Excelling in Marriage | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hey, guess who's back. Guess who's back. Back again.

I've had to do about three or four of these things without you.

I have not.

I did two last week. I did one before that. So it's been a while since you ain't been here.

So I bet the viewership went down the last.

Plummeted.

Two weeks.

Plummeted. Let me pull this up a little closer here.

I'm just kidding.

They don't know why you've been gone. You had a little medical thing.

Yeah, I had a little procedure I had to have done. I've been putting off and I had to get it done. It's got me. Kept me down about two weeks. So here I am.

Pretty rough time. Kind of same thing. You kind of, like, do it for. Like, it's a hernia type.

Yes.

Thing where you had to have muscle repair done. Yep.

Yeah, it's been rough.

And they leave, like, rough. They leave, like, mesh or wires in you or something.

I don't like to talk about all that. I don't even want to look at procedures on the Internet before stuff's done. I don't.

You want to look at botched and stuff like that, though?

No, no. I don't want to see, like, the inside of a body. I don't want to see that. I can't.

We looked at something one time, Netflix Skin Decision. And I was sitting there. I couldn't. I got nauseous.

Yeah.

I got queasy. I couldn't do it. I can't see human flesh being opened.

No, I don't like that.

I don't like that. But anyway, that's why my baby doll has been gone. So sure. If the viewer. I hadn't checked the viewership, see if it's gone down or not. We had two great ones last week, actually, with Red Worship and talking about the upcoming project and the transfer conference and everything. It was really good. And we talked about a lot of other things, not just promotional stuff, but I've been telling everybody. I've been waiting for you to get back. Don't I take care of you?

You do. You are such a good nurse.

You kicked me yesterday, and I told you if you do that again.

I did not kick you.

But anyway. But, like, ain't. I'm just.

I don't have the publicly.

Publicly affirmed. I mean, I take care of you.

You do. Hand and foot.

And she gets to the point where she don't even say things. She just points. She just lay in the bed like.

Oh, don't make me laugh over there.

I'm like. I'm like, girl, you got it, mate. She don't even say it no more like cold. No, I like the big blanket. Okay, let me go. Let me go all the way to other in the house and get the other one that you like, babe, and I'll bring it in here.

Servant's heart. You don't resent that. You love doing that.

You have a servant's heart.

You do. You love doing that.

Don'T you? Oh, me?

Yes, yes.

My water. My water's too cold.

No, Brian, I have not.

Take some of the ice.

That's a lot.

Take some of the ice out.

Here we go. Now we're going into. He's an evangelist now.

Okay, My chips are too crisp.

Never. My chips can never be too crisp.

A little.

Nor my french fries.

And what is it, Ron? I told you to turn it to 70. What is it? 71. Hope last week, Valentine's Day, Prolonged Valentine's week.

Listen to me. You are prolonging. You know, after you have surgery, you have to wait several weeks before you have marital love and intercourse.

I feel like we didn't do this right because the Lord says that before you keep yourself from one another, you have to get agreement from your partner.

You were in agreement that I had.

To have surgery, but I wasn't in agreement. I wanted to be a part of the healing.

Oh, Jesus.

And you haven't allowed me to be a part of the healing.

Anyway, next.

Okay. Last week, baby, everybody did relationship Valentine stuff. This is the first year. Let me think. What do we do? The first marriage comes? 90. 90.

I can't remember dates like that. I don't know.

That's going on like 30 years.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

I say it's a lot.

And so last week, you know, it was two weeks ago. Excuse me. During Valentine's, when we would have normally done that the week of Valentine. And we didn't do it this year for several reasons. Number one, just felt like we need to shelf it for a year. Number two, maybe come up with some different ideas because we. The information has changed from year to year as we grow and. And learn more and have more experiences. But we kept kind of the dynamics of it and the schedule of it the same. So we just said we're going to take a year, reexamine everything, and come back out the gate hard next year. But everybody was doing relationship stuff. You were in the first throes of trying to recover, so we certainly couldn't do it. So we decided to take what time we've got today and just kind of circle back and not take everybody through marriage comfort stuff. Because a lot of that is teaching. We hadn't always wanted our podcast to be teaching. We have teaching moments, but we don't want it to be a teaching. But I talked about me and you talked about some things last night as we had dinner, things throughout our marriage, things that have changed things where we see things differently. And I think what you can do when you're a little older that can still be relevant to a younger generation wanting to be married or freshly married is you have so many different seasons you've already walked through. They're wondering what it'll be like to be married with kids. We've. We've raised all of our kids.

