Dating My Spouse | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign. Hey, everybody, it's Ron and Hope Unfiltered. Here we are, season three, episode 39. That is hard to believe. Season three. Three years of this.

I just don't think the audience understands I'm injured.

Ron, we were not even discussing you. We were discussing the podcast.

I'm having to plow through pain.

Okay, everybody, Ron has two tears in his right meniscus. You need to send him some cards.

I'm not feeling a lot of love.

You need to send him some flowers. Especially December 2nd because he's having surgery December 2nd.

Flowers, gift cards.

Gift cards. Where to, Ron? What you like.

I'm easy.

No, you're not. No. What do you like?

I got my legs stretched out. I'm in pain.

I think Ron loves Amazon. Send him some Amazon gifts.

Ron's never gotten Amazon in his life.

But I could help you figure it out.

I know how that will go.

Well, you could send all the cards.

Tell them what the surgeon said, though. I've actually gotta have operation.

I just said that.

I don't know how I heard it.

It's called age.

I don't know how I heard it.

No, she said you most likely had injured it at one time or another.

One thing I was always so proud of is that I was a receiver. Receivers are notorious for knee injuries.

Here we go.

And then I was basketball player and I broke 18 bones. I've had numerous injuries, but I never ever had a knee injury till now. I've seen people with knee injuries. I know the grabbing the leg and the intense pain. I have never had that moment. I have no idea. I have two tears in my meniscus. I'm telling you.

You said I did it.

I think when we were scuffing, scuffling. I think me and you scuffling. I might have torn it. I think I might have tore it. Me trying to get away from you, nonetheless. And hurt it. Twisted it.

You have hurt your knee.

I have.

And you gotta have surgery.

So D.C. well, we were gonna try to start. Try some new things, but they said it wouldn't help.

Right, Right. Gonna get some injections. They were like, no, that does not fix the tear. It'll help the inflammation. So Ron had to be conquered. That mean that means we had to team up against you, me and the doctor to get you to have surgery.

I don't want to have surgery. Guys don't like surgery, baby.

I don't think anybody does, but sometimes you have to.

Women kind of elect to do it.

Well, men do too.

No, men Elect to do it. Really?

Really.

Not really.

Yeah, they do.

Well, anyway, you're having it. Ah. Can't believe it. Just had operation on my face this year, and now I gotta go have. It'll be two operations in one year. I have never had. And I've never had operations before. I've never, like, really been cut on.

Baby, you are not 21 anymore.

What does that mean?

It means the older you get, that body has some aches and pains.

You have not read my Bible, right? He renews my youth, and he renews my strength. He makes me 20 again.

Okay.

Okay. I mount up on wings with eagles. That means I see further. Please fly.

Please stop chomping that.

I got a. My mouth was dry, and I have to see. He does not have a good taste in my mouth. Fajitas.

Fajitas. Fajitas. So how do you spell that?

You wasting these folks time. Four minutes. Me, I just want everybody know I am injured.

Ron, we know. Everybody knows.

I never get to go out and tell anybody I'm injured, but I want everybody know I'm injured.

Okay? So let's have a word.

I'm not praying. I'm not. Not laying hands on anybody. I need somebody like lay hands on me.

We're gonna pray. Why'd you jump? You scared? You scared of me? Anyway, y' all pray for. For your pastor. You pray for Pastor Ron. He needs some attention.

Swollen.

He needs attention. Okay.

Actually, when I walk, it does. All right. If I keep walking, it's when I get off of it and stand back up. Yep, that's when it hurts.

I'm sorry, baby. Hurting?

What am I having my.

I said it three Times. November, December.

December 2nd. Right before Christmas.

They said you won't be down but a couple of days.

Okay. All right. Well, I'm having an operation. Pray for me.

Okay. Today we're gonna talk about how to date your spouse. Gonna talk about dating your spouse.

If we're not serious, we're gonna get back silly again.

I don't know. Probably.

Sometimes we need to be serious. We can't be silly every single time.

We're not. It's when you get in a silly mood.

What's one of the most memorable dates?

Jump right in.

That you can remember. While we were dating.

While we were dating because I had.

No money and we were at the most isolated college. One of the most memorable days in.

