Winning the Real Marriage Battle

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Mar 20, 2023 | Articles

What is the REAL Battle for Marriage?

John 10:10: “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy…” As if this list of destruction isn’t bad enough, allow me to add one more thing; to distract. Not just to distract us with busyness but to distract us from even realizing that he is real, that he is a threat, and that he is the one we are warring against.

Married life isn’t always easy, and it’s a guarantee that this wonderful person you married entered your marriage with some flaws; flaws that have come and gone, flaws that have increased, and flaws that drive you nuts or even cause great wedges between you. And by the way, if your spouse is reading this, the same rule applies.

It can be so easy to put your attention on the wrongs of your spouse. It can also be easy to battle with them over their reluctance to change, their wrongness, or their different way of doing things. All evidence and all fingers point to them as the problem. So naturally, the battle begins… with them.

You gather your weapons as any worthy opponent would. You’ve stacked your evidence and remembered every date, time, and color of t-shirt they were wearing when the offense in question took place. You know the words you will hurl, the rightness you will stand in, and you will be sure to sleep separately and not even let a pinky toe touch your side of the bed until a resolution is found and the battle has been won.

Night after night, the same battle ensues, albeit over different topics occasionally; this familiar war dance remains the same.

You fix your eyes on your spouse, and all the while, your real Enemy sets his eyes on you, your spouse, AND your marriage. You have bought his lie of distraction. He has convinced you that your Enemy, even though it is biblically inaccurate, is indeed flesh and blood (Eph 6:12). You are distracted fighting an enemy that doesn’t exist while the real one is stealing, killing, and destroying your marriage.

Fight by fight and night by night, your connection drifts apart while he sits back and laughs, shining his trophy that he has no right to.

Your battle is not with your spouse, nor is it a physical one. The real war is against the Enemy of your soul and is in the spiritual realm. It’s time to open your eyes and show up with different weapons. Spiritual battles are fought with spiritual weapons; you are equipped with every single one you need, and it’s time to put them to use!

Suppose you want to win the real battle in your marriage. In that case, it will be done through prayer, following God’s Word, doing what it says, finding your refuge in Jesus, and being sober-minded and aware that your Enemy is prowling around intending to destroy you.

The Enemy is after your marriage, and every time you refuse to grow and change, to forgive, and to sit down and talk about real issues and learn new ways to connect and heal, you are teaming up with him.

The Enemy has no business in your marriage, so it’s time to team up with one another, link arms, and focus on the real opponent together. Don’t settle for anything less than the marriage God created you to have.

If you want more resources to help you in your marriage, check out the Expedition Marriage podcast and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Building Spiritual Intimacy

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Feb 21, 2023 | Articles

Spiritual intimacy is the glue that holds couples together. When you started your relationship and marriage, it likely relied heavily upon emotional and physical intimacy. If you’ve been married for any length of time, you’ll know that emotions change frequently, and physical connection can drift in and out too. Lose a night’s worth of sleep, become hungry, or be a parent with young kids, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Spiritual intimacy is something you can always share. It’s all about growing in the Lord together. It’s about pursuing God’s will for both your marriage and as individuals. Some of the healthiest marriages contain two individuals seeking to follow Christ and honor God with their lives. Couples who have a vision for their marriage and know that it has a higher calling to give God all the glory are the ones who will thrive even when emotions run from high to low and even when physical exhaustion or disconnection happens.

Spiritual intimacy allows for connection during those hard times. It involves a place of repentance and forgiveness when conflict comes and regrets take place. It will enable space for handholding even when you’ve just had a spat and don’t want to be touched by the other. Spiritual intimacy drives you to reach out to your spouse despite their flaws and the errors they’ve made.

Spiritual intimacy beckons you to a deeper and richer kind of love. Love like Christ has for His bride. Spiritual intimacy says I am here and in this with you no matter what.

If you want to build your spiritual intimacy, try these things:

Read God’s Word and share what you learn with one another. Invite your spouse on the journey you’re taking with God.

Pray individually and together. Check out this free resource if you want to start a 30-day Praying for Your Husband/Wife Challenge.

Find a couple to follow. Whose marriage inspires you? Ask them to pour into your life or develop a mentoring relationship.

Start a devotional and have honest conversations that connect you and are rooted in God’s Word. You can find ours HERE

Develop grateful hearts. Make the time to notice your spouse and what they do for you and your family, and let them know you appreciate it.

Become self-aware and take responsibility for what is yours to own instead of blaming your spouse. Ask the Lord to check your heart and reveal anything you need to change.

Finally, less than 10% of couples report having spiritual intimacy in their marriage despite the many wondrous benefits it holds. If your marriage lacks any type of intimacy, make spiritual intimacy the one you focus on first, and you might just find that all the others slowly begin to happen as well.

3 Things Your Marriage Counselor Won’t Tell You

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Feb 6, 2023 | Articles

As a Marriage Counselor….

As a marriage counselor, I got into this field because I love people and I am a huge believer in hope. I believe it is something everyone needs to know that they have. In fact, instilling hope is always our first goal during an initial session in our marriage ministry, Expedition Marriage. After all, who is going to fight for something if they don’t have the hope they can achieve it? The number one goal of a counselor is to help you change your life and your marriage, and hope is always a necessary part of that.

If you’re in marriage counseling or have been thinking about going, here are some things you may want to know but your counselor likely won’t say…

Most times, as counselors, we can see the potential for your marriage more clearly than you can – which is why we give you assignments and tools to help. But the thing we likely won’t tell you is how dang frustrated we get when you don’t do them or use them! You come in for help, we know these tools work, we have so much hope for you, but more often than not, the tools or assignments you’re given get put on the back burner and left unused.

If you’re in counseling for your marriage, please do the work. Use the tools you’re being given. And remember, we’re not frustrated with you, we’re frustrated because we see the potential and we want you to achieve it.

We also likely won’t tell you that it is so hard for us not to work harder than you do for your marriage. If you knew how many times your counselor is praying and thinking and brainstorming all these things for your marriage while they could be enjoying some mental downtime, you’d be shocked. We have to sometimes try really hard to leave work at work and not be putting in more effort on your behalf than you are. This is a counselor must because the drain is real. In fact the average burnout rate for a counselor is 5 years. So, keep in mind that in counseling you sometimes could be getting so much more if you were putting in more yourself.

Lastly, please don’t take this personally, but we want you to leave.

Yep, we want to wrap up your sessions and send you on your way. Counseling is one of those fields where we succeed by working ourselves out of a job! We want you to heal, to grow, and to leave with a transformed marriage, BUT, here’s the hard part, if you’re not doing the work or putting in any effort, we still want you to go. We want you to leave at that point because you’re not ready and we don’t want to drag you along. That is not helping you, and remember, that’s what we’re about. We’d rather get you out and pray for your return when indeed you’ve had enough of things remaining the same, and you are indeed ready for change.

So, that’s it. Those are the secrets your counselor may be holding out on you. Don’t get mad at them, they really are for you and your marriage. Oh, one last thing, we really aren’t upset with you if we’re not the right fit for you. We want you healed and thriving more than we want to be compatible with you. It’s ok if you part ways with us to find someone else and sometimes we even encourage it.

As a Marriage counselor or relationship coach, we are in a field where we succeed when we work ourselves out of a job

If you’re currently in marriage counseling or thinking about starting it, be sure to show up and do the work. Your counselor truly wants what’s best for you. And in the meantime, if you want some free resources, be sure to check out the Expedition Marriage podcast as well as many other resources at www.expeditionmarriage.org

Working Through Forgiveness & Finding Joy Again

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jan 23, 2023 | Articles

Have you ever been betrayed or hurt so deeply that the pain is the only thing you can think about? Your heart and mind race through thoughts of hopelessness, vengeance, sadness, anger, and all the ways to protect yourself from ever getting hurt like that again. Your life becomes an emotional roller coaster. And sometimes even after you’ve decided to forgive, those feelings still won’t go away.

In our humanness when we’ve been hurt, we tend to want these three things:

For the person to pay for what they’ve done
For the person to understand the pain they’ve caused
The assurance of knowing they will never hurt us again

The problem is none of those things are guaranteed, and by the way, the first two are just ways to guarantee the third. But, if we set our minds to needing these things, we are setting ourselves up to remain stuck. When you grasp onto needing all or any of those three things, it won’t take long for you to get stuck on the forgiveness journey. In fact, maybe you’ve already made the choice to forgive but you still can’t seem to move forward. Well, here lies the possible problem; God is the only one who will never fail us or hurt us, and to give those divine characteristics to a fallible human is unrealistic.

Forgiveness doesn’t always require an apology or accepting ownership of a betrayal or wrongdoing, but if you’re desiring to move forward to find your joy again with your spouse, it will. If you’re not sure where you’re at with this, check out, How to Know if Your Spouse is Really Sorry.

But, assuming you’ve accepted the apology, have seen change, and are stuck trying to rebuild, here’s what you need to know….

You’re going to have to be vulnerable and take a risk.

And as scary as that is, here’s how you can do it… You trust God.
You’re going to have to accept that it is possible you get hurt again…but remember, if you do, God is faithful.
You’re going to have to quit trying to control out of self-protection…ultimately trusting that God will protect you.
And, you’re going to have to combat the messages in your mind that have only been trying to keep you safe and in control and renew your mind.

When pain enters our lives, we don’t ever want to experience it again. That’s reasonable and fair, but it’s not reality. We don’t have guarantees in this world that protect us from pain, but we do have a guarantee of a God that will be in it with us, love us through it, and pull us out of it. Those are the exact things we must set our minds on, things of Christ.

If you want to find your joy again, you’re going to have to set down your fears and take a risk. Let God build beauty from the ashes. Trust me, He’s really good at it.

If you want more encouragement for your marriage, check out the Expedition Marriage podcast where we help you find joy in the journey of marriage!

xoxo, Chris & Jamie

Help! My Spouse Has Depression

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jan 15, 2023 | Articles

2020, a year we will never forget. It was a year that ushered in a lot of heavy things, disease, fear, chaos, change, and let’s not forget, depression. Relatively soon after the pandemic hit rates of depression (and anxiety) tripled. And if that wasn’t bad enough, here we are a few years later and those rates have still been climbing beyond that.

The most vulnerable adults to deal with depression are those with lower incomes and the unmarried. Being that your spouse, or perhaps yourself, that might be suffering is married, you’ve got some extra help and support. And that is exactly what your spouse needs if they’re struggling with depression.

So, let us get real practical with helping you deal with a spouse and their depression. As therapists we could get into all the symptoms and the DSM V diagnostic criteria, but the reality is, you can google the symptoms. And that is exactly what step one is, educate yourself with depression. It doesn’t always look like someone down in the dumps who can’t get out of bed, so be sure to get informed. The more you learn, the more you can understand them, and the more empathy you can bring to the table.

Step two is to talk to them about it. Depression is not something you want to sweep under the rug or wait for them to snap out of. Engage them, let them know you want to help, that you care about them, and that you’re willing to walk with them through this. Become an active listener.

Thinking and acting is something that is very difficult for someone with depression. There can be a sense of constant overwhelm making them want to hide, to feelings of just numbness or emptiness leaving them struggling to put two full sentences together.

This is where step three comes in, help them take action. Let them know you will go to the doctor with them. Set up a counseling appointment and attend alongside them if they want. There are several treatments for depression and medication doesn’t always have to be one of them. Encourage them that depression is highly treatable and that they will have control of their treatment options.

You also want to engage in step four which is to create a healthy home environment. Add in daily or nightly walks with them. You’re not trying to fix them, you’re just trying to create healthy habits with them. Plan some healthy meals and cut out the sugars if possible. Create as much of a low stress environment as you can. Structure is the best way to do this. Play worship music throughout your home and have it become a safe and encouraging haven. This will do you all good.

Lastly, remember that just like a broken arm or leg, depression is not a faith problem either. Believers struggle with depression too.

The difference is, we don’t have to be bound to it because we have an eternal hope as followers of Jesus. He meets us in our darkest places, remind your spouse of that. Pray over them, claim scripture over them, and just let them know you love them and aren’t going anywhere.

Don’t be afraid to reach out for help and don’t take responsibility for their healing. Your job is to love them where they’re at and to help support them into getting the help they need.

Want some verses to pray over and share with them? Click here