Tiring.

Yeah. You know, what will it be like? You know, when, when. What would it be like in the times when you know you're fired or you laid off and there's no income coming in? How do you manage those things? And the fact is, the more life you live, the more life experiences you have under your belt. And some of them we didn't respond well. Some of them we responded like a boss. But I just wanted to talk about some of those things early and young. First thing I want to talk about, because everybody's. If you go on Instagram, I don't mean just Christian. I'm talking about most secular. Everybody's looking for the one. And I get amazed at listening sometime to 21, 22, 23 year old. If you find this one. And I'm like, that'll change a hundred times, the one.

Because I do believe there is the One.

But I do, too.

If you do find. And when you do find the One, I think the, the common misnomer is that the One is perfect and the One you'll never have trouble because it's the one.

It's perfect.

Yeah. And that is not true.

No. It just means they're the one.

Yeah. They're the one you get to go through the tough times with. They're the ones you gonna fight with and then make up with. That's the one you chose to do the seasons of life with, that are good, bad. Ecclesiastes tells us that there's a time for everything. There's. Your life's never gonna be perfect. It's gonna be ups and downs. But you choose the one person that you go through it all with.

What was college, hope. Looking for in a husband? I will readily admit Our generation got married earlier.

We did.

Our mothers and father's generations. They were like, they get married like out of high school. We got married right out of college. I mean, immediately after college, as in days, but we dated all through college. From your freshman year on, my sophomore year on, and you know, go back. You were very free spirited. You were. I told people, I said, you know, you're the most attractive person I've ever dated. Don't say it because you're sitting here. You are. You've seen the pictures of everybody I've ever dated. I dated some other pretty girls. But you had this quality of people that say, what was it I said? The way she made me feel. There was just a. There was this thing you did when you got around me where I just. I felt like I could do anything. I felt like I could accomplish anything. I felt like. That's rare. In fact, a lot of people feel like their partner pulls them down and don't believe in them. There was a quality about you that you made me feel like, take off your cape and go ahead and put the S on your T shirt, you know, and there was really nothing you saw at the moment that proved that, because there was not a lot. I didn't have anything.

Yeah, but you were blonde, right?

I was blonde. I had blonde hair. And it was working for me then I had a lot more of it now.

It worked. That stuff had flybacks.

Yep. And I worked hard on it. I worked hard on it.

And then, you know, you take your comb and you comb it back and you.

Yeah, you do like this, like that. And then spray it. You hold it and spray it. Yeah, okay.

And then you had the curls in the back.

I let the mullet grow. So I had flybacks and a mullet that was double. I mean, it's downright irresistible when you get like that. You just can't hardly fight it. You can't fight it. I'm bringing the double. Yeah, you can't fight that. But anyway, think back. What was important to the 20 year old? Hope or were you just so it didn't matter. Just as long as it's Ron, it don't matter. But because I did have things that were very important to me.

Well, I want you to be good looking. I mean, that's just very carnal.

But I don't think nothing carnal about that. I don't think nobody's gonna get from a microphone and say, you know, I really want to marry somebody ugly.

Well, I wanted, you know, somebody that was attracted, you know, to me, everybody, something different.

Somebody physically, somebody tall.

Because I'm tall. You were very tall, so I wanted somebody tall. I wanted somebody attractive.

You ever date anybody shorter than you?

Yes. Didn't date it. Didn't date him.

Okay, don't go there. I just want. I'd never ask you that. Yes, because she could put on heels and look, I'm six two. She'd put on heels, let me straighten out. Yes, she was tall.

So anyway, good looking, tall Christian. I wanted somebody on the same page as me who loved Jesus.

Hard to find. Yeah, hard to find.

