Help! My Spouse Is Awesome | The Naked Marriage Podcast | Dave & Ashley Willis

Hey there, and welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And, you guys, we are going to talk about something really uplifting, really exciting, and that is that your spouse tends to be happy. Okay.

They're awesome.

They're awesome.

Yeah, we've kind of focused on the negatives, like, help. My spouse is, you know, a workaholic or this or that.

Right.

And those are important issues. But I think it's important to just acknowledge, like, hey, my spouse is awesome.

That's right.

And even if your spouse is struggling in some of those other areas, you can still celebrate the things that they're doing. Right. The things that they are awesome at.

Right. And I think, too, I want to talk about this dynamic where your spouse is awesome. You know it. And they're really happy, and you're so glad that they're happy, but maybe you feel a little bit inadequate because they are so happy and so awesome. What do you do with that?

Well, that's how I feel, because, oh, my goodness, I married my dream girl.

I married my dream dad.

He is so much smarter and cooler and more amazing than me, and I. That's not true, but I just feel inadequate. But yet I'm still just happy that you've stuck around.

Let me tell you, though, in all honesty, I feel like there are people that at times feel this inadequacy. I mean, really. Like, I feel like they're so excited, like they love their spouse dearly. They love that they're happy and awesome and successful and doing great things, but. But they feel inadequate. I mean, we've come across couples like this, and there's been times I felt that way with you. I've been like, what? Well, I've told you that I've been like. Especially when we started speaking together, I was like, you've been doing this way longer than me, and I just. I feel, like, inadequate, you know? I mean, do you remember how I was always.

Always so gifted? But I think I was. When you stepped into it, I'd had a massive head start. I mean, you'd been performing. You'd been on Big Stadium, not, like, preaching, but this was just a new thing for you. You had all the giftedness and the calling to do it. Of course. I mean, you're just amazingly gifted. But there was that learning curve of, like, okay, this is something different. And I'd been at it a while, and so, I mean, obviously, with anything one person's been doing longer than another. There's some of that, but, man, you quickly caught up and then just kept going right past. And now I'm the one. Like, man, I'm the dead weight here. She's.

Oh, that is not true.

She's amazing.

I love speaking together.

Speaking of speaking together, guys, our biggest event of the year is right around the corner. The weekend right before Valentine's day. ExoMarriage Conference. 4,000 people there live in Grapevine, Texas, at Fellowship Church and many thousands more live casting it around the world. We would love to see you there, especially if you can come in person. There aren't many seats left, but we would love to see you there. Xomarriage.com conferences if you can't come to that one, look on the schedule and see. Maybe we're coming closer to your area and we would love to see you there. So I always want to just remind you about the live events because we love meeting you. We love, love gathering together, worshiping together, learning together. Our events are so much fun. And, hey, Christmas is around the corner. It'd be a great little Christmas present for your spouse to say, hey, I got us tickets. We're doing a road trip. And, yeah, so do that. That would be something awesome.

Oh, my gosh, I can't wait. It's always every year, even though we're part of the team and we speak at these events, I'm just surprised by how awesome they are. I mean, I know they're going to be awesome, but I'm always like, wow, that's even more awesome. Like, it really is. And, you know, it's something that no matter where you are in your marriage, whether it's, you know, a good season, you're just wanting to kind of brush up on some marital skills or if you're in a crisis, you know, I think that all of us can get something out of it. I think, especially for those of you who are at a turning point where you're like, we just really need some help, you're gonna leave here feeling like there's hope for your marriage, you know, and, yeah, I love it.

I love it. And if you're listening to this and you're like, rolling my eyes, like, oh, my gosh, like, well, my marriage is not awesome. My spouse is certainly not awesome. And you just kind of feel like you're stuck in a rut. Listen, every marriage goes through bumps. Every person is imperfect. And so don't get stuck first off in this comparison trap of rolling through Instagram and seeing people's highlight reels with filtered photos where everything looks perfect and happy and shiny. Cause you don't know the behind the scenes struggles and everybody has them.

First off, I was just laughing because, like, we were just sharing with friends last night about in the midst of this eight week travel thing, having a little like, I was just in a mood with you recently. We go back and forth, you guys.

Where we're tired and, you know, grumpy and travel's hard on us.

