0:02

Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.

0:19

Welcome to the show. If you have been married for any length of time, you probably have figured out that marriage is not a cakewalk. And if you see marriages that have fallen by the wayside, it’s because it’s clear that marriage is not for the faint hearted. It’s not an easy thing. But it is valuable. It is something that when you dig in, when you fight for it, the rewards are beyond beyond anything. I mean, today, we’re this is the second half of my interview with Bethany riechmann. And one thing I really love that she said is, you know, if you want to get in shape, you have to go exercise, you have to work at it. And then you get the rewards of being in shape, or being fit, being able to run around with your kids or run a marathon or whatever your goal is, I mean, it gives you a better life. So at the same time, when we work at our marriages, we are also rewarded with a better existence. And I think it’s the kind of existence that God wants us to have. When we work in our marriage, we are more fulfilled, it becomes not just more fulfilled, but also I think we’re purified, and we become better people and the kinds of people that God wants us to become. So today we’re talking about that we’re talking about why Bethany’s marriage has been successful. And we talk about the keys that have kept her marriage together. So let’s go ahead and dive in.

2:03

Okay, well, so I want to kind of switch gears a little bit and ask you, so you kind of mentioned how your marriage was beforehand, just not just just kind of going through life together, but not necessarily

2:19

connecting? Yeah,

2:20

not necessarily connecting. Where, what does it look like now?

2:25

Well, like I said, we’re not perfect, but it’s, it’s far better. I mean, what we always strive for, is we want our kids to have a better marriage, even than we have, you know, and we want to be models for our kids, you know, we want our children to look at our marriage and say I want something like that, or I want something better than that. Or even our kids friends, if they come to play or come to visit, you know, we want them to know that marriage is good, that is what we want, you know, it’s not something that should be scary, or, you know, old, old time or, you know, whatever, we want it to be something that they want. And so, you know, we’re always trying to make sure that we are bettering ourselves. And by doing that, you know, preparing our children hopefully for having great expectations for what they are looking for, if God calls him to the married life. Yeah, absolutely.

3:11

Cool. I like that. You said that we’re models for the next generation because it’s true. I mean, there’s a it’s so easy to look at the different couples that have even What celebrity couples are just, you know, there’s a, there’s someone that I kind of considered a role model who’s pretty famous. And she’s just decided, you know, just filed for divorce and there’s definitely grounds for and it’s just a very sad thing. But to me, it really stuck with me for weeks, I was just downhearted, you know, so Right. downcast that this, this couple that, you know, and, and again, there, there are things and there’s even biblical grounding for it, but it’s just very sad that, that that’s where it is. And it also makes me feel like, there’s so many lives that this particular woman is touching, and, and it affects everything that she does. And, and I just think about that, but but at the same time, that’s why I do dy M is so that we have concrete examples of wives and husbands that are living this thing out and having a great marriage and why marriage is to be continued. And, you know, right, we should fight for it and be inspired and be empowered. So I love that. I mean, we need to be those examples for others. Right?

4:37

Yeah, no, and I think that’s completely true. And that’s really some of the focus of our ministry through engaged marriage is we want to help couples because, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of married people out there and a lot of them are not really sure if they’re happy where they are, but, you know, we think that it’s something worth fighting for and something worth trying to save. And, you know, we it’s it’s not easy Marriage isn’t easy. And you know, anything we’re fighting for isn’t so you got to really work at it. And so this is kind of like, you know, if you have to exercise to get in better shape, you got to do some of these marriage exercises to get your marriage in shape to.

5:13

Oh, I love that. I love that exercising to get in better shape, you got to do exercises to get your marriage in better shape. That’s true. I and it has to be consistent practice. It’s not something you do once and then expect things to be transformed overnight. Isn’t that right?

5:29

That’s sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

5:31

You’ve got to be doing your 15 minutes a day. That’s, that’s

5:35

what we think. Yeah.

5:36

I love that. Very good. Well, okay, so maybe we’ve talked about some of these things that you’re going to say or not, but what do you think the chief three things are that you feel have been central to your marital success?