Yeah. And you know, I grew up in a little bitty town, little bitty country town and everybody went to church.

Everybody live right though.

Right. But nobody sat around and talked about, you know, reading the Bible or your relationship with the Lord or Let me.

Tell you what God's doing in my life. Nobody.

No meaning I wanted that in somebody.

If I had all those other qualities but I was not a Christian, would you dated me? But I had all those same Ron qualities. That's a hard one.

It is hard. I don't know, I mean, cuz I was at a Christian college, there are.

People that watching us.

I don't know what I would have.

Done that have someone that has all the qualities, but they're, they're not yolked, they're not evilly yolked and they're fake.

I don't know what I would have done then at 18 years old, you know, now absolutely not. And I would counsel anybody who loves the Lord and who really wants to live right and who wants to, you know, pursue the purpose of God for their life. You cannot do that when you are unequally.

I was wondering, you know, like the girl who's like, I found him, you know, he's physically of healing and he treats me with great kindness, he treats me with respect, he's gentle, he's a good provider, he's really. But he's not a Christian. And I've had people come up and ask me that before and it almost like, man, these guys, the one I got, these guys are rare. But he's got this one quality. I'm a Christian.

You got to think outside of just the here and now. You got to think about your future. Okay, One day you're going to have kids. How are you going to raise your kids?

How are you going to raise them?

He's not going to put them to.

Bed and pray with them and that's when they'll.

He's not going to plead the blood.

That'S when they're not good looking no more. When you're fighting over that, I told them, if you're not compatible, the law of attraction will die out.

Yeah, it does.

You get unattractive real quick if you're not compatible.

What were you looking for at 18, 19?

I think I was a little bit different than you. I remember now, you can correct me. I don't know what was going on in your head all the time. You were, to me, free spirited. Found your one and threw caution to the wind and was really kind of bucking the whole world. Your mama and daddy didn't want you with me. And almost like the more they would clamp down, the harder you'd fall. And it was one of those type stories and you just. And I think that was an attractive thing. I'm like, man, this girl is just full of life. I mean, so you had all those qualities that were extremely appealing to me. But I think I was entering that stage probably a little different. You know, when we first. When we first started dating, I was just as attracted to you as you was me, but I was much slower. I was guarded because I had gotten to Christian college the year before. I had never dated a Christian girl in my life. So I got saved and I got radically saved. And I'm like, okay, these girls are.

Going to be different.

I'm going to date a good girl, okay? And I dated two or three girls that I mean to tell you, played games, had stuff going on with four and five guys at one time, thinking she's in love with all of them. I mean, I remember one night I asked this one girl out and she had to be back nine and I thought it was weird. So I had to take her out on a date at like 5, have her back at 9. And so I went over to the gym to shoot some ball with some guys about 9, 15 and saw her driving off with another guy. I mean, she drove, had two dates and one night and I'm like, so I got to the end of my freshman year and you know, and I did this really. I was spiritual. I was like, you know what? I don't think I want to date until I find her. I didn't want. And I've never been a player. I've never date around, date around, date. I've never been a hookup. Let's hook up. I've never been that. When I didn't serve Christ, I was not that. And I did. I kind of like, you know what? I got a lot of growing to do. I got a lot of problems. I got a lot of work on me. That was my first year entering the pastoral curriculum. I changed my major, and here you come. And I was extremely attracted. I'm the one that went and chased you down. You didn't chase me down. I went and found you. And I'm the one that introduced myself to you. I did all that, but I wanted a life partner and I wanted a great marriage, and I didn't want to make a bad decision. And so, I don't know, I think I might have had made you jump through a few more hoops than you made me jump through. And it might not have seemed that slow, but what took you a couple of days probably took me a couple of weeks.

Jump through hoops. Some of the hoops. You had to see my feet.

Yeah, I had to see you in a bathing suit. Remember that? Yes, I had to see you in a bathing suit. You know why I wanted a beautiful woman? I don't mind telling. I'll look right in the camera and tell them I wanted a beautiful woman. And.

And you said you saw was my feet you.

I saw red toes sticking up in white hoes, and I thought them was the cutest feet I've ever seen in my life. And, you know. But I wanted somebody that loved Jesus. I wanted somebody that didn't play games because I had really had. They didn't, like, do me wrong because I wasn't steady with them, but they just. It was a lot going on, and I'm like, nah, I don't want that. And I wanted somebody that wanted to be in ministry. And I think that was the biggest hoop because I lived in that house and I knew what it took. Let me put it this way. I don't want to start crying. I don't know why I'm getting emotional. I also don't. I knew what it took and I knew what it took away. And so, you know, I knew I was going into a life that I fought God on myself and I didn't even want to go into. And whoever I drag into this thing with me is going to have to be special. You got to be able to get backstabbed a thousand times and still love. You got to cry a thousand tears and still smile. You got to go sit in the midst of people who have talked terrible about you and they don't know you know it. I mean, you got to stand on the stage and encourage people while you're totally discouraged yourself. I knew that you didn't come from That I come from that. And I think I wanted to, you know, she's beautiful, she's everything but can she do that? And I think that's why maybe I was a little slow. If you call waiting a few weeks slow. That's all it was, was weeks. Because after a while I threw caution to the wind too. And I'm like, I went home, told mom and daddy, I said, I freaking love this girl. What at 56 do you look for now? And is it different than 18?

I don't think I look for anything. You mean if I was single?

Yeah, I mean, what's important to you about me now?

Oh, important about the same thing.

That you've lived a whole lot of life now that you've raised kids, you.

Take care of yourself physically. I love that you're not an Oompa Loompa.

What about dad?

Bod's couldn't do it. And I'm so grateful that you go to the gym.

Are you trying to be funny right now?

I am, for reals. I'm grateful that you take care of your body. I'm so grateful. And I don't. I think this is just a godly character. That you're kind and that you're gentle. I love that. That brings me great peace. That you're kind, you're gentle, you're not bipolar in your emotions, you're not up and down, you don't scream and yell and you know, it's just, you are the same Ron every single day. I love that you are madly in love with your relationship with God. That makes me feel safe. Even when maybe you don't listen to me or something I'm bringing to you. I know that you'll listen to God and I trust your relationship with God. Me and my friend Shelly were talking the other day. She came and helped take care of me when you had to leave from my surgery. And we were talking about. She said something so funny. She said, you know, our husbands are 56 years old. She said, But I look at other 56 and 57 year old men and I think, God, they look so old. She said, and our husbands are the same age. She was like, could you. She said, is that because we grew.

Old with our things perspective?

We grew old. She said, but just looking at another man in the same age category, she was like, if something happened to our husband. She said, I'd never. She said, because they'd all look so old to me.

That's perspective. Because I look in the mirror myself sometime and go, God, I do I look at it and say, man, Ron, you have. I told you. I said, I feel like I've aged more from 50 to 56 than I did the whole first 50 years put together. I've had to have stuff repaired, stuff worked on. I went 50 something years and my body's never been cut. I've never had a surgery or anything. And I've had like three, you know, and I'm sitting there now wondering what's going on with my right hand, you know, I mean, just so I think for me. Let me tell you what's important for me to be to you. I want you. You said the word safe. I want you to never. I can't imagine the woman who wonders, what's he going to be like when he comes home? Are me and the kids going to have to go get in the room and shut the door? And they live like that every day. Scary, you know, is he going to be faithful to me? Is there a possibility someone else can catch his eye?

Is he going to quit his job again?

You getting up every morning and say, with Ron Carpenter, I will never have to worry about this and this and this and this and that. That is important to me. I don't want it to. I don't want to be anywhere on your mind.

And it's not anywhere.

You know, I'm not going. I'm not going to come home drunk and put my head through a wall and flipping chairs over and cussing everybody. It's never going to happen in Jesus, mighty name is never going. And I'm very, very devoted to my commitments, to you and our vows and everything. And so the fact when you look at me and say that makes me feel safe. I think that's probably one of the things one of my greatest endeavors is. I don't want there to ever be anything in you that wonders what is Ron going to do. Uncertainty or a level of distrust toward me in a certain area. And I do. It is something that I'm intentional about. I don't want you to ever worry about where I'm at. If you call and I don't answer the phone. I don't even want something to come, you know, anywhere in the back of your mind.

