Intimate Covenant Podcast

St. Louis Q&A: kingdom purpose; healing from betrayal; resetting your relationship [146]

• Intimate Covenant -- Matt & Jenn Schmidt • Episode 146

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In this episode Matt & Jenn share another live Q&A session - this time from a recent Marriage Day in Saint Louis. We respond to the following questions:

  • What are some examples of a kingdom-purpose for a marriage?
     What’s a good way to come up with a vision/purpose?
  • How to heal your sex life and trust after sexual immorality (eg porn, lust)
  • How do I move past my spouses past sexual experiences with others before our marriage?
  • Would you give an example of how to “reset” if we’ve become distant/feel alone/another reason?


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  Cherishing,
  Matt & Jenn

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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt

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Speaker 1:

Hey, Jen want to talk about Kingdom Purpose in your marriage.

Speaker 2:

Uh, no, your Highness, Great.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about Kingdom Purpose for your marriage and sharing a few other segments from our recent Q&A session in St Louis. Let's do it Music. Welcome to the Intimate Covenant podcast, where we believe the Bible and Great Married Sex both belong on your kitchen table. That's right. We're talking about holy covenant bound intimate relationships with hot sex.

Speaker 2:

We're Matt and Jen, founders of Intimate Covenant. We offer biblical teaching and resources to help married couples achieve a fuller relationship and an extraordinary sex life. For more information, visit our website, IntimateCovenantcom.

Speaker 1:

Welcome, friends.

Speaker 2:

Welcome.

Speaker 1:

So good to have you again with us. The Intimate Covenant podcast.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Here we are again and, Matt, we are in full countdown mode.

Speaker 1:

Yes, T-minus less than three weeks.

Speaker 2:

Exactly we are counting down to our annual marriage retreat, as you probably all know.

Speaker 1:

Our favorite weekend of the year.

Speaker 2:

That's right, and we are excited to announce that we are officially sold out.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well done.

Speaker 2:

This year we were able to take 50 couples, actually a little over 50. Yes, and so we are just going to have a phenomenal weekend with those 50 couples, and so excited I'm repping my Holy Ghost Stories t-shirt today for all of our YouTube followers and watchers, because Justin Gerhardt is coming on Thursday night and that is just going to be amazing. I'm excited for that.

Speaker 1:

I don't know about the whole rest of the retreat Truly.

Speaker 2:

But that, I know, is going to be fantastic.

Speaker 1:

I think that probably has a little bit to do with why we sold out so quickly this year. I'm going to go with yes, but nevertheless, we are very excited even about the theme. We're talking about Covenant stories, lessons from married couples of the Bible and we have some very, I think, informative but also fun engagement activities for the couples.

Speaker 2:

Don't give it away, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, just say things are going to be a little bit different than how we've done the retreat in the past and I think, different in a good and fun way, but also productive way. Right.

Speaker 2:

I think one of our favorite things has been that every year each retreat is different. When writing new material every single year for the retreat at least so far for year number six we might eventually recycle, but who knows. But I just love the direction that each year takes and I say it every time, but I'm pretty sure this year will actually be my favorite.

Speaker 1:

It gets better every year and part of that is because so many of you join us and we get to meet and spend some time with you Almost every year. We have half the folks who have been there before and half the folks who have never been before.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, lots of couples use it as a oh, we would never miss it, and some couples are using it as you know. We're going to go every other year or something along those lines and we love that.

Speaker 1:

That makes it fun for us? Yes, for sure. So we get to meet a lot of new folks.

Speaker 2:

So if you are not one of our lucky couples to be coming this year, you're just going to have to go ahead and put it on your calendar for next September. We'll release the actual dates for that here after our retreat is over, but we'll be doing it again next year.

Speaker 1:

Yes, for sure, I have committed For sure. Yeah, well, we committed with the venue.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

We signed a contract, so we're good yeah so look for that around February for the registration for next year's retreat.