5:48

I think that my faith and our prayers, you know, we, we were not super great at praying together, we’re just, you know, that seems a little I know, a lot of people are, and that’s fantastic. But we do a lot of individual prayer, you know, and I’ll say to him, you know, listen, I got this thing going on, pray for me, because I am, you know, stressed out, or I really want this to go well. And so, yeah, faith life and prayer are a very important part of our marriage. And, you know, so that is like, the number one thing, you know, God first than marriage than our kids. And so we have, you know, great communication now. So I think that’s one of the things that we’re doing better at, you know, but we got to, we got to trust each other, too, and trusting God that His plan is, you know, what’s best for us. And, of course, you got to have a little humor and all of that. So those are, those are the things I think our marriage has been the F caused our marriage to be successful with faith, communication, trust, and a lot of humor.

6:44

Very nice. Okay. So when I think, you know, we’re back at communication, what I mean, what about for a couple that’s like, we just don’t have very good communication, what would you kind of give as maybe some guidelines or something that would help? To just make their communication better? What do you think? Well, I

7:07

think that, like I talked about before, it can be really awkward, if you’re gonna just say, Okay, now we’re gonna sit down, and we’re gonna talk 15 minutes every day, you know, that could be a little weird, like, you have an expectation that’s gonna, you know, just automatically change something. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But you know, I think that for people who struggle with what do they talk to their spouse about? You know, it could be something as simple as you, you know, you reminisce about your first date, or you talk about, you know, like I said, a vacation you want to go on, or they even make conversation cards, honestly, for people who, you know, have a hard time. You know, some some couples want to make a promise that when they go out on their date night dates, they don’t talk about the kids, well, that can be really hard, because, you know, they’re kind of like, the part of your life that you’re kind of immersed in right now. So yeah, there’s, there are tools out there. But, you know, just everyday stuff to you know, just talk about, you know, I don’t know something that’s going on, or if you have a TV show that you’d like to watch, you know, I’m not saying it has to be deep stuff every single time. But I think like I said before, if you’ve got that, you know, communication open, it’s a lot easier to talk about problems when they do come up.

8:15

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and I and I also think, you know, as you make this a practice, you know, I’m just imagining, it wouldn’t be hard for couples to just set an alarm on their phone, I love alarms on YouTube. Like, I do the, like an egg timer, I used to have an egg timer. Now I just use my phone. But if like, I don’t want to do the dishes or something, I’ll just set, you know, five minutes on my phone, see what I can get done in five minutes. And it’s like, oh, you know, magically, it was done quickly, that more quickly than I thought so. Right. So anyway, so that could be you set the timer on your phone for 15 minutes, and slowly, that just builds you just become more comfortable. conversing about whatever. And, you know, with that timer, it kind of helps you to be like, Okay, this isn’t going to go on for hours, we don’t have to try to figure out what to say for hours. But just to connect on that level for a quarter of an hour.

9:12

Right? Well, I think that we’re so used to text messaging now that it seems hard to actually have a sustained verbal conversation. We’re so used to just like shooting off little text messages here and there, which are great, too, you know, but I think obviously, you know, God gave us I, you know, mouths and ears to talk and listen, so we need to take advantage of that. And, you know, it really does do something to your marriage when you can, you know, count on that person to be a listening ear for you, which can be hard sometimes for guys because they do tend to want to fix our problems if we have any, you know, offer solutions. And we don’t necessarily need that sometimes we just need to vent you know, we just need them to be the one to kind of listen to us and you know, just be there for us. Yeah,

9:55

absolutely. Well, and you also said humor and you How do you how do you put more humor into your marriage?

10:04

Well, I can, I mean, with three kids, it’s pretty funny most days. But you know, even I mean, we’ve just always had a love of comedy and, you know, that kind of stuff. And so, you know, just little things that he says throughout the day that mostly are probably annoying to me, but he thinks are hilarious. So, you know, but just just and also being able to laugh at ourselves, you know, when things don’t necessarily go our way. And, you know, it’s, it may be rough, but that’s not going to last forever, you know, things just, you know, when you’re in the midst of whatever you’re going through, it can be, like you said, difficult to see why, you know, but in those moments, we realize that, you know, we rely on each other in our marriage more, and we rely on God more. And so, you know, those struggles do tend to make us stronger, even if that’s not what we were hoping for.

10:51

And I think it’s also something you kind of have to fight for also is your sense of humor. Yeah, you know, sometimes seasons are rough. Sometimes it’s a you know, like, like the kids get lice or something. Yes. What can you do? You just have to laugh, there’s just, I say that, because we just got through that household, and it was just like, oh, my gosh, are you kidding? And, you know, my husband, funny enough, decided to shave everyone’s heads. So that’s what we did. So we had three shaved heads, my husband, and the kids all shaved their heads. So I was like, Well, you know, I didn’t tell everyone it was lice, like, Tony was something. I just blamed it on my husband, my husband decided to do that. But, I mean, those kinds of things you just have to laugh at, you’re just like, oh, my gosh, did this really just happen? Right? But, but that, I mean, that’s kind of the stuff that we have to deal with. All the time, you know, we just life is, is full of hard things is full of challenges, and full of things that you can just make funny if you if you let yourself right. So I but I think you know, a wise mentor, a friend of mine, you know, always reminds me of that to keep your sense of humor too dumb, to not let the the things of this life to get you down, you just have to realize that this is all temporary stuff. And we can we can laugh? For sure. Yeah. So when you say that you love comedy, what? What kind of things do you do? To pursue that? I mean, do you do watch videos? Or? Yeah, I mean,

12:32

we don’t have a lot of TV shows we watch because Destiny’s not a big TV guy, you know, but, but if we do watch a movie, it’s usually something mindless and funny. You know, we’re we’re feral fans. And so we like to watch, we like to watch Saturday Night Live, and, you know, that kind of stuff. So, but just something that we we’re not too serious when it comes to movie watching or, or anything of that nature. But you know, we just, we enjoy having a good laugh, and, you know, just making light of things that, you know, could otherwise have been, you know, something stressful. So, yeah,

13:05

yeah, I love that. I mean, you know, sometimes I even have to just just be like, in my head, like, Is this is this really worth getting upset about? No, it’s not, let’s laugh instead. I mean, let’s, let’s switch gears. And I think that’s a real thing that we have to, like a discipline, honestly, I think it’s a discipline to make light of things and to make things fun, instead of as hard as they can be. Yeah, so So I love that. Okay, so we talked a little bit about sex, in our, in the first part of our interview, but I wondered, you know, are there is there a tip that you could give us that maybe you wish someone let you in on earlier about physical intimacy?

13:48

Well, I kind of touched on that earlier, too. But I, you know, we talk when we talk to these engaged couples, for our church, you know, we tell them, you know, God wants you to have great sex, he does he and he invented the concept of sex. So he wants that to be something that is good for you. And, you know, I kind of wish that that would have been something that someone would have told me early on, you know, in our marriage, and then maybe I wouldn’t have felt so, I don’t know, used instead of loved and treasured, because I think that was his, you know, he wants to love and treasure me, he feels like that’s, you know, something that God wants, you know, him to do and us to do. And I just think that it was It wasn’t so positive in my mind until later on, you know, so but, you know, again, and that goes back to the whole communication thing, too. I mean, I it sex is not just an act, it’s a way of communicating and so looking at it that way, it makes it a completely different, you know, way to look at it.

14:48

Yeah, it’s almost like a, if we, you know, compare it in that way. It’s almost like, you know, I’m a big communicator myself. So I really like I really Like to have a place where I can talk and discuss, you know, what’s really going on and where my heart is and, and that that makes me feel fulfilled it also makes me feel empty in a way also like, like I emptied out what needed to be emptied out, I was the right things, clear off my chest or whatever. And so I just think about that for your husband, if you consider your husband’s way of communication, I mean, he’s, he’s needing an outlet for what you know, for this, this god given desire this god given need. And you’re the only one that can give him that outlet. That’s, that’s our role as wives to, to give an outlet to that sexual desires, right.

15:49

And the fact that the love between us in that act could create a human being is like, mind blowing, you know, that, you know, that God not only gave us this gift, but that this gift that we enjoy so much could be the way for us to, you know, have another one. So

16:06

it is it it I mean, it just, it just reminds us that that God, you know, cares about our sex life, because he made it so so uniquely. It I mean, the process, the process of having a baby could have been so different, right? It could have been like, if you want vitamin C in your body, you eat an orange, that’s it, right? To have a baby. It’s it’s not just a one time and you’re automatically pregnant. It’s a and you obviously know, with the NFP, you’ve got to either it’s time of the month, it’s it’s your hormones, it’s figuring out where you know, where you are with your ambulatory cycle, it’s a, all these things affect whether or not you’re able to get pregnant. So I mean, God clearly was not like, you know, boom, you know, just just for procreation, it’s, it’s, it’s obviously for the gift that He’s given us for enjoying sex together. So what would you say to the wife that’s maybe like, is feeling a little used or feels like when you when you say God wants her to have great sex? And she’s like, well, you know, I just feel like, this is just for him. I mean, what would, what would you kind of say to her?

17:19

Well, and I would, I would say that, you know, as uncomfortable as it may feel, you, you need to talk to your spouse about that you need to really open up and say, you know, I’m not feeling, you know, treasured, like I would like to be, you know, and she would maybe need to talk to him about, you know, what she would desire or something that would make her feel, you know, like she was more connected, because I honestly wouldn’t think that her husband would want her to feel that way. You know, and I think that sometimes, we think that they are mind reader’s, and they are not, and as much as it would be easier if they were, you know, that’s kind of our job to, to, to let them know, what, what we want and what we like, because they don’t know, you know, so it can can be probably a little, maybe more people like to talk about that than others. But you know, it could be uncomfortable to try to tell your husband Well, I don’t really like it when you do this, but I like it when you do that. And, you know, but in the end, it does make a big difference. So you know, it’s, it’s good for you to talk about that.

18:20

Yeah. I love that. That that communication? And that. Yeah, I think so sometimes we’re concerned about, you know, hurting feelings. And I get that, and that’s important to be aware and concerned. But at the same time, you know, there’s also a place for when when are you going to be able to improve your sex life, if you’re not able to communicate about it? Right, you need to there’s, there’s an honesty that needs to happen so that you can figure out how to enjoy each other’s more and yeah, so I love that. Okay, so do a specific marriage that you’ve had, what opportunities have you had to serve or get to know God?

19:04

Well, you know, like I had said, through our church, we’ve been able to talk to engaged couples about NFP. And, you know, that talks about, you know, our natural immune planning, but the big portion of that we tell those engaged couples, you know, is again, communication, because it’s unfortunate that sometimes when you’re on vacation, things can’t happen if you’re trying to, you know, postpone pregnancy or you know, so there’s a lot of communication that has to come in there and not just, you know, Well, now’s not the right time, so we can’t more like, as much as I would really like to, we probably shouldn’t, you know, or, yeah, is God calling us to have another child now, is this something that, you know, it is this way for this reason? So, you know, we really want them to be open to you know, what God is saying to them and their marriage. And so yeah, we enjoy talking to those young couples and kind of educating them on on that. And we get to talk to people about sex a lot. Because of our, of our being promoters of natural family planning and, and we get to talk to couples through, you know, engage marriage, and, you know, just trying to help teach couples, the things that we have learned in our marriage, and, you know, we want people to know these things, it shouldn’t be a big secret, you know, we should all be helping each other, you know, in the best ways that we can and, you know, trial and error. I’m sure we’ve all had times in our marriages where things have been great. And then other times when they’ve been a lot more difficult. So, you know, just trying to help others because we do want marriages to succeed.

20:34

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that, that and, and that is God’s work. I mean, he desires to have marriages succeed and continue in being stronger and strengthened. So I appreciate that. So is there a book or a program that you would specifically recommend?

20:53

You know, we’re big fans of The Five Love Languages, Dr. Carrie Jett, Dr. Gary Chapman. And it’s funny, because, you know, we’ve taken this quiz a couple of times. And, you know, I think that in the book, he says, you know, your love languages don’t change over your lifetime. But I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that. Because I feel like it’s those what you you always desire, what you can’t, that you don’t have enough of, you know, so I think that my, my love language at one time, I want to think was acts of service. So I like to do things for people. But just lately, I did a book study with a group of friends of mine, and we did the five love languages. And I took the quiz again, and it was quality time and words of affirmation. So, you know, it had changed in that I, I desire more quality time, I want more time with us as a family, or with just Dustin and I ourselves. And so, you know, just and also things like that, like reading that book, and then talking to Dustin about it, you know, kind of opened that up for us too. And it just brings to mind those love languages, you know, things that we know is our way to speak to our spouse, you know, so just bring it to the forefront of your mind helps you to remember that and then you can, you know, pass that love on to your spouse in the way that they receive it, you know, best. So, so yeah, we’re big fans of that book. And then, of course, Dustin’s book to 15 minute marriage makeover is the big, you know, is one that we promote, or that we encourage others to read, you know, because it just really helps with intimacy in all areas, you know, so, you know, marriages fail, oftentimes, you know, people think that it’s due to infidelity, or due to finances or whatever. And, and that might be true, but maybe those things could have been addressed if communication would have been, you know, there from the start. So communication is something that I think affects all areas of marriage. You know, even if you’re talking about parenting your children and things like that, if you’re not open with your spouse, about your frustrations or your you know, joys even to you know, just let them know that, you know, this great thing happened today, or, Oh, I’m so hard because this was, you know, what happened today? So, yeah, I mean, just trying to find ways to, to work that in as well. When you’re

23:03

full. Yeah. Um, so lastly, if you could go back to year one of marriage and sit yourself down, what is one piece of advice that you would give to you,

23:13

I would definitely tell myself to, you know, make communication a priority. Obviously, I’ve said that lots of times throughout this interview, but I think it’s true, I think, if we would have opened up communication earlier and talked about our dreams and our desires early on, not that those years were wasted, they weren’t we obviously, you know, have had at that time, two beautiful children. And, you know, we were, we were living a happy life, but I, you know, I wonder if it if it would have been even more fulfilling, you know, if we would have started this journey earlier, but that being said, you know, look at where we’ve come, you know, look where we came from, and where we are, now we have that story to speak to others about, you know, and say, you know, we don’t want to just live a, okay, marriage, we want a great marriage. So, you know, reminding myself back then, you know, that that was something that would be important in the years to come. And also, just to kind of slow down, you know, life. i We were married for, I don’t know, I think, four years before we had our first child, and I honestly don’t know what I did for those four years. I mean, it’s like, what do we we, you know, we look at single people now are couples without children. And we think, man, what do they do with all their time because, you know, I don’t remember what it was like back then. So, you know, I would just say to, you know, slow down and enjoy every moment. And not every moment is going to be great. I know that, you know, but, but make memories and communicate. And I think those are two things that will definitely serve you in the future.

24:35

Hmm, yeah. I love that. So Bethany, where can our audience find and connect with you on well, they

24:41

can find me via engaged marriage.com And we’re on all the social media outlets, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Yeah. And all the the website stuff.

24:50

Awesome. Okay. Well, Bethany, this has been so fun. Thank you for all of your time and insight and wisdom. And I’m sure that will we’ll be connecting again soon.

25:01

That sounds great. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed talking to you.

25:09

Well, I hope that you have been inspired to spend those 15 minutes. You know, why not try it for a week, where you spend 15 minutes a day, and just see see how it affects your connection? I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth the time and the investment and then maybe try it a second week, we’ll see. But let’s try one week, and I’m going to try it on mine. I’m going to start setting my cat my timer with my husband. And we’ll see, we’ll see how 15 minutes gets us. So we’ll do it together. Hey, listen, thank you again, for joining. If this is your first time to the show, it happens every Tuesday. I have basically we do either a solo show, topical interview, or a journey show. And that’s what this one was the second half of the journeys show. So come back every Tuesday, this is a worthwhile endeavor is to listen in and to hear how you can be inspired and empowered to have great intimacy, not just physical but spiritual and emotional intimacy in your marriage. Because I believe that’s what God wants for you. I believe that’s what our lives become more like the way he wants us to live when we have that in our marriage. So God bless you. I’m praying for you and your marriage. And hey, if you get a moment, would you go ahead and pray for the dy M Show? Pray for everyone who listens, that they would be encouraged and inspired this week. Thank you. All right. We’ll talk soon. Bye bye.

26:38

Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion.