Becoming Stronger and More Connected In Marriage

People would laugh at us politely.

“Oh wow! Good for you. Wish you guys the best!”

Twitter (now X) is not known for being a dating platform, but that’s where I met my sweet Burris. Complete strangers, I sent him a tweet on June 17, 2009 and found myself reciting marriage vows in front of family August 2, 2009.

That’s 47 days from tweet to altar.

Danielle wasn’t the only one confused. Most of my friends knew I was fresh off a break up with someone I was living with for nearly 5 years.

What can I say? Things can happen fast.

As we get further and further away from our starting place, the more we realize how much work it takes to stay on the same page in marriage.

We came dangerously close to divorce.

Immaturity, stubbornness, selfishness, and cycles of shame made us feel miles apart while standing shoulder to shoulder.

Reflecting on 15 years and a treasure trove of memories, there are lessons we learned the hard way that I believe will bless and encourage couples reading this who feel distant and want more out from marriage.

We have been here many times – and have come back stronger and more connected each time.

This Blog In A Nutshell

• Couples need a mission/vision
• Healing your sexual history, together
• Praying together is more intimate than sex
• Calling each other up
• Kids are not a problem, they reveal problems

Couples Need A Mission/Vision

Where are we going? What are we doing? What’s the point?

I have experienced a lot of frustration as a godly wife, but mostly when my husband is without a quest. Or he is on a quest that he hates.

Submission is supposed to be FUN.

My longing is to come alongside my husband who is on a mission and we have a vision we agree on. I am not a theology expert by any means, but when I hear grumbling and high negative emotions from wives unwilling to submit to their husband, it signals to me that the couple hasn’t designed a mission they agree on.

Women want to help. This desire is hardwired into our design.

But we don’t want to help a man who is aloof, checked out and double minded.

When we were first married, there was a period of time when my husband was learning how to harness the weight of providing for our family. No matter how gentle a wife’s correction, it is a big transition to go from single guy who thinks he’s pretty awesome to realizing how not awesome he is.

Same goes for us wives.

I remember telling God how I was ready to be a patient and kind wife. How I would be his biggest cheerleader!

lol. no. Turns out I was too eager to sharpen his iron.

The best thing we ever learned to do is to have a vision/mission (with lots of quests to conquer along the way).

Yes, it takes work to formulate a vision and mission, but when two people decide on their mission and vision together– and design a plan together–then the work of doing the next right thing is easy.

Most couples don’t pray together because they don’t know what to pray for.

They don’t know what they are doing, so they feel stuck in their circumstances and just start living day to day. The problem with that is days and years go faster and faster. It’s easy to coast for a decade and wonder how you ended up here.

How do you decide a vision/mission?

While I could write an entire blog post on this alone, in a nutshell I would tell you – you two get to design your life. If you are dissatisfied with your current circumstances – then you are ripe for a fresh vision.

Look around at other couples who are living the life you would like to live – and ask them how they got there.

Your mission will be to get to that place – through prayer, grit, and determination – You both commit and get to work.

Marriage works soooooooooo much better when a couple agrees to a mission and gets to work.

It’s BEAUTIFUL.

Heal Your Sexual History, Together

The first 5 years of my marriage was terrible in the bedroom.

Not that it was physically miserable, I like sex, but it was riddled with distasteful past experiences.

I became a Christian at age 25 and when I said yes to following Jesus, I was bringing with me a history of watching porn, drinking, doing recreational drugs and sleeping with whatever man I was shacked up with in a monogamous relationship.

When I came to Christ, I was completely filled with new desires to do things the right way (a sign of true conversion!), so when I met my husband of course I wanted to give myself to him sexually after the wedding.

Our wedding night was terrible for me.

I was completely sober, naked and ashamed.

I remember telling my husband, “I’m normally way better than that. I’m sorry.”

My husband, on the other hand, grew up in the church of assemblies of God. They are known for being zealous for the Spirit of the Lord. He wanted to follow Jesus, and he also wanted to follow his pants. A self-proclaimed charmer, he knew how to play church – and play the ladies.

I knew he had been married before (which is another story in itself), but I had no idea the scrolls of sexual experiences he had hiding in his past as a double minded, christian-in-name-only, kind of man.

Yeah. For real. We were a MESS.

But here comes the good part.

When my husband was caught investing in a thrilling side relationship with another woman – our marriage died and was ripe for transformation.

