Debunking Marriage Myths: Building Resilient and Enduring Love Pt 1

Can you imagine what your marriage would look like if you stopped believing in relationship myths that only hold you back? Join me, John Thurman, as we unravel some of the most pervasive misconceptions that could be affecting your relationship dynamics. In this episode, I debunk three common myths about marriage, including the idea that genuinely understanding your spouse is a one-time achievement and that perfect romance is a constant in significant relationships. We'll explore how cultural narratives, generational influences, and social media shape these myths while sharing how embracing differences can fortify your partnership. You'll gain practical insights and timeless biblical wisdom to nurture a more genuine and resilient connection with your partner.

With the guidance of principles from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, we delve into patience, kindness, and resilience — essential ingredients for enduring love. Reflect on these attributes as we discuss how they can transform your approach to conflicts and everyday challenges in your relationship. By acknowledging and moving past these myths, you can find joy and gratitude in each day shared with your spouse. Don’t forget to visit my website, johnthurman.net, for additional resources and insights. Check out my blog, linked in the show notes, for a more in-depth discussion on the topics covered in this episode.

Here is a link to the article Revitalize Your Marriage Pt#1

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Transcript

Marriage Resilience

John Thurman 0:40

Hey, john Thurman here, so glad you've joined me today. Today I'll be talking about how to revitalize your marriage and we're going to debunk the first three of the top nine marriage myths. Stay in there with me for the next 10 or 12 minutes. I'm going to give you some tools that will help you revitalize your marriage, maybe rekindle some romance and help you make your marriage more resilient.

John Thurman 1:12

a relationship coach and therapist, I spend a lot of time with couples, trying to help them improve their marriage, make their marriage long-term, and give them hope, and there are just a few things you can do to do that, and that's what we'll talk about in the next few minutes. To revitalize your marriage, you must realize that we often carry certain myths. These myths stem from all sorts of sources. They can be things like our culture, cultural narratives, movies, TV shows, print media, books, sermons, and what people tell us, and these are like cultural images we have of what marriage is. One of those, unfortunately, right now, comes from the Hallmark Channel which which a lot of money doing the same plot over and . It's not. not be realistic it makes Be a great love story. By the way, how many people do you know that look like those people in a Hallmark movie? I'm just saying, where do the myths come from?

John Thurman 2:11

First of all, cultural narratives. Secondly, it's generational influences. This can be what your parents believed about marriage, your church, your community. Lots of times these beliefs are carried over from generation to generation. The third one is social media. Unfortunately, the curated lives shared online create their own unique fiction. Most social media is a highlight reel. It's not the real truth. It has elements of truth, but people's lives are not that way.

John Thurman 2:35

Number four, the fourth influence can be romantic ideals, the belief that love alone is enough to overcome anything. Well, after 53 years with the same wife, I can tell you love alone ain't enough. Pardon my corruption of the English language there. Let's jump into it. The first myth is that a great relationship depends upon complete understanding the reality. You only get a glimpse of your spouse's inner world. It's kind of like watching a Netflix series with an occasional plot twist. Believe me, I've been married to the same woman for 53 years and I still don't get her. She is so complicated. Now I understand more things about her than I did 53 years ago, but I don't know if I can ever completely figure her out. I'm just saying here's the truth. You and I will only partially understand our spouse. But this is not just okay. It's a part of the exciting journey of a long-term marriage.

John Thurman 3:30

Embracing each other's differences can bring a sense of optimism, open-mindedness, resilience, and also it keeps things refreshing and engaging. You and your partner are completely different in so many ways. You and your partner are completely different in so many ways genetically, physiologically, psychologically, even in your own personal histories, your own stories. They're unique. I don't care if you marry your neighbor. You have unique influences and histories in your life. The neat thing about all this is, with those differences, with God's help, you and I can learn to appreciate the differences between each other, and that's one of the fun things about living life together.

John Thurman 4:11

Let me share just a short biblical insight with you. This is from the New Living Translation in Colossians, the third chapter, verses 13 and 14. Make allowances for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

John Thurman 4:35

I spend a lot of time with couples in my work as a counselor and a relationship coach. As I've gotten older, I've moved away from the clinical work and really trying to do more coaching and encouraging, helping people see where they are today and moving forward. Did you know that men just have three basic needs? And it's not more sex, although several women would love to take me to task on that? Men's three needs are to feel competent, needed and respected. And guys, your wife's basic needs are to feel valued, cherished and secure. That's just a little heads up for you. We'll talk about it more in depth later.

