Intimate Covenant Podcast

Encore: What Do I Want From My Marriage? [172]

• Intimate Covenant -- Matt & Jenn Schmidt • Episode 172

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In this episode, Matt & Jenn share an encore episode about reassessing your expectations for your marriage and moving the trajectory of your relationship through personal investment.

  1. Mature past the selfish motivations of relationship and begin to see the true fulfillment of covenant love built on self-sacrifice — in your marriage and in your relationship to God.
  2. Instead of asking "What do I want FROM my marriage?", change your perspective with a new question: “What do I want FOR my marriage?” Consider what more you can offer toward your covenant?
  3. Begin the assessment of your relationship with humility and self-reflection. Then, have a conversation with your spouse to determine what you can do for them and for your marriage.

 
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  Cherishing,
  Matt & Jenn

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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt

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Matt:

Hey, jen, wanna start the year with emergency surgery.

Jenn:

This was not on my New Year's resolution list.

Matt:

Yeah, me neither. What a start to our year In spite of that hurdle. Today we wanted to share some thoughts about starting the year off with renewed perspective towards growing your marriage and your relationship. Let's do it. Welcome, friends.

Jenn:

Welcome. We're Matt and Jen, and this is the Intimate Covenant Podcast.

Matt:

Where we believe the Bible and Great Mary's sex. Both belong on your kitchen table. That's right. We are talking about godly marriage, where we come to you every month on this podcast Godly marriage with hot sex, with emotionally fulfilling oneness. Godly Marriage with Hot Sex, with Emotionally Fulfilling Oneness. We're trying to start the conversation in your marriage towards more fulfilling relationship.

Jenn:

Thank you for joining us, and if you'd like to learn more about us, you can look at our website IntimateCovenantcom, and we would always love to hear from you, so feel free to email us at podcast at intimate covenant dot com.

Matt:

Appreciate you joining us today. As we alluded to in the open, we reached our health insurance deductible in the very first week of the new year.

Jenn:

Yeah, when I required emergency abdominal surgery, which was not fun in any way. Shape or form, I am doing fine. Recovery is very slow and, if you know me, I do not like to slow down, so this was not how I intended to spend the month of January.

Matt:

Jen has had some new lessons in patience and gratitude, watching myself and some good friends and her children take care of her and all of her other typical responsibilities. That has not been going great, but good enough.

Jenn:

They have been doing a phenomenal job at taking care of me, spoiling me, and I get in trouble if I try to get up and do anything. So I will recover. I will recover fully. It's not anything that I'm expected to have any long-term lasting effects from. It's just a slow recovery, but I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Matt:

That's right, slow and steady. Part of that means that we are unable to record in our upstairs recording studio, our typical recording spot.

Jenn:

The stairs have been forbidden for me to climb for several more weeks, and so our children that are still at home are enjoying the fact that mom cannot come check whether or not their rooms and their bathroom is clean or not.

Matt:

So the podcast technology is back to the very basics, meaning our new studio is a laptop in our bedroom.

Jenn:

So please forgive us if the audio does not sound as you are as you expect. Nothing in my life right now is as I would have expected or what I'm used to, but we will carry on. We are just so incredibly thankful, incredibly thankful for the medical care I was able to receive very quickly and took care of the problem very, very quickly. We're deeply, deeply touched and incredibly thankful for good friends and family. Sorry, now I'm going to cry.

Matt:

And that's probably not good for your abdominal recovery, but for sure, good friends and family who have really taken good care of us. Yeah, and we're so thankful for the so many of you who, even hearing about it, have reached out with concern with your prayers. Thankful to you for that. That's just so meaningful when folks that you just don't always hear from reach out with words of concern, certainly with prayers, and so we're very grateful.

Jenn:

I kept thinking about Psalm 23 and when you walk through the valley, and it just was so comforting knowing, even in those moments of walking through those valleys, we were not alone at all and our phones exploded in that testimony to just the love of good friends and God's people. And if you don't have a tribe about you that will be there for you in times like that, then you're missing out, and that is the beauty of God's people and good friends and family. So all that to say, thank you.

Matt:

Yes, thank you. So, in light of all of that, we wanted to share today an encore episode. We're reaching all the way back in our archives to episode 24. I think today is 172. So it's been a little while. I think this is one that is from early 2021. The episode is called what Do you Want From your Marriage, and this is I think it's an underrated episode in that it didn't really get all of the hype as, oh you know, like the sex positions episodes or you know those episodes.

Jenn:

And in 2021, I think we had 10 people listening to the podcast.

Matt:

That could be I have to go back and look at those numbers but this episode is all about setting expectations for your relationship and moving past the selfish motivations that we often come into a relationship with. So we think, we hope, we expect that you'll find some encouragement to start off the day.