The middle of nowhere was Valentine's. It was me and my roommate Sherry.

That was Yalls.

Date Ron's. Listen. And Shelly. Well. And we blindfolded you guys. After our banquet.

We don't know what's coming.

Made pies. I made a pie. Shelly made a pie.

And make a pie at college.

Downstairs in the basement in our little area down there. Anyway, we made you desserts and we blindfolded you and we. We had a head.

We had a banquet, didn't we?

Quiet. Yes. And then we already had like these blankets and candles and boom boxes with slow music playing down at the lake where we were going, this little park. And we blindfolded y' all and took you down there and had a little romantic dessert.

Y' all see what I had to put up with. I was trying to go to Bible school and be preaching and be holy. I was trying to learn the life of holiness. And I start dating this girl who spreads out blankets at a lake and makes me desserts and takes me.

There was no chairs, Ryan.

At nightfall.

We had to have somewhere to sit.

But that just tells people how strong I had to be.

Yep. And you were.

I was strong, wasn't it? I was strong.

But that was a fun night. We planned it.

Not for one of them. Stephen didn't like it.

Stephen didn't like it. He said it was getting car sick and he made us all miserable.

But he was blindfolded. He was getting car seated. Anyhow, that's how creative we had to be. You know, number One, we're talking the 80s, and number two, we're talking. Everybody was broke at my college. I don't understand these universities. I drive up to them day and there's BMW convertibles and Corvettes. We were. Everybody had pieces of junk and they didn't have run. And nobody had any money.

Right.

So we had to have, like, creative ideas to date because, you know, just going out for a night on the town and blowing all kind of money. We didn't have it.

No.

And I remember that. I remember us being intentional about a lot of things that just meant for quality time. It wasn't altogether so much. We had a lot of fun activity.

Driven in our date. In our dating years. We dated three years before we got married. But that's what I wanted to talk about today is why do we lose that or how do we lose that?

I can make out a much broader.

Conversation because we, you know, the bottom line is we are extremely intentional when we're dating. We get creative. We are.

How many stuffed animals did you have by the time we got through dating?

Dear Lord, run. You bought me so many. What were they called? Pound puppies at McDonald's?

McDonald's or Hardee's or something.

Yeah. When you'd go get your food, you could get a pound puppy for like $1.99.

Like Christmas and Valentine's and stuff. Always bought you stuff. You had like a room full by the time that three years was over with. And that pound puppy's what, a dollar 99. But I would bring it to you and you just act like I just handed you the keys to a car because your love language is gifts. Gifts. So I was always buying flowers. You never real crazy about flowers, but it was a gesture. I was always letting you know. I was always buying stuff, animals.

I just made a point to date.

Always.

It was like every Friday night. What are we doing Friday? What are we doing Saturday?

Every night at 10 o'.

Clock. Yeah, we met.

We were very busy in college. It was amazing. I had like a Time Keeper thing in college because we were involved in so many things. We were very scheduled timekeeper, you know, what do you call them back then, the daytimer things. I remember having one of them in college because, I mean, we toured with the touring groups. I toured with a smaller group. I played basketball. We were busy. We had three jobs, not counting classes. I told him, I said, sometime I felt like I went to college on the side. So long and short of it. I remember every night at 10 o'.

Clock, we would meet together.

I'd come over there and pick you up.

We would go parking, y', all.

And we would park and she would try to like kiss and stuff. But I just wanted to talk.

She would try to kiss and stuff.

I just wanted to talk.

Okay.

And be with you. But it was every night. And it was intentional. Even then. Yes, even then. At 10 o'. Clock. That's his time. At your time.

Speaking with you was priority.

Superseded everything else.

It was priority to me. And then we get married.

What happens?

And then we stop all of that. All of that stops the priority. I guess we think because we're. Now we're living together, that's not important. But there have been so many divorces because the person doesn't feel prioritized. The person doesn't feel valued.

