New Marriage, Same Couple

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Well, hello 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 have a very special couple coming to you from our home studio. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening, you can't see them, but you can go watch on YouTube anytime at Dave and Ashley Lillis. But we are so excited to interview them because they have quite a story. Don't they speak?

Yeah, they've got a powerful story. I love this couple. You guys are gonna love this couple. Josh and Katie met at the Univers University of South Carolina. Go Gamecocks.

Oh, come on.

And they are part of, you know, they're part of the church family at Seacoast Church, which is one of our favorite incredible church churches. And they live in beautiful Charleston, S.C. i read in a recent magazine it's now the number one travel destination in.

The country, I would believe.

And I think Josh and Katie being there is part of what pushed it up the list.

That's right.

You know, so go check out Charleston.

We've been there many times.

It's a cool place.

It's awesome. Yeah.

But, oh, yeah, we're gonna talk about all that, but mostly we want to talk about their inspiring story and their brand new book, new marriage, same couple where they share their incredible journey. I don't want to give too much of it away because I want them to share it in their own words. But for anybody that's listening, and maybe you have hit a rough patch in your marriage or, you know, you're in a tough season, and every marriage goes through that to different extents. I think their story is going to bring you a lot of hope. And we're going to talk about an acronym they have in their book, stay S T A Y. Let them unpack that. Because I think it's such a simple, simple, but powerfully profound roadmap for how and why to persevere in marriage. So, Josh and Katie, welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast.

Thank you Guys, for having us. We are inspired by you guys. We have been watching and learning from you for a long time. So thank you for your voice, your impact on marriages, and we're just so grateful for the opportunity to be here.

Well, thank you.

So sweet, man. We. We just. We love, you know, hearing from couples like yourself who are so honest. You know, before hit record, you said, we know how to be honest. And that's. That's what we're all about here on the Naked Marriage podcast. And your story is one that I think so many people will be able to relate to. And so we love. You know, whenever we start interviews, we like to go back to kind of the beginning of first how you met, and then if, however, you want to move into your story of kind of when things got rough would be great. So if you want to start with kind of how you met, we love that story, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I started off at the College of Charleston in my freshman year. My dad got sick, and I ended up moving home just to be close. And when I got back in town, Katie and I had both started walking with, like, really grew up in church, but really accepted Christ. End of high school, beginning of college. And so when I got back to Columbia, I started hearing about this girl from guys that I went to high school with. Like, bro, you got to meet this girl, but don't date her. She'll break your heart. And Katie was in this season where having growing up in church, when she really, like, encountered the love of God, radically changed her life. Freshman year of college, she just wasn't used to the idea of people playing church, like, going to church as a social thing. And so she'd go out on a date with a guy, and if she. She'd ask him about his quiet time, his prayer life, and if it was crickets, nothing really happening, she'd straight up get up from the spaghetti and. And end the date.

Either for time.

You know what you want.

So when I started hearing about this girl, I was like, that's exactly what I've been looking for. And so it took me a solid four or five months to convince her that I was God's will for her life. We started dating our freshman year, and, man, we're young life leaders, active in ministry together. Got engaged our junior year, got married Christmas of our senior year, and found out at graduation a couple months later that we were pregnant with our first. And so on our first day date went out, and both of us had best friends that were part of large families, and we both had one sibling and so, but both wanted seven kids. And so on the first date I was like, hey, on the count of three, this is the big question. How many kids do you want? Tell me your number. And counted to three and we both said seven.

I was like, I love that.

That's amazing.

I am gonna marry this chick. So I went home and told my roommate, it's like, dude, I'm gonna marry that girl. He's like, shut up, man. That's ridiculous. You know, but. But that was it. And really kind of knew from, knew from there that she was going to be. She was going to be the one. And so we started having kids and never really stopped.

And until now. We're done now. Yeah.