We hired the best Christian marriage coaches and followed their program to a T. (hire them!)

They created a safe place for us to unpack all of our sexual past and today I can tell you….

We really really really really like each other today.

There’s no unholy desires in our bedroom anymore. I want my husband, he wants me and we are very committed to keeping the foxes (temptations, porn, communications with the opposite sex) out of our vineyard.

He worked really hard to create a safe place for me to be beautiful and fruitful.

15 years in, I am so thankful for our hard work and awkward conversations.

Hire the help – heal your sexual history together – it’s WORTH IT.

If I could go back – I would have signed up for our counselors right after the wedding night, instead of 5 years later. We could have had this much sooner and had less heartache.

Praying Together is More Intimate Than Sex

“I wish you would pray with me. I feel like you don’t want to,” I said to him.

If you are longing for your husband to pray with you, I know how that feels.

When my husband was playing church, but far from God, praying together was non existent.

We would pray at dinner, with the kids, with small group – talking to God was easy as long as it wasn’t just my husband and me.

In all these 15 years of marriage, I can tell you that praying together is more intimate than having sex. I think we were avoiding prayer together because we were unwilling to confess all the ways we were sinning against one another.

If it feels weirder to pray together than sleep together – you’re not alone.

It is supposed to feel this way. It’s intimate and you can’t hide from God – or lie to him together. lol.

I spent a lot of time wondering why it was so hard to pray together as a couple – and now I know why. It’s intimate. And so, so good.

If you are in a dry spell of praying together – pray about your vision (what’s next) and your sex life. These all go hand in hand.

A couple with a vision/mission/healing sexual history have plenty to pray about.

Calling Each Other Up

I have disrespectfully called out my husband so many times.

It feels really good….except it doesn’t.

Some people might hear our marriage story and assume I am really good wife, but really, I am a wife in process.

His commitment to becoming a man of integrity has quite literally changed the way I operate as a wife today.

It’s not easy to “call out” a man who is actually trying.

These days I find myself calling him up.

When I see him behaving in old ways, instead of panicking and believing he is up to something terrible, I will instead think…“wow. That’s really unlike him.”

This thought has made me stronger and makes us more connected.

It’s really hard to love someone if you think they are trying to hurt you or make your life miserable on purpose.

Looking back over 15 years of marriage, I can easily say that when two people are trying, you will know.

They will call one another up, instead of out.

Kids Are Not a Problem, They Reveal Problems

Anyone here a Super Nanny fan?

Super Nanny is a woman named Jo who is a modern day miracle worker for families who are struggling with unruly and, oftentimes, sad children.

One of her reels popped up in my feed the other day (of course I didn’t save it and it disappeared into the abyss of IG so I can’t find it to tag here), and she said when it comes to correcting behavior in the children, she works with the COUPLE.

I can’t quote her verbatim, but in a nutshell she said that children express feelings of uncertainty through bad behavior and it’s in direct correlation to the couple’s relationship. If two parents are solid, stable, committed and on mission…children will thrive and correction is tolerable under the strength of parents.

When you are on the same page with your spouse – the children will push back very differently than a couple who aren’t.

I can tell you from experience, our kids KNOW when we are shaky. They sense it.

When we are ok – they are ok.

When we are living in integrity – they are safe to misbehave and be corrected under healthy authority.

When we are lazy – they will leverage it.

When we are off course – the house will be falling apart in unwanted behavior – giving us an opportunity to realign and get back on course.

I grew up with parents who had parents that were not the greatest at offering hope and presence, which means I was raised with a lack of hope and presence.

Hope and presence require two people who are committed to the mission of keeping our hopes up – choosing to be present for one another – with the understanding that this is how you change a generation.

The kids are often not what cause problems in marriage – but reveal our need to be in alignment with one another in order to come up with good solutions.

In Conclusion

Marriage is hard – whether you work at it, or you choose not to.

After 15 years, I still make a list of all the things I wish my husband would do better…

and then commit to doing the list for myself, first.

With the help of the Lord.

Marriage is beautiful and operates in seasons –

Summer (light and fun and great)

Fall (fruitful with slow hard work and harvest)

Winter (looks dead and feels cold)

Spring (signs of new life and growth that provokes hope)

In each season, let us commit to casting vision, being on mission, and trusting God to do only what He can do – ANYTHING is possible.

The Holy Spirit will lead you to the next right move – trust Him.