Speaker 1 00:00:11 Hello and welcome to the Strengthening Your Marriage Podcast with Jeremy and Hailey. Uh, this is episode two. We are titling this Rebuilding Shattered Dreams. But before we get into that, just thought I'd start with a brief recap of the first episode. In that episode, we really opened up and shared our story, uh, with you in our marriage through a season of disillusionment and struggle and how God met us and offered us hope for change. And I guess the key take home from the first episode was if you are in a marriage and you feel stuck right now, uh, reach out for help involve others in your marriage to to strengthen, to help bring perspective and clarity where you are stuck. Uh, because that we found that was actually the turning point for us in our marriage was, was in inviting others in, uh, to help.
Speaker 1 00:01:03 Now in this episode, uh, we're gonna be referring to, uh, Paul Trips resources. We, uh, mentioned that briefly the first episode. So we're talking about he has a recorded live stream available on his website, paul trip.com/store, and it's titled The Marriage of Your Dreams. You can purchase the streaming license for that for 29 99 US dollars. And we've recently worked through that, uh, together and it's touched down on some key things that we found really helpful from his book that we engaged with, uh, when we were in a quite a rough place in our relationship. So I said, we're speaking about rebuilding shattered dreams, and I guess what we're really focusing on is this idea that we need to give up our dream for marriage in order to get something better. And by giving up our dream for, for marriage, it kind of caused us to, to ask the question, are we willing to give up whatever our dream of marriage is? Whatever we've gone into, uh, marriage, uh, imagining that it'll be like imagining what that relationship and that security might bring. And we've gotta be, be willing to give that up as kind of the starting point of moving forward to something richer, something beyond what we had perhaps imagined to start with. And Haley, I thought I'd ask you, uh, thinking back, what, what's that idea meant for you? This need to, to give up your dream of marriage and, and I guess that's gonna involve telling us a bit about what your dream for marriage was.
Speaker 2 00:02:29 Um, yeah. Probably didn't have this clarity going into marriage, but looking back, I think I saw marriage as being something that would kind of affirm my worth, I guess. So it's something that would show that I was worthy of love and that would then enable me to feel good about myself and feel like I had value. And so I think a lot of how I viewed myself as hanging on both, uh, my ability to get into a relationship which would lead to marriage and then also to be in a marriage where, um, I was loved. So a lot of, yeah, how I thought about myself was very much hanging on your opinion on me. So I guess I had a picture of closeness and intimacy and being best friends, um, relating about everything in some ways a picture that is very similar to what God paints in the Bible. But I think, I think the difference for me was that I didn't realize that it was just twisted and skewed in that I wanted those things for myself and for my own glory.
Speaker 1 00:03:35 Your own kind of way of making life work. Yeah. Yeah. Your idea of what would make a meaningful life.
Speaker 2 00:03:42 Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And so that reason was enough to skew things quite dramatically <laugh>, even though what I was pursuing was actually very similar. So in that way, yeah, it was a bit deceptive and hard to put my finger on what was going wrong, leave some time.
Speaker 1 00:03:58 And so what has that meant for you to kind of give up those dreams of marriage?
Speaker 2 00:04:03 I've needed to, I guess, lose some self focus and realize that our marriage isn't primarily about me and what I'm getting from it. That there's something bigger that takes my focus off me a bit like what we were talking about last week that I can fix my eyes on, and that's what I'm about as well. So kind of lifting my eyes off myself and onto Jesus and what his, he's about and kind of got getting caught up and wrapped up in him as being what it's meant to kind of move away from that me focus. Um, and I guess giving up the idea that that marriage is going to affirm me. Yeah. Not thinking about myself, I guess primarily in terms of how you relate to me mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. But being able to see things a bit more objectively and see how I can be helping you. So I guess not just thinking that everything is down to me and about me and whether I'm worthy, but sometimes there are things that are going on in your heart that need to be challenged and I need to help you with. And then also there are things about me that actually are wrong and broken and that's, that's something that I need to come to terms with and be willing to look at, but without that completely crushing me and my sense of who I am, I guess
Speaker 1 00:05:24 This is what having lunch before you're saying that you kind of went into marriage knowing that we could have a skewed perspective. And I, I guess we hear things often in Christian circles that are said like, marriage won't complete you. Perhaps some of that critiquing that Hollywood ideal or put forward of this perfect match. And your life goes from being in taters to being this whole wonderful, rich reality. Most Christians have some awareness of that, and yet there was maybe still some of that that we carried into our marriage, do you think?