But realized with our first that both of us were still in school. The church that we were attending, the youth pastor transitioned. We were both about to start our masters in teaching. And they were like, hey, how would you feel about working at church? And I was like, well, we needed insurance, needed a job, the adulting things. And so started working there and realized that year that this was really all I wanted to do with my life in a public school was be this undercover missionary to reach people. And so we served at that church for a year, then moved across town to another church that was willing to let me go to seminary full time while I was working full time. And that was really, I would say in our story when, when drift began, I thought it was just adulting in terms of we were acquiring rental property and getting our masters and working full time jobs and had kind of burned up any bit of margin in our life. Looking back when we were young, you know, 22, 23, at the time, it, it didn't feel that way. I thought we were just working hard and learning how to carry responsibility. But when we moved out to that other church was really when I would say kind of the drift began.

Yeah, we talked to a lot of couples about, you know, those early days when you're just dreaming and all you're doing is dreaming. You have so much vision for your life, so many plans. And we just look back on it. I mean, we just thought if anyone was going to rock marriage, it was going to be us. You know, we, we just knew like, this thing is just going to be up into the right. We have the greatest love story of all times, you kind of thing. And. But we had dreamed about living overseas and being teachers and really being together in our calling and in ministry. I mean, even our freshman year we both switched majors, so we had all the Same classes. And, you know, we were preaching together at Young Life Teams. And so I would say early on in our marriage, what we didn't realize was that the vision changed pretty drastically. He came on staff at a Baptist church. I started having children. Most of our friends weren't even dating at the time. You know, was staying home with them, getting my master's. And so that first church was actually an incredible place for us because it. It really gave us a lot of foundation of how. How will I even be a mom, you know? You know, those early years, you're still so selfish and self consumed and. And even though Jesus was in my life now, a lot of that stuff, heart stuff, takes time to work out, you know, so. But then when we went out to the other church, we were pretty isolated. There wasn't really anyone our age. And we knew we were kind of the strongest couple at 25, you know, in the. In the church. And that's another dangerous place to be. We always say we don't want to be the strongest marriage in the room anymore. You know, we really want to seek inspiration for others. But we were leaders. And. And then that's when we really started to kind of drift apart. And just like Josh said, we. He would have thought it was just adulting. He's a faithful, loyal guy and high responsibility. But for me, I think the lies started. I started to. A new couple moved into town, and they were our age, and so we just locked on to them. You know, finally it was like we had friends. And probably looking back, there was a year of me really having an emotional affair, you know, dreaming about this other guy, thinking about their life, coveting their life. And then also we started blurring boundary lines, things that we would have never really thought we would do. Drinking with them every night, texting, you know, each other, taking the youth group kids. I would take them with the guy and he would go out with the girl. With youth group kids, like, it was just blurred lines. But all that was happening for about a year. And I talk about. I talk a lot about honesty. And we. We have this principle in the book called confession therapy. Because one thing that we never did was hide. I mean, we never did was confess. We hid everything from each other. So he really didn't have any kind of clue about my, like, honest emotions, my honest struggles. And looking back, there was so many times when that text came in that I knew, you know, oh, this is probably not good. If I would have just said to him, if I would have just said, hey, I'm Having dangerous thoughts. You know, I'm really starting to think about this other guy. We always talk about how this covenant can handle so much, you know, but instead, we were hiding. We were pulling back. We weren't confessing any of that to each other. And then what happened was on May 29, we had just had our third son. He was in the nicu, so it was a real tender point of life. Anyways, I'd been on bed rest for about eight weeks. And once we had him, the other guy, you know, asked to come back into the room with me to see the baby and the nicu. And that's when we both kind of said our feelings out loud on May 29th. And then we went through just a summer of hell. I felt like I didn't know up from down, left from right. I was trying to meet him, trying to plan to leave my family. And we say, also looking back, it was God's grace, because on August 8, I went to a Bethmore simulcast by myself. And she said, in that moment, there's a girl here that's in a pit so deep, she doesn't see up from down. And I was like, it's me. I'm in the back of a room to a screen. But came home that night, and the woman from the other couple actually came to our house, and she was just sobbing like, something is happening with my marriage. Oftentimes they say women are more in tune to what is going on. And she said, something's wrong. And Josh is like, oh, nothing's wrong. You know, she's like, I think he's having an affair. Josh was like, he would never do that. You know, I know him. And when she left, that's when I said on our couch, like, what if it's me? And really don't know how I even got those words out. Thought it would be very private. But then our story became so public. You know, he was a youth pastor in town. I worked at the school in our neighborhood, the church. He went to the church the next day, and they asked him to leave, leave the church. And from that point on, we were in six months of just no man's land, really, we say, just the hell of me not knowing if I wanted to stay. We couldn't get good counseling. We had no one to walk with us in our pain. So isolated. So that's probably one of the lowest parts of our story, were those six months, and we finally moved to Charleston kind of as like a Hail Mary of, you know, could we start over again? Could we Be in a healthy church, could we find somebody to disciple us? I thought Josh would never be in ministry again. I was sure I had taken that from him and. And that wouldn't be our story. So when we came to Seacoast, that's when God really started to heal us, restore us, and started to do miracles.

