How to RUIN a marriage | Dave and Ashley Willis

We're calling this how to Ruin a Marriage. I know that sounds kind of like an ominous negative title, and we hate to go negative. But it's also important to just be aware and safeguard your marriage from kind of the common practices, the common mistakes that so many couples make that end up sabotaging a marriage. And we want to prevent you from making those mistakes. And so we're going to talk about some of the most common ones, because we see them all the time in the work that we do. And so we're going to help you. And maybe just taking a few minutes to watch this video could help protect you or help you to kind of take an inventory and realize there's some things happening that should stop happening in your relationship. Yes. And it could actually save your marriage. So that's what tonight's video is about. Welcome to those of you who are watching from. From all over. Hey, Chandler just said I'm the same age as him and Chandler. Chandler is the name of our son. Chandler can be like a boy or a girl name. You might be. I don't. I think it's normally a boy name, but I've seen it.

But we know some girls who are.

Channeling, so that's wild.

Yeah, that's really cool.

And we're looking at these videos as they come in.

Yes. Comments, Comments. As they come in.

Yes. Comments.

Yes. But Facebook changed how they do these live videos, so we actually can see ourselves over in the corner. And there's a time lapse, which is kind of bizarre. I'm not really sure how to get.

That off of theirs. Totally freaking me out. Yeah. So that's why I said videos. I'm seeing myself.

There's this weird little on video thing over there.

It's blowing my mind.

They're always changing things, you know.

Oh, Mark Zuckerberg is way smarter than. That's what I've learned. Before we dive in, though, quick announcement. Check out the Naked Marriage podcast. This is usually the announcement I like, defer to the podcast because the podcast is where you guys can find the best collection of all of our free content. It's the Naked Marriage Podcast with Dave and Ashley Willis. You can find it on YouTube where you can actually watch. Watch the episodes kind of like this, except more professional. Yeah. Or itunes, Spotify, Google Play, Podbean, wherever you listen. Check out the Naked Marriage podcast.

That's right.

And also the Naked Marriage book or audiobook that we read.

That is right.

So check those things out. But tonight, how to ruin a Marriage. And so what we're really trying to teach you tonight is not how to ruin your marriage, but how to avoid doing the things that will ruin a marriage.

Yes. And so, like, I would say, and people underestimate this, but when I think about, like, the number one way that people kind of start going down that path of inadvertently ruining their marriage, because I'm of the belief, I don't think anybody sets out to ruin their marriage. I really do believe every single one of us wants to have a great marriage. It happens very subtly, and it happens day by day. It's when this becomes bad habits. And one of the things is getting into kind of the bad habit of assuming the worst about your spouse and of your spouse.

Oh, yeah, that's huge.

And it's like, where they become the bane of your existence. Because it starts very subtly. It starts in our thoughts with them doing something maybe wrong or. Or maybe them being aloof and not thinking about the things that. That we ask them to do or whatever it is. I mean, it could be as simple as, like, leaving the laundry on the floor. And we start to have these negative thoughts like, oh, he always does that. He didn't care. He just thinks I'm his mate. Or, you know, she always does this thing, and she knows I like it when she does this and she's doing the complete opposite. You know, she just never really cares about me. And we start making these assumptions and having thoughts of, like, you know, that our spouse always does that or always does this or never does something, and always and never. It gets us in a lot of trouble. And it does start in thoughts, and it doesn't necessarily come out in the beginning. There's a long thought process of us assuming the worst, and before you know it, you're saying it. And then you see fights happen because of it, and it just leads you down a road of negativity. And, you know, I will say there's hope in coming back from that, but the sooner you recognize that behavior, the better. And so, like, if you're watching me right now and you're like, oh, my goodness, that's me, like, I tend to just assume the worst, and I feel like I don't want to be in the same room as them because hearing them breathe is the worst sound in my ears, Right? And hearing, you know, him clear his throat or whatever, or her laugh is. It's like daggers in my ears.

It's not fun.

