[0:00]Don't pray saying, Lord, just help my spouse receive what I'm going to say right now and don't don't do that. Just say, thank you Jesus for being here with us. Get my heart rate. Yeah, thank you for your presence here, Lord. You know, thank you for my spouse. Thank you for my wife. Thank you for my husband. We know that you're here. We acknowledge your presence. We know that you see us. Right. Welcome to the podcast. We're glad you joined us. And if you listen to our previous episode, you're in for a real treat. And if you aren't, you don't know what we're talking about, just sit tight. We got something special for you. So I know that we, um, have come into a lot of contact with couples, and I remember this one couple that was really dealing with some huge, huge issues. Okay. Uh, huge addiction issues, um, huge, um, uh, problems with even just like a public scandal, if you will, in their family. And in all honestly, from everybody on the outside, this couple should not even still be together. Right. But they took their communication with the help of a excellent counselor. Right. Um, they took their communication really seriously, and more than seriously, it was a lifeline. They knew for them to stay together, they had to figure out how are we going to learn to communicate and to because that was the only way for them to build back trust after a huge amount of betrayal. Yeah, yeah, there was a big blowout and it was it was damage was done. But they they needed to start over, not start over, but in a way Yeah. And this was not a one-time thing. This was like years and years of disintegration until finally they kind of like hit rock bottom and they were like, we have got to build this back up. And so, um, what we're going to talk to you about today are some really, um, proactive ways you can grow in your communication with your spouse. Now, hopefully, you are not hitting rock bottom with your spouse, right? Hopefully, you are just like, nope, we just want to be better, but no matter where you're at, because a lot of the things we're going to talk about even here are things that we need to be better at and things that we even need to work on because you can always be better. No matter where you're at, you can always grow a little bit more and progress a little bit more, and we want to show you the let's see, how many things do we have? One, two, three, four. Five. Five. Five different things. Six different things. Yeah. Five or six different things, depending on how you count it. Um, and and really the the last podcast, if you haven't had a chance, it is is a worth listening to because we go through, um, the four horsemen of divorce that bring that really destroy your marriage. Um, and really at the heart of this whole, uh, this podcast, this episode, um, and really, family life and marriage in general is about moving from frantic to intentional and fruitful. It it's it's saying that my marriage is worth it. And that's what we want to do. We're going to give you some very positive and practical ways, uh, to ward off those four horsemen, um, but to really build some and they're very accessible. Everybody can do this. There's not, there's no complication. There's you don't need to buy an app or a subscription or even buy a book per se, right? But what we need to do is we need to roll up our sleeves and say, we're going to make time for this. Yeah, Because people ask us all the time, how do you find time with the craziness of of a bunch of kids and busy schedules. How do you make time? How do you find time for each other? And you do it. And you say this is a priority. You say, I'm before all else, I'm going to put my spouse first. I'm going to put our marriage first because your kids came forth from this marriage. You need to prioritize your marriage and growing and deepening in your marriage before everything else is in your life. You know, your prayer, your marriage, then everything else. Because and like we said at the beginning of this whole series on marriage and belonging, at the end of your life, I guys, at the end of your life, you're going to stand before God. And it says this in scriptures, he's going to ask, how did you love the people that I gave you? How did you love the very first person we are called to love? The person that we have the most grace to love is our spouse. Yes. And so saying, how do I make time for this is that's that's like, well, oh, you have cancer. Oh, how do I make time for chemotherapy? Like, you just do it because it's the most important thing in your life, right? Because you're trying to save your life. Your marriage is more hopefully, you're not at the point where your marriage is cancer and you chemotherapy. But you have to do that preventative work. That preventative work. Make that time so you never get to the place where you're desperate because we need Catholic marriages to be way better than desperate. We need Catholic marriages to be not just on the defensive, but on the offensive, right? On we need Catholic marriages that are really being a shining light in the darkness. We have a grave, really, really important responsibility, um, not just to your spouse, not just to your children. You have a great responsibility to the world to have a marriage that is strong, that is vibrant, and that is growing because ultimately, you'll be accountable before God, but really the world needs strong Catholic marriages. So, let's get into it. Yes, so we, as as we mentioned, we the the four, um, four horsemen of the Apocalypse last time. If you want to hear more about them, I'm just going to rattle them off real quick, um, because really, these are both antidotes in some ways and prevention for these four horsemen. Um, and and really at the heart of this whole, uh, this podcast, this episode, um, and really, family life and marriage in general is about moving from frantic to intentional and fruitful. It it's it's saying that my marriage is worth it. And that's what we want to do. We're going to give you some very positive and practical ways, uh, to ward off those four horsemen, um, but to really build some and they're very accessible. Everybody can do this. There's not, there's no complication. There's you don't need to buy an app or a subscription or even buy a book per se, right? But what we need to do is we need to roll up our sleeves and say, we're going to make time for this. Yeah, because people ask us all the time, how do you find time with the craziness of of a bunch of kids and busy schedules? How do you make time? How do you find time for each other? And you do it. And you say this is a priority. You say, I'm before all else, I'm going to put my spouse first. I'm going to put our marriage first because your kids came forth from this marriage. You need to prioritize your marriage and growing and deepening in your marriage before everything else is in your life. You know, your prayer, your marriage, then everything else. Because and like we said at the beginning of this whole series on marriage and belonging, at the end of your life, I guys, at the end of your life, you're going to stand before God. And it says this in scriptures, he's going to ask, how did you love the people that I gave you? How did you love the very first person we are called to love? The person that we have the most grace to love is our spouse.
[39:53]So, I'm going to give you some key takeaways for from this podcast and for the podcast that we did before, the podcast that we did before. I think that you probably already got this because we kind of started with this is that first of all, that those we need, you need to be aware of those four horsemen of criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. And the reason you need to be aware of that what these both of these podcasts are communicating to you is that communication is the most important skill that you have in a relationship. All of the different aspects of your relationship can really only grow if you are communicating and you're communicating well, and you learn the skill of communicating. So I hope that you can use these practices that we've just given you to kind of grow in that. Yeah, and do you want to and then, uh, so make sure you are, I think that active listening exercise, the active listening drills is something we should do on a regular basis, right?
