spouse, that you're committed to your marriage, then you're setting yourself up for potential disaster.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's so true, you know, and we talk about this, you know, as we talk about our friend, it breaks our heart. Like, this is something where we wish we had seen it coming. And we share this with you because we don't want this to be you. And I think sometimes we go into these things innocently. And as we've talked with our friend, he never meant for this to happen. It's not like he wanted this to happen. But I think so many times we make one subtle decision that goes against our marriage and goes against our values, and then that leads to another bad decision and another bad decision, and before we know it, we've created a terrible web of lies.

And.

And we're in a life we just never saw ourselves being in, and we end up breaking the hearts of the ones that we love the most. And there's such wreckage that comes with it. So I just wanna encourage you, if you don't currently wear a wedding ring, why not? You know, why not? And even if you don't like jewelry, get a tattoo. I mean, we see people get a tattoo, wedding ring. I mean, there's ways to do this. If you're not a jewelry person, I get it. Maybe you have a nickel allergy. That's another thing I hear from people. I'm like, well, get something that's made that doesn't have nickel in it, right?

You can get these silicone rings now.

Silicone rings, 10 bucks? Yeah. Cause sometimes people say it's too expensive. It's like, yeah, the silicone ring is nothing. You can even track your fitness with your silicone ring these days, I guess. But it's just, you know, we can't use excuses. We need to have a way to let other people in public know that we're married. And the wedding ring, it goes way back. People have been wearing the wedding ring for generations, and as a sign to say, I'm taken. I have someone that I belong to and that I am devoted to, and I don't want anything to break this marriage apart. And, you know, in other ways, and I know some of you are listening to this, like, well, that's just a piece of jewelry. It doesn't really mean that much. It does. It's one way to let people know. But I also think, like Dave said, we need to be very open about being married. We need to have pictures at work of our family, of our spouse and our kids. If we have kids, we need to. On social media. You know, there needs to be a picture or two of our spouse. Maybe some of you are like, well, that's kind of silly. My spouse doesn't really like pictures. Well, put on there that you're married. Just put on there that you're married.

And brag about them, with them.

Brag about them. Use encouragement.

If you're not publicly bragging about your spouse, then you're probably nagging about your spouse in some way. It's usually one or the other. You need to speak positively to your spouse, but you also need to speak positively about your spouse. That public. The public aspect of marriage is so huge. Marriage is both a public relationship and a private relationship. It's meant to touch every part of your life. And if it's not like coming back to the compartments, if you're trying to compartmentalize it and you're saying, my marriage is my home life and it doesn't impact anything else, then you have no idea what marriage really is or is supposed to be. And not that this is a, you know, a wedding ring example, but coming back to that wedding ring thing, I'll just say this about it. By choosing not to wear one, you're sending a message. Because whether you realize it or not, when people meet you for the first time, especially people of the opposite sex meet you for the first time, it's one of the first things they will notice about you, I promise. And they will make assumptions about your availability based on the presence or the absence of a ring. I know for my grandmother, she had a husband that was a philanderer. I mean, I really don't know any way to soften it. He ran around on her. He was. Later in his life, he came to Faith in Christ and was a good grandfather. But he, for most of their life, was a terrible husband. And she still carries deep wounds from that, even though he's passed away many decades ago. But for my grandma, the first thing she notices about any man is whether or not he's wearing a wedding ring. Oh, yeah, and she'll talk about it. For her, it's a statement. It's saying, I'm committed. It's saying, my wife matters. And this is from a woman who had been wounded so deeply, from a man who did not value his marriage and did not treasure her the way that he should. And so, guys, I'm just saying, look, safeguard your wife. Safeguard marriage in general by being willing to wear one. Especially, you know, if a wife says, this is important to me, I would like for you to do it. And you choose not to. Still, that kind of pride is so toxic in a marriage. It really.

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It's so true. And not only is it assigned to other people, but it's assigned to you as a person. You look down and you think about your wedding day. You think about the vows you took. You think about when your spouse for ladies. You think about when your husband asks you to marry him and husbands. You think about when your wife first said, with this ring, I thee wed. And put that on your finger. And you remember the glow on her face that's what we think about. It's a tangible way to remember the vows that we've taken to our spouse. And it's also a tangible way to tell others about it. You know, but more than even the wedding ring, there's certain behaviors that we really need to watch to make sure that we're not appearing single in public. And that can be, you know, a lot of times in the workplace. And I think sometimes we go to work and we just don't, you know, we work with people of the opposite sex and we just don't think that anything is going to happen. But let me tell you, sadly, we hear from couples every day where there's been an opposite sex, you know, business relationship that turned into a friendship that later turned into a romantic relationship, and it's just not good. And it only leads to, you know, an affair. And they just never saw it coming. And so some ways that we can make sure that we're not going down that road is we need to be very careful about being alone with someone of the opposite sex. And this means in the copy room, this means going out to lunch. This means closing the door to your office with someone of the opposite sex. Because honestly, it just puts you both in a really compromising situation. And we need to be able to be beyond reproach. We don't even want to have the hint of temptation. And, you know, whenever we've written about this and we've shared any kind of post on Facebook about this, we get just very polarizing comments. You know, there's one side that says, oh, my gosh, thank you for talking about this and being so clear about opposite sex relationships, you know, possibly damning your marriage because this broke up my marriage. And then we have people on the other side who are like, this is so archaic. You know, my best friend is a guy and my husband doesn't care. And this is just ridiculous. But I just, I wanna share this with you because I see this probably break up marriages more than anything else.

Absolutely.

And it's just to safeguard you. And I'll be honest. Like, when I was working at a church years ago, my boss was one of the youth pastors and he was also a great friend of our family. I was great friends with his wife as well. And I will never forget, we were redesigning the youth space. And I was so excited to be part of this. And I remember assuming, well, we're going to go to this carpet store. I'm just going to ride with my friend, you know, who's a guy did not think a thing about it. Well, we go to the car, and he looks at me and he said, ashley, I'm sorry, but we're going to either have to have someone else ride with us, or you're just going to have to meet me there in your car. And at the time, I think I was, like, 22 years old, and I thought, that is just ridiculous. Who does he think I am? Like, I am not that kind of girl. And what in the world. I see him like a brother. Like, I was kind of angry about it, and I told Dave about it, and at first he was kind of like, yeah, that's weird. But the more we both thought about it, we were like, no, that's not weird at all. He is taking the proper stance.

And it quickly became a policy in our marriage. We adopted that because we saw, you know, what? This. It can't. Don't ever put yourself in a position to be tempted or talked about. Exactly. It's really safeguarding you. It's safeguarding your spouse, and it's safeguarding that other person who's riding with you. And you have to sometimes be weird by our culture standards, to protect and safeguard your marriage, because it is gonna seem weird sometimes for you taking a stand, a public stand for marriage and saying, look, this is just a policy that my wife and I have out of respect for each other, out of respect for marriage in general that we don't do. And it might create some awkward conversations, but in those awkward conversations, it's also going to give you a platform to celebrate your marriage. And I think even if people don't get it, even if people think you're a weirdo, they're also going to take note that that's somebody that really values marriage. That's somebody that really. They're practicing what they preach. They're putting their spouse first. And, you know, another thing I would add to piggyback on this conversation is, you know, and this is something Ashley has talked about a lot, is you've got to be careful with your compliments.

Oh, yes.

You got to be careful with your compliments. And some guys, you know, or it could be woman, but, you know, just talking man to man for a second, guys, you can't. You can't be complimenting always, you know, a woman's appearance. If you wouldn't say it to another guy, then you probably shouldn't say it to her. If you wouldn't, you know, go up to a guy and just be like, man, you look. You look great today to another guy. Then you probably shouldn't say it to her. There's ways to be complimentary and encouraging without crossing that line into what could very easily be taken as flirtation or even propositioning in some way. You just have to be careful. And I'm not saying we should all walk around on eggshells and never make eye contact with someone of the opposite sex or speak to them. But those compliments, they can open some dangerous doors. I think of, again, another friend that we knew was a good friend of our family and Ashley, who has kind of just amazing spidey senses when it comes to things. Like, she usually sees things before they actually happen. This guy was just really complimentary with the ladies.

Well, and I will say, just to kind of elaborate on this, it wasn't just, you look nice. It was. I love the way that blue sweater brings out the blue in your eyes or your hair. Oh, man, I've just never seen it look so voluptuous today. Or, you know, I mean, it was very, very, like, too descriptive. And I remember saying to Dave, I said, man, you know, I know he's married and he loves his family, but he's gonna say that to the wrong girl one day, and she's gonna take him up on it. Like, she's gonna think, you know, maybe think they're gonna form, you know, some kind of relationship and he's gonna have an affair. And I didn't think that was going on, and I certainly didn't want that to happen. But months later, it came out that he was, in fact, having an affair. And it broke my heart. And I was just like, with his.

Much younger secretary, who was also herself married, and it broke up that marriage.

It's just the wreckage, right? And it breaks my heart because at the time, you know, this was many years ago, we weren't even doing marriage ministry. But I think if that, you know, when you know something, maybe this happens to you. And if you are friends with them, I would take them aside and say, listen, you can't talk that way. Like, that is dangerous territory. I know you're just trying to be complimentary, but that is just really not good. And that's. Would you say that in front of your wife, or would you say that in front of your husband? You know, you need to think about those things. And I remember. I'm gonna share this story, too. We have to be careful with our compliments, but we also have to be careful with how we take them from another person. And I remember a friend of mine saying that she was working on a missions team. And so you're doing something good together, right? And she said there was this one guy, and he was just really nice, and he would, you know, say nice things to her. And she said she found herself, and she was married, you know, also, and she found herself wanting to be around him more and more. And then she'd think about what she was going to wear around him. And she said one morning she realized, I am in dangerous territory. I'm letting this guy kind of into my heart a little bit. And so she said she distanced herself immediately, and she said, I just did not go around him anymore because it. We have to be able to recognize people who might be unsafe for our marriage. Do you want to elaborate on that, sweetie? We kind of took that from another pastor, but it's a great way to.

There is a pastor friend of ours that we think the world of. He is just a great guy, you know, leads a huge church, but yet he is incredibly humble. And I just feel like nobody's perfect, but he's a guy who's doing it right. And, you know, I was having a conversation with him once, and it was actually on a podcast, a men's podcast. And he. He said, you know, in our marriage, we kind of. One of the things that we say to each other to kind of keep each other accountable is he said, sometimes I'll go to my wife and I'll say, there might be this other woman that maybe he feels like there's a little bit of a connection, whether it's, you know, that he might feel an attraction to her, or he feels like this other person might feel an attraction to him, or there's maybe just a potential connection of any kind, or kindred.

Spirits, whatever you want to call, yes, spirits.

It doesn't at all mean that there's, you know, anybody's done anything inappropriate.

Right.

But it could potentially, there's a connection, and without safeguards, it could go somewhere that it shouldn't. And he'll immediately go to his wife, and he'll say, okay, this person over here. And he'll use this wording, this is not a safe person for me. He doesn't say I'm attracted to her. He doesn't say, she might be attracted to me. He doesn't say there's a connection, or he doesn't say anything. He just says, this person's not a safe person for me. And kind of without judgment. And his wife can do the same with him, and without judgment or insecurity on either of their part. There's accountability there, and they'll kind of help each other to stay away from that person just as a way to safeguard their marriage. And I think that you've got to have that level of just intuition and candor in your marriage. And, yeah, that can create some awkward conversations potentially, or insecurities, like, what do you mean it's not safe? Like, are you attracted to them? What do you mean? But instead of just saying, you know what, there is a potential that without safeguards, Satan could get involved here and lead us down a road of someplace that nobody wants to go. And I need your accountability to help me make sure that that doesn't happen. So, yeah, there might be some times where you need to come to your spouse and say, hey, this person. This isn't a safe person for me, and I need. I need your help with that.

