To view the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pC0fAOu1nCc
SHOW NOTES
Welcome back to another week of the Hope Rescue Podcast! We are continuing our series on marriage this week by discussing tips 18 & 19 of Tim and Kimberly’s top 30 tips for a healthy marriage! If you have missed the previous episodes in this series, make sure you start with episode 33 so you don’t miss any of the tips! Before we get into this week’s discussion, we want to refresh the past four weeks by going through tips 1-17!
1. Listen, listen, listen.
2. Learn to fight well.
3. Learn to celebrate wins.
4. Fall in love intentionally over and over again with your spouse.
5. Make sex about intimacy and not exclusively about erotic fulfillment.
6. Plan sex in a way that is comfortable for both of you.
7. Let your spouse have interests that don't include you.
8. Listen to what hurts your marriage.
9. When your spouse does something with the same goal as you but uses a different process, leave him or her alone.
10. Get a budget.
11. Have healthy boundaries in friendships outside of your marriage.
12. Don't allow your children to be as important as your marriage.
13. Discuss your strategies and styles of child-rearing.
14. Leave conflict in the past once it's been resolved.
15. Don't project your past on your spouse.
16. Live a life of gratitude.
17. Have mutual submission for each other.
18/30: Make sure you commit to your primary directive, love, and your secondary directive, unity. A directive is a command, instruction, or demand. Do you view love and unity as necessary instructions you need to commit to in your marriage? Tim starts this discussion by reading Ephesians 4:1-3, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Tim explains that when Paul says to bear with one another, he is literally saying to tolerate one another. Practicing tolerance with one another brings about a healthy relationship with our spouses. Tolerance is not only a gift to our spouse but also a gift to ourselves because it pushes bitterness out of the way and makes room for love. We also have to prioritize unifying with our spouse, but this does not mean you have to agree on every topic. You can disagree and still be united. You can resolve conflict without agreeing. It doesn’t have to destroy your unity. Kimberly says, “You can disagree with your spouse and still unify around your core values.” It's actually healthy to be able to disagree with your spouse and still stand unified.
19/30: Don’t let gender role play stand in the way of equality. Egalitarians are people who believe that all humans are equal in fundamental worth and moral status. There are no gender differences when it comes to roles and responsibilities. Complementarians believe that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere. Whichever view you believe and practice, understand that if you make the roles and responsibilities about authority it will not end well. Whatever you believe to be the correct view, you must be in agreement with your spouse. If the man believes that it’s the woman’s responsibility to do the dishes but the wife doesn’t agree with that perspective, it is crucial that that husband and wife have a discussion and come to an understanding that both parties agree with. Tim says, “If you let gender role play stand in the way of equality in your marriage, you are doing a disservice to your spouse.” Tim reads Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”Man and woman are both created in the image of God. Both parties have the same intrinsic value, and when your communication with your spouse changes that or makes your spouse feel less than, issues arise. Tim says, “In your marriage, the man is not the boss; that is not a partnership.”
20/30: Keep your spouse’s family of origin in mind. Kimberly and Tim both discuss that their parents were similar in the way they interacted with each other as a couple. Kimberly explains that her father was more authoritative and her mother was more submissive. Tim experienced a similar relationship with his parents, as his mother believed she wasn’t supposed to speak up if she disagreed with her husband. These are the roles Tim and Kimberly grew up witnessing, so when they interact with one another they have to have grace because they are aware of each of their families of origin. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, and neither adult is the boss of the other adult. If you have a tendency to not listen to your spouse because of your family of origin, let go, humble yourself, and listen to your spouse.
Join us next week as we continue going through our top 30 tips for a strong, healthy marriage! We love you guys! Thanks for tuning in!
QUOTES
“You can disagree with your spouse and still unify around your core values.” -Kimberly
“It's actually healthy to be able to disagree with your spouse and still stand unified.” -Kimberly
“Jesus was the greatest liberator of women in a repressive society.” -Tim
“If you let gender role play stand in the way of equality in your marriage, you are doing a disservice to your spouse.” -Tim
REFERENCED SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 4:1-3 “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