You know why? Because I know where you are at all times. And you know where I am right here. We share our location.

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. And we just talked to a couple three weeks ago before your operation. Who? Both of them turn off their locations and won't let their husbands know.

Listen that is.

That.

That is.

That's red flag. Like this.

Yes.

I mean, that ain't a little red flag. That's like wave.

I share my location. You share your location.

It's on there all the time.

Because I want you to always know where I am, what I'm.

If something goes wrong, I'm coming to get you.

Right.

See, but what me and you are talking about is common sense. I'm going to tell you, those are real hurdles in young marriage. Yeah, those are real. And I'm like, why wouldn't you turn the dang locator on so she knows where you are. Right. Okay, well, then where are you going that you don't want her to know about?

Right?

This is not hard. You know, next thing is what I was looking for you then and what I was looking for you now. It has not changed much neither. It has not changed much.

I. I was not at 18, looking for you to have any money.

We didn't care.

We did not care about that, did we? You know, a lot of people, they're like, well, I. I'm not dating a man unless he makes. I just heard.

What's this Instagram thing I saw? That's. This where this guy does a podcast, and he's got six or seven girls in there all the time he's on there. And every one of them, like, five of the seven said, well, if he's not a millionaire, I'm not marrying him.

A millionaire. Do you know the percentage of millionaires in America?

Look, the percentage of guys with a household income of over six figures, right? And I heard them girls sitting there like that. I'm like, you gonna be single till you're 150?

I was. Money had. No. There was not even a checklist for money.

I don't remember us ever having a discussion about it.

No. Because I knew no matter what we went through, God's going to take care of. We were rich if we were poor, if we were on welfare, and we were.

We were.

If we had to hold hands and believe God for money, that we were going to do it together. Because I loved you. I remember telling my parents, I'd rather live in a hut in Haiti with Ron Carpenter than anybody else.

Well, the other guy who they want, didn't want you to break up with, who had a whole lot more money than I did, and that was one of the reasons they were so sore about that. Yeah, but it didn't mean. It didn't mean to you what it meant to everybody else.

Now, at 56 no, you want security. I need you to have something. Because statistically, men die before women.

Well, you just need to know I'm gonna live a long time.

I know you are. Don't make me laugh either. But statistically, men do. Here's the thing. Talking about safety, that makes me feel safe. That I won't be vulnerable as a single woman.

To have to get another man to.

Take care of a man, to just pay bills.

Yep.

I don't want to be with a man just to be able to eat.

No, no. And. And I would probably get permission from heaven to come and mess that all up. Yeah. I would definitely come and involve myself in that.

Involve yourself?

Yep. Like the Bible says, we're a great cloud of witnesses. I don't want the Lord to let me witness that. I wouldn't take that well.

So just going up that life insurance and we just.

Here's the thing. I want to challenge something, especially sometime. We do our podcast on the east coast, sometimes we do it on the West. And culturally, the way people marry are different. West coast, especially Silicon Valley. Career first, then circle back. Let me get my career going, then I'll find somebody to fit into that. Yeah, that can make it work. I want to challenge that. Let me challenge that. Mine was always, let me find somebody who values and wants the same things in life that I want. And let's go build it together. I don't want to build it by myself and come back and find somebody who wants to tag along on that. Everything we have done, everything we built it together. Everything. You had your hands in it. I had my hands in it. You had the things you were good at, I had the things I was good at. And somehow or another, when it was all finished, it had our imprint all over it and we did it together. And I'm going to tell you something. I think that's a lost part of a journey. When you already have something and somebody comes into your life, you'll always wonder, little skeptical, why did they step in? When you came into my life, I wasn't wondering why you were there. I didn't have anything monetary whatsoever or materialistic wise to offer you. And so I certainly wasn't worried about that because you had proven yourself in that. Also something I saw interesting. And we're going to take about five more minutes because we don't do them much longer than a half hour. Something that was interesting. You and I admire Jordan Peterson. Both of us do. I think anybody who's listened to him ever, he makes you feel stupid. If you ever listen to him talk? He's so brilliant and he's a believer. And I heard a short, a YouTube short.

I posted that the other day on my Instagram about starting over.

You know, most people that follow us know our story. We had a calamity. We had a colossal implosion that required going all the way back to A and starting over. What they called 911, ground zero. We've been to ground zero. Don't want it. Didn't wish we had to do it that way. But that was our journey and we embraced it. And then I heard Jordan Peterson say something the other day and I have such mad respect for him and made me feel good. We are, we're a small statistical people that made it through what we made it through. And that's because of our faith in our God. It's not because of me and you. But he said it has been, you know, he's a psychologist, psychotic. It has been his experience. This ain't a Google. He said in his experience, the marriage and the marriages and the relationships that are the most healthy are the ones that had it sometime or another to start over. That is very interesting.

Yeah. The reason I ask you, I value so much.

That's why I asked you what was important in 18 and what's important in 56. Because a lot of times what's important at 18 won't get you to 56.

Because seasons change.

Seasons change. And so.

And you have to be married for the long haul and be willing to go through. I think you explain it sometimes in our marriage conference, like stocks.

Long term investment.

Long term investment.

Long term investment. 401. 401K.

Yeah. You do it, you write it up and you write it down. You write it up and you write. It's kind of like our crypto. We don't look at it, don't get.

Don't get married to it, don't look at it, don't get married to a relational day trader. I didn't say not a day trader. I don't care what they do. A relational day trader is someone that cannot manage the up and downs.

You just don't throw your hands up.

When it's hard the first time. They look at them and they're unattractive. They just get out, they want, I'm not in love with you anymore. I don't feel anything. And they walk away. The fact is you always look at marriage as a 401k. Stocks are up, stocks are down and they're going to rise and they're going to fall. But after 50, 60 years, it was up a lot more than it's down. And look what we have now. And that's what a lot of people look at. They look at somebody who's been married 50, 60 years and they desire what they have. Say, man, I hope I can have something like that. Well, do you know how many times if somebody's been married 55 years, they've said, I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, that you've had to forgive, that you've had to forget, to apologize.

To admit you were wrong, to humble yourself, to bite your tongue. I mean, all the things that you have to do and the hundreds of times that you will do it. But at the end, I will tell you it's worth it. I do believe I'm not saying this because I'm sitting here on a podcast with you. I've never enjoyed life more with you ever, at any point than I do right now.

Same.

And we've had some good times. That's some awful times.

It breaks my heart. There's a lot of relationships, a lot of marriages that are just miserable inside of marriage does hurt my heart. And you know what? It doesn't have to be that way. It really takes a lot of humility to. To give up your right to be right. And I'm going to win. And this is the way it's. Listen, I'm going to. We'll end with this. We'll end with this. I listened to. We have some friends in Texas, Ed and Lisa Young. And they did a marriage series last weekend at their church. Two weekends ago at their church, and they had a ping pong table up on the st. He said, me and Lisa love to play ping pong. He said, but we're going to use it as an, as an analogy. He said, marriage in like ping pong. The goal is to keep the rally going. The goal is to keep the ball going back and forth, back and forth. He said the goal is to keep serving the ball. He said, in any time you get arrogant and try to win, he said, that's a marriage buster. He said, it's like ping pong. He said, the goal in marriage, ping pong in marriage is not to win. It's to keep the rally going. It was so good.

It is good. It is good. But if I was playing you in ping pong, I would want to crush you. Remember, our kids always wanted me to let them win and I wouldn't let them win.

No, you wouldn't. Shannon would throw the checkers.

Chandler threw the whole checkerboard in the air one time because she thought I was going to let her win, and I wouldn't let her win. So she just whispered to me, we got to go. Did y' all see her? She just whispered, why we got to go? Is that broken?

Because our time's up. All right, y'. All. I hope you've learned something today. Hope. It's been good. I hope you're encouraged, and I hope you can take a deep breath and say if you're in a tough spot in your marriage, in your relationship, that, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect to be a good marriage, but you just have to keep the ball going back and forth. You gotta keep working on it. Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw, relevant.

See you guys later.