And I think, too, we need to have that kind of vulnerability in our marriage. This whole entire podcast, it all goes back to Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed in Genesis, where it talks about the very first married couple. And we want that kind of nakedness in our own marriage. And it's not just the physical, but it's the emotional, it's the mental. We're just sharing everything with one another and being completely vulnerable. And some of you listening might think, man, I just don't think I could go to my husband and say, that's an unsafe person. But I just wanna encourage you to get to that place in your marriage. You know, maybe that's not where you're gonna start with your vulnerability, but be willing to be that open because it's really going to protect you in the long run. It's not admitting that anything's happened. It's just saying, like, help me to be on guard. And it may not be that you're attracted to that person or that you even feel a connection, but you can see in their eyes that they do. And I would challenge you, too, if you see somebody who seems all too eager to talk to you all the time, talk about your spouse every time you talk to them.

Yes, that's true.

And then get away as fast as you can, because it's just dangerous territory. And you all. I mean, in the workplace, they say, hey, nice shirt.

Yeah, my wife gave it to me, and I gotta go see her now.

Yeah, my husband likes it, too. And, man, he looks good in that color, too. You know, like, compliment your spouse or whatever. I mean, like, we just need to be willing to always bring our spouse into our life outside of Our home. Because if we don't, we do appear like we're single. And, you know, that friend, the story that we shared at the beginning, and as his friend, people would often come up to us and they would, like, ladies would even be like, is he single? And I told my husband, I said, gosh, if people didn't know you were married and were going to other people and asking if you were single, I'd be, like, majorly concerned.

Yes, with good reason.

You know, I mean, that's really a huge concern. And so we've got to be totally open about our marriage. It cannot be private as far as the knowledge of being actually married. It always is a public announcement. Like marriage is a public announcement.

That's right. You got to be married in public. And in private. I'm going to talk about an aspect of public life that I don't think we've ever talked about this as an aspect of flirting, because we don't look at it as flirting. But I've seen this lead down some roads, and I'm going to tell you what it is, and then you're probably going to think that I'm being ridiculous. But let me unpack this. What I mean by this. So hang with us for just a minute, I think. All right, guys and girls, One of the most intimate acts that a man and woman can share together is laughter. And now for me, I was voted class clown in college. I love making people laugh. I love being silly. But I've noticed through the years that this can be a dangerous thing, especially in conversations with the opposite sex, because there are few things more attractive to a guy than a woman who thinks he's funny. And there are a few things that connect people together. I was watching a show one time, and these two men were talking, and one of the men was talking about his girlfriend, and he was confiding in his male friend. He said, I think our relationship's over. I saw her laughing with another man. And then his friend kind of dropped his eyes and he said, laughing together. He said, that's terrible. Are you sure they weren't just kissing? And I thought that there was actually some truth to that, because as guys, we realized that that laughter together, it can become an intimate connection.

Oh, absolutely.

And I've, as a guy who struggles with liking the attention of making other people laugh, I've had to kind of take a step back and safeguard and say, wait a second. I don't want to create these bonds. I'm not saying that I'm going to be bland Or a stick in the mud or anything like that. But being funny in groups is one thing, but especially in any kind of like conversation where it's mostly a one on one with someone of the opposite sex, I just think that that's dangerous because the laughter, it takes down people's guards, it creates a connection and it feels like this safe. It draws you in because it doesn't feel like flirting. It doesn't feel in the least bit inappropriate. It seems. What could be wrong about laughing? But it's bringing two people together. And if you think about the early stages in your own relationship with your spouse, I bet there was a lot of laughter that kind of helped bring you two together. God uses that joy to bring two hearts together. And it's just something I've never heard talked about publicly.

It's so true though.

