How to Find Your Way Back to Each Other

You're not fighting. That might be the problem. You share a house, a calendar, and a bed, and somehow you've become roommates running a household instead of two people who actually see each other.

The parenting stress did this. The late nights, the disagreements over what to do about your kid, the exhaustion that leaves nothing left for anyone else. But Erica has good news, and she means it: this is reversible.

She walks through the weekly team meeting she and her husband built to stop the drift. Phones down, ten minutes, one question: what's hardest with the kids right now? You don't fix it. You just listen. Then you pick one unified stance for the week and walk out on the same side of it.

You'll learn why making your child wait for an answer is actually a gift, the one question that keeps "I just need to vent" from turning into unwanted advice, and why bringing in outside help is wisdom, not defeat.

Your marriage isn't broken. It's carrying a hard season. And with God's help, the very thing pulling you apart can become what holds you together.

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Transcript

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Somewhere between carpools, late-night worry, and hard decisions, you may have lost sight of each other. You're still married, but not always connected. Today we're talking about how to rebuild unity and hope even after years of strain. I'm Erica Wiggenhorn, host of the Momentum Podcast, and author of the book Loving Your Wayward Child, a Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. The reality of today's topic is especially hard. Our hearts are already breaking over our children's choices, and then that spills over into our relationship with our spouse. It's exponentially painful. But we wouldn't waste a two-part podcast just on bad news. The world is already noisy enough with all that's wrong. This episode is about good news. The good news that it can get better, and practical ways to move toward each other in the midst of the stress of a hard parenting story pulling you apart. In the first part of this episode, we talked about how moms often describe their feelings about their marriages in this hard parenting season. And they say things like, We're roommates running a household, I'm exhausted, I don't have any time left for my spouse, let alone a sex life. My husband thinks I'm too soft, he's critical of me. I miss feeling like a team. To come together and to find agreement on decisions, you may need to seek some outside help. But let's talk about the exhaustion part and the feeling so emotionally depleted, you don't have anything left for your spouse. You're simply surviving or so depressed and anxious, you don't want to do anything that requires a drop of emotional energy. If that last sentence describes you, I would strongly suggest you seek out the care of a medical professional. You've already talked about menopause in this season of life, and some simple shifts in your hormone balance may do wonders for your emotional well-being. I'm not a doctor or a mental health professional. I'm a mom, a menopausal mom, who's walked this weary road of my family blowing up and seismic shifts it caused, needing my husband and I to try to maintain connection amidst the quaking and the rubble. So please keep that in perspective. You may have needs beyond the scope of this podcast. And I would beg you to do whatever it takes to keep your marriage intact. Statistics show that marriages that are incredibly rocky at this stage, that do the hard work of sticking it out, find themselves happily married in years to come. So don't give up. Get help. I shared one way my husband and I sought help during this hard season in the first part of this episode. And today I want to talk about a simple weekly practice we implemented to keep us from drifting apart, withholding our true feelings for one another, or assuming what each other were thinking and feeling without having actual conversations about it. We had what we called a weekly team meeting. A team meeting. First of all, it reminded us that my husband and I are a team. We can't forget that because sometimes it wouldn't always feel like it. But we would put our phones away, no distractions. And we started with this question: What's hardest with the kids right now? We wouldn't fix it. We would just listen. It gave us a chance to say where we were really struggling. It gave us a chance to speak out loud the questions that we were asking and the emotions that we were feeling. And it gave each of us a very clear understanding where the other person was emotionally. We'd spend about 10 minutes doing this. But what's the hardest thing right now? And then we would agree on one unified stance this week, whether it was a boundary, a consequence, the support plan, we've talked about all of these things in previous episodes. We would get on the same page going forward. I shared last week how for my husband and I to do this well, sometimes we would have to invite an outside person into that conversation. We weren't always able to do it by ourselves. I want you to hear that because sometimes you're gonna think if my husband and I can't arrive at this conclusion by ourselves, then we must have a bad marriage. No, you don't have a bad marriage, you have a hard family season right now, and bringing in an outside person is wisdom, not defeat. Not defeat. Other times we were able to arrive at decisions on our own, but we would agree on one unified stance. Now, here's a little pro tip. We talked about this in a previous episode, but I want to repeat it here again because I think it's important. You don't have to give your child an answer to something or arrive at the consequence or the privilege for something immediately. You can tell them that they're gonna have to wait until you and your spouse have time to work out a decision together. They might have to wait for your weekly team meeting and they probably won't want to wait. And they're gonna insist on reasons why they have to know right now. Uh, maybe they'll throw a fit even. But all of those responses are actually a gift because they're giving you insight into the state and emotional maturity or immaturity of their heart. If they're more concerned with getting their way than they are with having a wise outcome, or they're more concerned with you doing what they want you to do than having a strong family unit. Well, that's typical of a young teen who fully doesn't grasp the depth of a healthy relationship yet. But for a 17-year-old or a 37-year-old to respond that way, well, that's quite telling. We may need to revisit the boundaries episode if that last sentence described your family situation. But let's get back to our marriages. Here's the crux of that conversation. It's not about making forward decisions as much as it is about connection. Where are they at with your child? What are they thinking and feeling? Remembering, we're not fixing our spouse, we're just listening. And these are their feelings. If they invite you to share their perspective, great. If not, listen graciously. A great follow-up response is Did you just want me to listen, or do you want my response or my perspective regarding what you just said? If that sounds a little familiar, you've been a really good listener in a previous episode because we talked about using this same communication strategy with your child. It's a great communication strategy. It works just as effectively with your spouse. They may not want your response, they may just need to get it off their chest. And then a day or two later they can receive your perspective on things. Here's a pro tip though. If they never, ever, ever want your perspective, or you never want to hear your spouse's perspective, you need to bring in some outside help because there's a deeper issue with connection going on beh beyond the strife of your parenting situation. You've got a deeper connection problem with your spouse and you need outside help. Now, here's the next consideration I want to talk about when it comes to your weekly meeting. Your weekly meeting communicates some really important things to your spouse. You're communicating how important closeness is in your marriage. You're communicating your humility that they have a perspective about the situation maybe you hadn't thought of. You're also giving them an opportunity to share about an interaction with your child that maybe they don't know about, and it's important in regard to future decisions. If one of you spends a significantly more amount of time with your child than the other, you probably are going to need to bring this into the conversation because there will be things that have happened throughout the week between one of you and your child that the other person is unaware of. I've recorded all of these in the podcast companion guide from despair to repair. So you have this guide for your weekly meetings moving forward in your marriage, and you can access that in your show notes. But here is our greatest hope, friends. God is faithful and he is the God of reconciliation, and he desires our marriages to be strong and unified. He does not want this hard season in your family's story to be something that tears you apart, but rather the glue that holds you more tightly together as you work through it with him. Here's a verse that I cling to, especially in trying circumstances and situations. It is wrong. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is my prayer for you as you are listening to this episode today that you may abound in hope that with God's help your marriage is going to get better. We will never ever run out of hope as long as we are seeking God's help, friend. He is the God of all hope. And when our hope fades or our faith falters, we can cry out to the Holy Spirit, help me, my hope is fading. Fuel my faith that you're still working. That is a prayer God loves to answer, friend. You're not too late. The stress is real, but it's also reversible. And couples often exclaim that they were able to regain closeness when this family load shifts and when they practice intentionally some things to draw themselves closer together. And so this is the second part. Besides the team meeting, go have fun together. Just the two of you or with other couples. Do something out of the ordinary you haven't done before. Take a cooking class, join a gym, go on a hike, read a book together, join a small group or a Sunday school class, take a dance class, travel somewhere you've always wanted to go. Be together and be with other married couples who are also attempting to prioritize their marriage. We work at what's important to us. If we just keep putting all of our time and energy into things other than one another, our marriage is going to fade, not flourish. We nourish what we want to flourish and what that will come from feeding it, from feeding our marriage. So make a plan today to prioritize your spouse in some small way. Surprise him with his favorite dinner. Put a note of appreciation in his briefcase or his backpack or send him a text during the day. Schedule a date night. Do something today to show that you appreciate him. Don't keep score, just and then go to God to acknowledge your good deed. And trust that a small seed was planted in your husband's heart and give it time to sprout. Building and rebuilding relationships takes time. Let's not waste another day wishing for change. Start being the change. God is with you, dear one, and he's with your marriage. Thank you for joining me. I'm Erica Wigginhorn, your host of the Momentum Podcast, moving moms closer to Jesus and families closer together. And before we sign off, it's time for my favorite part where I get to re read scripture over you and a prayer. This is Psalm 18, 18 through 21. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he has repaid me, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, and I have not acted wickedly against my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. Friend, be faithful to God in your marriage, and God will be faithful to you. He will never fail you. God, thank you for being faithful to restore weary hearts and relationships. Help us turn toward one another with grace and with patience. Renew our strength and remind us that you are not finished with our families or our marriages. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for joining me for momentum today, friend. May God bless your marriage and may God bless your family.