Wow.

Amazing. And then there's so much to unpack there. Right?

I know. It's. I mean, it's incredible. And to see now how God. I just love how God doesn't. He never wastes our pain.

Yes. Yeah.

Any part of the struggle. And now, now you two have, you know, walked through that and you've, you know, you've added to your family and you've. Now you've. You've stepped into the. Into the light to. To share, you know, share what you've learned and give hope to so, so many people. But before we kind of dive into that, like, like, Josh, what were you feeling during that time? Like, I mean, kind of rewind the clock a little bit. Did you sense that Katie was pulling away? Like, were you shocked when the conversation happened where she said, you know, well, what if it's me? And. And then just what. What was happening in your head during that whole season?

Yeah, I was definitely shocked. I mean, and. And probably shock is one of those phrases you really don't use much that. I mean, I was absolutely blindsided. I didn't have any. And I feel like I'm a pretty relationally intelligent guy in terms of reading a room and people engaging their emotions and mentally, are you with me? You know, and so I was absolutely shocked. And so I think looking back in that season, you know, you see somebody walk through something awful and question like, man, could I do that? I've looked back at that season and now and question like, could I do now what I did then? And man, just attribute it entirely to the. The grace of God, the kindness of God, because there was just a. A stubborn faith that I believed God's best for each of us individually in terms of the work he wanted to do in our hearts and the kind of love we could experience. God's best for our kids in terms of the. The story we were authoring. Both of our parents had been divorced and remarried and just felt like, man, God's best for us is. Is walking through this, getting through this together. And so I would say in that stretch, it was definitely the most lonely, kind of just the depths of sadness. Man, I remember laying in bed so many nights where I would. I would sleep with My apple little airpods in with worship music on just because. And this and the still of the day. Like the, the movie that was playing in my mind was trying to piece together things that she had confessed or stuff I had found out and envisioning that stuff. And man, I would, I would fall asleep with worship music on just to drown out the, the stuff going on in my, in my head. And so just a super sad season, lonely season. But. But also, like, man, I would say the book is really just a. A journal of revelation and that it's just amazing. What, even as a pastor, I was staying home at that time and we had three kids at the time and they had a 9 o' clock rest and a 1 o' clock rest. And Katie was like, babe, kids don't have two naps in one day. I was like, well, while I'm staying home, dad, they absolutely will. I needed that, like, I get it. Journal, go after God time.

Well, and really the revelation, the principles in the book was after we had gotten healed and we started to meet with couples in pain. You know, you don't ever think I did not think marriage, ministry, sharing our pain was going to be the way God used us to minister to others, but honestly, it really is what you end up ministering out of. And when we would sit with them, we would remember these principles and revelations he gave us. You know, and this part isn't even in the book, but since then we've been with a couple of couples recently. And Josh, when he talks about that lonely season when he would worship and all the pain he was in, which I can't imagine still like experiencing that and the visuals and all of that, you know, he never took that pain out on me, and that's miraculous. But he held all of that in his body and really took it to God. And I think there's so many times in marriage even now, that if I get mad at him or frustrated, like, I want him to feel that pain, you know, when I'm arguing or fighting with him, I really just want it out of my body and I want to blame it on someone else, you know, And I just think that was such a incredible way God carried him. You know, we've told people that when you've been betrayed or hurt, there's going to be a lot of pain, that you're going to have to get relieved from God because the other person isn't able to do that. And especially for me, you know, a lot of times when people have been victimized, I think they want the betrayer to try to be alleviating, making it right, you know, and I was repentant. You know, we tell that in the story. Like I did want to stay, but I mean I was still struggling so much.