Can I hit something that I think is a myth? How many times did we hear when we were dating and when we were young married. Enjoy it. Enjoy your. You. Because you're not always going to feel like that. Okay, I admit I don't think I'm a normal guy. Hope. I don't think I'm wired normal. There's been times I've been Mad. There's been times I've been hurt. There's been times I've been disappointed. But in the regular day in and day out of our marriage, I have never had a day ever that I woke up and didn't feel feelings for you. I have never experienced that day. I'm not saying it's a cop out because I've heard it so much. It must be the mass numbers of people experiencing it. I've heard it from Christians. I would hate to be in a relationship where it was commitment only, void of feelings.

But, you know, I do a teaching at our marriage conference that talks about, you know, the different kinds of love. And so many people do say, you know, when you lose the butterflies, commitment kicks in.

But then I believe that I do too.

I believe that I do too. But there is something in the natural that you can do to keep your feelings, and that's called being intentional. To sow into the other person's love tank. And that's what we're talking about in dating. I think the intentionality.

I think we by nature, the nature of our ministry, we attract probably a crowd that deems themselves as somewhat spiritual. I think there's some things we over spiritualize. For instance, physiologic. Okay, let's move. You can't remove God from anything, but let's take, you know, the church, Christian life element out of it. Let's take, you know, the agape love of God. Let's remove all that a minute. Psychology data wiring you up says when you kiss, kiss longer than eight seconds because at the eighth second there is a huge release of dopamine in your body. In other things that builds significant feelings of bonding. They say hug for 20 seconds at least. Now let's just reveal some of our personal. Okay. Every morning of your life, I'm usually not always, usually up before you a little bit, I go fix the coffee. And then when you smell the coffee or get stirred or whatever, you come walking in a little bit later. If I'm in the kitchen, if I'm in the bathroom, if I'm in the bedroom, if I'm in the den, you come walking straight to me and we hug and you open your arms up and you stand there and we hug and we stand there, we stand there. And it is true, you can't do that. And then all of a sudden you start feeling. You start, you start, you know, the hug. You go from good morning hug to deep sense of connection. These are, these are physiological biological facts. And these are not huge things.

But it's being intentional.

It's being intentional. We. It is the first we do. We do it before we go to the bathroom.

Yep.

We go and we embrace. If you're up first, I'll come in there and I'll go straight to you. And I hold you there. And it ain't like you're trying to get away, but I mean, I hold you there until that thing happens.

Right.

And that thing happens. And then you almost get where we don't. We don't want to let go. We just. This feels good. Let's just stand here a minute. And why. Why is that so hard after 15, 20, 25 years of marriage, why is. Why is it.

The bottom line, if we could just going to be very honest, is you don't. You don't think it matters anymore. You haven't made it a priority. You haven't seen the benefit of it.

You think it just maintains itself or.

It just happens, not maintain itself. It's just like our body. Our body does not maintain itself. We have to maintain it. A house doesn't just stay clean. You have to clean it. So for a marriage to stay in love, you have to do certain elements.

Okay. I attempt. And we're not the marriage gurus, but.

We got a good one.

We got something to say. We've been in the best of times, and we sure enough have been in the worst of times. So when you got somebody who's made it this long through all that stuff, you know, you listen to them a little bit. I know I. For any man out there listening, I try to send you messages all day. I'm not talking about text messages. I try to send you messages. I do send text messages. Sometimes they're hilarious. Sometimes they're extremely graphic. Yep. And I'm ashamed after I do it.

Yeah, right.

And sometimes they're just, I love you, be careful. But I try. It's not random. It is. I want to send you messages, you know, from bringing you your coffee to the forehead kiss when you're laying on the bed. And I'm saying, I'm not ready yet. Go and sleep, babe. It's, you know, the stuff ready for you when you get out of the bathtub. Do you want me to get out of the car? Are you going to take a bath? Do you want me to run a bath for you? And it's not, oh, God, I got a runner back. It's just sending messages. Serving opens the heart of other people. It is very hard to be angry at somebody who serves you.

It's True.

When you feel like somebody is a taker, you can get bitter, resentful.

That's right.

And all types of hard heartedness issues can begin to come in. But when somebody's constantly serving. So I'll let you say how you do it. Mine to you is I just tried to do small. Very small. You've had two hip surgeries in our bathroom. Our tile is slick as the top of this table. I don't want you to fall. It is very common. If I'm there when you get out of the tub, I'll get down and wipe off your feet. Eight seconds, no big deal.

