Summer Quickies: Did I Marry the Wrong Person?

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we undress the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And this is such a fun episode. We are kicking off our summer series with Q and A. We're kind of referring to them as Q and A Quickies because all these are going to be a little quicker than our normal episodes. And just the word quickie is fun, but these are recorded live. The questions you're going to hear. The questions and answers are recorded live from our XO conferences that we did this past spring. You can learn more about those Future events@xomarriage.com and we took live questions from the audience and just had a lot of fun answering them. And so the feedback was so good, we decided let's make entire podcast episodes out of this because our listeners need to be able to hear and experience what folks at those live events heard and experienced. And so thank you for listening to this. And today's question is a really good one.

It is. It is. How do you get past regret when you feel as a believer you made a mistake in marrying your spouse?

How do you get past regret when you feel as a believer you made a mistake in marrying your spouse? I hope you didn't write that. Was that one yours?

No. I love you.

Here's the deal. The moment you married your spouse, they became the right one. Nobody in this room is married to the wrong person because what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. And again, what the serpent wants to do is to fill your mind with doubt and to make you play this game of self doubt where it's like, oh, we're not compatible. Like, you know, Dan was talking about compatibility. Some of our good friends back in Georgia, where we used to live, they got divorced. We tried to talk them out of it. We're like, man, no. And they're like, no, we're just not compatible. We're not compatible. We married the wrong person. This is a true story. They got divorced. They both got on one of those dating sites that matches you based on compatibility. I promise this is true.

You see where this is going.

Chris and Leslie are their names. All right. In a whole area, like, tens of thousands of singles on this site, they were each other's number one compatibility match number one. And they still refused to get back together. They're like, oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Stupid computer technology. So I think that we put too much stock in things like compatibility. And it's really it's about commitment. And so I think the prayer really isn't like, lord, oh, I made a mistake. It's like, lord, help me. Help me love my spouse the way that you love me and the way that you love him or her, and help me to be the husband or wife that I'm created to be. And maybe instead of looking for the negative in your spouse, look for the positive. And you might say, well, I am looking, and there's just no positive. Right? There's just. But maybe you're looking through a broken lens. And this is what we do a lot. I think all of us feel like we're perceptive, but very few of us are perceptive as we think we are. So I'm gonna give you a quick contest between you and your spouse to see which one is more perceptive. Are you ready? All the wives look very confident. The husbands look scared.

All right, I got this.

It's only gonna take five seconds. Here's what we're gonna do in five seconds. I'm gonna have you look around this room and look for every red item you can exit sign every. Not yet. I haven't said go. Cheating in church. Jesus sees it, so he's watching. Now, when I say, go, start looking. I'm gonna let you count to five, and then we're gonna say stop. I want you to mentally catalog every red item you see. And then when I say, stop, you gotta close your eyes. The only way we can grade this accurately is if you close your eyes, and then we're gonna score how we did. All right, you ready to look for red? All right, go look for red. Red exit signs, red shoes, red purse, red hat, red sign. Red, red, red. Okay, that's five seconds. Stop. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes.

Closed.

Now we're gonna see how many you got. Out loud. You have to say this out loud or it doesn't count. Out loud. I want you to tell me every item you just saw. That is the color blue. Open your eyes.

Open your eyes.

You guys were quiet. Look, there's blue lights that's been shining on you this whole time. Look. Shining in your eyes all day. And you didn't see that. And you didn't see the blue all around you. Why didn't you see it? Same reason we don't see most things. You were looking for something else. Yep. Jesus said, seek and you will find. The actual verb tense he used is, whatever you keep on seeking is what you will find. So the opposite of that has to be true, too. Whatever you're not looking for, you're not likely to see. If you make it your mission to notice every wrong thing your spouse is doing, every negative trait about them, all you will see is negativity. But if you ask the Holy Spirit to change your perspective, say, lord, help me to see the things in them, to affirm, to praise, to encourage, to call out, you'll see it. What is invisible to you now will be all over the place. And that simple switch of turning into your spouse's biggest encourager instead of their biggest critic, it will revolutionize your own heart, and it will change your marriage.

Yeah. I mean, I would even venture to say when you start thinking those questions like, I think I'm with the wrong person, it really shifts your mind. So start looking outside your marriage, okay? That's where we get caught in those traps of going through Facebook, looking up old flames, you know, fantasizing about another life that you don't have. And so we've really got to watch our minds. We need to make sure that we're putting God's truth in there. It says, you know, we need to take our thoughts captive. And so the minute that crosses your mind, take that thought captive, and you pray right there like, lord, let me have eyes only for my spouse, and help me to see the good in him. Help me to see the good in her. And I would even say if you wake up every morning and you think of three things that you're thankful for about your spouse, specific things, okay? And it could be very simple things. It doesn't have to be anything that's, like, super complicated, just simple things. Think about those things, thank God for those things, and then take it one step further and thank your spouse for those things. That one little step will revolutionize your marriage, especially if you're in kind of a time of negativity where you seem to be in, like, what I like to refer to as a sandpaper season, where you're just rubbing each other the wrong way and you're kind of raw and you're feeling itchy, and you're feeling like you're on the defense all the time. If you start doing that exercise of thankfulness in the morning, it could change everything, and it will give you those fresh eyes for your spouse.

Man, that's good. That is so good.

Wow. That was such a great question, but a hard one. And so that's why we wanted to start with it first. We hope you enjoyed this first Q and A quickie. You know, we love answering your questions, and you know, with this particular question, I think the biggest thing we can take away from this is that we can't always trust our feelings, that we're going to have different feelings all throughout our marriage. And we need to trust in the Lord, we need to keep on praying for our marriage, and we need to be thankful. I think again, thankfulness goes a long way. So I hope that today that you and your spouse can start. Maybe that's not a habit. Maybe start a new habit of thankfulness every morning. Think of three things you're thankful for in your spouse and then tell your spouse about it. Thanks for listening to the Naked Marriage Podcast. For more free marriage resources to ask us a question or to view our show notes, visit nakedmarriagepodcast.com and if you.

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