Speaker 2 00:05:56 Yeah, I think so. I think we were a bit turned off by people who were keen to be real about the fact that you are two sinners, like two selfish people coming into a marriage. Mm-hmm. And that it can't be that because of that. Like, there are going to be problems, there are going to be difficulties, but it felt a little bit like it was just left there. It's like marriage is gonna be disappointing. You just have to come to terms with it and live with that reality. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I think we were kind of hoping that we'd do better <laugh> Yeah. Knowing that that was That's true. But surely we could make things a bit better <laugh>. Yeah. Surely it could be a bit more satisfying than that. Yeah. Surely there's a better vision for it. Yeah. And I guess having some awareness that does paint a good picture of marriage and a beautiful picture. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I think we didn't quite have our heads around exactly what that
Speaker 1 00:06:46 Yeah. It's probably a good time for me to talk a little bit about what I went into marriage, I guess trying to get, might also be helpful for me to read this quote that comes from portrait study guide. He says, marriage is a beautiful thing that only reaches what God designed it to be through the methodology of a painful process. So it's a rich thing, but kind of getting there experiencing it is difficult. And it, it particularly involves this idea of having our dreams, our distorted views of marriage kind of falling apart, being shattered, and us renouncing them, casting them aside so that we might see actually what God's idea of marriage is. And I think for me, I was in a Christian environment where, particularly in my uni days, being involved in some sort of formal Christian service or activity involved with a church, a lot of emphasis was put on that.
Speaker 1 00:07:39 And so I kind of based my importance on how much of that I was involved with and how much I was doing. And even when I was kind of looking for someone who might be a wife, I was chasing after this ideal of someone who would compliment maybe a perfect image of me, this image that I wanted to be this Christian Guy who was doing all this good stuff and then married to someone else who complimented me and was doing the same kind of stuff. And really, I think a lot of what I was living for was ministry success and, and self glory. And I guess what was common in what Hayley shared and what I've shared is this, this really self-focus of what I wanted to get from the relationship and how it would make my life complete, how it would achieve what I was wanting to get from life.
Speaker 1 00:08:24 And so Haley mentioned the first episode, our honeymoon onwards ended with quite some disappointment, <laugh> and disillusionment. And there, there was a, an extended season, I would say, of pain and us relating in a bit of a dysfunctional way. And we've had conversations about this since. But at the time, I think I was just wanting to busy myself and fill out evenings when we'd get home from work, both working full-time jobs, and I was wanting to busy myself with activity, whether that was some kind of teaching preparation for church overcommitting to, things we're involved in so many commitments early on in our marriage. And I, I think there was this underlying disillusionment and disappointment that I felt maybe a gap between what I pictured marriage to be and what the reality was. And it was hard, as you were saying, you were saying that you wanted to feel like you were worthy.
Speaker 1 00:09:16 Mm-hmm. And so if I voiced anything that said disappointment, you just heard that in a crushing way. And any kind of gap between us just turned into this massive gulf and it felt like, oh, things are, things are really, really rocky <laugh>. I was just trying to be honest and not kind of knowing how to move forward constructively from this state of disillusionment and disappointment. And that, that this kind of caused you to, to further retreat and think, oh, my worst fears of what he's thinking are true <laugh>, I have disappointed him. Yeah. This is a disaster. <laugh>, what have I done? Is that, is that pretty accurate? <laugh>?
