The Honeymoon Phase

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Hey, friends. Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis. On this podcast, we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And we are starting a brand new series today on the seasons of marriage. And I'm so excited about this. And this is gonna how the format's gonna flow like with each season of marriage, starting today with honeymoon season. And even if you're not a honeymooner and haven't been for a long time, stick around. We're gonna talk about some insights that I think could help you in every season. But we're gon about lessons learned in that honeymoon season. And then part two of this next Monday, we're going to interview a couple who's in that honeymoon season right now. And we're going to continue that same format throughout all the different seasons of marriage. We'll have one episode where Ashley and I talk about it together. We share some insights from our own time in that season. And then the very next, the very next Monday, we're going to sit down with a couple in that season right now and have a conversation. And I'm really looking forward to this. I think it's going to be helpful because marriage looks different each season. And as we'll talk about, every season of marriage has unique blessings and unique challenges and unique lessons to learn. But before we dive in, the love of my life is going to read a review. And thank you guys for leaving reviews. We appreciate it very much.

We do. It's the best way to spread the message of the Naked Marriage podcast and help others have stronger marriages. And so today's review is from Ange Br and it's a five star review. Thank you so much. And they say this. I am a huge fan of this podcast. I've been married just under two years and have listened to almost 60 episodes since discovering Dave and Ashley a few months ago. I highly recommend it to couples of all backgrounds and life stages. And thank you guys so much for taking the time. Again, if you want to leave a review, it's very quick. Literally, it'll take less than a minute. You can go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. And that's all I want to say about that. So let's dive into today's episode. Well, I love talking about the seasons of marriage and especially the honeymoon season because, you guys, it feels like it wasn't that long ago, but was actually like almost 22 years ago for us.

What?

Which is crazy. I still feel 20 years old. Like, I was, I was actually talking to Sean and Lynette Reed the other night. You guys know them and love them. If you follow exo, they're. They're some of our beloved speakers and fellow podcasters. And they were asking, like, we were talking about being in our 40s and like, our bodies kind of, you know, we're having to take more supplements and things like that. And then Sean was like, I mean, he goes, I don't feel my age. Like, I don't even know he's somewhere in his 40s. And I said, I don't either. I said, in my mind, I am still 20. And he was like, oh, my gosh. He said, lynette and I, we still feel like we're in our early 20s. And I was, they look so young. They really do. They really do look.

And Sean is also buff. So like, whatever supplements he's on, like.

We always joke about that.

We're like, tell us the body of like a buff 25 year old.

So he is going, you're. You're making his day right now.

John, if you're listening, he's gonna play.

This in the morning.

You know, you're sexy. So, so, yeah, I see why he doesn't feel like he's in his 40s.

Truth in my mind, like, and, and, and you young whippersnappers listening, just, just take whippersnappers. This 40 something is telling. You're like this, this old lady. I'm only 41, you guys, I'm not gonna age myself here. But you know, I, I do. Like, you never. You kind of, you kind of still feel in your mind like you're 20 and you're, you know, you have, you look at life that way because you're excited about life. And I don't know if it's because that's when we got married. Like, that's the age I kind of, you know, go to. So in my mind, I'm back at that honeymoon, you know.

Yeah, for sure. You know, and, but I think that as you, as you age through the different seasons of marriage and we're going to talk about all of them or Many of them, at least. I think that you can add to the perspective. You can kind of keep some of the great benefits of the honeymoon season, but add wisdom that comes with the experience of having more time together.

So true.

What we've learned is every season has unique blessings and unique challenges. And I'm so excited about this series. I'm so excited for the conversations we're going to have. I'm excited for the interviews with people who are in that season right now. And I think that whatever season you're in, for those who are listening, I think that there are things we can learn by reminiscing back. You might not be a honeymooner, but reminiscing back, you know, there's still things that we can learn and recapture from that beautiful season.

Oh, yes.

And we had some wonderful, wonderful times as honeymooners. We were. We were broke.

Totally broke.

We were in love.

Yes.

And still are in love. I didn't mean that. It's like.

No, we were in love.

We used to love each other now. Now more than ever, you know?

And, I mean, I feel like the love has only grown. You know, we thought we were in the depths of love, but it's. It's only grown deeper with.

Yeah. You know, there's a. There's a. A country song. Brad Paisley. You might know him from the Nationwide insurance commercials with Peyton Manning.