Oh my gosh.

Where we live in Georgia, which we love. It's home for our kids. It's hard to get to. Not a major airport, you know, there's driving.

You drive to Atlanta, two hours away.

It's a thing. And by the time I get there at the end of the day, man, I'm beat. We take turns, but no, I take turns being grumpy.

Like, because I do think that you guys probably, you know, a lot of people will be like, oh, you know, I know you all have your stuff in the past, but you don't currently ever have any moments. But you guys, we have moments like, yeah.

And we don't want to paint that picture. Like, we know, listen to us. Because we just have this figured out. Because that's not true. Now I will say, like, I. I love our marriage. Oh, I love our marriage and I love it. And I'm so thankful for you. But I think part of why I love our marriage is because we've been intentional about trying to consistently be kind to each other and encouraging to each other and showing gratitude and courtesy to each other and the same things that we talk about here all the time, like we're trying to live that out. I fully believe every couple can have an amazing marriage. Jimmy Evans is right when he says you have a 100% chance of success if you do marriage God's way. I fully believe that. And so you think, well, my spouse isn't awesome right now. I think your marriage could become better if you start treating your spouse as if they were. If you start calling out those things, you want to see more of them. If you start thanking them for those things they're doing right, even if that list is small right now. Find something to thank, something to praise, and focus on that good. Because if you get your mind just focused on the negative, it's all you're going to see. Jesus said, seek and you will find. And the verb tense he used is really saying, whatever you keep seeking is what you will find. If you keep looking for the negative in your spouse, it's all you're going to see. But if you choose to look for the positive and to praise the good, you're going to see it at every turn. And so just train your mind, say, lord, Holy Spirit, help me to focus on the good. Help me to be more of an encourager to my spouse. And as you do that, what you're going to find is your spouse will start improving, and you will start improving, like your own attitude, your countenance is going to get more positive. You're going to become a better spouse, because that's something an awesome spouse does. Is we're encouragers. That doesn't mean we put our heads in the sand and pretend like issues aren't there. It doesn't mean we don't lovingly call out unhealthy behavior. But our baseline tone needs to be one of encouragement and positivity.

Man, it's so true. And I think about, like, even in moments where we are stressed and maybe we just have, like, a little stank on our words is what I like to call it. I think it's important just to repair fast and authentically repair that. What I mean by that. There's actually a book in my classes, you guys know, I'm almost through my biblical counseling degree, my master's degree in biblical counseling. Thank the Lord. And I remember in my marriage and family counseling class, I read an awesome book that's been around Forever by Dr. John Gottman, and I think it's called 7 Habits of Happy Couples or something to that effect. Is that right?

Yeah, the seven.

I'm gonna look it up. It's excellent.

Yeah, it's a John Gottman, the Seven Habits.

That's terrible. I read a bunch of books.

He's not a Christian, I will say, but he is.

He's actually Jewish, right?

Yeah. So he comes from a faith worldview, you know, based on the Old Testament. Very brilliant researcher, you know, and he's got some really good and solid stuff out there. And it's the seven habits of.

No, I got it. Okay. The seven principles.

Okay. For making marriage work.

For making marriage work.

Okay.

I'm sorry. I said habits, and it got me off.

That threw me off. Yeah. Principles. Seven principles.

Seven principles. And let me tell you, it is such a good, practical book for those who are like, you know, there's not been, like, some dire thing happen in your marriage. Okay.

Right.

But you're like, we have these fights. We just aren't happy. We're not, you know, totally unhappy, but we're not.

It's sustainable, but it's not great. It's like, it's okay.

It's okay.

And I think a lot of people, maybe most people, I think most married couples live there. It's like, it's not awesome. It's okay. It's not a crisis.

I'm not leaving my spouse. But it's not the best thing ever. And I mean, we talk to a lot of couples this way. And what I like about this book is he and his wife actually studied hundreds of couples over a long period of time. And they basically, they called it the love lab. They studied what they did, how they do marriage, because they wanted to learn, like, what is the secret sauce? What makes the couples who don't seem to last? What are they doing differently than the couples that last? Okay. And so I found it fascinating. And what's really interesting about this book and these seven principles is they actually are biblical. Like, he doesn't put the Bible verse that goes with it. But as I was reading this book, I'm like, there are Bible verses to support these facts, like to support these truths. And I think that's really awesome. And so again, it's not really, it's a secular book, but I think you can completely apply it to your marriage. I definitely endorse it. I think it's really good research based material. But one of the things he talks about is the couples that last and have not only last. Some couples last just because they're determined. And I love that. I mean, we need to have that element of it of like, we've made this commitment, we're determined we're gonna last. But the couples that last and are would consider themselves happy.