With two torn with two tears in your meniscus.

You still do it. But what is it? Just. You're number one. I'm taking care of you. You're my baby. It's just. And my goal is all day long from morning to that night, you're hearing something or feeling something that says, this guy is nuts about me.

He is nuts about me.

What do you do? I'm gonna put you on the spot. What are some things you wanna do that you know this right here means? Ron. Yep. I'm a little more than that.

Ron does all the little things so that I can turn around and give him sex.

Oh, I do all the little things. A lot of times I don't get no sex, Ron.

But Ryan. No, I know what your love language is and it is physical touch. It's quality time. You sitting with you at night and just sitting there on the couch, I know you.

I'm telling you something you did last night that was very meaningful to me. You. I didn't say nothing. I don't know if it was random. I don't know if it was intentional. My stuff is intentional. Maybe I have a random thing every once in a while. We're sitting there last night, it's a long day. Tuesdays are long, long day. We get home, you know, terrible traffic, all this and that and other. Put on pajamas, do what we got to do. We actually had to pack our bags because we got a little trip we got to take. And so we finally got in, den, sit down and I go in there and you got your little corner. I sit in. I was sitting probably two or three feet away from you and you were leaning up against a pillow. You sat up, put the pillow down flat between us and reached out and on the pillow. We held hands. We're up on a mountain, we're all by ourselves. Ain't nobody looking. We're not trying to do an Instagram Post, nobody to impress. And it's 11 o' clock at night and we're holding hands. That's the stuff to me of lifelong love.

That's right.

You know, to me.

And it's being intentional. The dating, the actual dating, we still do that. It was hard to do that when we had children. Kids was tough, but we still did it. We didn't do it as often, but we made it a point at least once a month. We would do it once a month, sometime twice a month. And I hear people today, we don't have enough money to buy to get babysitters or. Yes, you do, because I, I mean, you spend your money on everything else. What is more important? Sewing into the life of your marriage, into your spouse, or going to Starbucks six times a week? Yes, you do have.

Because I always heard something that scared me, that when the kids came and our life was crazy, we went through a lot of difficult times. But I hear when kids come that everything then starts revolving around them. And then once the last one steps out in this empty nest, you look at this stranger like, oh my God, it's just me and it's just this person. And I've let it go for 20 years now. I don't know what to do.

Yeah. And you know, you can make excuses and say, well, we got ball and we got this and we got piano and we got that. We did too. We did too. But you don't have to date. Dating is not just Friday night at 7 o'. Clock. Dating is after they go to school and you run by and eat breakfast together. It's during lunch break at work and you meet for lunch. You know, it's. You can make it what you want it. Put them to bed at night and make a picnic and go get on the trampoline in the backyard and lay down and look out, look up at the stars and hold hands and talk. That's a date. But it's.

I want to go back to the bigger issue. We'll go back to the bigger issue, psychologically, whatever you want to call it. Why is that so hard? Because they're sitting here listening to you. Simple. Sitting there listening to me hold her hand, you know, don't let her fall down, wipe her feet off. These are not huge things.

Right.

Why is this so hard?

I think life sometimes, you know, you have a lot of hurdles in relationships and then you get a hurt and then you hurt the next one, then the next one hurts you and you start piling up these hurts and these resentments and yes, and then you start focusing on everything they're not doing right. You're focusing on how they chew and chew their candy loud and chew their ice real loud. And it gets on your nerves and you start letting that be your focus. When that is, that should never be your focus. We all got hang ups and we all got pain. You know, in. In love, we have to really actually walk out that first. Corinthians 13. Keeping no record of wrong. Expecting the best, hoping for the best.

Hopes all things, believes all things right.

Being slow to anger.

We've counseled so many pastors and wives, but other people, but a lot of leaders over the years. And when we start delving into the marriage and we've been in some rooms where it got bad and where we were brought into somebody's marital problem and all of a sudden we were like, whoa, we have stepped into a hornet's nest. A hornet's nest. Yeah. I noticed over the years I used to preach a message on small things. You remember that message?

I do.

I've never had anybody come into my office and say, pastor, we're getting a divorce. Why? Because he won't take me on a Caribbean cruise. Never had anybody say we're splitting up. Why? Because I want a Bentley and he won't buy it. I have heard this. We never hold hands. We don't talk.