Yeah, there was a lot of back and a lot of back and forth in terms of disengaging, re, engaging, pursuit, happening both ways. But, but I think for me, I think it came from a awareness that there was no switch that I could flip in Katie to make her love me again. But I knew God brought us together and I knew God authored emotion and all it was going to take was him encountering her, that ultimately she had a, a man of God praying for the will of God that was actively seeking God. And so I'm like, you know what? I struggled with hope. Like I would get hope fatigue when it seemed like I kept waiting for the day she would wake up and have had a dream where she'd get home from work and have heard from God. And you know, so I lost hope and had fatigue. But man just knew God could do it and would do it. And so yeah, he just clinging to him I think is what, what got me through.

That's huge. And would you say too that was it a little by little process or was there one day when it was like Katie's like, okay, I am staying and we're going to move forward. Thanks for waiting on me. Like, what did that look like?

I think it was very much the three steps forward, two steps back. Yeah, every, every day, man, it would feel like we took a few steps forward and then something would happen and, and would knock us back. She had said early on this like prayer commitment to God that you can have my feet, meaning like physically, I will be here. Even though her heart and mind were, were elsewhere. And for me that was just the most assuring. And, and just to hear her say, I don't know that I love you anymore, like for the day where she did, I knew she meant it, you know, and so it was hard to hear, but we had never really been in a, in a real truth telling season. Like our love was so attractional and superficial that as bad as this hurt, it was also like. And that's the crazy thing about building intimacy. It's like, man, when you say something hard that feels like a punch in the throat. But somehow, you know, to, to hear, to share, to confess. Like, man, it was building intimacy. So for all of the back and forth that it took over time, I think we were for the first time actually building something On a much deeper level than we had ever had before anyway.

Yeah. And that's. That's the whole confession therapy. Like, no one gave us the counsel to do that. But I knew when I started to share things with him that he wouldn't have known otherwise. I felt freer, you know, and less full of shame, which is exactly where the enemy wanted me to stay in that cycle of shame. And then it also stopped taking walls between us. It made us closer, you know, even simple stuff, like, hey, I wore this headband from. For him. I thought he would like this headband, and then we can burn it together. You know, it was simple stuff, but that the simple stuff is the hardest stuff to get out.

That specific.

Yeah. It really did help us start to rebuild. And then, like, he's saying he knew when I started to say, like, hey, I don't want to sleep in the car with you today. I want to actually talk to you. Like, he was like, okay. You know, that honesty really helps you build trust, because you know where the other person is.

I think you also need to say she. She never made a habit of going out to sleep in the car, but when we were driving places, she would fall asleep.

Right, right, right.

Yeah. That's clarification. Right?

Yeah.

But I was with you. She sleeps in the car.

I do.

But I know there's a lot of times we. We'll talk a lot, too, but I get what you're saying. It's like being intentional.

Yeah.

We're going to grow in this. We're going to deepen our intimacy even more, and I love that. I have a question. Whenever two people go through, like, a married couple goes through something like this, and I always have the question of, like, how did the closest people in your life handle it? Like family, really close friends? Because everyone gets opinions. And I know you did move, which I think was an essential part of your story, especially to get distance from this. This couple. Just so there wasn't that temptation to get back together. Correct. I mean, was that kind of a. One of the reasons you moved?

I would say it was that, but it was also, like, for me, the pain. Like, when she talked about getting rid of a headband.

Yeah.

We got rid of cars, furniture, any. Anything that was in any way, like, attached to a visual, a memory. It was just a purging. Like, I couldn't rip this from my heart, but I was going to rid my life of any landmarks or, you know, placeholders. And so a lot of that was just driving the same roads. And yes. Knowing the same neighborhood. It just felt like we needed to. To really have a fresh start. We needed a whole new adventure. And so, yeah, part of it was the support that was in Charleston. Katie's family was here. Seacoast was here. I had met this pastor that just seemed to embody. I don't know that I ever really had a vision before of husband, father, pastor that kind of was in a skin similar to mine, and met this guy, and, man, just. It gave me a vision for husband, father, family. And so I just asked, man, if we moved to Charleston, can I cut your grass, wash your car? Like, can I. Can we just be around you? And he was like, we're actually going to start a marriage, small group. So, yeah, y' all can just join our group. And so a lot of it was a new adventure, a break from where we had been, but also pursuing health.