Thriving.

They're thriving. They love being married. They usually repair fast. What they mean by that is like, yeah, we're gonna have moments where we're scratchy, where we say something we regret. We're just kind of not in a good mood or whatever. If you do say something that you repair it fast, that means you don't, you know, just like the verse, like, don't go to bed angry. Like, you repair that fast. You make sure that you say, listen, I was out of line. I am so sorry. Would you please forgive me? And he's saying, like, that is a big difference. Another thing is couples are going to have, you know, negative experiences sometimes. Like, we're going to have just days where we're, you know, we're just not at our best. And it could be for a lot of different reasons. He said that, you know, that's inevitable. But the couples that last and are thriving. They do, they understand this, this. They call it the 5 to 1 ratio. And they saw this in the couples that, again, not only lasted but were thriving. And it. This principle that, you know, for every one negative interaction you have with your spouse, you need to have five positive interactions. And what happens is when you have those positive interactions, when that negative interaction comes, you quickly recover from that because you've had. You've really been filling each other's, you know, love tank, so to speak, of like, having knowing that you see the best in each other, knowing that you're not against them, that you're for them. And, And I love that. And I've even seen that in our own marriage, you know, because we've had. We've had moments that we don't love, but we've had many more great moments. And so when we do have an off day, we don't automatically think, like, the worst. Like, we're like, you know, you're having an off day. We don't love the off days.

But I mean, and if we do, like, if we say something that was a little snarky or a little bit grumpy or we've just kind of been cold or distant, I think both of us do a pretty good job of kind of quickly apologizing and saying, listen, I'm sorry. I'm stressed about something else.

It's not you.

It's not you. But I took. But you had to feel the brunt of it, and I'm so sorry for that. I want to always be at my best for you. And then to quickly show grace, too, instead of, like, punishing each other or, you know, playing mind games. There's just. We try to have a drama, free marriage and really believe the best in each other. It's like, oh, well, you know, he's grumpy right now, or she's grumpy right now. But I believe the best in them, that they're having a moment or, you know, for me, I went through, like, a long season and it was kind of medically induced, but my hormones were off. And Ashley was just so compassionate and patient. And I knew I could feel that I wasn't pleasant, but she chose to see the best in me and that helped bring out the best in me. But when you are focusing on the negative, you're going to actually bring out the negative in your spouse.

We're going to hold them down. Like, we have to root for each other. And I think, too, it builds. You really need to have confidence in the marriage. Like, you feel secure. You want that security of. They're not gonna go talk bad about me just because I was snarky this morning. Like, they're not gonna go tell all their workplace about how mean I was this morning because they have respect for me. And also because we've repaired this and they. And we're not gonna keep bringing it up. We're not gonna keep bringing up the past. You know what I'm saying? And every time we do that and we really see the best in each other and we work to repair, we are building that confidence. We're building up that security. Like, you can trust me. You can trust me. I have your back. I am for you, not against you. We are in this together. And those are the happy marriages. I mean, that's what you see. And I think one dynamic I want to talk about before we close is, you know, maybe your spouse is really happy and you're so glad they're happy. You're so glad they're so awesome. But you yourself, right now in your life, you're not happy. Like, and it maybe has nothing to do with your spouse, but you're going through maybe anxiety and depression. Life has not turned out quite.

Disappointment.

Yeah.

Disappointment with anything. Your professional life, kids, finances, your health, your weight. I mean, there's just things that can.

Extended family. Yeah. And I think I've had moments like this where everything is really good in our family. But, you know, when I was going through my depression, for sure, I was like, I mean, you were really in a good place at that time. Thank God. I mean, I could really lean on you because you were. You were in a really good place.

Like you said, we take turns. We take turns. Two people taking turns being strong.

Exactly. But it's like there were years where I just wasn't happy. I was thankful for my life. I was grateful for you and for the kids and still am, obviously. But I remember just my baseline wasn't happiness. And there were times because my mental health was off, not only spiritually, but, you know, chemically, it was off. And my whole body felt it, like. And I gained weight. I have a tendency when I gain weight, which I've had. I've talked about this very openly on here and in our talk about, you know, our Naked and Healthy book. I talk about this extensively, but I've had like a 30 pound swing in my weight over the years. And this is with. Without kids. Okay. I'm just talking about in general and not being pregnant. You know, in fact, I didn't really gain that much with our pregnancies.

This is, like, a whole separate issue in our pregnancies. Like, my sympathy weight outpaced your actual baby weight?

Oh, my goodness. No. Because, I mean, I really just a normal amount of weight that I gained, But I know that at times when I was trying to lose weight and I didn't, or if I was depressed, I tended to go to food. I mean, it was like, a comfort to me. It really, really messed with my happiness. And it wasn't even just a vain thing. It wasn't like, oh, I'm not whatever size I wanted to be or whatever weight I wanted to be. I think it was like, my body, like, wasn't like. I think it, like, I didn't feel good because I wasn't eating the right things, and I wasn't exercising like I should. And then it would. You know, it would mess with my mind and. And my happiness. And so, you know, even in those times, you. You've always. You've always been so quick to compliment me and to say, like, listen, I love you just as you are, but if you want to go, like, I remember years ago, I was like, I need something more than what I'm doing, and it's gonna cost some money. I feel like I've done what I can in this season, but I need professionals to help guide me in this exercise. And he's like, well, what do you want? And I checked out Pilates through Club Pilates in our town. And in that season, it was a solid year that I did it. It was so awesome. Like, I. It upped my. My game with my exercise regimen, and. And I saw the results. Like, I really saw my body changing, but more than my body changing, because I don't think I saw the scale really change a whole lot. It was really more the muscles and the strength. I loved how it just made me feel stronger, more flexible. And, like, I remember telling you, like, I just like the camaraderie I get from the ladies that I have my class with. I ended up, because of our travel schedule, getting out of my membership for now. But I'm able to do at home some of those pilates exercises, and it's taught me so much. So I think that sometimes I'm sharing this because I think a lot of times our spouse may be happy, and we're not unrelated to the marriage. We need to encourage our spouse not, like, be happy. Why can't you be happy? Like, I'm happy. Sometimes some people are just more chipper than other People like, they just are. And you know that about your spouse. Like, maybe your baseline is just pretty melancholy. Like, you're not sad, you're not happy, you're melancholy. You're just kind of, you know, is that the right word?

Maybe melancholy is even.

Just the right word.

Even more chill. Like, some people are more outwardly expressive with their happiness, their energy level, their enthusiasm. And we can learn from each other and we can celebrate that. But when we try to diminish our spouse's personality or, Megan, feel there's something wrong with you, but you're too excited, you know, or. Yeah. Or you're just always just a bummer, you're a drag. Instead of saying, you know what? I married you and God made you wonderful and awesome, and we compliment each other. I'm so thankful for the ways that you. Your enthusiasm, you know, brightens life for me and challenges me or, you know, your temperament kind of like, helps me be more grounded. And, you know, whatever it is, like, we can choose to focus on the good and thank them for who they are and celebrate who they are instead of trying to make them feel like they're wrong because they're not you.

And I feel like in those depressed years and also the years I was struggling with my weight, I really feel like you didn't make me feel like, snap out of it. Because honestly, it takes time to feel better and to make changes. And so I'm thankful for that. And I just think that it's important that whatever it is our spouse is going through, that we don't hinder their progress. Like, we really try to just meet them where they are. We don't try to fix it, but we do try to offer any help that they may want from us. Yeah.

So good, guys. So be that kind of spouse. And hey, if you need help getting there, we've got some mediators here at ExoMarage that could meet you in person or by phone or by Skype to help you and your spouse get to that awesome marriage that you both want and that God wants you to have. So you can go to xomarriage.com help for more info on that. Like I said before, come to our one of one of our upcoming exo Marriage conferences. We would love to see you there. And as always, you can find us on Instagram at Dave and Ashley Willis. We love getting your messages and hearing from you. Thanks so much, guys. God bless. We'll see you next time.