We're Struggling to Connect, Help! // Hump Day Q&A

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's Hump Day Q and A time.

Hump Day Q and A. Hump Day Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump Day Q and A. We love answering your questions, so every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram. Aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in.

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Hey, friends, Dave and Ashley here. It's another episode of Hump day Q and A here on the Naked Marriage Podcast. Wednesday is our favorite day of the week because we love your questions and we've got another great one today, so thank you as always, for those who write in, most of these come from Instagram or @davandashley willis on Instagram. That's the easiest way to get in touch with us. But however you choose to reach out to us, we appreciate your feedback and we appreciate your questions. So, my love, will you read today's question?

It says this. My spouse and I seem to be at different stages in our lives. I'm ready to settle down and focus on building a family while my spouse still wants to travel and explore new career opportunities. The divergence is causing tension and making it hard to plan for for our future. How can we reconcile our different life stages and find a way to move forward together without compromising our individual dreams? It's, you know, this is a big one. You know, focus on building a family. So it sounds like kids maybe like start, you know, starting to have kids is a big thing and that is a big change. I mean. Oh, sure, yeah, it is such a big change. And we've talked to many couples over the years where they're having the same struggle where, you know, one is like, well, we're not, you know, I haven't achieved my career, you know, status that I wanted to yet to start having a family. And usually with the career dream in the dreams and career, there's a financial thing there, too, and they're scared. Am I going to be able to afford these kids? And so, you know, I would say, you know, just. I think first and foremost, it's important to really sit down and hear each other out. Like, the heart of the matter, like, why. Why is it that you feel like you want to wait to have kids? And why is it that you feel like now's the time, you know, really get to the heart of what that is? You know, there's. We've talked about different things where whenever you. You have kind of this. This time where you're just on different pages about a big decision in your life, I think a great conversation to have it and maybe think about first yourself, but then literally ask your spouse, because you can only know what they tell you and just say, like, what. You know, that dream you have for a family, like, starting it now, that desire, like, what. Why now? Why do you feel like now's the time? And it could be that, you know, you say, well, I feel like this is a good age for me. Like, I'm in a good. In good shape, and I feel like it might be harder as I get older to have kids, and I don't want to wait too long. What if we have trouble getting pregnant? You know, I don't want to live in fear, but I mean, that's. That's something many people struggle with. It could take us longer than we think. And then here we've waited all this time, and. And we're going to, you know, ultimately be maybe older than I had intended. And there. That comes with some risk, you know, and it might be that. That your spouse says, well, you. And you could say, like, what's that desire behind that dream of this career move that you want? Why do you feel like we should put the pause button on kids? And your spouse could say, well, this could involve a move. I don't really want to move once we have kids. I want to build roots, and I want to know where we're building those roots. And so can we just wait a couple years so that I can get established in this career if that entails moving? And then we have an adjustment phase without being pregnant in the midst of it and without, you know, some of the uncertainty that comes along with that? I mean, there's a lot of ways and just trying to understand where you're coming from and what are. What are those fears and what are the, you know, the logical things. In each of your mind, where you're, where you're reasoning, like where you've landed on. Well, this is what we need to do now. And I think that's a good place to start.

Yeah, it really is. And start any big discussion. Not with the mindset of I've got to change my spouse's mind.

Yes, that's a big one.

That's always going to set you both up for a lot of disappointment when you, when they're going to feel manipulated, they're going to feel like it's a win lose thing. Somebody's going to win, somebody's going to lose. Remember in marriage you either win together or lose together. You're on the same team and God wants you to win together. And that's going to require most of the time, it's going to require both of you thinking new thoughts. It's going to require prayer, mutual compromise potentially and maybe thinking of options that neither of you had considered before, thinking of timelines that neither of you had considered. It's not necessarily either or. God might have something as you really both pray about it, something completely different than either of you imagine. And his plans always work out to be the best plans and his timing always works out to be the best timing. So I understand just based on personalities and a lot of different variables how two spouses who both love each other, love the Lord, have a lot of like, shared vision and goals could be at completely different places. As to right now, we need to prepare, we need to save money, we need to travel, experience all that we can. And the other one's thinking like, no, there's no time like the present to start our family. We're young, we're healthy. These are the years to do that. I don't want to put that off. That's the most important thing in life. And, and I don't want to, I don't want to wait on that and deny ourselves that blessing and maybe like Ashley said, not have as much energy later or as much opportunity. Opportunity later. Even. So it's a lot to think and pray about. I think a process that could help you is Jimmy Evans, founder of this ministry, has a resource called the Vision Guidebook. And going on a vision retreat with your spouse, which is just taking a couple days, going away with no other agenda other than to connect and to work through the questions and the exercises in this guidebook. And there are some videos that go with it too. We've actually done the videos, if you want to watch those, to kind of help guide you through it@XoNOW.com yeah, XoNOW.com and you can get that guidebook@XoMarriage.com or probably on Amazon or wherever else. Just planning a weekend away. And since you don't have kids, you could even just plan a weekend or a couple days at home, just the two of you. But carve out time to say, we're going to go through this. We're going to pray, we're going to follow these exercises, and it's going to prompt you both to think in new thoughts, pray in new prayers. And when you come to the end of that weekend, I really believe that you're going to be in a place where there's a lot more unity. You may or may not have more clarity about this specific issue, which I know is the issue right now. But just give yourself a break from having to figure that out in the moment and say, instead, let's lean into focusing on growing closer to God and closer to each other. As we do that, these other answers, they're going to become clearer to both of us. So it's make make God and each other the main thing. And then these other issues, as important as they are, you know, they're going to find their proper place.

That's right. Well, thank you all so much for your question. God bless you all and we'll see you next time. Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day. Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com, you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on Instagram aveandashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.