If you're not also married to the father of the bride. Actress who played the daughter. I know father of the bride, but he's.

He's a. He's a great songwriter, and he's got a song that. I'm not going to try to sing it, but the whole. The whole refrain is he's talking about stories from their past. And then he says, and I thought I loved you then.

Right.

It's so crying. I know. But then it's like how our love's grown so much, like everything we've been through, like. But, you know, back when we were honeymooners, we were doing all this, and he goes, and I thought I loved you then, but now it's just how love keeps growing. It's like, of course we loved each other then, but the love keeps growing. That's how it should be. And so it's really a. Really a sweet song.

It is.

You know, so look that one up. I haven't heard that in years, but I know.

I'm sorry.

It popped into my mind.

But it's so true.

It is.

In the honeymoon. It's an exciting time, but it's also an uncertain time. Like I think we always equate just like the honeymoon years being the best years of your marriage. And I think they can be some of the best. You hopefully you don't have just the best years. You're going to have good things in all the years of your marriage. But I know for us, probably one of the hardest things for the honeymoon season. And I'm going to say, when we are talking about the honeymoon season, I really look at this as like 0 to 5 years. Okay. And I think that that's pretty fair, don't you think, sweetie? Because you're really getting to know each other. And I know for some that might be kind of long, like five years, but I think it can last even about that long because you're really getting to know what it's like to be married. And I know for us those first five years, even like prior to kids, we waited three and a half years to start our family. But I just think some of the biggest hurdles had to do with family dynamics, like with parents and in laws. And you all know we have a resource coming. We don't have a date yet, but we do have a resource coming. And we're gonna talk all about how to navigate this. But we haven't. You know, it's something that we, we can't talk too specifically about just out of respect for the parties involved. But I will say this, that it was gut wrenching, like devastating.

The hardest, so hard, hardest thing. We've been through a lot of stuff. I mean, we've moved cross country multiple times. You know, we've. We've had ups and downs in our health. We've each had bouts of like, depression, anxiety. We've had physical ailments, we've had working in ministry. We've walked alongside friends who have walked through incredible tragedies, burying a child and just unimaginable things. And so we've personally experienced and then also experienced kind of the pain of others who we love a lot over our almost 22 years of marriage. But I would say that for us, those early years of marriage and navigating the family dynamics of just parents trying to figure out how to let go and what that looks like, and us trying to figure out how to honor our parents as adults, but also know that we're sometimes disappointing them because our decisions don't line up with what they had in mind potentially for us and trying to navigate all that. And again, like Ashley said, and we're trying to be delicate here, which I know makes this conversation a little bit awkward. Because we're having to dance around some things just out of respect for everybody involved. But it was, like Ashley said, a gut wrenching time. There was so much hurt and miscommunication, and it was just a painful experience. And I would say that that season was the hardest thing we've ever walked through. I really believe it was. And coming out on the other side of it, you know, thankfully now I feel like we have a really strong relationship with everybody involved. So it's possible. Because at one time, I thought that was impossible. I thought, God, I know you can do anything. But for us to have, like, a really healthy, mutually respectful, enjoyable relationship with all of these relatives, I just don't know if that's possible because of all the damage that's been done. Well.

And the mean things that have been said, the name calling. I will say this. And I know you guys are like, you're dancing around this. I'll say some. Okay. Because this is just part of our story. And again, we're not naming names just out of respect for the parties involved. But, you know, we went to counseling in that season, and if I could go back to my younger self, to that 19, 20 something engaged Ashley and Dave. Dave was a little older than me then, and now, Obviously, I was 14 years old. You were like.

And we.

You know what I'm saying? We were both very young. We were young still in school. You know, I was, like a sophomore in college. Dave was a senior. So we were very busy in the thick of college. And because of that, I didn't pay close attention to the fact that. That these family dynamics were something that I needed to probably get some help with. Like, I just assumed it was gonna work itself out. So if I could go back to us back in that time, I would have suggested family counseling, because I know that, and I won't say which one of us. But, like, there were already some things that were probably not healthy that needed to be addressed through family counseling. And when you put marriage on top of that, that only complicates things. And so I would have. I would have gone to counseling with my family and Dave's family prior, because I think it would have helped everybody get on the same page. Whereas instead, we get married, and it's like everything falls apart, and there's all this misunderstanding, all of this just wreckage, and we. We go to counseling, and then there's so many hurt feelings that are. You know, the. The family wouldn't go with us. And so it was just us trying.