Yeah. And we had kind of built ourselves up as leaders, you know, spiritual leaders in the community. I mean, again, we were 27, but still, you know, we had been following God and. And seeking God. And I think we also needed to be broken. We needed to be. Yeah, humbled and learners, you know, and that was. That was going to be really hard to do in the small community. Sure. You know, where we. Where we were.

And I would say that was a big part of, like, getting back to that. Like, when you hear somebody go through something like this and they're like, well, now, I wouldn't change it if I could. I hear those kind of things. I'm like, well, something's wrong with you, because that's right.

Yeah. You can still say no, that was terrible.

That was the worst thing ever.

But I look back now, and I really mean that I wouldn't change it. Only because I don't know that, like, to be able to come to Seacoast broken and hurting and, like, really needy for encouragement, accountability, discipleship for a, you know, year later, for them to ask me to come on staff, I had to go back to the HR director just to make sure things that I had shared with pastors had been relayed. Like, you know, us, right. You're still wanting me to work here, you know, and so I feel like it's. For the first time, I don't know that I could have become, like, vulnerable and transparent and not felt like I needed to be the guy with all the answers had we not showed up here needing the church to be the church for us.

And the same for me. You know, we were sitting with a couple just like y', all, that we admired so much. I mean, we were in their living room. We still didn't even know how they let us in. They had started a small group, and then people quit one after the other, so it was just us. And they really walked with us through our pain. They had never been through anything like we had. You know, in fact, Cindy. It was Cindy and Mack Lake. And she would always say, well, Max just always been my best friend. And I was thinking, oh, my gosh, I can't even stand this man at this point, you know, whatever. And so. But they. They let us just be raw. And Josh could say, hey, she tried to reach out to this guy. The worst things I could ever imagine, being put on the table to people I admired. But actually, that season changed us. And I'm so thankful that once he came back on staff and I was on staff at Seacoast, we never. We agreed to never go back to hiding. These people were going to see us for who we were, just like them, people on a journey to heaven, you know, really seeking God, being sanctified, but that we were sinners, you know, and that we weren't going to hide that anymore. And I'm so thankful. I don't know how, you know, you could be in ministry for 20 years, hopefully longer and healthy, without that, you know, that honesty, like you're saying, which we did not have. That was not.

But it's so freeing, too, like, when you get there, because secrets are exhausting. Oh, my gosh, just so exhausting. And so God calls us to confess. It's for everybody's good, but mostly it's for our own good. It's like we're just not meant to carry that weight around, and relationships can't survive that way. You know, individuals can't survive that weight. So when you bring it any. Once you bring something into the light, it instantly has way less power than it had over you in the darkness. And you can really start doing the work of healing and. And then once you're used to living that way, you never want to go back. And so, I mean, I can. I can relate to that from having had a past struggle with pornography, you know, as a young man that I tried to keep in the dark. And just the emotional turmoil that. That took on me on the marriage. And then when it was finally out in the open, yeah, it's painful at first and messy at first, but. But you work through the healing together, and then it's just, man, it is so much better, but it's one of the enemy's Biggest lies is that you can never bring this out. You know, you can't. You can't let people know who you really are, what you really done, what you're really thinking, or if your spouse.

Ever knew, they would never forgive you. I mean, one of the.

Our close.