You're in that dynamic. Well, I mean, because it sounds funny. When you're in a good place, you can laugh about it. Like, when you get through this and you get on the other side, you can laugh about it, but right now it's serious. And you're like, I. Like, I mean, you might even, maybe in your heart, you're watching this and you're like, I hate my spouse. Like, you maybe. You know, we've talked to couples where they're like, you know, I. I really hate them right now. Like, I don't want to be around them. I just. Their existence just annoys me. I feel like they failed me. And, you know, marriages, sadly, can get to this point, but it usually starts very subtly with us assuming the worst. Okay, now, some of you watching this might be like, well, what if my spouse really did do something? And the reason I assume the worst is because they keep on letting me down. You know, when there's perpetual sin and there's something that needs to be addressed, that's a whole other issue. But I will say this. When they come to you, like, let's say they have an addiction or some kind of struggle, and they come to you and they're like, listen, I am so sorry, but I need help. That's where we can assume that they can get help. Assuming the best in that situation is trusting God, that he can do the good work in them and helping them get the help that they need. But it also includes setting healthy boundaries and saying, like, I'm not going to stand for you to keep on doing this bad behavior towards me and towards our family and towards yourself, because I want to bring out the best in you and the best in our family. And so I'm not saying you need to be a doormat and have your head in the clouds and never actually look and see what's actually going on in your home. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm just saying find the good. And also really, really lean into the Lord and ask the Lord to keep your heart. We often use the term a soft heart so that you don't get hardened. Because once you start having those negative assumptions and resentment builds up, you can become so hard that it's, you know, once you're. Let's say your spouse stops doing that annoying thing and they are really working on themselves in the marriage. When you have that really hard heart, it's hard to penetrate that. And so you want to make sure that you keep it soft. You know, we were actually just watching this amazing couple in our small group at church. I'm sorry, I'm doing a lot of talking.

I don't have you.

Well, I want to share this with you guys, because it's so good you keep going. I mean, we talk, you know, we share with you everything that we're learning because we. We. We are marriage. We consider ourselves marriage encouragers because all of us can work on our marriages. We never arrive in marriage. We're never just like, oh, I got it. I don't need to work on my marriage anymore. It's always a journey. And so we. We take all that to heart ourselves. And we're in a small group at church, and we recently did a study on. It was a parenting study. But, you know, with parenting, there's also marriage. I mean, it goes hand in hand. And so we were studying this. I think it was called parenting together. And it was really good. In this couple, they were talking about how there was a season where the husband had made a promise to his wife basically to leave his current job and start doing a new job. I guess, well, as kind of the time went on, he decided, no, I don't think I need to leave this job. I think I'm gonna start doing both jobs. And kind of the whole point of him making this promise was to make more time for the family. And it really disappointed her. And she said, in that moment, you know, I could have. I could have just, like, put my heels in and just made his life really hard and just been mad at God and mad at everybody and just, you know, been really disgruntled. And she had every right to be angry because he technically broke a promise. But what she said she did in that moment to keep herself from getting resentful is she decided to really just start praying hard and working on herself and what she could do and to improve herself and to be a better wife and to be a better mother and to also just be a stronger Christ follower and knowing the Lord more. And she said, you know, eventually God worked on his heart and he saw it. And they kept on talking through this period. I'm not saying, like, they didn't try to work it out and things like that. They did, but God had to do a work in her husband. She couldn't change him. I mean, that's something we have to understand. That's another thing is we have to understand we can't change our spouse. And so, you know, in that moment, she said, you know, she just knew that she had a choice there. She could either just really be resentful and start assuming the worst, or she could really grow in the Lord. And she grew in the Lord. And eventually, when he was ready to kind of make that right decision to put his family first, she had a soft heart. And so their marriage was able to grow through that season.

That's good stuff. Yeah. And it was, it was a great study. We learned a lot.

It was such a good study. I highly recommend it.