But this is something that we've got to watch in how we relate to people in public. Because it's subtle. It is subtle. And sometimes the most dangerous things are subtle.

Well, and I'll be honest too, I think that this isn't just person to person. It's actually like, you know, when you're physically making each other laugh in each other's presence, this can be through flirtatious texts where you're like, oh, it's just our sarcastic humor. And people think, oh, it's just a banter. I've heard that before. Well, we just have a banter, you know, which I'm like, okay, that kind of doesn't sound good. But they just, basically they're just gonna.

Be bantering in the bedroom if you're not watching.

I mean, seriously, like, that's what it. They're like, it's just a banter. It's harmless. Is basically what they're saying. But I'm like, do you banter like that with your husband? You know, and, and honestly, I mean, I'm just gonna put it out there and we're gonna go way deep into technology and kind of what is appropriate and inappropriate in some of our next episodes. But, you know, we should not be having any conversation with some of the opposite sex, you know, back and forth. And like, without our spouse knowing about it. That's just really dangerous territory. And I know some of you probably hear this and you're like, that is crazy. Like, I have work relationships, this and that. I would just say if you have to have those, let it be an open book to your spouse where you don't have the passwords, you don't have any way of hiding those. But I would even challenge you to have someone else in on that conversation. You know, where. If it's not like, you know, you're not in a field where it is, like government secrets or you're a psychologist or something. I mean, you know where you have. You're bound by our lawyer, you know, you're bound by the secrecy between your client.

Well, for us, we share the same Apple id, so we literally get copied on each other's texts, and. And we're public about that. With people say, like, look, just know that, you know, we share an Apple ID in our marriage, and so we actually see all each other's texts, and it helps us honestly, it's actually helpful stay connected to each other's world. Like, oh, don't forget you got that doctor's appointment. Or don't forget so we know what's going on. I would just challenge you. If the idea of that freaks you out, if the idea of your spouse being able to pick up your phone, look through any aspect of it, if that freaks you out, then like Ashley has said before in teaching on similar things like, why? What are you hiding?

What is it?

What is it? Because marriage has to be total transparency. It just does. And if you again, think you can compartmentalize and say no, there's this whole aspect of my life, my work, my thoughts, my texts, that my spouse has no right to, no access to. You're playing with fire.

You know, you are. And that kind of begs to question, you know, is there a part of your life where you feel like, I don't want my spouse to have access to this. I want it to just be mine. Is there a part of your life that you feel that way about? Because I would challenge you and say, why? Why do you need something that your spouse doesn't have access to? And I'm not saying it's necessarily a relationship, but just a part of your life, a hobby, whatever it is, that you just don't want them to know about it. You don't want them to have access to knowing about it. You don't want them to know. The friend group that you do this with, you know, why would that be? Because that's not marriage. You know, when God created marriage, it's for oneness between a husband and a wife. And you can't have parts of your life that you completely keep from your spouse. And if you do that, and like, you might be hearing this and saying, but I'm not hurting them. I'm not cheating on them, I'm not doing anything of the sort. But you are keeping yourself from a deeper connection. Because if you have a secret life, it's a breeding ground for sin first and foremost. It's a breeding ground for really unhealthy habits to form right there. But it's also really cheating your spouse and yourself of the connected, thriving, beautiful marriage that you really could have. Hey, welcome into Walgreens.

Hi there. Hey.

All right, hon. I'll grab the gift wrap cards and. Oh, those stuffed animals the cards girls want.

Great. And I'll grab the string lights and some. How about I grab some cough drops? This is not just a quick trip to Walgreens.

I'm fine, honey.