Speaker 2 00:09:53 Yeah. Yeah. I guess, yeah. It's my worst fear is that someone, yeah, someone getting to know me properly, rejecting me was like, okay, that confirms what I've always feared. I'm worthy of rejection, not love. Yeah. Yeah. That was really difficult to come at <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:07 So we, we've said though that this idea that we're looking at for this episode is giving up your dream of marriage for something better. We've focused on the, the giving up and, uh, and maybe a little bit of what e each of us has had to give up, but Haley, do you wanna shed a bit of light on the, the something better? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:10:25 I guess, like I was saying before, we, we can sometimes just focus on what we need to give up, but I think we don't have a big enough vision of what God is, um, calling us to. And the more we have our eyes lifted to that, the more it's actually much more exciting and beautiful and rich than what we are after mm-hmm. <affirmative> even in the first place. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. So like I was talking about before, the idea of intimacy and closeness and sharing everything together, being one another and being completely safe with one another, all of that comes through moving away from self-focused desires and listening to God. Mm-hmm. And from that, the character needed for that kind of relationship grows. Yeah. Which is really stunning and beautiful
Speaker 1 00:11:17 <laugh>. Mm-hmm. And so contrary to those people who, you know, might have been role models in our lives who are being very honest about their marriage, I mean, you could kind of get the impression that they would've been better off not marrying if they'd known what they were getting themselves into. You kind of seeing that they're so jaded or maybe so cynical that it was really just a bad idea. But what else do you do in life? It's just, you just gotta accept it as it is what it is. But perhaps maybe not as much modeling, there wasn't as much modeling of that for us, of what is the something better and what does that that look like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, although I think now we would see that your, your parents have that kind of relationship and then the richness and an intimacy there. And so for us, it's been a process of kind of discovering what that something better is. But the pathway is through this disillusionment and, and this giving up of what we were thinking it was about <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:10 And we really needed sight. I think that was a large part of the problem. It's not that people weren't saying it to us mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's that we couldn't see where we weren't doing that. Yeah. And that's where the painful process like revealed to us. I think the difference between what we knew to be, or what we were being told and what we were actually living. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> what, what we were actually functionally putting our hopes in mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:12:35 <affirmative>. And so Hailey, I'm just picking up that idea over lunch. You're saying that you felt that what you needed was to see yourself more objectively mm-hmm. To kind of move forward towards this better picture mm-hmm. Better dream that God has for marriage. You wanna share a bit about that?
Speaker 2 00:12:52 Yeah. So I think the thing that enabled me to be more objective was letting go of the idea that my worth was dependent on other people. And actually you <laugh>. Yeah. Because when, whenever everything was hanging on that I wasn't able to see things clearly, I wasn't able to see myself clearly. I wasn't able to see you clearly. I just couldn't see myself objectively. But as I've let go of that and I guess valued God's opinion more, it's enabled me to go, oh, okay, yes, I can see this ugly stuff in me. God said that that will be there, but he'll help me with it. And I can also look at the situation and go, okay, I'm feeling rejected or hurt or whatever. How much of that is my problem? How much of that is your problem? Other things I need to help you with? And to do that in a gentle and loving way, not in a demanding way that you need to change, because I can't cope with this <laugh>. Mm.
Speaker 1 00:13:47 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And maybe you're sitting, listening there and thinking, oh, that makes a lot of sense to have a more objective perspective. And, and that's why there are psychologists and marriage counselors, and that's, that's where that comes in, is because we can't see ourselves clearly. But I, I guess what we're talking about is not just that, but it's the fact that a relationship is lived out before God. Each moment is lived out before God. And when you know him and what he's on about, it just changes very dramatically. The way you see yourself and the way you see other people says that it's that willingness, I guess, to own fault, to take responsibility for things that we've contributed. And that's not a crushing thing to do. 'cause God in his mercy allows us to be okay with the fact that we are not okay, that we don't have it all together.
Speaker 1 00:14:36 So we, we can see that without it destroying us, we can own it. And then we can move toward the other person in love. We can invite them to speak into the things that we're not seeing clearly about ourselves. And I think that makes it a bit different. Now, there's a tool that I found helpful, one of my counseling lecturers, David Paulson, has developed, and it's based on a passage in the Bible, James chapter four. And it's looking at a kind of a constructive pattern for conflict, and it's helping people view their conflict more objectively. I'll try and make it available so that you can explore that for yourself. But it looks at, when you're in the midst of a conflict, we kind of shoot arrows across at one another. There are ways that we attack one another, and then each of us has our own defensive shields that we put up, ways that we try and protect ourselves from being hurt.