Some of the other things I feel like can sabotage a marriage, can ruin a marriage that are so easy to fall into in no particular order. And I'll just kind of list a few of them out. One is when you're talking negatively to or about your spouse. I think when you get into the habit of venting about your spouse online, you know, when you post stuff like, oh my gosh, my husband wife just did this, or when you have a group of friends where you feel like it's a safe place to just vent about your spouse, that never brings you to a place of healing. It actually just reinforces negative mindsets about your spouse. So the words you speak to and the word you speak about your spouse, the tone of your words will set the tone of your marriage. And if your words are negative, it's actually going to create negativity in your own mind and heart. It's not going to help you in the moment. It might feel good, it might make you feel like you're taking control back of a situation that it felt out of control. But ultimately it's going to, it's going to cause more hurt than anything else. That's right. Number two is when you start looking outside your spouse for any form of fulfillment in the areas of romance, fantasy, sex, any of it. And this doesn't just include having a sexual affair, which of course is just an instant way to sabotage a marriage, but it can include more subtle things like just having that person at work of the opposite sex or that so called friend of the opposite sex where you, you confide and you feel connection and where you start kind of fantasizing about a life with that person, like, oh, they get me, they're the ones who get me, and my life would be better if I was with them. And you start creating in your mind this reality that doesn't exist with this other person, which can just pull your heart away from the marriage faster than anything. It can happen through more overt forms of fantasy like pornography or getting lost and just reading romance novels over and over again and creating these, these fantasies in your mind that don't include your spouse, which are a form of mental infidelity. I know our culture doesn't see it that way. But our culture has views of what normal is and what should work. So, you know, that is certainly another one. And then. And then a third one I'll share. Just kind of quickly is just a lack. A lack. Where are we on here? I don't even know where we are. Ashley's done something. She's done something.

I don't know what I've done.

Just stop touching stuff. We're not very good with technology.

Even though there's a delay and I.

Don'T know what I'm doing, we kind of.

I was trying to see their comments.

We're on technology, you know, for a living, essentially.

We have like a three or five.

Second delay, and now it's.

I'm so sorry. It's my fault.

We're in a time warp and we're watching ourselves.

We can't get it back. I told you. Facebook changed how they do these.

We're the future versions.

I fixed it.

You did it. I'm so proud. There are still no comments. We can't really.

I know. We're gonna have to go back and look at your.

So we will read your comments. You can't see them right now, but we're.

I was trying to hit the comment area.

I wouldn't touch anything. I don't know.

I'm so bad at this. Okay, here we go.

I forgot what I was gonna say.

All right.

Oh, yeah.

Don't say so many good things.

The third one was just not communicating with each other. I think when you stopped communicating and then you. And then in the lack of communication, you resent your spouse for not knowing what you're thinking or not picking up on the subtle nonverbal cues or sarcasm that you're dropping.

And that's what I used to do. This.

Well, you know, I think a lot of people do this. I'm not just. I'm not saying you like many things. You gotta use your words and say out loud how you're feeling and make sure communication is a regular part of your rhythm. And for us, we talk about this a lot. One of the healthiest things we do in our marriage and for our physical health, too, is we try to go on a walk almost every day, like a long walk around the neighborhood, talking about the day, talking about what's happening in our lives, getting some exercise together. You need to build those rhythms into your regular routine. And if you're not. If you're going long periods of time without consistent conversation, because communication does for your marriage what brain breathing does for your lungs. I mean, it is the thing that keeps your marriage alive.

It is.

So you better do those things. And I could keep going. They're a longer list. We won't talk about all of them on this.

But, yes, I love that. And I will say I learned the hard way in the early years of our marriage. I did do this, and I. I'm not even sure why, but I would just expect Dave to read my mind. And it only created more frustration for me and for him, because he can't. You know, he's not a mind reader. I don't know why I even expected him to be.

Sometimes I'll just.

Well, and I will say this. Generally speaking, women tend to be more intuitive. And I think I was putting that on Dave. Like, well, you need to be intuitive, too. Like, you should just figure me out. And that's just. There's. There's nothing. First of all, you know, we always go back to the Bible. What does the Bible call us to do? There's nothing in the Bible that says figure it out or that you need to just know what your spouse is thinking. But it does talk about communicating and being kind to each other and loving each other and trusting each other. And so, you know, I. I had to learn that the hard way. And I remember one day, Dave was just like, can you just tell me? Like, I would rather just know. Like, I just want to know what you need and what you want. And, you know, it's like, we can laugh about it now, but it got us in a lot of little tiffs, kind of in the beginning of our marriage, and I could have totally avoided that had I just told him what was on my mind. And honestly, it makes my life easier. I mean, trying to come up with body language that, like, speak. Speaks for you is maddening and exhausting. And so it's just better just to say, you know what? I really would love it if you could help me with this today, or. I really want to go to this restaurant. The restaurant thing's a real. A real thing.