To navigate this alone, because we were so inexperienced.

So inexperienced.

And so like, we made, we made some rookie mistakes.

Yes.

Just trying to navigate through that. Things that obviously now with some, some age and more WIs would have done differently, but we just felt like we could not win.

Right.

And then there was some untreated mental health issues that were happening that, you know, that adds a whole nother layer when you're trying to reason with somebody who just because of a chemical imbalance isn't capable of reason and is just.

You know, and doesn't even know at the time.

Doesn't even know. Right. I mean, they don't know it's an illness that was untreated and, you know, can't blame a person for being unwell. But until that's dealt with and treated, you can't really have a healthy relationship with someone who themselves is unhealthy. And that was going on and thankfully all that has since been resolved. But at the time, I'm telling you guys, it was terrible. And so maybe your family has nothing that we're describing because every family situation is different. And so maybe you in the honeymoon years or you entering into the honeymoon years, you're like, I don't know what you're talking about. We don't have anything like that. And that's great.

That's great if you don't.

But for those who do that are like nodding up and down at everything we're saying that feel the pain that we walked through because you walked through something similar. There's nothing like it. It is stifling, it is demoralizing.

Well, and you feel like you're caught literally that term between a rock and a hard place because you love your family and you obviously love each other and you want both relationships to be really good, you know, to be really strong. And so it's not like you're just gonna shut these people out of your life. I mean, this is your family. This is your parents who gave birth to you. These are your in laws who made your favorite person in the world. You want to have good relationships all around and you want to honor them. But honor, you know, Dave is so great at describing this. He actually just did an excellent sermon. Go to stevenscreekchurch.com look up Vanishing Values, sermon number one in that series. And he talks all about honor. And so I'm just bragging on you, sweetie. It was such a great sermon. And I just heard it. It's fresh on my mind. But he talks about when it comes to parental honor, we are called to do that. Really, in all seasons of our life, but it does not look the same. Can you explain that more, sweetie, because you say it so eloquently.

Well, I think I plagiarized this from somebody. Like a lot of my good ideas I just heard from somebody else. But in ministry, it's not plagiarism, because if it's stealing, if it's stealing for Jesus, it's not stealing. But I. I'm sure that I heard this and didn't come up with this, but. So in the different seasons of honoring parents, the Bible is clear, honor your father and mother, and that extends to your in laws. Honor your father in law and your mother in law as your own parents as well. You give honor, but in different seasons, that looks different. In childhood, honor means obeying your parents with a good attitude. When you are under their roof, under their authority, you obey with a good attitude. Now when you become an adult and you're out from underneath their authority, you still honor them, but you no longer have to obey them. I think that was some of the tension that we felt.

I think it was absolutely.

There was this parental imbalance and false and unbiblical expectation that we were to continue to obey even in adulthood.

And part of it was how young we were.

We were young.

That was part of it.

We were grown, independent, and now forming through our own covenant of marriage, a completely new family that needed to leave and cleave and have its own independence. And we didn't feel completely given the blessing and freedom to do that, which created a lot of tension. So in childhood, it's obey with a good attitude. In adulthood, honoring your parents means to respect them and it often means to forgive them, because your parents weren't perfect. You know, your in laws aren't perfect. Like they made mistakes, even if they meant well. No parent's perfect but God the Father, Every other one of us has blown it, and we need grace and you gotta be willing to forgive. And so honor in adulthood means, you know, willing to pursue a friendship with your, with them, to allow them to mentor you, to listen to their advice, even if you ultimately choose something else that you always, with respect, receive what they speak into you, and then you make your own decision, of course. But then later in life, the third stage, I would say, of honor. When your parents are older, when they might have physical needs, when they might have financial needs, health issues, you honor them by supporting them, making sure they have what they need, and taking care of them the way that they took care of you when you were a Child. And so in every season, give, give honor. And so.