He never spends time with me.

He don't ever spend time with me. We don't communicate. I don't ever hear big things. But the Bible even said it's the little foxes. It's the little foxes that spoil the vines and it's the flies that get in the ointment. And so I think we might try to do the big things right and run the big things right. We overlook a million small things. And if I go back to what is really meaningful, it's when you had to go do a come higher conference. And I ain't crazy about you being gone two weeks in a row because I like having my wife around. And then I get up that morning. You had to get up at five, go catch a plane. I got up at seven and there's heart with lipstick on the mirror.

I always do that.

That is so. Oh man.

That just anytime I have to see before you, I'd take my lipstick, bring it on and tell you I love you.

You have drawn some dirty pictures at times.

I have not.

You have. And I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed of you right now. You've drawn some things on there that was childish. You shouldn't have done. Really Back on it.

That's right.

But.

But like you were just saying, you look at the big things and forget the little things.

When in that took you 30 seconds.

In your office and you say, the woman doesn't talk about the Caribbean cruise. He hadn't taken her own. You don't talk to me. You don't smile. You don't, you know, spend time with me. And then he'll reply, or she'll vice versa. He'll say, well, I don't cheat on you and I don't do drugs.

The big things.

Yeah, it's the big things. Thinking, well, I don't do, you know, these big things to you. But do you do the small things?

Do you do the small things? It's not the big things. It's always. It's always the small things. I don't remember how many different nice cars you've had if you start. Held a gun to my head.

And I don't either.

But I remember. But I remember notes. I remember things you said. I remember things. You do. I remember, you know, I remember times walking down a beach. It didn't cost me any money. We just walked down the beach. I know. Time sitting out on the back porch and talking about how close the moon looks to. I mean.

But I do think that you're also intentional. Like tonight, you're taking me out of town for two nights. And we put those on our calendar every three months. Every three months. I think two nights.

And everything that don't get done, everything that don't get done has to wait because I'm not answering the phone and I'm not doing work, and they know it here, you better get me before I leave, because these two days, I'm not answering the phone and I'm not doing it because she's got my attention. And so here again, I just go back to dating your spouse. The intentionalization of little things that keep the dopamine high, that keep the wow.

And you better believe in. When we were dating, I was gonna shave my legs. I was gonna have my hair fixed. I was gonna be dressed. I mean, I planned them.

Toenails are gonna be red.

I planned what I was gonna wear. And when we get married, we just sort of, like, turn it loose and we're blah.

And we never did that. You never did that.

I have not done that.

You never did that.

You've not done that either.

I told you, I always appreciated the fact you cared about your presentation to me. Not just your presentation. You cared about your presentation. To me.

Right.

And I always appreciated that because we have had. We have counseled others where. Well, you know what? He just. He's let himself go so bad and his help.

But you do talk about. My hygiene has slipped lately.

Well, I wasn't going to uncover you. I was going to let that. I was going to cover you. And you went and revealed yourself. You say, who you going to wash that hair?

You're going to wash that hair today?

Because we're sitting there watching TV and I got my fingers in it and.

It'S like, stop, Stop it.

When I come my hand out and it's greasy, I'm like, you know what, baby? We might need to quit putting dry shampoo on it.

Okay.

What they used to do back in the old country folk, put baby powder on it.

Put baby powder in there when it was greasy.

Yes.

If you had blonde hair.

We got city folk watching us that are like, what have never heard of that? They would. If your hair was greasy and they didn't have time to wash it, they would put baby powder on your hair.

If you had blonde hair.

Yes.

Y', all. Let's just summarize it. Let's summarize this talk today.

Summarizing. This is what Ron would say to the young couple or the older couple who feel like they've lost it. Sometimes a marriage ending up in the right place or returning to the right place is not a million dollars of therapy. Sometime it is making the decision. The things I did when I was falling in love, I'm going to do to stay in love.

Because it obviously worked right.

I'm going to do to stay in love.

The thing that drew you, the thing that you did to fall in love worked. So why not keep doing it?

Yes.

What have you stopped doing?

I wanted you to feel special. And, you know, 34 years later, I still want you to feel special. I don't ever want you to feel like you have to go somewhere else to feel special. I want you to feel special at my house. And so those are never big things because of the season of life we're in. We get to do more nice things by far than we did back then. But whatever we had the resources to do, we did it. We did it. And I would just say it's not the big things, guys. It is a million little chances to stoke the fires that we gloss over them because we don't see them as significant. And I would argue they're all significant.

They are.

They're all significant. All the compliments are significant.

Clearly, you See, there's a void. If you've stopped doing it and you don't have the butterflies and you don't have the feelings, why not try it? Why not implement it? Put it back into practice and see what God can do with it.

And if you have gotten a stony heart or you sense that your spouse has it before you start, might seem disingenuous unless you first own, I haven't been doing this. I think there needs to be a talk. You know what?

We gotta be better.

I listened to Ron and Hope on that podcast, and there's just a lot of things I've let go. And I miss a million moments a day where I could send you a message of how important you are to me. And I want you to know I'm gonna make intentional. I'm going to make intentional decisions to change that. I think sometimes you got to kind of pull the. What it called the. Yeah, you got to kind of. And there may be some tears and some owning it involved. May even be a little bit of a tense conversation, because if you've gone 10 years going through the motions, feeling like you have not been valued, you kind of got to deal with that.

I have to have some hard conversation.

You got to deal with that and then come around and say, I'm asking your forgiveness. And from this moment forward, be patient with me, because I'm going to try to make sure that I don't overlook the small messages I can send throughout the day. And Hope, it's just not hard. It's just being mindful.

It's true.

It's being mindful. Well, let me go first this time. I don't usually do it. I usually let Hope go first. But we decided to make a change here. We enjoy doing this and we're glad you guys are here. So don't cut us off right yet. We were stopping and advertising for other companies and we just said, you know what? Why don't we take some time and let people know what we do? Because we feel like what we do has benefit. And I'm very content, Driven by content. If you go on my social media, I don't care much about foolishness. I don't care much about games or even trying to be funny. I care that what I say is helping somebody. So I've taken 30 years of teaching and archived it in something called the Vault. You can only get it through the Ron Carpenter app. If you download the Ron Carpenter app, you'll see it. It is a subscription, but that subscription helps me pay for all the Management fees and the getting this stuff digitally remastered all the way back to the cassette tape days. And we've now compiled this and put it together. And for a small, very small monthly fee, the price of what one message used to cost on a cd, you can have my entire archive on the vault. And I'm just going to tell you.

Listen, guys, you pay more for next.

Let me tell you something than for this.

This is life changing.

When I was a young Christian or a young preacher, I would have given anything because I would go to somebody's comforts and pay $28 for their four cassette tapes.

Right.

You know, and this is everything I've ever done for 9.99. And I would love to see a lot of you being helped out by the vault. You can customize what you want said and every topic imaginable. You got something great, too.

It's the inner circle, and it is my arm of mentorship. And, you know, I was just thinking, wow, what a great gift that would be to give somebody coming up on the holidays. Yes, the gift of mentorship. The gift of, you know, somebody speaking wisdom and life into you. And if you have friends, if you have a daughter, if you have a sister, somebody that, you know could really benefit from accountability, from wisdom, from a community of people who are there to. To lock arms with you, to watch you grow, to help you. You know, some. So many people, Ron, don't have the resources, don't even know where to start. So I think that's one of the most valu in being a part of a mentorship group is somebody facilitating for you, you know, your content. So I've got that for you. I'd love for you to join. It's called Hopes Inner circle. Go to hopesinnercircle.com and join. You get my book for free and your first month for free. So sign somebody else up. Be a blessing to somebody else.

I watch you do it. I've done it with you. The content is phenomenal, and seeing the work put in it has been somewhat inspiring. I'm really proud of the way you've done the inner circle thing. It's really, really great stuff. And you know what? We love our podcast community, our podcast family. In some ways, it's a little different than even our church family. But I hope whether you're laughing or whether you're crying or whether we're being serious, we're blessing you in some way every time we get to talk to you.

And it's Ron and Hope, unfiltered, real, raw and relevant.

Catch you next time.