I know. Just tell me. Like, I don't care where. It's not how you talk. But this is my only impression.

I wanted to be like, no, I.

Don'T see where we go. I'm like, okay, how about this place? No, not that. How about this? No. Okay. And then we'll, like. We'll just drive, and if you see something, tell me. And then she'll see it, and we'll be a mile past it, and then.

She'Ll be like, you know that that.

Place we Drove by a mile ago. That's really where I want to go. And I'm just like, why didn't you just tell me?

I know, but I just tell you now.

You do, and it's so good.

Or you tell me like, if you're like, you know, I'm really feeling this particular restaurant. Yeah, he doesn't usually have that strong of opinions when it comes to that.

When, that's why, when she ever says like, like with a restaurant or any kind of preference based choice, she said, what are you in the mood for? And I always say your happiness. I mean, I'm usually, I usually say I'm in the mood for your happiness. So like, you tell me and the quicker we can get there, the better.

And I love. I will tell you this because Dave doesn't have a real strong preference when it comes to restaurants, but I, I really try to like pull him out of that and say like, what are you really in the mood for? Because I want him to enjoy. Are you really feeling a steak? I'm not really a steak person, but I'm like, if you're really wanting to steak, let's do steak. And Dave doesn't eat anything from the ocean. That includes shrimp. People always ask, will, crab or shrimp? And I'm like, that's in the ocean. He won't eat it.

It's a weird quirk, it's from a childhood trauma that I won't bore you with the details of right now, but you know, you can. I probably need to lay on like a counselor's couch and talk about it and then I could get over it and start eating fish again. But she, but I want her to be able to enjoy seafood.

So I'm like, he's so sweet.

Let's go.

I love seafood.

Let's go.

And we live in like shrimp and grits country. And there's so many great places where you can get shrimp and grits and all that good stuff. And our kids all love fish too. And Dave's a really good sport, but, you know, just telling him these things and him telling me these things, it saves a lot of heartache. So. Yeah, I mean, and I know this seems very simple. Like you're probably watching this and thinking, well, that doesn't seem earth shattering, like it's going to ruin a marriage. But it's the little things.

It is the little. The Bible even says it's the little foxes that spoil the vine.

Yeah.

King Solomon wrote, who was a great teacher on wisdom? And it's like, we're Looking for these huge storms to come through and ruin things. But sometimes it's those little foxes that just sneak in and scurry in and burrow their way in. And in marriage, it's the same. It's those little issues that burrow their way in and just take root in the relationship and create negativity, create wedges.

Create bad communication or lack thereof. You know, I think I saw some comments before I erased them off here.

Yeah, we still can't see your comments. We'll go back and read them later.

We always go back and read them. But, you know, the lack. Some of you were saying, well, my marriage is ruined right now because we don't even talk anymore. And I know that, that. That is even worse. You know, I know some. Some fights can be, like, really toxic and really bad, but there, I feel like apathy and the lack of communication is even worse because it's like, it's both hearts are hard, Nobody cares. But I want to tell you this. Like, even with that said, I know this whole. This whole particular live video is about how to ruin a marriage. And we don't like to be negative, but there are things we certainly can do that end up kind of steering our marriage in the wrong direction. But I want to tell you that God is greater. Like, when you both come to a place where you're like, we can't continue living this way. We want to see what God can do in our marriage. When you both commit to that and you refuse to give up on each other, and you start fighting for the marriage and for each other instead of against each other. I've seen God do the miraculous. I mean, there's been times where we have sat, you know, across the room from a couple where it just seems like there's no feeling. And we've seen God just reignite. Reignite the spark. And we were just spending time with a couple fairly recently that walked through that kind of road, and they have an additional child now, and they couldn't be happier. I mean, and seeing their communication and how different it is now because they did the hard work. I mean, God did the miracle, but they also continue to do the hard work and get the help they need. They. They are intentional about spending time together. They're intentional about how they talk to each other. But I have seen what can happen when two people commit to that. And I know some of you watching this are like, well, I want to commit to that, but my husband doesn't or my wife doesn't. And that's a rough place to be. And we talk about that in the Naked Marriage book. But I want to tell you, keep on doing those things that you know will move your marriage forward and not backward. Because one day, you know, it's really crazy how God works. But I'm telling you, when you are like the lady I described earlier, who was very angry at her husband and very disappointed in her husband, but continue to really go to the Lord and not grow bitter, when you do that in the midst of whatever is going on in your marriage, what you'll find is that God will really bring you to a better place and not a more bitter place. And we don't want to grow bitter. We want to grow better. Right? And you know, we can't. Like, like I said so many times, you know, our spouse, they have mind of their own. They have their own free will. Sometimes they do things that, that we don't love and that we are like, man, they're really disappointing me. But, but when we allow God to still work in our hearts and not grow bitter and really grow in him, it's amazing what he'll do. And even if ultimately, if ultimately your spouse never comes around, at least you've grown your relationship with the Lord. And that's what we want to do. And that's going to make us ultimately stronger not only for ourselves in our relationship with God, but when we have children, it's going to make us stronger for our children as well.

So much wisdom. Guys, we could continue talking about this all night, but we got to get home to our kids.

And I can't wait to read your comments. I hate that I can't see.

We're going to figure out this technology thing, but a few next steps for you. Three quick announcements. I guess that can kind of help you continue this conversation with resources we already have out there. Number one, check out and subscribe to the Naked Marriage podcast. We have a brand new episode coming out tomorrow morning, so go ahead and subscribe on. On iTunes, YouTube, wherever you're, you know, Spotify, Google Play, Podbean. The naked marriage podcast with David Ashley Willis. Check it out. It's totally free. Listen to every new episode that comes out. They come out at least once a week sometimes. Bonuses.

We have some really cool bonus episodes coming up.

Yeah, really great interviews. It's a lot of fun. Number two, and that is check out our revamped ministry website. We're part of the team at XO Marriage, which is an amazing marriage ministry. And if you go to XO, the letters xomarriage.com you can, you can find the. The event schedule. We're planning to do live events next year starting in 2021.

We're so excited praying that all the.

COVID stuff just disappears between now and then. And, and we're hoping starting in February to get back on a regular live event routine and you can check out the. The calendar there and, and actually get tickets to these things. And we would love to see you and to meet you at one of these events. So those two. And the third announcement is that we just launched a brand new YouTube channel where you can watch videos like this, plus a lot of the other stuff on YouTube. So.

Family vlogs.

Yeah, some family stuff that we put anywhere else. It's a lot of fun. So at the ExoMarriage and Marriage Today channels on YouTube, you can also watch a lot of our past stuff. But moving forward, the Dave and Ashley Willis channel on YouTube, you just search for our names and you know, kind of keep clicking until you find the new channel. It's new, so it's probably doesn't have a whole bunch of subscribers yet. We'll probably go back to the comments and just say here's the link. But go to YouTube and check that out. So those three things, Naked Marriage podcast, XOMarriage.com and the Dave and Ashley Willis channel on YouTube. Yes.

And I will tell you, even with the Exo marriage events starting in February, even if Covid is. Is still a major issue, I believe we have protocol where we can make it safe for everybody. Because I, I know everybody's really excited to get back to having conferences again. And it's a great way to just engage with your spouse and have that time away together to grow in your marriage. And so definitely look into it. I know tickets are already going fast, so we're really excited to get your ticket now.

Yeah, we. We are. We're excited to see you guys again.

Thank you all so much for tuning in. I can't wait again to read your comments. Forgive me for my technological mishap.

Mine too. We're.

We're learning.

We're learning.

Yes.

And that's a lifelong journey, isn't it?

It is learning. It is. All right, love you guys.

See you.