Some of our close friends from many, many years ago, like, the guy had called Dave years ago and said, hey, I feel like I need to confess to my parents and to you that I cheated on my wife several times. And. And Dave was like, well, you need to tell her. And he goes, no, no, no. God just told me to tell you and my parents so that I'm good because she could never handle it. And he said, listen, I love you, and I'm glad you came to me, but that is not right. She needs to know. And it's not really for you to decide whether or not she needs to know. Like, you did this. You broke, you know, your. Your marital vows to her. She deserves to know. And he's like, well, I just. I don't agree with you. And, And. And so I'd love to talk about that because I feel like people, especially walking through infidelity, have a lot of different thoughts about it. And I do think one of the thoughts that the enemy loves to convince us of, especially the one maybe who is involved in the. In the extramarital affairs, you can feel like, well, you know what? Maybe we can just move on from this and. And he'll never know. She'll never know, but we'll somehow get through it. What would you say to that person? Because, I mean, I would like to say that that doesn't happen very often, but, I mean, in the work we do, we see it happen all the time where people are like, no, no, no, I need to tell somebody. But my spouse could never know. What would you say about that?

I'd say two things. The first being, I really do think in terms of, like, building intimacy. None of us. None of us get married with the vision of, like, a mediocre marriage. You know, at some point, every couple that came together, there's this, like, love and dream of what could be, of what they could be, what marriage is going to be like. And anytime you keep something in the dark, you're. You're compromising or settling for a lesser story. And that the intimacy that you experience together, even the potential for what God can do in and through the two of you, the lack of confession when there's stuff that you keep in hiding, just keeps a divide between the. Between the two of you. But then spiritually, it's a big deal. And that, like, God is faithful and just to forgive our sin and purify us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Anything we bring to God, He. He is faithful to forgive us. But scripture also says, confess your sin one to another, that you may be healed. And so it's possible as believers for us to be a people that are forgiven, but not living in full healing of. Of what could be. And so when there's stuff in the marriage like that that you're. You're keeping hidden, you're the one paying a price for it as well. And exactly, there's healing available for you that you're not stepping into.

So, yeah, we, we actually, because of our story, we push people to confession. Maybe even more so than you would think, because what happened with us, and you asked how my family and friends were handling it. So I would choose certain people to tell certain things to. Not the whole story at all, you know, never the whole story. And some of those people would tell me to just pray, get over it, you know, that, you know, that's just. This happens to everyone. This is natural that you may be having these thoughts or these desires. Ever since our story, we have staged interventions. We have had people meeting at certain places to tell them. We have called the other person to say, hey, you've got four hours, and then we're calling them. We know that that confession will lead to healing, but if not, there is a path of destruction that it is trying to take you down. You know, same as. Same as pornography, same as looking with your eyes. For women, a lot of times, the liar, the enemy starts in our thought life, and it is trying to take you somewhere. It's not normal to be coveting another man, to think about him, to want to dress for him, to want to text him. That's not normal in marriage. And so what we've learned when we've met with other couples is that even I would tell somebody who's listening, you will get a call at some point or a text from a friend that said, hey, we've. I've been talking to this person. I've been texting, texting them. It's not a big deal. In that moment, you tell them, you know, tell your husband, and if you don't, I'm gonna call him the next day, or tell your wife, and if you don't, then I'm gonna be the one to hold you accountable to that. Most people do not do that, but that's love that's real love, you know, and that's. That's where our passion has come from. And why I think God has entrusted us with hundreds of couples is because we know, because of our pain. We don't want to just sit there and empathize with you and be like, oh, yeah, that happens to everybod, everybody. That's terrible. No, we want to give you real steps to get through this together.

You know, Katie's like, she knew with her sister, with her mom, with her best friend, the shame she felt. She knew she could toe the line just enough to have shared something that it. It just lifted a little bit, feel a little bit of. Of relief and not like a monster. Whereas none of those people could protect her. None of those people were one with her or were called by God to lay down their life for her. And so, yeah, ultimately, had she brought any of that to me, like, man, we would have moved in a hot minute. We would have created hard, like, boundaries. I could have protected her, our family, and loved her well. But because it was taken to a handful of other people, it led, you know?

Right, yeah, that's right. That it's none of that sin, the lies, all of that. It's meant to. It's an attack on the covenant. It's meant to destroy the marriage. And so you telling other people, you know, giving it to girlfriends, friends, family members, it's not going to move you forward, and this relationship is not going to be the priority. And that was another thing we learned from our story, is that, you know, we had this phrase 10 to 2, that everything else should be a 2 compared to the 10 of our marriage. And when we heard that from a counselor, I thought, not a chance. Like, my mom. Mom, my sister, my children.

There were so many times I couldn't imagine that she would tell me something like, remember, we have this today. I'm like, I have literally never heard that in my life. I have no clue what you're talking about. And she had actually told her sister or mom or, you know, whoever, Right?

Such a girl's girl.

Listen, I just remembered to her question, how did family respond? So I remember your mom saying at one point, well, you leave if you want to. You leave, but he is my son and he will always be at our house with our kids. So it was like they were loving her. They were also being pretty hardcore with, like, calling her to what they believed to be God's best as well.

So that's incredible. You guys are a wealth of wisdom. We could talk to you for Hours and hours.

That's right. We need to talk about stay right before we leave though.

Yeah.

Acronym.

Yeah.

Before we, before we wrap up. Tell us that acronym for stay. I promise it at the beginning. And there's so much more in the book, guys. I want to encourage everybody to get the book. And then we're gonna have Josh and Katie tell you where they, where you can find them.

Yes.

Online and in person, even for some of their. Their in person events. But tell us, tell us what stay means because I just thought it was. It was great.

You bet. We'll do a quick overview for you. So the s is start with me. And that was the case for both of us. In any conflict with two people, whether it's 90, 10 or 50, 50, like both of you have ownership of the problem. And this was a decision Katie made. It was her sin. And me taking responsibility in no way lessens that. But ultimately I had led our family to this place and had a part to play in it. So starting with me in either seat is really about you, focusing on you. Because when, when one person gets better, the whole relationship gets better.

And then t is take quitting off the table. Talking about endurance. How do you endure? How do you really work that muscle of endurance? And a is allow others and for.

Take quitting off the table say people will often quit long before they leave. And so are there places you're quitting in your language and your heart and your thought life, because all of that is going to lead you somewhere. So take quitting off the table. A's allow others to be a part of your story. And that's not just socially being around people who are aware of your life and stuff you're walking through, but kind of that painful work of letting people get close enough to see no hear, speak into, pray over all the things with you.

And then why is yield to vision? So that's how just like we talked about at the beginning, there was such a vision drift over our marriage. And it's real practical of how do you get vision for the next 10 years, but also this year, this season that you're in. How do you get language around that to really prioritize your marriage and where you're going? So it's broken down into four parts. And then the workbook is 12 weeks and it gets super practical. It's great to do in small groups or, you know, just with. With you and another couple that could kind of walk with you through it. So it was always our hope that it would be this supernatural transfer for people that they would know they really could have a new marri with the same person. You know, in our darkest season, Josh asked me to go to a new place, a deeper place of love with him. And it was such a powerful thing for me because I had no vision for that. I just thought we're never going to get back to this 18 year old love that we had. And he was like, I'm asking you, go to a deeper place, a new place. And that's what we've seen in hundreds and hundreds of couples. That is the hope that it might not be just one day, but truly just around the corner. You know, everything can change, everything can shift in your marriage and you can get through really hard times and have the most incredible marriage.

And just the hope. We see ourselves more as like hope peddlers in the sense of like this is something God wants for you and his kindness and love. Like if your marriage isn't the dream that you thought it would be, well, he's not done because he does not want you to have a mediocre story. And so we've seen the principles. You know, I think it's the path he walked us down. But just believing that for any couples listening as well.

Such an inspiration, guys.

Really it is.

Hey, keep up the great work. We are inspired by you and I encourage all the listeners. Get the book New marriage, same couple. And Josh and Katie, real quick, tell folks where they can find you online.

Yeah, we have Josh and Katie Walters.com is our website and then we're both on Instagram. Just Katie Walters, Josh Walters. And our website should be updated soon with our the upcoming events we're speaking together about two times a month is what we've committed to this year because we have seven children, so. That's right. But we, we would love to connect with you all further too. Thank you for all that you are doing in the marriage space. It's such a, such a need. We're so, so grateful.

Well, we're so grateful for you guys. So keep up the great work. And for those who are listening, do us a favor, share this episode. I promise there's somebody out there who desperately needs to hear this and just by sharing it, you might be a big part of helping them find healing. Josh and Katie, great work. We'll see you next time. Bye guys.

Bye guys.

Bye.