And I would say with that, I know we, we've spent a lot of time talking about in laws particularly, but this is a huge thing, you guys. And I know we're not the only ones. I mean, I was just a girl actually, like a. A counselor, psychologist on, on Instagram, was just posting about this like it's a real thing that so many of us feel. So I know, I know it's not everyone, but I know it's a huge percentage. You know, I know we spent a lot of time on this, but what I want to say too is when it comes to these in law and parental relationships and how they change when you get married, you can't see each other as the enemy because this can be very divisive because your family can be like, well, we, we loved you and knew you first. You know, we gave birth to you, adopted you. Whatever the situation is, you owe us your first loyalty. But in the honeymoon season, gosh, this is probably one of the biggest things we can learn. And one of the greatest decisions we can make and stick to is making sure that, you know, first and foremost, as Christians, God deserves our first loyalty. But right underneath the Lord is our marriage. And Jimmy Evans has an entire book on this called the Four Laws of Love. And he talks about the law of priority. And it's so. It's just so important.

It's so good. It's so important. And people who don't fully get this never have a thriving marriage.

Yes.

Like, until you understand that God is the one who orchestrated the priority system. And if you get your priorities out of whack, no matter what else you do, your marriage is always gonna be off balance and unhealthy. And it's gotta be what Ashley just said, again, this is not our opinion. This is just coming under line with the authority structure that God's put in place. God's our first loyalty, followed directly by your spouse. The moment you get married, they become your primary loyalty. Right.

Over your friends, over even your family.

Exactly.

Over your job. I mean, it's not just family that kind of vies for our attention here. Yeah.

And hopefully there's not animosity there. It's not like you want to work, to strive to have peace with everybody involved. Like you want to marry someone who's going to help you be a better daughter and be a better son and be a better brother or sister or whatever else. But ultimately, that authority structure has to change instantly and your family has to honor that or else they're not just dishonoring you and your marriage. They're dishonoring God, who put this in place. And this is part of what we ran into. And it was because of relatives who didn't understand. You know, one, I don't think they had the biblical literacy to understand, but two, they had not come from family backgrounds where this had really been lived out. Right. And so it was foreign to them a little bit.

Right.

And that created some tension. And so learning to love and honor them and show grace to them during that period, while, again, we were still so young and still learning and growing ourselves, as hopefully we always are through every season of life. It was so messy. It was just so messy. But, you know, by God's grace, he carried us through it. We became more unified as a result. It was a messy process to get there. It was a lot of tears, a lot of frustration, a lot of counseling. A lot of counseling. But thankfully, we came through ultimately, when we moved away from what had been home for both of us, that aspect of moving away, which we didn't move to escape anything, God just opened an opportunity. And once we moved away, it was like the air felt different and we felt freer, and we were able to leave and cleave in that season like we never had before. And so in that honeymoon season, if you move away from home for the first time, I feel like, even if it's only temporary, a time away where you have to just lean on each other and lean on God in a new place, that can do more to help your marriage in the early years than almost anything else. I feel like it should almost be required, like take a year.

We know it's not always possible.

It's not always possible.

I mean, absolutely. And it's not even situation.

It's not always necessary. So I don't want to paint with broad strokes here, but I'm telling you, as I think about it, and as I think about the couples that I know, that I admire, that I feel like they just thrive. They're best friends, they're partners. They get the law of priority. They get. They get that. They're healthy, they're strong. One thing that many of them have in common is at some point in their marriage, they moved away and they had to forge kind of a new life together in a season. And if you never do that, I think you can still have a great marriage. But I also feel like your marriage is missing some muscles that would have been developed had you done that. And so be open to that be open to. Even if it's just for a season, even if it's, hey, we're going to go do this graduate school program for a year or two over in this other state. And, and we're going to. We're going to do that in a season. That can help you so much.

I think it can. And, you know, I mentioned friends earlier, but I want to kind of camp out on that a little bit. I think when you get married and whether, whether you're young, like we were when, when you got married, or maybe you've been single for a long time and you're getting married a little bit later in life, we get very used to being with our friends and, like, having this schedule where our friends, you know, they're like our family for a time. And, you know, of course you have your family, too. And I think shifting that schedule we've seen in our own lives, but also with many people that we've worked with and even friends of ours, that this can become a sticking point for married couples because there's usually one spouse that's gung ho. Like, we're married now. We get the priority. So you're gonna check in with me about, you know, getting with friends just because we're one now and. And. But then there's another spouse that's like, what are you talking about? I'm going to still get with friends every, you know, three days a week, and we're going to watch our games together or the girls are going to go out and get our nails done. And it's like you're not willing to budget all on your schedule. And I want to say that that just, that's not how it's supposed to be. Like, when you get married, things change. You have to decide your schedule together. And yes, sure, you need to get with friends. I mean, you can't look to your spouse to fulfill all of your needs, and you can't fulfill all their needs. Like, friendship is a beautiful gift from God that we want to pursue and make sure that not only do we have individual friends, but also couple friends, but we need to also make sure that in our schedule that it's balanced. Where our priority is clearly, you know, with our spouse and not with our friends or family or maybe other things we have going on. And I think with us, I mean, we've had to navigate this too, because, I mean, I was still in college when we got married. I was entering into my junior year. Dave had just graduated, but he was still very young, and we had to kind of navigate, like, where are we putting our time?