John Thurman 5:10

So myth number one a great relationship depends upon complete understanding. Myth number two a great relationship must have a great romance. Right now I can almost hear some of you saying wait a minute. What do you mean? That having great romance is a myth. Please don't get me wrong. Romance is incredible. After 53 years, we still have it from time to time.

John Thurman 5:32

But let's be honest, chasing that Hallmark movie moment is like trying to find a CD without a scratch in a thrift shop. Sure, when you have the perfect person, the golden hour of lighting and all of those other exceptional qualities of production in a Hallmark movie, you know, in the last two minutes the problem is going to be resolved and there'll be the famous Hallmark. Closed mouth, kiss, fade to black. Never changes. Right now you might be thinking, john, how do you know these things? Well, true confessions. I love my wife and part of my sacrificial love is I will occasionally watch a very predictable Hallmark movie with her. Nothing ever changes. None of those people look like too many people that I know. The guys are kind of masculine, but not really masculine. For the most part, the gals are always kind of perfect and they're always in their 30s or 40s and look kind of cute. Oh well, not reality. I'm just saying so.

John Thurman 6:27

Don't try to have that perfect romance. Instead, realize that life as a couple is filled with laughs, joys, quirks, fights, struggles, great days, sucky days, days where you're just over the moon, and days you wonder what on earth have I done? Here's a scoop. Your life with your spouse includes excitement, sometimes, intense romance. Sometimes and let's face it other days is like you're married to a stranger. So what can you do about that? Well, number one, do your part in the romance department. Go on a date like you used to date. Surprise your spouse with just a fun night, or a fun day. If you have kids, get a babysitter. Just shake it up a little bit. Mix it up a little bit.

John Thurman 7:15

Let me ask you this have you ever been on like a picnic in your backyard with your spouse? Just the two of you, no smartphones, no kids, just making memories. Oh, this past summer my wife and I did that. We were laying in our backyard. We've got a really nice backyard and kind of an incline, so we're looking up at the heavens and seeing the stars begin to come out as the sun sets and in New Mexico sunsets are just beautiful and you can go from a really warm day to an early, cool evening. So as the blue light of the evening began to approach, we're just kind of snuggling in the backyard on a blanket and the mood suddenly changes. All of a sudden my wife hears a little creature crawling through the leaves in our flower bed and, to make a long story short, the mood shifted from the amount of crisis to the point where we were back inside the house in 30 seconds. My wife does not do bugs you can ask her about that so I'm going to tell you that little story.

John Thurman 8:15

You don't have to spend a lot of money to be romantic. Be creative, and if you have a hard time with creativity, google creative dates for cheap. I promise you Google will give you some answers there. In the day-to-day real world that you and I live in, great romance can be as simple as caring enough to check on your spouse to see if they're okay, if they're making it home through traffic. Okay, men, let me give you a special tip here.

John Thurman 8:36

My mom had a florist shop and occasionally I would do deliveries for her. This is a great way to get points. If your wife works outside the home, send her a bunch of flowers from a florist shop with a delivery service. What's so fun about that is the delivery person walks into her place of business. Every woman there goes oh, who's getting those flowers? And sure enough, they find out that you sent them to her. Your points just went up into the stratosphere, not only with your spouse, with your wife, but all those women at the office, because while on the one hand they're with your spouse, with your wife, but all those women at the office because, while on the one hand they're going oh, that's so sweet. Your husband sent those flowers to you. What they're really thinking is my husband's a complete schmuck. Now you don't have just to do that. You can pick her some poses and take them to her. But be creative with your romance. That can be jotting a note, sticking a post-it in the briefcase, sending an email or a text. It can be sharing breakfast together, maybe enjoying a cup of coffee or a cocoa together, maybe just watching a sunset or the stars come out.

John Thurman 9:41

Great relationships and great passion it's all about what you use to measure it. Success in romance means reshaping our idea of what great is into the realities of your chosen life. Sure, it's great to play, dress up and go out and spend some money and date fancy and look good, but it's also good just to enjoy each other's company. Ecclesiastes 4, 9-12 in the New Living Bible says this Two people are better than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help, but someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm, but how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken. So think about it. You've got you and your spouse and the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit in your life.

John Thurman 10:41

Myth number three A great relationship requires excellent problem solving skills. Not Let me debunk that myth right now. You don't need to be a problem-solving ninja to thrive in marriage. Trust me, after years of being married myself, as well as counseling hundreds of couples, there were days I felt like I was banging my head against the wall. Some of my couples just weren't getting it. I remember on more than one occasion thinking Couples just weren't getting it. I remember on more than one occasion thinking is this relationship session a session or the potential plot for a new TV miniseries? Some days it felt that way. Maybe marriage survivor? Here's the truth If you and your partner can't agree on everything, it doesn't mean that your relationship's destined for the dump or divorce court. It just means you're different.

John Thurman 11:23

A healthy conflict might make for some real interesting stories later on in your life. Remember, you're not alone in this. All joking aside, many couples spend excessive amount of time being consumed by problems and from my own personal experience in our marriage and in my work as a therapist, I really got frustrated by this because I'm like why can't people just get along? And then I discovered work of Dr John Gottman, whose research shows that 69% of the stuff that we disagree on we've been disagreeing on since we first got in a relationship and we found that true, and that we typically have two types of problems in marriage solvable and unsolvable. So the cold, hard truth is most of what we have problems over are things that we're not going to be able to fix. The good news is is we can learn to repair what we can repair and manage what we can identify as a manageable problem, but so much of what couples fight about are unsolvable, at least at this point in time.

John Thurman 12:20

What are some signs of unresolved conflict? First of all, feeling rejected. This conflict leaves you feeling like your partner doesn't get you at all. Second thing is endless talks but no changes. You discuss the issue and you run it in the ground, but nothing ever changes. Third is you're stuck in your ways.

John Thurman 12:38

I grew up in Georgia so we would call that being pig-headed. Both of you dig your heels in and refuse to budge. Matter of fact, I heard an old gospel song one time that said I shall not be, I shall not be moved. I shall not be, I shall not be moved. I'll sit right here and grieve the Holy Spirit, I shall not be moved. Well, let me tell you, I've met a lot of Christian couples that are pigheaded and they're stuck in their ways and nothing's going to happen until somebody moves and makes a change. The Nothing's going to happen until somebody moves and makes a change.

John Thurman 13:06

The next sign of unresolved conflict is more frustration. The more you discuss the issues, the more frustrated and hurt you both get. Next, is no fun allowed. If you've got a lot of unresolved conflict in your marriage, you'll see that there's just no fun allowed. Conversations about the problem are humorless and tense. Finally, what you'll see couples do is they'll begin to emotionally disengage. Eventually, you stop caring and you emotionally check out. And you might check out and spend more time with your kids, your friends, your church on porn or spending money doing things you don't need to be doing that aren't helping your relationship.

Enduring Love and Resilient Relationships

John Thurman 13:40

Let me just give you a fair warning here If you're experiencing any of these things, you need to get some help. And if you are stuck and you'd like a free consultation, shoot me an email, john at covertmercycom, j-o-h-n at C-O-V-E-R-T-M-E-R-C-Ycom. We can talk 10 or 15, 20 minutes, maybe give you some tools and see what you can do. This is just a friendly reminder here that not every problem comes with a neat little bow. Sometimes it's more like trying to untangle your phone charger. Try to focus on what's solvable and remember keep it light when you can, because a bit of humor and understanding adds more love and resilience to your relationship.

John Thurman 14:21

Let me give you a biblical thought on this. This is from 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-7. You're probably familiar with this. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous nor boastful, nor proud nor rude. It does not demand its own way, it is not irritable and it keeps no record of being wrong. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. You see, I want you to have an enduring, resilient relationship. So here's something for you to think about.

John Thurman 15:02

In this podcast, I've really tried to focus on the first three of nine myths that need busting in your marriage. Let me encourage you to go to my show notes and click the link to this blog so you can understand a little bit better what we're talking about. Okay, double dog, dare you to do that. I promise you it'll give you some hope, it'll give you some encouragement and maybe help you get through the next conflict you have. I'm John Thurman. You can find more about me on my website, johnthurmannet. And remember this is a day that the Lord has made and I'll make a choice to rejoice and be glad in it. God bless, see you next time.