Well, just in case. You know what they say, Tis the season. This is help staying healthy through the holidays. Walgreens, man. That's so true. There's just great, great wisdom there. Don't really. What all this comes down to is don't settle for less than the best marriage. You know, we're not just trying to throw a bunch of, like, legalistic rules and regulations at you guys and make you feel that's not what God's about. Like, every safeguard he gives us in Scripture, it's like the guardrail on the interstate to keep you from going into oncoming traffic and hurting yourself and others. It's always for our protection. It's always for our good. And when we ignore actually harms us, we think that in ignoring it, we're living in freedom. And really, that's just our pride talking. It's like, well, I'm free. I don't have to answer to anybody. I can do what I want, man. Pride is not only a sin itself. Pride is the soil where all other sin takes root. And pride will destroy your marriage faster than anything. And so we're talking about these things and trying to challenge you on these things. Not to, like, limit you or make you feel shackled, but really to set you free to have the free marriage, the transparent, open, honest, naked marriage that you're meant to have both in public and in private and not to settle for any. Anything. Anything short of that.

That's right. You know, and another great way that we can kind of just be a publicly married couple is just simply going out in public on date nights. I mean, and that's not only a great way to let people know, like, ta da, we're married, but it's also a great way to enjoy your marriage. I mean, that was something. One of the first things that I think Dave's parents and, like, a mentor couple that was mentoring Us, when we were engaged, that was, like, the one thing they kept on harping on was, make sure you always date each other. And going out in public is a great way to just enjoy each other, but it also publicly shows people, yes, I'm married. Yes, I enjoy my spouse. You know, and if you don't want to do that, I would just again ask you why. I mean, what's holding you back from that? You know, you should want to go out in public. You really should be proud of your spouse.

Absolutely.

You should be proud and want to introduce your friends to your spouse. I mean, when I think of Dave, I think I can't wait for new friends to meet him. Like, I'm like, oh, I cannot wait for you to meet Dave. Like, I'm so proud that he's my husband and he treats me in the same way. And we need to get there, you know, we need to be proud of one another and really just can't wait to introduce our spouse to our friends and bring them into our world in every aspect and in every way. Because I want to be really honest with you all. None of us are immune to being tempted. We all have to be on our toes all the time. It doesn't matter what field you're in, Dave and I have to be on our toes all the time. Because anytime we start, you know, not being intentional and kind of subtly wandering, you know, having wandering eyes or having a wandering heart, we're putting ourself in dangerous territory. So again, we don't share this with you guys. As ones who are looking down and saying, do this, do that. We're sharing this with you because as ones who work with married couples all the time, we see this thing destroy marriages so rapidly, and it breaks our hearts. And we want to be on our toes and let that not be us, but we want to teach you guys as well and let you know what we've learned and help you to have a thriving, rock solid marriage.

That's right. And don't settle for anything less. And, sweetie, that's a great challenge to end on. I hope you guys were paying attention to all her words. But those final ones in particular, of making your spouse a part of every aspect of your life in both public and in private. And a good challenge, a good challenge with this is one. You know, listen to these podcasts together, which is one step, but make that date night a priority that Ashley was talking about. Make it a priority. Budget for a babysitter, whatever you need to do, but make that a priority. Stay consistent with it, you'll never, ever, ever regret the investment that you made into your marriage. It will have an impact of every other part of your life.

Thank you all so much for joining us for this second episode. You know, I hope that there's something that you took away from this, like what you can do to kind of show that you're married in public. Maybe there's some behaviors you weren't doing before, and maybe it's wearing your wedding ring or talking about your spouse favorably to others and just letting people know that you're married and you love being married. Whatever it is, I hope that you are able to take that and just apply it to your marriage.

Yeah, that's right. And that's one of the main goals of this podcast, is to help all of us with each episode. Maybe just find that one thing, that one little nugget that we can immediately apply. Or maybe uncovering a blind spot we had that we didn't realize that we had. And we all have those. So thank you so much for tuning in. Here's some next steps for you. If you're enjoying this podcast, would you please leave a review? Let other people discover this podcast because together, together we can spread the word and help create stronger, more thriving marriages. We also want you to subscribe to this podcast. It just takes a click. It just takes a few seconds and a swipe of a finger on a smartphone and you can subscribe, meaning you will be the first to know. Every time there's a brand new episode, you can stay connected and we can't wait to continue this journey with you. So we'll see you next time.

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