Speaker 1 00:15:22 And it can be really helpful as an exercise to use something like that, to start to see yourself more objectively, to see what's actually going on. What are the words that I'm saying that are forms of attack? What are the patterns of my relating? Am I retreating my stonewalling to protect myself? That's, that's stopping really open communication happening. And when, when we see those kind of patterns, that becomes a way of God kind of breaking through and pinpointing things that have hijacked our hearts desires, that have become things that are ruling us, that are, that are too important to us, ways that we've become self-focused. So I'll put that up, up online if anyone wants to check that out. I think for me, this idea of something better is captured by the idea that we're an instrument of grace in one another's lives. That just gives me profoundly richer way of relating with Haley than trying to get from her. That I am her servant seeking to join what God is doing already in her, in shaping her character and growing her so that she would love him more and love others more, and become more this flourishing person that he's designing for her. I'm caught up in that, and that is just such a rich thing to be part of. And at the same time, I'm open for the ways that she's helping me move in that same direction that God is calling us too. It, it is really a beautiful picture, isn't it?
Speaker 2 00:16:42 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:16:44 So I guess, what does it mean for us day to day to continue to give up our dreams? So it's, it's not just a one and done thing, but it's an ongoing process. Haley, do you have any thoughts on that? What does that mean for you at the moment in our marriage? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:16:59 I guess we were talking earlier about times where the day doesn't turn out the way we'd hoped it would. Or when we see things in each other that we don't like, or when we're disappointed by the other, I guess for me, I feel the pool sometimes to get frustrated by those things or to try and manipulate or to allow those things to impact the way I think about myself and my worth. Yeah. So if you do something that's hurtful to me, or say something critical or things like that, I need to pull myself up when I start feeling crushed by that and go, hold on. What's going on? What's actually going on here? What's a play? Mm-hmm. Is this something going on with you that I need to help you with? Mm-hmm. Is it something that's, that I need to look at in myself and remember that this is not about me, this is about God and what he's doing and his agenda for us to be freed from this destructive force of selfishness. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that he's freeing us and making us flourish. Like he said, that's what this is about in this moment. Yeah. Remind myself and then, yeah, my response comes from that rather than the path I naturally go down. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:18:12 I guess it's really easy that, that self-focused, it dies hard <laugh>. Yeah. It's not something that's dealt with in one, one blow and that's put to death, but it's an ongoing perspective that we need to wrestle with and, and pull into line with what God's on about. I think for me, it's probably things like goals for an evening, and I tend to want to have the kids in bed by a certain time and look forward to some something that I've imagined my picture of what the evening together's going to be like. Whether that's watching something to unwind, uh, whether that's, you know, connecting over a hot drink, uh, whether that's even something that I, I just wanna do on my own. But that getting disrupted, be it by the kids blocking that goal. Amber, a baby being sick and needing attention, being an unexpected phone call being had a really that rough day and she's wanting to talk about things that I don't, I'm not in a mood to talk about <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:19:09 It's, it's that self focus again, I've, I've got my ideal that I'm chasing after, and it's in that moment learning to let that desire go. And in that moment to be flexible to what God's good thing is that he has for me in that moment. That might be any number of those things that come up. It might be needing to preference Hailey and hearing her just vent about something that's happened that day with the kids. And that's the response that God's calling is for me to, to be those listening ears for her in that moment. And that can be costly. And yet that bigger picture, it's such a, a better picture for marriage than me having everything my way headed towards where I want to take it, which doesn't change me. <laugh> just reinforces me in my destructive patterns, my selfish patterns that are anti-social, that are not good for those around me.
Speaker 1 00:20:01 So I guess as you think about what this means for you, I guess I've got a question I want you to ask that personally, both you and and your partner, what would it look like for you to give up your dream of marriage? I guess that requires sitting down and, and nutting it out, but what is it that you've gone into marriage hoping to expect? And maybe where are the points where you are feeling disappointed or disillusioned that things aren't what you imagined they would be? That's kind of the key, I think, to being able to give up what you are hoping to get in order to have something better rebuilt, to be receptive to what God might have in store for you and your marriage. If you're in a tough place right now and you, and you do feel like you need further help, I'm employed as a pastoral counselor with our church, the Joshua Tree at Petersham and also at Ashfield, a bit of a shared resource between the two churches and done some thinking about this stuff. And so you can see that, that we are wrestling with it firsthand. I've also done the Preparing Rich Secular Marriage tool that has a comprehensive survey that both partners can complete to kind of determine areas of strength and areas of weakness that require work and can be a bit of a, a tool for focusing how to move forward together. If, if that's something that you think you'd like to take up, look, I'm available. Feel free to get in touch. My email is
[email protected] au. Okay. Thanks everyone for listening.