Speaker 2:

That's right. So we just got back. I think I feel like this month has been a little bit of a time warp so far.

Speaker 1:

Truly.

Speaker 2:

August. I'm not sure what happened to Right, but somewhere in the end of August, not that long ago, we were out in St Louis. Yes, we had a great time there.

Speaker 2:

We got to check another national park off of our travel list yes, Now, we had officially been to the Gateway Arch before, but it was 25 years ago before it was a national park, and so we felt a little guilty counting that as a national park we had visited because, you know, you got to have the actual picture in front of the national park sign and we have that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, as far as national parks go, it's not like most.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we can check it off the list. All of downtown St Louis Not very big, smallest national park, but it is a monument that you know. You probably should say you've seen in your life.

Speaker 1:

It's an incredible structure. Yes, Very, very cool.

Speaker 2:

Incredible is one word for it. I learned that I am much happier scaling along a rock wall. Glacier National Park I'm repping my glacier hat as well.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, you should see this on YouTube.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm decked out. I'm really dressed up today for this recording. No, I learned that I was much happier and less afraid walking along the Highline Trail, hiking that. I mean, you're literally on the cliff, face this itty-bitty trail with a rope that you probably, wisely, should hang onto, and I did not. My mother-in-law pointed that out to me in the pictures.

Speaker 1:

Why weren't?

Speaker 2:

you holding the rope. You were happier during that than going up that ridiculous egg-like elevator in Gateway Arch.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of like crawling inside of a side loading washing machine.

Speaker 2:

It was horrendous.

Speaker 1:

It's very small.

Speaker 2:

I will not. I did it 25 years ago when our oldest was a baby. I thought that my panic attack then was mostly just based around, you know, being a new mother and having a little baby in there. And about halfway up this time, 25 years later, I looked at Matt and said guess what that panic attack was all me had nothing to do with that baby. I will not be doing that again.

Speaker 1:

It is a pretty incredible view from the top though. Yeah, you get to see downtown St Louis from 630 some feet up in there.

Speaker 2:

It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

You know, pretty neat view, pretty unique experience. But yeah, it was interesting. We have checkmarked that one and I will be staying on the ground. Yeah, worth it. We can check it off. Maybe never do it again.

Speaker 2:

But actually that wasn't the highlight, truly, of our time there. Even though we keep talking about this, someone told us recently we should do a national park podcast.

Speaker 1:

It's like no we're not going there.

Speaker 2:

We are passionate about that. We're more passionate about meeting with married couples and even singles, and so our time out in St Louis was obviously mostly built around that. Friday night we had our singles event and we had over 20 singles come out for that and they were of all ages and some had even traveled like from other states to come.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like quite a distance away.

Speaker 2:

That was so cool. We enjoyed getting to meet all those singles and spend the evening with them talking about holy sexuality and purposeful dating and just yes, kingdom purpose.

Speaker 1:

Kingdom purpose as a single and being a single person. It was a very good discussions and we always learn something when we are with that group of people, just because it's not a perspective that we've thought about for a while, and so always learning and hopefully sharing some valuable insight with them and maybe helping to improve their journey and improve their purpose and improve their perspective.

Speaker 2:

And improve the conversation that we have with singles and hearing from them. I mean without fail. We ask single groups have you felt like you've been in a relationship and treated as less than within the church because you are not married? And without fail, the answer we get back is yeah. Overwhelmingly yes and so I think it has I know it has greatly helped us in our journey to really support the singles that we know and to help see the value in the kingdom that they hold For sure.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, it was a great conversation. And then Saturday we got to spend the day having the marriage day there in St Louis with over 30 couples, a packed room.

Speaker 1:

Packed house. It was amazing. The venue was full, but comfortably full, and met so many new people, great people Again, just like with the singles, several couples had traveled from quite a distance and even got to reunite with some folks that we did not expect to see there but were very happy to see some old friends there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, see, some sweet couple. That's our kids age. Our daughter grew up with her and her siblings and they walk as a married couple and got to see them on Sunday holding their baby and I was like, oh, we're so old.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely made us feel old, but also very refreshing as well. Yes, truly.

Speaker 2:

Shout out to them.

Speaker 1:

You know who you are. So met so many new friends, made some great connections and really a beneficial, rewarding trip for us, particularly in light of some of the other tragic things that have kind of been happening with our own church family. Yeah, it's been really heavy for us.

Speaker 2:

Our church family has had a significant loss again and in our physical family our daughters in law family has also had a significant loss and that has been very heavy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's been challenging, but it was very refreshing to spend that time in St Louis. So, to all of you who joined us there, we are so grateful for that time, so grateful to have been able to meet with you and spend the time with you and be with you and share that time with you. It was quite a bright refreshment in the face of some of the other things that we have been dealing with.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to spend the rest of the time we're going to share a few of the questions we answered. I think I counted eight or ten questions in that Q&A session. We're not going to share all those today because that would make for a very long episode, but we do want to share some of those questions and again, this group, very much like many of the other groups, asked some really pointed and thoughtful questions and hopefully our responses live up to the quality of the questions that were asked. Specifically, one of the primary themes of the material that we presented was about creating and building a kingdom purpose for your marriage. So you'll see some of the questions at the beginning of what we're sharing will have to do with that question and hopefully again we can provide some practical advice on doing so.

Speaker 1:

But then other questions about healing and moving past, betrayal and immorality, some questions about dealing with your spouse's past sexual experiences and just kind of healing in general. So I kind of grouped those questions together and that's what we're going to be sharing for the rest of the podcast episode today. If you have a question or even if you just have feedback on our responses to these questions, we would certainly love to hear from you and to get your input, your comments, your feedback. You can reach us at the email podcast at intimatecovenantcom or you can do so anonymously through our website, intimatecovenantcom slash podcast, if you click the button at the top of the page that says contact the podcast. That is a way to submit anonymous feedback. Whether that is a question or a comment or whatever might be, you can do so anonymously through that avenue.

Speaker 2:

That's right, and you know, matt, before we get to those questions, there are questions that we can't answer.

Speaker 1:

Oh really.

Speaker 2:

Especially of the financial concern. We have learned we are not the people to answer those questions.

Speaker 1:

You definitely don't want our advice on financial advice, but we're learning, we're learning.

Speaker 2:

That is why we use and recommend Open Door Financial Advisors. You can contact them at opendoorfacom, specifically Derek Finley. We love him and love all that we're learning from him. He's great at answering questions, right.

Speaker 1:

Derek is our answer to those questions and that's the answer we would give you if you asked us for financial advice. Open Door Financial Advisors helps clients solve their financial problems their current financial problems and also helps to build a future with setting up financial plans that help prevent problems in the future, Whether that's things like cash flow, whether that's things like paying off debt, figuring out where to save, how to save, how to invest anything else that money touches in your life. That's what they are there for to help guide you through that process, but, most importantly, doing all of that with an eye toward an eternal destination. So get in touch with the Open Door Financial Advisors, opendoorfacom, where finances meet faith and family.

Speaker 2:

And now to our questions.

Speaker 1:

What are some examples of a kingdom purpose for a marriage? What is a good way to come up with a vision or purpose? What are some good examples of those? I know those at least. Can you provide an example of specific purposes worth finding? I think there's probably even some more about that. Those are good questions and fair questions, especially given the content. And going back to our first presentation, or even the second presentation this morning we talked about the purpose. The overarching purpose in your marriage is to glorify God and to enhance the glory of your spouse. That is the overarching purpose. What I think where these questions are coming from is what does that look like? I appreciate the asking the questions like what are some practical examples of that, because none of it really is helpful unless it changes what I'm doing tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