Sure.

And. And. And it took a lot of just talking openly about it. And I know for us, what we ended up doing, and we shared this, you know, before, so I won't go into great detail, but we ended up realizing that we wanted to do something where we are on mission together for the Lord. And so we got involved in youth ministry, and that became, you know, those are those at that. In that season of life were our closest friends who almost felt like family. And we would, you know, several days a week, we would be with those people, the other youth leaders helping youth, you know, mainly middle schoolers at the time, and we would just pour in and spend time together. And it was wonderful because we got to pursue friendships, but also we grew in our friendship with each other and also in our relationship with the Lord. And so you want to look for ways to grow in that area, but also not, again, not see each other as the enemy. Like, well, you're keeping me from my friends. Guys, if you have friends who, after you're married, don't respect your spouse and your spouse's wishes, that is not a good friend. You know, as we always say on the Naked Marriage podcast, they need to have four qualities to be a really good friend. They, number one, need to love God. Number two, need to love you. Number three, need to love your spouse. And number four, before your marriage. And you could say, well, Ashley, how can they love my spouse? They love your spouse because they love you, okay? All of these things go together. If they love God, they're gonna be able to love others with more capacity and have respect for marriage. And so I'm not saying you need to just, like, completely put these people out of your life if they don't have all four of these qualities. But you don't need to listen to them when it comes to marriage advice, okay? Because they're not necessarily in a good place maybe in this season of their life. And you need to be able to be an adult and stand up and say, dude, I. I'm. You know, I'm sorry that you're ticked off that I can't go watch the game with you. Like, traditionally we have. Because I have a wife now, and in order for me to have a great marriage, I've got to prioritize her. It's not that I don't love you guys. I love you guys, but maybe I can do this once a month or every two weeks instead of every week. Same with the girls. It's like, girls you know, if you get around girls and they're constantly nagging on their husbands or nagging that you have a husband now and you're not spending enough time with them, you gotta stand up for yourself and say, listen, I married this. If you guys truly love me and support me, you'll realize that my marriage is important to me and I need to prioritize my husband. And so, you know, you giving me flack because I wanna spend time with my husband and can't do the exact same thing I did prior to marriage is not really being a supportive friend. And I know these conversations aren't easy and they're awkward, but, you guys, we've got to be adults.

You gotta be. Cause, like, we were the first ones of our friend group to get married.

Yes.

And so we were the ones blazing the trail. And it was weird for all of us.

They thought we were total weirdos.

Weird for them.

Yeah.

And now, like, but. But now, like, even though at the time they were like, oh, you guys, weirdos. But now, like, they're. They're like, oh, I see. I see now. I see what you were. What you were doing.

And once they started getting married, they got it.

They got it.

And then we had couple friends.

Like, which is.

Couple friends are such a blessing, but it can be hard. Like, I got a message from somebody the other day. Like, I heard you talk about couple friends. How in the world do we make couple friends?

Hey, check out the episode on couple friends.

Yes.

And where we interviewed Brent and Stephanie Evans, our dear friends.

That's right.

And that episode could help you right there. Because I do think that couple friends can help you in so many ways. And one of the best things you can do in these honeymoon years is develop community together. Not just his friends and her friends, but our friends. Yes. And start doing as much together as you can. You know, build life together, do ministry together, volunteer together, start hobbies together. And you're going to create some habits that are going to help move you forward in so many ways. And also tune in to our next episode next week, because next Monday we're going to have an interview with some honeymooners where we're going to have a conversation with some folks who are in this season, and that's going to have some great insights as well. So tune into that one. But, guys, thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for being part of this online community. Do us a favor and leave a review if you haven't already, on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you're watching or listening Your comments and reviews help others discover it and they also encourage us. We read all those and we appreciate you guys so much. If you're not following us on Instagram, go over to Ave and Ashley Willis and join that community as well. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye.