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So this is a catch-all type of episode that seeks to give you high-level insights where you can almost immediately gain traction in rekindling romance, passion, and connection within your marriage — or just take it to the next level.
So, if you’ve been looking for something…anything that could help — here you go!
If you have a friend who is on the rocks with their spouse, send them this episode (and the one coming out next week).
If they follow it, I believe they’ll witness God’s dramatic transformation.
Blessings,
Belah
PS – If you need help with your marriage immediately — get on a free call with a Clarity Advisor to go through how we can help you. delightyourmarriage.com/cc
PPS – If you are a wife and want to give your husband true connection for Christmas… take this free masterclass that is only going to be available for a short time — go to delightyourmarriage.com/wm
Transcription
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hi there, and welcome. It’s Bella, I’m so honored. You’re joining me today, wherever you are, whatever you’re up to, I just hope and pray that this is going to encourage you in your marriage today. So I want to talk about 10 ways to rekindle your relationship. And if you need help with your marriage, we’re here. So you don’t have to do this thing alone. And you don’t have to kind of feel around in the dark not knowing what to implement when. And so I’m going to be giving you a lot of insights and tools for you to move forward. But don’t feel embarrassed or any kind of nervous if you need additional insight and 10 tailored advice and tailored support for your specific situation. So if you do need that you can go to delight your marriage.com/cc for clarity call. And you’ll actually talk to a clarity advisor who has gone through the programs themselves and have been transformed through the process and their marriage is utterly incredible by God’s grace. And so they can walk you through what your situation is, and see if we can help you specifically. And if so we’ll recommend what we think is best in our programs. But either way, you’re going to get great opportunity to go deep into your story. And to process and sort it through and have a wise empathetic person to to help guide you on what they feel is best next steps for you. Already, I look forward to connecting that way. Otherwise, let’s dive in to 10 ways to rekindle your relationship
2:17
so I’m recording this in the holiday season. And it can be an opportunity for people to really get anxious, and sad, and even depressed despairing about their relationship, their marriage. It’s like kind of slows down in terms of, there’s not that many things you can do outside often because you have to be inside. So yeah, maybe there’s a lot of holiday parties or that sort of thing. But it’s there’s, there’s just there’s a focus on the family. And there’s focus on you know, even sharing Christmas cards or, you know, really presenting yourself as having a really good connection. And so I think it gets especially painful when the holidays are not when you don’t have a solid marriage it during that season. And so what I want to do is give you some really practical tips that you can apply immediately. And I’m, I’m gonna kind of just skim the surface of them. So number one, start over and start over with your spouse. Start over. Yes, they’ve heard you. Yes, they’ve made mistakes. Yes. You’ve heard them you’ve made mistakes. Yes. That’s the beauty of being a Jesus follower is we get to give our spouse a second chance, a third chance 70 times seven chance, we get to start over. And the thing is, if we don’t give them that, we won’t be able to do anything new. And we’ll be so exhausted and frustrated and angry and bitter and resentful and despairing and frustrated that we’ll never get to the next place. So that’s the first things first is start over. And think about what you how you started even your relationship and what were the things that you thought about for them. So that’s number one is start over give them a blank slate. Lots of insight. I can give you further on that. But for sake of time on this episode, I want to just say that’s the first thing forgive, move forward. Number two, focus on what you’re grateful about this person. And one thing to do is remember what you fell in love with when you first saw them when you first hung out with them connected with them. Yes, you were different and you liked that early on, you used to really like those things about them that were different than you. And maybe you’ve just gotten to a place in your marriage where you don’t like those differences anymore. They’re not as fun. And, in fact, I heard this the other day differences attract until they annoy. And I think that’s pretty funny. But I don’t think it’s something that we should agree with. But the truth is, you’re not supposed to be like your spouse and your spouse is not supposed to be like you, I was just reading in. I think it’s first Corinthians 12, where it talks about where, you know, you’ve got the hand and the foot and the eye, and we’re all members of the same body, but we’ve got different purposes in it. And if you’re expecting your spouse to be just like you, then of course, you’re not going to see them as, as valuable. And you’re gonna see them as, as they should be the same as you. And so that that’s huge. You want to be grateful for who they are and who God made them as different as having different strengths, and really seek to understand those strengths.
6:15
In first Corinthians 1214, for the body does not consist of one member member. But if many, if the foot should say, because I’m not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make any money, it would not make it any less part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I’m not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing, if the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell, but as it is God arrange the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. So keep that in mind, your husband, your wife, is the way God made them as he chose. And this is your assignment to love them. Well, if you all inserting and Continuing in verse 19, if all were a single member, where would the body be as it is, there are many parts yet one body, that I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker, are indispensable. So keep that in mind. If you see your spouse’s gifts and strengths as weak, you’ve really got the wrong perspective, more than likely, they are indispensable to you, they probably are the pain in your neck, if you will, to keep you humble or to keep you able to to see that God wants you to be a man of character in these ways, or a woman of character in these ways. And so even though it feels like you know, this, this is the worst of the worst God. God chose these things on purpose. And you can see them that way if you choose to. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with the greater modesty, which are more presentable parts do not require, but God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it. And there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another, that you would have the same care for your spouse. If one member suffers all suffer together, if one member is honored, all rejoice together. You want that to be true of your own marriage. So again, number two is Be grateful for your spouse. And one thing I encourage you to do is just start writing gratefulness every day. And include multiple gratefulness is about your spouse, if you are having trouble coming up with five things you’re grateful for about your spouse every day, not the same things, different things, then that’s an issue of your heart. It’s not an issue with your spouse. Because God thinks they’re pretty awesome. And until you really start to see that it really doesn’t matter what you do outside. Because it’s your heart and your spouse is smart, and they can tell if you really think they’re stupid, but you’re saying these great things about them. So you need your heart to change towards your spouse. And then out of the outflowing of your heart. The mouth speaks and you then become more and more connected through that. So that’s number two. Number three, never argue, never argue. people I’ve worked with for a very long time have recently been able to tell me, they didn’t realize my expectation was never. They just said don’t like, you know, try to not. But no, I actually do think we should not ever argue. And certainly we’re going to make mistakes, and we might accidentally fall into those places. But if our expectation is to never argue, then we start, we start with that premise. And we start figuring out from there Philippians, two, three, do nothing from selfish ambition, or conceit, but in humility, count others, more significant than yourself. And if you keep reading Philippians two, that’s just the beginning of the conviction of how we should treat others and how, as a society in generally, we just don’t, but let me skip down to verse 14 says do all things without grumbling or disputing. Except if you want something from the grocery store, and they don’t pick it up, and so you pick a fight with them when they get home?
11:15
Um, no, that’s not actually what the scripture says. It says, do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless, and innocent children of God without blemish, in the midst of a crooked generation among whom you shine. Our society thinks arguing is good. They think that saying whatever’s on your mind is good. disputing about stupid little things is good, what. That’s not what the Bible says. It says, Be quick, to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. And there’s so many verses. I mean, it’s you just can’t get away from it. If you if you could read the Bible with the lens of peace and love. You’ll see it everywhere. A lot of times we look to the Bible as rules and what to do and not to do. And like, we’re all it’s just dripping with love and kindness and, and goodness to each other. And if we look at it that way, we we are honoring each other. We’re kind to each other. The Christian marriages, I just don’t see that. So frequently, it’s just as bad as any other marriage. Because your your I don’t know, I don’t know why it’s I don’t I don’t see that in the Bible. And another thing that’s that I have beef with is all the leadership gurus who say things like, you need to have hard conversations. And this is true in business. And it’s true in your marriage. And I don’t think those things are connected. I don’t think they’re true. The I agree that there’s hard conversations that need to happen in business. There’s a great book that’s called dare to lead. I really like it, it’s one of the concepts is clear, is kind. And I think that’s really true in business. I think it’s true in leadership. But I think we don’t need to apply that to our spouse. We need to look at our spouse as our highest greatest human assignment, we can impact our spouse and influence them and hurt them or help heal them more than anyone else. And, you know, sexual intimacy is part of the relationship with your spouse. It is unlike any other relationship you have. And so fighting with them having an unbridled Tang is so outside of what the Bible teaches. It makes no sense to me why we think that’s good in marriage. No wonder no wonder marriages are falling apart because they’re so pained by the poison constantly coming out of their spouse. That’s not what we’re supposed to be about. As followers of Jesus. If we believe the Bible is true, our homes should be homes of peace. Philippians one nine. It is my prayer that your love may abound. More and more with knowledge and all discernment. Your love, should have discernment. There’s there’s not a unbridled Ness. I mean, check out James, the tongue, it’s your words that matter. So have the expectation for yourself that we never argue. That’s just not what we do. We don’t argue. So if you start with that premise, what happens next, then you’ve got to figure out what to do with things that with things that matter. So to clarify, when I say hard conversations and business,
15:47
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have hard conversations with your spouse. That’s not what I’m saying. And I’m not saying you should stuff it. And I’m not saying sweep it under the rug, what I am saying is you don’t approach your spouse with disrespect. You don’t approach your spouse with a bunch of anger and elevated emotions, things that are not thought through, you don’t bring up any silly selfish thing that they just didn’t do for you, and you’re frustrated about it in the moment. That’s not how you approach this one that you are meant to love, that you are meant to serve, that you are meant to honor. That’s not how you approach them. But instead, you you think about, okay, I’m mad about what they just did. I’m going to get out of this situation in a respectful kind way, which might mean that you acquiesce, and you submit to whatever, in the moment. And then you calm down. You believe that God is right. When he talks about that we’re supposed to love and do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than ourselves. You agree with that? And
17:07
you say, Okay, God, I’m hurt. I’m mad, I’m angry. They did this. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And I need to, I need your help. Help me to calm down, help me to approach them with love again.
17:28
And here’s the thing, the hard conversation can be very carefully put together. I mean, the other day, I had a hard conversation with my spouse, but it was scripted, where I started out, I’ll just I literally wrote the whole thing down, I wrote down how I was feeling, I wrote down what I wanted to say, and unfiltered in a private journal that he will never read. And then I wrote down, God, I need your help on this, how do I make this? How do I solve this? How do I turn this into a system that we don’t have to go around this over and over and over again. And so what I did was because I’m in the top part of the marital spectrum, marital health, so what I what I talk about what the marital health spectrum in is from zero to 10, zero mean, you know, you’re on the edge of divorce 10 out of 10 means you are, you know, doing great, you’re almost, you know, your your marriage is amazing and emotional, spiritual, physical intimacy. Pretty soon, we’re actually going to put together a health score, test, your marital health score test. So just you know, that’s on the horizon, I’m going to be putting that together and offering that to you all. So you can get a sense of where you are, and then what your next steps might be to get to the next level up. But anyway, since we’re high up on that scale, you know, nine, on our bad days, basically, I was able to kind of go through it this way. You know, sharing the positive. You know, what I’m noticing is that we have a wonderful connection and a fun life. And I’m so lucky to be married to you. And we have great things in this area as well. And then the next portion of it was I kind of set up the background. And I feel this season is very busy for us. And I’d like us to figure out how to make sure that I put our or ties us and you in this particular situation. The third thing I brought up was the concern. I’m concerned that in this season, we may miss out on an important opportunity to XYZ and then the fourth thing was curiosity. I’m curious how you feel about XYZ. And then I let him respond. And I reflectively listened, made sure that I understand how he’s feeling. And when I want to give you as an opportunity, so if it was a painful response, then I would have said, Thank you for sharing your feelings. I’m going to think about this is it okay? If I circle back on this maybe tomorrow or sometime soon? Because if it was a painful thing, and it hurt you, what you need to do is, again, go back to God, like, Okay, God, this, this is a concern, this is something I want fixed, and I just got hurt again. Like, what? What can I do next? Circling back, coming with the positive again, asking her more about her feelings or asking him more about his feelings and being curious. It’s it is natural to get hurt and upset and angry as a result of being maybe accused or tact or what have you. But if we could get curious about what’s going on for them, why did they respond with such pain? You know, a wounded animal lashes out in in pain, you know, to hurt the other person, right? A healed happy animal doesn’t naturally do that. Like, I’m just thinking of a cat or a dog or whatever. You know, a wild animal, it’s different. But think about your spouse that way, like get curious, why would they lash out like that? What are they missing? How are they wounded, like, maybe it’s your fault that maybe it’s not, maybe it’s stuff in their past. But it’s your opportunity to help them through this, and help them heal through it. And they said a hurtful thing. You said you’re thinking about it, you’re going to take it under consideration, you’re going to be careful with your next words. And that gives them space to think about what they said. And for them to stay in a calm mindset so that their their brain is freed up to even think about what they said and how harmful and hurtful it may have been. But if you just respond in anger, they don’t ever get to the next spot. So
22:31
so then you have, let’s say, So that’s if they had a painful response. But let’s say they had an open, good response. Then again, you you’re reflectively, listening. And then you might say, Could we talk about solutions? And if they say yes, and they have solution ideas, great, you can talk about those. And then you also say, you know, could I add some solutions here. And then you talk about those, and it’s a good conversation. And it was a hard conversation. But everybody wins at the end of those conversations. Just bringing it up in the moment when you’re upset. Who’s winning in that? No one, no one’s winning. You’re saying things that are hurtful. You’re saying things that are harmful? hard conversations are good. But you need to just take it slow, take it easy, quick to listen slow to speak slow to become angry. Alright, so so we’ve got no, never argued number three. When you start out with that premise, then your next thing is then you can be wise about your steps after that. Okay, number four, apologize. I think that apologies are so under utilized. And it takes conviction that, you know, I want to get to the next step with my spouse, I’ve got apologize for the silly things I’ve done and the ways that I was lazy in my communication and I just lashed out instead of was was calm and gentle. And instead I just in my selfishness I immediately just said what I was thinking, you know, apologize. It’s really important. I hear it so often from husbands and wives. They say, Well, my spouse never apologizes. That’s just not what they do. But then when we’re going through the work together and all that and all of a sudden the spouse apologizes. It’s like this huge win. Because it’s it’s very healing to hear your spouse apologize. And so I want to say to you apologize. Number five. Listen, I mentioned reflectively listening already. But basically it’s almost astounding how how, how easy and simple and yet important. This is so if you’re if your goal is is to understand your goal is curiosity. And then you’re just repeating some of the phrases or summarizing some of the content of what they just said to you, and you’re saying it back to them. And your goal is to draw them out. Your goal is to understand where they’re coming from. And not to tell your your own point to not not to defend yourself not to give what you want to say. But as Stephen Covey says, seek to understand, not to be understood, seek to understand not to be understood. Number six, no screens. Now that you can never be on screens, but just see if you can limit it, see if you can do less screen time, and do those activities with your spouse instead. So no screen activities, with your spouse, play games, or board games puzzles, you know, in the wintertime, it’s it’s not the easiest thing to to get outside. But but maybe there are things you can go do together, maybe you can go on a walk, maybe you can go on a drive, maybe you can just do stuff physical stuff together. And, and do less screen time. And, you know, take apps off your phone, like even after work. Like delete the email app off your phone, every day after work. Like that might sound silly. But really, if you are going to rekindle connection with your spouse, they need your undivided attention that it’s not going to work otherwise. And you might be like, Well, my spouse is always on their phone too. So it, you know, we’re even, it’s like, well, it’s not going to change if you both stay doing what you’re going to what you’re doing. And so undivided attention from you, helps them you kind of model undivided attention. And don’t assume it’s going to be immediate. But undivided attention makes that possible. And in play. So that’s number six is playfulness, and silliness. And again, thinking about what you had at first, when you first got together in marriage you played you were silly, you flirted, but you know what non sexually to you were fun together, that was just a normal part of your relationship. And you might be again that that’s why the first one is let things go like forgive, give them a blank slate, and start over the silliness and the playfulness. Now, it’s not going to be immediate, especially if this playfulness is not normal for you all.
27:44
That’s why this, you know, these first, you know, six things I’ve said first, but it is required for you guys to keep going forward. The next one I want to say is rest. Because we don’t do that enough in our world. So we’re stressed and we’re busy. And we’re rushing from here and there and there to here and all over the place. And we think we have to do this. And we need to do that. And that’s required and all that. And it’s just like you know what? Jesus told Mary, your Martha, Martha, you’re distracted by many things. And only one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen the good part. And I just imagine Mary, I mean, she’s sitting at Jesus’s feet, she’s listening. She’s not distracted with all the things she should be doing. She’s just saying, Jesus teach me I want to be like you. And if we can, we if we can have him first and foremost, then we can say you know what, loving God with all my heart with all my soul with all my mind with all my strength, and then from there loving my neighbor as myself. And if we’re putting things in God’s priority, our next priority is our spouse. So then the you know, making sure your kids have clean shoes when they go off those track practice or making sure the, you know, kitchen is spotless before you make love or making sure that your makeup looks impeccable before you go to that event. These things become less important. They become less important, because what’s most important is your relationship with God. And then it’s your spouse, and then it’s your kids. And if you can protect those relationships, not the material stuff outside of the relationship, if you can protect the relationship, that’s what matters most. And the only way you can see your priorities well, is if it’s in the context of rest. If it’s in the context of having a rested life, and having a life that’s rejuvenated by Jesus And that happens in rest. And what that looks like practically for our family is a rest day every week. So Saturdays, we don’t plan anything. There’s no event, there’s no consistent practice for the kids that they do. It’s, it’s a rest day. And in this season of life, it’s absolutely required. And it’ll probably be required forever. But we’ve done this for I can’t, I don’t even know how many years but it has dramatically impacted the way I see everything. The way I see everything, because I can’t do it all. I can’t do it all. God, it doesn’t expect me or ask me to do at all. But if I don’t rest, and do it the right way. I can’t do what God is asking me to do. Rest is important. I’m not a superhero. I’m not God, I can’t do it all I have to have boundaries. Rest is required. And for me, it’s even required maybe more so than others, I don’t know. But I also have Wednesdays where I rest I can’t I don’t do dy M stuff on Wednesdays. And I take a large part of that time to spend it with Jesus to rest now sometimes I’m I’m journaling about DUI and stuff sometimes I’m but if I don’t rest, I will get on a call with a client and harm rather than help. Because I’m running on fumes. I’m not. I’m not giving my best I’m not being the human that I need to be I have to rest Sunday. I’m also like, I’m not on email and all these sorts of things I can’t be in if I do I, you know, got to repent and be like, Oh, God, I messed up on that thing or whatever. Sometimes Sunday’s if I feel like it’s a restful activity for dy um, but for the most part, I just don’t I just, I don’t know, 95% of the time, I’m not thinking about it, or that sort of thing. All right, well, we have come to the end of this episode. But I’m going to go into part two, next time around in terms of the 10 ways to rekindle your relationship, but let me just
32:10
summarize what we talked about so far. So number one, start over, start over, give your spouse a clean slate and start over. That’s what God asks us to do is forgive. Number two, be grateful for them recognize that they have strengths, they have goodness, that God designed in them, and start to write those down and meditate on those the good things that God gave you and your spouse. Number three, never argue. Just expect that as your as what you do in a marriage, you never argue. And now you can start being creative about how to solve the hard problems without turning into fights and actually do it God’s way. Again, look at the Bible. I don’t think I’m wrong. Number four, apologize. Apologize, you’re not going to get this thing right. Every time you’re going to make mistakes that you apologize. Number five, listen. And listen, listen, listen, quick to listen slow to speak slow to become angry. Number six, get off your screens, more and more do activities that are off your screens. It’s It’s astounding to me how often I hear people’s typical lives is they go to work, they do the kid stuff, and then they do TV and then go to sleep. TV is almost constantly a part of people’s everyday life. And it’s part of mine too. But I I try to keep that in in strict boundaries. Yeah, I just encourage you to get off of screens be bored, rather than on a screen. be bored. Really. Let God speak to you in those moments of boredom, of aimlessly drawing doodling on a paper, set a timer, so you can just be bored for a while. There’s this great focus app. I’m just thinking about it now that a friend of mine turned me on to and I only started using it. So I think it’s kind of cool is I think it’s called forest fo r e s t and it’s 199 app on iTunes I the I store iPhone store. And basically, you click on it, and it’ll grow a tree for you. After 25 minutes or whatever, if you don’t get on your phone. And so if you’re having trouble getting off of your phone, do that or start deleting apps or you know there’s lots of great books about this one book is called in distractible. I love that book. And another book is called deep work. And he also has a book Cal Newport has a book called Digital minimalism. I haven’t read digital minimalism yet but deep work is one of my faves. favorite books. And I really like in distractible as well. All right, and then number seven is get playful. Get silly, be embarrassing. Start the process of making your life more playful in your marriage. And then number eight, relax, rest, relax, rest, get a rest day on the calendar start that. Wonderful. So this is how to rekindle your relationship 10 ways. And you you may be thinking it should have said other things on there. But if you don’t get these things in place, it doesn’t really matter how much romantic stuff I tell you to do. Your spouse won’t be open to it, they won’t enjoy it, they won’t want it. So yeah, that I want you to get these things in place. And then part two will make more sense for you. Alrighty, let me pray for you guys. I just ask that whoever’s listening to this, whether it’s the first time we’ve talked, or whether they followed me for a while, and a lot of these things they’ve been implementing, or they started into cleansing already. But God, I just asked God, if there was a nugget of truth, even though it’s not mainstream, that they needed to hear God, I just ask that you would open their heart to it. I think this is Biblical stuff. I think this is stuff that you want. I just ask that their heart would be open to what you say, in their marriage, not what was normal when they grew up, not what they see even their pastors doing, not what they see other what is you? What is it that your heart has for their marriage? God give us grace to see give us grace to change. Give us grace to say, shoot, I was wrong. I’ve been telling other people the wrong thing for a long time. Or maybe they just need to do it as an experiment and try some of these things out and see if the fruit is godliness and love and kindness for more in biblical things that
37:00
God wants us to walk out. Jesus, I love you. And I love that I don’t have to do your work in these people’s hearts in the one this precious one listening. You’re the one that cares about them far more than I do. And so any truth any nugget that you wanted to remind this person of I believe and trust that you would, in Jesus name, amen. Hey, I love you. And I thank you for listening to me. And I look forward to jumping on on our our next conversation next next week. So we can talk through the the rest of these 10 ways to rekindle your relationship already can bless you. Plus, I might have a couple bonus ones. I’ll try to limit it though, I promise. Also, if you know that you need help with your marriage. Let us help you go to delight your marriage.com/cc to get with a clarity advisor and sort through what’s going on for you and see if we can help you already. God bless