For us, we found kingdom purpose in trying to help mentor other married couples. That's branched out into a lot of other realms. We found and we have devoted a significant part of our quote free time to trying to make that happen in a more formal way. With events like this and with the podcast and the retreat and all the other things, we've also tried to make that a focus and purpose in our everyday lives and our everyday interactions with people that we encounter in our community and especially in our church family. Having that specific focus allows us to see all of the opportunities that we have in our life and filter that through the lens of is this opportunity going to help further that purpose or is that a distraction? Or, at the very least, can we juggle both of these things? But it also helps us see every opportunity that we have with someone else as an opportunity to shine a light, to perhaps even offer hope for their own circumstances, or even just to be a guide and to build a relationship for the purpose of helping them to shine their light and for them to shine their influence. So I don't know what that looks like for everybody else. Again, we're not encouraging you all that everybody has to start their own podcast and everybody has to do what we're doing. That's going to look different for everybody in every circumstance.

Speaker 1:

But here's the question that I want you to wrestle with why is the kingdom of God better because we're married? What can we accomplish? How can we leverage our marriage to further the kingdom? It's great if one or both of you is involved in your own individual spiritual pursuits and that's important and I wouldn't take anything away from that. But then why did you get married? What purpose does your marriage serve in the kingdom, other than just it's a place for you to sleep at night? Why is the kingdom better because we're married? That's not an easy question always to answer and I don't think I really ever. I know I never wrestled with that question until the last few years of our marriage. But changing that perspective really changed everything. It changed the direction of our marriage. It provided all of that purpose which then provides the clarity and the unity and the victory and all of the rest.

Speaker 2:

It may be that you need to recognize what power is there in some of our story and Matt and I are getting ready to. We're preparing for this year's marriage retreat. This year our theme is covenant stories and we're looking at biblical married couples and their real life stories and how those stories impacted God's big story, how they were a part of that. How should those stories be impacting our story and what story is our marriage telling? You each have unique circumstances to your stories. Your stories might involve some real and significant pain. For those of you who know about our story, we have a story of a lot of brokenness. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood by an extended family member. We entered into marriage in a very broken place and I never could have seen how God would use my story of deep pain for His glory. But somewhere along the way I chose to stop suffering in the silence of my pain, to seek the healing that I deserved, to tear down those walls between us that I had built, to protect myself, to recognize that I had an ally to fight this battle with me, and then we even took the step of getting brave enough to share that. If I could go back and tell that young girl that there's glory ahead, that that story of pain. I would wipe it away in a heartbeat, and yet God has chosen to use that story to be a light to so many who have suffered in a similar pain and never, ever ever would have predicted that God would do that.

Speaker 2:

You each have stories. There are so many stories that we hear of not just traumas, but incredible victories. How can you use your story to be a powerful force within the kingdom? Isn't that what this is all about? That's exactly what His plan is. He wrote an entire book full of not dos and don'ts, but a book full of stories, because there is power in the everyday living and the everyday choices, and those choices are for good and there's choices that we make for bad. But if we let Him be the author of our story, then he shines through that. He shines through those brokenness. He doesn't do it by wiping it all away. He does it instead by showing His glory through that. So look at your marriage, look at your individual story, look at the story that your marriage is telling and to ask how can we use this story to define our purpose and to share our purpose?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you don't have to tell your story to the whole world.

Speaker 2:

You don't.

Speaker 1:

But there's some Too late for you. You don't have to share your story with the whole world, but there is somebody. There is somebody that you can touch and you have individually. You do have. You don't have to tell your story to the whole world, but you do have individually and as is a couple, gifts that you've been given that can make a tremendous difference in someone else's life.

Speaker 1:

I believe that I can see, that I feel that with all of you, you can make a difference in God's kingdom, and that's what we would encourage you to do.

Speaker 2:

How to heal your sex life and trust after sexual immorality like porn or lust.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Infidelity and betrayal, whatever that looks like, whether that is a full-blown sexual affair or whether that is an emotional affair, or whether that is betrayal through pornography or betrayal through other means of infidelity, that obviously creates and presents barriers in that relationship. And even sexual betrayals don't just cause sexual difficulties. Sexual betrayals result in barriers emotionally, spiritually, mentally and sexually, and the same is true in every other sense. Emotional betrayal doesn't just result in emotional challenges. It results in challenges throughout the relationship, because these realms of intimacy are all interwoven and interconnected and you can't cut off your arm and not feel that in the rest of your body, right?

Speaker 2:

Well, and I found the question that goes with that because it says I want to give myself vulnerable sexually, but there's so much emotional past hurt. How do I get over this fear? These are the two questions that really go together.

Speaker 1:

Good. And again it points out the fact that if I betray my spouse in some sense, if I wound them in some sense, that affects every other aspect of my relationship with them I can't just say anything I want and then still expect them to be responsive to me in other ways.

Speaker 1:

I can't behave any way that I want and expect that they're just going to fall in line and everything else will be fine and we'll just take our sex lives and put that in a box and it'll slide under the bed and we can just pull that out later. It is all of. It is impacted. So how do I heal? Well, unfortunately, the path to healing in and I say that unfortunately, tongue in cheek, but the path to healing often requires putting myself in a position where I might get wounded again. I cannot expect to heal if I'm not willing to put myself back in that position again. And that's scary. If my spouse has proven to be untrustworthy emotionally, sexually, whatever it might be, if they've proven to be untrustworthy, that requires a tremendous amount of faith to put myself back in a position of being wounded again. But let me tell you, you can never heal if you don't ever reach out again. The relationship can never heal if you close yourself off. You'll never find the joy of healing if you pull yourself away. So sometimes that's a little bit of a risk reward.

Speaker 1:

Certainly it would be helpful if your spouse who wounded you has demonstrated repentance and has demonstrated that they are willing to be trustworthy again, that they're able to be trustworthy again, that they want to do better, that they want those things, and I pray that whoever asks these questions, if you've been wounded, I pray that your spouse is willing to see how they've wounded you.

Speaker 1:

They're willing to actually do something to move in a positive direction. But that's not always the case and I acknowledge that. But, like we talked about before, true change in the relationship is going to require both of you to buy into that. It's going to require one of you to be fully repentant maybe both of you repentant for accepting your role in how all this came to be. Just because one of you had the code of fair doesn't mean that the other one is not guilty, at least in terms of how they might have behaved. That precipitated, how the relationship unraveled. But both of you accepting what you're willing to do, both of you coming to the relationship again with a state of forgiveness and a state of repentance that's where it has to start and both of you then being willing to put yourself in a position, maybe, to be heard again.

Speaker 2:

I think these are both questions where it's probably very important to involve a trusted mentor or a counselor. There is so much help in having that third party to help you navigate these tough, tough issues like overcoming the betrayal of porn or overcoming some severe emotional past hurt. We are huge proponents of seeking professional counseling. Today, it is very easy to find professional counselors that have the same mindset as you. Seek out a Christian professional counselor or a faith based, because they're going to be coming at this probably from the same standpoint as you as far as the role that God plays within your marriage.

Speaker 1:

A trusted mentor does not mean calling your mom or your best friend, Because they're just going to tell you exactly what you want to hear how you're alright and your spouse is all wrong. And find someone who's willing to tell you the truth about yourself and your behavior, willing to call you out and hold you accountable.

Speaker 2:

There's likely some hard conversations that need to be had, and sometimes you need a third party to help guide those conversations. So don't be afraid to seek the professional counseling, and it may be that you've not even fully shared with your spouse how their betrayal or past hurt has affected you. That might be where you need to first start. You can't move past something that you've never even fully faced and acknowledged together as a couple.

Speaker 1:

Those are hard conversations and one sign that professional counseling would be helpful is if you keep having the same conversation and the same fight about the same thing that happened. If you're having trouble getting past that point, it's probably a sign that neither of you is really fully able to see the whole situation more clearly, and that's where professional counselor can really help. Again, they're not going to necessarily solve all your problems, and just because you do counseling doesn't mean that everything's going to get fixed. But that's, I think, a really sometimes important step is to have somebody there who's able to see the whole picture, and really their job is just to simply hold up a mirror and say this is what you look like, this is what your relationship looks like. Now, what are some steps that we can do to maybe change the course of that?

Speaker 2:

And lastly I think that is an important place that you need to land is how can we co-create something new together? The only way you're going to move into a place where you're not experiencing fear of being vulnerable together, you're not experiencing the pain together, is if you are willing to co-create together new things and new meanings. And so there has to be a willingness on both of your parts the forgiveness, but also the desire to start something new together.

Speaker 1:

And let me also add, I mean co-creating and maybe even recreating a relationship after betrayal, especially after really substantial and significant betrayal, is not something that happens overnight. It certainly doesn't even happen at a weekend like this. It's something that happens piece by piece, and so that's where if you, in many cases especially if you have a spouse who has done something terrible, but they are truly repentant they truly want to make it better, but you just have a hard time getting past it. Sometimes, starting very small and giving your spouse an opportunity to demonstrate their trustworthiness is where it has to start and looking for places where they are trying to serve and trying to help you.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we just overlook the fact that we get caught up in the fact that they betrayed me. They made me feel terrible, they made me feel useless, they made me feel rejected, and yet we overlook the fact that you know what? They've come home to me from work every day. They chose to come home to this house where I live. They've gone to work. They've supported me in this way. They've taken care of the kids for me every day. They've prepared these meals. They've done this for me around the house. We lose sight of all of those things that they are doing that do demonstrate that they probably are not completely worthless. So dwelling, then, and refocusing our attitude towards gratitude will sometimes change the whole perspective. How do I move past my spouse's past sexual experiences with others before our marriage?

Speaker 1:

This is, unfortunately, probably a bigger issue than most would like to admit, but I would suggest to you that this is probably a circumstance that might be relevant at least in some way for all of us, and I would say that there are probably some of you out there that would like to be able to learn how to move past even just poor sexual experiences, even in your own marriage, in the past of your own marriage, and some of this even probably ties into the question that we talked about with betrayal and even pornography. I think the answer, though, is just like moving past anything else in your relationship, and certainly even though you aren't even married yet, you might not even have known each other yet. To know that your spouse has a sexual history with someone else feels like a betrayal, and it is, and it should feel that way, but, that said, it's not impossible to move past. I think one of the important keys in moving past any kind of betrayal is learning to co-create something new. Create something new.

Speaker 1:

This is exactly how we move past the betrayal that we have betrayed against God and Christ is by creating something new. Isn't that what we talk about? New life and being new in Christ and renewing our minds? That's all the same thing. But we create something new, we bury the past and that means every remnant of any kind of disloyalty and betrayal gets buried, dead, made to be dead and buried, and we build something new together. And if you approach that kind of renewal with the kind of passion that comes from learning one another and connecting with one another and being one with one another, and you co-create a new sexual relationship that can quickly begin to overshadow anything that was in the past, and when you learn and when you see, and when you give your spouse opportunity to continue to be faithful, when you give your spouse opportunity to be trustworthy, and when you continually see and you make it this sacred ritual of reconnection, you will build something that is much bigger than anything that was in the past.

Speaker 1:

That's not always easy. That doesn't again. That doesn't happen overnight, but that happens when you both invest in each other and when you both invest in making something that is new and fresh and fulfilling. Would you give an example of how to reset if we've become?

Speaker 2:

distant, feel alone. Another reason so this kind of kind of goes with what we were ending there with is just sometimes you're going to come to places in your relationship where you recognize a reset is needed. It is super easy to get caught in the cycle of just continual relationship. It's super easy to get caught in the cycle of just continually living in the past hurts. So how do you push that reset button? How do you start fresh? Well, you're all here. That says something and I hope you recognize the significance of what you being here, or what your spouse being here, should be saying to you. We've all decided to take today and to put forth the effort of sitting beside one another and learning together. That's huge. Now, all of this is meaningless unless you're willing to start having more conversations about it all. So sometimes the reset button simply comes from being willing to start the hard conversations, to tear down those walls a little bit and start saying the things that maybe you haven't been able or willing to say to one another.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, don't be afraid of the conversations.

Speaker 1:

I mean if you are looking for a reset, then that would suggest to me that things have gotten to a point where there's been a lot of disappointment, a lot of unmet expectations, a lot of coldness, a lot of resentment, a lot of distance. I mean, I wish there were a reset button that would be really simple to just hit reset and then all of the past conversations and the past bitterness and all the things we wish we hadn't actually said to each other would just go away. That doesn't exist, sorry, but if I'm willing to at least reset my own attitude towards being grateful, and if I'm willing to reset my attitude towards seeking connection, and if I'm willing to reset my attitude to start looking for those times when my spouse is reaching out and being willing to be responsive to that, that can change everything.

Speaker 1:

But, again, that happens in the moment by moment. That's not like you're gonna have one conversation and then everything is gonna be an upward trajectory from there. I mean, I wish I could tell you that. That's how easy it is, but it's not. But it does have to start with some conversations. I mean, none of this changes without conversations.

Speaker 1:

If you leave here today and you don't have another conversation about these topics, then what did you, what do you expect is going to happen? But this, hopefully, is a place where you can say well, look, matt and Jen said and you can use our names that way we can be the bad guys. That's fine. Matt and Jen said we're supposed to talk about this, and that's sometimes that's how the conversation starts and we get blamed for a lot of things that we didn't start. But that's okay, that's, we'll take that If it means that you're having a conversation about it.

Speaker 1:

But sometimes it means coming and saying look, this is what I am taking responsibility for and I think almost anyone if your spouse comes to you and says this is what I'm taking responsibility for, this is where I could have and should have done better, this is how I could have responded better, this is how I could have pursued better. Most reasonable people can be open to that and say, huh, they're not coming to me and saying this is your fault and that's your fault and I wish you would do this differently. And this is way off and you're wrong about this. That kind of approach immediately puts me on the defensive, and once I'm on the defensive, then it's a fight, and it's a fight to the death. But if I'm willing to start a conversation by saying I want something different and I'm willing to take responsibility for me and this is how I'm going to do things differently, that will start an entirely different conversation and that's Christ-like, is it not? That is accepting my responsibility. This is how I'm going to serve.

Speaker 2:

So maybe your reset is the reset inside of you. It has nothing to do with what your spouse is doing and everything to do with how are you going to change you? All right, that's all we have time for today. Hope you enjoyed this Q&A session from St Louis.

Speaker 1:

We sure did.

Speaker 2:

We did. We loved our time there and if you'd like to bring us to your community, you can contact us for bookings in 2024. We already have two on the calendar. You can do that by contacting us at feedback at intimate covenantcom. Let us know where you are and we'll start a good conversation about what it takes to get us out to you. We love coming If you have a national park close by, even better.

Speaker 1:

We'll come if you don't. We would also love to hear your comments or questions about this episode. Contact us by emailing us at podcast at intimate covenantcom, or you can submit anonymous feedback and questions through our website, intimate covenantcom. Thanks again to Derek and Open Door Financial Advisors for sponsoring the podcast. You should contact Open Door at opendoorfacom, where finances meet faith and family.

Speaker 2:

Thanks to all of you for listening, subscribing, rating and sharing the podcast. We are truly humbled by all your encouragement and all of your support. Thanks, especially to our Patreon subscribers for coming alongside us in a very real way. We love you. If you would like to join intimate covenant by supporting the podcast and our greater mission to share God's plan for intimate marriage and holy sexuality, we'd love for you to come alongside us. You can subscribe at patreoncom.

Speaker 1:

Until next time, keep striving and don't sigh.